The Project Gutenberg eBook ofWalesThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: WalesAuthor: William Watkin DaviesRelease date: August 23, 2024 [eBook #74307]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1925Credits: Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WALES ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: WalesAuthor: William Watkin DaviesRelease date: August 23, 2024 [eBook #74307]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1925Credits: Al Haines
Title: Wales
Author: William Watkin Davies
Author: William Watkin Davies
Release date: August 23, 2024 [eBook #74307]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1925
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WALES ***
BY
W. WATKIN DAVIES
M.A., F.R.HIST.S.BARRISTER-AT-LAW
Author of "How to Read History," etc.
NEW YORKHENRY HOLT AND COMPANYLONDONWILLIAMS AND NORGATE
COPYRIGHT, 1925,BYHENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
PRINTED INTHE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.BEGINNINGSII.THE ROMAN OCCUPATIONIII.SEEKING FOR UNITYIV.RELIGION, LAWS, ETC.V.THE FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCEVI.WALES CONQUEREDVII.CALM BEFORE THE STORMVIII.OWEN GLYNDWRIX.WALES AND THE TUDORSX.THE REFORMATIONXI.THE CIVIL WARXII.THE REVIVALXIII.THE DAWNAPPENDIXNOTE ON BOOKSINDEX
WALES
From the low chain of sand dunes which fringes the north-eastern coast of France can be discerned, on a day of ordinary brightness, the great cliffs of Kent. Frequently they are overhung by the dark and damp canopy which has given to our island the evil reputation of being the home of eternal mist and night. But occasionally the sun strikes them, and they appear brilliantly white and alluring. To the French shore have come, in the course of centuries, wave after wave of wandering peoples; men impelled by every sort of motive, fear of stronger foes, love of plunder, and eagerness for adventure. They have come; they have seen the beckoning white cliffs so enticing in their mystery, and have crossed over and essayed to make them theirown. Thither only the other day came the ruthless German, bent upon striking at the tiny heart of so vast an Empire. Thither a hundred years before came Napoleon, reluctant that any part of Europe should challenge his overlordship. Thither eight centuries earlier had come the polished and adventurous Norman, eager to win broad acres and martial renown beyond the sea. Still earlier had come the Danes, plunderers rather than settlers, but men who nevertheless left an abiding mark upon the heterogeneous population of the island. The Danes had but followed in the wake of the German tribes who had come over, conquered, and bestowed a new name upon the larger and more fertile part of Britain. It is with the arrival of these last-named people that the history of England begins; but the history of Wales must be traced to a far earlier origin. Indeed, we can trace the descent of the people who now inhabit the hills and valleys of the westernmost parts of Britain to those dim prehistoric times about which only geology, ethnology, philology, and archæology can enlighten us. And at an even earlier date than that this country was inhabited by man: but the ice of the north descended upon theland, and all the higher forms of life became extinct. Between the men of the pre-glacial and the men of the post-glacial age in Britain no link has as yet been discovered.
The Britain revealed to our eyes when science first raises the curtain is not the Britain which we to-day know. The mountains were higher, and the chalk hills had not assumed their present smooth and rounded shape. It was not then an island, but part of a mighty continent, parts of which are now submerged beneath the waters of the North Sea, the English Channel, and the Atlantic. In all probability a great river flowed through what are now the Straits of Dover. The climate, however, apparently, did not differ to any marked degree from that which now prevails. Over this continent roamed many animals, some of which are entirely extinct, and others which have long since fled either to the colder north or to the warmer south. They included the mammoth, the cave lion, the bear, the rhinoceros, the hyena, the hippopotamus, the bison, the reindeer, the elk, and the wild horse. The men who lived with, and hunted, these beasts were very low in the scale of civilization. Indeed the only evidence of the possession by them of anyculture at all is a number of sketches or paintings of animals upon the walls of caves and on domestic utensils. The art displayed in these figures is extremely rudimentary, and between them and the pictures seen at a modern exhibition the gulf is a wide one; but the primitive artist undoubtedly possessed one sovereign merit—he left the beholder in no doubt as to the meaning of the picture! To these earliest inhabitants of Britain the name Men of the Old Stone Age has been given. Their sense of the artistic must have been far more highly developed than their sense of the comfortable. Their dwellings were caves, and those without any sort of furniture. Of manufactures they knew nothing: they neither wove cloth nor moulded clay. Their clothing must have consisted of the skins of the animals which they killed; and as the evidence seems to indicate that they were not cannibals, the same animals must have provided them with food. Since they knew nothing about the use of metals, all their hunting and all their fighting must have been carried on with weapons of stone; and indeed a plentiful stock of their arrow heads and axes has survived. To this period it is quite impossible to assign even an approximatedate: it may have been as late as ten thousand years ago, but it may just as easily have been a hundred thousand.
When the snow and the ice had departed and left a country which men could once again inhabit, the outward aspect of Britain had greatly altered. It was now an island, differing only in minor details from the Britain which we now know. With the restoration of a milder climate man returned. But the great beasts did not come back; and henceforth we hear only of the dog, the horse, the ox, the sheep, the pig, the goat, and the wolf. The age which then opened is known as the Neolithic, or New Stone Age. The use of metals had not yet been discovered, and all weapons and tools were still made of stone; but there was a marked improvement in their manufacture. The type of civilization was evidently higher. Hunting and fishing, together with incessant fighting, were still the chief occupations of man; but to these pursuits had now been added the tending of flocks and herds. The art of weaving, too, had been discovered, and skins had made way for brightly-coloured cloth garments. Pots, jugs, and dishes of every variety were baked, many of them accurate and graceful in their outline.Finally, the people of the New Stone Age had learned to be agriculturists; and that led them to abandon nomadic habits for fixed settlements where, in time, villages came to be built. Many of these earliest villages were built in lakes, and traces of them have been discovered in Wales in Llangorse Lake and in Llyn Llydaw. Who these people were is a question which cannot be answered with even the slightest degree of certitude. Indeed the whole problem of race in those early times is so obscure as to make a study of it almost altogether barren and unprofitable. One thing only is certain, and that is that throughout the New Stone Age the people who dwelt in Britain were not Celts. As not a word of their language has survived, it is difficult to determine whether they were members of the great family called Aryans, to which the whole present population of Europe, with the exception of Finns, Turks, and Hungarians, belongs. Of these people it is probable that three successive waves arrived. In many things they differed, but were alike in being all extremely dark. Their descendants constitute the most pronounced element in the population of modern Wales.
The traditional name for the men of theNew Stone Age is the Iberians. Before the Celtic invasion a more or less homogeneous people inhabited the British Isles, France, Spain, and northern Italy. The use of the term "Mediterranean" as a substitute for Iberian has been suggested. To its use there is only one real objection, and that is that it is almost wholly devoid of meaning. Some recent writers, rejecting both these terms, have used the term "Hamitic," a family of languages closely allied to the Semitic. This novel theory has been based upon two grounds: (1) The Irish and Welsh languages, although drawing their vocabulary from Celtic or Aryan sources, have a syntax paralleled in Berber and Egyptian. No one who has seen them can fail to perceive the remarkable similarity between the physiognomy of the Berber peoples of northern Africa and the prevailing type of South Wales Welshman. (2) There is identity of culture and of religion not only between the Neolithic inhabitants of Britain and those of North Africa, but also between them and the people of Egypt and Babylon. A high stage of civilization was attained by these people. The building of Stonehenge would in itself be proof enough of their engineering skill. It is likely that there wascontinuous contact between Britain in those days and the great cradles of civilization—the valleys of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates—and that traders brought to the distant isle not only foreign wares but new knowledge and up-to-date ideas.
When, or how, the Stone Age passed into the Age of Bronze we do not know. Bronze was used in Egypt at least as early as the fourth millennium B.C., and in all likelihood it was introduced into Britain in the ordinary course of trade. Whencesoever it came, there can be no doubt that it speedily wrought a complete revolution in men's way of living. In Britain bronze was not the only metal to be largely used. There were famous gold mines in Ireland, copper in Wales, and tin in Cornwall. The men of the New Stone Age had displayed none of their predecessors' love of drawing; but they immediately evinced a most remarkable aptitude for working in gold and bronze. Torques, rings, and bracelets of extreme beauty have been discovered belonging to this period. As the country was sparsely populated there was room enough for wave after wave of immigrants. The newcomers would not be regarded altogether as foreigners, for in race, language, andcivilization the inhabitants of both sides of the English Channel were identical. Thus the new mingled peaceably with the old without any of the fierce struggles which form so hideous an aspect of the later migrations.
But this period of calm was soon to be interrupted. A new people appeared on the scene, a branch of the great Celtic people to whom for purposes of identification and differentiation the name Goidels has been given. These people were more warlike than the older inhabitants of the island; nevertheless there was no settled policy of extermination or even of expropriation. But slow and silent pressure did its work. The Iberians were gradually pushed into the remoter corners of the west, and especially into the mountainous region which we now call Wales.
It is unnecessary perhaps to impress upon, the reader that there never was at any time anything resembling a Celtic Empire, or even a Celtic nation. It is only the name which we give to a branch of the Aryan or Indo-European family of races which migrated at a very early date from central Asia to the banks of the Rhine, the Main, and the Danube. They became known to the Greeks of classical times, who called them Hyperboreans. Amartial folk they were, delighting in combat, and always thirsting for fresh conquests, for glory, and for plunder. Their first struggle was with the Germanic tribes, whom they eventually subjugated. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a writer of the first century B.C. refers to Germany as a Celtic territory. But after a time the Germans turned on their masters and expelled them from what had been their first European home, the region which lies between the Elbe and the Rhine.
It is but natural that wandering nations should in all ages have felt attracted by France. To those, particularly, who came from the arid and frozen steppes of Russia, or from the wind-swept Scandinavian lands, its sunny plains, its fine rivers, its fields so well adapted for the cultivation of grain, its gentle hills on whose slopes the vine flourishes so luxuriantly, must have seemed a veritable paradise. It is therefore not in the least surprising that, from the earliest dawn of history, race should have striven with race for the possession of so fair an inheritance. Among the first invaders within the period of recorded history were the Celts, who invaded France somewhere about the year 600 B.C. Their second invasion occurred some time after 300 B.C. This timethey swept over the whole country from the Channel to the Bay of Biscay, and from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The land was then called Gaul; and these were the people against whom the whole might of Rome was directed under the leadership of Julius Cæsar. Invaders and invaded were closely akin in blood. After a stubborn resistance the whole country was subjugated. Latin civilization was speedily assimilated, and Gaul became, after a time, more Roman almost than Rome itself. Even at this distant date, nowhere is it more easy to enter into the spirit of ancient Rome than within the gaunt and gigantic amphitheatre of Arles, by the exquisite Maison Carrée of Nimes, and beneath the stupendous aqueduct of Pont du Gard. But as the power of Rome declined new torrents of invaders swept into Gaul in successive waves, Burgundian giving place to Visigoth, and Visigoth to Frank.
Meanwhile the Celts who had been living on the banks of the Danube had not been idle. For them the path of sunshine and ease led in the direction of Italy and the Balkan Peninsula. Italy, more even than France, has at all times possessed a wonderful, though quite explicable, fascination for the northernnations. Its fine climate, the fertility of its soil, its high state of cultivation and its accumulated riches have proved an irresistible attraction. From the picturesque pages of Livy it is easy to gather that the steady progress of the invaders, the forcing of the Alpine barrier, the march across the northern plain, the pouring through the passes of the Apennines, the capture of Clusium, and finally the holding to ransom of Rome itself, made a profound and indelible impression upon the Romans. It is altogether to the credit of the Celts that they respected the superior civilization which they found in the lands south of the Alps, and that they committed no crimes or outrages like those perpetrated at a later date by Vandals and Huns.
These Celtic tribes, having conquered Macedon and Thessaly, accepted an invitation from Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, and crossed the Hellespont into Asia Minor. With their aid Nicomedes speedily defeated his enemies; but it was not long before he had good reason to repent of having brought to the country such formidable allies. The Celts had brought with them their families and all their belongings, and now they settled down on both sides of the river Halys. There they formed a statecalled Galatia, and became the terror of all their neighbours. Incensed with Mithridates the Great on account of his treachery, they allied themselves with the Romans in the war against him, and after that they remained a Roman client state. Even then they retained their language; and we have it on the authority of St. Jerome that six centuries later the same tongue was spoken on the banks of the Halys as on the banks of the Moselle. With their language they also retained their customs and character; but recent commentators have perhaps been too ready to find evidence of the instability and impressionableness of the modern Welshman in St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians!
From France the step was a comparatively easy one into Spain. But once across the Pyrenees, the forward march of the Celts was stubbornly contested. The country was in the hands of a queer assortment of people, consisting of a pre-Aryan race, Iberians, Ligurians, and Phœnicians. Nothing could, however, resist the Celtic advance; and ere long we find them firmly planted in Portugal and among the hills of Galicia and the Asturias.
It will be seen from this that the invasionof Britain by the Goidels was but part of a mighty movement of expansion carried out by the Celts in many different countries. Britain they probably reached sometime about the year 800 B.C. Soon the tin mines of Cornwall acquired something like European fame, and men of enterprise like Pythias came from the ports of the Mediterranean to seek the pearls and the gold so dear to the luxurious inhabitants of southern lands. But it was not until Gaul had become a Roman province, peaceful and well-ordered, and traversed by excellent roads, that Britain came to be regarded as a place within the ordinary range of commercial intercourse.
The last wave of invaders to enter Britain anterior to the coming of the Romans were the Brythons, another branch of the Celtic family. It is probable that they came from north-eastern Gaul at a date which we cannot fix with any precision, but which must have been some time between the fourth and first century B.C. The people found by them in Britain were but poor fighters, and the resistance offered by them to the Brythonic invaders was feeble and brief. They were speedily conquered, and pushed back into the countries of the north and west. At whatdate they first came to Wales we do not know; but before the end of the Roman occupation we find them living in what is now Montgomeryshire. The Brythons differed in many ways from their predecessors. They were tall, well formed, with long yellow hair, faces shaved clean except for a moustache, light complexioned, agile of limb, and hardy. While excelling in war they were not unmindful of the arts of peace. They were an artistic people, and the weapons and ornaments which they wrought in various metals, as well as their enamel work, are exquisite in design and workmanship. Many of their spindles, their loom-weights, and their weaving combs have survived. Julius Cæsar draws attention to their superb horsemanship. They had also made some headway in the art of boat building. Yet despite the advanced stage of civilization indicated by these things, their mode of life was barbarous. Their huts show practically no advance upon those of earlier people, being circular in shape, with floors of clays and walls of timber and wattle, the interstices being filled with mud. Almost invariably the hut consisted of a single room, in which the whole family laid itself down to sleep, covered with woollen blankets and rugs made of theskins of animals. They knew the value of trade; and before the coming of the Romans used a coinage. The language which they spoke is the direct ancestor of that spoken to-day in Wales and Brittany, just as the Goidelic branch of the parent Celtic tongue is the ancestor of Erse and Gaelic.
Julius Cæsar's two invasions of Britain could not have made much difference in the mode of life of the inhabitants of the country. They paid their tribute, and were left alone; and after a time even the tribute seems to have been forgotten. All that remained of his conquest was the graphic, though incomplete, account which Cæsar left of Britain in his "Gallic War," and the lingering memory of this remote outpost of the Empire, a memory which awakened into life at a later date and inspired ambitious emperors and generals with a desire for conquest.
After the final departure of Cæsar it was well-nigh a hundred years before the Romans again interfered with the Britons. The period between 54 B.C. and A.D. 43 is obscure in the annals of the island. No doubt commercial intercourse with Gaul was constant, and Roman culture must have percolated slowlyinto the country by that channel. The names of some of the British kings who ruled have come down to us, and among them Shakespeare's Cymbeline. It was in the year A.D. 43, during the reign of the emperor Claudius, that the Roman general Aulus Plautius set out at the head of four legions to re-conquer Britain. While the campaign was still in progress the emperor himself arrived; but his sojourn was only sixteen days in duration, and to him belongs none of the credit for the conquest. It was against Caratacus and Togodumnus, sons of the late king Cunobelinus, that Aulus Plautius directed his march. Their capital was Camulodunum, the modern Colchester. Many of the neighbouring tribes espoused the Roman cause; and in four years' time Aulus was able to return to Rome, having completed the task of conquering south-eastern England from Kent to Norfolk.
The next Roman leader to be sent to Britain was Publius Ostorius Scapula; and under him the theatre of war shifted to the north and west, those parts of the island which had hitherto remained practically unexplored. The nature of the struggle likewise changed. The tribes hitherto encountered by theRomans were closely akin to the people of Gaul, and their civilization also was very similar in quality. They were people who valued peace and commerce, and who, when they had recovered from the first shock of outraged independence, were content to become Roman tributaries. But the tribes inhabiting the Welsh mountains were far less civilized. Of trade they knew practically nothing, and very little about the settled pursuit of agriculture. But they loved freedom, and were prepared again and again to rise in its defence. The first task which Ostorius set himself was the conquest of the Decangi who dwelt, according to Tacitus, on the shore of the Irish Sea. He raided their territory; but before anything like a conquest had been effected he was called away to deal with the far more turbulent and warlike Silures of the south. These were the inhabitants of Monmouth and Glamorgan; and they were now under the leadership of the famous Caratacus. This able man had concluded an alliance with the neighbouring Ordovices, and the united tribes were able to offer a stiff resistance to Roman aggression. It was not until the war had lasted many years, and Caratacus had won several victories,that the persistence and the superior science of Ostorius were rewarded with success. The site of the final battle is uncertain, but it may well have been near Church Stretton at the spot now called Caer Caradoc. At this battle Caratacus was defeated and taken prisoner, later to be led in triumph through the streets of Rome. This was probably in the year A.D. 51. To keep the Silures in subjection the first of the great Roman forts in Wales was erected at Caerleon on the river Usk.
Following on the death of Ostorius in A.D. 52 the Silures recovered a degree of liberty; but with the arrival of a new Roman general, Quintus Veranius, in A.D. 58, the struggle began afresh. Veranius, however, died in a few months before he had accomplished anything, and his place was taken by the truly great Suetonius Paulinus. This consummate general adopted the plan of building strong forts at various strategic points all over Britain, from which the legions could control the surrounding country. Two of these forts were placed close to the Welsh border, one at Deva (Chester), the other at Viroconium (Wroxeter). Chester for many generations after its foundation was the base of operations for all military expeditions launched againstNorth Wales. The great desire of Suetonius was to conquer the hitherto unmolested isle of Mona (Anglesey). There was the home of the Druids, the last remnants of the cruel custodians of Celtic learning, protected by the surrounding sea, and by the great mountain barrier of Snowdonia. Flat-bottomed boats were constructed, and the soldiers safely conveyed across the Menai Straits. There the legionaries were for a moment appalled by the weird sight of Druids drawn up in a body, with uplifted arms calling down curses upon the heads of the profane invaders, while women with dishevelled hair and with lighted torches in their hands ran in and out among the ranks. But the fear of the soldiers was but momentary. They pressed forward, completely routed the opposing army, burnt their camp, cut down the sacred groves of oak, and cleared away the last emblems of Druidism. Thus perished a barbarous superstition which had long outlived its utility. It was just at this juncture that news was brought to Suetonius of the great rebellion of the Iceni under queen Boudicca, and the massacre of thousands of Roman settlers at Camulodunum and Verulanium. Without a moment's delay he commenced his march back to thesouth-west. In quelling the rising he was completely successful; but Wales saw him no more, as he was recalled to Rome in the following year.
A period of peace ensued; and it was not until A.D. 71 in the reign of Vespasian, who had himself served in Britain under Aulus Plautius, that the forward policy was resumed. Of the course of events in the succeeding years our knowledge is imperfect; but it appears that the Silures were completely beaten by the soldier-author Frontinus in A.D. 78. To the famous Agricola was left the task of crushing the Ordovices. He dealt with them so severely that they were left completely without power to rebel again. Having disposed of them, he proceeded to Anglesey; and with the final subjugation of that island the conquest of Wales was complete.
The task of organizing Wales on Roman lines then proceeded apace. South-eastern Britain, together with the midlands, had finally acquiesced in the Roman domination; and those parts of the country were left almost entirely without garrisons. With Wales it was otherwise, and throughout its history the Roman occupation was largely military in character. Except for its minesWales was a poor country, and there was little to tempt such Romans as desired to settle for life in Britain to make it their home. The towns that came to be built in Wales were therefore military rather than civil. But whatever their character and purpose they were both numerous and important. The most important of them perhaps was Chester, long the home of the Twentieth Legion, from which it derived its Welsh name Caer Lleon (Fort of the Legion). Chester became the permanent home of the legion; and around the fort a thriving town arose, with baths, theatre, and all those amenities considered so essential by the Romans. There the legionaries lived, there they married, and there they died. From Chester the great road which was called Watling Street ran straight to London, and thence to the channel ports. Another road connected the place with York (Eboracum), the most important Roman city in Britain. A third road led to Wroxeter; while from it another branched off, and ran along the hillsides to Conway (Caerhun) and Carnarvon (Segontium). In North Wales were several forts, but with the exception of Carnarvon no towns of any note. The extreme north was well guarded by the twinfortresses of Conway and Carnarvon. The mountains and valleys of Merioneth were kept in subjection by the triangle formed by Tomen-y-Mur near Festiniog, Caergai near Bala, and Pennal near Machynlleth. Roman roads must have been fairly numerous in Wales, but they are extremely difficult to trace at the present day. It is quite certain that the great majority of mountain tracks pointed out to the credulous modern tourist as Roman roads belong to comparatively late mediæval times. A road ran from Conway over the mountains to Tomen-y-Mur, Caergai, and Pennal, and then on to South Wales. This is known as Sarn Helen, and in several places can be clearly traced. There was also another road leading from Tomen-y-Mur to Chester. In Mid-Wales were the forts of Caersws, Caerflos, Y Gaer, and Castell Collen. The passage of the Teifi was guarded by Llanio. On the Towy was Carmarthen (Maridunum). In Pembrokeshire there do not seem to have been Roman settlements or roads; in all probability the country was left to its own devices just as Cornwall was. On the upper reaches of the Towy stood Llandovery. Thence a road led to Gaer near Brecon, then following the valley of the Usk toAbergavenny and Caerleon. Beyond Caerleon, between the Usk and the Wye, lay Caerwent (Venta Silurum), where so much of archæological and historical interest has recently been discovered. On the Bristol Channel there were forts at Cardiff, and at the mouths of the Neath and the Loughor. Connecting the main roads no doubt were many smaller ones, some of them mere tracks across the mountain passes. The infinite pains which the Romans would take to render even one of these less important ways easy and safe is proved by the marvellous "Roman Steps" which lead over Drws Ardudwy from the coast to the high plateau on which stands Tomen-y-Mur.
The question of the extent and durability of Roman influence in Wales is part of the larger question of its extent and durability in Britain as a whole. Whether it persisted right through the English invasions, so that early mediæval institutions can be regarded as having Rome and not the forests of Germany as their home is a question still warmly debated. To what extent Britain, as apart from Wales, had been Romanized it is difficult to determine; for the English invasions were exceedingly destructive, and the invaderslittle better than savage barbarians. But in Wales the problem assumes a somewhat different form; for the tide of English invasion was stemmed at the foot of the Welsh hills. It was a new Brythonic invasion from the north, as well as the arrival of fugitives from the midlands, that modified the conditions left by the Romans in Wales. Emphasis has been laid by scholars upon the purely military character of the occupation. With the exception of Caerwent and Wroxeter there were no civilian towns; and that most typical product of Roman civilization, the villa, was altogether absent from Wales. On the other hand, it must be pointed out that, although the language remained Celtic, a very large number of words had been borrowed from Latin, and those words by no means confined to the department of warfare. They are words which point clearly to an advance in culture and civilization, in book learning, and in religion. But it is true that political and legal terms remained purely Celtic. It is known that the minerals of Wales were extensively worked by the Romans—copper from Anglesey, gold from Merioneth, and iron from Monmouth. One thing is certain: Wales at the departure of the Romans was a highly civilized land,civilized in its political ideas and in its laws, and Christian in its religion. A love of literature, of art, of independence, and of unity had been so firmly rooted that, despite the welter of lawlessness and bloodshed which the unhappy country had to endure during the succeeding eight hundred years, they persisted through it all. Wales was to enjoy nothing comparable with the tranquillity and the good government of the Roman period until the great Tudor sovereigns began to turn their thoughts to the little land from which they derived the best part of their blood.
The period between the departure of the Romans and the coming of the Normans was one of political chaos. Wales almost immediately became divided, rival kings and chieftains ruling over different parts of the country. To follow in any detail the petty strivings of these men would be pure waste of time. They fought for no principle; neither are there any signs of nobility of purpose or of a wide and enlightened patriotism. Only the faintest outline of the political history of Wales during the period need be given.
Great as were the benefits conferred upon Britain by the Romans, in one respect their rule had been harmful—they had accustomed the subject people to rely upon them for the defence of the island. It was always the policy of Rome to draw soldiers from one province and to send them to garrison another province in some distant part of the far-flungEmpire. The martial ardour of the British youth was not quenched; but instead of serving in Britain and so learning to defend their own land, they were sent across the Pyrenees, to the Danube, and into Asia Minor. When the Empire itself began to be torn with political dissensions in the later years of the fourth century, adventurous Roman generals began to aspire to the higher positions. One of these, a Spanish soldier, Maximus by name (in Welsh legend Macsen Wledig), rose against the emperor Gratian. In Britain he collected a large army with which he defeated and slew Gratian. In A.D. 388, however, he was himself overthrown at Aquileia. The great soldier Stilicho was appealed to by the despairing Britons, harassed by foes on every side; but all the forces at his disposal were needed for the more urgent task of protecting the older and more valuable frontiers of the Empire.
For purposes of defence Britain had been divided into two provinces—the north, commanded by a Dux Britannorum, or, as he was called in Welsh, theGwledig; and the south-east, commanded by the Count of the Saxon Shore. Of these the first is the more important in Welsh history. The most famous holder of the office was Cunedda. His seat ofgovernment originally was in the north; but being compelled to give way to the Picts, he led his Brythons into Wales, where he established himself at Deganwy on the Irish Sea. One of the greatest of Cunedda's descendants was Maelgwn Gwynedd. He perceived that if Wales remained composed of a number of petty independent principalities no other fate could possibly await it than to be swallowed up piecemeal by the foreigners. Accordingly, partly by argument and partly by artifice, he persuaded the other chieftains to acknowledge him as the heir to Roman power, and to bow to his overlord ship. This was about the year A.D. 550. Nevertheless the Saxon advance continued. Under their leader Ceawlin they marched up the Severn valley; and, in the year 577, won a great victory at Deorham, the result of which was that they reached the Bristol Channel, thus cutting off the inhabitants of Devon and Cornwall for ever from their kindred in Wales. Some little time later Ethelfrith, king of the Angles, marched against Chester, won a battle there in 613, and established his power as far as the Irish Sea. This meant that a wedge was driven in between the people of Wales and the Welsh people of Strathclyde. Meanwhile all along the borderEnglish power was being consolidated under the able and vigorous kings of Mercia; and soon Offa's Dyke was raised to mark the boundary. Thus by the middle of the seventh century Wales had assumed what were to remain to all intents and purposes ever afterwards its geographical limits. Internally the country was forming itself into the principal territorial divisions which remained until superseded by the shire system of Edward I. The extreme north was called Gwynedd. Next came Powys, roughly corresponding to our Montgomeryshire. Modern Cardiganshire was called Ceredigion. Corresponding to Pembrokeshire was Dyfed. Carmarthen represents the ancient Deheubarth, and Glamorgan the ancient Morganwg; while between the Usk and the Wye was the principality of Gwent.
By the close of the eighth century the struggle between Celt and Saxon had abated somewhat of its severity; but no sooner was the strife over than the Danes appeared on the scene, a menace alike to England and to Wales. The most famous of Welsh champions in the fight against the Danes was Rhodri Fawr, whose reign began in 844. In many respects Rhodri resembles his great contemporary Alfred of Wessex. He consolidated his power,built a fleet, and kept the invaders at bay. But after his death in 877 dissension and discord again prevailed. The Danes renewed their attacks; and the famous law-giver Howel Dda proved quite incapable of dealing adequately with the situation. Howel died when things were at their worst, leaving one child, his daughter Angharad. Fortunately this girl was married to a man of commanding personality, Llewelyn ap Seisyll, a good statesman and a capable soldier. He succeeded in bringing the whole of Wales under his sway, in restoring order, and in keeping out both Danish and Saxon invaders. But towards the close of his life, in 1022, the Danes again arrived in renewed strength; and the old king's successor, Griffith ap Llewelyn, became a fugitive, while anarchy prevailed throughout the land. Llewelyn, however, proved to be one of the greatest rulers that Wales has ever had. In 1038 he returned from exile, overcame all resistance, drove back the Mercians, deposed the reigning pretenders, and made himself undisputed ruler of the whole country from the Dee to the Severn. Griffith was a man of wide vision who looked beyond the frontiers of Wales. He perceived that the great enemy of his country was Harold ofWessex; and in order to be strong enough to resist him he married Eadgyth the daughter of Harold's great rival Aelfgar, earl of Mercia. For some time Griffith was successful; but in 1063 Harold organised a campaign on a big scale. He himself marched into Wales from Bristol; while Tostig, with another army, invaded Gwynedd. Wales was harried with fire and sword; and in the midst of it all Griffith was murdered by one of his own discontented followers. But the English conqueror had only just placed the country under the government of Griffith's two brothers, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon, when he was summoned to attend to sterner tasks by the death of Edward the Confessor.
Legends have accumulated freely about the early history of Christianity in Britain. According to one tradition St. Paul himself visited the island. According to another tradition Joseph of Arimathea was the first to bring the glad tidings, as the beautiful ruins of the chapel dedicated to his memory at Glastonbury testify. A third legend tells how Bran, the father of Caratacus, accompanied his captive son to Rome, became a convert to Christianity, then returned to his native land as a missionary, to become known ever after as Bran the Blessed. All, however, that we can say with certainty is that Christianity had made good progress in Britain many years before its adoption as the official religion of the Roman Empire early in the fourth century. We have some detailed information, which is probably authentic, about the lives of the first British martyrs Alban, Aaron, and Julius;and we know that there were British bishops present at the Council of Arles in the year 314. The earliest Christian building that has been discovered is the one at Silchester. Of the progress of the new religion in Wales one must speak with greater caution. Wales had been the last home of the Druids, and the people clung long to their old mythology. Centuries even after the adoption of Christianity the old deities—Llud, Merlin, Ceridwen, Coil, Olwen—shared in popular estimation the fame of the newer saints of the Christian calendar. It is also well known that the Roman soldiers were the men who clung longest to the ancient paganism; and it was by the soldier, rather than by the civil servant or the trader, that the Empire was represented in Wales. We should probably be fairly near the mark if we said that there were no Christian churches in Wales prior to the fifth century.
When Christianity did arrive in Wales it came in the form of monasticism. This was not the type of monasticism which became so famous afterwards under the name Benedictinism. Its pattern was not found at Monte Cassino but in the Egyptian desert, where abbots ruled over a number of associated, but otherwise independent, cells. From Egyptthe fashion had travelled to St. Honorat, one of the beautiful isles of Lérins off the French coast, now a favourite resort of visitors from Cannes. There the great St. Patrick himself lived for a time; and a painting on the walls of the monastic refectory commemorates his expulsion of all venomous reptiles from the island. From Lérins the new ideal spread to Arles and the cities of Provence; then up the Rhone valley and to Tours, where it received a warm welcome from St. Martin. It then came to Britain where it struck root and, in the course of the succeeding two centuries, produced a large number of saints, the most celebrated of whom were David, Patrick, and Columba. That the British Church was full of vigour is proved by the rise of Pelagius at the beginning of the fifth century, and the heresy associated with his name; for the presence of heretics in a Church always indicates life, just as orthodoxy indicates apathy and indifference. So firm a hold did this type of Christian life lay upon the Celtic people of the British Isles that, despite the pressure of the Roman Church, it lingered on well into the twelfth century.
This early Celtic Christianity was, in many respects, an exceedingly beautiful thing. Neverhas the world beheld more perfect missionaries than the spiritual and tender-hearted preachers who took the Gospel across stormy seas, amid countless perils, to Britain, Ireland, Scotland, parts of Germany, and even distant Iceland. To Christians of the West, Iona ought surely to be a spot scarcely less sacred than Rome itself. But little priestly pomp pertained to these early preachers; gentleness, simplicity, and faith were their most pronounced qualities. Their meekness overcame every obstacle, from the ferocity of wild beasts to the more dangerous ferocity of savage men. They knew little or nothing about rules and discipline, and there is hardly a trace of Latin order and love of law perceptible in their genius. As saints they were superb; but their churchmanship was indifferent. It was the Roman and the Teuton who built the splendid edifice of the mediæval Catholic Church. The Christian communities of the Celts were too mystical and too spiritual to attempt to compress the Almighty into human formulas; they could produce holy men, and they could produce heretics, but defenders of the Faith they could not produce. To appreciate the immense difference it is only necessary to contrast the generous and genial character of Columbawith that of the hard, grasping, and narrow Augustine! From the year 664, when the famous Synod of Whitby met, the Celtic Church in Wales and the Roman Church in England each went its own way, until the sword of the Norman accomplished that which the eloquence of Augustine had failed to do, and the two Churches were merged into one. It is unfortunate that our knowledge of the famous Celtic Christians of the fifth century is so scanty. It was eminently an age of saints—Dewi, Cybi, Padarn, Illtud, Dyfrig, Cadog—and a host of others whose names have been perpetuated in hundreds of churches up and down the countryside. In the Celtic schools, too, were found scholars who represented the very flower of the culture of the period, far finer than anything that the England of the day could show.
When we turn from the political annals of Wales to such topics as legal and social institutions we find that materials for forming a conception of what life was then like are fairly abundant. By far the most important source is the so-called Laws of Howel Dda. Historians have now long been convinced of the importance of the study of legal institutions, and of the assistance which such studyaffords to the student of ordinary social history. There have been illustrious pioneers in the field, like Maine, Seebohm, Maitland, Pollock, and Vinogradoff. Codes of law, from India to Ireland, have been carefully analysed and compared, and from them decayed and vanished civilizations have been reconstructed.
We find that, from the sixth century to the tenth, most of the rulers of western Europe were busy codifying the laws of the people over whom they ruled. For the greater part their work consisted of codifying in the strict sense of the word; that is to say, the collecting together of existing customs, and the setting of them forth clearly and dogmatically, with but a small infusion of new matter. Law was deemed to be something already in existence, something to be ascertained rather than something to be created. This theory is the foundation upon which the whole subsequent legal development of England was based. Judges exist to ascertain the law; and it is only indirectly, and often by means of convenient fictions, that they make new law. It is in this sense that the pre-Norman rulers of France, England, and Wales are law-makers. In Wales the work of codification was performed by Howel Dda, a prince who ruled in Dyfed,as we have already seen, during the troubled period of Danish invaders. The fashion of code-making had already been set. The first conspicuous example of it was the codification of the Frankish laws by Charlemagne. But long before his time there had been Anglo-Saxon codes. Thus in 596 Æthelbert had codified the laws of Kent. Sometime between 688 and 725 Ine had codified those of the West Saxons. Then came the last and the greatest of the English pre-Norman codifiers, King Cnut. As to how far foreign influences played a part in the formation of these English and Welsh codes, scholars are divided in opinion. The great Corpus Juris of Justinian had been given to the world before the earliest of the British or English codes; and long before Justinian's day there prevailed, throughout the Roman Empire, an admirably ordered system of jurisprudence. This system must have prevailed in Britain during the period of Roman occupation; and it could not possibly have failed to influence for all time the minds of the people by familiarising them with certain legal conceptions. Furthermore ecclesiastical influences were powerful. The Church had its Canon Law, the peculiar Law of a society far more civilized than the worldaround it; and consciously or unconsciously the princes who designed the secular codes must have learned much from it.
Doubt has been thrown upon the truth of the tradition which tells of the making of the laws of Howel Dda; but here historical scepticism seems to have overrun its legitimate limits. As we have already seen, codification was the fashion of the times; and there is no inherent improbability in Howel's having done precisely what all his royal contemporaries were doing. A century ago Welsh historians were credulous almost to the point of imbecility. They belonged to the pre-critical days of historical writing, above which only a towering genius like Gibbon could rise. Then arose the great reaction, and it became the fashion to doubt almost everything, and especially anything that was picturesque and intimate in the records of the past. Even the existence of such undoubtedly historical characters as Saint David and King Arthur was disbelieved by these over-zealous critics. At last, however, the pendulum, after swinging so violently from one side to the other, is beginning to right itself; and the result is that we are coming to accept as true, or at least as possibly true, much that had beenrejected and derided by the last generation of scholars.
The story goes that Howel, a somewhat feeble prince reigning with his brothers in Dyfed, and sorely distressed by the invasions of the Danes, began to turn his mind to the peaceful pursuit of the jurist. He summoned four men from eachcantrefin his dominions to meet at the Tŷ Gwyn (White House) on the river Taf in Carmarthenshire. There, as the fruit of their deliberations, was drawn up what is known in Welsh as "Hên Lyfr y Tygwyn" (The old Book of the White House). The manuscript itself as written by Archdeacon Blegwryd has not come down to us. For our knowledge of its contents we are dependent upon copies of a much later date, agreeing in substance though differing in many details; and containing, no doubt, the accretions of later times. The "Old Book" is divisible into three parts—the Venedotian Code, the Demetian Code, and the Gwentian Code—each part representing the customary law which prevailed in a particular part of Wales. It is probable that the laws were originally written in Latin, for the Archdeacon was the most famous scholar of his day in all Wales. The tradition that the new code was taken to Rome,and submitted to the Pope for his approval, can scarcely be true, as the chronological difficulties in the way of its acceptance are well-nigh insuperable. Howel probably did pay a visit to Rome; but the visit must have been anterior to the historic meeting at the Tygwyn. The society which we see depicted in the codes is still tribal, that is to say its whole foundation, the status of individuals as well as all the rights of property, was based upon blood relationship. The feudal system, in the perfected form which we associate with the Normans in the early Middle Ages, did not exist in Wales; but some of the principles of feudalism were undoubtedly there. Perhaps the most important characteristic of the feudal system is the supremacy of the monarch, and the dependence upon him of a long chain of persons, all differing in status, and each dependent upon the one above him. This we find in Wales. There were princes reigning in the various divisions of the country, each of them, to all intents and purposes, independent of all the others. But they all acknowledged the overlordship of the King of Gwynedd; while he, in turn, acknowledged the overlordship of the King of England. Much as this state of thingsconflicts with modern political notions, there was nothing curious about it in times when every crowned head in Europe acknowledged the spiritual headship of the Pope and the secular headship of the Emperor.
By the time we are dealing with the country enclosed by the sea, the estuaries of the Dee and Severn, and by Offa's Dyke, had come to be known as Cymru, the name which it has borne among Welshmen ever since. The land was divided into districts calledcantrefsandcymwds, the boundaries of which had long been fixed. Of these two divisions thecymwdis by far the more important; for it was the real unit of organization and local government. Thecantrefwas probably an area over which anArglwydd(Lord) ruled. This Lord was appointed by the King. Occasionally we find severalcantrefsruled by the same Lord, who then assumes the more high-sounding title ofTywysog(Prince); and sometimes evenBrenin(King). Within thecantrefwould be two or morecymwds, in each of which would be certain officials appointed by the lord of thecantref. These officials were in charge of the various governmental functions; and the most important of them were theMaer(Mayor), and theCanghellor(Chancellor). In eachcymwdalso there was a court of law, over which a judge presided. To avoid confusion it must be borne in mind that these territorial divisions, and these officials, were governmental, and that side by side with them other divisions, based upon kindred, existed. Thus the Laws speak not only of the Lord of acantref, but also of aPencenedl. The Lord was an officer appointed by the King, while thePencenedlwas the head of his own tribe or clan, and owed his appointment to no one. When we turn to consider the ranks into which the people were divided, we find that status counts for everything. The main division was that between tribesmen and non-tribesmen, between Cymry and men of alien birth. The tribesmen themselves were divided as follows: (1) Men of royal or princely caste. (2) Men of noble birth. (3) Ordinary free tribesmen. (4) Unfree persons corresponding to the villeins of English law. (5) Slaves in the strict sense of the term. The alien, however high his birth in his own land, could never find a way into the ranks of the Cymry except by long residence, or sometimes by inter-marriage stretching over several generations. The kindred (cenedl) was a self-governingunit, having at its head aPencenedl, a personage who, as we have seen, was born and not made. Below was an aggregate of families each under its own head of the household (Penteulu) who bore a strong resemblance to thepaterfamiliasof Roman law. Thecenedl, or kindred, consisted of all descendants from a common ancestor down to the ninth generation.
Each kindred group had a certain holding of land. This holding was called aGwely. It was the common possession of the whole tribe, who held it jointly as far as the great-grandchildren of the common ancestor, after the death of whom a complicated system of division would again begin. On his coming of age every member of the tribe was allotted a portion of the land to till; and he also became the possessor of certain rights in the common or waste land of the tribe, as well as the possessor of a certain number of cattle. Needless to say, since the land belonged to the tribe, it could not be alienated by individuals. But side by side with tribal property went private property even in land; and all such property could be alienated freely.
The position of women, on the whole, appears to have been a favourable one. Upto the age of twelve the young girl lived with her parents, but after that she was deemed of age, and became entitled to a share of the property of her kindred. She was then free to bestow herself in marriage. A marriage was usually made by solemn plight of faith, together with a religious ceremony; but any proof of an intention to live together was considered sufficient. And just as the making of a marriage was a very simple matter, so also was the dissolution of one. Husband and wife could separate at any moment, and the subsequent marriage of either operated as a divorce. The wife brought certain dower to her husband, and the rules affecting such dower are laid down with meticulous care in the Laws of Howel.
The law relating to crime in Wales was very similar to the law prevailing in England at about the same date. There were three main divisions or classifications, dealing respectively with murder, assault, and arson. By murder was meant the killing of a free fellow-Welshman; to kill an alien was certainly not thought to be a crime, and it well might be a meritorious action. The killing of a slave belonging to another man was an offence like any other damaging of property.Before the kings had gained sufficient strength to be able to make the avenging of murder a public concern regulated by royal justice, the family of the murdered man was considered responsible for avenging his death; and such a blood-feud might last many years, and result in innumerable deaths. When the blood-feud had been superseded by a proper administration of justice, murder became punishable by a fine, the fine varying according to the position and quality of the murdered man. In the Welsh laws this blood-money is calledgalanas. Thus the price of the life of aPenteuluwas fixed at a hundred and eighty-nine cows, that of an ordinary freeman at sixty-three cows, that of a slave at four cows. The price of a woman's life was half that of a man's. The whole of the murderer's family was responsible for paying the price of his murder; and if payment was not made, the murderer's life was forfeit. The murder of a near kinsman was regarded as much more heinous than the murder of a stranger, and in this case the murderer was cast out of his tribe for ever.
Just as every man's life had its price, so every man's honour had likewise its price; and an insult (saraad) was a punishableoffence. Here again the price varied according to the station of the insulted man. In those times, when villages were built entirely of wood and other highly inflammable material, it was natural that special laws should be enacted to deal with the use and abuse of fire. Fire seems to have been regarded very much as we regard a dangerous animal—we may keep it if we so desire, but if we do so it is at our peril, and we become responsible for any damage it may cause by its escape.
As in all early legal systems the laws relating to contract in Wales were extremely formal, the validity of an agreement depending entirely upon the strict observance of certain procedure. One curious point is that practically everything had a fixed price. This was the price at which the thing could be bought or sold, and it was the price exacted by way of fine from a person who happened to injure or destroy it. The onus of guaranteeing the good condition of an article, or the good health of an animal, seems to have rested entirely upon the seller, so that the English legal maximcaveat emptorwould have to be reversed in ancient Wales.
Using the materials afforded by the Laws of Howel alone, it would be possible to painta fairly full and accurate picture of life in Wales in the early Middle Ages. In addition to this source, however, we are fortunate in possessing a document of unique interest and great charm, a document which, though certainly later in date, does reflect the life of the country before it had become very greatly altered by Norman modes. This document is the account by Giraldus Cambrensis of his journey round Wales in 1188. In this journey Gerald was the companion of Baldwin Archbishop of Canterbury. The ostensible object of the tour was to invite the princes and people of Wales to join in the Crusade against Saladin; but one cannot but suspect that Baldwin's real object was to establish the authority of Canterbury over the four Welsh sees. In order to do this he wished to celebrate Mass in each of the Welsh cathedrals—Llandaff, St. David's, Bangor, and St. Asaph—and in so doing he visited practically every corner in the country. Gerald is one of the most interesting men of his age. He was born in 1148 in the beautiful castle of Manorbier on the coast of Pembroke, the son of a Norman father and a Welsh mother. He was highly educated after the manner of the age, having studied at Paris,and on one occasion having read a composition of his own before an admiring academic audience at Oxford. In 1188 he was an archdeacon, and the great objects of his life—to acquire for himself the bishopric of St. David's, and to convert that bishopric into an independent archbishopric of Wales—were already formed in his mind.
The pilgrimage of Baldwin and Gerald began at Radnor, where they were officially received by the Lord Rees, one of the ablest of mediæval Welsh rulers. From Radnor they crossed the Wye into Brecon, of which Gerald was Archdeacon. Thence they proceeded eastwards, past Llanthony to Abergavenny. From Abergavenny they went to Usk, from Usk to Caerleon, and from Caerleon to Newport. There they turned to the west, and visited Cardiff, Margam, Swansea, Kidwelly, Carmarthen, Whitland, Haverfordwest; and so to the Vale of Roses at St. David's. They then directed their steps towards the north, following the river Teifi as far as Lampeter. At Strata Florida they spent a night; then proceeding past Llanddewi they came to Llanbadarn where another night was spent. Continuing in a northerly direction they reached the shores of the Dovey, thenas now the boundary between North and South Wales. From the boat which carried them across the broad estuary they would behold the great mountains of Gwynedd—Cader Idris towering right above them, and the fine peak of Snowdon blue in the distance; while out to sea they would discern the low outline of Bardsey Island, the burial place of countless pilgrims and saints. They landed at Towyn, followed the coast of Merioneth through Barmouth and Harlech, and then struck across Carnarvonshire from Criccieth to Nevin, where they spent Palm Sunday. Their next stopping-place was Carnarvon, and from that town they went to Bangor. Not content to leave any part of the country unvisited, they next crossed the Menai Straits into Anglesey. Returning to the mainland, they followed the coast to Conway and Deganwy; then they entered the lovely Vale of Clwyd, where they were entertained by the son of Owen Gwynedd in his castle of Rhuddlan. From Rhuddlan they went to St. Asaph, and then on to Chester. They had then reached the most northern point in their itinerary; and so, turning southwards, they visited in succession Oswestry, Shrewsbury, Wenlock, Ludlow, Leominster, and Hereford.The effect of the Archbishop's sermons could not have been particularly profound; for only some three thousand men took the cross, and in fact none of them ever quitted their native land.
But if the journey achieved nothing for the Holy Land, it did much for the modern historian. Gerald was no dry analyst, but a man who knew instinctively how to write. No such vivid descriptions, and no such sketches of character were penned in Britain throughout the Middle Ages. Gerald is a veritable prose Chaucer. He possessed a seeing eye, and was always quick to seize upon a trait of character, and to note an interesting custom. He was also tremendously fond of gossip; and the more marvellous the tale the greater his delight in relating it. His attitude towards the Welsh people was somewhat supercilious; he regarded them with a queer mixture of sympathy and contempt. Nevertheless the picture which he paints is not an unpleasing one. They were a people well advanced in civilization, though decidedly less polished and cultivated than the Normans. Their chief pursuits were pastoral; and for recreation they preferred fighting to aught else, and next to thathunting. They delighted in music and oratory. They were brave, frugal, hospitable, and witty. Their reverence for religion, and for everything which bore the stamp of antiquity, was extreme. But side by side with these virtues were vices of a by no means amiable character. They were careless of truth, unreliable, lacking in persistence, quarrelsome, litigious, and intensely superstitious. In fact the pages of Giraldus are thelocus classicusof the "perfidious Welshman" who has been the butt of shallow writers in modern times.
With their love of battle and of sport the mediæval Welsh were a hardy and a comely race. Both men and women wore their hair short; and the men shaved their faces, except for the upper lip. Cleanliness was one of their outstanding characteristics. They indulged freely in the bath, a habit which perhaps had been handed down from Roman times. Of their teeth they took the utmost care, cleaning them several times in the course of a day. Owen M. Edwards has thus admirably summarized what Gerald tells us about the domestic habits of the people: "The great hall rose among the cowsheds and sheepfolds. Its hospitable door was always open. 'No one of this nation everbegs'; the wayfarer lays his arms down at the door and enters as an honoured guest. Water is offered. If he allows his feet to be washed, he means to stay over night; if he refuses, he wishes to partake of a meal only. In each family the harp was played, and this was the chief means of entertaining guests. The principal meal was prepared at sunset. The hall was strewn with fresh rushes. The guests and members of the family sat down in messes of three, and partook of thin oaten cakes, broth, and chopped meat from wooden bowls and trenchers. The host and hostess attended to the wants of every one, and themselves partook last. Towards evening the hall was laid out for sleeping. The beds were arranged around the walls—rushes covered with the coarse cloth manufactured in the country. In the middle of the hall the peat or wood fire burnt night and day."
The Norman Conquest of 1066 was almost as epoch-making in the history of Wales as it was in that of England. In Wales its effects were as decisive, though very different, as they were in the neighbouring country. In England the first and most important result was the unification of the whole country under a strong central government vested in the person of the king. Prior to the Conquest there had been a steady movement in the direction of unity; and at different times, under a particularly strong monarch, it had almost been achieved. But such unity was at best precarious; and the great earls of Wessex, Mercia, and Northumbria were, to all intents and purposes, independent princes. William the Conqueror, partly from design, partly by accident, broke up these mighty earldoms. This was the beginning of a long struggle between the king and the great feudatories, a struggle which ended withvictory for monarchy and centralization. England in consequence became definitely and for ever one country, with one ruler and one law. This unity is precisely what Wales failed to achieve, and the failure is the greatest tragedy in its history. Before the Norman Conquest Wales had been divided into three great divisions—Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth; and although the rulers of the other two divisions yielded a grudging theoretical homage to the lord of Gwynedd, he exercised in practice no authority over them. With the coming of the Normans the supreme test had arrived. The Welsh people were presented, as so many other nations have been presented before and since, with two alternatives: they might sink all differences in the presence of alien enemies, and by forming themselves into one powerful State successfully resist invasion and so preserve their independence; or, in the alternative, remain divided and consequently prove an easy prey to their foes. Before this test the Welsh people failed. The princes showed that they set greater store upon their own glory and dignity than upon the safety of the country as a whole; and time and again they refused to lay aside their rivalries and jealousies in order to present a unitedfront to the enemy. A love of liberty and independence had been born, and they were to inspire a desperate resistance against overwhelming odds on several occasions; but the one condition absolutely essential if independence was to be preserved the Welsh princes were not willing to accept. And so the people of Wales, turning their backs upon this splendid opportunity, began to tread that long road of political failure and futility which made them ultimately a mere appanage of England, and which, but for the efforts of bards and men of letters in the creation of a precious national literature, would have led inevitably to the total extinction of the Welsh nation.
This testing time begins with the Conqueror's famous winter march of 1070 from York to Chester, and ends with the proclamation of Edward II as Prince of Wales at Carnarvon in 1301. In the course of this period of well nigh two centuries and a half there were years of comparative tranquillity; but on the whole it appears to us like one long incessant struggle. It divides itself naturally into two. In the first period we find the Norman barons conducting campaigns in Wales in their own private interest, each onefighting for himself, and taking possession of as much land as he could lay hands on and retain. It was no more a war of England against Wales than the adventure of the Conqueror had been a war of Normandy against England. It was part of the policy of the first Norman kings to direct the embarrassing and overflowing martial energy of their followers into the innocuous channel of the Welsh wars. Whether they destroyed the Welsh, or whether the Welsh destroyed them, was matter of indifference to their royal master. But this period is of short duration; and is followed at once by another, in which we find the King of England himself taking an interest in the conquest of Wales, and not infrequently leading expeditions in person into its mountain recesses. It was the astute Henry I who began to see that the barons who had established themselves in Wales might easily grow so powerful as to be able successfully to defy the royal will. Indeed at one period it did seem as if that fine soldier and politician, Robert of Belesme, Earl of Shrewsbury, would succeed in winning the allegiance of all the Welsh princes, and in establishing a Norman-Welsh kingdom of the West, which would be completely independentof England. In this there would have been nothing impossible, or even unusual. It was the kind of thing that the Normans had been doing in various parts of Europe in the course of the preceding hundred years; and if the Duke of Normandy had succeeded in creating a Norman-English kingdom, why should not the Earl of Shrewsbury succeed in establishing a Norman-Welsh kingdom. The scheme failed through jealousy on the part of the other Norman barons, the Welsh people's love of independence, and the hostility of the Norman and Angevin kings.
By the year 1070 the conquest of England by William I was complete, and all the available sequestrated lands had been divided among his followers. But the land hunger of the barons was unappeased; and in order that he might have time to consolidate and to organize his new kingdom, William directed their attention to Wales. That country possessed three obvious gates by which invading armies might enter. The first was Chester, which William himself had visited, and from which the great mountains of Gwynedd could be clearly discerned. The second was Shrewsbury, from which a broad and fertile valley stretched right into theheart of Powys. The third was Hereford, the natural starting point for the conquest of Deheubarth. At each of these points William stationed one of his barons—at Chester the rapacious Hugh the Wolf, at Shrewsbury the able Roger of Montgomery, at Hereford William Fitz Osbern. Using these three towns, at each of which a strong castle was erected, as bases of operations, the earls, in the course of the next fifty years, advanced step by step into the country. Their object was to possess themselves of all the level and fertile land; and their method of conquest was the castle. Opposition to them was always fierce, but seldom united or well advised. The three original barons were soon joined by others; and ere long chains of fortresses stretched out from Shrewsbury, Chester, Hereford, Gloucester, and Cardiff. The English border was thereby studded with them; and so was the whole of South Wales from Gloucester and Hereford to Pembroke and Aberystwyth. They brought with them traders, architects, and craftsmen; and a numerous colony of Flemings made Pembrokeshire their home. At the end of this period of advance it was recognized that to the Normans belonged the Marches, the fertile plains,and the eastern and southern slopes of the mountains; while the rest—a land of dizzy peaks, narrow valleys, and bleak moorland—remained in the hands of the Welsh people.