Dr. J. Gwilym Owen’s work on Welsh legal history includes a focus on the coexistence and interplay of Welsh and English law in late-medieval and Tudor Wales.
Over many years, and through several publications, Dr. Owen has used estate records as a lens for providing new insights into changing legal practices in Wales across the period c.1400-1600. His research shows a blending of native Welsh land law (derived from Cyfraith Hywel), with English common law, indicating that the gentry of late-medieval and Tudor north Wales moved in a legal environment where the principles of Welsh land law, based on the operation of cyfran and gwelyau for example, existed side-by-side with forms of English common law pertaining to land tenure, settlement and inheritance – even after the Act of Union legislation.
Working closely with archivist Peter Foden, Gwilym has undertaken a detailed analysis of settlement practices and inheritance disputes on the Penrhyn estate, published by the Welsh Legal History Society as At Variance: The Penrhyn Entail.