Cornish Literature - Medieval Verse and Drama

Medieval Verse and Drama

The Prophecy of Ambrosius Merlin concerning the Seven Kings is a 12th century poem written ca. 1144 by John of Cornwall in Latin, with some of the marginal notes in Cornish. John stated that the work was a translation based on an earlier document written in the Cornish language. The manuscript of the poem, on a codex currently held at the Vatican Library, is unique. It attracted little attention from the scholarly world until 1876, when Whitley Stokes undertook a brief analysis of the Cornish and Welsh vocabulary found in John's marginal commentary. These notes are among the earliest known writings in the Cornish language. In 2001 this important work was translated back into Cornish by Julyan Holmes.

Pascon agan Arluth ('The Passion of our Lord'), a poem of 259 eight-line verses probably composed around 1375, is one of the earliest surviving works of Cornish literature. The most important work of literature surviving from the Middle Cornish period is the Cornish Ordinalia, a 9000-line religious verse drama which had probably reached its present form by 1400. The Ordinalia consists of three mystery plays, Origo Mundi, Passio Christi and Resurrexio Domini, meant to be performed on successive days. Such plays were performed in a Plain an Gwarry (Playing place).

The longest single surviving work of Cornish literature is Beunans Meriasek (The Life of Meriasek), a two day verse drama dated 1504, but probably copied from an earlier manuscript.

Other notable pieces of Cornish literature include the Creation of the World (with Noah's Flood) which is a miracle play similar to Origo Mundi but in a much later manuscript (1611); the Charter Fragment, a short poem about marriage, believed to be the earliest connected text in the language; and the recently-discovered Beunans Ke, another saint's play, notable for including some Arthurian material.