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- [00:01]
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- [00:36]
Eleanor Evans
The laws of the Middle Ages are often imagined as brutal and unequal. But the laws of medieval Wales tell a more surprising story. These legal texts, named after a 10th century king, aim not simply to punish wrongdoing, but to keep communities functioning smoothly. Preserved in remarkable manuscripts dating back centuries, they reveal a world of cattle disputes and divorce settlements and some ideas which might seem surprisingly modern. In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Eleanor Evans speaks to Sara Ellen Roberts, a leading expert in medieval Welsh law, about these fascinating laws and what they reveal about everyday life in medieval Wales.
- [01:17]
Podcast Host
We're joined today by Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts. Sara Ellen, you've spent much of your career studying the texts of medieval Welsh law, and we're going to be getting into this remarkable set of laws today. I hoped we could start by, if you can situate us a bit with what type of society we're looking at. I realise we're talking a broad timescale. What can you tell us about medieval Wales?
- [01:38]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
So we all know what Wales looks like today on a map, but it wasn't quite the same in the Middle Ages, in that the boundary with England wasn't as clear cut and Wales was largely made up of a number of different regions with different people or different groups controlling them. So you've got princes in North Wales, in Gwynnes, which is modern day Boundary, actually where Snowdonia is, and the island of Anglesey, so you'd have a ruling family there. But the situation in South Wales was very different. And the borders were particularly interesting in the Middle Ages because what you have between England and Wales is this region called the March, and it was made up of lordships independent of the English crown, not part of Wales proper, even though we're not talking about Wales proper, but not part of Wales in that sense. And that was a sort of frontier zone, a buffer zone between England and Wales. Self governing, pretty wild, very mixed population. You had Normans and Welsh speakers living side by side, sometimes pulling along, sometimes not. And you've got a very different map of Wales. So speaking about medieval Wales is pretty Difficult and probably wrong, actually, because really you need to look regionally.
- [02:54]
Podcast Host
In many ways it sounds like a pretty turbulent time, as you say, a lot of groups coming in and out, a lot of borders changing and regions changing very quickly into this picture. Then we have this set of laws that we're going to talk about today. Can you introduce us to the laws of Hawildar as they're most popularly known? What should we understand or perhaps leave behind when we think about these laws?
- [03:20]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Well, they are indeed known, known as the laws of Howell there. K? Vries Hoel in Welsh, which means the laws of Hoel. Perhaps we should start with Hoel and who he was, because Howel actually existed. There was a 10th century king. He died in the year 950. He was called Howel ap Kadesh Hoel, the son of Cadegh, and he was the ruler in Dyved in South Wales, comprising Pembrokeshire and the tip of Wales there. And in the 10th century he was rather a successful king because, well, through conquest, through also intermarriage and through agreement, he managed to get control of pretty much most of Wales, not all of it, although he is styled as King of all Wales in the laws. Not strictly true, but nearly there. And this is a remarkable thing in the Middle Ages, actually, because not many kings or princes in Wales managed to do this, but he did, and in an early period as well, and the laws are attributed to him, so you'd think it's a straightforward thing. Oh, well, then Howell therefore wrote the laws.
- [04:24]
Podcast Host
Sounds straightforward. Yes.
- [04:26]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Sadly, that's not true. It's not that straightforward. It never is when you're looking at 10th century Wales, because actually we've got no evidence whatsoever linking Hoel to the legal texts as they survive for us today. I'll get back to the legal text shortly. But Howel himself, we don't know what Howel did. We don't know even if he did anything with the laws. However, he was a strong, strong ruler. He did have much of Wales under his control. And he also had a period of relative stability in the second part of his reign, after he'd sort of established himself, he had a period of stability. And that's exactly the kind of conditions where a medieval king, and it happens in other countries too, where a medieval king might then start either reforming the Church or perhaps start making laws. And his counterpart in England at the time, which wasn't in existence, but we're talking about Mercia, one of the Anglo Saxon kingdoms of England. His counterpart, Athelstan, the first ruler of England, to call himself the King of the English. Notice he calls himself the King of the English, not England, because again, England doesn't exist either. But he was a strong ruler who established himself and then started creating laws. Several of the Anglo Saxon kings did this, but Athelstan was known as a lawmaker and Hoel Cadegh in Wales was in regular contact with Aethelstan. And Hoel, there's one surviving coin that's been minted in the name of Hoeldah, and he minted it using Aethelstan's mint up in Chester. So clearly there was a lot of contact between the kings. And it wouldn't be a surprise if Howell actually had made some moves to establish law or something in his kingdom in his time. The problem is we have no other evidence. There's nothing, mind you, we've got no other evidence for anything that Hoel did. The only clue perhaps is his nickname, because he's known as Hoel the Hoel the Good. He's the only Welsh king to have this nickname. And kings with this nickname in medieval Europe are few and far between. Usually they do something with the church, you know, they establish some control or some rule with the church or perhaps monasteries. There's nothing to link Howell to that either. But I wonder whether his nickname was because he did do something and develop some law, but we just don't have any evidence for it.
- [06:54]
Podcast Host
So we have Howell tha Howell the Good, who gives his name to this set of laws. But as you say, the link between him and these laws is a bit murkier, maybe not possible to know at this stage. But can you give us a sense of the timeline of what we do, what we do know? What's the evidence for these laws and what time span are we talking about here?
- [07:12]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Well, the laws occur in manuscripts and the earliest manuscripts we have date from around about 1250, so mid 13th century. Now, it should be noted there are no manuscripts in Welsh surviving before 1250. And the texts in these manuscripts, the earliest manuscripts of Welsh law, are copies of earlier texts, now lost. Now middle of the 13th century, what was going on and why do we have these manuscripts? So these manuscripts dating from the middle of the 13th century can be located in Gwynedd, which is the kingdom in the north of Wales. It's still a modern day council boundary. Today, large parts of North Wales, including Snowdonia, Carnarvon, Bangor and Anglesey as well the Isle of Anglesey. So that's a large part of land. And Gwynedd emerged as a strong kingdom. There were Other kingdoms too, but as a strong kingdom in medieval Wales, and it had a ruling dynasty. And by the middle of the 13th century, Gwynedd was ruled by Llywelyn Abiorwyd, known as Llywelyn the Great, a strong ruler. He had relatively good relationships with England. Relationships with England was never good at any point in medieval Wales, but he had a working relationship with England, shall we say. Although he is one of the signatories on Magna Carta, he married a daughter of King John. So he was a strong ruler. And like Howel Ba, he had a period of stability in his reign. And there clearly was a flourishing of culture, written culture, in Llywelyn Abioreth's time in Gwynedd. And this is the time when the laws were being written and rewritten and revised. And we know that there was a man, a lawyer called Yorwerzap Madok, living in Guines in the middle of the 13th century. And he did rewrite the laws and reframed the laws, rehashed the texts, if you like. So he was a scholar working on these laws. So you've got this golden period where the laws are being written, certainly in Gwynedd. However, we've also got the further problem, because it wasn't a smooth transition for Llywelyn's succession. Llywelyn Apjorwers, his son, was the ruler for a short while, but then his grandson, he became sort of the ruler of Gwynedd. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, now he's also known as Llywelyn Ain LLI Olav, the last ruler of Wales, or Wales sometimes, but certainly the last ruler of Gwynedd. And he had a turbulent reign. I mean, he was a successful ruler. He was very unfortunate that he coincided with Edward I as the king of England. And Edward I was ruthless. He was known as being a ruthless king, known as the Hammer of the Scots. Well, he conquered the Welsh, so what can you do? You know, he was a. He was a strong ruler. And so Llewellyn Up Griffith spends much of his time fighting with England. Now, you've got this, and throughout all of this, you've got the laws, but they've already been established and the laws continue through this period, not entirely unbroken. And you've got different things happening in South Wales, but. But they had Welsh laws and the march was a different area altogether. And you've got laws there too. But that's why, despite the fact that we've got the conquest in 1282, the laws don't come to an end at that point.
- [10:31]
Podcast Host
Well, let's get a little bit closer to these 13th century texts then. Am I right that you, you work with these documents on. On a fairly regular basis and have done for a number of years?
- [10:40]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Yes, yes. In many ways. I'm a textual historian and my delight is the manuscript. I absolutely adore looking at manuscripts. I'm a total manuscripts nerd in many ways. And it just so happens, and the two things are linked. The Welsh Laws is a subject that is very heavily manuscript focused because we have 44 medieval manuscripts containing a text of the laws, which is a huge number if you consider other Welsh literature, such as, say, the four branches of the Mabinoki, they survive in three manuscripts. The Welsh laws are in, you know, 44. That's a huge number. And most of those manuscripts are unique in some way or another.
- [11:24]
Podcast Host
44 manuscripts, then. What language are they written in? Are you able to read them today? Well, obviously you are, but what might they look like to a layperson?
- [11:32]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Right. Well, what we have, the manuscripts are basically books of law. And they're quite thick books, to be honest. They're usually small in size, they're sort of pocketbooks generally, but they're quite thick because they contain all of the law. It's a very different system in Wales to what was happening in England. England doesn't have books of law from the Middle Ages because it's a different setup in England altogether. So what we have is manuscripts, books containing the law. The majority of them are written in Middle Welsh, five of them are in Latin. Perhaps we'll get back to the Latin ones there for a different purpose. But the middle Welsh books, they're written in, well, very high quality middle Welsh. You know, they're technical vocabulary, they've got legal vocabulary, they've got unique words for legal concepts that don't even exist in English today. And they're beautifully written, very, very well written texts, because they're written texts. Middle Welsh is the form of the Welsh. It's what we call the form of the Welsh language. Welsh language goes back a very long way. People were speaking a forerunner of Welsh when the Romans arrived in Britain. That's known as Brythonic now. And the language developed into Old Welsh. The language went through various periods of development and around about 12th century maybe, or perhaps slightly earlier, the language went through a major shift and became Middle Welsh, which is what these manuscripts are written in. In terms of comparison, I would say that Middle Welsh to modern Welsh is a bit more like Shakespeare to Modern English than Chaucer to modern English. So you can read them. I mean, it's not easy. It's possibly a little bit harder than Shakespeare to modern English, but you would recognize it. The orthography, as in the letters, are slightly different in middle Welsh to what they are in modern Welsh. But once you've got over that, if you read it out, if I read it out to you, a modern Welsh speaker might recognise quite a lot of the words and you could probably work it out.
- [13:31]
Podcast Host
They sound like wonderful manuscripts to be able to get close to. How much do we know about who was making them?
- [13:37]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
The manuscripts, the actual books, were created by scribes, as in men who could write, usually in the earlier Middle Ages. So we're talking early 13th century, people who had the skills of writing. They were usually linked to the church, so they were copied by scribes. But the text of the manuscript is different to the actual manuscript. The manuscript is the book, the artifact, the text is the words and the law. And that's what I study primarily. And the law was written by lawyers, for lawyers, sometimes the law of Wales, because it's a codified text, as in, it's written in books, is what the Welsh law is. Cabrai Thirwell is a codified text written in books, but it's sometimes described as Volksrecht. There's different ways of writing law and one of those is volksrecht, a German word meaning law of the people, or customary law, if you like. But in fact, there's an extra level of scholarship in the Welsh law, where they're clearly written by men who were scholars and legal experts. So they were written by the lawyers and for the lawyers.
- [14:42]
Podcast Host
And so we're going back to the context you gave us in your first answer of this being a very turbulent time, lots of change happening. What were these laws attempting to do for this society or within this society?
- [14:54]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Well, that's the exciting thing, because they can sometimes appear to be quite humane, because the laws were attempting to not control society, but ensure that society was running smoothly. And that's usually the main driver in all of the Welsh laws. So it's a system of compensation, ensuring that nobody loses out. And the laws reflect the things that bothered people, the things that people wanted to be wanted to have controlled, and, you know, the things that the lawyers felt needed to be dealt with. But on the whole, you'll find that humans don't change and the same things bothered people in the Middle Ages as they do now. You don't want to have your stuff stolen by Somebody and, you know, have nothing, you don't want to be badly injured because somebody else has done something stupid. So it's basically that the reason the laws are dealing with society in this way is linked to the turbulent political situation which you described. So it's linked to that because the laws written by lawyers for lawyers, they are not a royal based law, so they're not a law from the top down. So in England the laws were issued at least in name by the king and the king was ruling and controlling the people. And at the head of the law, the Welsh laws are not the same, they don't work in the same way, largely because Wales didn't work in the same way. So the laws have been designed by the lawyers to make sure that society is running smoothly, whatever's happening at the top. So you may have a strong ruler, well that's great. And he can get involved in the laws. You may have no ruler at all. That's fine. Keep society running smoothly. You may have a ruler who's away fighting the king of England, for example. Still the laws should work. And the idea I think is that if society is running smoothly, the ruler can rule and he can be at the head of the law if he wants to, but just keep everything running smoothly. Because if everybody's happy, which is a nice concept and probably nobody was happy, but you know what I mean, if everybody's happy, society's running smoothly and the king doesn't have to get involved. So it's law that works without a king or without a strong state structure, but also works with it.
- [17:05]
Podcast Host
I think a really interesting point for me as well is that it seems from what you've been saying that it's encouraging people to take that ownership, that responsibility and to sort of be not empowered. I'm sure that's not quite the same meaning then, but you know, to take responsibility for their own happiness and safety, is that fair?
- [17:25]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Yes, I think responsibility is the big concept in the laws. Every individual, according to Kbraic Howell, had to take responsibility for themselves and for their own actions and for their property. Property usually involves animals in this period, but they have to take responsibility for themselves and then they would have to pay compensation for anything that they do that causes injury or loss to another person.
- [17:51]
Podcast Host
So I think to our minds, to some listeners, minds, we might be thinking this feels like quite a bit a modern outlook. Is it fair to say that they're often thought as quite progressive or forward looking? And how fair do you think that is? How would you characterise it?
- [18:07]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
I think the Welsh laws in Wales, they certainly have a popular sort of image as being kinder or more progressive. Certainly in terms of the law of women, people will often say to me, oh, yeah, is it true that the Welsh laws, that's Kebraith Herwell, was fairer to women, perhaps, than what was happening in England? And I'd say that's not strictly true, not if you read them. I mean, women couldn't hold land, they couldn't hold property. So, no, that's not great. But these are sophisticated laws. Not necessarily because they were thinking, what can we do that would be fair? It's more what can we do to keep society running smoothly? And so every now and again, you'll get something that's a very modern concept and looks pretty modern, really, in many ways. So, for example, there's an interesting little piece on what happens if somebody injures the foot, it's called the foot, but injures an animal that belongs to somebody else, and the animal in this case is a cow. So somebody comes along and accidentally or on purpose injures an animal belonging to somebody else. Well, that person, now, suddenly his cow is injured and he doesn't have a cow, it's a milker and he needs his cow. So what the person does is they take the animal to look after it and get the animal better or pay compensation if the animal dies. But they have to provide a new cow for the person whose cow they've injured, and the responsibility is on the person doing the injuring to make sure that the person who's lost their cow isn't out of pocket. Now, it sounds very odd and it's all about cows, but it's a very modern concept that's still in use in modern law today, in English and Welsh law today. And the concept in Latin is known as restitutio in integrum. And the summary in modern law is, I'm quoting, to put the party who has been injured or who has suffered in the same position as he would have been in if he had not sustained the wrong for which he is now getting his compensation or reparation, as in as if nothing ever happened. But they ensure that this happens. And this is found in the Welsh laws. And it's a very modern concept, but again, it's keeping society running smoothly.
- [20:16]
Podcast Host
So if you're getting compensation because a neighbour's injured your fence or something, or done something to your car, we're sort of referring back to a law that was around, at least in Wales, in the 13th century.
- [20:27]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Yes, certainly. And I would say incidentally that if we're talking about. You mentioned the word car. I always say if you're looking for a parallel, find the word cow in medieval Welsh law. And there's probably a similar thing in modern English law that's your parallel. The example I usually give is there's a specific term. So medieval Welsh law has very good terminology in Middle Welsh excellence terminology, because it's a learned text and there's a specific term called anghaw in Welsh and this is quite hard to translate. It's usually translated as surreption and I don't even know what that means properly myself in English.
- [21:06]
Podcast Host
Me neither.
- [21:07]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
But what it is, it's a particular offence and it's in the law of theft, where somebody takes a cow that's not theirs, but it's not borrowing because they don't have permission to do it. But they're also not stealing it because they're not keeping it, they're not selling it, they're just taking. So it's this in between thing between theft and borrowing. Borrowing without permission, maybe. Well, in modern English law they've got the same concept, but it's to do with cars and it's to do with joyriding. Right, Joyriding. If you're taking a car that's not your own, you're not borrowing it because you haven't got permission, but you're also not keeping it and you're not selling it on, you're not stealing it, you're just using it for possibly bad purposes for a while. But this is the joyriding. And modern English law have a word for this concept. There was one in Middle Welsh in the 13th century, but they didn't have one in modern English law. The word that's used in modern English law today, and it's now in the Oxford English Dictionary since the 1970s, is twaching and it's an acronym from Taking without consent. So the concept was there and we had a word for it.
- [22:21]
Podcast Host
Brilliant. Parallel there. Thank you for bringing that in.
- [22:27]
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- [23:52]
Podcast Host
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- [23:59]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
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- [24:01]
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- [24:08]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
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- [24:10]
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- [24:21]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
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- [24:31]
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- [24:32]
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- [24:34]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
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- [24:41]
Podcast Host
You mentioned before as well, they're all very unique documents and there are some quite bizarre moments, aren't there, particularly regarding divorce laws. I wonder if we can go into some of some of this aspect of those laws.
- [24:52]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Oh, yes. Now, divorce, this is often the bit that's described as being, oh, more humane. And the Welsh laws, look at that. The Welsh laws allow divorce because in the law of women, there's a whole section of the law called the law of women, mainly looking at sexual unions and continuation of. Because women had babies, had male children, continuation of the inheritance and all of that. But yeah, there is a section called divorce and it outlines how a couple could separate. Now, this was problematic in the 13th century because the English Norman clerics and they were keen on their canon Law, Law of the church. They thought this was terrible because only God could separate a married couple. But in medieval Wales, actually, marriage was a contract, not a church thing. So, I mean, it could be both, but it was a different setup. But, yeah, there is a section that describes how a couple can separate and it starts saying, if a couple wishes to separate, at the end of seven years. So in, in the Welsh law, seven years was a trial period of marriage. That's quite a long time for a trial, but there we go, it's trial, seven year rich. But after seven years, they could separate. And the laws tell you how to divide everything. And so some of the equipment goes to the man, some to the woman. They say, you know, the pigs go to the man, the sheep go to the woman. If they've only got one type, half and half, they divide the sons. Two thirds of the son go to the father, a third go to the mother, but the father must have the oldest and the youngest son. So, you know, very, very random but very specific.
- [26:23]
Podcast Host
Interesting maths there.
- [26:24]
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- [26:25]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
And so it's all outlined and it looks sort of quite impressive. And sharing half and half sounds very nice, except a study has been done by Professor Robin Chapman Stacy, an American academic who also works on the Welsh laws, and she showed that everything is not as it seems in these divorce laws or sort of the way the goods are divided in Kilrayth Howell, and she demonstrated particularly the quern, the hand quern. So a quern is a tiny little mill for milling grain at home, for taking your wheat grains and grinding them fine to make flour, basically, like a
- [27:02]
Podcast Host
mortar and pestle sort of thing, or something bigger.
- [27:05]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Yeah, yeah. A little bit more technical because there's two rocks, two stones that rub against each other. That's the important point.
- [27:12]
Podcast Host
That's the key.
- [27:13]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
The laws say that the man gets the top one, the top stone from this quern, and the woman gets the bottom one. Which means you can't grind corn because you can't grind corn with a pestle without a mortar, so it doesn't work. So that's odd to start with. Now, the obvious answer is, well, bring in a new stone then. But after use, the stones rub together and they take on the shape of each other. And if you bring in a new stone, you know, it won't work in the same way. So basically they're saying, if you want to separate, you can do it. The man gets half of the quern, the woman gets the bottom or the quern, but it means you won't eat, you Won't be able to produce your grain, you won't be able to do anything. And it's true of quite a lot of the things that are listed in this divorce thing. And I think the quern is a very sort of. It's very symbolic and I'm sure you've heard sort of the concept of rubbing together a couple. Oh, they rub together very well, which is precisely what a quern does. But you can't do it if you've only got one half. So it says, the law says, yes, you can divorce, but actually, if you look at the provisions, it'll never work. So there's a hidden warning there saying, go ahead, separate, you'll starve. It won't work.
- [28:29]
Podcast Host
They're still enshrining and holding up the way in which society is, quote, unquote, supposed to operate, even if there is this sort of through line of seeming progressiveness, I suppose.
- [28:39]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Yeah. And quite a lot of the laws work in this way. They'll say, yes, go ahead and you can do this, and this is how you do it. But if you read between the lines, they don't work at all. There's a lot of symbolism and sort of reading between the lines with the Welsh Laws, in many ways, these sound
- [28:53]
Podcast Host
like such rich texts to be looking at and spending time with. There was one law in particular we did want to look at today as well, a law that considered an intersex person in this era. Now, do you want to introduce this law? Because I don't want to introduce anything wrong here.
- [29:09]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Yes.
- [29:09]
Podcast Host
What does it say?
- [29:10]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
So in the Welsh laws, in some of the texts, you've got a long list of sort of sentences at the end of the text that say they start with the same words, odervid, if it happens that. And they sort of give unusual situations or perhaps exceptions. They've already discussed, say, the law of women, but then they think, oh, what if this happens? What if that happens? And they do it with quite a lot of the laws. And it's clearly the product of legal thinking, I would say you've got lawyers, and we know that there were lawyers who were looking at the laws. There was debate going on. You see some of that debate in the laws and you've got all these sentences, they're called damoini. I mean, it doesn't really translate, but it means if it happens that basically. And one of these, you know, I was going through the text and I found one on an intersex child, an intersex person. And it's a section that's been largely hidden because, as it happens, the long text containing these sentences hasn't been edited very much, and it was edited in 1841, in Victorian times, by the editor, sort of laws then. But it was largely hidden because of the subject matter, and it wasn't very sensitively translated, shall we say. But what I'll do, I'll read out the section in my English translation. I can also read it in Middle Welsh, if that's of interest, but. But I'll read it out in my translation. So it starts, if it happens that a person is born with male and female genitalia and it is uncertain which status they should have, whether they are a man or a woman, some say that there should be an observation to see which habits they practice, whether that of a man or of a woman, and according to their habit, their status is determined. If they practice all of them, the law says that their status is to be determined as the highest status, that is the status of a man, and they are entitled to patrimony from it. And if they are made pregnant, their son shall receive his patrimony according to the status of the man who made them pregnant. And if they impregnate another woman, his son receives his patrimony. So that's my translation of the Middle Welsh text, and the section itself sounds a bit odd. So they start with, if it happens that a person is born with both sets of genitalia. And now that's interesting in itself. So did somebody justify think this up out of the blue, or had this actually happened? My suspicion is there must have been at least one case at some point that somebody knew about, because otherwise you don't just think up laws. There's clearly some basis to this, but it's very interesting because this piece is actually quite modern in many ways. So what happens if you have a person born with male and female genitalia? Which status do they have? Now, that's the lawyer's main thing. Men are higher status than women. And men have land patrimony, men get land, women don't. So how do you assign it? The interesting bit for me was the way they approach it, because what they say is, some lawyers say what you should do is watch the person, let them grow, because this is a newborn baby, let the child grow and see. See how they identify, to use the modern term, see how they identify. Are they identifying as a man? Are they following the habits, as they say in Middle Welsh, following the habits of a man or of a woman? So they're not assigning a Gender or a status to this person. They're letting the person assign their own or decide for themselves. So there's that to start with, which is very modern and very humane, because it's not the law's business to tell people what they are. People get to choose for themselves in this case. And what's even more exciting for me is, is if they practice all of them, if they don't identify one way or another, they don't even have to be one or another, they don't have to choose, they can be both, you know, however they feel. In that case, the law humanely doesn't punish them, it gives them the higher status. They say, well, in that case they can be a man in the eyes of the law, so that they can have patrimony, they can have land. Women wouldn't be allowed to have land, so they don't even have to choose and they go for the higher status. Then you've got the laws of what happens if this person becomes pregnant. The man who made the person pregnant has to pay for the child if it's a boy, and then if this person makes a woman pregnant, they have to pay and that person's land goes to the son of a woman. So they sort out all the legal details. But what's incredible is that they don't assign gender or anything. It's up to the person to decide. So it looks amazing and it looks modern, forward thinking and very, very sensible, actually, because no good comes of telling people what they are if that's not what they want to be. I think the only slight downside, if there even is one, is the reason this is happening. And the reason is that the law is, the Welsh law is concerned with sorting things out and keeping society smoothly. It's not the law's business to tell people who they are or what they are. So that's the reason for it. So it may not be coming from a particularly modern, oh, let's be fair to people sort of place, but they do land there anyway, which I find remarkable.
- [34:34]
Podcast Host
There is much to be found in these incredibly rich texts in terms of some things that might be we can track onto our own values or debates happening today, and we can maybe draw that through line from the 13th century. But it also sounds really important to consider these laws and the language and the times they were written and the context that surrounds them.
- [34:55]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Certainly. And medieval Wales is the central point to all of this. Keep society running smoothly. Because this is not a society where there is necessarily a king who can keep it running. Smoothly. There's no enforcing body coverage. Harwell is not a moral text. There's no punishment. Well, officially there's no punishment. There are certain things that look quite punishing in it, I'll say that for sure. But on the whole there's no punishment because it's not a moral code. This is not a law that is telling people how they should be living. It's telling people, yeah, you can't steal other people's stuff and you can't kill other people or injure them. You know, you've got to take responsibility. But it's a very practical and workable situation and very, very fit for purpose.
- [35:39]
Podcast Host
This might be a terrible question, so forgive me if it is, but how successful were these laws? I suppose, did they achieve what they set out to? Or is that possible to even say,
- [35:51]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
now what did the laws achieve? Yeah, now that's a difficult question because one of the problems we is we've got these law texts which are written saying how things are supposed to be. This is how medieval Wales is supposed to work. What we don't have is the other evidence of the laws being applied. We don't have courts, we don't have records of cases. And I always say, you know how if you're driving along and there's a 40 mile an hour limit sign on the road, that's the law. Do you always, always drive at 40 or in Wales, 20 even? Do you always, always. Do you sometimes go a little bit? So we've got, we've got the situation, we've got the law, how things are supposed to be, but we don't always have how things actually were. Some of the laws quite clearly couldn't really have been applied. We've got the example of divorce. You know, it says how things, you know, this is how you do it, but it's never going to work. And so it's a hidden warning. So they're not written as listen of rules. And we don't have the other side of things. So we've got that situation. We've got these practical laws, but not the sort of evidence for their, for their use or for their following. But that's true pretty much everywhere. What we do have is other aspects which made the laws successful because there was knowledge of these laws. And I said repeatedly that medieval Wales was a very divided country, it wasn't unified, it wasn't under one strong ruler. But certain things did unify people and certain things did make medieval Wales an entity, if you like. It made medieval Wales as well as A concept, something that was recognized. Now, the language is one people who spoke the same language. But even today, north and South Wales have, you know, different dialects. It's also true, you know, if you put somebody from Liverpool, a Scouser, next to somebody from Newcastle or Geordie, you know, the language is going to be very different. Not completely unintelligible, but it's, you know, you've got language differences. But speaking the same language does unify people. And medieval Welsh law has a clear image of this. The law applies to certain people who speak that language. But the main thing, I think, that unified medieval Wales was this law, because people who live under the same law are seen as the same people. The law was subject to people who lived in Wales, specifically the Welsh, actually wasn't necessarily. There was a clear distinction of how you dealt with foreigners. But even in England, there was an understanding that in Wales, people had a different law. In Magna Carta 1215, clause 56 says that the law of England is to apply to land holdings in England, the law of Wales to those in Wales. So there's an acknowledgement that Wales has a different law. And also, interestingly, the Law of the March for the March of Wales, which is the borderlands I talked about. So you've got different concepts of different laws for different peoples. When the Vikings came into what became England, their lands in England were separate and they were called the Danelaw, as in the people under those laws. So law is a very, very, very big way of identifying people in the Middle Ages and defining groups. So in that sense, I think the law was successful and it lasted for a long time. It was known as the Law of Wales and it lasted throughout the Middle Ages, and it wasn't abolished until 1536 with the acts of Union between England and Wales.
- [39:21]
Podcast Host
Well, let's turn to when these laws fall out of use. What happens there? Or is that really the case, I suppose?
- [39:28]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
Well, the laws lasted for quite a long time. Now, in the 13th century, there was a major event in 1282 known as the Conquest of Wales. So Edward I came in and conquered Llywelyn's lands, and it's known as the Conquest of Wales. Now, you'd expect after that, well, game over for the Welsh laws. But actually it wasn't the case. So Edward I issued in 1284 the statute of Wales, also known as the Statute of Hrislan, from the castle in North Wales where he issued it, which were provisions for the newly conquered lands that he'd just conquered. And one of the rules Said that English law was to apply in the conquered territories, but only for criminal law. So only criminal law applied and covered. Howell could continue in all other areas. Now that's interesting because covert Howell doesn't actually have a very strong criminal law because it's not a concept, that's a very much a state driven concept and that wasn't in existence. So only a small part of the Welsh laws were switched over to English laws then and they continued for quite a long time. They continued in fact throughout the Middle Ages they continued unchanged probably in quite a lot of South Wales. And in the March there was a lot of development because the marcher lords would pick and choose the laws that worked best for them, usually the ones that would make them the most money actually. And the Welsh law could be quite useful in this sense. You've got continuation of the Welsh laws there as well. And it wasn't until the Acts of Union under Henry VIII in 1536 that the Welsh laws were formally abolished. And that's when they came to an end.
- [41:06]
Podcast Host
So just to bring it back to, I suppose, the importance of understanding these laws, these texts in the context, what else haven't we covered today? Sarah Ellen, that you would like people to understand when they refer to or think about the laws of Howells are the Covlayeth Howell.
- [41:23]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
I think the importance of these laws are the fact that they are lengthy Welsh texts in complex, sophisticated Middle Welsh, the concepts that you have in them are often drawn on broader European ideas of law. So they're often described as homegrown and they're certainly homegrown and fit for purpose, but they're not your basic 10 Commandments. You should do this, you shouldn't do that. There's far more to it than that. They're an incredibly rich source for society in the Middle Ages, particularly Welsh society. While they're very difficult to date and they're very difficult to locate, but you do get an idea. I mean, all of human nature is there. Whereas other historical sources, Chronicles, for example, will list the deeds of great men in the Welsh laws and law in general. You get everybody's, you know, everybody's covered by the law. Newborn babies, it says, you know, quite clearly they're covered by the law. And the law is there throughout everybody's lives. So you get sort of incredible details about everyday life. Animals, farming, fishing, women, men and women, sex and where that happened, which is not necessarily where we'd expect it to. That's a big problem. And you just get this idea of society and this image of people who need to live together. And it's not always easy to live with your neighbors. Sometimes, you know, not everybody gets along. And I think for me what I adore about the subject is the humanity that I get in it. And the same things that bother people today, they bothered people in 13th century Wales too.
- [43:04]
Podcast Host
It's so brilliant to hear, I think, to remind ourselves that so many of the little gripes that we will have day to day, these are long term woes. And this, this, you've given us a wonderful insight into this set of laws today. Where would you like to point people to next to your own writing? How else can people find out about these laws?
- [43:21]
Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts
I've got a website focused on the Welsh law and also the Welsh law manuscripts where you can see some pictures of these incredible manuscripts. My website is at www.covereich-hoel.org.uk and there's a full bibliography on that website so you can start looking up. Often the Welsh laws are seen as being a scary subject, quite difficult and some of the stuff in there can be quite difficult. But there are fantastic resources out there, translations and stuff like that. So hopefully I'm keen to make the laws better known generally.
- [44:01]
Podcast Host
Well, hopefully today has been a good entry point for some of our listeners and I do encourage them to go and read more about these fascinating laws. And Sara Ellen, thank you so much for your time in introducing them. Little bit today. D yeah,
- [44:17]
Eleanor Evans
that was Sarah Ellen Roberts speaking to Eleanor Evans. You can find a link to the website that Sarah Ellen mentioned which includes a reading list of sources on the laws in the show notes.