A CHAPTER-BY- CHAPTER SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS OF

HISTORY OF BRITAIN, 407-597,

by
Fabio P. Barbieri

This book is dedicated to Donatella Barbieri and her family for being good people, and to Debbie*Wallace.

• Introduction
• Book I: The world of Saint Gildas
  • 1: Gildas sapiens and his sapientia
  • 2: Gildas' history re-examined: Rome and the deceitful she-monster
  • 3: Sixth-century fact and Gildas
  • 4: The five tyrants: Cuneglasus, Aurelius Caninus, Constantine and Vortiporius
  • 5: The five tyrants: Maglocunus and the north
  • 6: British kings as tyrants
  • 7: Resurgent Celticism: Function and power of Gildas' kings

• Book II: Legends and history of the end of Roman Britain
  • 1: Magnus Maximus and the Picts
  • 2: The Rescript of Honorius
  • 3: The Picts destroyed?
  • 4: Towards a reconstruction of "A": the Nennian material
  • 5: Reconstructing "A"
  • 6: The prehistory of A
  • 7: Zosimus and the supposed expulsion of the Roman magistrates
  • 8: The date of A
  • 9: The beginnings of British independence

• Book III: The uir modestus and the superbus tyrannus
  • 1: Reflections on Gildas' chapter 21
  • 2: Ambrosius, his father and the politics of Britain before 429
  • 3: The religious crisis
  • 4: The survival of Pelagianism

• Book IV: Saint Patrick in legend and history
  • 1: Patrick's writings and his claim
  • 2: St.Patrick's date
  • 3: Muirchu and his sources
  • 4: The chapter of the damned?

• Book V: Saxon settlement and rebellion
  • 1: Saxon settlement and rebellion
  • 2: Gildas' sources and Ambrosian propaganda

• Book VI: Vortigern: legends and history
  • 1: The attitudes to Vortigern and their causes
  • 2: The story of Vortigern, Emrys and the two dragons
  • 3: The cycle of Conn, Art and Cormac
  • 4: The origin of Hengist’s legend
  • 5: Who killed King Vortigern? A historical mystery
  • 6: Geoffrey and the legends of Vortigern and of Guithelinus
  • 7: Geoffrey, the lost document "N", its sources, and the historical Ambrosius
  • 8: The cult of St.Gurthiern
  • 9: An analytical reading of Nennius' Vortigern passages

• Book VII: Towards a reconstruction of the lost history of Britain from Ambrosius to Saint Gildas
  • 1: The house of Vortigern
  • 2: 442-468: a historical reconstruction
  • 3: Notes on the origin of the English people
  • 4: Ethnic and cultural consequences of the war
  • 5: Interlude: Lovocatus and Catihernus

• Book VIII: The Lost Document L
  • 1: Preliminary considerations
  • 2: the lost document L: chronology and context
  • 3: The contamination of historical features with mythological material
  • 4: The lost document L: the character of the protagonists
  • 5: Scandinavian stories
  • 6: the British invasion of Gaul and the origins of Brittany
  • 7: The character of the Celticizing revolution

• Book IX: the aftermath
  • 1: Saint Gildas reconsidered
  • 2: The English conquest and conversion
  • 3: The Welsh language and the new native poetry

• The Appendices
  • Appendix I: Legendary versions of the Roman conquest of Britain
  • Appendix II: The lost legend of Gwyrangcon
  • Appendix III: Aurelius Ursicinus at Hoxne
  • Appendix IV: Procopius and Britain
  • Appendix V: Saint Patrick and the Isle of Man
  • Appendix VI: More about the legend of the fortress and the dragons
  • Appendix VII: Urien and his legends
  • Appendix VIII: Aegidius and Britain?
  • Appendix IX: Modern parallels for the final defeat of Cadwallon
  • Appendix X: Mil Du the knight
  • Appendix XI: Vitalinus, Fitela, Sinfjotli?
  • Appendix XII: More evidence for direct contact between Franks and Celtic Britons, ca..535

History of Britain, 407-597 is copyright © 2002, Fabio P. Barbieri. Used with permission.

Comments to: Fabio P. Barbieri