Manuscripts

This poem is preserved in eight manuscripts. The edition is based on the texts of four manuscripts, namely C 2.114 (1564–6), C 4.110 (1771–95), LlGC 3048D (c.1644–50) and LlGC 21248D (c.1630). It is likely that these manuscripts’ texts derive either directly or indirectly from one original manuscript source (stemma).

The text of C 4.110 came by an indirect route, according to the scribe David Ellis’s note on page 210, which states that he copied the contents of the second part of his manuscript o lyfr Hugh Hughes⁠ ‘from Hugh Hughes’s book’. Hugh Hughes, a poet and antiquarian from Anglesey known as Y Bardd Coch, lived between 1693 and 1776. As a collector of manuscripts, it would not be surprising to find that the original was in his possession. But given the generally poor quality of the text in C 4.110, it is more likely that Hugh copied the poem into a lost manuscript (X¹ in this edition) from an earlier source.

The edition focuses mainly on the texts of the other three manuscripts. Nothing is known of their source or sources, but all three are of equally good quality. The fact that an unedited elegy by Ieuan Môn for his fellow-poet, Robin Ddu, precedes the poem in both C 2.114 and C 4.110, and that Ieuan Môn’s poem is also found in LlGC 21248D, suggests that both poems were in the source. It also probably contained the text that follows Lewys Daron’s poem in C 4.110, namely a poem of praise by Syr Siôn Leiaf for Rhisiart Cyffin, dean of Bangor, in which the poet satirizes Guto’r Glyn, Hywel Grythor and Gwerful Mechain, titled cywydd beuno⁠ (edited by Salisbury 2011: 101–18). The same poem was also in LlGC 21248D’s source, for the scribe, Richard Cynwal, seems to have started to copy the same title after Lewys Daron’s poem, but then changed his mind and copied a different poem: kowydd ⁠bevno⁠⁠. (A lost source can therefore be added between C 4.110 and the manuscript called X² in the stemma for the edition of Syr Siôn’s poem, ibid. 105. Likewise, following the stemma for this edition of Lewys Daron’s poem, another lost source can be added between C 4.110 and LlGC 670D. These changes do not affect the edition of Syr Siôn’s poem.)

The edition of this poem in GLD (poem 28) does not name LlGC 21248D as a source, a manuscript which is also absent from the MCF printed volumes’ entry for this poem. G. Hartwell Jones (1912: 320–1) based his edition on the text of C 4.110, with variant readings from C 2.114, and Myrddin Fardd (Jones 1905: 189–90) based his edition on the text of LlGC 18334E. Roberts (1969: 3–4) reproduced the text of LlGC 3048D (he also listed as a source a manuscript called ‘C 1, 70’, an error, possibly, for C 1.20, which he, nonetheless, noted as ‘C 1, 20’).

⁠⁠Title⁠
See C 2.114 kowydd moliant i bedyr o rossvr⁠ ‘a cywydd of praise for Peter of Rhosyr’, LlGC 3048D Cow’ i Siaint Pedr o Rosur ym Môn ‘a cywydd for Saint Peter of Rhosyr on Anglesey’, both of which are followed in the title of this edition. Cf. also the brief title in LlGC 21248D kowydd i bedr⁠ ‘a cywydd for Peter’ and the generous title in C 4.110 Cywydd Mawl i Bedr Sant, yn Rhosyr, neu Newbwrch yn Swydd Fôn⁠ ‘a cywydd of praise for Saint Peter, in Rhosyr, or Newborough, on Anglesey’.⁠

⁠⁠The manuscripts⁠
⁠C 1.20, 78 (Elizabeth Phillips, 1850)
⁠C 2.114, 760‒2 (X51, 1564–6)
⁠C 4.110, 196‒7 (David Ellis, 1771–95)
⁠J 139, 17 (X2, c.1630)
⁠LlGC 670D, 279 (William Jones, 19c.)
⁠LlGC 3048D, 70‒2 (William Bodwrda, c.1644–50)
⁠LlGC 18334E, 35 (unknown, 20c.)
⁠LlGC 21248D, 54v‒56r (Richard Cynwal, c.1630)⁠