Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

2 results

  • 13 - The circulation of books between England and the Celtic realms

  • from PART II - THE CIRCULATION OF BOOKS
  • Edited by Richard Gameson, University of Durham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 March 2012
    Print publication:
    22 December 2011, pp 338-343

  • Summary

    The career of Lichfield Gospels, one of the most magnificent surviving manuscripts from the British Isles, may be used to illustrate some of the certainties, and also the insuperable ambiguities, surrounding the circulation of books between England and its Celtic neighbours: Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Scotland and Brittany. Certain historical events have stimulated the passage of books between England and one or more of its Celtic neighbours such as the accession of Alfred the Great to the throne of Wessex. The majority of Celtic manuscripts from Anglo-Saxon England are Brittonic, whether Welsh, Breton or Cornish. The clearest evidence for the circulation of books from England to one of the Celtic regions comes from Brittany. The MacRegol Gospels, also known as the Rushworth Gospels, is an Irish manuscript, which reached Northumbria by the tenth century, where it received Old English glosses.

  • 35 - Wales

  • from BEYOND LONDON: PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION, RECEPTION
  • Edited by John Barnard, University of Leeds, D. F. McKenzie, University of Oxford
  • With Maureen Bell, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 November 2002, pp 719-734

  • Summary

    A commercial trade in Welsh books required a certain level of literacy in Welsh. Between 1540 and 1642 some 2,200 Welsh students were registered at Oxford and Cambridge, well over four-fifths of them at Oxford. The sense of crisis was intensified by the rapid decline of the bardic order, the traditional custodian of the Welsh language and traditions. Despite the poverty, underdevelopment, and relative isolation of Wales, Welsh was the only Celtic language to respond positively to the challenge of print, roughly two hundred Welsh-language titles appearing during the first century and a half of Welsh-language printing. The main difference between Wales and the other Celtic-speaking areas was that Welsh became the language of public worship. As literacy in Welsh became more widespread, monoglot Welsh-speakers made ever-increasing use of the printed word, a development which culminated in the flourishing vernacular press of the mid-nineteenth century.