that he had often marvelled at the little that had been recorded of the kings that had dwelt in Britain before the Incarnation of Christ and even concerning Arthur and his successors who lived after the Incarnation. "Now whilst I was thus thinking upon such matters, Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, a man learned not only in the art of eloquence, but in the histories of foreign lands, offered me a certain most ancient book in the British language (quendam Britannici sermonis librum vetustissimum) that did set forth the doings of them all in due succession and order from Brutus, the first king of the Britons, onward to Cadwallader, the son of Cadwallo, all told in stories of exceeding beauty." Geoffrey's own work purports to be his translation of this ancient book. It is divided into twelve books, of which Book VII is really an earlier work of the same author, viz. the pretended prophecies of Merlin --and it introduces into European literature a host of new characters such as Lear, Cymbeline, Locrine, etc., whom the poets of later ages were destined to render famous. Here in the Historia (Book VIII, ch. 14 to Book XI, ch. 2), then, for the first time, we have related in pseudo-historical form, the glories of Uther Pendragon and Arthur, his son, the latter's birth and fictitous conquests extending as far as Rome, on the one hand, and the Baltic, on the other, until his downfall in his last battle with Mordred and his translation to Avalon. Merlin's marvels of enchantment and prophecy, Gawain's valorous deeds, and Guinevere's (Guanhamara's) marital disloyalty all form, likewise, a part of the story. The author of this book, though born in Wales, was probably the son of a Breton a member of the Norman garrison stationed at Monmouth.37 Between the years 1129 and 1151 he was living in the neighborhood of Oxford - probably as a canon of St. George's in the Castle of Oxford.38 Some time sub 37 A man named Geoffrey at this time would hardly be a Welshman. Cp. J. E. Lloyd's History of Wales down to the Edwardian Conquest, II, 524 (2 vols. Oxford, 1911). Geoffrey signed himself Galfridus Artur so his father was named Arthur. 38 For Geoffrey's connection with Oxford, cp. the documents in which he figures as a witness (some of them new) discussed by H. Salter, "Geoffrey of Monmouth and Oxford," English Historical Review, XXXIV, 382ff. (1919). The best summary of all that was previously known sequent to 1140 he was appointed an archdeaconry in the diocese of Llandaff, and on Feb. 24, 1152, after having been ordained priest only eight days before, he was made bishop of St. Asaph in his native land, but died two years later, before he had actually assumed the duties of his office. To few works in the history of literature can the much-abused term, "epoch-making,' be so justly applied as to Geoffrey's Historia. Under any supposition, it was indubitably the most notable production in the Arthurian field that had appeared up to that date, and, in all probability, it was owing to the influence of this book, direct and indirect, that the Arthurian stories leapt into general literary popularity just at this time. The conception of Arthur as a great mediaeval monarch, the ideal representative of chivalry not a merely fairy-tale king originated, we may say, entirely with Goeffrey of Monmouth. He succeeded in embodying this idea in his work in a truly imposing literary form, and the pretended historical character of the Historia gave a dignity to the theme which it had not hitherto possessed. We need not take very seriously the author's declaration in his dedication to Robert, Earl of Gloucester, that he was translating into Latin an old book in the British language furnished him by his friend Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford. There is no evidence that he had a more than superficial acquaintance with Welsh3 and probably he knew Breton no better. As a matter of fact, in addition to some borrowings from oral traditions, not exclusively of the Celts,40 he drew maconcerning Geoffrey of Monmouth is W. Lewis Jones' paper on him in the Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion for the session, 1898-99, pp. 52 ff. Cp. too, H. L. D. Ward's Catalogue of Romances in the Department of MSS. in the British Museum, I, 203ff. (1883) and E. Windisch, Das Keltische Britannien bis zu Kaiser Artur, pp. 123 ff. (Leipzig, 1912). 39 Cp. Ward's Catalogue of Romances in the Department of MSS. in the British Museum, I, 205. 40 In his "Bretonische Elemente in der Arthursage des Gottfried von Monmouth", Zs. f. frz. Spr. u. Lit., XII1, 231 ff. (1890), H. Zimmer endeavors to prove from the forms of certain Arthurian names that Geoffrey used Armorican sources as well as Welsh more specifically, that he derived such materials from men who were Bretons by race, but who spoke French exclusively, or, at least, were bilingual. The terials from Gildas, Nennius, Bede, Livy and others in fine, from any quarter he chose, added to these materials from his own most important names are Eventus (= Yvain), Walgainus, Walguainus (=Gawain, who in Welsh is called Gwalchmei), Caliburnus (= Arthur's sword, Excalibur, which in Old French is called Calibor(e), Escalibor(e), etc.). In the same journal, XIII', 41, note 1, (1891), he adds Ritho to the list of such names. F. Lot, however, has pointed out, Romania, XXV, 1ff. (1896), that Eweint, of which Eventus is the Latinized form, occurs as early as the tenth century in Welsh genealogies and that Caliburnus is as difficult to explain on the hypothesis of Armorican origin as on that of Welsh origin. On the other hand, he acknowledges that Walgainus is based rather on French Gauvain (Gaugain) than on Welsh Gwalchmei or Breton Walchmoe. In that case, however, I may remark, Geoffrey could have derived it as well from a Frenchman or from a French book as from a Breton. Lot, moreover, cites the form Walven for Gawain in William of Malmesbury's description (De gestis Regum Angliae, III, under the date 1086) of Gawain's tomb in the Welsh province Ros. Here it is stated that Gawain was ruler over Waluuithia (= Galloway), but was expelled from his kingdom by the brother and nephew of Hengist. Walven, however, probably rests on French Walwains, and Lot, loc. cit., conjectures that the tomb in question was really that of Maelgwn, and that the new identification was suggested by the name of a neighboring district, viz., Castell Gwalchmai (Gawain's Castle). In any event, as Brugger, Zs. f. frz. Spr. u. Lit., XXXIII, 59f. (including p. 60, note 3) (1908), remarks, the connection of Gawain with Walweitha (Walwithia) is, no doubt, "eine gelehrte Erfindung", and, although the Welsh called Geoffrey's Walgainus (French Gauvain) by the name of Gwalchmei, it still remains uncertain whether the former is of Welsh origin, although this is a priori probable. In "Arthurian Notes", MLN, XVII, cols. 277f. (1902) W. W. Newell suggests that Gawain's name (cp. Walwen) is formed from Walweitha, just as Geoffrey formed Locrin from Loegria and that Geoffrey represented him as the son of Lot (Loth), because of the usual association of Lothian and Gallowey. This theory, however, seems hardly admissible. There is, of course, nothing surprising in Geoffrey's use of French sources. Apart from the Arthurian materials under discussion, Lot, loc. cit., points out his use of such sources in the episodes of Gormond (XI, 8-10, XII, 2) and Mont St. Michel (X, 3). It is evident, too, from the same scholar's discussion, Romania, XXX, 11ff. (1901) that among Geoffrey's Celtic cources some were Cornish. The names of the Cornish dukes, Cador and Gorlois, prove this. So, too, with the name Modredus; Cp. Lot, Romania, XXV, 2 and Loth's Mabinogion', II, imagination - the most important element of all—and moulded the whole into the pseudo-historical work which we know.41 Indeed, it is hardly open to question that Geoffrey's narrative reflects, in many particulars, even actual historical events of the eleventh and twelfth centuries 42 more especially, events of Nor238, note 1. Zimmer argues, Zs. f. frz. Spr. u. Lit., XII', 254f. that it might be also a Breton form of the twelfth or thirteenth century, but that is too late for Geoffrey's source. San Marte (edition of Geoffrey's Historia, pp. LXXII ff.), like some other students of his time and of earlier times, believed that the Welsh Brut Tysilio was one of the sources of Geoffrey's Historia. But the reverse is undoubtedly true, as has been shown by F. Zarncke and B. Ten Brink in Ebert's Jahrbuch für englische und romanische Philologie. Cp. the former's article, "Über das Verhältnis des Brut y Tysilio zu Galfrid's Hist. Reg. Brit.", V, 249 ff. (1863), and the latter's. "Wace und Galfrid von Monmouth' IX, 241 ff. (1868). For some additional points see, too, G. Heeger: Über die Trojanersage der Britten, 79f. (Munich, 1886). Altogether, I agree with Brugger, Zs. f. frz. Spr. u. Lit., XXXII3, 127 (1908), that Geoffrey borrowed names from Welsh tradition, but little else. There are, doubtless, some exceptions, like the story of King Leir (Lear) and his ungrateful daughters (II, 11-15). This story, too, has analogues, it is true, outside of Celtic territory. Cp. J. Bolte and G. Polivka, Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm, II, 47ff. (3 vols. Leipzig, 1913-1915), and Miss C. A. Harper, "A King Lear Analogue", The Nation, (New York) for Feb. 10, 1916 (Correspondence Supplement, p. 17). The first is a German, the second an Indian folktale. The German is closer to Geoffrey. In the Indian tale entitled The Hireling Husband and printed by Shovona Devi in her collection, The Orient Pearls (London, 1815) the choleric old king has seven sons and the youngest fills the rôle of Cordeilla (Cordelia). E. G. Cox's "King Lear in Celtic Tradition", MLN, XXIV, 1ff. (1909), gives no parallels to this immortal story. On the legend in general, cp. W. Perrett, The Story of King Lear: Palaestra, no. 35 (Berlin, 1904). 41 On Geoffrey's sources, in general, see R. H. Fletcher, Arthurian Material in the Chronicles, ch. 3, and PMLA, XVI, 469 ff. (1901). His debt to Virgil has been investigated by H. Tausenfreund, Vergil und Gottfried von Monmouth, Halle, 1913, and his debt to the Old Testament by Paul Feuerherd, Geoffrey of Monmouth und das Alte Testament, ibid., 1915. 42 So Zimmer, Gött. G. A. for Oct. 1890, pp. 824 ff. According man history of the reigns of William the Conqueror and his In writing his history, Geoffrey's aim was primarily to exalt his own race. Nothing is more striking about the Normans than the interest which they took in their past and a whole crop of chronicles was the result of this interest. Geoffrey opposes now to these Norman chronicles a chronicle of the Celts with Arthur as the great hero. In an age when even such a man as Lanfranc, the great Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, could connive at forgery it is not surprising that a Celtic ecclesiastic, with the lively fancy of his race, should palm off a hoax like the Historia on the public of his time. That public was, in the main, uncritical and swallowed this pretended history as it swallowed the Constitutions of Constantine, which were invented to justify the temporal claims of the papacy.43 Moreover, it touched the vanity of the to Fletcher (second citation in the previous note), the kernel of the Belinus and Brennius episode of the Historia, III, 1-10, was supplied by the feud between Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king, and his brother, Tostig. 43 Although most mediaeval readers accepted Geoffrey's Historia as authentic, there were writers already in the latter part of the twelfth century who voiced their scepticism so William of Newburgh and Giraldus Cambrensis, especially, in passages that have been often quoted. See the editions of their respective works in the Rolls Series, Vol. I, of the Chronicles of Stephen, etc. (1884), William's Prooemium, and no! |