A Companion to the Early Middle Ages

This fine collaborative volume is the second (in chronological order) of nine ‘Blackwell Companions to British History’, the aim of which is to ‘synthesize current scholarship’ in a ‘clear, provocative and lively manner’ and to indicate for ‘an international audience of scholars, students and general readers’ where that scholarship ‘is heading’. Professor Stafford is to be congratulated on assembling a powerful team of twenty scholars of varying age and experience, all of whom have attempted to write freshly and clearly. There are some evident gaps, where contributions which were doubtless planned did not materialise, but we should be grateful for the high quality of the feast that is presented. Her authors’ task was made more challenging by the decision to include the history of Ireland fully within this volume (whereas in most others in the series Ireland’s role is distinctly subordinate). Early medieval Irish sources do indeed provide valuable contrasts to (or comparisons with) the evidence available for British topics. Moreover, both Ireland and Britain so often influenced the settlement, politics and religion of each other in this period that there are considerable advantages in studying their histories together, however distinct they may have been. The inclusion of Ireland within a series on British history has, however, necessitated care to avoid any suggestion that the series was planned as a ‘History of the British Isles’—a term seemingly eschewed by all except one of the contributors for its residual imperialist (or unionist) overtones—and has led several to adopt an unfortunately inaccurate term, ‘the Atlantic Archipelago’, for Britain and Ireland. Indeed, at a time when English has become the basic language of the internet, the needs of the many readers ignorant of the Gaelic and Welsh languages are given short shrift in this volume. For no guidance at all is provided about English equivalents of the Celtic personal and place-names given in standardised Gaelic or Welsh forms. Thus, although we do sometimes read of Columba in preference to Colum Cille, we always (to take just three examples) meet Máel Coluim rather than Malcolm, Cinaed not Kenneth, and Brycheiniog not Brecon. Such monoglot Celtic spellings suggest that editorial unease about the nineteenth- and twentieth-century advance of English at the expense of other Insular languages has outweighed concern for accessibility, despite the fact that English is the first language of most of the inhabitants of both islands (and of each of the four ‘kingdoms’ as well as of the Republic)

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