was an ancestor figure in

Middle Welsh Middle Welsh (, ) is the label attached to the Welsh language of the 12th to 15th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This form of Welsh developed directly from Old Welsh (). Literature and history Middle Welsh is ...

literature and genealogies. He is the father of

Cassivellaunus Cassivellaunus was a historical British military leader who led the defence against Julius Caesar's second expedition to Britain in 54 BC. He led an alliance of tribes against Roman forces, but eventually surrendered after his location was revea ...

, Arianrhod, Lludd Llaw Eraint, Llefelys, and Afallach. In certain medieval genealogies, he is listed as the son or husband of Anna, cousin of

Mary, mother of Jesus Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

. According to the

Welsh Triads The Welsh Triads (, "Triads of the Island of Britain") are a group of related texts in medieval manuscripts which preserve fragments of Welsh folklore, mythology and traditional history in groups of three. The triad is a rhetorical form whereby o ...

, Beli and

Dôn Dôn () is an ancestor figure in Welsh legend and literature. She is typically given as the mother of a group known as the "Children of Dôn", including Gwydion, Arianrhod, and Gilfaethwy, among many others. However, antiquarians of the earl ...

were the parents of Arianrhod, but the mother of Beli's other children—and the father of Dôn's other children—is not mentioned in the medieval Welsh literature. Several royal lines in medieval

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

traced their ancestry to Beli. The ''

Mabinogi The ''Mabinogion'' () is a collection of the earliest Welsh prose stories, compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, created –1410, as well as a few earlier frag ...

'' names Penarddun as a daughter of Beli Mawr, but the genealogy is confused; it is possible she was meant to be his sister rather than daughter.

Beli and Belenus

The origin of the name Beli is still a matter of debate among scholars. The most popular hypothesis sees the name ''Beli'' as a

reflex of the

Gaulish Gaulish is an extinct Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, ...

and Brittonic divine name ''

Belenus Belenus (Gaulish: ''Belenos'', ''Belinos'') is an ancient Celtic healing god. The cult of Belenus stretched from the Italian Peninsula to the British Isles, with a main sanctuary located at Aquileia, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic coast. Through ...

'' (also attested as a personal name), but a more recent alternative is that proposed by Harvard Celticist John T. Koch, who suggests that ''Beli'' derives from a

Proto-Celtic Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the hypothetical ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed throu ...

name ''Belgius'' or '' Bolgios'' borne by one of the chieftains who led the Gallic invasion of

Macedonia Macedonia (, , , ), most commonly refers to: * North Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, known until 2019 as the Republic of Macedonia * Macedonia (ancient kingdom), a kingdom in Greek antiquity * Macedonia (Greece), a former administr ...

in 280–279 BCE against King Ptolemy Ceraunus. Ptolemy was a member of the

Ptolemaic dynasty The Ptolemaic dynasty (; , ''Ptolemaioi''), also known as the Lagid dynasty (, ''Lagidai''; after Ptolemy I's father, Lagus), was a Macedonian Greek royal house which ruled the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Ancient Egypt during the Hellenistic period. ...

(

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...

), founded by his father,

Ptolemy I Soter Ptolemy I Soter (; , ''Ptolemaîos Sōtḗr'', "Ptolemy the Savior"; 367 BC – January 282 BC) was a Macedonian Greek general, historian, and successor of Alexander the Great who went on to found the Ptolemaic Kingdom centered on Egypt. Pto ...

, a Greek general and the successor of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

. Koch therefore proposes that this great leader ''Belgius'' came to be regarded as the namesake and ancestor of the powerful Brittonic and Gallic tribal group, the

Belgae The Belgae ( , ) were a large confederation of tribes living in northern Gaul, between the English Channel, the west bank of the Rhine, and the northern bank of the river Seine, from at least the third century BC. They were discussed in depth b ...

, whence would have come the doctrine that Beli was the ancestor of tribal dynasties. The Belgae were also described by

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...

in , his diary on the

Gallic Wars The Gallic Wars were waged between 58 and 50 BC by the Roman general Julius Caesar against the peoples of Gaul (present-day France, Belgium, and Switzerland). Gauls, Gallic, Germanic peoples, Germanic, and Celtic Britons, Brittonic trib ...

. Beli Mawr is claimed as the head of the

House of Gwynedd The House of Gwynedd was a royal house during medieval Wales (c. 5001500). The royal dynasty, dynasty is seen as being divided between the founding of the kings settlement in Gwynedd during the Roman invasion of Britain and the subsequent forme ...

by the line of

Cunedda Wledig Cunedda ap Edern, also called Cunedda ''Wledig'' (reigned – c. 460), was an important early Welsh leader, and the progenitor of the royal dynasty of Gwynedd, one of the very oldest of Western Europe. Name The name ''Cunedda'' (spelle ...

, founder of the

Kingdom of Gwynedd The Kingdom of Gwynedd (Medieval Latin: ; Middle Welsh: ) was a Wales in the Early Middle Ages, Welsh kingdom and a Roman Empire Succession of states, successor state that emerged in sub-Roman Britain in the 5th century during the Anglo-Saxon ...

, following the

End of Roman rule in Britain The end of Roman rule in Britain occurred as the military forces of Roman Britain withdrew to defend or seize the Western Roman Empire's continental core, leaving behind an autonomous post-Roman Britain. In 383, the usurper Magnus Maximus wit ...

during the late 4th century under

Magnus Maximus Magnus Maximus (; died 28 August 388) was Roman emperor in the West from 383 to 388. He usurped the throne from emperor Gratian. Born in Gallaecia, he served as an officer in Britain under Theodosius the Elder during the Great Conspiracy ...

. The pedigree is shown in the

Harleian genealogies __NOTOC__ The Harleian genealogies are a collection of Old Welsh genealogies preserved in British Library, Harley MS 3859. Part of the Harleian Library, the manuscript, which also contains the '' Annales Cambriae'' (Recension A) and a version of ...

, the oldest documented genealogies of Welsh royal families. In Welsh legend, according to the ''Welsh Classical Dictionary'', Beli Mawr was born between 120 BC and 80 BC.Peter Clement Bartrum (1993)
"People in History and Legend up to about A.D.1000"
''Welsh Classical Dictionary'', National Library of Wales, pp. 42–43

Beli son of Manogan

Another Beli from medieval Welsh literature, who first appears in the 9th century and is often confused or conflated with Beli Mawr in both medieval and modern sources, is Beli son of Manogan (also spelled Mynogan). This Beli is actually derived from the historical pre-Roman Brittonic king of the

Catuvellauni The Catuvellauni (Common Brittonic: *''Catu-wellaunī'', "war-chiefs") were a Celtic tribe or state of southeastern Britain before the Roman conquest, attested by inscriptions into the 4th century. The fortunes of the Catuvellauni and thei ...

Cunobeline Cunobeline or Cunobelin (Common Brittonic: *''Cunobelinos'', "Dog-Strong"), also known by his name's Latin form , was a king in pre-Roman Britain from about to about Malcolm Todd (2004)"Cunobelinus ymbeline/nowiki> (d. ''c''. AD 40), king in ...

and his son Adminius (or Amminius). Via a series of textual corruptions that span several different popular books from Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the names of Cunobelinus and his son Adminius were combined and then jumbled, giving way to a new Beli, with the patronymic "son of Manogan": # Adminio, Cunobellini Brittannorum regis filio (Suetonius, ''Caligula'', Ch. 44) # Minocynobellinum Britannorum regis filium (Orosius, ''Historia Adversus Paganos'', vii 5.5) # Bellinus, filius Minocanni (''Historia Brittonum'', ch. 19) Rachel Bromwich writes that such a figure has origins in traditional names/characters: "Beli Mawr is a character rooted far too firmly in Welsh tradition for his existence to be accounted for merely as an adaptation of

Nennius Nennius – or Nemnius or Nemnivus – was a Welsh monk of the 9th century. He has traditionally been attributed with the authorship of the ''Historia Brittonum'', based on the prologue affixed to that work. This attribution is widely considered ...

's Bellinus. Further, Loth showed that Manogan itself can be explained as a Celtic name, since Monocan appears in the Cartulaire de Redon (RC LI, p. 10; Chr. Br., p. 152). Two further instances of this name in Celtic sources may also be included: Jes. Gen. XVIII Manogan m. Pascen m. Cadell; and the Ogham inscription MINNACCANNI (Macalister, Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum Celticarum I, no. 135)." Thus, although Beli became a separate personage in medieval

pseudohistory Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseud ...

from Cunobelinus (Welsh ''Cynfelyn'', Shakespeare's

Cymbeline ''Cymbeline'' (), also known as ''The Tragedie of Cymbeline'' or ''Cymbeline, King of Britain'', is a play by William Shakespeare set in British Iron Age, Ancient Britain () and based on legends that formed part of the Matter of Britain concer ...

), he was generally presented as a king reigning in the period immediately before the Roman invasion; his "son" Caswallawn is the historical

Henry of Huntingdon's Belinus

The 12th-century English historian

Henry of Huntingdon Henry of Huntingdon (; 1088 – 1157), the son of a canon in the diocese of Lincoln, was a 12th-century English historian and the author of ''Historia Anglorum'' (Medieval Latin for "History of the English"), as "the most important Anglo- ...

, in his ''Historia Anglorum'' first published in 1129, follows the ''Historia Brittonum'' in his discussion of

's invasion of Britain, mentioning a ''Belinus'', brother of ''Cassibella(u)nus'', who are both styled sons of ''Minocannus'', but in later revisions of the text (and under the influence of Geoffrey of Monmouth), ''Liud'' (or ''Luid'') (see Lludd Llaw Eraint).

Geoffrey of Monmouth's Heli

Beli also appears in

Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey of Monmouth (; ; ) was a Catholic cleric from Monmouth, Wales, and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur. He is best known for his chronicle '' The History of ...

's history (1130s) as the British king Heli, son of Digueillus and father of Lud,

and

. He is said to have held the throne for 40 years, after which he was succeeded by his son Lud (Llud). In the Middle Welsh translations of Geoffrey's work known collectively as ''

Brut y Brenhinedd ''Brut y Brenhinedd'' ("Chronicle of the Kings") is a collection of variant Middle Welsh versions of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin ''Historia Regum Britanniae''. About 60 versions survive, with the earliest dating to the mid-13th century. Adapt ...

'', Heli's name was restored to BeliKoch, "The Celtic Lands." p. 289. and his father renamed to Manogan.

References

Primary sources

*'' Branwen ferch Llŷr'' *''Breuddwyd Macsen Wledig'' ("

The Dream of Macsen Wledig Welsh mythology (also commonly known as ''Y Chwedlau'', meaning "The Legends") consists of both folk traditions developed in Wales, and traditions developed by the Celtic Britons elsewhere before the end of the first millennium. As in most of t ...

") *''Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys'' ("

Lludd and Llefelys ''Lludd and Llefelys'' (, "The adventure or encounter of Lludd and Llefelys") is a Middle Welsh prose tale written down in the 12th or 13th century; it was included in the ''Mabinogion'' by Lady Charlotte Guest in the 19th century. It tells of th ...

) *the

*''

'' *Geoffrey of Monmouth, ''Historia Regum Britanniæ'', tr. Lewis Thorpe, ''Geoffrey of Monmouth. The History of the Kings of Britain''. Harmondsworth, 1968.

Secondary sources

*Koch, John T. "The Celtic Lands." In ''Medieval Arthurian Literature: A Guide to Recent Research'', ed. N. Lacy. New York, 1996. 239-322.

External links

Beli Mawr and the Belgae
{{Geoffrey of Monmouth Welsh mythology Legendary British kings