Origins
Most of the surviving manuscripts of Welsh law start with a preamble explaining how the laws were codified by Hywel. The introduction to the Book of Blegywryd is a typical example:
| “ | Hywel the Good, son of Cadell, by the grace of God, king of all Wales… summoned to him from every commote of his kingdom six men who were practised in authority and jurisprudence… to the place called the White House on the Taf in Dyfed. … And at the end of Lent the king selected from that assembly the twelve most skilled laymen of his men and the one most skilled scholar who was called Master Blegywryd, to form and interpret for him and for his kingdom, laws and usages… | ” |
The description of Hywel as "king of all Wales" suggests a date between 942 and Hywel's death in 950 for this council. However the Welsh laws have many points of similarity to the Brehon laws in Ireland and some parts probably date from long before Hywel's time. What was produced by Hywel's council was not a set of entirely new laws, rather as described in the preamble to the Book of Iorwerth:
| “ | And by the common counsel and agreement of the wise men who came there they examined the old laws, and some of them they allowed to continue, others they amended, others they wholly deleted, and others they laid down anew. | ” |
The "White House on the Taf" is Whitland (Welsh: Hen Dŷ Gwyn ar Daf). Other kings are said to have introduced later modifications to the laws, for example Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, king of Gwynedd and Powys in the mid 11th century.
Historians are divided as to whether the story of the council at Whitland can be regarded as having a basis in fact, since there is no contemporary record in the annals of such a council. K. L. Maund suggests that:
| “ | it is not impossible that the association of Hywel with the law reflects more on twelfth- and thirteenth century south Welsh attempts to re-establish the importance and influence of their line in an age dominated by the princes of Gwynedd. | ” |
On the other hand, the Iorwerth versions, produced in Gwynedd, have exactly the same attribution of the law to Hywel and the council at Whitland as do the southern versions.
Read more about this topic: Welsh Law
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)