Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Maurice (fl.1210)
MAURICE (fl. 1210), epigrammatist, generally styled Morganensis and Morganius, was a native of Glamorgan. Giraldus Cambrensis, who describes him as a resident in Glamorgan and calls him ‘vir bonus et copiose litteratus,’ says he was the brother of Clement, abbot of Neath, and narrates a vision attributed to him (‘De Principis Instructione,’ dist. iii. cap. 28, in Giraldi Camb. Opera, Rolls ed. viii. 310). According to Bale (1st ed. fol. 98a), he wrote a volume of epigrams (cf. Giraldus loc. cit.) and several works ‘in patrio sermone.’
Maurice is probably to be identified with Meuryg (fl. 1250), treasurer of Llandaff, who is said (in Iolo MSS. pp. 222, 638), on the authority of Iago ab Dewi [q. v.], to have been the author of ‘Y Cwtta Cyfarwydd,’ and of a ‘History of the whole Isle of Britain,’ a ‘Book of Proverbs,’ ‘Rules of Welsh Poetry,’ ‘Welsh Theology,’ and a Welsh translation of the Gospel of St. John (with a commentary). Iago ab Dewi declares that the last work was at Abermarlais, Carmarthenshire, a century before his time. No trace of these works has, it is believed, been found. The existing copy of ‘Y Cwtta Cyfarwydd’ (Hengwrt MS. 34; cf. the extracts in Iolo MSS. p. 336, and Y Cymmrodor, ix. 325) was written about 1445, and according to the Glamorgan tradition of the seventeenth century, by Gwilym Tew, the poet (Arch. Cambr. for 1869, p. 218); but it may of course have been largely copied from an older manuscript. Meuryg is improbably said (in Williams, Eminent Welshmen, s.v., but on what authority is unknown) to have died in 1290; the date is far too late.
[Works cited as above; Owen's Pembrokeshire, pt. i. p. 232, pt. ii. note(s).]