Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth. Welsh bishop (c.1090–1155) and pseudo-historian, author of the Latin Historia Regum Britanniae [History of the Kings of Britain] (1136), which euhemerizes Arthurian legends as well as many Welsh-language narratives. Little is known of Geoffrey's life; he was born near the town of Monmouth and on evidence of his writings he knew south-east Wales well and must have visited Brittany. An Augustinian at Oxford University, he became bishop of St Asaph, a see he may never have visited. His Historia purports to give an account of British history from the conception of Christ and culminating in the reign of Arthur. While drawing on recognized sources such as Bede (early 8th cent.) and Historia Brittonum (9th cent.) and lost Welsh sources, Geoffrey claimed to have relied mainly on a ‘most ancient’ book given him by Walter Calenius, which is not cited by any other contemporary chronicler. The Historia creates Arthur as a romantic hero, despite Geoffrey's lack of interest in courtly love and fear of women. Merlin also becomes a fuller dramatic character in Geoffrey's hands.

Bibliography

See Lewis Thorpe (trans.), History of the Kings of Britain (Harmondsworth, 1966);
J. J. Parry and and R. A. Caldwell , ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’, in R. S. Loomis (ed.), Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1959), 72–93.