Origin Legends in Early Medieval Western Europe

Lindy Brady, Ph.D. (2012), University of Connecticut, is Assistant Professor of History at University College Dublin. She has published Writing the Welsh Borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester, 2017) and The Origin Legends of Early Medieval Britain and Ireland (Cambridge, 2022).Patrick Wadden, D.Phil. (2012), University of Oxford, is Associate Professor of History at Belmont Abbey College, North Carolina. He has published articles and book chapters on the early medieval history and historiography of Ireland and Britain.

• List of FiguresNotes on Contributors1 IntroductionLindy Brady and Patrick WaddenPART 1: Regions2 Origin Legends of Visigothic Spain in Isidore of Seville’s WritingsErica Buchberger3 Origin Legends in Ireland and Celtic BritainT.M. Charles-Edwards4 Origin Legends in Italy in the Early Middle AgesMarios Costambeys5 Origin Stories in the Viking Diaspora—Norway, Iceland, OrkneyJudith Jesch6 The Origin Legend of the Goths in the Getica by JordanesRobert Kasperski7 The Early History of Frankish Origin Legends, c.500–800 C.E.Helmut ReimitzPART 2: Themes8 The Legend of Trojan Origins in the Later Middle Ages: Texts and TapestriesMichael Clarke9 Fallen Angels and the Island ParadiseCatherine E. Karkov10 The New Israel Motif in Early Medieval Origin LegendsConor O’Brien11 Out-of-Scandinavia: New Perspectives on Barbarian IdentityRobert W. Rix12 Oral Tradition and Origin LegendsShami GhoshPART 3: Approaches13 Origin Legends and ObjectsKatherine Cross14 Historiography and the Invention of British Identity: Troy as an Origin Legend in Medieval Britain and IrelandHelen Fulton15 Origin Legends and GenealogyBen Guy16 Myths of the Eastern Origins of the Franks: Fictions or a Kind of Truth?John D. Niles17 Origines gentium and the Long Shadow of RomeAlheydis Plassmann18 Myth, Memory, and the Early History of the Diocese of Tours in Gregory’s Decem libri historiarumAndrew Rabin19 ConclusionLindy Brady and Patrick WaddenIndex