Geoffrey+of+Monmouth

** Geoffrey of Monmouth ** (c1100 – c1155) is best known for his //Historia Regum Britannie (// // History of the Kings of Britain // ) or //Historia//, in which he embedded and gives life to the Celtic legend of King Arthur.[i] To some this book is ‘‘one of the most influential books of history that has ever been written’’,[ii]providing the English Nation with a new identity and concept of Englishness.[iii]
 * Geoffrey of Monmouth **

**Contents**

 * 1) =====Biography=====
 * 2) =====Influence=====
 * 3) =====Literature=====
 * 4) =====See Also=====
 * 5) =====Reference and further readings=====

** Biography **

Little is known of Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose name first appeared in 1129 when witnessing the foundation charter of Osney Priory. He is believed to have been a Benedictine monk attached to the household of Robert, Earl of Gloucester to whom he dedicated the //Historia//. Geoffrey laid claim to Celtic connections, taking the name Monemutensis (of Monmouth in South Wales) and his slight grasp of the Welsh language[iv] suggests that his ancestors were Bretons .[v] Much of his adulthood life was spent at Oxford, a center of learning and scholarship, where his signature appears on seven documents between 1129 and 1151.[vi] By 1139 Geoffrey was referred to as “magister,” a title used by scholars of the day and one that indicates that he received his education in Paris or another continental schools. [vii]

A likely canon of the secular college of St. George, Geoffrey was promoted 'electus sancti Asaphi' ( bishop-elect of St. Asaph) of northern Wales In 1151 and ordained as a priest at Westminster on 16 February 1152. Geoffrey never resided in his see of St. Asaph, due to centuries of fighting in the region between English and Welsh.[viii] On his death, somewhere between 25 December 1154 and 24 December 1155,[ix] he left as his legacy three books written in Latin; // Prophetie Merlini // (//Prophecies of Merlin//) written in 1135, //Historia Regum Britannie (// // History of the Kings of Britain // ) written in 1136 and incorporating //Prophetie Merlini//, and //Vita Merlini// (//Life of Merlin//) written in 1150.[x]

** Influence **

Geoffrey wrote at a time when Norman influence in Wales was at its height[xi] and rumors about [|Merlin] were circulating.[xii] The twelfth century also witnessed a revival in the writing of Latin letters, with intellectuals finding appeal in the apocalyptic prophecies of the Book of Revelation and Old Testament,[xiii] and western peoples developing a keen and fresh interest in their own early history.[xiv] It was also a time of turmoil in England, with Geoffrey’s main patron, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the bastard half-brother of Empress Matilda, engaged in a civil war against her nephew Stephen of Blois, who had seized the throne after the death of their father Henry I in 1135.[xv] This also served to ignite Scottish ambitions, with King David of Scots eager to secure control of large parts of northern England.[xvi] ** Literature ** Geoffrey wrote //Historia// not only to provide the British people with an honorable account of their early history, which they had lacked up to that time, but to legitimize the Empress Matilda's candidacy for the English throne[xvii] and advance his own ambitions by making favourable references to his patron’s family throughout his work.[xviii] Geoffrey used the story of Arthur to demonstrate that God punishes sinful peoples, and to warn his contemporaries that unless they mended the errors of their ways and terminated the civil war, they would lose their power over England to foreign invaders.[xix] Geoffrey’s detailed account of past events was unprecedented in the degree to which it filled in the gaps in the known histories,[xx] from Brutus, the founder of the realm and great-grandson of Aeneas of Troy and Rome, to Cadwaladr in 689.[xxi] Although Geoffrey claims to have translated the // Prophetie Merlini //, the //Historia// contains transparent references to Anglo-Norman history and politics up to Geoffrey's own lifetime.[xxii] It is because of this and Geoffrey’s reliance on a "very ancient book in the British language brought him from Brittany" by Archdeacon Walter of Oxford, but never sighted or discovered by any other historian,[xxiii] that his peers denounced his work as fiction.[xxiv] Regardless of such criticism, Geoffrey’s //Historia// won acclaim as it contained the earliest account of King Lear and his three daughters,[xxv] a story described by Tatlock as ‘Geoffrey's greatest contribution to the world.’[xxvi] Both the //Prophetie Merlini// and the //Historia// enjoyed enormous popularity after the twelfth century, reaching libraries all over Western Europe.[xxvii] ** See Also ** Baron, Hans. //"Fifteenth-Century Civilisation and the Renaissance" The Renaissance 1493–1520//. Edited by GR POTTER and Denys Hay. Vol. 1, The New Cambridge Modern History: Cambridge University Press, 1957. Bjork, Robert E., //"Geoffrey of Monmouth" The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages//: Oxford University Press, 2010. Chambers, E. K."The Date of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History." //The Review of English Studies// I, no.4 (1950): 431-36. Fowler, David C. "Some Biblical Influences on Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historiography." //Traditio// 14, no. ArticleType: research-article / Full publication date: 1958 / Copyright ¬© 1958 Fordham University (1958): 378-85. Putter, A.D. "King Arthur at Oxbridge: Nicholas Cantelupe, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and Cambridge's Arthurian Foundation Myth." //Medium Aevum 72// (1) (2003): 673-63-81.

[i] David Scott Kastan, ed. //Siân Echard "Geoffrey of Monmouth" The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature// (Oxford University Press,2005).

[ii]R.R. Davies, //The Matter of Britain and the Matter of England: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered before the University of Oxford on 29 February 1996// (Clarendon Press, 1996)., p3

[iii]Paul Dalton, "The Topical Concerns of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britannie: History, Prophecy, Peacemaking, and English Identity in the Twelfth Century," //Journal of British Studies// 44, no. 4 (2005). 692

[iv]JC Crick, ed. //'Monmouth, Geoffrey of (D. 1154/5) Bishop of St Asaph and Historian//, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press,2004).

[v]Kastan, ed. //Siân Echard "Geoffrey of Monmouth" The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature//.

[vi]Ibid.

[vii]Crick, ed. //'Monmouth, Geoffrey of (D. 1154/5) Bishop of St Asaph and Historian//.

[viii]John Edward Lloyd, "Geoffrey of Monmouth," //The English Historical Review// LVII, no. CCXXVIII (1942)., p465

[ix]Crick, ed. //'Monmouth, Geoffrey of (D. 1154/5) Bishop of St Asaph and Historian//.

[x]Kastan, ed. //Siân Echard "Geoffrey of Monmouth" The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature//.

[xi]A. G. Little, //Medieval Wales Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures// (Project Gutenberg)., p11

[xii]Dalton, "The Topical Concerns of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britannie: History, Prophecy, Peacemaking, and English Identity in the Twelfth Century." 698

[xiii]Kastan, ed. //Siân Echard "Geoffrey of Monmouth" The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature//.

[xiv]J. S. P. Tatlock, "Geoffrey of Monmouth's Motives for Writing His "Historia"," //Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society// 79, no. 4 (1938)., p698

[xv]Kastan, ed. //Siân Echard "Geoffrey of Monmouth" The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature//.

[xvi]Dalton, "The Topical Concerns of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britannie: History, Prophecy, Peacemaking, and English Identity in the Twelfth Century." 693

[xvii]Tatlock, "Geoffrey of Monmouth's Motives for Writing His "Historia".", p695

[xviii]Little, //Medieval Wales Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures//., p15

[xix]Dalton, "The Topical Concerns of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britannie: History, Prophecy, Peacemaking, and English Identity in the Twelfth Century." 694

[xx]Kastan, ed. //Siân Echard "Geoffrey of Monmouth" The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature//.

[xxi]Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud, ed. //"Geoffrey of Monmouth" A Dictionary of English Folklore.// (Oxford University Press,2000).

[xxii]Crick, ed. //'Monmouth, Geoffrey of (D. 1154/5) Bishop of St Asaph and Historian//.

[xxiii]Tatlock, "Geoffrey of Monmouth's Motives for Writing His "Historia".", p696

[xxiv]Long, //Outlines of English and American Literature : An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived//., p28

[xxv]Tatlock, "Geoffrey of Monmouth's Motives for Writing His "Historia".", p695

[xxvi]John S. P. Tatlock, //The Legendary History of Britain : Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae and Its Early Vernacular Versions// (Berkeley :: Univ. of California Press, 1950).

Crick, JC, ed. //'Monmouth, Geoffrey of (D. 1154/5) Bishop of St Asaph and Historian//, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Dalton, Paul. "The Topical Concerns of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britannie: History, Prophecy, Peacemaking, and English Identity in the Twelfth Century." //Journal of British Studies// 44, no. 4 (2005): 688-712. Davies, R.R. //The Matter of Britain and the Matter of England: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered before the University of Oxford on 29 February 1996//: Clarendon Press, 1996. Kastan, David Scott, ed. //Siân Echard "Geoffrey of Monmouth" The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature//: Oxford University Press, 2005. Little, A. G. //Medieval Wales Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures//: Project Gutenberg. Lloyd, John Edward. "Geoffrey of Monmouth." //The English Historical Review// LVII, no. CCXXVIII (1942): 460-68. Long, William Joseph. //Outlines of English and American Literature : An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived//: Project Gutenberg. Roud, Jacqueline Simpson and Steve, ed. //"Geoffrey of Monmouth" A Dictionary of English Folklore.// : Oxford University Press, 2000. Tatlock, J. S. P. "Geoffrey of Monmouth's Motives for Writing His "Historia"." //Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society// 79, no. 4 (1938): 695-703. Tatlock, John S. P. //The Legendary History of Britain : Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae and Its Early Vernacular Versions//. Berkeley :: Univ. of California Press, 1950.