The Court Poets of the Welsh Princes

Abstract

There is a persistent Welsh tradition, going back to very early times, that there were poets in the sixth century, among whom [A]neirin et Taliessin “in poemate brittannico claruerunt.” To these poets Welsh scholarship has given the name of Cynfeirdd or “Primitive Poets.” Recent research has done much to establish the fact that some of the poems credited to them are genuine productions of the early seventh century, and others, including those centering around the name of Llywarch the Old (Hên), belong to the mid ninth century. There are, however, sceptics who refuse to admit the existence of native poetry at such an early date, and hold that all the poems (except two short ones that were actually written down in the ninth and tenth centuries), belong to a period after the Norman Conquest.