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gingersnaptaff · 3 months ago

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Welsh Law, Women, and The Mab - Mab March Madness 3

Sorry I have been gone for like what a week? Two? Idk. Anyways, I'm super sorry but I bring a TASTY TREAT TO APOLOGISE.

I'm gonna talk about The Mabinogion, Welsh law, and women's rights because boi howdy is a tasty af text. Quick note: I'm gonna be focusing like on every lady BUT I want you to know that they're all great. Another quick note: I'm not an academic but I am SICK AS FUCK OF SEEING PEOPLE USE ONE FUCKIN SOURCE FOR WELSH DIVORCE AND THINKING THAT EQUATES TO THE WHOLE FUCKIN THING. BAM. DONE. FUCK OFF. READ A GODDAMN BOOK. It's so much more complex and, by God, I'm going to tell u about women's rights, OKAY?!

‘Welsh myth,’ writes Peter Berresford Ellis, ‘is not short on determined women.’ Seriously, the Four Branches give us Arawn's wife (who in her only conversation with her husband gets the upper hand, TWICE!) Rhiannon (resourceful af, a fuckin QUEEN,), Branwen (a dignified figure, SENDS A MESSAGE TO HER BROTHER WITH A STARLING, brokenhearted for the destruction done in her name), Cigfa (owner of the only brain cell within the third branch), Aranrhod (actually needs to kill her brother and I support her), Goewin (what she goes through is horrific and she needs a SWORD), and Blodeuwedd (her whole vibe is IMMACULATE). The Three Romances give us Luned (Best girl, not afraid to give Owain a piece of her mind), Angharad (who could be seen as a thingy for colonialism but also generous if her ‘golden-handed’ epithet is anything to go by), and Enid (one of the Three Splendid Maidens of Arthur's court in the Triads! Eat shit, Geraint!)

Furthermore, you have Gwenhwyfar, who would later ‘get the short end of the stick’ within the Anglo-Norman Christian retelling of Arthuriana. Both Arthur - who had three mistresses in Welsh myth - and Gwen herself were having ‘adulterous intrigues’ in Welsh myth. She, particularly in Geraint ac Enid, is a fascinating look at a queen’s role within the Welsh court.

But lemme focus on the Four Branches real quick! They are, I'd argue, an enmeshment of Welsh Law and Welsh myth, in regards to women. Andrew Breeze says the Mab, ‘reads convincingly’ as being written by a woman. Its main thrust is to do with women and how they're treated by the men and the small but significant ways they break out of their patriarchal cycles.

Now, not every branch has laws in it but what they do have is fascinating. This can be most clearly seen in Branch 1 and Rhiannon's whole affair. It is she who holds the command within the first half of the text after she makes herself known to Pwyll. She is the one who makes the first move, as Breeze writes: ‘the shots are called by the woman not the man.’ It is she who rides past him in her ‘shining, golden garment,’ ‘sitting astride a pale-white horse,’ and imitates the chase that ultimately results in Pwyll chasing after her (and exhausted his horse.) Furthermore, she is presented as being the main instigator of the whole affair for she did not wish to be given to Gwawl ap Clud in marriage. This is true to Welsh texts for, as the Venedotian (North Walian) code states, ‘every woman is to go the way she willeth, freely.’ Try as her father might - and he doesn't thankfully, good ol’ Hyfaidd - he cannot force Rhiannon to marry Gwawl, even if he might try. But all this results in him being whacked in a bag and smacked about. ‘And that was the first time that Badger in the Bag was played,’ so the text proclaims.

Now, this personal bestowal or ‘lladrut’ (stolen, secretive, furtive) wasn't looked down upon as you might think. If it was then why did a literal fuckin princess do it in the 1100's? (*Blows kiss to the sky* for as Geraint H. Jenkins writes, ‘a beautiful princess so terrifyingly androgynous that she was liked by Gerald of Wales to the Queen of the Amazons:’ Gwenllian ferch Gruffudd ap Cynan!) This was just as legally binding as a ‘rod o cenedl’ (gift of kindred) marriage, and all children were accepted.

After that though, it Rhiannon she who is on the back foot and regarded suspiciously by Pwyll's court. Her aforementioned white and gold colours would've let the reader/listener of these tales know that she was Otherworldly, something to be feared as much as admired, and so she is by both the men who counsel her husband, and the women her son’s care is entrusted to.

The primary suspicion is cast upon her after she and Pwyll have been married for three years. ‘The nobleman of the land began to worry at seeing a man whom they loved as much as their lord as foster-brother without an heir, and they summoned him to them.

“Lord,” they said, “we know that you are not as old as some of the men of this land, but we are afraid that you will not get an heir from the wife you have. And because of that, take another wife from whom you may have an heir.”’

Now, The Mab brings up an excellent point that the Laws themselves remain silent on - a woman could be divorced if she did not give her husband an heir. Other reasons for a husband to divorce his wife were ‘dependant on her unchastity either before or after a marriage,’ loose conduct in her marriage so like if she had an affair or smth, or ‘failure to observe the terms of the marriage contract.’ Women too could divorce their wives - which is great, sure! - except that they could only do so ‘on the grounds of impotency, leprosy, or fetid breath,’ as well as if she found him committing adultery but only after the third time. There is an inherent imbalance there as well when you take into account that men could have - and raise! - their bastards without scorn. Notable fucker (as in the sexual sense) Owain Gwynedd is perhaps the shining example of this. Man had many kids! His second wife, Cristina, had to give up her legitimate child she'd had with her first husband before she married Owain, and it doesn't seem like she made efforts to contact him after that.

Rhiannon, too, is then further unjustly punished for her loss of the child. ‘Pwyll punishes her,’ writes Berresford Ellis, ‘by ostracising her’ and as The Mab states: ‘there was a mounting block outside the gate,’ and she was, ‘to sit by that every day and tell the whole story to anyone whom she thought might not know it, and offer to carry guests and strangers on her back to the court if they permitted it.’ Luckily nobody does, but it alludes to the ostracisation women had to deal with if they could not give their husband a child, as well as, perhaps, the punishment applies to a woman if it was discovered after she'd married that she was unchaste before said marriage. ‘The woman's clothes were cut to the level of her hips, she was made to hold the tail, well greased, of a year-old steer, which was thrust through a hole in the house door. Two men prodded the steer, and, if the woman could hold the animal, she could keep it as her agweddi [her dowry that was payable by a husband once a marriage was consummated] and that only if she could not, she had to be content with the grease that clung to her fingers.’

Furthermore, as can be seen in ‘Culhwch ac Olwen,’ if a woman was given in marriage - so if she did not elope herself - then only her father and brothers could do so, with the proviso that it was done so in concert with the other generations of the family. Ysbaddaden Pencawr (big giant lad, Olwen's father, winner of the longest beard award for the nth year running) states: ‘“Her four great-grandmothers and four great-grandsires are alive; it is needful that I should take counsel with them.”’ This lines up with Welsh law, where the son of a Welsh woman given in marriage claimed a ‘mamwys’ if they were given in marriage to an alltud (foreigner) then he claimed it from those who were related to him in four degrees.

You can also see this within the Second Branch. Branwen, ‘a sensitive and intelligent young woman,’ the sister of Bendigeidfran and Manawydan and the half-sister of Nisien and Efnisien, is bestowed in marriage to Matholwch, King of Ireland. Efnisien's whole dealio is rage. He's literally named HOSTILE. When he is not consulted on the matter of his sister’s marriage - ‘“Is that what they have done with such a fine maiden,’ he says in The Mab, ‘and my sister at that, given her away without my permission? They could not have insulted me more.”’ - he flies into a rage and ‘went for [Matholwch's] horses, and cut their lips to the teeth and their ears down to their heads, and their tails to their backs, and where he could get a grip on the eyelids he cut them to the bone.’ This act of violence causes Matholwch to abuse Branwen once the couple returns to Ireland, even though an attempted redress upon the insult has been made through Bendigeidfran bestowing the Cauldron of Rebirth (or Pair Dadeni) to his brother-in-law, and results in Branwen rearing a starling to send a message to her brother Or GET HER OUTTA THERE. The ‘sorrows’ that Branwen subsequently endured are traceable to the unjustified revenge of the ‘quarrelsome’ Efnisien for he, being only her half-brother, was not entitled to consultation in the matter of his half-sister's marriage. As Andrew Breeze writes in his book ‘The Origins of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi,’ the starling escapade ‘shows the narrator’s awareness of how a woman might use literacy to escape from bindsge and male violence.’ It is this letter that brings about her liberation, as well as the fleet from Britain. This stratagem also achieves the redress for Branwen that Bendigeidfran’s attempt. Personally, for me, this shows why divorce would be fuckin pointless for her. She is hidden. She is being abused. She gets given ‘a box on the ear’ every day. Do you think she can escape from that?

Likewise, with Enid ‘a patient’ young woman, she could NOT divorce Geraint. She is the daughter of Ynwyl, ‘chieftain who has fallen on evil days,’ and is fuckin dirt poor. She could keep her gowyn, cowyll, and argyfreu - payments made payable to the woman by the man after they were married - ‘although the Venedotian code deprived her of the latter if the separation were caused by the woman’s own immortality,’ but, unless you were a King's daughter, it wouldn't amount to much. Enid’s predicament within the text is made that much more brutal when you realise it's Gwenhwyfar who has given her and Geraint leave to marry. It is she who is ‘entrusted with the Maiden [Enid]’ once she arrives at court along with Geraint. Arthur is the one to give Enid to Geraint. If she fled then she would be insulting both the King and the Queen.

Furthermore, it is not a divorce within the modern-day sense. The Laws speak of ‘ysgar,’ or separation. A distinction was drawn between separation before or after seven years - for, unlike with say the Normanic church marriage wasn't seen as being for life as such, but was merely a contract that could be broken but only by mutual consent. This distinction only affected the woman's rights the woman had in property. Enid, Branwen, and also Blodeuwedd could only divorce if their husbands agreed to it. Neither Geraint, Matholwch, nor Lleu Llaw Gyffes would want to divorce their wives for 1) he's a dick and would rather she ‘constantly prove her love and loyalty to him,’ 2) she’s Queen of Ireland - although she says herself she wryly says, “though I am no ‘lady'” when she is questioned about the mysterious 'forest on the sea’ - and, chiefly, has given him a son, and 3) Blodeuwedd, 'the most beautiful maiden that anyone had ever seen’ was ‘conjured’ for Lleu. He owns her entirely. For as Sauders Lewis has her say in his play ‘The Woman Made of Flowers: Blodeuwedd,’ ‘I bear Llew's collar.’

Plus, if you don't possess land by yourself - which I think neither lady I've mentioned does, really - then she could not enter into ‘any bargains or surety’ in regards to Sarhâd - blood-price - and so her husband must do it for her. You could say, if you wanted to get really out there, that the war between Wales and Ireland is Branwen's Sarhâd, although that's speculative and I'm hesitant to give it a complete YES.

Now, to THE QUEEN. The laws give an look at what exactly an insult towards the queen would entail - as does the Mab - when Gwenhwyfar is assaulted by a knight in Peredur: ‘And the knight grabbed the goblet from Gwenhwyfar's hand and poured the drink that was in it over her face and breast, and gave Gwenhwyfar a great clout of the ear.’ This punishment echoes Branwen's, as well as the one she receives from Mordred in The Triads where he ‘dragged [her] from her royal chair and struck a blow upon her.’ No surprise, would be seen as Bad Fuckin News.

The Laws are clear on this: striking the Queen was seen as an insult. In Arthuriana, Mordred - or, in some cases, Gwenhwyfach's - striking of Gwenhwyfar leads to the Battle of Camlann. In the Mab, this clout on Branwen’s ear also leads to war. I’d also say you could take this further and suggest that Rhiannon’s treatment - being a horse - is an insult as - I’m assuming - you're not gonna be nice to the woman you're using as a LITERAL STEED. Anyways, like I've mentioned beforehand it was the Queen’s job to take care of the ladies of her court, and, also, fun fact, the amobyr (a fee payable for the maidenhead of the woman), was payable to the queen instead of the King after their daughter married. Not much is said about the queen in regard to her position within the laws, but we have to be grateful for what we do have.

The queen had no political power - except maybe through her personal influence of the King, like, say, Joan, Princess of Wales. This ‘soft power,’ as it were, could be used when you became Queen Dowager, as evidenced by the way Queen Angharad, the wife of Gruffudd ap Cynan used the lands she'd been granted on her becoming queen to aid her wayward third-born son, Cadwaladr - although she had a ‘wide power of protection, a considerable special entourage of servants,’ and possessed certain privileges like ‘the right to circuit the land.’ Furthermore, there was never a ruling queen throughout Welsh history when the Laws of Hywel Dda were in operation, and certainly no Queen Regnant. (Strange considering the laws were drawing on Celtic sources where there were defo women leaders like Boudicca (Buddug) and Cartimandua. ‘This ambivalence of gender,’ writes Alice Roberts in The Celts, ‘[provided] women the possibility to achieve the highest status in society’ so it is curious as to why the later Welsh have dropped this. Surely, on account of that, they would not be opposed to it? However, Barry Cunliffe writes ‘it must be readily admitted that any consideration of Celtic social systems is likely to be biased, not only by the prejudices and preconceptions of the Graeco-Roman sources but by the narrow time span and geographical area over which they range.’ As well as this, ‘women clearly occupied a more significant position in Celtic society than they did in the Graeco-Roman world’ and this can be seen within Welsh law, I'd just caution anybody who thinks it was a noted feminist utopia.

Yet the queen's high status can be evidenced in there being both the ‘transmission of royal dignity through the female’ as well as ‘devolution of land through females,’ thus allowing the matrilineal descent to hold the same reverence as male which was very v handy for Owain Glyndŵr cuz his mam was descended from the house of Gwynedd. As well as that, the Queen had her own privy purse and ‘it was a universal rule - so in ALL codes - that one-third of the income derived from the king went to the queen for her personal use.’ Plus, all officers of the household were ‘under her socially’ and received their linens from her, while the Judge of the Court received his insignia of office, that being a gold ring, from her too once he was invested. Furthermore, she was second to the king in status - including to the Etifedd or Edling, that being the king's first bastard or legitimate son!

(Look, all my essay stuff is interconnected. It's the Marvel Universe of Wales. The Cymru-verse. 🤷)

The ‘dominant role of women within the Mabinogion’ does reflect in some ways the power women had within Welsh society. It is, perhaps, our finest link to showing what rights women had within the time period. Certainly, it's a valuable text in both a feminist sense AND a mythological one. Certainly as Miranda Aldhouse-Green writes in ‘Enchanted Wales’ ‘it is my belief that … some medieval mythic narratives may have drawn inspiration … from Iron Age and Roman Welsh culture.’ This bridging is evident within both mythology and the Laws of Hywel Dda, or Cyfraith Hywel. Whether it be in Pwyll Pen Annwfn, or Peredur, Owain, or The Dream of Macsen Wledig these tales serve as a bridge to both the medieval and the ancient, and, with them, so to do we get a view on Medieval Wales’ attitudes to women.

Women are front and centre across pretty much all eleven - twelve if you count The Tale of Taliesin - tales. As Bendigeidfran says in The Mab, ‘I will be a bridge,’ so too are these vitally important texts. Both they and the laws are heavily Christianised, yes, but their outer trapping of Celticism remains.

You gotta remember these laws were codified by Hywel Dda, but they're drawing on earlier Celtic laws. Hywel Dda was Christian (he wrote the laws in about the mid-tenth century although the earliest manuscripts we have are later, from the 13th, a bit like the Mab!) but - much like whoever the writer of the Mab was, be they an anonymous monk, or, as Andrew Breeze postulates, Gwenllian ap Gruffudd ap Cynan - drew on earlier Celtic sources. Furthermore, Cyfraith Hywel is a bloody wonderful text! Do you know that it has a law relating to intersex people?! No? Well here we are: ‘If a person be born with the members of a man and those of a woman, and it be doubtful of which it may make use; some say, that according to such as it principally may use, its privilege is to rank; but, if it make use of each, the law says, that it is to rank with the highest privilege, and that is the privilege of a man: and, if it should become pregnant, the offspring is to have the patrimony of the man who caused the pregnancy; but, if it should make a woman pregnant, the son is then to obtain its patrimony.’

*Blows a kiss to the sky* For Cyfraith Hywel. There's a reason he's known as ‘The Good.’ There's a reason why The Senedd (Welsh Parliamenus's building that houses the members of the Senedd and their staff is called Tŷ Hywel or Hywel's House. He's a big dealio.

Anyways, Welsh law is great. Read a fuckin book. If anybody makes a half-baked assumption about Welsh law again, I'm killing you and taking all your teeth.

Sources

Peter Berresford Ellis - Celtic Women

Sioned Davies - The Mabinogion

Miranda Aldhouse-Green - Enchanted Wales

Barry Cunliffe - The Celtic World & Ancient Celts (Second Edition)

Andrew Breeze - The Origins of The Four Branches of The Mabinogi

Alice Roberts - The Celts

Thomas Peter Ellis - Welsh Tribal Law (DM for a link if you want it!)

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