cantref would have appeared as pagus, as in the preface of Peniarth MS. 28.[1] Indeed, further on in this Latin text we find pagus, id est, cantref.[2] But pagus is also made to stand for cymwd, as in the early Latin text, Harleian MS. 1796, e.g. fines pagi, i. chemut.[3] Consequently it is possible that our cantrevs may be a mistranslation of pagi, meaning cymwds, and that what is meant to be said is that Howel's dominions included sixty-four cymwds of [or in] Deheubarth and eighteen cymwds of Gwynedd [plus Gwrtheyrnion and Buallt or parts thereof]. Now in the three old lists of the cantrevs and cymwds of Wales,[4] there are variations in those of Gwynedd, chiefly because certain of these divisions were debatable ground between Gwynedd and Powys, and partly also owing to the errors of scribes who misread some cymwds under wrong cantrevs because of the proximity of one name to another. There can be no doubt, however, that the following were universally acknowledged to be intrinsic parts of Gwynedd, namely, the six cymwds of Anglesey and the eleven cymwds of Arllechwedd, Dunoding, Meirionydd, Lleyn, and Arvon. Penllyn with its three cymwds also appears in each of the three old lists, but it is a striking fact that Penllyn with its two cymwds proper, Uwch Meloch and Is Meloch, were and are in the Diocese of St. Asaph, whilst the third cymwd, Nanconwy, was and is in that of Bangor.[5] We may therefore fairly conclude from what evidence we have that Gwynedd comprised eighteen undisputed cymwds, viz. the seventeen enumerated above plus the cymwd of Nanconwy. And it seems as though it were to this undisputed Gwynedd that the text alludes. With regard to the sixty-four cymwds of [or in] the Deheubarth, the special reference to ' trachyrchell ' makes it amply clear that the patria of Rhwng Gwy a Havren is not in our author's mind to be included in that designation. There remain therefore (excluding Buallt mentioned separately) the gwlads or patrias of Ceredigion, Dyved, Ystrad Tywi, Brycheiniog, and Morgannwg with Gwent. The first four comprise fifty-two cymwds,[6] and the last about twenty-five, exclusive of Cantrev Coch between the Wye and Gloucester.
- ↑ Anc. Laws II. 749 ; and p. 1 in Introduction.
- ↑ Ibid. II. 750.
- ↑ Ibid. II. 895.
- ↑ Brit. Mus. Doraitian A VIII. (Leland's Itinerary in Wales, ed. L. T. Smith, 1906, pp. 1-5); Cwta Cyfarwydd (Y Cymmrodor IX. 325-33) ; Oxford Brut II. 407-12.
- ↑ St. Asaph of course is the diocese of Powys, and Bangor that of Gwynedd. Penllyn, outside the three old lists, is generally regarded as a cymwd. Egerton Phillimore in Owen's Pembrokeshire 1. 2 15, III. 215, &c.
- ↑ Adding Y Garn to the Brut list and Elved to that of Domitian A VIII, and omitting Trevdraeth and Pebidiog (cymwd) from that of the Cwta.
