9 - The Book of Llandaf: First Edition or Seventh Enlarged Revision?

Summary

Examining the diplomatic of LL not only puts us on our guard against accepting the authenticity of the charters’ formulae; it also offers valuable clues about the compilation of LL.

The paginal variations in the frequency to which certain formulae are employed was used by Wendy Davies to support her theory that LL is made up of nine independent archives, A to J, which had been gradually gathered together over the centuries in various centres before finally being copied end to end in LL, as in Table 9.1, interspersed with Vitae and other items. I have already noted that this hypothesis is not necessary to explain the arrangement of charters in LL, and now turn to the diplomatic arguments. Her hypothesis is that the charters went through at least seven stages of collection, at least four of them involving rewriting or expansion, before appearing in LL.

Stage 1 is the existence of the nine archives A to J, at various dates. The main basis for positing these separate archives is the chronological or geographical discontinuity between adjacent groups of charters in LL, which can be equally well explained in terms of the compilers’ uncertainties over the correct order of bishops; the diplomatic evidence for distinguishing the nine Groups is very slight.

Stage 2 is the assimilation of C to F and of D to E. Both assimilations are dubious, but for different reasons. The charters of Euddogwy in C and of his three successors at the beginning of F probably came from a single, cumulative archive that did not get divided (as far as one can tell) before the charters of Euddogwy (C) were moved earlier to join those of the other saints at the head of the collection; thus there is no case for any assimilation of C and F. The charters of D and E, on the other hand, need not have stood together before LL was compiled. The peculiarity which appears to mark out DE from the other charters is the occurrence of Dubricio alone among the saints in the Disposition, sometimes with et Teliauo as well (often a clear interpolation) but never with Oudoceo; but this is due to the compilers’ evident vacillation over whether these charters’ bishops came before or after Euddogwy.