Middle Welsh

This chapter discusses the relationship between Middle Welsh and Middle English up to about 1500, with reference to language, literature, and manuscript production. The chapter describes the political and cultural processes behind the borrowing of English words into Welsh and the fields where this typically occurred. The practice of Welsh poets of composing praise poetry to English patrons is discussed, along with key examples of macaronic poetry containing both Middle Welsh and Middle English. The importance of the March of Wales as a particular locus of bilingualism and the emergence of a bilingual culture is explored, in the context of manuscript production and the circulation of multilingual manuscripts containing combinations of Welsh, English, French, and Latin.