This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. THE RECEPTION AND USE OF FLANN MAINISTRECH AND HIS WORK IN MEDIEVAL GAELIC MANUSCRIPT CULTURE Eystein P. Thanisch Volume I Main Text Doctor of Philosophy University of Edinburgh 2015 Declaration This is to certify that that this thesis has been composed by me and is entirely my own work. No part of this thesis has been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. I have published a specific case study of a text, covered primarily by Chapters 2 and 3, as ‘Flann Mainistrech's Götterdämmerung as a Junction within Lebor Gabála Érenn’, Quaestio Insularis, 13 (2012), 69–93. Where it becomes relevant, it is cited in the main body of the thesis as a secondary source. A re-print is also included (with the permission of the current editor of Quaestio Insularis) as Appendix 32. Signed: i Abstract Flann Mainistrech (active c. 1014 to 1056) is well-attested in medieval and post- medieval Gaelic manuscripts and in early printed works on Irish history as an authority on history and literary tradition. He appears to have been an ecclesiastical scholar, based at Monasterboice (modern Co. Louth, Ireland), but potentially operating within wider ecclesiastical and political networks. Almost fifty texts or fragments of texts, mostly poems, are at some point attributed to him. Their subject-matter includes the regnal history of early medieval Irish kingdoms, legendary material on Ireland and the Gaels’ more distant past, universal and classical history, hagiography, and genealogical traditions. In addition, various sources are extant that concern Flann Mainistrech as a character. Most imply that he was considered a pre-eminent authority; some go further and provide impressionistic sketches of his scholarship and locating him in certain social or political settings. The secondary literature on medieval Gaelic authors like Flann has been largely concerned with establishing what can be securely stated about their historical biographies and with delineating reliable corpora of their works. In addition, there has been much discussion around whether medieval Gaelic literature is to be fundamentally characterised as secular or ecclesiastical. Recently, however, studies have begun to focus less on the literal realities of medieval authorship and more on how authorship was conceived in the Middle Ages, how it functioned as a form of authority, and how it might have been used or constructed within texts’ or manuscripts’ overall argumentation. In response, in this thesis, I survey manuscript materials and early printed works relating to Flann Mainistrech and discuss how his status as an author-figure relates to his identity as an individual, considering how he was interpreted in different contexts, the extent to which later scribes or compilers used or manipulated his identity, and what made him useful or applicable to them. After analysing the textual material in light of these issues, I conclude that Flann was consistently placed in certain definable historiographical and biographical contexts and that his authority may thus have been tied to this specific characterisation. However, presentations of Flann can vary quite dramatically in emphasis, while close examination of material ii attributed to him and their contexts within compilations and manuscripts reveals appropriation of his perspective, pseudonymous use of his identity, and re- contextualisation of his purported work according to later compilers’ interests and priorities. Relatively consistent treatment of his persona is thus ostensibly juxtaposed with dynamic, creative reading practices. Yet such conclusions are overshadowed by evidence, also considered in this study, suggesting that what survives of the manuscript tradition may well fall short of being representative both of Flann’s actual biography and of his textual persona. As well as offering a case study into medieval Gaelic concepts of authorship, authority, and textuality, this thesis also necessarily presents more basic analyses of previously under-explored and, in a few cases, unedited texts that come to be of relevance. Several such texts are printed and translated in Appendices. iii Table of Contents Volume I Declaration ......................................................................................................... i Abstract ............................................................................................................. ii Table of Contents ............................................................................................ iv List of Tables .................................................................................................. xv List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................... xvi Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... xviii Preface........................................................................................................... xxii LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................... 1 1 Introduction: Flann, authorship, and attributions ...................................... 1 2 ‘Evidence of very considerable cultivation’: Flann in nineteenth-century scholarship on medieval Ireland ................................ 2 2.1 Overview and historical context .................................................................... 2 2.2 Corpus .......................................................................................................... 3 2.3 Historiographical saviour and intellectual icon .............................................. 8 2.4 The nineteenth century: conclusions .......................................................... 11 3 The strange death of Flann the genius and the subsequent age of doubt: twentieth-century impersonal scholarship ...................................... 12 3.1 Introduction: major themes ......................................................................... 12 3.2 Shattering questions: text-centred scholarship ........................................... 13 3.2.1 Flann as ‘synthetic historian’ .................................................................... 14 3.2.2 Dating texts and attributing authorship .................................................... 17 3.3 Characterisations of Flann .......................................................................... 21 iv 3.3.1 ‘A fili in monk’s clothing’: how ecclesiastical was Flann? ................. 21 3.3.2 Other characterisations ................................................................... 27 3.3.2.1 Latent authority as a historian .................................................... 27 3.3.2.2 Witness to the ‘Gaelic tradition’ .................................................. 28 3.3.2.3 Political engagement .................................................................. 29 3.4 Impersonal scholarship: conclusions ...................................................... 30 4 It matters who speaks: uses and constructions of authorship ............... 31 4.1 Names and masks: authorial attributions and implied context ................ 33 4.2 ‘As the poet said...’: evidential and corroborative verse .......................... 36 4.3. Pieces in whose games? Authorial construction and self-construction .. 39 4.4 Uses and constructions of authorship: conclusions ................................ 41 5 Flann Mainistrech as author-figure: this thesis’ objectives ..................... 42 METHODOLOGY REVIEW ............................................................................ 44 1 Intentio auctoris, constructio auctoris: what does Flann mean? ............ 44 2 Investigating Flann’s meaning .................................................................... 45 3 Approaches and methods ........................................................................... 46 3.1 Corpus formation .................................................................................... 46 3.1.1 Simple attributions ........................................................................... 47 3.1.2 Detailed attributions ......................................................................... 48 3.1.3 Prosimetric attributions .................................................................... 48 3.1.4 Internal attributions .......................................................................... 48 3.1.5 Indirect citations ............................................................................... 48 3.1.6 Independent texts ............................................................................ 49 v 3.2 Structure ................................................................................................