368 THE president's address. 



But it was not pressure of refugees alone that provoked 

 migrations. It is possible, even probable, that these had begun 

 before the Saxon invasion. A predisposing cause lay in the 

 Celtic laws relative to inheritance. 



Although we have these laws in late texts, yet they are the 

 codification of customs of hoar antiquity. 



One of these laws is — "All patrimony is thrice divided in 

 the family ; first, among the brothers ; secondly, among the 

 cousins ; and thirdly, among the second cousins." That is to 

 say, on a father's death there was equal partition among the 

 sons, but should one of these brothers die, there was no 

 repartition among his children till the death of the uncles ; and 

 then the original inheritance was divided up equally among all 

 the grandchildren who were cousins. Such a condition of affairs 

 was intolerable to young bloods, and rather than wait to an 

 indefinite future to inherit a small parcel of land, they preferred 

 to carve out for themselves new principalities with immediate 

 possession. There lay but a blue belt of water between them 

 and Armorica almost destitute of inhabitants. The young princes 

 drew about them a host of adventurers and crossed. 



We can distinguish four swarms. The first, under one 

 Eiothimus, landed at the mouth of the Loire at the close of the 

 5th century. The second came from Gwent, where life had 

 become intolerable owing to the incursions of the Saxons over 

 the Calder and Wentloog levels, and in the valley of the TJsk. 

 This Gwentian colony planted itself in the north-west of the 

 Armorican peninsula, and called it Leon or Lyonesse after the 

 Oaerleon that had been abandoned. The third was the swarm 

 under Riwal, already alluded to. It took possession of the 

 north from Leon to the Couesnon, and called the principality 

 Damnonia ; either as coming from Devon, or from the character 

 of the land they took. 



The fourth swarm called their new territory Oernau, which 

 the French have rendered Cornouaille ; because Finisterre 

 projects like a horn into the Atlantic. 



By degress Vannes, itself a Gallo-Eoman city, was enveloped 

 by the new comers, so that in 590, the Bishop Regalis complained 

 that he was as it were imprisoned by them within the walls of 



