A competitive festival of Welsh origin, devoted mainly to music and literature. The word ‘eisteddfod’ (literally ‘a session’) did not come into common use until the 18th century, but the festival to which it refers originated in the medieval gatherings held from time to time to determine the professional requirements and duties of the bards. The earliest of these for which we have reliable documentary evidence was that summoned by Lord Rhys ap Gruffydd at Cardigan in 1176, but it is likely that similar convocations were held even before this date. Lord Rhys's festival is of particular interest because of certain features it had in common with the modern eisteddfod, namely the inclusion of competitions, the awarding of chairs to the victors, and the fact that it was proclaimed one year in advance throughout the British Isles. Similar meetings are recorded in other parts of Wales during the 14th and 15th centuries, the most important being that held by Lord Gruffydd ap Nicolas at Carmarthen in about 1450. Eisteddfods were also held at Caerwys, in Flintshire, in 1523 and 1567 (or 1568), the second under commission from Elizabeth I to rid the principality of numerous ‘vagraunt and idle persons naming theim selfes mynstrelles Rithmers and Barthes’.
As the text of this commission suggests, the social standing of the bards in Wales declined during the Tudor period, and there are no records at all of eisteddfods during the 17th century. (Numerous accounts mention an elaborate festival supposedly held in 1681 by Sir Richard Bassett at Bewpyr Castle, in Glamorganshire, but this, it seems, took place only in the fertile imagination of Edward Williams – Iolo Morganwg – whose literary fabrications bedevil nearly every history of the eisteddfod written during the last 150 years or so.) However, the ancient festivals were often recalled by those responsible for organizing the ‘tavern’ eisteddfods of the 18th century, in what is sometimes referred to as the ‘Almanac’ period. Our knowledge of the eisteddfods that took place during this period is based mainly upon announcements such as the following, in John Prys's almanac for 1760:
Be it known that an Eisteddfod of the Poets and Musicians of Wales will be held at the Bull in Bala Town, on Whit-Monday and Whit-Tuesday in 1760. It will be held under the same rules and in like manner as the ancient Eisteddfod of Caerwys in the days of Queen Elizabeth.
The fame and example of Caerwys were invoked again in 1797, when the Gwyneddigion Society announced its intention of promoting a festival the following year ‘in the hall that the Eisteddfod, by order of Queen Elizabeth, was held in the year 1567’. The Gwyneddigion Society, founded in 1771 by a group of Welsh men of letters in London, became associated with the eisteddfod at a famous meeting in Corwen, Merionethshire, in 1789, which inaugurated a whole series of similar gatherings in various parts of the principality, foreshadowing the National Eisteddfod as we know it today.
At the Carmarthen eisteddfod organized by the Dyfed Society in 1819 the first link was forged between the eisteddfod and the Gorsedd of Bards, perhaps the strangest and most influential of all the daydreams to which Iolo Morganwg contrived to give substance. The Gorsedd was present again at a number of other early 19th-century eisteddfods, including at least one of an important series organized at Abergavenny by the Cymreigyddion y Fenni between 1834 and 1853, but it was not permanently linked to the movement until the National Eisteddfod came into being in 1880. The antiquity which Iolo Morganwg claimed for his Gorsedd has long been discredited, but its pseudo-antique ritual continues to lend colour and a certain dignity to the proceedings of the present-day National Eisteddfod, especially at the ceremonies which accompany the chairing and crowning of the winners in the two main literary competitions.
The first attempts, dating from 1860, to stage an annual national eisteddfod ran into financial difficulties, and a National Eisteddfod Association, strongly supported by the London Society of Cymmrodorion, was set up in 1880. Since then a full-scale National Eisteddfod has taken place every year, the venue alternating between north and south Wales, with occasional excursions across the border to London, Liverpool and Birkenhead. In 1937 the Association was replaced by the National Eisteddfod Council, which was in turn reconstituted as the National Eisteddfod Court in 1952. The title ‘Royal’ was conferred by Queen Elizabeth II in November 1966.
During the 19th century, choral singing gradually assumed a dominant position in both local and national eisteddfods, and the most coveted musical awards at the National Eisteddfod today are those offered for the Chief Choral and Chief Male Voice competitions. Prizes are also offered for solo singing, penillion, instrumental playing and folk dancing. The professional concerts given each evening in the huge central pavilion amount to what is in effect an important non-competitive festival in its own right. Though the aim of the Gwyneddigion and Cymmrodorion Societies had been to foster, through the eisteddfod, Welsh traditions and culture, the Welsh language itself became increasingly neglected during the 19th century. The English aristocracy was often represented by patrons or guests at the more important eisteddfods; adjudications were given in English by some of the leading English composers and conductors; and the English language was frequently stipulated as an alternative to Welsh in the literary competitions. The Mold eisteddfod of 1823 even ended with the singing, in English, of God Save the King. This trend continued well into the 20th century, but renewed concern for the preservation of the Welsh language and Welsh customs has resulted in the introduction of an all-Welsh rule for the entire proceedings.
The National Eisteddfod has served as a model for countless local eisteddfods held each year in towns and villages throughout Wales, and in other countries where Welsh communities exist. Since 1929 the Urdd (Welsh League of Youth) has sponsored an annual eisteddfod, run on similar lines to the National, in which schools and youth organizations participate, first at local and then at national levels. Another offshoot, though with rather different aims, is the International Eisteddfod, held annually since 1947 at Llangollen; this is devoted mainly to the folksongs and folkdances of the nations whose representatives come to compete there from all parts of the globe.
See also Wales, §II, 4.
W.D. Leathart: The Origin and Progress of the Gwyneddigion Society of London (London, 1831)
Gwalchmai [John Parry]: History of Antient Eisteddvodau (Wrexham, c1863)
J.G. Evans: Report on Manuscripts in the Welsh Language, i (London, 1898–9), 291–5
Ll.D. Jones: ‘The Eisteddfod; a Historical Sketch’, Transactions of the National Eisteddfod of Wales Bangor, 1902/Cofnodion a Chyfansoddiadau Buddugol Eisteddfod Bangor, 1902 (1903), pp.xi–xix
E.J. Lloyd: The History of the Eisteddfod (diss., U. of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1913)
J. Graham: A Century of Welsh Music (London, 1923)
G.J. Williams: ‘Eisteddfod Caerfyrddin’, Y Llenor, v (1926), 94–102
R.T. Jenkins: ‘Hanes Cymdeithas yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1933–5), 139–55
T. Parry: Eisteddfod y Cymry/The Eisteddfod of Wales (Denbigh, 1943, enlarged 4/c1950 as Hanes yr Eisteddfod/The Story of the Eisteddfod)
W. Griffith: The Welsh (Harmondsworth, 1950, 3/1968)
R.T. Jenkins and H. M. Ramage: A History of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion and of the Gwyneddigion and Cymreigyddion Societies (London, 1951)
D. Miles: The Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales (Swansea, 1978)
H.T. Edwards: The Eisteddfod (Cardiff, 1990)
MALCOLM BOYD