Maia Seren Williams
DPhil Student
Research Topic: Elis Gruffydd’s 'Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd' (‘Chronicle of the Six Ages’) and the sixteenth-century historical tradition
Supervisors: Alex Gajda and Mark Williams
Studies of Tudor historiography recurrently exclude texts in the Welsh language despite the wealth of information held within them. By examining Elis Gruffydd’s 1552 'Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd', this project offers a new insight which goes beyond the Anglocentric focus of existing scholarship and considers how this Welsh-language chronicle impacts our understanding of sixteenth-century Tudor historiography. Despite being added to the UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register in 2018, most of the text has never been transcribed or translated, and is unknown by most scholars. However, this thesis will aim to show that as a uniquely transcultural text produced by a Welshman serving in the English army in Calais, it should be treated as canonical to our understanding of Tudor historical writing in the sixteenth century.
Prizes and Funding
- Winner of the Sir John Rhŷs Prize
