Michaela Jacques, Grammar and Poetry in Late Medieval and Early Modern Wales: The Transmission and Reception of the Welsh Bardic Grammars. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2024, 308 pp.

In the fourteenth century, Welshmen began the compilation of treatises wherein Latin linguistic analysis was applied to “the sounds and metrical systems of Welsh poetry” (p. 1). Those texts included “Grammars of Master-Poets” appearing long ago (from Dr Jacques’s own publisher) as Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid, ed. G. J. Williams and E. D. Jones (Caerdydd: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1934), which has a brilliant and lucid introduction by Griffith John Williams (1892–1963), a great scholar in the golden age of Welsh scholarship. Unfortunately, this monumental work (like other monuments) is seldom visited. Hence the ninety years before a book-length study of this topic (and related matters) appeared.