Welsh Journals

THE RENAISSANCE IN THE VALE OF CLWYD' IF WE look in the Oxford English Dictionary we find that the Renais- sance is the term used for the great revival of art and letters, under the influence of classical models, which began in Italy in the fourteenth century and continued during the fifteenth and sixteenth". Nothing of this kind was felt in Wales. There was no revival of Greek and Latin studies. But this first awakening changed in character. Men grew tired of Greek and Latin and turned their attention to their own language and literature. This second stage is most certainly to be found in Wales. One has to allow a time lag for ideas and thought and fashion to reach Wales, and by the time that the revival made its way to the western peninsula it had been tainted with several other obvious tendencies and developments of fifteenth century Europe-a desire to collect and copy manuscripts a religious awakening; the growth of the new monarchy, of strong independent states instead of the mediaeval idea of one Holy Roman Empire; new inventions such as printing; the desire for adventure and travel in search of new lands. All these are found in fifteenth century Europe, and when, in Tudor times, the awakening comes to Wales, and reaches its climax in the age of Elizabeth I., we find a blending of most of these trends. True it was a revival of learning, but it was also a renaissance in a much wider sense. If we were to extend the area a little, to include modern Den- bighshire, take in the Vale of Conway to the west and most of Flintshire to the east-the area covered by your two Historical Societies-we should have covered the whole area where the Renaissance occurred in Wales. For, with a very few exceptions (Sir John Prys cf Breconshire, Sion Dafydd Rhys in south-east Wales and Gruffudd Robert in Milan), the men of the Welsh Renaissance either belonged to this north-eastern part of the country or, to quote the words of the new prayer book of that age, became its children by adoption and grace". It is an undeniable fact that in the days before we had a national system of education, before we had any newspapers, cinema and radio, i.e., before we had those things which give us a common background, literature belongs to districts, and a particular district yields a particular type of literature. There are many instances of this in the history of Welsh literature. Our earliest inheritance, the heroic poems of Aneirin and Taliesin, belong to the north of England and southern Scotland, the land from Yorkshire to Edin- burgh. The ninth century cycles of Llywarch Hen and Heledd belong to Powys. The prose tales of the Mabinogi belong to the westernmost peninsulas, Llyn and Dyfed, far away from the invaders, where life was more leisurely and entertainment had to be provided I. A paper read to a meeting of the Flintshire and Denbighshire Historical Society, at Rhyl, October 22nd, 1953.