Full-text resources for ‘Dark Age’ history

The Harleian genealogies are the earliest surviving group of lineages for Welsh princely families. They are preserved in a single manuscript (the same as that containing the A version of the Annales Cambrię and a version of the Historia Brittonum), daing from around 1100 and printed in a diplomatic edition by Egerton Phillimore in Y Cymmrodor 9 (1888), 141-83.

The text reproduced here is eesntially Phillimore’s version. [Bracketed] letters indicate ommissions: those at the head of each genealogy were intended to be written in later, using red ink, as was also intended throughout the Historia Brittonum the but this was never carried out. The attributions of individual lineages is not always as secure as it might be, but I have retained the ‘traditional’ identifications. The genealogies begin with Owain ap Hywel Dda and were thus probably compiled during his reign. The last event mentioned in the Annales is dated 954, and this is possibly the date for the genealogies. Some of these genealogies are also given in the Jesus College MS 20 genealogies, and links to these are given in the text.