Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc)

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Alan,

It seems just about everybody has a leaning toward some favorite scenario (all except Robert, who is the quinticential pragmatist)

:mrgreen:
Well, it's the historian in me. I know. However, I DO have a favorite scenario, you can read about it on the Vortigern Studies website. :wink:

Good to know that there is a realistic sub-base to the Breton genealogies. Thanks for that.

WHOA! That's not what Agraes said. he said:

A few of Breton genealogies can be guessed to be taken from older sources. That was at least stated by Léon Fleuriot

Only a small part of the Breton genealogiocal materaial MAY contain material from older sources, instead of being collected and produced later on. And indeed, the only way to find those scraps of original info is to look at names which are older or in archaic form. For instance, for Vortigern that would mean that the form Guorthigirn is likely to be 9th century, whilst when you come across the (near-)contemporary Uertigern you can break out the champagne.

But what are we to think of such corrupted wording as "John Lex"? The pedigrees are puzzling. If they were reworked in the medieval period, as Vortigern Studies notes (with good reason), then what accounts for the nuptial links that point to the collusion of dynasties? This is not a perceived "Germanic" or other ethnic link, but appears as a wedding of families into a larger whole. Why would the medieval scribes create these bondings? :?

The usual reason is to create an ideqa of 'anciennity'. Genealogies were for the most acreated to prop up legal claims. Old names under charters would serve to enhance the status of the foundation of your convent, bishopric or the like. The older the founder, the higher the esteeem for your establishment.

I, too, was bafffled when I came across this for the first time. Surely people would notice the fabrication and protest! But apparently no one seems to have minded - history was there to be 'formed', apparently. :roll:

Mind you, the names of 6th-c. Welsh kings appears on later frauds, but never that of a certain Arthur.... Nor does he crop up in any genealogy before the 11th century!