Performance and Literacy in Medieval Welsh Poetry

It is generally claimed by scholars of medieval Welsh poetry that it was accompanied by string music and that it was composed and passed on orally before being written down. The author agrees with the former claim, but finds little evidence to support it before the fourteenth century. Thenceforth, there is abundant evidence for such accompaniment. As for the latter claim, the present essay finds evidence in the poetry, the bardic grammars, the laws, and the so-called Statute of Gruffudd ap Cynan to suggest that literacy played a significant role in the composition and transmission of poetry possibly from the earliest times onwards.