Wales

Wales [OE wealh, wealas (pl.), foreigner, i.e. a native Briton, not a Saxon]. Principality of the United Kingdom, occupying 8,016 square miles in Great Britain, west of England. Roughly a third the size of Ireland or Scotland, its population of about three million is somewhat less than that of the Republic of Ireland and a little more than half that of Scotland. The Welsh people are descendants of the P-Celtic British conquered by the Romans in the 1st century BC, a cause for semantic ambiguity in many languages. In French the Welsh are still les Gallois [the Gauls]. Anglo-Saxons used the terms Brittas and Brittisc to denote both ancient Britons and surviving Welsh, but also employed the mixed forms Bretwalas, Bretwielisc [British foreigners]. From the earliest times the Welsh called themselves Y Gwir Frythoniaid [the true Britons], Brythoniaid, and Cymry. Cymry (also Kymry) derives from the Celtic combrogos [compatriot]; Geoffrey of Monmouth's (12th cent.) asserted etymology tracing the root to an eponymous founder named Camber is clearly spurious. In Modern Welsh Cymry denotes the Welsh people, while Cymru denotes the principality or nation of Wales. Latinized forms such as Wallia and Gwalia were found in both English and Welsh contexts. The demarcation of Wales from ancient Britain is often dated by the Saxon victory at the Battle of Chester, c.615. Yet the memory of Welsh-speaking greater Britain persists in Welsh literature. The early medieval poem Y Gododdin, widely known in Welsh tradition, commemorates the heroic deaths of Welsh warriors travelling from the lowlands of Scotland to what is today Yorkshire. In Welsh the phrase Gwŷr y Gogledd [men of the north/left] denotes the populations of such formerly Welsh petty kingdoms as Rheged, Gododdin, and Strathclyde.

The borders and constituent parts of Wales have not been constant over the centuries. Many a gwlad or petty kingdom flourished within the principality only to merge with its neighbour or fade from the scene. The most long-lasting of these were Gwynedd in the north and Dyfed and Deheubarth in the south, names that were reborn in the Welsh map in 1974. Others include: Brycheiniog, Ceredigion, Gwent, Powys, Seisyllwg, and Ystrad Tywi. Additionally, south-east Wales was often known as Morgannwg, an area later to become Glamorgan, and since 1974, West, Mid, and South Glamorgan. In medieval Wales the principality was divided among four bishoprics, Bangor in the north-west, St Asaph north-east, Llandaff south-east, and St David's south-west. The centre or omphalos where these bishoprics met is Pumlumon [W, five peaks], also a source of the Wye and Severn Rivers. Long-term Anglo-Norman and English designs on Wales culminated in English conquest during the reign of Edward I (1272–1307) and the death of the last native-born Prince of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, in 1282. In 1301, after securing the English-Welsh border with a series of castles, Edward I made his own son (later Edward II) Prince of Wales, a title since borne by male heirs to the British throne. In spite of the failed rebellion lead by Owen Glendower [W Owain Glyndŵr] (1399–1415), Wales drew closer to England; by 1485 a partly Welsh prince, Henry Tudor [W Tudur], became Henry VII of England. Under his son, Henry VIII, Wales became an integral part of the Tudor kingdom, while retaining its identity as a principality. From the 16th century until 1974 Wales consisted of twelve or thirteen counties, sometimes excluding the English-influenced Monmouthshire. Of these, Anglesey, Cardigan, and Carmarthenshire had significant local traditions. With the reconfiguration of 1974, Wales now has eight counties, including the lands of the former Monmouthshire as a part of Gwent; the other seven, while reviving names of older petty kingdoms, now occupy somewhat different territories from those of their medieval namesakes: Clwyd, Dyfed, Gwynedd, Mid Glamorgan, Powys, South Glamorgan, West Glamorgan.

A leading member of the Brythonic family, the Welsh language [Cymraeg] is a close relative of Breton and the now-extinct Cornish. Although Welsh literary tradition begins with the 6th-century Cynfeirdd [early poets] Aneirin and Taliesin, surviving manuscripts date from several centuries later, e.g. the Black Book of Carmarthen [Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin] (c.1250), the White Book of Rhydderch [Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch] (c.1325), and the Red Book of Hergest [Llyfr Coch Hergest] (c.1382–1410). Dispersed through these codices are manuscript copies of the four branches of the Mabinogi, the most highly regarded cycle of medieval Welsh prose literature. Lady Charlotte Guest collected and translated the Mabinogi along with seven unrelated medieval tales and romances from the same milieu in her Mabinogion (1838–49). Although the Acts of Union, 1536 and 1542, proscribed use of the Welsh language in official transactions, gravely diminishing its prestige and authority, the Welsh language thrived in domestic life. Welsh was also the language of literary traditions in different parts of the principality as well as the medium of a continuing oral tradition. Compulsory public education in English repressed Welsh further, but by the end of the 20th century almost 19 per cent of the population (about 500,000) claim that they can speak the language, a higher percentage and a higher total than in any other Celtic culture.

OIr. Bretain [not distinguished from Britain]; ModIr. An Breatain Bheag; ScG A'Chuimrigh; Manx Bretyn; Corn. Kembry; Bret. Kembre. See A. O. H. Jarman and G. R. Hughes, A Guide to Welsh Literature (2 vols., Swansea, 1976–9); see Bibliography under ‘Welsh’ for collections of Welsh traditions.