WALES
534
WALES
race has been identified with the Basques of the PjTe-
nees and the Berbers of North Africa. Though there
are no Unguistic evidences to support either identifica-
tion, there are reasons for believing that the "small
dark" Welshmen are of the same race as the original
Iberians of Spain and Portugal. It is, in any case, cer-
tain that they are the Silurians of the period of the
Roman invasion under Claudius (a. d. 43). We are
on equally sure ground in saying that the Celts of the
first immigration, the Gael (akin to the Irish, High-
land Scots, and Manx), have preserved their racial
identity more or less completely in certain parts of
both North and South Wales. The largest section of
the Welsh nation, however, are Celts of the British
stock, a pure tribe of which stretches in a wide bantl
across Central Wales. Many of the ogham and Latin
inscriptions on rude stone monuments of the Romano-
British period in Wales were evidently made not
by British but by Gaelic Celts. It is, however, as yet
uncertain what "proportion (if any) of these stones
commemorate invaders from Ireland.
History and Language. — After an occupation lasting 360 years, the Romans left a Britain which was thoroughly permeated by the civilization of the Empire. In this Wales largely participated, though it is chiefly in South-east Wales tbat the traces of Imperial Rome must be sought. Recent excavation has exposed vast remains of the power and luxury of the conquering race, at (^aerwent in Monmouthshire (once a seaport ) ; and at Caerleon, in the same county, classical an- tiquity competes with Arthurian romance for the visi- tor's attention. Many Welsh pedigrees assign to ex- isting families a Roman ancestor in the person of some official who lived in the period between the departure of the legions and the Saxon Conquest. It is, how- ever, chiefly in the domains of language and religion that Rome has left an abiding imprint on Wales.
Welsh, as a branch of the Celtic family of languages, has close affinities with Latin; but, besides, has bor- rowed much from her It alic sister. An enormous pro- portion of Welsh words are direct importations from Latin, modified by generations of Welsh-speakers. Particularly is this the case with words expressive of religious, theological, and ecclesiastical ideas. Very few of these are of other than Roman origin. This fact is, of course, owing to the circumstances which attended the introduction of Christianity into Britain. The first Christians in this island were persons who had come in with the Roman army, and in due course these foreign Christians were sufficiently nimierqus to form congregations in the principal colonue of Britain. There was a Roman bishop at Caerleon, where a large garrison was permanently quartered. Lucius, the " King of Britain" whom the "Liber pontificalis" rep- resents as sending a letter to Pope Saint Eleutherius asking to be made a Christian "by his mandate", would seem to have been a native regulus of Gwent, the region in which Caerleon is situated. It was inevi- table that the Britons, deriving all their knowledge of Christianity from Rome and the Romans, should adopt Latin words for their new Christian termin- ology. So it comes that the Welsh for such words (to cite a few typical instances) as holiness, faith, charity, grace, hell, "purgatory, sacrament, mass, vespers, pope, bishop, priest, deacon, abbot, monk, church, hospital, altar, chasuble, cross, parish, saint, mart\T, anchoret, cell, gospel, consecration, baptism, Christmas, the Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and a thousand otliers, is in each case the Latin word, modified by the laws of Welsh phonology. " Sacramcntum " has become sac- rafen; "episcopiis", esgnh; " ecclcsm", eglwys; "altar", allor; "Caresima", Carawi/s; and so on.
Welsh holds a position between Munster Irish on the side of Gaelic, and Cornish on the side of the British division of Celtic— but much nearer the latter. It is not so soft as Irish or Cornish, yet very musical. Its gutturals and aspirate lis sound rough to foreign
ears, and an EngUsh writer has picturesquely de-
scribed Welsh as "a language half blo^vTi away by the
wind"; but there can be no question as to its richness
in pure vowel-sounds or its masculine force. During
the past century English has unceasingly encroached
upon the ancient tongue, driving the linguistic bound-
ary ever further west. Industries, railways, and pub-
lic elementary schools have been the chief enemies of
Welsh, and the extinction of this venerable speech
must be looked for in the next generation or two. The
language, nevertheless, shows marvellous vitaUty in
the face of odds, and a widespread literarj' revival has
brightened its declining years.
After the departure of the Romans from Britain, the native inhabitants retained a semblance of Roman institutions. Considerable vestiges of these remained among the Welsh in the time of the Saxon Heptarchy. The clan system and other Celtic customs, however, which Roman rule had recognized, continued in force long after imperial forms were forgotten. Only for a brief period were the Welsh united under one sover- eign, in the successive reigns of Rhydderch Mawr (Roderick the Great) and his son Howel Dda, or the Good, both of whom were strong rulers and wise legislators. The laws of Howel Dda are yet extant. They commence with a declaration that the king had obtained their sanction by the Pope of Rome, and their tenor is one of reverence for the Christian Faith and Church. It was only by slow degrees that the native laws and customs were ousted by Anglo- Norman usages and the machinery of feudahsm. The feudal system, indeed, hardly penetrated beyond the borderland (called the Marches) where, in their castles and walled towns, dwelled the Palatine lords who held those lands by right of conquest. By Henry VIII the laws of the principahty, native and feudal, were assimilated to those of England — though certain peculiar legal institutions, such as the courts of great session, remained till the reign of William IV. At the same time Wales was divided into counties or shires, some of which were based on and named after the ancient lordships. Though possessing many old boroughs, Wales had no capital town until a few years ago. In 190.5 King Edward VII by royal charter conferred on the county borough of Cardiff the rank of a city, and gave to its chief magistrate the title of lord mayor. This action afforded great satisfaction to the Welsh people, inasmuch as Cardiff is superior to any other town in Wales both in commerical impor- tance and in antiquity. Its history goes back to the Roman occupation, and the place is finked with Llandaff, the oldest episcopal see. These consider- ations have earned for Cardiff universal recognition as the capital of Wales.
Religion. — The religion of the pre-Aryan inhabi- tants of Britain was a nature-worship which included certain animals among its divinities. The Celtic refigious system was likewise a nature-cult, but resembled that of the Greeks, Latins, and other .\ryans in deifying abstract ideas rather than material objects. Hence the gods of the Britons were equa- tions of those of their Roman conquerors — Nudd, or Nodens, being the Celtic equivalent of Neptune; Pwyll (Pen Annwn, "the head of Hades") the Welsh counterpart of Pluto, and so of the rest. The primi- tive totemism of the earlier inhabitants, however, made a deep impression on the religious ideas of the Celts, and has even left permanent traces in Welsh nomenclature. Such names as Mael-ser (servant of the stars), Gwr-ci and Gwr-con (man of a dog, or dogs), and Gwr-march (man of a horse) are ex- amples.
By the end of the Roman occupation, the Britons of Wales had for the most part become Christ ians, Paganism lingering only in a few remote districts, and chiefly among the Gaelic tribes. At first the discipline of the Celtic Church followed closely that
