The material has been transcribed separately.
Pennyn y Fenter Amgodio Testunau (TEI) ar gyfer LlGC Llsgr. Peniarth 38
: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Whitefriars, Lewins Mead, Bristol BS1 2AE 0117 987 6500
Principal Investigator: Peter Wynn Thomas
Transcribed and encoded by D. Mark Smith
Transcribed and encoded by Diana Luft
- : Aberystwyth
- : National Library of Wales
- : Peniarth 38
- : Hengwrt 19
The manuscript contains a copy of Cyfraith Hywel Dda or The Laws of Hywel Dda in the version that Aneurin Owen identified as the Dimetian code or Dull Dyfed, now referred to as Llyfr Blegywryd. It was consulted, though not used extensively, by Aneurin Owen in his edition of the of the Dimetian code in his Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, and is referred to as 'Manuscript I' in this edition and in the subsequent literature.
The text in Peniarth 38 does not bear any very close relationship to any of the published editions of Llyfr Blegywryd, differing in both organisation and expression from the versions edited by both Williams and Powell (1942) and Richards (1957). Instead, this version seems to follow the three copies of the laws produced by Gwilym Wasta at the beginning of the fourteenth century (Trinity O.7.1, Peniarth 36A and Peniarth 36B), in not including the laws of the court, with the explanation that they were no longer used: 'Peidaỽ ỽeithon a ỽnaỽn a chyfreitheu sỽydogyon llys y brenhin. kanyt oes na reit nac aruer ohonunt'(3v).
Some tractates are repeated: that on Tystion, appears first on page 17v and again on 30r; and the tractate on Cyngaws appears first on page 53v and again on 67r.
| Page Number | Contents | hand |
| ii r | notes in the hand of J. Gwenogvryn Evans | Evans |
| iii r | Some illegible script, and the number 38 in a modern hand | ? |
| iii v | Signature: Liber Joh'is Watkin Jeian' | ? |
| v r | illegible script in a sixteenth century anglicana hand | ? |
| 1r-69v | Llyfr Blegywryd> | Peniarth 38 hand A |
The following texts were consulted during transcription:
- Richards, Melville. ed. 1957. Cyfreithiau Hywel Dda o Lawysgrif Coleg yr Iesu Rhydychen LVII. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
- Williams, Stephen J. and Powell, J. Enoch. eds. 1942. Cyfreithiau Hywel Dda yn ôl Llyfr Blegywryd (Dull Dyfed). Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Supplied text in this edition has been drawn from both the above publications.
There are two systems of foliation to be found in the top right corner of each recto page. One counts each page; the other counts each folio. The first system has been crossed out, perhaps by the author of the second, probably because of a mistake in the foliation in which the page number 115 (and hence page 116) appears twice. The editors have followed the second, corrected, system.
The manuscript is difficut to read in places because of fading and staining.
The text is written in a single column of between 20 and 22 lines to each page.
This scribe makes use of both regular and medial <a>. The medial <a> often serves almost as a capital, and is commonly found at the beginning of clauses and names.
The difference between some of the capitals and small forms can be slight. This is especially so when the capital is simply a slightly larger version of the small form. Examples of such capitals can be seen at:
- <V>: 2v.12, 48v.3
- <K>: 14v.9
The scribe writes ligatured <cc>, <ct> and <tt> in such a way that they are almost indistinguishable form one another.
The orthography of this scribe does not appear to differ substantially from expected forms.
The text contains a number of common abbreviations. These have been expanded in the transcription to the forms that are given elsewhere in the text itself rather than to standard or dictionary forms.
- macron for <n>: alla[n]t 66r.11; amdiffy[n] 56r.17; amdify[n]net 59r.11; arbe[n]nic 26v.12; brenhi[n] 44v.10, 45r.1, 55v,9, etc.
- macron for <m>: a[m]riodaỽr 20v.16; gy[m]myn 29r.20, etc.
- <9> for [us]: kynhen[us] 56v.12
The scribe also abbreviates the following commonly occurring nouns:
- <k[einhawc]>: 44r.15
- <ke[inawc]>: 14v.9, 14v.10, 14v.15 etc.
- <keinh[awc]>: 42r.16, 46r.7, 47v.6, 47v.12, etc.
- <gein[hawc]>: 43r.16
- <kyf[reith]>: 41v.1, 41v.17, 42r.12, 42r.16, etc.
Punctuation consists of the punctus and the punctus elevatus. Rather unusually, the punctus elevatus is far more common in this hand than is the punctus. The punctus often appears in pairs. This doubled form can be difficult to distinguish from the punctus elevatus, and many examples could be interpreted as either.
The decoration consists in the main of large decorated initials in red and green ink.
In some cases the person responsible for filling in the decorated initials has missed one and only a space indicates where such a letter should be. Examples can be seen at:
- <M> 2r.13
- <Y> 42v.16
- <B> 48r.3
In some cases the person responsible for filling in the decorated initials has filled the space with the wrong letter. Examples can be seen at:
- <Y> (for <O>) 28r.19
- <T> (for <Y>) 29r.10
- <O> (for <W>) 29r.13, 30r.6
- <B> (for <P>) 46r.8
- <T> (for <O>) 62v.17
There are some marginalia in later hands in the manuscript which have not been included in the transcription.
- 41v BM: illegible (?upside down)
- 45r BM: illegible (?upside down)
- 53v BM: 'Nou[er]int vn[i]u[er]fi p[er] p[rese]ntes nos howell[um] thomas de llanvigan in com' Brecon yoman et dauidem thomas de eadem in com' brecon' yoman teneri et' (Gwenogvryn Evans's transcription [p.372])
- 67r RM.15: 'y vraỽt'
Notes in a number of modern hands precede the manuscript and are bound with it:
- ii r: Note in the hand of J. Gwenogvryn Evans giving the manuscript designation as 'Hengwrt M.S. No. 19', and noting Aneurin Owen's use of the text in his Ancient Laws and Institutes and Wales, as well as Owen's designation for the text, Beta 19
- iii r: Some illegible script, and the number 38 in a modern hand
- iii v: 'Liber Joh'is Watkin Jeian'. Gwenogvryn states that this is the same hand as the signature 'Liber Joh'is Lewis found in many manuscripts. The manuscript designation 'B. 19. I.' is also to be found on the same page
- v r: illegible script in a sixteenth century anglicana hand
The manuscript was produced in Wales at the end of the fourteenth century or the beginning of the fifteenth (Huws 2000: 60).
Peniarth 38 was acquired by Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt (1592-1667). The provenance of most of Vaughan's manuscripts is not known, but according to a story in the writings of Edward Lhuyd he inherited those in the possession of John Jones of Gellilyfdy on Jones's death about 1658 (Tibbott 1943: iv). The Hengwrt manuscripts were catalogued in 1658 by William Maurice of Cefnybraich, Llansilin (Jones 1943: xvi). The manuscript was bequeathed by Sir Robert Williames Vaughan (d. 1859), the last baronet of Hengwrt, to his friend William Watkin Edward Wynne (1801-1880) of Peniarth in 1859, along with the rest of the Hengwrt collection (Tibbott 1943: viii).
The Hengwrt catalogue was revised first by Aneurin Owen (d. 1851), and then by William Watkin Wynne. This catalogue was published in Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1869-1871 (Jones 1943: xv). It was catalogued and re-numbered by J. Gwenogvryn Evans when he examined the collection for the Historical Manuscripts Commission along with the rest of the Peniarth manuscripts, while they were in the possession of W.W.E. Wynne’s son, William Robert Maurice Wynne (d. 1909).
The Peniarth collection was secured for the nascent National Library of Wales by Sir John Williams who, in 1904, paid the Wynne brothers a sum to ensure the reversion of the collection to the Library upon the death of both brothers. The manuscript passed, along with the rest of the collection, to the Library in 1909 (Tibbott 1943: viii).
Information on the dating and hand of this manuscript is based on the following authorities:
- Evans, J. Gwenogvryn (1898-1910). Peniarth 38. Report on manuscripts in the Welsh Language 1. London: HMSO. 372-3.
- Huws, Daniel. 2000. Medieval Welsh Manuscripts. Cardiff and Aberystwyth: University of Wales Press and the National Library of Wales.
- Huws, Daniel. A Repertory of Welsh Manuscripts and Scribes. draft.
- Jones, E. D. 1943. Old Catalogues of the Hengwrt Manuscripts. Handlist of Manuscripts in the National Library of Wales 1. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales. xv-xxiii.
- Tibbot, Gildas. 1943. A Brief History of the Hengwrt-Peniarth Collection. Handlist of Manuscripts in the National Library of Wales 1. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales. i-xiv
The Welsh Prose 1350-1425 website is the product of an AHRC funded research project undertaken by staff at the School of Welsh, Cardiff University from 2004 through 2007 called Corff Electronig o Ryddiaith Cymraeg Canol. The aim of this project was to produce machine-readable editions of all the medieval Welsh prose texts which have been preserved in manuscripts dating from c.1350 to c.1425.
The project is a continuation and a development of two previous projects funded by the University of Wales which transcribed the Welsh prose in manuscripts dated to c.1250-c.1350.
The intention is to give scholars access not only to texts that have hitherto remained unedited but also to the different versions of texts that have been the subject of critical editions.
Certain decorative features have been encoded: these may trigger further study of the original manuscripts. Primarily, however, the resource provides detail which it is hoped will further the study of the language and literature of the period.
In producing this edition, we have attempted to fulfil two different and often non-complementary if not opposing goals: to present a minimally edited edition of the text, and to represent as many visual features of the manuscript as possible.
Visual features of the text such as layout, and rubrication may prove to be as essential in textual interpretation as features such as punctuation, letter forms, capitalisation and word division, which are more usually invoked by scholars in the field.
The orthography of the original text has been maintained, even where it is idiosyncratic, as the unique characteristics of the scribe's spelling may shed light upon the language of the period as he, his audience, or patron used it. Where the scribe's orthography seems to merit particular attention, an editorial gloss has been added to indicate what we believe to have been the target form.
In some places, especially where the manuscript is damaged, we have supplied text. This serves the two-fold purpose of presenting a complete text and, perhaps more importantly, of indicating the size of the damaged area.
In order to make editorial intervention as transparent as possible, supplied text is clearly marked off from the manuscript text by a different font. Also in the spirit of editorial transparency, we have wherever possible used published editions for supplied text. Text supplied from published editions may suffer from obvious errors or significant differences in orthography from the manuscript text. We have refrained from imposing our own editorial actions on such features.
The transcription of this manuscript, as well as the information in this TEI header is based on the microfilm reproduction of the manuscript produced by the National Library of Wales in 1995. As the editors have not checked the transcription against the original, information on the scribal hands, foliation, accompanying materials, colour scheme and ornamentation should be treated as provisional.
- 16-Feb-2011 DL: edited TEI header
- 15-Aug-2007 PWT: edited TEI header
- 9-Oct-2006 – 10-Oct-2006 PWT: edited XML encoded files, produced table of corrections and amended where necessary
- 12-Apr-2006 DL: converted Word files with shortcuts into XML files and corrected them
- 4-Oct-2005 – 11-Oct-2005 DL: corrected electronic transcription of folios 41r-69v
- 29-Sep-2005 – 7-Oct-2005 DMS: corrected electronic transcription of folios 1r-40v
- 3-Oct-2005 – 10-Oct-2005 DMS: checked DL's transcript of folios 41r-69v against prints
- 28-Sep-2005 – 6-Oct-2005 DL: checked DMS's transcript of folios 1r-40v against prints
- 29-Sep-2005 – 6-Oct-2005 DL: transcribed folios 41r-69v with shortcuts
- 27-Sep-2005 – 5-Oct-2005 DMS: transcribed folios 1r-40v with shortcuts