Hywel ap Cadell

“ The second is, if a scholar marries a wife with consent of kindred and begets a son by her, and afterwards if the scholar takes priest's orders and after that a son is born to that priest by the aforesaid woman, the first son is not to share land with the last, because contrary to law was he begotten. The third is a mute, because land is not for any one who cannot answer for it ”

“ Let every one choose his status, whether by the status of his chief of kindred or by the status of his father or by the status of his office. [164] A pound and a half is the worth of a well-formed bondman, if he originates from beyond the sea. If however he be maimed or too old or too young, that is, less than twenty years, he is one pound in value. ”

“ The worth of a person's eyelid, as long as the hair is on it, is one legal penny in value for every hair ; if a part be cut away from it, then the worth of a conspicuous scar is paid.
[148] The amount of the galanas of a maer or a canghellor is one hundred and eighty nine kine with three augmentations. The sarhad of each of them is nine kine and nine score of silver. The ebediw of each of them is a pound. The gobr of the daughter of each is a pound, and the cowyll is three pounds, and the agweddi is seven pounds. ”

“ What day soever the falconer shall kill a heron or a bittern or a curlew by means of his hawks, the king shall perform three services for him; hold his horse while he shall secure the birds, and hold his stirrup while he shall dismount, and hold it while he shall mount. Three times the king presents him with food from his own hand on that night; for by the hand of his messenger he presents him daily, except in the three chief festivals and the day whereon he shall kill a notable bird. ”

“ Whoever shall waylay pays twofold, because it is a violence against a person to kill him, and a theft to conceal ; and that is the one place in law where violence and theft become connected. And it is to be thus denied ; the oaths of fifty men to deny wood and field, and three of them under vow to abstain from flesh and woman and horse riding. The measure in denying wood and field is a legal rhandir between open and tangled, and wood and field, and wet and dry ; and such as cannot lawfully deny a rhandir, cannot deny wood and field. ”

“ When brothers share their father's trev among them, the youngest gets the principal homestead and eight erws and the whole stock and the boiler and the fuel hatchet and the coulter, since a father can neither give nor devise them except to the youngest son ; and although they be pledged, they never lapse. Then let every brother take a principal homestead and eight erws ; and the youngest son shall share, and from eldest to eldest they are to choose. [189] No person is to demand re-sharing except him who has not obtained a choice, as there is no gwarthal with choice. ”

“ Whoever shall buy a beast from another and it become mangy with him, he is to give his oath together with two men of the same status as himself that he did not place it in a house where mange had been for seven years previous to that ; and he has his chattels.
[293] A pig in its litter is a legal penny in value. From the time it goes out until it shall cease to suck, it is two legal pence in value. From the time it leaves off sucking until the Feast of St. John of the Swine, it is four legal pence in value. Thence until the calends of January it is ten legal pence in value. ”

“ If a person receives a share of land from his kindred after a long state of exile, let him give six score pence as fee for custody if they concede to him a share. [195] The land which the king shall give to a person by right, let not him who shall rule after him retake. [196] Whoever shall allow the transfer of his father's trev in his presence to another without let and without hindrance, shall not have it whilst he lives. [197] Whoever shall claim land ; if he traces his kin along the distaff more than three times, his claim shall be lost. ”

“ He has the bull which shall come among the spoil. When the apparitor shall die, his possessions are at the king's mercy. If the apparitor suffer sarhad while sitting during the pleas of the king, let there be paid to him a sieve full of chaff and an addle egg. The summons of an apparitor, with witnesses or striking the post three times, cannot be denied except by objecting. When however it shall be denied, the oath of the person summoned, with that of two men of the same status as himself, denies it. ”

“ If a surety of a person dies, and there remains a son to him, the son is to stand in place of his father in his suretyship. [362] No one is to receive a debtor as surety, for they [i. e. debtor and surety] are two arddelws; and no one should other than choose his arddelw. If he chooses a debtor, there is no surety. If he chooses a surety, there is no debtor ; and therefore no one can stand as surety and as debtor. [363] A lord is to be surety for all chattels acknowledged to be without surety. ”

“ Three women with whose heirs there is to be no pleading as to their mother's trev : a woman who is given as a hostage for land and who bears a son in her condition of hostage ; and the son of a woman who shall avenge a person of his mother's kindred and on that account lose his father's trev, and therefore there is to be no pleading with him as to his mother's trev ; and the son of a woman who is given to an alltud with the kindred's consent. [590] Three disgraces of a kindred there are, and on account of a woman the three occur : the violation of a woman against her will. ”

“ The third is, when there shall be seen the hearth-stone of a father or a grandfather or of a greatgrandfather or one of the kindred of the same title as himself; and the tofts of the houses and their barns and the furrows of the land ploughed and the erws, every one of which affords testimony as to a person's title. [635] Three secrets there are which it is better to confess than to conceal : losses to a lord, and waylaying, and a person killing his father if acknowledged in confidence.
[636] Three one-footed animals there are: a stallion and a hawk and a covert-hound. ”

“ Whoever shall claim church land, it is not necessary for him to await a ninth day, but justice is open to him when he shall will. No one is to obtain on the part of a mother a principal homestead nor office if there be any one entitled thereto on the part of a father. ”

“ If also he originates from this side of the sea, he is a pound in value, because he himself debased his status by willingly becoming a hireling. [165] If a free man strike a bondman, let him pay him twelve pence ; six for three cubits of home-made white cloth to make him a coat for cutting furze in ; three for trowsers ; one for buskins and gloves ; one for a hedging-bill, or for a hatchet if he be a woodman ; one for a rope of twelve cubits. [166] If a bondman strike a free man, it is just to cut off his right hand, or let the bondman's lord pay the person's sarhad. ”

“ The protection of a bondman is as far as he throws his sickle. [168] Whoever shall have connexion with a bondwoman without consent of her lord, let him pay twelve pence to the bondwoman's lord for each connexion. ”

“ If a maiden does not exercise her will as to her cowyll before she rises in the morning from beside her husband, it is to be between them. [385] Three times a woman has her wyneb-werth from her husband when he shall have connexion with another woman ; and if she endure beyond that, she receives nothing. [386] If a mature maid be given to a man and if he says that she was not a maid, let the maid swear with four persons that she was not a woman. The persons are to be, herself and her father and her mother and her brother and her sister. ”

“ Every chattel which a guardian asserts to have been brought to him to be kept, let him make good except the chattels conveyed through the soil. If a person bring chattels to a guardian and some of the chattels be lost, and there be disputing between the guardian and the owner concerning those chattels, the guardian is to swear together with one person nearest in worth of his kindred. [252] The law as to gold is to give it from hand to hand with witnesses into the hand of the guardian to keep. ”

“ If it happens that the maer is unable to maintain a house, let him take to him what taeog he likes for a year from one calends of May to another, and let him enjoy the milk of the taeog during the summer, and his corn in the autumn, and his swine in winter ”

“ Three persons whose status rises in one day : when a taeogtrev has a church consecrated therein with the king's permission, a person of that trev, who is a taeog in the morning, becomes that night a free man. ”

“ Whoever shall pull out an eye of a king's coverthound or shall cut off its tail, let him pay four legal pence for every cow which the dog shall be worth. [117] A rambling dog, if it be killed further than nine paces from the door, shall not be paid for. If it be killed within the nine paces, twenty four pence are paid for it. [118] No legal worth exists on a harrier ; on everything which has no legal worth, an appraisement is obtained. ”

“ If a taeog takes the son of a breyr to foster with his lord's permission, such a son is to participate in the taeog's father's trev like one of his own sons. [200] Every joint land is to be held with oath and with chattels ; and he who does not so hold it, let him lose his share. When however the land shall have been shared, no one ought to pay for another. Each however ought to hold with their oath, one for another, of the brothers, cousins and second cousins ”

“ No one is to receive a son as surety without consent of his father whilst under his authority ; nor monk, nor friar, without consent of their abbot ; nor alltud, for his word as to a Cymro is no word ; nor a scholar of a school without consent of his master; nor a woman except as to that over which she has control. ”

“ If a man take a woman clandestinely and keep her with him until the end of the seventh day without doing right to her, he is not to do right to her until the end of a day and a year ; then however she is to have full right. ”

“ Of the spoil of swine which comes to the gate, the porter has a sow, and it is not to be larger than he is able with his one hand to hold up by the bristles so that her feet shall not be lower than his knee. ”

“ Whoever shall bring a charge as to animals having damaged his corn, their owner shall exculpate them as to the amount he may will according to the damage they have done ; and for what he will not swear to, let him pay. ”