Introduction

The philosopher Jacques Derrida once corrected his often-misunderstood phrase “il n'y a pas de hors-texte,” by explaining that it really meant “there is nothing outside of context” (Derrida 1988, 148). This makes sense. A citation dating the battle of Waterloo to 1850 makes nonsense not just of that battle, but of much nineteenth-century history. The encounter is only viable in the context of the year 1815. Any date before or after creates insoluble problems.

The writer will argue that this “concept of context” has relevance for a controversial citation in the Historia Brittonum (henceforward HB): Arthur’s so-called battle list, conventionally found in Chapter 56 of that work. This study will demonstrate that an investigation into the structure of the HB offers better insight into HB56, as well as into other portions of Nennius’s work. As will be demonstrated, HB56 is not an isolated piece of information. Instead it was originally part of a larger narrative of British, Roman and Post-Roman rulers of Britain. Most important, placing the various elements of this narrative into their original context best explains both the materials Nennius used to create the HB, as well as his frustration in the Prologue with earlier “scholars of the island.” This study will not, however, deal with HB57-65, which involves the later Saxon period.

This is also an investigation into historiography, not history. It will not consider the historicity of Arthur, nor of any other person or event mentioned in the HB. It will instead offer a more plausible, evidence-based provenance for a number of key elements in one of the earliest Insular works focused on Post-Roman Britain.

The Prologue—and the “Tradition of our Elders”

The HB Prologue is an unusual preface for any historical work, in that it explicitly challenges its own testimony. One version reads:

The scholars of the island of Britain had no skill, and set down no record in books. I have therefore made a heap of all I found… (…quia nullam peritiam habuerunt neque ullam commemorationem in libris posuerunt doctores illius insulae Britanniae. Ego autem coacervavi omne quod inveni…) (Nennius Historia, Prologue).

Why would the HB author (conventionally called Nennius) make this extraordinary statement? Why would he denigrate the competence of previous British historians? Indeed, what does he mean when he says he is “heaping” his sources together? As we shall see, Nennius had good reason to state this. Indeed, the Prologue highlights an anomaly in the historical record of Britain that has persisted for a millennium and a half.

David Dumville, writing in the 1970s, argued that the Prologue’s testimony was irrelevant. The person who wrote the Prologue did not write the HB. The Prologue was instead written by one Euben, a compiler writing over a century after the composition of the HB. The name “Nennius” was added to underpin the Prologue’s claim to authenticity (Dumville 1975-6, 81-9). The rest of the HB had indeed been confected in the 9th C. However, it was what Dumville called a “synchronizing history”: it conflated many legendary elements into an account that was far from reliable (Dumville 1986, 4-7). As for Arthur, and thus HB56 itself, Dumville was unequivocal: “there is no historical evidence about Arthur; we must reject him from our histories, and above all, from the titles of our books” (Dumville 1977, 180-90). Nicholas Higham concurred, arguing that the HB was largely dynastic propaganda, designed to further the ambitions of a contemporary ruler of Gwynedd, Merfyn Frych (Higham 2002, 116–124).

Subsequent scholarship has challenged some of these conclusions. Thomas Charles-Edwards noted that a synchronizing history is not necessarily a synthetic history (Charles-Edwards 1991, 20). He also doubted that the HB was written to “celebrate the achievements of the new king” (i. e. Merfyn). In Charles-Edwards’s view, by the ninth century, the work was “already about the remote past” (Charles-Edwards 2013, 438).

Ben Guy argued that the HB’s author was indeed most likely named Nennius, and he probably also wrote the Prologue (Guy 2015, 47–51). Finally, Rebecca Thomas highlights sections that appear to derive from now-lost sources (2022, 181, 186, 190, 201).

If we take this recent thinking seriously, an important issue about structure arises: just what does Nennius mean by “heaping?”

‘Heaping’ in the Historia Brittonum

Past observers have noted the diverse nature of the materials used in the HB. They also highlight its complex structure, in particular the sections involving the tyrant Guorthigirn. After the Roman section, Dumville divided this portion into five parts:

  1. A small portion from Bede;
  2. A narrative about the wars between the English and Britons;
  3. An account of Guorthigirn’s dealings with St Germanus;
  4. A folktale of his troubles at Dinas Emrys;
  5. A genealogy of Guorthigirn’s descendants (Dumville 1986, 11–12).

Thomas Charles-Edwards termed the HB an “intertwined narrative,” and offered a more comprehensive breakdown of its structure (Charles-Edwards 2013, 439–40).

However, the most detailed analysis comes from John Morris’s 1980 study. He demonstrates that larger accounts have indeed been dismantled into smaller segments, and then placed in new positions. Morris’s schema is as follows:

This is consistent with the Prologue’s term “heaping.” Clearly, segments from a given narrative have been dismantled, and then interspersed among sections dealing with quite different subjects. We may doubt the historicity of St Germanus’ miracles. The same holds true for the black portrait of Guorthigirn. One might even still doubt that the Prologue was contemporary with the original Historia Brittonum. However, Morris’ analysis seems to confirm the Prologue’s statement that earlier historical narratives have been “heaped” together into a new, different order (Field 2008, 8).

An in-depth survey of HB1–56 illustrates Nennius’s method most clearly—offering new insight into the HB’s structure and purpose. As will be demonstrated, the figures Guorthemir and Arthur were originally parts of a single early Insular account of Britain’s Roman and Post-Roman rulers. For eminently logical reasons, Nennius then dismantled this account, placing the narratives in their current positions. That this still challenged the testimony of earlier Insular historians is the source of his frustration in the Prologue.

Nennius’s Methodology

To understand how Nennius structured the HB, it is important to consider the sources the Prologue claims to be using. Nennius notes that he has “heaped” (coacervavi) together material:

…From the annals of the Romans, and from the Chronicles of the Holy Fathers, and from the writings of the Irish and the English, and out of the tradition of our elders… (…de annalibus Romanorum quam de cronicis sanctorum patrum, et de scriptis Scottorum Saxonumque et ex traditione veterum nostrorum…) (Nennius Historia, Prologue).

Rebecca Thomas notes clear examples of information arguably derived from what might be termed “Roman annals” (2022, 172–7, 184, 190–196). Indeed, the consular pairs used to date events in HB66 also appear in Jerome and Prosper. The “writings of the Irish and the English” parallel information found in Bede, as well as material from two vitae about St Patrick, written by the Irish hagiographers Muirchú and Tírechán (Bede Historia Ecclesiastica, 1.4, 1.6, 1.9; Tirechan Collectanea, 53). “Saxon annals” would include the so-called “Northern History” (Nennius Historia, 57–65). The “Chronicles of the Holy Fathers” corresponds to the Six Ages of the World, formulated by Augustine (Nennius Historia, 1–6).

Crucially, Nennius “footnotes” instances where he uses conflicting or alternate information. In HB27, he explicitly distinguishes between “Roman annals” and “the ancient tradition of our elders” (Nennius Historia, 27). We first see this phenomenon, however, in his narratives for the settlements of Britain and Ireland (Nennius Historia, 7–18). He offers two alternatives for Britain. In HB10–11, Nennius claims that his information derives from “the version in the annals of the Romans” (In annalibus autem Romanorum sic scriptum est) (Nennius Historia, 10). The ancestry of the Britons begins with Brutus, the grandson of Aeneas. After Brutus accidentally kills his father, he is forced into exile. He then becomes the progenitor of the Britons, while his elder brother, Silvius, carries on the Roman line.

Nennius then provides a second variant from the “old books of our elders” (ex veteribus libris veterum nostrorum) (Nennius Historia, 17), naming Britto as the ancestor of the Britons. His information may ultimately derive from the so-called Frankish Table of Nations (Guy 2022, 369). However, “our elders” indicates that he obtained it from an Insular British source. Indeed, logically, these “elders” can only be British, since all his sources testify that Romans, Franks and Britons have been separate, parallel lineages for centuries. Nennius next writes: “now I return to the point where I digressed” (Et redeam nunc ad id de quo regressus sum) (Nennius Historia, 19). A detailed account of Roman rulers inside Britain follows.

Roman Britain, HB19–29

Nennius’s “Roman phase” begins with Julius Caesar’s conquest. Altogether, Nennius recounts the deeds of seven, or alternately nine emperors. He is uncertain as to whether two emperors, Maximus/Maximianus and “two” Severuses, are duplicates, or genuinely different rulers. Nennius phrases it thusly: “In the ancient tradition of our elders, there were seven emperors in Britain, but the Romans say there were nine” (In ueteri traditione seniorum nostrorum, septem imperatores fuerunt a romanis in brittannia; romani autem dicunt nouem) (Nennius Historia, 27). As noted above, he explicitly distinguishes two different sources: “our elders” and the “Romans.”

Parts of this section ultimately derive from such Late Antique sources as Jerome and Prosper. Some information can certainly be found there. However, there is also much that cannot. As Rebecca Thomas notes, it is “likely then, that Nennius was drawing on other sources” (2022, 186). Moreover, even if some information is found in Jerome and Prosper, it is uncertain whether Nennius is drawing directly from their works. Indeed, in HB19–29 Nennius often diverges from or even challenges earlier Roman texts:

  1. Caesar invades Britain three times, not twice;
  2. Otherwise unknown events and actors are introduced into Caesar’s narrative;
  3. The rebel emperor Carausius is named “Karitus”;
  4. The account of the emperor “Constantine” derives from an inscription in Caerleon (Guy, 2018, 388)

This again supports Thomas’ observations that Nennius relied on sources other than Jerome, Prosper and Isidore (2022, 181, 186, 190, 201).

Notably, these citations are all about Roman emperors who exercised power within Britain, just as Guorthemir, Guorthigirn and Arthur later did. Moreover, the phrase “in the ancient tradition of our elders” (In ueteri traditione seniorum nostrorum), is language very similar to what he uses in his Prologue. One may doubt some parts of HB19–29. The “Christian” king Lucius is certainly an interpolation. But he is found in Bede, and plausibly belongs under the rubric of “the writings of the English” (Bede Historia Ecclesiastica, 1.4). Indeed, most of the rulers Nennius mentions really did exercise imperial authority while in Britain, whether as visiting emperors or as usurpers. Of still more significance, from the arrival of the Romans onward, the HB focuses on Britain itself.

Nennius provides an account of the tyrant “Maximianus” in HB 27. In HB29 he then adds a more detailed (and more accurate) narrative of the historical usurper Maximus, and his (authentic) execution at Aquilea. The latter incident is again reported by Bede (Ecclesiastical History, 1.9). This strongly suggests that a portion of the earlier, “non-Aquilean” citations derives from a British, rather than an imperial (or Bedean) source (Guy 2018, 387). It is of a piece with other “Insular” imperial information from “the ancient tradition of our elders”.

These accounts also invariably focus on a given emperor’s military exploits. Caesar invades Britain. Claudius permanently conquers the island. Severus builds the Wall. Carausius revolts against Rome, as does Maximus/Maximianus. This is a list of rulers who actually existed, and it often records authentic military deeds.

Much of HB19–29 therefore does not directly derive from Nennius’s “Roman annals.” He fails to maintain an annalistic structure, as he certainly does in HB66. Yet he also records incidents and acts of Roman emperors in Britain that parallel historical events. Some incidents may be exaggerated or distorted in transmission over the centuries. They are not, however, early medieval fantasies.

Nennius and Gildas, HB30

HB30 provides a kind of summary of Rome’s hegemony over Britain. Significantly, it also offers an interpretation of this era significantly different from Gildas’s De Excidio Britonum (henceforward DEB). HB30 emphasizes British conflict with the Romans. It relates how Rome’s harsh rule led to three separate revolts by the Britons (Thomas 2022, 199). This directly challenges Gildas’s testimony. His DEB never criticizes the Romans after they become Christian. Instead, Gildas emphasizes British cowardice and military incompetence (Gildas De Excidio, 6, 7, 14, 15). This is of a piece with his criticism of Britain’s contemporary secular and clerical leadership:

Gildas’s blanket condemnation of Britain’s elite actually suggests that his was a minority opinion, one that differed significantly from the sentiments of most contemporary British royalty and clergy. More to the point, we should expect that any accounts preserved by later British “kings” and “priests” would differ greatly from Gildas’s DEB. Nennius’s negative portrait of the Romans is consistent with this.

HB30 thus provides a very different take on the empire than Gildas, Jerome or Prosper. It acknowledges Rome’s strength and unifying power. But it also emphasizes the empire’s rapaciousness. As well, it grants much more agency to the islanders. Three times they revolt, and three times the Romans return to crush the rebellion, whereas Gildas’s only cites two periods of British unrest (Thomas 2022, 199–200).

Nennius’s notation of three British revolts may also bolster his credibility. At least three usurpers in Britain certainly did rebel against Rome’s central government within the space of little more than a century: Carausius, Maximus and Constantine III. The revolts by the latter two were not put down in Britain. But both usurpers were eventually executed by imperial troops.

The next section puts this in context.

HB31–49

This portion is introduced by a statement that, after the end of the Roman empire in Britain, the British “were in fear for forty years” (per XL annos fuerunt sub metu). It is also a sacral number: the Children of Israel entered the Promised Land after spending 40 years in the Wilderness. As we shall see below, this apparently stray passage may be crucial in understanding how Nennius “heaped” the HB.

What follows are three distinct, extended narratives:

  1. A “Kentish Chronicle” about Guorthigirn and Hengist;
  2. A Vita of St Germanus, referencing various early British rulers;
  3. A wonder tale, with a young Ambrosius Aurelianus as its hero.

Significantly, each narrative is often split into two or three parts. Of equal significance, Nennius passes over every transition from one source to another in silence, in sharp contrast to his earlier “footnotes” in HB10, 15, 17 and HB27.

The Kentish Chronicle purports to be an account of King Guorthigirn. He most likely signifies the first Post-Roman British ruler that Gildas mentions, the nameless “superbus tyrannus” (Gildas De Excidio, 23.1). It chronicles Guorthigirn’s disastrous relationship with the Saxon incomers, and their leader Hengist. Guorthigirn’s story also differs significantly from the earlier Roman section, as well as HB43–4, and HB56. The Kentish Chronicle:

  1. Is a single extended narrative;
  2. Recounts no British successes;
  3. Focuses on Guorthigirn’s disastrous relations with the Saxons;
  4. Recounts no supernatural events;
  5. Locates all events in eastern Britain.
The Vita of St Germanus is different. It contains many miracles and unlikely occurrences:

  1. A tyrant’s stronghold is destroyed by heavenly fire;
  2. Germanus awards the kingship of Powys to a servant, Cadell Ddyrnllwg;
  3. A very young child condemns Guorthigirn for incest with his daughter;
  4. Guorthigirn’s final refuge is destroyed, again by heavenly fire.

However, all locations are in western Britain and no Saxons are involved in the action.

The third narrative, the Tale of Emrys, is overtly supernatural:

  1. The walls of Guorthigirn’s castle cannot stand;
  2. His wizards claim that “a boy without a father” must be sacrificed to keep the walls secure;
  3. Such a boy, named Emrys, is found;
  4. Emrys reveals that the cause is two worms fighting beneath the castle;
  5. The two worms fight; the white worm is defeated;
  6. Emrys prophesies that the red worm, signifying Wales, will drive the white worm—the Saxons—from Britain;
  7. Emrys then reveals he is Britain’s future saviour, Ambrosius Aurelianus (Nennius Historia, 40–42).

    8. As with the Vita of Germanus, all known locations are in Wales.

Nennius’s placement of the Tale of Emrys is again consistent with “heaping.” It dwells rather precariously between the Kentish Chronicle, Part 2, and the Life of St Germanus, Part 3. Indeed, Guorthigirn’s fiery supernatural death in the latter actually required Nennius to dismantle his Vita of St Germanus. Emrys’s self-contained narrative could never come after Guorthigirn’s death.

We may doubt the historicity of all three narratives. But remarkably, none of them directly contradicts the testimony of the other two. Nennius, like Bede before him, had no reason to see a saint’s life as anything but genuine. Likewise, Nennius’s placement of the prophecy of the red worm’s victory in this part of his work is eminently logical: in the next two chapters, HB43–4, Guorthemir really does force the Saxons to flee mainland Britain (Nennius Historia, 43–44).

Nennius combined three disparate sources into a complex historical narrative. None directly contradicts the testimony of the other two. They cannot adequately explain his frustration with “the scholars of the island.” An examination of other historical accounts in the HB is in order.

“Battle Lists” and Gildas

The remaining portions of the HB recount the battles of two Post-Roman British rulers, plus a Vita of Saint Patrick. One of these two battle catalogues, HB56, is Arthur’s battle list. Another, HB43–4, celebrates the deeds of one Guorthemir. Both differ greatly from the Life of St Germanus and the story of Guorthigirn and Hengist. They differ even more from the tale of Emrys:

  1. Neither is an extended narrative, just a list of battles;
  2. Neither is dismantled into several parts;
  3. Both celebrate British military triumphs;
  4. Both attribute these triumphs to a single commander;
  5. There are no overt supernatural events.

Arthur’s battle list is better known. We will consider it first.

Past Arguments

The issue of Arthur’s battle list goes far beyond the actual text. It is a key element in the controversy over Arthur’s historicity. It is thus important to understand the background to this issue, and why it is difficult to separate investigations of the HB from controversies over Arthur.

HB56 enumerates twelve battles fought by Arthur. He fights “with the kings of the Britons” (cum regibus brittonum) but is described as the “leader of the wars” (Dux Bellorum). His twelve battles are grouped into two unequal portions. A series of eight encounters ends with a great victory at the castello of Gunnion. Chief credit is given not to Arthur, however, but to Christ and the Virgin.

A series of four more engagements ends with a battle at Badon, an engagement that Gildas also records (Gildas De Excidio, 26.1). Unlike the earlier DEB, however, the opponents are never called “Saxons,” but simply “pagans.” Most problematic, however, HB56 seems to contradict what Gildas says centuries earlier. In the DEB he claims that this last encounter at Badon was won against “Saxons,” and the only military leader he mentions is one Ambrosius Aurelianus (Gildas De Excidio, 26.1). So, no one called “Arthur” is present in the earliest British reference to Badon.

Acceptance of the historicity of the Dux Bellorum has shifted dramatically over the years. In the 1930s Collingwood wrote: “the historicity of the man can hardly be called in question” (Collingwood and Myres 1936, 321). However, Dumville’s arguments set scholarly opinion on a quite different trajectory (Dumville 1977, 180–90). By 1991 Charles-Edward concluded: “neither a sceptical nor a non-sceptical position should be adopted at this stage” (Charles-Edwards 1991, 19). With his neutral position and Dumville’s strongly expressed scepticism, credence in HB56’s historicity waned.

What is also significant is that five chapters devoted to the life of St Patrick separate Arthur’s battle list from all previous accounts. It is thus physically remote in the text from all the earlier material. Because of this, HB56 is often treated as an isolated piece of information, a “factoid” unrelated to anything else in the HB.

Attempts to “explain” HB56’s provenance have been legion. We will only discuss two prominent solutions, one by an eminent Celtic scholar and one by a noted historian. Both assume that HB56 has no connection with any other part of the HB.

In 1975, Rachel Bromwich argued that HB56 was originally a Welsh poem from the Old British North. Building on studies by earlier Welsh scholars, Bromwich saw it as a work in the tradition of Taliesin, Aneirin, and other Welsh bards. She agreed with Kenneth Jackson’s conclusion that Arthur’s known battle sites were too geographically diffuse to be the victories of a single commander (Jackson 1945, 44–57). She further noted that poems from the Old North at times attributed a given battle to more than one victor. So, the same might apply to Arthur. That several rulers from the vicinity of Strathclyde later bore variations of the name “Arthur” seemed to confirm its northern origin (Bromwich 1975, 176–81). Bromwich’s solution argued that an original Welsh poem about a “northern” Arthur had been translated into Latin by literate Christian scribes. These scribes then “borrowed” other battles, to include southern locations such as Lindsey. They also borrowed enough battles to reach the sacral number of twelve. These scribes then added references to Mary and Christ. Indeed, since poems from the Old North rarely make overt references to Christ or Mary, or deploy sacral numbers, these last assumptions were de rigueur (Bromwich 1975, 169–71).

It was understandable for a preeminent scholar of early Welsh language and literature to see a written Latin historical account in terms of early medieval Welsh oral literature. Still, there are problems with this solution. Bromwich’s explanation requires us to assume that:

  1. Arthur was originally a northern figure;
  2. The battle list really was composed in the Old North;
  3. It was originally in Welsh;
  4. Some battles were borrowed from the sagas of other Northern heroes;
  5. All the sagas in which these battles occurred were then lost;
  6. Medieval clerics then added references to Christ and Mary;
  7. These clerics borrowed exactly twelve battles.
There are quite a few assumptions here. Indeed, one must ask: does this hypothesis simply deny the written text as it stands, and then employ a chain of assumptions to create a supposed “original” oral version—a version for which there is no certain evidence? Nicholas Higham notes that “Chapter 56 so little resembles any extant Old Welsh praise poem that translation cannot be the appropriate term” (Higham 2018, 188).

This also ignores the intellectual milieu of the fifth century. Mary’s divinity was a contentious issue in mid-fifth-century Christendom—with both the Pope and the western emperor firmly in the Marian camp. After years of controversy, the Council of Chalcedon reaffirmed in 451 that Mary was indeed Theotokos (Mother of God). Not coincidentally, Santa Maria Maggiore was built in these same years (Miles 1993, 156–9).

It is also important to remember that sacral numbers were simply how thinkers in the early Romano-Christian world saw reality. Orosius’s Seven Books against the Pagans postulated four successive world empires. The Lord had allotted each with a fixed number of years to reign over the earth, Rome being the last (Nuffelen 2012, 47–53). The HB’s Six Ages of the World derive from a model of seven ages formulated by St. Augustine (Alexander 2008, 218–20). All elements in HB56 thus dwell most comfortably in the Romano-Christian world of Late Antiquity, not the Old North.

Christ and the Virgin do help Arthur win the eighth encounter at Guinnion. But no miraculous events are specified, just an amorphous divine aid, and a depiction of Mary on Arthur’s shoulder. However, the latter image simply parallels the so-called “Stilicho Ivory,” where portraits of Roman emperors are depicted on the shield of the Patrician Stilicho. Moreover, a shield certainly does protect its bearer’s shoulder (Kiilerich and Torp 1989, 321).

Arthur’s victory at Gunnion also happens to resemble the only “divine” victory Gildas records. Shortly after an unanswered Appeal to the Patrician Aetius, circa 446, he reports a British victory “trusting not in man, but God” (non fidentes in homine, sed in deo) (Gildas De Excidio, 20.3). Curiously, Gildas withholds the name of both the battle and the commander. Then, contradicting Nennius, he claims that Badon occurred much later, and only after a back-and-forth campaign, whose outcome was uncertain until the end. Significantly, there is no claim of divine intervention (Gildas De Excidio, 26.1). As we shall see, this curious discrepancy helps explain Nennius’s exasperation in the Prologue.

Finally, there is a “dog that did not bark.” Nennius mentions several Northern poets, Talhaearn, Aneirin and Taliesin (Nennius Historia, 62) who flourished centuries earlier. A number of works attributed to the latter two survive, as do poems by other Northern bards. Nennius would thus have had much more material with which to recount any number of British battles, most particularly in the Northern Section, HB 57–65. Curiously, however, Nennius fails to record a single battle from any extant poem. Moreover, where we can check, Arthur and Vortimer’s battles take place, not in the Old North, but in regions of what had been Roman Britain, or, as in case of silva Celidonis, on its northern border. That most of Arthur’s battles, to include Badon, are not mentioned in any early medieval text in Welsh is thus unsurprising. Clearly, up to the time of Nennius, there is no evidence that vernacular ballads from the Old North were incorporated into Latin histories.

The battle list is thus more consistent with the world of Post-Roman Britain, when Gildas claims the entire former diocese was facing a threat from several seaborne foes (Gildas De Excidio, 19).

A more recent study draws a different conclusion. Nicholas Higham argues that Arthur’s battle list was largely created by Nennius himself. The HB was confected as a “providential” work, with historical accuracy very much secondary. Higham further claims that the HB is ninth-century propaganda, created for the benefit of King Merfyn Frych. Its historical value is thus minimal (Higham 2002, 120, 122, 125–7).

Higham first argues that Nennius possessed a “pairing obsession.” This induced him to confect narratives with two main characters (Higham 2002, 136–50). There are certainly examples of this in the HB:

  1. Guorthemir and Hengest;
  2. Guorthigirn and St Germanus;
  3. Emrys/Ambrosius and Guorthigirn
  4. Guorthemir and Guorthigirn

Most of these narratives are arguably fictional. Higham then notes the placement of St Patrick’s Vita immediately before HB56. Nennius pairing obsession thus required him to “pair” a British military hero with the British spiritual hero St Patrick (Higham 2002, 136–41). Proof of this is that Patrick’s Vita explicitly conflates the saint with Moses (Higham 2002, 139–41). HB56 is therefore one half of Nennius’s larger “providential” narrative. He required a “British Joshua” to “pair” with Patrick, the “British Moses.” This also explains why Arthur’s battle list recounts twelve encounters: they represent the twelve tribes of Israel that Moses led into the Promised Land. Finally, Arthur’s title, Dux Bellorum allegedly derives from Nennius’s reading of a single passage in the Book of Judges, where Joshua is called Dux Belli (Higham 2018, 184–6).

The first problem is that nearly all fictional narratives (with the exception of the first half of Robinson Crusoe) deploy at least two primary characters. A confrontation between a protagonist and an antagonist makes for a good story. That we find “pairs” of characters in Nennius’s (very brief) fictional narratives is unexceptional. However, Arthur and Patrick are not characters in a story about the same nation, as in Exodus or Joshua. They instead flourish on different islands, and care for two different peoples. As we shall see, Nennius had a transparent reason for placing Arthur’s battle list in this position, and it was unlikely due to “pairing.”

As for Joshua’s “title,” it is doubtful that Nennius just happened to find this single phrase in Judges and then used the plural, Dux Bellorum, to describe the British war leader Arthur. This hypothesis would require citations of other Old Testament borrowings by Nennius, to demonstrate that he had a good knowledge of scripture, and, more importantly, often used biblical parallels. Finally, that Arthur leads kings into battle makes him a very different figure from the Old Testament prophet who overthrows Canaanite kings.

Most significant, much of St Patrick’s Vita comes not from Nennius’s imagination, but from two seventh-century Irish writers, Muirchú and Tírechán. Indeed, the reference to the four ways Moses resembled Patrick comes directly from Tírechán (Tirechan Collectanea, 53). Nennius could have only seen these two vitae as genuine. It thus strains credulity that he would accurately record information from sources which he considered authentic—and then simply forge a battle list about an otherwise unknown Arthur. Nennius then ceases to be a consistent human being. He is both an assiduous historian—and a cunning fabricator. He becomes a blank canvas, upon which literally anything can be depicted.

One must then ask: how valid are conjectures into the character of an author about whom we know almost nothing, and who may not have been named “Nennius”?

Another comment by Charles-Edwards carries more weight: Arthur’s and Guorthemir’s victories “reveal the more clearly that it was God who had determined that the Saxons should settle in Britain under their kings” (Charles-Edwards 1991, 28). This gives insight into both the time of composition of the two battle lists, as well as the circumstances of their preservation.

Guorthemir

It is only when we compare HB44 with HB56 that we discover a pattern. Neither is an isolated extract. Neither is a much-revised poem from the Old North. Instead, both are better seen as a “class” of Post-Roman British panegyrics.

In HB43 Nennius calls Guorthemir a “son” of Guorthigirn. However, their only connection appears to be the similarity in names. No early British genealogy mentions Guorthemir, or this connection. Whether this alleged tie was Nennius’s idea, or that of earlier authors, is impossible to determine. However, Nennius seems the first to assert this relationship.

HB44’s action centres on eastern Britain. Guorthemir fights four battles, arguably all in Kent. Three are explicitly in the vicinity of the Isle of Thanet, and another elsewhere (Nennius Historia, 43–4). Significantly, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (henceforward ASC) “mirrors” this with entries recounting Hengest’s four battles in this same area, dated from 456 to 465 (Brooks 1989, 62–4). One might see this as mere coincidence. Guorthemir’s final battle is described as a complete victory, “They fled to their keels and were drowned as they clambered aboard them like women” (et ipsi in fugam versi usque ad ciulas suas mersi sunt in eas muliebriter intrantes) (Nennius Historia, 44). In contrast, the Peterborough version of the ASC claims that Hengist took great spoil and that the British fled (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ms. E, an. 473).

The two accounts, however, may not be as inconsistent as they seem. Hengest’s second encounter claims four thousand British casualties. His third encounter records the death of twelve British commanders. So “taking great spoil” in the fourth battle is a much more modest claim. Indeed, it is not inconsistent with retreating with booty to the Isle of Thanet after a difficult fight. The two claims actually mirror competing discourses promoted by opposing sides in any number of past and contemporary conflicts, all of which are certainly historical.

An argument paralleling Bromwich’s “Arthurian solution” contends that Vortimer’s account is a much-redacted version of Nennius’s account in HB63 of Urien’s death after his coalition’s attack on the island of Lindisfarne (Sims-Williams 1996, 33–6). The many stark differences between the two narratives, however, make this dubious:

  1. Unlike Vortimer, Urien is only one of several leaders;
  2. Vortimer fights four battles, not three;
  3. Urien fights three days, not three battles;
  4. No incidents in Urien’s battles are detailed;
  5. Urien’s Saxons are defending an island, not retreating to it after a battle on the mainland;
  6. Urien is murdered, while Vortimer simply dies afterward;
Again, each change required to turn Urien into Vortimer is an assumption. Without other supporting evidence, numerous unsupported conjectures must collapse of their own weight. Of equal significance, HB44 makes Bromwich’s contention that Arthur was a hero of the Old North even less plausible. Both lists bear a strong resemblance to one another. Yet Kent fell very quickly to the Saxons. We find Saxon archaeology there in the mid-fifth century (Dark 2000, 48–50). The idea that medieval monks somehow transferred both Guorthemir and Arthur from the Old North to locations that had been under Saxon control for centuries is most unlikely.

David Dumville’s observation in 1994 carries more weight: “the story [in HB43–4] runs strikingly in parallel to Gildas’s account of the Britons before, during and after the career of Ambrosius Aurelianus” (Dumville 1994, 414, fn. 39).

Dumville’s observation may be most prescient.

“Fear for Forty Years”

There are significant parallels between Guorthemir’s battle list and Arthur’s battle list:

  1. Neither is a complex narrative, just a list of battles;
  2. Both are self-contained accounts;
  3. Both celebrate a single commander;
  4. Neither records overt supernatural events;
  5. Kent, Chester and Lindsey were in Roman Britain;
  6. The battles equate to sacral numbers (four evangelists/twelve apostles);

They also bear little resemblance to lays from the Old North. Therein:

  1. The bard often advertises himself in his work
  2. They rarely, if ever, reference divine aid;
  3. The number of battles is rarely if ever, sacral;
  4. The encounters invariably take place in North Britain.
There are, however, Late Antique examples of just this type of writing: Late Roman panegyrics. These commonly list the military victories of sitting emperors or patricians. Likewise, an emperor is often credited with divine aid, either Christian or pagan, as Constantine certainly is (Nixon 1994, 351, 612).

So, whence these two apparently isolated battle lists? Why are they dispersed among Nennius’s Post-Roman narratives?

HB31 helps shed light on this. It relates that, after the end of Roman rule the Britons “went in fear for forty years” (per quadraginta annos fuerunt sub metu) (Nennius Historia, 31). However, its current position makes little sense. The Children of Israel entered the Promised Land after the end of the forty years. In the Kentish chronicle, however, the Britons suffer far more “fear” after forty years, culminating in the treacherous assassination of much of Britain’s leadership.

On the other hand, this interval closely parallels real events in fifth-century Britain. Constantine III’s rebellion in 407 decisively removed Britain from the empire. Four decades later, Gildas claims that the Britons were nearly overrun by Picts and Irish, so much so that they sought help from the Patrician Aetius, in his third consulship (446). Shortly thereafter Gildas records the divine victory “trusting not in man, but God” (non fidentes in homine, sed in deo) (Gildas De Excidio, 20). This sacral number also parallels Gildas’s claim that the Britons, like the ancient Hebrews, were a “chosen people” (Praesens Israel) (Gildas De Excidio, 26).

It is only when we consider HB31, HB44 and HB56 collectively that we understand their full significance. Later historians like Bede may preserve Late Antique thinking. However, Bede’s contemporary examples of divine agency involve miraculous events, not divinely-structured intervals of time (Bede Historia Ecclesiastica, 1.7, 1.18, 2.2, 3.2, 3.9, 4.7, 4.31, 5.2, 5.10). In contrast, the three HB citations deploy sacral numbers consistent with Late Antique Romano-Christian thinking, but in a new and original context:

  1. Like the Hebrews in Sinai, the British suffer “fear for forty years”;
  2. Arthur’s victories recall the victorious twelve tribes, and the twelve apostles;
  3. Guorthemir’s victories recall the four evangelists.

Collectively, HB17, HB19–30, HB31, HB44 and HB56 provide a coherent, logical sequence of historical events, from the very first Briton, Britto, to the Post-Roman period:

Of interest, Ben Guy draws attention to a Latin phrase in the HB (Maximianus … occidet Gratianum, Regem Romanorum) that resembles wording on both the Pillar of Eliseg and in an early Welsh genealogy. He notes “quite possibly textual connections between these statements” (Guy 2018, 386). This suggests the existence of a common fund of Latin historical texts in Wales earlier than the HB. Moreover, these texts recounted historical events on a national, not dynastic scale. This is again consistent with what Nennius calls “the ancient tradition of our elders.”

Nennius thus dismantled an independent account of Britain’s Roman and Post-Roman rulers into five parts, placing each segment in their current positions.

And he had good reason to do so.

“The Scholars of the Island”

Nennius’s logic is now apparent. Britto and the Roman emperors had reigned in Britain before any Post-Roman Briton, so they came first. The “forty years” ended the Roman period, so it followed. The Kentish Chronicle’s Guorthigirn, the first native British ruler mentioned by Gildas and Bede, came next. The name “Guorthemir” was more than enough for Nennius (or his source) to conjecture that this particular defender of Britain had some connection with Guorthigirn. Placing him in the midst of the “Proud Tyrant’s” reign was eminently logical. Finally, Nennius “knew” from both Bede and Gildas, that the last battle was Badon. Even though the victor was called Arthur, not Ambrosius, Nennius’s only real option was to “heap” this questionable battle list after all his other material.

This also explains Nennius’s frustration with “the scholars of the island.” The Vita of Saint Germanus, the “Kentish Chronicle” and the tale of Emrys do not contradict one another. However, the one section of the HB that certainly does contradict both Gildas and Bede is Arthur’s battle list. At least two eminent “scholars of the island” seemed to tell Nennius one thing about the victor of Badon; his Insular source for the rulers of Britain related something quite different. In a Christian world ruled by God, the miracles of St Germanus were logical, but not two different military leaders winning the same battle. That Nennius still chose to include HB56 shows how seriously he took his account of Roman and Post-Roman rulers of Britain.

The structure of the Historia Brittonum is thus actually a “heap” of earlier, independent works, to include:

Again, the only account that directly contradicts any previous Insular history is HB56. Nennius’s frustration would have been particularly acute in the context of the Harleian chronicle, which dates Camlann a full twenty-one years after the “last” battle at Badon (Annales Cambriae, ans. 516, 537). It too credits Arthur with this victory, not Ambrosius. Little wonder that Nennius saw “the scholars of the island” as less than reliable.

The Last Battle?

The contradiction between Gildas and the HB regarding Badon’s victor raises a further question: is Gildas really correct when he seems to connect Ambrosius with the final battle at Badon? Gildas reports that Picts and Scots had overrun large portions of Britain before 446, displacing many Britons. The Britons then “abandoned the towns and the wall” (relictis civitatibus muroque), and “the whole region came to lack the staff of any food” (uacuaretur omnis regio totius cibi baculo) (Gildas De Excidio, 19). This is consistent with the “fear for forty years” in HB31. Widespread displacement of the British population, after the loss of Roman control in 407, would indeed mandate a country-wide fight-back, to include liberating places like Chester, Lincoln and Britain’s northern border. This is followed by the “divine” victory shortly after 446, a victory that puts the Proud Tyrant in power, and makes Britain prosperous (Gildas De Excidio, 21–3).

Contrariwise, Gildas reports that Ambrosius was countering a later, exclusively Saxon threat in the east. We find Saxon archaeology in Kent in the mid-fifth century (Dark 2000, 48–50). This is very different from the earlier, diocese-wide threat from Picts and Scots, and is more consistent with the “last” battles Gildas claims were fought against Saxon insurgents (Gildas De Excidio, 25–6).

One aspect of Guorthemir’s battle list adds further context. It has been remarked that both British and Saxon names are recorded therein. This is often seen as manipulation by later hands (Brooks 1989, 63–4). Significantly, however, no Saxon names are recorded in Arthur’s battle list. A ready explanation for this paradox is that Guorthemir’s account was created later, and was preserved into the Saxon period by literate authors who knew both the earlier British place names and the new Germanic equivalents. Like Nennius, they had accepted the outcome: “They [the Saxons] occupied Britain not because of their strength, but because it was the will of God” (non de uirtute sua brittanniam occupauerunt sed de nutu dei) (Nennius Historia, 45). For the now-dominant incomers, past British victories were even less problematic. Charles-Edwards notes that British victories “served only to reveal more clearly that it was God who had determined that the Saxons should settle in Britain” (Charles-Edwards 2013, 28). Guorthemir’s four battles thus most resemble the last act in the struggle between Saxon and Briton that Gildas relates (Gildas De Excidio, 26). Dumville’s observation regarding Guorthemir’s similarities with Ambrosius supports this, as does Hengist’s modest claim for the ASC’s fourth battle. Indeed, if Guorthemir’s battles were originally last, Nennius’s exasperation in the Prologue is even more understandable.

A more plausible order for Nennius’s “ancient tradition of our elders” is therefore:

The above investigation does not prove the historicity of HB43–4 and HB56. However, from a historiographic perspective, it provides logical reasons for Nennius’s complaint in the HB Prologue, and a more credible origin for his accounts of Roman and Post-Roman hegemons. Significantly, other written evidence for this era is in accord with the HB narratives:

  1. The Gallic Chronicle of 452 records Britain falling to “the sway of the Saxon” in 443, consistent with the overseas attacks Gildas describes up to 446 (Chronica Gallica, an. 443);
  2. Nennius’s Guorthigirn and Guorthemir parallel Gildas testimony of only two significant Post-Roman leaders: the nameless “Proud Tyrant” and the “Roman” Ambrosius Aurelianus (Gildas De Excidio, 23, 25);
  3. Gildas references only two British triumphs: one shortly after 446, and another won by Ambrosius Aurelianus (Gildas De Excidio, 20, 26);
  4. Jordanes’s condensation of Cassiodorus’s History of the Goths depicts a Britain capable of projecting considerable military and naval power into Gaul in the mid-fifth century, consistent with the foedus Guorthigirn makes with Saxons seafarers (Jordanes Getica, 45; Nennius Historia, 38).

Each of these sources supports Nennius’s testimony of militarily successful Post-Roman Britons in the mid-fifth century. It is less likely to derive from misplaced poems about the Old North.

Past attempts to explain HB56 have deployed numerous conjectured changes to an alleged original text. The above investigation argues that, on the contrary, accepting the text of the HB as it stands offers a simpler explanation for the two Post-Roman battle lists. HB17, HB19–30, HB31, HB56 and HB43–4 were all originally parts of a single early historical account. In the Ninth century Nennius then dismantled this account, attempting to meld it with other materials, and thus provide a fuller history of Britain. The disjointed and isolated nature of the current sections simply mirrors the “heaping” method Nennius used throughout his work.

Most important, the above alternative requires fewer assumptions than previous studies. It is thus the “more likely” hypothesis, the basis of rigorous enquiry since the days of Abelard and Ockham. More to the point, any future study must deploy still fewer conjectures about this most difficult text.

Conclusion

Arthur’s battle list, HB56, was originally part of an extended, very early British historical narrative. This narrative began with Britain’s foundation by Britto. It then related major events in the Roman period, followed by the victories of the Post-Roman military figures Arthur and Ambrosius. However, the above is an investigation into historiography, not history. HB44 does suggest preservation of accounts of Britain’s Post-Roman past in the early Saxon period. Just what this ultimately signifies, however, demands future study.

The favourable image of Post-Roman British military prowess in HB56 and HB43–4 certainly does contradict Gildas’s dim view of almost all British military leaders. One logical explanation for this, however, is that these battle lists reflect the views of the majority of Britain’s Post-Roman British elite.

That Nennius’s discourse differs so radically from Gildas may thus be its chief value. Gildas condemns almost the entire British ruling class. That HB43–4 and HB56 depict Britain’s leaders in a much more favourable light implies that they are more “official” accounts of past events. Taken together, Gildas and Nennius offer two contrasting versions of Britain’s past. Each is certainly subjective. However, in combination, they may provide important new insights into the historiography of Post-Roman Britain.

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