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Abstract
Albanus, an eponymous ancestor for the kingdom of Alba, provides an example of the extent to which the creation of an ethnic identity was accompanied by new ideas about origins, which replaced previous accounts. Through an analysis of the Historia Brittonum’s textual tradition and Welsh knowledge of early Roman history and medieval ethnic groups, this article establishes that Albanus was added to the Historia Brittonum in the late ninth or early tenth century as an ancestral figure for the new kingdom of Alba in northern Britain. This was potentially a result of shared political situations in Gwynedd, Alba (formerly Pictland) and Strathclyde in relation to Scandinavian power at this time, which encouraged contacts and the spread of Alba-based ideology to Gwynedd. The later development of this idea and its significance in Alba itself, Geoffrey of Monmouth's account and English claims to supremacy over Scotland are also traced.
Notes
1 James E. Fraser, From Caledonia to Pictland (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 1–6; and idem, ‘From Ancient Scythia to The Problem of the Picts: Thoughts on the Quest for Pictish Origins’, in Pictish Progress. New Studies on Northern Britain in the Early Middle Ages, eds. Stephen T. Driscoll and others. The Northern World 50 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 15–43, for discussion of Scotland in a broader historiographical context. For important examples, see David N. Dumville, ‘Sub-Roman Britain. History and Legend’, History 62 (1977): 173–92; idem, ‘The Historical Value of the Historia Brittonum’, Arthurian Literature 6 (1986): 1–26; Donnchadh Ó Corráin, ‘Irish Origin Legends and Genealogy: Recurrent Aetiologies’, in History and Heroic Tale. A Symposium, eds. Tore Nyberg and others (Odense: Odense University Press, 1985), 51–96; idem, ‘Historical Need and Literary Narrative’, in Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Celtic Studies, eds. D. Ellis Evans, John G. Griffith and E.M. Jope (Oxford: D. Ellis Evans, 1986), 141–58.
2 Susan Reynolds, ‘Medieval Origines gentium and the Community of the Realm’, History 68 (1983): 375–90. Also eadem, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900–1300. 2nd edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 250–302.
3 Reynolds, ‘Medieval Origines gentium’, 378–80, 382–5, 389–90.
4 One such important study, placing Scotland in a broader context informed by Reynolds’ work, is Dauvit Broun, Scottish Independence and the Idea of Britain from the Picts to Alexander III (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), especially 1–97.
5 See Alex Woolf, From Pictland to Alba, 789–1070 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), for the historical context.
6 Seán Mac Airt and Gearóid Mac Niocaill, trans. and eds., The Annals of Ulster (To A.D. 1131), Part I, Text and Translation (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1983) [hereafter ‘AU’], 858.2, 862.1, 876.1, 878.2, 900.6. Ead, king of Cruithentúath, also appears in the Chronicum Scottorum: William M. Hennessy, trans. and ed., Chronicum Scotorum. A Chronicle of Irish Affairs from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1135; With a Supplement Containing the Events from 1141 to 1150. Rolls series 46 (London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1866), [hereafter CS], s.a. 904 (recte 904 or 905). Kings of the Picts had before 850 also sometimes been called rex Fortrenn, ‘king of Fortriu’, after the kingdom which had created the Pictish over-kingship.
7 For the changes in terminology, see David N. Dumville, ‘Ireland and Britain in Táin Bó Fraích’, Études Celtiques 32 (1996): 175–87; Broun, Scottish Independence, 72–3, 84–6; T.M. Charles-Edwards, ‘Picts and Scots. A Review of Alex Woolf, From Pictland to Alba 789–1070’, Innes Review 59 (2008): 168–88 (170–1); Nicholas Evans, ‘Circin and Mag Gerginn: Pictish Territories in Irish and Scottish Sources’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 66 (Winter 2013): 1–36 (32–6).
8 For an emphasis on continuity from the Picts, see Broun, Scottish Independence, 71–97; for a more traditional view that Cináed mac Alpín and his successors were Gaels from the Cenél nGabráin royal dynasty of Dál Riata and therefore represented more of a change, see Charles-Edwards, ‘Picts and Scots’, 171–4.
9 Broun, Scottish Independence, 79–84, who stresses continuity.
10 ‘Chronicle of the Kings of Alba’, in Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland, ed. Marjorie O. Anderson. 2nd edn. (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1980), 249–53 (251); AU 918.4, Albanaig first appears in AU 967.1.
11 Broun, Scottish Independence, 77–80; Nicholas Evans, ‘Ideology, Literacy, and Matriliny: Approaches to Medieval Texts on the Pictish Past’, in Pictish Progress, eds. Driscoll and others, 45–65 (49); Evans, ‘Circin and Mag Gerginn’, 8–9, 21–3.
12 Woolf, From Pictland to Alba, 176–80; Broun, Scottish Independence, 80–4.
13 Editions of individual copies and recensions of HB have been published; the most useful are David N. Dumville, ed., The Historia Brittonum. 3. The ‘Vatican’ Recension (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1985), and Edmond Faral ed., La légende arthurienne. Études et documents. 3 vols. (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1929), 3: 1–62 (for editions of the Chartres manuscript and London, British Library, Harley MS 3859). The most accessible translation, based on Faral's edition of the Harley manuscript plus additions from other copies, is John Morris, trans. and ed., Nennius. British History and the Welsh Annals. History from the Sources 8 (London: Phillimore, 1980), 9–43, 50–84. Unless specified, the text and numbering of sections in editions of Harley MS 3859 [hereafter Harl.] in the works of Faral and Morris, regarded as the most reliable in general, will be followed, although it does not necessarily always retain the original text. Other HB recensions and manuscripts were edited in David N. Dumville, ‘The Textual History of the Welsh-Latin Historia Brittonum’. 3 vols. (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1976).
14 David N. Dumville, ‘Historia Brittonum: an Insular History from the Carolingian Age’, in Historiographie im frühen Mittelalter, eds. Anton Scharer and Georg Scheibelreiter (Vienna: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1994), 406–34 (406).
15 See Dumville, ‘Historia Brittonum: an Insular History’, for a discussion of its contents and perspective.
16 David N. Dumville, ‘“Nennius” and the Historia Brittonum’, Studia Celtica 10/11 (1975/6): 78–95, reprinted in David N. Dumville, Histories and Pseudo-Histories of the Insular Middle Ages (Aldershot: Variorum, 1990), Chapter X. See P.J.C. Field, ‘Nennius and his History’, Studia Celtica 30 (1996): 159–65, for an inconclusive counter-argument for Nennius’ authorship.
17 However, the different name-forms may reflect different sources for HB; see Dumville, ‘Historia Brittonum: an Insular History’, 409.
18 Matthew Innes, ‘Teutons or Trojans? The Carolingians and the Germanic Past’, in The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, eds. Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 227–49 (248–9); Ian Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms 450–751 (London: Longman, 1994), 33–5. For the view that there was a connection between the Frankish and British claims to Trojan origins, see Dumville, ‘Historia Brittonum: an Insular History’, 408.
19 HB §17, Morris ed. and trans., Nennius, 22, 63 (with an addition from Dumville, ‘Textual History of the Welsh-Latin Historia Brittonum’, 1: 181, in square brackets): ‘Aliud experimentum inveni de isto Bruto ex veteribus libris veterum nostrorum. Tres filii Noe diviserunt orbem in tres partes post diluvium. Sem in Asia, Cham in Africa, Jafeth in Europe dilataverunt terminos suos. Primus homo venit ad Europam de genere Jafeth Alanus cum tribus filiis suis, quorum nomina sunt Hessitio, Armeno, Negue. Hessitio autem habuit filios quattuor: hi sunt Francus, Romanus, Britto, Albanus. Armenon autem habuit quinque filios: Gothus, Valagothus, Gebidus, Burgundus, [Longobardus]. Negue autem habuit tres filios: Wandalus, Saxo, Boguarus. Ab Hisitione autem ortae sunt quattuor gentes: Franci, Latini, Albani et Britti. Ab Armenone autem quinque: Gothi, Walagothi, Gebidi, Burgundi, Langobardi. A Neguio vero quattuor: Boguarii, Vandali, Saxones et Turingi. Istae autem gentes subdivisae sunt per totam Europam.’
20 It appears in the Harleian (Harl. §18) and Vatican (§7) recensions, but not in the Chartres, Gildasian and Nennian recensions or Lebor Bretnach. Dumville (‘“Nennius” and the Historia Brittonum’, 82) has suggested that in the Nennian recension its key point was incorporated elsewhere, but in the other recensions the fact that it contradicted other contents may have led to its exclusion (cf. Dumville, ‘Historia Brittonum: an Insular History’, 410).
21 Kenneth Jackson, ‘The Duan Albanach’, Scottish Historical Review 36 (1957): 125–37, translation at 129, edition at 128: ‘A éolcha Alban uile, | a shluagh féuta foltbhuidhe, | cía céudghabháil, an éol duibh, | ro ghabasdair Albanbruigh? || Albanus ro ghabh lia shlógh, | mac sein oirdherc Isiocón, | bráthair is Bríutus gan brath | ó ráitear Alba eathrach. || Ro ionnarb a bhráthair bras | Bríotus tar Muir nIcht n-amhnas; | ro gabh Bríotus Albain áin | go rinn fiadhnach Fotudáin.’ See idem, ‘The Poem A Eolcha Alban Uile’, Celtica 3 (1956): 149–67, for an analysis of the poem's textual history.
22 Jackson, ‘The Poem A Eolcha’, 165–6; idem, ‘Duan Albanach’, 134.
23 It seems to me more logical (especially as Briutus was the ancestor of the Britons) and natural to understand the passage to intend that Briutus took Britain as far north as North Berwick Law, rather than the view of Jackson, ‘The Poem A Eolcha’, 166; idem, ‘Duan Albanach’, 134, that it meant that Briutus conquered northern Britain as far south as this location, just managing to get a foothold from the north onto the southern side of the Forth.
24 Lebor Bretnach §5: A.G. Van Hamel, ed., Lebor Bretnach. The Irish Version of the Historia Brittonum ascribed to Nennius (Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1932), 6–7: ‘Iar ndilinn tra rorandad in doman i tri itir maccu Nae .i. Eoraip & Affraic & Assia. Sem i n-Assia, Cam i n-Affraic, Iathfeth i n-Eoraip. Ced-fear thanic in n-Eoraip ar tus do sil Iafed .i. Alanius cona tri macaib .i. Hissicon & Gothus no Armen & Negua. Ceitri meic la Hisicon .i. Frangcus & Romanus & Britus & Albanus. Armenon imorro coic meic lais .i. Gothus, Uelegothus, Cebitus, Burganndus, Longbardus. Neagua dano tri meic lais .i. Uandalus & Saxo & Boarus. Saxus mac Neaguai is uada itait Saxain. Britus imorro is uada Breatain, mac side Hisioin meic Alani mac Feithiur … ’. The translation is my own.
25 T.O. Clancy, ‘Scotland, the “Nennian” recension of the Historia Brittonum, and the Lebor Bretnach’, in Kings, Clerics and Chronicles in Scotland, 500–1297. Essays in Honour of Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson on the Occasion of Her Ninetieth Birthday, ed. Simon Taylor (Dublin: Four Courts, 2000), 87–107 (92–102, 105–6). See also Mark Zumbuhl, ‘Contextualising the Duan Albanach’, in Cànan & Cultar / Language & Culture. Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig 3, eds. Wilson McLeod, James E. Fraser and Anja Gunderloch (Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press, 2006), 11–24.
26 HB was suggested as the origin for some of the Lebor Gabála text in John Price Carey, ‘Lebar Gabála: Recension I’ (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1983), 329–30. Edward J. Cowan, ‘Myth and Identity in Early Medieval Scotland’, Scottish Historical Review 63 (1984): 111–35 (120–1), suggested that the Lebor Gabála a (also known as the ‘first’) recension and Duan Albanach accounts are related.
27 John Carey, trans., ‘The Book of Invasions (First Recension). Lebor Gabála Érenn’, in The Celtic Heroic Age. Literary Sources for Ancient Celtic Europe & Early Ireland & Wales, ed. John T. Koch in collaboration with John Carey (Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies Publications, 2000), 227, §11; Carey, ‘Lebar Gabála: Recension I’, 80 (lines 75–86): ‘Emoth, is uad fine thuascirt in domain. Ibath, dá degmac leis .i. Bodb & Baath. Bodb diarbo mac Doi. Elinus mac Doi, trí meic leis .i. Armen, Negua, Isacon. Armenon, cóic meic leis: Gotus, Cibidus, Uiligotus, Burgandus & Longbardus. Negua, trí meic leis: Saxus, Boarus, Uandalus. Isicon, immorro, in tres mac Eline, .iiii., mic leis: Romanus, Francus, Britus, Albanus. Is é int Albanus ro gab Albuin ar tús, & is uad ainmnigther Alba coro innarbad la (Britus a bráthair) tar muir nIcht conid uad Alba Letha hodie’. One of the main sources of the a recension of Lebor Gabála was compiled by the Irish scholar Gilla Cóemáin (fl. 1072), and the recension was by 1106 part of Leabhar na hUidhre, although it was subsequently lost from this manuscript: see R. Mark Scowcroft, ‘Mediaeval Recensions of the Lebor Gabála’, in Lebor Gabála Érenn: Textual History and Pseudohistory, ed. John Carey. Irish Texts Society, Subsidiary Series 20 (Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 2009), 1–20 (6, 8); John Carey, ‘The LU Copy of Lebor Gabála’, in Lebor Gabála Érenn, ed. Carey, 21–32. The relevant section is not found in recension b (the second recension) or the Míniugud recension (see Carey, ‘Lebar Gabála: Recension I’, 30–1, 35, 38). ‘Albania’ and ‘Albanian’ also appear in recension a among the list of languages from which Gaelic was fashioned, but the other languages listed do not display a striking correspondence with the Table of Nations in HB or Carey, ‘Lebar Gabála: Recension I’, 83, 84, for discussion see 334–9; Carey, trans., ‘The Book of Invasions (First Recension)’, in Celtic Heroic Age, ed. Koch, 229.
28 J.T. Koch, ‘Litavis’, in Celtic Culture: a Historical Encyclopedia, ed. J.T. Koch. 5 vols. (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2006), 3: 1159, although references often refer less clearly to Brittany or Latium than Koch implies.
29 The Etymologies, IX.ii.63, IX.ii.65, XIV.iii.33 (for Albania), XIX.xxiii.7: Stephen A. Barney and others, trans., The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 195, 201, 386. For evidence of its use in Wales, see Michael Lapidge, ‘The Study of Latin Texts in Late Anglo-Saxon England: 1. The Evidence of Latin Glosses’, in Latin and the Vernacular Languages in Early Medieval Britain, ed. Nicholas Brooks (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1982), 99–140 (113, n. 72). See below, for Alba Longa. Contemporary medieval sources relating events in the Balkans refer to Albanoi from 1043 onwards, albeit initially twinned with Romaioi and Latinoi. At the same time people called Arbanites, inhabiting Arbanon, a territory in modern Albania, start to be mentioned. Based on classical models, Albanoi either meant the Albani of ancient Latium or an Illyrian tribe in the Balkans region found in the ‘Geography’ of Ptolemy (written 140 × 150), but whether there was continuity of identity and culture for this tribe from the time of Ptolemy to the eleventh century is controversial. See Stefanaq Pollo and others, The History of Albania From Its Origins To the Present Day (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), 28, 37–40, for references and one view; Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: a Short History (London: Macmillan, 1998), 28–40, for analysis, arguing that linguistic continuity from Illyrian to Albanian is very likely. The lack of earlier medieval references makes it unlikely that Lebor Gabála Érenn was referring to the Balkan people.
30 Dauvit Broun, The Irish Identity of the Kingdom of the Scots in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999), 168–72. See also Clancy, ‘Scotland, the “Nennian” Recension’, 99–100, 101–2.
31 For the close connections displayed in these texts, see Broun, Scottish Independence, 59–60; idem, Irish Identity, 172.
32 Geoffrey of Monmouth, Geoffrey of Monmouth. The History of the Kings of Britain. An Edition and Translation of the De gestis Britonum (Historia regum Brittaniae), ed. Michael D. Reeve, trans. Neil Wright (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), vii (for the date range), 30 (II, 23 and 24, part).
33 Geoffrey's DGB and William of Malmesbury's ‘History’, finished in 1126 or 1127, were both known very quickly in royal circles in Scotland (Broun, Scottish Independence, 48), making it plausible that ideas could also travel in the opposite direction. Geoffrey may also have included references to David I, king of the Scots (1124–53): Cowan, ‘Myth and Identity’, 133–4.
34 DGB, lvii–lix; Robert W. Hanning, The Vision of History in Early Britain from Gildas to Geoffrey of Monmouth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), 137–40, 156–64.
35 R.R. Davies, The First English Empire. Power and Identities in the British Isles 1093–1343. The Ford Lectures Delivered in the University of Oxford in Hilary Term 1998 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 35–6, 43–6. See Broun, Scottish Independence, 37–70, for the Scottish dimension.
36 Davies, First English Empire, 36–44; R. William Leckie, Jr., The Passage of Dominion: Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Periodization of Insular History in the Twelfth Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 20, for the importance of the DGB in the thirteenth century.
37 See Davies, First English Empire, 41–2; R. James Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland. Historical Narrative in Medieval Scotland (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 62–5 and 70–5 for Baldred Bisset's counter-attack on this on behalf of the Scots. See E.L.G. Stones, ed. and trans., Anglo-Scottish Relations 1174–1328. Some Selected Documents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 192–219, for Edward I's letter, 220–35 for a report (c.1301) to Edward I from the papal curia explaining the Scots’ arguments there against the letter including Edward's view on the sons of Brutus.
38 For later, often not hostile, Scottish responses to the ‘Matter of Britain’, see Steve Boardman, ‘Late Medieval Scotland and the Matter of Britain’, in Scottish History. The Power of the Past, eds. Edward J. Cowan and Richard J. Finlay (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002), 47–72.
39 Dumville, ‘Historia Brittonum: an Insular History’, 409, n. 24.
40 The issue clearly requires further research including the full text of HB. Dumville, ‘Historia Brittonum: an Insular History’, discusses the recensions in terms of their depictions of history, but he has also published more detailed studies. For the Vatican recension's relationship to other recensions, see Dumville,‘Vatican’ Recension, 3–8, 24–54, 56–7 (concordances of section numeration). For the Nennian and Sawley recensions, see idem, ‘The Corpus Christi “Nennius”’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 25 (1972–4): 369–80 (374 on the Gildasian recension), reprinted in idem, Histories and Pseudo-Histories, Chapter IX; idem, ‘“Nennius” and the Historia Brittonum’, 80–2 (on the Gildasian recension), and idem, ‘Celtic-Latin texts in northern England, c.1150–c.1250’, Celtica 12 (1977): 19–49 (19, for the Gildasian recension), reprinted in idem, Histories and Pseudo-Histories, Chapter XI; for the Harleian recension, see idem, ‘The Liber Floridus of Lambert of Saint-Omer and the Historia Brittonum’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 26 (1974–6): 103–22, reprinted in idem, Histories and Pseudo-Histories, Chapter XII; for Lebor Bretnach, see idem, ‘The Textual History of “Lebor Bretnach”: a Preliminary Study’, Éigse 16 (1975/6): 255–73. Fuller discussion of the Harleian, Sawley, Gildasian and Chartres recensions can be found in idem, ‘Welsh-Latin Historia Brittonum’.
41 The resulting text in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 139 [hereafter CCCC 139] was then copied in what Dumville (‘The Corpus Christi “Nennius”’; idem, ‘“Nennius” and the Historia Brittonum’, especially 79–80) has named the ‘Sawley’ recension.
42 It would be a mistake to read too much into the fact that no note on the Albanus alternative reading was added to the text of CCCC 139. Comparing this part of the Gildasian text of CCCC 139 (Dumville, ‘Textual History of the Welsh-Latin Historia Brittonum’, 2: 635–6; 3: 778–9) with the Harleian recension, Lebor Bretnach, and forms added elsewhere from the Nennian recension, there are not many other cases where the versions differed substantially which could have prompted a correction or marginal addition. The exception perhaps is Ysition, since the somewhat different a Britone filio Isioconis is found elsewhere in an addition, probably from the Nennian recension, to Harl. §7. While other parts of the text were changed to adhere to the Nennian recension exemplar, the names were not altered in this way, although it should be noted that at some point additions to the CCCC 139 text changed Almannus to Alemannus, Alamanni to Alemanni, and Walagothos to Walagothus to standardise and correct forms. I thank Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, for allowing me to consult this manuscript, for work supported by the British Academy Neil Ker Memorial Fund.
43 Walter Goffart, ‘The Supposedly “Frankish” Table of Nations: an Edition and Study’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 17 (1983): 98–130, reprinted in idem, Rome's Fall and After (London: Hambledon Press, 1989), 133–65 (references are to the latter version). Goffart's view that the text was produced in the Byzantine Empire rather than Ostrogothic Italy is unconvincing, involving an unwarranted argument that the Walagothi and Saxones were later additions. Given that Walagothi was ultimately a Germanic term, Ostrogothic Italy, rather than Byzantine territory, would fit the evidence better.
44 Goffart, ‘Supposedly “Frankish” Table of Nations’, 145–7 (MS F): ‘Alaneus dictus est homo qui genuit tres filios, id est, Hisisione, Ermenone et Nigueo. De Hisisione nate sunt generationes quattuor, id est: Romanos, Francos, Alamannos et Brittones. De Ermenone nate sunt generationes V: Gothi, Walagothi, Cybedi, Burgundio et Langobardos. De Nigueo nate sunt generationes quattuor, id est: Wandalos, Saxones, Baioarius et Toringus.’ The translation is my own.
45 Dumville ‘“Nennius” and the Historia Brittonum’, 86–7.
46 Given that the Harleian recension was produced in Wales, and the context in Harleian MS 3859 also displays a strong interest in the same dynasty, it is unlikely that this note would have been omitted from that recension, although this possibility cannot be discounted. If it was omitted from the Harleian recension then the common source can be dated × 988, although that recension's common ancestor was earlier than this.
47 Dumville, ‘“Nennius” and the Historia Brittonum’, 87.
48 Dumville, ‘Some Aspects of the Chronology of the Historia Brittonum’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 25 (1972–4): 439–45 (reprinted in idem, Histories and Pseudo-Histories, Chapter IV) (440, n. 3) states that the second section of §16, starting with initium compoti, was a later attempt to gloss the first part, ‘in, or more probably after, AD 857’.
49 According to Dumville (‘“Nennius” and the Historia Brittonum’, 81, n. 7), the Nennian version provides ‘no special additional guidance’ regarding this addition.
50 Using the editions cited in n. 13 above, and Dumville, ‘Textual History of the Welsh-Latin Historia Brittonum’, 1: 181, 183, for the Harleian recension; 2: 635–6 and 3: 778–9, for the Gildasian base-text of the Sawley recension.
51 While the order was stable in versions of HB, this is not the case for the ‘Table of Nations’, whose witnesses vary considerably in their order. The original HB has two changes of order compared to MS F of the ‘Table of Nations’ (Francus and Romanus, and the list of peoples in HB derived from the sons of Inguo son of Alanus, which differs from the list of eponyms). The first recension of Lebor Gabála Érenn has four differences in its order compared to Lebor Bretnach (the order of the sons of Alanus, of Gepidus and Ualagothus, of Romanus and Francus, and of the sons of Inguo).
52 Harl. §17, Faral, ed., Légende arthurienne, 3: 15. Lebor Bretnach did not include the lists of population groups derived from the eponyms, although it did state that the Britons were derived from Britto (van Hamel, ed., Lebor Bretnach, §5, 7).
53 An alternative is that Alemannus was initially included, but was expunged from the text after Albanus was added. Other, generally more complex, variant scenarios, leading to the same result, are possible.
54 See, for instance, Livy, The Early History of Rome. Books I–V of The History of Rome from its Foundation, trans. Audrey de Sélincourt, with an introduction by R.M. Ogilvie (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971), Book I.1–30.
55 Livy, Early History of Rome, Book I.23–30.
56 Dumville, ‘“Nennius” and the Historia Brittonum’, 81, n.7.
57 Morris, ed. and trans., Nennius, 20, except ‘Silvii appellati sunt’ is translated ‘were called Silvii’ rather than ‘are called Silvii’, 61: ‘Aeneas autem regnavit tribus annis apud Latinos. Ascanius regnavit annis XXXVII. Post quem Silvius, Aeneae filius, regnavit annis XII, Postumus annis XXXIX. A quo Albanorum reges Silvii appellati sunt. Cuius frater erat Britto … Postumus, frater eius, apud Latinos regnabat.’
58 For instance, Virgil, Aeneid, 1.8, 1.325, 8.756: Robert Fagles, trans., Virgil. The Aeneid (London: Penguin Books), 47, 56, 263; Isidore, Etymologies, IX.iii.15, XIII.xxii.27, XV.i.53–5: Barney and others, trans., Etymologies, 200, 282, 304; Isidore, Chronica Maiora, §99: Theodor Mommsen, ed., Chronica Minora Saec. IV. V. VI. VII, vol. 1. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 11 (Berlin: apud Weidmannos, 1894), 439; Bede, Chronica Maiora: Theodor Mommsen, ed., Chronica Minora Saec. IV. V. VI. VII, vol. 3. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 13 (Berlin: apud Weidmannos, 1898), 261, 263, 265 (§§72, 75, 91, 110). John Knight Fotheringham, ed., Eusebii Pamphili Chronici canones (London: Humphrey Milford Library of the University of Oxford, 1923), 101, 103, 105, 121, 135, 144, 146, 164.
59 Vat. §4: Dumville, ed., ‘Vatican’ Recension, 64–5, also 48; Chartres §11, Faral, ed., Légende arthurienne, 3: 6, 8.
60 See above, for Albani and Albania in the Etymologies.
61 Anderson, Kings, 243–5.
62 See Cowan, ‘Myth and Identity’, 121–9, and Zumbuhl, ‘Contextualising the Duan Albanach’, 17–18, for the view that the Scythian connection played a part in or may reflect the Pictish to Gaelic transition. For the supposed Scythian origins of the Picts, see Fraser, ‘From Ancient’, 30–3; Evans, ‘Ideology, Literacy’, 54. For the Scythian origins of the Gaels, see John Carey, The Irish National Origin-Legend: Synthetic Pseudohistory. Quiggin Pamphlets on the Sources of Mediaeval Gaelic History 1 (Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, 1994), 6–14.
63 For the peoples in the Table of Nations, see Goffart, ‘Supposed “Frankish” Table of Nations’, 152, 155–6. Walagothi, the only known instance of this word, probably meant ‘Roman Goths’ containing the same element as the Walloons, Welsh and walnuts. The Gepids and Vandals did not survive the sixth century, although they were mentioned in the early seventh century by Isidore (Etymologies, IX.ii.92 and IX.ii.95; Barney and others, trans., Etymologies, 197). The Bavarians and Bavaria appear in sources from the sixth century onwards: Timothy Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages c.800–1056 (London: Longman: 1991), 54–8; Benjamin Arnold, Medieval Germany, 500–1300. A Political Interpretation (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997), 13–20. The form Boguari in HB is presumably the result of a change reflecting British sound change of w- > gw-, so it is not a scribal error: John T. Koch, ‘Celts, Britons, and Gaels ‒ Names, Peoples, and Identities’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, new series, 9 (2003): 41–56 (52–4). The other peoples, the Burgundians, Thuringians, Saxons and Lombards, all outlasted the early Middle Ages as peoples or regions: Arnold, Medieval Germany, 1–2, 5, 7, 10, 40–8; Jean Dunbabin, France in the Making 843–1180 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 63–6, 179–84; Chris Wickham, Early Medieval Italy. Central Power and Local Society 400–1000 (London: Macmillan, 1981), 64–79; apart from the Thuringians, they were all clearly mentioned by Isidore: Etymologies, IX.ii.99, IX.iv.28 (Burgundians); IX.ii.95 (Lombards); IX.ii.100 (Saxons); Barney and others, trans., Etymologies, 197, 204–5.
64 Arnold, Medieval Germany, 25–31; Reuter, Germany, 58–60.
65 Arnold, Medieval Germany, 25; Reuter, Germany, 115, 132, 336.
66 Arnold, Medieval Germany, 6–7, for the usage inside the Holy Roman Empire.
67 Le Grand Collins Robert, (Brussels: Le Robert/Harper Collins, 2008), http://rc2009.bvdep.com, s.v. Allemagne, and allemand. Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru. A Dictionary of the Welsh Language. 4 vols. (Cardiff: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1950–2002), s.v. Almaenaidd, Almanaidd; Almaeneg, Almaenaeg; Almaenes; Almaeniad, Almaniad; Almaeniaith, Almaniaith; Almaenwr, Almanwr; Ellmyn; Ellmyneg. Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), http://www.oed.com (Accessed 15 April 2014), s.v. Almanie and Almain. Welsh yr Almaen or its Latin counterpart does not occur before 1100 in any surviving text. It is found meaning ‘part of Germany’ in two separate Welsh translations of the first version of Honorius of Autun's popular Imago mundi, written c.1110: Henry Lewis and P. Diverres, eds., Delw y Byd (Imago mundi) (Cardiff: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1928), §24, at pp. 39, 94, less certainly in the note on §23, p. 94; for the textual tradition, see Natalia I. Petrovskaia, ‘Delw y Byd: la traduction médiévale en gallois d'une encyclopédie latine et la création d'un traité géographique’, Études Celtiques 39 (2013): 257–77.
68 Arnold, Medieval Germany, 7; Reuter, Germany, 115, 135 (for the quote), 336.
69 Helen McKee, ‘Scribes and Glosses from Dark Age Wales: the Cambridge Juvencus Manuscript’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 39 (Summer 2000): 1–22 (14–15); Lapidge, ‘Study of Latin Texts’, 113 n. 72.
70 Lapidge, ‘Study of Latin Texts’, 125.
71 McKee, ‘Scribes and Glosses’; N.K. Chadwick, ‘Early Culture and Learning in North Wales’, in Studies in the Early British Church, eds. N.K. Chadwick and others (London: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 92–118.
72 Michael Swanton, trans., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (London: J.M. Dent, 1996), 76–85. On Asser and his Life of Alfred, see T.M. Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons 350–1064 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 452–65, 488.
73 Einhard, Vita Caroli magni, ed. O. Holder-Egger. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum. 6th edn. (Hanover: Hahn, 1911), 14, 18, 22.
74 Goffart, ‘Supposed “Frankish” Table of Nations’, 146. Note that, as with the Alemanni to Albani change, the similarity in the names presumably was also a factor.
75 The description of the kings of the Albani as silvii after King Silvius (father of Britto) (in Harl. §11) is an intriguing element, pointed out to me by Dr Katherine Forsyth. The word ‘Gaels’, Goídil, came (probably in the seventh century) from a British word, meaning ‘people of the woods’, as well as ‘wild, barbaric people’: Proinsias Mac Cana, ‘Ireland and Wales in the Middle Ages: an Overview’, in Ireland and Wales in the Middle Ages, eds. Karen Jankulak and Jonathan M. Wooding (Dublin: Four Courts, 2007), 17–45 (27–9); Koch, ‘Celts, Britons, and Gaels’, 50–6. The silvii could have suggested to the Welsh scribe the Albani of northern Britain, who were increasingly Gaelic-speakers, but we have no supporting evidence for this interesting possibility.
76 For instance, see Isidore, Etymologies, IX.ii.84–5, Barney and others, trans., Etymologies, 196: ‘The Romans are named after Romulus … Latins, from Latinus … Italus, Sabinus, and Sicanus were brothers, after whom names were given to both peoples and regions.’
77 Annales Cambriae, s.a. 856, in Morris, ed., and trans., Nennius, 44–9 (48), 85–9 (89).
78 HB §67, in Morris, ed., and trans., Nennius, 40, 81.
79 Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons, 467–71, 475–8; Clare Downham, Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland. The Dynasty of Ívarr to A.D. 1014 (Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press, 2007), 179–82; and David M. Wilson, The Vikings in the Isle of Man (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2008), 52–6.
80 David N. Dumville, ‘Vikings in the British Isles: a Question of Sources’, in The Scandinavians From the Vendel Period To the Tenth Century: an Ethnographic Perspective, ed. Judith Jesch (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2002), 209–50, for a discussion of the sources and overall Scandinavian impact.
81 Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons, 478–9, 484, 486–7; Downham, Viking Kings, 1–9, 202.
82 Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons, 488, 490.
83 AU 866.1, 871.2, 875.3, 878.9; Anderson, Kings, 250; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 875, trans. Swanton, 72–5; Downham, Viking Kings, 139–45; Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 106–16.
84 AU 870.6, 871.2; Annales Cambriae, s.a. 870, in Morris, ed. and trans., Nennius, 48, 89.
85 Downham, Viking Kings, 203.
86 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 875, trans. Swanton, 72–5; Downham, Viking Kings, 163.
87 Downham, Viking Kings, 162; Anderson, Kings, 250.
88 AU 872.5, CS 872.4.
89 He may have ruled jointly with a certain Giric mac Dungaile. Eochaid's reign is probably not a fabrication, as it seems unlikely that a king with such a British connection, with legitimacy in the female line linked to Cináed mac Alpín, would have been created, rather than a more obvious son of Cináed or his brother Domnall.
90 David N. Dumville, ‘St Cathróe of Metz and the Hagiography of Exoticism’, in Studies in Irish Hagiography. Saints and Scholars, eds. John Carey and others (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001), 172–88 (176–7, 179–80).
91 Dumville, ‘St Cathróe of Metz’, 173.
92 Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons, 481–2; Downham, Viking Kings, 162–3, 168–70; Stephen T. Driscoll, ‘Church Archaeology in Glasgow and the Kingdom of Strathclyde’, Innes Review 49 (1998): 95–114; Courtney Helen Buchanan, ‘Scandinavians in Strathclyde: Multiculturalism, Material Culture and Manufactured Identities in the Viking Age’, in Historic Bute: Land and People, ed. Anna Ritchie (Edinburgh: Scottish Society for Northern Studies, 2012), 17–32.
93 Downham, Viking Kings, 163.
94 Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons, 489–94, where he also suggests that the alliance with the Scandinavians post-dated Gwynedd's defeat of Mercia in 881. However, an alternative is that an existing alliance triggered the conflict of 881.
95 Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 320–2, 340–2.
96 Charles-Edwards, ‘Picts and Scots’, 178–80, who suggests this idea, but gives reasons to be cautious. However, the appearance of Pictavia in the ‘Chronicle of the Kings of Alba’ in the reign of Domnall son of Constantín (889–900), which Charles-Edwards comments upon, does not prove that Alba was not used before his reign, since there could have been a period of terminological overlap, found, for instance in the use of firu Fortrenn, ‘men of Fortriu’, in AU 904.4, after the first reference to a king of Alba in AU 900.6. ‘Men of Fortriu’ was the population term related to the title ‘king of Fortriu’ also used for Pictish kings. A British aspect to the change to Alba is plausible since Alba could have been a Gaelic synonym for Welsh Prydain/Prydyn (and maybe a Pictish cognate), meaning both ‘Britain’ and ‘Pictland’ (Broun, Scottish Independence, 79–84), or a Gaelic form of Pictish *Albid which also had British cognates (Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 178–9).
97 Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons, 494, 507–8.
98 Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons, 496, 500–2.
99 Downham, Viking Kings, 207–9; Colmán Etchingham, ‘North Wales, Ireland and the Isles: the Insular Viking Zone’, Peritia 15 (2001): 145–87 (162–3), for the view that the Scandinavians settled in Anglesey in the ninth century.
100 Downham, Viking Kings, 83–5, 170–5,179–82, 208–9; Wilson, Vikings in the Isle of Man, 52–6. On the evidence for settlement in north-west England, see John R. Baldwin and Ian D. Whyte, The Scandinavians in Cumbria (Edinburgh: Scottish Society for Northern Studies, 1985), and David N. Parsons, ‘On the Origin of “Hiberno-Norse Inversion-Compounds”’, Journal of Scottish Name Studies 5 (2011): 115–52.
101 Anderson, Kings, 251. Less reliable Irish sources indicate that the dynasty of Ívarr may have been active in Alba from 892–4: Downham, Viking Kings, 145.
102 Anderson, Kings, 251; AU 904.4.
103 CS, s.a. 904.6.
104 Downham, Viking Kings, 146–7, 209–10.
105 Etchingham, ‘North Wales, Ireland and the Isles’.
106 Cowan, ‘Myth and Identity’, 123–4.
107 Cowan, ‘Myth and Identity’, 120–4, places an idea of Pictish, Gaelic and British common ancestry in the context of the Battle of Brunanburh in 937, but there is no textual evidence that the relevant parts of the texts involved – Duan Albanach, and the ‘Pictish Chronicle’ (edited by Anderson, Kings, 243–5, beginning with the heading Croníca de origíne antiquorum Pictorum), found only in the collection of Scottish materials in the fourteenth-century Poppleton manuscript – can be dated earlier than the eleventh century.
108 See Broun, Scottish Independence, 48–9, for the general lack of impact that Duan Albanach achieved.
109 Broun, Scottish Independence, 56–7, 86–7; Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 226–7.
110 Broun, Scottish Independence, 51.
111 Broun, Scottish Independence, 48–51, 60–1.
Additional information
Nicholas Evans studied and researched at Clare College, Cambridge, the University of Glasgow, where he completed a Ph.D., University College Dublin, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and the University of Edinburgh, publishing articles and monographs on early medieval Britain and Ireland. He has taught History and Celtic Studies courses at the universities of Glasgow, University College Dublin, Strathclyde, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and is now a Lecturer in History at the University of Hull.