The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook

by Michael Livingston (Editor)

Overview

This casebook fills a major gap in our cultural knowledge of the Middle Ages. It gathers together for the first time the key historical and literary primary sources for the study of the Battle of Brunanburh (AD 937); a key moment in the history of the British Isles. Produced by an international team of experts, the volume offers the sources in their language of origin - Old English, Old Norse, Welsh, Irish, Latin, Anglo-Norman, Middle English, Early Modern English - with facing-page translations and explanatory notes. Many of the sources are translated here for the first time.In addition, the volume includes a substantial introduction from Michael Livingston and ten wide-ranging essays that provide cultural contexts and lay to rest many of the most controversial questions about the conflict - including the key matter of where the battle likely took place, identified here . The essays show the lasting significance of this nation-defining battle - both in terms of history and in terms of its impact across more than a thousand years of literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780859898638
Publisher:	Liverpool University Press
Publication date:	06/15/2011
Series:	Liverpool Historical Casebooks
Edition description:	Multilingu
Pages:	458
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.70(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Michael Livingston is Assistant Professor of English at The Military College of South Carolina, author of scholarly editions of 'Siege of Jerusalem' (2004), 'In Praise of Peace' (2005), and 'The Middle English Metrical Paraphrase' of the Old Testament (2011), and co-editor of 'Owain Glyndwr: A Casebook' (LUP, 2013).

Table of Contents

Preface: The Shape of the Volume
Introduction: The Roads to Brunanburh (Michael Livingston)
Accounts of the Battle
(This section is the "heart" of the book: editions of the medieval sources central to studying Brunanburh, with facing-page translations.)
1. Armes Prydein Vawr
2. Carta dirige gressus
3. Rex pius Athelstan
4. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle [Versions A and B], Battle of Brunanburh
5. Glaswawt Taliessin
6. Annales Cambriae
7. AEthelweard, Chronicon
8. Wulfstan of Winchester, Vita S. Ethelwoldi
9. Ælfric of Eynsham, Epilogue to Judges
10. Athelstan's Prayer
11. Eadmer of Canterbury, Vita Odonis
12. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle [Version F]
13. Symeon of Durham, Libellus de exordio
14. Eadmer of Canterbury, Vita Oswaldi
15. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle [Version E]
16. John of Worcester, Chronicon
17. William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum
18. Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum
19. Geoffrey Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis
20. Symeon of Durham, Historia regum
21. Chronicle of Ramsey
22. Chronicle of Melrose
23. Gwynfardd Brycheiniog, Canu y Dewi
24. Roger of Howden, Chronicle
25. Egil's Saga
26. Roger Wendover, Flores historiarum
27. Matthew Paris, Chronica majora
28. Livere de Reis de Engleterre
29. Bartholomew of Cotton, Historia Anglicana
30. Annals of Winchester
31. John of Oxnead, Chronicle
32. Robert of Gloucester, Metrical Chronicle
33. Annals of Waverley
34. Brut y Tywysogion
35. Brenhinedd y Saesson
36. Peter of Langtoft, Chronicle
37. Stanzaic Guy of Warwick
38. Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle
39. Ranulf Higden, Polychronicon
40. Robert Mannyng of Brunne, Chronicle
41. Scottish Chronicle (alias Pictish Chronicle)
42. John of Fordun, Chronica gentis Scotorum
43. Eulogium historiarum
44. Brut y Saesson
45. Richard of Cirencester, Speculum historiale
46. Pseudo-Ingulf, Chronicle of Crowland
47. Prose Brut
48. Book of Hyde
49. Walter Bower, Scotichronicon
50. Annals of Ulster
51. Hector Boece, Historiae
52. Annals of Clonmacnoise
53. Annals of the Four Masters

Notes on the Sources
Essays on the Sources
The Welsh Sources Pertaining to the Battle (John K. Bollard, with Marged Haycock)
Preliorum maximum: The Latin Tradition (Scott Thompson Smith)
The Battle of Brunanburhin Old English Studies (Thomas A. Bredehoft)
The Battle of Brunanburhas a Poem (Robert P. Creed)
Truth and a Good Story: Egil's Saga and Brunanburh (A. Keith Kelly)
Romancing the Past: The Middle English Tradition (Robert Rouse)
Essays on the Battle
The Place-Name Debate (Paul Cavill)
Wirral: Folkore and Locations (Stephen Harding)
The Sociolinguistic Context of Brunanburh (Richard Coates)
Brunanburh and the Victorian Imagination (Joanne Parker)

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"... a massive and admirable volume on the Battle of Brunanburh. It is designed as a casebook - a teaching tool and a scholarly examination in one. It is as definitive as it is possible to be about the battle and succeeds admirable as a case study of how to examine an obscure medieval battle."—Journal of Military History

"This will be the definitive text."—Fortean Times

From the Publisher

"A massive and admirable volume on the Battle of Brunanburh. It is designed as a casebook - a teaching tool and a scholarly examination in one. It is as definitive as it is possible to be about the battle and succeeds admirable as a case study of how to examine an obscure medieval battle."

Journal of Military History