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Fulton, Helen, “Sir John Prise and his books: manuscript culture in the March of Wales”, Welsh History Review 31:1 (2022): 55–78.

abstract:

Sir John Prise (1501/2–55) was a Welsh lawyer and book collector who was one of the royal commissioners responsible for closing down the monasteries at the Dissolution of the 1530s. Operating mainly in the March of Wales, Prise was able to save around 100 medieval manuscripts which would otherwise have been destroyed. As a Welsh speaker, Prise was keenly interested in medieval Welsh writing and some of the most famous medieval Welsh manuscripts passed through his hands. He was particularly interested in the British history of Geoffrey of Monmouth and in his Latin prose treatise, Historiae Britannicae Defensio, published in 1573 after his death, Prise put forward a spirited defence of the 'British history' related by Geoffrey, based almost entirely on his reading of manuscripts that he owned. This article examines the significance of Sir John Prise, his writing and his book collection in relation to the transmission of medieval texts into the Tudor age.

Chadwick, Mary, Sarah Ward Clavier, and Shaun Evans, “Introduction: books and manuscripts in Wales”, The Welsh History Review 31:1 (2022): 1–16.

Evans, Shaun, “Book cultures, gentry identities and the Welsh country house library: problems and possibilities for future research”, The Welsh History Review 31:1 (2022): 17–54.

abstract:

Country houses have provided repositories for some of the most significant and sizeable accumulations of literature ever assembled in Wales. Most of these accumulations have been displaced and dispersed over the last century. The presence of books in the Welsh country house was commonplace, yet the Welsh country house library has not yet emerged as a concerted focus of academic enquiry. This article seeks to provide a framework for such an endeavour, reflecting on existing scholarly debates which are relevant to the subject and suggesting future lines of enquiry. The research potential of books and libraries is significant. This article is especially interested in probing the relationships which existed between owners and their books, and the implications of these engagements for our understanding of the identities and outlook of landowning families in Wales.

Winkler, Emily A., “The Latin Life of Gruffudd ap Cynan, British kingdoms and the Scandinavian past”, Welsh History Review 28 (2017): 425–456.

abstract:

The article examines the representation and purpose of dynastic struggle in the twelfth-century Latin Life of Gruffudd ap Cynan. Understudied despite the publication of Paul Russell's edition (2005), the Vita Griffini filii Conani remains a missing piece of a larger puzzle: the flourishing of Latin historical writing in eleventh and twelfth-century Britain and northern Europe. This article sets the Vita in its wider British and European context, and assesses the significance of Gruffudd's Scandinavian heritage against the realities of political experience. It argues that the Vita's portrayal of dynasty and dynastic conflict, set on the great stage of the North Sea zone, seeks to establish the legitimacy of a ruler who was both an outsider and of Scandinavian descent. The reality of invasion and conquest in the British Isles demanded new Latin histories wherein Scandinavian dynasties could be a key source of legitimacy, and the Vita needs to be read as part of this larger discourse.

Rhydderch-Dart, Daniel, “‘The great relief of the overcrowded slums’: the development of Twthill in late nineteenth-century Caernarfon”, Welsh History Review 28 (2017): 515–548.

OʼLeary, Paul, “Obituary: John Davies (1938–2015)”, Welsh History Review 28 (2017): 549–563.

Jones, Craig Owen, “The development of cricket in North-West Wales, c.1840–1870”, Welsh History Review 28 (2017): 487–514.

abstract:

This article examines the development of cricket in Caernarfonshire, Anglesey and Merioneth during the early Victorian period. It is established that cricket was present in the region from a far earlier period than has hitherto been claimed. Reasons for its relative failure to take hold compared to the northeast, in which the sport flourished from an early period, are suggested and analysed.

Edwards, Huw, “On the trail of ‘Ginshop Jones’: Welsh nonconformists in eighteenth-Century London”, Welsh History Review 28 (2017): 470–486.

Ivanov, Sergey, and Alexander Falileyev, “Bibliothèque nationale de France NAL 693 and some episodes in the history of Monmouth in the fourteenth century”, Welsh History Review 28 (2017): 457–469.

abstract:

The manuscript BNF NAL 693 contains primarily computistical and astronomical texts and tables, medical treatises and recipes. It has long been associated with Britain and (later) with Wales. The article considers in detail two passages added to it which refer to events in fourteenth-century Monmouth. The first contains a reference to a certain Thomas Boydyn, and the second provides information about the murder of Robertus filius Richardi. The evidence considered points to a provenance for the extant copy in the March of south Wales.

Stephenson, David, “Empires in Wales: from Gruffudd ap Llywelyn to Llywelyn ap Gruffudd”, Welsh History Review 28 (2016): 26–54.

abstract:

Several Welsh rulers in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries exercised wide supremacies in Wales, but factors in their construction were often deeply ambivalent. Thus violent elimination of rivals and opponents was gradually replaced by trial and imprisonment, or the taking of hostages and sureties, allowing opponents to survive and become the focus of resistance. English support was often crucial, but English involvement might threaten as well as sustain Welsh ascendancies. The increasing need for expert personnel might lead to over-reliance on the ministerial, military and learned elites. The building of Welsh supremacies often provoked resistance from Welsh magnates and communities in areas subjected to new overlords, as demonstrated by case studies of opposition in eastern Wales to the supremacies exercised by the Lord Rhys and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd.

Shail, Robert, “A film from Wales: Welsh identity and the children’s film foundation”, Welsh History Review 28 (2016): 363–378.

Frame, Paul, “Glyndŵr’s rebellion, the bishop of Bangor and the councils of Pisa and Constance”, Welsh History Review 28 (2016): 233–268.

abstract:

The Great Schism in the medieval church between 1378 and 1417 ultimately saw three popes reign at the same time. During the years of Owain Glyndŵr's rebellion (1400–c.1421), two church councils aimed at ending the schism took place: one at Pisa in 1409 and the other at Constance (now Konstanz in Germany) from 1414 to 1418. Evidence suggesting a Welsh presence at these councils is presented here, together with a discussion of the possible significance of that presence for our understanding of the ecclesiastical and political history of the later stages of Glyndŵr's rebellion (1406–c.1421). The complex history of the see of Bangor, which during this period had three possible bishops, is also explored.

Langton, John, “Land and people in late sixteenth-century Glyn Cothi and Pennant Forests”, Welsh History Review 28 (2016): 55–86.

abstract:

A 1580s dispute between the crown and its tenants over whether Glyn Cothi and Pennant was manor or forest instigated the collection of evidence which details not only the much-depleted state of the crown's woods, but also the ownership, land use and tenure of farmland and the sizes of farm households. They show that customary Welsh jointly-held family land and extended kinship structures had almost disappeared in consequence of the introduction of English land and inheritance laws in 1536. However, misappropriation by local families of the vestiges of the medieval English institution of the forest had allowed them to survive.

Himsworth, Katherine, “Dafydd ap Maredudd Glais: a fifteenth-century Aberystwyth felon and scribe”, Welsh History Review 28 (2016): 269–282.

abstract:

A copy (National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS 22) of the Dingestow version of the Brut y Brenhinedd was penned in 1444 by one Dafydd ap Maredudd Glais, who, far from being a professional scribe, led a colourful life including both murder and public service in fifteenth-century Aberystwyth. But he was not, as previously thought, a cleric.

James, Kevin J., and Evan Tigchelaar, “Cultures of recreation in Victorian Snowdonia: travelling, climbing and inscribing at the Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel”, Welsh History Review 28 (2016): 87–114.

abstract:

As the Welsh mountains supplied iconic national landscapes and became sites of popular recreation in the mid-Victorian period, the Pen-y-Gwryd Inn in Snowdonia became a famous resting place for travellers. Its visitors' book was as storied as the hostelry itself. Analyses of its place in popular imagination illuminate diverse uses of the book, evaluations of its contents and the ambivalence that attended the often derided 'inn literature' that at once captivated and repelled critics, readers and inscribers. The visitors' book illuminates intersections of tourism, recreation, literary practices and book history. The rural Welsh inn – and Pen-y-Gwryd in particular – played a disproportionate part in this development.

Wight, Martin, “Wales, socialism and Huw T. Edwards (1892–1970)”, Welsh History Review 28 (2016): 307–334.

Llewellyn Tyler, Robert, “Culture maintenance, occupational mobility and social status: the Welsh in a Pennsylvanian slate town, 1900–30”, Welsh History Review 28 (2016): 115–145.

Morris, David, “Peaks and troughs: Irish transmigration through South Wales, 1850–1900”, Welsh History Review 28 (2016): 283–306.

Evans, Adam, “Wales as nation or region? The conference on devolution's judiciary sub-committee, 1919–20”, Welsh History Review 28 (2016): 146–173.

Guy, Ben, “The textual history of the Harleian genealogies”, Welsh History Review 28 (2016): 1–25.

abstract:

The genealogical collection known as the 'Harleian genealogies' is one of the few surviving texts written in early medieval Wales. It is commonly accepted that the collection was finalized in St Davids in c.954, but it is less frequently acknowledged that the extant text is the result of the combination of a number of older, pre-existing written sources. It is argued here that the core of the Harleian genealogies derives from a genealogical appendix written for the Historia Brittonum at some point in the decades immediately prior to 872, into which was later interpolated sections taken from a number of other genealogical texts.

Leeworthy, Daryl, “The world cannot hear you: Gwyn Thomas (1913–1981), communism and the Cold War”, Welsh History Review 28 (2016): 335–362.

Wiedemann, Benedict G. E., “‘Fooling the court of the Lord Pope’: Dafydd ap Llywelyn’s petition to the Curia in 1244”, Welsh History Review 28 (2016): 209–232.

abstract:

Dafydd ap Llywelyn's approach to Pope Innocent IV in 1244 was classified as an attempt to become a papal 'vassal' by Michael Richter in an article of 1971. It seems more likely, however, both that Dafydd saw his relationship with the papacy as one of protectio, and that the precise form of the relationship was in fact incidental to his appeal. Dafydd took advantage of the routinization of papal administration to have local judges-delegate investigate Henry III's extorted treaties of 1241. The judges' appointment was not an acknowledgement by the papacy that Dafydd had a good case, or whether he was a papal 'vassal' or protégé.

Hill, Michael, “Ethnic administration and dichotomization in a Eurasian context: Wales, c.1100-1350 CE”, Welsh History Review 27:2 (2014): 175–213.

abstract:

This article compares the features of ethnic administration in high medieval Wales to contemporary regions across Eurasia. It argues that although ethnic administration in Wales had many similarities to other Eurasian border regions, it developed uniquely and these unique features allowed the Welsh system to endure into the sixteenth century. It also asserts that while the ethnic administrative system in Wales did not prevent acculturation, it allowed for the persistence of ethnic difference and thereby curbed any possibility for total assimilation between the English and Welsh communities.

Elias, Gwenno Angharad, “Llyfr Cynog of Cyfraith Hywel and St Cynog of Brycheiniog”, Welsh History Review 23 (2006): 27–47.

Withey, Alun R. J., “Medicine and mortality in Early Modern Monmouthshire: the Commonplace Book of John Gwin”, Welsh History Review 23 (2006): 48–73.

Griffiths, Ralph A., “Obituary: Sir Rees Davies (1938–2005)”, Welsh History Review 23 (2006): 160–165.

Travers, James, “Major accessions to repositories in 2004 relating to Welsh history”, Welsh History Review 23 (2006): 166–182.

Lieberman, Max, “Anglicization in high medieval Wales: the case of Glamorgan”, Welsh History Review 23 (2006): 1–26.

Brett, Caroline, “John Leland, Wales and early British history”, Welsh History Review 15 (1990): 169–182.

Loyn, Henry Royston, “Wales and England in the tenth century: the context of the Athelstan charters”, Welsh History Review 10 (1981): 283–301.

Dumville, David N., “On the north British section of the Historia Brittonum”, Welsh History Review 8:3 (June 1977, 1976–1977): 345–354.

Kirby, D. P., “Hywel Dda: Anglophil?”, Welsh History Review 8 (1976): 1–13.

Davies, John, “The end of the great estates and the rise of freehold farming in Wales”, Welsh History Review 7:2 (December 1974, 1974–1975): 186–212.