Welsh Law - Welsh Law and Welsh Nationality

Welsh Law and Welsh Nationality

Wales was divided into a number of kingdoms and only once was a strong ruler, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, able to unite these into a single realm. It is frequently stated that Welsh law demanded the splitting of a kingdom between all the ruler's sons, but this is not strictly correct. All the Redactions mention the edling, the heir to the throne, chosen by the king from among his sons, including illegitimate sons, and brothers. Each of the other sons was entitled to a share of land within the kingdom, a similar system to appanage, but the laws do not prescribe the division of the kingdom itself, though this was frequently done to avoid civil war. The Law of Hywel was one of the most important unifying factors, applied in all parts of Wales with only minor variations. In the section on the laws as applied to an alltud, a foreigner coming to live in the kingdom, only a person from outside Wales was an alltud; a person from Deheubarth moving to Gwynedd, for example, was not an alltud.

Welsh law usually applied in the Welsh Marches as well as the areas ruled by Welsh princes. In the event of a dispute, the first argument in the border regions might be about which law should apply. For example when Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn was in dispute with Roger Mortimer about some lands, it was Gruffydd who wanted the case heard under English law and Mortimer who wanted Welsh law to apply. The matter went to the royal justices, who decided in 1281 that since the lands concerned lay in Wales, Welsh law should be used.

Welsh law came to be a particularly important badge of nationhood in the 12th and 13th centuries, particularly during the struggle between Llywelyn the Last and King Edward I of England in the second half of the 13th century. Llywelyn stated:

Each province under the empire of the lord king has its own laws and customs according to the peculiarities and uses of those parts where it is situated, as do the Gascons in Gascony, the Scots in Scotland, the Irish in Ireland and the English in England; and this conduces rather to the glory of the Crown of the lord king than to its degradation. And so the Prince seeks that he may be able to have his own Welsh law ...

The Archbishop of Canterbury, John Peckham when involved in negotiations with Llywelyn on behalf of King Edward in 1282 sent Llywelyn a letter in which he denounced Welsh law, stating that King Hywel must have been inspired by the devil. Peckham had presumably consulted the Peniarth 28 manuscript which was apparently held in the library at St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury at this time. One of the features to which the English church objected was the equal share of land given to illegitimate sons. Following Llywelyn's death the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 introduced English criminal law into Wales: "in thefts, larcenies, burnings, murders, manslaughters and manifest and notorious robberies — we will that they shall use the laws of England". Nearly two hundred years after Welsh law ceased to be used for criminal cases, the poet Dafydd ab Edmwnd (fl. 1450–80) wrote an elegy for his friend, the harpist Siôn Eos, who had accidentally killed a man in a tavern brawl in Chirk. Siôn Eos was hanged, and Dafydd ab Edmwnd laments that he could not have been tried under the more humane Law of Hywel rather than "the law of London".

Welsh law was still used for civil cases such as land inheritance, contracts, sureties and similar matters, though with changes, for example illegitimate sons could no longer claim part of the inheritance. The Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 brought Wales entirely under English law; when the 1535 Act declares the intention utterly to extirpe alle and singular sinister usages and customs belonging to Wales, Welsh law was probably the main target.