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  • 16 - The use of the book in Wales, c. 400–1100

  • from PART III - TYPES OF BOOKS AND THEIR USES
  • Edited by Richard Gameson, University of Durham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 March 2012
    Print publication:
    22 December 2011, pp 389-405

  • Summary

    The student of the book in early medieval Wales, and also in those other areas that remained British-speaking, labours under a modest handicap: there are no surviving books known to have been written in Wales or Cornwall before the ninth century. English books survived somewhat better because they travelled along both routes to preservation, Francia in the eighth and ninth centuries and into the libraries of reformed English monasteries and cathedrals in the tenth century. Details of the Latin orthography used by the Irish, as well as the way they pronounced Latin, have confirmed the importance of the British role in their conversion. It has been proposed that the Hibernensis was intended for the British as well as for the Irish church. Yet the Latin culture of pre-Norman Wales remained very closely attached to the book. In a more general sense, lector could, occasionally, be used of the pupil himself.