The Middle Welsh Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle: Texts and Manuscripts

The so-called Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle was translated from Latin into Middle Welsh around 1275, when it was used to frame a cyclic arrangement of texts about the emperor Charlemagne. It survives in ten manuscripts (including modern copies) which, as Erich Poppe has shown, can be separated in three groups according to the order of the texts in them: group 1 comprises the earliest manuscript witnesses of the cycle, NLW Peniarth MS 7, NLW Peniarth MSS 8i & ii, as well as NLW Peniarth MS 10 and the modern copies NLW Peniarth MS 183 and NLW Cwrtmawr MS 2; group 2 includes NLW Peniarth MS 9 and NLW Peniarth MS 5 (White Book of Rhydderch); group 3 is represented by Oxford, Jesus College MS 111 (Red Book of Hergest) and NLW Llanstephan MS 148. As regards the Welsh Turpin, the order of the texts is not the only difference between these groups: there is significant variation between the text extant in manuscripts belonging to group 1 and that of groups 2 and 3. I will investigate these differences in this paper.