Abstract
An imaginary juxtaposition of the contrasting soundscapes that might have characterized Wales and England during the 1430s is found in an anonymous dialogue ballad of the early seventeenth century.1 Purportedly a translation from a Welsh original, this fanciful recreation of the courtship of the future grandparents of Henry VII—Owain Tudor of Anglesey (ca. 1400–1461) and the widow of Henry V, Catherine de Valois (1401–37)—has Owain attempting to woo the aristocratic Catherine by laying before her the charms of his homeland. Wales is defined by a series of pastoral delights; among them the “murmuring musick” of its clear fountains, the “musicall moanes” of its harps, tabors and “sweet humming drones,” its Whitsuntide maypoles and dancing on the village green, and the serenading of a bride with bagpipes as she makes her way to church. Catherine, accustomed to tilting and tournaments, masques and revels, inevitably has very different expectations. For her the music of courtship requires a soothing “silver-like melody” that “rocks up” the senses; Welsh music, to her refined ear, is “clownish,” for it “soundeth not sweet.”
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
“A New Song of the Wooing of Queene Katherine, by a Gallant Yong Gentleman of Wales Named Owen Tudor: Lately Translated Out of Welch into Our English Phrase. To the Tune of Light in Love Ladies,” in The Golden Garland of Princely Pleasures and Delicate Delights, ed. Richard Johnson, 3rd edn. (London: By A. M[athewes] for Thomas Langley, and are to be sold at his shop ouer against the Sarazens Head without Newgate, 1620 [STC 14674]), A6. The ballad was probably inspired by Shakespeare’s courtship scene between Catherine and Henry at the end of Henry V. See also Michael Drayton, “Owen Tudor to Queen Katherine,” Englands Heroicall Epistles (London: printed by I[ames] R[oberts] for N. Ling, and are to be sold at his shop at the vvest doore of Poules, 1597 [STC 7193]), and Hugh Holland, Pancharis the First Booke. Containing the Preparation of the Loue betweene Ovven Tudyr, and the Queene, Long since Intended to Her Maiden Maiestie (London: By V. S[immes] for Clement Knight, M D CIII, 1603 [STC 13592]).
See, for instance, Sally Harper, “So How Many Irishmen Went to Glyn Achlach? Early Accounts of the Formation of cerdd dant,” Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 42 (2001): 1–25.
Fuller discussion of Welsh music in its cultural context appears in Sally Harper, Music in Welsh Culture before 1650: A Study of the Principal Sources (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). This also explores the much closer relationship between England and Wales where music for the liturgy is concerned—see especially Chap. 11, “Shaping a New Liturgy: The Adoption of Sarum Use in Wales.”
Mary Remnant, English Bowed Instruments from Anglo-Saxon to Tudor Times (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), Chap. 4, “The Crowd.”
Robert ap Huw’s manuscript survives as London, British Library MS Add. 14905. Two facsimiles are available: Henry Lewis, ed., Musica: British Museum Additional Manuscript 14905 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1936), and Wyn Thomas, ed., Musica: Llawysgrif Robert ap Huw (Godstone: Scolar Press, 1982).
Key sources are collated in Bethan Miles, “Swyddogaeth a Chelfyddyd y Crythor,” 2 vols. (M.A. diss., University of Wales, 1983), vol. 2; see also David Klausner, ed., Records of Early Drama: Wales, Records of Early English Drama 18 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 159–81 (trans. 349–68); 273–86 (trans. 390–95).
Robert Mannyng of Brunne, Handlynge Synne (1303), ed. F. J. Furnivall, EETS os 119 (London: Trübner, 1901), 158.
One of the most enlightening discussions of early English song remains John Stevens, Music and Poetry in the Early Tudor Court (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961).
Gwaith Sefnyn, Rhisierdyn, Gruffudd Fychan ap Gruffudd ab Ednyfed a Llywarch Bentwrch, ed. N. A. Jones and E. H. Rheinallt (Aberystwyth: University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, 1995); 11, cited Patrick K. Ford, “Performance and Literacy in Medieval Welsh Poetry,” The Modern Language Review 100 (2005): xxxvii.
Two versions of the Statute, together with various other associated documents, are given in Klausner, ed., Records: Wales, 159–83 (trans. 349–70)
For fuller exploration of this question, see Sally Harper, “Dafydd ap Gwilym, poet and musician,” in Gwaith Dafydd ap Gwilym, ed. Dafydd Johnston (Published Online, University of Wales, Swansea, http://www.dafyddapgwilym.net). The site also features video recordings of experimental declamations.
Relevant extracts from several different redactions of the law are given in Klausner, ed., Records: Wales, 4–7 and 11–28 (trans. 310–11 and 314–26); see also Dafydd Jenkins, ed. and trans., The Law of Hywel Dda: Law Texts from Medieval Wales, The Welsh Classics 2 (Llandysul: Gomer Press, 1986).
For fuller reference, see Dafydd Jenkins, “Bardd Teulu and Pencerdd,” in The Welsh King and His Court, ed. Thomas Charles-Edwards, Morfydd E. Owen, and Paul Russell (Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 2000), 142–66.
See R. Geraint Gruffydd, “Gogynfeirdd,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Rachel Bromwich, “Review of A Guide to Welsh Literature Volume 1,” Llên Cymru 13: 4 (1981): 298–301, at 300. See also Gruffydd Aled Williams, “The Bardic Road to Bosworth: A Welsh View of Henry Tudor,” Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1986): 7–31.
See Andrew Taylor, “Fragmentation, Corruption, and Minstrel Narration: The Question of the Middle English Romances,” The Yearbook of English Studies 22 (1992): 38–62, at 34.
Cited John Southworth, The English Medieval Minstrel (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 1989), 88.
See Harper, Music in Welsh Culture, 281–82. The account of the tournament is part of the Life of Sir Rhys ap Thomas (ca. 1449–1525), written by his direct descendant Henry Rice (ca. 1590–1651). See Klausner, ed., Records: Wales, 256–67; also Ralph A. Griffiths, Sir Rhys ap Thomas and His Family: A Study in the Wars of the Roses and Early Tudor Politics (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1993), 245–58.
Sir John Wynn, The History of the Gwydir Family and Memoirs, ed. J. Gwynfor Jones (Llandysul: Gomer Press, 1990), 24.
“Marwnad Meibion Tudur Fychan,” poem 6 in Dafydd Johnston, ed., Iolo Goch: Poems (Llandysul: Gomer Press, 1993). Robes of the king’s livery were also given to the “minstrels of Wales de Radyngges” serving within the French household of the Black Prince at Eastertide (10–12 Edward III): see Richard Rastall, “Secular Musicians in Late Medieval England,” 2 vols. (Ph.D. diss., Manchester, 1968), 1: 26.
“You have to bear in mind that the Welsh bards, singers and jongleurs kept accurate copies of the genealogies of these princes in their old manuscripts, which were, of course, written in Welsh. They would also recite them from memory, going back from Rhodri Mawr to the time of the Blessed Virgin Mary…,” Descriptio Kambriae, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. F. Dimock. 8 vols. (London: Rolls Series, 1861–91), 7: 167, L. Thorpe, trans., The Description of Wales (London: Penguin, 1978), 223.
David Powel, The Historie of Cambria, Now Called Wales, etc. (London: Rafe Newberie and Henrie Denham, 1584 [STC 4606]); facsimile edn. in The English Experience, its record in early printed books published in facsimile 163 (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum; New York: Da Capo Press, 1969), 191–92.
Klausner, ed., Records: Wales, 256–67. It should be acknowledged, however, that eulogizing of ancestry seems even to have occurred in England: Andrew Taylor notes that two mid-sixteenth-century ballads, “The Hunting of the Cheviot” and “The Lords of the North Country”—associated with the Tamworth harper Richard Sheale—celebrate those who fought against the Scots in the border territories; the second text flatters two contemporary northern magnates by juxtaposing their names with those of champions from an earlier era. See Andrew Taylor, “Songs of Praise and Blame and the Repertoire of the Gestour,” in The Entertainer in Medieval and Traditional Culture, ed. Flemming Andersen, Thomas Pettitt, and Rheinhold Schröder (Odense: Odense University Press, 1997), 47–72, at 69–72.
Ernin was allegedly a sixth-century monk of Bardsey who went to Brittany: see Terry D. Breverton, The Book of Welsh Saints (St. Tathan: Glyndŵr Publishing, 2000), 241, who cites an extinct chapel of Llanhernin near Llanegwad in Caernarfonshire.
For further comment on the repertory lists, see Sally Harper, “Issues in Dating the Repertory of Cerdd Dant,” Studia Celtica 35 (2001): 325–40.
Andrew Borde’s Introduction of Knowledge and Dyetary of Health, ed. F. J. Furnivall, EETS ES 10 (London: Trübner, 1906), 126.
Constance Bullock-Davies, Register of Royal and Baronial Domestic Minstrels 1272–1327 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 1986), 217.
Constance Bullock-Davies, Menestrellorum Multitudo: Minstrels at a Royal Feast (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1978), 50.
Shrewsbury Bailiffs’ Accounts, 1474–75 (6s. 8d.) and 1477–78 (3s. 4d.). Alan Somerset, ed., Records of Early English Drama: Shropshire (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1994), 1: 150, 152–53; 2: 580–82. Gutun Owain’s elegy for Guto recalls “Dwyn coler gwychder y gard/A nod y brenin Edward,” poem 124 in Gwaith Guto’r Glyn, ed. Ifor Williams (Cardiff University of Wales Press, 1939). Guto is also the author of a cywydd to “Wiliam Talbot ap John Talbot ap Richard Talbot” of Shrewsbury (poem 28).
Richard Rastall, “The Minstrels of the Royal Households, 25 Edward I: 1 Henry VIII: An Inventory,” Royal Music Association Research Chronicle 4 (1964): 1–41, at 33–34; H. C. de Lafontaine, The King’s Musick: A Transcript of Records Relating to Music and Musicians (1460–1700) (London: Novello, 1909), 1.
Penry Williams, The Council in the Marches of Wales under Elizabeth I (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1958), 7–9.
Richard Rastall, “Some English Consort-Groupings of the Late Middle Ages,” Music and Letters 55 (1974): 179–202, at 180.
Ralph A. Griffiths, “Wales and the Marches,” in The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, I: 600–1540, ed. D. M. Palliser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 681–714.
Iorwerth Beli, “Cwyn yn erbyn esgob Bangor,” in Gwaith Gruffudd ap Dafydd ap Tudur, Gwilym Ddu o Arfon, Trahaearn Brydydd Mawr ac Iorwerth Beli, ed. N. G. Costigan (Bosco), R. Iestyn Daniel, and Dafydd Johnston (Aberystwyth: University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, 1995), 149–69, at 151.
“Marwnad Siôn Eos, Poem 75,” The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse, ed. Thomas Parry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962); loose translation in Joseph P. Clancy, Medieval Welsh Lyrics (London, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965), 229–31.
Descriptio Kambriae, in Giraldus Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. S. Brewer, James F. Dimock, and G. F. Warner, 8 vols., RS 21 (1861–91), 6: 183; L. Thorpe, trans. The Description of Wales (London: Penguin, 1978), 223.
Johnston, ed., Iolo Goch: Poems, poems 2, 70.
Bowen, Barddoniaeth yr Uchelwyr, 57; free translation in Clancy, Medieval Welsh Lyrics, 166–68.
Three poems, including the two cited here, were copied by John Jones of Gellilyfdy into NLW MS Peniarth 313 under the heading “Yr Ofergerddorion” [The Wastrel Musicians]. See D. J. Bowen, “Detholiad o Englynion,” Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 15 (1954): 186–87; also Richard Suggett, “Vagabonds and Minstrels in Sixteenth-Century Wales,” in The Spoken Word: Oral Culture in Britain, 1500–1850, ed. Adam Fox and Daniel Woolf (Manchester: Manchester University Press; New York: Palgrave, 2002), 138–72, at 161.
A version of the text appears in T. Gwynn Jones, Llên Cymru: Detholiad o Ryddiaith a Phrydyddiaeth (Aberystwyth: Cambrian News, 1926), 3: 67–68.
“Dug bedair camp ar hugain/hyddgarw hir a ddygai’r rhain”: “Moliant Wiliam ap Tomas Fychan,” in Dafydd Johnston, ed., Gwaith Lewys Glyn Cothi (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1995), 119–20. See also Thomas ap Ieuan Madog, “Marwnad Siôn Stradling,” in Hen Gwndidau, Carolau a Chywyddau being Sermons in Song, ed. Hopcyn and Cadrawd (Lemuel J. Hopkin James and T. C. Evans of Llangynwyd) (Bangor: Jarvis and Foster, 1910), 53–55. Brief comment is also given by Glanmor Williams, “Glamorgan Society 1536–1642,” Glamorgan County History 4: 136–37. The earliest list appears in NLW MS Peniarth 56 (ca. 1500), 28: “Pedair kamp arugain y sydd ardeniodd dyfnwal moel mud yn yvort gron i pwy bynag a vyno goruhaviayth.” These were reproduced in facsimile in Dr John Davies Mallwyd, Antiquae linguae britannicae et linguae latinae, dictionarium duplex, 1632, English Linguistics 1500–1800, 99 (Menston: Scolar Press, 1968) and (with loose translation) in Edward Jones, Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards (London: Printed for the Author, 1784; repr. London: Morley, 1985), 18.
For discussion of this particular feat, see Daniel Huws, “Dressing Women in Tunes,” in Bearers of Song: Essays in Honour of Phyllis Kinney and Meredydd Evans, ed. Sally Harper and Wyn Thomas (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007), 180–88, at 184–85.
A. R. Myers, The Household of Edward IV: The Black Book and the Ordinances of 1478 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959), 126–27; see also Stevens, Music and Poetry, 273.
Rastall, “Secular Musicians,” 1: 167; Richard Rastall, “Some English Consort-Groupings of the Late Middle Ages,” Music and Letters 55 (1974): 179–202 at 184–85; also Taylor, “Fragmentation, Corruption, and Minstrel Narration,” 49.
For a valuable exploration of y glêr, see Huw M. Edwards, Dafydd ap Gwilym: Influences and Analogues, Oxford Modern Languages and Literature Monographs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 1–37.
See Brynley F. Roberts, “Oral Tradition and Welsh Literature: A Description and Survey,” Oral Tradition 3 (1988): 61–87, at 63.
Malory Works, ed. Eugene Vinaver, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 626; cited Taylor, “Songs of Praise and Blame,” 67.
See George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie, ed. G. Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays 2 (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 43–44.
Philip Sidney, “A Defence of Poetry,” in Miscellaneous Prose of Sir Philip Sidney, ed. Katherine Duncan-Jones and Jan van Dorsten (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2008 Ruth Kennedy and Simon Meecham-Jones
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Harper, S. (2008). “Songes of the Doeinges of Their Auncestors”: Aspects of Welsh and English Musical Traditions. In: Kennedy, R., Meecham-Jones, S. (eds) Authority and Subjugation in Writing of Medieval Wales. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230614932_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230614932_13
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37137-2
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-61493-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)