Manaw Gododdin - Treatment By Historians

Treatment By Historians

With little known about Manaw Gododdin, there is little that can be said of it with any authority. Aside from parenthetical references to it as Cunedda's homeland, discussion is scant. William Forbes Skene (The Four Ancient Books of Wales, 1868) has a chapter on "Manau Gododdin and the Picts", and later historians either repeat him or cite him, but do not add more. Kenneth Jackson (The Gododdin, 1969) provides the same information as Skene, enhanced by his notice and commentary on some of the speculations and conjectures made by historians in the century since Skene published his work. He adds that the early Irish form of the name Gododdin is Fortudán.

John Koch (Celtic Culture, 2005) incorporates some of Skene's material on Manaw (and credits Skene for it), including an independent view of the historical record (reaching the same general conclusions as Skene), but also asserting conjectures as though they were facts (e.g., asserting that the "Iudeu" mentioned in the Historia Brittonum was at Stirling).

John Rhys (Celtic Britain, 1904) both repeats and cites Skene, but adds nothing new. John Edward Lloyd (History of Wales, 1911) makes only a few comments about Manaw in passing, and John Davies (History of Wales, 1990) omits even that. Christopher Snyder (An Age of Tyrants, 1998) mentions Manaw twice in passing, saying nothing about it there or in his references to the literary Y Gododdin. D. P. Kirby (The Earliest English Kings, 1991) mentions Manaw several times, but only in passing and with no information about it. Alistair Moffat (Before Scotland, 2005) makes several passing references to Manaw Gododdin and Gododdin.

In general, there is as much information about Manaw to be found in literary discussions as in historical ones and often more, though it is not more than Skene provided. For example, John Morris-Jones, in his comprehensive discussion of works attributed to Taliesin (Y Cymmrodor XXVIII, 1918), repeats and cites the information provided by Skene that is typically omitted in historical works.