Jesus College is delighted to announce that the Francis Jones Prize 2022 has been awarded to Dr Rebecca Thomas for History and Identity in Early Medieval Wales (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2022).

Dr Thomas is a Lecturer in Medieval History at Cardiff University, and her main research interest is the processes of creating Welsh identities in medieval texts. This volume examines the features used as signs of identity in ninth- and tenth-century Latin and Welsh texts, including names, territory, language, and origin legends. Intertextuality is a crucial theme, and she explores the influence of texts from other parts of Britain and Europe on Welsh strategies of identity construction. Texts examined include the Latin history of the Britons (Historia Brittonum), the Welsh poem Armes Prydein Vawr (‘The Great Prophecy of Britain’), and the biography of Alfred the Great composed by the Welsh scholar Asser.

 

The annual Francis Jones Prize was endowed in 2017 by Sir David Lewis, an Honorary Fellow of Jesus College, to celebrate Welsh historical literature. It is named in memory of Francis Jones (1908–1993), a former Wales Herald Extraordinary. The prize is made on the recommendation of a panel of judges who, between them, have expertise on the key significant periods of Welsh history.

Dr Thomas joins a prestigious group of recipients that includes, most recently, Professor D. Densil Morgan (2021), Dr Benjamin Guy (2020), Dr Angela Muir (2020) and Professor Patrick Sims-Williams FBA (2019). She said: ‘I am delighted to have been awarded the prize. History and Identity in Early Medieval Wales is my first monograph, and to see it celebrated in this way is very special. I am grateful to the British Academy for the grant that made the research and writing possible, and for the support I received from mentors and colleagues in the field, and the wonderful team at Boydell.’

Professor Thomas Charles-Edwards, Emeritus Fellow and former Professor of Celtic at Jesus, was part of the judging panel, and explains why the book was selected as this year’s Francis Jones Prize winner:

 “History and Identity in Early Medieval Wales is an outstandingly precise and thorough investigation of how natives of Wales thought of their own people, its origins and its territory in the ninth and tenth centuries. In an earlier period, the inhabitants of Wales were Britons, but so were the Cornish and the Bretons, and also many of those living in southern Scotland and northern England. By the twelfth century, the Welsh were the people of Wales. The issue is how and when did this change come about: how and when did Wales become Wales and the Welsh the Welsh? Dr Thomas sees the change in process in the ninth and tenth centuries.”

For more information about Dr Rebecca Thomas, you can visit her Cardiff University profile page here

History and Identity in Early Medieval Wales is available to purchase via the Boydell & Brewer website here.