Welsh Tribal Law and Custom in the Middle Ages
THOMAS PETER ELLIS WELSH TRIBAL LAW AND CUSTOM IN THE MIDDLE AGES IN 2 VOLUMES VOLUME I DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF HYWEL DDA WHO RULED IN WALES A THOUSAND YEARS AGO AND WHO TO THIS DAY PERSONIFIES TO HIS PEOPLE LAW AND JUSTICE PREFACE ' THE history of Great Britain rises on a rock-bed of fi I. THE pages that follow contain an attempt at explain- Celtic institutions and customs. They (i. e, surveys, &c. ing the social and legal system under which the Welsh relating to Wales) elucidate the working of the tribal people lived in the last three or four centuries of indigenous system more completely than any other documents of European history.' (Sir Paul Vinogradoff, F.B.A., D.C.L., rule. Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence in the University of Such studies of that system as have hitherto been pub- Oxford : preface to the Survey of the Honour of Denbigh, lished have been confined, very largely, to explanations of 1334.) the tribal organization and of the tenure of the land, with ' Au point de vue intellectuel, les Lois sont le plus grand incidental references only to other important branches of titre de gloire des Gallois. L'Bminent jurisconsulte alle- the law. Many of these studies appear to have been coloured mand, Ferd. Walter, constate qu'8 ce point de vue les Gallois ont Jaiss6 bien loin derriere eux les autres peuples by the use of the so-called Triads of Dyfnwal Moelmud, du moyen %ge (Das aIte Wales, p. 354). Elles prouvent admittedly a compilation of the sixteenth or seventeenth chez eux une singuliere prkcision, une grande subtilit6 century, which have been regarded as embodying survivals d'esprit, et une singuliere aptitude B la spkculation philo- of the most ancient tradition.
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