ABSTRACT
A culture that placed so much emphasis on orality and memorization inevitably had profound implications for the written record, but there were also more general issues of ownership and even of the 'secret art'. The Welsh bardic crafts were restricted to those selected, trusted and trained, and unrestricted circulation of written texts would have seriously undermined the status of qualified practitioners, who were dependent on retaining control over their work to make a living. Welsh learning and creativity (including some forms of poetry) are therefore represented in abundance by the vernacular texts copied between 1250 and 1400, though there still remains one very striking lacuna. Bardic apprenticeship also involved a second strand of learning alongside the theoretical element embodied in the written grammars, for a fundamental knowledge of general oral 'lore' was also deemed essential for the professional craftsman.
