John Leland's Itinerary in Wales - Historical texts and images

After his death, Leland’s MSS were pass ed by Edward VI to Sir John Cheke, but
when this Protestant noble was forced to flee to the Continent on the accession of the
Catholic Mary, they were dispersed. One at least came into the possession of Dr John
Dee. The MS of the Itinerary passed via Lord William Paget to Sir William Cecil,
Lord Burghley. In the 17 th century, many of Leland’s MSS were gathered by historian
William Burton, including the Itinerary. In 1632 he gave both the Collectanea and
seven of the eight volumes of the Itinerary to the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The
eighth volume, which Burton had lent to a friend who subsequently failed to return it,
ultimately joined its fellows in 1677 by the generosity of Charles King of Christchurch
College.
Although several transcriptions of the Itinerary were made in the 16 th century,
notably by historian John Stow, Leland’s Itinerary was only first published in 1710-12
by Thomas Hearne 5 , with successive editions appearing in 1745 and 1770. After a
lapse of more than a century, Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith published a new edition of the
full Itinerary between 1906 and 1910. Shortly afterwards, the sections covering Welsh
matters were published in the form reproduced below.
Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith 1838-1911 6
This remarkable scholar was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Joshua
Toulmin Smith (1816-69). From 1842 to 1894 she lived in Highgate, London, moving
in that year to Oxford to become Librarian of Manchester Harris College. She
remained in that position until her death in 1911. She is
the only woman Librarian to be noted in the Dictionary
of National Biography. Regarded as a pioneer of
women ’s professional academic status, her portrait today
adorns the entrance foyer of the College Library.
Her scholarly output was considerable. From 1870
she edited works for the Early English Text, Camden and
New Shakespeare societies, notably in 1872 when she
edited The Maire of Bristowe [h]is Kalendar by Robert
Ricart, Town Clerk of Bristol 18 Edward 1V for the
Lucy Toulin Smith
Camden Society (ultimately forming volume five of their
New Series) and in 1879 when she oversaw the second
edition of C. Mansfield Ingleby ’s Shakespeare=s Century of prayse 1591-1693.
Her most important work of this period is often considered to be that associated
with the York cycle of Mystery Plays. In 1885 Oxford University Press published her
York Plays: the plays performed by the Crafts or Mysteries of York on the day of
Corpus Christi in the 14 th , 15 th and 16 th centuries .
5 As The Itinerary of John Leland the Antiquary 9 vols. Oxford 1710. In this edition, Hearne noted another
work by Leland entitled Codrus sive laus et defensio Gallofridi Arturii Monumet ensis contra Polydorum
Vergilium, being a defence of Geoffrey of Monmouth and his Arthurian cycle against the attacks of Poldore
Vergil.
6 Details from Concise Dictionary of National Biography 1901-1950 Part II Oxford 1961 p.401
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Her researches seem at this time to have concentrated on the 14 th and 15 th centuries,
for in addition to editing Expedition to Prussia and the Holy Land by Henry Earl of
Derby (later Henry IV) in 1390-1 and 1392-3, in 1886 she published A commonplace
book of the 15 th century dealing with the Book of Brome in Yale MS 365. In 1891 she
translated J. Jusserand’s English 14th century Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages from
the French. She had already edited in 1889 Les contes moralises de Nicole Bozon
jointly with P. Meyer.
In 1887 she provided the Introduction and scholarly glosses to Toulmin Smith’s
The Guildry of Edinburgh and in 1894 she returned to this subject, editing jointly with
Lucy Bretano English Gilds: the original ordinances of more than one hundred Early
English Gilds for the Early English Text Society.
Her full edition of Leland’s Itinerary in five volumes appeared towards the end of
her life and its completion in 1910 is undoubtedly the work for which she is now
mainly remembered. The present Leland=s Itinerary in Wales 7 appeared in 1906 and
consists of her collation of some of the Welsh material in the Collecteana and the
entirety of the Welsh sections of the Itinerary.
J. Gwenogfryn Evans ’s footnotes
An anonymous reviewer, writing in Archaeologia Cambrensis 8 in 1907, described
the work as a ‘happy idea ’ but regretted that by no means all of the notices of the
Principality contained in the Collectanea had been included. Nevertheless, he
continued, the book would prove almost indispensable to
the Welsh antiquary. However, he deplored the lack of
attention paid to the identification of Leland=s
topographical forms, being particularly scathing in his
condemnation of the footnotes provided by the
palaeographer J. Gwenogfryn Evans, attempting to
elucidate the placenames recorded by Leland. Evans was
not a particularly inspired placename expert, and too
many of his notes state the obvious, as where he
identifies Leland’s ‘Place Newith’ 9 as Plas Newydd . The
J.Gwenogfryn Evans
reviewer rather cynically surmised that this was merely
an excuse for Evans to air his predilection for the use of
a barred -d for -dd, well known from his other publications. Equally dubious, in the
reviewer’s opinion, were his spelling of Mawddwy as Mowddwy 10 and Gwyrfai as
Gwrvei. 11 Again, he asked, where was Evans’s form Tre y grug for the castle of
Trergrug 12 two miles from Usk, ever attested anywhere?
7 Published by George Bell and Sons, London
8 Volume vii series vi pp.254-5
9 At p.35 (o riginal numbering), current p.40
10 At p.55 (original numbering), current p.55
11 At p.79 (original numbering), current p.74
12 At p.44 (original numbering), current p.47
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