[Welsh pen, chief; cerdd, art]
A chief poet of early Wales, requiring nine years of training in such subjects as grammar, metrics, and genealogy. Only a pencerdd could teach a bard. As late as 1547, the poet Simwnt Fychan (c.1530–1606) received a written licence to become a pencerdd, a document which survives. Roughly comparable to the early Irish ollam.
