Welsh Writing Before 1500

Welsh writing before 1500 consists of a rich tradition of writing in Latin and the vernacular, in a range of genres including literary prose, poetry, chronicles, law, medicine, grammar, wisdom literature, genealogy, and religious writing. The earliest extant Welsh-language writing is epigraphy (on, for example, the Tywyn Stone) and Old Welsh glosses and marginal texts in 9th-century Latin manuscripts. Use of Latin in early medieval Wales, continuous from the Roman period, is attested in works of history, poetry, and record keeping. Early medieval writing is poorly served by the manuscript record, with only twenty pre-12th-century manuscripts extant, and only eleven before c. 1100. The early books that do survive display technical skills of manuscript production and handwriting on par with elsewhere in Europe, and studies of surviving Latin texts, Old Welsh glosses, and later copies of Old Welsh texts reveal a rich, varied written practice grounded in careful study of Latin classics. Wales is also the birthplace of three significant 12th-century Latin authors, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Gerald of Wales, and Walter Map. The use of Latin for recording Welsh law is also very well attested. A group of vernacular codices survive from the 13th century onward, preserving a proliferation of prose literature, poetry, dozens of texts translated or adapted from Latin and French, and a cache of technical prose writing—law, medicine, and grammar—characterized by a vast technical vocabulary and mnemonic devices indicative of oral transmission. Orality is an important dimension of Welsh writing, with several genres displaying interplay between oral and written transmission. The oral medium of knowledge transmission, often referred to as cyfarwyddyd (oral lore), is attested in the prose style that frequently uses mnemonic devices and oral formulae. This oral literature was composed and transmitted by a professional class, and then written down and rewritten in successive phases. Another major area of Welsh writing is bardic poetry, which represents a longstanding tradition of professional poets composing mostly panegyric, eulogy, and elegy for royal patrons from the early medieval period until the Edwardian conquest of Wales in 1282, at which point patronage shifted to a new gentry class. Alongside this native practice, Welsh writing was also influenced by imported Latin and French texts, including romance, geography, history, apocrypha, and devotional literature. Historically, scholarship has prioritized vernacular compositions over Latin, and original texts over translations, but this has shifted in recent decades.

The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Writing of Ireland’s History in the Sixteenth Century

This chapter contrasts the annalistic tradition expressing pride in ancestry that had prevailed for centuries in Gaelic Ireland with the twelfth-century writings of Gerald of Wales that convinced people of English descent in Ireland that the country had been brought into historical time through English conquest. It demonstrates how the sense that English culture was superior to Gaelic culture was heightened by humanist histories, notably those by Campion and Stanihurst. It then explains that as English society in Ireland remained Catholic when government and society in England were becoming self-consciously Protestant, the government encouraged Protestant apocalyptic authors, notably John Derricke and John Hooker, to write histories for Ireland that contended that England’s reform mission in Ireland had always been religious more than civil.

Excommunicated Princes in Medieval Wales

Excommunication as a punishment for violating church rules on marriage and family relations was repeatedly imposed on members of Welsh dynasties during the 12th century. The aim of the research is to define the true reasons of such strict measures by means of analyzing historical sources: Welsh and English chronicles, including the Chronicle of the Princes, Annales Monastici, the corpus of Welsh native law texts known as the Law of Hywel Dda, the Historical Works of Gerald of Wales, some legal acts and official correspondence concerning Wales, including Thomas Becket’s letters. The Welsh native law was considered as a “barbarian” one by the Church. Undoubtedly, Welsh native customs contradicted canon law to some extent, allowing marriages between relatives, permitting divorces without reference to ecclesiastical procedures, and tolerating extramarital relationship. Incest marriages between members of major Welsh dynasties were a widespread phenomenon in Wales till the 13th century. Such marriages seemed to be an inevitable part of creating native political alliances in the face of danger from the Norman invaders. Welsh dynasties were often closely interrelated through marriages, but far not always this fact drew attention of the church. Owain Gwynedd and the Lord Rhys, who are believed to be the most powerful Welsh leaders of the 12th century, were both married to their first cousins. Owain Gwynedd was excommunicated for refusal to have his marriage annulled on the grounds of consanguinity. Meanwhile, the same circumstances of the Lord Rhys’ marriage went unnoticed. It must be taken into account that Owain Gwynedd’s canonically unacceptable marriage became a subject of the Pope’s attention only when the question of the Bishop of Bangor’s election and subsequent conflict with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, erupted. The Lord Rhys suffered the penalty of anathema just before his death not because of his scandalous marriage or immoral relationship but on account of disrespectful treatment of the Bishop of St. David’s, Peter de Leia. Obviously, conflicts between the Welsh rulers and the Anglo-Norman senior clergy as an essential part of Anglo-Welsh confrontation were the underlying reasons for such measures as excommunication. It is noteworthy that both of the aforementioned great Welsh princes were buried with due honor in the consecrated land despite the fact of excommunication, which demonstrated that the Welsh native clergy were loyal to their Welsh patrons rather than to the supreme ecclesiastical authorities.