Primary Sources Recommended for Study

The following reading list has been complied to offer current students on the Tripos with the primary sources for the Part I study of:


Part I Paper 3 - The Brittonic-speaking peoples from the fourth century to the twelfth

Paper co-ordinator: Dr Ali Bonner

Brittany

  • Anon., The Life of St Samson of Dol, tr. T. Taylor (pb, Reprint, Dyfed, 1991)
  • Excerpta de libris Romanorum et Francorum, ed. & tr. L. Bieler, The Irish Penitentials (Dublin, 1963), pp. 136-59.
  • Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni: edd. H. W. Garrod & R. B. Mowat (Oxford, 1915); tr. L. Thorpe, Two Lives of Charlemagne (Harmondsworth, 1969).
  • Ermoldus Nigellus, ed. & French tr. E. Faral, Ermold le Noir: Poème sur Louis le Pieux et épîtres au Roi Pépin (Paris, 1932).
  • Fredegar, Chronicon, Book IV: ed. & tr. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill (Edinburgh, 1960).
  • Gesta Sanctorum Rotonensium, ed. & tr. C. Brett, The Monks of Redon (Woodbridge, 1989).
  • Breton pilgrim-letter and charter of John of Landevennec: ed. & tr. C. Brett, in France and the British Isles in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, edd. G. Jondorf & D. N. Dumville (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 43-70.
  • Letter of Radbod to Æthelstan, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum Libri Quinque (London, 1870), pp. 399-400;
    tr. D. Whitelock, English Historical Documents, c. 500-1042 (2nd edn, London, 1979), no. 228.
  • The Royal Frankish Annals, ed. F. Kurze, Annales Regni Francorum (Hannover 1895); tr. B. W. Scholz & B. Rogers, Carolingian Chronicles (Ann Arbor, MI 1970), pp. 35-125.
  • Annals of Saint-Bertin, edd. F. Grat et al. (Paris, 1964); tr. J.L. Nelson (Manchester, 1991).
  • Flodoard, Annales, ed. P. Lauer, Les Annales de Flodoard (Paris, 1905); French tr. F. P. G. Guizot, Collection des mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France, vol. 6 (Paris, 1824), pp. 67-162.

Cornwall

  • Inscriptions: R. A. S. Macalister (ed.), Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum Celticarum (2 vols, Dublin 1945/9), I.435-72 and II.176-87.
  • Texts of the Anglo-Saxon period: L. Olson, Early Monasteries in Cornwall (Woodbridge, 1989), pp. 51-86;
    and W. G. Hoskins, The Westward Expansion of Wessex (Leicester, 1960).
  • Manumissions: ed. M. Förster, 'Die Freilassungsurkunden des Bodmin-Evangeliars', A Grammatical Miscellany offered to Otto Jespersen, edd. N. Bøgholm et al. (Copenhagen, 1930), pp. 77-99;
    or ed. W. Stokes, 'The manumissions in the Bodmin Gospels', Revue celtique 1 (1870-2) 332-43.
  • Domesday Book: ed. & tr. J. Morris (35 vols in 40, Chichester, 1975-86), vol. 10, Cornwall.

North Britain

  • Inscriptions: R. A. S. Macalister (ed.), Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum Celticarum (2 vols, Dublin, 1945/9), I.479-501 and II.190-1.
  • Y Gododdin: ed. I. Williams, Canu Aneirin (Cardiff, 1938);
    or tr. J. P. Clancy, The Triumph Tree, pp. 46-78;
    or tr. K. H. Jackson, The Gododdin: the Oldest Scottish Poem (Edinburgh, 1969);
    or ed. & tr. A. O. H. Jarman, Aneirin (Llandysul, 1988);
    or ed. & tr. J. T. Koch, The Gododdin of Aneirin (Cardiff, 1997).
  • Pictish king-lists: ed. M. O. Anderson, Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland (2nd edn, Edinburgh, 1980), pp. 245-9, 261-89, 292.
  • Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum: edd. & tr. B. Colgrave & R. A. B. Mynors, Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford, 1969);
    or tr. L. Sherley-Price, Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Penguin Classics, London, 1990)
  • Lives of SS. Ninian and Kentigern: A. P. Forbes (ed. & tr.), The Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern, in The Historians of Scotland vol. V (Edinburgh, 1874);
    or J. MacQueen, St Nynia (2nd edn, Edinburgh 1990), pp. 88-124 (Miracles of St Ninian & Life of St Ninian only).
  • Leges inter Brettos et Scottos, ed. & tr. A. Taylor, ‘Leges Scocie and the lawcodes of David I, William the Lion and Alexander II’, Scottish Historical Review 88 (2009), 207–88;
    or ed. & tr. (with commentary) F. Seebohm, Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law (London, 1902; rev. imp., 1911), pp. 307-18.
  • A. O. Anderson (tr.), Early Sources of Scottish History, A.D. 500 to 1286
    (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1922; 2nd edn, Stamford, 1990).
  • A. O. Anderson (tr.), Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers, A.D. 500 to 1286 (London, 1908; 2nd edn, Stamford, 1990).

Wales

  • The Early Christian Monuments of Wales, ed. V. E. Nash-Williams (Cardiff, 1950);
    or A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales, 3 vols, edd. N. Edwards, M. Redknap, & J. M. Lewis (Cardiff, 2007-13).
  • Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae, ed. & tr. H. Williams, Gildas (2 vols, London, 1899-1901);
    or ed. & tr. M. Winterbottom, Gildas (Chichester, 1978).
  • Annales Cambriae (A-text), ed. E. Phillimore, Y Cymmrodor 9 (1888) 152-69;
    or ed. E. Faral, La Légende arthurienne (3 vols, Paris, 1929), III.44-50;
    or tr. A. W. Wade-Evans, Nennius's "History of the Britons" (London, 1938), pp. 84-101.
  • Annales Cambriae (A, B, and C-texts): 682-954, ed. & tr. D. N. Dumville (Cambridge, 2002); 955-1097, ed. & tr. D. N. Dumville (Cambridge, 2003).
  • Anon./Nennius, History of the Britons, ed. & tr. J. Morris (Chichester, 1980).
  • Welsh Chronicles: Brut y Tywysogyon and Brenhinedd y Saesson, ed. & tr. T. Jones (4 vols, Cardiff, 1941-71).
  • Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts, ed. P. C. Bartrum (Cardiff, 1966).
  • Asser, De Rebus Gestis Ælfredi Regis, ed. W. H. Stevenson, Asser's Life of King Alfred (Oxford, 1904; rev. 1959);
    or tr. S. Keynes & M. Lapidge, Alfred the Great (Harmondsworth, 1983).
  • The 'Surexit' Memorandum, edd. & tr. D. Jenkins & M. E. Owen, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 7 (1984) 91-120.
  • Armes Prydein, The Prophecy of Britain, from the Book of Taliesin, edd. & tr. I. Williams & R. Bromwich (Dublin, 1972).
  • 'The Welsh-Latin Poetry of Sulien's Family', ed. & tr. M. Lapidge, Studia Celtica 8/9 (1973/4) 68-106.
  • Braint Teilo, ed. & tr. W. Davies, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 26 (1974-6) 123-37.
  • Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi, tr. G. Jones & T. Jones, The Mabinogion (rev. edn, London, 1976), pp. 1-75.
  • Historia Gruffud vab Kenan, ed. D. S. Evans (Cardiff, 1977);
    or ed. & tr. D. S. Evans, A Mediaeval Prince of Wales (Felinfach, 1990);
    or ed. & tr. A. Jones, The History of Gruffydd ap Cynan (Manchester, 1910).
  • Giraldus Cambrensis, Descriptio Kambriae and Itinerarium Kambriae, edd. J. S. Brewer et al., Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, vol. 6 (London, 1868);
    or tr. L. Thorpe, Gerald of Wales: The Journey through Wales and The Description of Wales (Harmondsworth, 1978).
  • The Law of Hywel Dda: Law Texts from Medieval Wales, tr. D. Jenkins (Llandysul, 1986).
  • M. Salmon, A Source-Book of Welsh History (Oxford, 1927), sections 5-11.