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2 results

Multilingualism in Early Medieval Britain

Multilingualism in Early Medieval Britain
  • Lindy Brady
  • Published online:
    19 September 2023
    Print publication:
    12 October 2023
  • In the words of its own historians, pre-Norman Britain held five languages and four peoples. Yet in modern scholarship, Old English is too often studied separately from the other languages that surrounded it. This Element offers a comprehensive synthesis of the evidence from the pre-Norman period that situates Old English as one of several living languages that together formed the basis of a vibrant oral and written literary culture in early medieval Britain. Each section centres around a key thematic topic and is illustrated through a series of memorable case studies that encapsulate the extent to which multilingualism appeared in every facet of life in early medieval Britain: religious and scholarly; political and military; economic and cultural; intellectual and artistic. The Element makes an overall argument for the dynamic extent of transcultural literary and linguistic culture in early medieval Britain before the arrival of the Normans.

  • 16 - Christianity amongst the Britons, Dalriadan Irish and Picts

  • from PART II - THE SEVENTH CENTURY
  • Edited by Paul Fouracre, University of Manchester
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 December 2005, pp 426-461

  • Summary

    This chapter examines the evidence that prompted the original theory, and reconsiders that for Christianity in sub-Roman and early medieval Britain, giving special attention to northern and western Britain. Continuity of Roman Christianity and its spread west and north is indicated by Patrick's writings. Our knowledge of Britain in the sixth century depends to a considerable extent upon the writings of a single author, Gildas. It is highly likely that monasticism reached Britain from Gaul at the end of the fourth. While in the east Christianity was spreading up from the Britons between the Walls to the Picts north of the Forth, in the west the Irish colony of DálRiada was gaining a major Christian focus with the foundation of the monastery of Iona. The surviving evidence of literary works, manuscripts and stone carving reveals Iona as one of the major literary.