5 16 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



alongside his father ; and thus a number of relatives held contiguous holdings. 

 When congestion arose tribesmen could not get holdings alongside their 

 relatives without other tribesmen changing their holdings ; but changes and 

 such movements as would rearrange the holdings of relatives beside each 

 other seem to have taken place frequently. Each tribesman's homestead 

 was erected beside his land ; and, so, the homesteads of a family and there- 

 fore of a tribe were stretched out in more or less regular rows along the 

 countryside in all probability four or five acres' breadth away from each 

 other. 



The " strangers," that is descendants of men who had come into the 

 country but who could not be tribesmen till their mothers had been Welsh 

 for nine (sometimes four) generations, held land like the tribesmen ; but in 

 their case there were no patriarchs or heads of families. Any stranger, 

 once he was grown to manhood, was equal to any other, much as the 

 English villagers were : but he was by no means equal to a Cymro. He 

 could not bear a soldier's weapons, and hunting and horsemanship were 

 forbidden him. Nor could he be a scholar, a chief, or a bard till the chief of 

 the tribe he was attached to consented. The strangers as well as the tribes- 

 man contributed to the chiefs from their land, and they were liable to more 

 onerous demands in the way of labour and service. On military expeditions 

 they were the camp-followers to supply horses, make encampments, and see 

 to the commissariat. " They are to furnish pack-horses to the king for the 

 hosts, and they are to present the queen once every year with meat and 

 drink, and they are to support the dogs, the huntsmen, the falconers, and the 

 youths, all of them once every year." 1 According to the Venedotian code of 

 laws, a body of about sixteen strangers (a maenol) had to contribute in 

 produce to their chief : — 



"In Winter. 



" A three-year-old swine, a vessel of butter 3 handbreadths in depth and 

 three in breadth, a vat full of bragot nine handbreadths in depth diagonally, 

 a thrave of oats of one band for provender, 26 loaves of the best bread grown 

 on the land. . . . 



" In Summer. 



" A three-year-old wether, a dish of butter, 26 loaves, and a cheese of one 

 milking of all the cows in the trev " 2 (\ a maenol). 



On the other hand, a contribution from a similar number of tribesmen 

 was 



"A hoTse load of the best flour that shall grow on the land, the carcase of 



1 Quoted in Seebohm from Ancient Laws of Wales, i, 193. 



2 Quoted in Seebohm's Tribal System in Wales from Ancient T.aws of Wales, i, 199. 



