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Two Notes on the Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Robert Huntington Fletcher
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Extract

Despite Mr. Ward's thoroughness in his discussion of Geoffrey's Historia, further consideration throws at least grave doubt on one of his fundamental theories, the theory, namely, that Geoffrey published more than one distinct edition of the Historia.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , 1901 , pp. 461 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1901

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References

Note 1 in page 461 Cat. of Romances, i, 207 ff. Ward's conclusions have been for the most part accepted without question; though Geoffrey's latest student, Professor W. L. Jones, differs on one or two points, in his article entitled Geoffrey of Monmouth, in Trans. of the Hon. Society of Cymmrodorion for 1899, pp. 1 ff.; also separately reprinted, London, 1900.

Note 2 in page 461 See especially pp. 209 ff.

Note 3 in page 461 Published in the Rolls Series Edition (ed. Howlett) of the Chronicle of Robt. de Torigny in Chrons. of Stephen, etc., iv, 65 ff.

Note 1 in page 462 For example, his account of Helena, the mother of Constantine (bk. i, ch. 37). See Arnold's introduction in his edition of Henry's Historia Anglorum in the Rolls Ser., p. liv.

Note 2 in page 462 Especially bk. ii, ch. 2 S.

Note 1 in page 463 Geoffrey, iii, 20.

Note 2 in page 463 Nennius, sec. 40 ff.

Note 3 in page 463 Though the expansion is very great.

Note 4 in page 463 By a similar exercise of judicious skepticism, Henry omitted from his history Nennius' story of the massacre of the Britons by the Saxons (the “Long Knives” affair, Nennius, sec. 46); and in his abstract he condenses into two lines the seven pages of Geoffrey's account of Maximus (Geoffrey writes Maximianus) and Conan (v, 9–16), and into not very much greater space the narrative of Arthur's reign after the defeat of the Saxons (ix, 5-xi, 1).

Note 1 in page 464 Jones, p. 19.

Note 2 in page 464 Bk. vii, ch. 3 of the standard form, lines 73–75 of San Marte's ed.

Note 3 in page 464 Pp. 208–9.

Note 4 in page 464 It is doubtless theoretically possible that the scribe followed in the main an early copy and inserted this sentence from a later one; but that cannot be assumed without stronger reasons than any that have been shown.

Note 5 in page 464 See Hardy's account of the mss. of the Historia, in his Catalogue of Materials (Rolls Ser.), vol. i, part 1, pp. 341 ff.

Note 6 in page 464 It may be noted that Ward, taking the hint from the erroneous argument of Wright (Biog. Lit. Brit., Anglo-Norm. Period, pp. 143–4) which he disproved (p. 213), argued that since Geoffrey speaks of Bishop Alexander in the past tense (vii, 1) the “final” edition of the Historia must have been prepared after the spring of 1148, when the bishop died. But so far as has ever been stated all the mss. agree in using the past tense here (Professor Jones tells me that this is true of the Bern ms.), and it is evident that the fact may be explained on various theories other than that of a later edition.

Note 7 in page 464 G. Paris assumes without discussion the same opinion as Ward, in Hist. Litt. de la France, xxx, 4.

Note 1 in page 465 San Marte's ed., p. 92.

Note 2 in page 465 Bk. xii, ch. 47; in Le Prévost's edition, vol. iv, p. 486.

Note 3 in page 465 Though the fact that he brings in his reference out of chronological order (it really belongs in book i, vol. i, pp. 107–113) shows that he did not become acquainted with the prophecies until his work was approaching completion.

Note 1 in page 466 Bk. vi, ch. 19, lines 8 ff., of San Marte's edition.

Note 2 in page 466 Cf. Ward, p. 207.

Note 3 in page 466 To indicate the other agreements and differences between the respective accounts seems not worth while, since it would require the quotation of all three entire, and the further variations are not individually significant.

Note 4 in page 466 Merely adding to Nennius' allegorical explanations one as to the meaning of the “vasa” (which, however, may have been made by Geoffrey in his original version) and introducing the change stated below (note, p. 467).

Note 1 in page 467 Mention ought to be made of one somewhat puzzling point in Ordericus' account. At the end of his excerpt from the prophecies, he says that those will easily be able to interpret Merlin's words who are familiar with history and know what things happened to Hengist and Catigern, Pascent and Arthur, Adelbert and Edwin, etc. All these names, with those which follow, Ordericus might easily have taken from Bede and Nennius, except that of Pascent; but the latter is not noticed by Bede nor made sufficiently prominent either by Nennius (sec. 48) or by Geoffrey in his Historia (see index to San Marte's edition) to explain why he should be mentioned with Arthur; and Ordericus' choice of names seems to have no particular relation with the prophecies. It is just possible, though I think not probable, that the introduction which (as Ward suggests) Geoffrey must certainly have furnished to the independent edition of the prophecies, may have had more to say of Pascent than the Historia has.

Here I may add another to the explanations which Ward suggested for Ordericus' change (I assume that it was made by Ordericus) in the allegorical significance of the dragons, by which he inappropriately makes the red typify the Saxons and the white the Britons, instead of the reverse. Ordericus, unlike Nennius (who is not altogether clear, though he pretty certainly means the same as Ordericus), but very possibly following the original statement of Geoffrey (which may have been incautiously patriotic and perhaps intended to be still prophetic in the twelfth century), says categorically that the red dragon defeated the other; and of course that would seem to anyone but a Welshman to be historically true only if the red was equated with the Saxons. So Ordericus may have made the change for that reason. (Ordericus says: “Tandem rubeus vicit, et album usque ad marginem stagni fugavit.” Nennius: “Tandem infirmior videbatur vermis rufus, et postea fortior albo fuit et extra finem tentorii expulit; tunc alter alterum secutus trans stagnum est, et tentorium evanuit.” Geoffrey in the Historia: “Praevalebat autem albus draco, rubeumque usque ad lacus extremitatem fugabat. At ille .... impetum fecit in album, ipsumque retro ire coëgit. Ipsis ergo in hunc modum pugnantibus, praecepit rex”—and here Geoffrey passes to the prophecies.) Possibly also the idea of the fantastic ecclesiastical explanation which Ordericus gives immediately after for the meaning of the whiteness of the Britons, occurred to his mind before he made the change in colors.

Note 1 in page 468 Le Prévost's general theory (see his edition of Ordericus, vol. iv, pp. 487, note 2, 491, note 3, and 493, note 4) of the relation of Ordericus' account of the prophecies with Geoffrey's was overthrown by Ward (pp. 208–9), and his discussion appears to have been neglected in consequence.

Note 2 in page 468 Rhŷs and Jones, Welsh People, p. 307.

Note 3 in page 468 See Madden in Archæological Journal, xv, 299–312, followed by Ward, p. 213, and by Jones, p. 16.

Note 4 in page 468 Madden points out some reasons for supposing that the usual dedication was at least written earlier.

Note 5 in page 468 And perhaps not much earlier, since there is no reason to suppose that he long delayed putting forth the Historia after the appearance of the prophecies, and no proof that it was published before 1136.

Note 1 in page 469 Especially since the publication of San Marte's edition of the Historia, in 1854. See also, for example: Rhŷs, Celtic Britain, p. 118, etc., and passim in Hibbert Lectures on Celtic Heathendom and Studies in the Arthurian Legend; Madden in notes to his edition of Layamon; Bieling, Zu den Sagen von Gog und Magog, Berlin, 1882; Bugge, Studier over de nordiske Glide- og Heltesagns Oprindelse, i, 185–8 (German trans. by Brenner, Studien über die Entstehung der nord. Götter- u. Heldensagen, pp. 192–6); Sayce in Y Cymmrodor, x, 207–221; F. Lot, Rom., xxvii, 1–54; Schofield in an article on Chaucer's Franklin's Tale in the current volume of Publications of Mod. Lang. Assoc. (I do not mean to imply that I accept all the theories set forth in these discussions).

Note 2 in page 469 I expect to discuss rather fully Geoffrey's sources and method for a part of his work in a treatment of the “Arthurian Material in the English Chronicles.” I may note here an oversight of Heeger in his monograph, Die Trojanersage der Britten, pp. 66 ff., where, in suggesting that Geoffrey took ideas for his account of Brutus' wars in Greece (bk. i) from the events of the struggle between Stephen and Matilda, he forgot that the events happened after the publication of the Historia.

Note 1 in page 470 Cf. on this and the following points San Marte's edition of Geoffrey's Historia, pp. 232–242. Here cf. also Rhŷs, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 90, 238, 245, 274, 666.

Note 1 in page 471 So Freeman, Norman Conquest, note gg, 2d edition, pp. 652 ff., also 379.

Note 2 in page 471 Represented, for example, by Henry of Huntingdon, Historia, vi, 25, Rolls ed., Arnold, p. 197. For the history see also Wm. Malmes., ii, 200, and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ann. 1065 and 1066.

Note 3 in page 471 Bk. iii, chaps. 11 and 14, written in 1123, according to Delisle's Notice in Le Prévost's edition of Ordericus, vol. v, pp. xlvi and xlviii.

Note 1 in page 472 It ought to be noted that a few chapters earlier Geoffrey had already given a brief outline sketch of some of the main features of the story of Belinus and Brennius, applying it to Cunedagius and Marganus, who are represented as cousins (ii, 15, lines 13–25). Here we have the division of the kingdom, the stirring up of the younger (who again has Northumbria) by counsellors, his attack, flight, and, in this case, death. But this is only one of a considerable number of parallelisms which may be observed between various incidents in Geoffrey's history. Compare, for example, the stories of the two Leirs (bk. ii, chaps. 9 and 11); Belinus' gate (iii, 10) and Cadwallo's brazen equestrian statue (xii, 13) with the story (adopted from Nennius, 44) of the burial of Vortimer's bones; the mediation of Genuissa (iv, 16) with that of Conwenna (iii, 7); the descent of both Guanhumara (ix, 9, 11) and the mother of Ambrosius and Uther (vi, 5) “ex nobili Romanorum genere”; the disposal by assassination (books vi and viii) of Constantinus, Constans, Vortimer, Aurelius, and Uther, who are all successive, except that Vortiger's reign intervenes, while Geoffrey seldom employs assassination in other parts of his history.

Note 2 in page 472 Very likely Geoffrey made use elsewhere of a part of the story of Harold and Tostig, as the suggestion for the invasion of Britain by King Humber (ii, 1 and 2), who landed and was defeated on the river which therefore, says Geoffrey, bears his name. This seems the more likely because Henry of Huntingdon emphasizes the fact that Tostig's army was driven across the Humber, while Geoffrey says that many of the Hunnish king's men were drowned in it.

Note 1 in page 473 So Ordericus Vitalis, v, 10, ed. Le Prévost, vol. ii, p. 377. The date of this book is 1127, according to Delisle in Notice, vol. v, pp. xlvii, xlviii.

Note 2 in page 473 Pp. 232–3.

Note 3 in page 473 B. G., i, 6.

Note 4 in page 473 Geoffrey's account, also, of the hanging of the Roman hostages in revenge for the faithlessness of their parents (chap. 9) was evidently suggested by actual events of the same kind, with many of which he must have been familiar.

Note 1 in page 474 I may add that this section on Belinus and Brennius contains an instance which San Marte overlooked of Geoffrey's borrowing from Gildas, viz.: iii, 10, 20, “quantam nec retro aetas nec subsequens consecuta fuisse perhibetur.” Cf. Gildas, 21.