Cylchgronau Cymru

Statud Gruffudd ap Cynan (The Statute of Gruffudd ap Cynan) DAVID KLAUSNER The Statute survives wholly or in part in over seventy copies, ranging in date from approximately contemporaneous with the Caerwys Eisteddfod of 1523 to the end of the eighteenth century. Following the direction of the Statute that each bard should carry a copy of it (11. 257-9; translation 11. 302-4), a few of the sixteenth-century copies are in the hands of known poets, though the bulk of them, including all the copies made after about 1600, were made by scholars and antiquarians. I am currently preparing an edition of the Statute and its ancillary texts from the nineteen pre-1600 manu- scripts,1 while Bethan Miles is preparing a critical edition of the text from all extant manuscripts. The present text is that of Lbl MS Add. 19711. It is clearly a working bardic copy; Graham C. G. Thomas of the National Library of Wales has identified the hand as that of Wiliam Llyn (1534/5-80). There have been two previous editions of the Welsh text: the version of Lbl MS Add. 19711 was printed by J. H. Davies,2 while that of AB MS Peniarth 270 was printed by Thomas Parry.3 Lbl MS Add. 19711 is a parchment roll of twelve membranes sewn serially (145mm x 260mm (modern) + 735mm + 650mm + 620mm + 500mm + 360mm + 230mm + 35mm + 415mm + 405mm + 410mm + 235mm), containing only the text of the Statute. Each section of the text begins with a crude decorative initial, two of them decorated with line drawings of a peacock and a cat. Many sections are rubricated, and màny sections begin with several lines in larger letters than the remainder of the text. Membrane 2 (the beginning of the text) has a heraldic shield of three lions passant on a red background. The text is given as it appears in the manuscript, with interlinear additions described in the footnotes. I have not indicated the several different sizes of writing in the text. Clear scribal errors are corrected