THE CELTIC SYSTEM 



195 



marily due to the custom of transmitting land to co-heirs and 

 giving to each a share in parcels of every quahty. In a brief time 

 this practice might transform a compact farm or townland into a 

 congeries of ill-compacted holdings, and, once transformed, a 

 farm had httle chance of regaining its earlier semblance except by 

 the falhng-in of the leases or by the action of the landlord. 



Since in Scotland at the end of the eighteenth century runrig 

 was considered ancient, it becomes pertinent to inquire whether 

 transmission of holdings to co-heirs was a custom found in Celtic 

 countries in earUer times. The Jacobean description of Pem- 

 brokeshire notes that its effects were at that time beginning to 

 disappear. Hence we turn with expectation to a Welsh survey 

 of the Tudor period which gives suggestive information. The two 

 following descriptions of holdings, which are typical, illustrate 

 how a transmission to several co-heirs, presumably resultant in 

 runrig, had recently taken place at Eskirmaen.^ To judge 

 from the rents, which elsewhere in the survey are 2 d. the acre, 

 the first holding must have contained about 35 acres, the second 

 about 150: — 



" John ap griffith henry , 

 howell ap henry 



david ap meredydd griffith lloyd 

 Morgan ap meredydd ap griffith lloyd 

 Isabell merch griffith ap meredydd ap griffith lloyd 

 Maude merch griffith ap meredydd ap griffith lloyd 

 Gwenllian merch griffith ap meredydd ap griffith lloyd 



" Johannes dny ap gwilym Gwalter 

 Redd ap meredydd ap gwilym Gwalter 

 Johannes ap Jenii ap gwilym Gwalter 

 howell ap Jenn ap g^vilym Gwalter 

 Griffith ap Morgan ap gwalter 

 Gwalter ap Morgan ap gwalter 

 Johannes ap Owen ap morgan 

 David ap Owen ap morgan 

 Gwalter ap Henry morgan 



tenent certas terras 

 et tenementa ibi- 

 dem que nuperfue- 

 runt henrici ap 

 griffith lloyd. 



tenent certas terras 

 et tenementa que 

 ► nuper fuerunt 

 Gwalter ap Jenn 

 lliii." 



This Tudor survey with its holdings in the occupation of several 

 heirs finds a prototype in another and earlier Welsh survey — a 

 rate-book of 8 Edward III, known as the Denbigh extent. 



1 Rents, and Survs., D. of Lane, Portf. 12/4 (15-19 Hen. VII), fif. 2^h, 286. 



