Crucial texts from ninth- and tenth-century Wales analysed to show
their key role in identify formation. Early medieval writers viewed
the world as divided into gentes ("peoples"). These were groups
that could be differentiated from each other according to certain
characteristics - by the language they spoke or the territory they
inhabited, for example. The same writers played a key role in
deciding which characteristics were important and using these to
construct ethnic identities. This book explores this process of
identity construction in texts from early medieval Wales, focusing
primarily on the early ninth-century Latin history of the Britons
(Historia Brittonum), the biography of Alfred the Great composed by
the Welsh scholar Asser in 893, and the tenth-century vernacular
poem Armes Prydein Vawr ("The Great Prophecy of Britain"). It
examines how these writers set about distinguishing between the
Welsh and the other gentes inhabiting the island of Britain through
the use of names, attention to linguistic difference, and the
writing of history and origin legends. Crucially important was the
identity of the Welsh as Britons, the rightful inhabitants of the
entirety of Britain; its significance and durability are
investigated, alongside its interaction with the emergence of an
identity focused on the geographical unit of Wales.
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