‘Go and Look in the Latin Books’: Latin and the Vernacular in Medieval Wales
‘Go and Look in the Latin Books’: Latin and the Vernacular in Medieval Wales
In one form or another Latin and Welsh have coexisted and interacted in Wales from the Roman period onwards: whether in the quasi-charters of the Lichfield/Llandeilo Gospels, Braint Teilo ‘The Privilege of Teilo’ in the Book of Llandaf, the verse of the family of Sulien in Llanbadarn, the lament for the Lord Rhys in the Peniarth 20 Brut y Tywysogion (with its quotations from Ovid and Boethius), the various chronicles (such as the Cronica de Wallia), or the Medieval Welsh laws of Hywel Dda (the last two preserved in both Latin and Welsh). This chapter explores some consequences of that coexistence, and in particular how in some contexts Medieval Welsh became distinctively Latinate and how in certain respects the Latin of medieval Wales arguably became Cambricised.
Keywords: Boethius, Brut y Tywysogion, Cronica de Wallia, the Lord Rhys, medieval Welsh law, Ovid, Wales, Welsh
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