If the professed triads of _Dyvnwal Moelmud_ may be taken to represent, as they claim to do, the condition of things in earlier centuries, the essential to membership in the _cenedl_, or tribe, was _birth_ within it of Welsh parents. Free-born Welshmen were 'tied' together in a 'social state' by the three ties of-- (1) Common defence (cyvnawdd). (2) Common tillage (cyvar). (3) Common law (chyvraith).[223] Every free Welshman was entitled to three things:-- (1) Five free _erws_ (or acre strips). (2) Co-tillage of the waste (cyvar gobaith). (3) Hunting.[224] «The homestead or _tyddyn_.» The free tribesman's homestead, or _tyddyn_, consisted of three things:-- (1) His house (ty). (2) His cattle-yard (bu-arth). (3) His corn-yard (yd-arth).[225] And the five free strips, afterwards apparently [p193] reduced to four, of each head of a house--free, possibly, in the sense of their having been freed from the common rights of others over them, as well as being free from charges or tribute--we may probably regard as contained in the _tyddyn_, or as lying in croft near the homesteads. «The holding that of a household or family.» The _Gwentian_, _Dimetian_, and _Venedotian_ codes all represent the homestead or tyddyn and land of the free Welshman as a _family holding_. So long as the head of the family lived, all his descendants lived with him, apparently in the same homestead, unless new ones had already been built for them on the family land. In any case, they still formed part of the joint household of which he was the head.[226] When a free tribesman, the head of a household, died, his holding was not broken up. It was held by his heirs for three generations as one joint holding; it was known as the holding of 'the heirs of So-and-so.'[227] But within the holding there was equality of division between his sons; the younger son, however, retaining the original _tyddyn_ or homestead, and others having tyddyns found for them on the family land. All the sons had equal rights in the scattered strips and pasture belonging to the holding.[228] «Equality within the family» Thus, in the first generation there was equality between brothers; they were co-tenants in equal [p194] shares of the family holding of which they were co-heirs. When all the brothers were dead there was, if desired, a re-division, so as to make equality between the co-heirs, who were now first cousins. When all the first cousins were dead there might be still another re-division, to make equality between the co-heirs, who were now second cousins. «to second cousins.» But no one beyond second cousins could claim equality; and if a man died without heirs of his body, and there were no kindred within the degree of second cousins, the land reverted to the chief who represented the tribe.[229] «Great-grandfather the common ancestor.»