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MURDOCH, Brian (1993): Cornish Literature.  Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. x + 

174 pp. (£ 25). ISBN 0 85991 364 3.

This book gives a clear and up-to-date account of a subject which until 

now can have been known to few people. It breaks new ground, not only for 

those concerned with Cornwa ll’s past, but for all students of medieval drama, 

popular religion, and apocryphal literature.

Cornwall, the most south-westerly county of England, was an in depen-

dent Celtic state until its conquest by the English during the ninth century. 

Until the eighteenth century it retained its own language, Cornish, related to 

Welsh and (more closely) to Breton. During the later middle ages Cornish 

developed its own drama, the only medieval Celtic language to do so, and 

these religious plays are our main source of knowledge for the language. 

However, Cornish would be of interest to literary historians even if these 

plays had not been written, since Cornwall played an important role in the 

diffusion of legends associated with King Arthur, especially the tale of Tris -

tan and Isolde. Unfortunately, there are no surviving Cornish texts for this 

material, which is known only from later versions in Latin and French. It is 

likely that much early Cornish story -telling was oral, and was never writ ten

down.

In six chapters, Brian Murdoch’s book describes the scanty re mains of 

Old Cornish; the four works (the "Poem of the Passion", Ordinalia, Creation 

of the World, and play of Saint Meriasek) which make up the bulk of Middle 

Cornish literature; and the varied texts of Modern Cornish during its seven-

teenth- and eighteenth-century decline, and twentieth-century form devised 

by enthusiasts attempting to revive it as a spoken and written language. The 

author ably sets out current knowledge of Cornish literature at a time when its

texts are receiving fresh attention from editors and critics in Britain, Austria,

and the United States. As a professional historian of literature. he also sets 



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out a strong and persuasive case for the merits of the religious texts as works 

of art.

What is the importance of this book for specialists in Old and Middle En -

glish?. Its main value is for students of medieval English drama. As is well 

known, much of this has been lost; most of what we have survives by chance 

in four cycles, from Chester, York,Wakefield, and "N-Town" (perhaps from 

Norfolk). What we can guess from these is greatly supple mented by the 

Cornish plays, which are influenced by English forms of drama, but yet show 

many distinctive features of their own.

Analysis of the Ordinalia, written probably in the later fourteenth cen-

tury, brings this out. This cycle consists of three parts: the Beginning of the 

World; Christ’s Passion; and the Resurrection of Our Lord. The first part rep-

resents the Creation of the World, Man’s Fall (with a vivid depiction of 

Adam, Eve, and the Serpent), Cain’s murder of Abel, Noah’s escape from the 

Flood, Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, Moses and Pharaoh, David and

Bathsheba, and Solomon’s building of the Temple. Much of this is familiar 

from the English plays of the period. But the unknown Cornish dramatist of-

ten shows great originality of treatment, especially through incorporating 

apocryphal material. An instance of this is his use of the "Legend of the 

Rood", that the three seeds from the Tree of Knowledge, placed by Seth in 

Adam’s grave, eventually became the Tree of the Cross. This apocryphal nar-

rative is unknown in medieval English drama, and very rare (to say the least) 

elsewhere.

Those involved in the producing of medieval plays will also be interested 

in the evidence for how Cornish drama was staged. While most medieval 

English plays were performed on carts, which could be hauled through the 

streets of towns, Cornish drama was performed in earthen amphitheatres. 

Two of these still exist, and the book includes a photograph of a 1969 revival 

of the Ordinalia, performed in one of these amphitheatres by students of 

Bristol University. Shown dressed as black, spiky devils emerging from a 

smoke -filled hell-mouth, these amateur actors bring home something of the 



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vitality of the Cornish literature described in this book. Far from being of mi -

nority interest, Brian Murdoch’s  Cornish Literature is a book from which 

almost anyone concerned with medieval religious writing can learn much. It 

deserves a warm welcome.

Andrew Breeze

University of Navarra, Pamplona.

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