Welsh Journals

REVIEWS EARLY WELSH GENEALOGIES. 'Genealogies are the framework of History', as the dust-cover of this book1 boldly proclaims, and the contents of the work go far to justify this assertion. For the first time, all the early Welsh genealogical material from the pre-Conquest period has here been assembled between two covers. The book opens with a reproduction of the long inscription on the ninth-century Pillar of Eliseg, which traces the origin of the Powys dynasty, and which is, according to Nash-Williams, 'probably the most elaborate record of its kind surviving from the Early Christian period in Britain'.2 It terminates with collections of pedigrees from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century documents which on various grounds may be concluded to emanate from much older sources. The most recent historical figures to be named are Llywelyn the Great and certain of his contemporaries (except for one pedigree which is continued for two further generations to include the name of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd). Texts of major historical importance to be included are the Harleian and Jesus pedigrees, Bonedd y Saint and Bonedd Gwyr y Gogledd, and to a lesser extent the Brychan documents- all of which have been previously edited, though for the most part they are now no longer very easily accessible. Not least in interest are the genealogies from late manuscript sources, most of which have been previously edited by Mr. Bartrum himself in various periodicals: only a few short texts of comparatively minor importance appear here in print for the first time. All the relevant manuscripts have been collated and compared, and variants of any importance are recorded. The whole collection has been indexed, annotated, and elaborately cross-referenced, thus adding immensely to its value. Undoubtedly this book will constitute the definitive edition of these genealogies for a long time to come: from an editorial standpoint its general arrangements could scarcely have been bettered. It will form an essential work of reference alike for historians and for students of Welsh literature. All these genealogies are inter-connected; as the editor points out, 'a general unity underlies the whole system'. At the same time, each of the major documents apparently constitutes an independent authority, having no close textual relationship with any of the others. Pedigrees which occur in more than one place may thus be used to check and to control one another, and even the late texts are useful for this purpose. Perhaps the chief lesson that is to be learned from the comparisons which this book enables us to make between the variant versions of the pedigrees, Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts, Edited with Notes and Indexes by P. C. Bartrum. University of Wales Press. Cardiff, 1966. Pp. x, 228. 42s. V. E. Nash-Williams, The Early Christian Monuments of Wales (1950), p. 124.