Further Developments in the Black Book of Carmarthen Research

Myriah Williams writes

Interest generated in research on the Black Book of Carmarthen (NLW MS Peniarth 1) resulted last week in an international collaboration between Dr Gregory Heyworth, director of The Lazarus Project, the National Library of Wales and myself.  The Lazurus Project specializes in multispectral imaging, a process in which a series of photographs is taken of an object lit with numerous colour bands spanning from ultraviolet to infrared.  A specialised lens made of quartz is used in the imaging, as it allows for much better transmission of ultra violet light than standard glass.

Over the course of three days we captured images of select pages in the Black Book, as well as some of the fourteenth-century Peniarth 20, a manuscript whose outer pages suffered damage significant enough to render their texts illegible.  The processing of the images is fairly labour-intensive, so the full results of the endeavour will not be known for some weeks or longer.  Initial results, however, look promising.  I look forward to seeing what comes to light from this work (pun intended), and am delighted to have taken part in it.

Undiscovered poems in the Black Book of Carmarthen?

Exciting news from the National Library of Wales, where ASNC doctoral student Myriah Williams, and her supervisor Professor Paul Russell, have been working a thirteenth-century manuscript, the Black Book of Carmarthen. By scanning the manuscript with ultraviolet light, they have revealed that its sixteenth-century custodian may have erased one or two things. The great hope is that, by using photo editing software, some of the 'vanished' text may still be recovered. For more information, read the this post on the National Library of Wales website.

'Cake Class' Goes to the UL: medieval Welsh manuscripts in Cambridge

The Medieval Welsh Reading Group, affectionately known as Cake Class, took a trip this week across West Road and over to the University Library, where among the treasures of that institution reside a number of medieval manuscripts of interest to Welsh scholars.

Cambridge University Library

In two groups, organized by ASNC PhD student Silva Nurmio, we were guided by Prof Paul Russell through a selection of six manuscripts and a collection of papers, as kindly arranged for us by Prof Russell and University Librarian Suzanne Paul.  Though the papers (Add. MS 6425), the work of 19^th century scholar Henry Bradshaw, were significantly later in date than the rest of the works arranged discreetly around the Manuscripts Reading Room table, they were perhaps one of the most fitting items on view for a group of budding Celticists.  As Prof Russell explained, Henry Bradshaw was responsible for laying much of the foundation for the editing of glossed texts in the field of Celtic Studies, and for transcribing texts such as the Juvencus englynion and all the glosses in the manuscript to be worked on later by Whitley Stokes and others.  The Juvencus englynion, the earliest examples of verse in Old Welsh, were themselves on display just across from Bradshaw’s papers. Found in the margins of a 9^th century copy of the Juvencus Codex (MS Ff. 4. 42), we are extraordinarily lucky to have these just next door to us in the UL – not the least because some of them were once cut from the manuscript and removed from the Library before being returned!

A further example of Old Welsh was seen in the Computus Fragment (Add. MS 4543), two small fly-leafs purchased by the UL in the early 20^th century.  Dating to the 10^th century, these pages probably preserve the longest prose passage of Old Welsh extant, as well as two examples of early Insular art in the zoomorphic heads found on two capital letters.  An assortment of three other manuscripts (MS Ii. 1. 14, MS Ii. 4. 4 and MS Kk. 3. 21) not composed in Welsh nevertheless bear the marks of Welsh scholarship, as attested by what have been categorized as ‘Welsh scribbles’ inside their respective bindings; in fact these are probably notes by Edward Lhuyd telling his amanuenses where to re-shelve the manuscripts.  Finally, the latest manuscript on the table was a personal volume of some Welsh genealogies (MS Mm. 1. 3), copied by William Llyn in the 16^th century.  In fact, Llyn helpfully provides the detail that he began his copying on the morning of Friday the 1^st of October, 1566; attestations of any kind are rare in Welsh manuscripts, yet here we find a level of detail bordering on the extreme.   ASNC PhD student Ben Guy, who is currently working on the Welsh genealogies, illustrated just how valuable a resource like the UL can be, and how important it is to take advantage of it, as he incorporates his findings from this book into his dissertation.

When you live and work in a place like Cambridge, it can be easy to forget just how lucky you are to be surrounded by such amazing resources.  For a small group of Welsh students and scholars, this Cake Class excursion was a reminder of all the great things that the UL has to offer – a taster if you will.  Though the treat was not as buttery as our usual weekly fare, it was in fact very much sweeter.  Many thanks to the organizers and to the UL.

Myriah Williams 

Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru/A Dictionary of the Welsh Language goes online

Silva Nurmio writes:

26 June 2014 saw the long-awaited launch of Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru/A Dictionary of the Welsh Language (GPC) online. The GPC is the standard historical dictionary of the Welsh language. Entries include a definition in Welsh and English; if known, an etymology and cognates from other languages are also given. These are followed by a list of attestations from texts from all periods of the language, and common collocations and phrases are listed for most words. The first edition of the dictionary was published in four volumes between 1967 and 2002 (you can read more about the history of GPC here). In 2002 work was begun on a second edition which has so far progressed to the word brig and has been published in twelve booklets. In the online version, clicking ‘first edition’ at the top takes you to a PDF view of the entry in the first edition, allowing comparison of the first and second edition entries.

The greatest advantage of the online version is that it is free; the print version of the first edition at £350 is a serious investment. GPC online opens up the dictionary to a wider audience, including students and people with a general interest in Welsh who have not had access to a print copy or who may have found it a bit challenging to use. The online version allows you to search by English definition as well as the Welsh headword and you can search for full phrases in both languages, making the dictionary more searchable than before.

The GPC is an invaluable source for students of Welsh, and the Celtic languages in general, and the new online version means it is now accessible from anywhere.

Links: see here for the main website; follow GPC on Facebook and Twitter. Both feature Gair y Dydd/Word of the Day (in Welsh only, so good for practice if you’re a learner).