Very little research has been done in this field, although there is in
fact a rich body of evidence for the oral or memorial transmission of Welsh
poetry in the later medieval period. As far as composition is concerned there
is no direct evidence of poets' practices, but nevertheless it is generally
assumed that they would not have had recourse to writing (the earliest
definite holograph texts date from the late fifteenth century, and even those
are fair copies of poems composed previously). Since almost all the court
poetry of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries has survived in a unique text
copied about 1300, the opportunity for study of variance in transmission is
limited.Not
