Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-01T13:17:04.346Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Edward Lhuyd and the Origins of Early Medieval Celtic Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Nancy Edwards
Nancy Edwards
Affiliation:
School of History, Welsh History and Archaeology, University of Wales, Bangor LL57 2DG, UK. E-mail: .
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Welshman Edward Lhuyd (?1659/60–1709), Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, was a naturalist, philologist and antiquarian. He wrote the Welsh additions to Camden's Britannia (1695) and undertook extensive research for an Archaeologia Britannica. He was part of the scientific revolution centred on the Royal Society and was influenced by the flowering of Anglo-Saxon studies in late seventeenth-century Oxford. Although many of his papers were destroyed, sufficient evidence survives to assess his methodology for recording early medieval antiquities – particularly inscribed stones and stone sculpture in Wales and other Celtic areas – as well as his analysis of them. His legacy is of considerable importance and he may be regarded as the founding father of early medieval Celtic archaeology.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 87 , September 2007 , pp. 165 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anon 1859. ‘Letters of Edward Lhwyd’, Archaeol Cambrensis, 3rd ser, 5, 161–8Google Scholar
Atkins, I 1946. ‘The authorship of the XVIth century description of St Davids printed in Browne Willis's Survey (1717)’, Nat Lib Wales J, 4 (3–4), 115–22Google Scholar
Bailey, R N and Cramp, R 1988. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture. Vol II: Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North-of-the-Sands, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Briggs, C S 1980. ‘Kerbed cairn on Mynydd Llangyndeyrn: addenda and corrigenda’, Carmarthenshire Antiq, 16, 101–2Google Scholar
Briggs, C S 2006. ‘Edward Lhuyd's expedition through Ulster, 1699 and 1700’, in The Modern Traveller to our Past. Festschrift in Honour of Ann Hamlin (ed Meek, M), 384–93, DublinGoogle Scholar
Briggs, C S and Ward, A H 1979. ‘Antiquarian references to two cairns on Mynydd Llangyndeyrn’, Carmarthenshire Antiq, 15, 3–13Google Scholar
Butler, L and Graham-Campbell, J 1990. ‘A lost reliquary casket from Gwytherin, north Wales’, Antiq J, 70, 40–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camden, W 1586. Britannia. Suie florentissimorum regnorum, Anglice, Scottiæ, Hiberniæ, et Insularum adiacentium ex intima antiquitate chorographica descriptio, LondonGoogle Scholar
Camden, W 1607. Britannia; sive florentissimorum regnorum, Angliæ, Scottiæ, Hiberniæ, et Insularum adiacentium ex intima antiquitate chorographica descriptio, 2nd edn, LondonGoogle Scholar
Camden, W 1695. Britannia, newly translated into English: with large additions and improvements publish'd by Edmund Gibson, of Queens-College in Oxford (ed Gibson, E), LondonGoogle Scholar
Camden, W 1722. Britannia: or a chorographical description of Great Britain and Ireland, together with the adjacent islands. Written in Latin by William Camden, … and translated into English, with additions and improvements (ed Gibson, E), 2nd edn, LondonGoogle Scholar
Campbell, J L and Thomson, D 1963. Edward Lhuyd in the Scottish Highlands 1699–1700, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Cassidy, B 1992. ‘The later life of the Ruthwell Cross: from the seventeenth century to the present’, in The Ruthwell Cross (ed Cassidy, B), Index Christian Art Occas Pap I, 3–34, Princeton, NJGoogle Scholar
Charles, B G 1948. ‘The second book of George Owen's Description of Penbrokeshire’, Nat Lib Wales J, 5(4), 265–85Google Scholar
Collis, J 2003. The Celts: origins, myths and inventions, StroudGoogle Scholar
Cowie, T 1977–1978. ‘Excavations at the Catstane, Midlothian’, Proc Soc Antiq Scotl, 109, 166–201Google Scholar
Daniel, G 1966–1967. ‘Edward Lhwyd: antiquary and archaeologist’, Welsh Hist Rev, 3, 345–59Google Scholar
Davies, B 1997. ‘Archaeology and ideology, or how Wales was robbed of its early history’, New Welsh Rev, 37, 38–51Google Scholar
Davies, B H 2003. ‘Edward Lhuyd and asbestos paper’, The Quarterly, J Brit Ass Paper Historians, 47, 07 2003, 10–11Google Scholar
Douglas, D C 1939. English Scholars, LondonGoogle Scholar
Dunn, R D (ed) 1984. William Camden. Remains concerning Britain, TorontoGoogle Scholar
Edwards, N 1999. ‘Viking-influenced sculpture in north Wales, its ornament and context’, Church Archaeol, 3, 5–16Google Scholar
Edwards, N 2001. ‘Early medieval inscribed stones and stone sculpture in Wales: context and function’, Medieval Archaeol, 45, 15–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, N in press. A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales. Vol 2: South-West Wales, CardiffGoogle Scholar
Edwards, N in prep. A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales. Vol 3: North Wales, CardiffGoogle Scholar
Edwards, N and Hulse, T G 1994. ‘A fragment of a reliquary casket from Gwytherin, Denbighshire’, Antiq J, 72, 91–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, N and Hulse, T G 1997. ‘Gwytherin (Denbs). A second fragment of the shrine of Gwenfrewi’, Archaeol Wales, 37, 87–8Google Scholar
Ellis, P B 2004. ‘Tonkin, Thomas (bap. 1678, d. 1741/2)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Online Edition (eds H C G Matthew and B Harrison), <http://www.oxforddnb.com./view/article/27536> (9 04 2007)+(9+042007)>Google Scholar
Ellis, R 1945. ‘Some incidents in the life of Edward Lhuyd’, in Gunther 1945, 1–51Google Scholar
Emery, F V 1958a. ‘Edward Lhwyd and the 1695 Britannia’, Antiquity, 32, 179–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emery, F V 1958b. ‘A map of Edward Lhuyd's Parochial Queries in order to a Geographical Dictionary, &C., of Wales (1696)’, Trans Honourable Soc Cymmrodorion, [no vol no.], 41–53Google Scholar
Emery, F V 1958c. ‘English regional surveys from Aubrey to Defoe’, Geogr J, 124(3), 315–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emery, F V 1969. ‘“The best naturalist now in Europe”: Edward Lhuyd, FRS (1660–1709)’, Trans Honourable Soc Cymmrodorion, [no vol no.], 56–69Google Scholar
Emery, F V 1971. Edward Lhuyd FRS 1660–1709, CardiffGoogle Scholar
Emery, F V 1975. ‘A new reply to Lhwyd's Queries (1696): Llanboidy, Carmarthenshire’, Archaeol Cambrensis, 124, 102–10Google Scholar
Emery, F V 1977–1978. ‘Edward Lhuyd and A Natural History of Wales’, Studia Celtica, 12–13, 247–58Google Scholar
Fairer, D 1986. ‘Anglo-Saxon studies’, in Sutherland and Mitchell (eds) 1986, 807–29Google Scholar
Fenton, R 1810. A Historical Tour through Pembrokeshire, LondonGoogle Scholar
Fenton, R 1917. Tours in Wales (1804–1813) (ed Fisher, J), Archaeol Cambrensis suppl, LondonGoogle Scholar
Gresham, C A 1985. ‘Bedd Porius’, Bull Board Celtic Stud, 32, 386–92Google Scholar
Grooms, C 1993. The Giants of Wales, LampeterGoogle Scholar
Gruffydd, G and Owen, H P 1957. ‘The earliest mention of St David?’, Bull Board Celtic Stud, 17 (3), 185–93Google Scholar
Gruffydd, G and Owen, H P 1961. ‘The earliest mention of St David? An addendum’, Bull Board Celtic Stud, 19 (3), 231–2Google Scholar
Gunther, R T 1945. Early Science in Oxford. Vol XIV: Life and Letters of Edward Lhwyd, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Hellyer, M 1996. ‘The pocket museum: Edward Lhuyd's Lithophylacium’, Archives Nat Hist, 23, 43–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herity, M 1970. ‘Rathmulcah, Ware and Macfirbisigh, the earliest antiquarian description and illustration of a profane Irish field monument’, Ulster J Archaeol, 33, 49–53Google Scholar
Hunter, M C W 1971. ‘The Royal Society and the origins of British archaeology’, Antiquity, 65, 113–21, 187–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, M C W 1975. John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning, LondonGoogle Scholar
James, B L (ed) 1983. Rice Merrick, Morganiae Archiographia, A Book of the Antiquities of Glamorganshire, South Wales Rec Soc I, Barry IslandGoogle Scholar
James, S 1997. The Atlantic Celts: ancient people or modern invention?, LondonGoogle Scholar
James, T (compiled) 1984. Camden's Wales, being the Welsh chapters taken from Edmund Gibson's revised & enlarged edition of William Camden's Britannia (1722); translated from the Latin, with additions, by Edward Lhuyd, with maps executed by Roben Morden, with an introductory essay by Gwyn Walters, CarmarthenGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, G H (ed) 2005. A Rattleskull Genius: the many faces of Iolo Morganwg, CardiffGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, J P 1979. ‘From Edward Lhuyd to Iolo Morganwg: the death and rebirth of Glamorgan antiquarianism’, Morgannwg, 23, 29–47Google Scholar
Jenkins, J P 1998. ‘Seventeenth-century Wales: definition and identity’, in British Consciousness and Identity: the making of Britain 1533–1707 (eds Bradshaw, B and Roberts, P), 213–35, CambridgeCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, A R 2004. Lewis Morris, CardiffGoogle Scholar
Jones, E D 1955. ‘Camden, Vaughan, and Lhwyd, and Merionethshire’, J Merioneth Hist Rec Soc, 2 (3), 209–27Google Scholar
Jones, E D 1959. ‘Price, Thomas Sebastian’, in Lloyd and Jenkins (eds) 1959, 793Google Scholar
Jones, E G 1957. ‘The family papers of Owen and Stanley of Penrhos, Holyhead’, Bull Board Celtic Stud, 17 (2), 99–115Google Scholar
Legg, R, Hoade, W and Briggs, R J (eds) 1982. Monumenta Britannica, or, A Miscellany of British Antiquities by John Aubrey, SherborneGoogle Scholar
Lhuyd, E 1695. A Design of the British Dictionary, Historical and Geographical with an Essay, entitled, Archaeologia Britannica: and a Natural History of Wales, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Lhuyd, E 1699. Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia sive Lapidum aliorumque Fossilium Britannicorum, LondonGoogle Scholar
Lhuyd, E 1707. Archaeologia Britannica, giving some account additional to what has been hitherto publish'd, of the languages, histories and customs of the original inhabitants of Great Britain. Vol I: Glossography, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, J E and Jenkins, R T (eds) 1959. The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940, CardiffGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, N 1971–1972. ‘The correspondence of Edward Lhuyd and Richard Mostyn’, Flintshire Hist Soc J, 25, 31–61Google Scholar
MacGregor, A G and Turner, A J 1986. ‘The Ashmolean Museum’, in Sutherland and Mitchell (eds) 1986, 639–58Google Scholar
McGuiness, D 1996. ‘Edward Lhuyd's contribution to the study of Irish megalithic tombs’, J Roy Soc Antiq Ir, 126, 62–85Google Scholar
Mandelbrote, S 2004. ‘Ray, John (1627–1705)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Online Edition (eds Matthew, H C G and Harrison, B), <http://www.oxforddnb.com./view/article/232O3> (9 04 2007)Google Scholar
Meyrick, S R 1808. The History and Antiquities of the County of Cardigan, collected from the few remaining documents which have escaped the destructive ravages of time, as well as from actual observation, LondonGoogle Scholar
Miles, D 1994. ‘Introduction’, in George Owen of Henllys, The Description of Pembrokeshire (ed Miles, D), xv–lxi, LlandysulGoogle Scholar
Morgan, R 1980. ‘Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt (1592–1667)’, J Merioneth Hist Rec Soc, 8 (4), 397–408Google Scholar
Morris, J (ed and trans) 1980. Nennius, British History and the Welsh Annals, London and ChichesterGoogle Scholar
Morris, R H (ed) 1909–1911. Parochialia; being a summary of answers to ‘Parochial Queries’ issued by Edward Lhwyd, Archaeol Cambrensis suppls, 3 vols, LondonGoogle Scholar
Nash-Williams, V E 1950. The Early Christian Monuments of Wales, CardiffGoogle Scholar
ÓCarragáin, E 2005. Ritual and the Rood, LondonGoogle Scholar
Okasha, E 1993. Corpus of Early Christian Inscribed Stones of South-West Britain, LeicesterGoogle Scholar
O'Sullivan, A and O'Sullivan, W 1962. ‘Edward Lhwyd's collection of Irish manuscripts’, Trans Honourable Soc Cymmrodorion, [no vol no.], 57–76Google Scholar
Owen, E 1896. ‘Lewis Morris's notes on some inscribed stones in Wales’, Archaeol Cambrensis, 5th ser, 13, 129–44Google Scholar
Parry, G 1995. The Trophies of Time: English antiquarians of the seventeenth century, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Pennant, T 1784. A Tour Through Wales, 2 vols, LondonGoogle Scholar
Piggott, S 1976. Ruins in a Landscape: essays in antiquarianism, EdinburghGoogle Scholar
Piggott, S 1978. Antiquity Depicted: aspects of archaeological illustration, LondonGoogle Scholar
Piggott, S 1981. ‘“Vast Perennial Memorials”: the first antiquarians look at megaliths’, in Antiquity and Man: essays in honour of Glyn Daniel (eds Evans, J D and Cunliffe, B), 19–25, LondonGoogle Scholar
Piggott, S 1989. Ancient Britons and the Antiquarian Imagination: ideas from the Renaissance to the Regency, LondonGoogle Scholar
Plot, R 1674. Quaer's to be propounded to the most ingenious of each County in my Travels through England, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Plot, R 1677. The Natural History of Oxfordshire, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Plot, R 1686. The Natural History of Staffordshire, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Pool, PAS 1977. ‘Cornish drawings by Edward Lhuyd in the British Museum’, Cornish Archaeol, 16, 139–42Google Scholar
Redknap, M and Lewis, J M in press. A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales. Vol I: Breconshire, Glamorgan, Monmouthshire, Radnorshire, and geographically contiguous areas of Herefordshire and Shropshire, CardiffGoogle Scholar
Rees, E and Walters, G 1974. ‘The dispersion of the manuscripts of Edward Lhuyd’, Welsh Hist Rev, 7 (2), 148–78Google Scholar
Roberts, B F 1971. ‘Llytherau John Lloyd at Edward Lhuyd’, Nat Lib Wales J, 27 (1–2), 88–114, 183–206Google Scholar
Roberts, B F 1974. ‘A note on the Ashmolean collection of letters addressed to Edward Lhuyd’, Welsh Hist Rev, 7 (2), 179–85Google Scholar
Roberts, B F 1975. ‘Edward Lhuyd's debts’, Bull Board Celtic Stud, 26 (3), 353–9Google Scholar
Roberts, B F 1980. Edward Lhuyd: the making of a scientist, CardiffGoogle Scholar
Roberts, B F 1998. ‘Cyhoeddiadau Edward Lhwyd’, Y Llyfr yng Nghymru. Welsh Book Studies, 1, 21–58Google Scholar
Roberts, B F 1999. ‘The discovery of Old Welsh’, Historiographia Linguistica, 26 (1–2), 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, B F 2003. ‘Edward Lhuyd a'r bywyd diwyllianol Cymreig’, in Cof Cenedl XVIII, Ysgrifau ar Hanes Cymru (ed Jenkins, G H), 35–69, LlandysulGoogle Scholar
Roberts, B F 2004. ‘Lhuyd, Edward (1659/60?–1709)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Online Edition (eds Matthew, H C G and Harrison, B), <http://www.oxforddnb.com./view/article/16633> (9 04 2007)Google Scholar
Rowlands, H 1723. Mona Antiqua Restaurata. An archæological discourse on the antiquities, natural and historical, of the Isle of Anglesey, the antient seat of the British druids, DublinGoogle Scholar
Rutherford, A and Ritchie, G 1972–1974. ‘The Catstane’, Proc Soc Antiq Scoti, 105, 183–8Google Scholar
Sims-Williams, P 1994. ‘Historical need and literary narrative: a caveat from ninth-century Wales’, Welsh Hist Rev, 17 (1), 1–40Google Scholar
Sims-Williams, P 2002. ‘The five languages of Wales in the Pre-Norman incriptions’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Stud, 44, 1–36Google Scholar
Sims-Williams, P 2003. The Celtic Inscriptions of Britain: phonology and chronology, c 400–1200, Philological Soc Pub 37, Oxford and Boston, MassGoogle Scholar
Sutherland, L S and Mitchell, L G (eds) 1986. The History of the University of Oxford. Vol V: The Eighteenth Century, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Sweet, R 2004. Antiquaries: the discovery of the past in eighteenth-century England, LondonGoogle Scholar
Thompson, M W (ed) 1983. The Journeys of Sir Richard Colt Hoare through Wales and England, StroudGoogle Scholar
Walters, G and Emery, F V 1977. ‘Edward Lhuyd, Edmund Gibson, and the printing of Camden's Britannia, 1695’, The Library, 5th ser, 32 (2), 109–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webley, D 1957. ‘The Ystrad (Breckn) ogam stone, a rediscovery’, Archaeol Cambrensis, 106, 118–20Google Scholar
Westwood, J O 1876–1879. Lapidarium Walliae: the early inscribed and sculptured stones of Wales, OxfordGoogle Scholar
White, R B 1985. ‘Caer Gai and the giants of Penllyn’, J Merioneth Hist Rec Soc, 10 (1), 29–35Google Scholar
Williams, G J 1960–1961. ‘Edward Lhuyd’, Llên Cymru, 6, 122–37Google Scholar
Williams, I 1949. ‘The Towyn inscribed stone’, Archaeol Cambrensis, 100, 161–72Google Scholar
Williams, J 1969. ‘An edition of the correspondence of John Aubrey with Anthony à Wood and Edward Lhuyd 1667–1696 with introduction and notes’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of LondonGoogle Scholar
Willis, B 1717. A Survey of the Cathedral Church of St Davids, LondonGoogle Scholar
Woodley, J D 2004. ‘Lister, Martin (bap. 1639, d. 1712)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Online Edition (eds Matthew, H C G and Harrison, B), <http://www.oxforddnb.com./view/article/16763> (9 04 2007)Google Scholar
Wright, E G 1950. ‘Humphrey Humphreys, Bishop of Bangor and Hereford’, J Hist Soc Church in Wales, 2, 72–86Google Scholar
Wright, E G 1959. ‘Humphreys, Humphrey (1648–1712)’, in Lloyd and Jenkins (eds) 1959, 395–6Google Scholar