Dear Colleagues,
Here's an announcement of more than minor interest, which
will speak for itself:
TWO MIDDLE CORNISH PLAYS: A NOTE
The Celtic collections of the National Library of Wales have
recently been considerably enriched by the acquisition of a
manuscript, which contains two previously unknown Middle
Cornish verse plays. NLW MS 23849D was discovered among the
papers of the late Emeritus Professor J. E. Caerwyn
Williams, donated to the National Library of Wales by his
widow, the late Mrs Gwen Caerwyn Williams, in 2000. The
manuscript is written in a secretary hand of the
mid-sixteenth century by a single scribe. The first play,
which it contains, is based upon the life of St Kea, a
Celtic saint venerated in both Cornwall and Brittany, and
whose Vita is preserved in Breton sources. The second play
is based upon the accounts given in Geoffrey of Monmouth's
Historia Regum Britannice (Books ix.15; x.1-13; xi.1-2) of
King Arthur's quarrel with the Roman emperor, Lucius
Hiberius, over the tribute which the Britons were required
to pay to Rome, and which culminated in Arthur's victory and
the emperor's death in battle, and of the clandestine
relationship of Arthur's nephew, Modred, with Queen Guenevere.
The manuscript, when acquired, consisted of an unbound
gathering of ten conjoint pairs of leaves (20 folios),
foliated [ó], 7, [8, 9], 10-13, 16-19, 22-9. The original
foliation indicates the loss of at least five folios at both
the beginning and the end of the manuscript, and of two
folios each between folios 13 and 16 and folios 19 and 22.
The manuscript has now been bound in dark maroon pigskin in
the bindery of the National Library and has been re-foliated
1-20. The leaves measure 305 mm. x 200 mm. The watermark is
a pot with initials 'NB'.
Caerwyn Williams does not seem to have discussed the
manuscript with other Celtic scholars nor had he recorded
the source from which he had acquired the manuscript nor any
information about its history. He had transcribed seventeen
lines of the drama about St Kea but had not taken the
editing of the text further.
The manuscript probably dates from the mid-sixteenth
century, but the language of the plays seems to be late
Middle Cornish. The scribe commented that five pages of his
exemplar were torn, so there is no doubt that he was copying
from an earlier manuscript. Owing to the loss of the five
folios at the beginning and the five at the end of the
manuscript as well as of the four other folios and some
words missing because of torn leaves, neither text is
complete. The total number of lines surviving is 3308.
The importance of this manuscript and its contents is at
least fourfold. Firstly, with its discovery, the corpus of
known Middle Cornish literature is increased by about twenty
per cent. Secondly, it provides new evidence concerning the
cult of St Kea in Cornwall. Thirdly, the play concerning
King Arthur provides substantial new evidence for Cornish
interest taken in the Arthurian tradition. Finally, this
play is the only example (with the possible exception of the
so-called Charter Fragment) of a secular play surviving in
Middle Cornish, and it may well be the only example of a
medieval play about King Arthur to have survived in Western
Europe; thus adding to our understanding of the possible
repertoire of a medieval dramatist.
My edition of the text of these two plays is well advanced
and is to be published by the National Library of Wales.
Graham C. G. Thomas
Aberystwyth
--
David N. Klausner, Professor of English and Medieval Studies
Director, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto
voice: 416-978-5422 fax: 416-971-1398
"Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable."
Samuel Johnson
