Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages. Since the word troubadour is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is called a trobairitz; the troubadour school or tradition began in the late 11th century in Occitania, but it subsequently spread to Italy and Spain. Under the influence of the troubadours, related movements sprang up throughout Europe: the Minnesang in Germany, trovadorismo in Galicia and Portugal, that of the trouvères in northern France. Dante Alighieri in his De vulgari eloquentia defined the troubadour lyric as fictio rethorica musicaque poita: rhetorical and poetical fiction. After the "classical" period around the turn of the 13th century and a mid-century resurgence, the art of the troubadours declined in the 14th century and around the time of the Black Death it died out; the texts of troubadour songs deal with themes of chivalry and courtly love. Most were metaphysical and formulaic. Many were humorous or vulgar satires.
Works can be grouped into three styles: the trobar leu, trobar ric, trobar clus. There were many genres, the most popular being the canso, but sirventes and tensos were popular in the post-classical period; the oldest mention of the word troubadour as trobadors is found in a 12th-century Occitan text by Cercamon. The English word troubadour is an exact rendition from a French word first recorded in 1575 in an historical context to mean "langue d'oc poet at the court in the 12th and 13th century"; the French word is borrowed itself from the Occitan word trobador. It is the oblique case of the nominative trobaire “composer", related to trobar “to compose, to discuss, to invent" It may come from the hypothetical Late Latin *tropāre “to compose, to invent a poem" by regular phonetic change; this recreated form is deduced from the Latin root tropus, meaning a trope and the various meanings of the Old Occitan related words. In turn, the Latin word derives from Greek τρόπος, meaning "turn, manner". B Intervocal Latin shifted to in Occitan.
The Latin suffix -ātor, -atōris explains the Occitan suffix, according to its declension and accentuation: Gallo-Romance *TROPĀTOR > Occitan trobaire and *TROPATŌRE > Occitan trobador « troubadour ». There is an alternative theory to explain the meaning of trobar as “to compose, to discuss, to invent", it has the support of some historians, specialists of literature and musicologists to justify of the troubadours' origins in Arabic Andalusian musical practices. According to them, the Arabic word ṭaraba “song" could be the etymon of the verb trobar. Another Arabic root had been proposed before: Ḍ-R-B “strike", by extension “play a musical instrument", they entertain the possibility that the nearly homophonous Ḍ-R-B root may have contributed to the sense of the newly coined Romance verb trobar. Some proponents of this theory argue, only on cultural grounds, that both etymologies may well be correct, that there may have been a conscious poetic exploitation of the phonological coincidence between trobar and the triliteral Arabic root Ṭ-R-B when Sufi Islamic musical forms with a love theme first spread from Al-Andalus to southern France.
It has been pointed out that the concepts of "finding", "music", "love", "ardour" — the precise semantic field attached to the word troubadour — are allied in Arabic under a single root W-J-D that plays a major role in Sufic discussions of music, that the word troubadour may in part reflect this. The linguistic facts do not support a hypothetical theory: the word trover is mentioned in French as soon as the 10th century before trobar in Occitan and the word trovere > trouvère appears simultaneously in French as trobador in Occitan. In archaic and classical troubadour poetry, the word is only used in a mocking sense, having more or less the meaning of "somebody who makes things up". Cercamon writes: Ist trobador, entre ver e mentir, Afollon drutz e molhers et espos, E van dizen qu'Amors vay en biays. Peire d'Alvernha begins his famous mockery of contemporary authors cantarai d'aquest trobadors, after which he proceeds to explain why none of them is worth anything; when referring to themselves troubadours invariably use the word "chantaire".
The early study of the troubadours focused intensely on their origins. No academic consensus was achieved in the area. Today, one can distinguish at least eleven competing theories: Arabic The sixteenth century Italian historian Giammaria Barbieri was the first to suggest Arabian influences on the music of the troubadours. Scholars like J. B. Trend have asserted that the poetry of troubadours is connected to Arabic poetry written in Spain, while others have attempted to find direct evidence of this influence. In examining the works of William IX of Aquitaine, Évariste Lévi-Provençal and other scholars found three lines that they believed were in some form of Arabic, indicating a potential Andalusian origin for his works; the scholar
Talley Abbey
Talley Abbey is a ruined former monastery of the Premonstratensians in the village of Talley in Carmarthenshire, six miles north of the market town of Llandeilo. It lies in the River Cothi valley. Access to the site of the abbey is free, the site is maintained by Cadw; the Order was founded in 1120. In 1126, when it received papal approbation by Pope Honorius II, there were nine houses, they came to England about 1143, first at Newhouse in Lincoln, before the dissolution under Henry VIII there were 35 houses. Soon after their arrival in England, they founded Dryburgh Abbey in the Borders area of Scotland, followed by other communities at Whithorn Priory, Dercongal Abbey and Tongland Abbey all in the Borders area, as well as Fearn Abbey in Ross; the monastery, founded by Rhys ap Gruffydd in or about 1185, is in the care of Cadw. In common with Strata Florida Abbey, it was once claimed to be the site of the grave of the medieval Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, but this is one of the discredited theories of Iolo Morganwg.
There are two lakes near the abbey ruins, used for fish farming to support the community of monks. The abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII and the structure mined by the villagers for stone to build much of the present village and the chapel next to the abbey; the ruinous tower is surrounded by steep wooded hills, it can be reached by a circuitous lane from the main road. It is well signposted; as with many village communities, it was well populated in the Victorian period, as described by Lewis: TALLEY, otherwise TÀL-Y-LLYCHAU, a parish, in the union of LLANDILO-VAWR, lower division of the hundred of CAYO, county of CARMARTHEN, SOUTH WALES, 71⁄2 miles from Llandilo-Vawr: containing 1068 inhabitants, of whom 418 are in the Lower, 650 in the Upper, division. This place, of which the name, signifying "the head of the lakes," is derived from two large pools, near the church, of about fifty acres in extent, was of much greater importance than at present, the seat of one of the most extensive and venerable ecclesiastical establishments in this part of the principality.
The parish... comprises by admeasurement 7167 a. 2 r. 19 p. of which the arable proportion may consist of about two-thirds in relation to the pasture, nearly 200 acres are woodland, 290 a. 8 p. a common. The surface displays a continued succession of hill and dale and mountain top, is rather woody... The seat, stands in the north-west on the confines of the parish, of about half of which the owner of the house is the landed proprietor... The church, dedicated to St. Michael, having fallen into decay, was rebuilt in the Grecian style, in 1773... principally from the ruins of the ancient abbey... There are places of worship for Baptists and Calvinistic Methodists... In the parish are two day schools... There are three Sunday schools... Dissolution of the Monasteries Dinefwr Castle List of abbeys and priories in Wales Strata Florida Abbey Details and photographs Images of the abbey ruins:, www.geograph.co.uk: photos of Talley Abbey and surrounding area Map sources for Talley Abbey Brief history of the abbey
Welsh people
The Welsh are a Celtic nation and ethnic group native to, or otherwise associated with, Welsh culture, Welsh history and the Welsh language. Wales is a country, part of the United Kingdom, the majority of people living in Wales are British citizens; the language, which falls within the Insular Celtic family, has been spoken throughout Wales, with its predecessor Common Brittonic once spoken throughout most of the island of Great Britain. Prior to the 20th century, large numbers of Welsh people spoke only Welsh, with little or no fluent knowledge of English. Welsh remains the predominant language in parts of Wales in North Wales and West Wales. English is the predominant language in South Wales. Many Welsh people in predominately English-speaking areas of Wales, are fluent or semi-fluent in Welsh or, to varying degrees, capable of speaking or understanding Welsh at limited or conversational proficiency levels. Although the Welsh language and its ancestors have been spoken in what is now Wales since well before the Roman incursions into Britain, historian John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure.
The term "Welsh people" applies to people from Wales and people of Welsh ancestry perceiving themselves or being perceived as sharing a cultural heritage and shared ancestral origins. In 2016, an analysis of the geography of Welsh surnames commissioned by the Welsh Government found that 718,000 people have a family name of Welsh origin, compared with 5.3% in the rest of the United Kingdom, 4.7% in New Zealand, 4.1% in Australia, 3.8% in the United States, with an estimated 16.3 million people in the countries studied having at least partial Welsh ancestry. Over 300,000 Welsh people live in London alone; the names "Wales" and "Welsh" are traced to the Proto-Germanic word "Walhaz" meaning "foreigner", "stranger", "Roman", "Romance-speaker", or "Celtic-speaker", used by the ancient Germanic peoples to describe inhabitants of the former Roman Empire, who were romanised and spoke Latin or Celtic languages. The same etymological origin is shared by the names of various other Celtic or Latin peoples such as the Walloons and the Vlachs, as well as of the Swiss canton of Valais.
The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales. These words are descended from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning "fellow-countrymen". Thus, they carry a sense of "land of fellow-countrymen", "our country", notions of fraternity; the use of the word Cymry as a self-designation derives from the post-Roman Era relationship of the Welsh with the Brythonic-speaking peoples of northern England and southern Scotland, the peoples of "Yr Hen Ogledd". The word came into use as a self-description before the 7th century, it is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan c. 633. In Welsh literature, the word Cymry was used throughout the Middle Ages to describe the Welsh, though the older, more generic term Brythoniaid continued to be used to describe any of the Britonnic peoples and was the more common literary term until c. 1100. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh; until c. 1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry, regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland.
During their time in Britain, the ancient Romans encountered tribes in present-day Wales that they called the Ordovices, the Demetae, the Silures and the Deceangli. The people of what is now Wales were not distinguished from the rest of the peoples of southern Britain. Celtic language and culture seems to have arrived in Britain during the Iron Age, though some archaeologists argue that there is no evidence for large-scale Iron Age migrations into Great Britain; the claim has been made that Indo-European languages may have been introduced to the British Isles as early as the early Neolithic, with Goidelic and Brythonic languages developing indigenously. Others hold that the close similarity between the Goidelic and Brythonic branches, their sharing of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age terminology with their continental relatives, point to a more recent introduction of Indo-European languages, with Proto-Celtic itself unlikely to have existed before the end of the 2nd millennium BC at the earliest.
The genetic evidence in this case would show that the change to Celtic languages in Britain may have occurred as a cultural shift rather than through migration as was supposed. Some current genetic research supports the idea that people living in the British Isles are mainly descended from the indigenous European Paleolithic population, with a smaller Neolithic input. Paleolithic Europeans seem to have been a homogeneous population due to a population bottleneck on the Iberian peninsula, where a small human population is thought to have survived the glaciation, expanded into Europe during the Mesolithic; the assumed genetic imprint of Neolithic incomers is seen as a cline, with stronger Neolithic representation in the east of Europe and stronger Paleolithic representation in the west of Europe. Most in Wales today regard themselves as modern Celts, claiming a heritage back to the Iron Age tribes, which themselves, based on modern genetic analysis, would appear to have had a predominantly Paleolithic and Neolithic indigenous ancestry.
When the Roman legions departed Britain around
Will-o'-the-wisp
In folklore, a will-o'-the-wisp, will-o'-wisp or ignis fatuus is an atmospheric ghost light seen by travelers at night over bogs, swamps or marshes. The phenomenon is known in English folk belief, English folklore and much of European folklore by a variety of names, including jack-o'-lantern, friar's lantern and hobby lantern, is said to mislead travelers by resembling a flickering lamp or lantern. In literature, will-o'-the-wisp sometimes have a metaphorical meaning, e.g. describing a hope or goal that leads one on but is impossible to reach, or something one finds sinister and confounding. Will-o' - the-wisp appear in traditional legends of numerous countries and cultures. While urban legends and superstition attribute will-o'-the-wisps to ghosts, fairies, or elemental spirits, modern science explains them as natural phenomena such as bioluminescence or chemiluminescence, caused by the oxidation of phosphine and methane produced by organic decay; the term "will-o'-the-wisp" comes from "wisp", a bundle of sticks or paper sometimes used as a torch, the name "Will", thus meaning "Will of the torch".
The term jack-o'-lantern referred to a will-o'-the-wisp. In the United States, they are called "spook-lights", "ghost-lights", or "orbs" by folklorists and paranormal enthusiasts. Folk belief attributes the phenomenon to fairies or elemental spirits, explicitly in the term "hobby lanterns" found in the 19th century Denham Tracts. In her book A Dictionary of Fairies, K. M. Briggs provides an extensive list of other names for the same phenomenon, though the place where they are observed influences the naming considerably; when observed in graveyards, they are known as "ghost candles" a term from the Denham Tracts. The names will-o'-the-wisp and jack-o'-lantern are explained in etiological folk-tales, recorded in many variant forms in Ireland, England, Wales and Newfoundland. In these tales, protagonists named either Will or Jack are doomed to haunt the marshes with a light for some misdeed. One version from Shropshire is recounted by Briggs in A Dictionary of Fairies and refers to Will the Smith.
Will is a wicked blacksmith, given a second chance by Saint Peter at the gates of heaven, but leads such a bad life that he ends up being doomed to wander the earth. The Devil provides him with a single burning coal with which to warm himself, which he uses to lure foolish travellers into the marshes. An Irish version of the tale has a ne'er-do-well named Drunk Jack or Stingy Jack who, when the Devil comes to collect his soul, tricks him into turning into a coin, so he can pay for his one last drink; when the Devil obliges, Jack places him in his pocket next to a crucifix, preventing him from returning to his original form. In exchange for his freedom, the Devil grants Jack ten more years of life; when the term expires, the Devil comes to collect his due. But Jack tricks him again by making him climb a tree and carving a cross underneath, preventing him from climbing down. In exchange for removing the cross, the Devil forgives Jack's debt. However, no one as bad as Jack would be allowed into heaven, so Jack is forced upon his death to travel to hell and ask for a place there.
The Devil denies him entrance in revenge but grants him an ember from the fires of hell to light his way through the twilight world to which lost souls are forever condemned. Jack places it in a carved turnip to serve as a lantern. Another version of the tale is "Willy the Whisp", related in Irish Folktales by Henry Glassie. Séadna by Peadar Ua Laoghaire is yet another version—and the first modern novel in the Irish language. Mexico has two equivalents as well. In one they are called brujas, folklore explains will-o-the-wisp to be witches who transformed into these lights; the reason for this, varies according to the region. Another explanation refers to the lights as indicators to places where gold or hidden treasures are buried which can be found only with the help of children, in this one they are called luces del dinero or luces del tesoro; the swampy area of Massachusetts known as the Bridgewater Triangle has folklore of ghostly orbs of light, there have been modern observations of these ghost-lights in this area as well.
The fi follet of Louisiana is derived from the French incubus/succubus. The legend says that the fi follet is a soul sent back from the dead to do God's penance, but instead attacks people for vengeance. While it takes part in harmless mischievous acts, the fi follet sometimes sucked the blood of children; some legends say. Will-o-the-wisp is a part of the folklore in Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay. Boi-tatá is the Brazilian equivalent of the will-o'-the-wisp. Regionally it is called Boitatá, Baitatá, Batatá, Bitatá, Batatão, Biatatá, M'boiguaçu, Mboitatá and Mbaê-Tata; the name comes from the Old Tupi language and means "fiery serpent". Its great fiery eyes leave it blind by day, but by night, it can see everything. According to legend, Boi-tatá was a big serpent. A "boiguaçu" left its cave after the deluge and, in the dark, went through the fields preying on the animals and corpses, eating its favorite morsel, the eyes; the collected light from the eaten eyes gave "Boitatá" its fiery gaze. Not rea
Virtual International Authority File
The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of several national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. Discussion about having a common international authority started in the late 1990s. After a series of failed attempts to come up with a unique common authority file, the new idea was to link existing national authorities; this would present all the benefits of a common file without requiring a large investment of time and expense in the process. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library and the OCLC on August 6, 2003; the Bibliothèque nationale de France joined the project on October 5, 2007. The project transitioned to being a service of the OCLC on April 4, 2012; the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together. A VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary "see" and "see also" records from the original records, refers to the original authority records.
The data are available for research and data exchange and sharing. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol; the file numbers are being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAF's clustering algorithm is run every month; as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records. Authority control Faceted Application of Subject Terminology Integrated Authority File International Standard Authority Data Number International Standard Name Identifier Wikipedia's authority control template for articles Official website VIAF at OCLC
Provence
Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône River to the west to the Italian border to the east, is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the south. It corresponds with the modern administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, includes the départements of Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and parts of Alpes-Maritimes and Vaucluse; the largest city of the region is Marseille. The Romans made the region the first Roman province beyond the Alps and called it Provincia Romana, which evolved into the present name; until 1481 it was ruled by the Counts of Provence from their capital in Aix-en-Provence became a province of the Kings of France. While it has been part of France for more than five hundred years, it still retains a distinct cultural and linguistic identity in the interior of the region; the coast of Provence has some of the earliest known sites of human habitation in Europe. Primitive stone tools dating back 1 to 1.05 million years BC have been found in the Grotte du Vallonnet near Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, between Monaco and Menton.
More sophisticated tools, worked on both sides of the stone and dating to 600,000 BC, were found in the Cave of Escale at Saint Estėve-Janson, tools from 400,000 BC and some of the first fireplaces in Europe were found at Terra Amata in Nice. Tools dating to the Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic were discovered in the Observatory Cave, in the Jardin Exotique of Monaco; the Paleolithic period in Provence saw great changes in the climate. Two ice ages came and went, the sea level changed dramatically. At the beginning of the Paleolithic, the sea level in western Provence was 150 meters higher than today. By the end of the Paleolithic, it had dropped to 100 to 150 metres below the sea level today; the cave dwellings of the early inhabitants of Provence were flooded by the rising sea or left far from the sea and swept away by erosion. The changes in the sea level led to one of the most remarkable discoveries of signs of early man in Provence. In 1985, a diver named Henri Cosquer discovered the mouth of a submarine cave 37 metres below the surface of the Calanque de Morgiou near Marseille.
The entrance led to a cave above sea level. Inside, the walls of the Cosquer Cave are decorated with drawings of bison, auks and outlines of human hands, dating to between 27,000 and 19,000 BC; the end of the Paleolithic and beginning of the Neolithic period saw the sea settle at its present level, a warming of the climate and the retreat of the forests. The disappearance of the forests and the deer and other hunted game meant that the inhabitants of Provence had to survive on rabbits and wild sheep. In about 6000 BC, the Castelnovian people, living around Châteauneuf-les-Martigues, were among the first people in Europe to domesticate wild sheep, to cease moving from place to place. Once they settled in one place they were able to develop new industries. Inspired by pottery from the eastern Mediterranean, in about 6000 BC they created the first pottery made in France. Around 6000 BC, a wave of new settlers from the east, the Chasséens, arrived in Provence, they were farmers and warriors, displaced the earlier pastoral people from their lands.
They were followed about 2500 BC by another wave of people farmers, known as the Courronniens, who arrived by sea and settled along the coast of what is now the Bouches-du-Rhône. Traces of these early civilisations can be found in many parts of Provence. A Neolithic site dating to about 6,000 BC was discovered in Marseille near the Saint-Charles railway station, and a dolmen from the Bronze Age can be found near Draguignan. Between the 10th and 4th century BC, the Ligures were found in Provence from Massilia as far as modern Liguria, they were of uncertain origin. Strabo distinctly states they were not of a different race from the Gauls, they did not have their own alphabet, but their language remains in place names in Provence ending in the suffixes -asc, -osc. -inc, -ates, -auni. The ancient geographer Posidonios wrote of them: "Their country is dry; the soil is so rocky. The men compensate for the lack of wheat by hunting... They climb the mountains like goats." They were warlike. Traces of the Ligures remain today in the dolmens and other megaliths found in eastern Provence, in the primitive stone shelters called'Bories' found in the Luberon and Comtat, in the rock carvings in the Valley of Marvels near Mont Bégo in the Alpes-Maritimes, at an altitude of 2,000 meters.
Between the 8th and 5th centuries BC, tribes of Celtic peoples coming from Central Europe began moving into Provence. They had weapons made of iron, which allowed them to defeat the local tribes, who were still armed with bronze weapons. One tribe, called the Segobriga, settled near modern-day Marseille; the Caturiges and Cavares settled to the west of the Durance river. Celts and Ligurians spread throughout the area and the Celto-Ligures shared the territory of Provence, each tribe in its own alpine valley or settlement along a river, each with its own king and dynasty, they built hilltop forts and settlements given the Latin name oppida. Today the traces 165 oppida are found in the Var, as many as 285 in the Alp
Ceredigion
Ceredigion is a county in Wales, known prior to 1974 as Cardiganshire. During the second half of the first millennium Ceredigion was a minor kingdom, it has been administered as a county since 1282. Welsh is spoken by more than half the population. Ceredigion is considered to be a centre of Welsh culture; the county is rural with over 50 miles of coastline and a mountainous hinterland. The numerous sandy beaches, together with the long-distance Ceredigion Coast Path provide excellent views of Cardigan Bay. In the 18th and early 19th century, Ceredigion had more industry; the economy became dependent on dairy farming and the rearing of livestock for the English market. During the 20th century, livestock farming became less profitable, the county's population declined as people moved to the more prosperous parts of Wales or emigrated. However, there has been a population increase caused by elderly people moving to the county for retirement, various government initiatives have encouraged tourism and other alternative sources of income.
Ceredigion's population at the 2011 UK census was 75,900. Its largest town, Aberystwyth, is one of the other being Aberaeron. Aberystwyth houses Bronglais Hospital and the National Library of Wales. Lampeter is home to part of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Ceredigion has been inhabited since prehistoric times. A total of 170 hill forts and enclosures have been identified across the county and there are many standing stones dating back to the Bronze Age. Around the time of the Roman invasion of Britain, the area was between the realms of the Demetae and Ordovices; the Sarn Helen road ran through the territory, with forts at Bremia and Loventium protecting gold mines near present-day Llelio. Following the Roman withdrawal, Irish raids and invasions were repulsed by the forces under a northerner named Cunedda; the 9th-century History of the Britons attributed to Nennius records that Cunedda's son Ceredig settled the area around the Teifi in the 5th century. The territory remained a minor kingdom under his dynasty until its extinction upon the drowning of Gwgon ap Meurig c.
871, after which it was administered by Rhodri Mawr of Gwynedd before passing to his son Cadell, whose son Hywel Dda inherited its neighbouring kingdom Dyfed and established the realm of Deheubarth. Records are obscure. Many pilgrims passed through Cardiganshire on their way to St Davids; some came by sea and made use of the churches at Mwnt and Penbryn, while others came by land seeking hospitality at such places as Strata Florida Abbey. Both the abbey and Llanbadarn Fawr were important monastic sites of education. Place names including ysbyty denote their association with pilgrims. In 1282, Edward I of England divided the area into counties. One of thirteen traditional counties in Wales, Cardiganshire was a vice-county. Cardiganshire was split into the five hundreds of Genau'r-Glyn, Moyddyn and Troedyraur. Pen-y-wenallt was home to seventeenth Theophilus Evans. In the 18th century there was an evangelical revival of Christianity, non-conformism became established in the county as charismatic preachers like Daniel Rowland of Llangeitho attracted large congregations.
Every community built its own chapel or meeting house, Cardiganshire became one of the centres of Methodism in Wales with the Aeron Valley being at the centre of the revival. Cardigan was one of the major ports of southern Wales until its harbour silted in the mid-19th century; the Industrial Revolution passed by, not much affecting the area. In the uplands, wheeled vehicles were rare in the 18th century, horses and sleds were still being used for transport. On the coast, trade in herrings and corn took place across the Irish Sea. In the 19th century, many of the rural poor emigrated to the New World from Cardigan, between five and six thousand leaving the town between 1790 and 1860. Aberystwyth became the main centre for the export of lead and Aberaeron and Newquay did brisk coastal trade; the building of the railway from Shrewsbury in the 1860s encouraged visitors and hotels sprang up in the town to accommodate them. This area of the county of Dyfed became a district of Wales under the name Ceredigion in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, since 1996, has formed the county of Ceredigion.
According to the 2001 census, Ceredigion has the fourth highest proportion of Welsh speakers in the population at 61%. Ceredigion is a coastal county, bordered by Cardigan Bay to the west, Gwynedd to the north, Powys to the east, Carmarthenshire to the south and Pembrokeshire to the south-west, its area is 1,795 square kilometres. In 2010 the population was 76,938; the main settlements are Aberaeron, Aberystwyth, Cardigan, Llanarth, Llanddewi Brefi, Llanilar, Llanon, New Quay, Tregaron. The largest of these are Cardigan; the Cambrian Mountains cover much of the east of the county. In the south and west, the surface is less elevated; the highest point is Pumlumon at 2,467 feet, other Marilyns include Llan Ddu Fawr. On the slopes
