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IMC 2010: Sessions

Session 610: Vernacular Historiography of the British Isles in the High and Later Middle Ages, II: The Origins of Britain in the Brut Tradition of History

Tuesday 13 July 2010, 11.15-12.45

Organiser:Jaclyn Rajsic, New College, University of Oxford
Moderator/Chair:Lister Matheson, Department of English, Michigan State University
Paper 610-aTroy Story: The Medieval Welsh Ystorya Dared and the Brut Tradition of British History
(Language: English)
Helen Fulton, Research Institute for Arts & Humanities, Swansea University
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Celtic
Paper 610-bFeuds of the Founders: Brutus, Albina, and the Rewriting of History in Later Medieval England and Scotland
(Language: English)
Jaclyn Rajsic, New College, University of Oxford
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Middle English, Language and Literature - French or Occitan
Paper 610-cDrinkers of Blood: Unique Details in the Albina Prologue to an Abbreviated Middle English Brut
(Language: English)
Lisa M Ruch, Department of Liberal Studies, Bay Path College, Massachusetts
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Middle English
Abstract

This session marks a return to beginnings in the prose Brut tradition, as it investigates the myths of Britain's founding father, Brutus, and founding mothers, Lady Albina and her sisters. Papers explore ideas of origins, foundations, conquest, and identity in the Brut and other vernacular historiographical texts of the medieval British Isles. The first paper analyzes the relationship between the Welsh version of the Troy story, Ystorya Dared, and the Welsh Brut chronicles, and discusses Welsh contributions to medieval British historiography. The second paper examines the dual (Greek and Syrian) origins of Albina and her sisters, who are said to discover the island of Albion before Brutus, and proposes a possible third heritage for the women within a wider discussion of Britain's founders in chronicles of later medieval England and Scotland. The final paper investigates a unique detail in the Albina tradition – that the women drink the blood of wild animals – in London, Lambeth Palace, MS 306, where the foundation story prefaces an abbreviated Middle English Brut, and argues that the Albina prologue serves as a foil to the stable qualities of Britain and later England in this Middle English chronicle.