Welsh Journals

are brought out. The history of the historiography of the fall of Roman Britain appears as a progression from the not unsophisticated theological interpretation of Gildas to the more sophisticated theological interpretation of Bede, with more secular elements appearing in Nennius and becoming dominant in Geoffrey of Monmouth. Dr. Hanning's approach to his subject is a fruitful one. There is much of interest in his book. But it does not do justice to the difficulties of its subject and is marred by assertiveness and over-writing. His interpretations often need more qualification than he gives. For example, it is not at all clear that the flamma of De Excidio, chap. 5, denotes 'Roman civilization and order', rather than Roman conquest, or that the hermit of Bede, H.E., II, ii, is a 'figure of the isolated British church'. The dangers of over- emphatic deduction are exemplified by Dr. Hanning's saying of King Ethelbert, 'That he will also be a historical fulfilment of the kings of Israel is later clarified when Bede calls Ethelbert a new Saul on the occasion of Ethelbert's overcoming the Scots'. Unhappily, Bede says this not of Ethelbert, but of the pagan Ethelftith. Or again, believing that Gildas influenced Bede greatly, Dr. Hanning states that H.E., I, i, 'gives a description of Britain inspired by but different from that of Gildas', although the inspiration of Orosius is much more obvious. While in- dividual instances of this kind of overstatement are unimportant, their cumulative effect indicates that to a considerable extent Dr. Hanning imposes rather than demonstrates his arguments. It is not reassuring to read that 'Gregory's successors in the papacy sent numerous learned bishops to England in the seventh century', when in fact they sent two, the learning of one of these being a quite unknown quantity. In short, Dr. Hanning has come nearer to the preoccupations and methods of his subjects than have many commentators. But his work is by no means definitive. J. CAMPBELL Worcester College, Oxford THE GODODDIN: THE OLDEST SCOTTISH POEM. By Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson. Edinburgh University Press, 1969. Pp. xi, 178. 40s. Professor Jackson's discussion of the Gododdin and associated lays, and his English rendering of them have appeared very soon after the publication of Professor Caerwyn Williams's valuable English version of Sir Ifor Williams's edition of the poems of Taliesin. Both works are designed to meet the needs of a wider public of readers who are unable to