The Evolution of Welsh
The first thing you learn in linguistics is that languages evolve. The second is that they are arbitrary. This does not mean language isn’t important, or that it isn’t integral to culture. (see this article on Quebec’s policing of language). It does mean that there is nothing inherent in the word ‘spoon’ that denotes the rounded tool with which you cook or eat. Medieval Welsh, or Middle Welsh, was the language spoken in the 12th to 14th centuries. Like when a modern English-speaker attempts to read Chaucer in English, it is possible for a modern Welsh speaker to read middle Welsh, which is the language of much of the Welsh literature (Four Tales of the Mabinogi, for example) that we have, although the tales themselves are much older. You can find out about learning it here: http://www.celt.dias.ie/publications/cat/cat_h.html#H.2 The root of the changes between medieval and modern Welsh lie in Read more…
Laws of Hywel Dda
Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good) ruled Wales in the early 900s, one of the few Welsh kings to control the entire country. He maintained peace with Wessex, to the point of minting coins in the English city of Chester. His laws were codifications and a consolidation of the common law in Wales at the time (meaning he didn’t create them out of whole cloth), and provided the foundation for Welsh law until the Norman conquest, when many were abrogated by Edward I. A surviving manuscript (from the thirteenth century) is in the National Library of Wales. It was a ‘pocket’ book, designed for lawyers to carry around in their scrip, rather than left on a library shelf. You can view it here: http://www.llgc.org.uk/?id=lawsofhyweldda The laws are divisible into several categories: Laws of the Court These laws set down the rights of Read more…
King Offa of Mercia
Offa of Mercia ruled much of England from 757 AD to 29 July 796. He was known primarily to history as the man who built–or organized the building of–‘Offa’s Dyke’ the earthenwork wall that stretches the length of the border between England and Wales. Unfortunately, though we know the dates of his rule, some of what happened before and after, and the wars we fought, we know little of Offa as a man. The date that he ruled is very exact for that time period because of the wall and the history surrounding it. He was buried in Bedford and succeeded by his son, Ecgfrith, whom Offa had consecrated as his heir before his death. “According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ecgfrith died after a reign of only 141 days. A letter written by Alcuin in 797 to a Mercian ealdorman Read more…
Daily Living in the Middle Ages
The tapestry to the right is The Triumph of Death, or The 3 Fates, a Flemish tapestry (probably Brussels, ca. 1510-1520), located now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Depicted are the three fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, who spin, draw out and cut the thread of Life, represent Death in this tapestry, as they triumph over the fallen body of Chastity. This is the third subject in Petrarch’s poem The Triumphs. First, Love triumphs; then Love is overcome by Chastity, Chastity by Death, Death by Fame, Fame by Time and Time by Eternity. Pretty gloomy, eh? From a modern perspective, life in the Middle Ages appears not to have a lot to recommend it. For example, for the majority of women, their lives consisted of unceasing labor, hand-to-mouth existence, a total lack of political representation (although that was not much Read more…
The Irish in Wales
The Irish, Welsh, and Scots all have a Celtic ancestry, but they settled their respective regions before the Roman conquest of Britain. There is an amazing amount of debate as to the origin of the Celts: were they Phoenician? stocky and dark? tall and blonde? as culturally cohesive as the label suggests? The standard theory is that the Celts were an Indo-European group that gradually migrated across Europe and Asia, with an identifiable, distinct culture by 750 BC. As a group, they were well-known to the Greeks and Romans. http://archaeology.suite101.com/article.cfm/archaeology_and_the_celts The Celts had arrived in Britain and Ireland by 400 BC, super-imposing upon whatever native peoples were already there. The Celts in these regions, then, were on the fringes of Celtic culture, not their heart, which was centered in Northern Europe, particularly in what is now Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Read more…
Mt. Snowdon
Mt. Snowdon, or Yr Wyddfa in Welsh, is the largest mountain in Wales, at 3560 feet and one of the wettest, receiving upwards of 180 inches of precipitation (from the picture, not just rain). It is a focal point of much of the culture of Gwynedd in the Dark Ages. In the Welsh version of the Arthurian tales, Arthur sleeps in a cave in the mountain, to one day rise again and lead his people to victory against their enemies. ‘Snowdon’ comes from the Saxon words ‘snow dun’, meaning ‘snowy hill’, but the Welsh word ‘Yr Wyddfa’ means ‘the tomb’. Cadair Idris, a southern mountain in the Snowdonia range, translates to “Arthur’s Chair”, while Dinas Emrys, where Myrddin prophecied about the red and white dragons, rests on Snowdon’s south-western flank. Some modern pagans have a theory about ‘ley’ lines: hypothetical Read more…
Historical Sources for King Arthur
Whether or not King Arthur was a real person is an either/or query. He either lived or he didn’t. Many scholars, researchers, and Arthurophile’s have strong opinions on this topic, both for and against. Because of the paucity of written records, much of the academic work has come down on the side of ‘didn’t—or at least if Arthur was a real person, his name was not ‘Arthur’ and he possibly wasn’t even a king. I, however, look at the poetry and tales from the early Middle Ages, and choose to believe he did actually exist. Medieval people certainly thought he did, and throughout the Middle Ages, an entire body of work developed around his story, much of it mythologized. Historically speaking, however, there are genuine near contemporaneous references to him that predate the kinds of stories we read about now, with the Round Read more…
Marriage in the Medieval Era
“Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.” –Welsh proverb Marriage as we know it now is a new institution. While ‘love’ (at least among the upper classes) transformed the internal workings of marriage in the modern age, in Wales prior to the Midde Ages, marriage was a contract between two families, with no relationship to the Church or State at all. Even once the Roman Church got involved, it still had nothing to do with the State. Probably the change had something to do with taxes. Regardless, what we know of marriage in medieval Wales comes primarily from the Laws of Hywel Dda (see the footnotes in Wikipedia for the English sources): “The second part of the laws begins with ‘the laws of women’, for example the rules governing marriage and the division of property if a married Read more…
Annwn, the Welsh Underworld
Annwn, or Annuvin in the Chronicles of Prydein by Lloyd Alexander, is an ‘other’ world, from the one that mortals live in. It is the realm of the gods, or of the dead, depending upon the source. This site states: “The Welsh word annwn, annwfyn is traditionally translated “otherworld,” and is akin to some of the Irish worlds of the gods (Tír na mBéo, “Land of the Living,” etc.) One will recall that in the First Branch of The Mabinogi, Pwyll exchanges place and shape with Arawn, king of Annwn, whose realm is there depicted as co-existent with Pwyll’s Dyfed. In another poem from The Book of Taliesin ( Angar Kyfyndawt, 18.26-23.8) the speaker declares annwfyn to be underground: yn annwfyn ydiwyth, in Annwfyn the peacefulness, yn annwfyn ygorwyth in Annwfyn the wrath, yn annwfyn is eluyd in Annwfyn below Read more…
Welsh Faeries
The Welsh had a pantheon of gods and goddesses before the coming of the Romans. With the defeat of the druids and the extermination of their sites on Anglesey, the druid religion in Wales went into decline–and perhaps that is the reason there are relatively few Welsh gods and goddesses compared to the Irish, whose religion flourished during the Dark Ages and also developed a unique form of Christianity alongside it. Within the belief system, faeries, or Tylwyth Teg, the modern designation, had a role, divisible into five classes: the Ellyllon, or elves, the Coblynau, or mine fairies, the Bwbachod, or household fairies, the Gwragedd Annwn, or fairies of the lakes and streams; and the Gwyllion, or mountain fairies. http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfl/wfl02.htm Ellyllon: “The Ellyllon are the pigmy elves who haunt the groves and valleys, and correspond pretty closely with the English elves. Read more…
Medicinal Herbs in Wales
Most plants and herbs used as medicines can cause harm when taken in excess or used inappropriately (see Medieval Poisons), but a whole host of plants were employed for medicinal purposes during the Dark and Middle Ages in Wales. “Medical activity in Wales has a long history: although no primary sources now exist it seems likely that at the time of Hippocrates, around 430 BC, the laws of Dynwal Moelmud acknowledged and protected the art of medicine in Wales. It is possible to ascertain with greater certainty the contribution to medicine made in the tenth century by the Welsh King, Hywel Dda (c. 890 – 950AD) when he drew up the code of laws which were to be used in Wales until the time of Edward I. The physician was an important member of the household: his remuneration was clearly Read more…
The Fall of Rome
The coming of the ‘Dark Ages’ was predicated on the fall of Rome. Rome had dominated Europe (and parts of Africa and Asia) for nearly 800 years when Alaric, a Visigoth, sacked it. According to the excellent documentary, The Dark Ages (available on Netflix here), Alaric had served in the Imperial forces until passed over for a promotion, at which point, he took his cause directly to the City of Rome. He and his men then camped outside the walls in 408 AD, cutting off all food and succor to the city, for two years, until in 410 the citizens opened the gates. That Rome no longer had the military resources to relieve the city in all that time indicates the extent of its decline. Read a great description of the 40-year lead-up to the sacking here: http://www.mmdtkw.org/VAlaric.html The story Read more…
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