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Gildas (British History)
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Mick Harper
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Gildas
I have decided Gildas is a Tudor forgery. Can anyone put me straight before I make a complete fool of myself?
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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Dunno, but if he was quoted by Bede and Alcuin, as I just read, then you'd have to argue for LOTS of forging.
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Mick Harper
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Ah, something of a nuisance. Tell me it ain't so, Shoeless Dan.

All right then, since we must, let's try forgery on the grand scale. As you know I regard Beowulf to be a Tudor forgery because it is completely unknown, completely unique, completely complete and bobs up without the slightest historical footprint in a Tudor library along with other "antiquarian curios".

Hence I assume that what is happening here is that out-of-work (thanks to the Dissolution of the Monasteries) scholarly monks are turning their undoubted talents to the creation of "manuscripts" for the Big House now that they could no longer create "reliquaries" (frowned upon now that everybody is officially Protestant).

But, ever since I attended a Brian Gilbert ("The New Jerusalem", one copy available from me for a brief loan) lecture, I have been interested in the lengths that the Tudors went to to ensure that their "Welsh" roots got full play. So basically, it goes like this:

Elizabeth: Arrange for some instant history that emphases the Welsh aspects of Britishness rather than the Anglo-Saxons, would you?

Walsingham: Your wish is my command, ma'am. We will arrange for an ancient tome to be discovered.

Elizabeth: Yes, but the Catholics have been doing this for years so it's no use just doing the usual.

Walsingham: I will arrange for some cross-referencing---Bede and Alcuin probably, they haven't been printed as yet so it'll only be a matter of a few interpolations.

Elizabeth: Is it time for another Spanish Armada?

Walsingham: I fear, ma'am, that the populace haven't quite calmed down from the last one yet. Better wait a year or two.
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DPCrisp


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My, what big teeth you have.
No historical revisionism in small bites then.

For my own edification:

i) What is the practical context of all this dynasty-supporting literature? Who needs to be convinced -- the nobility, foreign aristos, the general public... -- and of what, and how?

Is there any prior/subsequent evidence of the way the forgery-into-fact machine works that just underlines the truth of what you say of the Tudor case? Or do we know something unique about the Tudor propaganda machine that reinforces your point? Or does the absence of any such machine give you pause?
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TelMiles


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I don't know if any of you (I know Mick did) read one of my other posts concerning Gildas on the Arthurian Romance board. Gildas's work was first "published" during the Tudor period, by Polydore Virgil, who had run into trouble with Henry VIII and had been imprisoned. As I reasoned then, maybe Gildas' work was a thinly veiled attempt to have a pop at ol'Henners. It could even be that Virgil was the one given the office of resurrecting some link to the "Welsh" past (as the Tudors continually claimed descent from Arthur), and did his job, but still managed to get an anti-tyrant message in there, the sneaky sod.

I think Gildas may well have been a full historical character, his works however could easily be, as Mick suggests, Tudor forgeries. Many have claimed that Bede amongst others quotes Gildas, but I have a copy of Bede and some of the passages are similar to Gildas, but why couldn't the quoting have happened the other way around? Maybe the Tudor forger, (Virgil) quoted Bede for his account of the Anglo-Saxon invasion.

The first FULL edition of Gildas didn't see print until 1691. Just thought someone might want to know that.
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DPCrisp


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There's an interesting thread on Ma'at about Irish/Celts that I haven't finished digesting yet, but it includes

There is some evidence that there was a resurgence of "Celtic" identity following 410 AD - at least, by the early sixth century there is little or no memory of the details of Roman administration (Gildas, for example, clearly does not understand the title "consul") and Roman rule is remembered as part of a typical Celtic mythological pattern... The pattern we get from Gildas is of a Celtic system of Over-kings and client kings maintained by a warrior aristocracy - very similar to that which we get from early Welsh poetry and documentation. We know that this system was new because Gildas is decrying it - he is calling for a return to dimly understood "Roman" ways and legitimate rulership...

This makes a certain amount of sense either way 'round: Gildas is genuine... the place is a shambles... the Roman era is dimly remembered as some sort Golden Age... but they don't know the details. Or: Gildas is a forgery... pining for the Roman is a Renaissance thing (or whatever)... and the forger figured Gildas wouldn't have known as much about them as he himself did.


I looked up Gildas on Wikipedia, which says:

Gildas addresses the lives and actions of five contemporary rulers: Constantine of Dumnonia, Aurelius Caninus, Vortipor of the Demetae (now called Dyfed), Cuneglasus of "the Bear's Stronghold" (Din Eirth, possibly Dinarth near Llandudno), and lastly Maglocunus or Maelgwn. Without exception, Gildas declares each of these rulers cruel, rapacious, and living a life of sin.

These are all in Wales/Cornwall.

Bede's Historia ecclesiastica relies heavily on Gildas for its account of the Anglo-Saxon invasions, and draws out the implications of Gildas's thesis of loss of divine favour by the Britons to suggest that this favour has in turn passed to the now Christianised Anglo-Saxons.

If they're both forgeries, they seem to be saying (Roman or Anglo-Saxon) England Good, (Celtic) Wales Bad.

On the other hand, isn't it just as likely that if this sentiment was current in the forgery era, it was probably current in the days of Gildas and Bede, too?

In Caradoc's Life can be found a story telling of Gildas' intervention between King Arthur and a certain King Melwas of the "Summer Country"...

But Gildas doesn't mention his own dealings with this famous (whether vicious or virtuous) king? If a forger believed in Arthur, wouldn't he have been included?

Caradoc's Life suggests Gildas' brother was killed by Arthur. This has been used to explain the absence of Arthur from Gildas' De Excidio Britanniae.

This is obvious bollocks, but doesn't help with the forgery question. If Gildas is genuine, Arthur will be absent. Gildas might be fake, but the stuff about Arthur was obviously made up separately.

The third part begins with the words, "Britain has priests, but they are fools; numerous ministers, but they are shameless; clerics, but they are wily plunderers." Gildas continues his jeremiad against the clergy of his age, but does not explicitly mention any names in this section, and so does not cast any light on the history of the Christian church in this period.

That's fishy. If it were real and intended for a contemporary audience, then it should include real names. But then, why wouldn't a forger make some up? By definition, there are no other records to confute what he says. Maybe he was afraid that ecclesiastical records might turn up...? Were the kings mentioned by name already known from other sources and therefore safely incorporated?

The vision presented in this work of a land devastated by plundering raiders and the misrule of corrupt and venial officials has been readily accepted by scholars for centuries, because not only did it fit the accepted belief of invading, destructive barbarians who destroyed Roman civilization within the bounds of the former empire, but it also explained away the awkward question of why Britain was one of the few parts of the Roman Empire that did not acquire a Romance language, as had France, Spain and Romania .

So the Romance languages were acquired in the Romance countries after the Romans left and they were left peaceably to their own devices... whereas Latin never got the chance to "sink in" in Britain...
Hang on......!


Bede's Historia ecclesiastica relies heavily on Gildas for its account of the Anglo-Saxon invasions... In the later Old English period, Gildas's writing provides a major model for Alcuin's treatment of the Viking invasions... Likewise, Wulfstan of York draws on Gildas to make a similar point in his sermons.

What's the provenance of these other writers? Could they all be forgeries...? Or do genuine, early references to Gildas mean he must be genuine...? Or are the references to Gildas genuine, but the "surviving" text entirely made up...? Or do the scholars merely infer a common influence... which is named "Gildas" after a forgery constructed around that common theme...?

Nope. I'm none the wiser.
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Mick Harper
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I must confess to total confusion. I can't even remember the source of my original doubts about Gildas! This is a familiar hall-of-mirrors that AE-ists fall into because, unlike academic scholars, they do not have rules-of-evidence to fall back on.

Or rather we do not have rules-of-evidence that we can "adapt" for our own purposes. Historians are obliged to stick to "contemporaneous documentation" when saying what happened and when. Which is an excellent rule except where contemporaneous documentation is completely absent for a particular period or for a particular sequence of events. Thus, because a trawl of the documents of the various foreign ministries of 1914 has not turned up a memo saying "Let's start the First World War!" historians have been obliged to "make it up" (in the nicest, most honourable way).

But in the Gildas case, there is a double complication: we do not know which historians are making it up! There are several possibilities:
1. Gildas is making it up (i.e. he is genuine but a propagandist for a particular "line")
2. A later, early Anglo-Saxon, scribe made him up
3. Bede made him up
4. A medieval scribe interpolated him into Bede
5. A medieval scribe made Bede up.

What AE-ists contribute is to point out to historians that their reliance on their Holy Paradigm -- "the written evidence" -- might be leading them astray when the written evidence is not what it seems. Curiously this too is echoed in the Causes of The First World War debate when AE-ists (i.e. only me as far as I know) pointed out that the latest scholarship drawn from recently discovered bits of the Bethmann-Holweg archive (he was the German Chancellor in 1914) and which more or less definitively nailed the Germans as starting the war, came to light when the KGB was in physical control of the German state archives. The Russian communists at the time were seeking to portray Capitalist Germans as being inveterate warmongers.

Historians think they are the highest authority when it comes to authenticating hisorical documents. AE-ists think the KGB can run rings round them when it comes to forging documents. When it comes to forging documents (and creating complete parallel histories) we also happen to believe that the medieval church could show the KGB a thing or two.
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DPCrisp


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We might be labouring under the misapprehension that Gildas was an Anglo-Saxon. They say he spent his time in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Somerset and Brittany. He seems to have been a Celt, writing in "monkish Latin".

We should bear in mind that the Anglo-Saxons had been in charge in England for a man's lifetime or thereabouts when Gildas was writing. It might become clear whether he was forged or not!
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DPCrisp


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When it comes to forging documents... we also happen to believe that the medieval church could show the KGB a thing or two.

It's curious that bits of the New Testament and Josephus are so readily identified as interpolations then. The scribes had the scriptures all to themselves and re-wrote bits of it for their own purposes... so we are told... and ended up doing a crap job of it.

Maybe these were the earliest attempts... and by the time it was known how much better the hatchet job needed to be, it was too late... So it's later material that got the benefit of experience...?

Maybe Lesson No.1 was "Make it all up, carte blanche. Never rework existing text."
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Mick Harper
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Tel, if you or anyone else is confused, remember that all the above posts, save for your own, were written down sometime over the last three years. Various people shift stuff from our other site to here, causing maximum confusion but stirring the pot. Some of the views of mine expressed above are no longer held by me...but what the hell, we don't aim for consistency here, just a well bubbling pot. So hop around between here and the other thread as the mood takes you. One day someone will draw everything together. Probably our children's children.
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TelMiles


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Gildas addresses the lives and actions of five contemporary rulers: Constantine of Dumnonia, Aurelius Caninus, Vortipor of the Demetae (now called Dyfed), Cuneglasus of "the Bear's Stronghold" (Din Eirth, possibly Dinarth near Llandudno), and lastly Maglocunus or Maelgwn. Without exception, Gildas declares each of these rulers cruel, rapacious, and living a life of sin.


Gildas also mentions Ambrosius Aurelianus (another leader of the 'Britons') whom he praises.

Gildas a forgery? 50/50 at the mo.
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Pulp History


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Does Bede specifically mention Gildas as his source? Or is it assumed from the fact that Gildas generally agrees with Bede but predates him, therefore Bede copied Gildas...... I doubt if he wrote up his sources in a bibliography.....
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Keimpe


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DPCrisp wrote:
Is there any prior/subsequent evidence of the way the forgery-into-fact machine works that just underlines the truth of what you say of the Tudor case?

Japan is doing it all the time with their primary grade history books (something to do with the Koreans I think).

And we are doing it right now with our 'reasons' for invading Afghanistan and Iraq...
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Mick Harper
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What is the practical context of all this dynasty-supporting literature? Who needs to be convinced -- the nobility, foreign aristos, the general public... -- and of what, and how?

Yes, this is the tricky part. We live in an age of maximal media and, thus, torrential spin. For us, propaganda is just the air we breathe. And, of course, we are all actors in the political drama. Keimpe alludes to this but is dealing with a slightly different phenomenon, competing versions of the same event with (I think it fair to say) an absence of actual criminal intent.

But it is harder to assess what happens when the 'political nation' is a few thousand souls and the documentation is a few hundred books. The temptation to invent history where none exists would surely be considerable. Let us not forget that history and religion were the staple fare of all literate people. The Elizabethan playwrights were not big on contemporary drama, the novel had not been invented, no newspapers...good grief, making up history might even be a paying proposition...

Thomas More claimed that half the population of London was literate, and we do know that what was read would be considered by us to be exceedingly highbrow. Foxe's Book of Martyrs was the sixteenth century's best-seller. So perhaps Keimpe is barking up a very adjacent tree.

It is though a fact that all slightly iffy European royals went to inordinate lengths to establish their own personal credentials by using academics to "construct" genealogies and lawyers to "write up" particulars of claim. So it is not a great stretch to suppose that the very iffy Tudors might do the same for the dynasty as a whole.

Is there any prior/subsequent evidence of the way the forgery-into-fact machine works that just underlines the truth of what you say of the Tudor case? Or do we know something unique about the Tudor propaganda machine that reinforces your point? Or does the absence of any such machine give you pause?

No, it's all pretty speculative at the moment. However it is quite well established that everyone from Hollingshead to Shakespeare wrote under the eye of, if not exactly at the behest of, the authorities. As for machinery, I think it's true that the Lord Chamberlain's Office and the Secret Service were Tudor inventions. The official forging of historical documentation of course had been a governmental stock-in-trade since at least The Donation of Constantine and Walsingham DID have a forging department.

Is there any reason to trust Bede and Alcuin more than Gildas? Why? Or why not?

Yes, another problem. Where does the snowball stop? It is a fact that the evidential links can be incredibly skimpy but my impression is that Bede (but more Alcuin) are secure simply because they are part of a corpus. [Actually, Bede was pretty singular but I don't have the bottle to take him on.] But Gildas, as the saying goes, is like a tarantula on angel cake. There's nothing before him and there's nothing after him for centuries until...well, Bede. All one can say is that, like Beowulf, his is a truly miraculous survival.

If not, how much history do we know?

As an Applied Epistemological experiment, I once took the best-known event in English history (the Battle of Hastings, 1066) to see exactly how certain it was that it really did take place. The result was:

1) that the battle-site cannot be found despite Battle Abbey being built on it
2) that contemporaneous accounts were (from memory) two, both under direct Norman control
3) that an assassination of Harold (or a palace putsch) would fit the sequence of events at least as well but require some 'cover' by the accepted mores of the time
4) various other things that I forget now but would fit into a 'why did the flag on the moon wave in the breeze?' sort of conspiracy theory.

Maybe you need to compile another list like THOBR's effects of barbarian invasions to show how Beowulf sticks out and whether any others do.

I was rather hoping for some help to do just this.
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DPCrisp


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I thought you might have said there was a sudden and unprecedented surge in state visits, with presentations of prestigious tomes; or specific history books went onto the university curricula; or something like that.

Or that "my dynasty's bigger than your dynasty" was de rigueur and proven to be mostly bollox, so Beowulf and Gildas slot straight in and should have no better than a 50% confidence level.

Or that we know these manuscripts turned up in some inventories, but stayed locked away, so it's hard to see how anyone who was supposed to hear them would have. On the contrary, it sounds more like they hit the streets as soon as they were found. Is that right?

As for compiling a list of manuscripts' vital statistics, I wouldn't know where to look or what for.
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