Historia Brittonum

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The Historia Brittonum or Historia Britonum (Eng. "History of the British") is a historical work written around 829/830 in Wales , which reports on the mythical first settlement of Britain by Trojans and the subsequent early history of the island as well as legends that played there. Along with the works of Gildas and Beda, it is one of the few early sources on British history for the period after the Romans withdrew from Britain around 410 AD and, despite its frequent unreliability, provides important information on the island's culture at that time. Nennius is generally considered to be the author of the work, but this attribution is very uncertain. Furthermore, the Historia Brittonum is the earliest surviving source that reports on the alleged deeds of the legendary Arthur and has therefore attracted the interest of Arthurian researchers.

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The text itself is a collection of excerpts, chronological calculations, notes and summaries based on previous records, many of which no longer exist, with the result that the reliability of this text in parts and in whole has been questioned. The archaeologist Leslie Alcock noted that in one edition of the manuscript the author described his work as an accumulation of all that he could find and suggested, if one were willing to use this metaphor further, that this text be “a stone hill, uneven and badly matched [...] cruel as an example of the art of a historian. But he has the righteousness of his faults. We can see the individual stones of the hill, and in some cases make out the parental rock from which it came, determine its age and weathering. "

Another view is offered by David N. Dumville , who went to great lengths to determine the evolution of the text and the relationships between its editions. Dumville believes that between its origins and the emergence of the surviving manuscripts, this text was reviewed, amended, and rewritten several times and in many ways. The author's intention was to produce a coherent chronicle in the style of the Irish historians of his time. And since the manuscript was the only history of Wales besides Beda's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum , it was copied and modified to meet that claim.

Traditionally, the Historia Brittonum is considered the work of Nennius , a 9th century Welsh monk. Investigations of the various editions show, however, that the majority of the 40 Latin manuscripts that have survived (incorrectly) name Gildas as the author, while others (for example the British Library's manuscript Harley 3859 from around 1100 ) do not name an author. Dumville's research has shown that the attribution of the work to Nennius dates back to the 11th century and only appears in one branch of the copies, i.e. comes from a scribe who sought the roots of the work in the spiritual traditions of his time.

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The Historia Brittonum has also attracted attention because it plays a role in the legends and myths about King Arthur . Here, however, Arthur is not presented as a king, but as a successful dux bellorum ("military leader"). Some later authors used the Historia Brittonum as a source for several stories which they repeated and expanded:

  • The first subject is the story of Vortigern who, in return for the hand of Hengist's daughter, allowed the Anglo-Saxons to settle on the British Isles
  • The second topic begins with Vortigern's intention to build a fortress in Snowdonia , but the construction fails. While trying to solve the problem, he encounters Ambrosius Aurelianus (after whom the castle Dinas Emrys , Welsh for "fortress of Ambrose", is named), whom Geoffrey of Monmouth equates with Merlin in his retelling .
  • In a further section, twelve battles are listed that King Arthur is said to have fought, some of which seem to have nothing to do with him.

The sections of these narratives are part of the Harleian manuscript but not all existing editions. The so-called "Region Ercing" was the old Welsh Kingdom of "Ergyng", which was later united with Glamorgan .

Others

There are also chapters that report events around Germanus of Auxerre and that purport to be excerpts from (now lost) biographies about this saint. They contain a unique collection of traditions related to St. Patrick , as well as a section describing events in the north of England in the 6th and 7th centuries, starting with a paragraph on the beginnings of Welsh literature .

"62 ... tunc Talhaern Tataguen in poemate claruit et Neirin, et Taliessin, et Bluchbard, et Cian, qui vocatur Guenith Guaut, simul uno tempore in poemate Britannico claruerunt ..."

"At that time, Talhaiarn Cataguen was famous for poetry, and Aneirin , Taliesin , Bluchbard and Cian, who is called Guenith Guaut, were all famous in British poetry."

There are a number of other works that are often associated with the Historia Brittonum , on the one hand because some of them appear for the first time in the text of the Harleian manuscript, on the other hand they are often mentioned in studies of the Historia Brittonum :

  1. The Annales Cambriae , a chronicle consisting of an unspecified sequence of the years between 445 and 977 , with events being added to some of them. Two major ones are the Battle of Mons Badonicus (around 516 ) and the Battle of Camlann ( 537 ), in which Arthur and Mordred fell. One version of this was used as a beginning for later Welsh chronicles.
  2. The Welsh genealogy . As one of many Welsh genealogies, this document contains the lineage of Hywel Dda , King of Gwynedd and some of his contemporaries. The Eliseg pillar is often discussed in connection with these genealogies.
  3. The Anglo-Saxon Genealogy, a collection of the genealogies of the five early English kingdoms of Bernicia, Deira , Kent, East Anglia, and Mercia .

See also

expenditure

literature

  • David N. Dumville: Nennius and the "Historia Brittonum". In: Studia Celtica. Vol. 10/11, 1975/76, ISSN  0081-6353 , pp. 78-95
  • David N. Dumville: The historical value of the "Historia Brittonum". In: Arthurian Literature. Vol. 6, 1986, ISSN  0261-9946 , pp. 1-26.
  • David N. Dumville: Histories and pseudo-histories of the insular middle ages (= Collected Studies Series. 316). Variorum, Aldershot 1990, ISBN 0-86078-264-6 .
  • J. Keller: Nennius. In: Laura Cooner Lambdin, Robert Thomas Lambdin (Eds.): Arthurian Writers. A biographical encyclopedia. Greenwood Press, Westport CT et al. 2008, ISBN 978-0-313-34682-8 , pp. 16-22.
  • Christopher J. McDonough:  Nennius. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 21, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2002, ISBN 3-11-017272-0 , pp. 69-71.
  • David E. Thornton: Nennius. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 40: Murrell - Nooth. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2004, ISBN 0-19-861390-3 , p. 423 f.

Web links

Wikisource: Nennius  - Sources and full texts (Latin)