Hengwrt Chaucer [SEP] collection
Hengwrt Chaucer
The Hengwrt Chaucer manuscript is an early-15th-century manuscript of the "Canterbury Tales", held in the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth. It is an important source for Chaucer's text, and was possibly written by someone with access to original authorial holograph, now lost.
The "Hengwrt Chaucer" is part of a collection called the Peniarth Manuscripts which is included by UNESCO in its UK Memory of the World Register, a list of documentary heritage which holds cultural significance specific to the UK.
the Brut y Tywysogion. The collection includes an important early copy of Chaucer also known as the ""Hengwrt Chaucer"" or, misleadingly, the "Hengwrt Manuscript".
These manuscripts remained safe in the Hengwrt library for 300 years, although several others in the collection (including the Hendregadredd Manuscript and the lost Hengwrt 33 or "Hanesyn Hên") disappeared in the late 18th century. Edward Lhuyd is recorded as having seen the antiquarian books there in 1696. A number of 18th and early 19th century antiquarians visited