Nennius, Historia Brittonum [History of the Britons]

Hugh Magennis (Queen's University Belfast)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.2: Welsh Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Kirsti Bohata (Swansea University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow), Nicholas Seager (University of Keele), Rita Singer (Aberystwyth University)

Dates

First circulation or publication c. 828

Places

Wales (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Historical representation

Resources

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The

Historia Brittonum

is an important, though problematical, source for the history of Britain from Roman times to the 680s, containing a brief outline of events in this period, as well as assorted supplementary material, including an account of the Ages of the World and various genealogies of Anglo-Saxon royal houses. It has traditionally been attributed to a ninth-century Welsh scholar called Nennius, who was in fact responsible for one redaction of an existing work (no longer extant in its original form) produced in 828-9 by an anonymous Welsh author using a wide range of historical sources, some of which appear to derive from oral tradition. The

Historia

emanates from north Wales but shows detailed knowledge of Anglo-Saxon sources, including genealogies, chronicles and perhaps even…

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408 words

Citation: Magennis, Hugh. "Historia Brittonum". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 September 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10514, accessed 18 April 2024.]

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