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Mar 10, 2024 · Geoffrey of Monmouth’s final work, The Life of Merlin, was written around 1150, just a few years before his death. The Life of Merlin is a poem that tells many stories of Arthurian legend and most importantly gives an account of King Arthur’s death and final journey to Avalon.
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Geoffrey of Monmouth was born around 1100 and died likely in 1155, though neither date is certain. His birthplace was in or near Monmouth in Wales, hence his demonym. Considered anywhere from a genuine but flawed historian to a rhetorical historian to a “pseudohistorian,” the veracity of Geoffrey’s historical writing was, to him, unquestionable (“G...
The History of the Kings of Britain (Historia regum Britanniae) was likely completed around 1138 during a tumultuous period of civil war in England. After the death of King Henry I’s only legitimate heir in 1135, and an attempt to install his daughter Matilda on the throne, Henry’s nephew, a man named Stephen de Blois, snatched the throne. The ques...
Contemporary experts have established that much of the historical writing from the twelfth century was embellished and even theatrical at times because “history was seen as a branch of literature” rather than a discipline requiring precision and evidence (Robertson). Geoffrey of Monmouth saw his work as distinct from his peers. He dismissed histori...
The History of the Kings of Britainopens with a lush description of the island of Britain’s beauty and abundance of resources. Geoffrey asserts that of the island’s five past inhabitants – Britons, Romans, Saxons, Picts, and Scots – only the Britons “formerly possess[ed] the whole island from sea to sea.” Geoffrey tells of Brutus, founder of Britai...
Overview. Originally composed in Latin, The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth claims to be a history of Britain’s kings from the island’s founding by Trojan descendent Brutus in 1200 BCE, to the Britons’ abandonment of the island in the seventh century CE. The text first appeared in the 1130s and was immediately ...
Geoffrey Of Monmouth (died 1155) was a medieval English chronicler and bishop of St. Asaph (1152), whose major work, the Historia regum Britanniae ( History of the Kings of Britain ), brought the figure of Arthur into European literature. In three passages of the Historia Geoffrey describes himself as “Galfridus Monemutensis,” an indication ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Geoffrey was ordained bishop in Saint Asaph and Lambeth and taught as magister at Oxford . Moreover, Geoffrey was said to be part British, because he paints a positive image of the Bretons in his Historia. His literary career was based on three major works: The Prophecies of Merlin, The History of the Kings of Britain, and The Life of
Britannie: History, Prophecy, Peacemaking, and English Identity in the Twelfth Century”, Journal of British Studies 44:4 (2005), 688–712; Leckie, Passage of Dominion, p. 57. 6 J. Gillingham, “The Context and Purposes of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain”, Anglo-Norman Studies 13 (1990), 99–118 (repr. in id.
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Nov 19, 2019 · Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain—the earliest work to detail the legendary foundation of Britain by Brutus the Trojan and the life of King Arthur—was among the most widely read books throughout the Middle Ages. Its sweeping account of the Britons began long before the Romans and challenged the leading histories of the twelfth century. Merlin, Guinevere, Mordred ...
