The Welsh Chronicles: A Symposium

From ASNC graduate student and symposium organiser Ben Guy:

On Saturday 9^th August, Bangor University hosted the first of what will hopefully be a series of small symposia dedicated to the study of the numerous chronicles written in Wales during the Middle Ages. As is the case with so many attempts to further the ASNC cause, the idea for the symposium was conceived in the back seat of a car that had recently escaped from the international medievalist conference at Kalamazoo, during a conversation between myself and Owain Wyn Jones (former ASNC, latterly a member of Bangor’s history department). We were both struck by the quality and quantity of recent work on Wales’s medieval chronicles, and decided that it might be useful for the perpetrators to meet one another and discuss the state of the field. We teamed up with Georgia Henley (another former ASNC, currently undertaking a PhD in Harvard’s Celtic department) and set about creating a programme that would showcase new approaches to the whole range of extant chronicles produced in medieval Wales.

The result was an outstanding day of papers and discussion that bore a great deal of intellectual fruit. Alongside the three organisers, speakers included David Stephenson, Barry Lewis and Henry Gough-Cooper. The sessions divided themselves neatly into three groups: Latin chronicles, both early and late; vernacular chronicles, both well-known and rarely-read; and new editions, all sorely needed. The presentations covered a wide range of topics, including textual history, historiography, editing and the tribulations of those embroiled with certain publishing houses. David Stephenson opened the floor with a masterly discussion about the trickiest section of the Annales Cambiae B-text, the section for 1204–1230. He was followed by my (rather less masterly) talk on the sources of the tenth-century St David’s chronicle. Barry Lewis then enlightened the group with his discovery of a probable textual connection between the chronicle Brenhinoedd y Saeson and Bonedd y Saint, a genealogical text concerned with the saints of Wales. Owain Wyn Jones discussed the little-known vernacular chronicle Brut y Saeson, suggesting in particular the cultural milieu for which the text was constructed in the late fourteenth century. Finally, we were indulged by Henry Gough-Cooper with details about his forthcoming editions of the Breviate and Cottonian chronicles (the erstwhile Annales Cambriae B- and C-texts) and by Georgia Henley with a similarly exciting glimpse of her forthcoming edition of Chronica ante aduentum Christi. Proceedings ran smoothly from the start to the terminus ante quem of 4:30pm, aided especially by the generosity of Bangor University’s School of History, who kindly provided the day’s lunch and refreshments.

Perhaps the most useful part of the day was the hour’s discussion session held at the end. In addition to a detailed (and minuted - thanks Myriah!) discourse on the nitty-gritty of chronicle study, a conversation about the future of the symposium group took place in which it was decided that the group should continue and seek to make its endeavours available to a wider audience. We are thus looking into the possibility of starting a website in which can be deposited the various scholarly resources produced by the group, from the definitive lists of Latin and vernacular chronicles and their editions circulated at the event to new editions of the chronicle texts themselves. It was also suggested that further symposia with the same premise should be organised for the future, Glasgow being mooted as a possible venue for next year in order that the event may take place in conjunction with the 2015 International Celtic Congress. At that event we would hope to hear updates from those who spoke at the last symposium in addition to new ideas from new participants – so put your chronicle thinking-cap on and gird your annalistic belt, and please get in touch!

Trip to the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth

ASNC undergraduate Maura McKeon writes:

On Wednesday 15^th January, a group of eighteen committed ASNCs braced themselves for a 7am start to travel to the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. The library is currently hosting a unique exhibition entitled 4 Books: Welsh Icons United, displaying some of the most important manuscripts surviving from medieval Wales.

After a five hour minibus journey we arrived at the National Library, giving us just enough time to enjoy a quick lunch and some essential caffeine before the real fun began. Within the exhibition room the excitement was palpable, as we all came face to face with the books themselves. The list included the poetry manuscripts Llyfr Taliesin, Llyfr Aneirin, Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin and  Llawysgrif Hendregadredd, as well as the newly-acquired Boston Manuscript of Welsh law, and both Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch and Llyfr Coch Hergest, the latter of which usually resides in Oxford. The experience of standing in the same room as both the Llyfr Gwyn and the Llyfr Coch, usually separated by such a great distance, is something none of us will forget. Some of us wandered out of the Four Books exhibition to view the Library’s impressive collection of Welsh landscape paintings, as well as some of the other displays.

The workshop begins

Together with some students from Oxford, we were then  beckoned into the education room for a workshop on some of the other manuscripts in the library’s collection, led by ASNC’s own Professor Paul Russell, with Daniel Huws and Professor Thomas Charles-Edwards also offering the fruits of their experience and  wisdom. After a welcome and introduction from Maredudd ap Huw, the Manuscripts Librarian, Paul took us through a wide variety of books including a facsimile Peniarth 28 (a Latin version of the Welsh laws asspociated with Archbishop Pecham), the educational  facsimile of the Llawysgrif Boston, both the Welsh and Latin lives of Gruffudd ap Cynan, some of the transcriptions of John Davies of Mallwyd, and (for some the highlight of the day), the Book of Llandaf. We were able to pass them around and get a closer look. Other ASNCs took a leading role including PhD students,  Myriah Williams, who discussed the Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin with the aid of a facsimile, and Benjamin Guy, who gave an introduction to the Book of Llandaf.

After the workshop some students took advantage of the opportunity for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Library led by Maredudd ap Huw. Some also chose to take advantage of the opportunities provided at the gift shop, and left slightly lighter of pocket. The day was finished by a visit to the promenade where, after much searching, we found a chippy that was still open. A chorus of ‘happy birthday’ was sung to undergraduate Ella Watts, who turned twenty that day, and quickly proclaimed it to be the “best birthday ever”. We once again boarded our minibuses for the journey home, with a rekindled enthusiasm for all things ASNC.

Under the watchful eye of Maredudd ap Huw, manuscripts librarian at the National Library of Wakes

We are very grateful to the National Library of Wales for such a memorable day, and especially to Maredudd ap Huw and Huw Bonner for all their hard work and willingness to make the day such a success. Thanks also to Phil Dunshea and Paul Russell for driving us there and back.

For another version of events, see the Library's own blog.

ASNCs on University Challenge

At least four current and former ASNCs have squared up to Jeremy Paxman on the current series of University Challenge. In the episode broadcast on Monday 14th October, recent ASNC graduates Owain Jones and Daisy Le Helloco helped Bangor defeat Aberystwyth. Their victory, together with Paxman's entertainingly inconsitent pronunciation of Aberystwyth, can be seen on BBC i-Player here until Monday 21st October.

Charter for ten?

Meanwhile, back in August, ASNC second-year Rachael Gregory helped Queens' College to a close-fought victory over Durham. The final score was 190-170. Congratulations, Rachael! A few weeks later, Lizzie Colwill, another second-year, gave a fine performance for Pembroke against Somerville College, Oxford. We are very proud of both of them.

ASNCs on the Road: Celtic Literature in Dublin

From ASNC doctoral student Myriah Williams:

The sun was out in Dublin last week, as were a good number of Celticists hoping to enlighten or be enlightened on the subject of Genre in Medieval Celtic Literature.  The School of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies hosted the colloquium, organized by doctoral student Nicole Volmering. The aim of the conference was to open a dialogue about the role of genre, both within modern scholarship in the field and within the minds of medieval authors and editors.  The need for such a discussion was evidenced by the terrific turnout at the conference, with a crowd composed of both new and very familiar faces alike.

Proceedings began on Friday afternoon, with the first session on cycles and cyclification in Irish literature, specifically in the Fenian lays and in Acallam Bec (‘The Little Colloquy’).  The papers provided a good start to a good conference, but in retrospect perhaps they should have been split, with one paper in the last session, to bring the whole thing full-circle...  The half-day was rounded out with an analysis of the sub-genre of tecosc (‘teaching’) and its relation to kingship, and a consideration of the role of women in both saints lives and epic narrative.  Feasting as befits Celtic scholars of course concluded the first day’s festivities.

Saturday presented a full day of papers, four sessions worth in fact.  Continuing on from Friday’s theme, three out of the four were focused on further Irish material.  Concerning aspects of modern scholarship, we heard about editing practices and the theory and application of genre methodology onto medieval texts.  In other papers, we were asked to put ourselves into the place of medieval scribes, to question how they were organizing and categorizing their texts, or into the minds of medieval readers, to consider how they were processing them.

This'll be worth a few bob one day: conference programme signed by the likes of Fergus Kelly, Liam Breatnach, Greg Toner, David Stifter, David Dumville, Jenny Rowland, Lizzie Boyle, Barry Lewis, David Callander and Geraldine Parsons  (a few ASNCs past and present in there...)

The first session on Saturday, however, was concerned with Welsh material, and I am glad to have been a part of it.  Our own ASNC David Callander began the morning with a discussion of narrative verse as a medieval Welsh literary genre.  In his paper, David asked us to reconsider the traditional view that medieval Welsh verse is non-narrative and, having made the argument for narrative verse in Welsh, considered the implications for how the verse might then be regrouped for a discussion of genre.  This conclusion provided a nice segue into my own paper, where I dealt with issues that have been present in the definition of ymddiddanau or dialogue poems as a genre.  I sought to clarify the genre by refining the definition, and in doing so also to highlight the potential danger of trying to explain inconsistencies in the texts in a way not supported by their manuscript context.  Barry Lewis, former ASNC and present researcher at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies (who will be giving a lecture at the Graduate Seminar on 25 November – mark your calendars!), concluded our session by reminding us about the importance of analyzing the categories into which we put medieval texts.  He addressed the factors that modern editors consider in distinguishing between religious and secular verse, and argued that such distinctions would not necessarily have been made by the medieval people who were dealing with these texts.

Questioning the validity of our modern editing practices is indeed a topic that ran through a number of papers, and was perhaps one of the most important issues to take a away from the conference for further thought.  Though the matter of genre can certainly stand to further discussion and debate, the colloquium was productive for raising the profile of the topic.  Hopefully in time we will begin to see an expansion of critical thinking on the matter of genre in medieval Celtic literature.

 

And there's always time for a visit to the National Museum of Ireland. Pictured is the Ardagh Chalice, possibly eighth century, from Co. Limerick.

Turning darkness into light

Dutch graffiti artist, Niels Meulman, has produced art inspired by the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Old Irish poem Pangur Bán, which will be on display in the north of England until the end of September. The BBC cover the story here.

Professor Paul Russell, of the ASNC Department, has inspected and approved the rebound medieval Welsh law manuscript recently purchased by the National Library of Wales. You can read more on the NLW blog, and BBC News recently published an article about it on their website.

A Medieval Manuscript Comes Home to Wales

Prof. Paul Russell writes:

In the early eighteenth century a manuscript of medieval Welsh law, formerly owned by William Philips (1663–1721), Recorder for the town of Brecon, found its way to America. The details are unclear but Philips’s daughter married into the Scourfield family of New Moat, Pembroke and his library passed to them, and it is probably no coincidence that a Morris Scourfield was one of the first recorded purchasers of land for the Pennsylvania community. At some point before its departure for America the main text of the MS was foliated by Edward Lhuyd as a result of which we know how many leaves are now missing. The MS first surfaces in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston as a gift, probably in the early nineteenth century, and became their MS. 5.

            In early 2012 it emerged that the MS was to be sold through Sotheby’s in London at an auction on 10 July 2012. The description composed by Sotheby’s, which made some interesting claims about the nature of the text and language, left it in no doubt that they were hoping for a wealthy American buyer; it ended, ‘It seems impossible that any such witness would ever again be allowed export from the United Kingdom, and so this must be the final appearance of this language on the open market’. The previous occasion a medieval Welsh MS came up for sale was in 1923 when the National Library of Wales (NLW) purchased the Hendregadredd MS (NLW MS 6680) for £150. The estimate on the Boston MS was £500,000–700,000.

I had been asked by the National Library of Wales to examine the MS and write report on it with a view to a bid being made. So in late June, Daniel Huws, former keeper of manuscripts at the NLW, Maredudd ap Huw, manuscripts librarian at the NLW, and I met in London and spent the afternoon with the MS. It was immediately clear, despite the carefully selected photographs in the catalogue, that the MS was in very poor condition – coloured initials cut out, pages damaged to the point of near shredding, and general all-round distress – and a hot summer’s day in the Sotheby’s office was doing it no good at all. The time, however, was well spent giving the MS as close as an examination as it had probably had for a long time – not least because we might never have seen it again. On the basis of our reports and one also from a conservator send down from Aberystwyth, the Heritage Lottery Fund agreed to put up the majority of the funding with help from the Friends of the National Libraries and the Welsh Government.

When 10 July came around, I watched the auction on line in my office, and it was immediately clear that prices were very subdued. When lot 23 came up, it went for £450,000 (£520,000 with the buyer’s premium) and I knew the MS was going home. By the same afternoon, it had already acquired an NLW number – NLW MS 24029A – though among the medieval Welsh lawyers it will continue to be known by the siglum ‘Bost’ (if nothing else, as an important reminder of its eventful career).

The news of the purchase caused great excitement in Wales and it was put on display in the Library for several weeks before it was removed for conservation. On 20 September I met Daniel and Maredudd in the back-rooms of the Library to watch the MS being dismantled and the beginning of the long process of conservation. Despite the amount paid for the MS, it was clear that it needed complete dis-binding and every leaf repaired and conserved, and the only way that amount of money could be justified was to do everything to preserve it for the future. Every stage of the process was recorded; every bit of the binding preserved; every single loose fragment of vellum preserved. The first thing to go was the binding which has been too tight and was part of the problem as it had never let the vellum expand and contract with changes of temperature. It was then left overnight to allow the glue on the spine to soak and soften. The next day the sewing threads were cut and the MS came apart in our hands, and the real work could begin.

 PR examines one of the more intact openings

So why does any of this matter?

While the tradition of medieval Welsh law is traced back to the reign of Hywel Dda (died 950), the earliest surviving MSS date from the mid-thirteenth century; between then and the sixteenth century there are surviving some thirty or more MSS, most in Welsh but some in Latin. The Welsh MSS fall into three groups, or redactions, the Iorwerth redaction (originally from Gwynedd), the Cyfnerth redaction (from the south and east of Wales), and the Blegywryd redaction (from the south-west, and in origin deriving from a Welsh translation of one of the Latin versions of the law). Although the use of Welsh law was probably more restricted after the fall of Gwynedd in 1282, it remained strikingly resilient and found a continued importance in the Marches  where the validity of a case might well have depended on a prior claim based on Welsh law. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of the MSS of Welsh law from the fourteenth century and later come from the east of Wales, and in recent years there has been a growing interest in these later aspects of the history of Welsh law. 

  An example of a less than intact opening and why the MS was badly in need of conservation.

            The Boston MS is one such. It belongs to the Blegywryd redaction and its text would originally have been in use in the south and west of Wales. Wherever the original provenance of the main text (and Daniel Huws suggests that this MS may have been copied at Strata Florida in the middle of the fourteenth century), it appears from the later annotation that the MS can be associated with Brecon.

One feature of the Blegywryd MSS, all of which seem to date to the fourteenth century or later, is that they tend to have a ‘tail’ of material often derived from the other redactions; it seems that, when these text were used in the March, the distinction between redactions was less important than simply having as full a law text as possible. For example, Oxford, Jesus College MS 57, a MS copied by Hywel Fychan, the main scribe of the Red Book of Hergest, has a long ‘tail’ of material mainly deriving from the Iorwerth redaction. In that case, the whole text is in the hand of Hywel Fychan and we can only tell that there is a ‘tail’ by comparison with other MSS. 

  Maredudd ap Huw and PR check the collation

In this respect the Boston MS is extremely important: it has a ‘tail’  but it is in several different hands and clearly shows evidence of the cumulative gathering of extra legal material over a period of time. There are several phases: the main text ends on p. 181 (I use the pagination as this part of the MS was not foliated by Lhuyd) and there is extra material on the lower part of the page; a contemporary but rougher hand has then added legal material on the next few pages. However, subsequently – and this is one of the unique features of this MS – a gathering of six leaves was inserted after the current p. 182 containing a section of text in a finer, more professional hand from a different slightly later MS. We might imagine that this gathering was lying around and tucked into the back of the Boston MS for safe-keeping. This video clip shows me removing the extra gathering  and indicating that, once it is removed, the text either side is continuous. It is worth dwelling on the fact that that was probably the first time it had been removed since ca 1360. It will of course be re-bound back in the same place.

 One could envisage that, if this MS had then been copied, the distinctions between these different additions in the ‘tail’ would have been lost. As it is, however, this MS provides us with a precious example of the creation a ‘tail’ and tells us something we could only have guessed at, namely that, while text was copied from other sources, another mode of ‘tail-creation’, as it were, was by simply inserting pages from another MS. In other words, this is a working-copy, much closer to the reality and practice of the law than a tidy version like Jesus College 57, and all the more valuable and useful for that.

  Daniel Huws and PR discuss the collation of the dis-bound MS laid out in quires on the desk.

What now ?

 The MS is now undergoing repair conservation leaf by leaf and will be soon in a condition to be digitised; the images will then in due course be available to be consulted on the NLW’s Digital Mirror. Interesting details are still emerging; for example, when the MS was disbound, tacket holes were visible on some of the bifolia suggested that quires might have been held together with fine vellum strips before it was bound. 

A conservator repairs a leaf on a light-box (tacket holes are visible just below the right-most finger)

It now emerges that in quire 4 only there are worm holes in the vellum. Putting these details together, it would appear that the MS might have remained unbound for some time with the individual quires held together with tackets. Another intriguing glimpse into how it might have been used, and no doubt more will emerge from further study. The MS will be rebound and two facsimile copies will be made in addition, one of which will be bound so as to allow demonstration of the arrangement of quires and insertions. The purchase of this MS has provided an extraordinary opportunity to be able to observe the dismantling of a MS book, and in some ways its relatively poor condition has allowed things to be seen and learnt which would be impossible with a better preserved book. Already students in ASNC are finding out what an important learning and teaching resource this MS can be, and I hope others can benefit from what has been learnt in conserving this MS for future generations.

Many thanks to the National Library for permission to use the photographs, and in particular to Maredudd ap Huw and Daniel Huws, the conservation staff, Iwan Bryn James, Elgar Pugh, and Dilwyn Williams, and the photographers, Mark Davey and Michael Jones. More news and pictures can be found on the Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru blog. [Edit: further updates on the National Library of Wales blog here]

Dafydd Jenkins (1911–2012), scholar of medieval Welsh law (inter plurima)

Dr Paul Russell writes:

Professor Dafydd Jenkins, legal historian and the doyen of medieval Welsh law, died in the early hours of Sunday 6 May at the age of 101. Born on 1 March 1911, he lived long enough to have had at least four careers. He was born in London to Cardiganshire parents, attended Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he read Natural Sciences followed by Law, and was called to the Bar in 1934. He then worked as a barrister in Carmarthen and in 1938 was secretary of the campaign to have the Welsh language recognised in Court. A conscientious objector during the war, he bought a farm at Trawsnant in Ceredigion and farmed that in the forties and fifties, a farm he still owned at his death. He was influential in Welsh agricultural circles and was instrumental in establishing farming co-operatives in Wales. In the forties and fifties he conducted evening classes on agricultural topics for the Extra-Mural Department of the University of Wales College, Aberystwyth, and from 1965 lectured in the Law Department at Aberystwyth, eventually holding a chair in Legal History and Welsh Law, (1975–1978), until his retirement. 

            All his work on medieval Welsh law was carried out in these latter years, and it is extraordinary to think that when I got to know him in that context he was already retired and in his early seventies. He published widely throughout his life having learnt the art of printing when co-editing Heddiw with Aneirin Talfan Davies while still in London, and he retained to the end a fine sense of page-layout and typography. One of his most famous early works was Tân yn Llŷn (Aberystwyth, 1937), a forensic account of the trial of D. J. Williams, Lewis Valentine, a Saunders Lewis for the burning of the bombing-school in 1937. His other publications included the travel books, Ar Wib yn Nenmarc (Aberystwyth, 1951) and Ar Wib yn Sweden (Aberystwyth, 1959), Y nofel: datblygiad y nofel Gymraeg ar ôl Daniel Owen (Cardiff, 1948), Law for Co-operatives (Oxford, 1958) and an edition of Gwilym Hiraethog's Helyntion Bywyd Hen Deiliwr (Aberystwyth, 1940). The long stream of publications on medieval Welsh law only began in the seventies but continued until 2010; they include Cyfraith Hywel (Llandysul, 1970), Celtic Law Papers (Brussels, 1973), The Law of Hywel Dda: law texts from Medieval Wales (Llandysul, 1986), and editions of Llyfr Colan (Cardiff, 1963) and Damweiniau Colan (Aberystwyth, 1973), and a Conspectus of the Manuscripts of the Cyfnerth Redaction (Cambridge, 2010). In addition he contributed numerous essays to other volumes, including The Welsh King and his Court (Cardiff, 2000), and Tair Colofn Cyfraith: The Three Columns of Law in Medieval Wales (Bangor, 2007). All scholars bring to their work the accumulated experience of their lives, but Dafydd’s life experiences were so rich, varied and relevant that they shine through in everything he wrote. His work was characterized by a detailed and intimate understanding of law, by a marvelous control of Welsh, and in particular by a deep understanding of the law of the land derived from his years of farming it. In 1986, at the age of 75, he was honoured with a Festschrift, Lawyers and Laymen (Cardiff, 1986), and few would have believed he still had so many productive years ahead of him. I worked with him as an editor on some of these volumes and even at the age of 99 he would not let you get away with anything; an absolute stickler for the precise legal terminology, all proofs came back annotated in pencil in a tiny italic hand which, however small, was perfectly legible and ruthlessly clear in its intent.

            One of his great achievements was the establishment of Seminar Cyfraith Hywel which meets twice a year to discuss matters of Welsh law and over the years has been a remarkably productive source of volumes of essays and edited texts on various aspects of medieval Welsh law, such as the laws of women, suretyship, the laws of court, the Three Columns (on homicide, arson and theft), and another one is in the making on the Law of Wild and Tame. He continued to attend the meetings until recently, and on 6 March 2011 we held a special meeting to celebrate his 100^th birthday on the previous St David’s Day. He was unable to attend the last few meetings of the seminar, and there was, and will continue to be, a Dafydd-shaped gap in the front row.

            He is buried next to his wife at Capel Penrhiw, Joppa, next door to his farm at Trawsnant.