Greetings,
This part actually goes before the previously send info. (Same book) I
feel a need to explain a bit about the "tribesmen and the nontribesmen, or
strangers in blood"
_The Welsh People_ by John Rhys and David Brynmor-Jones, T. Fisher Unwin,
pub, London, 1906, p. 396-8
"So far as the part of Wales conquered by Cuneda and his sons is concerned,
the Cymry appear not to have been the original inhabitants, but a
conquering tribe; and it appears most probable that their coming into Wales
in the fifth and sixth censutries partook of the nature of a tribal
migration from Cumbria.
"The result naturally followed that a permanent division of classes was
established according to tribal custom, between the conquering tribesmen
and the conquered people, so that the inhabitants of Wales from that time
onward were divided into two classes -- the free tribesmen and the
non-tribesmen, or strangers in blood.
"First, as to the free tribesmen. they were bound toegher from the
cheiftain down to the humblest tribesman by the tie of blood relationship.
They carefully guarded their pedigree and purity of blood, and the several
kindreds or groups of kinsmen within certain degrees of relationship were
mutually liable to one another for injuries and crimes.
"It is not needful to enter into details as to the structure of tribal
society, except so far as to explain the result of the tribal organisation
upon the occupation of land; and the main point about this is the fact that
the tribal unit of occupation of land was the kindred or family group and
not the individual. the rights, moreover, of the family were vested in its
patriarchal head, and during the lifetime of this head of the group all the
subordinate members of it, down to great-grandchildren or second cousins,
instead of being joint tenants of the family rights as regards land had
appearently only tribal rights of maintenance. They were regarded not as,
in the modern sense, join owners with equal shares inthe land, but rather
as the sons and grandsons of a patriarchal family under the patriarchal
rule of its head.
"Thus tribal society was in no true sense a republic or democracy in the
modern sense of the term, but rather an aristrocratic group of amilies
organized on a patriarchal basis.
"When the English surveyors, therefore, in the fourtheenth century made
their extents after the conquest, they found and described this or that
district as occupied, not by individuals, but by this or that family group,
or, using the Welsh term, this or that wele or gwely (i.e., bed or family
stock), consisting of the progenies or descendants down to
great-grandchildren of the original head of the family group. Each of
these family groups held together till a final division took place amongst
the great-grandchildren of its orignal head, and it was called by the
surveyors the "wele of so-and-so," although he and his sons may have been
long dead. And the reason why the "wle" of the original head of the family
thus held together long after his death and the death of his sons is given
in the codes. It was the tribal rule that on the death of the original
head the originial wele was divided into the equal weles of his sons, who
were brothers, that after the death of all the sons the tribal rights of
the family were subject to a re-division among the grandsons or cousins per
capita and not per stirpes, and that,lastly, on the death of all the sons
and grandsons, a final re-division could be claimed by the great-grandsons
or second cousins per capita and not per stirpes. Hence the original wele
of the great-grandfather was retained as the unit of the family rights
until all the grandsons were dead, on which event the final division of
family rights among great-grandsons took place and fresh family groups were
formed. Thus it came to pass that the gwely or family so constituted under
the tribal custom continued after the conquest, and was described in the
extents by the English surveyors as the ordinary tribal unit of land
occupation.
"The result was that the surveyors described this district, and that as in
the occupation, not of individuals, but of the wele or gwely of so-and-so,
or, as mostly happened, of several such family groups, having undivided
shares in the tirbal occupation of the district.
"The surveys or extents enable us further ot realise that this occupation
in most districts was that of a pastoral, rather than agricultural, people.
The tribal rights of land occupation held by the family groups were thus
mainly rights of grazing over considerable districts in common with other
family groups. Each wele or family group, no doubt, held in severalty its
own roughly constructed homesteads or tydynau, with cattle-yards and crofts
for winter protections and feeding, whilst the mass of the land, mountain
and moor and waste, was held by them in common. And, further, these
families of tribesmen, with their cattle often had botyh winter and summer
homesteads and grazings, and were eaily shifted from one district to
another when changes of population or other necessities of tribal life
might require it.
"Another peculiarity of this tribal system of land occupation may be
noticed as increasing the difficulty of description by English surveyors,
who approached it full of English and manorial notions. All the landed
rights of the family group being vested in its head, it was difficult to
define the rights of the ordinary tribesman."
From this point, go to the first email (pgs. 399-401)
Enjoy,
Emily