_THE TRIBAL SYSTEM_ (_continued_).
I. THE TRIBAL SYSTEM IN IRELAND AND SCOTLAND.
The Welsh evidence brings us back to a period parallel with the Saxon
era marking the date of King Ine's laws. The Welsh land system was
then clearly distinguished from the Saxon by the absence of the manor
with its village community in serfdom, and by the presence instead
of it of the scattered homesteads (_tyddyns_) of the tribesmen and
taeogs, grouped together for the purpose of the payment to the chief
of the food-rents, or their money equivalents.
Further light may possibly be obtained from observation of the tribal
system in a still earlier economic stage, though at a much later
date, in Ireland.
«Irish land divisions closely resemble the Welsh.»
Now, first--without going out of our depth as we might easily do in
the Irish evidence--it may readily be shown, sufficiently for the
present purpose, that the system of land divisions, or rather of the
grouping of homesteads into artificial clusters with arithmetical
precision, was prevalent in Ireland outside the Pale as late as the
times of Queen Elizabeth and [p215] James I., when an effort was
made to substitute English for Irish customs and laws.
There are extant several surveys of parts of Ireland of that date
in which are to be recognised arrangements of homesteads almost
precisely similar to those of the Welsh Codes. And further, the
names of the tenants being given, we can see that they were _blood
relations_ like the Welsh tribesmen, with a carefully preserved
genealogy guarding the fact of their relationship and consequent
position in the tribe.
The best way to realise this fact may be to turn to actual examples.
According to an inquisition[275] made of the county of _Fermanagh_
in 1 James I. (1603), the county was found to be divided into seven
equal baronies, the description of one of which may be taken as a
sample.
«Clusters of _taths_ or _tyddyns_.»
'The temporal land within this barony is all equally divided
into 7½ _ballybetaghes_ [literally _victuallers'_ towns,[276]
or units for purposes of the food-rents like the Welsh
_trevs_], each containing 4 quarters, each of those quarters
containing 4 tathes [corresponding with the Welsh _tyddyns_],
and each of those tathes aforesaid to be 30 acres country
measure.'
Of '_spiritual_ lands' there are two parish churches, one
having 4 quarters, the other 1 quarter.
Also there are 'other small freedoms containing small parcels
of land, some belonging to the spiritualty, and others being
part of the _mensal_ lands allotted to Macgwire (the chief).'
This exactly corresponds with the arrangement for the purposes of
the gwestva of the Welsh _tyddyns_ in groups of 4 and 16, as in the
Venedotian Code. [p216]
There is also a _Survey of County Monaghan_ in 33 Elizabeth[277]
(1591), in which the names of the holders of the _tates_ in each
_bailebiatagh_, or group of 16, are given. Thus, again, to take a
single example,--
«Example in Co. Monaghan.»
_Balleclonangre_, a ballibeatach containing xvi. _tates_.
To Breine McCabe Fitz Alexander 5 tates.
To Edmond McCabe Fitz Alexander 1 tate.
To Cormocke McCabe 2 tates.
To Breine Kiagh McCabe 2 tates.
To Edmond boy, McCabe 1 tate.
To Rosse McCabe McMelaghen 1 tate.
To Gilpatric McCowla McCabe 1 tate.
To Toole McAlexander McCabe 1 tate.
To James McTirlogh McCabe 1 tate.
To Arte McMelaghlin Dale McMahon 1 tate.
──
16
A fresh survey of the same district was made by Sir John Davies in
1607;[278] the record for this same bailebiatagh is as follows:--
Patrick M'Brian M'Cabe being found by a jury 1. Lissenarte.
the legitimate son of Brian M'Cabe 2. Cremoyle.
Fitz-Alexander, in demesne, 5 tates 3. Sharaghanadan.
4. Nealoste.
5. Tirehannely.
Patrick M'Edmond M'Cabe Fitz-Alexander, in 6. Curleighe.
demesne, 1 tate
Cormock M'Cabe, in demesne, 2 tates 7. Aghenelogh.
8. Derraghlin.
Rosse M'Arte Moyle, in demesne, 2 tates 9. Benage.
10. Cowlerasack.
James M'Edmond boy M'Cabe, in demesne, 1 tate 11. Tollagheisce.
Colloe M'Art Oge M'Mahowne, in demesne, 1 tate 12. Dromegeryne.
Patrick M'Art Oge M'Mahowne, in regard there 13. Corevanane.
is good hope of his honest deserts, and that
the first patentee disclaimeth, in demesne,
1 tate
Toole M'Toole M'Alexander M'Cabe, in demesne, 14. Turrgher.
1 tate
James M'Tirleogh M'Cabe, in demesne, 1 tate 15.
Brian M'Art Oge M'Mahowne, in demesne, 1 tate 16.
«The tribesmen blood relations.»
Now, by comparison it will be seen that at both dates there were
sixteen _tates_ in the bailebiatagh, and that the holders were
evidently blood relations. In some cases the name of a son takes the
place of his father (the genealogy being kept up), and in others new
tenants appear.
«The _tates_ family holdings.»
There is also reason to suppose that these _tates_ were family
homesteads (like the _tyddyns_ of the Welsh 'family land'), with
smaller internal divisions, and embracing a considerable number
of lesser households. The fact that one person only is named as
holding the tate, or the two tates, as the case may be, suggests
that he is so named as the common ancestor or head of the chief
household representing all the belongings to the tate. _Within_
the tate the subdivision of land seems to have been carried to an
indefinite extent. The following extract from Sir John Davies' report
will probably give the best account of the actual and, to his eye,
somewhat confused condition of things within the tates, as he found
them. It relates to the county of Fermanagh, and is in the form of a
letter to the Earl of Salisbury, dated 1607:[279]-- [p218]
«Sir John Davies' description of the septs.»
For the several possessions of all these lands we took this
course to find them out, and set them down for his lordship's
information. We called unto us the inhabitants of every barony
severally. . . We had present certain of the clerks or scholars
of the country, who know all the _septs_ and _families_, and
all their branches, and _the dignity[280] of one sept above
another_, and what families or persons _were chief of every
sept_, and who were _next_, and who were of _a third rank_,
and so forth, till they descended to the most inferior man in
all the baronies; moreover, they took upon them to tell what
quantity of land every man ought to have by the custom of their
country, which is of the nature of gavelkind. Whereby, as their
septs or families did multiply, their possessions have been
from time to time divided and subdivided and broken into so
many small parcels as almost every acre of land hath a several
owner, which termeth himself a lord, and his portion of land
his country: notwithstanding, as McGuyre himself had a chiefry
over all the country, and some demesnes that did ever pass to
him only who carried that title; so was there a chief of every
sept who had certain services, duties, or demesnes, that ever
passed to the tannist of that sept, and never was subject to
division. When this was understood, we first inquired whether
one or more septs did possess that barony which we had in hand.
That being set down, we took the names of the chief parties
of the sept or septs that did possess the baronies, and also
the names of such as were second in them, and so of others
that were inferior unto them again in rank and in possessions.
Then, whereas every barony containeth seven ballibetaghs and
a half, we caused the name of every ballibetagh to be written
down; and thereupon we made inquiry what portion of land or
services every man held in every ballibetagh, beginning with
such first as had land and services; and after naming such as
had the greatest quantity of land, and so descending unto such
as possess only two taths; then we stayed, for lower we could
not go,[281] because we knew the purpose of the State was only
to establish such freeholders as are fit to serve on juries;
at least, we had found by experience in the county of Monaghan
that such as had less than two taths allotted to them had not
40s. freehold per annum _ultra reprisalem_; and therefore were
not of competent ability for that service; and yet the number
of freeholders named in the county was above 200.
Sir John Davies, in the same report, also gives a graphic description
of the difficulty he had in [p219] obtaining from the aged Brehon of
the district the roll on which were inscribed the particulars of the
various holdings, including those on the demesne or mensal land of
the chief.[282]
It is difficult to form a clear conception of what the tribes, septs,
and families were, and what were their relations to one another. But
for the present purpose it is sufficient to understand that a sept
consisted of a number of actual or reputed _blood relations_, bearing
the same family names, and bound together by other and probably more
artificial ties, such as common liability for the payment of _eric_,
or blood fines.
A curious example of what is virtually an actual sept is found in the
State Papers of James I.
«Example of a Cumberland sept.»
In 1606 a sept of the 'Grames,' under their chief 'Walter, the gude
man of Netherby,' being troublesome on the Scottish border, were
transplanted from Cumberland to Roscommon; and in the schedule to
the articles arranging for this transfer, it appears that the sept
consisted of 124 persons, nearly all bearing the surname of _Grame_.
They were divided into families, seventeen of which were set down as
possessed of 20l. and upwards, four of 10l. and upwards, six of the
poorer sort, six of no abilities, while as dependants there were four
servants of the name of Grame, and about a dozen of irregular hangers
on to the sept.[283]
The sept was a human swarm. The chief was the Queen Bee round whom
they clustered. The territory occupied by a whole sept was divided
[p220] among the inferior septs which had swarmed off it. And a sort
of feudal relation prevailed between the parent and the inferior
septs.
There can probably, on the whole, be no more correct view of the
Irish tribal system in its essence and spirit than the simple
generalisation made by Sir John Davies himself, from the various and,
in some sense, inconsistent and entangled facts which bewildered him
in detail.[284]
«The chiefs and the tanists.»
First, as regards the chiefs, whether of tribes or septs, and their
demesne lands, he writes:[285]--
'1. By the Irish custom of tanistry the chieftains of every
country and the chief of every sept had no longer estate than
for life in their chieferies, the inheritance whereof did rest
in no man. And these chieferies, though they had some portions
of land allotted unto them, did consist chiefly in cuttings and
coscheries and other Irish exactions, whereby they did spoil
and impoverish the people at their pleasure. And when their
chieftains were dead their sons or next heirs did not succeed
them, but their _tanists_, who were elective, and purchased
their elections by show of hands.'
«Division of holdings among tribesmen.»
Next, as to tribesmen and their inferior tenancies:--
'2. And by the Irish custom of gavelkind the inferior tenancies
were partible amongst all the males of the sept; and after
partition made, if any one of the sept had died his portion was
not divided among his sons, but the chief of the sept made a
new partition of all the lands belonging to that sept, and gave
every one his part according to his antiquity.'
«The 'shuffling and changing' and frequent redistributions.»
These two Irish customs (Sir John Davies continues) made all their
possessions uncertain, being shuffled and changed and removed so
often from one to another, by new elections and partitions, 'which
uncertainty of estates hath been the true cause of desolation and
barbarism in this land.' [p221]
These were obviously the main features of an earlier stage of the
tribal system than we have seen in Wales. It was the system which
fitted easily into the artificial land divisions and clusters
of homesteads. And this method of clustering homesteads, in its
turn, not only facilitated, but even made possible those frequent
redistributions which mark this early stage of the tribal system.
The method of artificial clustering was apparently widely spread
through Ireland, as we found it in the various divisions of Wales.
«The system ancient»
It also was ancient; for according to an early poem, supposed by Dr.
Sullivan[286] to belong 'in substance though not in language to the
sixth or seventh century,' Ireland was anciently divided into 184
'Tricha Céds' (30 hundreds [of cows]), each of which contained 30
_bailes_ (or townlands); 5,520 _bailes_ in all.
The _baile_ or townland is thus described:--
'A baile sustains 300 cows,
Four full herds therein may roam.
«and pastoral.»
The poem describes the _bailes_ (or townlands) as divided into 4
quarters, _i.e._ a quarter for each of the 4 herds of 75 cows each.
«Ballys and quarters.»
The poem further explains that the _baile_ or townland was equal to
12 'seisrighs' (by some translated 'plough-lands'), and that the
latter land measure is 120 acres,[287] making the quarter equal
to three 'seisrighs' [p222] or 360 acres. But this latter mode
of measurement is probably a later innovation introduced with the
growth of arable farms. The old system was division into quarters,
and founded on the prevalent pastoral habits of the people. In the
earliest records Connaught is found to be divided into _ballys_, and
the ballys into _quarters_, which were generally distinguished by
certain mears and bounds.[288] The quarters were sometimes called
'_cartrons_,' but in other cases the cartron was the quarter of a
quarter, _i.e._ a 'tate.' O'Kelly's county in 1589 was found to
contain 665½ _quarters_ of 120 acres each.[289]
Lastly, it may be mentioned that in the re-allotment of the lands
in Roscommon to the sept of the _Grames_ on their removal from
Cumberland each family of the better class was to receive a _quarter_
of land containing 120 acres.[290]
«The system in Scotland»
The evidence as regards Scotland is scanty, but Mr. Skene, in his
interesting chapter on 'the tribe in Scotland,' has collected
together sufficient evidence to show that the tribal organisation in
the Gaelic districts was closely analogous to that in Ireland.[291]
«and in the Isle of Man.»
There are also indications that the Isle of Man was anciently divided
into ballys and quarters.[292] [p223]
The old tribal division of the ballys into 'quarters' and 'tates'
has left distinct and numerous traces in the names of the present
townlands in Ireland.
Annexed is an example of an ancient bally divided into quarters.
It is taken from the Ordnance Survey of county Galway. Two of the
quarters, now townlands, still bear the names of 'Cartron' and
'Carrow,' or 'Quarter,' as do more than 600 townlands in various
parts of Ireland.[293] This example will show that the quarters were
actual divisions.
Scattered over the bally were the sixteen 'tates' or homesteads, four
in each quarter; and in some counties--Monaghan especially--they are
still to be traced as the centres of modern townlands, which bear the
names borne by the 'tates' three hundred years ago, as registered
in Sir John Davies' survey. There is still often to be found in the
centre of the modern townland the circular and partly fortified
enclosure[294] where the old 'tate' stood, and the lines of the
present divisions of the fields often wind themselves round it in a
way which proves that it was once their natural centre.
Moreover, the names of the 'tates' still preserved in the present
townlands bear indirect witness to the [p224] reality of the old
tribal redistributions and shiftings of the households from one
'tate' to another. They seldom are compounded of personal names. They
generally are taken from some local natural feature. The homestead
was permanent. The occupants were shifting.
Again, an example taken from the Ordnance Survey--from county
Monaghan--will most clearly illustrate these points, and help the
reader to appreciate the reality of the tribal arrangements.
In the survey of the barony of 'Monoughan'[295] made in 1607, the
'_half ballibetogh called Correskallie_' is described as containing
eight 'tates,' the Irish names of which are recorded. They are given
below, and an English translation of the names is added[296] in
brackets to illustrate their peculiar and generally non-personal
character.
In the half ballibetogh called Correskallie (Round Hill of the
Story-tellers)--
4 tates Corneskelfee (? Correskallie).
Correvolen (Round Hill of the Mill).
Corredull (Round Hill of the Black Fort).
Aghelick (Field of the Badger).
4 tates Dromore (the Great Ridge).
Killagharnane (Wood of the Heap).
Fedowe (Black Wood).
Clonelolane (Lonan's Meadow).
A reduced map of this ancient 'half-ballibetogh,' as it appears now
on the large Ordnance Survey, is appended, in which the names of the
old 'tates' appear, with but little change, in the modern townlands.
The remains of the circular enclosures [p225] marking the sites
of the old 'tates' are still to be traced in one or two cases. The
acreage of each townland is given on the map in English measures. It
will be remembered that in Monaghan 60 Irish acres were allotted to
each tate instead of the usual 30.
[Illustration: _Example of an ancient_ 'Bally' _or_
'Townland' _still divided into_ 'Quarters' _which are now
called 'Townlands,' taken from sheet 103 of the Ordnance
Survey of Co. Galway_.]
[Illustration: MAP of the 'half-Bally' _OF_ CORRESKALLIE
Co. Monaghan.]
This evidence will be sufficient to prove that the arithmetical
clustering of the homesteads was real, and that, as in Wales, so in
Ireland, under the tribal system the homesteads were scattered over
the country, and not grouped together in villages and towns.[297]
Passing to the methods of agriculture, it is obvious, that, even in
a pastoral state, the growth of corn cannot be wholly neglected. We
have seen that in Wales there was agriculture, and that, so far as it
extended, the ploughing was conducted on an open-field system, and by
joint-ploughing.
It was precisely so also in Ireland, and it had been from time
immemorial.
«Open fields.»
It is stated in the 'Book of the Dun Cow' (_Lebor na Huidre_),
compiled in the _seventh_ century by the Abbot of Clanmacnois, known
to us in an Irish MS. of the year 1100, that 'there was not a ditch,
nor fence, nor stone wall round land till came the period of the sons
of Aed Slane [in the seventh century], but only smooth fields.' Add
to this the passage pointed out by Sir H. S. Maine[298] in the 'Liber
Hymnorum' (a MS. probably of the eleventh century), viz.-- [p226]
'Very numerous were the inhabitants of Ireland at this time
[the time of the sons of Aed Slane in the seventh century],
and their number was so great that they only received in the
partition 3 _lots of_ 9 _ridges_ [immaire] _of land_, namely 9
ridges of bog land, 9 of forest, and 9 of arable land.'
«The _run-rig_ or _Rundale_ system in Ireland and Scotland.»
Taking those two passages together, and noting that the word for
'ridges' (_immaire_) is the same word (_imire_, or _iomair_[299]) now
used in Gaelic for a ridge of land, and that the recently remaining
system of strips and balks in Ireland and Scotland is still known as
the 'run-rig' system, it becomes clear that whatever there was of
arable land in any particular year lay in open fields divided into
ridges or strips.
There are, further, some passages in the _Brehon Laws_ which
show that at least among the lower grades of tribesmen there was
joint-ploughing. And this arose not simply from 'joint-tenancy' of
undivided land by co-heirs,[300] but from the fact that the tribesmen
of lower rank only possessed _portions_ of the requisites of a
plough,[301] just as was the case with Welsh tribesmen and the Saxon
holders of yard-lands.
There can be little doubt, therefore, that we must picture the
households of tribesmen occupying the four 'tates' in each 'quarter'
as often combining to produce the plough team, and as engaged to some
extent in joint-ploughing. [p227]
At first, what little agriculture was needful would be, like the
Welsh 'coaration of the waste,' the joint-ploughing of grass land,
which after the year's crop, or perhaps three or four years' crop,
would go back into grass.[302] But it would seem from the passage
quoted above, that the whole quarter of normally 120 Irish acres was
at first divided into 'ridges'--possibly Irish acres--to facilitate
the allotment among the households not only of that portion which
was arable for the year, but also of the shares in the bog and the
forest. No doubt originally there was plenty of mountain pasture
besides the thirty, or sometimes sixty scattered acres or ridges
allotted in [p228] 'run-rig' to each 'tate' or household. In the
seventh century, as we have seen, the complaint was made that the
pressure of population had reduced the shares to twenty-seven ridges
instead of thirty.
Finally, when we examine in the Highlands of Scotland as well as
in Ireland the still remaining custom known as the '_Rundale_' or
'run-rig' system, whereby a whole townland or smaller area is held in
common by the people of the village, and shared among them in rough
equality by dividing it up into a large number of small pieces, of
which each holder takes one here and another there; we see before
us in Scotland as in Ireland a survival of that custom of scattered
ownership which belonged to the open-field system all the world over;
whilst we mark again the absence of the yard-land, which was so
constant a feature of the English system. The method is even applied
to potato ground, where the spade takes the place of the plough; and
thus instead of the strip, or acre laid out for ploughing, there is
the 'patch' which so often marks the untidy Celtic townland.
Existing maps of townlands, whilst showing very clearly the practice
still in vogue of subdividing a holding by giving to each sharer
a strip in each of the scattered parcels of which the old holding
consisted, hardly retain traces of the ancient division of the whole
'quarter' into equal ridges or acres. But they show very clearly the
scattered ownership which has been so tenaciously adhered to, along
with the old tribal practice of equal division among male heirs. An
example of a modern townland is annexed, which will illustrate these
interesting points. The confusion it presents will also illustrate
the inherent [p229] incompatibility in a settled district of equal
division among heirs with anything like the yard-land, or bundle of
equal strips handed down unchanged from generation to generation.
[Illustration: _Example of divisions and holdings in a
Townland on the_ Run-rig _system, Extracted from Report of
Devon Commission, see Lord Dufferin's 'Irish Emigration &
Tenure.'_
_This townland contains 205 acres now occupied in 422
lots, by 29 tenants 3 of whose scattered holdings are
shown in different colors_.]
Mr. Skene, in his interesting chapter on the 'Land Tenure in the
Highlands and Islands,'[303] has brought together many interesting
facts, and has drawn a vivid picture of local survivals of farming
communities pursuing their agriculture on the _run-rig_ system,
and holding their pasture land in common. And the traveller on the
west coast of Scotland cannot fail to find among the crofters many
examples of modified forms of joint occupation in which the methods
of the _run-rig_ system are more or less applied even to newly leased
land at the present time.
Thus whilst the tribal system seems to be the result mainly of the
long-continued habits of a pastoral people, it could and did adapt
itself to arable agriculture, and it did so on the lines of the open
field system in a very simple form, extemporised wherever occasion
required, becoming permanent when the tribe became settled on a
particular territory.
«The Irish tribal system in an earlier stage than the
Welsh.»
Returning now to the main object of the inquiry we seem, in the
perhaps to some extent superficial and too simple view taken
by Sir John Davies of the Irish tribal arrangements, to have
found what we sought--to have got a glimpse in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries of an earlier stage in the working of the
tribal system than we get in Wales nearly 1,000 years earlier. In
this stage the land in theory was still in tribal ownership, its
redistribution among the tribesmen [p230] was still frequent, and
arable agriculture was still subordinate to pasture. Lastly, the
arithmetical clustering of the homesteads was the natural method by
which the frequent redistributions of the land were made easy; while
the run-rig form of the open-field system was the natural mode of
conducting a co-operative and shifting agriculture.
But whilst gaining this step, and resting upon it for our present
purpose, we must not be blind to the fact that in another way the
Irish system had become more developed and more complex than the
Welsh.
Sir John Davies sometimes dwells upon the fact that the chief was in
no true sense the lord of the county, and the tribesmen in no true
sense the freeholders of the land. The land belonged to the tribe.
But, as we have seen, he found also that, as in Wales, the chiefs and
sub-chiefs had, as a matter of fact, rightly or wrongly, gradually
acquired a permanent occupation of a certain portion of land--so
many townlands--which, using the English manorial phrase, he speaks
of as '_in demesne_.' Upon these the chief's immediate followers,
and probably bondservants, lived, like the Welsh taeogs, paying him
food-rents or tribute very much resembling those of the taeogs.
«The complications described in the _Brehon Laws_.»
This land, as we have seen, he calls '_mensal land_,' probably
translating an Irish term; and we are reminded at once of the Welsh
_taeog-land_ in the _Register trevs_, which also, from the gifts of
food, was called in one of the Welsh laws '_mensal land_.'
Further, besides these innovations upon the ancient simplicity of the
tribal system, there had evidently, and perhaps from early times,
grown up artificial relationships, founded upon contract, or even
[p231] fiction, which, so to speak, ran across and complicated very
greatly the tribal arrangements resting upon blood relationship.
This probably is what makes the _Brehon laws_ so bewildering and
apparently inconsistent with the simplicity of the tribal system as
in its main features it presented itself to Sir John Davies.
The loan of cattle by those tribesmen (Boaires) who had more than
enough to stock their proper share of the tribe land to other
tribesmen who had not cattle enough to stock theirs, in itself
introduced a sort of semi-feudal, or perhaps semi-_commercial_
dependence of one tribesman upon another. Tribal equality, or rather
gradation of rank according to blood relationship, thus became no
doubt overlaid or crossed by an actual inequality, which earlier or
later developed in some sense into an irregular form of lordship
and service. Hence the complicated rules of '_Saer_' and '_Daer_'
tenancy. There were perhaps also artificial modes of introducing
new tribesmen into a sept without the blood relationship on which
the tribal system was originally built. These complications may
be studied in the Brehon laws, as they have been studied by Sir
Henry Maine and Mr. Skene, and the learned editors of the 'Laws'
themselves; but, however ancient may be the state of things which
they describe, they need not detain us here, or prevent our
recognising in the actual conditions described by Sir John Davies the
main features of an earlier stage of the system than is described in
the ancient Welsh laws.
II. THE TRIBAL SYSTEM IN ITS EARLIER STAGES.
The comparison of the Gaelic and Cymric tribal systems has shown
resemblances so close in leading [p232] principles, that we may
safely seek to obtain from some of the differences between them a
glimpse into earlier stages of the tribal system than the Welsh
evidence, taken alone, would have opened to our view.
«Outside influences: Rome, Christianity, and the
ecclesiastical system.»
Two powerful influences had evidently already partially arrested the
tribal system in Wales, and turned it as it were against its natural
bent into fixed and hardened grooves, before it assumed the shape in
which it appears in the Welsh laws. These two powerful influences
were (1) Roman rule and (2) Christianity. Their first action was to
some extent exercised singly and apart, though concurrently in point
of time. But their separate influences were afterwards surpassed and
consolidated by the remarkable combination of them both which was
presented in the ecclesiastical system.
The influences of Christianity, and of the later ecclesiastical
system, were powerfully exerted in Ireland also; but the Irish tribal
system differed from the Welsh in its never having passed directly
under Roman imperial rule.
The Brehon laws of Ireland perhaps owe their form and origin to
the necessity of moulding the old traditional customs to the new
Christian standard of the ecclesiastics, under whose eye the
codification was made. So, also, the Welsh laws of Howell the Good,
and the Saxon laws of Ine and his successors, all reflect and bear
witness to this influence, and had been no doubt moulded by it into
softer forms than had once prevailed. At least the harshest thorns
which grew, we may guess, even rankly upon the tribal system, must,
we may be sure, have been already removed before our first view of
it. [p233]
In fact, nearly all the early codes, whether those of Ireland,
Wales, or England, or those of German tribes on the Continent, bear
marks of a Christian influence, either directly impressed upon
them by ecclesiastical authorship and authority, or indirectly
through contact with the Roman law, which itself in the later edicts
contained in the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian had undergone
evident modification in a Christian sense.
So far as the Welsh tribal system is concerned, it is quite clear
that whatever had been the influence upon it of direct Roman imperial
rule and early Christianity, it submitted to a second and fresh
influence in the tenth century.
This appears when we consider the avowed motives and object of Howell
the Good in making his code. Its preface recites that he 'found
the Cymry perverting the laws and customs, and therefore summoned
from every _cymwd_ of his kingdom six men practised in authority
and jurisprudence; and also the archbishop, bishops, abbots, and
priors, imploring grace and discernment for the king to amend the
laws and customs of Cymru.' It goes on to say that, 'by the advice
of these wise men, the king retained some of the old laws, others
he amended, others he abolished entirely, establishing new laws
in their place;' special pains being taken to guard against doing
anything 'in opposition to _the law of the Church_ or _the law of the
Emperor_.'[304]
Finally, it is stated in the same preface that Howell the Good went
to Rome to confirm his laws by papal [p234] authority, A.D. 914, and
died A.D. 940. It may be added that the reference to the 'law of the
Emperor' was no fiction, for '_Blegewryd_, Archdeacon of Llandav, was
the clerk, and he was a doctor in the law of the Emperor and in the
law of the Church.'
«The tribal division among male heirs survives these
influences.»
In connexion with this ecclesiastical influence there is a curious
exception which proves the rule, in the refusal of Howell the Good to
give up the tribal rule of equal division among sons, which lay at
the root of the tribal system, and to introduce in its place the law
of primogeniture.
'The ecclesiastical law says that no son is to have the
patrimony but the eldest born to the father by the married
wife: the law of Howell, however, adjudges it to the youngest
son as well as to the oldest, [i.e. all the sons] and decides
that sin of the father or his illegal act is not to be brought
against a son as to his patrimony.'[305]
And so tenaciously was this tribal rule adhered to that even Edward
I., after his conquest of Wales, was obliged for the sake of peace to
concede its continuance to the Welsh, insisting only that none but
lawful sons should share in the inheritance.[306]
The fixing of the gwestva dues, and their commutation into the
_tunc pound_ from every free trev, may well have been one of the
emendations needful to bring the Welsh laws into correspondence with
the 'law of the Emperor,' if it was not indeed the result of direct
Roman rule, under which the chiefs paid a fixed _tributum_ to the
Roman State, possibly founded on the tribal food-rent.[307] [p235]
«Early exactions and license on the part of the chiefs.»
The special Welsh laws which relieve the free trevs of 'family land'
from being under the _maer_ (or villicus) and _canchellor_, and from
_kylch_ (or progress), and from _dovraeth_ (or having the king's
officers quartered upon them), and even limit the right of the _maer_
and _canchellor_ to quarter on the taeogs to three times a year with
three followers, and their share in the royal dues from the taeogs to
one-third of the _dawnbwyds_,[308] look very much like restrictions
of old and oppressive customs resembling those prevalent in Ireland
in later times, made with the intention of bringing the tribesmen and
even the taeogs within the protection of rules similar to those in
the Theodosian Code protecting the coloni on Roman estates.
The probability, therefore, is that the picture drawn by Sir John
Davies of the lawless exactions of the Irish chieftain from the
tribesmen of his sept would apply also to early Welsh and British
chieftains before the influence of Christianity and later Roman law,
through the Church, had restrained their harshness, and limited their
originally wild and lawless exactions from the tribesmen. The legends
of the _Liber Landavensis_ contain stories of as wild and unbridled
license and cruelty on the part of Welsh chieftains as are recorded
in the ancient stories of the Irish tribes. And Cæsar records that
the chiefs of Gallic tribes had so oppressively exacted their dues
(probably food-rents), that they had reduced the smaller people
almost into the condition of slaves. [p236]
The close resemblance of the Welsh system of clustering the
homesteads and trevs in groups of four and twelve or sixteen, to
that prevalent in Ireland, points to the common origin of both. It
confirms the inference that both in Wales and in Ireland this curious
practice found its _raison d'être_ in a stage of tribal life when
the families of free tribesmen did not as yet always occupy the same
tyddyn, but were shifted from one to another whenever the dying out
of a family rendered needful a redistribution to ensure the fair and
equal division of the tribal lands among the tribesmen, 'according to
their antiquity' and their rank under the tribal rules.
«Redivisions and shifting of holdings.»
This occasional shifting of tribal occupation within the tribe-land
was still going on in Ireland under the eyes of Sir John Davies, and
it seems to have survived the Roman rule in Wales, though it was
there probably confined within very narrow limits.
It seems, however, to have been itself a survival of the originally
more or less nomad habits of pastoral tribes.
«Semi-nomadic habits stopped by the Roman rule.»
So, also, the frailty of the slightly constructed homesteads of
the Welsh of the thirteenth century, which seemed to _Giraldus
Cambrensis_ as built only to last for a year, may be a survival of a
state of tribal life when the tribes were nomadic, and driven to move
from place to place by the pressure of warlike neighbours, or the
necessity of seeking new pastures for their flocks and herds. But the
nomadic stage of Welsh tribal life had probably come to an end during
the period of Roman rule.
* * * * *
«The grades in tribal society.»
Putting together the Irish and Welsh evidence in [p237] a variety
of smaller points, a clearer conception may perhaps be gained than
before of the character and relations to each other of the three
or four orders into which tribal life seems to have separated
people--the _chiefs_, the _tribesmen_, the _taeogs_, and under all
these, and classed among chattels, the _slaves_.
The _chief_ evidently corresponds less with the later lord of a manor
than with the modern king. He is the head and chosen chief of the
tribesmen. His office is not hereditary. His successor, his _tanist_
or _edling_, is chosen in his lifetime, and is not necessarily his
son.[309] The chieftains of Ireland are spoken of in mediæval records
and laws as _reguli_--little kings. When Wales (or such part of it
as had not been before conquered and made manorial) was conquered by
Edward I. the chieftainship did not fall into the hands of manorial
lords, but was vested directly in the Prince of Wales.[310]
«The tribesmen.»
The _tribesmen_ are men of the tribal blood, _i.e._ of equal blood
with the chief. They, therefore, do not at all resemble serfs. They
are more like manorial lords of lordships split up and divided by
inheritance, than serfs. They are not truly allodial holders, for
they hold tribal land; but they have no manorial lord over them.
Their chief is their elected chief, not their manorial lord. When
Irish chieftains claim to be owners of the tribal land in the
English sense, and set up manorial claims over the tribesmen, they
are disallowed by Sir John Davies. When Wales is [p238] conquered,
the _tunc pound_ is paid by the free tribesmen direct to the Prince
of Wales, the substituted chieftain of the tribe, and the tribesmen
remain freeholders, with no mesne lord between him and them.[311] So
it would have been also in Ireland if the plans of Sir John Davies
had been permanently carried out.[312]
«The taeogs.»
The _taeogs_ are not generally the serfs of the free tribesmen, but,
if serfs at all, of the chief. They are more like Roman _coloni_ than
mediæval serfs. But they are easily changed into serfs. In Ireland
the _mensal land_ on which they live is allowed by Sir John Davies to
be (by a rough analogy) called the chief's _demesne land_. In Wales
they are called in Latin documents _villani_; but they become after
the Conquest the villani, not of manorial lords, but of the Prince of
Wales, and they still live in separate trevs from the tribesmen.[313]
«The slaves.»
These, then, are the three orders in tribal life; while the slaves
in household or field service, and more or less numerous, are, like
the cattle, bought and sold, and reckoned as chattels alike under the
tribal and the manorial systems.
And we may go still further. These three tribal orders of men, with
their large households and cattle in the more or less nomadic stage
of the tribal system, move about from place to place, and wherever
they [p239] go, what may be called tribal houses must be erected for
them.
The tribal house is in itself typical of their tribal and nomadic
life. It is of the same type and pattern for all their orders, but
varying in size according to the gradation in rank of the occupier.
«The tribal house.»
«The _gwelys_, or _lecti_.»
«The household.»
«The chief.»
It is built, like the houses observed by Giraldus Cambrensis, of
trees newly cut from the forest.[314] A long straight pole is
selected for the roof-tree. Six well-grown trees, with suitable
branches apparently reaching over to meet one another, and of about
the same size as the roof-tree, are stuck upright in the ground
at even distances in two parallel rows--three in each row. Their
extremities bending over make a Gothic arch, and crossing one another
at the top each pair makes a fork, upon which the roof-tree is fixed.
These trees supporting the roof-tree are called _gavaels_, _forks_,
or _columns_,[315] and they form the nave of the tribal house. Then,
at some distance back from these rows of _columns_ or _forks_, low
walls of stakes and wattle shut in the _aisles_ of the house, and
over all is the roof of branches and rough thatch, while at the
ends are the wattle doors of entrance. All along the aisles, behind
the pillars, are placed beds of rushes, [p240] called _gwelys_
(_lecti_), on which the inmates sleep. The footboards of the beds,
between the columns, form their seats in the daytime. The fire is
lighted on an open hearth in the centre of the nave, between the
middle columns, and in the chieftain's hall a screen runs between
these central pillars and either wall, so partially dividing off the
upper portion where the chief, the edling, and his principal officers
have their own appointed places, from the lower end of the hall
where the humbler members of the household are ranged in order.[316]
The columns, like those in Homeric houses and Solomon's temple, are
sometimes cased in metal, and the silentiary, to call attention,
strikes one of them with his staff. The bed or seat of the chieftain
is also sometimes covered by a metal canopy.[317] In his hand he
holds a sceptre or wand of gold, equal in length to himself, and
as thick as his little finger. He eats from a golden plate as wide
as his face, and as thick as the thumb-nail of a ploughman who has
handled the plough for seven years.[318]
The kitchen and other outbuildings are ranged round the hall, and
beyond these again are the corn and the cattle-yard included in the
_tyddyn_.
«Likeness of the tribal house to the Gothic cathedral.»
The chieftain's hall is twice the size and value of the free
tribesman's, and the free tribesman's is twice [p241] that of the
taeog. But the plan is the same. They are all built with similar
green timber forks and roof-tree and wattle,[319] with the fireplace
in the nave and the rush beds in the aisles. One might almost
conjecture that as the tabernacle was the type which grew into
Solomon's temple, so the tribal house built of green timber and
wattle, with its high nave and lower aisles, when imitated in stone,
grew into the Gothic cathedral. Certainly the Gothic cathedral,
simplified and reduced in size and materials to a rough and rapidly
erected structure of green timber and wattle, would give no bad idea
of the tribal house of Wales or Ireland. It has been noticed in a
former chapter that the Bishop of Durham had his episcopal bothy,
or hunting hall, erected for him every year by his villeins, in
the forest, as late as the time of the Boldon Book. This also was
possibly a survival of the tribal house.[320]
«The tribal household.»
In this tribal house the undivided household of free tribesmen,
comprising several generations down to the great-grandchildren of a
common ancestor, lived together; and, as already mentioned, even the
structure of the house was typical of the tribal family arrangement.
In the aisles were the _gwelys_ of rushes, and the whole household
was bound as it were together in one _gwellygord_. The _gwelys_ were
divided by the [p242] central columns, or _gavaels_ (Welsh for
'fork'), into four separate divisions; so there were four _gavaels_
in a trev, and four randirs in a gavael. And so in after times, long
after the tribal life was broken up, the original holding of an
ancient tribesman became divided in the hands of his descendants into
_gavells_ and _gwelys_, or _weles_.[321]
Another point has been noticed. In the old times, when the tribesmen
shifted about from place to place, their personal names by necessity
could not be given to the places or tyddyns they lived in. The local
names in a country where the tribal system prevailed were taken from
natural characteristics--the streams, the woods, the hills, which
marked the site. This was the case, for instance, with the townlands
and _tates_ of Ireland. Most of them bear witness, as we have seen,
by their impersonal names, to the shifting and inconstant tenancy of
successive tribesmen.[322]
It was probably not till the tribes became stationary, and, after
many generations, the same families became permanent holders of
the same homesteads, that the Welsh _gwelys_ and _gavells_ became
permanent family possessions, known by the personal name of their
occupants, as we find them in the extents of the fourteenth
century.[323]
«The tribal blood-money.»
Another characteristic of the tribal system in its early stages
was the purely natural and tribal character of the system of
_blood-money_, answering to the [p243] _Wergelt_ of the Germans.
It was not an artificial bundling together of persons in tens or
tithings, like the later Saxon and Norman system of _frankpledge_,
but strictly ruled by actual family relationship. The murderer of a
man, or his relations of a certain degree, and in a certain order
and proportion, according to their nearness of blood, owed the
fixed amount of blood-money to the family of the murdered person,
who shared it in the same order and proportions on their side.[324]
The same principle held good for insults and injuries, between not
only individuals, but tribes. For an insult done by the tribesman of
another tribe to a chief, the latter could claim one hundred cows for
every cantrev in his dominion (_i.e._ a cow for every trev), and a
golden rod.[325]
«Tenacity of tribal habits.»
The tribesmen and the tribes were thus bound together by the closest
ties, all springing, in the first instance, from their common
blood-relationship. As this ruled the extent of their liability one
for another, so it fixed both the nearness of the neighbourhood of
their tyddyns, and the closeness of the relationships of their common
life. And these ties were so close, and the rules of the system so
firmly fixed by custom and by tribal instinct, that Roman or Saxon
conquest, and centuries of Christian influence, while they modified
and hardened it in some points, and stopped its actual nomadic
tendencies, left its main features and spirit, in Ireland and Wales
and Western Scotland, unbroken. It would seem that tribal life might
well go on repeating itself, generation after generation, for a
thousand years, with little variation, without [p244] really passing
out of its early stages, unless in the meantime some uncontrollable
force from outside of it should break its strength and force its life
into other grooves.
Nor was the tenacity of the tribal system more remarkable than its
universality. As an economic stage in a people's growth it seems to
be well-nigh universal. It is confined to no race, to no continent,
and to no quarter of the globe. Almost every people in historic or
prehistoric times has passed or is passing through its stages.
«Wide prevalence of the tribal system.»
Lastly, this wide prevalence and extreme tenacity of the tribal
system may perhaps make it the more easy to understand the almost
equally wide prevalence of that open-field system, by the simplest
forms of which nomadic and pastoral tribes, forced by circumstances
into a simple and common agriculture, have everywhere apparently
provided themselves with corn. It is not the system of a single
people or a single race, but, in its simplest form, a system
belonging to the tribal stage of economic progress. And as that
tribal stage may itself take a thousand years, as in Ireland, to
wear itself out, so the open field system also may linger as long,
adapting itself meanwhile to other economic conditions; in England
becoming for centuries, under the manorial system, in a more complex
form, the shell of serfdom, and leaving its _débris_ on the fields
centuries after the stage of serfdom has been passed; in Ireland
following the vicissitudes of a poor and wretched peasantry, whose
tribal system, running its course till suddenly arrested under other
and economically sadder phases than serfdom, leaves a people swarming
on the subdivided [p245] land, with scattered patches of potato
ground, held in 'run-rig' or 'rundale,' and clinging to the 'grazing'
on the mountain side for their single cow or pig, with a pastoral and
tribal instinct ingrained in their nature as the inheritance of a
thousand years.
Such in its main features seems to have been the tribal system as
revealed by the earliest Irish and Welsh evidence taken together.
There remains the question, What was the relation of this tribal
system to the manorial system in the south-east of England and on the
continent of Europe?
III. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE TRIBAL AND AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY OF
THE WEST AND SOUTH-EAST OF BRITAIN WAS PRE-ROMAN, AND SO ALSO WAS THE
OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM.
«The south and east Britain not tribal but mainly
agricultural before Saxon conquest.»
The manorial system of the east and the tribal system of the west
of Britain have now been traced back, in turn, upon British ground,
as far as the direct evidence extends, _i.e._ to within a very few
generations of the time of the Saxon conquest; and in neither system
is any indication discernible of a recent origin.
So far as the evidence has hitherto gone, the two systems were, and
had long been, historically distinct. The tribal system probably once
extended as far into Wessex as the eastern limits of the district
long known as West Wales, _i.e._ as far east as Wiltshire; and within
this district of England the manorial system was evidently imposed
upon the conquered country, as it was later in portions of [p246]
Wales, leaving only here and there, as we have found, small and
mainly local survivals of the earlier tribal system.
But no evidence has yet been adduced leading to the inference that
before the Saxon invasion the Welsh tribal system extended all over
Britain.
Indeed, the evidence of Cæsar is clear upon the point that the
economic condition of the south-east of Britain was quite distinct
from that of the interior and west of Britain even in pre-Roman times.
«Evidence of Cæsar.»
Cæsar describes the south and east of Britain, which he calls the
maritime portion, as inhabited by those who had passed over from
the country of the Belgæ for the purpose of plunder and war, almost
all of whom, he says, retain the name of the states (_civitates_)
from which they came to Britain, where after the war they remained,
and began to cultivate the fields. Their buildings he describes as
exceedingly numerous, and very like those of the Gauls.[326] The most
civilised of all these nations, he says, are those who inhabit Kent,
which is entirely a maritime district; nor do they differ much from
Gallic customs.[327]
He speaks, on the other hand, of the inland inhabitants as aborigines
who mostly did not sow corn, but fed upon flesh and milk.[328]
Now, we have seen that the main distinctive mark of the tribal system
was the absence of towns and villages, and the preponderance of
cattle over corn.
When corn becomes the ruling item in economic arrangements, there
grows up the settled homestead and the _village_, with its open
fields around it. [p247]
Cæsar, therefore, in describing the agriculture and buildings of
the Belgic portion of England, and the non-agricultural but pastoral
habits of the interior, exactly hit upon the distinctive differences
between the already settled and agricultural character of the
south-east and the pastoral and tribal polity of the interior and
west of Britain.
«A corn-growing country before and during Roman rule.»
Nor was this statement one resting merely upon hearsay evidence.
Cæsar himself found corn crops ripening on the fields, and relied
upon them for the maintenance of his army. Nay, the reason which
led him to invade the island was in part the fact that the Britons
had given aid to the Gauls. Further, he obtained his information
about Britain from the _merchants_, and the news of his approach
was carried by the _merchants_ into Britain, thus making it evident
that there was a commerce going on between the two coasts, even in
pre-Roman times.[329]
We know that throughout the period of Roman occupation Britain was a
corn-growing country.
«Evidence of Zosimus.»
_Zosimus_ represents Julian as sending 800 vessels, larger than mere
boats, backwards and forwards to Britain for corn to supply the
granaries of the cities on the Rhine.[330]
«Eumenius.»
_Eumenius_, in his 'Panegyric of Constantine' (A.D. 310), also
describes Britain as remarkable for the richness of its corn crops
and the multitude of its cattle.[331]
«Pliny.»
_Pliny_ further describes the inhabitants of Britain as being so far
advanced in agriculture as to plough [p248] in _marl_ in order to
increase the fertility of the fields.[332]
«Tacitus.»
_Tacitus_,[333] in the same way (A.D. _circa_ 90), speaks of the soil
of Britain as fertile and bearing heavy crops (_patiens frugum_),
and describes the tricks of the tax gatherers in collecting the
_tributum_, which was exacted in corn.[334]
«Strabo.»
_Strabo_[335] (B.C. 30) mentions the export from Britain of '_corn_,
cattle, gold, silver, iron, skins, slaves, and dogs.'
«Diodorus Siculus.»
_Diodorus Siculus_[336] (B.C. 44) describes the manner of reaping and
storing corn in England thus:--
They have mean habitations constructed for the most part of
reeds or of wood, and they gather in the harvest by cutting
off the ears of corn and storing them in subterraneous
repositories; they cull therefrom daily such as are old, and
dressing them, have thence their sustenance. . . . The island
is thickly inhabited.
«Pytheas.»
Lastly, we have been recently reminded by Mr. Elton that _Pytheas_,
'the Humboldt of antiquity,' who visited Britain in the fourth
century B.C., saw in the southern districts abundance of wheat in
the fields, [p249] and observed the necessity of threshing it out
in covered barns, instead of using the unroofed threshing-floors
to which he was accustomed in Marseilles. 'The natives,' he says,
'collect the sheaves in great barns, and thresh out the corn there,
because they have so little sunshine that our open threshing-places
would be of little use in that land of clouds and rain.'[337]
It is clear, then, that in the south-east of Britain a considerable
quantity of corn was grown all through the period of Roman rule and
centuries before the Roman conquest of the island. And if so, that
difference between the pastoral tribal districts of the interior
and the more settled agricultural districts of the south and east,
noticed by Cæsar, was one of long standing.
The tribal system of Wales furnishes us, therefore, with no direct
key to the economic condition of South-eastern Britain.
But, on the other hand, the continuous and long-continued growth of
corn in Britain from century to century adds great interest to the
further question, Upon what system was it grown?
«The corn probably grown on the open-field system.»
Upon what other system can it have been grown than the _open-field
system_? The universal prevalence of this system makes it almost
certain that the fields found by Cæsar waving with ripening corn were
_open_ fields. The open-field system was hardly first introduced
by the Saxons, because we find it also in Wales and Scotland. It
was hardly introduced by the Romans, because its division lines
and measurements [p250] are evidently not those of the Roman
_agrimensores_. The methods of these latter are well known from their
own writings. Their rules were clear and definite, and wherever they
went they either _adopted the previous divisions of the land_, or
set to work on _their own system of straight lines and rectangular
divisions_. We may thus guess what an open field would have been if
laid out, _de novo_, by the Roman _agrimensores_; and conclude that
the irregular network or spider's web of furlongs and strips in the
actual open fields of England with which we have become familiar is
as great a contrast as could well be imagined to what the open field
would have been if laid out directly under Roman rules.
We happen to know also, from passages which we shall have occasion
to quote hereafter, that the Roman _agrimensores_ did find in other
provinces--we have no direct evidence for Britain--an open-field
system, with its irregular boundaries, its joint occupation, its
holdings of scattered pieces, and its common rights of way and of
pasture, existing in many districts--_in multis regionibus_--where
the red tape rules of their craft had not been consulted, and the
land was not occupied by regularly settled Roman colonies.[338]
The open-field system in some form or other we may understand, then,
to have preceded in Britain even the Roman occupation. And perhaps
we may go one step further. If the practice of ploughing marl into
the ground mentioned by Pliny was an early and local peculiarity of
Britain and of Gaul, as it seems to have been from his description,
then clearly [p251] it indicates a more advanced stage of the system
than the early Welsh co-aration of portions of the waste. The marling
of land implies a settled arable farming of the same land year
after year, and not a ploughing up of new ground each year. It does
not follow that there was yet a regular rotation of crops in three
courses, and so the fully organised three-field system; but evidently
there were permanent arable fields devoted to the growth of corn, and
separate from the grass land and waste, before Roman improvements
were made upon British agriculture.
«Was the system manorial?»
But the prevalence of an open-field husbandry in its simpler forms
was, as we have been taught by the investigation into the tribal
systems of Wales and Ireland, no evidence of the prevalence of that
particular form of the open-field husbandry which was connected with
the _manorial_ system, and of which the yard-land was an essential
feature. In order to ascertain the probability of the manorial system
having been introduced by the Saxons, or having preceded the Saxon
conquest in the south and east of Britain, it becomes necessary to
examine the manorial system in its Continental history, so as if
possible, working once more from the known to the unknown--this time
from the better known Roman and German side of the question--to find
some stepping-stones at least over the chasm in the English evidence.
FOOTNOTES:
[275] _Inquisitiones Cancellariæ Hiberniæ_, ii. xxx. iii.
[276] _Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy_, vii. p. xiv., p. 474.
Paper by the Rev. W. Reeves, D.D.
[277] _Inquisitiones Cancellariæ Hiberniæ_, ii. p. xxi.
[278] _Calendar of State Papers, Ireland_, 1606–8, p. 170.
[279] Appended to Sir John Davies' _Discovery of Ireland_, in some of
the early editions.
[280] Compare the words of Tacitus, 'Agri pro numero cultorum ab
universis vicis occupantur, quos mox inter se _secundum dignationem_
partiuntur. _Germania_, xxvi.
[281] In Monaghan Sir J. Davies had found tates with 60 acres each.
Here there were only 30 acres in a tate, so he kept to his old rule,
and took 2 tates as his lowest unit.
[282] This may be found also in _Ancient Laws of Ireland_, iii.
Preface, xxxv. 6.
[283] _Calendar of State Papers, Ireland_, 1603–6, p. 554; and
1606–8, p. 492.
[284] The evidence by which he was gradually informed may be traced
in detail in the above-mentioned _Calendars_.
[285] Sir John Davies' _Discovery of Ireland_, 1612, pp. 167 _et seq._
[286] _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_, E. O'Curry. Dr.
Sullivan's Introduction, p. xcvi. See also Skene's _Celtic Scotland_,
iii. 154.
[287] Skene, iii. 155. Sullivan, p. xcii.
[288] Skene, iii. 158, quoting a tract published in the appendix to
_Tribes and Customs_ of Hy Fiachraich, p. 453.
[289] _Id._ p. 160, quoting the _Tribes and Customs of Hy Many_.
[290] _Calendars of State Papers, Ireland_, 1606–8, pp. 491–2.
[291] Skene's _Celtic Scotland_, iii. c. vi.
[292] In a poem of the sixteenth century (1507–22), in Manks, given
in Train's _Isle of Man_, i. p. 50, occur the lines--
'Ayns dagh treen _Balley_ ren eh unnane
D'an sleih shen ayn dy heet dy ghuee,'
alluding to St. Germain; translated thus by Mr. Train:--
'For each four _quarterlands_ he made a chapel
For people of them to meet in prayer.'
For the 'quarterlands' see Statute of the Tinwald Court, 1645. Also
Feltham's Tour, _Manx Society_, p. 41, &c.
[293] That in many cases the quarters had become townlands as early
as the year 1683, see _Tribes and Customs of Hy Many_, Introd. p.
454. See also Dr. Reeve's paper 'On the Townland Distribution of
Ireland,' _Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy_, 1861, vol. vii.
p. 483.
[294] Many thousands of these circular enclosures are marked on the
Ordnance Map of Ireland.
[295] _Calendars of State Papers, Ireland_. 1607, p. 170.
[296] Taken from Shirley's _Hist. of Monaghan_, part iv. pp. 480–482.
[297] 'Neither did any of them in all this time plant any gardens or
orchards, enclose or improve their lands, live together in settled
villages or towns.'--_Discovery of Ireland_, p. 170. Compare this
with the description of the Germans by Tacitus. It was, as Sir
John Davies remarks, a condition of things 'to be imputed to those
[tribal] customs which made their estates so uncertain and transitory
in their possessions' (_id._).
[298] _Early History of Institutions_, p. 113.
[299] Skene's _Celtic Scotland_, iii. p. 381.
[300] As to joint-tenancy between co-heirs, see tract called
'Judgments of Co-tenancy.' _Brehon Laws_, iv. pp. 69 _et seq._
[301] See the tract 'Crith Gablach.' _Brehon Laws_, iv. pp. 300 _et
seq._ One grade has 'a fourth part of a ploughing apparatus, _i.e._
an ox, a plough-straw, a goad, and a bridle' (p. 307); another 'half
the means of ploughing' (p. 309); another 'a perfect plough' (p.
311); and so on. And the size of their respective houses and the
amount of their food-rent is graduated also according to their rank
in the tribal hierarchy. There is a reference to 'tillage in common'
in the 'Senchus Mor.' _Brehon Laws_, iii. p. 17.
[302] The following appeared in the _Athenæum_, March 3, 1883, under
the signature of Mr. G. L. Gomme:--'The 312 acres in possession of
the Corporation of Kells (co. Meath) are divided into six fields, and
thus used. The fields are broken up in rotation one at a time, and
tilled during four years. Before the field is broken the members of
the Corporation repair to it with a surveyor, and it is marked out
into equal lots, according to the existing number of resident members
of the body. Each resident freeman gets one lot, each portreeve and
burgess two lots, and the deputy sovereign five lots. A portion of
the field, generally five or six acres, is set apart for letting,
and the rent obtained for it is applied to pay the tithes and taxes
of the entire. The members hold their lots in severalty for four
years and cultivate them as they please, and at the expiration of
the fourth year the field is laid down with grass and a new one
is broken, when a similar process of partition takes place. The
other five fields are in the interim in pasture, and the right of
depasturing them is enjoyed by the members of the Corporation in
the same proportion as they hold the arable land; that is to say,
the deputy sovereign grasses five heads of cattle (called "bolls")
for every two grazed by the portreeves and burgesses, and for every
one grazed by the freemen; with this modification, however, that
the widow of a burgess enjoys a right of grazing to the same extent
as a freeman, and the widow of a freeman to half that extent. The
widows do not obtain any portions of the field in tillage. I should
note that the first charter of incorporation to Kells dates from
Richard I.'
[303] _Celtic Scotland_, iii. c. x. See also 'Account of Improvements
on the Estate of _Sutherland_.' By James Loch. London, 1826.
[304] _Ancient Laws, &c., of Wales_, p. 165.
[305] The _Venedotian Code_. _Ancient Laws, &c._, p. 86.
[306] See the last clause in the '_Statuta de Rothelan_.' _Record of
Carnarvon_, pp. 128–9, and _Ancient Laws_, p. 872.
[307] The pound of 12 ounces of 20 pence used in codes of South
Wales seems to have been the pound used in Gaul in Roman times.
'Juxta Gallos vigesima pars unciæ denarius est et duodecim denarii
solidum reddunt . . . duodecim unciæ libram xx. solidos continentem
efficiunt. Sed veteres _solidum_ qui nunc _aureus_ dicitur
nuncupabunt.' _De mensuris excerpta. Gromatici Veteres._ Lachmann, i.
pp. 373–4.
[308] _Ancient Laws, &c._, p. 781.
[309] This presents a curious analogy to the method followed by
'adoptive' Roman emperors.
[310] See the surveys in the _Record of Carnarvon_, and compare the
Statute of Rothelan.
[311] See the surveys in the _Record of Carnarvon_. The _tunc pound_
in some districts of Wales is still collected for the Prince of
Wales. _Id._ Introduction, p. xvii.
[312] See Sir John Davies' _Discovery_, &c., the concluding
paragraphs. And for further information on this point, see my
articles in the _Fortnightly Review_, 1870, and the _Nineteenth
Century_, January 1881, 'On the Irish Land Question.'
[313] See the surveys in the _Record of Carnarvon_.
[314] To make a royal house more pretentious the bark is peeled off,
and it is called 'the _White House_.' See _Ancient Laws, &c._, pp.
164 and 303.
[315] See _Ancient Laws, &c._, p. 142.--Hall of the _chief_. 40d. for
each _gavael_ supporting the roof, _i.e._ six _kolonon_, 80d. for
roof. Hall of _uchelwe_ or tribesman, 20d. each gavael supporting the
roof, _i.e._ six _colonen_, 40d. the roof. House of aillt or taeog,
10d. for each gavael supporting the roof, _i.e._ six _kolovyn_. P.
351.--Worth of winter house, 30d. the roof-tree, 30d. each _forck_
supporting the roof-tree. P. 676.--Three indispensables of the summer
bothy (_bwd havodwr_)--a roof-tree (nen bren), roof-supporting forks
(nen fyrch), and wattling (bangor). See also p. 288.
[316] Compare description of Irish houses in Dr. Sullivan's
_Introduction_, cccxlv. _et seq._, with the _Venedotian Code_.
_Ancient Laws, &c., of Wales_, p. 5, s. vi.--'Of Appropriate
Places.' Compare also the curious resemblances in the structure of
stone huts in the Scotch islands where trees could not be used, and
especially the position of the beds in the walls or in the rough
aisles.--Mitchell's _Past in the Present_, Lecture III. Compare Dr.
Guest's description of the Celtic houses. _Origines Celticæ_, ii.
70–83.
[317] _Id._
[318] _Ancient Laws, &c._, p. 3.
[319] See _Ancient Laws, &c._, p. 142.
[320] Compare Strabo's description of the _Gallic_ houses, 'great
houses, arched, constructed of planks and wicker and covered with
a heavy thatched roof' (iv. c. iv. s. 3). Also for the early stake
and wattle _German_ houses, see Tacitus (_Germania_, xvi.), and the
interesting section (Bk. i. s. 4) on the subject in Dr. Karl von
Inama-Sternegg's _Deutsche Wirthschaftsgeschichte_. Leipzig, 1879.
[321] See the _Record of Carnarvon_, Introduction, p. vii. _Wele_,
_Gwele_, or _Gwely_ in Welsh signifies a bed, and accordingly in
these extents it is often called in Latin _Lectus_. See pp. 90,
95–99, 101.
[322] See _supra_, and the lists given of the names of townlands and
their meanings in Shirley's _Hist. of Co. Monaghan_, pp. 392–542.
[323] _Record of Carnarvon_, _passim_.
[324] See _Dimetian Code_, B. II., c. i. _Ancient Laws, &c._, pp. 197
_et seq._
[325] _Id._ p. 3.
[326] Lib. v. c. 12.
[327] C. 14.
[328] C. 14.
[329] Book iv. c. xx. and xxi.
[330] Book iii. c. v. _Mon. Brit._ p. lxxvi., A.D. 358.
[331] _Mon. Brit._ p. lxix.
[332] Pliny (_Monument. Hist. Brit._, pp. viii. ix.): 'Alia est
ratio, quam Britannia et Gallia invenere alendi eam (terram) ipsa:
quod genus vocant "_margam_." . . . Omnis autem marga aratro
injicienda est.'
Pugh's _Welsh Dict._, p. 328: '_Marl_, earth deposited by water, a
rich kind of clay (with many compounds).'
See _Chron. Monas. Abingdon._ II. xxx. P. 147, '_on tha lampyttes_;'
p. 402, '_on thone lampyt_' ('_lam_,' loam, mud, clay.--Bosworth, p.
41 _b_). Pp. 150 and 404, '_on tha cealc seathas_' (_chalk-pits_).
See _Liber de Hyda_, p. 88, 'caelcgrafan' (chalk-pits).
Compare Pliny (_ubi supra_) with _Abingdon_, ii. p. 294: 'Totam
terram quæ nimis pessima et infructifera erat tam citra aquam quam
ultra compositione terræ quæ vulgo "_Marla_" dicitur, ipse optimam et
fructiferam fecit.' (_Colne_ in Essex.)
[333] In his _Agricola_, xii.
[334] _Agricola_, xix.
[335] Strabo, Bk. IV. c. v. s. 2.
[336] _Mon. Brit._ Excerpta, ii.
[337] Elton's _Origins of English History_, p. 32.
[338] Siculus Flaccus, _De Conditionibus Agrorum_. _Gromatici
veteres._ Lachmann. P. 152. The passage will be given in full
hereafter.
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