laying claims to portions of Gwent in the far south-east,[1] this, with other indications,[2] makes it almost certain that Brycheiniog, which lay between him and Gwent, was also in his grasp. After the death of his cousin, King Idwal Voel of Gwynedd, in 943, he must have been easily supreme throughout the whole of Wales, although the realm of the king of Morgannwg appears not to have been brought under the sway of the family of Rhodri in the sense that the rest of Wales was subject to that house. Howel therefore between 943 and 950 was clearly in an excellent position to move with regard to the revision and codification of Welsh law and custom, if so minded ; and the evidence that he was so minded is ample. In the year 928 he had made a pilgrimage to Rome. He frequently attended the meetings of the Witenagemot of the Wessex kings, for his name appears as witness to several charters ranging from 931 to 949.[3] He was thus clearly on intimate terms with the royal house of Wessex, and was thereby under the direct influence of the traditions of Alfred the Great, not to mention the general effect in the same direction which Asser must have produced on the life of Wales, particularly in Dyved.[4] For Asser would spend six months with Alfred and six months in his own Britannia in his native
- ↑ Y Cymm. IX. 325.
- ↑ See Glossary under Deheubarth.
- ↑ Transactions of the Cymm. Soc. 1905-6, pp. 11-13. It should be stated here however that there was a Howel, king of the West Welsh, flourishing at this time whose name appears in the Saxon Chronicle s. a. 926. See Plummer's Two Sax. Chrs. II. viii.
- ↑ Where Howel could hardly fail to have lived, at least at the time when he became its king through marriage.
