__NOTOC__ The Harleian genealogies are a collection of

Old Welsh Old Welsh () is the stage of the Welsh language from about 800 AD until the early 12th century when it developed into Middle Welsh.Koch, p. 1757. The preceding period, from the time Welsh became distinct from Common Brittonic around 550, ha ...

genealogies preserved in

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

, Harley MS 3859. Part of the Harleian Library, the manuscript, which also contains the '' Annales Cambriae'' (Recension A) and a version of the '' Historia Brittonum'', has been dated to ''c.'' 1100, although a date of c.1200 is also possible.Siddons, "Genealogies, Welsh," pp. 800-2; Remfry, P.M., 'Annales Cambriae. A Translation...', p. 4. Since the genealogies begin with the paternal and maternal pedigrees of Owain ap Hywel Dda (d. 988), the material was probably compiled during his reign. The collection also traces the lineages of less prominent rulers of Wales and the Hen Ogledd. Some of the genealogies reappear in the genealogies from Jesus College MS 20. The collection features the oldest genealogies of Welsh royal families, and include the dynasty of Cunedda (Cunedag), all the way to Beli Mawr, as head of the

house of Gwynedd The House of Gwynedd was a royal house during medieval Wales (c. 5001500). The royal dynasty, dynasty is seen as being divided between the founding of the kings settlement in Gwynedd during the Roman invasion of Britain and the subsequent forme ...

. Despite their sometimes contradictory pedigrees and recognizable distortions, they contain genuine historical material of a sometimes surprising variety. One of the genealogies preserved the names of the Iron Age rulers Caratacus, Cunobelinus, and " Teuhant", the last of whom was unknown elsewhere until coins minted with his original Brythonic name, Tasciovanus, were discovered.

References

Secondary sources

* Siddons, Michael. "Genealogies, Welsh." In ''Celtic Culture. A Historical Encyclopedia'', ed. John T. Koch. 5 vols. Santa Barbara et al., 2006. pp. 800–2. *Watkin, M., "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, no.3 (1960), 181–226. *Remfry, P. M., ''Annales Cambriae. A Translation of Harleian 3859; PRO E.164/1; Cottonian Domitian, A 1; Exeter Cathedral Library MS. 3514 and MS Exchequer DB Neath, PRO E.164/1'' ().

Editions

*. A copy of this text is reproduced on-line at
Full-text resources for ‘Dark Age’ history
', Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews. *Bartrum, Peter C. (tr.). ''Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts''. Cardiff: UWP, 1966.

See also

References

Secondary sources

Editions

Further reading