Trojan Wales: The Medieval Afterlife of an Ancient Myth
Following its conquest by the English in 1284, medieval Wales needed a new origin story that established its place in Britain. Were the Welsh descended from Troy?
In his Historia Brittonum, ‘History of the British People’, the ninth-century monk Nennius asserted that the British, the original owners of Britain before their displacement by the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century, were descended from the hero Brutus, who was himself a descendant of the Trojan Aeneas, one of the survivors of the fall of Troy. According to this legend the British could trace their origins to that great city. While other traditions for the early history of Britain circulated, the Trojan origins became part of medieval historical writing.
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