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THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



The Celtic Saints. 



By the Rev. S. BARING-GOUIvD, M.A. 



The organisation — political and social, and ecclesiastical, — of 

 the Celt seems to have been much the same everywhere. 

 Unhappily we have no texts relative to early Cornish history, 

 and if we would reconstruct the political, social, and ecclesiasti- 

 cal life of the Cornu-British before they were subdued by the 

 Saxons, and all native organizations destroyed by the Normans 

 we must go to Irish, Welsh and Breton authorities. We cannot 

 do wrong in inferring that what was an existing condition of 

 affairs in Ireland, Wales, and Brittany existed also in ancient 

 Cornwall. 



Political and Social Organization. 



I must say a few words on the political constitution of the 

 Celtic peoples before we proceed to ecclesiastical organizations 

 for these latter grew out of the former. Happily, we know this 

 fairly well from the Irish and Welsh laws. The Irish laws were 

 codified by the advice of St. Patrick when they were adjusted to 

 the new condition of the people under Christianity. The 

 alteration made in them was not great, and, indeed, the king 

 Laoghaire, under whom the Senchus Mor was drawn up, was 

 himself to the end a Pagan. The Senchus Mor remained in 

 force in parts of Ireland to a late period, in Clare to 1600. 



We have the Welsh laws of Howell Dda, likewise a codifi- 

 cation with slight adjustment to altered conditions of pre-existing 

 laws transmitted orally ; but they have gone through alteration 

 and interpolation, especially in such parts as touched ecclesiasti- 

 cal matters, since the Norman conquest of Wales, and the 

 Latinisation of the native Church. 



The population in Ireland, and it was the same in all Celtic 

 peoples, consisted of the Free and Unfree. 



In the midst of the lawn was the lis, circular, consisting of a 

 bank of earth and a moat, the former surmounted by a pallisade. 



