Brent Miles

Brent Miles is an Associate Professor of medieval Celtic languages and literatures at the Centre for Medieval Studies and St. Michael’s College. He researches principally the vernacular literatures of medieval Ireland and Wales, though he has a strong second interest in Hiberno- and Anglo-Latin. The bulk of his published work to date has concerned the study of classical pagan poetry and mythology in medieval Ireland and the relationship of this classical learning to the native corpus of heroic narrative in Irish. A monograph on this subject, Heroic Saga and Classical Epic in Medieval Ireland, was published by Boydell & Brewer in 2011, and 2020 saw the second book in this project, Don Tres Troí: The Middle Irish History of the Third Troy, published by the Irish Text Society. More recently, in 2023 Brent completed his An Introduction to Middle Welsh: A Learner’s Grammar of the Medieval Language and Reader (published open source on TSpace). Current projects include a study of treatises on biblical kingship in Irish and Hiberno-Latin.

Before joining the University of Toronto Brent was a Visiting Professor and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. Prior to taking up that position, he held a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at University College, Cork, and conducted research as a visiting scholar at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. He received his PhD from the Centre for Medieval Studies.

  • Areas of Interest

    Medieval Irish and Welsh literature

    Classical learning in medieval Britain and Ireland

    Hiberno-Latin Biblical commentary

    Arthur

    Welsh prophecy

    Models for prose style in Irish and Welsh

    The Celtic revival in modern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland

  • Publications

    Books

    An Introduction to Middle Welsh: A Learner’s Grammar of the Medieval Language and Reader (Toronto, 2023).

    Don Tres Troí: The Middle Irish History of the Third Troy. Irish Text Society 68 (Dublin, 2020).

    Heroic Saga and Classical Epic in Medieval Ireland. (Boydell & Brewer: Woodbridge, 2011).

    Articles and book chapters

    ‘Iessu Nerth: A Text from Peniarth 50 on Prophetic Healing and the Reading of Welsh
    History’, in Hornsby, Michael and Rosiak, Karolina, ed., Eastern European Perspectives
    on Celtic Studies (Cambridge Scholars: Cambridge, 2018), pp. 162–88.

    ‘Ystorya Dared’. Entry for the Encyclopedia of Medieval British Literature, ed. Siân Echard and Robert Rouse (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017).

    ‘The Rewriting of Hiberno-Latin Instruction to Kings in Later Medieval Ireland: The Sermo ad reges and “The Royal Teaching of Solomon”’, in Adapting Texts and Styles in a Celtic Context, ed. Axel Harlos and Neele Harlos (Nodus: Münster, 2016), pp. 245–263.

    ‘The Sermo ad reges from the Leabhar Breac and Hiberno-Latin Tradition’, in Authorities and Adaptations: the Reworking and Transmission of Textual Sources in Medieval Ireland, ed. Elizabeth Boyle and Deborah Hayden (Dublin, 2014), pp. 141–158.

    ‘The Irish History of the “Third Troy” and Medieval Writing of History’, in Gablánach in Scélaigecht: Celtic Studies in Honour of Ann Dooley, ed. S. Sheehan, J. Findon and W. Follett (Dublin, 2013), pp. 220–237.

    ‘The Literary Set Piece and the Imitatio of Latin Epic in the Cattle Raid of Cooley’, in Ulidia 2. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, ed. R. Ó hUiginn and B. Ó Catháin (Maynooth, 2009), pp. 66–80.

    ‘Lyouns Full Lothely: Dream Interpretation and Boethian Denaturing in the Alliterative Morte Arthure’, in Arthuriana 18.1 (Spring 2008), pp. 41–62.

    ‘Riss In Mundtuirc: The Tale of Harmonia’s Necklace and the Study of the Theban Cycle in Medieval Ireland’, in Ériu 57 (2007), pp. 67–112.

    ‘Wolfgang Capito’s “Warning of the Ministers of the Word and the Brethren at Strasbourg to the Brethren of the Regions and Cities of the [Swiss] Confederation Against the Blasphemous Disputation of Brother Konrad, Provincial of the Augustinian Order’”, in Reformation Sources. The Letters of Wolfgang Capito and his Fellow Reformers in Alsace and Switzerland, ed. E. Rummel and M. Kooistra (Toronto, 2007), pp. 177–200.

    ‘Irish Evidence for Shared Sources of Classical Mythology in Anglo-Saxon England and Medieval Ireland’, in Insignis Sophiae Arcator. Essays in Honour of Michael W. Herren on his 65th Birthday, ed. G.R. Wieland, C. Ruff and R.G. Arthur (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 124–148.

    ‘Branwen: A Reconsideration of the German and Norse Analogues’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 52 (Winter 2006), pp. 13–48.

    ‘The Carmina Rhythmica of Æthilwald: Edition, Translation and Commentary’, The Journal of Medieval Latin 14 (2004), pp. 73–117.

    ‘Togail Troí: The Irish Destruction of Troy on the Cusp of the Renaissance’, in Fantasies of Troy: Classical Tales and the Social Imaginary in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Alan Shepard and Stephen D. Powell (Toronto, 2004), pp. 81–96.

    Reviews

    Review of Wales and the Medieval Colonial Imagination: The Matters of Britain in the Twelfth Century by Michael A. Faletra (New York, 2014), in the Journal of Medieval Latin 25 (2015), pp. 247 – 251.

    Review of Translations from Classical Literature: Imtheachta Æniasa and Stair Ercuil ocus a Bás, ed. Kevin Murray, ITS Subsidiary Series 17 (London, 2006), in Éigse 37 (2010), pp. 191–9.

    In preparation

    ‘A Sermon to Kings’ and ‘The Royal Teachings of Soloman’: Treatises on Biblical
    Kingship from Medieval Ireland.