Welsh Classics Series - Vol 6 Desription Of Pembrokeshire, The H

The Description of Pembrokeshire is a product of the new spirit of inquiry that grew up in Elizabeth ls Britain, a renaissance which brought a new methodology to all branches of science and learning. An instinctive antiquarian and genealogist, George Owen received some legal training at Barnards Inn, London, before returning to run the family estates at Henllys near Ne in north Pembrokeshire. Influential upon him in his effort to exorcise from the Welsh historical canon some of the mythological bunkum that was the legacy of Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth and even Giraldus Cambrensis, was the monumental .Britannia by William Camden with whom Owen became personally aquainted. George Owens little masterpiece first appeared in manuscript in 1603 but it took until 1795-6 before it was seen in print, when Richard Fenton included it in The Cambrian Register. In 1892 the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion published it for its members under the editorship of Dr Henry Owen, but it is only now, over a hundred years later, that a text in modem orthography with notes introduction and index has been made available. The beauty of this work that it was written with local knowledge and imbued with affection. As an account of daily life in this most westerly corner of Elizabethan Britain, The Description of Pembrokeshire is without equal.