RELIGION, LAW, ETC.
Legends have accumulated freely about the early history of
Christianity in Britain. According to one tradition St. Paul himself
visited the island. According to another tradition Joseph of
Arimathea was the first to bring the glad tidings, as the beautiful
ruins of the chapel dedicated to his memory at Glastonbury testify.
A third legend tells how Bran, the father of Caratacus, accompanied
his captive son to Rome, became a convert to Christianity, then
returned to his native land as a missionary, to become known ever
after as Bran the Blessed. All, however, that we can say with
certainty is that Christianity had made good progress in Britain many
years before its adoption as the official religion of the Roman
Empire early in the fourth century. We have some detailed
information, which is probably authentic, about the lives of the
first British martyrs Alban, Aaron, and Julius; {41} and we know that
there were British bishops present at the Council of Arles in the
year 314. The earliest Christian building that has been discovered
is the one at Silchester. Of the progress of the new religion in
Wales one must speak with greater caution. Wales had been the last
home of the Druids, and the people clung long to their old mythology.
Centuries even after the adoption of Christianity the old
deities--Llud, Merlin, Ceridwen, Coil, Olwen--shared in popular
estimation the fame of the newer saints of the Christian calendar.
It is also well known that the Roman soldiers were the men who clung
longest to the ancient paganism; and it was by the soldier, rather
than by the civil servant or the trader, that the Empire was
represented in Wales. We should probably be fairly near the mark if
we said that there were no Christian churches in Wales prior to the
fifth century.
When Christianity did arrive in Wales it came in the form of
monasticism. This was not the type of monasticism which became so
famous afterwards under the name Benedictinism. Its pattern was not
found at Monte Cassino but in the Egyptian desert, where abbots ruled
over a number of associated, but otherwise independent, cells. From
Egypt {42} the fashion had travelled to St. Honorat, one of the
beautiful isles of Lérins off the French coast, now a favourite
resort of visitors from Cannes. There the great St. Patrick himself
lived for a time; and a painting on the walls of the monastic
refectory commemorates his expulsion of all venomous reptiles from
the island. From Lérins the new ideal spread to Arles and the cities
of Provence; then up the Rhone valley and to Tours, where it received
a warm welcome from St. Martin. It then came to Britain where it
struck root and, in the course of the succeeding two centuries,
produced a large number of saints, the most celebrated of whom were
David, Patrick, and Columba. That the British Church was full of
vigour is proved by the rise of Pelagius at the beginning of the
fifth century, and the heresy associated with his name; for the
presence of heretics in a Church always indicates life, just as
orthodoxy indicates apathy and indifference. So firm a hold did this
type of Christian life lay upon the Celtic people of the British
Isles that, despite the pressure of the Roman Church, it lingered on
well into the twelfth century.
This early Celtic Christianity was, in many respects, an exceedingly
beautiful thing. Never {43} has the world beheld more perfect
missionaries than the spiritual and tender-hearted preachers who took
the Gospel across stormy seas, amid countless perils, to Britain,
Ireland, Scotland, parts of Germany, and even distant Iceland. To
Christians of the West, Iona ought surely to be a spot scarcely less
sacred than Rome itself. But little priestly pomp pertained to these
early preachers; gentleness, simplicity, and faith were their most
pronounced qualities. Their meekness overcame every obstacle, from
the ferocity of wild beasts to the more dangerous ferocity of savage
men. They knew little or nothing about rules and discipline, and
there is hardly a trace of Latin order and love of law perceptible in
their genius. As saints they were superb; but their churchmanship
was indifferent. It was the Roman and the Teuton who built the
splendid edifice of the mediæval Catholic Church. The Christian
communities of the Celts were too mystical and too spiritual to
attempt to compress the Almighty into human formulas; they could
produce holy men, and they could produce heretics, but defenders of
the Faith they could not produce. To appreciate the immense
difference it is only necessary to contrast the generous and genial
character of Columba {44} with that of the hard, grasping, and narrow
Augustine! From the year 664, when the famous Synod of Whitby met,
the Celtic Church in Wales and the Roman Church in England each went
its own way, until the sword of the Norman accomplished that which
the eloquence of Augustine had failed to do, and the two Churches
were merged into one. It is unfortunate that our knowledge of the
famous Celtic Christians of the fifth century is so scanty. It was
eminently an age of saints--Dewi, Cybi, Padarn, Illtud, Dyfrig,
Cadog--and a host of others whose names have been perpetuated in
hundreds of churches up and down the countryside. In the Celtic
schools, too, were found scholars who represented the very flower of
the culture of the period, far finer than anything that the England
of the day could show.
When we turn from the political annals of Wales to such topics as
legal and social institutions we find that materials for forming a
conception of what life was then like are fairly abundant. By far
the most important source is the so-called Laws of Howel Dda.
Historians have now long been convinced of the importance of the
study of legal institutions, and of the assistance which such study
{45} affords to the student of ordinary social history. There have
been illustrious pioneers in the field, like Maine, Seebohm,
Maitland, Pollock, and Vinogradoff. Codes of law, from India to
Ireland, have been carefully analysed and compared, and from them
decayed and vanished civilizations have been reconstructed.
We find that, from the sixth century to the tenth, most of the rulers
of western Europe were busy codifying the laws of the people over
whom they ruled. For the greater part their work consisted of
codifying in the strict sense of the word; that is to say, the
collecting together of existing customs, and the setting of them
forth clearly and dogmatically, with but a small infusion of new
matter. Law was deemed to be something already in existence,
something to be ascertained rather than something to be created.
This theory is the foundation upon which the whole subsequent legal
development of England was based. Judges exist to ascertain the law;
and it is only indirectly, and often by means of convenient fictions,
that they make new law. It is in this sense that the pre-Norman
rulers of France, England, and Wales are law-makers. In Wales the
work of codification was performed by Howel Dda, a prince who ruled
in Dyfed, {46} as we have already seen, during the troubled period of
Danish invaders. The fashion of code-making had already been set.
The first conspicuous example of it was the codification of the
Frankish laws by Charlemagne. But long before his time there had
been Anglo-Saxon codes. Thus in 596 Æthelbert had codified the laws
of Kent. Sometime between 688 and 725 Ine had codified those of the
West Saxons. Then came the last and the greatest of the English
pre-Norman codifiers, King Cnut. As to how far foreign influences
played a part in the formation of these English and Welsh codes,
scholars are divided in opinion. The great Corpus Juris of Justinian
had been given to the world before the earliest of the British or
English codes; and long before Justinian's day there prevailed,
throughout the Roman Empire, an admirably ordered system of
jurisprudence. This system must have prevailed in Britain during the
period of Roman occupation; and it could not possibly have failed to
influence for all time the minds of the people by familiarising them
with certain legal conceptions. Furthermore ecclesiastical
influences were powerful. The Church had its Canon Law, the peculiar
Law of a society far more civilized than the world {47} around it;
and consciously or unconsciously the princes who designed the secular
codes must have learned much from it.
Doubt has been thrown upon the truth of the tradition which tells of
the making of the laws of Howel Dda; but here historical scepticism
seems to have overrun its legitimate limits. As we have already
seen, codification was the fashion of the times; and there is no
inherent improbability in Howel's having done precisely what all his
royal contemporaries were doing. A century ago Welsh historians were
credulous almost to the point of imbecility. They belonged to the
pre-critical days of historical writing, above which only a towering
genius like Gibbon could rise. Then arose the great reaction, and it
became the fashion to doubt almost everything, and especially
anything that was picturesque and intimate in the records of the
past. Even the existence of such undoubtedly historical characters
as Saint David and King Arthur was disbelieved by these over-zealous
critics. At last, however, the pendulum, after swinging so violently
from one side to the other, is beginning to right itself; and the
result is that we are coming to accept as true, or at least as
possibly true, much that had been {48} rejected and derided by the
last generation of scholars.
The story goes that Howel, a somewhat feeble prince reigning with his
brothers in Dyfed, and sorely distressed by the invasions of the
Danes, began to turn his mind to the peaceful pursuit of the jurist.
He summoned four men from each _cantref_ in his dominions to meet at
the Tŷ Gwyn (White House) on the river Taf in
Carmarthenshire. There, as the fruit of their deliberations, was
drawn up what is known in Welsh as "Hên Lyfr y Tygwyn" (The old Book
of the White House). The manuscript itself as written by Archdeacon
Blegwryd has not come down to us. For our knowledge of its contents
we are dependent upon copies of a much later date, agreeing in
substance though differing in many details; and containing, no doubt,
the accretions of later times. The "Old Book" is divisible into
three parts--the Venedotian Code, the Demetian Code, and the Gwentian
Code--each part representing the customary law which prevailed in a
particular part of Wales. It is probable that the laws were
originally written in Latin, for the Archdeacon was the most famous
scholar of his day in all Wales. The tradition that the new code was
taken to Rome, {49} and submitted to the Pope for his approval, can
scarcely be true, as the chronological difficulties in the way of its
acceptance are well-nigh insuperable. Howel probably did pay a visit
to Rome; but the visit must have been anterior to the historic
meeting at the Tygwyn. The society which we see depicted in the
codes is still tribal, that is to say its whole foundation, the
status of individuals as well as all the rights of property, was
based upon blood relationship. The feudal system, in the perfected
form which we associate with the Normans in the early Middle Ages,
did not exist in Wales; but some of the principles of feudalism were
undoubtedly there. Perhaps the most important characteristic of the
feudal system is the supremacy of the monarch, and the dependence
upon him of a long chain of persons, all differing in status, and
each dependent upon the one above him. This we find in Wales. There
were princes reigning in the various divisions of the country, each
of them, to all intents and purposes, independent of all the others.
But they all acknowledged the overlordship of the King of Gwynedd;
while he, in turn, acknowledged the overlordship of the King of
England. Much as this state of things {50} conflicts with modern
political notions, there was nothing curious about it in times when
every crowned head in Europe acknowledged the spiritual headship of
the Pope and the secular headship of the Emperor.
By the time we are dealing with the country enclosed by the sea, the
estuaries of the Dee and Severn, and by Offa's Dyke, had come to be
known as Cymru, the name which it has borne among Welshmen ever
since. The land was divided into districts called _cantrefs_ and
_cymwds_, the boundaries of which had long been fixed. Of these two
divisions the _cymwd_ is by far the more important; for it was the
real unit of organization and local government. The _cantref_ was
probably an area over which an _Arglwydd_ (Lord) ruled. This Lord
was appointed by the King. Occasionally we find several _cantrefs_
ruled by the same Lord, who then assumes the more high-sounding title
of _Tywysog_ (Prince); and sometimes even _Brenin_ (King). Within
the _cantref_ would be two or more _cymwds_, in each of which would
be certain officials appointed by the lord of the _cantref_. These
officials were in charge of the various governmental functions; and
the most important of them were the _Maer_ (Mayor), and the {51}
_Canghellor_ (Chancellor). In each _cymwd_ also there was a court of
law, over which a judge presided. To avoid confusion it must be
borne in mind that these territorial divisions, and these officials,
were governmental, and that side by side with them other divisions,
based upon kindred, existed. Thus the Laws speak not only of the
Lord of a _cantref_, but also of a _Pencenedl_. The Lord was an
officer appointed by the King, while the _Pencenedl_ was the head of
his own tribe or clan, and owed his appointment to no one. When we
turn to consider the ranks into which the people were divided, we
find that status counts for everything. The main division was that
between tribesmen and non-tribesmen, between Cymry and men of alien
birth. The tribesmen themselves were divided as follows: (1) Men of
royal or princely caste. (2) Men of noble birth. (3) Ordinary free
tribesmen. (4) Unfree persons corresponding to the villeins of
English law. (5) Slaves in the strict sense of the term. The alien,
however high his birth in his own land, could never find a way into
the ranks of the Cymry except by long residence, or sometimes by
inter-marriage stretching over several generations. The kindred
(_cenedl_) was a self-governing {52} unit, having at its head a
_Pencenedl_, a personage who, as we have seen, was born and not made.
Below was an aggregate of families each under its own head of the
household (_Penteulu_) who bore a strong resemblance to the
_paterfamilias_ of Roman law. The _cenedl_, or kindred, consisted of
all descendants from a common ancestor down to the ninth generation.
Each kindred group had a certain holding of land. This holding was
called a _Gwely_. It was the common possession of the whole tribe,
who held it jointly as far as the great-grandchildren of the common
ancestor, after the death of whom a complicated system of division
would again begin. On his coming of age every member of the tribe
was allotted a portion of the land to till; and he also became the
possessor of certain rights in the common or waste land of the tribe,
as well as the possessor of a certain number of cattle. Needless to
say, since the land belonged to the tribe, it could not be alienated
by individuals. But side by side with tribal property went private
property even in land; and all such property could be alienated
freely.
The position of women, on the whole, appears to have been a
favourable one. Up {53} to the age of twelve the young girl lived
with her parents, but after that she was deemed of age, and became
entitled to a share of the property of her kindred. She was then
free to bestow herself in marriage. A marriage was usually made by
solemn plight of faith, together with a religious ceremony; but any
proof of an intention to live together was considered sufficient.
And just as the making of a marriage was a very simple matter, so
also was the dissolution of one. Husband and wife could separate at
any moment, and the subsequent marriage of either operated as a
divorce. The wife brought certain dower to her husband, and the
rules affecting such dower are laid down with meticulous care in the
Laws of Howel.
The law relating to crime in Wales was very similar to the law
prevailing in England at about the same date. There were three main
divisions or classifications, dealing respectively with murder,
assault, and arson. By murder was meant the killing of a free
fellow-Welshman; to kill an alien was certainly not thought to be a
crime, and it well might be a meritorious action. The killing of a
slave belonging to another man was an offence like any other damaging
of property. {54} Before the kings had gained sufficient strength to
be able to make the avenging of murder a public concern regulated by
royal justice, the family of the murdered man was considered
responsible for avenging his death; and such a blood-feud might last
many years, and result in innumerable deaths. When the blood-feud
had been superseded by a proper administration of justice, murder
became punishable by a fine, the fine varying according to the
position and quality of the murdered man. In the Welsh laws this
blood-money is called _galanas_. Thus the price of the life of a
_Penteulu_ was fixed at a hundred and eighty-nine cows, that of an
ordinary freeman at sixty-three cows, that of a slave at four cows.
The price of a woman's life was half that of a man's. The whole of
the murderer's family was responsible for paying the price of his
murder; and if payment was not made, the murderer's life was forfeit.
The murder of a near kinsman was regarded as much more heinous than
the murder of a stranger, and in this case the murderer was cast out
of his tribe for ever.
Just as every man's life had its price, so every man's honour had
likewise its price; and an insult (_saraad_) was a punishable {55}
offence. Here again the price varied according to the station of the
insulted man. In those times, when villages were built entirely of
wood and other highly inflammable material, it was natural that
special laws should be enacted to deal with the use and abuse of
fire. Fire seems to have been regarded very much as we regard a
dangerous animal--we may keep it if we so desire, but if we do so it
is at our peril, and we become responsible for any damage it may
cause by its escape.
As in all early legal systems the laws relating to contract in Wales
were extremely formal, the validity of an agreement depending
entirely upon the strict observance of certain procedure. One
curious point is that practically everything had a fixed price. This
was the price at which the thing could be bought or sold, and it was
the price exacted by way of fine from a person who happened to injure
or destroy it. The onus of guaranteeing the good condition of an
article, or the good health of an animal, seems to have rested
entirely upon the seller, so that the English legal maxim _caveat
emptor_ would have to be reversed in ancient Wales.
Using the materials afforded by the Laws of Howel alone, it would be
possible to paint {56} a fairly full and accurate picture of life in
Wales in the early Middle Ages. In addition to this source, however,
we are fortunate in possessing a document of unique interest and
great charm, a document which, though certainly later in date, does
reflect the life of the country before it had become very greatly
altered by Norman modes. This document is the account by Giraldus
Cambrensis of his journey round Wales in 1188. In this journey
Gerald was the companion of Baldwin Archbishop of Canterbury. The
ostensible object of the tour was to invite the princes and people of
Wales to join in the Crusade against Saladin; but one cannot but
suspect that Baldwin's real object was to establish the authority of
Canterbury over the four Welsh sees. In order to do this he wished
to celebrate Mass in each of the Welsh cathedrals--Llandaff, St.
David's, Bangor, and St. Asaph--and in so doing he visited
practically every corner in the country. Gerald is one of the most
interesting men of his age. He was born in 1148 in the beautiful
castle of Manorbier on the coast of Pembroke, the son of a Norman
father and a Welsh mother. He was highly educated after the manner
of the age, having studied at Paris, {57} and on one occasion having
read a composition of his own before an admiring academic audience at
Oxford. In 1188 he was an archdeacon, and the great objects of his
life--to acquire for himself the bishopric of St. David's, and to
convert that bishopric into an independent archbishopric of
Wales--were already formed in his mind.
The pilgrimage of Baldwin and Gerald began at Radnor, where they were
officially received by the Lord Rees, one of the ablest of mediæval
Welsh rulers. From Radnor they crossed the Wye into Brecon, of which
Gerald was Archdeacon. Thence they proceeded eastwards, past
Llanthony to Abergavenny. From Abergavenny they went to Usk, from
Usk to Caerleon, and from Caerleon to Newport. There they turned to
the west, and visited Cardiff, Margam, Swansea, Kidwelly, Carmarthen,
Whitland, Haverfordwest; and so to the Vale of Roses at St. David's.
They then directed their steps towards the north, following the river
Teifi as far as Lampeter. At Strata Florida they spent a night; then
proceeding past Llanddewi they came to Llanbadarn where another night
was spent. Continuing in a northerly direction they reached the
shores of the Dovey, then {58} as now the boundary between North and
South Wales. From the boat which carried them across the broad
estuary they would behold the great mountains of Gwynedd--Cader Idris
towering right above them, and the fine peak of Snowdon blue in the
distance; while out to sea they would discern the low outline of
Bardsey Island, the burial place of countless pilgrims and saints.
They landed at Towyn, followed the coast of Merioneth through
Barmouth and Harlech, and then struck across Carnarvonshire from
Criccieth to Nevin, where they spent Palm Sunday. Their next
stopping-place was Carnarvon, and from that town they went to Bangor.
Not content to leave any part of the country unvisited, they next
crossed the Menai Straits into Anglesey. Returning to the mainland,
they followed the coast to Conway and Deganwy; then they entered the
lovely Vale of Clwyd, where they were entertained by the son of Owen
Gwynedd in his castle of Rhuddlan. From Rhuddlan they went to St.
Asaph, and then on to Chester. They had then reached the most
northern point in their itinerary; and so, turning southwards, they
visited in succession Oswestry, Shrewsbury, Wenlock, Ludlow,
Leominster, and Hereford. {59} The effect of the Archbishop's
sermons could not have been particularly profound; for only some
three thousand men took the cross, and in fact none of them ever
quitted their native land.
But if the journey achieved nothing for the Holy Land, it did much
for the modern historian. Gerald was no dry analyst, but a man who
knew instinctively how to write. No such vivid descriptions, and no
such sketches of character were penned in Britain throughout the
Middle Ages. Gerald is a veritable prose Chaucer. He possessed a
seeing eye, and was always quick to seize upon a trait of character,
and to note an interesting custom. He was also tremendously fond of
gossip; and the more marvellous the tale the greater his delight in
relating it. His attitude towards the Welsh people was somewhat
supercilious; he regarded them with a queer mixture of sympathy and
contempt. Nevertheless the picture which he paints is not an
unpleasing one. They were a people well advanced in civilization,
though decidedly less polished and cultivated than the Normans.
Their chief pursuits were pastoral; and for recreation they preferred
fighting to aught else, and next to that {60} hunting. They
delighted in music and oratory. They were brave, frugal, hospitable,
and witty. Their reverence for religion, and for everything which
bore the stamp of antiquity, was extreme. But side by side with
these virtues were vices of a by no means amiable character. They
were careless of truth, unreliable, lacking in persistence,
quarrelsome, litigious, and intensely superstitious. In fact the
pages of Giraldus are the _locus classicus_ of the "perfidious
Welshman" who has been the butt of shallow writers in modern times.
With their love of battle and of sport the mediæval Welsh were a
hardy and a comely race. Both men and women wore their hair short;
and the men shaved their faces, except for the upper lip.
Cleanliness was one of their outstanding characteristics. They
indulged freely in the bath, a habit which perhaps had been handed
down from Roman times. Of their teeth they took the utmost care,
cleaning them several times in the course of a day. Owen M. Edwards
has thus admirably summarized what Gerald tells us about the domestic
habits of the people: "The great hall rose among the cowsheds and
sheepfolds. Its hospitable door was always open. 'No one of this
nation ever {61} begs'; the wayfarer lays his arms down at the door
and enters as an honoured guest. Water is offered. If he allows his
feet to be washed, he means to stay over night; if he refuses, he
wishes to partake of a meal only. In each family the harp was
played, and this was the chief means of entertaining guests. The
principal meal was prepared at sunset. The hall was strewn with
fresh rushes. The guests and members of the family sat down in
messes of three, and partook of thin oaten cakes, broth, and chopped
meat from wooden bowls and trenchers. The host and hostess attended
to the wants of every one, and themselves partook last. Towards
evening the hall was laid out for sleeping. The beds were arranged
around the walls--rushes covered with the coarse cloth manufactured
in the country. In the middle of the hall the peat or wood fire
burnt night and day."
{62}