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Ambrosius Aurelianus was a war leader of the Romano-British who won an important battle against the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century, according to Gildas. He also appeared independently in the legends of the Britons, beginning with the 9th-century Historia Brittonum. Eventually, he was transformed by Geoffrey of Monmouth into the uncle of King Arthur, the brother of Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, as a ruler who precedes and predeceases them both. He also appears as a young prophet who meets the tyrant Vortigern; in this guise, he was later transformed into the wizard Merlin.
Magnus Maximus was Roman emperor of the Western Roman Empire from 383 to 388. He usurped the throne from emperor Gratian in 383 through negotiation with emperor Theodosius I.
Geoffrey of Monmouth was a British cleric from Monmouth, Wales and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur. He is best known for his chronicle The History of the Kings of Britain which was widely popular in its day, being translated into other languages from its original Latin. It was given historical credence well into the 16th century, but is now considered historically unreliable.
Gildas — also known as Gildas the Wise or Gildas Sapiens — was a 6th-century British monk best known for his scathing religious polemic De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, which recounts the history of the Britons before and during the coming of the Saxons. He is one of the best-documented figures of the Christian church in the British Isles during the sub-Roman period, and was renowned for his Biblical knowledge and literary style. In his later life, he emigrated to Brittany where he founded a monastery known as St Gildas de Rhuys.
Maelgwn Gwynedd was king of Gwynedd during the early 6th century. Surviving records suggest he held a pre-eminent position among the Brythonic kings in Wales and their allies in the "Old North" along the Scottish coast. Maelgwn was a generous supporter of Christianity, funding the foundation of churches throughout Wales and even far beyond the bounds of his own kingdom. Nonetheless, his principal legacy today is the scathing account of his behavior recorded in De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae by Gildas, who considered Maelgwn a usurper and reprobate. The son of Cadwallon Lawhir and great-grandson of Cunedda, Maelgwn was buried on Ynys Seiriol, off the eastern tip of Anglesey, having died of the "yellow plague"; quite probably the arrival of Justinian's Plague in Britain.
Uther Pendragon (Brittonic), also known as King Uther, was a legendary King of the Britons in sub-Roman Britain. Uther was also the father of King Arthur.
Mordred or Modred is a figure who is variously portrayed in the legend of King Arthur. The earliest known mention of a possibly historical Medraut is in the Welsh chronicle Annales Cambriae, wherein he and Arthur are ambiguously associated with the Battle of Camlann in a brief entry for the year 537. Medraut's figure seemed to have been regarded positively in the early Welsh tradition and may have been related to that of Arthur's son.
Brutus, or Brute of Troy, is a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, known in medieval British history as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain. This legend first appears in the Historia Brittonum, an anonymous 9th-century historical compilation to which commentary was added by Nennius, but is best known from the account given by the 12th-century chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae.
Historia regum Britanniae, originally called De gestis Britonum, is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons over the course of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxons assumed control of much of Britain around the 7th century. It is one of the central pieces of the Matter of Britain.
Vortimer, also known as Saint Vortimer, is a figure in British tradition, a son of the 5th-century Britonnic ruler Vortigern. He is remembered for his fierce opposition to his father's Saxon allies. In Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, he overthrows his father and reigns as King of Britain for a brief period before his death restores Vortigern to power.
Constantine was a 6th-century king of Dumnonia in sub-Roman Britain, who was remembered in later British tradition as a legendary King of Britain. The only contemporary information about him comes from Gildas, who castigated him for various sins, including the murder of two "royal youths" inside a church. The historical Constantine is also known from the genealogies of the Dumnonian kings, and possibly inspired the tradition of Saint Constantine, a king-turned-monk venerated in Southwest Britain and elsewhere.
Vortiporius or Vortipor was a king of Dyfed in the early to mid-6th century. He ruled over an area approximately corresponding to modern Pembrokeshire, Wales. Records from this era are scant, and virtually nothing is known of him or his kingdom. The only contemporary information about Vortiporius comes from the Welsh ecclesiastic Gildas, in a highly allegorical condemnation from his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. At the time the work was written, Gildas says that Vortiporius was king of Dyfed, that he was grey with age, that his wife had died, and that he had at least one daughter.
Conan Meriadoc is a legendary Celtic leader credited with founding Brittany. Versions of his story circulated in both Brittany and Great Britain from at least the early 12th century, and supplanted earlier legends of Brittany's foundation. His story is known in two major versions, which appear in the Welsh text known as The Dream of Macsen Wledig, and in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. Both texts associate him with Magnus Maximus, a Roman usurper against the Valentinianic dynasty who was widely regarded as having deprived Britain of its defences when he took its legions to claim the imperial throne. Conan's cousin or sister, Saint Elen, is said to have been Macsen Wledic's wife.
Cynan Garwyn was king of Powys in the north-east and east of Wales, who flourished in the second half of the 6th century. Little reliable information exists which can be used to reconstruct the background and career of the historical figure. Available materials include early Welsh poetry, genealogies and hagiography, which are often late and of uncertain value.
Saint Tysilio was a Welsh bishop, prince and scholar, son of the reigning King of Powys, Brochwel Ysgithrog, maternal nephew of the great Abbot Dunod of Bangor Iscoed and an ecclesiastic who took a prominent part in the affairs of Wales during the distressful period at the opening of the 7th century.
De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae is a work written in Latin by the 6th-century AD British cleric St Gildas. It is a sermon in three parts condemning the acts of Gildas' contemporaries, both secular and religious, whom he blames for the dire state of affairs in sub-Roman Britain. It is one of the most important sources for the history of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries, as it is the only significant source for the period written by a near contemporary of the people and events described.
Pridwen was, according to the 12th-century writer Geoffrey of Monmouth, King Arthur's shield; it was adorned with an image of the Virgin Mary. Geoffrey's description of it draws on earlier Welsh traditions found in Preiddeu Annwfn, Culhwch and Olwen, and the Historia Brittonum. The shield is also named and described by Wace, Layamon, Roger of Wendover and Robert of Gloucester among other medieval writers, and it directly inspired the description of Sir Gawain's shield in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Brut y Brenhinedd is a collection of variant Middle Welsh versions of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin Historia Regum Britanniae. About 60 versions survive, with the earliest dating to the mid-13th century. Adaptations of Geoffrey's Historia were extremely popular throughout Western Europe during the Middle Ages, but the Brut proved especially influential in medieval Wales, where it was largely regarded as an accurate account of the early history of the Celtic Britons.
Walter of Oxford was a cleric and writer. He served as archdeacon of Oxford in the 12th century. Walter was a friend of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who claimed he got his chief source for the Historia Regum Britanniae from him.
Gogmagog was a legendary giant in Welsh and later English mythology. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, he was a giant inhabitant of Albion, thrown off a cliff during a wrestling match with Corineus. Gogmagog was the last of the Giants found by Brutus and his men inhabiting the land of Albion.
References
- Giles, John Allen, ed. (1841), The Works of Gildas and Nennius, London: James Bohn— English translation
- Giles, John Allen, ed. (1847), History of the Ancient Britons, vol. II (Second ed.), Oxford: W. Baxter (published 1854)
- Jankulak, Karen (2000). The Medieval Cult of St Petroc. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 0-85115-777-7 . Retrieved January 6, 2010.
- Lloyd, John Edward (1912). A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest. Longmans, Green, and Co. Retrieved January 6, 2010.
Lloyd history of Wales.
- Thornton, David E. (2004). "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
