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IMC 2016: Sessions

Session 1102: Early Medieval Britain: The Britons in Context

Wednesday 6 July 2016, 11.15-12.45

Organiser:Ben Guy, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge
Moderator/Chair:Charles Insley, School of Arts, Languages & Cultures, University of Manchester
Paper 1102-aThe Painted Peoples: Images of Britishness and Pictishness in Some Late Antique Texts
(Language: English)
Edwin Hustwit, School of History, Welsh History & Archaeology, Bangor University
Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Mentalities, Onomastics
Paper 1102-bThe Welsh in Context: Perceptions of Peoples in Asser's De rebus gestis Ælfredi
(Language: English)
Rebecca Thomas, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin, Mentalities, Onomastics
Paper 1102-cThe Anglo-Saxon Background to the Welsh Genealogical Tradition
(Language: English)
Ben Guy, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge
Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Celtic, Language and Literature - Old English
Abstract

Early medieval Britain was a melting pot of cultures, languages, and ethnicities. One self-identifying group was the Britons, who dwelt in a wide arc of western Britain stretching from the firth of Forth in the north to the Cornish peninsula in the south. Brittonic culture, language, and identity underwent dramatic changes during this period, partially as a consequence of continued interaction with the other peoples of Britain. This session attempts to explore aspects of the nature of this interaction as well as the ways in which it was perceived by contemporaries, focusing particularly on British relations with the Anglo-Saxons and the Picts.