The Black Book of Carmarthen and its Owners

This article traces the later history of NLW Peniarth MS 1 (Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin, 'The Black Book of Carmarthen') through its owners, borrowers and readers. The primary body of evidence consists of marginalia left by these individuals in the manuscript's pages, including sixteenth-century verses and a series of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ownership notes. Much of this marginalia was erased, possibly in stages beginning around the sixteenth century, and has been recently recovered through multispectral imaging. External evidence, such as a lost memorandum by Sir John Prise, early modern copies of the Black Book, and catalogues are also discussed. The picture that emerges from this evidence suggests that the Black Book was in south Wales, probably around Carmarthen, in the first part of the sixteenth century. There, it passed between the hands of poets perhaps associated with the circles of Lewys Glyn Cothi and Gruffydd Dwnn. By the latter half of the same century the book was owned by William Salesbury, and it had made its way to north Wales sometime before 1587. In the 1580s the Black Book appears to have spent time in Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, circulating among poets and scholars including Siôn Tudur, Simwnt Fychan and David Johns; sometime during this period a quire that had been displaced in the manuscript was put back in order. Jaspar Gryffyth had acquired the Black Book by 1604, after which it made its way ultimately to Robert Vaughan's library at Hengwrt.