Welsh Journals

SOME STUDIES IN EARLY WELSH HISTORY By P. C. BARTRUM, B.A. (Oxon.). THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE EARLY KINGDOM OF GLYWYSING. I. Introductory. THERE seems to have been a general reluctance in the past to face the chronological difficulties apparently involved in the records of the kingdom of Glywysing from the sixth to the ninth century A.D. This is surprising, because, as regards both antiquity and quantity, the available records far outnumber those of any other part of Wales. Chief of these records are the charters preserved in the Book of Llanddf.1 Unfortunately no system of dating is used, and their order is more or less arbitrary. Our only means of dating them is an approximate one by the names of the persons concerned, or mentioned as witnesses. There is evidence that the charters, in the form in which we now have them, have been "edited" to a certain extent by the compiler of the Book of Llanddf, in order to conform with the idea that a diocese of Llandaf existed during the period. It is now generally agreed that this notion is incorrect.2 Such editing, however, at any rate in the charters, seems to have been of a very minor nature, and is easily detected. Otherwise there seems to be no good reason why the charters should not be regarded as essentially authentic, and it is only necessary to bear in mind that chance errors are bound to have occurred in the process of copying, and the compiler did not pretend to give us literal copies of the original charters. In addition to the Book of Llanddf there is a series of "Llancarfan Charters" appended to the Vita Sancti Cadoci in Cotton MS. Vesp. A. xiv.3 These form an important addition to our authorities. They are under no suspicion of having been "edited" except in so far as they seem to be rather shortened abstracts of their originals. This becomes clear from a comparison of two charters which appear both among the Llancarfan Charters and in the Book of Llanddf (VSC § 66 = BLD 210b, and VSC § 67 = BLD 180b). The most 1 References are to the edition of Sir John Rhys and J. G. Evans The Text of the Book ofLlan Ddv reproduced from the Gwysaney MS., Oxford, 1893. Charters are referred to by the page on which they begin. If more than one occurs on one page thpy are lettered a, b, etc., thus: BLD 159b. The com- pilation was made in the twelfth century. See e.g. A. W. Wade-Evans: Welsh Christian Origins, pp. 155-60. References are to the edition by A. W. Wade-Evans: Vitae Sanctorum Britanniae et Genealogiae, Cardiff, 1944. Section numbers are used, thus VSC 57. The Life of St. Cadog dates from about A.D. 1100.