Writ. The time that they arrived there was Lent, and the reason that they came there in Lent was that it behoved all to be upright in that holy season and to avoid evil in a time of holiness. And with the mutual counsel and deliberation of the wise men who there assembled, they examined the old laws, some of which they allowed to continue, some they amended, and others they completely abolished, and others again they ordained afresh. And when they had promulgated the laws, which they had decided to establish, Howel gave his authority to them and strictly commanded that they should be scrupulously observed. And Howel and the wise men, who were with him, imposed their curse and that of all Cymru on any one in Cymru who perverted the laws and kept them not ; and they imposed their curse on the judge who should take a vow' to administer justice, and on the lord who should grant him authority without that judge knowing the Three Columns of Law, and the Worth of Wild and Tame, and everything necessary for the use of man.
IV
The leading work so far concerned with the laws of Howel is that edited by Aneurin Owen in 1841 for the Public Record Commissioners, entitled Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales. It contains the three early Latin books, and also the three classes of Welsh books ; the additions made to the latter from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries are given with other legal matter under the heading of Anomalous Laws. The Welsh texts are provided with an English translation. The Books of Gwynedd, Blegywryd, and Cyvnerth, however, are produced in such a way that the various MSS. of each particular class are interblended, so that it is with
