An examination of the ways in which works of Classical literature influenced and were received by the native Irish tradition. Original, innovative work which elucidates a number of individual narratives; but more significantly, by placing these texts in their proper intellectual context, the author demonstrates how the world of learning in eleventh- andtwelfth-century Ireland really worked. He illuminates a world of medieval education and scholarship; he tells us (as no-one has done previously) what medieval Irish classicism was all about. Dr Máire ni Mhaonaigh, St John's College, University of Cambridge. The puzzle of Ireland's role in the preservation of classical learning into the middle ages has always excited scholars, but the evidence from the island's vernacular literature - as opposed to that in Latin - for the study of pagan epic has largely escaped notice. In this book the author breaks new ground by examining the Irish texts alongside the Latin evidence for the study of classical epic in medieval Ireland, surveying the corpus of Irish texts based on histories and poetry from antiquity, in particular Togail Troi, the Irish history of the Fall of Troy. He argues that Irish scholars' study of Virgil and Statius in particularleft a profound imprint on the native heroic literature, especially the Irish prose epic Táin Bó Cúailnge ("The Cattle-Raid of Cooley"). BRENT MILES is a Fellow in Early and Medieval Irish, University College Cork.

"This edited volume will make a major contribution to our appreciation of the importance of classical literature and learning in medieval Ireland, and particularly to our understanding of its role in shaping the content, structure and transmission of medieval Irish narrative." Dr Kevin Murray, Department of Early and Medieval Irish, University College Cork. From the tenth century onwards, Irish scholars adapted Latin epics and legendary histories into the Irish language, including the Imtheachta Aeniasa, the earliest known adaptation of Virgil's Aeneid into any European vernacular; Togail Tro , a grand epic reworking of the decidedly prosaic history of the fall of Troy attributed to Dares Phrygius; and, at the other extreme, the remarkable Merugud Uilixis meic Leirtis, a fable-like retelling of Ulysses's homecoming boiled down to a few hundred lines of lapidary prose. Both the Latin originals and their Irish adaptations had a profound impact on the ways in which Irish authors wrote narratives about their own legendary past, notably the great saga T in B C ailnge (The Cattle-Raid of Cooley). The essays in this book explore the ways in which these Latin texts and techniques were used. They are unified by a conviction that classical learning and literature were central to the culture of medieval Irish storytelling, but precisely how this relationship played out is a matter of ongoing debate. As a result, they engage in dialogue with each other, using methods drawn from a wide range of disciplines (philology, classical studies, comparative literature, translation studies, and folkloristics). Ralph O'Connor is Professor in the Literature and Culture of Britain, Ireland and Iceland at the University of Aberdeen. Contributors: Abigail Burnyeat, Michael Clarke, Robert Crampton, Helen Fulton, Barbara Hillers, M ire N Mhaonaigh, Ralph O'Connor, Erich Poppe.

This holistic study demonstrates the interconnected nature of early medieval origin legends and traces their growth over time.

Battles have long featured prominently in historical consciousness, as moments when the balance of power was seen to have tipped, or when aspects of collective identity were shaped. But how have perspectives on warfare changed? How similar are present day ideologies of warfare to those of the medieval period? Looking back over a thousand years of British, Irish and Scandinavian battles, this significant collection of essays examines how different times and cultures have reacted to war, considering the changing roles of religion and technology in the experience and memorialisation of conflict. While fighting and killing have been deplored, glorified and everything in between across the ages, Writing Battles reminds us of the visceral impact left on those who come after.

By the early middle ages vernacular aristocratic traditions of heroic narration were firmly established in Western and Northern Europe. Although there are regional, linguistic and formal differences, one can observe a number of similarities. Oral literature disseminates a range of themes that are shared by narratives in most parts of the continent. In all the European regions, this tradition of heroic narration came into contact with Christianity, which led to modifications. Similar processes of adaptation and transformation can be traced everywhere in this field of early European vernacular narrative. But with the increasing specialization of academic fields over the last half century, inter-disciplinary dialogue has become increasingly difficult. The volume is a contribution to renew the inter-disciplinary dialogue about common themes, topics and motifs in Nordic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Germanic literature, and about the different methodologies to explore them.

This book explores the strange world of Irish sagas. It offers a systematic literary analysis of any single native Irish saga and presents an analysis of the finest of the sagas, 'The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel'. The reader is invited to not only understand this and other Irish sagas, but also to enjoy them as literature.

This volume contains work by scholars actively publishing on origin legends across early medieval western Europe, from the fall of Rome to the high Middle Ages. Its thematic structure creates dialogue between texts and regions traditionally studied in isolation.

Captured here for the first time is the richness of the Charlemagne tradition in medieval Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Wales and Ireland and its coherence as a series of adaptations of Old French chansons de geste

History and Salvation in Medieval Ireland explores medieval Irish conceptions of salvation history, using Latin and vernacular sources from c. 700–c. 1200 CE which adapt biblical history for audiences both secular and ecclesiastical. This book examines medieval Irish sources on the cities of Jerusalem and Babylon; reworkings of narratives from the Hebrew Scriptures; literature influenced by the Psalms; and texts indebted to Late Antique historiography. It argues that the conceptual framework of salvation history, and the related theory of the divinely-ordained movement of political power through history, had a formative influence on early Irish culture, society and identity. Primarily through analysis of previously untranslated sources, this study teases out some of the intricate connections between the local and the universal, in order to situate medieval Irish historiography within the context of that of the wider world. Using an overarching biblical chronology, beginning with the lives of the Jewish Patriarchs and ending with the Christian apostolic missions, this study shows how one culture understood the histories of others, and has important implications for issues such as kingship, religion and literary production in medieval Ireland. This book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval Ireland, as well as those interested in religious and cultural history.

The textual heritage of Medieval Latin is one of the greatest reservoirs of human culture. Repertories list more than 16,000 authors from about 20 modern countries. Until now, there has been no introduction to this world in its full geographical extension. Forty contributors fill this gap by adopting a new perspective, making available to specialists (but also to the interested public) new materials and insights. The project presents an overview of Medieval (and post-medieval) Latin Literatures as a global phenomenon including both Europe and extra-European regions. It serves as an introduction to medieval Latin's complex and multi-layered culture, whose attraction has been underestimated until now. Traditional overviews mostly flatten specificities, yet in many countries medieval Latin literature is still studied with reference to the local history. Thus the first section presents 20 regional surveys, including chapters on authors and works of Latin Literature in Eastern, Central and Northern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. Subsequent chapters highlight shared patterns of circulation, adaptation, and exchange, and underline the appeal of medieval intermediality, as evidenced in manuscripts, maps, scientific treatises and iconotexts, and its performativity in narrations, theatre, sermons and music. The last section deals with literary “interfaces,” that is motifs or characters that exemplify the double-sided or the long-term transformations of medieval Latin mythologemes in vernacular culture, both early modern and modern, such as the legends about King Arthur, Faust, and Hamlet.