Emperor Justinian and the British Kings, c. 540

Roman historian Procopius had a lot to complain about in his Secret History. Its pretty easy to say that he did a hatchet job on his bosses, Emperor Justinian and General Belisauris. Procopius was the Late Antique equivalent of a severely conservative 'think tank' founder, you know the type that queue up to appear on talk...

All Cadwaladr’s Mothers

[From the archives with a new title: a little bit of folklore for the first Friday in June.] Cadwaladr the blessed is one of my favorite Old British folklore figures so I can't leave 2007 behind without one long post on him. A paraphrase translation follows of some matrilinear notes on Cadwaladr in the Bonedd...

The Mortality of Children, Ireland 683-685

683 The beginning of the children's plague in the month of October (AT, AU, AI), which lasted for three years in Ireland. (FAI); A plague was in Ireland (AC) 684: The plague of youths, in which all the chieftains and nearly all the young Irish noblemen perished. (FAI); The mortality of little ones (AT) / children...

FB: Dinas Emrys

The fortress that couldn't be built. The story of Merlin and Vortigern was first recorded in the Historia Brittonum (c. 825) given here from the Medieval Sourcebook: 40. But soon after calling together his twelve wise men, to consult what was to be done, they said to him, "Retire to the remote boundaries of your...

The Grandfather Effect

As I worked on this month's lost kingdom, my mind wondered on to the grandfather effect. There is this trend for the dynastic founder to be the grandfather of the first great king. This is not to say that the grandfather wasn't an important king in his own time, but he could have easily become...

6th Century British Plague

So I was thinking about ole Maelgwn Gwynedd reputedly dying of plague in c. 544. Now, granted the evidence doesn't stand up because the earliest evidence is well, at least, 500 years after his death. However, its not impossible because we know archaeologically that the British were in contact with Byzantine traders. As one of...