[...] Joyce's study is a valuable contribution to our understanding of Gildas. This volume is well researched, ambitious, and impressively wide in scope. It demonstrates just how much remains to be said of a writer of whose work so little survives.
SPECULUM
The book is wide in scope, including the fragments of Gildas interpreted as being from his letter to Finnian cited by Columbanus, and considering the ways that Gildas' writings were used by others through to the eighth century. Putting Gildas' writings in context is challenging, but what the book provides is a textual network in which they have their place.
JOURNAL OF THE AUSTRALIAN EARLY MEDIEVAL ASSOCIATION
In moving away from the usual discussions of De Excidio as a historical text, Joyce offers a new interpretation of Gildas that recontextualizes both his authority and his works in the early medieval period. For medievalists it provides a fresh look at a controversial author and his often-fraught legacy. I recommend this book to medievalists interested in insular-continental connections or in religious literary history, but scholars of post-Roman Britain may find themselves frustrated.
LIMINA: A JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL & CULTURAL STUDIES