Red book by Hergest

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The Red Book of Hergest ( Welsh : Llyfr Coch Hergest [ ɬivr koːx 'hergest ], English : Red Book of Hergest ) is one of the most important medieval Welsh manuscripts and at the same time the most extensive. It contains both prose and poetry , but no religious or legal texts, and was written between 1382 and 1410 . The manuscript is now in the Bodleian Library of Oxford University as a gift from the Reverend Thomas Wilkins in 1701 .

Hergest Red Book, pages 240–241.
Facsimile of part of page 579 from the Red Book by Hergest.

history

One of the copyists on the manuscript was identified as Hywel Fychan ab Hywel Goch of Builth Wells ( Powys ). He worked for Hopcyn from Thomas from Einion (around 1330 to after 1403) from Ynysforgan ( Swansea ). The name of the manuscript comes from the fact that it is bound in red leather on the one hand, and on the other hand possibly just like the Llyfr Gwyn Hergest ("The White Book of Hergest") from Hergest Court ( Plâs Hergest ) near Kington (Herefordshire) in the Welsh Marches , where it was from around 1465 until the beginning of the 17th century. The Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch ("The White Book of Rhydderch") and the Llyfr Coch Hergest differ only slightly in content. The name of a historical recipient, Hergest , cannot be assigned despite the assumption that it was Hopcyn ap Thomas .

The first part of the manuscript contains prose, including the Mabinogion , short stories, historical texts (including a Welsh translation by Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae , Brut y Brenhinedd ), and a number of stanzas from the Trioedd Ynys Prydein (“The Triads of the Island Britain "). The Arthur tradition is represented by the late story Breuddwyd Rhonabwy ("Rhonabwy's Dream") and some Merlin supplements.

The manuscript also contains Welsh translations of foreign literature, grammatical treatises and medical texts, such as a collection of herbal medicines associated with Rhiwallon Feddyg, the founder of a medical dynasty that lasted more than 500 years, the Physicians of Myddfai . Also included are poems for princes from the 12th to 14th centuries, as well as sayings and proverbs.

Trivia

The writer JRR Tolkien borrowed a change in the title of the manuscript for the Red Book of Westmark , the fictional source for his stories.

See also

literature

  • Helmut Birkhan : Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. 2nd, corrected and enlarged edition. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-7001-2609-3 .
  • Bernhard Maier : Lexicon of Celtic Religion and Culture (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 466). Kröner, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-520-46601-5 .
  • Red Book of Hergest . In: Meic Stephens (Ed.): The New Companion to the Literature of Wales . University of Wales Press, Cardiff 1998. ISBN 0-7083-1383-3 .
  • Thomas Parry: A History of Welsh Literature. Translated by H. Idris Bell. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1955.

Web links

  • Red Book of Hergest , or Jesus College MS 111, is part of the first manuscripts in the Oxford University digitization project ; Reprint of the essential parts of the Historical Manuscripts Commission , Report on manuscripts in the Welsh language , Volume II Part I, (London, 1902), which describes the MS and its contents; the link gives access to color images of the entire manuscript.

Individual evidence

  1. Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. P. 473 f.