Beli Mawr

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":[10][11] 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'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.

"[12] Thus, although Beli became a separate personage in medieval pseudohistory from Cunobelinus (Welsh Cynfelyn, Shakespeare's Cymbeline), he was generally presented as a king reigning in the period immediately before the Roman invasion; his "son" Caswallawn is the historical Cassivellaunus.

Beli also appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's history Historia Regum Britanniae (1130s) as the British king Heli, son of Digueillus and father of Lud, Cassivellaunus and Nennius.

[15] In the Middle Welsh translations of Geoffrey's work known collectively as Brut y Brenhinedd, Heli's name was restored to Beli[16] and his father renamed to Manogan.