The White Book of Hergest (Welsh : Llyfr Gwyn Hergest, sometimes given as Llyfr Gwyn o 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.
The manuscript was one of several associated with the Vaughan family of Hergest Court near Kington, Herefordshire, but was originally, at least in part, the work of the poet and scribe Lewys Glyn Cothi, [1] who is thought to have compiled it at Margam Abbey using texts found there. [2] Glyn Cothi was a close associate of the Vaughans of Hergest and wrote elegies on the deaths of both Thomas ap Vaughan (d. 1469) and his son Richard. [3] As befitted a manuscript produced for wealthy patrons, the White Book was a substantial document written on costly vellum, taking its name from the colour of its binding.
The scholar John Davies of Mallwyd transcribed a number of poems from the White Book into a manuscript now known as Peniarth 49. The 17th-century antiquary Robert Vaughan, who referred to the White Book as "a very fair and ancient" manuscript, [4] also copied parts of it and used it as a genealogical source; Vaughan was also responsible for identifying Glyn Cothi's hand in the White Book. Other later researchers made copies of various individual sections, such as Moses Williams, who transcribed parts into Llanstephan MS. 74.
The manuscript came into the possession of the collector and antiquary William Maurice (d.1680), and was subsequently sold along with the rest of Maurice's library to Sir William Williams. [5] The library was ultimately moved to the mansion of Wynnstay, where most of it was to be destroyed in an 1858 fire. The White Book of Hergest, however, seems to have already been lost in an earlier fire after it was sent (along with several other manuscripts) to Mackinley's bookbinder in Covent Garden for rebinding. Various dates for this event (such as 1810, 1808 or 1800) are found in different sources, though Y Cymmrodor , the journal of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, vol 1 (1822), records it as recent. [6] Angharad Llwyd stated that it occurred as a result of the disastrous fire at the Covent Garden Theatre, which took place in 1808; a record notes that the premises of John Mackinley at 8 Bow Street burned down along with the theatre.
In addition to several poems by Lewys Glyn Cothi and a number by other poets, the manuscript was known to contain a large number of works by Dafydd ap Gwilym, although all of these seem either to have been copied by John Davies or survive in variants in other manuscripts. [7] It also contained many prose and historical texts, including a copy of the Laws of Hywel Dda which contained several passages found in no other version. Lewys Glyn Cothi's interest in heraldry was reflected by the inclusion of pedigrees and other genealogical and heraldic materials such as the Llyfr Arfau, the "Book of Arms", ascribed to a John Trevor or Johannes de Bado Aureo, who may be one of several historical figures. [8] Not all of the White Book's contents had been copied at the time of its destruction and some were irretrievably lost.
Parts of the White Book may be found in the following manuscripts:
The Red Book of Hergest 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, 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.
The Black Book of Carmarthen is thought to be the earliest surviving manuscript written solely in Welsh. The book dates from the mid-13th century; its name comes from its association with the Priory of St. John the Evangelist and Teulyddog at Carmarthen, and is referred to as black due to the colour of its binding. It is currently part of the collection of the National Library of Wales, where it is catalogued as NLW Peniarth MS 1.
In some old Welsh texts, Eliwlod is a nephew of King Arthur. His father is Madoc, son of Uther Pendragon, an obscure brother of Arthur's mentioned a very few times in Welsh literature.
The Hendregadredd Manuscript, is a medieval Welsh manuscript containing an anthology of the poetry of the "Poets of the Princes" (Gogynfeirdd); it was written between 1282 and 1350.
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.
Lewys Glyn Cothi, also known as Llywelyn y Glyn, was a prominent 15th century Welsh poet who composed numerous poems in the Welsh language. He is one of the most important representatives of the Beirdd yr Uchelwyr or Cywyddwyr ("cywydd-men"), the itinerant professional poets of the period between the 1284 Statute of Rhuddlan and c. 1600.
Brenhinoedd y Saeson is the medieval title of three Middle Welsh annalistic chronicles known from three 14th-century manuscripts recording events from 682 to the English conquest of Wales in 1282. The title Brenhinoedd y Saeson is found only in the rubric to the earlier of the two surviving manuscripts of version S: the other two texts are commonly known as Brut y Tywysogion, but this title is found only in manuscripts of the late 16th century and cannot be considered authentic.
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.
Gwladys ferch Dafydd Gam was a Welsh noblewoman. She was the daughter of Dafydd ap Llewelyn ap Hywel, otherwise known as Dafydd Gam, who was killed at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.
Peniarth 109 is a Welsh manuscript from the second half of the 15th century, in the hand of the poet Lewis Glyn Cothi. It is part of the Peniarth Manuscripts Collection at the National Library of Wales.
Peniarth 51 is a Welsh medieval manuscript, in the hand of the poet Gwilym Tew, written in the period 1460–1480. Although it is known that Tew wrote other manuscripts, Peniarth 51 is the only entire manuscript that can be proven to have been his work. It is kept in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, as part of the Peniarth Manuscripts collection.
Thomas Wiliems was a Welsh-language antiquarian.
"The Poet's Burial for Love" or "The Poet's Burial" is a Welsh-language love poem in the form of a cywydd in which the poet foresees his own death from unrequited love. It was formerly attributed to the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, but in 1952 was rejected from the canon of his works by Dafydd's editor, Thomas Parry and is now widely considered to be a 15th-century poem of uncertain authorship. The poem has nevertheless remained very popular with translators and it continues to appear in anthologies, including Thomas Parry's own Oxford Book of Welsh Verse.
"The Snow" is a 14th- or 15th-century Welsh-language poem in the form of a cywydd evoking a landscape which, to the poet's chagrin, is covered with snow. It has been described as an imaginative tour de force. Manuscripts of the poem mostly attribute it to Dafydd ap Gwilym, widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, though some name Dafydd ab Edmwnd or Ieuan ap Rhys ap Llywelyn as the author. Modern literary historians have differed as to whether it is indeed by Dafydd ap Gwilym, but the two most recent editions of his poems have rejected it. The poem has nevertheless remained popular with translators and it continues to appear in anthologies, including Thomas Parry's own Oxford Book of Welsh Verse and Gwyn Jones's Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English.
"The Mirror" 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. The poem describes how Dafydd, languishing with lovesickness for an unnamed Gwynedd woman, is appalled by the wasted appearance of his face in the mirror. "The Mirror" can be grouped with several other of Dafydd's poems, possibly early ones, set in Gwynedd, or alternatively with the many poems in which he expresses his love for a woman he calls Morfudd. It has been called "perhaps Dafydd's greatest masterpiece in the genre of self-deprecation".