Bibliographic information

Language: Latin

Covers years: 445–977

Manuscript: London, British Library, Harley 3859, ff. 190r–193r (s. xi/xii)

The Harleian Chronicle

Testun-A yr Annales Cambriae

Mae'r cronicl Harleian i'w gael yn ffolios 190r-193r yn llawysgrif Harley 3859 yn y Llyfrgell Brydeinig yn Llundain.  Ysgrifennwyd y llawysgrif yn ystod y degawdau o boptu'r flwyddyn 1100 mewn sgriptoriwm Eingl-Normanaidd, efallai un Awstin Fynach (St Augustine) yng Nghaergaint.  Mae'n fwy na thebyg i destun y cronicl Harleian gael ei gopïo o lawysgrif o ganol y ddegfed ganrif a oedd wedi bod yn eiddo i eglwys Tŷ Ddewi.  Mae fframwaith y cronicl sydd ar gael yn ymwneud â'r blynyddoedd 445-977, ond y flwyddyn olaf y ceir cofnod amdani yw 954.  Mae'n debygol bod y cronicl wedi cael ei gadw yn Nhŷ Ddewi am nifer o flynyddoedd cyn y dyddiad olaf hwn.

Yn 1848 golygodd Henry Petrie'r adrannau hynny o'r croniclau Harleian, Breviate a Cottonian a oedd yn ymwneud â'r blynyddoedd hyd at 1066.  Am y cyfnod hwn, mae'r un testun ffynhonnell yn sail i bob un o'r tri chronicl hyn; y testun ffynhonnell hwn oedd cronicl Tŷ Ddewi, a oedd mewn bodolaeth ddim diweddarach na 954 ac a barhawyd yn Nhŷ Ddewi ar ôl hynny.  Roedd cyfiawnhad felly dros i Petrie labelu'r tri chronicl hyn i'w ddibenion fel testunau A-, B- ac C- un cronicl ffynonellol, a alwodd yn llac yn Annales Cambriae, sef 'Blwyddnodion Cymru'.  Cymerwyd yr un enw wedyn o'i gyd-destun gwreiddiol a'i gymhwyso at y tri chronicl yn eu cyfanrwydd gan John Williams (Ab Ithel), a ddilynwyd yn ei dro gan nifer o ysgolheigion eraill.  Fodd bynnag, gan fod adrannau diweddaraf y croniclau Breviate a Cottonian yn tarddu o ffynonellau gwahanol, mae'n well defnyddio'r labelau croniclau 'Harleian', 'Breviate' a 'Cottonian'.

Ben Guy

Editions & Translation

  • David N. Dumville, Annales Cambriae, A.D. 682-954: Texts A-C in Parallel (Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, 2002). [parallel with the Breviate and Cottonian chronicles, 682–954]
  • Edmond Faral, La légende Arthurienne: Études et Documents, 3 vols (Paris: H. Champion, 1929), III, 44–50.
  • Henry Gough-Cooper, ‘Annales Cambriae, from Saint Patrick to AD 682: Texts A, B & C in Parallel’, The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwest Europe, 15 (October, 2012)  [accessed 30 April 2015]. [parallel with the Breviate and Cottonian chronicles, <682]
  • J. Loth, Les Mabinogion du Livre rouge de Hergest avec les variantes du Livre blanc de Rhydderch, rev. ed., 2 vols (Paris: Fontemoing et cie, 1913), II, 370–82. [reprint of Phillimore’s text]
  • John Morris, Nennius: British History and Welsh Annals (London: Phillimore, 1980), pp. 45–9 and 85–91. [reprint and transl. of Faral’s text with additions from the Breviate and Cottonian chronicles]
  • Henry Petrie, with John Sharpe, Monumenta Historica Britannica, or Materials for the History of Britain, from the Earliest Period: Volume 1, ed. by Thomas Duffus Hardy(London: G.E. Eyre & W. Spottiswoode, 1848), pp. 830–40. [confl. with the Breviate and Cottonian chronicles, ‘444’–1066]
  • *Egerton Phillimore, ‘The Annales Cambriæ and the Old-Welsh Genealogies from Harleian MS. 3859’, Y Cymmrodor,9 (1888), 141–83 (pp. 152–69).
  • P. M. Remfry, Annales Cambriae: A Translation of Harleian 3859; PRO E. 164/1; Cottonian Domitian, A1; Exeter Cathedral Library MS.3514 and MS Exchequer DB Neath, PRO E. 164/1 (Shrewsbury: Castle Studies Research, 2007), pp. 155–62. [transl.]
  • W. Wade-Evans, Nennius’s “History of the Britons”: together with “The Annals of the Britons” and “Court Pedigrees of Hywel the Good” also “The Story of the Loss of Britain” (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1938), pp. 84–101. [transl.]
  • John Williams ab Ithel, Annales Cambriae (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1860). [confl. with the Breviate and Cottonian chronicles]

Secondary Scholarship

Specific to this Version

  • Alfred Anscombe, ‘The Exordium of the “Annales Cambriae”’, Ériu,3 (1907), 117–34.
  • Alfred Anscombe, ‘Mr. E. W. B. Nicholson and the “Exordium” of the “Annales Cambriae”’, Zeitschrift für celtische philologie,7 (1910), 419–38.
  • David N. Dumville, ‘Annales Cambriae and Easter’, in The Medieval Chronicle III: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle. Doorn/Utrecht 12-17 July 2002, ed. by Erik Kooper (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004), pp. 40–50; repr. in his Celtic Essays, 2001–2007, 2 vols(Aberdeen, 2007), II, 25–33.
  • Ben Guy, ‘The Origins of the Compilation of Welsh Historical Texts in Harley 3859’, Studia Celtica,49 (2015, forthcoming).
  • Ben Guy, ‘A Second Witness to the Welsh Material in Harley 3859’, Quaestio Insularis: Selected Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic,15 (2014, forthcoming).
  • Kathleen Hughes, ‘The A-Text of the Annales Cambriae’, in her Celtic Britain in the Early Middle Ages, ed. by David N. Dumville (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1980), pp. 86–100.
  • Molly Miller, ‘Final Stages in the Construction of the Harleian Annales Cambriae’, Journal of Celtic Studies,4 (2004), 205–11.
  • E. W. B. Nicholson, ‘The “Annales Cambriae” and their so-called “Exordium”, Zeitschrift für celtische philologie,8 (1912), 121–50.
  • E. W. B. Nicholson, ‘Remarks on The Date of the First Settlement of the Saxons in Britain, 1.’, Zeitschrift für celtische philologie,6 (1908), 439–53.
  • Egerton Phillimore, ‘The Publication of Welsh Historical Records’, Y Cymmrodor,11 (1892), 133–75.
  • Morgan Watkin, ‘The Chronology of the Annales Cambriae and the Liber Landavensis on the basis of their Old French Graphical Phenomena', National Library of Wales Journal, 11 (1960), 181–226.

Annales Cambriae more generally

  • T. M. Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons 350–1064 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 346–59.
  • David N. Dumville, review of Kathleen Hughes, The Welsh Latin Chronicles: Annales Cambriae and Related Texts (1973), Studia Celtica,12/13 (1977–78), 461–67.
  • David N. Dumville, ‘When was the “Clonmacnoise Chronicle” Created? The Evidence of the Welsh Annals’, in Kathryn Grabowski and David N. Dumville, Chronicles and Annals of Medieval Ireland and Wales (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1984), pp. 209–26.
  • Nicholas Evans, ‘The Irish Chronicles and the British to Anglo-Saxon Transition in Seventh-Century Northumbria’, in The Medieval Chronicle VII, ed. by Juliana Dresvina and Nicholas Sparks (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011), pp. 15–43.
  • Erik Grigg, ‘“Mole Rain” and other Natural Phenomena in the Welsh Annals: Can Mirablia unravel the Textual History of the Annales Cambriae?’, Welsh History Review,24 (2009), 1–40.
  • Kathleen Hughes, ‘The Welsh Latin Chronicles: Annales Cambriae and Related Texts’, Proceedings of the British Academy,59 (1973), 233–58; repr. in her Celtic Britain in the Early Middle Ages, ed. by David N. Dumville (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1980), pp. 67–85.
  • J. E. Lloyd, ‘The Welsh Chronicles’, Proceedings of the British Academy,14 (1928), 369–91.
  • Howard Wiseman, ‘The Derivation of the Badon entry in the Annales Cambriae from Bede and Gildas’, Parergon, 17 (2000), 1–10.