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256 Mediaevistik 32 . 2019 Arthur in the Celtic Languages, The applyparastyle “fig//caption/p[1]” parastyle “FigCapt” 256 Mediaevistik 32 . 2019 2020 Arthur in the Celtic Languages, The French narratives on the Grail. In part Arthurian Legend in Celtic Literatures four, Rebecca Shercliff discusses Arthur and Traditions, ed. Ceridwen Lloyd- in the Welsh triads; Barry Lewis, bardic Morgan and Erich Poppe. Ar thurian references to Arthur; Ceridwen Lloyd- 00 Literature in the Middle Ages IX. Morgan, Arthur in later “hybrid” wri- Cardiff: University of Wales Press, tings. The section closes with chapters 00 2019, xxiv, 408 pp. on Arthur and Wales’s folklore (by Elissa In twenty-four chapters, Arthurian tra- Henken), place-names (by Scott Lloyd), 1 dition in Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Irish, and modern literature (by Ll. Gwyn Le- or Scottish Gaelic is surveyed by writers wis). page 258 from Wales, Germany, the USA, and be- In section two, Oliver Padel relates yond. What they offer is familiar enough, Cornwall to the “Matter of Britain” (in- with no surprises. The surprises are in cluding a fifteenth-century miracle play 2020 what is ignored, not what is said. Befo- discovered in 2000). Hervé Le Bihan’s re we reach that, however, a summary of concern is early Breton traditions of contents. Arthur; that of Fañch Postic and Hélène The book has three sections: Welsh, Bouget, the cavalier treatment which Cornish/Breton, and Gaelic. The ope- Breton folklore received from T. H. de la ning section has itself four parts: early Villemarqué (1815–1895), romantic pio- vernacular sources; the Mabinogion’s neer Celticist. Françoise Le Saux takes two native Arthurian tales; the three Ma­ on Arthur in modern Brittany. Section binogion romances and other versions of three brings us to Ireland and Scotland. French or Latin material; and Arthurian Erich Poppe has a brief item on early influence in Wales from medieval times Irish material; Aisling Byrne offers more to the present. In the first part, Nerys on later translations and romances. Linda Ann Jones assembles allusions to Arthur Gowans ends the volume with Arthurian in early Welsh poetry; John Bollard de- traditions in Scottish Gaelic. scribes Welsh poems on Merlin; Jenny Now for conclusions. With 90% of the Rowland sets out the Tristan legend in above one has no quarrel. It is an adequa- Wales. In the second part, Simon Rod- te presentation of what is agreed upon way writes on the Mabinogion tale of by all. The problem is the other 10%. It Culhwch and Olwen (of the 1090s); Ca- is this. Important sections of the book do therine McKenna analyzes “The Dream not, alas, give full and objective accounts of Rhonabwy” (of about 1220). In the of the subject. They instead supply the third part are Ka therine Himsworth on ideological and doctrinaire. The results Welsh translations of Geoffrey of Mon- are weird. This is obvious above all for mouth, followed by Ceridwen Lloyd- two subjects: the Arthur of History, and Morgan and Erich Poppe on early Welsh the dating of Welsh narrative. texts deriving from French. Regine Re- First, the Arthur of History. In a book cke, Erich Poppe, and Ceridwen Llo- of over 400 pages he makes precisely one yd-Morgan thereafter deal respectively appearance, in a half-sentence on how with the thirteenth-century Mabinogion “a putative historical Arthur is not the romances of Owain, Geraint, and Pe- concern of this volume” (p. 6). Arthur in redur, together with Ceridwen Lloyd- the Celtic Languages is hence useless for Morgan on a Welsh translation of two historians of early Britain. There are also Mediaevistik 32 . 2019 257 peculiar consequences for matters that the writer having in mind Henry I’s court do figure in the book. According to the at Woodstock, Oxfordshire. An annal of Welsh annals, Arthur fell in 537 at Cam- 1123 on Henry at Woodstock indicates lan, and the contributors often refer to the place’s new political importance. See the battle. But not a word on how (after a The Anglo­Saxon Chronicle, trans. M. W. suggestion of 1935 by O. G. S. Crawford) Swanton (London: Dent, 1996), p. 251. it was fought on Hadrian’s Wall at Cam­ Nor will the Four Branches postdate the boglanna or Castlesteads, near Carlisle. 1130s because they show no knowl edge See A. L. F. Rivet and Colin Smith, The of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia, Place­Names of Roman Britain (Prince- which achieved immediate fame on its ton: Princeton UP, 1979), p. 294. The Bri- publication in 1136 or so. The point was tish victory at Mount “Badon” is likewise grasped long ago by Alfred Nutt in his frequently mentioned. Yet there is silen- The Celtic Doctrine of Re­Birth (London: ce again not merely on its location (at a David Nutt, 1897), p. 18. But Dr. Rodway hillfort above Braydon Forest, Wiltshire) has not noticed it. near the British capital of Cirencester, but Dr. Rodway is not the only contribu- its date of 493, the latter proved in 2010 tor to resist the application of thought to by David Woods of Cork. (Arthur, killed dating. Amongst others is Regine Reck, in 537, thus had no part in an engagement who believes that the romance of Owain forty-four years previous.) Fortunately, may be of “the second or third decade of up-to-date information on those conflicts the thirteenth century” (where she quotes is now available in N. J. Higham, King the volume’s first editor) or even the later Arthur: The Making of the Legend (New “twelfth century” (p. 117). Both options Haven: Yale UP, 2018), pp. 156, 192–93, are out of the question. The story has a 246– 47. reference to rowel spurs, and there is no After evasiveness on the historical Ar- dated evidence for them prior to Henry thur, evasiveness on Welsh prose. Dates III’s first Great Seal, of 1218. Time being given for it are all at sea, with discussion needed for a new fashion to reach Wales, often fracturing the most elementary ru- the tale can be put after 1230. See Owein, les of logic. Take, for example, the tale of ed. R. L. Thomson (Dublin: DIAS, 1968), Culhwch and Olwen. No one will dispute p. lxxx. Simon Rodway’s verdict that it is, lingu- University of Wales Press often pu- istically, “archaic by comparison with the blishes excellent books. Many of them other native prose tales” of the Mabinogi­ have been praised in Mediaevistik by on (p. 69). Good. Yet (asserting that “none this reviewer, who warmly recommends of these can be securely dated”) he then them for purchase. Arthur in the Celtic opines that it need not be of the 1090s (as Languages inspires no such confidence. usually thought), but perhaps of “the se- Unreliable on the simplest facts, it will cond half of the twelfth century”; which mislead unwary readers, who cannot is impossible. The tale of Culhwch must distinguish the 90% which is acceptable predate the Four Branches of the Mabi­ from the 10% which is the opposite. It nogi, themselves of the 1120s or 1130s. will go down for all time as an indication They cannot be older than 1120 because of how, in the early part of this century, they locate British governance at Oxford, Celticists in Wales and elsewhere seemed applyparastyle “fig//caption/p[1]” parastyle “FigCapt” 258 Mediaevistik 32 . 2019 2020 curiously unaware of material, cogently The first chapter outlines the early reasoned and long in print, which explo- medieval concepts of fire as the medium des much of what they claim to believe. through which God and humanity could Andrew Breeze, University of Navarre come together, as illustrated through the 00 31009 Pamplona; [email protected] fire in Purgatory and also in Hell. Those not willing to join the divine communi- 00 ty would hence have to be purged, i.e., burned. But who were those identified 1 as heretics? The author dedicates the se- cond chapter to this question. While the page 259 New Testament rather advocates a tole- Michael D. Barbezat, Burning Bodies: rant approach to the disbelievers, in the Communities, Eschatology, and the Pu­ high Middle Ages the attitude by the va- 2020 nishment of Heresy in the Middle Ages. rious theologians hardened, which laid Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell Uni- the foundation for the broadly conceived versity Press, 2018, xii, 271 pp., 6 b/w ill. assumptions about heresy, which was in- As horrible as the punishment by burning creasingly viewed as a serious threat to someone alive certainly proves to be, it is Christianity as a whole. applyparastyle “fig//caption/p[1]” parastyle “FigCapt” a modern misconception, as Michael D. The third chapter traces the develop- Barbezat argues in this new study, to as- ment of heresy trials and the executions sume that this form of execution was the of heretics by burning them at the stake, standard judicial tool in the Middle Ages. starting in 1022 outside of Orléans. But By contrast, burning heretics and others there were also cases of cannibalism in was rather the exception, as all available the time of a famine that were handled data confirm. Whether there were actua- with the full force of the law, leading to lly heretics, in an organized fashion, as burning as well. In the twelfth century, the older school of thought claimed, or the fear of heresy spread to the Rhine- whether they mostly existed in the heads land, to which the fourth chapter is dedi- of the learned elite during the high and cated. While the authorities seem to have late Middle Ages, as the more recent co- been rather hesitant to carry out this kind hort of scholars suggests, does not have of death penalty, the victims were often to be decided here, but Barbezat outli- taken by the populace and thrown into the 1 nes these two groups clearly enough in fire, especially because of their perceived the introduction.
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