Normanised part of the whole kingdom. But with a fine instinct for the
really great things, in Wales the Normans seized on the literary
side--the poetic traditions of the people--giving them permanent form,
adding to them, making them for ever part of the intellectual heritage
of the whole world.

It may very likely be a mere accident that the earliest Welsh
manuscripts date from the twelfth-century--Norman times; it may also
imply an increased literary productiveness. It may be due to
accidental causes that the first accounts of Eisteddfodau extant date
from the twelfth century; it may also be that the institution excited
new interest, received new attention and honour, under the influence
of the open-minded and keen-sighted invaders. Take, for instance, the
account of the great Eisteddfod in 1176, from the Brut y Tywysogion:
"The lord Rhys held a grand festival at the castle of Aberteivi,
wherein he appointed two sorts of competitions--one between the bards
and poets, and the other between harpers, fiddlers, pipers, and
various performers of instrumental music; and he assigned two chairs
for the victors in the competitions; and these he enriched with vast
gifts. A young man of his own court, son to Cibon the fiddler,
obtained the victory in instrumental music, and the men of Gwynedd
obtained the victory in vocal song; and all the other minstrels
obtained from the lord Rhys as much as they asked for, so that there
was no one excluded." An Eisteddfod where every one obtained prizes,
and every one was satisfied, suggests the enthusiasm natural to a new
revival. It was now--when Wales was brought in contact with the great
world through the Normans--that modern Welsh poetry had its beginning.
The new intellectual impetus is clearly illustrated by the change
which takes place in the Welsh chronicles about 1100. Before that time
they are generally thin and dreary: they suddenly become full, lively,
and romantic. Wales was not exceptional in this renaissance; something
of the same sort occurred in most parts of Europe; and the
renaissance is no doubt to be connected with the Crusade, the reform
of the Church, in a word, with the Hildebrandine movement, and so
ultimately with the Burgundian monastery of Clugny. But it was the
Normans who brought this new life to England and Wales; the Normans
were the hands and feet of the great Hildebrandine movement of which
the Clugniac popes were the head.

Among the Norman magnates wh