21 Pryce 1993, pp. 113–27. 22 Pryce 1993, pp. 113–18. 23 Haddan & Stubbs 1869, pp.512–13 (cc. 1, 7). That the prince’s refusal to recognize the validity of wills was not restricted to those of episcopal tenants is indicated by one of the grievances presented to Edward I on behalf of the lay community in Gwynedd in 1283, immediately after the conquest, namely that Llywelyn and his officers interfered with wills made coram presbytero vel coram aliquibus laicis (‘before a priest or before any lay persons’), although it is not specified whether this applied to wills made during a fatal illness: Smith 1984, pp. 164–66, 175 (c. 29). 24 Pryce 2005, pp. 580–83 (no. 397). oral bequests and written wills in medieval wales By the early-to-mid thirteenth century, books of Welsh law – private compilations by legal specialists, in some cases related to poets – provide valuable evidence for the legal context of testamentary disposition in north Wales.21 By this period, the sources seem to reflect the adoption, as in England from the late twelfth century, of the canonical will, especially in its oral or nuncupative form. The Welsh legal rules also supply an important context for complaints made by the church of St Asaph as well as by the archbishop of Canterbury, John Pecham, against Prince Llywelyn in the years before Llywelyn’s death in 1282. Both prelates accused the prince of seizing the moveable goods of those who had died intestate, an accusation which implied an expectation that individuals could make wills. There was some support for this policy in the legal texts, although variations between the rules in different compilations suggest that the issue was controversial.22 More relevant to the present discussion are two other complaints by the bishop and chapter of St Asaph in 1276: namely that the prince prevented bishops from making wills and that he also refused to recognize the validity of any wills apart from those made during a fatal illness.23 The prince responded to these complaints in a charter of liberties to the bishop and dean and chapter of St Asaph issued in late 1276 or early 1277, declaring that jurisdiction over all testamentary cases should henceforth be heard in the ecclesiastical court and promising not to hinder bequests by any episcopal tenant, however they were made.24 One likely cause of the dispute between the prince and the bishop over testamentary matters was the occupation of parts of the diocese of St Asaph by the English crown for a decade in the mid-thir432
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