Daniel Huws FLSW (born 1932) is the world's leading authority of the last hundred years on Welsh manuscripts, with contributions that are held to represent a significant advance on those of John Gwenogvryn Evans. [1]
He is noted in particular for his studies of individual manuscripts, and these, alongside portraits of significant Renaissance collectors, made up his work Medieval Welsh Manuscripts, now recognised as the key academic text of this dimension of Wales' written history and culture. [2] As of 2015, his work focuses on the history of Welsh manuscripts continuing up to 1800.
His work has also included other projects on Wales, including The Poets of the Princes, The Poets of the Gentry, Prose Texts from Manuscripts, and The Poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym . He has written on Welsh music, as well as publishing three volumes of poetry with Secker and Warburg and Faber and Faber. A university friend and associate of Ted Hughes, he has written a memoir of the poet.
He was awarded the Derek Allen Prize by the British Academy in 2006. [3]
He was elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales in 2011. [4]
Huws was raised in London and Anglesey, and attended a school in Llangefni, going onto Bryanston School, before studying Archaeology and Anthropology at Peterhouse, Cambridge. [5] He worked at the National Library of Wales between 1961 and 1992, and is also a member of the Welsh Academy. [6] As a student, Huws became a close friend of Ted Hughes, and his 2010 Memories of Ted Hughes 1952–1963 chronicles his experiences of the poet at an early age, his circle at Cambridge, the development of his relationship with Sylvia Plath, and their later life in London. Huws and his wife unsuccessfully campaigned to prevent the closure of the Catholic church in the centre of Aberystwyth. His sister worked as an artist in Paris.
Sir John Edward Lloyd was born in Liverpool. He was educated in the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, which he left in 1881, and Lincoln College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1883 with a first class honours degree. Lloyd became a much-published and famous Welsh historian. He wrote the first serious history of the country's formative years, A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest (1911) and Owen Glendower/Owain Glyn Dŵr (1931). And he was the first editor of 'Y Bywgraffiadur Cymreig', which was published posthumously in 1953. He was knighted in 1934.
The current capital of Wales is Cardiff. Historically, Wales did not have a definite capital. In 1955, the Minister for Welsh Affairs informally proclaimed Cardiff to be the capital of Wales. Since 1964, Cardiff has been home to government offices for Wales, and since 1999 it has been the seat of the Senedd.
The Red Book of Hergest, Oxford, Jesus College, MS 111, is a large vellum manuscript written shortly after 1382, which ranks as one of the most important medieval manuscripts written in the Welsh language. It preserves a collection of Welsh prose and poetry, notably the tales of the Mabinogion and Gogynfeirdd poetry. The manuscript derives its name from the colour of its leather binding and from its association with Hergest Court between the late 15th and early 17th century.
The National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, is the national legal deposit library of Wales and is one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies. It is the biggest library in Wales, holding over 6.5 million books and periodicals, and the largest collections of archives, portraits, maps, and photographic images in Wales. The Library is also home to the national collection of Welsh manuscripts, the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, and the most comprehensive collection of paintings and topographical prints in Wales. As the primary research library and archive in Wales and one of the largest research libraries in the United Kingdom, the National Library is a member of Research Libraries UK (RLUK) and the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL).
Sir John Rhŷs, was a Welsh scholar, fellow of the British Academy, Celticist and the first professor of Celtic at Oxford University.
This article is about the particular significance of the year 1938 to Wales and its people.
Rachel Bromwich born Rachel Sheldon Amos, was a British scholar. Her focus was on medieval Welsh literature, and she taught Celtic Languages and Literature in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, from 1945 to 1976. Among her most important contributions to the study of Welsh literature is Trioedd Ynys Prydein, her edition of the Welsh Triads.
Thomas Mowbray Charles-Edwards is an emeritus academic at the University of Oxford. He formerly held the post of Jesus Professor of Celtic and is a Professorial Fellow at Jesus College.
Brenhinoedd y Saeson is the medieval title of a Middle Welsh annalistic chronicle. The name means 'the kings of the English'.
Welsh-language literature has been produced continuously since the emergence of Welsh from Brythonic as a distinct language in around the 5th century AD. The earliest Welsh literature was poetry, which was extremely intricate in form from its earliest known examples, a tradition sustained today. Poetry was followed by the first British prose literature in the 11th century. Welsh-language literature has repeatedly played a major part in the self-assertion of Wales and its people. It continues to be held in the highest regard, as evidenced by the size and enthusiasm of the audiences attending the annual National Eisteddfod of Wales, probably the largest amateur arts festival in Europe, which crowns the literary prize winners in a dignified ceremony.
Robert ap Huw, was a Welsh harpist and music copyist. He is most notable for compiling a manuscript, now known as the Robert ap Huw manuscript, which is the main extant source of cerdd dant and is a late medieval collection of harp music. It is one of the most important sources of early Welsh music.
Ralph Arthur Griffiths OBE DLitt FRHistS FLSW is a historian and an emeritus professor at Swansea University.
"The Girls of Llanbadarn", or "The Ladies of Llanbadarn", is a short, wryly humorous poem by the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, in which he mocks his own lack of success with the girls of his neighbourhood. Dafydd is widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, and this is one of his best-known works. The poem cannot be precisely dated, but was perhaps written in the 1340s.
Wales has produced a number of manuscripts over the centuries. Although most were written in Middle Welsh or Old Welsh, some were also written in Latin. In some of the more recent manuscripts it is not uncommon to have texts in Welsh, Latin, French and English in the same volume. However, some of the most important medieval manuscripts were written in Latin only, e.g. the Cyfraith Hywel.
NLW MS 20143A is a Welsh-language manuscript of the laws of Hywel Dda dating from the middle of the 14th century. It is one of the few surviving Welsh manuscripts of the period to have a medieval binding, and has been digitised by the National Library of Wales, which acquired the manuscript in 1969.
Ned Thomas FLSW is a Welsh intellectual, editor and cultural commentator in the fields of politics, literature and language. His earlier works are in English while his more recent output is in Welsh. He writes from a background of familiarity with languages such as Russian, German, French, Italian and Spanish, as well as Welsh and English. He was a lecturer at the Universities of Moscow, Salamanca and Aberystwyth in the Department of English and has published studies of writers as diverse as the English writer George Orwell, the Caribbean poet Derek Walcott and the Welsh poet and activist Waldo Williams as well as a study of post-war Europe from an autobiographical perspective.
Geraint Huw Jenkins, FBA, FLSW is a historian of Wales and a retired academic. He was Professor of Welsh History at the Aberystwyth University from 1990 to 1993, when he became Director of the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. In 2009, he retired from academia and was appointed Professor Emeritus of Welsh History at the University of Wales.
Dafydd Arwyn Jenkins was a Welsh barrister, activist, and legal scholar and historian. He was Professor of Legal History and Welsh Law at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, from 1975 to 1978.
"The Woodland Mass" or "The Mass of the Grove" is a poem in the form of a cywydd by the 14th-century bard Dafydd ap Gwilym, widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets. It is one of his most popular works. Sometimes seen as blasphemous, it presents a woodland scene in which a thrush, sent by the poet's lover, and a nightingale officiate at a Mass celebrating both God and sexual love. "The Woodland Mass" is an example of a common type of medieval Welsh poem in which some bird or beast is used as a llatai or love-messenger, though this poem is unusual in that the message is sent to Dafydd rather than by him.
Wiliam Llŷn was a Welsh-language poet whose work largely consists of elegies and praise-poems. He is considered the last major Welsh poet of the bardic tradition, comparable to the greatest late-medieval Welsh poets, and has been called Wales's supreme elegist. Two of his poems are included in The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse.