qui di seguito Riporto the book presentazione Gildas - The conquest della Britannia , tradotto da me e parish, it scorso avvenuta 1 settembre 2006 San Daniele del Friuli at Hobbiton XIII, an annual event organized by the Italian Tolkien Society to which I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity.
The conquest of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) Gildas the Wise of Monaco Breton, was published in June 2005 by the publishing house Editorial Initiatives The Circle of Rimini, and began as my thesis, for philological literary , Faculty of Foreign Languages \u200b\u200band Literatures, University of Udine.
This is the first Italian translation from the Latin of the oldest historical source-type islands dating from the sixth century AD that tells the story of Britain after the abandonment of today's British Isles by the Romans and the history of clashes between the British and later invaders of the island (first the Picts and Scots, Angles and Saxons later).
The figure of Gildas is little known compared to the most famous Bede and Alcuin, in fact, what little we know about him comes from sources later (the three vitae of the eleventh century Gildae respectively. - By Monaco of the anonymous Rhuys - of XII - Caradoc of Lancarbanense - and the thirteenth-reporting the previous versions and dell'Anglicus dell'Armoricanus) that have been contaminated by legends about him since he was alive. We know che gli furono ascritti molti miracoli soprattutto connessi alla sua attività di ri-evangelizzazione delle regioni settentrionali della Gran Bretagna e della ristabilizzazione della disciplina monastica in Irlanda dove operò numerose conversioni tra gli abitanti che erano tornati al paganesimo. Famoso rimane il suo viaggio a Roma, dal qual tornò carico di libri, e la fondazione in Armorica dell’odierno monastero di St-Gildas de Rhuys, presso Vannes, dove si ritirò dopo i sessant’anni fino alla sua morte. Quella della sua morte, cioé il 29 gennaio dell’anno 570 , è l’unica data certa che abbiamo poiché riportata dagli Annali della Cambria (composti nel X secolo).
La data di stesura Text is conventionally considered to be the year 547 (derived from some internal clues such as the work to plague the death of King Maglocunus as terminus ante quem, and the reference to quadragesimus Quartus annus, Gildas makes reference to the same Regardless of age that had to finalize the document), then 106 years after the so-called Adventus Saxonum, with the arrival of the Saxons, which occurred in 441 (as reported by the Chronica Gallica).
But what led to the Saxons invade Britain? Actually not a direct resolution. But from the beginning. The situation of Britain had always been anomalous compared to the rest of the territories of the empire Rome: The peripheral location of this island made it naturally separated from the rest of the world, so it is an alter orbis placed outside the vital center of the known world, made dall'orbis Romanus, that is from that group formed by the three continents and islands of the Mediterranean.
Only since the first century BC, after the shipment of Caesar in 55, it began to designate the term island Britannia area occupied by the Romans. A century later, in 43 AD, Emperor Claudius was forced to make a new military campaign in southern England to reassert the authority of Rome on unruly Celts, we will have more riots, the most famous Boudicea or that of Queen Boudicca of the Iceni in 61.
The wealth of knowledge about the island was enriched with shipments of farm from the year 77 AD, which also ascertained for the first time, the insular character of Britain, helping to abandon those assumptions that were fantastic embroidered on it. In 80 AD Rome had been under their control most of the island, a territory that included the area south of the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth, which, with the construction of the Vallum Antonini in 143 AD and Vallum in the previous Hadriani 123d.C. between the Solway Firth and the mouth of the Tyne, were a real line of demarcation separava la Britannia Romana dal nord, abitato dai Pitti e dagli Scoti.
Sotto il dominio romano la Britannia godette di un periodo di pace, ricco di commerci e di contatti con il continente.
L’anno 410 è una data chiave. Nel 410 d.C. avvenne, infatti, una svolta dovuta al sacco di Roma da parte dei Visigoti di Alarico. Nell’anno successivo, il 411, l’imperatore Onorio richiamò le sue truppe e i Romani si videro costretti a rientrare in patria per difenderla; i Britanni si ritrovarono così a dover affrontare da soli i continui, e sempre più audaci attacchi di Pitti e Scoti. La soluzione adottata fu quella di chiamare in aiuto le tribù germaniche dei Sassoni, degli Angli e degli Jutes, they soon proved to be the most dangerous enemies of the previous (within the text of the justification used by the Saxons for the conquest of Britain was to have little food to be part of the Britons as their mercenaries) they conquered the southeastern part of 'Island (modern England), moved there and enslaved those Britons who had not fled.
followed other bloody battles between Saxons and Britons, but Gildas when he began to write, now all this was long gone and Britain, which has become the Anglo-Saxon, had been experiencing a new period of peace.
The conquest of Britain has the distinction of being considered as an important historical works without being really of that nature. Although it is fundamental to our understanding of events on British soil during the fifth and sixth centuries AD, in reality it is a sermon, or better yet, a letter addressed to the sermon read, which Gildas dedication in the form of its late compatriots, to scold the immorality prevailing in the society of the period. It can not however be limited to one genre because in it we find that over time various kinds epistolography el'omiletica, even though historians bent for a particular purpose, rhetoric, Latin and Christian polemistica used no all features the late Latin as one might expect, but it is classical, elegant prose has. Prose in translation, I tried to make it as close as possible to the original.
The conception of the history of Gildas is the typical Christian view of history seen as the history of salvation, where God continually intervenes in the lives of men, is a Zeitauffassung linear historical development conceived as a succession of events in the individual plans of Providence compared to the typical cyclical Zeitauffasung of Greeks and Romans.
The barbarian invaders themselves are seen as an instrument of indignatio of , sent by God as punishment for the indignity and moral corruption of men. The eschatological subversive function exercised by the barbarians should stimulate a spiritual regeneration in humans and getting them out of the general deterioration. This same view was shared by many other authors such as Augustine, the Anglo-Saxon Bishop Wulfstan, who used her as a wolf to Anglos Sermo against invasions of the Danes, St. Jerome and others.
Still within this concept, the work of Gildas, we see that the Roman Empire was seen as a source of spread of Christianity and the stabilization of the empire meant a stabilization of Christianity. Binomio Romans - Christianity pervades the work where the Romans are all that is good and the Britons are corrupt and plagued by the invasions because of its evils.
Certainly that Gildas is neither the sole source of the literary history of the peoples of England, nor the most secure space, in fact, the best known with his Bede Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum , Nennius that enriches the 'Historia Brittonum , and Geoffrey of Monmouth Historia Regum Britanniae with the , but the fact that none of these authors has been near the chronological point of view to these important events, and instead it was Gildas, Gildas has made itself the most important source for historical works later. Beda itself has stopped many of the same songs for inclusion in his work (the ' Historia gentis ecclesistica anglorum year 731), by copying out entire sections, and other subsequent authors recognize the value of the testimony of Gildas as a source of primary importance.
The conquest of Britain is, in fact, an important source for the literary tradition, for example, the figure of King Arthur and the events described in it will become the basis of the whole tradition of this legendary figure. Aurelianus Ambrosius, the winner of the decisive battle against the Saxons on the mountain Badon (year 516) will be identified in later works like King Arthur '. (King Arthur is therefore not directly mentioned in the work of Gildas, but it is linked to the name of Gildas was appointed as the second Life Gildae where it is said that Gildas would have given him a penance). So The conquest of Britain is one of the primary sources for the birth of this mythical figure.
It 'also important for other figures in the tradition of the island, as Magnus Maximus, even if this is seen as a dictator, will become the heroic Maxen Wledig the Welsh tradition.
So it is historically an important source, although not very precise, to be literarily. Without The conquest of Britain by Gildas probably would not have had many of the works that have allowed us to know the past, properly historical or mythical as it is, today's Britain.
The book is on sale on the website of The Circle Initiative Editorials and at the Italian Tolkien Society
