Briton and Scythian: Tudor representations of Irish origins

Abstract

It is a commonplace of recent British historiography that in the early modern period a sophisticated and sceptical concept of writing history began to develop which involved, among other things, historians becoming significantly less credulous in their use of sources. Often the crucial break with medieval ‘chronicles’ is seen to have been brought about by the triumph of the exiled Italian humanist, Polydore Vergil, over the fervently nationalistic band of British historians and antiquarians led by John Leland, establishing that the Arthurian legends were no more than an origin myth. Jack Scarisbrick, for example, has argued that ‘early Tudor England did not produce a sudden renewal of Arthurianism … As the sixteenth century wore on, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s patriotic fantasies received increasingly short shrift from reputable historians.’ However, this comforting narrative of increasingly thorough and careful scholarship ignores the fact that there was a form of history writing in which the reliance upon origin myths such as the Arthurian legends and the ‘matter of Britain’ actually increased dramatically after the Reformation, namely English histories of Ireland.