Leslie Alcock

[Robert Vermaat]

I think the important thing is that he had a go at integrating the information. Also, it's very often the rule-breakers who bring about the changes in their (and other) fields, if only by stimulating debate. Bravo to those who stick their neck out.

Sure, he stuck his neck out, although it must be said that in reflection, most comments about that don't seem to agree what his motives were.
Also, at the time this was not so much seen as rule-breaking. The Arthurian sources were generally used without a strick critical approach. Which is why I'm not too critical of Alcock's book - I like it indeed for the integral approach.
But it was nonetheless that same book, and John Morris' 'Age of Arthur' (1975) that lead to a backlash from the historical minimalists (David Dumville and Molly Miller to name two of them) who subsequently ruled out any value for these sources. While reading every word of Gildas twice, nay three times, and adoring Bede's works, these scholars for decades forbade any use of the Historia Brittonum or the Annales Cambriae, which they considered valueless and often fraudulent.

That backlash also hit Leslie Alcock, who had to recant many previously claimed 'Arthurian' connections to several of his digs.