by no means to be disregarded. The law is the law of Howel, but it is the law of Howel as modified and amplified both by the varying customs of different parts of Wales and also by the changes which are taking place throughout three and a half critical centuries in the general life of the people.
What share King Howel had in the codification of Welsh law and custom in the tenth century is not easy to determine, especially as the earliest account of the convention which he is said to have assembled at the White House is over two centuries later than his time.[1] Our earliest chronicle also, the so-called Annales Cambriae,[2] completed only a few years after his death, is silent as to any activity he may have displayed in this direction, and contains no reference of any kind to the alleged convention. All the codices, however, agree in associating his name with the formulation of the laws of Cymru, frequently appealing to his authority and indicating the fact when they have occasion to depart from it or to add thereto. This unanimous testimony of the codices is corroborated by the nature of the few facts which are known of his career. By the death of his father and paternal uncles, the sons of Rhodri the Great, he rose steadily in power. He had married Elen, the daughter of the King of Dyved, by which he became king of that country.[3] There is evidence which goes to show that he was by inheritance ruler of Powys, and as we find him
