CHAPTER X 

 THE WELSHMEN 



IN the counties bordering on Wales Gloucester, Hereford, 

 Salop., and Cheshire there are frequent notices of Welsh- 

 men who are recorded separately from the villans and 

 freemen. Although they formed part of a conquered race, yet 

 their English and Norman conquerors allowed them, or some 

 of them, the enjoyment of their own peculiar customs, both 

 economic and legal. In the Castellary of Carleon there were 

 " three Welshmen living under the Welsh law." 1 



Harold, when he was Earl of Hereford, was frequently 

 engaged in raiding Wales. Towards the end of the reign of 

 Edward the Confessor he had made two important conquests, 

 the first in Archinfield, the district to the south of the upper 

 Wye, between the Worm and the Dove, the modern hundred 

 of Webtree, and the other in Gwent, the district lying between 

 the lower reaches of the Wye and the Usk. These were 

 annexed to the earldom of Hereford, and after the Conquest 

 passed to William fitz Osbern, and at his death to his son 

 Roger. But after the rebellion of the latter, and his con- 

 sequent forfeiture, these lands fell to the King, who annexed 

 Gwent to Gloucestershire, and Archinfield to Herefordshire. 

 Hugh, Earl of Chester, was frequently engaged in warfare 

 with the Welsh, and had annexed to Cheshire much of the 

 country that is now comprised in the counties of Flint and 

 Denbigh. 2 



1 D. B., I. 185 b I. - Norman Conquest, ii. App. SS. 



197 



