The Welsh Law of Women

Description

Professor Daniel A. Binchy’s Corpus Iuris Hibernici, published in 1979, set the seal on a lifetime’s work which had made him the acknowledged leader in Celtic law studies. At an earlier stage in his career, he had edited (in Studies in Early Irish Law, published by the Royal Irish Academy in 1936) the proceedings of a seminar on the Irish law of women; this volume was the spur to the seminar which began to work under the aegis of the Board of Celtic Studies in 1970, and took as its first field of study the Welsh law of women. The present collection of papers, based on the work of the seminar, differs in scope from the Irish volume but like it provides a detailed and documented account of one of the most illuminating tractates in the Welsh lawbooks; the volume was originally presented to Professor Binchy in grateful recognition of the inspiration given to all students of Celtic law by his devoted work.

This volume comprises six studies dealing with various aspects of the Welsh material, texts of three versions of the tractate (one in Latin and two, both based on manuscripts not previously printed, in Welsh) with English translations, a Glossary, and Indexes. This new edition includes a preface by Morfydd E. Owen, who edited the original volume with Dafydd Jenkins, surveying work in the field since the first edition in 1980.

Sujets

• Medieval
• Histoire
• History
• Wales
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786831613
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE WELSH LAW OF WOMEN
THE WELSH LAW OF WOMEN
Studies presented to Professor Daniel A. Binchy
Edited by Dafydd Jenkins and Morfydd E. Owen
© The Contributors, 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff CF10 4UP.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78683-159-0
eISBN 978-1-78683-161-3
The right of The Contributors to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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PREFACE DEDICATORY
to Professor Daniel Anthony Binchy
Annwyl Gyfaill,
This Welsh form of address seems to be the appropriate one, not only because it avoids all problems of the right degree of formality or familiarity, but because you have been so good a friend to the study of Celtic Law, and through that to all of us who are interested in that study, whether or not we have enjoyed your friendship at the personal level.
I have claimed the privilege of writing this Preface, but this volume owes its existence to the enthusiasm of my co-editor, who nearly ten years ago at the Third Colloquium on Welsh Medieval Law persuaded us to join in a series of seminars and suggested that the Law of Women would be an ideal subject for a seminar group. The Head of her Department at Cardiff (Professor A. O. H. Jarman) agreed to invite the seminars to the University College there, and the Board of Celtic Studies subsidised them; at a later stage some meetings were held at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, at the invitation of Dr. Charles-Edwards, and we had the invaluable help of Professor Foster.
When we began our study we knew very well that a shining example had been set us by the Thurneysen seminar whose fruit is preserved in the Studies in Early Irish Law which you edited. We hoped then that in time we might have something comparable— si parva licet componere magnis —to show for our labours, and we hope now that our labours will not suggest to you those of the mountains. We, at least, have learnt a great deal, and even in the process of preparing the collection for the press have learnt so much that we are particularly conscious of how much remains to be done.
The papers first offered to the Cardiff Seminar in private were revised for presentation to the Fourth Colloquium at Aberystwyth in 1974, and have been further revised since then, while the last of the studies is based on part of a paper given to the Fifth Colloquium (at Bangor in 1979) by a specialist in Comparative Law whom we count ourselves fortunate to have attracted to our company.
In now offering you this collection, we perhaps honour ourselves more than we honour you, but we believe that you will welcome the studies here published, not only for their intrinsic interest but perhaps even more as the sign of a growing devotion to the study of our field, and we ask you to accept them as a mark of the appreciation of us all for your inspiring example as our Father in Celtic Law.
Dafydd Jenkins
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
T he Editors acknowledge very gratefully the permission to use material, freely given by Sir George Meyrick, Bart., for the Bodorgan manuscript, The British Library for the Cotton manuscripts, and the National Library of Wales for the Peniarth manuscripts; by Mrs. H. D. Emanuel for the text of Latin Redaction A; and by the President and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, for the frontispiece.
They also wish to record their great gratitude to those who have helped in the preparation and production of the book, and in particular to Howard E. F. Davies, Marged Haycock, D. Myrddin Lloyd, and J. E. Caerwyn Williams for illuminating discussion of various points; to Gareth Bevan and his colleagues of Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru for access to the slips of the Dictionary and much useful information; to Nia Bonsall, Sabina Thompson, Alice Tudor, Anne Watkin-Jones, and Ann Watkins for patient work on the typescript, often under trying conditions; to Keith Williams and his colleagues (and especially Susan Jarvis) of the Computer Unit at University College, Cardiff, for invaluable help with the Index; to Gifford Charles-Edwards for an inspired handling of illustrations from the manuscript of Latin A (Peniarth 28) in her design for the dust jacket; to the Board of Celtic Studies of the University of Wales for undertaking the publication, and the staff of the University Registry and Press Board for help in carrying the process through; and to Keith Brown and his staff, whose enthusiastic collaboration has worked miracles in producing the final result.
NOTE ON REFERENCES
I n references to periodicals the volume number appears in arabic numerals before the title (full or abbreviated) of the periodical; where a date appears in square brackets in that position, it is an essential part of the reference. For the mode of reference to the law texts see pp. 151 , 167 , 183 . References to Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales have wherever possible been to book, chapter, and section rather than to page.
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
T he Welsh Law of Women, originally published in 1980, 1 came into existence following a series of seminars held between 1970 and 1974 at the Department of Welsh of the then University College of Cardiff, and under the sponsorship of the Board of Celtic Studies. The idea, proposed by Morfydd E. Owen in the Welsh Law Colloquium of 1970, was that interested people from different disciplines should meet periodically to study a specific topic of Welsh Law. The members of the first meeting of the Seminar, held on 12 December 1970, were Dafydd Jenkins, Geraint Gruffydd, A. O. H. Jarman, R. R. Davies, Thomas Charles-Edwards, Glyn Jones, J. Gwynfor Jones, and Nesta Lloyd. Dafydd Jenkins acted as Chairman and Morfydd Owen as Secretary. Four of the original members contributed to the published volume, together with Chris McAll, a student of Thomas Charles-Edwards, and a later valued recruit, D. B. Walters. Following the model of the Irish Studies in Early Irish Law it was decided to choose specific topics to examine, and the Law of Women was selected for this study. 2 It was unwittingly chosen when women’s studies were beginning to take off and the book became a pioneering work in legal studies, as well as in Welsh women’s studies. The original introduction pinpointed the main themes of the chapters. This additional introduction to the new edition aims to show how the themes of WLW have been pursued in later studies and how the study of the topic has been developed in recent years.
The primary aim of the study was that the main sections of the law dealing with women should be studied in detail, both textually and thematically, and put into a legal and historical context. At that juncture the main source for Welsh medieval law texts in general was and still is (to some extent) Aneurin Owen’s Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales . (1841). 3 Aneurin Owen had classified the Welsh laws into three groups or redactions of texts called by him the Venedotian, Dimetian and Gwentian Codes, later known as Llyfr Iorwerth , Llyfr Blegywryd and Llyfr Cyfnerth . In addition, he presented versions of three Latin texts, and in his second volume edited the laws which, to him, did not conform with the nuclei of these texts, and which he called the ‘Anomolous Laws’. Since the publication of Ancient Laws further work has been done on the Welsh redactions and each of the three codes has been published in single-volume editions: Llyfr Iorwerth , 4 Llyfr Blegywryd , 5 and Welsh Medieval Law 6 representing Cyfnerth. The Latin texts were published by H. D. Emanuel in The Latin Texts of the Welsh Laws . 7 The full texts of individual manuscripts have also been published, for example Llyfr Colan , 8 Llanstephan 116 , 9 and Coleg yr Iesu LVII . 10 A translation of Latin Redaction A was published by Ian Fletcher in 1986. 11 The Latin C text has been published with a translation by Paul Russell. 12 Detailed studies of exceptional fourteenth/fifteenth-century Welsh manuscripts, such as H, NLW Manuscript, Peniarth 164 by Gwenno Angharad Elias, 13 and S, BL. Add. Manuscript 22356 by Christine James 14 and NLW, Manuscript Peniarth 259b, Z by Sara Elin Roberts 15 have also thrown light on the development of the law in the later period of Cyfraith Hywel.
Since the publication of The Welsh Law of Women a considerable amount of work has been done regarding the manuscripts, their provenance and the nature of the texts. Much of it, deriving from the second series of seminars, concentrated on the format, scribes and palaeography of the different manuscript redactions. This work is reflected particularly in the publications of Daniel Huws 16 and Gifford Charles-Edwards 17 and much of it was summarised and referred to in T. M. Charles-Edwards’s The Welsh Laws . 18 Although the work does not alter the conclusions reached in The Welsh Law of Women , it presented the possibility of a more precise provenancing of texts.
Considering the codes or redactions, the main body of the Welsh law texts consists of a series of tractates on legal topics. One of these was the tractate entitled Cyfraith y Gwragedd or ‘The Law of Women’, and thr