ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the sources that fall into three main categories. The first group comprises the most significant and substantial documentation, all of it dealing in some way with the increasing professionalization of the Welsh bardic musician, and shaped by the practice and regulation of the late medieval eisteddfodau. The second group is defined by more piecemeal sources, many of them lists. There are inventories of masters and apprentices and their bardic 'degrees'; records of those who provided entertainment for noble patrons on specific occasions. There is also an elegy by the poet Sion Tudur, listing the outstanding master musicians and poets of his own era. The third category of sources has a different emphasis: it deals with Welsh instrumentalists known to have been employed outside Wales from the time of Edward onwards, largely at the English court; most of this information derives from payrolls and accounts.
