Grammar and Poetry in Late Medieval and Early Modern Wales: The Transmission and Reception of the Welsh Bardic Grammars 9781837720996, 9781837721016

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Tables
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1: A Welsh ars poetriae
Chapter 2: Tools for Reading
Chapter 3: ‘Bardic’ Grammars
Chapter 4: Official Documents
Chapter 5: Bardic Humanism
Conclusion
Appendix: Translation of the Bardic Grammar in the Red Book of Hergest
Notes on the translation
Bibliography
Notes

Citation preview

      © Michaela Jacques, 2024 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3NS. www.uwp.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN     978-1-83772-099-6 eISBN    978-1-83772-101-6 The right of Michaela Jacques to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The University of Wales Press gratefully acknowledges the funding support of the Books Council of Wales in publication of this book. The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Cover image: Oxford, Jesus College, MS. 15, page 5. © Jesus College, Oxford, used under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) licence Cover design: Olwen Fowler

For Caroline Jacques

Contents

List of Tables Abbreviations Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1

A Welsh ars poetriae

Chapter 2

Tools for Reading

Chapter 3

‘Bardic’ Grammars

Chapter 4

Official Documents

Chapter 5

Bardic Humanism Conclusion Appendix: Translation of the Bardic Grammar in the Red Book of Hergest Notes on the translation Bibliography Notes

List of Tables

Table 1.1

Terminology for grades of comparison

Table 3.1

Labels for cynghanedd in Peniarth 126

Table 3.2

Selection of references to bardic grammars in bardic marwnadau

Table 4.1

Manuscripts containing a version of the 24 mesur text

Table 4.2

Musical contents of manuscripts containing the 24 mesur cerdd dafod text

Table 5.1

Rhetorical terminology in 16th- and 17th-century glosses of the bardic grammars

Abbreviations

BBCS

Bulletin Board of Celtic Studies

CMCS

Cambridge/Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies

GP

Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid

GPC

Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru

OED

Oxford English Dictionary

RED

Records of Early Drama: Wales

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to acknowledge the Centre for Medieval Studies and the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto, who hosted and funded the postdoctoral fellowship that allowed me to prepare this manuscript. Additionally, much of the research for this project was completed during my doctoral dissertation, for which I received funding from the Celtic Languages and Literatures Scholarships Committee, the Harvard Sheldon Travelling Fellowship, the Medieval Academy of America and the Richard III Society. There are many scholars whose generous assistance over the course of this project has been invaluable. I am deeply indebted especially to Catherine McKenna, Barry Lewis and Paul Russell, whose incisive and thoughtful commentary greatly improved the final product. Any remaining errors are of course my own. Thank you to Brent Miles for supporting and supervising the postdoctoral fellowship during which this book was completed. For their assistance over the course of the research for this book, I am also grateful to Jan Ziolkowski, Jerry Hunter, Peredur Lynch, Ann Parry Owen, Bethan Miles, Cameron Wachowich, Celeste Andrews, Joseph Shack and Kate Leach. Finally, for their love, patience and support, thank you to my family, Ann, Karl, Frank, Leigh, Jilly, Lily, Jake, Lolo and Leonard; and to my long-suffering non-Celticist friends, Sophie, John, Stephanie, Al and Gemma. Special thanks to Carl, whose love and encouragement made the preparation and submission of this manuscript possible.

Introduction

T

his is a study of the bardic grammars, Middle Welsh treatises that fuse Latin grammatical learning with the sounds and metrical systems of Welsh poetry. From the early fourteenth century to the end of the sixteenth, these treatises were recopied over and over by bards and scholars. Each individual copy contains variations and revisions, ranging from minute changes in orthography to complete overhauls of the base text. While certain alterations were made to improve usability, these revisions often reflect the introduction of contemporary scholarship or new regulations into bardic thought and practice. The gradual evolution of these texts therefore offers us valuable insight into the social and intellectual history of the poets in late medieval and early modern Wales. It is also a case study for scholars of medieval linguistic history, an example of how Latin scholarship was adapted and re-adapted to fit the specifications of a vernacular language over the course of a long period of transmission. For the scholar of pre-modern Wales, the bardic grammars are an example of a highly malleable text – a text that could be adapted, re-shaped and re-purposed by a variety of different users to a variety of different ends. By tracing how a single text was adapted and altered over the course of two and a half centuries, it is possible to come to a better understanding of how its producers and editors operated within a society that was in the process of rapid social and linguistic change. The bardic grammars are one lens through which to view the massive shift that took place in the late medieval and early modern period in Wales. As we move from the fourteenth century

to the sixteenth, it is possible to observe the way in which a society progressed from the medieval to the early modern, as the bardic grammars themselves move from carefully penned texts in expensive anthology manuscripts, to roughshod personal copies, to official documents. Though sometimes intended as pedagogical texts, the bardic grammars do not necessarily offer a guide to poetic training from the fourteenth century to the sixteenth; as shall be discussed, there are omissions and misrepresentations that mean that they are of limited utility as training documents. Instead, they represent a record of some of the ways in which the Welsh bards thought about their products and their social role in the late medieval and early modern period, and they serve as an indication of the types of external scholarship and contemporary thought that had begun to make their way into the minds of the bardic order. The bardic grammars alone cannot tell us how to compose poetry, but they may tell us a little bit about how to approach the extant corpus. For the scholar of the history of linguistics, or even the history of scholarship and education more broadly, the bardic grammars offer something different: they are a window into how mainstream scholastic ideas were appropriated and refracted on a small scale, in a vernacular context. They are a study in how grammatical scholarship in Latin and English was received and adapted to meet the needs of a Celtic language, from the first attempt to describe the Welsh language using technical grammatical and poetic vocabulary, through to the repeated subsequent attempts to refine this description. Despite their significance, these texts have barely been discussed outside the field of Welsh and Celtic studies. When the Welsh grammars are mentioned at all by non-specialists, there is a tendency to rely on secondhand information from a select few English-language articles, mostly by Ann Matonis.1 Matonis’s contributions are extremely valuable, but for some time have been one of few English-language treatments of the grammars widely available outside the field of Celtic studies. The relative neglect of the bardic grammars is unfortunate, as they are an important witness both to the way in which mainstream grammatical

learning was adapted into non-mainstream conditions, and to the shifting organisational patterns of late medieval and early modern Welsh society. However, the neglect is perhaps unsurprising given the fact that the most recent complete edition of the grammars dates to 1934, and is written in Welsh; the medieval bardic grammars have never been translated in full.2 This book only begins to answer that gap: first of all, by providing an English translation of a bardic grammar in the Appendix, and secondly, by offering a discussion of the copies of the grammars in later manuscripts that have to this point largely been ignored. For the first time, the various versions of the bardic grammars are situated in their proper contexts throughout all periods of circulation. These texts are incredibly rich, and the more one picks away at them, the more they reveal. I hope this is only a small contribution to a much longer conversation that will be taken up by other scholars, both within the field of Welsh and Celtic Studies and without. Part I: Background Latin and vernacular grammar Like many other vernacular grammars and poetic manuals produced in the medieval and early modern West, the Welsh bardic grammars were based in, and emerged from, the study of Latin.3 Long before the bardic grammars were composed, Latin had ceased to be spoken as a native language in Europe, but continued to enjoy a robust second life as a ‘prestige’ language throughout the medieval West – the international language of scholarship, administration and the Church.4 This meant that Latin had to be learned as a second language by anyone who wished to seriously participate in written intellectual discourse or study of any kind, and knowledge of Latin was a necessary precursor to any more complex studies. It has been said that the study of Latin grammar ‘was the precondition for having a literate culture at all’.5 Latin grammar was the centrepiece of the medieval trivium – Grammar preceded Rhetoric and Logic, and was the entry-point into any kind of higher-level studies, including the study of canonical literature –

with the analysis of Scripture as the ultimate end goal.6 Before one could approach any literate text, it was first necessary to have a firm grasp on the basics of language, beginning with letter and sounds, moving through to words, and eventually sentences. Only once all this was understood could more complex pieces of literature be analysed. The formalised study of Latin as a second language naturally entailed the production of educational materials to support this study, in the form of Latin grammars, written guides to the formal features of the Latin language (accidence, morphology, syntax). Many of these texts were designed to teach Latin to non-native speakers. One of the most enduring antique grammars (the Institutiones Grammaticae, discussed further in Chapter 1) was written by the grammarian and teacher Priscian in the sixth century, as a pedagogical aid to pupils whose first language was Greek.7 A little later, Insular grammarians in early Britain and Ireland too had to confront the problem of teaching Latin – a language that was not only foreign, but belonged to a completely different linguistic family than the language they spoke at home. This presented a particular challenge in Britain and Ireland: as Vivien Law wrote, ‘an Italian or Spaniard who had studied no grammar would write bad Latin: an Irishman or Anglo-Saxon without grammar could write no Latin at all’.8 The centrality of the Latin language to literacy and education in the medieval period meant that it tended to be the blueprint for linguistic thought of any kind, including linguistic descriptions in and of vernacular languages that did not derive from Latin. However, vernacular languages themselves were generally not the objects of serious study in the medieval West, and linguistic descriptions of vernaculars were relatively rare. More commonly, vernacular languages could be used as the medium for instruction in Latin – a sometimes-reluctant concession to students’ greater comfort in their own mother tongue. In the Old English grammar he composed to teach Latin to speakers of English, Ælfric apologised for his own use of the vernacular, explaining ‘I know that many people will reproach me for having chosen to occupy myself with such studies, i.e. translating grammar into English. But I consider this subject to be suited to

ignorant children, not greybeards.’9 In this instance, Old English was a practical tool intended to be used to teach Latin grammar to children, and not the end-object of study in itself. In contrast, grammars of the vernacular (that is, grammars describing the features of a vernacular language) were scarce before the twelfth or thirteenth century. Counterexamples certainly exist from an earlier period (most notably the Old Irish Auraicept na nÉces, parts of which may date to as early as the seventh century10), but these were far from the norm. Rather, most vernacular grammars emerged after around 1300, alongside the increasing production of vernacular literature.11 Most of these grammars were specifically concerned with features of the vernacular poetry, which could not be adequately described using Latin terminology alone, and therefore demanded separate (and vernacular) treatment.12 The fourteenth century saw the compilation of the Welsh bardic grammars; around the same time or a little earlier, scholars working in other vernaculars produced the Old Icelandic First Grammatical Treatise (middle third of the twelfth century), the Donatz Proençals (second quarter of the thirteenth century), and the Occitan Leys d’Amors (1332).13 As both Douglas Kelly and Vivien Law have noted, it is difficult to generalise about vernacular grammatical writing in the medieval period: each individual grammar was the product of a distinct tradition and set of historical circumstances, and each had a distinct motivation behind its composition.14 Although the Welsh bardic grammars are exemplary of a wider trend of grammatical writing in the vernacular, the interest for scholars lies in their unique expression of grammatical concepts (as applied to a Celtic language and shaped by the demands of Welsh poetry), and in the particular circumstances that gave rise to their production and reproduction over the course of several centuries. Latin and bardic education Most of the recipients of a medieval Latin education would have begun their studies using the same text: Aelius Donatus’ Ars Minor, a short treatise on the eight parts of speech (noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, participle, conjunction, preposition, interjection), which has been called ‘the most

successful textbook in the history of Western culture’.15 At a higher level, one might expect familiarity with more difficult grammatical texts, like Donatus’ Ars Maior or Priscian’s Institutiones.16 Such an educational background is reflected in the content of the bardic grammars, especially the grammatical segment, which is essentially an adaptation of material resembling Donatus’ Ars Maior or Priscian’s Institutiones Grammaticae (for a more detailed discussion of this relationship, see Chapter 1). Because the content of the bardic grammars is so strongly rooted in elementary, pedagogical Latin texts, any discussion of the Welsh treatises should begin by considering the state of elementary education in medieval Wales; the compiler was using texts that would have been most frequently encountered by schoolboys learning Latin for the first time. Our knowledge of education in medieval Wales is limited, and the surviving evidence is sparse – but in all accounts, the church looms large. As was the case elsewhere in Europe, the monasteries, especially Cistercian monasteries, played a central role in the provision of elementary Latin education to pupils in Wales, and many pupils who learned Latin would have done so as a part of their clerical training.17 This association has led scholars to emphasise (perhaps to overemphasise) the possible clerical background of the compiler of the bardic grammars.18 But an education rooted in Latin grammar is only half the story: after all, the bardic grammars are also bardic.19 The professional bards who wrote throughout the period examined in this book are usually referred to as either the cywyddwyr (‘men of the cywydd’), denoting the metre in which they most frequently wrote, or the Beirdd yr Uchelwyr (‘Poets of the Noblemen’), to distinguish them from their predecessors, the Beirdd y Tywysogion (‘Poets of the Princes’).20 The bardic order to which the Beirdd yr Uchelwyr belonged was (at least in later periods) a guild-like professional society21 that regulated the poets who were paid to write in the ‘strict metres’ (the cywydd, the englyn and the awdl22). The bards’ bread and butter was praise poetry and eulogy, which were the most popular commissions from their noble patrons, but they also wrote poems of request, poems of thanks, religious poetry, love poetry,

prophetic poetry, poems of reconciliation, debate poems, satires, healing poems, nature poems, erotic poetry and poems to the nobleman’s court, among other more minor categories.23 The metrical and ornamental requirements of Welsh poetic metres are incredibly complex, and it is unlikely they could have been learned without significant instruction. It is therefore generally thought that the bardic order must have had some kind of professional training; however, the nature of that system remains opaque. By analogy with the situation in Ireland, previous scholars have written about ‘bardic schools’ in Wales, in which presumably young poets would have been guided through an oral, Welshlanguage education or apprenticeship in order to learn how to compose poetry.24 The problem with the bardic schools, of course, is that there is little evidence of their existence even in medieval Ireland, and none at all in Wales.25 The evidence becomes clearer as one moves forward in time: by the sixteenth century the bardic grammars had become practical documents for use in bardic training (this phenomenon is discussed in Chapter 3), and a bardic ‘curriculum’ is eventually laid out in the fifteenth-century document known as Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan (discussed in Chapter 4). However, the preponderance of evidence for the later period has perhaps led us to anachronistically attribute the functions of the later bardic grammars to the earlier copies. This function is far from obvious at the outset, and what we know about medieval bardic education consists almost entirely of assumption. The education of the bards (whatever it may have been) has been taken by some scholars to be separate from the education enjoyed by members of the clergy, and by extension divorced from a basis in Latin learning. G. J. Williams argued that Welsh bards understood little Latin, apart from a few words here and there, using as evidence the faulty Latin examples contained in a revision of the bardic grammars from the fifteenth century, and dismissing the presence of Latin vocabulary in the work of Meilyr Brydydd and Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr.26 The scholar Eurys Rowlands wrote that ‘although we have plenty of evidence of monastic patronage of the bards, we have none at all that the bardic education system was connected with the

monasteries in the late Middle Ages in Wales’.27 This may well be true, and bardic training probably did not demand any specific knowledge of Latin. But the boundary between poetic and Latin education may have been more porous than has been assumed. The very existence of the bardic grammars, which combined Latin grammar with bardic poetry, mitigates against a stratified view of clerical and bardic education. There are specific examples that suggest this overlap in knowledge is not without precedent: some clerics may have had bardic training;28 likewise, some poets may have been more conversant in Latin than previously imagined.29 Certain bards must have had at least a limited exposure to Latin: the professional classes in medieval Wales were relatively fluid, and bards could be drawn from the same class, and even the same families, as lawyers or clerics – for whom Latin was requisite.30 Nicholas Orme has recently expanded our understanding of schooling in medieval Wales beyond just the monastic schools, and has written that the type of pupil who would have learned Latin grammar was essentially ‘boys with some social status and access to wealth. It is likely that they included the sons of the lay aristocracy and the prosperous elites of the towns.’31 Certainly, not every bard went through a Latin grammar school, and it was not a required part of bardic training – but there is no reason to imagine that the pupils in these schools should not have included some future bards, and no reason to insist on such a strong boundary between Latin and poetic knowledge. In spite of this, the idea that the ‘author’ of the bardic grammars must have been a cleric has persisted, in part because of the names that came to be associated with these texts. Part II: The bardic grammars Authorship A great deal of scholarship about the bardic grammars has been devoted to identifying their authors, who are usually named as Einion Offeiriad (‘Einion the Priest’),32 Dafydd Ddu (‘the Black’) of Hiraddug33 or, occasionally, Cnepyn of Gwerthrynion.34 All these figures were connected

to the bardic grammars at an early stage. In two of the three earliest manuscript versions of the bardic grammars (the Red Book of Hergest and Llanstephan 3), Einion Offeiriad is listed as the originator of three invented metres (§81);35 in the bardic grammar in Peniarth 20, the name Dafydd Ddu is substituted.36 These metrical forms do not appear in the poetry of the gogynfeirdd, who wrote in the period immediately preceding the emergence of the bardic grammars.37 Rather, the additional metres seem to have been introduced to round out the list of metres to twenty-four.38 Dafydd Ddu is also cited as the author of the section on metrical faults in the Gramadeg Gwysanau, a short grammatical fragment related to (but distinct from) the bardic grammars (see discussion on p. 34). In the same document, Cnepyn Gwerthrynion is connected with the definition of the Welsh metres.39 None of the early examples list any author of the tract as a whole; Einion and Dafydd are only named as ‘authors’ of the grammars beginning the early modern period, with the first such attribution made by the antiquarian Robert Vaughan.40 In later periods, Dafydd Ddu rose to the fore as the author of the bardic grammars, replacing Einion as the dominant figure in the early historiography of the codification of Welsh poetry until his resurgence in the twentieth century.41 All of these figures held some kind of bardic authority, and as a result were swirling around in the folkloric background of the bardic grammars – whether they were responsible for the authorship of the entirety, or a portion, or nothing at all of the tract itself. Any conclusions beyond this must be tentative. The question of authorship has been thoroughly plumbed in the secondary literature over the course of the past century or more, and no definitive answer has yet been supplied. Further discussion on this point would be of limited utility. For this reason, I resist naming an author in my own treatment of the early versions of the bardic grammars, and refer instead to its compiler or reviser, as appropriate. Date Because the original authorship of these texts is so uncertain (and the historical record not always clear), it is not possible to base our dating of

the bardic grammars on when Einion Offeiriad and Dafydd Ddu lived. Instead, it has generally been repeated that the grammars were first composed in response to the Edwardian Conquest of 1282,42 the result of either a ‘conservative impulse’43 (comparable to the impulse that produced the Hendregadredd manuscript44) or perhaps an attempt to re-define the role of panegyric poetry in the wake of the loss of its traditional patrons.45 This post-Conquest dating has been made in part on the basis of the metrical examples in the bardic grammars, extracts of poetry intended to showcase a particular metre. One such extract, taken from a poem by Gwilym Du of Arfon, was dated by J. Beverley Smith to 1316–17.46 The difficulty here is that the metrical examples were the easiest parts of the text to substitute with newer or just alternative snippets of verse, and in later editions these metrical examples were frequently subject to wholesale replacement.47 Metrical examples cannot therefore offer any kind of secure dating for the text as a whole. All that can be stated with absolute certainty is that the bardic grammars were in existence by the time the earliest manuscript copy, Peniarth 20, was written, which Daniel Huws places around the year 1330.48 Any history of the bardic grammars that predates 1330 is necessarily speculative: my own speculative prehistory is offered in Chapter 1. Contents The bardic grammars can be divided into two segments, one dealing with the grammar of the Welsh language, and the other with poetic, or bardic, material. The grammatical segment has its basis in the tradition of Latin grammatical writing (especially the writings of Priscian and Donatus),49 and treats the basic foundations of language from the smallest individual component to the largest: the letters, the syllable, the parts of a sentence, sentences and figures of speech. In the early versions of the bardic grammar, the treatment of the parts of a sentence closely resembles the same section in Priscian’s Institutiones (it divides all parts of a sentence into two: nouns and verbs).50 The section on syllables combines Latinate material (like the definition of the syllable) with an idiosyncratic and

apparently non-Latinate system of describing diphthongs and syllables. This is the only part of the grammatical segment that has direct bearing on the actual composition of poetry, as it is vital to grasp different types of diphthongs for the correct formation of rhyme and cynghanedd.51 The bardic segment deals with the native Welsh metres, poetic faults, attributes worthy of praise and, finally, the triads of poetry. The description of the native Welsh metres includes a brief definition of each metre, followed by an example stanza; next, the section on the faults offers an explanation of the various errors that a poet can make in a poem (grammatical, syntactical and metrical); following this, there is a section that lists the various descriptors that can be used to praise different classes of people (e.g. religious men and women; secular men; married women); finally, there is a section of triads, which both summarise the grammars in lists of three, and sometimes add new content. Curiously, the early versions of the bardic grammars all omit a description of cynghanedd or cymeriad,52 two requisite ornamental features of Welsh poetry written in the strict metres.53 This omission would not be corrected until the sixteenth century (discussed in Chapters 3 and 5). The bardic grammar can be subdivided into sections as follows (the numbers refer to the section numbers in the translation at the back of this book): §§ 1–48: Grammatical segment §§ 1–5

Letters

§§ 6–25

Syllables and diphthongs

§§ 26 41

Parts of a sentence

§§ 42 8

Sentences and figures

§§ 49 162: Bardic segment §§ 49 88

Metres

§§ 89–107

Poetic faults

§§ 108–21

Section on praise

§§ 122–62

Triads

Each of these subsections is contained in the earliest versions of the bardic grammars, although as we will see, as they were edited and abbreviated over the course of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, some of these sections could be lost, while others (like cynghanedd) were added. Versions The critical concern with authorship, and a focus on the earliest manuscript copies, has meant that a simple two-stage model of revision has dominated scholary discussions of the transmission history of the bardic grammars to date, with Einion Offeiriad as primary composer, and Dafydd Ddu as later reviser. Ifor Williams, the first to propose this model, imagined a scenario in which sometime between 1322 and 1326 (or possibly, he thought, after 1355), Einion Offeiriad composed a bardic grammar for his patron Rhys ap Gruffudd. Slightly later, his younger contemporary Dafydd Ddu came along and made a revision of the grammar – inserting, for instance, a reference to his homeland of Hiraddug in an example for the compositional fault called carnymorddiwes (‘overtaken by hoof’) (§101).54 Other scholars offered similar interpretations of the relationship between Einion and Dafydd.55 This book essentially follows this division of the early versions of the grammars into two recensions, although without any strong reliance on authorship as evidence of the relationship between the texts. It is indisputable that the bardic grammar in Peniarth 20 contains additions that are absent in both the Red Book and Llanstephan 3 (the so-called ‘early’ versions of the text). However, it must be kept in mind that both the Red Book and Llanstephan 3 copies of the bardic grammars post-date Peniarth 20 by at least half a century: when we refer to the ‘original version’, therefore, we are referring to a hypothesised text that does not exist, but might well resemble the Red Book or Llanstephan 3 copies. The next major revision of the bardic grammars did not occur until the middle of the fifteenth century, and the resultant product was not properly a bardic grammar. In 1455, the bard and scholar Gutun Owain re-wrote the

section on the parts of a sentence to more closely align it with a Middle English grammatical tract known as the Accedence, which was itself a translation of Donatus’ Ars Minor.56 The result was that the number of parts of a sentence expanded from two to eight, and new vernacular grammatical terminology was inserted into the text. This version, called the Dwned, is not properly a bardic grammar (it omits the poetic material) and so is not treated in this book; however, this revision had a major effect on the transmission of the bardic grammars, as all bardic grammars subsequent to this tract incorporate it into the section on the parts of a sentence. In the sixteenth century, the neat division into recensions broke down. The bardic grammars became fragmented, and certain sections began to travel independently. The most significant of these were the 24 mesur (‘Twenty-four metres’), which consists of a sparser version of the section on metres (usually only the title of a metre and an example verse), and the 15 bai cyffredin (‘15 common faults’), a list of fifteen metrical or grammatical errors that can be made in a poem. Unlike the 24 mesur text, this list was not fixed, and the fifteen named errors varied from one manuscript to the next. Both texts are discussed in Chapter 4. The final and most significant revision of the bardic grammars occurred at the end of the sixteenth century. Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth (‘Five Books of Poetry’) was the most comprehensive of the bardic grammars to date, and contained important additions – like the introduction of a section on cynghanedd. Almost all copies of the bardic grammars from about 1570 on contain at least elements drawn from the Pum Llyfr, if not the text in its entirety. This version is the subject of Chapter 5. That said, this is a simplification of a much more complicated transmission history, especially as we move into the later periods of copying. This complicated history is the subject of chapters 3–5. Manuscripts Over the course of some 300 years, the Welsh bardic grammars were heavily recopied. The text survives today in approximately eighty different manuscripts. I have listed below only those manuscripts discussed in this

study (twenty-nine different copies): an almost complete list of all manuscripts can be found in GP, at pp. xiii–xvi (earlier manuscripts), and pp. xlvii–lviii (later manuscripts). All information regarding the dates of the manuscripts and the identities of their copyists comes from Daniel Huws’s Repertory of Welsh Manuscripts and Scribes. Many of the manuscripts are composites; as much as possible, I have listed the date and copyist of the relevant section on bardic grammar, and not the manuscript as a whole. I also list the roman numeral attached to the text in the GP edition where one exists, and give references to other editions wherever relevant. Note that this list is in alphabetical order, and does not reflect the chronology of the manuscripts or their order of appearance in this book. Aberystwyth – National Library of Wales NLW MS 3029B c.1615x1630, copied by the antiquarian Robert Vaughan. Two complete bardic grammars (pp. 1–30; 31–70), the Dwned (pp. 71–111) and related texts, including a copy of William Salesbury’s treatise on figures and tropes (pp. 131–61). Huws, Repertory I, p. 185. Discussed in Chapter 5. NLW MS 17116B (Gwysaney 28) c.1560, copied by scribe X128, apparently an associate of Gruffudd Hiraethog.57 Mostly musical material; also contains the 24 mesur text (ff. 55–8v). Not in GP. Huws, Repertory I, pp. 293–4. Discussed in Chapter 4. NLW MS Llanstephan 3 s.xv1. Complete bardic grammar, ff. 33–56v. II in GP. Edited in GP, pp. 19– 37. Huws, Repertory I, p. 61. Discussed in chapters 1 and 2. NLW MS Llanstephan 28 c.1455–6, copied by the bard and scholar Gutun Owain. Contains two relevant texts: a metrical fragment with innovations by Dafydd ab Edmwnd

(pp. 10–16) and the text on the eight parts of a sentence, known as the Dwned (pp. 33–69). Both are important revisions of the earlier grammars. XXII in GP. Grammatical segment (the Dwned) edited in GP, 67–88; section on the metres edited in a separate article by G. J. Williams.58 Huws, Repertory I, p. 66. Discussed in Chapter 3. NLW MS Llanstephan 45 s.xvi2. Complete bardic grammar, pp. 1–56. XXVIII in GP. Huws, Repertory I, p. 70. Discussed in Chapter 3. NLW MS Llanstephan 55 c.1579, copied by Siôn Dafydd Rhys. Complete bardic grammar, pp. 167– 98. XX and LXXIII in GP. Section on the poetic faults and the metres edited in GP, pp. 59–65. Huws, Repertory I, p. 72. Discussed in chapters 3 and 4. NLW MS Llanstephan 169 s.xvi2, copied by X16. Contains a copy of the 24 mesur, pp. 76–7. Huws, Repertory I, p. 95. XXXII in GP. Discussed in Chapter 4. NLW MS Peniarth 20 c.1330, copied by scribe X88. The major fourteenth-century revision of the bardic grammars. III in GP, pp. 305–49. Edited in GP, pp. 39–58. Huws, Repertory I, pp. 342–3. Discussed in chapters 1 and 2. NLW MS Peniarth 51 c.1460–80, copied by the bard Gwilym Tew. Re-attaches a shortened version of the Dwned to the section on letters and syllables and diphthongs, pp. 63–113. Edited by Anne Jones in a PhD dissertation.59 XXV in GP. Huws, Repertory I, pp. 359–60. Discussed in Chapter 3. NLW MS Peniarth 56

s.xvi1; c.1543; s.xvi/xvii. Composite manuscript. Contains three sections on bardic grammar, written in three different hands. Main hand (s.xvi1) copied the section on the diphthongs and the parts of a sentence, corresponding to Peniarth 20 (pp. 1–24) and a section on the englynion (pp. 42–7). Second hand (also s.xvi1) copied a section on the parts of a sentence (pp. 31–41), discussed in Chapter 3. Third hand, Richard Longford (1543), copied the section on the metres (pp. 103–28). XVI and XXX in GP. Huws, Repertory I, p. 362. Discussed in Chapter 4. NLW MS Peniarth 62 1582–c.1600, copied by the antiquarian Thomas Wiliems. Complete bardic grammar on pp. 27–113; the 15 bai cyffredin, pp. 23–4. Huws, Repertory I, p. 364. Discussed in Chapter 5. NLW MS Peniarth 77 (Hengwrt 73) 1576, copied by Thomas Wiliems. Contains a text on cynghanedd (pp. 196–7) and the Crynodab talfyr am y 24 mesur (pp. 179– 85) and a copy of Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan (pp. 165–85). XLIX in GP. Huws, Repertory I, pp. 369–70. Discussed in Chapter 4. NLW MS Peniarth 89 c.1620. Copied by the bard Siôn Phylip. The twenty-four metres of poetry, pp. 136–47. Huws, Repertory I, p. 374. Discussed in Chapter 3. NLW MS Peniarth 126 s.xvi1 (>1505). Contains two relevant texts: a version of the Dwned (pp. 1– 4) and a metrical fragment (pp. 47–51). Both are incomplete. The metrical fragment contains the earliest codification of cynghanedd. XVIII and XXIX in GP. Huws, Repertory I, p. 389. Discussed in Chapter 3. NLW MS Peniarth 147 c.1570, copied by William Dafydd Llywelyn. The 24 mesur, p. 207, and a copy of Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan, pp. 187–215. XXXV in GP. Huws,

Repertory I, p. 399. Discussed in Chapter 4. NLW MS Peniarth 155 s.xvi2 (>1561), copied by scribe X51. Contains a text called the Dosbarth Cerdd Dafod (pp. 176–95) and the Dwned (pp. 196–211). XXXI in GP. Huws, Repertory I, p. 401. Discussed in Chapter 4. NLW MS Peniarth 158 1587, copied by the bard Robert ab Ifan of Brynsiencyn. ‘Llyfr Kerddwriaeth’ (syllables, cynghanedd, metres, poetic faults, triads, section on praise) (pp. 5–43) followed by a copy of the Dwned (pp. 43–57). More commentary than other versions, including brief historical narratives. XXXVI in GP. Huws, Repertory I, pp. 402–3. Discussed in Chapter 3. NLW MS Peniarth 161 s.xvi/xvii, copied by Rhys Cain. Bardic grammar including description of cynghanedd, metres, poetic faults (pp. 33–40) and parts of a sentence, pp. 3–56. LXXIV in GP. Section on poetic faults printed in GP, pp. 194–6. Huws, Repertory I, p. 403. Discussed in chapters 3 and 4. NLW MS Peniarth 169 c.1580, copied by Roger Morris of Coed-y-Talwrn. Composite. Contains numerous texts relating to bardic grammar, including Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth (pp. 1–136), the 15 bai cyffredin, in a later orthography (pp. 84–5), a transcript of the grammar in Bangor 1 and Peniarth 191 (pp. 137– 59) and the Dwned (pp. 162–206). XXI and XXXVIII in GP. Huws, Repertory I, p. 407. Discussed in chapters 3 and 4. NLW MS Peniarth 189 c.1560–1600, copied by the bard Simwnt Fychan. Fragments of bardic grammar, pp. 1–6. XIX in GP. Huws, Repertory I, pp. 414–15. Discussed in Chapter 3.

NLW MS Peniarth 191 (‘Llyfr Melangell’). s.xvmed, copied by scribe X93. Contains one leaf from Bangor 1 bardic grammar, pp. 133–4. Not in GP. Huws, Repertory I, p. 415. Discussed in Chapter 3. Bangor – Bangor University Archives Bangor MS 1 (‘Llyfr Melangell’). s.xvmed, copied by scribe X93. Fragmentary. A deliberately abbreviated version of the bardic grammars, pp. 3–6, 9–37, 40– 1 (pages disordered). Part of this manuscript is now in Peniarth 191; the full text is transcribed in Peniarth 169. IV in GP. Edited by John T. Jones in BBCS II.60 Huws, Repertory I, p. 490. Discussed in Chapter 3. London – British Library BL Add MS 14875 c.1570, copied by the bard Huw Llŷn. Metrical section, ff. 56–61. LXXII in GP. Huws, Repertory I, pp. 606–7. Discussed in Chapter 4. BL Add MS 14913 s.xvimed, s.xvi2, copied by Huw Llŷn. Part of the section on the letters and syllables, ff. 6–10v. XLIV in GP. Huws, Repertory I, p. 617. Discussed in Chapter 3. Cardiff – Cardiff Central Library Cardiff MS 1.16 s.xvi2 (1505)), cynghanedd had become a formalised system, and worthy of study in its own right. However, the terminological system preserved in Peniarth 126 (and later in Peniarth 189 and Llanstephan 55) was early and idiosyncratic, and its labels (cynghanedd gair cyrch, ddisgynedig, gadwynog) were swiftly abandoned in subsequent copies of the grammars, which favoured instead cynghanedd groes, draws, sain, lusg. The Pum Llyfr refined and considerably developed this system. Although groes/draws/sain/lusg were still the basic umbrella terms, the Pum Llyfr introduced a complicated matrix of subgroupings to account for all possible variations within these categories. It also placed all forms of cynghanedd within a hierarchy, with groes being the ‘best’.2 In Chapter 3, I discussed the relationship between the groes/draws/sain/lusg terminology and the elaboration of technical faults in Peniarth 161, Rhys Cain’s handbook.3 I did not, however, explain why this substitution might have taken place, or why the new terminological system overwhelmed the older one. As we have observed in the case of the 24 mesur text, the answer is probably related to the promulgation of Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan in the sixteenth century, and the self-regulation of the bardic order. The post-1567 version of the Statud specifically mentions cynghanedd twice: once as something that the apprentice bard should know (yn ddisgybl pennkreddiaidd i dylav wybod y ddav lyfr vchod a chael y ddwy radd ag wybod yr holl sildafav ar holl gananheddion ai Rwolav ‘As an apprentice of the master craft he should know the two books above, and obtain the two

degrees, and know all the syllables and [all the forms of cynghanedd and their rules]’4) and a second time under the purview of the master bard (yn bennkerdd y dylav wybod gwnaythvr i bedwar mesvr ar higain ai kanv yn gyfochr yn gydseiniol ar gymeriadav yn desdyngar yn ffrwythlon o synwyr a cherddwriaeth yn groes gangenheddol ‘As a master craftsman he should know how to compose the twenty-four measures and sing them in parallel, harmoniously, [with cymeriadau, entertainingly,] fruitful in meaning and poetry, in cross “cynghanedd”’5). In the latter case, cynghanedd groes is specifically named. It is probable that the reformulation of cynghanedd in sixteenth-century manuscripts (including the Pum Llyfr) was just as bound up in the official documentation of the bardic order as were the texts on the twenty-four metres. The Pum Llyfr introduced another section to the bardic grammars: a detailed treatment of cymeriad (‘linkage’), which is a type of ornamentation that repeats a letter or word at the beginning of every line in a stanza.6 It is an important ornamental feature of both medieval and early modern Welsh poetry (and another of the significant omissions of the earlier grammars noted by Thomas Parry).7 The section in the Pum Llyfr begins with the following statement: Bellach y soniwn am gymeriadau y mewn kerdd davod, y Rai a vyddant yn Rwymaw y penn kyntaf i’r gerdd, val y mae yr odlau yn Rwymaw y penn diwaethaf. Sef yw kymeriad, dechrav y bannav ar yr vn llythyren a chadw hynny; a hynny a lygrir yn vynych er keissiaw ssynwyr yn y gerdd ‘And now, let us treat the types of cymeriad in poetry, those which bind together the first part of a poem, just as the rhyme binds together the last part. This is cymeriad, starting the line with the same letter and keeping that; and that is often corrupted in order to keep meaning in the poem’.8 The text goes on to define four different types of cymeriad: cymeriad that repeats an initial letter in two lines (Kalonn/Kredo), cymeriad in which the first words of two lines in a couplet form cynghanedd with each other (Kanu/Kwyno), cymeriad in which the first two words in a couplet have disyllabic rhyme (Llvryc/Ssvryc) and, finally, cymeriad in which meaning is spread across two lines.

The section on cymeriad answers both of the needs discussed in the previous two chapters. First of all, it is a practical guide to avoid one of the faults that was present from the earliest bardic grammars onwards: the twyll cymeriad (‘deceptive linkage’) (§90). But the definition of cymeriad also answers one of the dictates of the 1567 Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan quoted above, in which it is stated that the pencerdd must know how to compose a poem using the cymeriadau, which are not defined. Unlike the twenty-four metres, this also occurs in the 1523 version: Penkerdd a ddyly gwybod y kwbl a chanv yn groes gynghaneddawl ar gymeriadav yn ddefnyddgar o ddigrifwch yn ffrwythlawn synnwyr yn ddefngar o gerddwriaeth yn warantedic o awdûrdod ac yn awenyddgar o ddychymîc (‘A master poet ought to know everything and compose in cross “cynghanedd” in “cymeriadau”, with entertainment fruitful in sense, using poetry of recognized authority, and poetically imaginative’).9 The very idea of dividing the Pum Llyfr into pum llyfr (‘five books’) of poetry, may be related to the dictates of Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan. Although the editors of GP believed that the division dated to the fifteenth century,10 there is no evidence of a division into five books in any manuscript of the bardic grammars that predates the Pum Llyfr, and I find it unlikely that it is substantially older than the end of the sixteenth century. The first reference to a pum llyfr occurs in an attestation in the hand of Lewys Morgannwg dated to 1545 or 1546, intended to assert the status of a bard named Gruffudd Hiraethog as disgybl penkeirddiaidd ‘apprentice of the master craft’ and pupil of Lewys Morgannwg.11 This document refers to the ystatvd twysogion kymrv ymhvm llyfyr kerddwriaeth kelfyddyd kerdd dafod ‘Statute of the princes of Wales [i.e. the Statute of Gruffudd ap Cynan] in the five books of the art of poetry’ as one of the elements used to confirm Gruffudd’s bardic status.12 Later, the reference to pum llyfr was formally adopted into Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan. A post-1567 version of the Statud in Peniarth 158 reads: yn el hyn i kalvn deddf ne gyfraith gryffudd ap kynan a Rai ai geilw ysdatvd gryffydd ap kanan yr hon y sydd yn Rany y llyfr hwn yn chwe llyfr nid amgen pvm llyfr kerddwriaeth wrth y pvm gradd/ ellir devall / ar

gweddill yn llyfr ar i ben i hvn ‘After this comes the rule or law of Gruffudd ap Cynan, and some call it the Statute of Gruffudd ap Cynan, which divides this book into six books, that is, the five books of poetry according to the five grades. The other may be understood as a separate book’.13 As argued in the discussion of the 24 mesur texts in Chapter 4, I suggest that the division of the Pum Llyfr into five books was designed to fit these regulations: the very structure of the Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth was therefore determined by its regulatory function. To some extent, the Pum Llyfr was simply the most detailed poetic handbook, and the most complete piece of supporting documentation for Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan to date. But that was not its only function: the text contains numerous innovative additions that cannot be accounted for merely by imagining the Pum Llyfr to be a late sixteenth-century update of either a working bardic handbook, or the regulatory documents associated with the Statud. More than a continuation of a longstanding tradition of bardic education and regulation, the Pum Llyfr reflects the new milieu in which it was compiled: it was the bardic expression of Renaissance humanism. I. Bards and humanists What we call ‘humanism’ or ‘Renaissance humanism’ in fact encompasses a number of ideologies that originated in fourteenth-century Italy, but proceeded to change and evolve over several centuries and across several different countries in western Europe. Although it is possible to talk about humanists as early as the fifteenth century,14 the term ‘humanism’ – referring to a single, coherent intellectual movement – is an invention of nineteenth-century scholarship,15 and the corresponding Welsh dyneiddiaeth is not attested until the twentieth century.16 Humanism had different valences at different times and in different places. However, it is possible to make some generalisations. The contemporary Latin term from which both humanist and later humanism derive, studia humanitatis, meant the study of the ‘humanities’ – grammar, rhetoric, history and moral philosophy.17

Underlying the study of these subjects was a desire to return ad fontes (‘to the sources’), which entailed not only a revived interest in Greek and Roman literature, but also the study of Scripture in its original languages.18 Renaissance humanism was therefore woven into (though distinct from) Reformation thought.19 The spread of humanism to Wales was relatively slow, and by the time it took hold in the sixteenth century, it was characterised by a ‘narrow focus on linguistic and religious matters’ and an ‘emphasis on translation’.20 These foci are reflected in the variety of texts produced by Welsh humanist scholars. One of the most significant religious projects undertaken by the Welsh humanists was the translation of the Bible, beginning with the 1567 translation of the New Testament into Welsh by Bishop Richard Davies and the scholar William Salesbury, and culminating in the 1588 translation of the Bible by Bishop William Morgan. Welsh humanists produced other religious translations as well, like John Prise’s Yny lhyvyr hwnn (1546, the earliest printed book in Welsh), or Maurice Kyffin’s Deffyniad Ffydd Eglwys Loegr (1595) and histories, like John Prise’s Historia Brytannicae Defensio (1573), Elis Gruffydd’s Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd (1552) and Humphrey Lhwyd’s Cronica Walliae (1559). Linguistic offerings included vocabularies and dictionaries intended to make the Welsh language suitable to express humanist learning,21 as well as a number of grammars: Gruffydd Robert’s Dosparth Byrr ar y rhann gyntaf i ramadeg Cymraeg (1567) and Gramadeg Cymraeg (after 1584), Siôn Dafydd Rhys’s Cambrobryttanicae Cymraecaeve linguae institutiones et rudimenta (1592), Henry Salesbury’s Grammatica Britannica (1593) and John Davies’s Antiquae Linguae Britannicae … Rudimenta (1621).22 The printed grammars that emerged in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries diverged sharply from the long tradition of Welsh grammatical writing that had preceded them: naturally, they drew to some extent on the medieval bardic grammars, but they were produced by humanists, not bards, and the products that resulted were entirely different to Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth. Because they were not so strictly bound to the old tradition, there was more room for innovation: the grammars by

Gruffydd Robert, Siôn Dafydd Rhys and Henry Salesbury all belong to what Erich Poppe has termed the ‘“experimental period” of Welsh grammaticography’.23 But their purpose was also distinct from any of the bardic grammars that preceded them. Whereas the bardic grammars had generally been intended for bards, with language being simply a buildingblock of metre and ornament, humanists were primarily interested in language in and of itself, not as a necessary part of metre. In the words of Siôn Dafydd Rhys, nid oes na phordd na modd well ynn y byd i warchâdw iaith rhac ei cholli, no gwneuthur Gramâdec iddi ac o honi ‘There is not a better way or means for us in the world to guard against the loss of the language, than to make a Grammar for it and of it’.24 The printed Welsh grammars also emerged from a period of renewed interest in Classical literature and the Latin and Greek languages. The renewed interest in antique, and especially Latin literature, meant that humanists wrote commentaries on Classical grammars like the works of Donatus and Priscian, in addition to composing their own Latin textbooks.25 Eventually, this interest expanded into the vernacular languages as well: the humanists saw the production of grammars as a means of regulating the vernacular, rendering it as stable as the Classical languages in which they took such a strong interest.26 As Vivien Law wrote, the language needs to be ‘fixed’ or ‘regulated’ with rules. Rules served, it was held, to rescue the language from its barbarousness and its paradoxical imprisonment in the stream of change. Once the language could be shown to have rules – to be a lingua regolata, as the Italians said – then it was demonstrably equal to Latin.27

The sixteenth century saw the production of printed grammars in Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Czech, Dutch, English, Polish, Slovenian, Church Slavonic and, of course, Welsh.28 The new Welsh grammars were thus an attempt to elevate the vernacular to the status of Latin or Greek by emphasising its highly systematic and correct nature.29 However, the most important distinction between the vernacular humanist grammars and the Pum Llyfr was the question of accessibility. The

fact that the humanist grammars were printed rather than circulated in manuscript meant that, unlike the bardic grammars, they could be produced and distributed en masse. Additionally, except for Gruffydd Robert’s, all the printed grammars were written in Latin, which meant that they were intelligible to those both within Wales and without. Although perhaps lacking in other areas (Brinley Jones, for instance, has criticised Gruffydd Robert’s description of prosody, and Siôn Dafydd Rhys’s over-reliance on Latin grammars30), they were superior tools for humanist scholars and Reformers alike, who wished to make the language more widely accessible. The relationship between the Welsh humanists and the bardic order was complex, and there was considerable room for individual variation in attitudes. In its more contentious aspect, the interaction between humanists and bards is perhaps best encapsulated in a series of debate poems (ymrysonau) exchanged between Edmwnd Prys, the Oxford-educated archdeacon of Merioneth, and Wiliam Cynwal, a professional poet.31 The debate spanned 54 poems, written in the cywydd metre (the majority of which were composed by Prys, the more enthusiastic of the two participants), and approximately six years, from 1581 until Cynwal’s death in 1587 or early 1588.32 Like most ymrysonau, what began as an argument over a specific incident (the delayed receipt of a yew bow33) soon devolved into personal attacks.34 Prys deliberately positioned himself as an emblem of the emergent Welsh humanist scholars, and Cynwal as a representative of the old guard, a bard deeply invested in the centuries-old training and regulatory systems of his order. Prys’s side of the debate abounds with Classical and biblical references, demonstrating his university education, as he enjoins Cynwal to write verse in a more humanistic mode; Cynwal takes a more ‘defensive stance’, re-iterating his professional status and his receipt of bardic degrees.35 The debate has been characterised by its modern editor as ‘a clash between the old and the new, the protagonists representing an essentially medieval mindset and one influenced by the culture of the new learning’.36 The general sentiment was that the Welsh bards lacked learning (or, at least, the kind of university learning valued by humanist scholars), that their

praise of their patrons too often veered into dishonesty, that they kept their knowledge secret and that their work was overly focused on technical ability and metrics at the expense of content.37 In fact, the bardic grammars could be a lightning rod for the latter criticism, as in the excerpt below: Balch iawn wyd yn bylchv yn iaith.

You are very proud in making holes in our language.

Cai o lwyddiant, coel addysc,

From success you will get a reputation of erudition,

Yn yr iaith hon wŷr a’th ddysc

In this language (men will teach you),

Yn dy gerdd, ac nid o gâs,

In your poetry (and not from enmity),

A’th ddwned a[’i] berthŷnas,

With your Dwned, and its importance,

A rhai o’th art yn rhwth wav,

And some [practitioners] of your art loosely weaving,

O’th waith yn waeth na thithav.38

From your work, worse than yourself.

Given these criticisms, it is easy, and perhaps even tempting, to view the bards and the humanists as two opposing factions, the old guard and the new, with the bardic grammar sometimes serving as an icon of the stagnancy of the old tradition. But this kind of antagonism did not define all interactions between bards and humanists that took place over the course of the sixteenth century: in fact, these connections could sometimes be quite productive. Undoubtedly the most notable exception to this sometimescontentious relationship was the bond that formed between William Salesbury, the humanist scholar, and Gruffudd Hiraethog, the bardic master. If the humanist movement in sixteenth-century Wales had a protagonist, it was certainly William Salesbury, most famously one of the translators of the 1567 New Testament. Born in north Wales and probably trained at Oxford, Salesbury was by far the most prolific figure of the period, and responsible for a wide variety of its central texts.39 In addition to his work on the Welsh New Testament, his printed books included: A Dictionary in Englyshe and Welshe (1547), intended for Welsh speakers learning English; Oll Synnwyr pen Kembero ygyd (1547), a collection of proverbs in the model of Erasmus’ Adagia; a guide to Welsh pronunciation entitled A briefe

and a playne introduction (1550); a geographical work entitled The Descripcion of the sphere or frame of the worlde (1550); a translation of some elements in the Book of Common Prayer entitled Kynniver llith a ban (1551); and Y Llyfr Gweddi Gyffredin (1567), a Welsh version of the Book of Common Prayer. Though it was never published in his lifetime, he also produced in manuscript Llyfr Rhetoreg (1552), a translation of a treatise on rhetoric (discussed below), and a herbal, the Llysieulyfr (between 1568 and 1574). Salesbury’s attitude towards the use of the Welsh language is complex and multifaceted – he is ‘an enigma in Welsh scholarship’40 – however, underlying most of these works was at least a deep interest in Welsh antiquity and the Welsh language, and occasionally (though not consistently) a belief in its utility as a vehicle for humanist thought.41 Like Salesbury, Gruffudd Hiraethog hailed from north Wales, but where Salesbury had pursued a humanist education, Gruffudd had been trained as a member of the bardic order. The professional association – and even friendship – that arose between them had a deep impact on the work of both men.42 Most famously, in William Salesbury’s 1547 collection of proverbs, Oll Synnwyr Pen Kembero Ygyd ‘All of the sense of a Welshman’s head’, Salesbury claims that the work as a whole is a translation of Gruffudd Hiraethog’s collection, and he acknowledges his deep debt to Gruffudd, prif prydydd o Wynedd ‘chief poet of Gwynedd’, athro kelfyddus ‘skilful teacher’, dyscedicuardd ‘learned poet’, mor parchedic anrydeddus ‘most respected, honourable one’.43 In the letter to Gruffudd Hiraethog attached to his treatise on rhetoric (treated in more detail below), Salesbury calls him Gruff. Hir. vymprif gydymaith yn y kyfryw bethev hyn ‘Gruffudd Hiraethog, my main companion in these things’.44 And the admiration flowed in both directions. Gruffudd Hiraethog wrote a cywydd in praise of William Salesbury, where he specifically praised Salesbury for his linguistic skill and humanist learning: Wiliam irddoeth fal Merddin.

William, vigorous and wise like Myrddin.

O’th enau pumiaith union

From your lips five true languages

A’r un sydd i’r ynys hon:

And one of them belongs to this island:

Brig perffaith Lladiniaith deg,

The perfect summit, the fair Latin language,

Brau groyw Ebryw a Gröeg –

Ready and sweet, Hebrew and Greek –

Band hyfedr ben to ifainc?

Are you not the skilful leader of a generation of youth?

Brytaniaith a phrifiaith Ffrainc. The British language and the chief language of France […]

[…]

Fo ŵyr dy gorff, wrda, i gyd,

Your body knows, lord, completely,

Foddion y Saith Gelfyddyd;

The modes of the Seven Arts;

Ystryw holl soffestri hen

Skill in all the old sophistry,

Yw’r dichell o Rydychen.45

Is the craft of Oxford.

In the poem, Gruffudd acknowledges Salesbury’s broad linguistic and humanistic knowledge, and their inclusion in a praise poem suggests that they were qualities that were worthy of praise. But the mention of Myrddin at the outset explicitly ties Salesbury to the Welsh poetic tradition. The division between humanist learning and traditional poetic material may have been less rigid than some humanist criticisms might suggest. Gruffudd Hiraethog played some role in the creation of Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth, although the extent of his contribution is not (and may never be) fully known. The editors of GP believed that he may have been the author of the section on cynghanedd at the very least, and there is reason to take that view seriously.46 Bowen points out that the text attributed to Gruffudd Hiraethog in Peniarth 155, Lloegr Drigiant, is the first to contain the systematic description of cynghanedd that would come to form an integral part of the Pum Llyfr;47 as I discuss below, Lloegr Drigiant probably also contained some of the innovative grammatical material that was incorporated into the Pum Llyfr. Regardless of his involvement in the compilation of the Pum Llyfr, Gruffudd’s most significant contribution to the bardic order was as master to a number of apprentice bards who practised towards the end of the sixteenth century and beginning of the seventeenth. As D. J. Bowen writes, he had a ‘truly key position as a bardic master’; according to a 1585/6 list produced by Lewys Dwnn, the Deputy Herald at Arms for Wales, his pupils

included Wiliam Llŷn, Owain Gwynedd, Simwnt Fychan (copyist of Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth), Siôn Tudur, Wiliam Cynwal (one of the interlocutors of the ymryson cited above, and the representative of the old bardic order) and Siôn Phylip.48 As bardic master, Gruffudd Hiraethog would have taken these men on as apprentices (contrary to the dictates of the Statud, probably as many as three at a time).49 Of the bardic apprentices taken on by Gruffudd Hiraethog, four are associated with a surviving copy or partial copy of the bardic grammars: the Pum Llyfr, in Jesus College MS 15, is in the hand of Simwnt Fychan; the bardic grammar in Cardiff MS 1.16 is in Wiliam Cynwal’s; the treatment of metres in Peniarth 89 is in Siôn Phylip’s; and the bardic grammar in Llanstephan MS 45 derives from an exemplar apparently written by William Llŷn. According to the editors of GP, bardic pupils would probably transcribe the copies of their masters.50 In the case of the grammars associated with Gruffudd Hiraethog, the reality must be a little more complex than that: none of the grammars produced by or attributed to any of these bards is identical. The Pum Llyfr contains the most extensive additions, but there are similarities across all copies, and some of the additions contained in other versions do not appear in the Pum Llyfr. I refer throughout this chapter to Simwnt Fychan as the primary reviser of the Pum Llyfr, as he is responsible for the exact form of the edition as it appears in Jesus College MS 15; however, we must assume that Gruffudd Hiraethog was operating closely in the background of the composition of all of these works. Because previous chapters have traced the expression of broad intellectual trends as expressed in the minute edits made to a single (often anonymous) text, it is somewhat startling that many of the innovations in the Pum Llyfr can be traced back to a single relationship between two individual men. This is a simplification, of course: Salesbury, Gruffudd Hiraethog and even Simwnt Fychan all existed within a much wider world of scholarship, and their work was just as subject to external influence as any of the earlier texts discussed in previous chapters. And yet, the link between Gruffudd Hiraethog and William Salesbury is crucial, and

Salesbury’s influence (whether direct or indirect) can be felt throughout the Pum Llyfr. II. Salesbury’s books and Lily’s Grammar The Pum Llyfr contains numerous major innovations throughout both the poetic and the grammatical segment. I have mentioned a few of these above: the elaboration of the system of cynghanedd, the inclusion of a treatment of cymeriad and the division into five books, all of which can be explained by their relationship to the regulatory documents of the bardic order, and perhaps also by the practical use of the bardic grammars by bards. However, many of the Pum Llyfr’s revisions cannot be explained with reference to Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan – specifically, none of the changes to the grammatical segment bear an obvious relation to any bardic regulatory documents. One such grammatical addition, which occurs at the end of the section on letters, syllables and diphthongs, offers a treatment of the consonants subject to initial mutation in Welsh, called gwasgawdlythr, meaning something like ‘shadow’ letters.51 The editors of GP called it ‘one of the most interesting additions’ of the sixteenth-century bardic grammars.52 In addition to the Pum Llyfr, it occurs in the grammar associated with Wiliam Cynwal, Cardiff 1.16, on pp. 182–4. The section describes the phenomenon known in modern Welsh as soft mutation, wherein the initial letter of a word beginning in a voiced or voiceless stop becomes either a fricative or a voiced stop, with the place of articulation remaining the same; so, b, c, d, g, k, ll, m, p, t become f, g, d, ∅, g, l, f, b, d. There is no description of nasal or aspirate mutation, but the same section contains a description of the letters that are usually preceded by another consonant in consonant clusters at the beginning of a word (l, n, r), called marchawglythr (‘horseman letters’), the letters that form tawddleddf syllables (d, dd, l, n, r, s) and, finally, the ways in which morphological changes can result in changes in pronunciation. The following statement begins the treatment of the gwasgawd (‘shadow’) letters in the Pum Llyfr:

Pa ssawl gwasgawdlythr y ssydd? Naw, nid amgen: b, c, d, g, k, ll, m, p, t. A phob vn o’r rrain a gollant val gwassgawd ac a ddaw grym vn arall yn i lle ymhlethiad yr ymadrodd, val hynn: yn lle b y daw f nev m, val yn y gair hwnn, brys, yr wyf vi ar frys; m yn lle b, val yn y gair hwnn, brawd; vy mrawd.53 How many shadow letters are there? Nine, namely, b, c, d, g, k, ll, m, p, t. And each of those is lost as a shadow, and the force of another comes in its place when the sentence is put together, like this: instead of b comes f or m, as in this word, brys [a hurry], yr wyf vi ar frys [I am in a hurry]; m in the place of b, as in this word, brawd [brother], vy mrawd [my brother].

The first attestation of the term gwasgawdlythyr occurs in a text in Peniarth 155 entitled Lloegr Drigiant ddifyrrwch bryttanaidd gymro, wedi gasglu’r ynghyd o amravaelion lyfrau kymraec drwy waith a llafur Gruff Hiraethoc (‘For the entertainment of the Welsh-speaking Welshman living in England, collected together from various Welsh books through the labours of Gruffudd Hiraethog’).54 It is attributed to Gruffudd Hiraethog, but copied in its surviving form by Rhisiart Phylip.55 The text, intended to keep the Welsh language alive amongst Welshmen living outside Wales, has been called the ‘clearest proof’ that Gruffudd Hiraethog was interested in the ideals of the Renaissance.56 Lloegr Drigiant is an anthology comprising both bardic and musical material, including the 24 mesur text discussed in the previous chapter. In Lloegr Drigiant, the term gwasgawdlythyr is inserted at the end of a vocabulary list, to help the reader who might be confused by Welsh initial mutations.57 The definition in the Pum Llyfr, quoted above, closely resembles the one in Lloegr Drigiant, below: Neithr mogeled y darlleydd gamsynied yn keissio gair allan o’i gyssevinlle priawd, kans naw gwasgawdlythr ysydd, nid amgen, a, b, c, d, g, k, ll, m, p, t. A phob vn o’r Rhain a gollant val gwasgawd, ac a ddaw grym vn arall yn i lle ymhlethiad yr ymadrodd, val hynn, yn lle b y daw f nev m, val yn y gair hwnn, brevan o’r ddihareb honn, elid y wrach i’r frevan er i genav; m yn lle b val yn y gair hwnn brawd, val hynn, vy mrawd.58 But let the reader beware of error in seeking a word out of its proper, original place, since there are nine shadow-letters, namely a, b, c, d, g, k, ll, m, p, t. And

each of those is lost as a shadow, and the force of another comes in its place when the sentence is put together, like this: instead of b comes f or m, as in this word, brevan [quern], from this proverb, ‘let the hag go to the quern for her mouth’, m in place of b as in this word, brawd [brother], like this vy mrawd [my brother].

The resemblance was noticed by the twentieth-century editors of GP, who speculated that the treatment of the gwasgawdlythyr may have been Gruffudd’s invention, or it may have derived from an earlier (now lost) bardic grammar.59 However, if we turn our gaze just slightly outside the bardic order, such speculation becomes unnecessary: an almost identical treatment first occurs in William Salesbury’s Dictionary in Englyshe and Welshe (1547): But watch well lest you be deceived into a mistake in seeking a word outside of its proper, suitable place, as if you were to seek one of these words in the aspect in which they lie in this stanza: I have a fair branch [gangen] of birch. Because it does not avail you to seek the English for branch [gangen], to search for it amongst the words beginning with g, but you should look for it amongst the words with k at their start, and the English will be before it. Since the pure, radical word is branch [kangen] and not branch [gangen], although the Welsh statement mutates k into g and causes t to sound like d and b as v in these words, fair of birch [dec o vedwen]. And for that reason you must always observe closely the letter that is at the start of the word when it is written on its own outside of a statement, as I showed above …

In this context, the treatment is a practical aid for users of a dictionary, who would need to have a basic understanding of mutation in order to find a word listed alphabetically in its unmutated form. Another version of the treatment of b occurs in Salesbury’s Briefe Introduction (1550), where it was intended to help speakers of English pronounce Welsh correctly: Whereas b in thys walshe word bys, a finger, is the primitiue (or if I shold borow the Hebrue terme) the radicall letter, whyche commynge in the contextte of a reason shall not than be called b but v, as in this texte: I vys: his finger. And sometime b shal be made into m as for an ensample: vy mys: my finger. And yet for all the alteration of this letter b, and of diuerse other (as ye shall perceive hereafter)

whyche by their nature be chaungeable one for another, it shal nothynge let nor hynder anye man, from the true and propre reading of the letters so altered.

While it is an innovative section in the history of the bardic grammars, the Pum Llyfr’s treatment of initial mutation was drawn from the work of William Salesbury, probably via Gruffudd Hiraethog. Salesbury composed a definition of initial mutation to help English readers navigate a Welsh– English dictionary and overcome any confusion about the alphabetisation of Welsh words. He later elaborated on the idea in his guide to Welsh pronunciation, also intended for English speakers. Gruffudd Hiraethog translated and adapted the idea into Welsh, and included a treatment of mutation at the end of his word list in Peniarth 155 – still intended as an aid for its users, but now with a Welsh-speaking audience in mind. Finally, Simwnt Fychan, understanding initial mutation to be not just a practical tool to access other texts, but an integral part of Welsh grammar, inserted a treatment of it into the Pum Llyfr. What began as a practical aid for the use of a Welsh–English dictionary, and later an aid for a Welsh word list, is eventually formalised as an independent linguistic feature that had to be described in a grammar of the language. The innovation of the Pum Llyfr is not in its description of initial mutation, but in its recontextualisation of this description. There are a number of other grammatical innovations in the Pum Llyfr that indicate close engagement with the work of William Salesbury – or at least, a similar way of thinking and writing about grammar. Many of these are less substantial than the treatment of the gwasgawdlythyr, but just as suggestive. For instance, one of the only parts of the Pum Llyfr that is preserved almost completely intact from earlier versions is the section on the eight parts of speech, called the Dwned. When the author of Pum Llyfr did make any additions to this section, he was unwilling to do so in the main body of the text: his revisions are always interlinear or marginal notes. These notes appear to be written in the same hand, but after the main text was laid down, and with a finer pen nib. One interlinear gloss to the description of the interjection on p. 53 reads: Rai a arwyddokant

ddiystyrwch, val y mae ffei, wbwb, wfft ‘Some signify distain, as in ffei, wb wb, wfft’.60 These particular interjections are not given in previous bardic grammars, but both occur in Salesbury’s Dictionary: Welsh wb wb is translated into English as foy foy, and fi, ne ffei as foy, fy. Whether or not Simwnt Fychan consulted Salesbury’s Dictionary directly, both men had a shared knowledge of Welsh (and perhaps English) interjections. Similarly, the Pum Llyfr is the first bardic grammar to include w amongst the letters of the Welsh alphabet; the text defines it as follows: w y ssydd a grym dwy ỽ ynddi ‘w has the force of two u’s in it’. This definition does not make sense in the context of any previous Welsh grammatical writing. Graphically, the argument might be made that W looks like ỼỼ or vv, but the word grym (‘force’) is not used elsewhere to refer to a grapheme (in the context of letters, ffügr is used to refer to the grapheme; see excerpt below). Rather, this may be another indication of familiarity with Salesbury’s writings. Salesbury twice draws attention to the ‘Double U’, both in his Dictionary: ‘The English W and the Welsh W do not vary in force … But the name of the English W will be double U, that is this, U doubled’, and in the Briefe and playne introduction: ‘W, in Walshe and englishe hathe but one figure and power, though it chaunceth to haue two diuerse names, for in Englyshe ye call it double uu, & in Walshe we giue it the name of a single u’. If the definition of the letter w in the Pum Llyfr is not a direct reference to Salesbury, it at least suggests that both Salesbury and the compiler were thinking about Welsh grammar in English terms. The Pum Llyfr is also the first Welsh bardic grammar to include a definition of the letter: Beth yw llythyrenn? Y lleverydd lleiaf, a gair, a silldaf, ac ymadrodd. Pedwar peth a berthyn ar lythyrenn, nid amgen: henw, ffügr, ordr, a ffower ‘What is a letter? The smallest utterance of a word and syllable and sentence. Four things pertain to a letter, namely: name, shape, arrangement and power’.61 The word power (an aspirate mutation is what gives us ffower) is a borrowing from English. Its first use is in the fifteenth-century Middle English tract known as the Accedence, where it denotes a quality of conjunctions.62 The Accedence had been a source text for an earlier revision of the bardic grammars known as the

Dwned,63 but the term ‘power’ never made it into the Welsh translation.64 Unsurprisingly, it was William Salesbury who first adopted the word into Welsh in a grammatical context, in his Dictionary: Eithyr u yn vocal a etty[b] bwer y ddwy lythyren gamberaec hyn, u, w … vegys y tystolaytha y geirieu hyn true truw kywir ‘But “u” is a vowel which corresponds to the power of these two Welsh letters: u, w … as is evidenced by these words: true, truw, kywir [true]’. Again, whether or not the compiler of the Pum Llyfr was referencing Salesbury directly, it is clear that both were operating with a shared Welsh grammatical lexicon that was derived from Englishlanguage grammatical writing. If the compiler of the Pum Llyfr was thinking about Welsh grammar in a broadly English framework, then it is worth considering a broader base of source material for his revisions to the bardic grammars. Salesbury’s writings were an obvious resource for bards who had studied under Salesbury’s friend Gruffudd Hiraethog. But there was one text that was even more readily available to anyone who had learned Latin in a Tudor grammar school. The text known as Lily’s Grammar was the sole authorised textbook of Latin grammar in England throughout the second half of the sixteenth century. It was essentially a printed grammar of Latin in two parts, the first in Latin and the second in English. It is usually (incorrectly) attributed to the humanist grammarian William Lily, though it was printed almost twenty years after Lily’s death (the Latin portion appeared in 1540, and the English in 1542).65 The grammar was given official status by Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth I in succession. From the 1540s through to the end of the Tudor period, Lily’s Grammar was the only textbook permitted for use in English schools.66 Thereafter, it ‘remained at the core of the educational system’ well into the nineteenth century.67 This central position meant that any pupils learning Latin at the elementary level in England would have encountered the text, and it had a major influence on both later grammars (including William Bulkokar’s 1586 vernacular grammar of English, entitled the Pamphlet for Grammar, and as Erich Poppe has recently

argued, Gruffydd Robert’s 1567 Gramadeg Cymraeg) and language teaching more generally.68 Lily’s Grammar was the officially sanctioned and prescribed Latin textbook throughout the Tudor kingdom. Following the passage of the first Act of Union in 1536, this kingdom included Wales. Now fully under the control of the Tudor administration, Wales saw English become the official language of governance and administration – but also the language of education.69 This was true both at the elementary and university level. It is in this period that many Welsh scholars were beginning to attend English universities, particularly Oxford (thought to be Salesbury’s own alma mater70), and English grammar schools had started to pop up throughout Wales.71 Lily’s Grammar was central to this educational programme: it is reflective of what G. A. Padley calls ‘English pragmatism’: a type of grammatical writing that is ‘firmly rooted in practical language teaching’.72 We know that Lily’s Grammar was in use (or was supposed to be in use) in Bangor from a reference in the 1551 Articles of Enquiry set out by Bishop Arthur Bulkeley of Bangor (d. 1553): Whether any useth any other Primer than the English set forth by the King’s Majesty’s or any other Latin Primer than is set forth by authority, except those Primers that were set forth by King Henry the Eighth … Whether any grammar be taught than that which is set out by the King’s Majesty.73

Lily’s Grammar appears to have been the source for part of the Pum Llyfr’s treatment of the relative, called the five ‘concords’ or cydgordiad – the term used to describe grammatical agreement between two words. This section was first introduced into Welsh grammatical writing at the very end of the fifteenth-century Dwned, apparently derived from a version of the Accedence.74 In the Pum Llyfr, the description of ‘concords’ bears close resemblance to the Dwned version, but contains a unique and substantial addition, not found in any previous versions of the bardic grammars nor in any other contemporary version. The addition was drawn directly from Lily’s Grammar:

Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth

Lily’s Grammar

Pann vych gwedy kael yr henw dygiedic o’i vlaenor, govyn y kwestiwn: ‘pwy?’ nev ‘pa beth?’, a’r gair a atepo i’r kwestiwn a vydd y blaenor, val y mae Pwy y ssydd wr da? Yr hwnn y ssydd yn kadw kyngor i henaviaid a chyfraith. Y blaenor yn gyffredinol ydyw gair ar yssydd yn myned o vlaen y dygiedic, a’r dygiedic yn i goffhav drachefn.75

When ye haue a Relatiue, aske this question who or what, and the word that answereth to the question, shall be the antecedent to it. The antecedent most commonly is a word that goeth before the Relative. The relatyue agreeth with his antecedente, in gender, number, and person, as That manne is wyse that speketh fewe, uir sapit qui pauca loquitur.

When you have gotten the relative, [lit. the   noun carried from its antecedent] ask the question ‘who?’ or ‘what?’ and the word that answers the question will be the antecedent, as in ‘Who is a good man? He who keeps the counsel and law of his ancestors.’ The antecedent generally is the word that goes in front of the relative, and the relative calls it back to mind.

The Welsh text is a direct translation of much of the paragraph in Lily’s Grammar; however, it omits the sentence ‘The relatyue agreeth with his antecedente, in gender, number, and person’. This omission demonstrates that a certain level of critical thought must have gone into the adaptation of the English text. The Welsh relative (a or y) can result in ambiguity; unlike the Latin relative (qui, quae, quod), the Welsh relative cannot be declined to reflect person or number.76 The compiler of the Pum Llyfr was not importing material in haphazardly, or without thought there is a clear attempt to conform the grammatical information in Lily’s Grammar to the Welsh language. Similar correspondences can be traced throughout the additional Pum Llyfr section on the concords, although they are out of order, and do not constitute a complete translation or adaptation of the same section in Lily’s Grammar. That said, the paragraphs that are adapted in Pum Llyfr

Kerddwriaeth are so close to the English version that they must derive from Lily’s Grammar. Several sentences seem to be word-for-word translations of both the definition and the example sentences – as in the following passage: Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth Pob amsser ar ni bo nomnadio yrrwng yr henw dygiedic o’i vlaenor a’r verf, yr henw dygiedic o’i vlaenor a vydd nomnadio i’r verf i hvnan, val y mae hapvs yw’r gwr, yr hwnn a allodd weled y ffynnon o ddayoni, nev val hynn, trvan yw yr hwnn yssydd yn rryveddv am arian.77

Lily’s Grammar Whan there commeth no nominatiue case betwene the relatyue and the verbe, the relatiue shall be the nominatiue case to the verbe, as, wretched is that person, whiche is in loue with money, Miser est qui nummos admiratur.78

Each time that there is no nominative between   the relative and the verb, the relative will be the nominative to the verb itself, as in ‘happy is the man who could see the fountain of goodness’, or like this, ‘Unhappy is he who marvels at money’.

These direct correspondences between the Pum Llyfr and Lily’s Grammar suggest more than merely a shared framework for thinking and writing about grammar, or a shared set of grammatical terminology amongst English and Welsh writers. The reviser of the Pum Llyfr must have had direct access to this text, translating and adapting it to match his descriptions of the Welsh language. It is worth considering why he bothered to do so. The basic purpose of Lily’s Grammar was to give students the tools to read Classical texts. Many of its examples and its vocabulary were drawn from classical sources, especially Virgil.79 The desire to imitate classical authors meant a rejection of corrupted medieval Latin, and therefore a rejection of many of the most popular medieval textbooks or didactic poems like the Doctrinale.80 A new grammar was necessary to provide students with the tools to study Classical texts. Thus, according to Ian Green, ‘by

enshrining the humanist ideas of the late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century [Lily’s Grammar] marked a break with the grammar teaching of the high Middle Ages’.81 The use of Lily’s Grammar in the preparation of the Welsh texts marks an alignment with some of the humanist educational principles of the second half of the sixteenth century. It may even suggest a departure (if not a complete break) from the medieval bardic grammars. It was the bardic answer to an external, perceived need for a new kind of grammatical text, although in a Welsh poetic context rather than a Latin educational one. The Pum Llyfr may have belonged to the bards, but it existed within a much wider network of grammatical thought and innovation. The bards were taking part (at least to a limited degree) in the massive intellectual movement that defined the end of the medieval period. We must assume that the inclusion of humanist scholarship in the grammars was intentional: the editor of the Pum Llyfr made a deliberate choice to adapt and insert text from the works of William Salesbury (perhaps via Gruffudd Hiraethog) and Lily’s Grammar into the bardic grammars, which had already been circulating for over two centuries. There are several possible explanations for this sudden bardic interest in humanist scholarship and educational literature. The first is simply a question of exposure: an increased access to printed texts, and the productive friendship between Gruffudd Hiraethog and William Salesbury, meant that the bards may have found themselves injected with new intellectual vigour and creative energy regardless of any external pressures. But the historical circumstances surrounding the creation of the bardic grammar must also have had an effect. From the mid-sixteenth century on, Welsh poetry came under siege on several fronts. Strict-metre poetry, according to both sixteenth-century humanists and modern scholars, had stagnated; this period saw the beginning of the decline of the bardic order.82 Contributing factors included the rise of free metre poetry, inflation and the gradual anglicisation of the gentry (the patrons of the bards) following the passage of the Acts of Union.83 Not least among the threats to the bardic order in the sixteenth

century was the rise of humanist scholarship itself, and according to Ceri Lewis, the poets’ failure ‘to accommodate Renaissance learning, themes and measures within their compositions’.84 Brinley Jones agreed with this assessment, writing that ‘the Renaissance brought with it new literary vogues which tended to challenge the conservative forms of the Welsh bards’.85 The criticisms levelled by humanists like Edmwnd Prys, Siôn Dafydd Rhys and especially William Salesbury could not have escaped the notice of the professional bards. Perhaps the Pum Llyfr was an attempt to stay the tide of the inevitable decline of the bardic order – which would be essentially complete by the mid-seventeenth century.86 Beyond all this, the injection of new grammatical material demonstrates that even at this late stage in the transmission history of the Welsh bardic grammars, they were still capable of adapting to the demands of external scholarship. In Chapter 2, I discussed a similar scenario, in which contemporary writings on grammar and poetry (in that case, Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetria nova, among other texts) were drawn into the Welsh bardic grammars. The text of the bardic grammars had not yet been fixed, and was still malleable enough to be adapted to meet contemporary scholarly norms. As time went on, the text stagnated, and while it could be altered, most of the revisions consisted of abbreviations or fragmentations rather than the injection of new material. The bardic grammars passed from scholarly text to practical aid to regulatory document, at which point revisions became much less likely to incorporate new material or any external scholarship. As discussed in chapters 3 and 4, most of the fifteenthand sixteenth-century revisions made to the grammars were either practical in function or related to the regulatory documents of the bardic order. This changed at the end of the sixteenth century and we see in the Pum Llyfr a resurgence of that scholarly function – and a newfound desire to realign bardic learning with contemporary humanistic learning. In spite of the apparent stagnancy of the bardic tradition, and the historical circumstances that contributed to the eventual decline of the bardic order, the tradition was at that point vibrant. The Pum Llyfr, which belonged to a very long tradition

of grammatical writing in the vernacular, was once more a living document. It was both capable of being improved and worthy of improvement. III. Renaissance rhetoric However, there was a limit to how far Simwnt Fychan was willing to go in order to ‘improve’ the bardic grammars in his own revision. The section on rhetoric in the Pum Llyfr ends with the following apology for its own perceived shortcomings: Y ffugrs eraill a dynnwyd o’r Lladin ac o’r Groec nid anghenrraid i ni wrthynt, kans yn ffugrs ni yw moddion prydyddiaeth, sef yw hynny esgvssion drwy awdvrdod o waith y beirdd kadeiriawc nev yr athrawon pennkerddiaidd a vvant or blaen. A phennillion o gerdd y rreini yw yn gwarant an arddelw ninnav i ganv yn i hol. Kans nid yw i ffugrs hwnytav, yr ieithoedd eraill, ond yn ol gwaith awdvriaid o’i hiaith o’r blaen.87 We have no need for the other figures drawn from Latin and Greek, since our figures are the style of poetry, that is this, excuses through the authority of the chaired bards or the bardic masters that came before. And their stanzas of verse are our guarantee and our defence to sing as they did. For their figures, in spite of other languages, merely follow the lead of the authorities of their own language in former times.

The statement follows the treatment of figures (or colours) of rhetoric, which had appeared in the very earliest fourteenth-century medieval copies of the bardic grammars, and was regularly recopied in most subsequent revisions. Almost all of the manuscripts that contain this section list three figures or ‘colours’: ymgynull (‘an assembly’), arddangos (‘a display’) and ymoralw (‘a summoning’), and sometimes torr ben gair (‘breakage of the end of a word’). These describe what are essentially permissible solecisms in Welsh syntax, covering specific contexts in which nonagreement of gender, number and verbal tense or person, or apocope, are grammatically acceptable. The Pum Llyfr sticks closely to these definitions. However, although these are called ffigurau (‘figures’) or lliwiau (‘colours’) in the

medieval and early modern copies of the bardic grammars, there is no direct correspondence between these Welsh figures and any traditional Latin rhetorical figures. This does not seem to have troubled any of the copyists of the bardic grammars – until, that is, the sixteenth century. The sentence quoted above makes it clear that Simwnt Fychan felt the Welsh treatment of figures was lacking in some way, or at least that it did not match what was expected of a Renaissance poetic treatise. A sixteenthcentury poetic treatise ought to include the Latin and Greek figures, and if it did not, the omission warranted explanation.88 Even as Simwnt replicated much of the structure and contents of the medieval bardic grammars he copied, at the same time, the Pum Llyfr had begun to be shaped by the existence of other texts, and the new expectations of a Renaissance audience. Simwnt had to acknowledge and justify his inability to fit his bardic grammar into a mould that had never before been applied to it, one which was formed by Renaissance humanists’ conceptions of the relationship between grammar and rhetoric. For scholars of the Renaissance, grammar, poetry and rhetoric were intertwined. Grammar was primarily meant ‘to prepare students for the study of rhetoric’, and rhetoric in turn was the most important means by which poetry could be adorned.89 This is perhaps best exemplified by the English writer George Puttenham in his printed treatise The Arte of English Poesie (1589), who wrote in the third book, ‘On Ornament’, that ‘This ornament is given to it by figures and figurative speaches, which be the flowers, as it were, and colours that a Poet setteth upon his language of arte, as the embroderer doth his stone and perle or passements of gold upon the stuffe of a Princely garment.’90 Ornament – that is, rhetoric – was the essential means by which poets could adorn their works. As such, Puttenham and others regarded the poets as operating within the same sphere as rhetoricians, or as Puttenham wrote, ‘the poets were also from the beginning the best persuaders and their eloquence the first rhetoric of the world’.91 In the minds of sixteenth-century scholars, poetry meant eloquence, which meant traditional rhetoric. Manuals of poetry, therefore –

like Puttenham’s, and like the Welsh bardic grammars – ought properly to include a treatment of rhetoric. Rhetoric had long been a part of the medieval grammatical curriculum, but it took on new importance during the Renaissance: it was the ‘keystone’ of the humanist curriculum,92 and even displaced philosophy as the central concern of humanist educators: it was rhetoric, not medieval philosophy, that would best enable them to access Classical writings.93 The essence of rhetoric was the figures of speech; and the figures of speech became, in the minds of humanist scholars, ‘the center and hence the essence of human thought, speech, and action’.94 The inclusion of the figures in both pedagogical grammatical writing – like Lily’s Grammar – and poetic manuals therefore became requisite. To an educated humanist scholar, the absence of any detailed treatment of figures in the Welsh grammars would have been unacceptable. It was William Salesbury who set about trying to supply the Welsh bards with the tools of the rhetorician. His treatise on rhetoric, an adaptation into Welsh of Petrus Mosellanus’ Tabulae de Schematibus et Tropis (1540), is appended to Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth in Jesus College MS 15, appearing on pp. 247–92, immediately after the conclusion of the bardic grammar on p. 246. It is essentially a translation into Welsh of Latin and Greek rhetorical terminology, illustrated with extracts from Welsh poetry. It contains additions in Salesbury’s own hand, ‘notably of Greek terms’.95 Copies of the treatise also occur in the manuscripts Peniarth 160 and Cardiff 2.39, but unlike most of Salesbury’s works, it was not printed.96 While the editors of GP have suggested that Salesbury intended to publish the treatise, D. J. Bowen has countered this claim, arguing that it was only ever intended to circulate in manuscript amongst the Welsh bards.97 We can only work with the material that exists – whatever his intentions, Salesbury’s treatise was only ever available in manuscript, and it was addressed specifically to Grvfyd Hiræthog ac ar eraill oei Gelfyddyd ‘Gruffudd Hiraethog and others of his Art’.98 In this opening epistle (which does not occur in Jesus College MS 15, but Cardiff 2.39, in Salesbury’s own hand), Salesbury famously referred to the poets as chwi y Prydyddion, pwy alwaf yn benseiri yr Jaith,

ac yn enwedic er pan ddarvu am yr araithorion ‘you, the poets, whom I shall call the architects of the language, since the rhetoricians have gone’.99 He thereby draws a connection between the poets and rhetoricians, between poetry and rhetoric. This letter also makes it explicit that the treatise was intended for the poets, whose work Salesbury hoped to raise to a Renaissance standard through the addition of rhetorical figures: A chan vod yn ddiameu genyf veint yw dy draserch ar yr Jaith, llyma vi yn estyn hyn yma o ffigurae megis yn golofneu, yn oseilieu, ac attegion ei dodi wrthei ‘And since it is indisputable to me how great is your love for the language, I extend these figures, as columns, as foundations, and props to lay down for it’.100 The treatise goes on to describe a variety of figures and tropes, using examples drawn from Welsh poetry instead of Classical literature. Salesbury’s treatise is clearly an addendum to the bardic grammar rather than an integral part of it: it occurs at the end of the grammar, and is introduced with its own title, Yma y soniwn am ffügrau ai rranav: y Rai a ymchwelawdd Wiliam Salbri o ladin ynghamberaec ‘Here let us treat the figures and their parts: those which William Salesbury translated from Latin into Welsh’. Unlike the works by Salesbury discussed in the previous section, or Lily’s Grammar, the treatise on rhetoric was not fully incorporated into the bardic grammar; it was recognised as something separate from the long tradition in which the Pum Llyfr was partaking. The statement quoted at the start of this section is a clear signal that the two texts have distinct purposes. At the same time, the treatise on rhetoric and the bardic grammar are the only two texts bound together in Jesus College MS 15, which signifies that they were intended to travel together and complement one another. As modelled by the later Arte of English Poesie by Puttenham, Salesbury may have felt that a manual of poetry was not complete without a full treatment of the rhetorical figures, and sought to correct the deficiency. Apparently Simwnt Fychan agreed – at least enough to include the text alongside the grammar, if not within the text. Salesbury is not the only humanist to have attempted to draw Latin rhetorical language into the vernacular bardic grammars, and other attempts were more fully integrated into the main text of the grammars. In sixteenth-

and seventeenth-century copies of the bardic grammars, Welsh humanists regularly attempted to gloss the Welsh section on the figures of speech with more familiar (to them) Latin terminology, although they never achieved a consensus as to which Latin terms corresponded to which Welsh figures. This discrepancy can be observed across three different manuscripts: the socalled called ‘commonplace-book’ of Sir John Prise, in Oxford Balliol MS 353 c.1539–49, the copy of Wiliam Cynwal’s grammar made by the antiquarian scholar Thomas Wiliems in Peniarth 62 (1582–c.1600) and one of the bardic grammars in NLW MS 3029B (c.1615×1630), written by the antiquarian Robert Vaughan.101 All these men had attended Oxford (and Cambridge, in Prise’s case), where they had presumably been exposed to a humanist education, with its characteristic emphasis on rhetoric; none was a member of the bardic order.102 Wiliems and Vaughan both introduced similar glossing into their copies of the bardic grammars. In Peniarth 62, the grammar occurs on pp. 27–113, and the section on the figures of speech (pp. 105–6) is the only part of the grammar to contain any glosses. Wiliems added translations of the Welsh figures of speech into the left margin, next to the rhetorical term defined in the main text. For ymgynull he wrote syllepsis, arddangos was synecdoche, ymoralw was evocatio and torr benn gair was aphoeresis (all these terms are listed in Table 5.1, below). This agrees with almost all of Robert Vaughan’s glosses. Vaughan made three copies of the bardic grammars in NLW 3029B: two early versions on pp. 1–30 and 31–70, and a version copied from Llanstephan 28 on pp. 71–111. He also included a copy of William Salesbury’s treatise on rhetoric on pp. 131–61. In the second bardic grammar on p. 43, Vaughan inserts Latin terminology into the right margin of the section describing the Welsh figures of speech.103 Like Wiliems, he translates ymgynull as syllepsis, arddangos as synecdoche and ymoralw as evocatio, although apostrophus glosses torr benn gair (the entire treatment of torr benn gair has been added to the bottom of the page in a darker ink in Vaughan’s later hand). Prise’s glosses are less consistent than Vaughan’s or Wiliems’s. They occur throughout the manuscript (for example, on f. 109v he wrote

Solecismus in the margin beside the description of the kam ymadrod (‘false sentence’), in which a masculine noun is paired with a feminine adjective, or vice-versa), but his rhetorical glossing is sparse compared to the other manuscripts. Prise translates only one of the vernacular figures of speech, ymgynull, on ff. 111r–v: vn ohonunt yv synedithes (above the line: synecdoches) sef yv hynny yngynull (above the line: ymgynnylh rhan a chwbyl), a honno a vyd pan vo Rann a chvbl yn ymadrod a geir gwann y ryngtunt ‘One of these is synedithes (synecdoches), that is this, ymgynull (ymgynull of the part and the whole), and that occurs when there is a part and a whole in speech, with a weak word between them’. This sentence is one of the ‘minute differences’ that caused both the GP editors and modern scholars alike to conclude that Balliol 353 must derive from an independent medieval manuscript (c.1400) unrelated to the Red Book or Llanstephan 3 lines of transmission.104 However, many of the ‘minute differences’ perceived by Jones and Williams can be traced to the Red Book text to which Prise had access,105 overlaid onto the Llanstephan 3 version,106 and combined with certain innovative edits particular to the sixteenth century. If we consider more carefully the scholarly context in which Prise operated, it may not be necessary to hypothesise a lost medieval exemplar after all. It is more likely that in this case at least, we are seeing another rhetorical gloss, unusual only in that it has been incorporated into the main text. I have not found the origin of the form synedithes: it may be an error or translation for synthesis, which is ‘agreement in sense and meaning, but not in number, or in gender, or in a combination of number and gender’, as defined in Lily’s Grammar.107 This is close in sense to the definition of both ymgynull and arddangos that is supplied in the bardic grammars. It may also be an error for synecdoche, which is ‘a property of the part attributed to the whole’, in a specific grammatical sense, akin to the accusative or ablative of respect.108 This is supported by Prise’s interlinear gloss, and is also a term which occurs in the fifteenth-century Dwned and later derived copies.109 Regardless, the conclusion is the same: by the sixteenth century, Welsh rhetorical language was beginning to be re-analysed through the prism of contemporary Latin rhetorical terminology. Synecdoches was probably a

more intelligible term to Prise, who had studied at Oxford and Cambridge,110 than any of the native bardic words for figures of speech, including ymgynull – the use of which in a grammatical sense seems to have been confined to the bardic grammars before the eighteenth century.111 The insertion of Latin terminology into Welsh seems to fit well with what Ceri Davies describes as Prise’s ‘distinctive characteristic’ as a scholar, which is ‘that he combined with his wider humanistic learning an interest in the history and literature of Wales’.112 All of the scholars who produced these translations in the margins of their manuscripts were humanist scholars rather than bards: they had all been to Oxford, and they all attempted to apply their rhetorical learning to the bardic documents they copied. However, apart from the three native terms that seem to have been restricted to bardic usage, there was no precise or consistent rhetorical terminology used in Welsh even at the beginning of the seventeenth century.113 There was clearly no agreement amongst bards or humanists as to how to represent the Welsh figures of speech in Latin, although there was a shared belief in (or desire to create) Latin equivalencies. For instance, Vaughan and Wiliems glossed arddangos as synecdoche, while Prise used synecdoche to gloss ymgynull, and in his treatise on rhetoric, Salesbury translated synecdoche as dyall. To humanists like Prise, Vaughan, Wiliems and Salesbury, the native Welsh terms from the bardic grammars were not intelligible without the inclusion of Latin terms, even when those terms were inconsistent or imprecise. Their copies of the grammars had to be augmented by their own understanding of Latin rhetorical terminology.

Table 5.1: Rhetorical terminology in 16th- and 17th-century glosses of the bardic grammars None of these suggestions are consistent, and none are entirely correct. Perhaps understandably, humanist scholars and antiquarians of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries seem to have felt ill at ease with the traditional Welsh terms for the figures of speech. The Welsh terms were unlike anything they would have learned in school and, as such, it was not possible to translate the Welsh into Latin with any coherence or accuracy. Nonetheless, there were several attempts to introduce contemporary Latin terminology to traditional Welsh grammatical language, whether through glossing copies of the bardic grammars, or by translating entire rhetorical tracts into Welsh. This was a new impulse, and perhaps reflective of the renewed importance of rhetoric in the humanist educational programme. All these efforts are in sharp contrast to the statement in the Pum Llyfr quoted at the beginning of this section. The terms ymoralw, ymgynull and arddangos may have been unintelligible to humanist scholars, but they had been baked into the Welsh poetic tradition for two centuries. As discussed in Chapter 3, they had probably formed part of a bardic education since at least the fifteenth century, when the bardic grammars became more handbooks of instruction than theoretical treatises. They would have been a

part of Simwnt Fychan’s early bardic education, as well as Gruffudd Hiraethog’s. Whatever we might think of these terms now, and whatever Prise or Vaughan or Wiliems thought about them in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they had meaning to the bards who were responsible for copying the grammars at the end of the sixteenth century. There was no need to translate terms that were so steeped in vernacular bardic tradition. What distinguishes Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth from Prise’s or Vaughan’s grammar, or Salesbury’s treatise on rhetoric is essentially this: it was a bardic product. It was produced by and for other bards, and within the strict confines of the bardic order. Although Simwnt Fychan was clearly cognizant of the significance of rhetoric within the humanist tradition, and although the bardic grammar existed within the same orbit as humanist scholarship, and even drew on it, the Pum Llyfr was not itself a humanist product. The Welsh terminology for the figures of speech derived from a separate, but equally valid vernacular tradition, and could not so easily be dismissed or subsumed into Latinate rhetorical language. Terminology that might be difficult for the humanist scholar was perfectly intelligible to the bard, and while Simwnt was happy to add to the tradition by taking from Salesbury’s treatise, he was not willing to change traditional terminology entirely to render it more widely intelligible, or to adopt new figures of speech into the main text of his bardic grammar. Although it is to some extent defensive, there is a certain self-confidence in his dismissal of Renaissance conceptions of rhetoric – the ‘figures drawn from Latin and Greek’. Simwnt’s grammar had a different purpose not only from new humanist rhetorical writing, but even from humanist copies of the bardic grammars. The Pum Llyfr may have existed alongside humanist writing, and even incorporated elements of humanist thought, but was not itself a humanist text. IV. The return ad fontes All of this leaves us with something of an enigma: the Pum Llyfr was (by design) not properly a humanist text, but at the same time it incorporated

swathes of material drawn from contemporary humanist grammatical writing. Certain parts of the tradition were subject to revision or improvements, but in other places the Pum Llyfr cleaved very closely to its medieval antecedents. Some of the revisions, as discussed at the start of this chapter, seem to have been made in order to support the official regulation of the bardic order. In this way, the Pum Llyfr was a continuation of the tradition of copying and revision that emerged throughout the sixteenth century, following the composition and widespread reproduction of Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan. It was equally a part of an even longer history of practical revision, as suggested by its extensive and elaborated treatment of cynghanedd and cymeriad. However, a purely bardic outlook, whether practical or regulatory, does not account for the incorporation of humanist material like Salesbury’s writings or Lily’s Grammar into the main text of the grammar; nor does it explain why Simwnt Fychan had to pre-emptively defend his failure to translate or add Latin rhetorical language into the section on the figures of speech, where it had never before been needed. The Pum Llyfr was not a straightforward continuation of the medieval bardic grammars. Because of its relationship to the long tradition of bardic writing that preceded it, the Pum Llyfr could not fulfil the needs of humanist scholars, who achieved much of what they needed to do through the production of printed grammars (mostly in Latin) which could be widely disseminated beyond bardic circles, and even beyond the borders of Wales. As discussed above, several such grammars were produced and circulated in the second half of the sixteenth century. In contrast, the fact that the Pum Llyfr was written in Welsh, and was kept in manuscript, means that its circulation was necessarily extremely limited: it belonged more or less exclusively to the circle of bards who produced it. If the Pum Llyfr had been intended as a humanist product, then it must be said that the end-product was not a very good one. In fact, if Simwnt Fychan had wanted to create a humanist text that could be widely disseminated, then the project was a failure from its inception. The only way to achieve this would be to start fresh, and write in Latin – as did many of Simwnt’s contemporaries. But the Pum Llyfr was not

a humanist grammar; it was a bardic grammar. It was produced in Welsh, in manuscript, by and for bards. It was doing something distinct from any of the humanist grammars produced around the same time. As we saw above, according to the Pum Llyfr, the Welsh rhetorical figures drew their authority from awdvrdod o waith y beirdd kadeiriawc nev yr athrawon pennkerddiaidd a vvant or blaen ‘authority of the chaired bards or the bardic masters that came before’, just as the Latin and Greek figures drew theirs from gwaith awdvriaid o’i hiaith o’r blaen ‘the authorities of their own language in former times’.114 The notion that these were two different – but equally valid – traditions in the minds of the bards offers us a possible explanation of the way in which the bardic grammars were perceived and used in Renaissance Wales. As Brinley Jones has written, ‘In Wales, the eyes of [humanist] scholars were turned not only to the glorious past of Greece and Rome but also to the achievements of the Welsh vernacular in preceding centuries. Such achievements had been best recorded in the work of the poets.’115 This was even more true amongst the poets, who were the heirs and keepers of that tradition. To understand the achievement of the Pum Llyfr, we must resist viewing it as an imperfect refraction of either a medieval bardic grammar, or of a sixteenth-century humanist grammar. It is a continuation of the long tradition of copying and revising the medieval bardic grammars; it also clearly and deliberately borrows from contemporary material written by humanists like William Salesbury. These are both integral aspects of the Pum Llyfr revision. Like previous versions of the bardic grammars, the Pum Llyfr was rooted in the particular context of its composition. It is a product of late sixteenth-century Wales, and of a circle of men who were devoted to upholding the traditional rules and regulations of the bardic order, but who were not insulated from contemporary humanist writing – both through elementary works like Lily’s Grammar, that may have formed part of their early education, and through the personal and scholarly relationship that formed between Gruffudd Hiraethog and William Salesbury. When we discuss the ‘humanism’ of the Pum Llyfr, we are not discussing the way in which humanist ideas took hold amongst the scholarly elite of early modern

Wales – the Oxford graduates like John Prise or William Salesbury – but how they were adopted and used by the Welsh bards themselves. One of the central tenets of Renaissance humanism is the return ad fontes, the return ‘to the source’, meaning the study of original documents in their original languages. It is a sentiment neatly expressed by William Salesbury in the preface to Kynniver Llith a Ban, his 1551 translation of the Book of Common Prayer. Explaining his methodology, he wrote that at in reliquis omnibus vertendis, multum tribui Greco preponens (ut fit) fontem rivo ‘But in all the rest to be translated I have given great heed to the Greek, preferring the fountain head (as is meet) to the river.’116 For Salesbury, this meant that he referred to the Greek text in his preparation of his translation; for the humanists as a whole, this same principle meant the study of Classical texts in Latin and Greek. For the Welsh bards, it may have meant something slightly different. Antiquity to the Welsh bards did not begin and end in Ancient Greece and Rome. They had their own glorious past to which they could return – the age of Myrddin, Taliesin, the Gogynfeirdd and even the early cywyddwyr. The fontes of the Welsh bards were not necessarily the same as the fontes of Renaissance scholars on the Continent, but the idea could certainly translate. It is no coincidence that in the ymryson between Wiliam Cynwal and Edmwnd Prys, Cynwal counters Prys’s wide-ranging classical allusions (which the editor suspects were included ‘to bemuse Cynwal’ – for instance, calling Cynwal ‘Archias’, an esoteric reference to Cicero’s Pro Archia poeta) with traditional stock references (including to the Welsh past, especially Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae).117 Cynwal’s outlook was bardic and traditional, and he did not look much further than one medieval text to supply him with points of poetic reference.118 For Cynwal, unlike Prys, there was no need to reach into the depths of antiquity to seek out authorities. Authority already existed in the texts of the Welsh past, and in the traditional poetic language of the generations of bards that had preceded him. In spite of their (many) criticisms, humanist scholars were in general agreement that the bards were, as one modern scholar put it, ‘the main

guardians of past learning’.119 In the words of John Davies of Mallwyd they were the vetustae custodes linguae ‘the keepers of the old tongue’.120 Even Siôn Dafydd Rhys had to acknowledge that the bards had unique access to knowledge of the past, although he complains that they hid it in eu llyfreu a’i gwybodaetheu mywn cistieu a lléoedd dirgel ‘their books and their knowledge in chests and secret places’.121 The notion that the bards were the keepers of Welsh manuscripts in particular is also supported by Salesbury’s introduction to Oll Synnwyr Pen Kembero i Gyd, discussed above, in which he claims to have stolen un o llyfreu Gruffyth Hiraethoc ‘one of Gruffydd Hiraethog’s books’, from which he copied out the proverbs that appear in his printed edition.122 Salesbury, the humanist scholar, who had been to Oxford and presumably had liberal access to many books, was still at the mercy of the bards when it came to finding source material. According to humanist scholars, then (even when it was to their chagrin), the bards were uniquely positioned and uniquely qualified to access and preserve Welsh literature, both in their mastery of the language and in their physical possession of old manuscripts. And perhaps this was the value that the bards saw for themselves in some of the ideas they would have encountered through Salesbury and others. For the humanists, the return ad fontes meant a return to Greek and Latin texts. For the bards, it meant a return to their own vernacular past: to the literary creations of their forebears, preserved in manuscript and in memory. The bardic grammars were products of the bardic order, but neither the bardic order nor the Pum Llyfr existed outside humanism. The inclusion of material from Salesbury’s printed books (perhaps via Gruffudd Hiraethog), and the direct adaptation of parts of Lily’s Grammar, suggests that in revising their own documents, the bards were consciously participating in contemporary scholarly discourse. They had at least some awareness of the main tenets of humanist thought – as least as filtered through elementary Latin grammar books and the works of William Salesbury. Just as one of his predecessors, centuries before, had updated his bardic grammar with reference to Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Simwnt Fychan deliberately altered his text to fit within the scholarly discourse of his own century. And just like

the copyist of the bardic grammar in Peniarth 20, Simwnt Fychan used contemporary scholarship as a means by which to promote and access his own vernacular canon – the fontes of Welsh poetry. But the fontes of the Welsh bards did not consist only of bardic poetry, or Welsh narrative, or Welsh history. By this period of their transmission, the bardic grammars themselves had become a kind of fons as well. Kept in manuscript and accessible only to bards, they had steadily gained authority amongst the members of the bardic order over the course of the two preceding centuries, until they eventually came to define what bardic poetry was and who could create it. They had progressed from theoretical definitions of poetry to practical training handbooks to regulatory documents. They were an integral part of both bardic education and the internal structure of the bardic order. Their relative antiquity lent them a certain amount of authority. It also limited the degree to which they could be revised. Some things – like the Welsh rhetorical terminology, which could not be added to or translated into Latin, or the Dwned, which was kept intact and only altered in the margins – simply could not be changed, even where the older text conflicted with humanist grammatical principles. The bardic grammars had been woven into the fabric of the Welsh past, and the vernacular bardic fontes. The same text that had once attempted to delineate the bardic canon had now become a part of it. The Pum Llyfr was more than just a bardic manual of instruction, or supporting documentation for Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan – although it was certainly both of those things as well. It was an attempt by the bardic order to carve a space for themselves and their work within the framework of Renaissance grammar, rhetoric and poetry, and thereby to elevate the Welsh language to the level of Latin or Greek. The writers of the Renaissance were concerned with the writings of classical antiquity. Wales already had its own antique traditions, which had never really gone away, but (perhaps spurred on by contemporary humanist writings) were subject to renewed interest and approached with renewed vigour in the late sixteenth century. Humanism was another tool with which the bardic order asserted its own

authority, and the bardic grammars were the expression of this ‘bardic’ humanism.

Conclusion

T

he bardic grammars were highly adaptable documents. Their remarkable longevity may owe something to the fact that they could so readily be reworked for a variety of different purposes. This book has traced their use over a period of some two and a half centuries, straddling periods of military and administrative conquest, increased literacy and increased social and professional regulation, new and emerging intellectual trends, and changing poetic fashions and techniques. During the late medieval and early modern periods, the bardic grammars were never a catalyst or even a locus of societal change, but they absorbed and reflected the changing concerns and preoccupations of the men who produced and edited them. They are an important witness to the way in which literate society in Wales was profoundly altered in the transitional period between the beginning of the fourteenth century and the end of the sixteenth. This book has asked the reader to wade through a great deal of the technical language of Welsh grammar and poetry – but if there is a narrative to be distilled, it might look something like this: In the thirteenth or early fourteenth century, following the emergence of the Latin genre of artes poetriae, a text was compiled that combined an adaptation of one or more Latin grammatical treatises (probably something like the Excerptiones de Prisciano, combined with Book III of Donatus’ Ars Maior, Books XVII and XVIII of Priscian’s Institutiones, and perhaps a medieval rhetorical manual) with a treatment of the Welsh metres. Over a period of time, this text gradually accumulated additional sections, like the

section on the faults of poetry, and especially the triads. The grammar’s content was often archaic, and it preserved forms which were no longer in contemporary use by the time it was compiled. Its primary concern was with the ‘vernacular canon’ of Welsh poetry. It was a contribution to the study of grammatica, which teaches both how to speak properly and how to read authoritative texts. In the early fourteenth century, the bardic grammar underwent its first major revision, which was likely made with reference to the immensely popular Poetria nova, by Geoffrey of Vinsauf. This revision was made with special attention to the aural and performative qualities of poetry, demonstrating similar interests to the fragmentary fourteenth-century Gramadeg Gwysanau. The fourteenth-century revision of the bardic grammar may have been intended for the reciters of poetry, rather than the Welsh poets themselves. It was only in the fifteenth century and later that the bardic grammars began to serve the function with which they are traditionally associated: in this period, they became bardic handbooks, manuals of instruction for apprentice bards. An increasingly literate population of bards began to make their own copies of the grammars, and to edit them to better meet their needs. The practical revisions to the bardic grammars included partial descriptions of cynghanedd and either more concise or more elaborate explanations of the classification of the syllables and diphthongs – two of the most difficult sections of the bardic grammars. All these revisions were oriented towards explaining how to avoid the poetic faults. Following the sixteenth-century eisteddfodau and the compilation of Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan, the bardic grammars took on a new role. Under the Tudor regime, the administration of Wales was centralised, and regulatory documentation of all kinds proliferated. The bardic grammars themselves became a piece of supporting documentation for the regulation of the bardic order. These fragmented versions of the bardic grammar, like the 24 mesur or the Dosbarth Cerdd Dafod, developed in parallel with similar musical documents. Both were intended to match the strictures of

the Statud, and as it was edited and evolved over the course of the sixteenth century, so too did the bardic grammars. Finally, at the end of the sixteenth century, the bardic grammars were subjected to what would be their final major edit, known as Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth. Once more, the bards of Wales incorporated external scholarship into their revision: this time, they turned to humanist writings, especially the work of William Salesbury, but also the elementary school text called Lily’s Grammar. But there were limits to what could be edited, and some sections could not be altered. By this point, the bards were aware of the long tradition to which the bardic grammars belonged, and the bardic grammars had become thoroughly authoritative documents. The Pum Llyfr was an expression of what I have termed ‘bardic’ humanism – humanism as filtered through the eyes of the highly traditional strict-metre bards. For them, the return ad fontes did not mean delving into Classical Latin and Greek texts, but their own Welsh canon – including the bardic grammars themselves. Through the revisions made to the bardic grammars, we have been given a glimpse into the history of the bardic order. It is difficult not to see it as a narrative of decline, knowing how the story ends: the over-reliance on the rules set out in the practical grammars a signal of the stagnancy that was to define strict-metre poetry in the early modern period; the regulatory grammars an attempt to regain control over an increasingly desperate situation; the Pum Llyfr the last gasp of a dying breed. But the end of the bardic order was not inevitable, and the men who carefully copied these texts into manuscript after manuscript could not have known what was to come. Even at the end of the sixteenth century, there was still room to breathe fresh life into the bardic grammars, and it was still considered worth doing. To its practitioners, bardic poetry was very much alive, and so too were the bardic grammars. At the outset, I stated that this study had a number of aims, among them to present the grammars as interesting texts in their own right, to render them accessible to scholars outside Celtic studies, and to temper our use of them as tools for reading medieval poetry. On the latter point, there are a

number of ways to take the bardic grammars as aids for the modern consumption of medieval Welsh poetry. One can choose to adopt a position of naive optimism (they tell us everything we need to know about medieval Welsh poetry!) or extreme scepticism (they tell us absolutely nothing of value!); I think their true value lies somewhere in between. The bardic grammars have the potential to tell us a great deal about the sort of milieu in which bardic poetry was produced, but it is not always the kind of information that one might desire, and it changes consistently across time. These were living documents, heavily altered and adapted to suit a variety of different needs. However, they were also formulaic, and the moment they were written down, they became (to an extent) static. One imagines that grammatical and bardic discourse must have been much more varied and lively than the limited snapshot the bardic grammars provide; the existence of documents like the Gwysanau fragment underline the fact that the grammars arose in a much wider network of grammatical and poetic thought in medieval Wales, at which the extant texts can only hint. Interactions with texts like the Poetria nova or Salesbury’s writings show that throughout the period of transmission they existed in a matrix of grammatical scholarship that extended beyond the boundaries of Wales, and beyond the Welsh language, as well. If the bardic grammars are used in a modern poetic analysis, their disparate needs and users must be held in consideration. A sixteenth-century practical grammar like Peniarth 161 or Peniarth 189 might be used to talk about bardic training and its products; this becomes more difficult, or more complicated, if one tries to back-read the practical use of the grammars onto earlier, fourteenth-century poetry. Similarly, the 24 mesur text is better suited to a discussion centred around the social regulation of poets than a technical dissection of their poetic products. The grammars can be useful tools for the modern reader, as they were for the medieval – but they must be used thoughtfully. If this book offers anything to the reader of medieval Welsh poetry, I hope that it encourages a more tempered and nuanced use of the grammars to approach the enigmatic bardic poetry of the fourteenth

through sixteenth centuries. The grammars can support a modern reading of medieval Welsh poetry, but they cannot supply one. But in fact, to take the bardic grammars only as evidence to support readings of medieval Welsh poems is to sell them rather short. They offer considerably more (if also less) than that. Admittedly, to a modern critic, the bardic grammars do not present a particularly compelling reading experience. They add little to our interpretation of the content of bardic poetry (apart from the provision of a common set of terminology to describe its technical features – not an unimportant gift), and little insight into the compositional process of the bard. What the bardic grammars offer instead is a window into the intellectual life of particular classes of men during particular periods of time – whether we are referring to readers of poetry in the thirteenth century, reciters in the fourteenth, bards in the fifteenth, bureaucrats and humanistic bards in the sixteenth, and so on, and so on. Their significance lies not only in their relationship to other texts, but in the breadth of their content, in the inventive ways in which they were edited, and in a utility that was obvious to a wide variety of different users over the course of several centuries.

APPENDIX: Translation of the Bardic Grammar in the Red Book of Hergest

How to use this translation All titles and section numbers have been inserted for ease of reading and reference; there are no titles or section numbered in the Red Book or in the GP edition. This translation includes page references to the printed edition in GP, pp. 1–18 in brackets (GP, p. ##). However, the translation has been prepared with reference to the version in the Red Book of Hergest (col. 1117–42), and small matters of punctuation occasionally depart from the printed version. Middle Welsh grammatical and metrical terminology is idiosyncratic and difficult to translate. In the interest of making this translation readable and accessible to scholars who do not primarily focus on Welsh, I have attempted to translate technical grammatical and poetic terminology into English as much as possible. The Welsh terms, and discussion, can be found in the notes that follow this text. In certain situations, usually where the grammar is illustrating something related to the form or construction of the Welsh word or phrase, words have been preserved in Welsh in italics with the English translation given in square brackets. Because most metrical information does not apply to translations, all poetry is given in Middle Welsh followed by an English paraphrase in square brackets. My translation

of all poetry is heavily indebted to the Welsh paraphrases in R. Geraint Gruffydd and Rhiannon Ifans (eds), Gwaith Einion Offeiriad a Dafydd Ddu o Hiraddug (Aberystwyth: Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, 1997). I am also grateful to Barry Lewis for his assistance in translating the verse passages. The orthography of the Red Book has been retained for all grammatical and metrical examples in the main text and in the notes; common Welsh terms in the main text, such as the names of metres, have been modernised. Comments in the notes have been restricted to issues of translation, and I have kept them as minimal as possible. Unless otherwise specified, all dictionary definitions in the notes come from GPC. The Bardic Grammar in the Red Book of Hergest Letters §1.

§2.

§3.

(GP, p. 1) There are twenty-four letters in Welsh, namely: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, v, x, y, w, ll. And of those, some are vowels, others are consonants. [There are] seven vowels, namely: a, e, i, o, v, y, w. All the other letters are consonants, since they sound together with the vowels. Some of the consonants are liquefying letters, others are mute letters. Liquefying letters There are seven liquefying letters, namely: d, f, l, m, n, r, s and this is the reason that they are called liquefying letters: because they cause liquefication in a poem. This is how they cause liquefication: from two compact syllables they make one declining, as in mydyr [metre]. If y is written between d and r thus, there will be two compact syllables. And therefore, y is omitted from the writing or from the syllable count when a poem is written or when its syllables are counted, and it is done like this, mydr

[metre], and this kind of syllable in a poem will be a single declining syllable. §4.

§5.

Mute letters There are nine mute letters, namely: b, c, g, h, k, p, q, t, x. And this is why they are called mute letters: because their sound is small compared to the other letters. And when there are two of them, as in bratt [rag] at the end of a syllable, or one of them at the end with a liquefying letter, as in tant [string], such a syllable is called a deaf or mute syllable. Other letters Ll has the strength of two ls. z is a Greek letter and there is no room for it in Welsh. & has the strength of two letters. h is not a letter according to metre, but rather as a sign of aspiration; nevertheless, there is a need for it in Welsh, and it cannot do without it. Syllables and dipthongs

§6.

§7.

Since syllables are made from letters, on account of this, it is necessary to know what a syllable is, and how syllables are divided. A syllable is the collection of a multitude of letters together, although there may be a syllable or a word of one letter sometimes. Some of the syllables are of one letter, like a [and, etc.]; and some are of two, like af [I shall go]; some are of three, like eur [gold]; some of four, like kerd [poem]; some of five, like gwnaf [I shall do]; some of six, like gwnawn [we shall do]; some of seven, like gwnaeth [he did]; and there will never be more letters in one syllable than that. Heavy and light syllables Some of the syllables will be heavy, and others light. A light syllable (GP, p. 2) occurs when one consonant only is at the end, as in gwen, llen [smile, literature]. A heavy syllable occurs when two consonants of the same kind are at the end, as in gwenn, llenn [white, curtain].

§8. §9.

Declining and compact syllables Some of the syllables are also declining, others are compact. A compact syllable occurs when only one vowel is in it, whatever consonants there might be after or before the vowel, as in glan [pure, clean], glut [sticky].

§10. A declining syllable occurs in three ways. One is when there are two vowels together in the syllable, and one declines towards the other, as in glwys [beautiful]. This kind of syllable is called nodding-declining, since one of the vowels nods towards the other. Nevertheless, it is necessary to see what form two vowels might take in the syllable, whether they are together or separate. If they are together, as in gwyr [men], it will be a compact syllable. If they are separate, with a little declining in their pronunciation, as in gwyr [knows], it will be a declining syllable. §11. The second way, a declining syllable that is called strong declining, as in toryf [crowd], taryf [excitement], kerd [poem], mygyr [fair], mydr [metre]. And that kind is called strong declining; declining because of the liquefying letter in the syllables, strong because there are two consonants together in them. §12. The third way that a declining syllable occurs: when y or w is after a liquefying letter, and a vowel in front – y, as in eiry [snow], w, as in berw [to boil] – then y or w is left out of the syllable when the poem’s syllables are counted. And syllables of the same kind as that are called liquefying-declining, because of the liquefying letter that is in the syllables. Diphthong syllables §13. A diphthong syllable occurs from the union of two vowels together in one syllable, as in llaw [hand], llew [lion]. There are two kinds of

diphthong, namely, the compact diphthong and the declining diphthong. Compact diphthongs §14. There are five compact diphthongs, namely aw, ew, iw, yw, vw; aw, as in llaw [hand], ew, as in llew [lion], iw, as in lliw [colour], yw, as in llyw [rudder], vw, as in duw [God]. eu is also a compact diphthong, as in kleu [swift], and that is the diphthong against which half-rhyme cannot be had; and because of that it is called a straying diphthong, because it has no other that might answer it in half-rhyme. Declining diphthongs §15. There are four declining diphthongs, namely ae, oe, ei, wy; ae, as in kae [field], oe, as in doe [yesterday], ei, as in trei [ebb], wy, as in mwy [more]. §16. It is necessary to consider, however, of the two declining diphthongs there, ae, oe, how they are divided, and how they are connected in one syllable. And accordingly, one should observe when they are in a multisyllabic word, which is to say that there are many syllables in it, then it is necessary to separate them into different syllables, and each one of them a compact syllable, as in Kymraec [Welsh]. And when they are in a monosyllabic word, then they must be collected together into one syllable of a declining diphthong, as in gwaet [blood], Groec [Greek]. §17. ey is not a diphthong, since it is an accident to have it without h between them. §18. A syllable which ends in three vowels together, or in which there are three vowels together, and the final part ends in a compact diphthong, and the beginning in a declining diphthong, that is called a compact-

declining diphthong, as in gloew [bright], hoew [agile] and similar syllables. Other syllables §19. Other syllables occur from the union of vowels together, and they are not diphthongs; namely, when there is an i or a y before another vowel, as in yor [lord], iwrch [roe-deer], and (GP, p. 3) such a syllable is called a strange diphthong. §20. When a word has two vowels in the middle, and the first vowel is long according to accent, that is, according to the pronunciation of the word, as in Gwenlliant, that is called ‘vowel in front of vowel’ in the metre. §21. When there is a syllable with an ending that is strong-declining, and a beginning that is nodding-declining, as in brwydr [battle], beird [bards], that is called a strong-declining diphthong. §22. When there is a syllable with an ending that is liquefying-declining, and a beginning that is nodding-declining, as in keidw [keeps], that is called a liquefying-declining diphthong. §23. When there is a syllable with an ending that is liquefying-declining, and its beginning is deaf, as in kwlldr [coulter], that is called deafdeclining. §24. When there is an i or a y before a diphthong, either compact or declining, they are deemed to be in one syllable together, and that is called a tailed diphthong, as in dioer [God knows], diawl [devil] and other such syllables. Long and short syllables

§25. Some of the syllables will be long, others are short. A long syllable has two morae and a short syllable has one, since it takes more time to say a long syllable than a short syllable. When there is an n after an r, as in barn [judgement], or an s after an r, as in kors [swamp], or a mute letter after r, as in kwrt [court], that is called heavy-declining. Every declining syllable is long, and it has two morae. Every compact syllable is short, and it has one mora, whether it is a compact syllable or another kind, although a compact diphthong is longer than other compact syllables. And thus, some of the declining syllables are longer than others, on account of the amount of the letters and morae that are in it. Parts of a sentence §26. From syllables are made whole words. Accordingly, it is necessary now to know what words are. And since words are parts of a perfect sentence, accordingly, it is necessary to know how many parts of a sentence there are, and what each of them is. There are two parts of a sentence, namely: noun and verb. §27. A noun is everything of that which signifies a substance, or a characteristic incidental to a substance. A substance signifies everything that can be seen or heard or touched; seen, as in person, wood, stone, and other such corporeal, composite things; heard, as in wind, or commotion, or shout, or other such things; touched, as in air, or colour. Substance also signifies every spiritual thing, although they are not able to be seen nor heard nor touched, as in spirit, or angel, or mind. A characteristic incidental to a substance signifies everything that is not able to stand on its own without a strong noun supporting it, as in white, black, wise, strong, since these kinds of things cannot stand on their own in a sentence without substance to support them.

§28. A verb is everything that signifies doing or undergoing, together with tense and person: doing, as in karaf [I love], dysgaf [I learn]; undergoing, as in ef a’m kerir [I am loved], ef a’m dysgir [I am taught]. Nouns §29. There are two kinds of noun: one proper and one common. A proper noun is one which corresponds to one thing in its designation, as in Madawc, or Ieuan. A common noun is one which corresponds to a lot of things in its designation, as in person, or angel. There are two kinds of proper noun: the baptismal name and the nickname; the baptismal name, like Madawc, the nickname, like Madyn. §30. There are two kinds of common noun: the simple common noun and the compound noun. (GP, p. 4) The simple noun is that which is not compounded, as in lliw [colour]. The compound noun is that which is composed of two words, as in gwynlliw [white in colour]. There are two kinds of simple noun: the base form of the noun and the derived noun. The base form of the noun is that which does not derive from anything, as in llathyr [bright]. The derived noun is that which derives from the base form of the noun, as in llathreit [bright]. And so the compound derived noun comes from the compound base form of the noun, as in gwynnllathreit [bright white] from gwynllathyr [bright white]. §31. There are two kinds of noun also: the weak noun and the strong noun. The weak noun is that which does not stand alone in a sentence, as in white, black, wise. The strong noun is that which stands on its own in a sentence, as in man, woman, person. Weak words take comparison and strong words do not take it. §32. This is taking comparison: increasing or lessening the first sense of the word. There are three grades of comparison: positive,

comparative and superlative. Positive is that which is the first sense of the word, as in: good, bad. Comparative is that which is a greater or a lesser sense of the positive, as in: better, or worse. Superlative is that which is the greatest or the least sense, and it is not able to be surpassed, as in: best of all, or worst of all. §33. There are three genders, masculine, feminine and common between them. Masculine is that which pertains to a man, as in gwynn [white]. Feminine is that which pertains to a woman, as in gwenn [white]. Common is that which pertains to each of them, man and woman, as in doeth [wise], since one says gwr doeth [wise man] and gwreic doeth [wise woman], and because of this, ‘wise’ is common between them. It is a false sentence, moreover, to say gwr gwenn, gwreic gwynn, since a weak word and a strong word should agree in gender and number. §34. There are two numbers of noun, singular and plural. Singular is one thing, as in person; plural is many things, as in persons. There are two kinds of singular noun, a singular noun itself and a collective singular noun. A singular noun itself is that which does not have a collection [of things] in it according to sense, as in: person. A collective singular noun is that which has a collection [of things] in it according to sense, as in: host, people, crowd and other such words. There are two kinds of collective nouns, the singular collective noun and the plural collective noun; the singular collective noun, as in: host, crowd; the plural collective noun, as in: hosts, crowds. Verbs §35. There are two kinds of verb, intransitive verbs and transitive verbs. An intransitive verb is that which is enough of a sentence in itself without looking to something after it, as in: I walk, I sit. A transitive verb is that which has an object or something else after it, as in: I see, I hear. It looks to the sentence, what is seen and what is heard.

§36. There are five verbal moods, namely: indicative, when something is indicated, as in mi a garaf [I love]; and imperative, when something is ordered, as in yf diawt [drink a drink]; and optative, when something is wished for, as in mynnwn vy mot yn gyuoethawc [I wish that I were rich]; and subjunctive, when something is promised, as in pan delych attaf, ti a gefy beis [when you come to me, you will have a piece of clothing] or or gwney ym gyllell, ti a geffy geinyawc [if you make me a knife, you will have a penny]; and indefinite, when there is neither number nor (GP, p. 5) person in it, as in karv, kanu, dysgu [to love, to sing, to learn]. And there is one other mood called prayerful, when something is prayed for, as in Duw, trugarhaa wrthyf [God, have mercy upon me]. And that mood is considered under ‘imperative’. And it is best to evaluate those moods when they are in sentences. §37. There are two kinds of verb, active and passive. Active is that which signifies doing some activity, as in: I love, I learn. Passive is that which signifies undergoing some activity, as in: I am loved, I am taught. There are two numbers for a verb, as with the noun. There are two kinds of verb: simple, as in: gwnaf [I do] and compound, as in: perffeithwnaf [I do thoroughly]. §38. There are three verbal tenses: present, perfect and future. Present is that which is now, as in karaf [I love]. Perfect is that which has gone away, as in kereis [I loved]. Future is that which might come later on, as in karwyf [I might love]. Along with these there is the imperfect, that which has not completely gone away, as in karwn [I was loving] and pluperfect, that which has long since gone away, as in karasswn [I had loved]. §39. There are three verbal persons: the first, the second and the third. The first is that which speaks about itself, as in mi [I] in the singular number and ni [we] in the plural number. The second is that which

speaks to another, as in ti [you] in the singular number and chwi [you] in the plural number. The third is that which speaks about another, as in y llall [the other] in the singular number and y lleill [the others] in the plural number. Noun and verb ought to correspond in number, and in person, and unless they are thus, it is a false sentence. Pronouns §40. Another part of a sentence is that which is put in place of a noun and which is called pronoun. This is a pronoun: everything that signifies a person, or possession, or question; person, as in mi, ti, y llall [me, you, the other]; possession, as in meu, teu, eidaw [mine, yours, his]; question, as in pwy, pa beth [who, what]. There are twenty-four pronouns, twelve in the singular and twelve in the plural. In the singular number there are mi, ti, y llall, hwnn, honn, hwnnw, honno, pwy, pa beth, meu, teu, eidaw [me, you, the other, this one (masc.), this one (fem.), that one (masc.), that one (fem.), who, what, mine, yours, his]. In the plural number there are ni, chwi, y lleill, y rei hynn, y rei hynny, y neill rei, y rei ereill, pa rei, pa betheu, einym, einwch, eidunt [we, you, the others, these ones, those ones, these ones, the other ones, which ones, which things, ours, yours, theirs]. The seven first ones in the singular number and in the plural number signify person. The three last ones in the singular number and in the plural number signify possession. The four middle ones, namely pwy, pa beth, pa rei, pa betheu [who, what, which ones, which things] signify a question. Exclamations §41. Other words which do not derive from those two parts of a sentence, noun or pronoun and verb, signify sorrow, as in och, or joy, as in oi; they are not complete parts of a sentence and they do not do anything except augment a sentence. Sentences and figures

§42. Since a sentence is made from words, those which are called parts of a sentence, it is right to know what a sentence is and how sentences are divided. A sentence is a collection of a multitude of words together. Perfect and imperfect sentences §43. There are two kinds of sentences, the perfect and the imperfect sentence. The perfect sentence occurs when a noun and a verb are properly together, as in Ieuan a gar Gwenlliant [Ieuan loves Gwenlliant]. An imperfect sentence occurs when there are two or three nouns without a verb along with them, as in gwr gwreic march [man, woman, steed], or two or three verbs (GP, p. 6) together without a noun along with them, as in kanu karu dysgu [to sing, to love, to learn]. §44. There are two kinds of perfect sentence, the correct perfect sentence and the incorrect perfect sentence. The correct perfect sentence occurs when there is a noun and a verb together in the same number and the same person, without either singular and plural in it, nor presence and absence, nor masculine and feminine and a weak word and a strong word together in the same number and the same gender, and unless it is thus, it is a false sentence and incorrect. Two singular nouns are worth one plural noun, as in Rys ac Einawn a garant Oleudyd [Rhys and Einion love (pl.) Goleudydd]. A singular collective noun is worth two singular nouns by itself, as in y bobyl a volant Dydgu [The people praise (pl.) Dyddgu]. And in that way, one plural collective noun is worth two nouns by itself. Figures §45. There are three figures in a sentence, to distinguish a sentence and to excuse a false sentence. One of them is called an assembly of part and the whole, and that is when there is a part and a whole in a sentence, with a weak word between them signifying praise or shame,

and that ought to be taken with the whole and not the part, as in gwr gwynn y law [a man, white his hand], gwreic wenn y throet [a woman, white her foot]. Although y llaw [hand] is feminine and gwynn [white] is masculine, that gwynn however is not taken with llaw [hand] which is a part of the gwr [man], but with gwr [man], which is the whole. And thus, although troet [foot] is masculine and gwenn [white] is feminine, it is not taken with troet [foot] but with the wreic [woman]. And thus masculine and feminine together in a sentence are excused. §46. The other figure is called a display of praise or shame, and that is when the whole is singular and the part plural, and a weak word between them displays praise or shame, and that also ought to bear upon the whole and not upon the part, as in gwr du y lygeit [a man, black his eyes], gwreic wenn y dwylaw [a woman, white her hands]. And that figure is an excuse for singular and plural in the same sentence. §47. [The third figure is called a summoning, and that occurs when there are various persons together in a statement, as in this englyn: Mi yw’r gwas gweddeiddlas, gwan, A vyd o vod y galonn, Dwysgawd bryd, y disgwyl brynn, O dawl is gwawl yn oes Gwenn] [I [1st sg] is [3rd sg] the handsome and feeble lad who is, from the desire of his heart, sad-faced, expecting anger from part [of me] beneath the light as long as Gwen lives]1 §48. And those are called colours.

Metre §49. Since from perfect, correct sentences are made metre and versification, therefore it is necessary to know what metre and versification are, and how they are divided and measured and estimated. Metre or versification is the composition of correct sentences from excellent decorative words, and which are embellished with approved, excellent, mild words, which signify praise or satire, and that [according to the rules of] praiseworthy poetic art. §50. There are three branches of the poetic art, namely minstrelsy, household poetry and professional poetry. Three branches pertain to minstrelsy: insulting, word for word mocking and mimicking. Three other branches pertain to household poetry: satirising, phrase by phrase mocking and love poems of a household poet’s cywyddau, [expressed] through ambiguous words. Three other branches pertain to professional poetry: englynion and awdlau and poetic cywyddau, with difficult composition and design. The englyn §51. There are three types of englyn: the fully rhymed englyn and the halfrhymed englyn and the englyn of old poetry. There are three types of fully rhymed englyn: the straight fully rhymed englyn and the crooked englyn and the marksman englyn. §52. The straight fully rhymed englyn occurs when a long line is first, and two short lines last; and that sometimes ends in vowels, (GP, p. 7) sometimes in consonants. When it ends in vowels, sometimes it ends in one vowel, as in this englyn: Pei kawn o gyflwr gyfle [broui]—ri[n] Kyt bei ron vyg crogi

Vy neges oed vynegi Vyg gouec, dyn tec, i ti. [If I had the opportunity to experience a secret intimacy, even if it would mean I was hanged, my errand would be to express my lust, fair woman, to you.] §53. At other times, the fully rhymed englyn ends in two vowels, and then sometimes it ends in a compact diphthong, as in: Dilyneis, klwyfeis, val y’m klyw—deckant, Y deckaf o dyn byw; Dolur gormod a’m dodyw, Dilyn pryt ewyn, prit yw. [I followed, I pined away (as though a thousand people hear me) [for] the fairest of living women excessive pain came to me; it is costly to follow the one with a seafoam[-fair] face.] §54. At other times, it ends in a declining diphthong, as in this englyn: Un dwyll wyt o bwyl[l], o ball dramwy—hoet, A hut mab Mathonwy; Vnwed y’th wneir a Chreirwy, Ennwir vryt, ryhir vrat rwy. [You are a deceitful one by nature, because of [the] longing [that arises from your] failure to visit [with me]; with the magic of Mathonwy’s son, you are considered the same as Creirwy; O wicked mind, too long [your] excessive treachery.]

§55. When the englyn ends in consonants, then sometimes it ends in a vowel and a consonant, as in this englyn: Llawnlwys lys Rys, Ros genniret—kat, Kedernyt Edelffet, Llyw diuei, llywyawdyr Dyuet, Llafyn gynniweir, kreir cret. [Full and beautiful [is the] court of Rhys, gathering together an army [in] Rhos; strength of Edelffled, blameless rudder, helmsman of Dyfed, lion of wandering blade, treasure of Christendom.] §56. At other times, the englyn ends in two vowels and a consonant, and then sometimes it ends in a compact diphthong and a consonant, as in this englyn: Over o iawnder vndawt,—hwyl anaw, Haelyoni vedyssyawt Wrthyt, eil Arthur, yrthwawt, Kadwgawn, kadyr ffynawn ffawt. [The rush towards riches, the generosity of Christendom [is] worthless according to the righteousness of unity, compared to you, O second Arthur of mighty praise-song, Cadwgon, handsome font of faith.] §57. At other times, the englyn ends in a declining diphthong and consonant, as in this englyn: Kathleu eos nos yn oet—y kigleu, Neu gofeu gofalhoet.

Koethlef, herwodef hiroet, Kethlyd, kein awenyd koet. [During a tryst I heard the songs of the nightingale of the night – or the memories of anxious longing – a pure cry, an exile’s suffering; a songbird, excellent poet of the trees.] §58. A fully rhymed crooked englyn occurs when the long line is last, and the two short lines first, as here: Kyt ymwnel kywyt, bryt brys, Yn llawn llewych ystlys, Lletryt kallon donn ef a’e dengys—grud Lliw blaen gruc Generys. [Although [the] mind makes itself (hasty intention) full with the brightness of [her] flank, the cheek shows the melancholy of a shattered heart: Generys, the colour of the tip of heather.] §59. An englyn with a marksman word occurs when the two short lines are first and the long line is last, and that is with the marksman word in it. And there are only three rhymes in it because of the marksman word, as in this englyn: Hunyd hirloyw y hystlys, Gwymp y llun yn y llaesgrys, Gwynlliw ewyn gwenndon iawn O dwfyn eigawn pan dyfrys. [Hunydd, long and bright her flank, excellent her figure in her loose chemise; [she is] the white colour of the foam of a

true cresting wave when it hastens from the depths of the ocean.] §60. (GP, p. 8) There are three kinds of half-rhymed englyn: the compact half-rhyme and the declining half-rhyme and the chained half-rhyme. Compact half-rhyme sometimes ends in vowels, when the four rhymes of the englyn end in four different vowels, as in this: Deuth y ueird heird hard westi Hael Ruffud o’e rud a’e ra; Kymraw pan delit Kymro, Kymreist adwyndawt Kymry. [A terror came to the handsome poets of the fair guesting of generous Gruffudd, with his purple [clothing] and his fur, when a Welshman was captured; you accepted the blessing of the Welsh people.] §61. At other times, the compact half-rhyme englyn ends in consonants, when the four rhymes of the englyn end in the same consonant and different vowels, as here: Dy garu, gorhoen eglur, Agharat, gwenwynvrat gwyr, Hoyw gangen, hy a gyngor, Hawl eneit y direitwr. [Loving you [is] a clear joy, Angharad, O cruel deceit of men; beautiful bough, bold of counsel, claim the soul of the wicked man.] §62. At other times, the englyn ends in a compact diphthong, as here:

Agharad hoew leuat liw Ygh[ur]iyeith2 lewychweith law Wyf o’th garyat, glwyfgat glew, Ynvyt drwy benyt y’m byw [Beautiful Angharad, the colour of the moon, [I speak] in the language of pain, the shining work of [your] hand; because of your love, I am the battle-wound of a warrior, [I am] foolish on account of the penance as long as I live] §63. Declining half-rhyme sometimes ends in vowels, when the four rhymes of the englyn end in four different declining diphthongs, as here: Kae a geueis da[w]ngeis doe, Ku vyd kof, ryd rod eruei, Yn eilgroes y’m oes a mwy, Anwylgreir kyweir yw’r kae. [I received a belt, intended as a gift, yesterday; the memory of it will be dear, generous, splendid gift, a second cross of my life and more; the belt is a true dear treasure.] §64. At other times it ends in consonants, when the four rhymes of the englyn end in four different declining diphthongs and the same consonant, as here: Llawen dan glaerwen lenn laes, Lledyf olwc gloew amlwc glwys, Llathyrlun manol a uoleis, Llaryeid uonedigeid uoes.

[Happy beneath the white, shining, loose mantle; gentle, bright, clear, beautiful sight; I praised [her] beautiful, shining figure [and] kindly, blessed behaviour.] §65. Chained half-rhyme is when the first rhyme of the englyn answers the third and the second answers the fourth; and sometimes it is a compact chained half-rhyme, as here: Mynnwn, kyt yt gawn gwc, Meu dy gael, rin adael rec, Ygobant, ygobell mwc, Yg gobeith tywynnweith tec. [I wished, although I might get a frown, to have you as mine, a gift permitting a secret intimacy, in a small valley, in the distant smoke, my hope of fair sunlight’s action.] §66. At other times there is chained declining half-rhyme, as in this englyn: Na’r heul yn hwyl awyrneit, Na’r lloer nyt gwell y lliwyt, Yn llathyrwiw wed, yn llathreit, Yn llathru no Lleucu Llwyt. [Neither the sun that sails and leaps through the air, nor the moon, fine and bright their appearance, resplendent, was coloured better, [or] shines better, than Lleucu Llwyd] §67. (GP, p. 9) An englyn of the old poetry will be composed of three rhymes, and sometimes it will be composed of three short lines of seven syllables each, as in this:

Chwerdit mwyalch mywn kelli; Nyt ard, nyt erdir idi; Nyt llawenach neb no hi. [The blackbird laughs in a grove; she does not plough [it], no ploughing is done for her; no one is happier than she.] §68. At other times it is a long line of fifteen syllables and a short line of seven syllables, as in this englyn: Onyt ynat darlleat—llyfreu A’e eireu yn wastat, Areith mywn kyfreith ny at. [Except for the judge, the reader of books, with his steadfast words, he does not allow oration in a court of law.] §69. The metre of a fully rhymed englyn, whether it be straight or crooked, is thirty syllables, sixteen in the long lines, and seven in each of the two short ones. And in the long line sometimes the first rhyme is in the seventh syllable, and then the toddaid (‘melted’) word beyond the rhyme, and it will be trisyllabic. At other times the rhyme is in the eighth syllable, and then the toddaid word beyond the rhyme should be disyllabic. At other times the rhyme is in the ninth syllable, and then the toddaid word beyond the rhyme should be monosyllabic. And half of the toddaid is the same as that, and in the long line of the gwawdodyn (little praise-song). The metre of the half-rhymed englyn is twenty-eight syllables, seven in each of the four lines. The metre of a marksman word englyn is twenty-eight syllables, seven in each one of the two short lines, and fourteen in the long line, and the marksman syllable in that should be in the seventh syllable, and the

syllable which is aimed at should be in the eleventh syllable. And so end the metres of the englyn. The awdl §70. Up to this point, the englyn has been discussed. Now let the second branch of professional poetry be discussed, namely, the awdl and its metres and its designs. There are five common metres of the awdl, namely toddaid (melted), gwawdodyn (little praise song) and cyhydedd hir (long equal-length) and cyhydedd fer (short equallength) and rhupunt. §71. Toddaid (melted) is made up of nineteen syllables in each line, and it is entirely made up of long lines, as in this awdl: Nyt digeryd Duw, neut digarat—kerd, Neut llei gwyrd y vryd o veird yn rat; Neut lliaws vrwyn kwyn kanwlad —yg kystud, O’th attal, Ruffud, waewrud rodyat. [God is not blameless, a poem is forsaken; fewer are the green [garments given] as gifts to hosts of bards; [there is] much sorrow, the grievance of a hundred countries in distress, from impeding you, Gruffudd, red-speared benefactor.] And it is maintained thus until the end. §72. Gwawdodyn (little praise song) is made up of two short lines of nine syllables each, and a long line of nineteen syllables, as in this awdl: Daroganaf naf daroganant, Daroganueird heird digeird dygant, Dognoed o wiscoed a wisgant—o’e law,

daryf Loeg[r]uraw kanllaw kynlluc rymyant. [I shall prophesy [the] lord, [just as] they shall prophesy [him]; the beautiful, faultless bards of prophecy chant; they wear [their] allowances of clothing from his hand; the scatterer of frightened England, the balustrade of a warrior’s strength.] §73. Cyhydedd hir (long equal-length) is made up entirely of lines of nineteen syllables each, and within that line are three short lines, two of five syllables each, and each one answers the other, and another of nine syllables, and in the fifth syllable it answers (GP, p. 10) the two first lines. And the main rhyme is maintained by the end-rhyme of that line, as in this: Llauaru a wnaf llywyawdyr nef a’e naf, Llyw nerth y galwaf, gelvyd aruer; Llyna vy namwein, llym voli riein, Llaryeid bryt mirein, llun mein muner. [I speak to the helmsman of heaven and the lord; I call upon the rudder of strength, [according to] skilled custom; that is my misfortune, [that I am] quick to praise a maiden [with] a fair, gentle countenance, the appearance of a lord’s stones [i.e. gems]] §74. Cyhydedd fer (short equal-length) is made up entirely of short lines of eight syllables each, as in this: Gwan wyf o glwyf yn glaf trymheint, Gwenn ffraeth a’m gwnaeth gne goueileint, Gwennyeith yw gweith y gwthlawn deint,

Gwynder lleuer lloer am blygeint. [I am weak from illness, a sick man [with] a serious disease: the fair, sharp-tongued woman has made me [take on] the tint of affliction; her adulation is the work of angry teeth; [she is] the brightness of the light of the moon at daybreak.] §75. Rhupunt is made up entirely of short lines of twelve syllables each, and within that line there are three short lines of four syllables each, and the two first ones answer each other. And the main rhyme is maintained by the end-rhyme of that line, and the second syllable of the third line answers the two other lines, as in this: Trindawt ffawt ffer, Tref nef niuer, gwarder gwirdat; Trech wyt no neb, Trwy dawn atteb, treidwn attat. [O Trinity, steadfast blessing, home of a company of heaven, gentleness of the true father, you are mightier than anyone; through the gift of a response, let us approach you.] §76. After this, four other metres were devised, namely, byr a thoddaid (short and melted), gwawdodyn hir (long little praise-song) and cyhydedd nawban (nine-part equal-length) and clogyrnach (clifflike). §77. Byr a thoddaid (short and melted) is made up of first a long line of sixteen syllables, like a part of the fully rhymed englyn, and then as many short lines of eight syllables each as is desired, and then a long line of sixteen syllables, like the first, and it is maintained thus until the end, as in this awdl:

Y Gwr a’m rodes rinyeu—ar dafawt, Ac ar wawt ac eiryeu, A’m trosses y gyffes nyt geu, A’m trosso y’r trossed goreu, Y guryaw gorwisc vyg grudyeu, Y garu mb Duw diameu; Y gymryt penyt rac poeneu—vffern Ac affeith bechodev. [Let the man who gave me secrets and words verbally and in song, and converted me to confession not deceit, convert me to the greatest virtue: to wear away the covering of my cheeks, to love the indisputable son of God, to take penance against the pains of hell, and against the consequence of sins.] §78. Gwawdodyn hir (long little praise-song) is made up of short lines of nine syllables, and a long line of nineteen syllables of the same type as the other gwawdodyn, except that there are as many short lines in it as is desired, like this: Gwan yawn wyf o glwyf yr gloyw uorwyn, Gwae a uaeth hiraeth, brif aruaeth brwyn, Gwyr vyg kallon donn defnyd vyg kwyn, Gwnn ar vyrr y tyrr kynn bo terwyn, Am na daw y law y lwyn—a bwyllaf; A garaf attaf, atteb adfwyn. [I am very weak from illness because of a bright maiden. Great misery feeds longing, the chief purpose of sorrow. My shattered heart knows the substance of my grievance; I know that it will soon break, though it is strong, because the one

whom I’m thinking of will not come to hand, to the grove; what I love to receive [is] a gentle answer.] §79. (GP, p. 11) Cyhydedd nawban (nine-part equal-length) is made up of entirely short lines of nine syllables each, like this: Wrthyt, greawdyr byt, bit vyg gobeith, Wrthyf byd drugar hywar hyweith, [Y’th] argae neut gwae, nyt gwael y gweith, Y’th archaf dangnef, keinllef kannlleith, Wrth hynny, Duw vry, urenhin pob ieith, Wrth dynyon gwylon y bo goleith. [Let my hope, creator of the world, be for you; be merciful, gentle, docile towards me; your enclosure [i.e. earth] has sorrow, [but] the work is not wretched. I ask for peace, beautiful cry, and calm. For this, God above, prince of every people, let there be an escape for humble people.] And it is maintained thus to the end. §80. Clogyrnach (cliff-like) is made up of two short lines of eight syllables each, answering each other, and a long line of sixteen syllables; and within that there are three short lines, two of five syllables each, and answering each other in different rhymes than the first two lines, and another short line of six syllables, with the third syllable of it answering the two previous short lines, and the end-rhyme of that line answers the two first lines, and the main rhyme is maintained by those ones, as in this awdl: Y bareu arueu aruoloch, Y bebyll, y byll, y ball co[c]h,

Amyl ywch veird y vud, emrych llys nyw llud, Emys rud ruthyr gwyduoch. [His spears (frightening arms), his tents, his clothes, his red cloak, his wealth [are] abundant to you, bards; the emperor of the court does not withhold [from you], bay steeds, whose rush is like that of wild pigs.] And that mode is called ‘Cynddelw’s style’. §81. Einion Offeiriad conceived of three other metres, namely, hir a thoddaid (long and melted), cyrch a chwtta (marksman and clipped) and tawddgyrch gadwynog (chained liquefying-marksman). §82. Hir a thoddaid (long and melted) is made up of four short lines of ten syllables each, and a long line of twenty syllables, like this: Gwynuyt gwyr y byt oed uot Agharat, Gwenvun, yn gyuun a’e gwiwuawr garyat; Gwannllyn a’m llud hun, hoendwc barablat; Gwynlliw eiry divriw, divrist ymdeithyat; Gwenn dan eur wiwlenn, ledyf edrychyat—gwyl, [Yw v’annwyl]3 yn y hwyl, heul gymeryat [It would be the delight of the men of the world that Angharad, fair maiden, should be in union with her great and worthy beloved; [her] slender figure impedes my sleep, her speech steals away joy; the white colour of the snow on an untrodden path; white beneath the gold of a handsome mantle; melancholy, modest appearance is my dear one in her journey, sunny character.]

§83. Cyrch a chwtta (marksman and clipped) is made up of six short lines of seven syllables each, and a long line of fourteen syllables with a marksman word in it, like this: Llithrawd, ys rannawd is rat, Llathyrgof ynof annyat; Lloer Gymry, gymreist dyat, Llwyr y gwnaeth, mygyr aruaeth mat, Lleas gwas, gwys nas dywat, Lliaws geir hynaws garyat, Lledyfgein riein llyn meinwar, Lliw llewychgar Agharat. [It slipped away, what she gave me as a gift (shining, morose memory in me); the moon of the Welsh, you took [its] form; she accomplished it completely, [with] splendid, happy intention: [the] slaughter of a young lad (a summons that he does not reject) [with] many sweet words of love, O modest and beautiful maiden with a slender and warm figure; bright, shining colour, Angharad] §84. Tawddgyrch gadwynog (chained liquefying-marksman) is made up of long couplets of sixty-four4 syllables in each one, and within that couplet there are four long lines of sixteen syllables each. And (GP, p. 12) within each long line are three short lines, two of four syllables each, and another line of eight syllables. And the first two short lines of the first long line each answer each of the first two short lines of the second long line, namely, the first to the first, the second to the second, and the fourth syllable of the last short eight-syllable line answers the second short line, and the first four short lines of the last two long lines answer each other, and the end-rhymes of each of the four long lines answer each other. And it is not necessaray to answer

more than the four-line couplet unless it is wished, except it is necessary that there should be linking words from the end of that couplet to the beginning of the other, and the end of the whole poem answers the first word at the start. And this mode is taken from the Latin mode, as in this awdl: Amdy[g]ant5 y ueird, vyrdeu dramwy Dramawr ofwy, ofec hael Nud; Hoewon a heird gan hard uackwy Vydant wy rwy o’e ra a’e rud. Arueu pybyr, eruei dymyr, Aruawc vrehyr a’r gwyr gwaewrud: Aryal milwyr, eireu myuyr, Eryr ryswyr, Rys ap Gruffud. [His visiting bards surround [his] tables, a very long visit, [with] the intent of generous Nudd; lively and beautiful because of [the] beautiful young man, they are in abundance of his fur and his purple [clothing]; [with] valiant arms [in] splendid lands, armed nobleman with his red-speared men, [with the] ferocity of soldiers [but with] erudite words, [the] eagle-warrior, Rhys ap Gruffudd.] The cywydd §85. Up to this point the two first branches of poetry have been discussed, namely, englynion and awdlau. Now let the third branch be discussed, namely, the cywydd, and its metres and its designs. There are three types of cywydd, the two-line cywydd and the awdl-cywydd and the tailed cywydd. There are two kinds of two-line cywydd, the long twoline cywydd and the short two-line cywydd. The long two-line cywydd is made up of seven syllables in each of the two lines, like this: Breichffyryf, archgrwn, byrr y vlew,

Llyfyn, llygatrwth, pedreindew. [Short-legged, round-bodied, short his fur; smooth, wideeyed, [with] fat hindquarters.] And it is maintained thus until the end. §86. The short two-line cywydd is made up four syllables in each line of the two, like this: Hard-dec riein, Hydwf, glwysgein, Hoewne gwanec, Huan debec, Hawd dy garu, Heul yn llathru. [Beautiful fair maiden, well-grown, pleasant, the bright colour of a wave, similar to sunshine; [it is] easy to love you, O shining sun] §87. The awdl-cywydd is made up of fourteen syllables, with a marksman word in it, and the same rhyme is throughout the whole cywydd, like this: O gwrthody, liw ewyn, Was diuelyn gudynneu, Yn diwladeid, da y len, A’e awen yn y lyfreu, Kael itt vilein aradyrgaeth Yn waethwaeth y gynnedueu.

[If you reject, O colour of seafoam, a young man of unyellow locks; refined, good his learning, and his poetic inspiration in his books, [then] you will have a peasant, bound to the plough, his traits [getting] worse and worse.] §88. (GP, p. 13) The tailed cywydd is made up of a couplet, or tercet, or quatrain, of eight syllables each, and a tail-line after it of seven syllables; and the whole cywydd is supported by the end-rhyme of that line, as in: Lluwch eiry manot mynyd Mynneu Lluoed a’th uawl, gwawl gwawr deheu, Llathyrlun goleu Oleudyd; Lliuawd vy hoen o boen beunyd, Lludyawd ym hun llun bun lloer byt, Lletryt, nyt bywyd, a’m byd. [O snow-drift of fine snow on the Alps, multitudes praise you, bright dawn of the south, comely figure of bright Goleudydd. She has harrowed my complexion with daily pain; the figure of a girl, moon of the earth, denied me sleep; sorrow, not life, will be mine] And it is supported by that rhyme up to the end. Poetic faults §89. Now, as the discussion about the three branches of poetry, namely englynion and cywyddau and awdlau, has concluded, it is right hereafter to discuss the faults and the errors which should be avoided in every praiseworthy poetic art.

§90. There can be faults in three places, namely, in the linkages and the cynghanedd and the rhymes, and together with those, in the meaning and the sense and the design. The linkages are in the beginning of the words and lines, and the cynghanedd in the middle, and the rhymes at the end. Every deceptive rhyme and every deceptive linkage and every deceptive cynghanedd is a fault and an error in a poem. §91. It is a fault in a poem for singular and plural to be together in it, as if one said ugeinwr [twenty man], when one ought to say ugeinwyr [twenty men]. §92. It is a fault in a poem to have masculine and feminine together, as if one said gwreic kryf [strong woman] or gwr kref [strong man] when one ought to say gwr cryf [strong man] and gwreic cref [strong woman]. §93. Presence and absence is a fault, and that happens in two ways. One is when two different persons are put together in a sentence, as if one said mi a wyr prydu [I knows (3 sg) how to compose poetry], when one ought to say mi a wnn brydu [I know (1 sg) how to compose poetry]. The other is when two different tenses are put together in a sentence, as if one said mi a brydaf, pei gwypwn y bwy [I will compose poetry (fut.), if I knew (impf.) to whom], when one ought to say mi a brydwn, pei gwypwn y bwy [I would compose poetry (cond.), if I knew to whom (impf.)]. §94. Heavy and light is a fault in a poem, namely, one rhyme being heavy and the other light. Here is a rule to recognise heavy and light, namely to pluralise the word and to lengthen it. Just as it would be a fault not to know what kallon [heart] is, whether it is heavy or light, let it be pluralised and say kallonneu [hearts], and because heaviness is in the word after pluralisation, so heaviness will be in the word before pluralisation. And just as with that, if it is not known what

amkan [goal] is, whether it is heavy or light, let it be pluralised and say amkaneu [goals], and because it is light there, it is light in the first instance. And from this rule it is known what an unclear syllable is, whether it is one syllable or two, as in bygwl [fear]. Let it be pluralised, which is said bygylu [fears], and since that is trisyllabic, the other is disyllabic. And if bagyl [crozier] is pluralised, and it is said bagleu [croziers], since bagleu is disyllabic, because of this, bagyl is monosyllabic, since there should only be one more syllable in the pluralised word than in the un-pluralised word. §95. Declining and compact is a fault in a poem, one syllable being declining, and the other compact. §96. (GP, p. 14) Half-rhyme and full rhyme is a fault in an englyn, the one part of the englyn being fully rhymed, and the other half-rhymed. §97. It is a fault in an englyn for there to be more rhymes in it than four, unless it is a long englyn, with the metre of two or three englynion upon it. §98. It is a fault in an englyn for there to be the same word twice in it, unless it is there three times, unless sorrow or importunity of love is an excuse for it; sorrow, as in this englyn: Gwrthrych eurgreir peir pendeuic—yd wyf Y gan Duw gwynuydic, Hir y lygat, Loeger odric, A wrthrych, deigyr hywlych dic. [I look upon the golden treasure of a noble lord from blessed God, it is long for the eye, abiding in England that looks, wet tears of grief.]

§99. Importunity of love, as in this englyn: Gwenn dan eur wiwlenn, ledyf edrychyat—gwyl, Y gweleis Agharat, A gwann o bryt, erwan brat, Y’m gwyl gwylwar Agharat. [I saw Angharad, fair beneath the gold of a handsome mantle, humble, modest appearance; and weak of appearance (piercing betrayal), modest and gentle Angharad sees me.] §100. It is a fault in an englyn for praise and satire to be together in it, as if it were said ‘a fair, noble, unchaste woman’. §101. It is a fault in a fully rhymed englyn to be ‘overtaken by hoof’, that is this, for each of the two short lines to be multisyllabic, as in this englyn: Pei prynwn seithpwn sathyrgruc—o’th oleu, Pedoleu pwyll gaduc, Mangre grawnuaeth, saeth saethuc, Mein a’e nad yn Hiraduc. [If I were to buy seven pounds of trampled heaps on your behalf, [and] horseshoes, intending to hide [them], [in] a place fed on grain, [it would be like] a useless arrow, stones will grind them in Hiraddug.] §102. It is a fault in a fully rhymed englyn to be ‘ape’s rear’, that is this, for each of these two short lines to be monosyllabic, as in this englyn: Gwann yawn o nwyf a naws anhun—gwael

Am dyn gwyl gwedeidlun; Gwenn a gloyw a hoyw y hun, Gwynuyt gwyr y byt yw bun. [I am very weak from the feeling and mood of wretched sleeplessness over a modest, shapely woman; fair and bright and lively herself; a woman is the delight of the men of the world.] And accordingly, it is necessary that the one rhyme is monosyllabic, and the other is polysyllabic. §103. Long and short is a fault in every poem, that is this, one word being too long, and the other too short. §104. Every break in metre is a fault, and every false meaning, and every irrelevance, and a lack of spirit and design of pleasant thought. §105. The greatest fault in a poem is that lack of verb in it, since the spirit and the meaning and the sense of every sentence is the verb, as in this englyn lacking a verb: Kyrnic llymm trychit, llamm trwch,—ysgerigyl, Tut erthygyl, tat erthwch, Kyrn dyrn deirnwern, kern keirnvwch. Karn, sarn, darn, dwrd, corn hwrd, hwch. [Horned, sharp, castrated, [with] a large stride, [horns like] bowls; earth-knuckle, father of grumbling, [his] horns [like] knobs of pieces of alder-wood, the side of [his] head [like a] horned buck; [his] hoof-step part of a commotion, horn of a ram [or a] boar.]

§106. It is not a fault in an englyn for someone else to have an englyn that is better than it, since not every one can be equally good. And therefore, if there is an englyn without one of the legitimate faults above, it is adjudged to be good, although another is adjudged (GP, p. 15) to be better, and a third best of all, according to the three grades of comparison which were mentioned above. §107. If there is a song with two senses or two meanings in it, one good and the other bad, if it is a praise poem, it is judged according to the good meaning, if it is a satire, it is judged according to the bad meaning, because no one praises the bad, and no one satirises the good. And if the poem has two good meanings in it, or two bad, let it be judged according to that which best suits the sentence that follows, unless the will of the composer is generally known to be the opposite. On praise §108. Now, it is necessary to know how to praise each thing about which one wishes to compose praise poetry. There are two things about which praise poetry should be composed, namely, holy things and corporeal things; holy things, like God and the saints; corporeal things, like a person, or a beast, or a place. §109. God should be praised for divinity, and strength, and complete wealth, and complete wisdom, and complete generosity, and complete mercy, and truth, and correctness of judgements, and generosity, and majesty, and glory, and heavenliness, and righteous love, and piety, and sanctity, and creative power, and fatherhood, and holiness, and honour, and heavenly fairness, and every honourable holy thing. §110. Mary is praised for her virginity, and her purity, and her chastity, and her piety, and her sanctity, and her heavenly fairness, and her mercy, and her glory, and her generosity, and her honour, and her way of life,

and her gentleness, and for every other honourable thing for which her Lord Son is praised. §111. The saints are praised for their piety, and their sanctity, and their spiritual strengths, and their miracles, and their fair speech, and their heavenly deeds, and their divine glory, and for other honourable holy things. §112. There are two kinds of person that should be praised, man and woman. There are two kinds of man, the religious man and the secular man. There are two kinds of secular man, the layman and the cleric. There are two kinds of cleric, prelates and subjects. §113. Prelates, like a bishop or an archbishop, are praised for their wisdom, and their prudence, and their skill in administration of the church, and their strength in upholding the laws of the church, and their mercy towards the poor, and their alms, and their prayers, and their holy deeds, and their righteous generosity, and their support of courts, and their mildness, and other honourable churchly things. §114. Two kinds of subject are praised, parsons and teachers. Parsons are praised for their wisdom, and discretion, and generosity, and nobility, and fairness, and mildness, and the gentility of their manners, and their charity, and merciful activities, and other honourable things. Teachers are praised for their wisdom, and discretion, and the loftiness of their rights, and the canon, and the depths of their genius, and their supremacy in debates, and their mildness, and fairness, and nobility, and generosity, and good manners, and amiability, and other praiseworthy things. §115. (GP, p. 16) Two kinds of laymen are praised, the lord and the nobleman. The lord is praised for power, and ability, and military prowess, and courage, and strength, and pride, and gentleness, and

wisdom, and discretion, and generosity, and clemency, and kindness towards his men and his companions, and fairness of appearance, and beauty of body, and nobility of thought, and greatness of deeds, and other delightful honourable things. The nobleman is praised for bravery, and courage, and strength, and power, and correctness to his lord, and wisdom, and discretion, and generosity, and pleasantness, and handsomeness of body, and genealogy, and other praiseworthy things. §116. The religious man is praised for religion, and sanctity, and purity of life, and divine thoughts, and spiritual strengths, and merciful activities, and the generosity of his charity for God, and for other heavenly, spiritual things which pertain to God and the saints. §117. Three kinds of woman are praised: the noblewoman, and the maiden, and the religious woman. The noblewoman is praised for wisdom, and discretion, and chastity, and generosity, and fairness of appearance and shape and form, and prudence of expression and activities. And it does not pertain to praise the noblewoman out of lust and love, since love poetry does not pertain to her. The maiden is praised for appearance, and fairness, and discretion, and prudence, and praiseworthiness, and genealogy, and modesty, and dearness, and lust and love pertain to her. And the boy is praised in the same way. The religious woman is praised for sanctity, and chastity, and purity of live, and other godly things, like the religious man. [Note on minstrelsy from Llanstephan 36] §118. [It does not pertain to the professional poet to involve himself in minstrelsy, despite the custom of it, since it is contrary to the crafts of the professional poet. For it pertains to the minstrel to satirise, and dishonour, and to make lies and shame, and it pertains to the professional poet to praise, and honour, and to make fame, and joy, and glory.

§119. And accordingly, minstrelsy cannot be classified, since it is an unclassifiable craft, and therefore, let not the professional poet involve himself in it. It does pertain, however, to the professional poet to involve himself in the poetry of the household bard, and to adjudicate it, since it is a classifiable craft, and it falls within the discipline of professional poetry. Where the professional poet praises, it does not pertain to believe the satire of a minstrel, since the panegyric of the professional poet should be stronger than the satire of the minstrel. §120. Charms, and divination, and games of magic: it does not pertain to the professional poet to engage in them, nor to practise them. Old poetry, and written stories, and questions of wonder and excellent answers according to art and truth: it is good for the professional poet to know them in order to converse with the wise, and to entertain young women, and to delight noble men and women. Since professional poetry is a part of natural wisdom, and it derives from the Holy Spirit, and its awen is taken from ingenuity and customary art. §121. And here are the spiritual strengths which pertain to the professional poet, namely, obedience, and lawful generosity, and chastity, and spiritual love, and moderation of food and drink, and gentleness, and to be without godly weakness, those things which are opposed to the seven deadly sins, namely pride, and arrogant jealousy, and miserliness, and adultery, and gluttony, and anger, and sloth, those which weaken the body, and kill the spirit, and degrade the awen of poetry, and cause the senses to grow dim.] Triads Metrical and syntactic faults

§122. There are three common faults in a poem: a break in metre, a bad meaning and a false sentence. §123. There are three breaks in metre: deceptive rhyme and long and short and excess of rhyme. §124. There are three bad meanings: praise and satire together and irrelevance and lack of verb. §125. There are three types of false sentence: singular and plural, masculine and feminine, presence and absence. §126. There are three distinctive faults in a poem: heavy and light, declining and compact, half-rhyme and full rhyme. Syllables and diphthongs §127. There are three kinds of declining: nodding-declining and strongdeclining and liquefying-declining. §128. There are three diphthong syllables in a poem: the compact diphthong and the declining diphthong and the straying diphthong. §129. There are three mixed diphthongs: the compact-declining diphthong and the strong-declining diphthong and the liquefying-declining diphthong. §130. There are three rare syllables of poetry: the compact-declining diphthong and the tailed diphthong and the deaf declining. §131. There are three strong syllables of poetry: the deaf syllable and the liquefying-declining syllable and the heavy-declining syllable.

§132. There are three strange diphthongs: the strange diphthong and vowel in front of vowel and the straying diphthong. Parts of the sentence §133. There are three kinds of sentences in a poem: the perfect sentence and the correct sentence and the adorned sentence. §134. (GP, p. 17) There are three parts of a sentence: noun and pronoun and verb. §135. There are three things that render a sentence imperfect: irrelevance and false meaning and lack of spirit. Behaviour of the poet §136. There are three kinds of poet: the minstrel and the household bard and the professional poet. §137. There are three things that pertain to the minstrel: begging and satirising and reproaching. §138. There are three things that pertain to the household bard: entertainment and generosity and requesting goods in a household without excessively begging for it. §139. There are three things that pertain to the professional poet: praising and entertaining and rejecting satire. §140. There are three things that the professional poet should avoid: drinking, whoring and minstrelsy. §141. There are three things that the professional poet should praise: pleasantness of thought and generosity and poetry.

Faults relating to the characteristics of the poem §142. There are three things that strengthen a poem: depth of meaning and variety of Welsh and excellent design. §143. There are three things that weaken a poem: vulgar design and baseness of meaning and want of Welsh. §144. There are three things that favour a poem: a clear recitation and skilful composition and the authority of the poet. §145. There are three things that disfavour a poem: weak recitation and vulgar design and dishonour of the poet. §146. There are three things that dishonour a poem and that disgrace it: the recitation being untimely and its being sung inappropriately, that is to someone who does not have a right to it and a lack of poets to adjudicate it. §147. There are three things that do not harmonise in a poem: instability and foolishness and lack of poetic skill. §148. There are three things that defend a poem without going against it: the old poetry of the ancient bards and the authority of the new poets and the art of poetry that cannot be gone against. Behaviour of the poet §149. There are three things that make the awen of the poet: skill and custom and art. §150. There are three things that damage the awen of the poet: drunkenness and adultery and dispraise.

§151. There are three things that improve the awen of the poet: poetic debate and merriment and praise. §152. There are three things that a poet should perfect in reciting them to others when he is asked: learning and truth and adjudication of poetry. §153. There are three things which a poet should not trust: the satire of a minstrel where a poet praises, since praise-poetry ought to be more powerful than the satire of a minstrel; the second thing that he should not trust that a praiseworthy, authoritative poet could have sung an erroneous poem, since it is pure chance to have a reciter who recites a poem exactly as the poet might sing it; the third that he should not trust is something that is impossible according to learned men, like that one should not wash oneself on Friday, or wash one’s head on Wednesday, since learned men do not prohibit either of those. §154. Three things are prohibited to the poet: an error in adjudicating poetry and telling a lie in his teaching and ill-nature. §155. There are three things that glorify the poet: honouring him and praising his poem and the gifts of noblemen. §156. There are three things that shame a poet: dishonouring him and dispraise of his poem and refusing him. §157. There are three things essential to a poet: readiness of speech to recite a poem and consideration of poetry lest it be faulty and confidence to answer that which is asked of him. §158. There are three things that should be abundant with the poet: knowledge of stories and poetry and old poetry.

§159. There are three things that degrade a poet: nakedness and want of poetry and that he be unknown. §160. There are three things that honour a poet: clothing and authority and confidence. §161. There are three things that are love and praise to a poet: generosity and pleasantness and praising good people. §162. There are three things that are hateful [to a] poet: miserliness and dishonesty and satirising good people.

Notes on the translation

Letters §1 All the other letters are consonants, since they sound together with the vowels (Y llythyr ereill oll yssyd gytseinanyeit, kanys kytseinyaw a’r bogalyeit a wnant): The Welsh word for consonant is a calque of the Latin (cyd ‘together’ for Latin con and seinio ‘sound’ for sonant), and so it translates literally ‘together-sound’. The figura etymologica created by the noun cytseinanyeit (consonants) and the verb kytseinyaw (sound together) does not fully translate into English. liquefying letters (lythyr tawd): Thomas Charles-Edwards has shown that the term tawd comes from Latin liquidae, although the category described in the Welsh grammars is in fact the larger category of semivocales.1 While he translates these as ‘liquid letters’, he makes the important point that they are so called not because they themselves ‘liquefy’ in verse, but because they cause the liquefication of the epenthetic vowel.2 The translation of tawdd is literally ‘melting, liquefying’; I have opted for ‘liquefying’ (which Charles-Edwards uses for the verbal form discussed under §2, below), in order to capture something of Latin liquidae, but it should be understood in an active sense, i.e. ‘letters that cause liquefication’ and not ‘letters that

dissolve’ (see discussion under §2, below). The word tawdd is related to, but distinct from toddaid (see discussion under §69, below). mute letters (lythyr mut): This category overlaps completely with Latin mutae. My translation therefore corresponds with the translation offered in Charles-Edwards, ‘Litterae’, pp. 150–2. §2 cause liquefication (todi): As noted above, the verb todi, which gives us the adjective tawd, should be understood in an active sense, ‘to cause liquefication’, and not a passive one, ‘to liquefy’. In this case, surrounding ‘liquefying’ letters cause epenthetic vowels to liquefy, or dissolve (i.e. in the example word mydyr, the d and r are ‘liquefying’ letters, and so they cause the y to liquefy, such that the word is written mydr – the liquefying letters d and r do not themselves liquefy or dissolve). §3 from two compact syllables they make one declining (gwneuthur o dwy sillaf talgron vn ledyf): lledyf and talgron are among the most difficult words to translate in the bardic grammars, but they are the most essential to understand, as they form the basis for the whole system of syllables and diphthongs and some of the rules of prosody. According to GPC, lleddf can mean ‘declining, slanting, sloping’; in music, it means ‘minor, flat’. In the bardic grammars, the term lleddf on its own is used both to describe a type of diphthong (ae, oe, ei, wy – that is, falling diphthongs), and a type of syllable (syllables containing a lleddf diphthong, or syllables ending in two ‘liquefying’ letters, or syllables ending in a ‘liquefying’ letter, followed by y or w). Lleddf is also used once as the root of the verb goleddfu (see discussion under §10, below). Paul Russell’s translations focus on the qualities of the diphthongs in each type of syllable: he translates sillaf lleddf as ‘containing a falling diphthong’, concomitant with the sillaf dalgron as ‘containing a rising diphthong’.3 Thomas Charles-Edwards used ‘sloping’ in his recent chapter on the syllables in the Welsh bardic grammars.4

In the grammars, talgron describes both a type of diphthong (aw, ew, iw, yw, vw – that is, rising diphthongs), and a type of syllable (syllables containing a talgron diphthong, or syllables containing only one vowel). The term talgron comes from the word tâl, meaning ‘forehead’ or ‘end’, and the word crwn, meaning ‘round’ or ‘complete’. There has therefore been a tendency to attempt to explain talgron at least in modern linguistic terms, referring to lip-rounding: ‘rounded’,5 or ‘round at the end’, ‘endround’.6 This makes sense as an (anachronistic) descriptor of the diphthongs, which end in a rounded vowel [u], but not the syllables, which end with a consonant and are not rounded. Charles-Edwards has theorised that the meaning of talgrwn must have been extended from the diphthongs, where it meant end-rounded, to the syllables, where it came to mean something like ‘short’, a later and derivative meaning of crwn.7 Barry Lewis proposed ‘tapering’ for lledyf and describes talgron as ‘abruptly cut off’. According to Lewis, the difference between the two is that talgron syllables ‘come to a neat conclusion’; lledyf syllables do not. Lewis’s brief discussion emphasises the need to move away from the tendency to (mis)apply modern linguistic terminology to medieval Welsh grammatical theory.8 However, ‘abrupt’ implies an interruption of sound that does not necessarily exist in talgron diphthongs or syllables, and ‘tapering’ does not fit with the use of goleduu in §10. My translation of talgron therefore departs from most recent treatments, and instead adopts Ceri Lewis’s proposed suggestion of ‘compact’ (in the same discussion, he suggests ‘neat’, which would also do).9 I have rendered lledyf as ‘declining’, as it captures the continuation of sound at the end of the word, retains the later musical association with the minor key or flats, and accounts for the verbal form in §10. It also serves as a counterpoint to ‘compact’. All that said, this is not the final word on the subject, and in secondary literature the Welsh terms lledyf and talgron are likely to be preserved. ‘Compact and declining’ are offered here merely for ease of reading in English.

when its syllables are counted (pan sillauer): In modern Welsh, sillafu translates as ‘spelling’; it can also mean ‘to form syllables’ or ‘to syllabify’. In this text, however, it seems to refer to a practice of syllabic scansion or analysis performed on a metrical poem after its composition. For more discussion, see p. 75. §5 &: This symbol is discussed in Charles Edwards, ‘Litterae’, pp. 157–8. It stands for Latin et. aspiration (ucheneit): From Latin nota … aspirationis ‘symbol of aspiration’.10 This corresponds to English ‘aspiration’. Syllables §6 collection of a multitude of letters together (kynnulleitua lliaws o lythyr y gyt): This definition is echoed in the definition of the sentence (see below under §42). Kynnulleitua ‘collection’ and related forms occur a number of times as different grammatical terms throughout the bardic grammars. See notes on collection [of things] under §34. §10 declines (goleduu): This is the verbal form of lledyf, combined with the prefix go-, meaning ‘rather, somewhat, a little’. The translation here has been selected in order to reflect the relationship with lledyf (see discussion under §3, above). It expresses the notion that the vowels a, o, e, w ‘decline’ or ‘slope’ towards the vowel i or y. This is remarkably similar to the linguistic categorisation of these diphthongs as ‘falling’, but it would be anachronistic to apply this terminology to the medieval Welsh conception of diphthongs.

nodding-declining (penngamledyf): I have taken most of the innovative compounds in the section on syllables and diphthongs to be copulative compounds (of the dvanda type); that is, they are ‘words which have the same syntactical function but are not linked by a connecting particle’.11 This means that both adjectives (penngam ‘nodding, lit. with a bent head’ and ledyf ‘declining’) equally modify the implied sillaf ‘syllable’. The syllable is nodding (or has a ‘bent head’), because one of its vowels ‘nods’ towards the other, but taken as a whole, the syllable falls under the ‘declining’ category. Although penngamledyf is a subtype of ledyf, penngam does not modify or change the basic meaning of ledyf in this compound. As such, I have hyphenated the two terms in the English translation to suggest their equivalent value as modifiers. I have translated penngam here as ‘nodding’ so that it works with the verbal form below, and so that it conveys a similar meaning to lledyf ‘declining’: other options could be something like ‘headbent’ or ‘wry-necked’. The term pengamledyf seems to be used specifically to refer to lledyf diphthongs that occur within more complex syllable types, perhaps to distinguish the ledyf diphthong from the lledyf syllable (see §§15, 21, 22 in main text). The difference between penngamledyf and lledyf appears to be that the use of penngamledyf is restricted to a description of the diphthongs ae, oe, ei, wy. nods (penngamu): This word has the same root as penngamledyf. It means essentially the same thing as goleduu ‘declines’ in this sentence. Other translations could include ‘to become wry-necked, to hold one’s head bent, to incline’. §12 liquefying-declining (tawdledyf): Again, in the innovative compounds for syllable terms, I have hyphenated the English terms, with the more restricted category (tawd ‘liquefying’, corresponding with the terminology for the letters discussed in §1, above) preceding the broader category, lledyf ‘declining’.

§14 half-rhyme (proest): I have translated proest as half-rhyme for ease of reading, but it is necessary to clarify what this means. Proest refers specifically to a type of rhyme in which the final consonant(s) of the rhyming words remain the same, but the vowels in their final syllables vary, or in which the final vowels remain the same, but the consonants vary. The variation is somewhat regular: for instance, single vowels cannot form halfrhyme with diphthongs, and diphthongs must be of the same class to form half-rhyme, whether or not they vary (so, lledyf with lledyf, talgron with talgron). Similarly, in order to form proper half-rhyme, the consonants must both be ‘heavy’ or both be ‘light’ – a single consonant cannot form halfrhyme with a double consonants. In poetry, proest is often contrasted with unodl, which I translate as ‘full rhyme’.12 §18 compact-declining diphthong (dipton dalgronledyf): Although this term describes a syllable in which a declining diphthong precedes a compact diphthong, I have translated this term in accordance with the rest of the compounds in this section, with compact preceding declining. §19 strange diphtong (dipton dieithyr): This could also be translated as ‘foreign diphthong’. I have chosen ‘strange’ because neither of the examples given is an obvious loanword; for instance, iwrch ‘roe-deer’ has cognates in Old Cornish (yorch), Old and Middle Breton (iorch, yourc’h) and Gaulish (Iurca). ‘Uncommon’ would also do. The sense is that it is an improper diphthong. §21 strong-declining (dipton gadarnledyf): The same word is used to describe both one of the two defining characteristics of the diphthong, and the

broader category into which it falls. The category label does not reflect the fact that the beginning of the diphthong is nodding-declining. §22 liquefying-declining diphthong (dipton dawdledyf): This compound uses lledyf in its broader meaning, referring both to the nature of the diphthong in the word (which is lledyf ‘declining’ but is explicitly described as bengamledyf ‘nodding-declining’) and to the fact that it ends with a liquefying letter followed by w (according to §12, the third way in which a declining syllable can be formed). §23 deaf-declining (bydarledyf): Another example of the broader use of lledyf. Here, there is no ‘nodding-declining’ diphthong, but it is still ‘declining’ because a liquefying letter follows another liquefying letter (according to §11, the second way in which a declining syllable can be formed; as per §3, the epenthetic vowel is liquefied). §24 tailed diphthong (dipton losgyrnyawc): Here, the ‘tail’ refers to the i that precedes a diphthong (unlike the strange diphthong, in which the i precedes a single vowel). Llosgyrnyawc is also used to refer to a type of cywydd (see notes on §§85, 88). §25 morae (amser): I have translated amser as morae, because it refers to a prosodic feature that also exists in English (the mora is the length of a short syllable, represented in scansion by the breve symbol [˘]). The more general meaning of amser is ‘time’, so something like ‘beat’ might also do – so long as it is understood that a long syllable has double the length of a short one.

heavy-declining (tromledyf): Trom ‘heavy’ refers back to the description of ‘heavy and light’ syllables in §7. The syllable is heavy because it ends in two vowels, but declining because they are both liquefying letters. Parts of a sentence §26 sentence (ymadrawd): This is a difficult word to translate into English. It can mean ‘phrase, statement, speech, utterance, discourse, conversation, language’. Of course, in English, ‘parts of speech’ is the more familiar term, and I contemplated adopting this translation for the sake of its familiarity. However, the word ymadrawd often occurs on its own, outside the set phrase ranneu ymadrawd ‘parts of speech’, and ymadrawd should not be understood in the restricted sense of a verbal utterance, which ‘speech’ on its own might imply. The fact that the bardic grammars refer to the parts of the perfect sentence (ranneu y ymadrawd perffeith) is significant, as it refers to a sentence (ymadrawd) that contains a noun followed by a correctly conjugated verb (see §43). In fact, the omission of a verb in a sentence (ymadrawd) is ‘the greatest fault in a poem’ (§105), which to me suggests a use meaning specifically a grammatical sentence, rather than speech or statement or linguistic expression more broadly. We might also understand it as ‘syntax’, taken in a more general sense rather than a technical linguistic one. It might be compared to Middle English reason.13 §27 substance (kedernit): This is the nominal form of cadarn ‘strong’. I have translated it as ‘substance’ to reflect its association with the Latin term substantia, of which it is probably a translation. This is in accordance with the third definition listed in GPC, s.v. cadernid, although this usage seems to be confined to the bardic grammars and texts derived from them.

composite (kyfanswdedic): The Welsh word also has a grammatical sense, meaning ‘compound’; however, here it clearly refers to the corporeal nature of man, tree, stone, which are made up of different physical elements. §29 common (galwedic): Literally, ‘called, named, summoned’, from the verb galw ‘to call’. In a grammatical sense, defined as ‘common noun, appellative’. The grammatical usage appears to be confined to the bardic grammars in the medieval period. §30 simple (odidawc): Literally ‘of unusual worth, wonderful, splendid’; in a grammatical sense, ‘simple, uncompounded’. The grammatical usage appears to be confined to the bardic grammars in the medieval period. compound (kyuansodedic): This is the grammatical use of this term (cf. the note under §27, above). It is an adjectival derivation of the verb cyfansoddi, which was widely used throughout the medieval period. base form (kysseuinawl): This could also be translated as ‘first, original, primitive’. The sense is essentially ‘not derived’; it is the base form of the word, without any additional compounds or endings added onto it. It could also be translated as ‘radical’, but I have selected ‘base form’.14 llathyr/llathreit (bright): note that eit is the adjectival ending, but both words are adjectives and have the same meaning, which is why they are both translated as ‘bright’.15 §31 weak noun (henw gwann): this refers to adjectives. The description of the adjective as a noun-adjective or ‘weak noun’ in contrast to the nounsubstantive or henw kadarn ‘strong noun’ is a ‘traditional medieval classification’.16 I have kept the translation as ‘weak noun’ in order to

maintain the logic of the Welsh text, even though the terminology is less familiar in English. §34 collection [of things] (kynnulleitua): I have translated this word as ‘collection [of things]’. The phrase ‘collection [of things]’ preserves the figura etymologica with collective noun (henw unic kynnulledic). However, I have added [of things], which does not appear in the original Welsh, to better reflect the sense of the word, so that ‘collection’ is understood as ‘a multitude of objects, beings, etc.’ rather than ‘the act of collecting’. §35 intransitive (ryd): literally, ‘free’. In the section on verbs, I have generally taken the technical grammatical sense of the word, wherever possible. I indicate more common usage in the notes. transitive (erchuynedic): from erchyrfynu, literally, ‘to penetrate, pierce, enter, invade’. §36 indicative (managedic): from mynegu, ‘to express, utter, tell, show, explain’. imperative (archedic) from erchi, ‘to request, demand, order’. optative (damunedic) from dymuno, ‘to wish for, desire’. This corresponds to Latin optatiuus which is also the third mood listed in the Latin Excerptiones.17 conditional (amodedic) from amodi, ‘to promise, agree, set conditions or terms’.

prayerful (gwediedic): There is no obvious or familiar technical translation for this verbal mood. It derives from gweddïo, ‘to pray’, and the example sentence in the grammars, addressed to God, suggests that this is the precise sense in which the gwediedig mood is used. GPC defines gwediedic as ‘optative’; similarly, Matonis writes that gwediedic is a ‘supplementary clarification’, a ‘second term’, or a ‘second explanation’ of the optative mood or damunedic.18 However, the gwediedic and the damunedic moods are clearly distinct in both function and conception, as gwediedic is considered to be a form of the imperative, and not related to damunedic. There is no corresponding Latin term for gwediedic; it may be an innovation of the compiler of the grammar in the Red Book (it does not appear in other versions of the bardic grammars). In any case, I have retained the term ‘optative’ for damunedic, and have translated gwediedic as ‘prayerful’. §38 pluperfect (mwy no pherffaith): The Welsh translates literally to ‘more than perfect’. Because this section generally keeps to translations of the technical Latin grammatical terminology, I have translated this term using the technical English grammatical terminology. §39 false sentence (kam ymadrawd): The word kam literally means ‘crooked, bent, wrong, false, evil’. In the bardic grammars, it generally refers to a syntactic or metrical error. In this specific instance, it describes a syntactic error in which subject-noun and verb disagree in person or in number. §42 collection of a multitude of words together (kynnulleitua lliaws o eireu y gyt): This definition echoes the definition of the syllable in §6. For other grammatical uses of the word kynnulleitua ‘collection’ and related forms, see also notes under §34.

§44 singular and plural, presence and absence, masculine and feminine (unic na lluossawc, gwyd nac absen, gwrwf na benw): These are the names of specific poetic faults (see §§91–3). Figures §45 an assembly of part and the whole (ymgynnull rann a chwbyl): The word ymgynnull has the same root as the words for collective noun and collection (see above note under §34). In later copies of the bardic grammars, this term was glossed as synecdoche, syllepsis and possibly synthesis (see discussion on pp. 208–12). In this translation, I have avoided using technical Latin rhetorical terms in this section, as there is no definite one-toone correspondence between the Latin terms and the Welsh. This figure of speech is particular to a type of phrase that occurs in Welsh in which one noun (the kwbyl ‘whole’) possesses or governs another (the rann ‘part’), which is described by an adjective. The adjective ought to agree in gender with the ‘part’ that it describes and precedes, but instead it agrees with the ‘whole’ that it follows. One of the examples given is gwr gwynn y law ‘a man (m.), white (m.) his hand (f.)’. It is the hand, a feminine noun, that is white, and so white ought to be feminine as well; however, white agrees with man, a masculine noun. §46 a display of praise or shame (ardangos molyant neu waratwyd): In later copies of the bardic grammars, this was glossed as synecdoche. Similar to the figure described above, this describes a type of phrase in Welsh in which a singular noun (also called the kwbyl ‘whole’) possesses or governs a plural noun (also called the rann ‘part’), which is described by an adjective. The adjective ought to be plural, in order to agree with the ‘part’ it describes and precedes, but instead it is singular, and agrees with the

‘whole’ that it follows. One of the examples given is gwr du y lygeit ‘a man (sg.) black (sg.) his eyes (pl.)’. The eyes are black, and so the adjective black ought to be pluralised; however, black is singular, and agrees with man. This is all to say that the name of this figure makes less sense than the previous one; the name is drawn from the role of the adjective in the phrase, which apparently displays praise or shame (yn arwydockau molyant neu waratwyd). The adjectives given as examples are du ‘black’ and gwenn ‘white’, so it is possible there is some sort of moral implication being made – but it is unrelated to the function of the figure, so the title is slightly puzzling. In the Peniarth 20 version of the grammar, the quaifier ‘of praise or shame’ is omitted, and the figure is only called ‘a display’ (ardangos).19 §47 summoning (ymoralw): This is omitted in the Red Book of Hergest, presumably in error (the introductory statement in this section promises three figures but lists two). I have inserted the version from Llanstephan 3. ymoralw is a verb meaning ‘to call (out), shout, summon; to ask, inquire, contemplate’. This definition suggests that early modern translations of ymoralw as evocatio may be closer to the mark than the other two figures; however, as above, I have eschewed technical rhetorical Latin vocabulary. §48 colours (lliwiau): In spite of the non-Latinate descriptions of the rhetorical figures above, this is probably a translation of Latin colores rhetorici. For discussion, see p. 49. Metre §49 versification (prydyat): The nominal form of the verb prydu, which can mean either ‘to compose poetry, to versify’ or more specifically ‘to praise in poetry’. I have translated it here as ‘versification’ both to distinguish it from

professional poetry (prydydyaeth), a related but not identical term, and to reflect its relationship to metre (mydr). It seems as though the two words are being used as a doublet here, and should be understood as essentially synonymous. §50 minstrelsy (klerwryaeth): This refers to the poetry composed by the clerwr (pl. clêr), the lowest-status poets in medieval Wales. It is thought that they would have been itinerant entertainers, perhaps comparable to a jongleur (this is the definition adopted in Morfydd Owen’s translation of the triads, for instance, in ‘Welsh triads: an overview’, Celtica, 25 (2007), 238). The verb clera, which is not attested until the fourteenth century, means ‘to go on a bardic circuit, to wander’. Unlike the other classes of bard, the clêr are not defined in the law-texts; the most extensive explanation of their role comes from the bardic grammars themselves, especially the section imported from Llanstephan 3 (§§118–21). household poetry (teulwryaeth): This refers to the poetry composed by the teuluwr or bardd teulu ‘household bard’. The bardd teulu is defined in the medieval Welsh law tracts as one of the twenty-four officers of the king’s court.20 professional poetry (prydydyaeth): This refers to the poetry composed by the prydydd ‘professional poet’, the highest rank of poet named in the bardic grammars, and the one to whom the most rigorous standards of composition and conduct are applied. The prydydd is sometimes thought to be equivalent to the pencerdd ‘chief poet’, defined in some versions of the law tracts as the highest ranking poet in the king’s court, and in two versions it is suggested that his rank is a result of having won a chair (perhaps in an eisteddfod?). The reality was probably more complex: Dafydd Jenkins has argued that the pencerdd was a position in the independent bardic order rather than the court, and that it evolved over time.21 Whether or not we take prydydd as synonymous with pencerdd in

the early period, there was a clear distinction by the time Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan was written. poetic cywyddau (cywydeu kerdwryeid): The adjective kerdwryeid could potentially be translated as ‘musical’, but it is more likely that here it simply means ‘pertaining to the musician/poet/craftsman’ or (somewhat redundantly) ‘poetic’. There is no suggestion elsewhere in the grammar that the professional poet bears responsibility for the musical accompaniment or performance of his poet, so I am reluctant to introduce it here. §51 englyn (eglyn): A type of stanzaic Welsh metre. This word cannot be translated into English.22 fully rhymed englyn (eglyn vnawdyl): I have translated this englyn as ‘fully rhymed’ to distinguish it from the half-rhymed (proest) englyn (see discussion under §14, above). The literal translation would be more like ‘of the same rhyme’ or ‘monorhymed’, and this would also be accurate. However, it is usually juxtaposed with proest to describe a type of rhyme in which both the end-vowels and the end-consonants of the rhyming syllable are the same (cf. proest, in which the vowels or consonants can vary). englyn of old poetry (eglyn o hen ganyat): ganyat is the nominal form of the verb canu, ‘to sing, to compose poetry’. In other versions of the grammars, the term hengerdd ‘old song/poem/craft’ is used instead of hen ganyat. Compare use of hengerd in §120 (discussed in notes below) and in triads §148 and §158. crooked englyn (eglyn crwcka): crwcka can mean ‘crooked, bent, curved’. Here, the englyn is ‘crooked’ because the positions of the long and short lines are inverted (see §58).

marksman englyn (eglyn kyrch): See discussion of marksman word under §59, below. This refers to a type of englyn that contains a ‘marksman word’ in it. straight fully rhymed englyn (eglyn unawdyl unyawn): The word unyawn has been translated as ‘straight’, in order to juxtapose it with crwcka ‘crooked’. This is the base form of the englyn, in which the long line precedes the short lines, and there is no inversion. §58 line (geir): The word geir can mean ‘word’ (and this is how it is used in the grammatical segments, §6, §16, §20, §26, §§30–4, §§41–2, §§44–6, as well as the introduction to the section on metre §§49–50). It can also mean englyn, verse or line of poetry; it is the latter sense that is intended here. §59 marksman word (geir kyrch): Here, geir is taken to mean ‘word’ (even though it means ‘line of poetry’ earlier in the same sentence). The word kyrch means literally ‘goal, journey, attempt, attack, gang of assaulters, attackers’, related to the verb cyrchu ‘to approach, make for, hunt, attack’. In Welsh poetics, geir kyrch is used to refer to the word at the end of a line in an englyn that rhymes with a word in the middle of the next line. In example §59, the marksman word is iawn ‘true’ in line 3, which rhymes with (or ‘aims at’) the word eigawn ‘ocean’ in line 4. I have translated it as ‘marksman word’ because in §69 in the main text, it is made clear that the geir kyrch is agential, and that it is the word it rhymes with, in the middle of the next line, that is being attacked or aimed at (see note under §69). In this (somewhat fanciful) conception, the word in the middle of the next line (e.g. eigawn) would be the ‘mark’. §60

compact half-rhyme (proest dalgron): This describes both the rhyme scheme of the englyn (see note under §14 for proest ‘half-rhyme’) and the type of syllable or diphthong that bears the rhyme (see §9 in the main text for a description of compact syllables, and §14 for compact diphthongs; see also note under §3). declining half-rhyme (lledyfbroest): This describes both the rhyme scheme of the englyn (see note under §14 for proest ‘half-rhyme’) and the type of syllable or diphthong that bears the rhyme (see §§10–12 in the main text for a description of declining syllables, and §15 for declining diphthongs; see also note under §3). chained half-rhyme (proest gadwynawc): This describes the rhyme scheme of the englyn (see note under §14 for proest ‘half-rhyme’), in which the first and third line rhyme, and the second and fourth. Compare usage for the chained tawddgyrch, discussed below under §81. §69 line (pennill): This word can mean ‘stanza, verse, couplet, line of poetry’. Somewhat confusingly, the same word is used throughout the metrical section to refer both to longer lines, and to subdivisions within these longer lines (so, for instance, in the description of rhupunt in §75, it is made up of three long lines of twelve syllables, which are then sub-divided into ‘lines’ of 4/4/4 syllables). toddaid (melted) word (geir todeit): The word toddaid ‘melted’ is probably related to tawdd ‘liquefying’ (discussed above under §1). It derives from the verb toddi ‘to melt, liquefy’ and the adjectival ending -aid. I have translated it as ‘melted’, although this usage is not attested outside a grammatical context until the eighteenth century. Although it is used to describe a word that occurs in the same position as the marksman word (§59) (i.e. at the end of a line, following the main rhyme), the meaning is slightly different;

unlike the marksman word, the toddaid word does not have to rhyme with a word in the middle of the following line. aimed at (gyrcher): This verb is related to kyrch, translated elsewhere as marksman (see note under §59). The verb cyrchu means ‘to approach, make for, hunt, attack’. I have translated gyrcher here as ‘aimed at’ because it is referring to the word with which the marksman word rhymes; the ‘mark’ of the ‘marksman word’. It is the passive conjugation of cyrchu in this sentence that makes it clear that the marksman word is being conceptualised as the thing actively doing the aiming or approaching or attacking, and that the rhyming word in the middle of the next line is the thing being aimed at or approached or attacked. I have used marksman/aimed at as a pair here; something like approacher/approached; attacker/attacked, hunter/hunted, seeker/sought would also do. The range of meaning in the Welsh word means that the English translation will be a little clunky no matter what. §70 awdl (odleu): The word awdl can literally mean ‘rhyme’, but here refers to a type of Welsh metre, and is untranslatable.23 toddaid (todeit) (melted): The word toddaid is probably related to tawdd (discussed above under §1), and may mean something like ‘melted’, although this usage is not attested until the eighteenth century. The metaphor at work here may be that the word ‘melts away’, almost like an epenthetic vowel, so as not to affect the rhyme. gwawdodyn (gwaewdodin) (little praise song): This metrical term combines the word gwawd ‘song of praise, panegyric’, the nominal suffix awd (3) or -od (2), and the diminutive suffix -yn. According to GPC, the form gwaewdodin, which incorporates the element gwaew ‘spear’ is probably fanciful.

cyhydedd hir (kyhyded hir) (long equal-length) and cyhydedd fer (kyhydedd verr) (short equal-length): The word cyhydedd combines the noun hyd ‘length’ with the equative prefix cy, cyf-, and the abstract nominal suffix -edd. rhupunt (rupynt): This word is untranslatable. Although it comes to be translated as ‘jump’, this usage is not attested until the fifteenth century, and GPC notes that it is probably a homonym rather than two valences of the same word. §76 cyhydedd nawban (kyhyded nawbann) (nine-part equal-length): ban can have a number of meanings in Welsh poetics, and refers to basically any subsection of a poem (the poem as a whole, verse, stanza, line of poetry, a part of a line of poetry, a foot and a syllable). Here, it is obviously being used to refer to the syllable count. clogyrnach (clogyrnach) (cliff-like): This term comes from the word clog or clogwrn ‘rock, cliff’ with the adjectival suffix -ach. The third (long) line juts out like a cliff. §81 cyrch a chwtta (kyrch a chwta) (marksman and clipped): In this metre, cyrch refers to the presence of a cyrch ‘marksman’ word (in this example, l. 7 meinwar, which ‘aims at’ l. 8 llewychgar); cwta ‘short, cut short, clipped, succinct’ refers to the short lines. tawddgyrch gadwynog (tawdgyrch gadwynawc) (chained liquefyingmarksman): The proposed translation is uncertain. It’s possible that tawdd means ‘melted, liquefying’ as elsewhere (see discussion of tawdd letters under §1). The next element -gyrch ‘marksman’ may refer to the fact that many short lines end with a word (the ‘marksman word’) that rhymes with a word in the middle of the following line (the word being aimed at; see

discussion under §69). The final word, gadwynog ‘chained’ refers to the interlocking nature of the rhyme scheme. Compare use of chained halfrhyme, discussed above under §60. §85 cywydd (kywyd): A type of Welsh metre; untranslatable. A primary meaning of the word cywydd is ‘harmony’, which might be related to its use as a metrical label.24 long two-line cywydd (kywyd deueir hiryon): As in the description of the englyn, here geir (in the compound deueir, two-line) means line rather than word. See discussion under §58. tailed cywydd (kywyd llosgyrnawc): This type of cywydd is called ‘tailed’ here because of the ‘tail-line’ (see below under §88; compare with the tailed diphthong in §24). llosgyrnawc is the adjectival form of llosgwrn ‘tail’. §88 tail-line (pennill llosgwrn): The distinguishing feature of the tailed cywydd (see above under §85). The word llosgwrn is the base nominal form of llosgyrnawc. Poetic faults §89 linkages (kymeradeu): The translation here is not literal; the noun cymeriad comes from the verb cymryd ‘to take’. I have translated it to reflect the function of the ornamental feature being described, rather than the word itself. cynghanedd (kynghaned): This word cannot be translated into English, though it probably derives from the prefix cyn-, cyf- ‘together’ and the verb

canu ‘to sing’, perhaps meaning something like ‘singing together’. It refers to a rigidly defined, ornamental system of internal rhyme and consonance within a line of Welsh poetry. For more discussion, see p. 105. design (dechymic): Related to dychmygu ‘to imagine, think, plan, devise’. It could also be translated as ‘imagination’ or ‘invention’. §90 deceptive (twyll): The word literally means ‘deception, deceit, fraud’. It is being used adjectivally here. It means essentially ‘defective’, but with the additional connotation that the ornament is defective in a way that is deceptive; the ornament may sound or appear correct, but is actually defective according to the rules set out in the grammar. I am grateful to Barry Lewis for his assistance with this translation. §101 overtaken by hoof (garnymordiwes): from carn ‘hoof’ and ymorddiwes ‘to reach, overtake’. The meaning ‘overreach (of a horse)’ (a type of equestrian injury) is not attested until the sixteenth century. I am not sure what the metaphor is here. As a guess, perhaps the multisyllabic rhyming end-words were felt to have overwhelmed the rest of the poem, or the cadence was like a horse’s trot. §102 ape’s rear (din ab): The translation is straightforward, but once again the metaphor is unclear. By the twelfth century, there is evidence of apes being kept by European noblemen; by the thirteenth, the barbary ape in particular had become a popular pet.25 The rear end of a barbary ape is peculiarly shaped, and sticks out from the rest of the body. Thinking about an englyn in very abstract terms, perhaps the repetition of a monosyllabic word at the end of a line of poetry was felt to stick out like an ape’s rear end.

On praise §118 despite the custom of it (er aruer ohoni): The term aruer here could also be translated as usage, practice, habit, tradition. The use of this word is interesting, as it implies a custom (perhaps a folk or oral custom?) of which the professional poets were well aware, but in which they were not allowed to participate. It also implies that the practice of minstrelsy was a longstanding one – enough that it developed into its own custom or tradition. §119 classifiable (dosparthus) and unclassifiable (anosparthus): These terms are used to distinguish between the poetry of the clêr or minstrels, which is ‘unclassifiable’, and the poetry of the prydyddion, which is ‘classifiable’. The term dosparthus/anosparthus could potentially mean something like orderly/disorderly, arranged/unarranged; however, given the reference to adjudication (barnu) in the same paragraph, and later in triads §146, §152, §154, I suspect that it has a more formal connotation, and refers to a specific practice that took place within the bardic order. Although it is slightly anachronistic to do so, it is tempting to equate the process of classification and adjudication referred to in this section with the description of Dafydd ab Edmwnd’s experience at the Carmarthen eisteddfod of 1451 (see pp. 149–52 for discussion). panegyric (molyangerd): Unlike, for instance, prydydyaeth, which could encompass a number of disparate genres practised by the professional poet, this term refers specifically to praise-poetry, combining the word moliant ‘praise’ with cerdd ‘poem’. §120 old poetry (hengerd): An alternative form of hen ganyat, used both here and in the section on triads. Compare eglyn o hen ganyat, discussed in a

note under §51, and defined in the main text in §§67–8. The form hengerd is also used in triads §148 and §158. awen: The term used for poetic inspiration, the muse, the poetic gift.26

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Notes

Introduction 1.

For instance, Vivien Law’s introductory-level textbook, The History of Linguistics in Europe: From Plato to 1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), contains a chapter on ‘Medieval vernacular grammars’ (pp. 190–209), in which the Welsh texts are not specifically analysed; however, in a short section on secondary reading at the end, students are directed to two articles by Ann Matonis and one by Ceri Lewis (all English-language) (Ann Matonis, ‘The Welsh Bardic Grammars and the Western Grammatical Tradition’, Modern Philology, 79/2 (November 1981), 121–45; Ann Matonis, ‘Problems relating to the composition of the Welsh bardic grammars’, in Ann Matonis and Daniel Melia (eds), Celtic Language, Celtic Culture: A Festschrift for Eric P. Hamp (Van Nuys, CA: Ford & Bailie, 1990), pp. 273–91; Ceri Lewis, ‘Einion Offeiriad and the bardic grammar’, in A. O. H. Jarman and G. R. Hughes (eds), A Guide to Welsh Literature, vol. 2 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997), pp. 44–71) and the edition itself (G. J. Williams and E. J. Jones (eds), Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1934). Hereafter abbreviated as GP). In Reconstructing Alliterative Verse: The Pursuit of a Medieval Meter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 24, 160, n. 11, Ian Cornelius mentions the Welsh grammars briefly in his discussion of vernacular grammatical writing, but directs readers to three articles by Ann Matonis (Ann Matonis, ‘The Concept of Poetry in the Middle Ages: The Welsh Evidence from the Bardic Grammars’, BBCS, 36 (1989), 1–12; Matonis, ‘Problems’; Matonis, ‘The Western Grammatical Tradition’). Douglas Kelly’s The Arts of Poetry and Prose (Turnout: Brepols, 1991) has an appendix on medieval vernacular grammars (pp. 146–79); the Welsh tradition is only ever mentioned in passing, and the reader is directed to Thomas Parry’s 1961 English-language lecture (Thomas Parry, ‘The Welsh Metrical Treatise Attributed to Einion Offeiriad [Sir John Rhŷs Memorial Lecture]’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 47 (1961), 177–95) (p. 158, n. 346) –

and an article by Ann Matonis (Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’) (p. 153, n. 332 and p. 158, n. 346). 2.

A translation of a bardic grammar exists, completed by the Rev. John Williams ab Ithel in 1856; however, this text is based on the version of the grammars written by Iolo Morganwg, and is substantially different to the medieval text.

3.

See Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 121 45. For a discussion of other vernacular grammars, see Law, The History of Linguistics in Europe, pp. 190 209.

4.

For a nuanced discussion of this ‘diglossic’ culture, see Jan Ziolkowski, ‘Cultural Diglossia and the Nature of Medieval Latin Literature’, in Joseph Harris (ed.), The Ballad and Oral Literature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 193 213.

5.

Martin Irvine and David Thomson, ‘Grammatica and Literary Theory’, in Alastair Minnis and Ian Johnson (eds), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 15 41, at 40.

6.

For an introductory discussion, see Irvine and Thomson, ‘Grammatica and Literary Theory’, pp. 15 41; Jan Ziolkowski, ‘Latin Learning and Latin Literature’, in Nigel Morgan and Rodney Thomson (eds), The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 2: The Manuscript Book, c.1100 1400 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 229–44, at 234; Nicholas Orme, ‘Education in Medieval Wales’, Welsh History Review, 27/4 (2015), 607–44, at 613–15; Susan Reynolds, Medieval Reading: Grammar, Rhetoric, and the Classical Text (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 17 41; Rita Copeland and Ineke Sluiter, introduction to Rita Copeland and Ineke Sluiter (eds), Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: Language Arts and Literary Theory, A.D. 300 1475 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 1–60.

7.

See Robert Robins, The Byzantine Grammarians: Their Place in History (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1993), p. 87.

8.

Vivien Law, ‘Linguistics in the Early Middle Ages: The Insular and Carolingian Grammarians’, Transactions of the Philological Society, 83/1 (1985), 171–93, at 177. See also Vivien Law, The Insular Latin Grammarians (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1982).

9.

Translated in Vivien Law, Grammar and Grammarians in the Early Middle Ages (London and New York: Longman, 1997), p. 207.

10.

Anders Ahlqvist, ‘The Study of Language in Early Ireland’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 86/2 (1985), 246–57, at 249.

11.

Kelly, The Arts of Poetry and Prose, p. 155.

12.

Kelly, The Arts of Poetry and Prose, pp. 150–3, 158.

13.

Law, History of Linguistics, p. 192.

14.

Kelly, The Arts of Poetry and Prose, pp. 146–7; Law, History of Linguistics, p. 192.

15.

Reynolds, Medieval Reading, p. 10.

16.

Ziolkowski, ‘Latin Learning’, 240; Irvine and Thomson, ‘Grammatica and Literary Theory’, 37.

17.

Glanmor Williams, ‘Education in Medieval Wales’, Education for Development of the Faculty of Education, University College Cardiff 10 (1986), 13–32; Orme, ‘Education’, 615–25, 633.

18.

See discussion of authorship, pp. 7–8.

19.

The term bardic in English is related to Welsh bardd (and Irish bard), but the two are not interchangeable. The word bard appears in English as early as the fifteenth century (OED, s.v. bard), but took on new life in the Romantic period, and for the English-speaking reader, it is this Romantic image that likely prevails (see, for instance, William Gillies, ‘Bard (3) Romantic Perception’, in John Koch (ed.), Celtic Culture: An Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC–CLIO, 2005), pp. 172–3). However, the Welsh bardd is a medieval term with specific valences in different eras. In the pre-Conquest period, the bardd teulu was a member of the king’s retinue, and his role was defined in the Welsh Laws of Court (see David Jenkins, ‘Bardd Teulu and Pencerdd’, in Thomas Charles-Edwards, Paul Russell and Morfydd Owen (eds), The Welsh King and his Court (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000), pp. 142– 66). Later, and more generally, the term bardd (pl. beirdd) referred to poets who belonged to a professional class that had undergone specialised training (a class that was increasingly formalised in the later medieval period). In this book, ‘bard’ is used to refer specifically to these professional poets, and ‘bardic’ to the literary products associated with them.

20.

The term ‘Poets of the Princes’ is used frequently in scholarship about medieval Welsh poetry, and refers to the traditional (though not the sole) patrons of the Welsh bards in the pre-Conquest period that is, before the death in 1282 of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, ruler of Gwynedd and the last independent prince of Wales. This book is concerned with this post-1282 period. For more on the Edwardian Conquest, see R. R. Davies, The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063–1415 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). For more on the Welsh court poets before 1282, see J. E. Caerwyn Williams, The Court Poet in Medieval Wales (Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997); Catherine McKenna, ‘Court Poetry and Historiography Before 1282’, in Geraint Evans and Helen Fulton (eds), The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 93–111. For more on the Beirdd yr Uchelwyr or cywyddwyr, see (in English) Eurys Rowlands’s introduction to Poems of the Cywyddwyr: A Selection of Cywyddau c.1375 1525 (Dublin: DIAS, 1976), pp. xi xx; Dafydd Johnston, ‘The

Aftermath of 1282: Dafydd ap Gwilym and his Contemporaries’, in The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 112 28; (in Welsh) Dafydd Johnston, Llên yr Uchelwyr: Hanes Beirniadol Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg 1300 1525 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014). 21.

For more on this, see Chapter 4.

22.

For a description of the cywydd, see (in English) Rowlands, Poems of the Cywyddwyr, pp. xx xxvii; (in Welsh) Johnston, Llên, pp. 90 108; on the awdl and englyn, see Johnston, Llên, pp. 50–89. On the origins of the cywydd, see D. J. Bowen, ‘Dafydd ap Gwilym a Datblygiad y Cywydd’, Llên Cymru, 8 (1964–5), 1–32.

23.

Bleddyn Owen Huws, ‘Astudio Genres y Cywydd’, Dwned, 1 (1995), 67 87, at 75 6.

24.

Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 123–4; GP, p. xiii; Parry, ‘Einion Offeiriad’, 177. For a good discussion of the Irish evidence, see Damian McManus, ‘The Bardic Poet as Teacher, Student and Critic: A Context for the Grammatical Tracts’, in Cathal G. Ó Háinle and Donald E. Meek (eds), Unity in Diversity: Studies in Irish and Scottish Gaelic Language, Literature and History (Dublin: School of Irish, Trinity College Dublin, 2004), pp. 97–123.

25.

Eurys Rowlands, ‘Bardic Lore and Education’, BBCS, XXXII (1985), 143 55, at 153.

26.

GP, pp. xcviii xcix.

27.

Rowlands, ‘Bardic Lore’, 144.

28.

Brynley Roberts makes this suggestion of the author of the spiritual poem Ymborth yr Enaid (‘Writing in Wales’, in David Wallace (ed.), The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 182–207, at 192).

29.

A number of recent studies have supplied a more nuanced understanding of the possible knowledge base of the medieval Welsh bards. Catherine McKenna has recently examined the relationship of gogynfeirdd poets to monasteries (both Cistercian and the native clasau) in the pre-Conquest period, and has drawn attention to a number of cases in which poets seem to use borrowed Latin terminology with specific theological connotations (Catherine McKenna, ‘“Py ganwyf?” Some terminology for poetry in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Wales’, H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures, 26 (Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge, 2016)). In a slightly earlier example than our period, Paul Russell has drawn attention to the embedded Latin elegy to Lord Rhys (d.1197) in Brut y Tywysogion (the earliest copy of which is found in the same manuscript as the earliest copy of the grammars, Peniarth 20). Its similarity to a Welsh marwnad (a type of elegy) suggests to him that ‘this poet who was well trained in Latin verse

techniques was also well trained in Welsh poetics’ (Paul Russell, ‘“Go and look in the Latin books”: Latin and the vernacular in medieval Wales’, in Richard Ashdowne and Caroline White (eds), Latin in Medieval Britain, Proceedings of the British Academy 206 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 213–46, at 225). 30.

Individual examples may be devised to illustrate the fluidity of the professional classes, such as the case of Einion ap Gwalchmai, who may have been both a poet and a lawyer (Huw Pryce, ‘Lawbooks and Literacy in Medieval Wales’, Speculum, 75/1 (2000), 29–67, at 44; Morfydd Owen, ‘Gwyr Dysg yr Oesoedd Canol a’u Dulliau Rhyddiaith’, Ysgrifau Beirniadol, 17 (1990), 42–62, at 60–1), or perhaps the brothers Iorwerth ap Madog and Gruffudd ab yr Ynad Coch, a lawyer and a poet respectively (Owen, ‘Gwyr Dysg’, 60–1).

31.

Orme, ‘Education’, 629. For a discussion of an analogous situation in England, see Michael Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 1993), pp. 236–8. Clanchy shows that ‘starting at the top of the social hierarchy … at least an acquaintance became increasingly widespread over the two centuries 1100–1300’ (p. 237). Ifor Williams, ‘Awdl i Rys ap Gruffudd gan Einion Offeiriad: Dosbarth Einion ar ramadeg a’i ddyled i Ddonatus’, Y Cymmrodor, xxvi (1916), 115–46; Ifor Williams, ‘Dosparth Einion Offeiriad’, Y Beirniad, v (1915), 129–133; John Morris-Jones, ‘Dosbarth Edern Dafod Aur’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1923–4), 1–28; J. Beverley Smith, ‘Einion Offeiriad’, BBCS, 20 (1962–3), 339–47.

32.

33.

R. Geraint Gruffydd, ‘Wales’ Second Grammarian: Dafydd Ddu of Hiraddug [Sir John Rhŷs Memorial Lecture]’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 90 (1995), 1–28.

34.

Iestyn Daniel, ‘Awduriaeth y Gramadeg a Briodolir i Einion Offeiriad a Dafydd Ddu Hiraddug’, Ysgrifau Beirniadol, xiii (1985), 178–209.

35.

GP, p. 11. For the convenience of scholars working outside the field of Celtic studies, I have included a translation of the bardic grammar in the Red Book of Hergest at the back of this book. Numbers in brackets with a section symbol § (§##) throughout this book refer to the numbered sections of that translation.

36.

GP, p. 51.

37.

Gogynfeirdd (‘not-so-early poets’) is a term used to define the Welsh court poets writing in the pre-Conquest period, and to early fourteenth-century poets still writing in the awdl metre. Contrasted with cynfeirdd (‘early poets’), a term coined by the antiquarian Robert Vaughan which refers to those poets who preceded the named, identifiable poets of the Beirdd y Tywysogion period. The cynfeirdd are generally considered to consist of at least the figures known as Aneirin, Taliesin and Myrddin, as well as the anonymous authors of the body of poetry known as hengerdd (‘old

poetry’) (Marged Haycock, ‘Literary Criticism in Wales before c.1300’, Alastair Minnis and Ian Johnson (eds), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Volume II: The Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 333 44, at 333 4). For discussion of hengerdd, see Chapter 2, pp. 73 4. 38.

Parry, ‘Einion Offeiriad’, 184–5; Morris-Jones, Cerdd Dafod, pp. 358–9.

39.

Herwyd y mod syd heddiw, Kneppyn hagen o Werth[r]yniawn a gant gyntaf ymessureu y gerdd. Wedi Dauyd Athrro y g[we]les prydydyon eraill beiev ar gerd dauawt a dylir y gochel. Amsserev amgen a chymeryadeu desstlussach y [ ] ny chymwyllawd Dauyd Du na Chneppyn o Werthynyon amdanunt. Cneppyn ‘It was Cnepyn of Gwerthrynion who first sang a poem in metres according to our practice today. After Dafydd Athro, other poets saw faults that should be avoided in poetry. Neither Dafydd Ddu nor Cnepyn of Gwerthrynion mentioned the conflict of tenses and how to create finer cymeriadau’ (from Ann Parry Owen, ‘Gramadeg Gwysanau: A fragment of a fourteenth-century Welsh bardic grammar’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammars and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 181 200; text at p. 196; translation at p. 198).

40.

The early modern manuscript written in his hand, NLW MS 3029B, lays out two complete copies of the early bardic grammar. The first (pp. 1 30) ends with the statement Ac felly y terfyna llyfr celfydyt y gerdwryaeth o awdurdawd Dauyd du athro o Degeingl a Hiradur [sic] ‘And thus ends the book of the art of poetry, of the authorship of Dafydd Ddu Athro of Tegeingl and Hiraddug’. The second, on pp. 31– 70, begins with the statement that it was taken Allan o lyfr a scrivenesit ers gwell no chant mlynedh ‘from a book which was written more than a hundred years ago’, and ends with the note Ac felly y terfyna y llyfr kerddwriaeth a wnaeth Einion Effeiriad o Wynnedd i Syr Rys ap Gruff ap Howel ap Gruff ap Ednyfed Vychan yn ynrrydedd a foliant iddo ef ‘And so ends the book of poetry which Einion Effeiriad of Gwynedd made for Sir Rhys ap Gruffudd ap Howel ap Gruffudd ap Ednyfed Fychan, in honour and praise of him’.

41.

GP, p. xxii. For instance, Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth (discussed in Chapter 5) reads at the beginning: Llyma ddysc y adnabod kerddwriaeth kerdd dafod herwydd llyfr Davydd Ddu (GP, p. 89) (‘Here is the Learning to know the art of poetry, after the book of Dafydd Ddu’). Later still, Dafydd Ddu was anthologised in the major biographical encyclopedias of the nineteenth century as a ‘learned bard’ (William Owen (Pughe), The Cambrian Biography; or, Historical Notices of Celebrated Men among The Ancient Britons (London: E. Williams, 1803), p. 80), as someone who ‘had a great share in regulating Welsh prosody’ (Robert Williams, Enwogion Cymru: A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Welshmen, from the Earliest Times to the

Present, and Including Every Name Connected with the Ancient History of Wales (Llandovery: William Rees; London: Longman and Co., 1852), p. 117). Similarly, Isaac Foulkes wrote that Yr oedd efe yn fardd enwog a dysgedig, a chanddo law yn ffurfiad deddfau mydryddiaeth Gymraeg (‘He was a famous and learned bard, and he had a hand in the formation of the Welsh metrical regulations’). (Geirlyfr Bywgraffiadol o Enwogion Cymru: yn Rhyfelwyr, Pregethwyr, Beirdd, Gwyddonwyr, Meddygon, Seneddwyr, &c. (Liverpool: I. Foulkes, [1870]), pp. 167–8). He was mentioned by the notorious eighteenth-century scholar Iolo Morganwg in a list of Beirdd, ag Awduron, ag Athrawon, Cerdd Dafod; nid amgen nag Einon Offeiriad, Edeyrn Dafod Aur, a Gwrgan ap Rhys, a Thryhaearn Brydydd Mawr, a Dafydd Ddu o Hiraddug, a Sion y Cent, y rhain Athrawon oeddent wyr duwiol, ag a gawsant AWEN, a gwybodaeth ar Farddoniaeth, ag a ddygasant ar adfer lawer o’r Hen Fesurau Cerdd, ag a wnaethant Drefn a Dosparth ernynt drwy Farn Cadair a Gorsedd, a’u gwellhau yn athrawiaethbell, a gwybodaethbwyll ‘bards, and authors, and teachers of poetry: namely, Einion Offeiriad, Edeyrn Dafod Aur, and Gwrgan ap Rhys, and Trahaearn Brydydd Mawr, and Dafydd Ddu of Hiraddug, and Sion Cent, those teachers who were godly men, and received awen, and information about poetry, and who brought about the restoration of many of the old metres of poetry, and who created order and classification upon them, and improved them into doctrine, and knowledge’. Iolo Morganwg, Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain, ys ef: llwybreiddiaeth ag athrawiaeth ar y farddoniaeth Gymraeg a’i Pherthynasau, yn ol trefn a dosparth y prif feirdd gynt, ar y gelfyddyd wrth gerdd dafod (Abertawy: published by J. Williams, 1829), p. 8. 42.

Ann Matonis, ‘Gutun Owain and his Orbit: the Welsh Bardic Grammar and its Cultural Context in Northeast Wales’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, 54 (2004), 154 69, at 155 6; ‘Problems’, pp. 287 8.

43.

Matonis, ‘Problems’, p. 289.

44.

See Daniel Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000), pp. 200–1, 213.

45.

Gruffydd, ‘Wales’ Second Grammarian’, 20.

46.

J. Beverley Smith, ‘Sir Gruffydd Llwyd and the Celtic Alliance, 1315–1318’, BBCS, 26 (1976), 463–78, at 467.

47.

Matonis, ‘Problems’, p. 282.

48.

Daniel Huws, A Repertory of Welsh Manuscripts and Scribes, Volume I: Manuscripts (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 2020), pp. 342–3.

49.

Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’. For a further refinement of this discussion, see Chapter 1, pp. 39–52.

50.

See Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 137.

51.

Cynghanedd is an ornamental feature of Welsh poetry, which became a requisite part of metre from around the fourteenth century on. It consists of elaborate systems of internal consonance and rhyme. For a more detailed description, see discussion on p. 105.

52.

Cymeriad is another ornamental feature that links the beginning of a line of poetry to the previous one through the repetition of letters, sounds or whole words. For a description in Welsh, see Morris-Jones, Cerdd Dafod, ‘Y Cymeriadau’, pp. 290–8.

53.

Parry, ‘Einion Offeiriad’, 183.

54.

See Williams, ‘Awdl i Rys ap Gruffudd’, 127. For the identification of Rhys ap Gruffudd, see Ifor Williams, ‘Dafydd ap Gwilym a’r glêr’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1913–14), 83–204, at 193–203.

55.

Gruffydd, ‘Wales’ Second Grammarian’, 20; Morris-Jones, ‘Dosbarth’, 5.

56.

Michaela Jacques, ‘The Grammatical Sources of the Dwned’, Celtica, 31 (2019), 163–90.

57.

Daniel Huws, A Repertory of Welsh Manuscripts and Scribes, Volume II: Scribes, Indexes (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 2020), p. 216.

58.

G. J. Williams, ‘Gramadeg Gutun Owain’, BBCS, IV (1929–31), 207–21.

59.

Anne Jones, ‘Gwilym Tew: astudiaeth destunol a chymharol o’i lawysgrif Peniarth 51, ynghyd ag ymdriniaeth â’i farddoniaeth’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Wales, Bangor, 1980).

60.

John T. Jones, ‘Gramadeg Einion Offeiriad’, BBCS, II (1924), 184–200.

61.

Ann Parry Owen, ‘Gramadeg Gwysanau (Archifdy Sir y Fflint, D/DG 2082)’, Llên Cymru, 33 (2010), 1–31; Parry Owen, ‘A fragment’.

62.

Huws, Repertory II, p. 157.

63.

Ika Willis, Reception (London: Routledge, 2017), p. 35.

64.

Willis, Reception, p. 39.

65.

Paul Bertrand, ‘Living Documents’, Documenting the everyday in medieval Europe: the social dimensions of a writing revolution, 1250–1350 (Turnout: Brepols, 2019), pp. 81–107.

66.

Bertrand, Documenting the everyday, p. 81.

67.

Paul Zumthor, Towards a medieval poetics, trans. Philip Bennett (Minneapolis and Oxford: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), pp. 41–8.

68.

Bernard Cerquiglini, In praise of the variant: a critical history of philology, trans. Betsy Wing (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), pp. 34, 38.

69.

Joseph Vendryes, review of Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid, ed. G. J. Williams and E. J. Jones, Études celtiques, 2 (1937), 161–5 at 163. (‘Ce n’est pas cependant l’édition

critique attendue qu’ils donnes aux philologues. Suivant un usage, qui n’est malheureusement que trop répandu en Galles, ils se sont bornés à reproduire successivement le texte de quatres manuscrits’) 70.

Gruffydd, ‘Wales’ Second Grammarian’, 15.

71.

Derek Pearsall, introduction to Derek Pearsall (ed.), Manuscripts and Readers in Fifteenth-century England – The Literary Implications of Manuscript Study. Essays from the 1981 Conference at the University of York (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1983); Stephen Nichols, ‘Introduction: Philology in a Manuscript Culture’, Speculum, 65/1 (1990), 1–10.

Chapter 1 A Welsh ars poetriae 1.

Good introductions to this genre can be found in Douglas Kelly, The Arts of Poetry and Prose (Turnout: Brepols, 1991); James Murphy, ‘The arts of poetry and prose’, in Alastair Minnis and Ian Johnson (eds), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Volume II: The Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 42–67; James Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 227/MRTS Reprint Series 4 (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), pp. 135–93; William Purcell, Ars Poetriae: Rhetorical and Grammatical Invention at the Margin of Literacy (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1996); Rita Copeland and Ineke Sluiter, Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300–1475 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) (introduction to and excerpts of Matthew of Vendôme, Ars Versificatoria, pp. 559–71; Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria Nova, pp. 596–606; Gervase of Melkley, Ars versificaria, pp. 608–12; John of Garland, Parisiana poetria, pp. 635–55); Edmond Faral, Les Arts Poétiques du XIIe et du XIIIe Siècle: Recherches et Documents sur la Technique Littéraire du Moyen Age (Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1924) (editions of Matthew of Vendôme, Ars Versificatoria, pp. 109–93, Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria Nova, pp. 197–262).

2.

Kelly, The Arts of Poetry and Prose, p. 45. This latter function is discussed in more depth in the Welsh context in Chapter 2; the former, in Chapter 3.

3.

Kelly, The Arts of Poetry and Prose, p. 169.

4.

For example, the section on syllables and diphthongs in Peniarth 20 has been rearranged and expanded to account for logical inconsistencies in the earlier grammars. See Michaela Jacques, ‘Syllable and Diphthong Classification in the Medieval Welsh Bardic Grammars’, Language and History, 63 (2020), 73–90, at 79–82.

5.

See discussion on p. 8; also Ann Matonis, ‘Gutun Owain and his Orbit: the Welsh Bardic Grammar and its Cultural Context in Northeast Wales’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, 54 (2004), 154–69, at 155–6; Ann Matonis, ‘Problems relating to the composition of the Welsh bardic grammars’, in Ann Matonis and Daniel Melia (eds), Celtic Language, Celtic Culture: A Festschrift for Eric P. Hamp (Van Nuys, CA: Ford & Bailie, 1990), pp. 273–91, at pp. 287–9.

6.

J. Beverley Smith, ‘Sir Gruffydd Llwyd and the Celtic Alliance, 1315–1318’, BBCS, 26 (1976), 463–78, at 467.

7.

Matonis, ‘Problems’, p. 282.

8.

Thomas Charles-Edwards, ‘The Welsh bardic grammars on Litterae’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammar and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 149–60.

9.

Thomas Charles-Edwards, ‘The Bardic Grammars on Syllables’, in Simon Rodway, Jenny Rowland and Erich Poppe (eds), Celts, Gaels, and Britons: Studies in Language and Literature from Antiquity to the Middle Ages in Honour of Patrick Sims-Williams (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2022), pp. 239–56, at 249, 254.

10.

Matonis (‘Problems’, p. 278) writes that ‘The possibility of accretion is high … Conflation may be present as well, for the tract as we have it gives every appearance of having been composed of at least two once independent blocks of material (namely, the grammar proper and the ars versificatoria), at least one of which (the grammar) was a written text.’

11.

Ann Matonis, ‘The Welsh Bardic Grammars and the Western Grammatical Tradition’, Modern Philology, 79/2 (November 1981), 121–45, at 121.

12.

Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 132 6; Charles-Edwards, ‘On Syllables’, p. 240.

13.

See Douglas Kelly’s outline of the standard elements of vernacular grammars (The Arts of Poetry and Prose, pp. 165 6), quoted on p. 37, above.

14.

Matonis (‘Problems’, pp. 278–9) has previously offered a numbered division of the separate blocks of material present in the grammar, consisting of the Welsh adaptation of a Latin grammar (1), a bridge passage between the ars grammatica and the ars versificatoria (2), the ars metrica (3), the section on poetic faults (4), the section on praise (5), the Llanstephan 3/Peniarth 20 passage on prydyddiaeth (6), and the triads (7). She notes that certain sections of the bardic grammar depend on earlier sections (for instance, the definitions of the metres rely on knowledge of the syllables and diphthongs, and the poetic faults and the triads refer to both grammatical and bardic material). However, she notes that ‘The number and sources of accretion in the

cerdd dafod and the following units are harder to locate, as is the stage (or stages) when they were introduced.’ This may be true, but the analysis can be extended, in order to compose a (notional) narrative of the order in which these various blocks might have been composed and compiled. 15.

Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 133; Charles-Edwards, ‘On Syllables’, p. 240.

16.

Charles-Edwards, ‘On Syllables’, p. 241. This follows on from his earlier theory, that the letters make use specifically of Donatus’ Ars Maior (‘Litterae’, 150). This is quite possible; the Latin source material is discussed further below. Charles-Edwards also mentions the Latin resonances of the discussion of the length of syllables (‘On Syllables’, p. 241), a point also made by Ann Matonis (‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 132).

17.

For further discussion of how this category relates to the broader system of syllable classification, see Jacques, ‘Syllable and Diphthong Classification’, 77.

18.

Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 133 4. The translation offered here of the Welsh terms lleddf and talgrwn is tentative; for discussion, please see the glossary entry at the back of the book, pp. 266–7.

19.

Charles-Edwards, ‘Litterae’, p. 155.

20.

There are two lines in the section on letters (§§3–4) that rely directly on the grammars’ treatment of syllables in the following section; see also Charles-Edwards, ‘Litterae’, pp. 156 7. In the order proposed above it must be assumed that these are both later insertions.

21.

GP, p. 13.

22.

For further discussion of these ffigurau, please see pp. 45 9, above.

23.

GP, pp. xxxvi–xxxvii.

24.

Erich Poppe, ‘The figures of speech in Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid’, BBCS, 38 (1991), 102–4, at 104.

25.

Paul Russell, ‘Gwr gwynn y law: Figures of Speech in Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid and Latin grammarians’, CMCS, 32 (1996), 95 104, at 104.

26.

See Ann Parry Owen, ‘Gramadeg Gwysanau: A fragment of a fourteenth-century Welsh bardic grammar’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammars and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 181 200, at 182.

27.

Parry Owen, ‘A fragment’, text at p. 196; translation at p. 198.

28.

Peniarth 20 lists Dafydd as the inventor of the hir a thoddaid, cyrch a chwtta and tawddgyrch gadwynog metres. He is first named as the author of the bardic grammar

in its entirety in NLW 3029B, copied by Robert Vaughan. The first grammar in this manuscript (pp. 1–30) ends with the statement Ac felly y terfyna llyfr celfydyt y gerdwryaeth o awdurdawd Dauyd du athro o Degeingl a Hiradur [sic] ‘And thus ends the book of the art of poetry, of the authorship of Dafydd Ddu Athro of Tegeingl and Hiraddug’. Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth (a later revision of the grammars, and the subject of Chapter 5) opens with the sentence Llyma ddysc y adnabod kerddwriaeth kerdd dafod herwydd llyfr Davydd Ddu (GP, p. 89) ‘Here is the Learning to know the art of poetry, after the book of Dafydd Ddu’. 29.

Paul Russell, ‘Poetry by numbers: The poetic triads in Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammars and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 161– 80, at 172.

30.

Matonis, ‘Problems’, p. 279.

31.

Russell, ‘Poetry by Numbers’, p. 173. Discussed above, on pp. 49 51.

32.

The order of the section on poetic faults and the section on praise is not obvious to me, as neither relies on the other, and neither is strictly requisite to the formation of a complete ars poetriae.

33.

Russell, ‘Poetry by Numbers’, pp. 178–80.

34.

Paul Russell and Brian Cook, ‘The Multispectral Recovery of Trioedd Cerdd in NLW Peniarth 20’, National Library of Wales Journal, 36 (2017), 558 86. Discussed further in chapter 2, pp. 172 4.

35.

GP, p. 16.

36.

GP, p. 35.

37.

Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain, Fourth Edition (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014), pp. lix lx, lxxxviii lxxxix; Morfydd Owen, ‘Welsh Triads: An Overview’, Celtica, 25 (2007), 225 50, at 227 8, 250. I am additionally grateful to Celeste L. Andrews for discussion of this matter, and for allowing me to read a draft of her dissertation (‘Trioedd Ynys Prydain and the Transmission of Medieval Welsh Narratives’, PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2023).

38.

Owen, ‘Welsh Triads’, 248.

39.

Russell, ‘Poetry by Numbers’, p. 168.

40.

This is not to suggest that no new material could have been inserted over the course of their compilation and transmission, but there is no strong reason to suspect that the order of composition would have significantly diverged from the order in which these sections occur in the text.

41.

Kelly, The Arts of Poetry and Prose, pp. 165–6.

42.

Ceri Lewis, ‘Einion Offeiriad and the bardic grammar’, in A. O. H. Jarman and G. R. Hughes (eds), A Guide to Welsh Literature, vol. 2 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997), pp. 44–71, at 58.

43.

Lewis, ‘Einion Offeiriad’, p. 58.

44.

Nicholas Orme, ‘Education in Medieval Wales’, Welsh History Review, 27/4 (2015), 607–44, at 632–7.

45.

Michaela Jacques, ‘The Grammatical Sources of the Dwned’, Celtica, 31 (2019), 163 90.

46.

Orme, ‘Education’, 614.

47.

Orme, ‘Education’, 636.

48.

See above, p. 37.

49.

Ifor Williams, ‘Awdl i Rys ap Gruffudd gan Einion Offeiriad: Dosbarth Einion ar ramadeg a’i ddyled i Ddonatus’, Y Cymmrodor, xxvi (1916), 115–46, at 128–34, 133 (‘Ni lwyddais eto i daro ar y ffurf arbennig o Ramadeg Lladin oedd o flaen Einion a Dafydd’).

50.

GP, pp. 162–77.

51.

GP, p. xxxiv.

52.

GP, p. 162 (‘y darnau hynny o’r gramadegau y ceir cyfiethiadau ohonynt yn y gramadegau Cymraeg’).

53.

Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 121, 145.

54.

Russell, ‘Gwr gwynn y law’, 101. Russell draws attention to the parallel between a section in Priscian describing the accusative of respect, and the Welsh figures of speech known as ymgynull and ymoralw. This is discussed in more detail on pp. 45 6.

55.

Charles-Edwards, ‘Litterae’, p. 150; Charles-Edwards, ‘On Syllables’, p. 241.

56.

Vivien Law, The Insular Latin Grammarians (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1982), pp. 16, 19, 26 7.

57.

Orme, ‘Education in Medieval Wales’, 635.

58.

See Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 137. The eightfold division of the parts of speech is not adopted in the Welsh bardic grammars until the Dwned revision of the mid-fifteenth century: see Jacques, ‘Grammatical Sources’.

59.

Louis Holtz (ed.), Donat et la tradition de l’enseignement grammatical: Étude sur l’Ars Donati et sa diffusion (IVe IXe siècle) et édition critique (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1981), p. 605.

60.

Syllaba est comprehensio literrarum uel unius uocalis enuntiatio temporum capax. Syllabarum aliae sunt breves, aliae longae, aliae communes (Holtz, Donat, p. 605). A syllable is a combination of letters or the expression of one speech sound over a sustained period of time. Of the syllables some are short, some are long, some both. (Translations of Latin in this section are my own, unless otherwise indicated, but I am heavily indebted to the translation in David W. Porter (ed.), Excerptiones de Prisciano: The Source for Ælfric’s Latin-Old English Grammar (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002), for grammatical terminology especially, and for more direct translations of select portions of the Institutiones.)

61.

Syllaba est comprehensio literarum consequens sub uno accentu et uno spiritu prolata; abusive tamen etiam singularum vocalium sonos syllabas nominamus. Possumus tamen et sic definire syllabam: syllaba est vox literalis, quae sub uno accentu et uno spiritu indistanter profertur. A singulis tamen incipiens, non plus quam ad sex literas procedure syllaba potest in Latino sermone, ut: ‘a’, ‘ab’, ‘arx’, ‘mars’, ‘stans’, ‘stirps’. (Henrich Keil (ed.), Grammatici Latini II: Prisciani Grammatici Caesariensis Institutionum Grammaticarum Libri I–XII ex recensione Martini Hertzii (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1855), p. 44.) A syllable is the consecutive combination of letters pronounced under one accent and in one breath; less properly, however, we also call the sounds of single vowels ‘syllables’. Yet, we can also define the syllable as follows: a syllable is sound expressed in letters, pronounced under one accent and in one breath without interruption. Beginning from single letters, the syllable in Latin cannot proceed beyond six letters, as in a [‘from’], ab [‘from’], arx [‘citadel’], mars [‘Mars’], stans [‘standing’], stirps [‘stalk’]. (Rita Copeland and Ineke Sluiter (eds), Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: Language Arts and Literary Theory, A.D. 300–1475 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 174.)

62.

Charles-Edwards notes this similarity, and specifically the letter-counts in syllables, in ‘On Syllables’, p. 241.

63.

Holtz, Donat, p. 603.

64.

Copeland and Sluiter, Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric, p. 88.

65.

Keil, Grammatici Latini II, p. 7.

66.

Keil, Grammatici Latini II, p. 9.

67.

Porter, Excerptiones, pp. 46–7.

68.

Porter, Excerptiones, pp. 1, 23–30.

69.

Porter, Excerptiones, p. 12.

70.

Keil II.26; Porter, Excerptiones, pp. 62–3; GP, p. 3.

71.

Porter, Excerptiones, pp. 2–6.

72.

Porter, Excerptiones, p. 22. According to Porter ‘other shortened versions [of Priscian] treat specialised subtopics such as inflection, metrics or syntax’.

73.

Matonis refers to solecisms in her description of the section on syntax (‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 143) but identifies the figures of speech as syllepsis, synecdoche and evocatio (144).

74.

For discussion of this term, see Marc Baratin and Françoise Desbordes, ‘La “Troisième Partie” de L’Ars Grammatica’, in Daniel J. Taylor (ed.), The History of Linguistics in the Classical Period (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1987), pp. 41–67, at 49.

75.

Priscian, Institutiones, XVIII.27–8 220.11–17. For discussion, see Russell, ‘Gwr gwynn y law’, 99–103.

76.

Priscian, Institutiones, XVII.187–8 201.12–24; XVIII.80 241.11–17.

77.

Russell, ‘Gwr gwynn y law’, 101.

78. 79.

Russell, ‘Gwr gwynn y law’, 104. Holtz, Donat, p. 656.

80.

Plautus, The Captives, l. 358–9. Wolfgang de Melo (trans.), Amphitryon. The Comedy of Asses. The Pot of Gold. The Two Bacchises. The Captives (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), pp. 542–3. I have not used de Melo’s translation, in order to better illustrate the grammatical error being addressed in this passage.

81.

Aeneid, Book I, l. 212. H. Rushton Fairclough (trans.), Eclogues Georgics Aeneid I– VI (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916), p. 277. Translation slightly adapted in order to better illustrate the grammatical error being addressed in this passage.

82.

Holtz, Donat, p. 657.

83.

Aeneid, Book III, l. 2–3. Fairclough, Aeneid, p. 373.

84.

Anonymous, l. 40. E. H. Warmington (trans.), Remains of Old Latin, Volume II: Livius Andronicus. Naevius. Pacuvius. Accius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), p. 607. Translation slightly adapted in order to better illustrate the grammatical error being addressed in this passage.

85.

Patrick Sims-Williams, Irish Influence on Medieval Welsh Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 330.

86.

Erich Poppe, ‘The figures of speech in Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid’, BBCS, 38 (1991), 102–4, at 104.

87.

Russell, ‘Gwr gwynn y law’, 104.

88.

As Holtz writes, of these 57 witnesses, only 9 also contain Books I–XVI of the Institutiones. (Donat, pp. 506–7). For a list of these manuscripts (and brief

discussion), see Margaret Gibson, ‘Priscian, “Institutiones Grammaticae”: a handlist of manuscripts’, Scriptorium, 26/1 (1972), 105–24. 89.

Holtz, Donat, p. 506 (‘corpus de traités grammaticaux annexes’).

90.

Holtz, Donat, p. 507.

91.

Rita Copeland, ‘Grammar, Rhetoric, and Figurative Language’, in Stefka Georgieva Eriksen (ed.), Intellectual Culture in Medieval Scandinavia, c.1100–1350 (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2016), pp. 213–42, at 219–21.

92.

Kari Ellen Gade, ‘Ælfric in Iceland’, in Judy Quinn, Kate Heslop and Tarrin Willis (eds), Learning and Understanding in the Old Norse World: Essays in Honour of Margaret Clunies Ross, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 18 (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2007), pp. 321–40, at 330–1.

93.

Mikael Males, ‘Applied Grammatica: Conjuring up the native Poetae’, in Stefka Georgieva Eriksen (ed.), Intellectual Culture in Medieval Scandinavia, c.1100–1350 (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2016), pp. 263–308, at 267.

94.

GP, p. 6.

95.

GP, p. 24.

96.

For example, Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Summa de coloribus rhetoricis (edited in Faral, Les Arts Poétiques, pp. 321–7); Onulf of Speyer’s c.1050 Colores rhetorici. See Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, pp. 182–4, 189 and Copeland and Sluiter, introduction to Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric, p. 34, n. 103, and p. 373.

97.

Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, p. 189.

98.

Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, p. 190.

99.

Russell, ‘Poetry by Numbers’, p. 173.

100. Harry Caplan (ed. and trans.), Rhetorica ad Herennium (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), 172 (III.VI.10–11): Nunc ad demonstrativum genus causae transeamus. Quoniam haec causa dividitur in laudem et vituperationem, quibus ex rebus laudem constituerimus, ex contrariis rebus erit vituperatio conparata. Laus igitur potest esse rerum externarum, corporis, animi. Rerum externarum sunt ea quae casu aut fortuna secunda aut adversa accidere possunt: genus, educatio, divitiae, potestates, gloriae, civitas, amicitiae, et quae huiusmodi sunt et quae his contraria. Corporis sunt ea quae natura corpori adtribuit commoda et incommoda: velocitas, vires, dignitas, valetudo, et quae contraria sunt. Animi sunt ea quae consilio et cogitatione nostra constant: prudentia, iustitia, fortitudo, modestia, et quae contraria sunt. ‘Let us now turn to the Epideictic kind of cause. Since epideictic includes Praise and Censure, the topics on which praise is founded will, by their contraries, serve us as the bases for censure. The following, then, can be subject to praise: External Circumstances, Physical Attributes, and Qualities of Character. To External Circumstances belong such as can happen by chance, or by fortune, favourable or

adverse: descent, education, wealth, kinds of power, titles to fame, citizenship, friendships, and the like, and their contraries. Physical Attributes are merits or defects bestowed upon the body by nature: agility, strength, beauty, health, and their contraries. Qualities of Character rest upon our judgement and thought: wisdom, justice, courage, temperance, and their contraries.’ 101. Faral, Les Arts Poétiques, p. 120 (Ars Versificatoria, I.46). 102. Roger Parr (trans.), Ars Versificatoria (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1981), p. 28 (I.46). Parr translates this as ‘tones’; given the discussion of colores above, I have restored the Latin term. 103. Parr, Ars Versificatoria, p. 28 (I.46). 104. Faral, Les Arts Poétiques, p. 133 (Ars Versificatoria, I.65). 105. Parr, Ars Versificatoria, p. 41 (I.65). 106. Traugott Lawler (ed. and trans.), The Parisiana Poetria of John of Garland (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974), pp. 62–5. 107. R. Geraint Gruffydd, ‘Wales’ Second Grammarian: Dafydd Ddu of Hiraddug [Sir John Rhŷs Memorial Lecture]’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 90 (1995), 1–28, at 15; Ann Matonis, ‘A case study: historical and textual aspects of the Welsh bardic grammar’, CMCS, 41 (2001), 25–36, at 28. This belief was not held by Saunders Lewis, who offered a philosophically based counter-argument as to why Peniarth 20 should be taken as the earliest version of the grammars; this argument has been dismantled in Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 124–6. 108. Peniarth 20 shares some examples with the Red Book, but not Llanstephan 3 (for instance, both Peniarth 20 and the Red Book give llall and lleill instead of Llanstephan 3’s arall and ereill); and some with Llanstephan 3, but not the Red Book (where the Red Book gives gwnaf to illustrate a syllable containing five letters, Llanstephan 3 and Peniarth 20 both give gwers). No obvious logical principle governs the inclusion of some verbal examples, but not others. Peniarth 20 shares longer passages with Llanstephan 3 that do not appear in the Red Book (the passage on minstrelsy (§§118–21) and the definition of the figure of speech known as ymoralw (§47)). However, if we look specifically at the metrical examples (short snippets of poetry included to illustrate particular metres), Peniarth 20 and the Red Book are much closer in form. Where the metrical examples in Peniarth 20 diverge from those in Llanstephan 3, they are invariably either innovative additions (or perhaps additions from a third, unknown source), or they correspond to the examples in the Red Book. Metrical examples which are unique to Llanstephan 3 never occur in Peniarth 20. The synthesis is not regular, and there is no way to predict which metres in Peniarth 20 use the Red Book, common, or added examples. The difficulty,

of course, with making a case based on correspondences between examples is that they might easily be substituted at any point in the transmission. 109. Discussions of the Peniarth 20 revision have been limited in modern scholarship. The best and longest treatment of this topic remains the article by R. Geraint Gruffydd, who discussed the increased religious orientation of the Peniarth 20 text (Gruffydd, ‘Wales’ Second Grammarian’, 19.) Elsewhere, I have briefly discussed the logical rearrangement of the syllable and diphthong categories in Peniarth 20 (Jacques, ‘Syllable and Diphthong Classification’, 79–82). 110. According to GPC, superllaid is a direct adaptation of Latin superlativus, first attested in the bardic grammars; by contrast, uchel is attested as early as the twelfth century, and has cognates in Middle Cornish, Old Breton, Old Irish, and in Brythonic and Gaulish place-names. Paul Russell has recently noted that ‘The terms for the grades of comparison, possyeit, cymeryeit, superleit, are loanwords from Latin, though it is worth noting in passing that they seem not to derive directly from positivus, comparativus and superlativus, in which case we might expect them to end in -iw or -iỽ’ (‘Distinctions, foundations and steps: the metaphors of the grades of comparison in medieval Latin, Irish and Welsh grammatical texts’, Language and History, 63/1 (2020), 47–72, at 62). 111. Russell, ‘Distinctions, foundations’, 63. 112. Russell, ‘Distinctions, foundations’, 63. 113. The word is attested in the thirteenth century in the Brut Dingestow (GPC s.v. grwndwal), but it does not appear to refer to the act of writing in this example. 114. Morgan Davies, ‘“Aed i’r coed i dorri cof”: Dafydd ap Gwilym and the metaphorics of carpentry’, CMCS, 30 (1995), 67–85, at 77, after John Morris-Jones and John Rhys (eds), The Elucidarium and other tracts in Welsh from Llyvyr agkyr Llandewivrevi A.D. 1346 (Jesus College Ms. 119) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894), p. 2. 115. ‘Contention, debate, contest’ (GPC s.v. ‘ymryson’); a genre of poetry in medieval and early modern Wales in which poets would address debate-poems to one another, sometimes consisting of long sequences of poems and extending over many years. For a good discussion, see Jerry Hunter, ‘Cyd-destunoli Ymrysonau’r Cywyddwyr: Cipolwg ar yr Ysbaddiad Barddol’, Dwned, 3 (1997), 33–52. 116. Sara Elin Roberts (ed.), ‘Cywydd Ymryson Cyntaf Dafydd ap Gwilym’, poem 24, Dafydd ap Gwilym.net, https://dafyddapgwilym.net/eng/3win.htm (accessed 10 December 2019). 117. Davies, ‘Aed i’r coed’, 73. 118. Davies, ‘Aed i’r coed’, 72. 119. Davies, ‘Aed i’r coed’, 73, 75.

120. Davies, ‘Aed i’r coed’, 75. 121. Ann Parry Owen, ‘Gramadeg Gwysanau (Archifdy Sir y Fflint, D/DG 2082)’, Llên Cymru, 33 (2010), 1–31; Ann Parry Owen, ‘Gramadeg Gwysanau: A fragment of a fourteenth-century Welsh bardic grammar’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular grammar and grammarians in medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 181–200. 122. Parry Owen, ‘A fragment’, pp. 181–2. 123. Parry Owen, ‘A fragment’, pp. 194–5. 124. Parry Owen, ‘A fragment’, p. 183. 125. Lewis, Review of Gramadach, Gramadeg and Grammatica: Vernacular Grammar and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales, Celtica, 30 (2018), 223–9, at 227– 8. 126. Deborah Furchtgott, ‘Musique Naturelle and Cerdd Dafod: An Exploration of Sound Poetics in the Fourteenth Century’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2019), 55–8; Russell, ‘Distinctions, foundations’, 63. 127. Parry Owen, ‘A fragment’, text at p. 196; translation at p. 197. 128. Ernest Gallo, The Poetria Nova and its sources in early rhetorical doctrine (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1971), pp. 16–17. 129. Furchtgott, ‘Musique Naturelle’, 58. 130. Marjorie Curry Woods, Classroom Commentaries: Teaching the Poetria nova across Medieval and Renaissance Europe (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2010), pp. 21–2. 131. Faral, Les Arts Poétiques, p. 27, lists: BL Harley 3582, 3775; Arundel 343; Add. Mss. 10095, 15108, 18153, 21214, 22159, 23002, 37495; Oxford Bodleian, Laud. Miscel. 515, Digby 64, 104; Corpus Christi 132, 144; Cambridge S. Trin. 624; Glasgow, Hunterian Museum 511; Worcester Cathedral 979. For a more complete and up-todate list of all European manuscripts, see Woods, Classroom Commentaries, pp. 289– 307. 132. Saunders Lewis, Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid [G. J. Williams Memorial Lecture] (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1967), p. 9. 133. Lewis, Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid, pp. 9–10. 134. Russell, ‘Distinctions, foundations’, 64. 135. Russell, ‘Distinctions, foundations’, 64. 136. A similar injection of contemporary grammatical writing occurs in the fifteenthcentury grammar known as the Dwned, copied by Gutun Owain in Llanstephan 28, which is essentially an adaptation of John Leylond’s Middle English grammar.

Although closely related to the bardic-grammatical tradition (and eventually absorbed into it), this initial adaptation is not properly a bardic grammar, and so it is not discussed in this book. I have discussed this tract elsewhere; see Jacques ‘The Grammatical Sources of the Dwned’.

Chapter 2 Tools for Reading 1.

The idea that the bardic grammars represented the output of bardic schools is essentially the idea advanced by the 1934 edition, which begins with the sentence, ‘We know very little about the schools of the bards of Wales before the fifteenth century’ (‘Ychydig iawn a wyddom am ysgolion beirdd Cymru cyn y bymthegfed ganrif’): GP, p. xiii, and goes on to devote an entire section of its lengthy introduction to the ‘Education of the bards’ (Addysg y beirdd): GP, pp. lxxxviii cvii.

2.

Thomas Parry, ‘The Welsh Metrical Treatise Attributed to Einion Offeiriad [Sir John Rhŷs Memorial Lecture]’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 47 (1961), 177–95; Charles-Edwards has drawn particular attention to the grammars’ failure to deal with alliteration (Thomas Charles-Edwards, ‘The Bardic Grammars on Syllables’, in Simon Rodway, Jenny Rowland and Erich Poppe (eds), Celts, Gaels, and Britons: Studies in Language and Literature from Antiquity to the Middle Ages in Honour of Patrick Sims-Williams (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2022), pp. 239–56, at 240).

3.

Parry, ‘Einion Offeiriad’, 183; Thomas Parry, ‘Twf y gynghanedd’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1936), 143–60, at 143–54.

4.

Parry, ‘Einion Offeiriad’, 183.

5.

Glanmor Williams, ‘Language, Literacy and Nationality in Wales’, History, 56/186 (1971), 1–16, at 1. Williams is not the only scholar to have made this observation. Poetry was also often transmitted orally. As Daniel Huws has written, manuscript variants strongly suggest oral transmission of the pre-1450 cywydd poetry, and some sixteenth- and seventeenth-century manuscripts explicitly say that the cywydd poems contained within them were copied down from an oral recitation (Daniel Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000), p. 91). Dafydd Johnston’s valuable study of line variation as evidence for oral transmission in the poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym has further deepened our understanding of the oral transmission of poetry (Dafydd Johnston, ‘Dafydd ap Gwilym and Oral Tradition’, Studia Celtica, 37 (2003), 143 61, at 143 6).

6.

William Purcell, Ars Poetriae: Rhetorical and Grammatical Invention at the Margin of Literacy (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), p. 5.

7.

Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, 2nd edn (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 74, 80, 72.

8.

Ong, Orality and Literacy, p. 80.

9.

Ann Matonis, ‘The Welsh Bardic Grammars and the Western Grammatical Tradition’, Modern Philology, 79/2 (November 1981), 121 45, at 133.

10.

Ong, Orality and Literacy, p. 8.

11.

Ann Matonis, ‘Problems relating to the composition of the Welsh bardic grammars’, in Ann Matonis and Daniel Melia (eds), Celtic Language, Celtic Culture: A Festschrift for Eric P. Hamp (Van Nuys, CA: Ford & Bailie, 1990), pp. 273–91, at 277.

12.

John Morris-Jones, Cerdd Dafod, sef Celfyddyd Barddoniaeth Gymraeg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925), p. 233.

13.

Matonis, ‘Problems’, p. 277.

14.

GP, p. xliv.

15.

This is discussed in the following chapter.

16.

For discussion, see Jenny Rowland, Early Welsh Saga Poetry: A Study and Edition of the Englynion (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), p. 309; Marged Haycock, ‘Metrical models for the poems in the Book of Taliesin’, in Brynley Roberts (ed.), Early Welsh Poetry: Studies in the Book of Aneirin (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1988), pp. 155 77, at 157.

17.

Morris-Jones, Cerdd Dafod, pp. 129–42.

18.

Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 133.

19.

Parry, ‘Einion Offeiriaid’, 182.

20.

Ifor Williams, ‘Awdl i Rys ap Gruffudd gan Einion Offeiriad: Dosbarth Einion ar ramadeg a’i ddyled i Ddonatus’, Y Cymmrodor, xxvi (1916), 115–46, at 128–9; Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’; Thomas Charles-Edwards, ‘The Welsh bardic grammars on Litterae’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammar and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 149 60, at 150.

21.

Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell, introduction to Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammar and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 1 10, at 1; Susan Reynolds, Medieval Reading: Grammar, Rhetoric, and the Classical Text (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 2.

22.

Jan Ziolkowski and Michael Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 649 50. Ziolkowski and Putnam note that the text attracted a number of commentaries and is extant in approximately seventy medieval manuscripts.

23.

Ziolkowski and Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition, p. 650.

24.

Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, text at p. 651; translation at p. 655.

25.

Paul Russell, ‘Teaching Between the Lines: Grammar and Grammatica in the classroom in Early Medieval Wales’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammars and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 133 48, at 133.

26.

Russell, ‘Teaching’, p. 133.

27.

Paul Russell, Reading Ovid in Medieval Wales (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2017), pp. 57–64, 82–5. Russell draws particular attention to a case in which a lexical gloss (Old Welsh emedou ‘bronzes’ for aera) relies on a metrical misunderstanding: its position in the metre means that the word must be trisyllabic, meaning ‘air’; it cannot be a disyllabic word, and it therefore cannot mean ‘bronzes’.

28.

Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts, p. 70.

29.

Helen Fulton, ‘Britons and Saxons: The Earliest Writing in Welsh’, in Geraint Evans and Helen Fulton (eds), The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 26–51, at 28.

30.

Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts, p. 37.

31.

Patrick Sims-Williams, ‘The uses of writing in early medieval Wales’, in Huw Pryce (ed.), Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 15–38, at 29–32.

32.

Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts, pp. 38 9.

33.

Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts, pp. 41–2.

34.

Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts, p. 41. These manuscripts are: NLW MS Peniarth 1 (The Black Book of Carmarthen); Cardiff MS 2.81 (The Book of Aneirin); NLW MS Peniarth 3; NLW MS 6680 (Hendregadredd); NLW MS Peniarth 2 (Book of Taliesin); NLW Peniarth 4 & 5 (The White Book of Rhydderch); NLW MS Jesus 20; NLW MS Llanstephan 27 (The Red Book of Talgarth); NLW MS Jesus 111 (The Red Book of Hergest).

35.

R. Geraint Gruffydd and Rhiannon Ifans (eds), Gwaith Einion Offeiriad a Dafydd Ddu (Aberystwyth: University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, 1997), p. 201. Llywelyn Foelrhon is further identified in Peniarth 20 only; this manuscript is discussed in Chapter 2. Floruits are taken from the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies website, at https://www.wales.ac.uk/en/CentreforAdvancedWelshCelticStudies/ResearchProjects/ CompletedProjects/PoetsoftheNobility/ListofthePoets.aspx (accessed 30 October 2019), and https://www.wales.ac.uk/en/CentreforAdvancedWelshCelticStudies/ResearchProjects/

CompletedProjects/ThePoetsofthePrinces/ListofPoets.aspx (accessed 3 November 2019). 36.

Iestyn Daniel (ed.), Gwaith Bleddyn Ddu (Aberystwyth: Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, 1994), p. 8 (‘canu yn null Beirdd y Tywysogion’).

37.

Iestyn Daniel (ed.), Gwaith Casnodyn (Aberystwyth: Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, 1999), p. 9.

38.

Iestyn Daniel (ed.), Gwaith Gruffudd ap Dafydd ap Tudur, Gwilym Ddu o Arfon, Trahaearn Brydydd Mawr, ac Iorwerth Beli (Aberystwyth: Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, 1995), p. 47.

39.

Daniel (ed.), Gwaith Gwilym Ddu, p. 49; Daniel (ed.), Gwaith Bleddyn Ddu, p. 10; Rhian Andrews et al. (eds), Gwaith Bleddyn Fardd ac Eraill o Feirdd Ail Hanner y Drydedd Ganrif ar Ddeg (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996), p. 412.

40.

K. A. Bramley et al. (eds), Gwaith Llywelyn Fardd I ac Eraill o Feirdd y Ddeuddegfed Ganrif (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1994), p. 498; Andrews et al. (eds), Gwaith Bleddyn Fardd, p. 310.

41.

Daniel (ed.), Gwaith Casnodyn, p. 13.

42.

Nerys Ann Jones and Ann Parry Owen (eds), Gwaith Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr I (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1991), pp. xlvi xlix.

43.

Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts, p. 200.

44.

Matonis, ‘Problems’, p. 289.

45.

Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts, pp. 200–1, 213.

46.

Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts, p. 219; Daniel Huws, ‘From Song to Script in Medieval Wales’, Quaestio Insularis, 9 (2008), 1 16, at 10.

47.

Jones and Owen (eds), Gwaith Cynddelw, p. xxv (‘mwyaf cynhyrchiol o ddigon o holl Feirdd y Tywysogion, a barnu wrth dystiolaeth y llawysgrifau a oroesodd’).

48.

GP, p. 49.

49.

Nerys Ann Jones concentrates on the work associated with Aneirin and Taliesin in her study (Nerys Ann Jones, ‘Hengerdd in the age of the Poets of the Princes’, in Alex Woolf (ed.), Beyond the Gododdin: Dark Age Scotland in Medieval Wales. The proceedings of a day conference held on 19 February 2005 [St John’s House Papers 13] (St Andrews, 2013), pp. 41–80, at 41); however, the volume Astudiaethau ar yr hengerdd, for instance, incorporates essays on the Gododdin, Llywarch Hen and poems from the Book of Taliesin and the Black Book of Carmarthen (Rachel Bromwich and Brinley Jones (eds), Astudiaethau ar yr hengerdd (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1978)).

50.

Rowland (Early Welsh Saga Poetry, p. 389) dates the corpus of saga englynion between the late eighth and early tenth century; more recently, work on dating the verbal system suggests that parts of this poetry might be as late as the twelfth century (see Simon Rodway, Dating Medieval Welsh Literature: Evidence from the Verbal System (Aberystwyth: CMCS Publications, 2013); Nicolas Jacobs, Early Welsh Gnomic and Nature Poetry (London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2012), especially pp. xliv–xlv). In either case, the poetry is at least a couple of centuries earlier than the first written bardic grammars.

51.

Huws, ‘From Song to Script’, 3.

52.

Although he belonged to a slightly later period than the initial composition of the bardic grammars, the oral transmission of the work of Dafydd ap Gwilym is a good example of this and has been well studied (Dafydd Johnston, ‘The Manuscript Tradition’, Dafydd ap Gwilym.net,, http://dafyddapgwilym.net/docs/The%20Manuscript%20Tradition.pdf (accessed 3 November 2019)).

53.

Mikael Males, ‘Applied Grammatica: Conjuring up the native Poetae’, in Stefka Georgieva Eriksen (ed.), Intellectual Culture in Medieval Scandinavia c.1100–1350 (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2016), pp. 263–308, at 299–300.

54.

Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts, p. 83.

55.

Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts, p. 82.

56.

I use the numeration in Daniel Huws, ‘Llyfr Coch Hergest’, in Iestyn Daniel et al. (eds), Cyfoeth y Testun: Ysgrifau ar Lenyddiaeth Gymraeg yr Oesoedd Canol (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003), pp. 1–30, at 4–7. Note that this differs from the TEI header for the Red Book of Hergest, available on the Welsh Prose Database website, http://www.rhyddiaithganoloesol.caerdydd.ac.uk/en/teiheader.php?ms Jesus111 (accessed 3 May 2021).

57.

See Huws, ‘Llyfr Coch Hergest’, pp. 4–7, 11–23; Repertory I, p. 741–2. For the most detailed study of Hywel Fychan’s contribution to the Red Book, see Gifford CharlesEdwards, ‘The Scribes of the Red Book of Hergest’, NLW Journal, 21 (1979–80), 246 56.

58.

Douglas Kelly, The Arts of Poetry and Prose (Turnout: Brepols, 1991), p. 41.

59.

Huws, Repertory I, p. 742.

60.

R. R. Davies, The Revolt of Owain Glyn Dŵr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 55.

61.

See p. 30, and Introduction p. 8.

62.

Llinos Beverley Smith, ‘Inkhorn and Spectacles: the impact of literacy in late medieval Wales’, in Huw Pryce (ed.), Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 202 22, at 204.

63.

Nicholas Orme, ‘Education in Medieval Wales’, Welsh History Review, 27/4 (2015), 607–44, at 625.

64.

GP, pp. 17 18.

65.

GP, pp. 35–7.

66.

A similar triad is found in the Red Book (§157), but it omits the element which deals with the performative context.

67.

See also Eurys Rowland, Poems of the Cywyddwyr (Dublin: DIAS, 1976), p. xvi.

68.

I am grateful to Barry Lewis for his assistance in drawing this distinction.

69.

David Klausner, Records of Early Drama: Wales (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), pp. 163 4. Hereafter, RED.

70.

RED, p. 354. I have emended the translation to reflect the definition of prydyddiaeth that has been adopted in this book (‘professional poetry’, vs. Klausner’s ‘poetry’).

71. 72.

RED, p. 176. RED, pp. 363 4.

73.

The earliest examples listed are by Guto’r Glyn, the first from the poem ‘Brwydr y beirdd yn erbyn gwin Tomas ap Watgyn o Landdewi Rhydderch’ (The battle of the bards with the wine of Tomas ap Watgyn of Llanddewi Rhydderch), in a couplet which reads, at l.39 40: Saethyddion rhwyddion yn rhaid / Yt, gannwr o ddatgeiniaid (‘Archers swift in battle you have: / a hundred reciters’) (Barry Lewis, ‘Brwydr y beirdd yn erbyn gwin Tomas ap Watgyn o Landdewi Rhydderch’, poem 4, Guto’r Glyn.net, http://www.gutorglyn.net/gutorglyn/poem/?poem-selection=004 (accessed 16 April 2020)), an entertaining poem composed in either 1436 or 1441, in which the number of reciters seems to be exaggerating the glory of the subject. The second Guto’r Glyn example occurs in the poem entitled ‘Gofyn wyth ych ar ran Rhisiart Cyffin ab Ieuan Llwyd, deon Bangor’ (Request for eight oxen on behalf of Richard Cyffin ab Ieuan Llwyd, dean of Bangor) in the following couplet: Datgeiniaid deutu ceunant / Dolef hyd y nef a wnânt (‘they are singers on both sides of the ravine, / they cry out as far as heaven’) (Ann Parry Owen, ‘Gofyn wyth ych ar ran Rhisiart Cyffin ab Ieuan Llwyd, deon Bangor’, poem 108, Guto’r Glyn.net, http://www.gutorglyn.net/gutorglyn/poem/?poem-selection 108 (accessed 16 April 2020)), composed in the 1480s. Other fifteenth-century examples occur in the work of Tudur Penllyn and Lewys Glyn Cothi. However, the appearance of the word in poetry of the fifteenth century may tell us more about the increased use of the bardic grammars by practising bards in the fifteenth century than it does the role of the datgeiniad in the fourteenth (see further discussion in Chapter 4).

74.

RED, pp. 7, 311.

75.

GPC s.v. datgeiniad.

76.

GPC s.v. datganaf: datgan, datganu.

77.

GP, p. 39.

78.

GP, p. 41.

79.

Paul Russell, ‘Poetry by numbers: The poetic triads in Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammars and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 161– 80, at 168; Sara Elin Roberts, The Legal Triads of Medieval Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007), pp. 26–9; Thomas Charles-Edwards and Paul Russell (eds), Tair colofn cyfraith: The three columns of law in medieval Wales: homicide, theft and fire (Bangor: The Welsh Legal History Society, 2007), pp. 77–8.

80.

Russell, ‘Poetry by Numbers’, 179–80.

81.

GP, pp. 57–8.

82. 83.

GP, p. 57. Translation from Paul Russell and Brian Cook, ‘The multispectral recovery of trioedd cerdd in NLW Peniarth 20’, National Library of Wales Journal, 36 (2017), 558–86, at 571.

84.

GP, p. 57.

85.

Translation from Russell and Cook, ‘The multispectral recovery’, 569.

86.

GP, p. 57

87.

GP, p. 57.

88.

From the glossary in RED: ‘traditional instrument of Welsh music, a bowed lyre; the few surviving instruments have six strings, two of them off the fingerboard to be used as owed or plucked drones; earlier iconography, however, shows instruments of from three to six strings 23/12, etc.’

89.

A kind of drum (GPC, s.v. tympan, timpan (2)).

90.

GP, p. 57.

91.

GP, p. 57.

92.

Sally Harper, Music in Welsh Culture before 1650 (Hampshire and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2007), pp. 7–22; Sally Harper, ‘The Musical Background’, Dafydd ap Gwilym.net, https://dafyddapgwilym.net/essays/sally_harper/index_cym.php (accessed 3 April 2020).

93.

Nerys Ann Jones and Erwain Haf Rheinallt (eds), Gwaith Sefnyn, Rhisierdyn, Gruffudd Fychan ap Gruffudd ab Ednyfed a Llywarch Bentwrch, Cyfres Beirdd yr Uchelwyr (Aberystwyth: Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd Prifysgol Cymru, 1995), p. 11; quoted in Harper, Music in Welsh Culture, p. 14, and Patrick

Ford, ‘Performance and Literacy in Medieval Welsh Poetry’, The Modern Language Review, 100/4 (2005), xxx–xlviii, at xxxvii. 94.

Ford, ‘Performance and Literacy’, p. xxxvii. I am grateful to Prof. Ford for drawing my attention to this poem.

95.

Russell and Cook, ‘The multispectral recovery’, text at 566, translation at 568.

96.

Russell and Cook, ‘The multispectral recovery’, 567; 568.

97.

Russell and Cook, ‘The multispectral recovery’, 567; 568.

98.

Russell and Cook, ‘The multispectral recovery’, 567; 568.

99.

Russell and Cook, ‘The multispectral recovery’, 567; 569.

100. Russell and Cook, ‘The multispectral recovery’, 568; 569. 101. Russell, ‘Poetry by Numbers’, p. 164. 102. Russell and Cook, ‘The multispectral recovery’, 572. 103. Ann Parry Owen, ‘Gramadeg Gwysanau: A fragment of a fourteenth-century Welsh bardic grammar’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular grammar and grammarians in medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 181–200, at 188. 104. I have inserted ‘[compose]’ into Ann Parry Owen’s translation in order to better reflect the variant meanings of canu. I am grateful to Barry Lewis for suggesting this distinction. 105. Parry Owen, ‘A fragment’, text at p. 196; translation at p. 198. 106. Parry Owen, ‘A fragment’, p. 197; p. 199. 107. Parry Owen, ‘A fragment’, p. 197; p. 199.

Chapter 3 ‘Bardic’ Grammars 1.

The editors of GP wrote that ‘in these books one has the best explanation of the art of poetry, and no one could study the art of Welsh poetry without consulting them’ (‘yn y llyfrau hyn y ceir yr eglurhad gorau ar gerdd dafod, ac ni eill neb astudio celfyddyd barddoniaeth Gymraeg heb ymgynghori â hwy’), p. c. An entire section of the introduction (pp. Lxxxviii–cvii) is entitled ‘Addysg y beirdd’ (‘The education of the bards’), and operates from the central premise that the bardic grammars represent a ‘summary of the main subjects that were taught by the [bardic] masters’ (‘crynodeb o’r prif bynciau a ddysgid gan yr athrawon’), p. lxxxviii.

2.

Ann Matonis, ‘The Welsh Bardic Grammars and the Western Grammatical Tradition’, Modern Philology, 79/2 (November 1981), 121–45, at 126.

3.

Llinos Beverley Smith, ‘Inkhorn and Spectacles: The impact of literacy in late medieval Wales’, in Huw Pryce (ed.), Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 202–22, at 205.

4.

See Gruffudd Antur, ‘“I Mewn Hen Ysgrifen Gron”: Llawysgrifau Lewys Glyn Cothi’, in Sara Elin Roberts, Simon Rodway and A. Falileyev (eds), Cyfarwydd Mewn Cyfraith: Studies in Honour of Morfydd E. Owen (Bangor: The Welsh Legal History Society 17, 2022), pp. 1–20; Dafydd Johnston (ed.), Gwaith Lewys Glyn Cothi (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1995), p. xxvii.

5.

See E. D. Jones, ‘Inscribed Slates from Strata Florida’, Ceredigion, 1 (1950), 103–5; E. D. Jones, ‘Ysgriflechi Cymraeg Ystrad Fflur’, Llên Cymru, 1 (1950), 1–6.

6.

Daniel Huws, A Repertory of Welsh Manuscripts and Scribes, Volume I: Manuscripts (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 2020), p. 70.

7.

Huws, Repertory I, p. 70.

8.

Thomas Parry, ‘The Welsh Metrical Treatise Attributed to Einion Offeiriad [Sir John Rhŷs Memorial Lecture]’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 47 (1961), 177–95, at 183; see above pp. 69–70.

9.

For good descriptions in English, see Barry Lewis, Medieval Welsh Poems to Saints and Shrines (Dublin: DIAS, 2015), pp. 30–45; Eurys Rowlands, Poems of the Cywyddwyr: A Selection of Cywyddau c.1375–1525 (Dublin: DIAS, 1976), pp. xxvii– xlix; Gwyn Williams, Introduction to Welsh Poetry (London: Faber and Faber, 1953), pp. 243–7. The standard treatments can be found in Welsh in Alan Llwyd, Anghenion y Gynghanedd (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1973); John Morris-Jones, Cerdd Dafod, sef Celfyddyd Barddoniaeth Gymraeg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925), pp. 143–87.

10.

Thomas Parry, ‘Twf y gynghanedd’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1936), 143–60, at 154 (‘rhywbeth a ddaeth trwy reddf ac arfer, yn hytrach na thrwy ddeddf a gorchymyn’).

11.

Parry, ‘Twf y gynghanedd’, 154 (‘yn beth sefydlog, digyfnewid, yn beth a reolid gan gyfraith, a hefyd yn beth anhepgor i gerdd dafod’).

12.

Parry, ‘Twf y gynghanedd’, 158–9.

13.

Dafydd Johnston, Llên yr Uchelwyr: Hanes Beirniadol Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg 1300– 1525 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014), p. 27 (‘dengys yr adran newydd ar y cynganeddion fod y gramadeg yn dod yn fwy o lawlyfr ymarferol’).

14.

GP, p. 53.

15.

The translation in Parry Owen (‘Gramadeg Gwysanau: A fragment of a fourteenthcentury Welsh bardic grammar’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammars and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins

Publishing Company, 2016)), p. 198 has been altered here: ‘to match that [i.e. the second half of an englyn]’ replaces ‘with that’. I am grateful to Barry Lewis for the suggestion. 16.

Parry Owen, ‘A fragment’, text at p. 196; translation at p. 198.

17.

Parry Owen, ‘A fragment’, p. 196; p. 198.

18.

Parry Owen, ‘A fragment’, p. 200.

19.

Parry Owen, ‘A fragment’, p. 182.

20.

It has been written, both by Ann Matonis (‘A case study: historical and textual aspects of the Welsh bardic grammar’, CMCS, 41 (2001), 25–36, at 32) and by G. J. Williams (‘Gramadeg Gutun Owain’, BBCS, IV (1929–31), 207–21, at 209) that cynghanedd was actually first written down by Gutun Owain in the middle of the fifteenth century, based on rules set out by Dafydd ab Edmwnd. However, this is speculation based on later narratives and traditions about Dafydd ab Edmwnd’s role in the Carmarthen eisteddfod of 1450/1 (see following chapter, pp. 149–52); no contemporary evidence survives to support the claim. The idea derives from two much later pieces of antiquarian evidence. The first occurs in Cardiff 2.634 (formerly Hafod 24), written 1605–10 by John Jones Gellilyfdy, which does contain a treatment of cynghanedd and begins with the following statement: Another late manuscript, Llanstephan 45 (s.xvi2), both contains a treatment of cynghanedd and claims to be written o lyfyr David ap Edmwnt (from the book of Dafydd ab Edmwnd). If the source for either Cardiff 2.634 or Llanstephan 45 did exist at any point, they have since been lost. Neither is an exact match for the partial copy of the metrical section in the surviving grammatical manuscript actually copied by Gutun Owain, Llanstephan 28. The text in this manuscript had already fragmented by at least c.1615x1630, as evidenced by Robert Vaughan’s faithful copy of Llanstephan 28 in NLW 3029B: Vaughan’s copy reproduces exactly the fragmentary metrical section of Llanstephan 28, and does not contain an explanation of cynghanedd. All this is to say that I am sceptical of the claim that any of the surviving antiquarian copies derive from a full version of the partial Llanstephan 28, and the claim that cynghanedd was written down by Dafydd ab Edmwnd in the mid-fifteenth century is unsubstantiated. It is not unreasonable to imagine that later narratives about his role in the Carmarthen eisteddfod and the codification of metres might have influenced the perceptions of antiquarian copyists.

21.

GP, p. xvi. See also Daniel Huws’s description in Repertory I, p. 389.

22.

Huws, Repertory I, p. 389.

23.

On the use of the ỽ symbol, see Paul Russell, ‘The Joy of Six: Spelling and Letter Forms amongst Fourteenth-Century Welsh Scribes’, in Simon Rodway, Jenny Rowland and Erich Poppe (eds), Celts, Gaels, and Britons: Studies in Language and

Literature from Antiquity to the Middle Ages in Honour of Patrick Sims-Williams (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2022), pp. 257–88. 24.

From GPC, gair cyrch means ‘(i) word(s) following rhyme-word in a first line of “englyn”; end word of a line rhyming with a word in the middle of the next line’.

25.

Huws, Repertory I, p. 72.

26.

GP, pp. 59–65.

27.

GP, p. 60.

28.

GP, p. 61.

29.

After the definitions in Llwyd, Anghenion y Gynghanedd, p. 14.

30.

See GP, pp. 181–91 for a full list of the subcategories found in later manuscripts; in addition to Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth and Siôn Dafydd Rhys’s Institutiones, this system occurs in Peniarth 161, Cardiff 6.234, Peniarth 169, Cardiff 1.16, Peniarth 157, Peniarth 77, Peniarth 158, BL 14, 872.

31.

Huws, Repertory I, p. 403.

32.

Huws, Repertory I, p. 403.

33.

The full list of fifteen faults is discussed in the following chapter.

34.

GP, p. 194.

35.

The [b] has been inserted – llwyrau is not a word.

36.

GP, p. 195.

37.

Paul Bertrand, Documenting the everyday in medieval Europe: the social dimensions of a writing revolution, 1250–1350 (Turnout: Brepols, 2019), pp. 81–107.

38.

An earlier version of ‘Section II: Syllables and diphthongs’ has previously been printed as a part of the article ‘Syllable and diphthong classification in the medieval Welsh bardic grammars’, Language and History, 63 (2020), 73–90.

39.

The edition by John T. Jones (‘Gramadeg Einion Offeiriad’, BBCS, II (1924), 184– 200) in fact refers to three different manuscripts. Bangor 1 contains the bulk of the material (pp. 3–37, 40–1), but some pages are missing: to fill in the gaps, Jones includes one page of the Bangor 1 text that was rebound into Peniarth 191 (now pp. 133–4), and an early modern copy of the complete text that was made c.1580 by Roger Morris, Coed-y-Talwrn, on pp. 137–59 of Peniarth 169. These three manuscripts are sometimes referred to as ‘Llyfr Melangell’ (Huws, Repertory I, p. 490; Daniel Huws, ‘Llyfr Melangell: Ail-greu Llyfr Defosiynol’, Llên Cymru, 25 (2002), 21–7). For ease of reading, I refer to Bangor 1 in this chapter, as it is the primary witness.

40.

GP, p. xxv (‘crynodeb digon amherffaith’).

41.

Taken from Jones, ‘Gramadeg Einion Offeiriad’, 186–8.

42.

This portion of the text in square brackets in [1] is taken (by Jones, ‘Gramadeg Einion Offeiriad’) from the Roger Morris copy in Peniarth MS 169. The following text [1–13] is from Bangor MS 1.

43.

The text in square brackets [13–15] is taken by Jones (‘Gramadeg Einion Offeiriad’) from the fragmentary copy in Peniarth MS 191.

44.

For a definition of reference reading, see Paul Saenger, ‘Silent Reading: Its Impact on Late Medieval Script and Society’, Viator, 13 (1982), 367–414, at 373.

45.

Jones, ‘Gramadeg Einion Offeiriad’, 194–5.

46.

Of the early grammars, only the copy in Peniarth 20 contains an example for trwm ac ysgafn.

47.

It is perhaps worth noting that the section on lleddf a thalgrwn in the modern poetic handbook Cerdd Dafod does not break lleddf down into three different subcategories; rather, the definition of lleddf and talgrwn syllables is basically simplified into the different diphthong classes, with special attention paid to the sequence (reminiscent of (5) above). From a practical, modern pedagogical standpoint at least, these subcategories are not useful or necessary (Morris-Jones, Cerdd Dafod, p. 235).

48.

GP, p. xcii (‘llyfr a gadwai wrth ei ochr pan oedd yn ŵr ifanc’).

49.

The section on poetic faults consists of only a page and a half, which explains the faults carnymorddiwes (‘overtaken by hoof’), gormod odlau (‘excess of rhyme’), lleddf a thalgrwn (‘declining and compact’), hir a byrr (‘long and short’), and proest ac unodl (‘half-rhyme and full rhyme’). There is an additional fault (partially cut off) on the bottom of p. 142 that does not seem to have an antecedent in the earlier versions of the grammar. It reads, Kam yw gwneỽthỽ daỽ ddeỽnỽdd or ỽn silldaf val ‘daw [..]vel awyr’ (‘It is an error to make two uses from one syllable, as in ‘it comes ? as air’). The section ends in the middle of p. 143. It is possible that this section is a fragment; the bottom of p. 143 and back of the folio (p. 144) contain unrelated material (a stanza of poetry, and miscellaneous grammatical notes) in what appear to be different pens and inks.

50.

Siôn Dafydd Rhys (in both this manuscript and in his later printed material) adopts an unusual orthography for Welsh, in which is used for , for , for , for ([v]), etc.

51.

Johnston, Llên yr Uchelwyr, p. 27 (‘fe welir bod y gramadeg yn fwy canolog i weithgarwch y beirdd erbyn amser Dafydd ab Edmwnd nag yr oedd yn y bedwaredd ganrif ar ddeg’).

52.

Peredur Lynch, ‘Einion Offeiriad a’r Gyhydedd Fer’, Dwned, 4 (1998), 59–74.

53.

Dafydd Johnston, ‘Awdl’, in John Koch (ed.), Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005), p. 148.

54.

G. J. Williams, ‘Gwilym Tew’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography, https://biography.wales/article/s-GWIL-TEW-1470 (accessed 8 April 2020); Johnston, ‘Awdl’, p. 148; Johnston, Llên yr Uchelwyr, p. 259. As Johnston notes, both Dafydd Nanmor and Gwilym Tew use the old formulation of the twenty-four metres, and not the reformulated list associated with Dafydd ab Edmwnd (i.e. excluding the cadwynfyr and the gorchest y beirdd) (Llên yr Uchelwyr, p. 27).

55.

Iestyn Daniel (ed.), Gwaith Ieuan ap Rhydderch (Aberystwyth: Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, 2003), pp. 17, 21 (‘fel pe bai Ieuan ap Rhydderch yn dymuno arddangos ei wybodaeth o gerdd dafod draddodiadol yn ei neilltuolion yn ogystal’). Poem at pp. 117–23, notes at pp. 189–203.

56.

A. Cynfael Lake (ed.), Gwaith Hywel Dafi (Aberystwyth: Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, 2015), pp. 34–5; poem at pp. 146–9, notes at pp. 296–7.

57.

Daniel (ed.), Gwaith Ieuan ap Rhydderch, p. 17; pp. 50–64 (poem); pp. 4–8, 139–54 (discussion and notes).

58.

Ann Parry Owen, ‘Ar drywydd y tawddgyrch cadwynog, tour de force y beirdd/In pursuit of the tawddgyrch cadwynog, the poets’ tour de force’, paper presented at the International Congress of Celtic Studies, Bangor University, July 2019. I am grateful to Professor Parry Owen for supplying me with a transcript of her presentation.

59.

Parry Owen, ‘Ar drywydd y tawddgyrch cadwynog’.

60.

R. Geraint Gruffydd and Rhiannon Ifans (eds), Gwaith Einion Offeiriad a Dafydd Ddu (Aberystwyth: University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, 1997), p. 5. The poem attributed to Einion Offeiriad contains the earliest examples of both the hir a thoddaid and the cyrch a chwtta metres. It has also been argued that the example verse for the tawddgyrch gadwynog in the grammars is a missing part of the full awdl; if this is so, then all three ‘invented’ metres were used by Einion Offeiriad (see Ceri Lewis, ‘Einion Offeiriad and the bardic grammar’, in A. O. H. Jarman and G. R. Hughes (eds), A Guide to Welsh Literature, vol. 2 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997), pp. 44–71, at 55). Regardless, this is the only fourteenth-century example; the invented metres were not commonly used before the middle of the fifteenth century.

61.

Death date of poem’s subject.

62.

T. Gwynn Jones, Gwaith Tudur Aled, II (Cardiff: University of Wales Press; Wrexham: Hughes a’i fab; London: Humphrey Milford, 1926), p. 282, l. 1–2.

63.

Translation modified from Russell, Reading Ovid, p. 228. I am grateful to Barry Lewis for this modification.

64.

‘Dafydd ab Edmwnd’, Guto’r Glyn.net, http://www.gutorglyn.net/gutorglyn/namefull/?n=bd01 (accessed 7 April 2020).

65.

Jones, Gwaith Tudur Aled, p. 283, l. 41.

66.

Russell, Reading Ovid, p. 228.

67.

Jones, Gwaith Tudur Aled, p. 729.

68.

‘Tudur Aled’, Guto’r Glyn.net, http://www.gutorglyn.net/gutorglyn/name-full/? n=bt01 (accessed 7 April 2020).

69.

Jones, Gwaith Tudur Aled, p. 746.

70.

D. J. Bowen (ed.), Gwaith Gruffudd Hiraethog (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1990), p. 460, l. 17.

71.

Thomas Parry, ‘Gruffudd Hiraethog’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography, https://biography.wales/article/s-GRUF-HIR-1564 (accessed 7 April 2020).

72.

Bowen (ed.), Gwaith Gruffudd Hiraethog, p. 460, l. 24.

73.

Bowen (ed.), Gwaith Gruffudd Hiraethog, p. 463, l. 15.

74.

Enid Roberts (ed.), Gwaith Siôn Tudur, I (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1980), p. 887, l. 60. Enid Roberts, ‘Siôn Tudur’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://wwwoxforddnb-com.ezpprod1.hul.harvard.edu/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb9780198614128-e-68200 (accessed 7 April 2020).

75.

76.

Roberts (ed.), Gwaith Siôn Tudur, p. 898, l. 31.

77.

Roberts (ed.), Gwaith Siôn Tudur, p. 898, l. 38.

78.

Roberts (ed.), Gwaith Siôn Tudur, p. 913, l. 10.

79.

Rachel Bromwich, ‘Gwaith Einion Offeiriad a Barddoniaeth Dafydd ap Gwilym’, Ysgrifau Beirniadol (1977), 157–80.

80.

Dafydd Johnston (ed.), ‘Moliant Llywelyn ap Gwilym’, poem 5, Dafydd ap Gwilym.net, https://dafyddapgwilym.net/eng/3win.php (accessed 3 April 2023).

81.

Russell, Reading Ovid, pp. 219–20.

82.

J. E. Caerwyn Williams, ‘Tudur Aled’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography, https://biography.wales/article/s-TUDU-ALE-1480 (accessed 7 April 2020).

83.

John Morris-Jones, ‘Tudur Aled’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1910), 21–52, at 21; Tudur Aled is mentioned in the Bardic Schedule of Fees and Regulations in Peniarth 155 as having graduated at the 1523 eisteddfod. See RED, p. 167.

84.

Gruffudd Hiraethog’s role in the production of sixteenth-century bardic grammars is treated more extensively in Chapter 5, pp. 192–5, 196–8.

85.

Ceri Lewis, ‘The Decline of Professional Poetry’, in R. Geraint Gruffydd (ed.), A Guide to Welsh Literature III: c.1530–1700 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997), pp. 29–74, at 29.

86.

Lewis, ‘Decline’, pp. 29, 30, 33.

87.

R. Geraint Gruffydd, ‘The Renaissance and Welsh Literature’, in Glanmor Williams and Robert Owen Jones (eds), The Celts and the Renaissance: Tradition and Innovation. Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Celtic Studies 1987 held at Swansea, 19–24 July, 1987 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1990), pp. 17–39, at 37.

88.

Thomas Parry, A History of Welsh Literature, trans. Idris Bell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), p. 161.

89.

Idris Bell, The Development of Welsh Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), p. 102.

90.

Lewis, ‘Decline’, p. 29.

91.

Lewis, ‘Decline’, pp. 30–1.

92.

Lewis, ‘Decline’, p. 33.

93.

Gruffydd Aled Williams, ‘The poetic debate of Edmwnd Prys and Wiliam Cynwal’, Renaissance Studies, 18/1 (2004), 33–54, at 53.

94.

Lewis, ‘Decline’, pp. 34–9. See also pp. 191–2, 204 in Chapter 5.

95.

Parry, History of Welsh Literature, p. 136.

Chapter 4 Official Documents 1.

Dafydd Johnston, Llên yr Uchelwyr: Hanes Beirniadol Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg 1300– 1525 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014), p. 18 (‘yn debyg i urddau crefftwyr eraill yr Oesoedd Canol, megis y gwehyddion neu’r seiri maen’).

2.

Steven Epstein, Wage Labor & Guilds in Medieval Europe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), p. 102.

3.

Thomas Parry, A History of Welsh Literature, trans. Idris Bell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), p. 130.

4.

Ceri Lewis, ‘The Decline of Professional Poetry’, in R. Geraint Gruffydd (ed.), A Guide to Welsh Literature III: c.1530–1700 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997), pp. 29–74, at 43.

5.

Epstein, Wage Labor & Guilds, p. 107.

6.

The entire text was first printed in G. J. Williams, ‘Eisteddfod Caerfyrddin’, Y Llenor, 5 (1926), 94–102. The text was re-edited and translated in David Klausner, Records of Early Drama: Wales (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005) (hereafter, RED): the Peniarth 358 version is printed on p. 87; translation at pp. 334– 5; the Peniarth 267 version is printed on pp. 88–91; translation at pp. 335–8.

7.

Johnston, Llên yr Uchelwyr, pp. 250 (‘prif amcan y rheini oedd mawrygu camp Dafydd ab Edmwnd’), 251 (‘Mae’n rhaid bod craidd o wirionedd yn yr hanes, oherwydd sonia Gutun Owain am fuddugoliaeth Dafydd ab Edmwnd yn ei farwnad iddo’).

8.

RED, pp. 89, 337: Ag yna pann oeḍynt yn canu am y gadair y gofynnoḍ Gruffyḍ ap Nicolas ir prydyḍion a eḷid gụneuṭur Cynghaneḍ heb synwyr ag a attebassant oḷ (eiṭyr Dafyḍ ap Edmwnt) na eḷid: ag yno y dywedoḍ Dafyḍ y geḷid, ag y gwnae ef gynghaneḍ heb ḍim synwyr ynḍi, ‘And then when they were singing for the chair Gruffydd ap Nicolas asked the bards whether it was possible to produce nonsense “cynghanedd”, and they all, except Dafydd ab Edmwnd, answered that it was not, and then Dafydd said that it was and that he would produce “cynghanedd” with no sense in it’.

9.

RED, pp. 90, 338: Ag yna gwedi ynnil o Ḍafyḍ ap Edmụnt y gadair ai barnu iḍo ar ganu cywyḍ deuair, ‘And then after Dafydd ab Edmwnd won the chair and it [i.e. the chair] had been adjudged to him for singing “cywydd deuair”’ (This translation has been modified slightly; I am grateful to Barry Lewis for the suggestion.) RED, pp. 90, 338: Ag i ḍiheuro Gruffuḍ ap Nicolas or hort a vụriessid arno o gymryd gobyr am varnu y gadair i Ḍafyḍ, ‘And to apologise to Gruffudd ap Nicolas for the slander that had been cast upon him of taking a fee for judging the chair to be Dafydd’s’. The verb barnu also occurs at various points in the bardic grammars (§§119, 146, 152, 154).

10.

GP, pp. 14–15.

11.

RED, pp. 90–1.

12.

RED, p. 338. The translation has been modified somewhat (the first line of the second paragraph has been made vocative). I am grateful to Barry Lewis for the suggestion.

13.

It is possible that smaller, local eisteddfodau took place in the interim, but there is no written record of them. These appear to be the only meetings that occurred on a national scale.

14.

RED. This includes the bardic licence of Simwnt Fychan, the compiler of Pum Llyfr Kerddwriaeth (see Chapter 5).

15.

See Einir Gwenllian Thomas, ‘Astudiaeth Testunol o Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, Bangor University, 2001); RED, pp. cxvii–cxviii.

16.

RED, text of 1523 version at pp. 159–65, translation at pp. 349–56; text of 1567 version at pp. 170–7, translation at pp. 360–4.

17.

RED, text at p. 159 (1523 version), translation at p. 349.

18.

Richard Suggett, ‘Vagabonds and minstrels in sixteenth-century Wales’, in Adam Fox and Daniel Woolf (eds), The Spoken Word: Oral Culture in Britain, 1500–1850 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2002), pp. 138–72, at 154;

Gruffydd Aled Williams, ‘Bibles and Bards in Tudor and Early Stuart Wales’, in Geraint Evans and Helen Fulton (eds), The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 232–49, at 242. 19.

Huw Pryce, ‘Lawbooks and Literacy in Medieval Wales’, Speculum, 75/1 (2000), 29–67, at 66.

20.

Llinos Beverley Smith, ‘Inkhorn and Spectacles: the impact of literacy in late medieval Wales’, in Huw Pryce (ed.), Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 202–22, at 210; Llinos Beverley Smith, ‘The Welsh Language before 1536’, in Geraint H. Jenkins (ed.), The Welsh Language before the Industrial Revolution (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2001), pp. 15–44, at 42.

21.

G. R. Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government: Administrative Changes in the Reign of Henry VIII (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1953), p. 415.

22.

David Starkey, Conclusion in Christopher Coleman and David Starkey (eds), Revolution Reassessed: Revisions in the History of Tudor Government and Administration(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 208.

23.

Vanessa Harding, ‘Monastic Records and the Dissolution: A Tudor Revolution in the Archives?’, European History Quarterly, 46/3 (2016), 480–97, at 481.

24.

For discussion see, for instance, Geraint H. Jenkins, Richard Suggett and Eryn White, ‘The Welsh Language in Early Modern Wales’, in Geraint H. Jenkins (ed.), The Welsh Language before the Industrial Revolution (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2001), pp. 45–122, at 62; Peter Roberts, ‘Tudor Legislation and the Political Status of “The British Tongue”’, in Geraint H. Jenkins (ed.), The Welsh Language before the Industrial Revolution (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2001), pp. 123– 53, at 125.

25.

Katharine Olson, ‘The Acts of Union: Culture and Religion in Wales, c.1540– 1700’, in Geraint Evans and Helen Fulton (eds), The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 157–75, at 159.

26.

Roberts, ‘Tudor Legislation’, p. 123.

27.

Jenkins, Suggett and White, ‘The Welsh Language’, p. 63.

28.

Olson, ‘The Acts of Union’, p. 160.

29.

Roberts, ‘Tudor Legislation’, p. 123.

30.

Williams, ‘Bibles and Bards’, p. 240.

31.

Olson, ‘The Acts of Union’, p. 162.

32.

Richard Suggett, ‘The Welsh Language and the Court of Great Sessions’, in Geraint H. Jenkins (ed.), The Welsh Language before the Industrial Revolution (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2001), pp. 153–80, at 153.

33.

Suggett, ‘The Welsh Language’, pp. 172–3.

34.

Printed in RED, pp. 170–1.

35.

RED, pp. 170–1.

36.

Williams, ‘Bibles and Bards’, p. 241.

37.

Williams, ‘Bibles and Bards’, p. 241.

38.

The full text of this section is printed in GP, pp. 194–6.

39.

Daniel Huws, A Repertory of Welsh Manuscripts and Scribes, Volume I: Manuscripts (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 2020), p. 407.

40.

This correspondence was noted in GP, p. lxxx.

41.

RED, pp. 159, 349.

42.

RED, pp. 159, 350.

43.

GP, p. xlix; Huws, Repertory I, p. 362.

44.

‘possibly’ because there is a large blank space in the top quarter of the page, where one might otherwise expect a title. However, all metres are included.

45.

GP, p. liv.

46.

Thomas Parry, ‘The Welsh Metrical Treatise Attributed to Einion Offeiriad [Sir John Rhŷs Memorial Lecture]’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 47 (1961), 184.

47.

Parry, ‘Einion Offeiriad’, pp. 184–5.

48.

John Morris-Jones, Cerdd Dafod, sef Celfyddyd Barddoniaeth Gymraeg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925), p. 320.

49.

RED, pp. 172–3.

50.

I have emended this translation from Klausner’s ‘appropriate’. I am grateful to Paul Russell for the suggestion.

51.

RED, p. 361.

52.

RED, pp. 162, 353 (1523). I have emended the second clause in the translation, from ‘where he is found lacking the requested (document)’. I am grateful to Paul Russell for the suggestion.

53.

RED, pp. 165, 355.

54.

RED, p. cxvii; David Klausner, ‘Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan’, Welsh Music History, 3 (1999), 282–307, at 282.

55.

RED, p. 273.

56.

RED, p. 273.

57.

Sally Harper, Music in Welsh Culture Before 1650 (Hampshire and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2007), p. 85.

58.

RED, pp. 105–6.

59.

RED, p. 165.

60.

RED, p. 166 (Peniarth 155).

61.

RED, pp. 168–70 (NLW 17116B).

62.

RED, pp. 28–9.

63.

RED, pp. 176–9.

64.

RED, pp. 179–81.

65.

RED, p. 181.

66.

RED, p. 182.

67.

RED, p. 106.

68.

RED, p. 160 (editorial marks not preserved).

69.

RED, p. 350.

70.

The capital R in this manuscript is used to signify unlenited rh.

71.

It is possible this should be read as one word, drygysdyr; however, the word division here reflects the spacing in the manuscript.

72.

From the Red Book, GP, p. 6: gwr du y lygeit.

73.

Harper, Music in Welsh Culture, p. 2.

74.

Harper, Music in Welsh Culture, p. 30.

75.

Harper, Music in Welsh Culture, ‘Gathering the Documentation of Cerdd Dant’, pp. 75–106.

76.

RED, p. 277; Harper, Music in Welsh Culture, p. 119.

77.

See discussion in the glossary to the Appendix, pp. 266–7.

78.

Harper, Music in Welsh Culture, p. 120.

79.

RED, p. 277.

80.

Harper, Music in Welsh Culture, p. 107.

81.

Harper, Music in Welsh Culture, p. 80.

82.

RED, p. 160.

83.

RED, p. 350.

84.

RED, p. 173.

85.

RED, p. 361.

86.

Taken from RED: text at pp. 159–60 (1523), pp. 172–3 (1567); translation at pp. 349–50 (1523), pp. 360–1 (1567).

87.

RED, p. 159.

88.

RED, p. 350. I have altered Klausner’s translation slightly to reflect the use of ymadrawd as ‘sentence’ rather than ‘speech’.

89.

RED, p. 172.

90.

Klausner (RED, p. 360) has ‘branches’ here, but I have emended the translation to cynganeddion, which I find to be the more probable meaning.

91.

RED, pp. 360 1. I have altered the translation to reflect the use of ymadrawd in the bardic grammars, which seems to correspond better to ‘sentence’.

Chapter 5 Bardic Humanism 1.

Thomas Parry, ‘The Welsh Metrical Treatise Attributed to Einion Offeiriad [Sir John Rhŷs Memorial Lecture]’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 47 (1961), 183.

2.

GP, p. 118.

3.

See Chapter 3, pp. 112–16.

4.

RED, text at p. 172; translation at p. 360. I have altered the translation slightly (indicated in square brackets).

5.

RED, text at pp. 172 3; translation at p. 361. I have altered Klausner’s translation slightly (indicated in square brackets) to better reflect the fact that cymeriad is being used as a technical term here.

6. 7.

See discussion in GP, p. lxxiv. Parry, ‘Einion Offeiriad’, 183.

8.

GP, p. 117.

9.

RED, text at p. 160; translation at p. 350.

10.

The editors of GP identified two pieces of evidence in Llanstephan 45 to lead them to this conclusion: first, that the section on the metres is labelled ‘one of the five books of poetry’; and second, that elsewhere in the same text, it names a fifteenth-century source, the book of Gutun Owain (still extant in Llanstephan 28, dating to 1455) (p. lxi). However, Llanstephan 45 dates to the second half of the sixteenth century according to Daniel Huws (A Repertory of Welsh Manuscripts and Scribes, Volume I: Manuscripts (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 2020), p. 70), and so does not necessarily precede the Pum Llyfr; it certainly postdates at least the first version of Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan. The argument that the division into five books derives from any fifteenth-century source is not persuasive.

11.

D. J. Bowen, Gwaith Gruffudd Hiraethog (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1990), p. xxvi.

12.

Bowen, Gwaith, pp. xxvi–xxvii.

13.

RED, text at p. 172; translation at p. 360.

14.

Paul Oskar Kristeller, ‘Humanism’, in C. B. Schmitt et al. (eds), The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 113 37, at 113.

15.

Charles Nauert, Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 8; see also OED s.v. humanism, 3a. and 3b.

16.

GPC, s.v. dyneiddiaeth.

17.

Kristeller, ‘Humanism’, p. 113.

18.

Nicholas Mann, ‘The origins of humanism’, in Jill Kraye (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 1–19, at 1–2.

19.

Kristeller, ‘Humanism’, p. 132; Alister McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), pp. 42–4.

20.

Angharad Price, ‘Welsh Humanism after 1536’, in Geraint Evans and Helen Fulton (eds), The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 176 93, at 190.

21.

These included Henry Salesbury’s Geirfa Tafod Cymraeg, John Davies’s Dictionarium Duplex (1632) and Thomas Wiliems’s Trysor yr iaith Lladin a’r Gymraeg (1604x1608). See Branwen Jarvis, ‘Welsh Humanist Learning’, in R. Geraint Gruffydd (ed.), A Guide to Welsh Literature, vol. II (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997), pp. 128–53, at 135, 138–40.

22.

For an overview of some of these works, see Jarvis, ‘Welsh Humanist Learning’, pp. 144 9.

23.

Erich Poppe, ‘Henry Salesbury’s Grammatica Britannica (1593) and Ramist Linguistic Method’, Studia Celtica Japonica, 9 (1997), 35 49, at 35.

24.

Garfield Hughes, Rhagymadroddion 1547–1632 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1932), p. 65.

25.

Kristeller, ‘Humanism’, p. 121.

26.

R. Brinley Jones, The Old British Tongue: The Vernacular in Wales, 1540–1640 (Cardiff: Avalon Books, 1970), p. 73.

27.

Vivien Law, The History of Linguistics in Europe: From Plato to 1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 232–4.

28.

Gerda Haßler, ‘History of European Vernacular Grammar Writing’, in Mark Aronoff and Anvita Abbi (eds), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).

29.

Glanmor Williams, ‘The Renaissance’, in Glanmor Williams and Robert Owen Jones (eds), The Celts and the Renaissance: Tradition and Innovation. Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Celtic Studies 1987 held at Swansea, 19 24 July, 1987 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1990), pp. 1 15, at 12.

30.

Jones, Old British Tongue, p. 75.

31.

Gruffydd Aled Williams, ‘The Poetic Debate of Edmwnd Prys and Wiliam Cynwal’, Renaissance Studies, 18/1 (2004), 33–5.

32.

Gruffydd Aled Williams, Ymryson Edmwnd Prys a Wiliam Cynwal: Fersiwn llawysgrif Llanstephan 43 gyda rhagymadrodd, nodiadau a geirfa (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1986), p. xc.

33.

Williams, ‘The Poetic Debate’, 40.

34.

Jerry Hunter, ‘Cyd-destunoli Ymrysonau’r Cywyddwyr: Cipolwg ar “Yr Ysbaddiad Barddol”’, Dwned, 3 (1997), 33–52, at 33.

35.

Williams, ‘The Poetic Debate’, 36 8, 41, 50.

36.

Williams, ‘The Poetic Debate’, 52.

37.

Jarvis, ‘Welsh Humanist Learning’, 134 5.

38.

Williams, Ymryson, p. 75. Poem 17.13–18.

39. 40.

Price, ‘Welsh Humanism’, p. 178. Jones, Old British Tongue, p. 36.

41.

See discussion in Jarvis, ‘Welsh Humanist Learning’, 134–6.

42.

See section entitled ‘Cyfeillgarwch Gruffudd Hiraethog a William Salesbury’, in D. J. Bowen, Gwaith Gruffudd Hiraethog (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1990), pp. cxii cxxiii; see also R. Brinley Jones, William Salesbury (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1994), p. 4; Price, ‘Welsh Humanism’, pp. 180–1; R. Geraint Gruffydd, ‘The Renaissance and Welsh Literature’, in Glanmor Williams and Robert Owen Jones (eds), The Celts and the Renaissance: Tradition and Innovation. Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Celtic Studies 1987 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1990), pp. 17 39, at 26.

43.

Hughes, Rhagymadroddion, pp. 9, 15. See discussion in Price, ‘Welsh Humanism’, p. 181.

44.

Henry Lewis, ‘Llythr William Salesbury at Ruffudd Hiraethog’, BBCS, 2/2 (1924), 113–18, at 117.

45.

Bowen, Gwaith Gruffudd Hiraethog, p. 84.

46.

GP, p. lxxvi.

47.

Bowen, Gwaith Gruffudd Hiraethog, p. xlii.

48.

D. J. Bowen, ‘Disgyblion Gruffudd Hiraethog’, Studia Celtica, 10 (1975), 241–55, at 241 (‘safle allweddol yn wir fel athro barddol’), 242.

49.

Bowen, ‘Disgyblion’, 243

50.

GP, p. lxxxviii.

51.

Gwasgawd has a variety of meanings, including ‘shadow’ or ‘covering’ (GPC s.v. gwasgawd). The metaphor at work here appears to be analogous to English eclipsis,

typically used to describe a type of initial mutation in the Goidelic languages – the prefixed (or substituted) initial letters in the mutated form of the word eclipse, or obscure, the radical initial letter. It is not clear where the Welsh term derives from: contemporary grammatical use in Latin or English seems to be restricted to the figures of speech, where eclypsis refers to the omission of an entire word from a sentence (as in Thomas Linacre’s Rudimenta Grammatica, cf. ellipsis). I am not sure whether Welsh bards or humanists would have been aware of the Irish usage, which occurs in the Irish Grammatical Tracts (see eDil, s.v. airrdiugad). 52.

GP, p. lxiv (‘Un o’r ychwanegiadau mwyaf diddorol’).

53.

GP, p. 93.

54.

Translation of title by Sally Harper, Music in Welsh Culture before 1650 (Hampshire and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2007), p. 33.

55.

Harper, Music in Welsh Culture, pp. 89 90.

56.

Bowen, Gwaith Gruffudd Hiraethog, p. cxxi.

57.

GP, p. lxiv.

58.

Peniarth 155, p. 156; quoted in GP, p. lxv.

59.

GP, pp. lxiv lxv.

60.

GP, p. 101.

61.

GP, p. 89.

62.

David Thomson (ed.), An Edition of the Middle English Grammatical Texts (London: Routledge, 1984), p. 42.

63.

See Michaela Jacques, ‘The Grammatical Sources of the Dwned’, Celtica, 31 (2019), 163–90.

64.

The Middle English phrase ‘Power, figure and ordur’ (Thomson, An Edition, p. 42) is translated in the Welsh Dwned as meddiant (or gallu), a ffvgr ac vrddas ‘government (or sound), figure, and order’ (GP, p. 74).

65.

Vincent Flynn, ‘The Grammatical Writings of William Lily, ?1468–?1523*’, The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 37/2 (1943), 85 113, at 106 7. The grammar was initially composed by committee; the attribution to Lily came only later, and gradually. For more on this, see Hedwig Gwosdek (ed.), Lily’s Grammar of Latin in English: An introduction of the eyght partes of speche and the construction of the same (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 86, 96.

66.

Gwosdek, Lily’s Grammar, pp. 9 11.

67.

Gwosdek, Lily’s Grammar, pp. 13–15.

68.

Gwosdek, Lily’s Grammar, p. 1. On the Pamphlet for Grammar, see Gwosdek, Lily’s Grammar, pp. 128 39. On Gruffydd Robert, see Erich Poppe, ‘The translation of

morphological descriptions in Gruffydd Robert’s sixteenth-century Welsh Grammar’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft, 30/2 (2020), 143–62. 69.

Jones, Old British Tongue, pp. 33 4.

70.

On Welsh attendance at Oxford, see Rhŷs Hays, ‘Welsh students at Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the Middle Ages’, Welsh History Review, 4 (1968), 325 61; on Salesbury’s time at Oxford, see Isaac Thomas, William Salesbury and his Testament (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1967), pp. 8 13; Jones, William Salesbury, pp. 4–7. However, Price points out that there is ‘scant concrete evidence’ to corroborate Salesbury’s attendance at Oxford (‘Welsh Humanism’, p. 178).

71.

Nicholas Orme, ‘Education in Medieval Wales’, Welsh History Review, 27/4 (2015), 607 44, at 632, 637, 641 4.

72.

G. A. Padley, Grammatical Theory in Western Europe, 1500–1700, Vol. I: Trends in Vernacular Grammar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 146.

73.

Walter Frere and William Kennedy (eds), Visitation Articles and Injunctions, vol. II (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910), p. 264. Cited in Orme, ‘Education in Wales’, 634.

74.

See Jacques, ‘The Grammatical Sources of the Dwned’.

75.

GP, p. 108.

76.

I am grateful to Paul Russell for drawing my attention to this omission, and to the ‘perennial problem’ posed to Welsh glossators and translators attempting to render or explain the Latin relative.

77.

GP, p. 108.

78.

Gwosdek, Lily’s Grammar, p. 193.

79.

Ian Green, Humanism and Protestantism in Early Modern English Education (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), pp. 145–6; Andrew Wallace, Virgil’s Schoolboys: The Poetics of Pedagogy in Renaissance England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 47.

80.

Green, Humanism and Protestantism, p. 129.

81.

Green, Humanism and Protestantism, p. 141.

82.

Ceri Lewis, ‘The Decline of Professional Poetry’, in R. Geraint Gruffydd (ed.), A Guide to Welsh Literature III: c.1530–1700 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997), pp. 29–74; Price, ‘Welsh Humanism’, p. 176; Johnston, Llên yr Uchelwyr: Hanes Beirniadol Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg 1300–1525 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014), pp. 401 2; Idris Bell, The Development of Welsh Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), p. 102; Williams, ‘The poetic debate’, 53; Gruffydd, ‘The Renaissance and Welsh Literature’, p. 37; Thomas Parry, A History of Welsh

Literature, trans. Idris Bell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), p. 161. On humanist responses, see Lewis, ‘Decline’, pp. 34–9. 83.

Lewis, ‘Decline’, pp. 30 2, 48 59; Williams, ‘Bibles and Bards’, pp. 244 6.

84.

Lewis, ‘Decline’, p. 46.

85.

Jones, Old British Tongue, p. 34.

86.

Gruffydd, ‘The Renaissance’, p. 32; Lewis, ‘Decline’, p. 70.

87.

GP, p. 130.

88.

The interest in Greek figures, in particular, was relatively new: it was a part of the English university curriculum from about 1516, when it appeared in a college statute for St John’s College, Cambridge; the first Greek publication in English did not appear until 1543 (Maria Dowling, Humanism in the Age of Henry VIII (London, Sydney and Dover, NH: Croom Helm, 1986), p. 2).

89.

Green, Humanism and Protestantism, p. 129.

90.

George Puttenham, The Art of English Poesy, ed. Frank Whigham and Wayne Rebhorn (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2007), p. 222 (III.i).

91.

Puttenham, The Art of English Poesy, p. 98 (I.iv).

92.

Arthur Kinney, Continental Humanist Poetics: Studies in Erasmus, Castiglione, Marguerite de Navarre, Rabelais, and Cervantes (Amesbury, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989), p. 13.

93.

Arthur Kinney, Renaissance Reflections: Selected Essays, 1976–2012 (Amesbury, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014), p. 35.

94.

Nancy Christiansen, Figuring Style: The Legacy of Renaissance Rhetoric (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2013), p. 181.

95.

Huws, Repertory I, p. 738.

96.

At least in Salesbury’s lifetime: the treatise was finally printed for the Welsh MSS Society in John Williams ab Ithel’s The Ancient Welsh Grammar (Llandovery: William Rees and London: Longman & Co, 1856), pp. 321–50.

97.

D. J. Bowen, Gwaith Gruffudd Hiraethog (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1990), p. cxvi; Jones, Old British Tongue, p. 76.

98.

Lewis, ‘Llythr William Salesbury’, 115.

99.

Lewis, ‘Llythr William Salesbury’, 116.

100. Lewis, ‘Llythr William Salesbury’, 116. 101. The term ‘commonplace-book’ is apt only for the manuscript’s first use, consisting of Latin material, as Daniel Huws notes in Repertory I, p. 718. The rest of the manuscript contains full Welsh texts (among them a number of poems and the grammar) and is perhaps better characterised as a miscellany. For a description of the

layout and use of the manuscript, see Neil Ker, ‘Sir John Prise’, The Library, Fifth Series, X/1 (March 1955), 1–24, at 9. 102. On Vaughan, see Daniel Huws, A Repertory of Welsh Manuscripts and Scribes, Volume II: Scribes, Indexes (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 2020), p. 180, and E. D. Jones, ‘Robert Vaughan’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography, https://biography.wales/article/s-VAUG-ROB-1592 (accessed 4 April 2022); on Wiliems, see Huws, Repertory II, p. 199, and William David Williams, ‘Thomas Wiliems’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography, https://biography.wales/article/s-WILITHO-1545 (accessed 4 April 2022); on Prise, see Ceri Davies (ed.), Historiae Britannicae Defensio, by John Prise (Toronto and Oxford: The Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies and The Bodleian Library, 2015), pp. xvi–xvii. 103. For further discussion, see GP, pp. xxxvi xxxvii; Ann Matonis, ‘The Welsh Bardic Grammars and the Western Grammatical Tradition’, Modern Philology, 79/2 (November 1981), 121–45, at 144. 104. GP, p. cxi. Modern studies that take Balliol 353 as the witness to an independent medieval copy include, for instance, Ann Matonis, ‘A case study: historical and textual aspects of the Welsh bardic grammar’, CMCS, 41 (2001), 25–36, at 29; Thomas Charles-Edwards, ‘The Welsh bardic grammars on Litterae’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammar and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 149 60, at 150; Paul Russell, ‘Gwr gwynn y law: Figures of Speech in Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid and Latin grammarians’, CMCS, 32 (1996), 95–104, at 98; Paul Russell, ‘Poetry by numbers: The poetic triads in Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammars and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 161 80; Jacques, ‘The Grammatical Sources’, 165; Michaela Jacques, ‘Syllable and Diphthong Classification in the Medieval Welsh Bardic Grammars’, Language and History, 63/1 (2020), 73–90, at 74. 105. Prise saw the Red Book around 1550 at Hergest court and may have owned it for a period (Davies, Historiae, p. xxix). Prise was responsible for the Roman numbering of the pages on the top outer margin of each recto of the Red Book (Daniel Huws, ‘Llyfr Coch Hergest’, in Iestyn Daniel, Marged Haycock and Jenny Rowland (eds), Cyfoeth y Testun: Ysgrifau ar Lenyddiaeth Gymraeg yr Oesoedd Canol (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003), pp. 1 30, at 2; GP, p. cxi), and for certain titles, attributions and short notes, as well as the addition of proverb material (Huws ‘Llyfr Coch’, pp. 25, 28).

106. The editors of GP acknowledge this, drawing attention to marginal additions on 110r, 114r (I believe this is an error in GP, and should read 116v) and 119r (cxi). 107. Lawrence Green, ‘Grammatica Movet: Renaissance Grammar Books and Elocutio’, in Peter Oesterreich and Thomas Sloane (eds), Rhetorica Movet: Studies in Historical and Modern Rhetoric in Honour of Heinrich F. Plett (Leiden, Boston and Köln: Brill, 1999), pp. 73–116, at 101. 108. Green, ‘Grammatica Movet’, p. 101. 109. Llanstephan 28 (GP, p. 82); synoteches in Peniarth 169 (GP, p. 69). 110. Davies, Historiae Britannicae Defensio, p. xvi. 111. GPC s.v. ymgynull (2). 112. Davies, Historiae Britannicae Defensio, p. xxiv. 113. Poppe, ‘Figures of Speech’, 103; Russell, ‘Gwr gwynn y law’, 98. 114. GP, p. 130. 115. Jones, Old British Tongue, p. 78. 116. John Fisher (ed. and trans.), Kynniver Llith a Ban (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1931), text at p. lii; translation at p. 175. 117. Williams, ‘The poetic debate’, 36, 39. From Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia, Cynwal refers to Dyfnwal (poem 1, line 11, p. 8; note on p. 242), Merddin Emrys (2.3, p. 16, n. 242; 8.45, p. 35, n. 252), Saint Dyfrig (6.12, p. 25, n. 248) and Rita Gawr (30.76, p. 135, n. 283); more generally, he also refers to the legendary Welsh character Nudd (8.16, p. 34, n. 252), and to Dewi Sant (19.112, p. 87, n. 263) (Williams, Ymryson). 118. Williams, ‘The poetic debate’, 35; Williams, Ymryson, p. cxxiv. 119. Jarvis, ‘Welsh Humanist Learning’, p. 132. 120. John Davies, Antiquae Linguae Brytannicae… Rudimenta, quoted in Jarvis, ‘Welsh Humanist Learning’, p. 133; Jones, British Tongue, p. 34. 121. Hughes, Rhagymadroddion, p. 67. 122. Hughes, Rhagymadroddion, p. 9.

Appendix Translation of the Bardic Grammar in the Red Book of Hergest 1.

The description of the third figure has been omitted from the Red Book of Hergest (presumably in error). I have inserted this paragraph from Llanstephan 3 (GP, p. 25).

2.

I have substituted the manuscript form of this word as it occurs in Bangor 1, following the editors of Gwaith Einion Offeiriad a Dafydd Ddu o Hiraddug (R.

Geraint Gruffydd and Rhiannon Ifans (eds), Gwaith Einion Offeiriad a Dafydd Ddu o Hiraddug (Aberystwyth: Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, 1997), p. 48). The Red Book form of this word (ynghiyeith) is untranslatable, and likely an error. The Llanstephan 3 and Peniarth 20 versions both read ynghyfraith (‘in law’), which could be another alternative. 3.

This text has been emended following the suggestion in Gruffydd and Ifans (eds), Gwaith Einion Offeiriad, p. 67, which follows the text in Llanstephan 3 (GP, p. 30). The Llanstephan 3 spelling is retained here. The Red Book text for this line is Yw pann wyl (‘It is when ?wyl’).

4.

The number sixty-four has been taken from the Peniarth 20 copy (GP, p. 51), following the editorial note on GP, p. 11. Both the Red Book and the Llanstephan 3 versions read ‘twenty-four’, which is an incorrect description of this metre.

5.

The editors of GP were uncertain about the presence of the g, as it is unclear and written above the line. They omitted it from the text of the edition. After consulting the manuscript, I have inserted the g.

6.

This entire section has been omitted from the Red Book of Hergest. I have inserted §§118–21 in their entirety from a section in Llanstephan 3 (GP, p. 35).

Notes on the translation 1.

Thomas Charles-Edwards, ‘The Welsh bardic grammars on Litterae’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammar and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 149–60, at 155.

2.

Charles-Edwards, ‘Litterae’, p. 15.

3.

Paul Russell, ‘Poetry by numbers: The poetic triads in Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammars and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), pp. 161 80, at 165.

4.

Thomas Charles-Edwards, ‘The Bardic Grammars on Syllables’, in Simon Rodway, Jenny Rowland and Erich Poppe (eds), Celts, Gaels, and Britons: Studies in Language and Literature from Antiquity to the Middle Ages in Honour of Patrick Sims-Williams (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2022), pp. 239 56, at 247.

5.

Ann Matonis, ‘The Welsh Bardic Grammars and the Western Grammatical Tradition’, Modern Philology, 79/2 (November 1981), 121–45, at 134.

6.

Charles-Edwards, ‘Litterae’, p. 156; ‘On Syllables’, p. 247.

7.

Charles-Edwards, ‘On Syllables’, p. 248.

8.

Barry Lewis, review of Gramadach, Gramadeg and Grammatica: Vernacular Grammar and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales, Celtica, 30 (2018), 223–9 at 226–7.

9.

Ceri Lewis, ‘Einion Offeiriad and the bardic grammar’, in A. O. H. Jarman and G. R. Hughes (eds), A Guide to Welsh Literature, vol. 2 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997), pp. 44 71, at 63.

10.

See David W. Porter (ed.), Excerptiones de Prisciano: The Source for Ælfric’s LatinOld English Grammar (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002), pp. 53 4.

11.

Stefan Zimmer, Studies in Welsh Word-formation (Dublin: DIAS, 2000), p. 12.

12.

The standard discussion (in Welsh) can be found in John Morris-Jones, Cerdd Dafod, sef Celfyddyd Barddoniaeth Gymraeg (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1925), pp. 254 62. My translation of ‘half-rhyme’ has been made in accordance with his comment that Mewn gair, hannder odl yw proest, sef yr hanner olaf ohoni (‘In a word, proest is half-rhyme, that is, the latter half of it’).

13.

OED, s.v. 4.b. reason.

14.

This follows the translation of the Latin in Porter, Exerptiones, pp. 62–3.

15.

See Zimmer, Welsh Word-formation, p. 465.

16.

Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 137.

17.

Porter, Excerptiones, pp. 190 1.

18.

Matonis, ‘Western Grammatical Tradition’, 140.

19.

GP, p. 45.

20.

For discussion, see Dafydd Jenkins, ‘Bardd Teulu and Pencerdd’, in Thomas CharlesEdwards, Morfydd Owen and Paul Russell (eds), The Welsh King and his Court (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000), pp. 142 66; Eurys Rowlands, Poems of the Cywyddwyr: A Selection of Cywyddau c.1375 1525 (Dublin: DIAS, 1976), p. xxiv, and J. E. Caerwyn Williams, The Court Poet in Medieval Wales (Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), pp. 52–3.

21.

Jenkins, ‘Bardd Teulu and Pencerdd’, pp. 142 66; see also Rowlands, Poems of the Cywyddwyr, p. xxiv, and Caerwyn Williams, The Court Poet in Medieval Wales, pp. 54–5, 102–3.

22.

For the standard discussion, see (in Welsh) Morris-Jones, Cerdd Dafod, pp. 319 27, and Dafydd Johnston, Llên yr Uchelwyr: Hanes Beirniadol Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg 1300 1525 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014), pp. 50 89; in English, see ‘Appendix A: Welsh Versification’, in Gwyn Williams, Introduction to Welsh Poetry (London: Faber and Faber, 1953), pp. 232–6.

23.

For discussion, see (in Welsh) Morris-Jones, Cerdd Dafod, pp. 331–52; Johnston, Llên yr Uchelwyr, pp. 50–89; and in English, Williams, Introduction to Welsh Poetry, pp. 237 43.

24.

For the standard description in Welsh, see Morris-Jones, Cerdd Dafod, pp. 327–31; also Johnston, Llên yr Uchelwyr, pp. 90–108, and D. J. Bowen, ‘Dafydd ap Gwilym a Datblygiad y Cywydd’, Llên Cymru, 8 (1964–5), 1–32; in English, see Williams, Introduction, pp. 236 7; Rowlands, Poems of the Cywyddwyr, pp. xx xxvii.

25.

Jane Cartwright, ‘Abbess Annes and the Ape’, in Janet Burton and Karen Stöber (eds), Monastic Wales: New Approaches (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013), pp. 191–207, at 196–7.

26.

For discussion, see Caerwyn Williams, The Court Poet in Medieval Wales, pp. 16 18.