- 1519
In 1698 Humfrey Wanley examined a manuscript at Gresham College, which had been described as a history of Pictland in the Pictish language. The book (now British Library, MS Arundel 333) contains titles to this effect added in the late sixteenth century, but, as Wanley realised, its texts are Irish medical translations from Latin, made at the beginning of the sixteenth century. A longer note about Pictish provinces, added by the same hand, and the identity of the writer are investigated; the hand is that of the owner of the book, Lord William Howard, rather than the historian William Camden as was thought in the past. Wanley’s correction appears in William Nicolson’s Scottish Historical Library in 1702 and in correspondence between himself and Edward Lhuyd in the same year. In 1702 Lhuyd discovered the englynion in the Cambridge copy of Juvencus, exchanging views with Wanley and others on this and further manuscripts containing early Brittonic words. Between 1702 and 1707 Lhuyd developed a theory that the Juvencus manuscript was written in the land of the Picts and that its Welsh verses, the oldest monuments of Hen Brythoneg, were in the Pictish language. He saw himself as uncovering both linguistic and manuscript evidence for British writing across the full range of British territory from south to north, Brittany to Caledonia. Lhuyd’s idea that Pictish was similar to British was followed by Innes, but modern Pictish scholarship has not recognised that the idea goes back so early.
A part of the ‘Cotton-Corpus legendary’ which covers feast-days for the months of October, November and December. The other parts of the legendary are to be found in London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero E i.
- s. xi2
Various transcripts, including one of Vita Ælfredi regis from what was London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho A xii (before the 1731 fire), created for Matthew Parker at a time when Parker had not yet added his interpolations to the exemplar.
- c. 1550 x 1574
A lost manuscript of Asser’s Life of King Alfred. Originally an independent manuscript and later part of what once constituted London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho A xii, it was destroyed by the Ashburnham House fire of 1731. Although the original is irretrievably lost, significant information about its character and contents can be gleaned from transcripts and descriptions written before the fire.
- c.1000
Extracts from London, British Library, MS Egerton 1782.
- 1749
- Aodh Ó Dálaigh
Transcript of the Latin text in the Welsh lawbook of London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian E xi.
- s. xv2
Latin text of Welsh law, which was known to lawyers active in Gwynedd during the 13th century. This text or a related one may have provided the basis for the Latin text in London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian E xi, which refers to matters relating to both Gwynedd and south-west Wales. It has been suggested that the Llyfr y Tŷ Gwyn text became known in Gwynedd through the agency of Cadwgan, bishop of Bangor (1215-1236) and abbot of Whitland before that.
