Historia Brittonum Research Articles

The origin legends of early medieval Britain and Ireland by Lindy Brady

Reviewed by: The origin legends of early medieval Britain and Ireland by Lindy Brady Donato Sitaro (bio) Lindy Brady, The origin legends of early medieval Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. ISBN 9781009225618 (hardback), 9781009225670 (ebook). x + 272 pages. $99.00. Origin myths and legends are prominent features of early medieval writings and mentalities. They became a popular genre, an ever-growing corpus of traditions and pseudo-histories, and eventually a late-antique/early medieval 'scholarly preoccupation', as underlined by Brady & Wadden in the foreword to their edited volume Origin legends in early medieval Western Europe (2022: 4). Despite not being the first recorded origines gentium, the Insular origin myths stand out as precious hermeneutic objects for scholars of early medieval culture, as part of a genre 'that has shaped national identity and collective history from the early medieval period to the present day', as we read in the synopsis. The variety of their approach and their richness in contents and traditions make the British, Irish, Pictish, and Anglo-Saxon origin narratives a perfect subject for a dedicated volume. Discussing these apparently divergent narratives in comparative terms was not an easy task, but Brady bravely attempts it in a relatively compact and easily readable book. Divided into five main chapters, the book is prefaced by a 27-page introductory section, eloquently titled 'The anachronism of nationalism', where modern scholarly debate around the contested concepts of ethnicity, post-Roman identities, and early medieval writers' agendas is summarized and discussed. Brady's approach consciously differs from the two major historiographical standpoints on ethnic identities, as it neither gives excessive weight to the influence of Classical ethnography (as Goffart did), [End Page 156] nor does it look too far forward by extending the effects of enduring ethnic identities from the Migration Period deep into the Middle Ages (as in certain readings by Wolfram and Pohl). Brady decides to look 'sideways' (21) to explore the textual and conceptual interrelations between the origin legends of the British Isles without attempting to construct from the texts a straightforward idea of the development of ethnic identities. She looks at the development of origin stories within and among the texts surveyed, more than outside and beyond them. For this reason, the interpretative keywords for Brady's analysis of the sources are 'discourse' and 'development' (3). Her assessment that the concepts enshrined in early medieval origin narratives were communicating and were part of a shared intellectual milieu is repeated throughout the introduction and beyond (1, 4, 16, 21, 63, 227, 229). This assumption finds support in the first chapter through a survey of the textual history of the Insular works containing origin stories: Gildas's De excidio, Bede's Historia ecclesiastica, the ninth-century Historia Brittonum, and the later Irish Lebor Bretnach and Lebor gabála Érenn. While the first two works are referred to in cursory fashion as embryonic nuclei of traditions that would develop later, the latter three pseudo-histories are discussed in depth throughout the book. The Historia Brittonum is given a justified pre-eminence as 'a valuable microcosm of the intellectual connections which form the focus of the study' (16). After the presentation of the sources, the proper narratological analysis begins: chapters 2, 3, and 4 focus on exile, kin-slaying, and intermarriage and incest, respectively. Having established the interrelated nature of the Insular writings in chapter 1, Brady is able to conduct a comparative survey of shared concepts and their development within three concentric levels of investigation corresponding to the three-part structure of these chapters: (i) first she explores the wider conceptual resonance of the motif in literature, usually through comparison with biblical and classical archetypes; (ii) then she outlines the recurrence of historical episodes involving the motif (cases of exiles or kin-slayers in the early medieval Insular context); and finally (iii) she considers the meaning of the motif within the Insular origin narratives. The second part of these themed chapters, the attempt to show 'resonances of these topics in [historical] early insular society' (138), could have been the trickiest. However, Brady addresses the eventual collision between literary motifs and the 'hard facts' drawn from legal and historical records through...

The Coeling: Narrative and Identity in North Britain and Wales AD 580–950

An examination of the Cambro-Latin sources associated with the ‘Coeling’ lineages in the Harleian genealogies (HG VIII–XII and XIX) underscores the need to take a revised view of the geopolitics of the Hadrianic Frontier region across the sixth and seventh centuries. The Northumbrian conquests of the early seventh century may have been a more gradual, diplomatic process than was imagined by later sources, including Bede and Historia Brittonum. Similarly, the hegemony of Rheged, the dynasty of Urien and the ‘Anglian Wars’ of the late sixth-century may have received undue emphasis by these sources. Finally, the Coeling dynasty itself emerges as a retrospective fabrication, whose component groupings appear to have been genealogically and even culturally unrelated in the first instance. We find a hint of this diversity in the onomastic character of each of the lineages, as well as the conflicting dynastic and geopolitical emphases implicit in this early material. The distinct and heterogeneous character of these Cambro-Latin sources are best accounted for in terms of genuine connections to the North, which appear to have converged and syncretised in the surviving text compilations from early medieval Wales. The same tendencies are apparent in the vernacular hengerdd material and saga englynion concerned with Urien and his contemporaries which, we conclude, were probably mediated through the same lines of communication.

Rebecca Thomas, History and Identity in Early Medieval Wales. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2022, xii, 202 pp.

Abstract How the Welsh regarded their past is an illuminating subject, as with any nation; and it is here given fresh and stimulating treatment for the pre-Norman period. This study is particularly welcome because the few historical sources (Gildas, Historia Brittonum, Annales Cambriae, Asser, Armes Prydein) for early Wales are ringed by linguistic and chronological chevaux de frise. They are a wonderful way to make a historian look foolish. Fortunately, Rebecca Thomas removes some of these obstacles by her citation of recent research.

Stephen J. Joyce, The Legacy of Gildas: Constructions of Authority in the Early Medieval West. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2022, x, 190 pp.

Abstract The British-Latin writer Gildas (493‐570) is an enduring presence in Celtic tradition. So this monograph is welcome. Its author, thanks to his command of Latin, places Gildas firmly within the context of classical, patristic, and early medieval learning, identifying him as one who contributed much to understanding of “political and ecclesiastical authority in the early medieval West” (11). The volume, consisting of six chapters, starts off with the relation of Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae to other sources for the early Middle Ages (St. Patrick’s Confession, Bede, the ninth-century Historia Brittonum), all of them problematic, especially for fifth- and sixth-century dates. (Yet the difficulties are less than imagined.) In chapter two we encounter images of Gildas, who (53) devised “a providential history of Britain” to underpin his own “authority on Church law.” Chapter three has as subject the monastic features of De Excidio, with useful statements on Gildas as a cleric “directed by God to edify a fallen kingship and priesthood” (77). The remaining three chapters provide explorations of Gildas’s influence on St. Columbanus (d. 615), Hiberno-Latin canon law, and Bede (d. 737). There follow a conclusion and some ancillary matter.

An Unknown Mappamundi in an English Almanac of c.1420 (British Library, Royal MS 17.A.XVI, Folio 2v)

The British Library’s vast manuscript collection includes a well-illustrated almanac created in northern England and dated to c.1420. Among its miscellaneous contents are three T-O maps, one of which is the subject of this article. The manuscript as a whole has been discussed in a number of works, but the map in question has received no attention. It is a list map, giving the names of the provinces of the three continents of the world as they were distributed among the three sons of Noah after the Flood. The names of the provinces follow not the Isidorean model, but Nennius’s Historia Brittonum (ninth century). Moreover, the position of the continents on the map in Royal MS 17.A.XVI is highly unusual: Europe occupies the largest segment of the map, traditionally dedicated to Asia. Here we consider the map in relation to the manuscript, its textual source and its possible purpose.

Dux Bellorum

Abstract This paper will explore the accuracy and intent of the term dux bellorum, leader of war, as used in the Historia Brittonum with regards to Arthur. A discussion of Post-Roman archaeology, supplemented with contemporary historical documents, will establish that no Roman commands, such as the dux Britanniarum or comes Britanniarum, survived into the “Arthurian” period of the late fifth or early sixth centuries. A broader search of historical records will indicate that a linguistic cognate of dux bellorum was twice conferred on Celtic kings when leading a coalition of tribes in times of mutual threat according to the historical record; one was known to the author of the Historia Brittonum. A review of Historia Brittonum scholarship will show it came to its present form in c. 829 Gwynedd, ruled at the time by Merfyn Frych. The contemporary historical context was that the British kingdoms had been pressured for decades by the English and were specifically invaded by Wessex at around this time. This will be followed by a discussion of several biases in the history including a focus on Gwynedd’s dynasties and Merfyn in particular and British success against the English when united and failure when they were divided. Arthur was the best example of the latter agenda and because of this the most likely example of what Merfyn hoped to create. A summary of Merfyn’s political career in this context can be used to explain Arthur’s entire description in the work.

Genealogia Brittonum: revisiting the textual tradition of the Historia Brittonum

The Historia Brittonum remains a textual puzzle because of its variant recensions; printed editions generally present conflated versions of the text. The Harleian Recension is usually thought to represent the version closest to the original. The present approach to its textual history uses cladistics to recognise characteristics shared between recensions. These determine those of ancestral groups and indicate the points at which different recensions split off, demonstrating that the work grew by accretion. The Harleian Recension is shown to be a late development. All existing printed editions of the work are defective: every reading must be based on judging the position of all witnesses on the cladogram. Where the readings of the Chartres and Edmundine Recensions agree against the others, they take precedence. The earliest recoverable form of the text is the recension of 829×30, here termed 'Merminian'.

The Gwynedd Dynasty from Padarn to Maelgwn

ABSTRACT The Historia Brittonum and accompanying genealogies lay out a lineage for the Gwynedd dynasty which has been considered dubious, mainly because of Cunedda’s unlikely number of sons, and the fact that those sons are eponyms for the provinces of later medieval Gwynedd. These discrepancies have led to the conclusion that at least two dynasties, Roman and native, had been combined to form the extant lineage. Recent work on the dating of Marwnad Cunedda has suggested additional attention to the subject might prove fruitful, especially by examining the figures individually and in discrete groups in conjunction with local folklore, recent historiography and available primary sources.

The Chronicle of Pseudo-Origen: Simulating a World Chronicle in Seventh-Century Ireland

Fourteen excerpts from a text modelled on a world chronicle survive as quotations in the late seventh- or early eighth-century Collectio Hibernensis. This chronicle-like text associated with the name Origen - arguably an Irish sage with a patristic pseudonym - might also have been a source for the Historia Brittonum. Is this the earliest ‘chronicle’ from Ireland or a figment of seventhcentury imaginative Insular scholarship?

The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature. Edited by Geraint Evans and Helen Fulton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xxix+825.

<i>The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature</i>. Edited by Geraint Evans and Helen Fulton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xxix+825.

Historia Brittonum and 'Saxon Annals': A case for convergence in the historiography of post-roman Britain

Analysis here of chapter 66 of 'Historia Brittonum' suggests that its chronology diverges less from that of Bede and 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' than previously believed. The author's own testimony demonstrates that he misunderstood the significance of Roman consuls. His belief that consuls, and not emperors, ruled Rome after 388 led him to delete twentyfour years from the reign of Valentinian III. This in turn shifted every date in chapter 66 back some two decades. But when this single error is corrected, 'Historia Brittonum's' chronology becomes much more consistent with that of other works of early Insular historiography. Most significant, this apparent convergence mandates a comprehensive re-examination of all the early written sources for post-Roman British history.

Overview Of Story- Le Morte D' Arthur

The legend of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table is immemorial. The heroic knights and their king’s tales contribute western society a great literature that is still well- known today. King Arthur along with the theme of chivalry greatly impacted not only western civilization, but all of society throughout the centuries. King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table have been around for thousands of years but are only legends. The first reference to King Arthur was in the Historia Brittonum written by Nennius a Welsh monk around 830A.D. The fascinating legends however did not come until 1133 A.D in the work Historia Regum Britaniae written by a Welsh cleric, Geoffrey of Monmouth. His work was actually meant to be a historical document, but over time many other writers added on fictional tales. The Round Table was added in 1155 A.D by a French poet Maistre Wace. Both the English and French cycles of Arthurian Legend are controlled by three inter-related themes:

King Arthur 'Dux Bellorum': Welsh Penteulu 'Chief of the Royal Host'

Although the North British hero Arthur (d. 537) is described in medieval romance as a king, he is not so termed in the earliest documents relating to him. The ninth-century 'Historia Brittonum' states merely that he fought 'cum regibus Brittonum' ('alongside kings of the Britons'), but was himself merely 'dux bellorum'. What this means has been long disputed. It has been taken to represent a senior rank in the Roman army, with Arthur as a commander of cavalry forces fighting up and down Britain. Closer analysis shows this as a fantasy. Comparison with medieval Welsh texts indicates that 'dux bellorum' instead corresponds to the Welsh 'penteulu' ('captain of the bodyguard, chief of the royal host'). As commander of the king's bodyguard, the 'penteulu' was the most important of the 24 officers of the court. He had a position of supreme trust, invariably being the ruler's own son or nephew or another man of rank. Setting out his income and status (which included the right to praise by the official poet of the bodyguard), medieval Welsh legal and other sources are thus the most reliable sources of information on what the Arthur of history was and was not.

Overview Of Story- Le Morte D' Arthur

The legend of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table is immemorial. The heroic knights and their king’s tales contribute western society a great literature that is still well- known today. King Arthur along with the theme of chivalry greatly impacted not only western civilization, but all of society throughout the centuries. King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table have been around for thousands of years but are only legends. The first reference to King Arthur was in the Historia Brittonum written by Nennius a Welsh monk around 830A.D. The fascinating legends however did not come until 1133 A.D in the work Historia Regum Britaniae written by a Welsh cleric, Geoffrey of Monmouth. His work was actually meant to be a historical document, but over time many other writers added on fictional tales. The Round Table was added in 1155 A.D by a French poet Maistre Wace. Both the English and French cycles of Arthurian Legend are controlled by three inter-related themes:

The Sources and Contributors of the Northern Memorandum and its Heirs

From the moment the first scholars tried to understand the events of Britain during the fifth and early sixth centuries, two British historical documents have been central to their efforts, the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae, both of which contained entries from a non-extant but generally accepted common source — the Northern Memorandum. Logically, learning as much as possible about the exact nature of that source would be of great use in better understanding post-Roman Britain. To begin rectifying the situation this article will review what is known about the background of the Northern Memorandum, Historia Brittonum, and Annales Cambriae. It will then explore the Historia Brittonum’s chapters and revisions and do the same with the Annales Cambriae entries up until the last northern British note. In each case the individual source(s), motivations, and date-range will be discussed. This exercise will be followed by a short discussion of the findings and one hopes a better understanding of both the Northern Memorandum and its derivatives.

Clavis litterarum Hibernensium. Medieval Irish books and texts (c. 400-c. 1600) by Donnchadh � Corr�in (review)

North American journal of Celtic studies Vol. 3, No. 1 (May 2019) Copyright © 2019 by The Ohio State University REVIEW ESSAY PATRICK WADDEN Donnchadh Ó Corráin. 2017. Clavis litterarum Hibernensium. Medieval Irish books and texts (c. 400—c. 1600). ISBN 978–2–54857–9. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. clxiv + 1932 pages. €875. In compiling Clavis litterarum Hibernensium (henceforth CLH), Donnchadh Ó Corráin sought to provide an overview of the literary output of Irish authors and scribes at home and abroad during the medieval period so that its extent and quality might be assessed (vii).1 His estimation that this undertaking was ‘difficult’ hardly does justice the vast ambition of the project (vii). Even a brief perusal of this work demonstrates the quantity and quality of the medieval Irish literary achievement in both Latin and the vernacular and across a variety of genres. That he has largely achieved his goal is testament to the breadth and depth of Ó Corráin’s knowledge, built over the course of a career spanning nearly half a century. The result of his labor of love is a landmark accomplishment that speaks in important ways about the current status of the discipline and will be valued by future generations of students and scholars alike. The three hefty volumes in which it has been published have something for everybody, including critics. After a preface whose brevity masks its substance, and a lengthy bibliography, the catalogue lists more than 1365 individual items divided into 32 sections, usually according to genre, but occasionally according to the author or location with which they are associated. Other groupings are a little less obvious or more specific, one such being Section 9 ‘Irish scholars and Greek in the West’. These sections are listed in roughly chronological—though of necessity overlapping and imprecise—order, beginning with the earliest surviving examples of Irish literacy in the form of epigraphy and progressing 1. Roman numerals refer to page numbers in the preface. Arabic numerals in bold font refer to items listed in CLH. Arabic numerals in plain font refer to page numbers. Patrick Wadden [patrickwadden@​ bac​ .edu] is Associate Professor of History at Belmont Abbey College, North Carolina. His interests focus on the political and cultural links that existed between the different part of the Gaelic world and on the place of the Gaels in the broader Insular and European worlds of the Middle Ages. 86 North American journal of Celtic Studies through a catalogue of medieval texts and manuscripts dating from the fifth to the sixteenth century. The majority of the individual items listed are texts. Most entries include an incipit, an overview of the manuscript tradition, a list of editions and facsimiles, and a bibliography of pertinent secondary literature arranged chronologically. Other items given their own entries include inscriptions and manuscripts, whose entries differ somewhat in content. Those on manuscripts include convenient lists of contents for cross-reference, for example (816–822). Additionally, there are general bibliographies for certain specific topics, including ‘Irish biblical commentaries’ (102), ‘Irish apocrypha and eschatologica’ (184), ‘Luxeuil, Bobbio and Columbanus’ (338), ‘Collectio canonum Hibernensis’ (615) and ‘Medieval vernacular narrative prose’ (1511). Some items are introduced with brief, though often very valuable, notes. It is a pity that these are somewhat sporadic and do not accompany every item. According to the preface, the rationale for this is that some works ‘especially in Old and Middle Irish, . . . may be less familiar to readers’ (xvii). That, of course, depends on the reader. While it is true that every text listed in Section 27 ‘Medieval vernacular narrative prose’, has its own note (955–1127), and one goal of the work is clearly to make this material more accessible to the non-specialist, a more even dispersal of these notes would have been of great benefit, as would some more consistency in the notes’ contents. For while some of those on vernacular narratives date the texts, others do not. One might question certain decisions regarding categorizations and organization. It is a little peculiar, for example, that Lebor Bretnach (1251), the Middle Irish translation of Historia Brittonum, appears in Section 28 ‘Historicist and historical vernacular texts. Verse, prose and prosimetrum’, while the roughly contemporary translation...

The Linguistic Past in Twelfth-Century Britain by Sara Harris

Reviewed by: The Linguistic Past in Twelfth-Century Britain by Sara Harris Scott Gwara sara harris, The Linguistic Past in Twelfth-Century Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. 292. isbn: 978–1–107–18005–5. $105. In this fine book, Sara Harris has explored the Dark Continent of twelfth-century English historical, literary, and legal writings. Focusing on the incipient awareness of a layered linguistic past—Brittonic giving way to Latin, giving way to Old English (including Norse), giving way to Anglo-Norman—Harris identifies the theoretical means of conveying pastness in etymologies, archaisms, discursive commentary, and outright invention. Engagement with such a linguistic past, she suggests, embraces multi-ethnic ancestral identity, cultural awareness, political authority, and models of conquest. In her introduction, Harris grounds native perceptions of language history in scriptural terms, describing how languages fall away from a pre-lapsarian transparency, disperse worldwide at the Tower of Babel, and then suffer ‘corruption.’ She explains how Latin ultimately provides the grammatical structures for analyzing vernacular tongues. This promising start triggers an avalanche of percipient deductions. Chapter One covers efforts in English monasteries to validate Anglo-Saxon privileges through documents incorporating Old English, either in the original or in translation. Norman encroachments on pre-Conquest monastic possessions explain why vernaculars were thought to convey authenticity. Ramsey Abbey apparently translated authentic grants. Bury St. Edmunds, by contrast, concocted forgeries, as did St. Albans. Its charters [End Page 80] (one uses the term advisedly) underpinned the lost Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, which survives in the Liber additamentorum of Matthew Paris. The Gesta was allegedly translated from a Romano-British book found in a wall at the abbey. The manuscript disintegrated after being translated. Æðelwold of Winchester also found an ancient source in a wall at Peterborough, presumably a version of the Relatio Hedde abbatis, which verifies the founding of Peterborough in 654–55. Chapter Two concerns the prestige of Old English texts in the twelfth century. Henry of Huntingdon is shown to have had a solid, but imperfect, knowledge of Old English. He usually translated sense-for-sense but could also produce more granular renderings. Reflecting on Henry’s appreciation for linguistic mutability, Harris illustrates his strategies and failings. His translation of the ‘Battle of Brunanburh’ correctly rendered ‘heardes hondplegan’ as ‘duro manus ludo’ (p. 73), while ‘hamora lafan’ was misconstrued as ‘domesticae reliquiae’ (p. 75), confusing OE hamor (‘hammer’) as OE ham (‘home’). Regardless of the inaccuracies, Henry’s effort acknowledges ‘the authority of ancient documentation’ (p. 78). ‘Brunanburh,’ in fact, highlights the ‘literal meaning and the literary experience of reading’ (p. 75), in which pastness can be re-imagined and re-deployed. Harris finds a similar theoretical statement made by the Eadwine Psalter, a complex, multi-lingual, illustrated manuscript. Its historical ‘accretions’ include artwork drawn from the Utrecht Psalter, a Romanum exemplar of demonstrable antiquity, and Old English glosses from multiple sources, many unknown. Harris interprets this complexity, and especially the English vernacular, as evidence of Canterbury Psalm scholarship established in a co-linguistic context. Writings by Geoffrey of Monmouth are the subject of Chapter Three. In Harris’ view, Geoffrey’s ‘liber vestustissimus,’ the alleged source of Gesta regum Brittaniae, validated Brittonic languages for historical study. The antiquity, content, style, and etymological interest of Welsh rivaled that of English and Anglo-Norman. Geoffrey’s gambit of validating Brittonic sources recalls how Historia Brittonum assimilated Brittonic legend and folktale genres into Latin chronicle history. Endorsing the etymological strategies used for Latin or English place names, Geoffrey legitimized Brittonic writings for an audience of skeptical Normans. Harris concludes, ‘[Geoffrey] endowed the Britons with a much fuller history’ and ‘located the significance of that history in their language’ (p. 97). The success of Geoffrey’s Prophetia Merlini, also advertised as a translation, likewise proved the status of vernacular sources. Commentaries that emerged around the prophecies invited interpretation via a Latin exegetical tradition. Gerald of Wales, finally, employed language to ‘[reconstruct] ethnic history’ (p. 117). In one notable episode from the Itinerarium Kambriae, the Welsh phrase ‘halgerin ydorum’ (‘pass the salt’) evoked the origin of Welsh in the Greek tongue spoken by Trojans. Chapter Four centers on legal language. Just as ‘archaic...

St Samson of Dol and the Earliest History of Brittany, Cornwall and Wales, ed. Lynette Olson

This collection of essays arises from a symposium on the First Life of St Samson of Dol held at the University of Sydney in 2013. As the editor, Lynette Olson, explains in her introductory chapter, the symposium was prompted by two developments: the publication of Pierre Flobert’s critical edition and translation of the text in 1997, and the appearance of an important article on the subject by Richard Sowerby in the journal Francia in 2011. The First Life of St Samson, written at the saint’s foundation of Dol in the north of Brittany, is the most substantial written source for Brittany, Cornwall and Wales surviving from the period between Gildas’s sixth-century De excidio Britonum and ninth-century works such as the Historia Brittonum and Wrdisten’s Life of St Winwoloe. However, fundamental questions surrounding the work’s purpose, date and relationship with its oral and written sources remain hotly disputed. The present volume consists of eight chapters, including the editor’s introduction. The rationale behind the ordering of the chapters is not entirely clear. Essential discussion of the background of the saint and his contemporaries in the sixth century may be found in Chapters Five (Ian Wood) and Seven (Jonathan Wooding). Wood investigates the only contemporary historical source for St Samson, the record of the Council of Paris (which Wood would date specifically to 561), and he places Samson’s continental career in context by comparing him with Columbanus and the latter’s various British followers. Wooding skilfully employs the exiguous records for early British monasticism to show that the First Life of St Samson’s treatment of monastic practice can be understood within the context of early debates about asceticism, deference towards authority, and pastoral responsibility. The posthumous cult of St Samson in Wales and Cornwall comes into view in Chapters Two (Richard Sowerby) and Eight (Karen Jankulak). Sowerby, in what is probably the most original study in the volume, draws attention to the Life’s considerable interest in the activities of Samson’s near relations. It is suggested that Samson’s relatives may have encouraged an early cult of Samson in order to defend their own continuing positions of authority in monasteries associated with Samson, and that this same impulse may have resulted in the production of the First Life’s primary written source (called the Vita primigenia throughout the volume), which Sowerby maintains was written in Cornwall. Jankulak addresses the question of Samson’s cult in Wales using place-names and dedications, but finds the evidence wanting. Nonetheless, by examining the implications of this, she makes important observations about the processes that initiated and prolonged the commemoration of saints in the early Middle Ages. Chapters Three (Joseph-Claude Poulin), Four (Caroline Brett) and Six (Constant Mews) address the textual questions surrounding the Life more directly. Poulin reviews the debate about the text’s date and its relationship with the Vita primigenia, and eventually decides that the text belongs to the late eighth century on account of its apparent use of two texts that cannot be shown to have circulated widely before the middle of the eighth century. Brett revisits the observation that many of the episodes in the First Life of St Samson seem to be modelled on Venantius Fortunatus’ Life of St Paternus of Avranches, and she points out that this complicates Sowerby’s view about the existence of an earlier Cornish Life of St Samson. She then proceeds to trace the intertwined fortunes of the cults of SS Samson and Paternus as far as the twelfth century. Finally, Mews compares the Life’s stance on liturgical practice with the views espoused in the tract Ratio de cursus, which sought to justify existing Irish and Gallican liturgical practices in the face of reforming pressure from Rome. The differences in standpoint detected by Mews are explained in terms of chronology, the Life reflecting more closely the views of the late seventh century and the Ratio those of the mid-eighth.

Constantine, Helena, Maximus: on the appropriation of Roman history in medieval Wales, c.800–1250

ABSTRACTThis article explores the ways in which the three fourth-century figures, Constantine the Great (d. 337), St Helena (d. c.330) and Magnus Maximus (d. 388), were represented in texts produced in, or connected with, medieval Wales. The texts concerned may be described as genealogical, hagiographical or literary, and were written in either Latin or Welsh between about 800 and 1250. They include, amongst others, the ninth-century Historia Brittonum, Geoffrey of Monmouth's De gestis Britonum, and the vernacular prose tale Breudwyt Maxen Wledic. It is argued that the appropriation of the fourth-century figures occurred in a more limited number of contexts than has previously been supposed. Moreover, the evidence indicates that writers responsible for composing or redacting texts about these figures were far more likely to turn to earlier written texts for information on their subjects than to any contemporary oral traditions.

Remembering the ‘Old North’ in Ninth- and Tenth-Century Wales

This article takes a fresh look at how the memory of the ‘Old North’ was used and reshaped in early medieval Welsh sources. Although their value as historical evidence for the northern kingdoms is uncertain, these sources give us precious insight into how early Welsh writers perceived themselves as a people. Focusing on Historia Brittonum and Armes Prydein Vawr this study demonstrates the multiplicity of memories of the ‘Old North’ in early medieval Wales, with writers freely adapting the past to their present ends.