Cultural Heroism in the Old North of Britain: The Evidence of Gododdin Aneirin's

Abstract

The period between the fifth and seventh centuries AD, from the departure of the Romans from Britain in 410 AD to the consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, is sometimes referred to as the British Heroic Age. Drawing on the famous literary category defined by the Chadwicks in their monumental work, The Growth of Literature (Cambridge, 1932), the concept of the 'Heroic Age' in Britain describes the struggle of the British kingdoms in the west and north to resist the gradual expansion of the Anglo-Saxons, and the ultimate absorption of the northern kingdoms into Anglian territories.