rhaith. ' Originally it seems to have been used to signify the notion conveyed by the juridical terms, ius, droit, recht. It is cognate with German recht and English right ', and is represented in Irish by the neuter recht, which is as if we had in Latin, besides rectus, -a, -um, a neuter rectu, genitive rectus.'[1] Rhaith might be translated compurgation, for if a person were put to his rhaith, he was required to bring forward so many men to swear on his behalf. ' Oath was the primary mode of proof, an oath going not to the truth of a specific fact, but to the justice of the claim or defence as a whole. The number of persons required to swear varied according to the nature of the case and the rank of the persons concerned.'[2]
rhandir [rhan, share ; tir, land], a division of land containing 312 such erws as are described in the text (see Erw). The complete rhandir was to comprise clear and brake, wood and field, wet and dry, except (if the text be thus interpreted correctly) in the case of the gorvodtrev. There were to be four rhandirs in the free trev, and three in the taeogtrev, one rhandir in both cases being pasturage for the remainder. Should a dispute arise between two trevs as to a boundary, the area which could be legally appropriated was always to be less than a rhandir.[3]
sarhad, insult and insult-fine. If the person who committed sarhad was unable to pay, his kindred were legally bound to pay along with him, but only till the third degree of kinship, and not to the fifth cousin as in the case of galanas. See galanas.
taeog, a villein. The word is of the same origin as ty (house).[4] The inhabitants of old Wales were divided into two main divisions, those of pedigree (boneddigion) and those of no pedigree. The taeogs were the most privileged in the latter division, preceding in status both the alltuds and the caethion (slaves). The word taeog is of very rare occurrence in the books of the Black Book of Chirk type, the designation of the villein in this text being commonly what would now be spelt mab aillt, a word of still rarer occurrence in the other law books. In the Latin Peniarth MS. 28 taeog is represented by villanus. There were two ranks of taeogs, those of a king and those of a breyr. The galanas and sarhad
