EARLY BRITAIN #2

 Early Britain #2

     It was not what most think

 From the book "Celt, Druid and Culdee"

 

                                                  by  Isabel Hill Elder

LAWS AND ROADS

That Britain had an indigenous system of law centuries before the

Christian era is abundantly clear from ancient histories of our

islands.

The lawgiver, Molmutius, 450 B.C. (1) based his laws on the code

of Brutus, 1100 B.C. He was the son of Cloton, Duke of Cornwall

(which was and continued to be a royal dukedom) and is referred

to in ancient documents as Dyfn-val-meol-meod, and because of 

his wisdom has been called the 'Solomon' of Britain. 'Centuries

before the Romans gained a footing in this country the

inhabitants were a polished and intellectual people, with a

system of jurisprudence of their own, superior even to the laws

of Rome, and the Romans acknowledged this.' (2)

We have it from the great law authorities and from the legal

writers, Fortescue and Coke, that the Brutus and Molmutine laws

have always been regarded as the foundation and bulwark of

British liberties, and are distinguished for their clearness,

brevity, justice and humanity. (3)

'The original laws of this land were composed of such elements as

Brutus first selected from the ancient Greek and Trojan

institutions.' (4)

A Trojan law mentioned by E.O.Gordon, decreed that the sceptre

might pass to a queen as well as to a king; this law was embodied

by King Molmutius in his code and remains an outstanding feature

of the rulership of these islands. (5)

The liberty of the subject, so marked a feature of British

government today, runs from those remote times like a gold thread

through all the laws and institutions in this country.

King Alfred, it is recorded, employed his scribe, Asser, a

learned Welsh monk from St. David's (whom he afterwards made

abbot of Amesbury and Bishop of Sherborne), to translate the

Molmutine laws from the Celtic tongue into Latin, in order  

that he might incorporate them into his own Anglo-Saxon code. (6)

'The Manorial system had its beginning in Celtic Britain and was

so deeply rooted in the soil that when the Romans came they were

wise enough in their experience as colonists not to attempt the

redistribution of the old shires and hundreds.' (7)

King Alfred's ideas of rulership maintained the earlier and

sometimes unwritten laws of Britain in these words: 'A king's raw

material and instruments of rule are well-peopled land, and he

must also have men of prayer, men of war and men of work.'

From the earliest Code of Laws known as the Molmutine, the

following are appended as examples:

'There ate three tests of civil liberty; equality of rights;

equality of taxation; freedom to come and go.

'Three things are indispensable to a true union of nations;

sameness of laws, rights and language.

'There are three things free to all Britons; the forest, the

unworked mine, the right of hunting. 

'There three property birthrights of every Briton; five British

acres of land for a home, the right of suffrage in the enacting

of the laws, the male at twenty-one, the female on her marriage.

'There are three things which every Briton may legally be

compelled to attend; the worship of God, military service, the

courts of law.

'There are three things free to every man, Briton or foreigner,

the refusal of which no law will justify; water from spring,

river or well; firing from a decayed tree, a block of stone not

in use.

'There are three classes which are exempt from bearing arms;

bards, judges, graduates in law or religion. These represent God

and His peace, and no weapon must ever be found in their hands.

'There are three persons who have a right of public maintenance;

the old, the babe, the foreigner who can not speak the British

tongue.' (8)

From time immemorial the laws and customs differed from those of

other nations, and that the Romans effected no change in this

respect is very plainly set forth by Henry de Bracton, a

thirteenth-century English judge of great experience. 'He was

thoroughly acquainted with the practice of the law. His "Note-

Book" is our earliest and most treasured of law reports.' (9)

Judge de Bracton states, 'Whereas in almost all countries they

use laws and written right, England alone uses within her

boundaries unwritten right and custom. In England, indeed, right

is derived from what is unwritten which usage has approved. There

are also in England several and divers customs according to the

diversity of places, for the English have many things by custom

which they have not by written law, as in divers countries,

cities, boroughs and vills where it will always have to be

enquired what is the custom of the place and in what manner they

who allege the custom observe the custom.' (10)

Another point on which Britain differs from other countries is

that she has ever maintained the Common Law which holds a person

under trial innocent until proved guilty, whereas the Continental

nations maintain the Civil Law which holds him guilty until

proved innocent.

     

Molmutius, the first king in these islands to wear a crown of

gold, (11) is said to have founded the city of Bristol, which he

called Caer Odor, 'the city of the Chasm'. His son Belinus, who

succeeded him, built a city where London now stands which he

called Caer Troia, and also the first Thames Embankment. He

constructed a sort of quay or port made of poles and planks, and

erected a water-gate. That age, the only gate admitting into

London on the south side, became Belinus Gate or Belins Gate.

(12)

Belinus lived to the age of eighty. When he died his body was

burned (they did not call it cremation in those days) and his

ashes were enclosed in a brazen urn, which was placed on top of

the gate; henceforth it was Belin's Gate and it requires no undue

stretch of imagination to see that Belin's Gate became

Billingsgate.

Bellingsgate enjoys the proud distinction of being the first Port

of London, the only Port of London at that time, and thus the men

of Billingsgate became the first Port of London Authority.

 

Cambria Formosa, daughter of Belinus, 373 B.C. greatly promoted

the building of cities. She is said to have taught the women of  

Britain to sow flax and hemp and weave it into cloth. Her brother

Gwrgan first built the city of Cambridge which he called Caer

Gwrgan. (13)

In these early times Britain was a wealthy country, with fine

cities, a well organized national life, and an educated and

civilized people.

The so-called Roman roads in Britain were constructed centuries

BEFORE the Romans came to these islands. The dover to Holyhead

causeway, called Sarn Wydellin or Irish Road, later became

corrupted into Watling Street; the Sarn Ikin, later Icknield

street, led from London northwards through the eastern district,

and Sarn Achmaen from London to Menevia (St. David's).

These were causeways or raised roads (not mere trackways as

sometimes erroneously stated), except where raised road were

impossible, and this accounts for the term 'Holloway' in some

parts of the country.

Our roads were begun by Molmutius (c.450 B.C.) and completed by

his son Belinus. On their completion a law was enacted throwing 

open these roads to all nations and foreigners: 'There are three

things free to a country and its borders; the roads, the rivers

and the places of worship. These are under the protection of God

and His peace.' In this law originated the term 'The King's

Highway.' (14)

Writers who maintain that the British roads were simply unmade

trackways seem unaware of the fact that the British were skilled

charioteer this fact, without other evidence, should go a long

way to prove that the roads of ancient Britain were hard and well

made. Charioteering is not brought to perfection on soft, boggy

trackways, nor are chariots built without wheelwrights and other

mechanics skilled in the working of iron and wood.

Only once before, in the war with Antiochus, 192 B.C., the Romans

met with similar chariots, but never in any European country. The

British chariot was built after the Eastern pattern, adorned with

carved figures and armed with hooks and scythes. British chariots

were prized possessions of the Romans.

Diodorus Siculus, 60 B.C., states, 'The Britons live in the same

manner that the ancients did; they fight in chariots as the

ancient heroes of Greece are said to  have done in the Trojan

wars.....They are plain and upright in their dealings, and far

from the craft and subtlety of our countrymen.... The island is

very populous.... The Celts never shut the doors of their houses;

they invite strangers to their feasts, and when all is over ask

who they are and what is their business. (15) 

Britain, long before the Roman invasion, was famous for its breed

of horses and the daring and accomplishment of its charioteers;

and after the arrival of the Romans the large space given by

their historians to the wars in Britain, demonstrate the interest

felt in them by the whole empire. Juvenal could suggest no news

which would have (16) been hailed by the Roman people with more

satisfaction than the fall of the British king Arviragus

(Caractacus), a direct descendant of King Molmutius.

     'Hath our great enemy, Arviragus, the car-borne British

     king, Dropped from his battle-throne?'

………………..

1. Ancient Laws of Cambria (British Museum, 5805, A.A. 4). Myv.  

Arch., Vol. II, Brut Tysillo.

2. Yeatman, Early English History, p.9.

3. De Laudibus Legum Angliae. Coke Preface, third volume of      

Pleadings. Fortescue Brit. Laws, published with notes by      

Selden, Ch.17, pp.38,39.

4. Ibid.

5. Prehistoric London, p.115.

6. Summarized by Edmund Spenser, Faerie Queen, Bk.II, Stanza     

XXXIX (ed. Morris).

7. A Manor through four Centuries, by A.R.Cook.

8. Triads of Dynvall Moelmud, ap. Walter p. 315 Myv Arch., Vol.  

III. Ancient Laws of Cambria, ap. Palgrave and Lappenberg.    

9. Gilbert Stone, England from Earliest Times, p.385.

10.Legibus et Consuet, pp.4,5.

11.Holinshed, Chronicles, Ch. XXII, p.117. Geoffrey of Monmouth,

Bk.II, Chap.XVII.

12.E. O. Gordon, Prehistoric London, p.146.

13.Lewis, Hist. of Britain, p.52. See Baker's MSS. in the        

University Library, Cambridge,XXIV,249.

14.Ancient Laws of Cambriae (British Museum,A.A.4). Stukely,     

Abury, p.42.

15.Dio.Sic., Bk.V,Chap.X. Senchus Mor., IV,237.

16.Juvenal lived through the reigns of Caligula, Claudius, Nero,

Vespasian, Domitian and Trojan, in whose reign he died at the

age of eighty.

                               ............

TO BE CONTINUED

In the next chapter Isabel Hill Elder expounds on the Commerce

and Dress of the ancient British....more very revealing facts.