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assessed on the basis of land.6 However, it is a third source which provides the basis for information presented in this article: namely, the court rolls of the marcher lordship of Dyffryn Clwyd. These court rolls allow us to see kinship ties in action rather than theoretically (as in the laws) or statically (as in the surveys). Furthermore, the court rolls allow us to study Welsh ties of kinship in the area where they functioned most fully and, arguably, in which they had their most far-reaching practical impact, the inheritance and transmission of land. Title and claims to land in free Welsh society rested on membership of a descent-group or lineage, known as a gwely (the literal English translation of this word is 'a bed'). This was composed of all the male descendants of an identifiable ancestor. For example, in the kindred which will form the centre of discussion in this article, Iorwerth ap Cadwgan (numbered 1 in Genealogy A, in future identified as [A. I]) was probably regarded by his descendants as the head of their lineage. Those who could trace their male line of descent back to Iorwerth ap Cadwagan formed a gwely and as a group had collective rights and duties. Most importantly, each of these men, termed co-parceners (compor- cionarii), was entitled to a share of the land held by the progenitor, identified as terra de hereditate. 7 Within the framework provided by the lineage, the law of succession in Wales worked according to two basic rules. First, the right to succeed to a piece of land was further limited to a four-generation agnatic kin-group. In other words, inheritance was confined to a male-related group of second cousins or closer to the deceased. This four-generation kindred existed within the wider lineage. For example, Bleddyn Goch [A. 7] was a member of the lineage of Iorwerth ap Cadwgan [A. I], but his right to inherit land from his kinsmen only included those descended from his great-grandfather, Gruffydd, son of Iorwerth ap Cadwgan [A. 2]. This meant that while right to de heredi- tate land and other obligations stemmed from his descent from the head of the lineage, practical inheritance rights were more restricted. The second feature of Welsh inheritance was that free Welsh land was partible between male co- heirs. In any succession the land concerned was divided, first between any sons (or grandsons, sons of deceased sons) of the tenant, and failing sons to 6 Survey of the Honour of Denbigh. 1334, ed. P. Vinogradoff and F. Morgan (British Academy Records of Social and Economic History, no. 1, 1914); unpublished survey of the lordship of Bromfield and Yale, 1391, British Library, Add. MS. 10013; The Record of Caernarvon: Registrum vulgariter nuncupatum 'The Record of Caernarvon', ed. H. Ellis (Record Commission, 1838). 7 R. R. Davies, Lordship and Society in the March of Wales, 1282-1400 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 354-78. The gwely clearly still functioned in parts of Dyffryn Clwyd as a reference exists to one such descent-group, the 'wyrion Alderth', the grandsons of Alderth. who are described collectively as holding land in the commote of Dogfeiling in the lordship in 1360.