The Mammoth Book of King Arthur (38 page)

Geoffrey probably worked for much of the 1120s and into the 1130s on the
Historia
, almost a fifth of which concentrates on the life and glory of King Arthur. He published separately, in
1134 or
thereabouts, the
Prophetiae Merlini
(
The Prophecies of Merlin
), later incorporated into the
Historia
, and the
Vita Merlini
(
Life of
Merlin
) in about 1150 (
see
Chapter 15).

It seems strange that a book that glorifies a hero of the British – the descendants of whom were now the Welsh – should prove so popular with the Normans. Geoffrey’s work could
be seen as a rallying cry to the Welsh to show that they had once had a hero capable of defeating the enemy. What they did once they could do again. The need to write his
Historia
could have
been spurred by Gruffydd ap Cynan’s desire to develop the bardic tales. Yet the book also had a strong message for the Normans, now settled in England for nearly a century. The Norman kings
were still dukes of Normandy and, in a strange parallel with Arthur, William the Conqueror had been the duke (
dux
) who had become a king. More significantly, Britain had been treated as a
rich but rather backward country by the French, who had a powerful heroic history in their own tales of Charlemagne, founder of the French Empire. In giving Britain Arthur, Geoffrey created a
national hero who could rank alongside Charlemagne, and in whom the Normans, as conquerors of Britain, could take equal pride. Geoffrey’s book was, therefore, as much propaganda as it was
history, and it is as propaganda that it must be read. Equally, while teasing the facts out of the fancy is not easy, we should not dismiss it entirely as fiction. There is a confused but genuine
history hidden amidst the myth.

Geoffrey’s problem lay in organising that myth into a sequential history. In effect, what he did was to take all the facts and, like pieces of a jigsaw, tried to force them together into a
story. Whilst forming a continuous narrative, the historical thread became jumbled, and the events or persons contemporary with Arthur are cast back in time and disconnected from him.

But where did Geoffrey get this information? So far, we have trawled through the surviving texts and none of them provides the degree of detail that Geoffrey does, particularly about Arthur. In
both Nennius and the
Welsh Annals
, the Arthurian elements seem to be tucked in as extras, and not part of the natural flow. This is one reason why Geoffrey, even during his lifetime, has
been accused of inventing most of his history. William of Newburgh, a far more fastidious historian than Geoffrey, who was
writing his own history of Britain in the 1190s,
accused Geoffrey with typical Yorkshire bluntness of having made it all up, “either from an inordinate love of lying or for the sake of pleasing the British.”

There is a wonderful fourteenth century document called the
Polychronicon
, by Ranulf Higden, which says:

Did Geoffrey make it all up?

2. Geoffrey’s ancient book

It is evident from the start that Geoffrey drew upon the works of Nennius and Gildas and upon other, more traditional, sources. In his lengthy dedication to Robert, Earl of
Gloucester, the illegitimate son of Henry I and a supporter of Matilda during the civil war, Geoffrey states, with regard to his research:

In other words, Geoffrey freely adapted this book into his own style. But what book was it? He doesn’t name it, and evidently William of Newburgh did not know of it. Some
have conjectured that it was Geoffrey’s own invention, presenting the story as if derived from some long-lost factual source. However, he states that the book was given to him by Walter,
Archdeacon of Oxford, and Walter, who died in 1151, was still alive at the time the
Historia
was issued. If there was no such book, then Walter was in on the hoax, and we are once again
dangerously close to the territory of conspiracy.

Some have suggested that Geoffrey’s book was the
Ystoria Britanica
(
see
Chapter 6), which introduced the character of Arthur/Riothamus. Whilst Geoffrey may well have
consulted it, it is unlikely to have been his “very ancient book”, as it was written in Latin and there was no need to translate it. Others claim that Geoffrey drew upon the
Brut y
Brenhined
(
Chronicle of Kings
), though all known versions of this appear to be translations of Geoffrey’s own
Historia
into Welsh. In some cases the translators added their
own details to the text, thus providing variants, but there is no evidence that the
Brut y Brenhined
existed before Geoffrey’s
Historia.

Another suggestion is the ancient text known as the
Brut Tysilio
(
Chronicles of Tysilio
). There has been much dispute as to when these chronicles were first written. Tysilio was a
sixth-century prince of Powys, son of Brochwel of the Tusks and
great-grandson of Cadell. Legend has it that Tysilio yearned for the religious life, eventually fleeing to
Brittany where he established a monastery. It is possible that this story represents two different Tysilios. In any case, neither Tysilio lived into the reign of Cadwaladr whose exploits conclude
the
Brut Tysilio
, causing some to conjecture that the chronicle was continued by others. The copy in Jesus College, Oxford, is from the early 1500s, and thus post-dates Geoffrey’s
work. Intriguingly, copies of the
Brut
– including the one at Jesus – have a colophon which says:

One might puzzle as to why Walter should do that. Perhaps he had lost the original Welsh edition; and it is possible too that the Latin version from which he translated the book
back into Welsh may not have been his own, but that undertaken by Geoffrey. If this is the case, it means – unfortunately – that the
Tysilio
translated back into Welsh would be
derived from Geoffrey’s work rather than from the original, which has us chasing our own tails!

There are many differences between the
Brut Tysilio
and Geoffrey’s
Historia
, sufficient to suggest that they may both be translations of the same earlier text, but that the
Tysilio
is more faithful to the original. The noted archaeologist Flinders Petrie satisfied himself that the
Tysilio
was authentic and not a revision or contraction of
Geoffrey’s
Historia.
He argued that on a few occasions Geoffrey confirms that he is adding items, but that those elements are missing from
Tysilio
, whereas one would expect some
reference to them if it were a direct translation. Others have noted that the versions of names used in the
Tysilio
show a closer relationship to the Celtic original, whereas some of those
in the
Historia
could easily be scribal errors. An example appears in book
iii
.17, where Geoffrey refers to “Archgallo, the brother of Gorbonianus.” In
Tysilio
this
name appears as “Arthal”.
Archgallo
is not a Latinisation of
Arthal
, but a misreading of the script, in which the
t
would have appeared as a Celtic
, and easily misread for the letter
c
. Such an error is unlikely to arise in reverse.

Until an earlier version of
Tysilio
is discovered we will not know. Certainly the surviving text is sufficiently close to Geoffrey’s, including many of his
errors, asides and comments, that it would seem to be a direct translation, augmented and corrected in the light of their own knowledge and beliefs by later scribes.

My own belief is that Geoffrey did have an ancient text to work from, but that this was a miscellany rather like Nennius’s, a hotchpotch of dates and legends and anecdotes which he
endeavoured to rework into a single narrative. Clearly Geoffrey had no idea who Arthur was or when his period in history fell, but that did not stop him creating both an exciting story and a
wonderful piece of propaganda.

3. Geoffrey’s Vortigern and Ambrosius

Geoffrey tells the story of Britain separating from the Roman Empire and being attacked by Picts and Saxons, in much the same way as Gildas and Nennius do. After the abortive
appeal to Agicus (Aëtius), Guthelinus (Vitalinus), Archbishop of London, turns to Aldroenus (
Aldwr
in British), ruler of Armorica/Brittany, and offers him the kingdom of Britain.
Aldroenus admits that, although he once would have been interested, the present state of Britain offers no allure. However, Aldroenus suggests that his brother Constantine should return to Britain
with two thousand soldiers on the understanding that if he frees Britain of its enemies, then he should inherit the crown.

Constantine is duly made king, marries a noblewoman whom Guthelinus himself had raised, and has three sons. The oldest, Constans, is promised to the church, and Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther are
handed to Guthelinus to raise. Ten years pass, presumably in peace, until Constantine is killed by a Pict. A dispute arises over who should inherit the crown because Constans is now a monk and the
other two are still children “in their cradles” (
vi.7
). Vortigern, whom Geoffrey calls “leader of the Gewissei,” now appears on the scene (
vi.6
). He tells
Constans that he will help him become king, crowns him, and becomes his advisor. With Constans a puppet ruler, Vortigern plots to become king himself. Other contenders for the throne –
the “older leaders of the kingdom”, as Geoffrey calls them – were all dead, and Constans was Vortigern’s only hurdle.

Vortigern assumes control of the treasury and places his own men in the major towns, telling them that there is fear of further attack from the Danes and Saxons. He also convinces Constans that
he needs a bodyguard of select Pict soldiers. Vortigern, knowing that the Picts are untrustworthy, pays them handsomely, and then states that he plans to leave Britain. The Picts don’t want
him to go, and to keep him they murder Constans, presenting his head to Vortigern. Vortigern feigns anguish and has the Picts executed. Amidst suspicion that he planned it all, Vortigern crowns
himself king.

Let’s pause there a moment and consider how all this fits together. We should have one firm starting point, the letter to Aëtius, which we have dated to between 446 and 452, probably
451. Then follows Constantine’s victory over the Picts, his coronation, marriage and raising children. Geoffrey says that ten years pass, but Constans is clearly older than ten, and old
enough to be a monk. If Constans is about eighteen when Vortigern insinuates his way into the royal household and brings him (briefly) to the throne, that moves us on to 469. Ambrosius is still a
baby, yet the chronology derived from Gildas and Nennius has him in the prime of manhood by now. Clearly Geoffrey is in error.

In all likelihood, Geoffrey confused Guthelinus’s letter to Aëtius with the original plea to the Romans in 410, when Honorius abandoned Britain to its fate. Eighteen years added to
410 is 428, quite close to Nennius’s date of 425 for Vortigern’s rise to power. This is more satisfactory, because it allows Guthelinus, who is regarded as Vortigern’s father
(according to Nennius’s genealogy), to be archbishop during these years and dead by 428.