These citations are from Aneurin Owen’s translation of the Welsh text of the Welsh laws, published in parallel columns with the Welsh text by the Record Commissioners. These laws are of uncertain date; they are commonly attributed to Howel Dda, but bear interpolations or alterations of much later date. The oldest MSS. of them are of the twelfth century.
I add the passages regarding lepers which occur in the Latin versions of the Welsh Laws, the oldest MSS. of which are of the thirteenth century:—
“Tribus de causis potest femina habere suum egwedy [suam dotem], licet ipsa uirum relinquat; scilicet, si sit leprosus uir; et si habeat fetidum anhelatum; et si cum ea concumbere non possit.”—(Liber Legum Howel Da, lib. ii. cap. xx., sec. xxxi. Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, p. 796; Lond. 1841.)
“Tribus de causis habebat femina suum aguedi [suam dotem], licet ipsa virum suum relinquat; id est, si leprosus sit vir; et si fetidum hanelitum habueret; et si cum ea coire non possit.”—(Liber Legum Howel Da, lib. ii. cap. xxiii. sec. xiii. Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, p. 827.)
“Leprosi cum seculum dimittunt ebedyw [i.e. heriot seu caulp] dare debent dominis suis.”—(Liber Legum Howel Da, lib. ii. cap. xxii. sec. ix. Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, p.797.)
The Dimetian Code (of Murder)—
“If there be a relative of the murderer, or of the murdered, who is an ecclesiastic in holy orders, or in an ecclesiastical community, or leprous, or dumb, or an idiot, such neither pays nor receives any part of galanas” [assythment, or fines for murder].—(Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, p. 200.)
The Dimetian Code (Triads)—
“There are three persons, no one of whom, by law, can be a qualified judge; one of them is, a person having a defect, as one who is deaf, or blind, or leprous, or an insane person,” etc. etc.—(Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, p. 200.)
The next class of passages is taken from what are called the “Anomalous Welsh Laws,” which, in the state they are now found in, are supposed to be of the sixteenth century:—