Guillaume Troubadour and the Englins (towards the construction of the "Welsh" hypothesis of the origin of European rhyming stanzas)

Semenov Vadim Borisovich PhD in Philology associate professor of the Department of Literature Theory at Lomonosov Moscow State University 119991, Russia, Moscow, str. Leninskie Gory, GSP-1, bld. 51, room No. 933 vadsemionov@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Did Guillaume IX, Duke of Aquitaine, nicknamed Guillaume the Troubadour and to this day referred to as the first of the knights-singers known to European history, know about such a strophic form, unnoticeable for medieval continental poetry, as the Old-Wallian englin (englyn, pl. englynion)? Due to the non-proliferation of Englins' research, even in the English-speaking scientific environment, such a question may seem third-rate and strange. However, if you know that the formulation of this particular question is connected with a much more general question, namely: where did rhymed stanzas once come from in European poetry? – everything is changing.

In this article we will try to justify the importance of raising such a question and the value of exploring the connections of troubadour poetry with the Welsh tradition. Consideration of the probable Welsh source of European rhymed stanzas continues our previous descriptions of the "Latin" and "Arabic" hypotheses of their origin ^{[1, 2]}.

Researchers of the work of the "first troubadour" rightly noted the fact that after participating in the First Crusade (1099-1102), his stanzas lengthened and rhymes became more diverse. However, attention was directed precisely to his post–income legacy - and voluntarist ideas were born: Guillaume "overheard" beautiful rhyming stanzas in the East, the crusade "filled him with new artistic ideas" ^{[3, p. 383]}. Meanwhile, watching what Guillaume's songs have become, we should not forget about what they were before the campaign. And they were stanzically organized and – rhymed. Of course, the concept of rhyme is historically variable, but if we look for the exact rhymes familiar to us in European medieval poetry, or rather the initial stage of their dominance, then we will quickly find them in the work of Guillaume Troubadour, and not only in the post-, but also in the pre-income.

Indeed, in all-Roman poetry, this is the moment of transition from regular assonances binding lines to regular full-fledged rhyme. But it is equally important to consider the stanzas themselves. Only 11 samples of the poetry of Guillaume of Aquitaine have been preserved, and the table of their stanza formulas was presented by A. Zhanrua at the beginning of the last century ^{[4, p. XII]}, and we give it below in a clarifying form – without internal division of stanzas into parts, since it is not in the manuscripts that preserved the troubadour's legacy:

Only three songs belong to the pre–income creativity, and all of them, as we can see, consist of three verses that have a common rhythmic scheme and – this scheme will not reflect - a monorim special for each specific song (it binds the verses of both each of the stanzas and the whole text).

And here it is appropriate to pay attention to the fact that pre- and post-income samples relate to each other not as primitive / complex, but rather as original / familiar. At the same time, it is the three pre-income texts consisting of three verses that turn out to be "original": they are original in their brevity of the strophic form, since we are accustomed to more complex compositions, knowing the further development of the poetry of the troubadours and their multi-national heirs. And the brevity itself is special. The simplest types of stanzas, except for the triplets, should include couplets and quatrains, and the presence of these two types of stanzas in European and world history is very noticeable: ancient distiches, Arabic bayts, Indian slokas – the idea of a couplet has no "nationality"; quatrains are also very frequent, for example, in poetry in languages that have emerged from a single the Old High German root.

The principle of duality can already be traced in the division of individual long lines into half-verses: for us, continental readers, this is so familiar that, most likely, not everyone, faced with poetry in Celtic languages, would notice that in its samples (especially in Welsh) a long line is often divided not into two, but into three parts. When this principle was in effect in the Middle Ages, couplets with paired rhyming were obtained, as in various le and narrative poetic texts in general; when it did not work, "dimensionless" loess were obtained, so characteristic of the early Medieval poetic epic of the Romance peoples. This principle had an impact even on researchers who published Guillaume's works in the XIX century ^{[5, pp. 7-10]} and in the XX century ^{[4, pp. 1-6]}: three early texts were presented on print so that each line was divided into two parts – a large initial and a smaller final. Of course, there is no indication of such a voluntaristic division in the original manuscripts that preserved the poetry of the first troubadour.

And against the background of a long tradition of such a doubling of verse meth, the fact of a collision with the form of triplets is surprising. In Romance poetry, apart from the three songs of Guillaume, there are only two surviving examples of the use of three verses: belonging to the last third of the X century, a fragment of two stanzas "A les pins batraunt sos caus ...", called "The Passion of Christ from Augsburg" ("Passion d'augsbourg", or "Augsburger Passionslied"), as well as modern in relation to Guillaume, the one-line epigram "Ista cartula est de Caputcoctu...", created in Tuscany in 1087, is known as the "Amiatin record" ("Postilla Amiatina", or "Cartula del Monte Amiata"). But the form of the first sample has not yet been precisely determined, some researchers ignore the division of the fragment into three verses ^{[6, p. 15]}, and the form of the second, since it is an epigram and, therefore, the text is not tied to the melody, looks random. And where else will we find examples of triplets with high-quality rhymes in European poetry in national languages in the pre-Guillaume period? The island Celts, especially the Britons.

The "Latin" and "Arabic" hypotheses of the origin of European rhymed stanzas have always been served by extra-literary argumentation of a speculative nature. In each case, the proponents of one or another hypothesis appealed to general historical information and associated them with an assessment of the poetry of Guillaume Troubadour from the standpoint of common sense. It is impossible, having raised the question of which particular Arab or Latin priest the ninth Duke of Aquitaine received such specific verse artifacts as rhyme and rhyming, to answer it definitely in the affirmative: there are no facts. Therefore, their absence is replaced by speculation: Guillaume lived in a Romanesque environment filled with Latin manuscripts, in which rhymes sometimes slipped through, and he lived at a time when the Romanesque world was actively clashing with the Arabic world. But no worse than these speculations is also the following speculative judgment, confirmed by general historical facts: the Romanesque world not only grew up on the lands of the Celts, but also interacted with the Celtic world for many centuries, which is especially noticeable in the era of Charlemagne. Learned monks who came from the island areas of Celtic settlement are present in important political and religious centers of continental Europe.

Directly related to the Palatine Academy established by Emperor Charles was St. Dungal, an Irishman, an expert in astronomy and astrology, studied in his youth at Bangor Monastery, perhaps the most important center of religious life in Wales (namely in the Gwynedd region). It is assumed that it was Dungal (who is often called Dungal from Bangor) who delivered to the continent the valuable manuscript "Antiphonarium Benchorense" ("Bangor Antiphonarium"), which eventually ended up in the monastery of Bobbio near Genoa, where, apparently, the saint ended his life (his religious training began in a Welsh monastery founded by Komgal, and the last days were spent in a monastery founded by a disciple of Komgal – Columban). Dungal was the author of a number of poems in Latin, executed in classical hexameter, primarily epitaphs.

Another Irish monk, scientist and poet, Dikuil, was also related to the Palatine Academy. He became famous as a geographer by writing the treatise "De Mensura Orbis Terrae" ("Description of the Earth"), and it is important for us that he completed this treatise with a poem of 31 hexameter lines. It can be assumed that he, like Dongal, wrote poetry regularly.

The next generation of Irish poet-priests of the same IX century is represented by people who survived the Viking invasion of the British Isles and were forced to move to the continent. Among them, in particular, are St. Donat (Donat of Fiesole), the author of several poems and – presumably – the poetic "Life of St. Brigid", and Seduli Cattle, although called an Irishman, however, as follows from some of his texts (there are more than 80 of them), associated with North Wales. Seduli Cattle, who settled in Liege, where he raised the children of Charles the Bald, wrote in various genres, and it is noteworthy in his legacy that sometimes sound repetitions close to traditional Celtic methods of verse instrumentation slip through his Latin verses.

So, D. Howlett, translating the poem "Aspice marmoreas superantes astra columnas..." into English, in the original Latin text quoted by him, highlights such repetitions and comments on them: he used italics simultaneously with underscores to show repetitions "rhyming" half-verses of the same verse; he used italics separately to identify repetitions, connecting the end of one verse and the beginning of another; separately underlining one letter – to show interstitial sound correspondences; finally, underlining several adjacent letters – also to identify consonances in neighboring half-verses ^{[7, p. 130]}. It looks like this:

                                           O magnum Scotiae misit Pictonia diues

                                           Munus relliquias quas uelit esse suas

The translator does not correlate these repetitions with a specific tradition, but we see a clear affinity for the Welsh sound recording system, which will become known as cynghanedd. But what is important in this case is not the belonging of repetitions to one or another system of rules. It is important that the Celts who found themselves in the empire of Charlemagne and his descendants brought their traditions to the well-known Latin forms of verse. That is, it is important that by the beginning of the life of Guillaume Troubadour, Celts in general and Celts as poets were not something outlandish.

And one more fact related to the above lines from the Sedulia of Cattle turns out to be important. The translation of these lines is as follows: "Oh, he gave rich relics to Cattle, which Pictonia also wants to have." Howlett titled the translation "To the Learned Men of Clonard," because the poet sings of three great men from this Irish monastery, and they are called the holy gifts, "relics." "Scotia" means Ireland, but "Pictonia" means the lands of the county of Poitou, where the Celtic Picton tribe lived in Roman times. But why did the reference to Pictonia appear in the text of Sedulia Scotus/Poitou? It is appropriate to assume that the connections of the Poitevins, the predecessors of Guillaume, with the Celtic world (not with the Breton neighbors of the inhabitants of Aquitaine, namely with the island Celts) were established already in the era of the Carolingian Renaissance and were not interrupted. Of course, if this is true for Aquitaine, then it is also true for the adjacent Romanesque lands. However, Aquitaine stood out for a geographical reason: most of the way to James of Compostela, pilgrims from the islands (unless they tried to significantly shorten their journey by landing closer to the final point of the pilgrimage) had to pass through its lands, and this path was known as Via Turonensis.

But has the lord of Aquitaine been visited by anyone versed in the forms of poetry of the Britons? There is no direct historical evidence here, but there is one indirect, artistic, on the verge of legend. A century and a half ago, an active discussion of the figure of a certain legendary storyteller began in French medieval studies. G. Paris opened the topic with his note "Breri", indicating the name of this bard. Paris was the first to wonder if Brery was a fictional person mentioned in the knight's novel, or if he was a historical person after all. Further, francophone medievalists began to look for traces of the presence of this historical invisible man in chivalric literature, where, as it turned out, he was hiding under the names of Bleri, Blichis, Blecheris, Blichos-Blicheris, Bledericus. Later, this literary personality was correlated with a historical personality – the Welshman Bledri ap Cadivor. The most interesting part of the history of this search turned out to be a discovery made already at the beginning of the twentieth century by J.L. Weston in the manuscript London, BM, Add. 36614, which contained the Second continuation of the Vauchier de Denain to the novel by Chretien de Troyes "Perceval, or the Tale of the Grail". She found the following lines missing from other versions of the Second Sequel:

In this case, it is important for us that next to the Welshman who labored at the English court of the Normans as a noble vassal (he was related by blood to many royal families of Wales) and an interpreter, the Count of Poitiers is indicated. Since the historical Bledry is defined as a person who acted in the first third of the XII century, we must remember that at that time Duke Guillaume IX of Aquitaine also had the title of the Eighth Count of Poitiers. By the beginning of this century, three samples using the form of three verses by a high-born troubadour had already been composed, but if it had been established that Bledri (or someone like him) If he could have been at the court of Guillaume in the pre-income period of the latter's work, then the influence of Welsh material could not be excluded.

In what form could the material of Welsh literature be presented by a traveling bard to such a high person as Guillaume? In prose, these would be mabinogs (a large, often amorphous form in plot terms) or triads (a form that turns out to be small against the background of the previous one and, due to a mnemonic task, involves dividing the text into three-phrase groups). In poetry, these would be audles (dimensionless groups of poems combined by a monorim into a large narrative form) or the englins mentioned above (stanzas with a clearly defined size and also stitched with a monorim, but combined into texts of different volumes and not exclusively of an epic nature).

Our literary object is precisely the Englins, and therefore we turn to a possible literary argument that could confirm the Welsh influence on Guillaume and his poetic heirs. Of course, the influence of culture on culture is never confined to a single genre, one form. Therefore, if we assume that the Welsh Englinion triplets influenced Romanesque poetry, we should expect that other forms also influenced or entered into parallel with the Romanesque ones. A form of awdl (awdl, pl. awdlau) it is just a parallel in relation to the form of lessa, widely known according to Romanesque patterns of gestures and poetic hagiography. In fact, they are the same form, and it is surprising that, perhaps, the Welsh oudles originated before the Romance loess: some texts attributed to the legendary bards of Britain of the dark Ages consist of these quasi-myths. It can be assumed that audles and loess, as forms similar in structure and function, are not just in typological kinship. If so, then the reduction of Guillaume's triplets and Welsh Englins into one row does not look strange against this background.

Englins, as well as audles, were often involved in the design of the narrative, however, the three-part structure of Englin was periodically in demand even when it was necessary to formalize the content suitable, for example, for prose triads. There were also lyrical englins. In other words, this form turned out to be universal for the poetry of ancient Wales. Consequently, if someone on the continent listened to Welsh songs, then the form of such songs could be Englins.

But the idea of this form turned out to be historically variable. In 1451 (or about), the eistetvod (festival-competition of local bards) was held in Carmarthen, at which 24 forms were legalized, regularly used by David ap Edmund, the most authoritative participant. These forms were first mentioned in a Welsh manuscript of the XIII century, printed in the middle of the XIX century under the title "Ancient Welsh Grammar". Here, along with the ancient triplets, several types of quatrains were presented, which were also called Englins ^[8].

We can record the fact of an important historical change in the concept of Englins: apparently, since the XIV century, englinion has been perceived as a collection of any strict stanzas (except for the recently appeared couplets cywydd), oppositional to the quasi-trophs of audlai that do not have a strictly defined volume. And such a changed concept has been preserved to our time. At the same time, there were more four-line Englins among these forms, and therefore it is not surprising that at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries judgments similar, in particular, to the judgment of the Oxford professor of poetry F.T. Palgrave that "an Englin is a quatrain with a very complex structure, concise and partly epigrammatic in nature" ^{[9, p. 196]}. Meanwhile, a century earlier, Englins-triplets were not forgotten: E. Jones, reproducing the canonized 24 meters, pointed out that the early type "Englyn Milwr, or the Song of the Warrior, <...> is a stanza of three lines, each of seven syllables, the first and second enclose the general theme of the poem, and the third conveys some divine or moral commandment, or a reasonable judgment" ^{[10, p. 2]}.

The same mentioned turn of the century opened a period of scientific "discord" in the description of Englins. French Celtologist J. Lot first introduced englins to continental readers as stanzas of six- and seven-syllables, emphasizing the exclusively syllabic essence of Welsh poetry and leaving aside other signs of this form ^{[11, pp. 13-18]}. J. Rees gave rise to the dubious idea of raising englins to the ancient hexameter ^{[12, pp. 190-223]}. And even after a century, oddities and inaccuracies in the characterization of Englins do not disappear. Thus, the modern researcher J. T. Koch describes englins as follows: "Englinion, a saga, is a term describing a significant part of early Welsh poetry composed in three-line meter, which is known as the earliest type of englin" ^{[13, p. 700]}. It is fair to point to the triplets as an early type of Englins, but the englinion (i.e., the text written by Englins) is proposed to be understood as a saga. However, englins are not always a narrative, as indicated above. However, the rapprochement of the Englins with the saga is most likely based on the fact that in the "ancient books of Wales" some narrative texts have "englinion" in the title as an indication of the form/genre. It can be noted that texts representing dialogues also have similar titles: if the plotless dialogue continues to be considered a saga, then there is no mistake.

The poetic aspect in the descriptions of the early Englins is of interest. If in the last quarter of the XVIII century . Jones, referring only englyn milwr to the early type, mentioned the equivalence of three lines (in which we see a posteriori attribution of the relevant feature of late Englins to early Englins), then during the last century, researchers rightly put another early form on a par with the mentioned form – englyn penfyr (the type is called "short-headed", although they are short verses 2-3), which is characterized by a deliberate lack of complexity. This is how K. H. Jackson described both forms: "Milwr is a simple form of three verses having a single rhyme, usually seven syllables in each. <...> Penfyr is something more complex. This form is usually composed of the first ten–syllable verse, the second six-syllable and the third seven– or eight-syllable; the second and third verses are rhymed with each other - and often also with the seventh, eighth or ninth syllable standing before the caesura in the first verse" ^{[14, p. 304]}. It is noticeable that Jackson contrasted two types of Anglin on the principle of equisyllabicity/non–complexity and even picked up appropriate examples with the syllabic structure of 7/7/7 and 10/6/8 (from different poems of the cycle "Canu Llywarch Hen" below, in each of which, by the way, a single form is not maintained - and both early types of Anglin are presented). On the one hand, such a separation seems technically convenient. On the other hand, there is little accuracy in the definitions and schemes given by Jackson. We will see further that the early Englins of the first type were not prescribed mandatory equisyllabic and that in the Englins of the second type, fluctuations in syllabic volume extended not only to the last line, but also to the rest.

The British Englin researchers reached the "maximum" accuracy only at the beginning of the XXI century. In the monographic review of J. Rowland's "Early Welsh poetic sagas" ("saga" indicates following Koch) a clarification has appeared regarding the milwr form (penfyr is also described): "Englyn milwr is the simplest form <...>. It consists of 3 verses of 7 syllables each, with individual verses a syllable longer or, more rarely, a syllable shorter" ^{[15, p. xxiii]}. We agree that the syllabic volume in the warrior's englins varies, but we point out that Rowland spoke cautiously: in fact, the fluctuations in the syllabic volume of any of the three lines of this form (and this applies only to its early samples) are so distinct that the attribution of such englins as a whole to syllabic versification is questionable.

Meanwhile, in most cases we still encounter rude attempts to describe the metric of Englins, sending us from the beginning of this century to the XVIII century: "englyn milwr ('englin war', a three-line of an equal number of syllables with a single rhyme" ^{[16, p. 540]}.

Now, from generalizing definitions, we turn to the consideration of the metrical features of specific englins-triplets presented in the mentioned "ancient books of Wales". These "books" are famous manuscripts. Englins are widely represented in two of them – in the "Black Book of Carmarthen" (Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin, or Peniarth MS 1) of the middle of the XIII century. and in the "Red Book of Hergest" (Llyfr Coch Hergest, or Oxford, Jesus College, MS 111) of the late XIV century.

In the "Black Book" they include: "Dinas Maon" ("Dinas Maon"), "Englynion y Beddau" ("Englins of graves"), "Kanu Gwallawg" ("Chanting of Gwahlaug"), "Ymddiddan Gwyddno Garanhir a Gwyn ap Nudd" ("Conversation of Gwyddno Garanhir with Gwyn ap Nuddom"), "Ymddiddan Taliessin ac Ugnach" ("Taliesin's conversation with Ugnach") and "Seithenhin sawde allan..." ("Seithennin, stand in front...").

In the "Red Book": "Ymddiddan Lywelyn a Gwrnerth" ("Conversation of Hlivelin with Gurnert"), "Eiry Mynyd" ("Mountain Snow"), "Canu Llywarch Hen" ("Songs of Hlivarch the Old", a mini-cycle of 9 songs), "Gereint filius Erbin" ("Geraint, son of Erbin"), "Katwallawn" ("Cadwallon") and "Canu Heledd" ("Songs of Heledd", a mini-cycle of 8 songs).

In addition to these, some well-known samples of Englins are recorded in late manuscripts, but sometimes they are perceived by researchers as late recordings of pre-existing texts. These include:

- single englin "Eiri Mynyd" (an early version of the aforementioned long poem from the "Red Book of Hergest") with a structure strictly conforming to the formula 7/7/7, in the manuscript of the last third of the XIII century. Harley Charter 75 C 38. It is assumed that the scribe copied Englin from the manuscript of the X century.

- "Englynyon yr eryr" ("Englins of the eagle"), or "Ymddiddan Arthur a'r Eryr" ("Arthur's Conversation with the eagle"), in a manuscript of the XIV century. Oxford, Jesus College MS 20,

- "Kyssul Adaon" ("The Council of Adaon") – englins with the beginning-repetition of the Virgin in the collection of religious texts "The Red Book of Talgarth" ("Llyfr Coch Talgarth", or NLW, Llanstephan MS 27), dating from about 1400,

- "Englynion y Clyweid" ("Englins of wise sayings"; a long row of 73 Englins) in the same "Red Book of Talgarth",

- "Sandde gyr y vran..." ("Sandde, drive the raven..."; text with an unclear form: a self-contained three-line or a one-line fragment from a large text; since it is about the death of King Arthur's son, Englin is followed by an explanatory phrase: "Arthur sang it") in a manuscript of the XVII century. Llyfr Englynion Gellilyfdy, or NLW, MS 3039B (originally Mostyn MS 131),

- "Englynion Cad Goddeu" ("Englins of the Battle of the Trees"; related to the famous poem of the same name) in the manuscript of the XVII century. Peniarth MS 98b (originally Hengwrt MS 479) – two englins, of which only the first three-line,

- fragment "Ymddiddan Melwas a Gwenhwyfar" ("Conversation of Melvas with Gwenhwyvar") in the manuscript of the XVII century. NLW, MS Wynnstay I,

- another fragment that does not coincide with the latter, which is supposed to go back with him to the same source [Jones 2019, 184-185], is "Ymddiddan rhwng Arthur a Gwenhwyfar" ("Conversation between Arthur and Gwenhwyfar") in a manuscript of the middle of the XVII century. NLW, Llanstephan MS 122.

From the list of supposed early Englins that have come down in later sources, we will remove "Englynion y Misoedd" ("Englins of months"): by itself, this example is interesting, but it does not apply to the triplets. Along the way, we note that on the text written in strict eight–lines (a separate eight-line with a through rhyme is dedicated to each month, and only a nine-line is dedicated to February), Welshman Sean Tudur, an older contemporary of Shakespeare, wrote a parody "Digrifwawd neu ymgynhebygiad i owdl y misoedd" ("A parody or imitation of the lesse of months"). It is not by chance that in the last title "audl" replaces "englins": the audl-lesses were large groups of poems with an unspecified volume, and the author of the original poem called the stanzas "englins" because he aligned them by the number of lines, and the parodist drew attention to the length of the stanzas, which he associated with the lesses. This example with pseudo-englins, in our opinion, only emphasizes the antiquity and authenticity of the form of englins-triplets.

Now let's turn to the three most important sources – texts not in the Middle, but in the Old Welsh language, moreover, dating back to the period before the XI century. In the manuscript "Cambridge Juvencus" ("Cambridge Juvencus", or Cambridge MS Ff. 4.42), which is a copy of the translation of the Gospel by a Spanish priest of the IV century made by Virgil hexameters. Gaius Vettius Aquilina Juvenka "Evangeliorum Libri IV" and dating back to the X century, two texts have been preserved as marginalia, which are called by the number of triplets "Juvenk 9" (fol. 1r; in fact, there are eight Old Dutch Englins, since the first triplet is in Latin) and "Juvenk 3" (fols. 25v–26v). The first text is interesting because it clearly demonstrates the desire of the scribe (it is suspected that he was an Irish monk named Nuado) to align the lines of each englin (which was not possible in all stanzas), but not according to the formula 7/7/7, but according to the formula 8/8/8. The second one is characterized by a more noticeable non - complexity (its formula common to the three stanzas can be denoted as 7-9/7-9/7-9 , i.e., the size of neighboring verses may diverge by 1-2 syllables), but in it we find such frequent anaphoric bundles of stanzas in the englins of the following centuries.

The third Old Welsh text is an equally well–known example. This is the "Bacl Patern" ("Padarn's Staff") from the Cambridge manuscript, Corpus Christi College MS 199. A quatrain with a clear structure 7/7/7/7. Were there strictly syllabic quatrains among the oldest examples of Englin? In fact, this is a very dubious sample – not as an Old Welsh poetic text in general, but as a text in the form of an Englin-quatrain. Both today and at the time of the man who discovered this sample for science (he was Cambridge librarian Henry Bradshaw, who stumbled upon a Welsh text in a Latin manuscript on February 10, 1874), the type of the corresponding manuscript sheet (fo.11r) is the same: the upper margin was mercilessly cut off by someone, and only very short the lower edges of the letters were preserved, moreover, the scribe led a line containing several verses, consistently lifting the letters to the upper edge of the sheet, so the beginning of the line could be tried to decipher, but the end did not give such an opportunity and does not give. However, the bold "discoverer" of the text immediately assumed that he had found exactly the quatrain. On the day of the discovery, he informed J. To Rice, he discovered "... the next quatrain, the last verse of which is completely cut off by the bookbinder," and asked: "Tell me what you can create from this:

                              Amdinnit trynit trylenn.

                              Amtrybann teirbann treisguenn.

                              Amcen creiriou gurth cyrguenn.

                              Amdifuys …………» ^[17]

As you can see, on the first day of detection, the text was not yet a complete quatrain. Rice, who was asked to "create", refused to engage in "co-creation" under a plausible pretext: "I am sorry to inform you that I can only output three words in the third line: the text is very dark for me. Is there no context at all that would help me move on?" ^[19]. Bradshaw replied that there was no context, that the marginalia on the other sheets were small prayers and that in two cases they were addressed to saints; one of the saints, according to him, was mentioned as "que tuum fer sancta Paterne" ^[18].

And now, in the journal Archaeologia Cambrensis, a message appears from the editorial board of the Old Welsh Quatrain: "We are indebted to Mr. Bradshaw from Cambridge for the next Welsh quatrain of the second half of the XI century..." - and the editorial board, citing the above-mentioned ragged text, dubious in itself, concludes the note with a request to readers about translation of these "dark verses" ^{[20, p. 340]}. Bradshaw himself, to his credit, did not dream up the final verse of the "quatrain", but he left a kind of key for the next generations of zealots of "co-creation". And in 1912, the rector of King's College Cambridge, M.R. James, in the monographic review "Descriptive catalog of manuscripts in the library of Corpus Christi College Cambridge" did not escape the temptation of "co-creation" and in the course of a page-by-page description presented the text in this form (with an insert-comment):

                              «Amdinnit trynit trylenn • Amtrybann teirbann treisguenn • Amcen

                              creiriou (no different for me from creirum) gurth cyrrguenn • Amdi-

                              fuys a… ... patern ...» ^{[21, p. 482]}

After that, the new generations had only to "finish" the line so that it became the final verse (and the lines of this miniature, which Bradshaw himself felt, echoed the lines of the ancient poem "Gododdin", so it could not be ruled out that this text could be more of a quatrain – and be a fragment of a variant poems), and turned out to be seven-syllabic. And indeed, soon a consensus was reached in Welsh science, serious researchers began to quote the last verse like this: "Amdifuys dual bacl patern". Yes, and "cyrguenn", in which J. Rhys saw the toponym, turned magically into "Cyrwen" - the name for the "Padarn staff", and the "Padarn Staff" itself became the title. So the sum of hypotheses became an axiom, bypassing the proof stage. Meanwhile, this ancient fragment could be a triplet, or the same quatrain, but with the final line of any other syllabic volume.

Why did this whole thing happen? Because the fragment was looked at by people of the late XIX – early XX centuries, for whom it was customary that for several centuries in Wales there have been englins in the form of quatrains and that Englins are syllabic compositions. Meanwhile, the original non-syllabic nature could be noticed (the existence of such a type as penfyr already contradicts the desire to attribute a syllabic character to early Englins. This does not negate the fact that the metric forms of Englins eventually turned into everyday syllabics.

So, there were two old forms of englins-triplets, milwr and penfyr, and they met both separately from each other (cases when the initial form of the triplet was sustained by the writer to the end), and in an arbitrary combination in the same verse composition. Each of these dominant forms in ancient times could, however, within the framework of a separate text, be supplemented by some random three- or four-line stanza. It was from these optional stanzas that other types of Englins subsequently appeared. We will leave them aside and, taking as a basis the late, syllabic formula of stanza 7/7/7, we will evaluate how all the above-listed ancient or claiming the status of ancient Englins correspond to it.

Texts in the form of englyn milwr, in which the composition of the lines corresponds to the formula 7/7/7: "Eiri Mynyd" (early triplet), "Ymddiddan Lywelyn a Gwrnerth" (a late expanded version of the previous englin in the "Red Book of Hergest"), "Eir y Mynyd" (following the specified article "Ymddiddan..." text with the the same anaphoric beginning of stanzas), in the cycle "Canu Heledd" stanzas ¹¹ 63-65, 67-68, 78, 83, 85, 88-91, 104, 108-111, " Ymddiddan Arthur a'r Eryr".

Texts in the form of englyn milwr with a non-strict correspondence to the above formula: "Juvencus Englynion" (both texts), "Kanu Gwallawg", "Ymddiddan Gwyddno Garanhir a Gwyn ap Nudd", "Ymddiddan Taliessin ac Ugnach" (this and the two previous texts begin as metrically strict, then the meter is loosened), three texts from cycle "Canu Llwyarch Hen" ("Kalangaeaf kalet grawn...", "Baglawc bydin bagwy onn..." and "Kynn bum kein vaglawc bum kyffes..."), "Gereint filius Erbin", "Katwallawn", in the cycle "Canu Heledd" stanzas ¹¹ 52-56, 66, 79, 82, 92-99, 102-103, 105, 107, 112, " Sandde gyr y vran...", "Ymddiddan rhwng Arthur a Gwenhwyfar", "Englynion Cad Goddeu" and "Englynion y Clyweid".

The texts are in the form of englyn penfyr, in which the composition corresponds to the formula 10/6/8: in the cycle "Canu Heledd" stanzas Nos. 76 and 100.

Texts in the form of englyn penfyr, with a strict correspondence to this formula: three texts from the cycle "Canu Llwyarch Hen" ("Bit goch crib keilyawc...", "Goreiste ar vrynn a eruyn uym bryt...", better known by the later title "Claf Abercuawg", as well as "Gorwyn blaen onn..."), in the cycle "Canu Heledd" stanzas ¹¹ 1-51, 57-62, 69-74, 77, 80-81, 84, 101, 106, 113.

Finally, let's look at the texts in which the englins milur and penvir are connected. There are no combinations of two types in which the samples of the Englins of each of them strictly follow their formulas. The combination of strict milwr and non-strict penfyr is only one: the poem "Gwynn y byt freuer mor yw diheint heno..." selected by researchers from the cycle "Canu Heledd". The combination of lax milwr and strict penfyr is also lonely: "Dinas Maon". More combinations of both non-strict forms of Englins: "Englynion y Beddau", "Gerein fil. Erbin" (a version of the poem from the "Red Book ...", previously presented in the "Black Book of Carmarthen"), "Seithenhin sawde allan...", two texts from the cycle "Canu Llwyarch Hen" ("Dymkywarwydyat unhwchdywal ..." and "Maenwynn tra vum yth oet..."), "Ymddiddan Melwas a Gwenhwyfar", "Kyssul Adaon".

It can be concluded about the features of the metric of the two early forms of Englins: separately, they are less common in the "correct" form that the British Late Middle Ages attributed to the Englins, which was preparing for its decline, and more often in the "wrong", and even with separate inclusions of non-independent quatrains at that time, and when milwr and penfyr are combined, they in the vast majority of cases, they appear before us in a non-syllabic, "incorrect" metric guise. It remains to present formulas corrected by practical observations for early Englins. The general formula for the listed samples is englyn milwr - 6-9/6-9/7-9 . Seven- and eight-syllable verses were often combined in englin, nine-syllable ones appeared less often, and six-syllable ones were the rarest (recorded in "Ymddiddan Melwas a Gwenhwyfar"). Formula for englyn penfyr – 9-11/5-9/7-9 . There were minimal fluctuations in syllabic volume in the first and third verses, strong fluctuations in the second (we find a five-syllable in the fragment "Stauell gyndylan ys tywyll heno ..." from "Canu Heledd"), while if it grew to eight or nine syllables, then the first verse was necessarily longer.

Now back to Guillaume Troubadour. Are his three pre-income songs similar in verse forms to these early Englins? They are similar in the form of the triplets themselves, as well as the monorym that each triplet has (at the same time, in englinion, different triplets have different monoryms, and in Guillaume, the initial monorym goes beyond the stanza and seeks to subdue the entire text. However, Guillaume creates syllabic texts, and, as we have seen, the early Englins are not syllabic. The final verse of Guillaume's triplet is longer than the previous ones, in englyn penfyr everything is different: it is the initial verse that is longer. However, if you look for the "prototype" of the Aquitanian poet's triplet, you can find it in the final englin, written in the margins next to the main text "Kanu Gwallawg" from the "Black Book of Carmarthen". But this is the only Englin of all the texts we have mentioned.

But what could possibly have prompted Guillaume in this hypothetical situation to pay attention to englins, is it really only the presence of exact rhymes? It seems to us that he might have been interested in the content of many of the above–mentioned samples, first of all, the theme of Arthur, because by the end of the XI century it had already penetrated Aquitaine, for example, the name Artus was first recorded in Limoges at that time ^{[22, p. 7]}, and then the forms of the names Artus, Artusius appear in other areas of the Duchy of Aquitaine. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Gascon Marcabru already mentions Arthur in one of the songs, among other things, in connection with Guillaume X, the son of a Troubadour: "Puois lo Peitavis m'es faillitz, / Serai mai cum Artus perdutz" ^{[23, p. 16]}. Indeed, in Welsh writings in the form of Englins, the names of those who would later become characters in continental chivalric novels about Arthur the King are not uncommon. Among the texts listed above are "Englynion y Beddau", "Gereint filius Erbin", "Englynyon yr eryr", "Sandde gyr y vran...", "Ymddiddan Melwas a Gwenhwyfar" and "Ymddiddan rhwng Arthur a Gwenhwyfar". If the theme of Arthur, which began to gain popularity, and the accompanying images of Guenhwyvar, Kai, Owain, etc. touched the troubadour, an unusual form – englins could also attract attention.

The verification of our "Welsh" hypothesis, which directly connects the traditional bardic heritage of the Britons with the beginning of the rhymed poetry of the continental troubadours, is necessary not only to establish the source of the origin of rhymes in poetry in Romance languages and specifically in the songs of Guillaume IX, but also to assess the insular influence on continental literatures, primarily the influence of Welsh literature., unfairly relegated to the periphery of readers' and research interests.

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