The Historical Arthur and The Gawain Poet: Studies on Arthurian and Other Traditions delves into the origins of Arthur and reveals the author of the famous Gawain Manuscript. Its first part contains evidence for the Arthur of film and legend as a real person, a Celtic commander (not a king) who fought battles in North Britain during the terrible volcanic winter of 536-7, before dying a hero's death in a conflict on Hadrian's Wall. Its second part moves on to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, an Arthurian poem on magic, near-death, and near-seduction. Its author has always been unknown, but Dr. Breeze uses arguments of the US scholar Ann W. Astell to date the text to 1387 and name the poet as Sir John Stanley (d. 1414), a Cheshire and Lancashire grandee. He can now be recognized as an artist of genius, comparable to Chaucer himself. What is said in this book on John Stanley and his circle thus allows the greatest advance in Arthurian Studies since 1934, when Walter Oakeshott discovered the Winchester Malory amongst manuscripts of an English school library.

Alfred's life, work and influence studied through writings of his age. Alfred and the great achievements of his reign are once more at the centre of scholarly discussion, and the studies in this collection make a significant contribution to the continuing debate. Focusing particularly on the writingsof Alfred's age, the contributions, by leading scholars in the field, examine Alfred's life, work and influence: there are accounts of law and morality; examinations of translations and their sources; and investigations of wordsand events, throwing new light on all major aspects of Alfred's reign. As a whole, the volume is an appropriate tribute to Janet Bately, whose writings on the age of Alfred are known and admired by both historians and literary scholars throughout the world. Professor JANE ROBERTS teaches in the Department of English, King's College, London; Professor JANET L. NELSON, Director of the Centre for Late Antiques and Medieval Studies, teaches in the Department of History, King's College, London; Professor MALCOLM GODDEN is Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford. Contributors and contents: ANDREW BREEZE, J.E. CROSS, ANDREW HAMER, ROBERTA FRANK, ALLEN J. FRANTZEN, M.R. GODDEN, WALTER GOFFART, LYNNE GRUNDY, CYRIL HART, JOYCE HILL, SIMON KEYNES, ANN KNOCK, BRUCE MITCHELL, JANET L. NELSON, BARBARA RAW, JANE ROBERTS, D.G. SCRAGG, ALFRED B. SMYTH, E.G. STANLEY, PAULE. SZARMACH, PATRICK WORMALD

The Origins of the 'Four Branches of the Mabinogi' is one of the most revolutionary books ever published on the literatures of Britain. Its subject is four stories in the collection of Welsh prose tales known as The Mabinogion. These Four Branches of the Mabinogi are the legends of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed; Branwen, Daughter of Llr; Manawydan, Son of Llr; and Math, Son of Mathonwy, which have long enjoyed popularity as Wales's most significant contribution to world literature. The Four Branches are tales of love, adventure and magic, but also of rape, adultery, betrayal and attempted murder. Although most scholars agree that the four stories are the work of a single author, there has been no agreement on where and when they were composed. To these questions The Origins of the 'Four Branches of the Mabinogi' offers a startling answer. It has always been assumed that the tales are the work of a male author. However, Andrew Breeze convincingly shows not only that the Four Branches were composed by a female writer, but that she can be identified as Gwenllian, daughter of Gruffudd ap Cynan (d. 1137), king of Gwynedd, and wife of Gruffydd ap Rhys (d. 1137), prince of Dyfed. Gwenllian was born at the close of the eleventh century, married Gruffydd when she was in her teens, and for most of her life lived quietly with him near Caio in the hills of Carmarthenshire. Her end was dramatic. In early 1136 she led an attack on the Normans of Kidwelly, was defeated in battle and executed outside the town. Despite this catastrophe, her son Rhys (d.1197) survived to lead resistance to English rule and to maintain Dyfed's independence. Amongst his descendants were Henry VII of England and James VI and I of Scotland and England, so that the line of Princess Gwenllian can be traced down to the modern British royal family. Gwenllian's position within the dynasties of Gwynedd and Dyfed explains why the political and territorial aggrandizement of both territories is, uniquely, a theme of these tales. It also explains the uncommon tact with which conflict between them is described. It means too that the stories give a representation of royal government and decision-making in twelfth-century Wales by one who knew them from inside. Andrew Breeze's sensational analysis of this classic text is published in full in this volume for the first time.

The Mary of the Celts is essential reading for anyone interested in the reality of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary in Celtic spirituality. The book explores themes and images associated with the Annunciation, Nativity, Crucifixion, and Assumption, as also the Blessed Virgin's Joys and Sorrows, through a detailed study of poetry on Mary from the Celtic regions of medieval Britain and Ireland. There are haunting images such as the Blessed Virgin Mary as daughter of her Son and as the chamber of the Trinity, with her virginity remaining as unstained and pure as glass pierced by a beam of light, as well as references to popular apocryphal legends, including those of the Instantaneous Harvest that grew while Mary and her child were fleeing into Egypt from Herod's men, and of the girdle thrown down by the Virgin to St Thomas at the Assumption. Amongst the many poets encountered are Muiredeach Albanach, a thirteenth-century Irishman who established a dynasty of poets in the Western Isles of Scotland, and his Welsh contemporary Brother Madog ap Gwallter, whose poem on Mary and her child at Bethlehem has been praised for a Franciscan simplicity and freshness. Taking the original verse in Middle and Early Modern Irish, Middle Welsh, and Middle Cornish (from medieval Cornish drama), Andrew Breeze relates their characteristic images to patristic material, other vernacular poetry (especially in Old and Middle English), Latin hymns, and medieval painting and sculpture. Indeed, The Mary of the Celts has been written as a guide to Marian iconography. It will be useful for students of medieval European literature and art, as well as for specialists in early Irish and Welsh, all of whom will find in it much that is new. It should make readers aware of the wealth of Marian material to be found in Celtic Ireland and Britain, not all of which has had the attention it deserves beyond the Celtic lands. In reviewing Andrew Breeze's Medieval Welsh Literature, Dr Jerry Hunter of the University of Wales wrote in The Times Literary Supplement, 'he has succeeded where generations of scholars have failed'. The Mary of the Celts is likely to have a similar warm welcome from all those concerned with the Marian devotion of the Middle Ages in the Celtic lands and beyond. Dr Andrew Breeze (b. 1954), FSA, FRHistS, was educated at Sir Roger Manwood's Grammar School and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Married with six children, he has been lecturer in English since 1987 at the University of Navarre, Pamplona. Besides numerous research papers on philology, he is the author of the controversial study Medieval Welsh Literature (Dublin, 1997) and co-author with Professor Richard Coates of Celtic Voices, English Places (Stamford, 2000).