Narrative literature
Finn Cycle
Chapter I looks at the basic use of the term in medieval Irish tale-lists and elsewhere, and then briefly considers modem scholarship and vanous issues raised by it regarding the nature and function of the pre-Norman Irish echtrae
Chapter II endeavours to gather such information as is available about echtrae titles attested in the tale-lists and then to examine the medieval provenance (or lack of it) of the use of the echtrae to refer to various tales often associated with the genre.
Narratives for which this can be established form the initial database of seven tales examined in Chapter III, which proposes a preliminary taxonomy of what can be regarded as reasonably typical echtrai in the light of ten significant common elements.
Chapter IV augments this rather restricted corpus with five further texts selected for similar analysis on the strength of significant typological affinities with the group considered in Chapter III.
The role of sovereignty or kingship, which emerges as a central concern of echtrai in Chapters III and IV, will be examined further in Chapter V, which will also look at the royal or other connections of the persons named in the titles of various lost echtrai.
Chapter VI explores the way in which sovereignty and other motifs are exploited in individual extant echtrai.
Chapter VII examines stones relating the otherworldly expeditions of Cu Chulainn and their relationship to the echtrai.
Finally, Chapter VIII endeavours to summarise the main findings and attempts to sketch the development of the echtrae in the pre-Norman period.Many questions arise concerning the meaning of the chariots depicted on the Irish high crosses. Although some scholars have tried to interpret these images in a Christian way, no satisfactory solution has come up. Therefore, in this paper the question is asked whether the chariot could belong to a Celtic motif. By looking at the details of the images found on the Irish high crosses and comparing them to literary descriptions, the possibility is proposed that the figures in the chariots are Cú Chulainn and his charioteer Lóeg. It seems probable that the story of the Phantom Chariot of Cú Chulainn, Siaburcharpat Conculaind, is depicted in these cases. Even though this story has a clear Celtic element, it also has strong connections with Christian topics, which makes it even more probable that this is the story depicted on the Irish high crosses.
My dissertation is a palaeographical study of the manuscripts of the works of Gerald of Wales (c. 1146-1223). Gerald was a churchman, a member of the court of King Henry II and a prolific author. His extensive works include historical and topographical descriptions of Ireland and Wales, theological and hagiographical studies, and several autobiographical works. Throughout his career he constantly revised these works. A hundred manuscripts containing works of Gerald survive today, and the progress of his revision of his works may be observed from the manuscript-record. I therefore devote some space to the textual history of Gerald's works in the manuscripts; however, the emphasis is on the manuscripts and therefore on what the textual history can show about them, not on the texts themselves. There is an unusually large number of manuscripts (about 20%) surviving from Gerald's lifetime, including some which are decorated and illustrated and at least one which has been described as a 'working copy'. I have studied these manuscripts closely, concentrating on finding similarities between them - particularly the appearance of the same hand in different manuscripts - which may point to a common place of production, possibly 'Gerald's scriptorium'. I have also considered the manuscript evidence for Gerald's publishing processes and the possibility of finding Gerald's autograph. I have then considered the manuscripts surviving from after Gerald's death and what they can show about the continuing tradition of his works, for example: who read them, and which were most popular; the geographical spread of the manuscript-evidence; whether different works were popular at different times, and why; the treatment of the works by later scholars, for example translation, abbreviation and excerpting. This includes evidence which I have discovered for the existence of now lost manuscripts. Finally, I have compared the manuscript-tradition of Gerald's works with that of some other twelfth-century Insular writers whose works survive in various authorial editions and/or in autograph or quasi-autograph copies.
