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The Literary Development of the Arthurian Legend
The Arthurian legend begins with the Welsh cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1100 - c. 1155 CE). Earlier history writers such as Gildas, Bede, and Nennius had already established the existence of a British war-chief who defeated the Saxons...
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Easter
Easter is the Christian holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth three days after he died from crucifixion by the Roman magistrate Pontius Pilate (c. 30 CE). Easter Sunday is the culmination of the week-long events that...
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The Saxons
The Saxons were a Germanic people of the region north of the Elbe River stretching from Holstein (in modern-day Germany) to the North Sea. The Saxons who migrated to Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries CE along with the Angles, Frisians...
Definition
Medieval Literature
Medieval literature is defined broadly as any work written in Latin or the vernacular between c. 476-1500, including philosophy, religious treatises, legal texts, as well as works of the imagination. More narrowly, however, the term applies...
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Ancient Scotland
Scotland is a country which, today, comprises the northern part of Great Britain and includes the islands known as the Hebrides and the Orkneys. The name derives from the Roman word "Scotti" which designated an Irish tribe who invaded the...
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Picts
The Picts were a people of northern Scotland who are defined as a "confederation of tribal units whose political motivations derived from a need to ally against common enemies" (McHardy, 176). They were not a single tribe, nor necessarily...
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Gildas
Gildas (c. 500-570 CE) was a Romano-British monk, known primarily for a work entitled De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, translated as On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain. Gildas' work is a polemical sermon recounting British history while...
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The Battle of Dun Nectain
The Battle of Dun Nechtain (also known as The Battle of Dunnichen, The Battle of Nechtanemere, Lin Garan, and The Battle of Nechtan) was a pivotal engagement between the Northumbrians under their king Ecgfrith and the Picts under the leadership...
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The Seven Wonders
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were seven impressive structures famously listed by ancient writers including Philo of Byzantium, Antipater of Sidon, Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, Strabo, and Callimachus of Cyrene, among others. The...
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Hilda of Whitby
Hilda of Whitby (also known as Saint Hilda of Whitby, l. 614-680 CE) was the founder and abbess of the monastery at Whitby, Kingdom of Northumbria, Britain. She was a Northumbrian princess who converted to Christianity with the rest of the...