370 THE president's addbess. 



does not apply to the Irish monks who spread over Europe, but 

 it does to the Welsh and Cornish Saints. Moreover, we find 

 that the Saints of Cornwall had their churches in Cornouaille 

 and Damnonia, and passed as they listed from one to the other, 

 and that very readily, for they were among their own people, 

 and, for a time at least, under the same princes. 



Let us now see what was the method adopted in colonisation. 



Those who came across were chiefs whose prospects were 

 not rosy in Britain where the frontiers were contracting. 

 They headed some of the refugees from the swords of the Saxons, 

 for whom there was no room in West Wales, and they crossed 

 the channel. 



All those united under one leader constituted a clan, and it 

 was the duty of the chief to find land and homesteads for every 

 married man in his clan. In return he received an annual 

 subvention and assistance in war. 



Accordingly, as soon as a body of colonists arrived, they 

 founded a plou, plebs, in Welsh plwgf. Each district occupied 

 was a,pou orpagus. In the pou were so many trefs or homesteads. 

 In Wales a hundred trefs made up a cantref. It was not so at 

 first in Brittany. In Cornwall we know nothing of the clans, 

 but the whole peninsula is strewn with tres or trefs. Probably 

 the Deaneries represent the old clan limits. In one instance, 

 Powder, the designation Pou combined with dwr (water) remains. 

 The chief had his lis or court* in which he sat as judge. He 

 had also his dinas or palace, and caer or fortified castle. 



The next thing to be done was to organise the ecclesiastical 

 tribe. Among the Celts all authority was gathered into the 

 hands of hereditary chiefs. Of these there were two kinds, the 

 military chief and the ecclesiastical chief, each had his separate 

 clan and separate lands ; but the members of the ecclesiastical 

 tribe were bound to render military service to the Chief Secular ; 

 and the ecclesiastical chief on his side provided for the religious 

 needs of the Secular as well as the Ecclesiastical tribe. 



A very similar organisation existed among the Hebrews, 

 among whom were nine secular and one ecclesiastical tribe, but 

 there was this difference, that among the Hebrews there was 



*Iii Ireland a lis did not mean court but an enclosure. The exercise of 

 judicial rights by princes was late. 



