Breton Literature - Leyden Manuscript

Leyden Manuscript

The oldest surviving manuscript in the Breton language (dating to the end of the 8th Century) is kept in Leyden University, Netherlands, and predates by more than a century the oldest text referenced in French. It is generally assumed by specialists that this is the most ancient text in a continental Brythonic language and was studied by the late Professor Léon Fleuriot (1923–1987). The manuscript itself is a fragment of medicinal recipes composed of plants suggesting that Breton may well have been used by people of learning at the turn of the 11th century.