Medieval Welsh Manuscripts by Daniel Huws (review)

REVIEWS121 author. Moreover, if the idea ofArthur had historical roots, he argues they were archetypal only, based on biblical leaders ofthe Chosen People like Joshua. Doubtless the Subaltern Studies Collective would be shocked by this adaptation oftheir theory, for in their usage it was the British who did the colonizing, whereas in Higham's version they are the colonized until the departure ofRome's legions in 410 ce created a postcolonial situation, one immediately complicated by the coming ofthe Anglo-Saxons. That history leads to a number ofinterrelated questions both about evidence and how Higham approaches it. First, since authors also wrote about Arthur in Welsh and other Celtic languages, it seems strange that Higham concerns himselfonlywith works in Latin, presumably the language ofcolonizingoppression. Initially this linguistic focus threatens to skew whatever postcolonial insights this book may have, but Higham solves the problem with a two-point rebuttal so quietly made that readers may miss it. First, his texts were written in the least Romanized part ofBritain, the West, where Latin became 'a universal linguafranca' only about 400 CE or, in other words, just when the Romans were leaving. Second, the Latin involved is that of the Church and the Bible, not of imperial authority. In other words, continuing Latinity does not deny freedom from earlier subaltern status. As Higham sees it, because the Historia Brittonum constructed a vision of Britishness that was explicitly non-Roman, it had to get rid ofAmbrosius, the last Roman, by making Arthur the victor at Badon. Vortigern is transformed into an unsanctified tyrant who rules over Britons who are essentially brave and good, very different from the evil, cowardly people found in Gildas and especially Bede. As dux bellorum Arthur becomes 'the British Joshua,' and his list ofbattles is seen as an equally authorial creation intended to link this new leader to his biblical archetype. Lastly, thework makes it clear by extension that Britonswill never submit to Mercian conquest, the immediate threat at the time ofcomposition. Yet if Mercians worried the Gwynedd-based author of the Historia Brittonum, when the Annales Cambriaewere written in Dyfed just over a century later, Vikings had replaced the English as the principal contemporary danger. At least partially as a result, this work seems so accepting of English dominance that, as Higham puts it, the 'fact' that Badon was an anti-English victory is 'very carefullyveiled.' Similarly, Camlann is presented as purely a British battle, with nary a Saxon in sight. So persuasive is Higham's analysis that most readers will accept his view that the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae are like Geoffrey's Historia in being 'highly imaginativeworks, none ofwhose authors saw their prime task as the reconstruction ofwhat actually happened in the distant past.' CHARLES T. WOOD Dartmouth College daniel Huws, Medieval Wekh Manuscripts. Cardiffand Aberystwyth: University of Wales Press and The National Library ofWales, 2000. Pp. xvi, 352. isbn: 0-7083160 —6. £50. Scholars of many disciplines have often had occasion to lament the regrettable dearth ofprinted source materials focusing on the Welsh manuscript tradition. The 122ARTHURIANA pioneering analyses ofGwenogvryn Evans, Lindsay and Denholm-Young have been superseded in many respects, but there are few recent critical discussions to which the student can refer with ease. We are fortunate in that the appearance of this long-overdue study remedies such a defect. Daniel Huws has stood out during the last three decades as the leading authority on the study of Welsh manuscripts, and of the written transmission of Welsh literature. The results of his labours have appeared in a wide variety of books and articles (some not easily accessible), and a number of his more important contributions are here brought together to form sixteen chapters, all revised anew in light of recent scholarship. A bibliography of further relevant contributions by the author is appended to the volume. Those who are unable to read Welsh will particularly welcome the appearance in translation ofthe author's lucid Sir John Williams lecture for 1992 and his analysis ofthe Hendregadredd Manuscript (NLW MS 6680B), and two further contributions —an article on Robert Vaughan the antiquary, and a table of Welsh vernacular manuscripts to 1540—have been greatly expanded...