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Brogyntyn manuscripts
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Barddoniaeth a rhyddiaith,

  • Brogyntyn MS II.55 [RESTRICTED ACCESS].
  • File
  • [late 16 cent.]-[18 cent., first ½].
  • Part of Brogyntyn manuscripts

A composite manuscript of loose papers and fragments of manuscript volumes. It contains poetry and prose, mostly in Welsh, much of the poetry being addressed to the Owen family of Brogyntyn and Clenennau and other related families. Apart from a late-sixteenth century awdl by Wiliam Llŷn (ff. 57-58), the other items all belong between the first half of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century.
Fragments apparently once part of books, some of which perhaps were never bound, are: a narrow folio of cywyddau and englynion by Mathew Owen, in the hand of Nathanael Jones (ff. 20-26), written not before 1656 (see ff. 24 verso-25), with autograph englynion added by Harri Howel (f. 20 verso) and by Nathanael Jones (f. 20 verso, 23); a folio manuscript containing cywyddau to Lewis Anwyl of Parc and his family, dated 1627-1636 (ff. 38-55), written by two good hands of the first half of the seventeenth century, one responsible for ff. 38-50 verso, the other ff. 51-55; a quarto manuscript with transcripts of poetry of the Gogynfeirdd (ff. 113-122; paginated 1-20), by a seventeenth-century hand similar to that of Morris Evans (cf. ff. 93-94, 123-141); pedigrees of Welsh royal lines, the Maurices of Clenennau, etc., in English (ff. 123-141; original foliation 1-12 survives), in the hand of Morris Evans (ff. 123-127 verso, 129-134 verso) and a second hand (ff. 128 recto-verso, 135-141); a narrow folio of canu brud attributed to Myrddin, Taliesin, etc. (ff. 178-186), written by Nathanael Jones, not before 1651 (ff. 182 verso, 183 verso 'aetatis suae a 21o Feb: 1650 27'); a folio manuscript of canu brud, mainly cywyddau, by Dafydd Llwyd and others (ff. 189-207), in a poor hand of the mid seventeenth century, probably that of Thomas Edwards to judge by pentrials on f. 196 verso, who refers to Tregeiriog (f. 199 verso) and 'Llanfylling fairings' (f. 207 verso); an octavo manuscript containing poems by Robin Clidro, etc., in a seventeenth or eighteenth century hand (ff. 210-219); and a folio manuscript of autograph cywyddau and englynion by Huw Morys, some addressed to William Owen and Sir Robert Owen (ff. 222-226 verso). Poetry written on loose papers includes autograph poems by Huw Morys (ff. 12-18), John Owens (ff. 59-71; f. 69 recto-verso may be his italic hand), Harri Howel (ff. 75-76 verso, 90 recto-verso), Owen Gruffydd (ff. 84-89, 230-231), William Phylip (ff. 97-98 verso), John Morgan, later vicar of Conwy (f. 101 recto-verso, the poem incomplete and anonymous, dated 1688, the hand his), Siôn Rhydderch, 1732 (ff. 104-105, 227-228), and Edward Lloyd, Brewis (f. 221 recto-verso). There are probable autograph poems by Edward Rowlant (ff. 72-74 verso, 79-80) and John Richard (f. 81), and possible autograph poems by 'J. Ll.' (f. 26 verso), Mathew Owen (ff. 77-78, 232 recto-verso), Siôn Roberts (ff. 91-92), Huw Cadwaladr (ff. 106-108) and 'R.C.' (f. 163). Other poetry is in the hands of Morris Evans (ff. 93-94) and 'Theo: Ro:' (ff. 152-154 verso). Also included is a letter, 1652, from the antiquary Meredith Lloyd to Thomas Vaughan, the alchemist and poet (ff. 1-3 verso), followed by a copy of Hanes Taliesin (ff. 5-10 verso). The 'Cywydd Marwnad i Mr William Owen o Borkynton' by Huw Morys, beginning 'Mae gwaedd oer lem Gweddw [yw'r wlad]', discussed in E. D. Jones, 'The Brogyntyn Welsh Manuscripts', National Library of Wales Journal, 7 (1951-2), 165-198 (pp. 186-189, 196-197), has not been found.

Barddoniaeth a phroffwydoliaethau

A volume containing poetry mostly in strict metre, together with some prose items and a significant body of prophetic prose or vaticinatory verse, transcribed between 1649 (see pp. 285-288) and 1660 by Wiliam Bodwrda; the volume would appear to have been 'No. 17' in his own collection of manuscripts (see f. iv and p. 342).
The cited works are mainly those of fifteenth-century poets, including eulogies by Lewys Glyn Cothi and prophetic poetry by Dafydd Gorlech, Dafydd Llwyd ap Llywelyn ap Gruffudd o Fathafarn and Robin Ddu. Several pieces of prophecy are either anonymous or attributed to ambiguous and obscure authors such as Taliesin, y Bardd Cwsg and y Bergam. Eulogies composed in praise of the Bodwrda family are found on pages 181-193 and 285-288. Wiliam Bodwrda himself has paginated the manuscript from 1-341, but some of these numbers have been cropped in binding. The paper, according to the transcriber's practice, has been folded before use giving three vertical creases on every page, the left-hand crease being used as a guide for the alignment of the text. The transcriber uses a catchword on the bottom right-hand corner of most verso pages.

Wiliam Bodwrda.

Achau, arfau, &c.

A volume containing mainly pedigrees of North and South Wales families written by two principal scribes of the circle of George Owen of Henllys, Pembrokeshire.
(a) Pages 1, 7-209, 223-232, 239-256 and possibly 372-373 are written by a scribe who, although experienced in penning a good secretary hand and in executing ornate headings, is often inaccurate in his transcription of Welsh personal and place-names; he also wrote the line 'Owain ap Gruffith /i/ gelwid Gwinn ap Gr: yn jawn' on p. 41, in italic (examples of the same italic hand are found in the margins of pp. 19, 66, 113, 355, 356, 361 and elsewhere). This section comprises a collection of pedigrees mostly of North Wales families, including 'Bonedd y Saint' (pp. 84-90); the prose text 'Pedwar Marchog ar Higen oedd yn llys Arthur' (end wanting) (pp. 37-38); the dates of battles in the 'Wars of the Roses' (pp. 31, 208); five englynion, including one by Richard Davies, bishop of St Davids (p. 1), and other englynion dispersed among the pedigrees (pp. 57, 78, 92, 114-115, 170), together with the series of forty englynion entitled 'Campod Manuwel' (pp. 223-232); and the prose piece 'Disgrifiad Arfau', a Welsh translation of the heraldic treatise 'Tractatus de Armis', attributed to John Trevor, bishop of St Asaph (pp. 239-256). The ultimate source of this section is the collection of pedigrees and other texts written, [c. 1510], by 'Syr' Tomas ab Ieuan ap Deicws in Peniarth MS 127 (see p. 53); however, internal evidence suggests that the scribe was copying from the transcript of Peniarth MS 127 in NLW MS 17112D rather than directly from the original (see p. 104, where he begins copying the note 'Darfu examinatio y llyfrev newydd hyd yma' which occurs on f. 66 verso of NLW MS 17112D, before he realized his mistake). Both Brogyntyn MS I.15 and NLW MS 17112D preserve the original order of the text of Peniarth MS 127, which has been subsequently disarranged in binding. (b) Pages 211-212, 269-371, 374-411 are written by another experienced scribe whose display script is almost indistinguishable from that of the first scribe. These pages contain pedigrees mostly of South Wales families and include two copies of 'Llyma enway Kwnkwerwyr y rhai a vyant yngwlad Vorgannwg ay harfay' (pp. 280, 361-362), a third containing merely a short list of the conquerors' names (p. 310), and two copies of 'Llyma achoed Saint ynys Brydain' [= 'Bonedd y Saint'] (pp. 363-365, 385-386). The text on pp. 211-212, as indicated by a note in the hand of George Owen of Henllys at the head of p. 211, was copied in 1596 from the manuscript of 'Hyw Lewis Sr morgan' of Hafodwen, Carmarthenshire, which 'D'd ap Ienkin m'edd o Vachynlleth' wrote in 1586; the original is now NLW MS 3055D (Mostyn MS 159), pp. 232-233. The text on pp. 271-343 is partly derived from a manuscript written in 1513 by the Carmarthenshire poet and genealogist Ieuan Brechfa for 'Mastr John ap Henry ap Rees', with some of the pedigrees brought down to the second half of the sixteenth century; Ieuan Brechfa's manuscript does not seem to have survived; it is not Peniarth MS 131, pp. 199-308, which is thought to be in his hand. The source of pp. 345-411 is unknown, although the text on pp. 347-365 follows very closely that in Peniarth MS 143, pp. [?1-3], 4, 47-48, 7-19, 33-46, 49-52, written by the same mid-sixteenth century scribe who wrote many of the religious texts in Cardiff Central Library Havod MS 22. A leaf containing a prophecy in English verse, written in a late-sixteenth century hand, has been tipped in after the main text (pp. 413-414).