1 - How Was History Written in Wales?

Summary

In the early modern period, the Welsh were infamous for their lengthy pedigrees and their obsession with their lineage. This genealogical tendency was a source of (sometimes affectionate, sometimes more hostile) mockery by their English neighbours, even at the sixteenth-century peak of the English gentry’s own engagement with genealogy and lineage. Although pedigrees and, later on, heraldry were indeed central to Welsh historical representation, they were only part of a wider picture of overlapping historical strategies and media. Welsh-language praise poetry and oral performance; music; portraiture, sculpture and architecture; manuscript collections; and narrative histories were all ways that the Welsh gentry conceptualised and represented themselves and their past. Humphrey Lhuyd of Denbigh (1527–68), for example, was a Welsh humanist who wrote fervently in favour of the British History, and also compiled one of the three surviving heraldic manuals, Dosbarth Arfau (A System of Arms). Bardic poems from the mid-fifteenth to the early seventeenth century are embellished with coats of arms, and references to heraldry and genealogy abound in poetry. Despite the narrative of change that threads through these different forms, there is also significant overlap and continuity. Although the bardic order had declined significantly by the early seventeenth century when portraiture (for example) was becoming very popular, there were still bards of a lesser status composing praise poetry in gentry houses until at least the late seventeenth century. While the popularity of heraldry may have waned after the Civil Wars it remained a prized strategy to demonstrate power and authority alongside new trends in material culture. It is also the case that, long after the baton had passed on to other forms of historical writing or representation, older forms were retained and used as a way to demonstrate the ancientness and prestige of Wales and her gentry. Before considering the underlying concepts of Welsh historical culture in Chapter 2 it is important to examine how historical materials were produced in Wales, what forms they took, and the extent to which they changed over time. For ease of analysis these forms will be discussed in a roughly chronological order of development, though until the end of the seventeenth century they overlapped to some degree.