Annales Cambriae
B, C, D and E in Parallel, from AD 1251 to AD 1289
Henry W. Gough-Cooper
First edition (June 2024)
Published online by the Welsh Chronicles Research Group:
http://croniclau.bangor.ac.uk
Introduction: Annales Cambriae B, C, D & E in parallel, from AD 1251 to AD 1289
Over four decades ago, Prof. David Dumville suggested making parallel editions of the chronicles that have come to be known collectively as Annales Cambriae, the Welsh Latin chronicles (Dumville 1977). Presented here are the final sections of the four principal chronicles in parallel from 1251 to 1288: the major chronicle from the Neath Breviate of Domesday (Annales Cambriae B-text); the St Davids, or Cottonian, chronicle (Annales Cambriae C-text); and two chronicles from Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3514, Cronica ante adventum domini (Annales Cambriae D-text), and Cronicon de Wallia (Annales Cambriae E-text).
Structure
B has a penultimate run of consecutive annals, b1272–b1298, for the AD years 1251 to 1277. There are then two annals, b1299 and b1300, for the years 1282 and 1283, and then a final isolated annal, b1301, for 1286. The date given by b1301, m.cc.lxxxui, is possibly in error for m.cc.lxxxiu, under which year (1284) a fire at Strata Florida is noted in the Annals of Chester.[1]
C has an empty annal, c573, between its annal c572 for an event of 1250 and its annal c574 for events of 1254. Its annals c574–c585 are for events of 1254 to 1264, but four of these are empty. The first item of c586 is also for an event of 1264, but the second item is for an event of 1270, as is c587. Annals c588 to c591 are empty, but c592 is by deduction also for an event of 1270. Annals c593 and c594 are for events of 1271 and 1272. There is no annal for 1273; but, thereafter, c595–c609 are consecutive annals for the years 1274 to 1288. The last annal, c610, was prepared but is without rubricated initial and is empty.
D, after its annals d40–d62, which are almost all misstated as a year in arrears of the events noted (d62 ‘1249’ = 1250), resynchronises with the true AD date at d63 ‘1250’ = 1250. The annals in D are not, however, a year-by-year chronicle until d67, where there is a short series of consecutive annals for the years 1257 to 1266 (d75). There is then a leap to an annal, d76, marked ‘1273’, but this and the next annal, d77, are both for events of 1274. Thereafter, d78–d86 are for events of 1276 to 1285, with d81 being for events of 1279 and 1280.
E, after its annal for events of 1249 (e46 ‘1248’), jumps to 1254 (e47), and then has a series of consecutive annals, e47–e58, for the years 1254 to 1266. The compiler copied the annals for 1259 and 1260 out of sequence, but this is recognised in the manuscript by the addition of a small ‘b’ and ‘a’ in front of the respective annals, e52 and e53.
Both the B and C texts show signs of the final stages of their compilation, both in structure and content. In B, this is evident from the gap that occurs after 1277 in the long series of dated annals that run almost continuously from 1097 (only the year 1232 is omitted, as it is also in E). After its annal for 1277 (b1298), B ends with a codicil of three annals for events of the years 1282, 1283 and 1284. In C, the annal for 1255–56, c576, is the last of what is up to that point a ‘closed’ chronicle, where no provision has been made by the scribe for additions. Thereafter, the compiler has left gaps between many of the annals, and of the fifteen further annals on the leaf (folio 153v) eight are empty. The annal for 1270 (c587) is followed by four empty annals, apparently taking the chronicle down to 1274 at the end of the second column on the leaf, which is the last of a bifolio. At the start of the first leaf of the new bifolio (154r), the first annal, c592, is, by deduction, for 1270 (c594 notes the death of Henry III of England, who died in November 1272). This disjunction in the chronology of the annals probably signals the start of the final period of compilation. C has no annal for 1273. Again, spaces of one or two lines are left between most of the annals, and the last two leaves in particular have the untidy appearance of a draft, a work-in-progress. From this evidence, the C-text, uniquely amongst the chronicles under consideration, was still an active chronicle when it was abandoned; its last four annals lack rubricated capitals, and the last empty annal, c610, prepared but empty, should have been for 1289.
Unlike B and C, D and E do not pretend to be continuous year-by-year chronicles.
Contents
After their annals for c. 1202–04, the major chronicles B and C are wholly independent of one another, with no evidence for a common source. Indeed, the descriptors Annales Cambriae B, Annales Cambriae C, although convenient and long engrained in custom, are now entirely inappropriate. B now properly stands for the ‘Breviate’ chronicle, the major chronicle in the flyleaves of the Neath Breviate of Domesday, London National Archives MS E164/1, pp. 2–26, and C for the ‘Cottonian chronicle’, the St Davids chronicle in British Library, Cotton MS Domitian A. i, folios 138r–155r. The chronicles in Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3514, D and E, are partially derivative of the sources that underlie B and C.
B and the Welsh vernacular chronicles, Brut y Tywysogyon (‘the Brutiau’), run in parallel 1231–1246 and 1251–1263, but the relationship is complex.[2] For 1251, 1252 and 1253 the Brutiau have items that are close Welsh parallels of the Latin annals in B, b1272, b1273 and b1274, but the Brutiau’s annals for 1251 are more specific, and their annals for 1252 and 1253 each have one extra item not in B (a note on the weather and a note of the bishop of St Davids, respectively), but which look as though they were in the Welsh annals’ source. The Brutiau’s annals for 1254 also have an item not in B, and B also has an item not in the Brutiau but this is one of the frequent Winchester-Waverley parallels found in B from its early twelfth-century section onwards. The Brutiau’s next annals, for 1255, have the same four items as b1276, but their equivalent of the first item in b1276 is shorter, and they have an extra item not in B (the purchase and installation of a new bell at Strata Florida). The Brutiau’s annals for 1256 have no equivalent to the first item of b1277, and their equivalents of the other items in b1277 are shorter and less specific as to days and dates than the last two items in B. However, the Brutiau here have a second item about the bishop of St Davids not in B. The annals in B and the Brutiau for 1257 begin in a similar vein, but again B is more specific as to date, but then diverge completely; the annals in the Brutiau bear little or no resemblance to the ten items in b1278 (the Brutiau have split their annals for 1257 over two years, but even then are considerably shorter than b1278). The annals in the Brutiau for 1258, while touching on some of the same events as b1279, are very brief compared to the extensive accounts in B, which again is more specific as to days and dates. Then the Brutiau’s account of Welsh events lapses completely with their annal for 1259, while the next annal in B, b1280, continues to be detailed and specific. The Brutiau do have an account of the taking of Builth castle (1260), but it is much briefer and varying in detail from the account in the second item of b1281, and the Brutiau have no equivalent of the first item in B, or of the subsequent four items. The Brutiau’s annals are obituaries not found in B, where b1282 notes the death of the abbot of Cwm-hir. In their annals for 1262, both the Brutiau and b1283 (first item) note the death of the Clare earl of Gloucester, but B is mistaken about his name, ‘Gilbert’ rather than the correct Richard, even though it provides more detail about the cause of his death and the place of his burial (but is also in error about the location). The Brutiau are more detailed on the capture and destruction of Cefnllys than the second item in b1283, but the third item in B is more detailed about the ensuing events and the besieging of Roger de Mortimer in the castle ruins. The account in the Brutiau is again less detailed and with no specific dates given, or the name of the castle. The next annals in the Brutiau, for 1263, touch on the same events as b1284 – the slaughter at Clun, the start of the Second Barons’ War, the taking of Degannwy by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, and Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn’s capture and the destruction of Yr Wyddgrug – but the accounts are essentially different and noted in a different order, and the Brutiau have no equivalent of the last three items here in B. After their annals for 1263, B and the Brutiau diverge completely.
To summarize: the Brutiau for 1251 to 1255 are parallel to, but more detailed than B; thereafter, from 1256 to 1263, B is more detailed and much more specific than the Brutiau, even though the latter touch on some of the same subjects from time to time. It is significant that B loses sight of Maelgwn Ieuanc ap Maelgwn ap Rhys, so that, although the deaths of his children are recorded in 1254 and 1255, his death is not (it is noted in the Brutiau in their annals for 1257). The annals in B for 1259 and 1261 are completely different from those in the Brutiau. The annals in B are oddly oblique about the Barons’ War, with no mention of the battle of Evesham in b1286 (1265) or of the siege of Kenilworth in b1288 (1266), and none of the Welsh Latin chronicles refer to the Treaty of Montgomery of 1267. Indeed, there are several Winchester-Waverley parallels in the annals for 1267, 1268 and 1271 (b1290, for the year 1269, is empty), and the annals become very slight from 1268 to 1273,[3] reviving somewhat for 1274, 1276 and 1277, where they note the initial establishment of Edwardian hegemony over North and West Wales. The brief codicil for 1282, 1283 and 1286 (or 1284; see note above), neatly closes the chronicle with the final liquidation of the Gwynedd dynasty and the burning of Strata Florida.
C is independent of both B and the Brutiau. An apparent lacuna of three years between 1250 and 1254 is marked by a single empty annal, c573; the preceding annal, c572, is for an event of 1250, and the following annal, c574, notes events of 1254. At its annal for 1255 (c575), we start to find parallels of C in E, where in the third item of e48 there occurs a change of hand and ink; c576 is paralleled by e49, and c578 is partially paralleled by the fourth item in e50, while the fifth item is a parallel of c579. The next annal in C, c580, is empty, but c581 is paralleled by the second item in e53, and c583 is paralleled by the third item in e55, and c585 by the sixth and seventh items in e56. E ends with an annal for 1266. From 1254 to 1270 C is very thin; of the twenty-three annals on folio 153v nine are empty, and of the remainder only seven concern Wales. The annal for 1256 announces the start of a great war in Wales, but in stark contrast to the detailed campaign accounts of 1256–1260 and 1262–63 in B, C notes briefly only three events.
When the new bifolio starts (c592) the chronicle has apparently doubled-back to 1270 and subsequently shows some further signs of being a work-in-progress (e.g. the corrections in c598, c599 and c603; leaving space between annals for further expansion; the innovation of starting to provide AD dates in the last few annal headers). C never loses sight of St Davids, recording in c575 and c576 the death of Bishop Thomas and the consecration of his successor, Richard, in Rome (1255, 1256). The final run of annals begins with two notes of Bishop Richard’s trip to France after Easter, and his return to Wales the following year, around Ascension Day (c592 and c593). As the death of King Henry III of England in 1272 is noted in c594, Richard’s trip was by deduction in 1270 and 1271. The following annals give a considerable amount of detail pertaining to St Davids and its dependencies: c596, the establishment of a shrine to St David in the church; c598, a pilgrimage made to St Davids by Prince Edmund; c599, the appointment of the treasurer of St Davids as archdeacon of Brecon, and the installation of a new rector in Llanfynydd; c601, the death of Bishop Richard and the election of his successor, Thomas Bek, and his confirmation and consecration at Lincoln, the election of the archdeacon of St Davids as bishop of Exeter and the appointment of the treasurer to the archdeaconship and the appointment of his successor as treasurer; c603, the death of the treasurer, William, and the appointment of his successor, John; c604, the death of the archdeacon of Carmarthen, a note of his successor, and of the church of Llangadog being made collegiate; c605, a visit from John Peckham, archbishop of Canterbury, the king and queen visiting St Davids on pilgrimage on 26 November, and the town of Haverfordwest regaining its privileges; c607, note of a large subsidy made by the bishop, Thomas Bek, on behalf of the clergy, to the Papal nuncio to England, Guifrid. The chronicle ends with three natural ‘miracula’, precisely dated: c608, a blood moon on 19 June, and an earthquake on 15 March (this possibly the March following June 1287); c609, a solar eclipse on 2 April. All these natural events are described in some detail. The eclipse makes a fortuitously poetic ending to C, but the preparation of a further annal shows that there was no intention that the chronicle would stop there. C could possibly represent a stage in the compilation of a now lost ‘fair copy’, into which the interpolated annalistic notes would have been fully assimilated.
After an initial computus, the annals in D to AD 596 are based on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s De gestis Britonum. Thereafter, the annals, now dependent on the Bury St Edmunds chronicle of John de Taxster (JdT),[4] show very little direct interest in Wales. D is dependent on a version of JdT down to 1265 (d74), with the possible addition of the annal for 1266 (d75), although this last is not in any of the extant witnesses to JdT. D has nothing in common with B, but from its annal for 1254 (d66) it starts to be paralleled by E, although the items in d66 are found appended to the annal for the following year in E, e48 (1255). D then jumps to 1257 (d67) where it has two items paralleled by the first two items in e50 (but the third item in e50 is a parallel of the first item in c578, and the fourth item in e50 is a parallel of the first and only item in c579). The annal d68 is paralleled by e51, and d69 and d70 are paralleled by e53 and e52 (as explained above, the copyist of E reversed the chronological order of these two annals). Annal d71 is paralleled by e54, but e55 is a parallel of 1) d73 and 2) c585; d74 and d75 are paralleled by e57 and e58. The pattern suggests that E was drawing on both D and C, or their sources, for its annals e50, e55 and e56. D then jumps again, from 1266 (d75) to 1274 (d76 ‘1273’) where B, C and D all record the coronation of Edward I of England in 1274. But here C has a parallel of d77 noting the Council of Lyons of 1274, and D has then no annal for 1275. Therefore, the annals in D appear to be parallels, often abbreviated, of those in C to 1284. The last annal in D (d86) breaks off in mid-sentence, but, although noting the same events, is perhaps independent of C. In short, D appears to depend on C for its annals for 1274 to 1284; E appears to parallel D and C for its annals from 1255 (the last three or four items of e48, where there is a change of hand and ink) to 1266 (e58).
Abbreviations:
B: The Welsh-Latin Breviate chronicle in the Neath Breviate of Domesday, London, National Archives MS E164/1, pp. 2–26 (see Gough-Cooper 2015a).
C: The Welsh-Latin Cottonian chronicle, London, British Library Cotton MS Domitian A. i, folios 138r–155r (see Gough-Cooper 2015b).
CCCC 92: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 92 (see Thorpe 1849).
D: Cronica ante aduentum domini, Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3514, pp. 523–8 (see Gough-Cooper 2015c).
DPNW: Owen and Morgan 2007.
E: Cronicon de Wallia, Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3514, pp. 507–19 (see Gough-Cooper 2016).
HBC: Fryde et al. 2003.
HD: Cheney and Jones 2004
JdT: The Bury St Edmunds Chronicle of John de Taxster, London, British Library, Cotton MS Julius A. i, ff. 3r–43v.
Luard ii: Luard 1865.
OHE Powicke: Powicke 1962.
P: Jones 1952.
R: Jones 1954.
S: Jones 1971.
Runciman, HC3: Runciman 1954.
References:
Cheney, C. R. (ed.) and Jones, M. (rev.) (2004) A Handbook of Dates, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dumville D. N. (1977/8) ‘The Welsh Latin Annals’, Studia Celtica 12/13, 461–7.
Dunbabin, J. (1998) Charles I of Anjou: Power, Kingship and State-making in Thirteenth-century Europe, London: Longman.
Fryde E. B., Greenway, D. E., Porter, S. and Roy, I. (2003) Handbook of British Chronology, Royal Historical Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gough-Cooper, H. W. (ed.) (2015a) Annales Cambriae: The B Text, from London, National Archives MS E164/1, pp. 2–26,
<http://croniclau.bangor.ac.uk/documents/AC%20B%20first%20edition.pdf>
Gough-Cooper, H. W. (ed.) (2015b) Annales Cambriae: The C Text, from London, British Library, Cotton MS Domitian A. i. ff. 138r–155r,
<http://croniclau.bangor.ac.uk/documents/AC%20C%20first%20edition.pdf>
Gough-Cooper, H. W. (ed.) (2015c) Annales Cambriae: The D Text, from Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3514, pp. 523–8,
<http://croniclau.bangor.ac.uk/documents/AC%20D%20first%20edition.pdf>
Gough-Cooper, H. W. (ed.) (2016) Annales Cambriae: The E Text, from Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3514, pp. 507–19,
<http://croniclau.bangor.ac.uk/documents/AC_E_First_Edition%20%20.pdf>
Goyau, G. (1910) ‘Second Council of Lyons (1274)’, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton Company, vol. 9, pp. 477–8.
Goyau, G. (1911) ‘Philip IV’, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton Company, vol. 12, pp. 4–6.
Gransden, A. (2004) ‘Taxster, John of (fl. 1244–c.1270)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hughes, K. (1980) ‘The Welsh Latin Chronicles: Annales Cambriae and Related Texts’, in her Celtic Britain in the Early Middle Ages: Studies in Scottish and Welsh Sources, ed. D. Dumville, Woodbridge: Boydell, pp. 67–85.
Jackson, P. (trans.) (2009) The Seventh Crusade, 1244–1254: Sources and Documents, Farnham: Ashgate.
Jones, T. (trans.) (1952) Brut y Tywysogyon or The Chronicle of the Princes: Peniarth MS. 20 version, Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Jones, T. (ed. and trans.) (1954) Brut y Tywysogyon or The Chronicle of the Princes: Red Book of Hergest Version, Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Jones, T. (ed. and trans.) (1971) Brenhinedd y Saesson or The King of the Saxons: BM Cotton MS Cleopatra B v and The Black Book of Basingwerk, NLW MS. 7006, Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Lloyd, J. E. (1912) A History of Wales: From the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest, 2 vols, London: Longmans, Green & Co.
Luard, H. R. (ed.) (1865) Annales Monastici, vol. 2, Rolls Series 36, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts and Green.
Lynn, W. T. (1905) ‘The Comets of A.D. 1264 and 1556’, The Observatory 28, 217–18.
Maund, K. (2006) The Welsh Kings, Stroud: Tempus.
Owen, H. W. and Morgan, R. (2007) Dictionary of the Place Names of Wales, Llandysul: Gomer Press.
Powicke, M. (1962) The Thirteenth Century, 1216–1307, The Oxford History of England, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ridgeway H. W. (2004) ‘Henry III (1207–1272)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Runciman, S. 1954. A History of the Crusades, Volume Three: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thorpe B. (ed.) (1849) Florentii Wigorniensis monachi Chronicon ex chronicis, vol. 2, London: sumptibus Societatis.
Smith, J. B. (2008) ‘Historical Writing in Medieval Wales: The Composition of Brenhindd y Saesson’, Studia Celtica 42, 55–86.
Stephenson, D. (2011) ‘The Chronicler at Cwm-hir Abbey, 1257–63: The Construction of a Welsh Chronicle’, in R. A. Griffiths and P. R. Schofield (eds), Wales and the Welsh in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to J. Beverley Smith, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 29–45.
Stevenson, J. (ed.) (1839) Chronicon de Lanercost 1201-1346, Edinburgh: The Bannatyne Club.
[1] This last annal is dated 1286, perhaps due to a scribal error in transcribing the minims of iv as vi. The event is recorded under the probably correct year (1284) in the Annales Cestrienses; see Smith 2008, 74f., fn. 114.
[2] David Stephenson has conjectured that Whitland borrowed a Strata Florida text covering 1231–56, adding entries for 1257–9. Cwm-hir then borrowed the Whitland text (1231–1259) where further, mid-Wales, material for 1257–9 was added in and the narrative continued to 1263 (Stephenson 2011, 34).
[3] The annal for the death of ‘Rhys ap Maredudd’ (b1291, 1270) may be a misreading of a notice for the death of Rhys Fychan ap Rhys Mechyll (Hughes 1980, 81), although Rhys Fychan did not die until 1271. The Lord Maredudd’s son and heir, Rhys ap Maredudd ap Rhys, having been in rebellion against the Crown for some years, was executed in 1291 at York, as recorded in the Chronicle of Lanercost (Stevenson 1839, 145, s.a. 1291): Eodem anno Reismareduc, quidam de nobilioribus Walliae, regis Angliae proditor, in crastino sanctae Trinitatis [Jun. 2] apud Eboracum judicialiter tractus est, et per tres dies et noctes suspensus apud Knaresmire (‘In the same year Rhys ap Maredudd, one of the nobility of Wales, traitor to the king of England, was lawfully executed at York on the day after Trinity Sunday, and for three days and nights hung at Knavesmire’). The death of the Lord Maredudd ap Rhys is then placed two years too late under the annal (b1294) for 1273.
[4] Hughes 1980, 77; perhaps through the medium of a lost variant version. The two extant witnesses are London, British Library, Cotton MS Julius A. i, ff. 3r–43v, and London, College of Arms, Arundel MS 6. Additionally, John de Taxster's annals for 1152–1265 were transcribed by the Bury St Edmunds compiler as part of their continuation to 1295 of John of Worcester's Chronicon ex chronicis in the version found in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 92 (Thorpe 1849). See also Gransden 2004.