The Peniarth manuscript collection at the National Library of Wales has been included on the UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register.
We’re extremely pleased that the Peniarth manuscript collection, which we value highly at the Library, has been awarded this international acclaim.
The Peniarth Manuscript collection is the most important of the National Library of Wales’s manuscript collections, and the most important collection of manuscripts ever assembled in Wales. It consists of five hundred and sixty one works in Welsh, English, Latin, French and Cornish, dating from the 12th to the 19th centuries.
It includes priceless manuscripts such as:
- The Hengwrt Chaucer (Peniarth MS 392), one of the earliest versions of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
- The Black Book of Carmarthen (Peniarth MS 1), the earliest manuscript in the Welsh language
- The Book of Taliesin (Peniarth MS 2), which includes the oldest Welsh verse
- The White Book of Rhydderch (Peniarth MS 4), which includes the earliest version of the prose tales of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi
- The Law of Hywel Dda (Peniarth MS 28), a Latin text of the laws of Hywel Dda.
- Beunans Meriasek (Peniarth MS105), one of the earliest manuscripts of Cornish literature
- The Chronicle of the Princes (Peniarth MS 20), the earliest chronicle of Welsh history, and
- Bede’s De natura rerum. A 12th century Latin manuscript.
- The photo shows the official launch of the UK Memory of the World Register at the House of Lords, last week [14 July 2010], in the company of The Honourable Ed Vaisey MP, Minister for Culture, and Professor Lisa Jardine, CBE, Patron of the Archive and Records Association.
Of the 10 items included, two were from the National Library of Wales: the Peniarth manuscript collection, and the film ‘Life Story of David Lloyd George’ which is held by The National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales.