Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 40.djvu/224

 work it would appear that the time of writing was the end of the eighth century, and that the counties of Brecknock and Radnor formed the district in which the writer lived. In § 49 the author gives a genealogy of Fernmail, ‘qui regit modo in regionibus duabus Buelt et Guorthigornaun.’ Builth was a ‘cantref’ of Powys and Gwrtheyrnion a ‘cwmwd’ of Radnor, while Fernmail's date can be fixed by a genealogy given in ‘Y Cymmrodor,’ x. 110, and by other evidence, between 785 and 815 (, pp. 66–71). In § 35 a reference to Catell, king of Powys, points to the date of writing having been previous to 808 (ib. pp. 71–3). The genealogies given in §§ 57–65 favour the same period as the date of the final composition of the ‘Historia,’ for the ‘Genealogia Merciorum’ in § 60 ends with Ecgfrith, the son of Offa, who reigned for a few months in 796; it is therefore probable that the work was originally completed in that year (ib. pp. 81–82). That the writer lived on the borders of Mercia in Brecknock or Radnor is further probable from the inclusion in the ‘Mirabilia’ in § 73 of two wonders in Buelt and Ercing (Erchenfield in Herefordshire), of the latter of which he remarks, ‘ego solus probavi.’ All that Nennius tells us directly of himself is contained in the preface (§ 3), which commences with the words, ‘Ego Nennius sancti Elbodi discipulus.’ Elbod or Elbodug is no doubt the Bishop of Bangor of that name who died in 809, and through whose influence the Roman custom as to the keeping of Easter was introduced into the Welsh church about 770. The change met with considerable opposition, and it seems possible that Nennius was a partisan of the new movement, and wrote his preface to accompany a copy of the ‘Historia’ which he sent to Elbodug. Some corroboration for the date and locality here ascribed to Nennius is to be derived from a story preserved in a Bodleian MS. (Auct. F. 4–32, f. 20), which dates from the end of the eighth or beginning of the ninth century. It is there related that one Nemniuus devised certain letters to confound the scoffing of a Saxon scholar at British learning, ‘ut vituperationem et hebetudinem deieceret gentis suæ.’ The forms of the letters given were in use in south-east Wales from the fifth to the seventh centuries, and the names assigned to them are ancient British words. It seems not unlikely that the Nemniuus of this story is the Nennius of the ‘Historia Britonum,’ and the conjecture is supported by the expression which the latter uses in his preface, ‘excerpta … quæ hebetudo gentis Britannicæ dejecerat’ (, pp. 131–3).

Twelfth-century historians, such as Henry of Huntingdon, in referring to the ‘Historia Britonum,’ do so under the name of Gildas, and since the preface in § 3, as well as the longer preface in §§ 1 and 2, is found in no manuscript earlier than the twelfth century, it has been inferred that before this period the name of Nennius, as an historian, was probably unknown (, p. xv;, Mon. Hist. Brit. p. 63); but this is clearly a misapprehension, for Nennius is mentioned as the author of the ‘Historia Britonum’ in the Irish version ascribed to Giolla Coemgin (fl. 1071), both in the preface and in § 48 (, p. 104); the ‘Historia Britonum,’ moreover, appears to have been known under the name of Nennius to Cormac MacCuillennan (831–903 or 908) [q. v.] Other critics, starting from the ascription of the authorship to Marcus the Anachoret in the early Vatican manuscript, and arguing that the author, while of British birth, must have had a close Irish connection, have assigned Nennius to the inferior position of a transcriber, and given the authorship to Mark. Mark was a genuine person, who flourished in the ninth century; was a Briton born, and an Irish bishop. Heric of Auxerre, writing about 875, ascribes to Mark a statement concerning St. Germanus which coincides closely with the narrative in the ‘Historia Britonum’ ( and, Pref. pp. 12–18). This theory, however, rests on no sure foundation; Mark probably derived his information from the ‘Liber Beati Germani,’ which Nennius had used in his own work. There is no sufficient reason to doubt the genuineness of the ascription to Nennius as the original compiler, and the date of writing may be accepted as definitely fixed on internal evidence about 796.

The ‘Historia Britonum’ in the fullest form that has come down to us consists of seventy-six sections, divided as follows: (1) ‘Prologus Major,’ §§ 1, 2; (2) ‘Prologus Minor,’ § 3; (3) ‘Calculi,’ or ‘De Sex Ætatibus Mundi,’ §§ 4–6; (4) ‘Historia,’ §§ 7–56; (5) ‘Genealogiæ Saxonicæ,’ §§ 57–65; (6) ‘Mirabilia,’ §§ 66–76; and at the end (7) ‘Nomina Civitatum xxviii.’ In addition one manuscript (Univ. Cambr. Ff. 1, 27) has a list of Capitula prefixed, and also contains some ‘Versus Nennini ad Samuelem filium magistri sui Beulani,’ and two short chronological memoranda. The ‘Versus’ are undoubtedly spurious, and their own internal evidence condemns the ‘Capitula;’ these additions are printed by Stevenson in his ‘Preface’ (pp. xxvi–xxvii, and Appendix, pp. 63–70), and also in Hardy's ‘Catalogue of British History’ (i. 318) and the ‘Monu-