Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia regum Britanniae , dedication. Manuscript Bern, Burgerbibliothek , 568, fol. 18r (12th century)

Geoffrey von Monmouth ( Welsh Gruffudd ap Arthur , also Sieffre o Fynwy ; Latin Galfridus Monemutensis ; * around 1100 probably in Monmouth ; † around 1154 in Cardiff ) was a British clergyman , scholar and historian .

life and work

Goeffrey came from Wales or from the English border country to Wales. Perhaps he was a Benedictine in Monmouth Priory and an Augustinian canon in Oxford . In any case, his name appears between 1129 and 1151 in six documents from the area around Oxford, in which he sometimes describes himself as a Magister (teacher).

Geoffrey wrote the Historia Regum Britanniae , which describes the life of the British kings based on ancient models. The Historia begins with Brutus of Britain the Trojan , who is recorded as the ancestor of all British, and extends to Caswallawn , the king of North Wales, who ruled from around 625 to 634. The Arthurian legend is also presented here for the first time in its decorated form. It is a typical ethnogenetic tale with a lot of fabulous elements, but which takes up material from Welsh tradition. Geoffrey himself claims that he is the only one who has access to Celtic sources for his story.

Through his Historia, Geoffrey gained the favor of the Earl of Gloucester , who appointed him Archdeacon of Llandaff in 1140 and Bishop of Asaph in 1152 , which office he probably never assumed. Around 1150, Geoffrey wrote the Vita Merlini , which draws on Welsh poems attributed to the legendary poet Myrddin .

With his description of the massacre of the British (Celtic) nobles by the Anglo-Saxon immigrants in Salisbury in 450, Geoffrey von Monmouth coined the standing expression Night of the Long Knives .

Editions and translations

• The history of the kings of Britain . ( Arthurian Studies. Vol. 69). An edition and translation of De gestis Britonum ( Historia regum Britanniae ). Edited by Michael D. Reeve . Translated by Neil Wright. Boydell Press, Woodbridge 2007, ISBN 978-1-8438-3206-5 (Latin / English).
• The History of the Kings of Britain. Translated with an introduction by Lewis Thorpe. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth et al. 1966.
• Vita Merlini. = The life of the magician Merlin. For the first time in German translation with other traditions published by Inge Vielhauer. Castrum Peregrini Press, Amsterdam 1964.

literature

• Geoffrey Ashe: "A Certain Very Ancient Book": Traces of an Arthurian Source in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History. In: Speculum Vol. 56, No. 2, 1981, ISSN  0038-7134 , pp. 301-323.
• Christopher Brooke: Geoffrey of Monmouth as a Historian. In: CNL Brooke et al. (Ed.): Church and Government in the Middle Ages. Essays presented to CR Cheney on his 70th birthday. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1976, ISBN 0-521-21172-7 , pp. 77-91
• Terence D. Crawford: On the Linguistic Competence of Geoffrey of Monmouth. In: Medium Ævum. Vol. 51, 1982, ISSN  0025-8385 , pp. 152-162.
• Julia C. Crick: Monmouth, Geoffrey of (d. 1154/5). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
• The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Brewer, Cambridge, ISSN  0267-2529 ;
  • Volume 3: Julia C. Crick: A Summary Catalog of the Manuscripts. 1989, ISBN 0-85991-213-2 ;
  • Volume 4: Julia C. Crick: Dissemination and reception in the later Middle Ages. 1991, ISBN 0-85991-215-9 .
• Michael J. Curley: Geoffrey of Monmouth (= Twayne's English Authors Series 509). Twayne et al., New York et al. 1994, ISBN 0-8057-7055-0 .
• Christopher Dean: Arthur of England. English Attitudes to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. University of Toronto Press, Toronto et al. 1987, ISBN 0-8020-5734-9 .
• EMR Ditmas : A Reappraisal of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Allusions to Cornwall. In: Speculum. Vol. 48, No. 3, 1973, pp. 510-524.
• Edmond Faral: La legend Arthurienne. Etudes and documents. Game 1: Les plus anciens textes. 3 volumes. Champion, Paris 1929.
  • Volume 1: Des origines a Geoffroy de Monmouth (= Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Études. Sciences historiques et philologiques. Vol. 255, ISSN  0761-148X );
  • Volume 2: Geoffroy de Monmouth. La legend Arthurienne a Glastonbury (= Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Études. Sciences historiques et philologiques. Vol. 256);
  • Volume 3: Documents (= Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Études. Sciences historiques et philologiques. Vol. 257).
• Valerie IJ Flint: The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth: Parody and Its Purpose. A suggestion. In: Speculum. Vol. 54, No. 3, 1979, pp. 447-468.
• Maureen Fries: Boethian Themes and Tragic Structure in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. In: Mary Flowers Braswell, John Brugge (Ed.): The Arthurian Tradition. Essays in Convergence. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa AL et al. 1988, ISBN 0-8173-0347-2 , pp. 29-42.
• John Gillingham: The Context and Purposes of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain. In: Anglo-Norman Studies. Vol. 13, 1990, ISSN  0954-9927 , pp. 99-118.
• Antonia Gransden: Historical Writing in England. Volume 1: c. 550 to c. 1307. Routledge, London et al. 1974, ISBN 0-7100-7476-X .
• Victoria M. Guerin: The King's Sin: The Origins of the David-Arthur Parallel. In: Christopher Baswell, William Sharpe (Eds.): The Passing of Arthur. New Essays in the Arthurian Tradition (= Garland Reference Library of the Humanities. Vol. 781). Garland, New York NY et al. 1988, ISBN 0-8240-8097-1 , pp. 15-30
• Robert W. Hanning: The Vision of History in Early Britain. From Gildas to Geoffrey of Monmouth. Columbia University Press, New York NY et al. 1966.
• Francis Ingledew: The Book of Troy and the Genealogical Construction of History: The Case of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. In: Speculum. Vol. 69, No. 3, 1994, pp. 665-704.
• Karen Jankulak: Geoffrey of Monmouth. Cardiff 2011, ISBN 978-0-7083-2151-5 .
• Stephen Knight: Arthurian Literature and Society. St. Martin's Press, New York NY 1983, ISBN 0-312-05472-6 .
• Layamon: Brut or Hystoria Brutonum. Edited and translated with textual notes and commentary WRJ Barron and SC Weinberg. Longman, Harlow 1995, ISBN 0-582-24651-2 (Middle English / English).
• Hugh A. MacDougall: Racial Myth in English History. Trojans, Teutons, and Anglo-Saxons. Harvest et al., Montreal 1982, ISBN 0-88772-211-3 .
• William Matthews: Where was Siesia-Sessoyne? In: Speculum. Vol. 49, No. 4, 1974, pp. 680-686.
• James Noble: Patronage, Politics, and the Figure of Arthur in Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace and Layamon. In: The Arthurian Yearbook. Vol. 2, 1992, ISSN  1053-3877 , pp. 159-178.
• Monika Otter: Inventiones. Fiction and Referentiality in Twelfth-Century English Historical Writing. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill NC et al. 1996, ISBN 0-8078-4600-7 .
• OJ Padel: Geoffrey of Monmouth and Cornwall. In: Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies. Vol. 8, 1984, ISSN  0260-5600 , pp. 1-28.
• Heinrich Pähler: Structural investigations for the Historia Regum Britanniae of the Geoffrey of Monmouth. Bonn, Univ., Diss., 1958.
• John Jay Parry, Robert A. Caldwell: Geoffrey of Monmouth. In: Roger Sherman Loomis (Ed.): Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1959, pp. 75-80.
• Rupert T. Pickens: Arthur's Channel Crossing: Courtesy and the Demonic in Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace's "Brut". In: Arthuriana. Vol. 7, No. 3, 1997, pp. 2-19, doi : 10.1353 / art.1997.0007 .
• Stuart Piggot: The Sources of Geoffrey of Monmouth.
  • Part 1: The "Pre-Roman" King List. In: Antiquity. Vol. 15, 1941, ISSN  0003-598X , pp. 269-286;
  • Part 2: The Sources of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The Stonehenge Story. Vol. 15, 1941, pp. 305-319.
• Michael D. Reeve : The Transmission of the Historia Regum Britanniae. In: Journal of Medieval Latin. Vol. 1, No. 1, 1991, pp. 73-117, doi : 10.1484 / J.JML.2.303955 .
• Brynley F. Roberts: Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Welsh Historical Tradition. In: Nottingham Medieval Studies. Vol. 20, 1976, ISSN  0078-2122 , pp. 29-40.
• Martin B. Shichtman, Laurie A. Finke: Profiting from the Past: History as Symbolic Capital in the Historia Regum Britanniae. In: Arthurian Literature. Vol. 12, 1993, ISSN  0261-9946 , pp. 1-35.
• Susan M. Shwartz: The Founding and Betrayal of Britain: An Augustinian Approach to Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. In: Medievalia et Humanistica. Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Culture. NS Vol. 10, 1981, ISSN  0076-6127 , pp. 33-53.
• John SP Tatlock: The Legendary History of Britain. Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae and Its Early Vernacular Versions. University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. 1950.
• Henry Richard Tedder :  Geoffrey of Monmouth . In: Leslie Stephen (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 21:  Garnett - Gloucester. MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London, 1890, pp 133 - 135 (English).
• Richard Waswo: Our Ancestors, the Trojans. Inventing Cultural Identity in the Middle Ages. In: Exemplaria. Vol. 7, No. 2, 1995, pp. 269-290, doi : 10.1179 / 104125795790510455 .
• Neil Wright: Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gildas. In: Arthurian Literature. Vol. 2, 1982, pp. 1-40.

Web links

Wikisource: Galfridus Monemutensis  - Sources and full texts (Latin)

• Literature by and about Geoffrey von Monmouth in the catalog of the German National Library

Remarks

1. ^ Geoffrey of Monmouth . In: Rudolf Simek : Artus-Lexikon , Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-15-010858-1 , p. 135.
2. ↑ King Arthur's tales 'pennend in Oxford Chapel' say researchers BBC News April 28, 2013, accessed April 29, 2013

predecessor	Office	successor
Gilbertus	Bishop of St. Asaph 1152–1154	Richard of Monmouth