Welsh hymnody

This entry is in three parts: pre-Reformation Welsh hymnody by Sally Harper; post-Reformation hymnody, and Welsh tunes, by Alan Luff. A final paragraph is by Martin Clarke. Medieval Welsh hymnody Some form of liturgical hymnody was clearly sung in parts of the early ‘Celtic’ church in Wales. The 7th-century Latin Vita of St Samson (composed by a Breton monk) claims that St Illtud’s death occurred as the community at Llantwit Major in Glamorgan was singing hymns, while St David’s biographer Rhigyfarch (ca.1056–99) records David’s own death in the church of Llanbadarn Fawr, near Aberystwyth, as the monks sang hymns at Matins. To what extent such items corresponded with hymnody sung elsewhere...