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Nennius and the Twenty-Eight Cities of Britain

1938; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 12; Issue: 45 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0003598x00013405

1745-1744

Kenneth Jackson,

Linguistics and language evolution

N a recent article in the English Historical Review (vol. LII, pp. 193 ff.) Mr C. E. Stevens has examined the question of the ‘Twenty-Eight Cities of Britain’ which are spoken of by Gildas (‘De Excidio’, chap. III) ; and, on the basis that Gildas knew of some Romano-British Notitia Britanniarum , has attempted with considerable success to discover what cities these must have been. Bede ( Hist. Eccl . I, I) and Nennius ( Hist. Britt. , ed. Mommsen, pp. 147 ff.) both repeat Gildas' remark in much the same words ; and in Section VI of the Historia Brittonum their names are given, with the heading Haec sunt nomina omniurn civitatum quae sunt in tota Brittania, quarurn numerus est xxviii . They are in Old Welsh of about the eighth or ninth centuries, and can therefore be contemporary with the compilation of the Historia Brittonum. Each is described as Cair , the Welsh equivalent of civitas in the late Latin sense. Another version of the Historia Brittonum has made the number into thirty-three, no doubt by misreading XXVIII as XXXIII ; the deficiency is filled up with five extra names also in Old Welsh. Some of the forms are however rather younger than in the first version ( e.g. Cair Lion for Cair Legion), and the Expanded List may be a century or so later than the original.