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From: GORDON FISHER < >
Subject: Re: Descent from Adam (Cerdic historical?)
Date: Sat, 9 Sep 1995 19:50:51 GMT


Alan B Wilson says in reply to Scott McGee (cf also Todd Farmerie
in reply to Tom Camfield), in connection with early medieval
genealogy of West Saxon kings in Britain: "Beyond Cerdic is
not historical."

Actually, there's doubt about the historicity of Cerdic. For
example, Lucien Musset says in *The Germanic Invasions* (1975,
translation of *Les Invasions: Les Vagues Germaniques*, 1965),
p 231-2:

"A good deal of our information about the origins of England, whether
it comes from Britain itself or from elsewhere, has a markedly
epic or mythological flavour. ..... the attitude of historians
at the beginning of this century was categorical: it was all a
hopeless jumble in which crass ignorance and the most extravagant
flights of fancy vied for supremacy. The great French medievalist
Ferdinand Lot was the supreme exponent of this critical attitude.
..... Since then historians have been cautiously reacting
against Lot's hypercritical attitude. ..... Some scholars,
like T. C. Lethbridge and C. F. C. Hawkes, would ... restore
to these heroic figures [viz, Vortigern, Hengist and Horsa]
the historical reality of which others have deprived them.
Cerdic has been less fortunate: his Anglian genealogy, his Celtic
name, and his band of Jutes supposedly participating in the
foundation of a Saxon kingdom, have earned him universal
distrust, especially as archseology has shown that the alleged
area of his landing, near Southampton, remained in British
hands for at least fifty years after the date given for his
arrival."

Earlier in this century (the 20th of the Christian era, that is,
in case someone reads this in the 21st century of that era),
Sir Charles Oman wrote in *A History of England before the
Norman Conquest* (5th edn 1924 -- 1st was 1910), p 225:
"It is safer to regard the existence of any Cerdic as
founder of the West Saxon realm with deep suspicion." And
on p 227, Oman refers to "Ceawlin, the first historical
king of the West Saxons".

Gordon Fisher

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