Nennius

early 9th century

Historian, probably living in south Wales, compiler of the Historia Brittonium, of which there are several versions; the chief manuscripts are the Cambridge, the Vatican, and the Harleian. The book commences with a purported account of the colonisation of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons. It is an uncritical jumble of history and legend, and chronologically unreliable, but modern scholarship has shown that it contains much valuable material on a little known period of English history. Geoffrey of Monmouth used Nennius's work as a basis for his own, but with considerable additions which make it historically far less valuable than the original.

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