Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/327

Rh CELTIC LITERATURE 315 Classiflca- purpose under the following heads : (1.) Glossaries aud tion of grammars ; (2.) The Bruts, or annals, genealogies, and terature&quot; histories ; (3.) Poems ; (4.) Mabinoyion, and other prose tales; (5.) Laws; (6.)&quot;Medicine and science. There are very few Welsh glossaries, because there exist in fact few examples of obsolete or old Welsh. The oldest Welsh laws are attributed to Howel Dda, who died in 950, and the oldest codex containing them is believed to have been written in the 12th century. If this codex contained the laws in their original form they would probably require no gloss to explain them, because the language did not change very much in the interval between the framing of the laws and the writing of the manuscripts. But like all Welsh manuscripts, even the oldest copy of the laws gives us an edition in the language of the time. A grammar of the Welsh, said to have been made by Edeyrn Dnfod Aur, by the order and at the desire of three Welsh princes, in the second half of the 13th century, has been published by the Rev. J. Williams ab Ithel, from a copy made in 1832 from another copy made in 1821 from a manuscript of Edward Williams, or lolo Morganwg. Whatever may be the intrinsic scientific value of the treatise itself, this is a very doubtful source to derive historical value from. Mr Williams has also published in the same volume a work on the rules of Welsh poetry, originally compiled by Davydd Dda Athraw in the 14th century, and subsequently enlarged by Simwnt Vychan in the 16th century. We have no evidence as to how much belonged to the former and how much to the latter, but it all appears to belong to ths 17th century. Mr Williams has also added a great deal of matter of his own, which is distinguished from the text by bsing printed in smaller type. His object was to combine in one volume as complete a body of information on the subject as possible. It would be outside the scope of this article to criticise this laborious work. If we might judge by names alone, the British, between the departure of the Romans and the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, possessed many historians. Welsh anti quaries give a long list, and some find a place even in the works of English and foreign writers ; but with the exception of Gildas and Nennius, the titles only of their Gildas. writings are known, nor are these above suspicion. Bede quotes Gildas, and so far we have proof that as early as his time there was a belief in the existsnce of such an author. The works now known as those of Gildas and Nennius are written in Latin, and are properly outside our scope, but they are so inseparably connected with the Bruts or Annals, and with the history of romance, that we must say a few words concerning each. Gildas was the son of a British king of Aildyd, the present Dumbarton, and was therefore from that part of Britain referred to in Welsh works as y Gogled. Several dates have been assigned for his birth and death, but we prefer for the former 516, and for the latter 570, and his book De Ex- cidio Britanni&amp;lt;e, if genuine, seems to have been written about 560. According to his legendary lives, he went to Ireland on the invitation of St Brigit, founded monas teries there, and taught at the school of Armagh. His work above named is written in an inflated style, and is a mere sketch of British history under the Romans, and in the period immediately succeeding their withdrawal from the country, and so includes the period of the wars of the Britons with the Picts, Scots, and Saxons ; it is full of blunders and anachronisms. Mr Skene suggests, very reasonably, that the well-known letter of the Britons to Aetius, asking for Roman aid, is misplaced, and that if put in its proper place the discrepancy between Gildas s account of the departure of the Romans from Britain and that of Greek and Roman writers will disappear. Nenuius. Nothing is known of the person called Xennius, to whom the short History of the Britous known by his name is attributed. In the earliest known manuscript of it, written about the middle of the 10th century, and now in the Vatican Library, it is ascribed to a certain Marc, who is be lieved to be the Marc who with his nephew, Moengal, better known as Marcellus (little Marc), came to the monastery of St Gall about the middle of the 9th century, having with him many books and a considerable retinue. Bestowing his wealth on his followers, and reserving for himself only the books, he and his nephew remained at St Gall, where the latter became celebrated as the teacher of Notker, Ratpert, and Tutilo. Mr Skene thinks it was originally written in British in Cumbria, or y Goglcd, and was afterwards translated into Latin. To this nucleus was added the genealogies of the Saxon kings, down to 738 ; the above-mentioned Marc appended, probably about 823, the life of St Germauus, and the legends of St Patrick, which were subsequently incorporated with the history. Some South Welshman added to the oldest manuscript of the history in these countries, about 977, a chronicle of events from 444 to 954, in which there are gene alogies beginning with Owain, son of Howel Dda king of South Wales. This chronicle, hich is not found in other manuscripts, has been made the basis of two later chronicles brought down to 1286 and 1288 respectively. It is consequently not the work of one author. A Sai and Fill, named Gilla CaomJian, who died 1072, translated it into Irish, and added many things concerning the Irish and the Picts. The Historia Britonwn is more valuable for the legendary matter which it contains than for what may be accepted as history, for it gives us, at least as early as the 1 Oth century, the British legends of the colonization of Great Britain and Ireland, the exploits of King Arthur, and the wonderful birth and prophecies of Merlin, which are not found elsewhere before the 12th century. The date of the book is of the greatest importance to the history of mediaeval romance, and there can now be no doubt, especially since the publication of the Irish Nennius, that it is earlier than the Norman Conquest, and that the legends themselves are of British origin. The books attributed to Gildas and Nennius contain the germs of the fables which expanded into Geoffrey of Monmouth s History of Britain, Geoffrey of wbich was written in Latin sometime before 1147, the Momnouth. date of the epistle dedicatory to Robert, earl of Gloucester, the son of Henry I. by Neat, only daughter of Rhys ab Tewdwr, and was a manifestation of the great advance which took place in Welsh literature consequent on tha restoration of the Welsh prince just named, and of Grufyd ab Cynan, and of which we shall have more to say hereafter. In the epistle just referred to Geoffrey states that Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, had given him a very ancient book in the British tongue, giving an account of the kings of Britain from Brutus to Cadivaladyr, and that he had translated it into Latin at ths archdeacon s request. But in the Welsh version of Geoffrey s chronicle in the Myvyrian Archaiology, the Brut Geoffrey ap Arthur, there is this postscript : &quot; I, Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, did turn this book out of Welsh into Latin ; and in my old age I turned it a second time out of Latin into Welsh.&quot; That Geoffrey drew his materials from British sources, and did not coin any of them, seems to us the legitimate conclusion to be drawn from a careful study of the whole subject. His book is, however, a compilation and not a translation , at all events no book now exists which can be regarded as his original, while all the Bruts or chronicles are posterior The Bruts. to Geoffrey s book and based upon it. Of these there are the Brut Tysilio and the Brut Geoffrey ap Arthur, both of which are also called Brut y Brenhinoedd, or Chronicle of the Kings. The copy of the latter in the Red Book ia