Red Book of Hergest

The Red Book of Hergest (Welsh: Llyfr Coch Hergest, Jesus College, Oxford, MS 111) is a large vellum manuscript written shortly after 1382, which ranks as one of the most important medieval manuscripts written in the Welsh language. It preserves a collection of Welsh prose and poetry, notably the tales of the Mabinogion and Gogynfeirdd poetry. The manuscript derives its name from the colour of its leather binding and from its association with Hergest Court between the late 15th and early 17th century.

Red Book of Hergest
Llyfr Coch Hergest
Jesus College, Oxford, MS 111
Facsimile of part of column 579 from the Red Book of Hergest
Dateshortly after 1382
Language(s)Welsh
Scribe(s)Hywel Fychan and two other scribes
PatronHopcyn ap Tomas
Materialvellum
Size34 × 21 cm; 362 leaves
Conditionleaves missing at the end; no original binding
Contentsearly Welsh poetry of the Cynfeirdd and especially, that of the Gogynfeirdd; the Mabinogion; Brut y Brenhinedd; remedies associated with Rhiwallon Feddyg; etc.

Compilation

The manuscript was written between about 1382 and 1410. One of the several copyists responsible for the manuscript has been identified as Hywel Fychan fab Hywel Goch of Buellt. He is known to have worked for Hopcyn ap Tomas ab Einion (c. 1330–1403) of Ynysforgan, Swansea, and it is possible that the manuscript was compiled for Hopcyn.

According to scholar Daniel Huws, it is "by far the heaviest of the medieval books in Welsh, the largest in its dimensions...and the thickest".[1]

History

The manuscript appears to have been retained by Hopcyn's family until the end of the 15th century, when Hopcyn's grandson Hopcyn ap Rhys was held complicit in the rebellion against King Edward IV and consequently saw much of his property forfeited. The Vaughans of Tretower (Tretŵr), then in Breconshire, obtained it, probably in 1465 on receiving Hopcyn's forfeited possessions.[2] Ownership is suggested by two odes (awdlau) dedicated to Sir Thomas Vaughan (d. 1483) and his sons, which were written into the manuscript by Welsh poet Lewys Glyn Cothi at Tretower.[3] The Red Book soon passed into the possession of the Vaughans of Hergest Court, near Kington in the Welsh Marches. Sir John Price of Brecon reports to have seen the manuscript in 1550, presumably at Hergest.[3] In the late 1560s, William Salesbury found the manuscript in the possession of Sir Henry Sidney at Ludlow, when Siancyn Gwyn of Llanidloes held it on loan from him.[2]

By the early 17th century, the Red Book had passed to the Mansels of Margam, hence back in Glamorgan. It was possibly brought into the marriage between Henry's granddaughter Catherine Sidney and Sir Lewis Mansel, who is reported to have owned it in 1634.[2] The manuscript was later found in the collection of Thomas Wilkins (d. 1699), a Welsh clergyman and antiquarian, who may have borrowed it from the Mansels without ever returning it. In 1697, Wilkins was visited by Edward Lhuyd who spent some time copying a manuscript which might well have been the Red Book.

In 1701, two years after Wilkin's death, his son Thomas Wilkins the Younger donated the manuscript to Jesus College, Oxford.[2] Internal evidence, a note by the latter Wilkins, suggests that Edward Lhuyd then held the manuscript on loan, but that the college was able to retrieve it only 13 years later, after Lhuyd's death.[2][3] The book was given on 17 February 1701 to Jesus College by Reverend Thomas Wilkins the younger of Llanblethian. It is now kept at the Bodleian Library on behalf of Jesus College, Oxford, and catalogued as MS 111.[4]

Content
The Red Book of Hergest, columns 240–241.

The first part of the manuscript contains prose, including the Mabinogion, for which this is one of the manuscript sources, other tales, historical texts (including a Welsh translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae), and various other texts including a series of Triads. The rest of the manuscript contains poetry, especially from the period of court poetry known as Poetry of the Princes (Welsh: Gogynfeirdd or Beirdd y Tywysogion), including the cycles Canu Llywarch Hen, Canu Urien, and Canu Heledd. The Red Book is similar in content to the White book of Rhydderch, of which it has at times been supposed to be a copy. Both are now thought, however, to descend from a lost common ancestor or ancestors.[5]

The manuscript also contains a collection of herbal remedies associated with Rhiwallon Feddyg, founder of a medical dynasty that lasted over 500 years – 'The Physicians of Myddfai' from the village of Myddfai just outside Llandovery.

Influence

J. R. R. Tolkien borrowed the title for the Red Book of Westmarch, the imagined legendary source of Tolkien's tales.[6][7][8]

See also

Notes
  1. Cited in "Oxford Jesus College 111: An Electronic Edition", Welsh Prose 1350–1425
  2. "Oxford Jesus College 111: An Electronic Edition", Welsh Prose 1350–1425.
  3. Thomas, "Llyfr Coch Hergest", pp. 1172–1173.
  4. Red Book of Hergest
  5. Jenny Rowland, Early Welsh Saga Poetry: A Study and Edition of the 'Englynion' (Cambridge: Brewer, 1990), p. 393.
  6. David Day. Tolkien’s Ring, page 79: “Besides those elements already mentioned, Celtic mythology has played a fundamental part in the shaping of Tolkien’s world. When we learn that the most important source of Welsh Celtic lore was preserved in the fourteenth-century Red Book of Hergest, we realize that Tolkien is making a small scholarly joke in naming his 'source' of Elf-lore the Red Book of Westmarch.”
  7. Hooker, Mark T. Tolkienian mathomium: a collection of articles on J. R. R. Tolkien and his legendarium: "The Feigned-manuscript Topos", pp. 176–177: “The 1849 translation of The Red Book of Hergest by Lady Charlotte Guest (1812–1895), which is more widely known as The Mabinogion, is likewise of undoubted authenticity [...] It is now housed in the library at Jesus College, Oxford. Tolkien's well-known love of Welsh suggests that he would have likewise been well-acquainted with the source of Lady Guest’s translation.”
  8. For the Tolkiennymist, the coincidence of the names of the sources of Lady Charlotte Guest’s and Tolkien’s translations is striking: The Red Book of Hergest and the Red Book of Westmarch. Tolkien wanted to write (translate) a mythology for England, and Lady Charlotte Guest's work can easily be said to be a ‘mythology for Wales’. The implication of this coincidence is intriguing.”

Sources
  • 'Red book of Hergest'. In Meic Stephens (Ed.) (1998), The new companion to the literature of Wales. Cardiff : University of Wales Press. ISBN 0-7083-1383-3.
  • Parry, Thomas (1955), A History of Welsh Literature. Translated by H. Idris Bell. Oxford : Clarendon Press.
  • Thomas, Richard Biography of Thomas Wilkins, Welsh Biography Online (National Library of Wales)
  • Thomas, Graham C. G. (2006). "Llyfr Coch Hergest". In Koch, John T. (ed.). Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. 3. Santa Barbara, Denver, and Oxford: ABC-CLIO. pp. 1172–3.
  • "Oxford Jesus College 111: An Electronic Edition". Welsh Prose 1350–1425. 2007.

Further reading
  • Charles-Edwards, G. (1989–90). "The Scribes of the Red Book of Hergest". National Library of Wales Journal. 21: 246–56.
  • Evans, J. Gwenogvryn (1902). Report on Manuscripts in the Welsh Language. 2 vols. 2. London. pp. 1–29.
  • Evans, J. Gwenogvryn (1911). The Poetry in the Red Book of Hergest. Llanbedrog.
  • Huws, Daniel (2003). "Llyfr Coch Hergest". In R. Iestyn Daniel; et al. (eds.). Cyfoeth y Testun: Ysgrifau ar Lenyddiaeth Gymraeg yr Oesoedd Canol (in Welsh). Cardiff: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru. pp. 1–30.
  • Huws, Daniel (2000). Medieval Welsh Manuscripts. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. ISBN 0-7083-1602-6.
  • Morgan, Prys (1978). "Glamorgan and the Red Book". Morgannwg. 22: 42–60.
  • Rowlands, Eurys I. (1962–1963). "Nodiadau ar y traddodiad moliant a'r cywydd". Llên Cymru (in Welsh). 7: 217–43.CS1 maint: date format (link)
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