Geoffrey of Monmouth

Lore & Background

Geoffrey was born between about 1090 and 1100, in Wales or the Welsh Marches. He reached the age of majority by 1129, when he is recorded as witnessing a charter. He refers to himself as Galfridus Monemutensis, indicating a strong connection to Monmouth. His ethnicity has been heavily debated, with possibilities including Welsh, Breton, Norman, or Cornish descent. He may have served in the Benedictine Monmouth Priory, but most of his adult life appears to have been spent outside Wales. Between 1129 and 1151, his name appears on six charters in the Oxford area, sometimes styled magister. He was probably a secular canon of St. George's college. Archbishop Theobald of Bec consecrated him as Bishop of St Asaph at Lambeth on 24 February 1152, having ordained him a priest at Westminster 10 days before. There is no evidence he ever visited his see, and he appears to have died between 25 December 1154 and 24 December 1155.

Reader's Guide

Geoffrey of Monmouth's structuring and shaping of the Merlin and Arthur myths engendered their vast popularity, and he is generally viewed by scholars as the major establisher of the Arthurian canon. His History's effect on the legend of King Arthur was so vast that Arthurian works have been categorised as 'pre-Galfridian' and 'post-Galfridian'. The History relates the purported history of Britain from Brutus of Troy to the death of Cadwaladr, covering Julius Caesar's invasions, kings Leir and Cymbeline, and one of the earliest developed narratives of King Arthur. Geoffrey claimed the book was a translation of an 'ancient book in the British language', but modern historians have dismissed this claim. Much of it is based on earlier works like the Historia Britonum, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, and Gildas's De Excidio, expanded with bardic oral tradition and Geoffrey's own imagination. The work was widely disseminated throughout medieval Western Europe, with 186 extant manuscripts listed in 1929. It was generally accepted as a true account until later scholars, beginning with William of Newburgh around 1190, deemed it largely made up. In 2017, Miles Russell's Lost Voices of Celtic Britain Project suggested the History contains significant demonstrable archaeological fact, though compiled from garbled sources and heavily edited by Geoffrey.

Did You Know?

• Geoffrey was known to his contemporaries as Galfridus Arturus, possibly indicating his father's name or a nickname based on his scholarly interests.
• He was consecrated Bishop of St Asaph at Lambeth on 24 February 1152, but there is no evidence he ever visited his see.
• His earliest writing was probably the Prophetiae Merlini (Prophecies of Merlin), written before 1135.
• The History of the Kings of Britain was translated into Old Norman-French, Middle English, and several Middle Welsh versions known as Brut y Brenhinedd.