White Book of Hergest

Llyfr Gwyn Hergest [ ɬivr gwin ' mfd ], also Llyfr Gwyn o Hergest, the White Book of Hergest, is a collective work in the Welsh language, which was compiled in 1450. This collection of Welsh prose and poetry was used as a source eagerly particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries, is likely to be destroyed in 1800 during the fire in the shop of a London bookbinder.

History and content

The Llyfr Gwyn Hergest is just like the Llyfr Coch Hergest ( " The Red Book of Hergest " ) have its name on the one hand according to the color of the cover as well as Hergest Court ( Plâs Hergest ) in Kington ( Herefordshire ) in the Welsh Marches. Parts thereof are the poet and Skriptor Lewy Glyn Cothi attributed, who had edited some discovered in the Margam Abbey manuscripts and united to a collection. The Renaissance scholar John Davies ( Mallwyd ) transferred some poems from the White Paper in a separate manuscript. After several partial copies and changes of ownership, the original was to have been to be rebound at the London bookbinder McKinley in Bow Street, next to the Theatre Royal (now Covent Garden Opera ) and is there in 1808 during the fire of the theater, which spread to the neighboring houses, destroyed. As different data are given also in 1800 and 1810.

In addition to the data collected by Lewy Glyn Cothi poems the book contained a large number of Dafydd ap Gwilyms works, historical texts, such as a copy of the Laws of Hywel Dda, which survive in part only here, as well as genealogical and heraldic records, such as the Llyfr Arfau ( "Book of arms" ). Since the time of the destruction by fire templates not all texts as copies, some of the Llyfr Gwyn Hergest is lost forever.

The copied parts of the original are to be found in the following manuscripts:

  • Peniarth MS. 49, John Davies ' copy of many poems Dafydd ap Gwilyms and other
  • Peniarth MS. 134, including copies of the heraldic texts connected with the nobility of Glamorgan
  • Peniarth MS. 225, copies of legal works
  • Peniarth MS. 229, with an incomplete listing of the contents
  • Llanstephan MS. 74, gives an overall summary of the content to
  • British Library Add. MS. 31055
  • Wynnstay MS. 2
Kington (Herefordshire)
526504
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