Related Research Articles
Nennius is a mythical prince of Britain at the time of Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain. His story appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (1136), a work whose contents are now considered largely fictional. In Middle Welsh versions of Geoffrey's Historia he was called Nynniaw.
Historia regum Britanniae, originally called De gestis Britonum, is a fictitious historical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons over the course of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxons assumed control of much of Britain around the 7th century. It is one of the central pieces of the Matter of Britain.
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).
The Welsh Triads are a group of related texts in medieval manuscripts which preserve fragments of Welsh folklore, mythology and traditional history in groups of three. The triad is a rhetorical form whereby objects are grouped together in threes, with a heading indicating the point of likeness; for example, "Three things not easily restrained, the flow of a torrent, the flight of an arrow, and the tongue of a fool."
The White Book of Rhydderch is one of the most notable and celebrated surviving manuscripts in Welsh. Mostly written in southwest Wales in the middle of the 14th century it is the earliest collection of Welsh prose texts, though it also contains some examples of early Welsh poetry. It is now part of the collection of the National Library of Wales, having been preserved in the library at Hengwrt, near Dolgellau, Gwynedd, of the 17th century antiquary Robert Vaughan, who inherited it from the calligrapher John Jones and passed it to his descendants. The collection later passed to the newly established National Library of Wales as the Peniarth or Hengwrt-Peniarth Manuscripts.
Medieval Welsh literature is the literature written in the Welsh language during the Middle Ages. This includes material starting from the 5th century AD, when Welsh was in the process of becoming distinct from Common Brittonic, and continuing to the works of the 16th century.
Brut y Tywysogion is one of the most important primary sources for Welsh history. It is an annalistic chronicle that serves as a continuation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae. Brut y Tywysogion has survived as several Welsh translations of an original Latin version, which has not itself survived. The most important versions are the one in Robert Vaughan's Peniarth MS. 20 and the slightly less complete one in the Red Book of Hergest. The version entitled Brenhinoedd y Saeson combines material from the Welsh annals with material from an English source.
Merfyn Frych, also known as Merfyn ap Gwriad and Merfyn Camwri, was King of Gwynedd from around 825 to 844, the first of its kings known not to have descended from the male line of King Cunedda.
Llefelys is a character in Welsh mythology appearing in the medieval Welsh tale Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys. In the tale, Llefelys is king of Gaul while his brother Lludd is king of Britain. The tale appears in the Red Book of Hergest and the White Book of Rhydderch, the source texts for the Mabinogion, and embedded into various versions of the Brut y Brenhinedd, the Welsh adaptation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae.
Peredur son of Efrawg is one of the Three Welsh Romances associated with the Mabinogion. It tells a story roughly analogous to Chrétien de Troyes' unfinished romance Perceval, the Story of the Grail, but it contains many striking differences from that work, most notably the absence of the French poem's central object, the grail.
Brenhinoedd y Saeson is the medieval title of a Middle Welsh annalistic chronicle. The name means 'the kings of the English'.
Brut y Brenhinedd is a collection of variant Middle Welsh versions of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin Historia Regum Britanniae. About 60 versions survive, with the earliest dating to the mid-13th century. Adaptations of Geoffrey's Historia were extremely popular throughout Western Europe during the Middle Ages, but the Brut proved especially influential in medieval Wales, where it was largely regarded as an accurate account of the early history of the Celtic Britons.
The White Book of Hergest was an important Welsh manuscript compiled in c. 1450. It contained many Welsh poems and prose texts and was a significant source for several antiquaries of the 17th and 18th centuries, but disappeared in the early 19th century, probably being destroyed in a fire in a London bookbinder's shop in around 1810.
Brut y Saeson is a Welsh-language chronicle running from the death of Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon in 682 to the reign of Richard II (1377–99) of England. The name means the brut or chronicle of the English.
The Peniarth Manuscripts, also known as the Hengwrt–Peniarth Manuscripts, are a collection of medieval Welsh manuscripts now held by the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. The collection was originally assembled by Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt, Merionethshire. During the 19th century it was held in Peniarth Mansion, Llanegryn.
Peniarth Manuscript 32 is a fifteenth-century volume of the laws of Hywel Dda that contains a brief chronicle from Gwrtheyrn Gwrtheneu to King John, Paul's Vision, the Tree of the Cross, Brutus Saxonum, and various englynion. It is beautifully written on vellum in the hand of the scribe responsible for the Mabinogion in the Red Book of Hergest, and is bound in white vellum.
Peniarth 20 is an early Welsh manuscript written on parchment that is part of the Peniarth collection in the National Library of Wales. It is also known as the Chronicle of the Princes because it contains an important version of the chronicle Brut y Tywysogion. Daniel Huws, the leading authority on Welsh manuscripts, has argued that the majority of Peniarth 20 dates from circa 1330. A date around the 15th century had previously been offered by J. Gwenogvryn Evans.
Hengwrt was a mansion near Dolgellau in Meirionnydd, Gwynedd. It lay in the parish of Llanelltyd near the confluence of the River Mawddach and River Wnion, near Cymer Abbey. With medieval origins, it was rebuilt or remodelled on several occasions before being demolished in 1962. It is remembered as the original home of the important collection of the Peniarth Manuscripts, now in the National Library of Wales.
References
- ↑ Fisher, Deborah (2010). "King of Wales". Royal Wales. University of Wales Press. pp. 4–5. ISBN 978-0-7083-2214-7.
