Nennius

Hugh Magennis (Queen's University Belfast)

Ed. by Hugh Magennis, Queen's University Belfast
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.2: Welsh Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Kirsti Bohata (Swansea University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow), Nicholas Seager (University of Keele), Rita Singer (Aberystwyth University)

Dates

Born c. 800
Died c. 850
Activity c. 828-c. 850

Places

Born in Wales
Active in Wales

Activities

Primary

Historian / Chronicler
Scholar

Resources

Nennius' Works

Save to Bookshelf

Nennius was a Welsh scholar who lived and worked in the ninth century. He is traditionally credited as being the author of the important historical document the

Historia Brittonum

[

History of the Britons

], a brief history of Britain from Roman times to the 680s, with assorted supplementary material (including an account of the Ages of the World and various genealogies). The

Historia

is celebrated as being the earliest source to mention (King) Arthur, who is presented as a powerful British war-lord who fought a series of successful battles against the invading Anglo-Saxons (in the late fifth century).

In fact, Nennius was one of a number of redactors of the Historia Brittonum, which had been composed anonymously some time before his particular version and can be dated to 828-9. The version

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

375 words

Citation: Magennis, Hugh. "Nennius". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 August 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3320, accessed 19 April 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here