Welsh History

Lesson 2: Lesson Two: A Sense of Wales

In this lesson the student will learn of the system of laws that made Wales unique in Europe, how the nation became subservient to England, the effects of the Norman Conquest upon Wales, and the great flowering of literature that made it the envy of Europe.

Recommended reading: Struggle pp. 12-23; Wales A to Z relevant entries; Intro to Lit. pp. 12-19.

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The Laws of Hywel Dda

After Rhodri Mawr was killed in battle fighting an English army, his grandson, Hywel Dda (Howell the Good), was able to re-establish some sort of predominance among the various petty kingdoms of Wales. He wisely kept the peace with his English neighbors through a policy of conciliation in his long reign from 904 to 950 A.D.

The only Welsh king to have earned the title “The Good,” he is described in the great medieval history, The Brut Y Tywysogion (The Chronicle of the Princes) as "the chief and most praiseworthy of all the Britons" (cited in Stephens, Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales, p. 278). During Hywel’s reign, Welsh law and literature was praised throughout Europe and, indeed, he is best remembered for his brilliant codification of Welsh law.

A systemization of the legal customs that had developed in his country over many centuries, called in Welsh "Cyfraith Hywel" (The Law of Hywel), this codification was far in advance of much English law. For one thing, it gave significant status to women. They were guaranteed certain rights that did not become part of the laws of England for over one thousand years. A woman had the right to seek compensation if struck by her spouse without cause; she could also receive up to one half the family property upon divorce.

Most significant was the fact that the majority of the surviving documents are in Welsh, with only a few in Latin -another sign of the legitimacy of the language. However, there was one great drawback.

The law known as "Gavelkind" specified that a father's lands be divided among all his sons, rather than be given intact to the eldest son. This prevented the build up of a unified, powerful state such as took place in England, where gavelkind was not practiced and where the whole kingdom was inherited by a single heir, (primogeniture).

In the development of the Welsh nation, which Hywel seems to have kept free from the ravages of the Norsemen, his influence cannot be underestimated, yet even with all his statecraft, authority and fame, he could not succeed in creating a fully-united, independent state that would endure.

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