Welsh Journals

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The Welsh student whose interest is primarily in legal history rather than language will progress faster by working on the Germanic systems, particularly those of the Continent, because on the one hand they are, like the Welsh system, living systems adapting themselves to changing circumstances, and on the other they have been well edited and have further been studied fully-if not indeed exhaustively -from the lawyer's viewpoint. We have already seen what light the Germanic systems throw on compurgation procedure in Wales; another field in which the most cursory examination reveals similari- ties is that of theft, where for instance the Welsh defence of arwaesaf (voucher to warranty) is paralleled in one system after another. Comparison with other systems will be most valuable; but the best aid to the understanding of the Welsh lawbooks would be a copious supply of court records and other legal documents-if we had them. I have begun to hope that there may be far more of this type of material than we used to think, for we are realizing that post-1282 records, from the Marches as well as from the Principality, can still be records of Welsh law. The few printed records that are available give us evidence of the operation of the rules found in the lawbooks in such matters as the giving of human pledges in suits relating to land25 and the defence of arwaesaf to a charge of theft;26 we must hope that many more court rolls will soon be printed, and from the point of view of the student of the land law a crying need is for a collection of documents of the type of Gruffudd ap Aron's Roll with its record of the beginnings of the Peniarth estate. To sum up, we may say that while there is still much work to be done on the manuscript lawbooks, it is now safe to give attention also to the law contained in those books. We have a broad general picture of the native law of medieval Wales, and we can now venture to study particular subjects in detail with some hope of achieving worthwhile results. Some work of that kind has already been done: Mr. Gwilym Prys Dafis's thesis on Contractual Obligations in Welsh Law has shown the kind of work that can be done, and should be published in some form, and we shall hope that Miss Morfudd Owen will soon be able to complete her work on Galanas. When the next Colloquium on Welsh Medieval Law meets, I hope that we may hear at least one paper on a particular subject from the legal historian's viewpoint; I trust that I am not being too hopeful. DAFYDD JENKINS. 25 J. Conway Davies. The Welsh Assize Roll (Cardiff. 1940). pp. 253. 257. 264-5. 26 R. A. Roberts, Ruthin Court Rolls (London, 1893). pp. 3. 4-5.