Grammar and Poetry in Late Medieval and Early Modern Wales

The Transmission and Reception of the Welsh Bardic Grammars

By (author) Michaela Jacques

Publication date:

15 March 2024

Length of book:

344 pages

Publisher

University of Wales Press

Dimensions:

216x138mm

ISBN-13: 9781837720996

BOOK DESCRIPTION
TABLE OF CONTENTS

The medieval Welsh bardic grammars were composed and transmitted during a period of intense social and political change in Wales. These documents, which contain both a highly Latinate description of the Welsh language and a treatment of the strict poetic metres, began their life as essentially vernacular artes poetriae. However, from the early fourteenth century to the end of the sixteenth, they were recopied and revised over and over by bards, bureaucrats, antiquarians, humanists, and the readers and reciters of poetry. At different times they served as practical handbooks, official regulatory documents and attempts to realign the Welsh texts with contemporary Latin and English scholarship. This book weaves a close textual analysis of the revisions made to the text into a broader consideration of the historical contexts that gave rise to each subsequent version. The resulting narrative offers insight into the development of Welsh bardic and scholarly practices over the course of two centuries.

List of Tables List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements Introduction I. Background Latin and Vernacular Grammar Latin and Bardic Education II. The Bardic Grammars Authorship Date Content Versions Manuscripts III. This Book Chapter 1: A Welsh ars poetriae I. Order of Composition II. Latin Context III. The Peniarth 20 Revision Chapter 2: Tools for Reading I. Literate Orientation and Archaism II. Grammatica and Scientia Interpretandi III. The Vernacular Canon IV. The Readers and Reciters of Poetry Chapter 3: ‘Bardic’ Grammars I. Cynghanedd Peniarth 126 Llanstephan 55 Peniarth 161 II. Syllables and Diphthongs Bangor 1 Peniarth 189 Llanstephan 55 III. Evidence from the Poetic Corpus Chapter 4: Official Documents I. The Eisteddfodau and the Statute of Gruffudd ap Cynan II. Artificial Abbreviations III. Cerdd Dafod and Cerdd Dant Chapter 5: Bardic Humanism I. Bards and Humanists II. Salesbury’s Books and Lily’s Grammar III. Renaissance Rhetoric IV. The Return Ad Fontes Conclusion Appendix: Translation of the Red Book of Hergest Notes on the translation