Dr Ben Guy

Junior Research Fellow

Departmental and College Responsibilities

Email: bdg25@cam.ac.uk

Dr Ben Guy has been a Junior Research Fellow in Robinson College since October 2017. He obtained his PhD, entitled 'Medieval Welsh Genealogy: Texts, Contexts and Transmission', in the Department of ASNC in 2016. In 2017, he worked as a Research Associate for the AHRC-funded project 'Vitae Sanctorum Cambriae: The Latin Lives of the Welsh Saints', based jointly in the Department of ASNC and the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in Aberystwyth.

Dr Guy teaches for the following papers.

In the Department of ASNC:

  • Part I paper 1: England before the Norman Conquest.
  • Part I paper 3: The Brittonic-speaking peoples from the fourth century to the twelfth.
  • Part I paper 4: The Gaelic-speaking peoples from the fourth century to the twelfth.
  • Part I paper 7: Medieval Welsh language and literature.
  • Part I paper 10: Palaeography and codicology.
  • Part II paper 3: Sea Kings and the Celtic-Speaking World, c. 1040–1164.
  • Part II paper 7: Advanced medieval Welsh language and literature.

In the Faculty of History:

  • Part I paper 2: British political history, 380–1100.
  • Part I paper 3: British political history, 1050–1509.
  • Part I paper 7: British economic and social history, 380–1100.

Academic Interests

Medieval genealogy; medieval chronicles; hagiography; Welsh manuscripts; medieval history of the Celtic-speaking peoples; cross-cultural interaction; medieval Welsh literature; the Anglo-Welsh border

Selected Publications

Medieval Welsh Genealogy: An Introduction and Textual Study, Studies in Celtic History (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020).

The Chronicles of Medieval Wales and the March: New Contexts, Studies, and Texts, ed. B. Guy, G. Henley, O. W. Jones, and R. Thomas, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), pp. xvi + 455.

‘Historical Scholars and Dishonest Charlatans: Studying the Chronicles of Medieval Wales’, in The Chronicles of Medieval Wales and the March, ed. Guy et al. (see above), pp. 69–106.

‘Brut Ieuan Brechfa: A Welsh Poet Writes the Early Middle Ages’, in The Chronicles of Medieval Wales and the March, ed. Guy et al. (see above), pp. 375–419.

‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Welsh Sources’, in A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth, ed. G. Henley and J. B. Smith, Brill Companions to European History (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 31–66.

‘The Reception of Geoffrey of Monmouth in Wales’, in A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth, ed. G. Henley and J. B. Smith, Brill Companions to European History (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming 2020), pp. 494–7.

‘Writing Genealogy in Wales, c.1475–c.1640: Sources and Practitioners’, in Genealogical Knowledge in the Making: Tools, Practices, and Evidence in Early Modern Europe, ed. J. Eickmeyer, M. Friedrich and V. Bauer, Cultures and Practices of Knowledge in History 1 (Berlin: de Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2019), pp. 99–125.

‘Constantine, Helena, Maximus: On the Appropriation of Roman History in Medieval Wales, 800–1250’, Journal of Medieval History 44 (2018), 1–25.

‘The Earliest Welsh Genealogies: Textual Layering and the Phenomenon of “Pedigree Growth”’, Early Medieval Europe 26.4 (2018), 462–85.

‘The Life of St Dyfrig and the Lost Charters of Moccas (Mochros), Herefordshire’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 75 (2018), 1–37.

‘Gerald and Welsh Genealogical Learning’, in Gerald of Wales: New Perspectives on a Medieval Writer and Critic, ed. G. Henley and A. J. McMullen (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2018), pp. 47–61.

‘A Lost Medieval Manuscript from North Wales: Hengwrt 33, the Hanesyn Hên’, Studia Celtica 50 (2016), 69–105.

‘The Textual History of the Harleian Genealogies’, Welsh History Review 28 (2016), 1–25.

‘Egerton Phillimore (1856–1937) and the Study of Welsh Historical Texts’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, new series, 21 (2015), 36–50.

‘The Origins of the Compilation of Welsh Historical Texts in Harley 3859’, Studia Celtica 49 (2015), 21–56.

‘A Second Witness to the Welsh Material in Harley 3859’, Quaestio Insularis: Selected Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic 15 (2014), 72–91.

‘The Breton Migration: A New Synthesis’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 61 (2014), 101–56.

‘A Welsh Manuscript in America: Library Company of Philadelphia, 8680.O’, National Library of Wales Journal 36 (2014), 1–26.

‘Did the Harleian Genealogies Draw on Archival Sources?’, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 32 (2012), 119–33.

Reviews

Review of R. Flechner, Saint Patrick Retold: The Legend and History of Ireland’s Patron Saint (2019), in Kelten 83 (2020).

Review of P. Sims-Williams, The Book of Llandaf as a Historical Source (2019), in Morgannwg (2020), 225–9.

Review of Michael Powell Siddons, Welsh Genealogies A.D. 1500–1600 (WG 3) (2017), Welsh History Review 29 (2019), 480–2.

Review of Lindy Brady, Writing the Welsh Borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England (2017), English Historical Review 134 (2019), 947–9.

Review of Lynette Olson, ed., St Samson of Dol and the Earliest History of Brittany, Cornwall and Wales (2017), English Historical Review 134 (2019), 176–7.

Review of David Stephenson, Medieval Powys: Kingdom, Principality and Lordships, 1132–1293 (2016), Speculum 93.3 (2018), 915–17.