in the Welsh language ...

Great Britain Royal Commission on Historical ....

Owing to revised Treasury instructions, issued durin the progress of the work of inspection, manuscripts of date later than 1650 are not included* in the present repor with the exception of a certain number which had, at th: time, been already examined. It was also decided to om the pedigree manuscripts, of which there are a considerab number in the British Museum ;, all these are later, full but less reliable, than the older pedigrees in the Peniart collection, lately transferred to the National Library of Wale at Aberystwith.

The manuscripts of the Welsh Laws are both numeroi and valuable. Of these No. 4 is the most important. Thoug only a transcript of Peniarth MS. 29, yet it is an exceptional accurate transcript; and, notwithstanding its several lacun it contains all those sections now missing in its origin: We are thus able, by its means, to complete the text of t! most ancient recension of the Howelian Laws which h survived in the Welsh language. In No. 5 we have : abbreviated, and in No. 6. an amplified, text of the sar version. It has been surmised that No. 6 was drawn i for the use of the Council of Edward I., prior to t promulgation of the Statute of Rhuddlan. Viewed in t light of a commentarial expansion of the oldest knov version of the Laws, that is to say, as an embodiment what was deemed to be Welsh Law at the death of Llewely the “last” prince, MS. 6 has a certain historical intere But it cannot be seriously regarded as representing t primitive text of the Howelian codification and enactmen Quite a false importance was assigned to it by the edit of The Laws and Institutes of Wales. In No. 10 we ha the oldest and best manuscript of the “Gwentian " code which belongs to the same time, and owes its existen possibly, to the same cause as No. 6.

There are seve! MSS. of the Dimetian” code, but all are of seconda importance.

* The writer does not guarantee that all Welsh MSS. in the Brit Museum before 1650 have been examined for this Report.

† The full text of this MS. has been edited by Rev. A. W. Wat Evans, M.A. (Clarendon Press, 1909).

2 and 3, are historically serviceable, notwithstanding the fearful distortions of their Anglicised orthography. They are probably the oldest now extant.

In manuscript 19 we have a valuable copy of com-
positions by our earlier and better poets.* Judging by the
orthography, its original was written in the thirteenth
century, inferentially at Strata Marcella, by the scribe who
wrote the Book of Aneirin. Dr. John Davies informs us
that his original was lent him by Robert Vaughan, but
like many lent manuscripts it has strayed and been utterly
lost. Dr. John Davies was more gifted as a reader than
as a transcriber of old MSS. He could not reproduce the
orthography of his exemplar with any consistency and
regularity. He has in consequence had recourse to devices
to mark his departures from his original. These the dis-
cerning student will note for himself in MS. 19. Numbers
20–22 are also a valuable legacy from the same scholar.
The poets of the second half of the fifteenth, and of the first
quarter of the sixteenth centuries have a considerable
representation in No. 23. The reformers of Welsh ortho-
graphy should also study this manuscript as an early
exemplar of modern spelling in its saner form. Sir Thomas
Wiliems has preserved for us, in MS. 32, much of the prose
part of the burnt White Book of Hergest. Unfortunately
he did not copy the poetry in it; did not even make a list
of the poets. We could have spared, without pse
of loss, the theological tractates preserved for i
can cease to lament the disappearance of an eai
text of the most inspired poems in the Kymi.
We know that the White Book of Hergest did contan
by D. ap Gwilim, but we do not know if Peniarth
has copies of all of them. And Sir Thomas Wiliems
not help us, unless, indeed, the burnt manuscript was
source of the poems in Havod MS. 26, q.v.
The remaining manuscripts have no outstanding charac

They contain a mass of poetry mostly the product
Vth and XVIth centuries.

IS. has been edited (but not yet published) for the Series of