Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Early Traditions of Arthur and of ...

INTRODUCTION.
The Rise of Arthur, and that of Merlin.
1
Towards the middle of the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth publishes his Historia
Regum Britannie (‘History of the Kings of Britain’), a comprehensive account of the
British kings from Brutus to Cadwaladr. One portion of the text he allocates to a king
named ‘Aurelius Ambrosius’, and another to a juvenile prophet named both ‘Merlinus’ and
also ‘Ambrosius’. A substantial part of the work he then devotes to a ruler named
‘Arturus’—describing his surroundings in great detail and giving the minutiae of his life
from his succession as boy-king to his death as experienced soldier and overlord of many
lands. The first character is victorious in a number of battles against the Saxons; the
second performs some feats of magic and marvel; and the third successfully leads the
Britons in battle at Mount Badon and dies around two decades later, in 542, after having
defeated the forces of the Saxons, of the neighbouring kingdoms, and of Rome. However,
an analysis of the Historia Regum suggests that Geoffrey’s ‘Aurelius Ambrosius’, his
‘Ambrosius Merlinus’ (Merlin), and his ‘Arturus’ (Arthur) all go back to the one character,
a Roman soldier who leads the British tribes against the Saxons. Moreover, a look at the
early texts which Geoffrey is known to have used as sources reveals two major
‘confusions’ which he might have recognised, and then exploited, to create what is
essentially his own book of riddles. Here follows a brief summary of the content of these
sources as they relate to Geoffrey’s three characters, Arthur, Merlin, and Aurelius
Ambrosius.
Before Geoffrey, the references to Arthur in history are few, 1 and ‘Merlin’, so-
called, does not seem to have appeared at all—but Geoffrey’s ‘Aurelius Ambrosius’ is
based on an earlier, apparently historical, personage. In his De Excidio Britanniae (‘On the
Ruin of Britain’), the early writer named ‘Gildas’ tells how the British tribes come together
to fight against the Saxon marauders who were once their allies: they have as their leader
the last of the worthy Romans in the country, a man who goes by the name of ‘Ambrosius
Aurelianus’, and under him they win their first victory. 2 Gildas also speaks of a great win
at Mount Badon (almost the last but not at all the least of the massacres of the enemies),
and in the context of this battle, he makes rather vague mention of a period of forty four
years. He does not name the leader there, but he may yet provide a clue, for he goes on to
speak of assistance given unexpectedly to the British—by means of which support the
Saxons are apparently first resisted and, presumably, ultimately defeated, and the end result
1 I take the word ‘history’ to mean not fact, but information presented as fact, in good faith
and as the result of considered judgement, careful research, or firsthand knowledge. For the
purposes of this study, I ignore nearly all mentions of Arthur in poetry and in Saints’ Lives.
2 Ambrosius Aurelianus is sometimes said to be the last Roman survivor of battles fought,
but this is probably an error (on which, see below, pp. 28–29).

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of which is a relief from external warfare for the period of a generation. Gildas may be
implying that both of the victories have been fought with chance help from Rome, and with
Ambrosius Aurelianus as leader.
The first recognisable confusion over the leadership occurs much later, in the area of
chronology. A look at Gildas’ text, which is probably of the first half of the sixth century,
suggests that the span of forty four years mentioned by him is most likely to refer to the
time between the last victory and the writing of the De Excidio, i.e., counting forwards
from Badon to his own time. Yet in the eighth-century Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglorum (‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’), the English writer, Bede, first
places Gildas’ Ambrosius Aurelianus around the same period as the arrival of the Saxons
in Britain, and then states that there are forty four years between their coming and the battle
at Badon. So, he is essentially counting the forty four years backwards from Badon to the
year of the coming of the Saxons, and he thus does not seem to allow that Ambrosius
Aurelianus is the leader of the Britons in their penultimate battle. Bede is sometimes
thought to have presented a more accurate picture than Gildas has, but a closer look at his
text nonetheless suggests that he has misunderstood Gildas’ passage on Badon and the
forty four years—for he asserts that the Saxons come to Britain around the year 446, which
would thus place Badon around the year 493, but he then inserts material which
immediately follows that battle into that period of his own text which spans the years
between 449 and 456. In the matter of Badon, the De Excidio may be regarded as the more
reliable text. 3
The second confusion is over the matter of name. Gildas allows that Ambrosius
Aurelianus is victorious first and last, and yet in the compilation known as the Historia
Brittonum (‘History of the Britons’), a pseudo-historical work perhaps first written up in
the early ninth century (and augmented by different writers up to the late tenth), it is said
that Gildas’ Roman-born leader, called there simply ‘Ambrosius’, 4 is the overlord of the
British tribes, but that one ‘Arthur’ is commander at Badon (the ‘leader of the battles’), and
is responsible for the slaying of nine hundred and sixty men—whilst the Easter-table
Annals attached to the text assign Ambrosius to the fifth century and Arthur to the sixth.
However, there are also some indications that ‘Ambrosius’ and ‘Arthur’ were originally
seen as one, for in the main text the former is said to be the son of one of the Roman
consuls in Britain (presumably the last), and in the genealogies attached to that text one
‘Anthun’ (originally ‘Arthur’?) is said to be the son of the man who is named as the last
Roman emperor in Britain. Also, within the main text of the Historia, the two characters
are at least partly contemporary. Moreover, since the portrait of Ambrosius is based on
3The De Excidio provides us with a near-contemporary account of the history of Britain:
neither its use of biblical themes nor its inflated rhetorical style detracts from its value as
history.
4 I shall henceforth distinguish between the character as he appears in the De Excidio, the
Historia Brittonum, and the Historia Regum by using the names ‘Ambrosius Aurelianus’,
‘Ambrosius’, and ‘Aurelius Ambrosius’, respectively.

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that of the biblical David, dispatcher of giants and later king of Israel, it may be that
Ambrosius was once more highly regarded than he is today, and even more highly regarded
than Arthur. Could it be that the name ‘Arthur’ is ultimately derived from a misreading of
the abbreviated name ‘Aurelianus’—and that the sixth-century dates assigned to Arthur in
the Easter-table annals of the Historia Brittonum are wrong, i.e., also the result of
confusion?
Yet when Geoffrey of Monmouth writes his Historia, he creates his own. First, he
refers openly to the De Excidio Britanniae as ‘the book which Gildas wrote about the
victory of Aurelius Ambrosius’, by which he presumably means Badon, Gildas’ victory of
victories against the Saxons, and yet he himself has Arthur (whom he describes as the
‘nephew’ of Aurelius) fight at that particular battle. Second, he is particularly unclear
whether his character, Loth, marries the sister of Aurelius Ambrosius or that of Arthur
(who is the nephew of Aurelius). Third, he places his Arthur in the sixth century, but also
in the fifth, which would logically be the time of his own Aurelius. Fourth, he creates a
new character, whom he names ‘Merlinus’, but also ‘Ambrosius’. And fifth he uses and
re-uses the David-theme as a backdrop to his account of his ‘Aurelius Ambrosius’, Arthur,
and indeed Merlin. 5 In essence, his Historia Regum is a book of contradictions.
However, there are some indications that it is deliberately so. In the first instance,
Geoffrey advises his fellow-historians, William and Malmesbury and Henry of
Huntingdon, against writing about the British kings—even though their texts, already
written, precede his own by around a decade or so—which indicates that he has found fault
with their works, and wishes to improve upon them. Also, he makes two main dedications
in his work, to Robert of Gloucester, and to Alexander of Lincoln, and yet in his text he
presents certain Gloucester-dignitaries as either weak, foolish, or ineffectual, and he
chooses words for his dedication to the Bishop of Lincoln which are potentially very
insulting. Additionally, he is critical of both the Romans and the Saxons, and at some
points—contrary to what other histories say—promotes the British over both of those
races—which would indicate that he has strong feelings for the British people. Finally, he
hints at different places throughout his text that he is using an ancient Britannic
sourcebook, although a look at his actual sources suggests that there is no such book. It is
possible, though, that he had recognised a connection between Arthur and the earlier
leader, Ambrosius Aurelianus, but had decided to ignore it in the interests of British
nationalism, for Arthur is traditionally a British hero.
In view of this, any new study of the Historia Regum, of Arthur, or indeed of Merlin,
will necessarily cover three main areas: Geoffrey’s views on history and on other writers;
the content of his actual sources; and his use and manipulation of those sources to present
his own pseudo-history. It will be helpful to mention here some of the scholarship in these
5 Geoffrey signs himself using various forms of the name ‘Geoffrey Arthur’ in several
charters to which he is witness (see below, n. 61), and he might often have abbreviated his
own name (in its Latin form) to ‘artus’.

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three areas, as well as some views on Arthur and Merlin. In the first area of interest,
Geoffrey’s aims and attitudes, excellent foundations have been laid. First there is that most
noteworthy piece of work by Valerie Flint which suggests that Geoffrey writes his
Historia as a (fairly obvious) parody on twelfth-century literature, and more especially on
the works of William and Henry. 6 Still very useful is Robert W. Hanning’s clear-sighted
analysis of Geoffrey’s art, as well as the techniques of the three main writers who precede
him: Gildas, Bede, and the author of the Historia Brittonum. 7 Then there are those three
chapters of J. S. P. Tatlock’s monumental work, The Legendary History of Britain, which
deal with Geoffrey’s methods of, and motives in, writing. 8 Other studies include Stephen
Knight’s chapter on the Historia Regum as the product of popular culture or interest; 9
Richard Barber’s discussion of some of the forces which might have influenced Geoffrey
to write as he does (preliminary to his study of post-Galfridian ‘Arthuriana’); 10 R. H.
Fletcher’s study of the progression of ‘Arthurian’ themes up to (and beyond) Geoffrey’s
time; 11 and Brynley F. Roberts’ brief but worthy consideration of how Geoffrey writes to
meet the demands of his time. 12
In the second area, that of the content of the source-texts, a good deal of work has
been done. For the De Excidio, the collection of essays edited by Michael Lapidge and
David Dumville contains a number of useful studies on matters such as the chronology of
Roman and sub-Roman Britain; and Gildas’ geographical perspective, writing-style,
religious affiliations, and education, all of which are relevant to the study of Gildas or of
the text of the De Excidio. 13 The most important of these papers (for present purposes) is
that by David Dumville, which shows that the composition of the De Excidio need not be
tied to the 540s—and which thus removes the perceived need to date the various events of
6 ‘The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth: Parody and its Purpose. A
Suggestion’, Speculum 54 (1979), 447–468.
7 The Vision of History in Early Britain from Gildas to Geoffrey of Monmouth (New York,
1966).
8 The Legendary History of Britain (Berkeley, 1950): ‘Geoffrey’s Historiography’ (pp. 392–
395); ‘Geoffrey’s Racial Sympathies’ (pp. 396–402); and ‘Geoffrey’s Motives in Writing
the Historia’ (pp. 422–432).
9 ‘ “So great a king”: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae’, in his Arthurian
Literature and Society (London, 1983), pp. 38–67.
10 King Arthur: Hero and Legend, 3rd rev. edn (Woodbridge, 1986), pp. 24–37.
11 The Arthurian Material in the Chronicles, Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and
Literature 10 (Boston, 1906).
12‘Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae and Brut y Brenhinedd’, in The
Arthur of the Welsh: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval Welsh Literature, ed. Rachel
Bromwich et al. (Cardiff, 1991), pp. 97–116 (esp. p. 108). The volume itself is a revised
supplement to R. S. Loomis, ed., Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages: A Collaborative
History (Oxford, 1959).
13 Gildas: New Approaches, ed. Michael Lapidge and David Dumville (Woodbridge, 1984).

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Gildas’ text backwards (by 44 years or any other time-span) from this time. 14 Also in the
area of chronology, there is the work of N. J. Higham, who argues (on the basis of date
given in one of the Gallic Chronicles for the Saxon presence in Britain, i.e., 441/2) that
events such as Badon might be placed as far back as the first half of the fifth century; 15
that by Leslie Alcock, who questions an extensive early Saxon presence in Britain; 16 and
that of Ian Wood, who considers the difficulties of reconciling the dates given in the Gallic
Chronicle with the information provided by Gildas. 17 All such arguments have a possible
bearing on the interpretation of Gildas’ text. 18
For the Historia Brittonum, some examples will suffice. On the leadership at Badon,
Rosemary Morris states that it is obvious that Ambrosius Aurelianus is commander at
Badon. 19 On the deeds of Ambrosius, Léon Fleuriot suggests that a certain British leader
named ‘Riothamus’ by Continental writers is in fact Gildas’ ‘Ambrosius Aurelianus’ and
the ‘Ambrosius’ of the Historia Brittonum. 20 On the question of Arthur’s actual existence,
E. K. Chambers suggests an identification of Arthur with Ambrosius Aurelianus, based on
the possibility of ‘scribal corruption’ of the name ‘Aurelianus’ into ‘Arthur’; 21 and in a
similar fashion Peter Korrel proposes that the name ‘Arthur’ is a cymricized corruption of
the name ‘Aurelianus’; 22 David Dumville claims that there is no historical Arthur; 23
14 ‘Gildas and Mælgwn: Problems of Dating’, in Lapidge and Dumville, pp. 51–59. (This
essay points up the dangers of accepting dates such as those of the Welsh Annals
uncritically.)
15 The English Conquest: Gildas and Britain in the Fifth Century (Manchester, 1994), e.g.,
pp. 136–137.
16 Arthur’s Britain: History and Archaeology, AD 367–634 (Harmondsworth, 1971), repr.
1985: see, for example, his arguments at pp. 99–109.
17 ‘The End of Roman Britain: Continental Evidence and Parallels’, in Lapidge and
Dumville, pp. 1–25 (pp. 18–20).
18 The question of whether the work is in whole or in part a forgery by a later, Romanominded
(or in this case ‘Saxon’) author may probably be laid aside—for Gildas links the
year of his birth to a battle-defeat for the Saxons (c. 26.1); and he generally berates the
Saxons and on one occasion refers to them as ‘dogs’ (c. 23.5). Indeed, an analysis of the
language of the text made by F. Kerlouégan suggests that the two main parts of De
Excidio form one whole, and that discrepancies in the style of the two segments stem from
differences in genre (see ‘Le Latin du De Excidio Britanniae de Gildas’, in Christianity in
Britain, 300–700, Papers presented to the Conference on Christianity in Roman and Sub-
Roman Britain held at the University of Nottingham, 17–20 April, 1967, ed. M.W. Barley
and R. P. C. Hanson, Leicester, 1968, pp. 151–176: p. 173). I therefore proceed on the
assumption that the De Excidio is a genuine and unified early work, and that the work of
Gildas. (I also disregard most of the huge body of ‘44-year scholarship’, for only some of it
can be taken seriously. A useful summary is provided by Thomas D. O’Sullivan, The De
Excidio of Gildas: Its Authenticity and Date, Leiden, 1978, pp. 134–44.)
19 The Character of King Arthur in Medieval Literature, Arthurian Studies 4 (Cambridge,
1982), p. 9.
20 Les Origines de la Bretagne (Paris, 1980), pp. 170–173.
21 Arthur of Britain (London, 1927), repr. 1964, p. 169.
22 An Arthurian Triangle: A Study of the Origin, Development and Characterization of
Arthur, Guinevere and Modred (Leiden, 1984), pp. 22–24.

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Alcock argues that there would have been no reason to invent an ‘Arthur’; 24 and John Rhys
believes that Arthur has mythical origins and should be seen as a ‘Culture Hero’, 25
although he also acknowledges that the designation ‘leader of the battles’ may go back to
the title Comes Britanniae, or ‘Count of Britain’, the name given to the supreme
commander of Roman troops in Britain. 26
Thomas Charles-Edwards speaks of Arthur as a Christian figure who is used in the
Historia Brittonum in order to contrast pagan leaders and also to introduce new (non-
Kentish) Germanic elements into the text; 27 Richard Barber suggests that the name of the
famous hero, Arthur, survives from fragments of lost lore, and that his deeds are part of a
long process of literary elaboration; 28 Thomas Jones argues that the name ‘Arthur’ derives
from the Roman name, ‘Artorius’; 29 A. O. H. Jarman notes the possible derivation of
‘Arthur’ from art- or arth-, meaning ‘bear’ and signifying a warrior; 30 Geoffrey Ashe
argues that Riothamus is Arthur; 31 and following on from Ashe, James P. Carley and
Felicity Riddy suggest that a description of Riothamus in a Continental document may
echo the spirit of Arthur as British commander. 32 And on chronology, Leslie Alcock
considers the Arthurian material in the Welsh Annals and points out that errors might have
occurred during the process of combining or updating Easter Tables. 33
In the third area, Geoffrey’s use of his sources, a selection will again suffice. In three
very detailed and informative textual studies, Neil Wright considers Geoffrey’s use of
Gildas and Bede. 34 On the possible link between Riothamus and Arthur, I myself argue
that Geoffrey uses an account of the battle fought by Riothamus to present his story of
23 ‘Sub-Roman Britain: History and Legend’, History, n.s. 62 (1977), 173–192 (p. 187).
24 Alcock, p. 358.
25 Studies in the Arthurian Legend (Oxford, 1891), pp. 8–23.
26 Ibid., p. 7. Indeed, Ambrosius is referred to as ‘comes’ by Gildas (c. 25.3): see below, p.
28 for the implications of this.
27 ‘The Arthur of History’, in Bromwich, The Arthur of the Welsh, pp. 15–32 (pp. 21–22).
28 King Arthur, p. 10.
29 ‘The Early Evolution of the Legend of Arthur’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 8 (1964), 3–
21 (pp. 3–4).
30 ‘The Arthurian Allusions’, Studia Celtica 24/5 (1989–90), 15–25.
31 The Discovery of King Arthur (New York, 1985): see pp. 96–111.
32 ‘Sidonius and Riothamus: A Glimpse of the Historical Arthur?’, Arthurian Literature 12
(1993), 157–164.
33 Alcock, pp. 45–55. His argument is based partly on the information given in the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle, and is well thought out—even though the Saxon and the British texts
have very little in common. However, those who would attempt to rationalise the dates of
different texts without seeking the origins of the given dates may be largely ignored—as
also may such unconvincing arguments as those of John Morris about the existence of two
leaders named ‘Ambrosius Aurelianus’ who each fit a separate chronology (see The Age of
Arthur: A History of the British Isles from 350 to 650, London, 1973, p. 518).
34 ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gildas’, Arthurian Literature 2 (1982), 1–40; ‘Geoffrey of
Monmouth and Gildas Revisited’, Arthurian Literature 4 (1985), 55–163; and ‘Geoffrey of
Monmouth and Bede’, Arthurian Literature 6 (1986), 27–59.

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Arthur’s fight with the Giant of Mont-Saint-Michel. 35 And on Geoffrey’s
characterisations, Rosemary Morris notes that the story of David and Bathsheba may be a
(partial) source of inspiration for the tale of the conception of Arthur, 36 whilst M. Victoria
Guerin later discusses the matter at greater length again. 37
On Geoffrey’s character, Merlin, John Jay Parry and Robert Caldwell argue that
Geoffrey largely creates a new story for an earlier, poetic, ‘Myrddin’, whom he (re-)names
‘Merlin’; 38 A. O. H. Jarman suggests that Geoffrey combines material on an earlier Welsh
poetic ‘Myrddin’ with that on the ‘Ambrosius’ of the Historia Brittonum; 39 Edmond Faral
looks at the possibility of a pre-Galfridian ‘Merlinus Silvester’; 40 Chambers allows that
Geoffrey’s Merlin is his own invention; 41 Tatlock asserts that there was probably an earlier
account of ‘Merlin’ available to Geoffrey; 42 Egerton Phillimore suggests that Merlin’s
name is derived by Geoffrey from the town ‘Cærfyrddin’ (Carmarthen); 43 Nikolai Tolstoy,
claims that Merlin is an authentic prophet of the later sixth century, and a writer of real
literary works; 44 Norma Lorre Goodrich states that there were probably two separate
Merlins; 45 Gareth Knight mentions a possible biblical prototype for Merlin, that is to say,
the ‘priest-king’ Melchizedek (Genesis 14); 46 and I myself argue that the character of
‘Merlin Ambrosius’ in the Historia Regum, and any wildness or madness (later) attributed
to the character named ‘Merlin Silvester’, can be traced back to the presentation of
Ambrosius (Aurelianus) in historical sources, via Geoffrey’s own pen. 47
This short account sets out the background to the present study. In the first area,
considering the range and quality of the work done, it will be necessary only to apply the
analysis of motive and method to a greater proportion of Geoffrey’s text than has been
35 ‘Arthur and the Giant of Mont-Saint-Michel: The Creation of a Folktale’, Proceedings of
the Conference of Celtic Studies, Sydney, June 1992, forthcoming.
36 Rosemary Morris, p. 25.
37 ‘The King’s Sin: The Origins of the David-Arthur Parallel’, in The Passing of Arthur:
New Essays in Arthurian Tradition, ed. Christopher Baswell and William Sharpe (New
York and London, 1988), pp. 15–30.
38 ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’, in Loomis, Arthurian Literature, pp. 72–93 (pp. 75–79). (Their
arguments are much like those presented by H. Munro Chadwick and N. Kershaw
Chadwick, ‘Merlin in the Works of Geoffrey of Monmouth’, in The Growth of Literature, 2
vols, Cambridge, 1932, repr. 1968, I, 123–132.)
39 ‘The Merlin Legend and the Welsh Tradition of Prophecy’, in Bromwich, The Arthur of
the Welsh, pp. 117–146 (pp. 130–132).
40 La Légende Arthurienne: Études et Documents, 3 vols (Paris, 1929), II, 39–46.
41 Arthur of Britain, pp. 95–98.
42 ‘Merlin’, in The Legendary History, pp. 171–177 (pp. 175–177).
43 Y Cymmrodor 11 (1890), 46–48 (‘Notes’).
44 The Quest for Merlin (London, 1985), p. 29.
45 Merlin (New York, 1987), p. 18.
46 ‘The Archetype of Merlin’, in The Book of Merlin: Insights from the First Merlin
Conference, London, June 1986, ed. R. J. Stewart (San Bernadino, 1991), pp. 55–70 (pp.
57–58).
47 ‘Merlin: Ambrosius and Silvester’, in Geraldine Barnes, et al., ed., Words and
Wordsmiths: A Volume for H. L. Rogers (Sydney, 1989), pp. 45–48.

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covered in the above works, and to note that Geoffrey’s references to patrons may be other
than what they seem. In the second area, with regard to Gildasian scholarship, it may be
necessary to depart from traditional views; and to seek the answers to some of the new
questions in the manuscripts rather than in the editions. With regard to the Historia
Brittonum and the ‘historical’ Arthur, some major re-evaluation may be in order, especially
if it can be shown that the Ambrosius of that text is felt to be more important than the
traditional Arthur; that the Arthur of that text is seen as a Roman who (not alone but as
leader of a division of the Roman army) kills nine hundred and sixty men, and that the
Easter-table annals may be wrong in assigning Arthur to the sixth century. In the third
area, there is an obvious need to extend the analysis of Geoffrey’s text and to consider
more closely the new character, Merlin, and the links between him and Arthur and David.
Certainly there is no better time than the present to make new evaluations of the
Historia Regum Britannie and its sources. Work on Dumville’s new-series edition of the
Historia Brittonum has already begun, and one volume has now appeared. 48 Also, Neil
Wright’s edition of the various recensions the Historia Regum is well under way. 49
Moreover, much of the painstaking work on the manuscripts of Geoffrey’s Historia has
already been undertaken by Julia C. Crick, 50 and by David Dumville; 51 and that on the
Historia Brittonum by Dumville, 52 and by Juliette de Caluwé-Dor. 53 Dumville has already
provided some very solid material on the text of the Historia Brittonum, 54 and also
48 David N. Dumville, ed., The Historia Brittonum, 10 vols (Cambridge, 1985– ): Vol. 3,
The ‘Vatican’ Recension. For the Harleian text, we must still rely on the text by John
Morris, ed. and trans., Nennius: British History and the Welsh Annals (London and
Chichester, 1980).
49 Ed. Neil Wright, The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth 5 vols.
(Woodbridge and Dover, N.H., 1985–91).
50 A Summary Catalogue of the Manuscripts (Cambridge, 1989), and its companion volume,
Dissemination and Reception in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1991), Vols III and IV,
respectively, of Wright, Historia Regum Britannie; and idem, ‘The Manuscripts of the
Works of Geoffrey of Monmouth: A New Supplement’, Arthurian Literature 6 (1986),
157–162, and ‘The Manuscripts of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum
Britannie’, Arthurian Literature 7 (1987), 158–162.
51 ‘The Manuscripts of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae’, Arthurian
Literature 3 (1983), 113–128; ‘The Manuscripts of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia
Regum Britanniae: A Supplement’, Arthurian Literature 4 (1984), 164–171; and ‘The
Manuscripts of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae: A Second
Supplement’, Arthurian Literature 5 (1985), 149–151.
52 ‘The Corpus Christi “Nennius”’, and ‘Some Aspects of the Chronology of the Historia
Brittonum’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 25 (1972–74), 369–380 and 439–445;
‘“Nennius” and the Historia Brittonum’, Studia Celtica 10/11 (1975/76), 78–95; and ‘The
Sixteenth-Century History of Two Cambridge Books from Sawley’, Transactions of the
Cambridge Bibliographical Society 7 (1980), 427–444.
53 ‘L’importance de la version liégeoise (Bibl. Univ. ms. 369c, ff. 130–142) dans la tradition
manuscrite de l’Historia Brittonum’, in Mélanges offerts à Rita Lejeune Professeur à
l’Université de Liège (Gembloux, 1969), pp. 5–12.
54 ‘On the North British Section of the Historia Brittonum’, The Welsh History Review 8
(1976/77), 345–354; ‘Sub-Roman Britain: History and Legend’, History, n.s. 62 (1977),

9
promises a new work on Gildas. 55 It is in the context of this new round of scholarship that
I will argue that the traditionally British king named ‘Arthur’ is the literary offshoot of
Gildas’ ‘Ambrosius Aurelianus’, as indeed is Geoffrey’s own prophetic character,
‘Ambrosius Merlinus’, who is now known to us as ‘Merlin’. I will begin with Geoffrey’s
mentions of a Britannic sourcebook; then move on to his actual sources; and conclude with
his presentations of Arthur, Merlin, and other associated characters.
173–192; ‘Celtic-Latin Texts in Northern England, c. 1150–c.1250’, Celtica 12 (1979), 19–
49; and ‘The Historical Value of the Historia Brittonum’, in Arthurian Literature 6 (1986),
1–26.
55 Gildas in the Middle Ages, ed. David Dumville: in preparation.

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PART I. GEOFFREY’S ACTUAL SOURCES.
Chapter 1. The Elusive Britannic Book.
Geoffrey begins his Historia by saying that, apart from the works of Gildas and of Bede
(and aside from stories circulating orally) he has been able to find no material on the kings
of Britain:
He then continues thus:
Cum mecum multa et de multis sepius animo reuoluens
in hystoriam regum Britannie inciderem, in mirum
contuli quod infra mentionem quam de eis Gildas et Beda
luculento tractatu fecerant nichil de regibus qui ante
incarnationem Christi inhabitauerant, nichil etiam de
Arturo ceterisque compluribus qui post incarnationem
successerunt repperissem, cum et gesta eorum digna
eternitate laudis constarent et a multis populis quasi
inscripta iocunde et memoriter predicarentur.
‘Whenever I chanced to turn my mind to the many and
varied things on the history of the kings of Britain, I
concluded in amazement that beyond the mention of
them which Gildas, and Bede in (his) most lucid
treatment, had made, I had discovered nothing of the
kings who had lived before the Incarnation of Christ, and
nothing even of Arthur and the many others who
succeeded after the Incarnation, although their noble
deeds were both known (to be) worthy of eternal praise
and (also) were proclaimed joyfully and traditionally by
many people just as if they had been written down.’
(§ 1) 56
Talia michi et de talibus multociens cogitanti optulit
Walterus Oxinefordensis archidiaconis, uir in oratoria
arte atque in exoticis historiis eruditus, quendam
Britannici sermonis librum uetustissimum qui a Bruto
primo rege Britonum usque ad Cadualadrum filium
Caduallonis actus omnium continue et ex ordine
perpulcris orationibus proponebat. (§ 2)
Perhaps the most obvious translation of this passage is:
56 Ed. Neil Wright, The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth, I, Bern,
Burgerbibliothek, MS. 568 (Woodbridge and Dover, N.H., 1985). All references are to this
edition, and henceforth appear parenthetically in text; all translations are my own. The date
of publication of the text is thought to be later than 1135 (the year of the death of Henry I),
and earlier than 1139 (the time at which the work was discovered by Henry of Huntingdon
at Bec)—Wright thinks that the date is ca 1138 (see his Introduction, pp. xi–xvi). For a
discussion of the Bern manuscript, see Crick, Summary Catalogue, pp. 21–25.

11
‘While I was cogitating very much on such diverse
things, Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, a man learned in
the art of oratory and in exotic histories, placed before
(me) a certain most ancient book in the Britannic tongue,
which set forth the deeds of all from Brutus, the first king
of the Britons, up to Cadwaladr, the son of Cadwallo—
continuous and in regular succession, (and) in very
beautiful language.’
However, since the word ‘optulit’ may be taken to mean ‘put forward’ as well as ‘placed
before’, it is not clear whether Walter gives Geoffrey a real book or whether he does not. 57
It may be that he simply puts before Geoffrey the idea of inventing an ancient Britannic
book to compensate for the lack of other source-materials. Indeed, since the phrase ‘in
exoticis historiis eruditus’ can be taken to mean either ‘learned in (the study of) exotic
histories’ or ‘skilled in (the telling of) outlandish stories’, it may be that the erudite Walter
has put forward the idea of inventing an outrageous story of all the kings from Brutus to
Cadwaladr. 58
Other ambiguities become apparent as the Prologue continues. Geoffrey speaks of a
work in straightforward Latin, and on the need for simple diction:
Rogatu itaque illius ductus, tametsi infra alienos ortulos
falerata uerba non collegerim, agresti tamen stilo
propriisque calamis contentus codicem illum in Latinum
sermonen transferre curaui. Nam si ampullosis
dictionibus paginam illinissem, tedium legentibus
ingererem, dum magis in exponendis uerbis quam in
historia intelligenda ipsos commorari oporteret. (ibid.)
57 It is not certain whether the word ‘Britannicus’ implies a ‘British’ or a ‘Breton’
sourcebook, and so I translate the word, in its generalised sense, as ‘Britannic’. Wright,
Historia Regum, Introduction, pp. ix–x, discusses whether Geoffrey’s reference to himself
in one manuscript of his work as pudibundus Brito ‘an abashed Briton’ may imply that he is
Welsh, Breton, or Cornish. He also implies (p. 2) that Geoffrey is antipathetic to the
Welsh—but I will argue otherwise. See Michael D. Reeve, ‘The Transmission of the
Historia Regum Britanniae’, in The Journal of Medieval Latin 1 (1991), 73–117 (pp. 79–
80) on the question of the bashful Briton, and on two other significant differences between
Geoffrey’s own remarks in that manuscript and in others.
58 Richard Barber, King Arthur, p. 27, n. 28, also notes the ambiguity of the phrase in
exoticis historiis. If the word ‘exoticus’ were to mean ‘outlandish’, this might be taken as a
caustic retort to those who would regard men from the more isolated areas of Britain as
‘uplandish’—a word which is used in several medieval texts to suggest a lack of
sophistication. On the question of fabrication, it should be noted here that Geoffrey actually
uses the word invenire—either ‘to find’ or ‘to invent’—at § 177, when he mentions the
sourcebook in the context of Walter’s narration of the tale of Mordred and Arthur. This is
just one of the many indications that there was no actual book. Another is that Geoffrey’s
story of Cadwaladr is a refashioning of Bede’s account of ‘Caedualla’ (V.7), a Saxon king
who made a visit to Rome in the year A.D. 689 (as pointed out by Flint, ‘Parody and its
Purpose’, p. 454). On the other hand, Tatlock, The Legendary History, p. 424, suggests that
although there was no actual book, Walter had given Geoffrey notes or summaries drawn
from written or oral report, or from his own imagination.

12
Assuming the existence of a real book given to Geoffrey by Walter, the translation of
Geoffrey’s words might be given as:
‘Having been encouraged thus by his lead—although I
have gathered no ornate words amongst foreign gardens,
being content instead with a rustic style and my own
pen—I have taken pains to translate that volume into the
Latin tongue. Indeed if I had adorned my page with
bombastic utterances, I would have heaped tedium upon
my readers, for it would have been necessary for them to
dwell more on working out the meaning of the words
than on understanding the story.’
Yet such an interpretation presents something of a problem—for if a sourcebook actually
exists, and if it is indeed written in ‘beautiful language’, then Geoffrey can hardly also be
saying (or even suggesting) that it is ‘bombastic’. 59 However, if no source exists, and if
Walter has only put forward the idea of creating a Britannic book, and Geoffrey has decided
‘to carry over’ (‘transferre’) the idea of such a sourcebook into Latin, rather than taken
pains ‘to translate’ a real book, then the problem disappears. 60 On the other hand, if there is
no sourcebook, then it is uncertain what the words ‘foreign gardens’ might refer to, and
where any bombast is to be found so that it may be avoided.
A solution to the problem may be found in the Epilogue to the Historia Regum, where
Geoffrey defines the division of labour amongst the historical writers of his time. There he
first mentions the degeneration of the Britons (who are ultimately referred to as ‘Welsh’) a
Britannica nobilitate ‘from the Britannic nobility’ (§ 207)—as the end result of plague and
famine and habitual internal discord. Next, he says that the Britons had never recovered the
rule of the island, but immo nunc sibi, interdum Saxonibus ingrati consurgentes externas ac
domesticas clades incessanter agebant ‘indeed sometimes amongst themselves, sometimes
rebelling ungratefully against the Saxons, they incessantly waged external and domestic
battles’ (ibid.). Immediately after saying this, he bequeaths the story of the British rulers,
after their final defeat by the Saxons, to Caradoc of Llancarfan, a Welsh hagiographer of his
own time:
Reges autem eorum qui ab illo tempore in Gualiis
successerunt Karadoco Lancarbanensi contemporaneo
meo in materia scribendi permitto, …
‘Indeed the task of writing about their kings, who
succeeded in Wales from that time, I leave to Caradoc of
Llancarfan, my contemporary, …’ (§§ 208)
59 Tatlock, The Legendary History, p. 423, notes that Geoffrey, skilled in Latin, would be
unlikely to praise the style of something in the Celtic language.
60 This allows for the potential ambiguity in the word ‘curare’, which may be taken as ‘to
decide (to …)’ or ‘to take pains (to …)’.

13
Then, to William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, he allows the story of the
Saxon kings (which they have in fact already written), but advises these two not to take on
the tale of the British kings:
… reges uero Saxonum Willelmo Malmesberiensi et
Henrico Huntendonensi [permitto]; quos de regibus
Britonum tacere iubeo cum non habeant librum istum
Britannici sermonis quem Gualterus Oxenefordensis
archidiaconus ex Britannia aduexit, quem de hystoria
eorum ueraciter editum in honore predictorum principum
hoc modo in Latinum sermonem transferre curaui. (ibid.)
Again there are two ways of translating the passage, but the most straightforward one
seems to be:
‘… those kings of the Saxons (I leave) to William of
Malmesbury and to Henry of Huntingdon; whom I advise
to be silent about the kings of the Britons as they do not
have that book in the Britannic tongue which Walter,
archdeacon of Oxford, carried forth out of Britannia,
which (book) of their history, accurately edited, in honour
of the aforesaid leaders, I have in this way taken pains to
translate into the Latin tongue.’
Yet since Geoffrey can hardly be serious in forbidding William and Henry to attempt a tale
which they have already touched on—and since, once again, he uses the ambiguous phrase
‘curaui transferre’—an alternative translation of this particular passage may thus:
‘… those kings of the Saxons (I leave) to William of
Malmesbury and to Henry of Huntingdon; whom I advise
to be silent about the kings of the Britons as they do not
have that book in the Britannic tongue which Walter,
archdeacon of Oxford, “brought forth” out of Britannia,
which (book) of their history, truthfully, produced in
honour of the aforesaid leaders, I have decided in this
way to carry over into the Latin tongue.’
The notion of the sourcebook may be part of an Oxford joke, set up by Geoffrey and by
Walter. 61 Geoffrey may be implying that he and Walter have decided to write their own
61 Geoffrey appears as a witness in six (authentic) Oxford charters, dated between 1129 and
1151 (see Lewis Thorpe, trans., Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of
Britain, Harmondsworth, 1966, rep. 1982, pp. 11–12). Some of these charters are co-signed
by Walter, and some relate to the doings of Walter himself. A facsimile of one of the
genuine charters appears in H. E. Salter, Facsimiles of Early Charters in Oxford Muniment
Rooms (Oxford, 1929), No. 60. In that document, Geoffrey signs himself as Magister
Galfridus Arturus, ‘Master Geoffrey Arthur’, and it has thus been suggested that he, as
Master, held at teaching position at the College of St. George, where Walter was Provost
(see idem, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth and Oxford’, English Historical Review 34, 1919, 382–
385). J. E. Lloyd, A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian

14
(hi)story of the kings of Britain; that he leaves the continuation of such a work to Caradoc;
and that William and Henry, both ‘foreign’ in the sense of being non-British, should (have)
concern(ed) themselves only with writing about the Saxon kings and not about the kings of
the Britons. 62 When Geoffrey speaks of ungrateful Welsh rebellion against the Saxons, in
words which he actually takes from Gildas, he may be damning the latter race with faint
praise. 63
Indeed, Geoffrey’s introductory words (§§ 1 and 2) might also have been written as a
direct response to William and Henry, both ‘Saxon’ writers who use mainly ‘Saxon’
sources, who tell about ‘Saxon’ victories over British kings, and who in their opening
statements speak in bombastic tones on the writing of history, and on histories written by
others. In the Prologue to his Historia Anglorum (‘History of the English’), first published
ca. 1129, 64 Henry states rather sententiously that the pursuit of learning is a most delightful
employment, and that there is nothing more admirable in life quam vitae calles egregie
indagare et frequentare ‘than to investigate and dwell upon the course of events in a
distinguished way’. He also reflects on how the knowledge of earlier deeds is the main
distinction between brutes and rational beings; and he goes on to say that bruti
homines ‘brutish men’ neither know nor wish to know history through their own lack of
Conquest, 3rd edn, 2 vols (London, 1939), p. 524, suggests that Geoffrey’s father’s name
was Arthur, because that name was used by Geoffrey before the publication of his
Historia—but O. J. Padel, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth and Cornwall’, Cambridge Medieval
Celtic Studies 8 (1984), 1–28, suggests that ‘Arthur’ is merely a nickname, for otherwise
Geoffrey’s name would appear in the charters in the Latin form ‘Galfridus Arturi’. Padel
notes (pp. 3–4) that Geoffrey uses the name ‘Arthur’ in the charters, and the designation
‘Monumetensis’ in his literary works, and suggests that he might not have wished to draw
attention to the former name within the context of his writings.
62 Tatlock, The Legendary History., p. 431, claims that such a prohibition is ‘almost
unparalleled’ in its intimacy; and in his article ‘Caradoc of Llancarfan’, Speculum, 13,
1938, 139–152: p. 140, suggests that Geoffrey may be mocking Caradoc’s Vita
Gildae (‘Life of Gildas’).
63 Gildas’ scorn of the British and praise of the Romans has led to assumptions that he was
not British—and so Geoffrey’s supposed condemnation of the Welsh. (On his proposed
nationality, see above, n. 58.) However, his appropriation of the phrase ‘ungratefully
rebelling’ (and his repeated use of other passages from Gildas’ text) suggests that he was
drawing his use of the De Excidio to the attention of anyone who might have chosen to
look—and possibly playing on a commonly-held view that Gildas was not British. Indeed,
he begins his account of the kings by saying the Britons had submitted to the Picts and the
Saxons, because on account of their ‘arrogance’, the vengeance of God had overtaken them
(§ 5), which seems unusually harsh, unless he is not serious in his attacks on that race.
Tatlock claims (The Legendary History, pp. 422–423) that the phrase ‘ex Britannia’ means
that the book was brought ‘out of Brittany’, but it could well refer to something less
tangible, such as the Britannic imagination (as opposed to the Saxon one).
64 Ed. Thomas Arnold, Henrici Archidiaconi Huntendunensis Historia Anglorum, Rolls
Series (London, 1879): all references to this edition appear parenthetically in the text. The
first edition of the Historia came down to the end of the year 1129, with subsequent
editions up to that which ended with the death of King Stephen in the year 1154 (see
ibid., Introduction, pp. xi–xvi for details).

15
sense, but that (bruti) animalia ‘(brutish) beasts’ are ignorant only by natural inclination.
However, he says, the lives and deaths (of both) are consigned sempiterno … silentio ‘to
everlasting … silence’. Here he may be speaking about men (such as Geoffrey) who are
without patronage or prospects. 65 Henry also addresses himself to Alexander of Lincoln,
saying that he will use Bede as the major source for his Historia, but that he will include
extracts from other authors and from chronicles held in ancient libraries. 66 He concludes
that the lector diligans ‘careful reader’ will find in the pages of his work what he ought to
imitate, and also what he ought to avoid; and declares that if the reader becomes the better
for that, his wishes will have been met. He ends the Prologue with a long and very florid
verse passage, addressed first to God and finally to Alexander. 67
In a similar fashion does William of Malmesbury exalt himself in his own Prologue to
the Gesta Regum Anglorum (‘Story of the Kings of the English’), a text written only slightly
earlier than the first edition of Henry’s work, perhaps ca. 1125. 68 William begins
harmlessly enough by saying that, apart from Bede’s history of the English (from their
arrival in Britain to Bede’s own time), written plano et suavi sermone ‘in a plain and
captivating treatise’, he has been able to find no other history composed in Latin; and that
although he has been extremely diligent in his researches, his efforts have been without
reward. He mentions that there are, indeed, vernacular works to be found, some of
antiquity, written in the manner of a chronicle and ordered from the Year of the Lord. 69
These, he says, have saved the story of England, from the time of Bede onwards, from
oblivion.
His next words are more offensive, though, a mixture of outright venom and double
entendre. William speaks of Æthelweard and his unfortunate attempts to translate the
vernacular chronicles into Latin: de Elwardo, … qui chronica illa Latine aggressus est
digerere, praestat silere ‘… of Æthelweard, who attempted to digest these chronicles in
Latin, it would be preferable to be silent’. 70 He says also that he would praise the man’s
intentions si non essent verba fastidiosa ‘if his words were not loathsome’, and (later in the
Prologue) he asks that Divine favour carry him safely past the scopulos confragosi
sermonis ‘cliffs of uneven discourse’, against which Æthelweard was dashed in his search
65 There might even have been some implied correlation between the words ‘bruti’ and
‘British’, since the latter word is said to be derived from ‘Brutus’, supposedly the founder
of the kingdom of Britain.
66 By this he means the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.
67 Alexander of Blois was preferred to the see of Lincoln by Henry I in 1123. He was
afterwards suspected of being opposed to Stephen, who seized his castle (and that of his
uncle), but he was later reconciled with that King.
68 Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series, 2 vols (London, 1887–89): all
references to this edition appear parenthetically in the text.
69 Like Henry, he means the Saxon Chronicles.
70 The work in question is edited and translated by Alistair Campbell, The Chronicle of
Æthelweard (London, 1962). On the style of that work, see Michael Lapidge, ‘The
Hermeneutic Style in Tenth-Century Anglo-Latin Literature’, Anglo-Saxon England 4
(1975), 67–111.

16
for far-fetched words. He also discusses the work of Eadmer of Canterbury, referring to it
as diffusa et necessaria historia studiosis, which continues up to the time of the death of
Archbishop Anselm. 71 He may be saying either that it is ‘an extensive and indispensable
history for the studious’ or a ‘rambling and unavoidable history for zealots’.
As far as his own talents are concerned, though, he is somewhat given to vainglory.
He notes that the period from Bede to the death of Eadgar is unsupported by written
evidence, and then goes on to say that this and other reasons have induced him to make
good the lacuna:
Ita prætermissis a tempore Bedæ ducentis et viginti et
tribus annis, quos iste nulla memoria dignatus est, absque
litterarum patrocinio claudicat cursus temporum in
medio: mihi, tum propter patriae caritatem, tum propter
adhortantium auctoritatem, voluntati fuit interruptam
temporam seriem sarcire, et exarata barbarice Romano
sale condire; et, ut res ordinatius procedat, aliqua ex his,
quae saepe dicendus Bede dixit, deflorabo, pauca
perstringens, pluribus valefaciens.
‘Thus from the time of Bede, two hundred and twenty
three years are passed over, for which years no record at
all is acknowledged, and without the support of written
evidence the march of time is defective in the middle: I,
on account of my love for my country, and also on
account of the support of those who encourage me, have
been induced to repair the broken time-line, and to season
the rough dug-up matter with Roman wit; and so that
things may go ahead with regularity, often quoting some
of those things which Bede has said, I will pluck the
blossoms, touching on a few things, but glossing over
more.’
It seems that he is setting himself up as a successor to Bede. 72
Furthermore, near the end of his Prologue, after having detailed the contents of each
book of his planned Historia, William happens to speak of ‘truth’, saying that he can vouch
71 The reference is to Eadmer’s Historia Novorum in Anglia (ed. Martin Rule, RS, London,
1884). Eadmer commits himself to telling of the doings of Anselm, archbishop of
Canterbury, who had opposed Henry I on many issues; William of Malmesbury dedicates
his Gesta Regum to Henry’s baseborn son, Robert of Gloucester. See Rule, Introduction,
pp. xxii–xxv, for details of some apparent conflicts between Eadmer and William in their
literary work/s. (Eadmer’s first issue might have come out as early as 1111, but he later
incorporates passages into his early version, see ibid., p. xvi.)
72 Fletcher, p. 38, states that William, ‘not unreasonably’, claims to be a worthy successor to
Bede. Yet see Rodney Thomson, ‘William as Historian and Man of Letters’, in his William
of Malmesbury (Woodbridge, 1987), pp. 11–38 for a more thoughtful evaluation of
William’s literary skills. At some points of his text, William does indeed show that he is
concerned with truth, and yet in the context of the earlier histories of Britain (Gildas, Bede,
and the Historia Brittonum), his treatment of the British period can only be described as
facile.

17
nothing for the accuracy of past events—for the verity of his material shall rest with his
source-authors:
Si quis vero, ut ille ait, ‘si quis hæc quoque captus amore
leget,’ sciat me nihil de retroactis præter cohærentiam
annorum pro vero pacisci; fides dictorum penes auctores
erit.
‘If anyone indeed, as it is said, “if anyone should read this
work with eager delight”, may he be aware that I
undertake nothing of the truth of things gone by except
the coherence of the years; the truth of the tale will be in
the power of the authors.’
He does go on to say that whatever he has recorded of recent times he has either seen for
himself or heard a viris fide dignis ‘from men worthy of truth’—but then adds in conclusion
that he will pay no attention to the opinions of his fellows:
Ceterum, in utramvis partem, praesentium non
magnipendo judicium; habiturus, ut spero, apud posteros,
post decessum amoris et livoris, si no eloquentiae
titulum, saltem industriae testimonium.
‘Moreover, in either case, I do not attach much weight to
the judgement of the present times; it will come about, as
I hope, in later times, after love and spite have died down,
that I will have, if not the title of eloquence, at least the
proof of industry.’
These are remarkable admissions for a historian. 73 By this stage, William has attacked
other writers, promoted his own style, and suggested that (out of love for his country,
through his own particular talents, and despite what his detractors may say) he will be the
one to fill in the historical record—and that he can guarantee the sequence of the material
but not its authenticity. But because he is using Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle—
which latter work is essentially unrelated to the British texts—the sequence of British
history which he ultimately provides is completely unlike that given by the two British
writers, Gildas and the author of the Historia Brittonum—and is essentially Saxon-oriented.
There can be little doubt that Geoffrey intends to bring him down a peg, for in his
Prologue he treats the very same issues as William does. Both William and Geoffrey
remark on the absence of source-material (for British history), both mention works in a
vernacular tongue (William the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Geoffrey a Britannic book), and
both speak of style, order and continuity, authenticity, and indeed truth. William speaks of
picking some blossoms (of fact) from Bede’s praiseworthy text, and of having had
73 In his own Prologue, Bede himself speaks of having had his recent material from reliable
witnesses. Unlike William, though, he entreats the reader not to impute false material to
him as author, for he has merely collected materials from others and is true to the rule(s) of
histor(iograph)y (see Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 6–7).

18
information from truthful men; Geoffrey speaks of Bede’s lucid treatment of the British
kings, and of how he will gather (or pick) no ornate words amongst foreign gardens or
employ elevated language (§ 2), and thrice he refers to his learned friend, Walter, as a
source of historical information (see §§ 2, 177, and 208). Both writers also note that there
are certain gaps in the documented history of the island, although in his text William
concentrates on English history and on the deficiencies of English writers and Geoffrey, in
his, on the British.
Of course, Geoffrey would not necessarily have objected to William’s attacks on
Saxon writers. Yet at the point of his text where he speaks of Arthur, William directly
attacks the British people. He comments on Arthur—and the stories told about him—as
follows, saying that after Vortimer, son of (King) Vortigern, has died:
… Britonum robur emarcuit, spes imminutæ retro
fluxere; et jam tunc profecto pessum issent, nisi
Ambrosius, solus Romanorum superstes, qui post
Wortigernum monarcha regni fuit, intumescentes
barbaros eximia bellicosi Arturis opera pressisset. Hic
est Artur de quo Britonum nugæ hodieque delirant;
dignus plane quem non fallaces somniarent fabulæ, sed
veraces prædicarent historiæ, …
‘… the strength of the Britons decayed, their diminished
hopes sank down; and indeed soon would have perished
completely, had not Ambrosius, the sole survivor of the
Romans, who was monarch of the kingdom after
Vortigernus, quelled the impudent barbarians with the
noteworthy assistance of the warlike Arthur. This is the
Arthur of whom the Britons foolishly rant even now; a
man worthy of being proclaimed in truthful histories
rather than dreamed about in fallacious nonsenses, …’
(I.8)
He thus suggests that the story of Arthur has been blown out of all proportion by the
British. 74 Yet he himself tends towards exaggeration when he says immediately afterwards
of that man:
74 Perhaps not wishing to be overly critical about Arthur, William instead criticises ways in
which the Britons speak of Arthur. William also states (III. 287) that Arthur’s grave is
never pointed out, so that it is fabled in old foolish lies that he will return. Tatlock, The
Legendary History, p. 431, believes that William is patronising Gildas when he calls him
neque insulsus neque infacetus historicus ‘neither an unsalted nor a humourless historian’,
and when he says that it is to Gildas that the Britons owe what notoriety they have amongst
other peoples. G. H. Gerould, ‘King Arthur and Politics’, Speculum 2 (1927), 33–51 (pp.
35–36) looks at the space devoted to Arthur by William (and by Henry), and at the reasons
why Geoffrey writes a history of Celtic Britain as opposed to English Britain. (At page 38,
however, he asserts that Geoffrey was probably not a Welsh patriot, because he was writing
for Robert of Gloucester and Alexander of Lincoln.)

19
… quippe qui labantem patriam diu sustinuerit,
infractasque civium mentes ad bellum acuerit; postremo,
in obsessione Badonici montis, fretus imagine Dominicæ
matris, quam armis suis insinuerat, nongentos hostium
solus adorsus incredibili cæde profligarit.
‘… to be sure, he for a long time sustained the tottering
nation, and encouraged the dejected spirits of the citizens
to war; finally, at the siege of the Badonic mount, trusting
in the image of the Mother of the Lord, which he had
sewn onto his armour, he in a solo attack destroyed nine
hundred of the enemy with incredible slaughter.’ (ibid.)
William thus places Arthur side by side with Ambrosius as leader of the armies at Badon,
even though no other source-text used by him puts them together, and even though one of
them (the Historia Brittonum) places Ambrosius in the early fifth century and Arthur in the
sixth. 75 He goes on to say that the Saxons extend their dominion, gradually, over the whole
island, and that God, in whose control are all changes of empire, does not oppose the
takeover. William’s apparent misunderstanding of his sources, together with his
inflammatory remarks on the rantings of the Britons, those on his love of country, and those
on the overtaking of the island by Divine consent, might have been overmuch for Geoffrey,
whose comments on ornate words in foreign gardens may—in the first instance—be an
adverse reaction to that historian who heaps scorn on other writers whilst simultaneously
praising himself and ignoring contemporary opinion and the need for truth.
In the second instance, Geoffrey’s work might have been a reply to Henry of
Huntingdon, and to Henry’s patron, Alexander of Lincoln—a reply which might initially
have been made in the early 1130s. The evidence for this lies partly inside the Historia
Regum and partly outside of it. Certain prognostications, said to have been made by Merlin,
are presently incorporated into the text of Geoffrey’s Historia in the form of an extensive
list, which (as part of the longer text) should perhaps be called the ‘Prophecies’ (§§ 112–
117), and which now come complete with a dedication to Alexander (§ 110). Yet Geoffrey
claims in the Historia that they were first published as a separate text—presumably with the
same dedication—which should probably thus be referred to as the Prophetiae Merlini
‘Prophecies of Merlin’. 76 These Prophetiae might have been available as early as 1134 or
75 See below, pp. 51–58, for an analysis of the chronology of the Easter-table annals of the
Historia Brittonum.
76 Tatlock, The Legendary History, p. 418, n. 68 and p. 419, argues for the ‘Prophecies’ as a
separate text. Roberts, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’, p. 98, states that the dedication to
Alexander implies that the text of the ‘Prophecies’ had its own identity; Reeve, pp. 93–97,
suggests that there is manuscript-evidence for a separate libellus Merlini; Bernard Meehan,
‘The Prophecies of Merlin: New Manuscript Evidence’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic
Studies 28 (1978–80), 37–46 argues that Liège University Library MS. 369c represents an
unfinished version of the ‘Prophecies’, written between 1124 and 1128 at Durham, early in
the career of Bishop Alexander; and Caroline D. Eckhardt, ed., ‘The Prophetia Merlini of
Geoffrey of Monmouth: A Fifteenth-Century English Commentary’, Speculum Anniversary

20
1135, for Ordericus Vitalis, an Anglo-Norman writer who seems to have finally completed
his Historia Ecclesiastica (‘Ecclesiastical History’) around the year 1141, quotes in Book
XII, Chapter 47, parts of what he calls the prophetia Ambrosii Merlini ‘prophecy of
Ambrosius Merlin’, providing a text not unlike the ‘Prophecies’ as they now appear in the
Historia Regum. This Chapter 47 would seem to have been drafted between February,
1134 (the time of the death of Duke Robert of Normandy) and December, 1135 (that of the
death of Henry I), for Ordericus speaks of Robert as dead and Henry as living. 77
Ordericus begins by saying: libet michi quaedam huic opusculo inserere ‘it pleases
me to include some part of this little work’, and then, after detailing some of Merlin’s
prophecies, he states: hanc lectiunculam de Merlini libello excerpsi, et studiosis quibus ipse
propalatus non est quantulamcumque stillam propinaui ‘I have taken this short reading
from the little book of Merlin, and have drunk a toast, however small, to it for scholars to
whom it has not been revealed’. Yet he uses some material which appears only in the
Ambrosius-Vortigern episode of the Historia Brittonum—the detail that the creatures
fighting at the bottom of the pool were first ‘worms’ who only then came to be ‘dragons’—
and other details which appear only in Geoffrey’s own Historia—the tears supposedly shed
by the seer. 78 The mention of the ‘libellus’ would suggest that, before the end of the year
1135, he had access to a book containing Merlin’s vaticinations which was similar to, but
much smaller than, the text of the Historia Regum Britannie as we know it today.
Indeed, his statements about the inclusion of the book in his own work and about its
limited circulation may allow that he had been sent the Prophetiae Merlini in the early
1130s as one of a few selected authors to be given access to the work. He also asserts that
gnari historiarum ‘men expert in histories’ can understand Merlin’s predictions, and that
sophistae ‘learned men’ may clearly work out some of them. 79 It seems from the words of
Monographs, 8 (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), pp. 4–5, puts a case for the Prophetiae as a
separate text, based on the popularity of the work. For an account of early prophecy, see M.
E. Griffiths, Early Vaticination in Welsh, with English Parallels (Cardiff, 1937), and on
Alexander, see A. G. Dyson, ‘The Monastic Patronage of Bishop Alexander of Lincoln’,
Journal of Ecclesiastical History 26 (1975), 1–24.
77 Ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, The Ecclesiastical History of Ordericus Vitalis, 6 vols,
(Oxford, 1969–80). See vol. 1, p. 47 for the date of publication of Books (XI and) XII.
Although the work as a whole was not published until some time later than 1135, the
segment on Merlin might have been incorporated in the text without change.
78 It should perhaps be noted that Ordericus makes no mention of Merlin as in any way
boyish.
79 The word ‘sophistes’ carries with it overtones of one who is willing to argue on specious
matters, whilst the previously-used word, ‘libellus’, can also imply that the little work on
Merlin is a petition, a satire or a published misrepresentation. The ambiguity of the words
of Ordericus, in many ways, reflects that of Geoffrey’s own. Also, Ordericus speaks of the
Easter controversy, the Christian Britons and the pagan Saxons, and of how Normandy will
lose the island of Britain (and that of Ireland) back to its original inhabitants—and these are
the very issues with which Geoffrey will concern himself in the Historia Regum—but it is
not certain what conclusions can be drawn about the motives of Ordericus, for he himself is
half-Norman and half-English.

21
Ordericus that Geoffrey might have attempted to gain some notoriety by circulating a small
book of Merlin’s prophecies before the publication of the longer Historia Regum, a
preliminary work (perhaps incorporating material from the Historia Brittonum and from
Geoffrey’s own notes) which Geoffrey himself later used for his Historia Regum.
Ordericus might have obliged him by publishing parts of it in his own Ecclesiastical
History. Geoffrey might have published the Prophetiae as a rejoinder to learned men, as
early as 1134 or 1135.
However, Geoffrey’s Introduction to the ‘Prophecies’ suggests that he also felt some
antagonism towards the Bishop of Lincoln. He states there that before he had reached the
point (of his Historia) where Merlin was to appear, he was ‘compelled’ by Alexander, and
by others, to set down the boy’s predictions:
Nondum autem ad hunc locum historie perueneram, cum
de Merlino diuulgato rumore compellebant undique
contemporanei mei prophetias ipsius edere; maxime
autem Alexander Lincolniensis episcopus, uir summe
religionis et prudentiae. Non erat in clero siue in populo
cui tot nobiles famularentur, quos mansueta pietas ipsius
et benigna largitas in obsequium suum alliciebat. Cui
cum satisfacere preelegissem, prophetias transtuli et
eidem cum huiusmodi litteris direxi.…
‘But I had not yet arrived at this (present) place in this
history when, rumours of Merlin having been divulged,
my contemporaries on all sides compelled me to edit his
prophecies; mostly however Alexander, bishop of
Lincoln, a man of the greatest scrupulousness and
sagacity. There was no one amongst the clergy or the lay
whom so many well-known persons served. Since I had
elected primarily to satisfy him, I carried the prophecies
over and directed them to him with a letter of this
kind.…’ (§109)
He goes on to give what is supposedly the complete text of the (original) letter. It reads:
Coegit me, Alexander Lincolinensis praesul, nobilitatis
tue dilectio prophetias Merlini de Britannico in Latinum
transferre antequam historiam parassem quam de gestis
regum Britannicorum inceperam. Proposueram enim
illam prius perficere istudque opus subsequenter
explicare ne, dum uterque labor incumberet, sensus meus
ad singula minor fieret. Attamen quoniam securus eram
venie quam discretio subtilis ingenii tui donaret, agrestem
calamum meum labiis apposui et plebeia modulatione
ignotum tibi interpretatus sum sermonem. Admodum
autem ammiror quia id pauperi stilo dignatus eras
committere, cum tot doctiores, tot ditiores uirga potestatis
tue coerceat, qui sullimioris carminis delectamento aures
minerue tue mulcerent. Et ut omnes philosophos totius
Britannie insule preteream, tu solus es (quem non

22
erubesco fateri) qui pre cunctis audaci lira caneres nisi te
culmen honoris ad cetera negotia uocaret. Quoniam ergo
placuit ut Gaufridus Monemutensis fistulam suam in hoc
uaticinio sonaret, modulationibus suis fauere non
diffugias et, siquid inordinate siue uiciose protulerit,
ferula camenarum tuarum in rectum auertas concentum.
‘My admiration for your nobility, Bishop Alexander of
Lincoln, forces me to carry across the Prophecies of
Merlin from Britannic into Latin before I have got to the
end of the history which I had begun on the deeds of the
kings of the Britons. I had actually proposed to finish the
other (work) first, and to devote myself to this work after
that lest, while the labour of both hung over (me), my
mind might be inferior to even one. However, since I
was secure in the grace which the subtle understanding of
your wit would give, I placed my rustic reed-pipe to my
lips and with plebeian measure put an interpretation upon
the obscure discourse for you. Nonetheless, though, I
wonder that you would commit it to my impoverished
pen, when you may command with your powerful wand
so many more learned, more splendid, who might soothe
the ears of your wise self with the delight of a more
sublime song. And without mentioning all the
philosophers of the entire island of Britain, you alone are
the one (as I am not ashamed to admit) who should sing
(it) in bold song, except that the highest honour has called
you away to other business. Since though it has pleased
you that Geoffrey of Monmouth should sound his pipe in
this (piece of) augury, may you not hesitate to favour his
modulations and, if he produces anything confused or
defective, may you bring him into correct harmony with
your Muses’ rod.’ (§ 110)
The fact of having an ‘old’ dedication appear in a ‘new’ text is most unusual—but the
double use of the ambiguous word ‘transferre’ (once in the Introduction to the letter, § 109,
and once in the letter itself, § 110) links this part of the text to Geoffrey’s Prologue and
Epilogue to the Historia Regum. It it possible that this letter has been placed in the text of
the Historia Regum for some such purpose as to show Geoffrey’s attitude to Alexander, or
to Henry, one of Alexander’s underlings. 80
Therefore, looking at Section 110, we might ask whether Henry of Huntingdon is one
of those more learned and more splendid who might sing Alexander’s praises more
elegantly than Geoffrey; or if Geoffrey, humble and rustic, has been asked by Alexander,
wise and exact, to translate Merlin’s vaticinations, as the words ‘commit to my pen’ suggest
80 Providing an ambiguous dedication would have had its dangers: indeed, Knight, p. 46,
notes that Oxford was in the diocese of Lincoln, and so that Alexander was Geoffrey’s
(ecclesiastical) overseer. Perhaps, though, the work was written for a limited audience, and
never found its way into the hands of Alexander himself.

23
that he has. Or we might ask whether Geoffrey, as his tone suggests, has simply reached
the end of his tolerance with learned patrons, and decided, for example, to show up their
lack of acumen by going on to provide a fictitious text of Merlin’s vaticinations. 81 Looking
back to Section 109, we might question whether Geoffrey is ‘compelled’ to put out Merlin’s
prophecies by public pressure or by exasperation; whether the word ‘edere’ should mean
‘to produce’ rather than ‘to edit’; if Geoffrey’s use of the word ‘directere’ implies that he
has ‘directed’ a letter ‘to’ Alexander or ‘at’ him; and whether the use of the word
‘satisfacere’ could imply that he has singled out Alexander as the one whom he most wants
to ‘pay’ (in the sense of ‘paying back’ a debt of contempt, rather than ‘satisfying’). 82 The
two passages which presently introduce the ‘Prophecies’ in the pages of the Historia
Regum may be, on the one hand, Geoffrey’s attempt to expose Alexander as a none-too-
learned patron, and on the other his answer to Henry of Huntingdon, who in 1129
discourses on patronage, on the lack of it, and on impoverished brutes condemned to
silence.
Indeed, it is probably with an intention of showing up both writer and patron that
Geoffrey dedicates his entire history to (Stephen and to) William’s patron, Robert of
Gloucester. 83 At Section 3, within the dedication to Stephen, he mentions seasoning his
work with poetic salt—which is a clear echo of William’s prefatory statement on his
intention of enhancing his source-material with ‘Roman’ salt—and he is not too kind to the
various dignitaries of Gloucester who appear within the pages of his work. At Section 105
he tells of the superhuman deeds of Eldol, duke of Gloucester, but at Section 122 he
portrays him as slightly foolish, and at Section 123 as partly ineffectual in his attempts to do
81 If Geoffrey had been using an orderly narrative source—or if his own previouslytranslated
text of the Prophetiae was available (at the time that the Historia Regum had
come out)—would he really have had any difficulty in ‘interpreting’ (or perhaps
‘translating’) the collection of Merlin’s prophecies? The fact that the phraseology of the
‘Prophecies’ reflects the text of Gildas implies that there was no source here: see Neil
Wright, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gildas’, pp. 16–17, on both plain and possible
references to the De Excidio, and the suggestion that Geoffrey found Gildas’ work a quarry
for the rhetoric necessary for writing his ‘Prophecies’; and idem, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth
and Gildas Revisited’, pp. 155–7, for other borrowings.
82 Also, who can actually have divulged rumours of Merlin except for Geoffrey himself,
whether the Merlin’s collection of prophecies had come from a sourcebook (of restricted
access) or from his own imagination?
83 The dedications, made to Robert, earl of Gloucester; to Robert and to Waleran, count of
Meulan; and to King Stephen and to Robert, are discussed by Wright xiv–xv. (The
dedication to Stephen and Robert is found only in the Bern manuscript, clumsily adapted
from that to Robert and Waleran.) Wright notes the irregularity in the designation ‘dux’
(§ 3), and suggests on the basis of the reference to the consul auguste (§ 177) that the work
was originally written for a single patron, i.e., Robert. Yet it is possible that all of the
dedications are written tongue-in-cheek: for example, Acton Griscom, ‘The Date of
Composition of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia: New Manuscript Evidence’, Speculum 1
(1926), 129–156 (pp. 138–143) discusses the changing relations between Waleran and
Robert of Gloucester. In a work of parody, the existence of a dual dedication would not
have to imply that the men addressed were on friendly terms.

24
battle with the Saxon leader, Hengist. Then, between Sections 125 and 126, he presents
Eldadus, bishop of Gloucester and brother of Eldol, as variously cruel and humane, and
refers to him—as he does to Alexander of Lincoln in his ambiguous dedication to the
‘Prophecies’ (§ 109)—as uir summe prudentie et religionis ‘a man of the greatest sagacity
and scrupulousness’ (§ 125). After that, he presents another duke of Gloucester, one
Morvid, as a largely weak and useless participant in Arthur’s Roman campaign, and one
who is capable only of attacking the Romans from behind when they are least expecting it
(§ 175).
Thus when Geoffrey speaks of carrying over the contents of a certain ‘codex’ (§ 2), he
may not be suggesting that he is translating a book, but that he is presenting his own
‘account book’, aimed at settling the British score with the Angles and the Normans—for
Henry is English and William is Anglo-Norman. Geoffrey’s reference to the overblown
rhetoric of foreign gardens (ibid.) may be a direct attack on the locutions of these two
writers. And his concluding interdiction on their writing the history of the British kings (§
208) may be his comment on the value of the work which they have already presented. His
suggestion that his own Historia Regum has the support of Walter, an influential Oxford
historian and orator (§ 2), may be included only to lend his work credibility—for a
comparison between his work and his actual sources suggests that it has very little of this.
There are three major sources which can be identified in Geoffrey’s story of the
British kings—and no proper analysis of Geoffrey’s text can be undertaken until the content
of those sources has been evaluated. The first is Gildas’ De Excidio Britanniae, a text
which neither William nor Henry uses; the second is Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica; and the
third is the Historia Brittonum, parts of which are also overlooked by William and by
Henry. As these source-texts are examined from first to last, it is possible to see how the
history of Britain has changed over the course of the centuries, along with the perceptions
of the historians themselves.

25
Chapter 2. The De Excidio Britanniae.
The De Excidio Britanniae is a work in two main parts. 84 Part I (cc. 3–26), contains an
account of the early history of Britain, detailing the upheaval and unrest in Britain as
different races and leaders attempt to assert their authority over the island. The Britons are at
first under the Roman cloak of protection, but like ungrateful children they rebel against the
master and drive out the legions, and are subsequently attacked from the north and west by
the Irish and the Picts (because the tyrant, ‘Maximus’, has despoiled the island of Britain of
its troops in his attempt on Rome). After suffering for many years, the Britons request help
against the invaders from a Roman leader named ‘Agitius’—but they are refused assistance.
Foolishly, they invite Saxon mercenaries to protect them against the onslaught, but the end
result is an attack on the entire island by the Germanic hordes. These foreigners are driven
out in time, after a series of battles, the first of which is led by another Roman, ‘Ambrosius
Aurelianus’, and not the least of which is the siege of Mount Badon—but when the memory
of external wars and unexpected assistance has died down, Britain is subsequently plunged
into civil war. Part II (cc. 27–110), is a diatribe against errant British leaders, religious and
secular, in this period of civil unrest. Chapters 27 to 36 of this second part contain a
harangue against Britain’s local political leaders, five contemporary kings who are described
as a gang of tyrants, murderers, fornicators, and instigators of warfare, and one of whom is
designated as the ‘descendant’ of Ambrosius Aurelianus. 85 No dates are provided in either
Part I or Part II, but at least two events from the first part may be dated from outside of the
text, and the time of the other events to Chapter 36 may then be worked out fairly accurately
using the second of the events as a touchstone.
The first of the two dateable events is the death of ‘Maximus’, the tyrant who takes
control of the Roman forces in Britain and leads them away to make war on the Empire
proper. Gildas says that Maximus is sent to Gaul in the company of many soldiers to make a
claim on the Empire in the West; establishes his throne at Trier; drives one of the joint
emperors from Rome and deprives the other of his life; and is later beheaded (see c. 13.1–3).
Orosius also mentions Maximus, saying that the Emperors whom he attacks are Gratian and
his brother, Valentinian; 86 and Prosper of Tirone provides first and last dates: Maximus kills
84 All quotations from the Latin are taken from Michael Winterbottom, ed. and trans.,
Gildas: The Ruin of Britain and Other Works (London and Chichester, 1978, unless
otherwise specified, and all references appear parenthetically in the text. All translations,
however, are my own. In those few instances where reference is made to the manuscripts,
the folio-numbers of those manuscripts are used alongside the chapter- and verse-numbers
given by Winterbottom.
85 Many take it that more than one descendant is mentioned, but see below, n.108.
86 Paulus Orosius, The Seven Books of History against the Pagans, transl. Roy J. Deferrari
(Washington, 1964), VII.34. (Gildas does not tell of Gratian and Constantine, two of
Orosius’ later rulers in Britain. However, Wright, ‘Gildas’ Prose Style and its Origins’, in
Lapidge and Dumville, pp. 107–128: pp. 110–111, shows that he did know Orosius’ text.)

26
Gratian in the year 357 A.P. (A.D. 384), and holds the empire until 361 A.P. (A.D. 388), and
at this time he is put to death. 87 So for Gildas, the early 380s is the time at which the
Emperors leave Britain. 88
The other event which may be assigned a date is the third appeal to the Romans—an
appeal made after a long period of disaster and confusion. After Maximus’ removal of the
troops, the country is left open to foreign invasion, and the British, unable to defend
themselves and totally inexperienced in the ways of war, suffer multos annos ‘for many
years’ (c. 14) under the attacks of two savage races, the Irish from the north-west and the
Picts from the north. The Romans provide them with ongoing support for a time, twice
sending legions and twice having walls built (see cc. 15.2–3, 17.2, and 18.2), but ultimately
bid the Britons goodbye, intending never to return (c. 18.3). 89 After this, the Irish and Picts
re-emerge eagerly and seize the north of the island all the way up to the wall (c. 19.1). The
citizens put up a half-hearted resistance (c. 19.2), flee far from the cities and the
fortifications, and become like beasts of the field (c. 19.3). They resort to looting each other,
for there is a famine, and so the entire region comes to lack any source of food (c. 19.4).
Yet although the Empire in Britain has ended, and the Roman legions have taken their
leave, the inhabitants still have an attachment to the Mother Empire, for when the island is
suffering very badly, the miserae reliquiae ‘pitiable remnants’ send unsuccessfully to one of
their leaders, using the following words:
Agitio ter consuli gemitus Britannorum; … repellunt
barbari ad mare, repellit mare ad barbaros; inter haec duo
genera funerum aut iugulamur aut mergimur.
‘To Agitius, thrice consul, the plea of the Britons; … the
barbarians drive us back to the sea, the sea drives us back
to the barbarians; between these two kinds of death we
are either butchered or drowned.’ (c. 20.1).
The date of this appeal can probably be placed in the middle of the fifth century, for ‘Agitius,
thrice consul’ is best identified with ‘Aëtius’, a Roman consul who holds office for the third
time, according to Prosper, in 419 A.P. (A.D. 446), and dies in the year 427 A.P. (A.D.
87 See Prosper Tironensis, Epitoma Chronicon, ed. T. Mommsen, Monumenta Germaniae
Historica, Auct. Ant., Vol. 9 (Berlin, 1892), repr. 1961, pp. 461–462. Today, the
conversion from Passion- to Incarnation-dating is made by addition of 27. The number
originates in the notion that Christ died in the year A.D. 28, during the consulate of the
Roman Gemini (see Bede, Opera De Temporibus, ed. Charles W. Jones, Cambridge, Mass.,
1943, p. 63).
88 Yet Gildas says that in the early days of Maximus the island holds fast to its Roman
name, though not to Roman law or custom (see c. 13.1).
89 See Higham, p. 22 and n. 77, and references there cited, for Geoffrey’s appropriation of
the construction of both walls to his own period. Higham argues, e.g. at pp. 16, 22, 23, 24,
42, and 44, that some of Gildas’ tale of early Britain is mere dialectic, although he
acknowledges that there is probably some historical truth in it, and allows(p. 35) that
Chapters 20–26 of that text are ‘broadly correct’.

27
454). 90 The date ‘446’ is a sound enough basis on which to work out the chronology of the
remaining events. 91
After mentioning the appeal, Gildas tells of starvation and revival, and then of
wickedness and sin: interea ‘meanwhile’ (c. 20.2), the aforementioned famine (see c. 19.4)
grips Britain; some of the Britons give themselves up to the plunderers, merely to obtain a
morsel of food; others keep on fighting—from the mountains, from the caves and passes,
and from the tangled thickets. Then for the first time they inflict a defeat on their enemies,
who have been engaged in many years of plunder (c. 20.3). The Irish return home, post non
longum temporis reversuri ‘being about to return no long time afterwards’ (c. 21.1), and
then for the first time and after that time the Picts remain quiet in the far end of the island,
although they (still) carry out the occasional raid (ibid.). In the absence of their enemies, the
scars of the people begin to heal over, but in the respite from devastation the island is
flooded with such an abundance of goods as no previous age has known (c. 21.2).
Alongside it grows such dissipation as has (also) never been known before. Other evils rise
up as well. Kings are anointed not in the name of God, but as being crueller than all of the
others (c. 21.4); they are then killed and replaced by others more cruel. Religious men do
nothing but lie about inebriated, as though steeped in wine (c. 21.6).
Many events are detailed here, but the duration of the period is probably quite short:
the famine earlier than, and the surrender or first resistance at the same time as, the failed
appeal to ‘Agitius’; the defeat and enemy retreat soon afterwards; and the abundance, luxury
and infighting amongst kings possibly continuing for not too many years after that. For
although the documented changes of regency suggest, at a glance, that the period itself is
long—Gildas says in Chapter 22.1 that there is a rumour of the iamiam … adventus veterum
‘imminent … arrival of the old (enemies)’, the very ones who have been said to be set to
return ‘no long time’ (c. 21.1) after their first defeat by the British (c. 20.3). All of the events
from the famine to the civil wars might all have taken place, quite reasonably, within fifteen
90 Mommsen, Vol. 9, pp. 480 and 483, respectively. After discussing the possibilities for
the misspelling of the name David Dumville accepts the identification of Gildas’ ‘Agitius’
with ‘Aëtius’ and notes that Aëtius might have been referred to as ‘ter consul’ right up to
the year of his death in A.D. 454 (see ‘The Chronology of the De Excidio Britanniae, Book
I’, in Lapidge and Dumville, pp. 61–84: 67–68).
91 Perhaps the outer limits are 446 x 454, but (for the sake of convenience) I will employ the
date 446 only, since this was actually the year in which he was consul. Higham asserts (p.
121) that the appeal might have been made to ‘Aëtius’ or to ‘Aegidius’, a Roman general
who fights in Gaul in the 450s and 460s, but that neither the former as third-time consul,
nor the latter as general, fits in with the date of the Saxon takeover in Britain as it is given
in the Gallic Chronicle to 452, i.e., 441/2 (see Chronica Gallica a. cccclii ed. Mommsen,
Monumenta Germania Historica, Vol. 9, p. 660). Higham goes on to argue that the appeal
might perhaps be placed ca. 425–435 (see p. 137). On the Gallic material, see Molly
Miller, ‘The Last British Entry in the “Gallic Chronicles”’, Britannia 9 (1978), 315–318,
and Ian Wood, ‘The End of Roman Britain: Continental Evidence and Parallels’, in Lapidge
and Dumville, pp. 1–25 (pp. 16–20).

28
years or so of the time that the Romans (of Rome) had ignored the final British appeal for
help, perhaps ca 461.
Following the return of the Irish, 92 a deadly plague falls on the British people, killing
many of them in brevi ‘within a short time’ (c. 22.2); but still they do not learn their lesson.
They convene a council to decide how to repel the deadly and frequent plunderings of the
enemy (c. 22.3). At the direction of the British overking, they decide to bring the Saxons as
mercenary soldiers to assist their weakened armies against the onslaughts of the enemy:
Tum omnes consiliarii una cum superbo tyranno
caecantur, adinvenientes tale praesidium, immo excidium
patriae ut ferocissimi illi nefandi nominis Saxones deo
hominibusque invisi, quasi in caulas lupi, in insulam ad
retundendas aquilionales gentes intromitterentur.
‘Then all the members of the council as one with the
supreme tyrant were struck blind, devising such a
defence, or rather destruction, of the country that those
most ferocious Saxons (of unspeakable name, hateful to
God and man), should be admitted into the island as
wolves into the fold, to force back the northern peoples.’
(c. 23.1)
The Saxons, says Gildas, arrive in two waves. The first pack arrives in boats called
cyuli ‘keels’ (c. 23.3), to the number of three, settling in orientali parte insulae ‘in the
eastern part of the island’ (c. 23.4). They might have first arrived—as the mercenaries of the
British—around two years after the return of the Irish, or around seventeen years after the
unsuccessful appeal to Rome, or ca 463.
Upon settlement of this small advance troop and a measure of success in their
dealings, a larger troop of soldiers is despatched from the mother country. The second
contingent is given supplies, quae multo tempore impertitae clauserunt, ut dicitur, canis
faucem ‘which rations for a long time shut, as it is said, of the mouth of the dog’ (c. 23.5);
the barbarians then complain that the epimenia ‘monthly ration’ (ibid.) is not sufficient, and
swear that if they do not receive more generous gifts they will plunder the entire island, and
nec mora, minas effectibus prosequuntur ‘in short, these threats they immediately carry out’
(ibid.). In Chapter 24.1, the fire of (God’s) vengeance, magnified by the hand of the
easterners, spreads across the land, and does not abate until it attains the furthest shore,
92 E.A. Thompson, ‘Gildas and the History of Britain’, Britannia 10 (1979), 203–26 (pp.
215, 220), claims that the Irish do not return. Dumville (‘Chronology’, p. 70, and n. 46)
takes it that the Irish and Picts both do. I would argue that only the Irish (‘the old enemy’,
c. 22.1) are involved, since the Picts are said (c. 21.1) to remain in their own lands except
for an occasional raid. Dumville (ibid., pp. 69–70), spreads the events between the appeal
and the civil wars over a generation or so, on the grounds that Gildas may be comparing the
decline of this period with that of his own, of which he tells in Chapter 26.2–4. (See pp.
68–70 for his chronology of §§ 20–21.) On page 83, he tentatively suggests ca. 455 x
ca. 480 as the outer time-limits for the period.

29
where it dips its tongue into the western ocean. 93 All of the towns are levelled and all of
the people are cast down to the ground by sword or by flame (c. 24.3), and no burial is to be
had except in the ruins of houses or in the bellies of predators (c. 24.4). Although the events
from the planning and despatch of the new expedition to the plunder of the land could hardly
have taken place overnight, the length of time from the settlement of the Saxon vanguard to
the utter destruction of the island might have been relatively short, perhaps even as short as
five years, for Gildas speaks of their dissatisfaction with their monthly rations, and says that
they carry out their threats without much delay. The widespread destruction of property by
the Saxons might have been occurred within, say, twenty two years of the appeal to Aëtius,
i.e., around 468.
Section 1 of Chapter 25 deals with the fate of those British remaining after the Saxon
onslaught. Gildas says:
Itaque nonnulli miserarum reliquiarum in montibus
deprehensi acervatim iugulabantur: alii fame confecti
accedentes manus hostibus dabant in aevum servituri, si
tamen non continuo trucidarentur, quod altissimae gratiae
stabat loco: alii transmarinas petebant regiones cum
ululatu magno ceu celeumatis vice hoc modo sub
velorum sinibus cantantes: ‘dedisti nos tamquam oves
escarum et in gentibus dispersisti nos’: alii montanis
collibus minacibus praeruptis vallatis et densissimis
saltibus marinisque rupibus vitam suspecta semper mente
credentes, in patria licet trepidi perstabant.
‘And so, not a few of the miserable remnants, come upon
in the mountains, were butchered wholesale. Others,
weakened by hunger, gave (themselves) into the hands of
the foes, assenting to eternal servitude, if however they
were not immediately cut to pieces, which was the
greatest boon remaining at that time. Others sought the
regions across the seas, singing under swollen sails with
great lamentation, as if in time with the command to the
oarsman, in this manner: “Thou hast given us as sheep to
the slaughter and dispersed us among the foreigners”.
Others, though fearful, stood firm in the homeland, in the
mountains, the overhanging hills, the precipitous,
fortified, and closest ravines and cliffs of the sea—(led)
an uncertain life, always relying on (the courage of) their
own convictions.’
The slaughter and enslavement of the Britons might have taken place very soon after (or even
simultaneous with) the Saxon onslaught, and their forced flight into Brittany, or their the
retreat into the wilderness only a short time later—but allowing a little time to have elapsed,
93 The geography of the De Excidio is not at all certain, but for a coherent discussion on the
matter, see Neil Wright, ‘Gildas’s Geographical Perspective: Some Problems’, in Lapidge
and Dumville, pp. 85–105.

30
tentatively within one year of it, and so perhaps within twenty three years of the fruitless
appeal, perhaps ca 469. 94
However, despite the time-lapse from the final appeal, and despite the dominance of
the Saxons, the Roman period is not quite over, for Sections 2 and 3 of Chapter 25 give some
information about the man, Ambrosius Aurelianus, and about his perceived relationship—by
birth—to the Roman emperors (in Britain). There are, though, some textual problems in each
of the two main manuscripts which require resolution before any evaluation of the
chronology can be made. Gildas’ words are here quoted from Cambridge University Library
MS Ff. i. 27 (MS ‘X’):
TEmpore igitur interueniente aliquando cum recessissent
domi crudelissimi predones. roborate a domino reliquie
quibus confugiunt undique diuersis in locis miserrimi
ciues tam auide quam apes alueario procella imminente.
simul deprecantes eum toto corde. et ut dicitur innumeris
onerantes ethera uotis ne ad internecionem ita
usquequaque delerentur. duce ambrosio aureliaNo uiro
modesto qui solus fuit comes fidelis. fortis.
ueraxque forte Romane gentis. qui tante tempestatis
collisione occisis in eadem parentibus purpura nimirum
indutis superfuerat. cuius nunc temporibus nostris sobolis
magnopere auita bonitate degenerauit. Vires capessunt
uictores prouocantes ad prelium. quis uictoria deo
annuente ex uoto cessit.
‘After a time, when the cruel robbers had returned home,
the Lord gave strength to the survivors — with whom the
most wretched citizens took refuge from all different
places as avidly as bees to a hive when a storm
approaches, at the same time begging with all their
hearts, and as it is said with countless promises burdening
the heavens, that they might not in everything be utterly
destroyed. Under the leadership of Ambrosius
Aurelianus, a modest man — who alone was a courtier
faithful, strong and true, as it happened, of the Roman
people; who had survived the shock of such a storm, in
which his relatives, no doubt endowed with the purple,
had been killed; and the descendant of whom now in our
times has greatly degenerated from the goodness of the
ancestor — the men grew in strength, and challenged the
victors to battle, [and] to them resulted the victory,
granted by God as they had requested.’ (fo. 7ra)
94 Gildas’ similar mention of a retreat to the mountains (c. 20.2) gives no indication of the
time involved, but the Britons would presumably have dwelled in the hills only as a stopgap
measure at any particular time. (Higham notes, p. 44, that the ‘wilderness’ is a habitual
biblical retreat, and also that the lament is also derived from Psalm 44. It is uncertain,
though, whether this has any bearing on the chronology.)

31
In MS X, 95 Ambrosius Aurelianus seems to be the only member of the imperial Roman court
who is ‘faithful, strong and true’, and the last upright member in the land. 96
Nonetheless, in Cambridge University Library MS Dd. i. 17 (MS ‘D’) this man is
described somewhat differently, i.e., as the last of the Romans. 97 In that codex he is said to
be a man who alone of the Roman people had survived the storm in which his parents had
been killed. However, a comparison of the two manuscripts suggests a mistake in copying:
X: … duce ambrosio aureliaNo uiro modesto qui solus
fuit comes fidelis. fortis. ueraxque
forte Romane gentis, qui tante tempestatis collisione … superfuerat. (fo. 7ra)
D: … Duce aurelio ambrosio uiro modesto qui solus
forte romane gentis tante tempestatis collisione … superfuerat. (fo. 471vb)
It seems that that the words fuit comes fidelis fortis ueraxque ‘was a courtier faithful, strong
and true’ have dropped out of the text of D (or one of its predecessors) during the process of
copying, and that the second qui has subsequently been omitted. Manuscript D suggests that
Ambrosius Aurelianus is the last surviving Roman (of note) in the entire country—but MS.
X, which is probably more accurate at this point than D, suggests that there are several
(notable) Romans remaining in the country, but that Ambrosius is the only one worthy or
capable of leading the Britons. Very probably, there is still some significant Roman
influence in Britain at the time of the first victory. 98 How long, though, might it be from the
95 First designated as ‘X’ by Theodor Mommsen in his edition of Gildas: De Excidio et
Conquestu Britanniae, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auct. Ant., Vol. 13 (Berlin,
1894). For a description of the manuscript, see A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved
in the Library of the University of Cambridge, Vol. II (Cambridge, 1857), pp. 318–329.
The hand is there assigned to around the end of the twelfth century.
96 The word ‘comes’, or ‘courtier’, suggests that he is a member of a particular household or
family, or one of the followers of a king or emperor.
97 This manuscript is Mommsen’s ‘D’. For a description of the manuscript, see A Catalogue
of the Manuscripts Preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, Vol. I
(Cambridge, 1856), pp. 15–26 (pp. 23–4). The hand is thought to be of the late fourteenth
century. Two other manuscripts containing the text of Gildas are Avranches Public Library
MS. No. 162, and British Library Cotton MS. Vitellius A. vi (very badly damaged by fire
and virtually unusable). Parts of the text are in Paris MS. Lat. 6235 (cc. 3–12), and
Bibliothèque Municipale of Rheims, MS. 414 (two leaves): see O’Sullivan, p. 3, n. 7. On
Rheims, see also W. H. Davies, ‘The Church in Wales’, in Barley and Hanson, pp. 131–149
(p. 147, n. 73). (I have personally examined only the three British manuscripts.)
98 Even though Gildas may only be saying that the bearing of Ambrosius Aurelianus
recommends him as the offspring of emperors, his birth nevertheless has to have been close
enough to Roman times for him to be considered related to them. Gildas has already said
(c. 13.1) that in the days of Maximus the island is Roman in name only—and yet Roman
influence is still alive when the Britons thrice ask the Romans to assist them (presumably
ca. 446), when the relatives of Ambrosius Aurelianus (who are thought to have worn the
purple) are fighting on behalf of the British (presumably against the Saxons), and when
Ambrosius Aurelianus leads the British against the Saxons some time after the third appeal
to Rome.

32
British retreat in the face of the Saxon threat to this victory led by Ambrosius Aurelianus?
An indeterminate time after they have wasted the country, the Saxons return ‘home’. 99 The
Britons then come together, and with Ambrosius Aurelianus as their commander, they gain
the victory. At a guess, the revival might have occurred within a year or so of the Saxon
onslaught, or thus possibly within twenty four years of the appeal to Aëtius, or ca 470.
At Section 1 of Chapter 26, immediately after telling of the victory of Ambrosius,
Gildas speaks of a series of battles which go first one way and then the other for the Britons,
from that time (the time of the first battle) up to the year of the siege of Mount Badon. Yet
in each of the two Cambridge manuscripts there is a significant degree of textual confusion,
and it may thus be useful to place them in parallel for ease of comparison, in order that the
form of the original may better be established:
Et ex eo tempore nunc ciues nunc hostes uincebant. ut in ista gente experiretur
Ex eo tempore nunc Ciues nunc hostes vincebant; vt in ista gente experiretur
dominus solito more presentem ierusalem. utrum diligat eum dominus an non;
dominus solito more presentem israelem vtrum diligat eum an non;
usque ad annum obsessionis badonici montis.qui prope sabrinum hostium habetur.
vsque ad annum obsessionis badonuci montis
nouissimeque forme de furciferis non minime strages. quique quadragesimus quartus
nouissimeque ferme de furciferis non minime stragis quique xliiij.
ut noui oritur annus / mense primo emenso; qui iam et mee natiuitatis est. (X, fo. 7ra–b)
vt non orditur annus mense iam vno emerso qui et mee natiuitatis est (D, fo. 471vb)
The first half of the passage is straightforward enough, although it probably needs some
minor emendations: the phrase presens israelem ‘present Israel’ (D, line 2) is perhaps to be
preferred to presens ierusalem ‘present Jerusalem’ (X); 100 the second example of dominus in
line 2 of X is better omitted; and the clause nouissimeque … strages in line 3 of X is perhaps
better placed before the clause which begins qui prope ….. Then, perhaps with forme
emended to ferme, and strages to stragis, this would give:
Et ex eo tempore nunc ciues nunc hostes uincebant. ut in
ista gente experiretur dominus solito more presentem
[israelem]. utrum diligat eum an non; usque ad annum
obsessionis badonici montis nouissimeque f[e]rme de
furciferis non minime strag[i]s ….
‘And from that time now the citizens, now the enemy,
were victorious, so that through that people the Lord
99 They might have set up a permanent station in the east, perhaps even as their winterquarters.
Gildas calls them ‘easterners’ at Chapter 23.4.
100 Mistaking an ‘s’ for an ‘e’ in the abbreviation isrlm might give the expansion ‘ierusalem’.

33
might test in his usual manner the Present (Israel),
whether it might love him or not, right up to the year of
the siege of Mount Badon and of almost the last but not
the least slaughter of the gallows crew ….’ 101
However, the meaning of the remainder of the passage is very much more difficult to
ascertain. First, the clause qui propre sabrinum hostium habetur (X, line 3) is absent from
D, and yet a clause similar in form might well have appeared in the original text—for in X,
the three clauses beginning with the relative pronoun qui (qui prope…; quique
quadragesimus …; qui iam et …, ll. 3, 4, 5) are structurally parallel. Each verb is in the third
person singular, each relative pronoun requires a singular antecedent in the masculine and,
since the clauses are (presently) united in a ‘which … and which … which also …’
construction, each must (presently) refer to the same antecedent. Such can only be furnished
by the word annum, the ‘year’ of the siege of Mount Badon. The first clause, however, in
terms of meaning, more properly refers to the phrase badonici montis, and emended to qu(ae)
prope sabrinum hostium habetur, would then mean ‘which is situated near the mouth of the
Severn’; 102 the second clause, emended to qu(o)que quadragesimus quartus ut noui
or(d)itur annus mense primo emenso, but properly referring to annum, might be taken to
mean ‘and (from) which the forty fourth year commences, as I know, with the first month
already passed by’; 103 and the third clause, qui et mee natiuitatis est, as it appears in MS X
(the iam of this manuscript has probably been misplaced and is perhaps better omitted), also
referring to annum, might mean literally ‘which also is the year of my birth’. This suggests
that the particular year of the siege of Mount Badon is also the year in which Gildas is born,
that there are forty four years between the battle and the time at which he is writing, and that
the mount of Badon is located near the Severn estuary. 104
101 The tense of diligat should more rightly be past than present subjunctive.
102 This involves taking the word ‘hostium’ for ‘ostium’. O’Sullivan suggests that this
particular clause is one of several ‘useful’ insertions made by the copyist in MS. X (on
which, see pp. 73–74). Certainly the clause seems to have been misplaced in X, but it could
also have been omitted through an error of copying and then inserted as a correction, and at
the wrong place.
103 Such a translation involves taking the verb ‘ordior’ (‘to begin, commence’) of D, in
preference to the ‘orior’ (‘to arise’) of X; the verb ‘emetior’ (‘to pass by’) of X in
preference to the ‘emergo’ (‘to rise up’) of D; and emending ‘quique’ to ‘quoque’. The
reading ‘emenso’ might have arisen from a misreading of the ‘r’ of an insular script as ‘n’;
and the differences between the two manuscripts in ‘primo’ (X) and ‘uno’ (D) suggest an
original which read ‘j o ’; but the ‘vt non’ of D is an obvious error, apparently made under
the influence of its following phrase ‘sed non nunc quidem …’.
104 Counting to a past event, such as Badon, from one even further in the past (or counting
backwards from Badon to a past event) would require the use of the past tense form (for
‘orditur’), and the subsequent choice of a past tense to refer to the birthday of Gildas:
‘which was the year of my birth’. It thus seems that the forty four years should not be
counted between the arrival of Saxons and Badon (as in Bede’s text, see below, pp. 37–38).
However, A. O. Anderson, ‘Gildas and Arthur’, Celtic Review 8 (1912–13), 149–165 (p.
151), suggests that the use of ‘orditur’ implies the choice of the historic present tense.

34
To be sure, there is no indication at this particular point of the text, Chapter 26.1, of the
length of time between the first battle and Badon. However, a possible indicator that the first
and last of the British victories are relatively close is Gildas’ mention in Chapter 26.2 of
assistance given to the Britons—assistance which in its own uncertainty could very likely
have come from Rome. In Chapter 25.3, Gildas tells how Ambrosius Aurelianus—the last
strong man of the Roman race (MS X)—leads the Britons to their first victory against the
Saxons. Next, in 26.1, he says that from that time onwards the victory goes first one way and
then the other, right up to the year of Badon. Then, in 26.2, he praises the—unexpected—
assistance which has brought an end to foreign wars, and it is clear that he speaking of the
period after the final victory against the Germanic enemy:
Sed ne nunc quidem, ut antea, civitates patriae
inhabitantur; sed desertae dirutaeque hactenus squalent,
cessantibus licet externis bellis, sed non civilibus. Haesit
etenim tam desperati insulae excidii insperatique mentio
auxilii memoriae eorum qui utriusque miraculi testes
extitere: et ob hoc reges, publici, privati, sacerdotes,
ecclesiastici, suum quique ordinem servarunt.
‘But not now, however, as before, are the cities of the
homeland inhabited; but, deserted and demolished to this
day are they neglected, given that external wars have
ceased, but not, however, civil ones. For indeed, the
memory of such a desperate blow to the island and of
unexpected assistance remained fast in the minds of those
who had stood witness to both wonders: and because of
this kings, officials, private persons, priests, and
ecclesiastics kept to their own station.’
In the immediate context of the first and last battles against the Saxons, Gildas’ phrase
‘desperate blow’ can only refer to the first Saxon onslaught, in which the country is burned
from end to end, 105 and since the final victory is Badon, the ‘assistance’ arguably refers to
help given at that very battle.
Gildas goes on to say in Chapter 26.3 that a new age of men has succeeded that
particular age which had remembered both the assault and the revival:
At illis decedentibus cum successisset aetas tempestatis
illius nescia et praesentis tantum serenitatis experta, ita
cuncta veritatis ac iustitiae moderamina concussa ac
subversa sunt ut earum non dicam vestigium sed ne
monimentum quidem in supra dictis propemodum
ordinibus appareat, exceptis paucis et valde paucis ….
‘But they died and when had succeeded a generation
knowing not that time and having experience (only) of
such present fair weather, then all the governances of
105 It could hardly refer to the lengthy period of wars between the Picts and the Irish.

35
truth and justice were shattered and overturned, so that
not so much as a trace nor even a memory among nearly
all of the abovementioned orders was manifest, with the
exception of a few, and a very few (at that) ….’
Thus, it seems that men of the generation before the one in which Gildas is writing can
remember both the first and the last battle. Men of the one following—with the exception of
a very few, including himself—are not familiar with the events of that time.
Since Gildas presents the assault and the revival as one entity, all of the battles can
probably be viewed as part of the one campaign, or at least under the leadership of one man,
i.e., that very man who has provided unhoped-for assistance. Ambrosius, Roman-born,
might have been the leader of armies at the first battle, the last battle, and all of the battles
intervening. The number of years between the first battle and Badon—from the time of the
first battle the Britons sometimes win and sometimes lose ‘right up to the year of the siege of
Mount Badon’—need not have been very many. Badon might have been fought within, say,
five years of the first battle under Ambrosius Aurelianus, or within twenty nine years of the
appeal to ‘Agitius’, ca 475. Having named Ambrosius Aurelianus—the only man strong
enough to defeat the Saxons—as commander at Chapter 25.3, Gildas would have had no
need to re-name him at Chapter 26.1. 106
Indeed, the view that the battles against the Saxons are to be regarded as a single unit
under a single leader is supported by a reading in the earlier part of the De Excidio, at the
point where Gildas identifies the import of the battles by referring to the final and most
important one. In his Chapter 2, which forms an Index of a kind to Part I of the text, he says
that is going to tell:
… de epistolis ad Agitium, de victoria, de sceleribus, de
nuntiatis subito hostibus, de famosa peste, de consilio, de
saeviore multo primis hoste, de urbium subversione, de
reliquiis, de postrema patriae victoria, quae temporibus
nostris dei nutu donata est, …
‘… about the sending of letters to Agitius, of victory, of
crimes, of enemies suddenly come, of a notorious famine,
of a counselled remedy, of an enemy more fierce than the
first, of the downfall of cities, of the survivors, and of the
106 Higham claims (p. 51) that it is God’s unexpected assistance, first mentioned in c. 25.3
as having been given at Badon, which is again brought to the attention of Gildas’ audience
in c. 26.2, because it is not sufficiently deserved. However, there seems little textual
support for such a claim, for God grants victory to the British in the first battle, and so
could hardly not be expected to grant such help at the second. If the ‘assistance’ applied to
military help given at the first battle, and Badon had been fought by someone other than
Ambrosius, Gildas would hardly praise Ambrosius, subsequently stress the importance of
Badon (as the battle to end all battles), and then speak of the fair weather resulting from
battle successes at the first battle. Also, it must not be forgotten that Gildas is writing for a
knowing, near-contemporary audience.

36
final victory of the country which has been granted by the
grace of God in our times, …’
He passes here from the survivors (of the Saxon attacks) straight to the final victory over
them, 107 and does not even hint at the existence of Ambrosius Aurelianus. All of the battles
seem to be a part of one unit—and the last battle might have been fought ca 475.
Taking the year 475 as a starting-point, and considering what Gildas has said about the
forty four years and the single new generation, it is possible to establish the relative
chronology of Part II to Chapter 36 with some reliability. Gildas says (c. 25.3) that
Ambrosius Aurelianus is a man whose descendant has, in Gildas’ time, degenerated greatly
from the goodness of his ancestor. 108 The word avita can mean either ‘ancestor’ or
‘grandfather’, but since Gildas has also mentioned only one complete generation between the
time of the first Saxon attacks and his own time, it appears to have the latter meaning here.
It may even be that the lesser man in the succession is ‘Aurelius Caninus’ (see c. 30.1), one
of the depraved Five whom Gildas condemns: of the family of Ambrosius Aurelianus,
perhaps his grandson, sharing part of his name, and living in the new generation of peace
after the final victory. The other four Gildas names as: Constantine, the ‘tyrant of
Damnonia’ (c. 28.1); Vortipor, the ‘ageing king of Demetia’ (c. 31.1); Cuneglasus (c. 32.1);
and Maglocunus, insularis draco ‘the dragon of the island’ (c. 33.1). 109 The Five Kings
whom Gildas addresses might have thus been influential in the first two decades of the sixth
century, around the year 519, and in that year Gildas might have been 44 years old. This
though is the British period, when individual kings reign in different parts of the country, a
time of external peace but civil war.
Certainly the preceding evaluation of the chronology of the De Excidio involves a
certain amount of guesswork, but it does take into account the ongoing links between Britain
and Rome which are more than obvious in Gildas’ words. Roman influence might have been
alive in Britain well into the second half of the fifth century, and Gildas might have been
107 Higham, p. 48, claims that rendering the word ‘postrema’ as ‘final’ instead of ‘very last’
has led to a misunderstanding of the passage, and argues that Badon was the last victory
(before a series of defeats in the sixth century, as mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle) rather
than the ultimate win. Gildas seems, however, to imply that the victory is the ‘most recent’
(c. 26.1), and it must be taken as referring to the time at which he was writing. In any case,
there is no evidence that the events mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle have any real bearing
on the events mentioned by Gildas.
108 MS X reads: cuius nunc temporibus nostris sobolis magnopere auita bonitate
degenerauit ‘of whom now in our times the descendant has greatly degenerated from the
goodness of the ancestor’. It seems from X that there is one descendant who lacks the
goodness of his Roman predecessor, but in Manuscript D there is more than one: suboles
magnopere avita bonitate degenerant the descendants are degenerating greatly from the
goodness of (their) ancestor’. However, if Gildas is saying that men are still degenerating,
this goes against the common manner of speaking, which is to use the perfect tense.
Winterbottom’s reading is ‘suboles … degeneravit’, but his translation is ‘descendants …
have become greatly inferior’.
109 Gildas does not say where Aurelius Caninus and Cuneglasus reign.

37
born as early as 475. 110 Such a scenario might help to explain Gildas’ partiality to things
Roman. At one point, he himself speaks of how the Britons refuse to honour God, their
fellow countrymen, and those who are in positions of higher authority (by which he means
the Romans):
Haec erecta cervice et mente, ex quo inhabitata est, nunc
deo, interdum civibus, nonnumquam etiam transmarinis
regibus et subiectis ingrata consurgit.
‘This (country), from the time in which it was (first)
inhabited, with neck and mind stretched out, has
ungratefully risen up, now against God, occasionally
against the countrymen, and sometimes even against
overseas kings and their subjects.’ (c. 4.1).
Then he himself describes the Britons as crafty and cowardly and faithless (c. 6.2), and later
reports that the Romans have referred to the men of that race as a band of feeble wandering
thieves who might choose to abandon themselves to idleness and sloth (c. 18.1). Also, he
says in Chapter 14 that it is a disaster that Britain is deprived of its rectores ‘governors’—
although they are immanes ‘savage’—for this and the loss of its military and its youth leaves
the island open to outside attack. Yet Gildas’ denunciation of the Britons marks him only as
an advocate of strong and just leadership, and his vilification of the men of that race is
probably brought about by their continued unwillingness to fight in anything but civil
wars. 111 Indeed, pro-Roman sentiments might also be perfectly justifiable in a (British) man
born in the fifth century, at a time when some at least Roman influence was still present, and
the more so if a Roman leader (at Badon) had, even if unexpectedly, delivered the Britons
from the ravaging Saxons. 112
110 David Dumville has shown that it is no longer necessary to link the composition of Part
II (which contains Gildas’ diatribe against the errant kings), and so, forgery-theories aside
(see above, n. 18), the whole of the De Excidio, with the mid-sixth century—for that entry
which notes the death of ‘Maelgwn’ (Gildas’ contemporary, ‘Maglocunus’) at the 103rd
year of the Welsh Annals (a date which is usually calculated as 547) is derived from a
‘plague-entry’ in the Annals of Ulster, and inserted by a Welsh compiler working ca 911 x
954 (see ‘Gildas and Maeglwn’, pp.53–54).
111 He is concerned with those whose rank gives them the right to rule over lesser men, and
so is also scathing in his attack on the upstart, Maximus, who acts against the legitimate
imperial Roman rule and who receives his due punishment by having his head cut off (see
c. 13.1–2).
112 Kerlouégan shows (‘Le Latin’, pp. 152–156) that the Latin of the De Excidio bears
comparison with the best authors of the late fifth century and does not contain the
vulgarisms of the sixth century—but takes this as a sign of conservatism in a man writing in
the middle of the sixth century. Neil Wright, ‘Gildas’s Prose Style and its Origins’, in
Lapidge and Dumville, pp. 107–128, looks at Gildas as a learned author, and examines the
possible effects of earlier works on his writing style. Michael Lapidge, ‘Gildas’s Education
and the Latin Culture of Sub-Roman Britain’, in ibid., pp. 27–50, looks at the question of
Gildas’ training, and suggests some recognisable Roman government in his time, which he
accepts as the middle years of the sixth century—not, as I would argue, its second decade.

38
Geoffrey’s second source is Bede, who alters the chronology of the De Excidio so as
seemingly to prohibit a Roman military presence in Britain in the second half of the fifth
century, adds a number of names to the text, and sets down his views on the British people
and their religious customs.

Chapter 3. The Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum.
39
According to Gildas, Maximus is the last emperor in Britain, and in Book I, Chapter 9, Bede
tells how he kills Gratian, drives Valentinian from Italy, and is then caught and killed. Yet
to him this is not the end of the Empire, for in Chapter 11, he lists two later imperial rulers:
Gratian and Constantine. He says that in the year A.D. 407 (the first year of the reign of
Honorius, and the same year as Gaul is ravaged), Gratian, a municeps ‘citizen’, is set up as
tyrannus ‘dictator’ in Britain, and then killed. 113 Constantine, a soldier of the lowest rank,
is then elected to replace him propter solam spem nominis sine merito uirtutis ‘on account
only of the promise of his name and without the merit of virtue’. Constantine crosses to
Gaul, where he makes dubious treaties with the barbarians, to the very great detriment of the
republic. On the orders of Honorius, he is killed soon after in the city of Arles, whilst his
son, Constans (a former monk whom he has created Caesar) is put to death at Vienne. After
this, the Romans cease to rule in Britain, post annos ferme quadringentos LXX ex quo Gaius
Iulius Caesar eandem insulam adiit ‘almost four hundred and seventy years from the time
that Gaius Julius Caesar came to this island’.
Thus, as Bede presents it, the Empire proper comes to an end in Britain ca A.D. 409—
for he has previously said that Julius becomes consul in the year 60 B.C. and sails to Britain
with the intention of conquering it (see I.2). 114 Bede acknowledges that there is still Roman
help to be had after the end of the Empire: working from the De Excidio (cc. 14–20.1), he
tells in Chapter 12 of Irish and Pictish attacks; the two occasions on which the Romans send
help; the final departure of the legions; the renewed enemy attacks on the British and the
British attacks on each other; and the resulting widespread famine. Then in Chapter 13 he
speaks of the third and final British appeal to Rome against the oppressions of the Irish and
the Picts. This last petition, he says, is addressed to Aëtius, who holds his consulship for the
third time, together with Symmachus, in the twenty third year of the reign of Theodosius the
younger (who becomes emperor in A.D. 423). So then, he seems to identify the year of the
appeal as A.D. 446. 115
Bede continues to use Gildas (cc. 20.2–23.1), but adapts that text to suit his own
chronology. He begins his Chapter 14 by saying that interea ‘meanwhile’, the aforesaid
famine (that mentioned at the very end of Chapter 12) compels many of the Britons to
surrender to the foe. Others of them continue their resistance from mountains, caves, and
113 B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, ed. and trans., Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the
English People (Oxford, 1972). All Latin quotations are from this edition, and references
appear parenthetically in text; all translations are my own.
114The actual date of Caesar’s first expedition is 55 B.C. (see Colgrave and Mynors, p. 20).
115 It is not absolutely certain whether Bede refers to 445 or to 446 when he tells of the
‘twenty third year’ from the beginning of the reign of Theodosius the Younger in 423.
However, since he says that Theodosius becomes emperor in 423 and rules for 26 years, and
that Marcian becomes emperor in 449, it seems more likely that he intends to say here that
twenty third year is 446.

40
ravines, until then for the first time they begin to inflict losses on an enemy which for many
years has been accustomed to taking spoils in the land. The Irish return to their homes, but
intend post non longum tempus reuersuri ‘after no long time to return’; the Picts settle in
northern parts, although they occasionally worry the people of the Britons after this. After
the destruction has ceased, there is a very great abundance of corn and, from this affluence,
an upsurge of excess and crime, in particular the practice of cruelty and an extreme love of
lying. A plague falls subito ‘suddenly’ upon the people, and non multo post ‘not long
afterwards’ a worse retribution. All, including the British king, ‘Uurtigernus’
(Vortigern), 116 agree to call in the Saxons for military support against the Picts and the Irish.
Thus Bede omits the material of the De Excidio which gives the impression that the period
might have been long, and represents Gildas’ remarks on the ordaining-and-murder of kings
(c. 21.4) merely as part of a general trend towards cruelty. 117 In fact, as will soon become
clear, he places all of this material before the year A.D. 449.
At the beginning of Chapter 15, he goes on to a new section and a new imperial era:
there he states that Marcian becomes emperor, 46th from Augustus, jointly with Valentinian
in A.D. 449, and rules for seven years, and that tunc ‘then’ the Angles and Saxons arrive in
Britain, invited by the aforementioned king, in three long ships, apparently ca. A.D. 449. 118
The intention of these people, he says, is to conquer the land. At the start, the allies fight the
northern enemy (who are now frequently attacking Britain) and achieve the victory. Yet
after this, they send a report on the fertility of the island back to the homeland, and without
delay a second contingent arrives. An agreement is made to grant the newcomers land and
pay in return for (continued) military assistance. It is not long, however, before crowds of
them swarm into the island, and their numbers swell so much so that they become a source
of terror to the indigenous peoples. Then subito ‘suddenly’ they make a temporary treaty
with the Picts, 119 and begin to turn their weapons on their allies. They complain about their
116 Bede seems to have fashioned this name from Gildas’ ‘superbus tyrannus’ (c. 23.1),
which he might have taken as Gildas’ Latinisation of a title meaning ‘chief lord’: see
Colgrave and Mynors, p. 48, n. 2. Compare H. M. Chadwick, ‘Vortigern’, in H. M.
Chadwick, et al., Studies in Early British History (Cambridge, 1954), pp. 21–33: p. 27,
where it is claimed that the title ‘Vortigern’ had come to be used as a personal name as
early as that king’s own time.
117 Bede’s period of three years seems a little short, even without the doings of the kings. (I
have suggested above that this period, as detailed in the De Excidio, might have been
around fifteen years long.) The date 449 for the arrival of the Saxons could at best be an
approximation, for Bede also says in I.23 that Maurice begins to rule in A.D. 582, that in
his fourteenth year (595 or 596?) Gregory sends Augustine to preach the word of God, and
that this is about 150 years after the coming of the Angles (about 445 or 446?); in II.14 that
Edwin receives the faith in A.D. 627, and that this is about 180 years after the coming of the
Angles to Britain (about 447?); in V.23 that he is writing in the year A.D. 731, and that this
is about 285 years after the coming of the Angles (about 446?); and in V.24 that the English
come to Britain in the reign of Marcian and Valentinian (who begin to rule jointly in 449).
118 For convenience only, I take the date as the beginning of the reign of Marcian, but
acknowledge that the Saxons might have arrived a little further into Marcian’s reign.
119 This piece of information is not to be found in the De Excidio.

41
rations and threaten to lay the island waste unless they are given a greater quantity of
supplies. They are not at all slow in carrying out their threats, and burn the country from
east to west. Some of the inhabitants are captured and butchered, some submit as slaves
rather than be summarily murdered, some flee overseas, while others remain in their own
land, leading a wretched existence among the mountains, woods, and cliffs. The arrival of
the first contingent of Saxons is possibly as early as A.D. 449, but the events from then
onwards to the submission and flight of the Britons all take place within a very short space
of time—and certainly no later than A.D. 456, for this block of events is confined to the
years of Marcian’s reign.
In Chapter 16 Bede mentions the first British victory against the Saxons, led by the
Roman-born Ambrosius Aurelianus, whom he describes as the last man of the Romans
surviving in Britain, and whom he also identifies as the son of royal parents, even though
Gildas has only said (c. 25.3) that his bearing recommends him as the offspring of royalty.
Bede allocates him to the reign of Marcian. Yet he also creates a degree of chronological
confusion around this point of his text, for he goes outside of the reign of Marcian to speak
of the battle at Badon. His Chapter 16, which deals with Ambrosius Aurelianus and with
the battle, reads in its entirety:
At ubi hostilis exercitus exterminatis dispersisque insulae
indigenis domum reuersus est, coeperunt et illi paulatim
uires animosque resumere, emergentes de latibulis quibus
abditi fuerant et unanimo consensu auxilium caeleste
precantes ne usque ad internicionem usquequaque
delerentur. Vtebantur eo tempore duce Ambrosio
Aureliano, uiro modesto, qui solus forte Romanae gentis
praefatae tempestati superfuerat, occisis in eadem
parentibus regium nomen et insigne ferentibus. Hoc ergo
duce uires capessunt Brettones, et uictores prouocantes ad
proelium uictoriam ipsi Deo fauente suscipiunt. Et ex eo
tempore nunc ciues nunc hostes uincebant usque ad
annum obsessionis Badonici montis, quando non
minimas eisdem hostibus strages dabant, quadragesimo
circiter et quarto anno aduentus eorum in Brittaniam.
Sed haec postmodum.
‘But when the enemy army had exterminated and
dispersed the natives of the island, they returned home,
and those men little by little began to recover their
strength and courage; emerging from the hiding places to
which they had retired, they prayed with unanimous voice
for celestial assistance, lest they be led as a body to the
slaughter. They had at that time as their leader
Ambrosius Aurelianus, a modest man, who alone as it
happened of the Roman race had survived the aforesaid
storm, in which his relatives, bearing the name and
dignity of kings, had been killed. And under his
leadership the British men rallied, and challenging the
victors to battle, with God’s help won the day. And from

42
that time onwards now the citizens now the enemy were
victorious right up to the year of the siege of Mount
Badon, when they gave to those enemies not the least of
slaughters, around about the four and fortieth year after
their arrival in Britain. But more of this presently.’
As Bede tells it, the Saxons arrive, burn the land, and are then defeated for the first time by
Ambrosius before 456 (the last year of the reign of Marcian); and Badon is fought around 44
years after the arrival of the Saxons in Britain (or perhaps around A.D. 493). 120
However, Bede is probably mistaken in extending his story outside of the period of
Marcian’s reign, for at the end of Chapter 16, he abandons the secular history of Britain for a
time, in order to deal, between Chapters 17 to 21, with the efforts of (Saint) Germanus
against heretics, Saxons and Picts. After this, he tells of the death of Germanus at Ravenna
and, nec multo post ‘not long after’, of the murder of Valentinian in the sixth year of the
reign of Marcian (I.21). He concludes Chapter 21 by saying that with the death of
Valentinian, the Western (Roman) Empire falls. He then returns to more worldly affairs at
Chapter 22, with the following comment:
Interea Brittaniae cessatum quidem est parumper ab
externis, sed non a ciuilibus bellis. Manebant exterminia
ciuitatum ab hoste derutarum ac desertarum; pugnabant
contra inuicem, qui hostem euaserant, ciues. Attamen
recente adhuc memoria calamitatis et cladis inflictae
seruabant utcumque reges, sacerdotes, priuati et
optimates suum quique ordinem.
‘Meanwhile Britain for some time was relieved from
foreign, but not from civil wars. The ruins of cities
destroyed by the enemy or abandoned still remained; the
citizens who had evaded the enemy fought against each
other. But while the memory of adversity in war and
120 By making Ambrosius Aurelianus the last surviving Roman in the country, Bede shows
that he is using a text of the De Excidio which at Chapter 25.2/3 is like MS D (on which,
see above, p.p. 28–29). Bede’s source-manuscript for his Historia was possibly similar to
D at Chapter 26.1—that is, without the clause ‘qui prope sabrinum hostium habetur’ (for
which, see above, pp. 29–30). If this had been the case, Bede might have read the phrase de
furciferis as ‘following from the time of the gallows-crew’ instead of ‘of the gallows-crew’
and so have taken the clause which (now) begins quique xliiij … as referring to the word
furciferi. He might have interpreted the passage as meaning that forty four years had passed
since the time of the gallows-crew, i.e., between the arrival of the Saxons and the lastmentioned
event, Badon. It is noteworthy that in his De Temporum Ratione, Bede does not
mention Badon at all, but simply says that sometimes the (British) and sometimes the
(enemy) had the victory in the battles, until the island passed into the control of the
foreigners (see Bedae Chronica Maiora ad a DCCXXV, ed. Theodor Mommsen,
Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auct. Ant., 13, Berlin, 1898, repr. 1961). This suggests
some kind of confusion in his source. Anderson, ‘Gildas and Arthur’, p. 150, feels that the
Badon-passage in the manuscript which Bede used might have been glossed.

43
inflicted defeat was still fresh, somehow kings, priests,
private citizens and nobles kept to their own station.’
Then he tells of that generation of external peace and civil unrest mentioned by Gildas.
Bede thus moves forward from the time of the first battle, in the reign of Marcian (a
period when Britain still has some ties to Rome), to Badon, in the last decade of the fifth
century (by which time the Western Empire in its entirety has long since been no more);
goes back to deal with the time of Germanus up to the time of his death and that of
Valentinian, all in the reign of Marcian; and then synchronises the period of civil war and
external peace with the year A.D. 455 by his uses of the word ‘meanwhile’. So it would
seem that his placement of Badon forty four years after the arrival of the Saxons—and
indeed well within the non-Roman period—has no value. Also, by glossing Gildas’ words,
‘sudden onslaught’ and ‘unexpected assistance’ (c. 26.2), to tell of ‘adversity’ and ‘defeat’,
he seems to say that a generation which has witnessed (a number of) the Saxon wars (some
of them British defeats) has died. And by placing around forty years between the first and
last victories, but making Ambrosius Aurelianus the son of royal Roman parents, he seems
to deny any suggestion that the final assistance against the Saxons can have come from
Ambrosius Aurelianus or from Rome. He makes no mention of that Arthur who is said in
the Historia Brittonum to have led the armies at that battle. That particular work is
Geoffrey’s third major source-text. Geoffrey’s fourth and fifth are the Welsh Annals and the
Life of David.
Before turning to these texts, though, it is necessary to look briefly at what Bede says
on the British and their brand of religion. Still in Chapter 22, he states that inter alia
inenarrabilium scelerum ‘among other unrelatable crimes’ which historicus Gildas ‘the
historian, Gildas’ has described in his flebilis sermo ‘tearful discourse’ (presumably Chapter
27ff of Gildas’ text), must be added the one that the British never undertook to preach the
faith to the Saxons. 121 He then says at the end of Chapter 22 that God has appointed heralds
more worthy of preaching to that race, and at the beginning of Chapter 23 he names them.
They are Augustine and his entourage, who come to Britain to preach the faith to the English
in the year A.D. 582. He goes on to tell of the arrival of Augustine (ibid.); of Ethelbert of
Kent, his eventual acceptance of Christianity, and his toleration of Christian missionaries
(I.26); of Pope Gregory’s directive to Augustine to instruct, strengthen and direct the Britons
(I.27); of the bishops of London and York (I.29); of the destruction of idols (I.30); of
Gregory’s request to Ethelbert that he help spread the faith (I.32); and of the angelic-looking
boys of the Angle-ish race (II.1). He concludes by mentioning Augustine’s warning to the
121 Paul Grosjean (‘Le De Excidio chez Bède et chez Alcuin’, Analecta Bollandiana 75,
1957, 222–226: pp. 223–224) argues that Bede had before him a manuscript of Gildas of
the X-type which continued only to Chapter 26 (or the end of Part I) of the text. Yet Bede
is using a manuscript of the D-type (see n. 120, above), and D contains both Part I and Part
II of the De Excidio. Therefore, the ‘unrelatability’ of the crimes may suggest a simple lack
of space in Bede’s text for such matters as those contained in Part II.

44
Britons over the preaching of the faith, his meeting with the British bishops, the use of the
84-year Easter cycle in the British Church, and the massacre of the monks at Chester by
Ethelfrith as part of the prophecy made many years earlier by Augustine (II.2). This material
has no bearing on the persons or dates of British history, but Geoffrey—as a member of the
British race—could not have failed to be offended by Bede’s words as he left the pages of
the Historia Ecclesiastica.

45
Chapter 4. The Historia Brittonum, the Annales Cambriae, and
Rhigyfarch’s Life of David.
Ambrosius and ‘Arthur’.
The Historia Brittonum is a compilation of historical and legendary materials, the sources
of which include variously Prosper Tiro’s Epitoma Chronicon (‘Short Chronicle’), the De
Excidio, and the Historia Ecclesiastica. One manuscript, British Library Harley 3859,
consists of the main text (which mentions Arthur only once), and three attachments (two of
which mention ‘Arthur’ and one other of which mentions ‘Anthun’). 122 The first of the
three, the Annales Cambriae (‘Annals of Wales’), are attached to an Easter Table which
ends in the third quarter of the tenth century: in the seventy third year of this Table is the
notice of the battle fought at Badon, in which Arthur carried the Cross of Christ on his
shoulders for three days and three nights; and in the ninety second year the statements that
a battle was fought at Camlann, and that in this battle Arthur and Medraut fell. 123 The
second attachment to the text is the Mirabilia (‘Marvels’), a collection of fabulous tales
relating to various sites in Britain: in this there is a tale of Arthur’s dog having left his
footprint on a stone during the course of a hunt, and another of Arthur’s having killed his
own son and buried him in a grave whose proportions keep changing. The third attachment
is the collection of genealogies of British kings—in one of which it is said that ‘Anthun’ is
the son of ‘Maxim Guletic’ (Maximus, the Protector).
Gildas’ ‘Ambrosius Aurelianus’ also appears in the Historia Brittonum, three times
in the main text (§§ 31, 39–42, and 48), and once in the Annales Cambriae (§ 66), but on
each occasion he is simply called ‘Ambrosius’. In many ways, he is the central character of
the text, and even though his tale appears to be mostly literary and only partly historical, he
is possibly more important than Arthur. It is necessary to look closely at the two
portrayals, to see just how significant he is. Ambrosius first appears as a threat to the
British king named ‘Guorthigirn’. 124 After the end of the Roman Empire in Britain,
Guorthigirn fears an attack from the Picts and the Irish. Most of all he fears Ambrosius,
122 In the absence of the relevant volume of David Dumville’s new series, I rely on John
Morris’ edition of the Harleian text, and on the Harleian manuscript itself. The manuscript
is of the eleventh century.
123 For a discussion of the Welsh Annals, see Kathleen Hughes’ Celtic Britain in the Early
Middle Ages: Studies in Scottish and Welsh Sources, ed. David Dumville (Woodbridge,
1980), Chapter 5: ‘The Welsh Latin Chronicles: Annales Cambriae and related Texts’ (pp.
67–85); and Chapter 6: ‘The A-text of Annales Cambriae’, (pp. 86–100).
124 This is Bede’s ‘Uurtigernus’, but because the compiler of this text takes the word as a
personal name, I retain the spelling of the manuscript rather than using the more usual form,
‘Vortigern’. See S. S. Frere, Britannia: A History of Roman Britain, 2nd edn (London,
1974), pp. 411–412, on Vortigern as an insular emperor.

46
who (it is implied in the text) is strong enough, old enough, and well-connected enough to
pose a threat to his kingship:
Factum est autem post supradictum bellum, id est quod
fuit inter Brittones et Romanos, quando duces illorum
occisi sunt, et occisionem Maximi tyranni, transactoque
Romanorum imperio in Brittannis, per XL annos fuerunt
sub metu. Guorthigirnus regnavit in Brittannia, et dum
ipse regnabat in Brittannia, urgebatur a metu Pictorum
Scottorumque et a Romanico impetu, nec non et a timore
Ambrosii. Interea venerunt tres ciulae a Germania
expulsae in exilio, in quibus erant Hors et Hengist ….
Guorthigirnus suscepit eos benigne et tradidit eis insulam
quae in lingua eorum vocatur Tanet, britannico sermone
Ruoihm.
‘It happened however after the aforementioned battle
(i.e., the one between the Britons and the Romans, when
their leaders were killed) and (after) the killing of the
tyrant Maximus, the Roman empire having ended in
Britain, that they went in fear for forty years. Guorthigirn
reigned in Britain, and while he was reigning in Britain,
he was troubled by the fear of the Picts and the Irish and
of a Romanic attack, and not least from the dread of
Ambrosius. Meanwhile there came three cuils from
Germany, driven into exile, in which were Hors and
Hengist …. Guorthigirn received them gladly and gave
over to them the island which in their tongue is called
“Thanet”, in the British speech “Ruoihm”.’ (§ 31)
Ambrosius is in opposition to Guorthigirn, who apparently is king during the ‘forty-year’
period after the death of Maximus (at the end of which period of years the Saxon era
begins). 125 He fears a Roman attack, and he fears Ambrosius, who in this part of the text is
a grown man—just as the historical character, Ambrosius Aurelianus, is in the De
Excidio. 126 Yet when Ambrosius appears in the Historia Brittonum for the second time, he
is the ‘boyish’ opponent of Guorthigirn.
The story of how the boy overcomes his adversary spans Sections 40–42. In Section
39, Guorthigirn is condemned by St. Germanus and the entire British council for indulging
in an incestuous relationship with his daughter. On this account (and on another as well),
he has to flee. Then in Section 40 he enquires of his magi what he should do, and is told to
go in extremas fines regni ‘into the furthest reaches of the kingdom’ and to find (a place to
build) an arcem munitam, ‘fortified tower’, in order to defend himself—because of his
125 In Bede’s text, there are around forty years between the end of the Empire (ca. 409) and
the arrival of the Saxons (ca. 449), but the compiler of the Historia Brittonum links his
particular forty-year period to the death of Maximus in A.D. 388 (on which date, see above,
pp. 23–24).
126 The threat from Rome and that from ‘Ambrosius’ may be identical.

47
disgrace and because, add the magi, he has been targeted by those very same people whom
he has received into his kingdom, who will eventually occupy every part of the land. After
some searching he comes to the region of Gwynedd, and surveying the mountains of
‘Eryri’ (Erith), he eventually finds one place suitable for building a stronghold. 127 His
magi tell him to build there, because the site will be in aeternum ‘for ever’ most safe
against the (Saxon) barbarians. Three times he collects materials for the building and three
times the materials disappear. 128 The magi tell him: Nisi infantem sine patre invenies, et
occidetur ille, et arx a sanguine suo aspergatur, numquam aedificabitur in
aeternum ‘unless you find a child without a father, and he is killed, and the tower is
sprinkled with his blood, it will never be built at all’.
In Section 41, Guorthigirn thus sends envoys to find such a ‘child’: Et ipse legatos ex
consilio magorum per universam Brittanniam misit, utrum infantem sine patre
invenirent ‘And he on the advice of his councillors, sent messengers throughout the
entirety of Britain, (to see) whether they might find a child-without-a-father’. Eventually
they come to the region of ‘Gleguissing’ (Glywysing), 129 where they see some
pueri ‘boys’ making a pilae ludum ‘game of ball’. Two amongst them are quarrelling, and
one says to the other: O homo sine patre, bonum non habebis ‘Oh man-without-a-father,
you will have no good’. The magi question the boy’s (or man’s) mother as to his paternity,
but she tells them that she does not know how he was begotten: Nescio quomodo in utero
meo conceptus est, sed unum scio quia virum non cognovi umquam ‘I do not know how he
was conceived in my womb, but one thing I do know is that I have not ever known a man’.
She goes to the further trouble of swearing to this: et juravit illis patrem non habere ‘and
she swore to them that he did not have a father’. He is then brought before the king.
In Section 42, a meeting is convened (at the tower-site) so that the ‘boy’ may be
sacrificed. However, he enters into discussion with Guorthigirn and his magi as to why
they wish to kill him, and is told that the tower will not stand unless his blood is sprinkled
upon its foundations. (Implying that he need not be slain) he then says that he will reveal
the truth of the matter: Modo tibi, o rex, elucubrabo et in veritate tibi omnia satagam ‘Now
to you, oh king, I will elucidate (it) and fully satisfy you of the truth’. This is preliminary
to a number of revelations. The lad is about to tell who has the power to fight the enemies
of the people: he will begin by explaining to Guorthigirn and to his wizards what lies
beneath the foundations of the (disappearing) tower. There is, he says, a stagnum in medio
pavimenti ‘pool in the midst of the foundation’, in which are duo vasa ‘two vessels’, and
enclosed in them a tentorium (complicatum) ‘(folded) cloth’ and, within this cloth, duo
127 The name ‘Eryri’ describes the general area of Mt. Snowdon (see Tatlock, The
Legendary History, p. 63). It means ‘Place of Eagles’ (ibid., p. 65).
128 Stith Thompson, The Folktale (New York, 1946), repr. 1967, p. 261, mentions how, in
folk tales, churches and cities sink into the ground for assorted reasons.
129 This is an area in southern Wales, near Carmarthen (see Tatlock, The Legendary
History, p. 174).

48
vermes ‘two worms’, one red and the other white. The site is examined, and the boy’s
predictions are found to be true.
The boy continues: expectate et considerate quid facient vermes ‘wait and see what
the worms do’. The worms (awake and) begin to fight: one uses its shoulders to drive the
other onto the other half of the cloth. The worms struggle with each other three times. At
length, the red worm is seen to be weaker but, afterwards, stronger than the white, which it
drives beyond the edge of the cloth. The one then pursues the other across the pool, and
the cloth vanishes. The lad then determines the meaning of the signum ‘sign’ which has
occurred within the cloth. The pool is the figura mundi ‘figure of the world’, the cloth the
figura regni ‘figure of the kingdom’ of Guorthigirn. The two worms are duo
dracones ‘two dragons’, the red one Guorthigirn’s dragon, and the white one the dragon of
those people who have overcome many parts of Britain and will hold it paene a mari usque
ad mare ‘almost from the one sea to the other’. 130 Yet the red worm will eventually drive
away its enemies, for the boy concludes his revelations by saying: postea gens nostra
surget, et gentem Anglorum trans mare viriliter deiciet ‘later our people will rise up, and
forcibly drive the peoples of the Angles across the sea’.
As the account of Ambrosius and Guorthigirn continues, the boy reveals that the
tyrant will not be the one to defeat the foe. Immediately after he has disclosed the future of
Britain, he tells the British king that he should leave the fortress and find another, while he
himself will stay there: Tu tamen de ista arce vade, quia eam aedificare non potes, et
multas provincias circumi, ut arcem tutam invenias, et ego hic manebo ‘You, however, go
from this fortress, because you are not able to build it, and search through many provinces,
in order to find a secure stronghold, and I will stay here’. Guorthigirn immediately
enquires of him his name: ‘Quo nomine vocaris?’ ‘“By what name are you called?”’. The
young man (earlier addressed as a ‘man without a father’) replies: Ambrosius vocor ‘I am
called Ambrosius’. 131 Guorthigirn then asks him—he who is supposedly ‘fatherless—who
his father is, and he replies: Unus est pater meus de consulibus romanicae gentis ‘One of
the consuls of the Roman people is my father’. Then, solely on the basis of his name and
lineage, Guorthigirn then gives him the fortress, and (the rule of) all of the kingdoms of
western Britain: et arcem dedit rex illi cum omnibus regnis occidentalis plagae
Brittanniae ‘and the king gave him the tower with all the kingdoms of the western shore of
Britain’. And he himself goes to the region of ‘Guunnessi’ (Gwynyss). 132 This then is the
130 This particular phrase is reminiscent of one in the De Excidio: de mari usque ad
mare ‘from one sea to the other’ (c. 24.1).
131 This phrase is followed by the words: id est, Emrys Guletic ipse videbatur ‘that is, he
was shown to be Emrys the Protector’. If (as Chambers suggests, pp. 4–5) these words are
a gloss, then presumably they are a later one. In regard to this gloss, R. S. Loomis, Celtic
Myth and Arthurian Romance (New York, 1927), p. 126, suggests that someone missed the
double significance of the name ‘Ambrosius’ (the Immortal), and equated him—Loomis
implies falsely—with Gildas’ Ambrosius Aurelianus. However, there is absolutely no
question that the two are the same character.
132 This is an area of the Lleyn Peninsula.

49
literary version of how the son of a Roman consul gains control of the British realm in
preference to the British king, Guorthigirn—as it is found between Sections 40 and 42 of
the text. 133
By Section 48 of the main text, when Ambrosius appears for the third time, he is
established as overking, and is once again a fully-grown man. There it is said that
Guorthigirn has four sons: Vortimer, Cateyrn, Faustus (born to him by his daughter), and
Pascent, qui regnavit in duabus regionibus Buelt et Guorthegirniaun post mortem patris
sui, largiente Ambrosio illi, qui fuit rex inter omnes reges Brittannicae gentis ‘who reigned
in the two regions of Builth and Gwerthrynion after the death of his father, by the leave of
that Ambrosius who was king amongst all kings of the British people’. Then at Section 66,
where he appears for the fourth and last time, it is said that he has been in dispute with
Guitolinus (the grandfather of Guorthigirn, see § 49): a regno Guorthigirni usque ad
discordiam Guitolini et Ambrosii anni sunt XII, quod est Guoloppum, id est Catguoloph
‘from the reign of Guorthigirn up to the dispute between Guitolinus and Ambrosius there
are twelve years, which is Guolopp, that is the battle of Guoloph’. This is apparently a
historical account of the interaction between Ambrosius and other British leaders.
Ambrosius has thus been presented on three occasions as a man, and on one other as
a child, a boy, or a young man. He is also a very important character in the history of
Britain, first a threat to Guorthigirn, next a Roman personage who becomes leader of the
British tribes, third the overlord of Pascent, and fourth the opponent of Guitolinus—and
although a Roman, he alludes to himself as one of the British people, when he uses the
term ‘our people’ in his account of how the red worm will drive out the white one (§ 42).
In the earlier De Excidio, the (Roman) leader Ambrosius Aurelianus does fight the
Saxons, and yet in the Historia Brittonum, ‘Ambrosius’ (so named) takes part in no
conflicts except for those with Guorthigirn and with Guitolinus. Section 56 of the latter
text tells, though, of the deeds of a warrior named ‘Arthur’, who is the opponent of the
Saxons. The compiler begins by stating that after the death of the Saxon leader, Hengist,
his son, Octha, came down from the north of Britain to Kent. 134 He goes on:
Tunc Arthur pugnabat contra illos in illis diebus cum
regibus Brittonum, sed ipse dux erat bellorum. Primum
bellum fuit in ostium fluminis quod dicitur Glein.
Secundum, et tertium, et quartum, et quintum super aliud
flumen, quod dicitur Dubglas …. Sextum bellum super
flumen quod vocatur Bassas. Septimum fuit bellum in
silva Celidonis, … Octavum fuit bellum in castello
Guinnion, … Nonum bellum gestum est in urbe
Legionis. Decimum gessit bellum in litore fluminis quod
vocatur Tribruit. Undecimum factum est bellum in
133 It contains a number of minor revelations which together form one whole on the future
of Britain.
134 Bede (II.5) gives ‘Oisc’ as the son of Hengist, in relating the genealogy of King
Æthelberht of Kent.

50
monte qui dicitur Agned. Duodecimum fuit bellum in
monte Badonis, in quo corruerunt in uno die nongenti
sexaginta viri de uno impetu Arthur; et nemo prostravit
eos nisi ipse solus, et in omnibus bellis victor extitit.
‘Then Arthur fought against them in those days together
with the kings of the British, but he was the leader of the
battles. The first battle was at the mouth of the river
which is called “Glein”. The second, and third, and
fourth and fifth on another river which is called
“Dubglas” …. The sixth battle on the river which is
called “Bassas”. The seventh battle was in the wood of
Caledon, … The eighth battle was in the fort of
Guinnion, … The ninth battle was fought in the city of
the Legion. The tenth battle was fought on the bank of
the river which is called “Tribruit”. The eleventh battle
was fought on the mount which is called “Agned”. The
twelfth battle was fought on the mount of Badon, in
which 960 men fell in one day from a single attack by
Arthur, and no one laid them low except he alone, and in
all the battles he stood out as victor.’
The text as it now stands shows that the battle at Badon is led by ‘Arthur’ (§ 56), who is
seen traditionally as a British hero. 135 Yet when the boy-seer, Ambrosius says in Section
42 that the Saxons will seize Britain from sea to sea but will ultimately be driven from the
world of the Britons, and that he will stay there whilst Guorthigirn goes elsewhere, he
actually predicts the final defeat of the Saxons; and according to Gildas and to Bede,
Badon is the battle which puts an end to the Saxon menace. In essence, when ‘Ambrosius’
foretells the (twelfth and) final victory, he is saying that he will be leader (of the British,
‘his people’) because of his affiliation with the Roman emperors. However, by Section 56
it seems that he has in fact predicted the victory of ‘Arthur’ at Badon, that very Arthur who
is said to fight ‘together with’ (or perhaps even ‘alongside’) the kings of the British.
Therefore, it is very possible that Ambrosius and Arthur may be regarded as the same
character.
In fact, there are at least three indicators in the Historia Brittonum that the two are
really one. The first is that ‘Arthur’ is introduced into the text suddenly and without any
explanation, just as if he had been mentioned before: ‘then Arthur fought against them in
135 Many would argue that Arthur is already an established hero of poetic lore. Kenneth
Hurlstone Jackson, ‘The Arthur of History’, in Loomis, Arthurian Literature, pp. 1–11 (p.
7) suggests that the number ‘960’ (a mistake for ‘909’) is an invention, made using the
techniques of Welsh catalogue-poetry. Chadwick, I. 154–155, also discusses the possibility
of a Welsh battle poem as source. K. H. Jackson, ‘Once Again Arthur’s Battles’, Modern
Philology 43 (1945–46), 45–57, evaluates some of his predecessors’ attempts to identify the
sites of Arthur’s battles, and concludes that the names of the battles are fabricated. (It may
be worth noting here that in Section 56 Arthur is said to have been victorious in all of his
battles. Since Gildas says only that the British win some of their battles up to the time of
Badon (see c. 26.1), there is very likely some elaboration involved.)

51
those days …’ (§ 56). The second is that he shows himself to have one of those
characteristics assigned to Ambrosius, leader of kings: Ambrosius is ‘king amongst all
kings of the British people’ (§ 48), whilst Arthur fights ‘together with the kings of the
British’, but with superiority over them as ‘leader of the battles’ (§ 56). 136 (Both,
incidentally, are still alive in the generation after Guorthigirn and his opponent, Hengist.)
The third indicator of an identification between the two is that information which the
Historia Brittonum provides on the relationship of Ambrosius, and very likely also that of
Arthur, to the last Roman emperor in Britain.
At the beginning of Section 27, the writer explains that in the traditions of the
(British) elders, the seventh and last emperor to reign in Britain was ‘Maximianus’ (Gildas’
‘Maximus’), who perrexit cum omnibus militibus Brittonnum a Brittannia, et occidit
Gratianum, regem Romanorum, et imperium tenuit totius Europae ‘went from Britain with
all the troops of the British, and killed Gratian, king of the Romans, and held the rule of all
Europe’. 137 Next, at Section 42, the boy named ‘Ambrosius’ states that he is the son of
one of the Roman consuls. Finally, one of the Harleian genealogies (No. IV) tells, in an
entry apparently culled from Section 27 of the main text, of Maxim guletic qui occidit
Gratianum regem Romanorum ‘Maximus the Protector, who killed Gratian, the king of the
Romans’ (fo. 193v)—and the name of his son is there given as ‘Anthun’. Harley 3859 is a
copy of an earlier text which was probably in its final form by the mid-tenth century, and
such a text would probably have been written in insular minuscule, a script in which ‘n’ is
easily confused with ‘r’. 138 The name ‘Anthun’ might therefore once have read ‘Arthur’—
136 Gildas’ ‘Ambrosius Aurelianus’ is dux ‘leader’ of the British revival (c. 25.3).
137 Similarly, the wording of the Badon-entry in the Annales Cambriae (where Arthur
carries the Cross of the Lord on his shoulders) is very like that of the main text (where
Arthur carries the image of the Virgin on his shoulders at the eighth battle). Fletcher, p. 32,
suggests that the Welsh word ysgwydd ‘shield’ has been inadvertently read as
ysgwyd ‘shoulder’—which might indeed suggest a battle-poem as source. (Bromwich,
‘Concepts of Arthur’, Studia Celtica 10/11 (1975/76). 163–181 (p. 180) puts forth the idea
of a pool of information available between the seventh and the ninth centuries to the
compilers of the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae, and to the transcribers of
the Gododdin.) Yet there is perhaps some thematic overlap between the mentions of
Arthur’s ‘shoulders’ (at Battle 8) and one of the fighting worms in the Ambrosius-episode,
which uses its ‘shoulders’ to drive the other onto the further side of the cloth. Perhaps
‘Arthur’ is carrying the weight of the country on his shoulders, along with the burden of
Christianity.
138 On the confusion of ‘n’ and ‘r’, it can be said that at Section 8, the Harleian scribe writes
‘Armonicas’ for ‘Armoricas’. On the question of the link between Arthur and the Roman
emperor, Maximus, it should be noted that the British kings were for a long time desirous of
showing their descent from the Roman emperors, for Genealogies II and IV traces the line
of Iudgual map Tutagual back to the Roman emperors, and Genealogy XVI traces the
lineage of Run map Neithon as far back as Julius Caesar—and both are tenth-century kings.
(Hughes suggests, p. 68, that the Annales Cambriae were written up in their final form
between 954 and 988—but not all of the genealogical lists are necessarily of such a late
date.) The Harleian genealogies are edited by P. C. Bartrum, Early Welsh Genealogical
Tracts (Cardiff, 1966), pp. 9–13.

52
and Arthur might at one stage have been thought to be the son of Maximus, the last Roman
emperor in Britain.
How, though, might the historical character, named by Gildas ‘Ambrosius
Aurelianus’, have come to be seen as an (ultimately British) hero, ‘Arthur’? One
possibility is that the name ‘Arturus’ was devised by the compiler of (the main text of) the
Historia Brittonum from an abbreviation of the word ‘Aurelianus’ as it appeared in a copy
of the De Excidio, or indeed in the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (for both texts
were available as sources). In its ablative case (as in Gildas, c. 25.3, and Bede, I.16) the
name might have been abbreviated (by the omission of all vowels but the initial one and
the case-marker) to ‘a’ + ‘r’ + crossed ‘l’ + ‘n’ + superscript ‘o’: arln o , which correctly
expanded would have produced ‘aureliano’, but which might have been expanded (reading
crossed ‘l’ as ‘t’, ‘n’ as ‘u’, and superscript ‘o’ as a marker for ‘ro’) as ‘arturo’. (Indeed, a
similar incorrect expansion might have led to the confusion between ‘israelem’ and
‘ierusalem’ in Chapter 26.1 of the De Excidio.) The composer of Section 56, though
familiar with the name ‘Ambrosius’, might have known nothing of the name ‘Aurelianus’,
and so misread the name as ‘Arturus’, thinking that the name of the opportune hero and
saviour of Britain was ‘Ambrosius Arturus’. 139 It would then have been a small step from
the form ‘Arturus’ to ‘Arthur’, as it now appears in Harley at Section 56. 140
Thus the supposedly ‘British’ hero, Arthur, might better be seen as the Roman hero,
Ambrosius Aurelianus, who is the leader of the British tribes, and who is in fact the central
character of the Historia Brittonum. When the compiler of Section 56 says that 960 men
fall in one day in a single attack (by Arthur), and that no-one lays the Saxons low except
(Arthur) alone, he may be referring to Roman military assistance given to the British by
‘Ambrosius Arturus’. The significance of Ambrosius is proved, first, by the fact that many
details of his story appear to have their origin in the biblical account of David, shepherd-
boy and later leader of the tribes of Israel, as it is given in the first book of Samuel and,
second, by the fact that the story of Saint David appears later to have been based upon his
139 The name of Gildas’ early Roman leader as it is given in the Moore manuscript of the
Historia Ecclesiastica is ‘ambrosioa ureliano’ (see The Moore Bede: Cambridge University
Library MS Kk. 5. 16, EEMF, Copenhagen, 1959, Vol. 9, ed. B. Colgrave, with a Preface
by Peter Hunter Blair and a contribution by R. A. B. Mynors, fo. 11v, l. 2.) The misspacing
suggests the possibility of some problem with the name in an early manuscript of
Gildas.
140 If the explanation given here is correct, however, then the account of the battles of
‘Arthur’ is unlikely to have been taken from an existing battle-poem. There is, though, the
possibility that one was created for him by the compiler of the Historia Brittonum, who
incidentally made him victorious in every battle (see n. 136, above). Although the name of
Arthur appears in The Gododdin, there is no proof that it is not a later addition to the poem.
Thomas Jones, ‘The Early Evolution of the Legend of Arthur’, Nottingham Mediaeval
Studies 8 (1964), 3–21 (p. 13), discusses the matter: the poem is of the sixth or seventh
century, the orthography of the stanza suggests that it was written down in the ninth, and the
manuscript is of ca. 1250. He concludes that the reference cannot be said to be older than
the ninth century.

53
own. 141 It is thus necessary to move from the consideration of names to the examination of
the compiler’s use of the Bible.
Ambrosius and ‘David’.
There are several parallels between the biblical story of David and that of Ambrosius. The
very first is the presentation of the enemies who threaten Saul, king over Israel, and
Guorthigirn, the king of Britain. Saul has enemies on every side (I Samuel 14.47), but his
especial enemies are the Philistines, with whom there is fierce war during all of his days
(c. 14.52). 142 In the Historia Brittonum, the Britons go in fear for the length of forty years
after the departure of the Romans, and around this time King Guorthigirn is beset by
enemies on every side—the Picts, Irish, Romans and Ambrosius—and especially his fear is
of Ambrosius (§ 31).
The second parallel is the replacement of the leader of the land with one specifically
selected as king. In the Bible, Saul fails to carry out the Lord’s commandment in not
destroying Agag, king of the Amalekites (c. 15.9), and the Lord regrets that He has made
Saul king (c. 15.11) and so chooses another to replace him (c. 15.28). The new king will
be the youngest son of Jesse, a shepherd-boy called ‘David’ (see c. 16.11). In the British
text (§ 40), Guorthigirn the king flees from the face of Germanus (the representative of
orthodox Christianity in Britain) because (by his incestuous alliance with his own daughter,
§ 39) he has sinned against the Lord. The boy named Ambrosius, son of a Roman consul,
is to take his kingdom (§ 41–42).
The third parallel is the treatment of David and Ambrosius, in terms of their origins
and future prospects. Saul becomes troubled by an evil spirit (c. 16.14) and his servants
advise him to seek out a man knowledgeable in playing the harp, so that he may soothe
away his troubles (c. 16.15–16). He commands that such a person be brought to him,
saying: providete … mihi aliquem bene psallentem, et adducite eum ad me ‘provide … me
with a man who plays well, and lead him to me’ (c. 16.17). One of the servants says to
him:
Ecce vidi filium Isai Betlehemitem scientem psallere, et
fortissimum robore, et virum bellicosum, et prudentem in
verbis, et virum pulchrum: et Dominus est cum eo.
141 It is perhaps the text of Gildas which provides the initial impetus for the use of the
David-story: in that text, the British are driven by the Saxons from the cities to the
mountains, hills and cliffs of the sea-coast, where they join together duce Ambrosio
Aureliano ‘under the leadership of Ambrosius Aurelianus’; in the Bible, David flees before
Saul to Gath (I Samuel 21.12), and thence to the cave of Adullam (c. 22.1), and all those
distressed, in debt, or discontented, about 400 in all, come to him there and he is made their
‘captain’ (c. 22.2). For Gildas, indeed, Britain is the New Israel.
142 The edition used is Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam Clementinam, ed. Alberto Colunga and
Laurentino Turrado, 5th edn (Madrid, 1977). All references to the books of Samuel appear
parenthetically in the text. All translations are my own.

54
‘Behold I have seen the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite,
who is knowledgeable in playing and a most valiant man,
and a man of war, and prudent in his speech, and a
comely person; and the Lord is with him.’ (c. 16.18).
So Saul sends messengers to Jesse to have him send his son to court: Mitte ad me David
filium tuum, qui est in pascuis ‘Send me David your son, who is amongst the sheep’
(c. 16.19). David then comes to Saul and is made his his armour-bearer and his harpist
(c. 16.21). (He eventually takes over the kingdom of Israel from that king.) Ambrosius
(Aurelianus) is a man whose breeding is obvious: he has already been described in the De
Excidio (c. 25.3; MS. X: fo. 7ra) as a modest man qui solus fuit comes fidelis. fortis.
ueraxque forte Romane gentis ‘who alone was a courtier faithful, strong and true, as it
happened, of the Roman people’. Thus in character he is like David—and by the time of
his appearance in the Historia Brittonum, he is, like David, a man of war (§ 31) and of
good family (§ 42). Like Saul’s servants, Guorthigirn’s magi reveal the existence of the
boy (§ 40), and like Saul, Guorthigirn sends messengers to fetch him (§ 41). Like David,
Ambrosius is brought before the majestic king (§ 41). (Later, like David, he is made leader
in the other king’s stead, § 42.)
The fourth parallel is the appearance of a named, and later re-named, character who
is sometimes man and sometimes boy, and who singlehandedly ‘defeats’ and makes
subservient his adversary and afterwards becomes leader. By the time the battle-lines have
been drawn between the Philistines and the Israelites (c. 17.1–3), David has gone from the
court of Saul back to his sheep (c. 17.15). He comes to the battle (c. 17.20), is (unlike the
others) unafraid of the Philistine (c. 17.26), decides to fight him (c. 17.32), is advised not
to on account of his inexperience (c. 17.33), and then overcomes his adversary easily, with
only a sling and a stone (c. 17.49). Then, at the end of the combat-scene, he, the king’s
own retainer and minstrel (c. 16.21), to whose father Saul has sent requesting his presence
by name, is presented as if he is of unknown descent.
David is first presented as the youngest child of Jesse and as a vir ‘man’ (c. 16.18),
but he is later referred to as a youth and as an unidentified boy. Saul says unto the captain
of his army: De qua stirpe descendit hic adolescens, Abner? ‘Of whose stock is this young
man descended, Abner?’ (c. 17.55). To this question Abner replies with a mild oath: Vivit
anima tua, rex, si novi ‘May your soul be blessed, O king, if I know’ (ibid.). 143 The king
continues: Interroga tu, cuius filius sit iste puer ‘Enquire whose son the boy may be’ (c.
17.56); and Abner brings David before Saul: tulit eum Abner, et introduxit coram
Saule ‘Abner fetched him, and brought him into the presence of Saul’ (c. 17.57). Saul says
to David: De qua progenie es, o adolescens? ‘Of what family are you, oh youth?’ (c.
17.58). David replies: Filius servi tui Isai Bethlehemitae ego sum ‘I am the son of your
143 Compare the words of the mother of Ambrosius when she swears that she has never
known a man (§ 41).

55
servant, Jesse the Bethlehemite’ (ibid.). 144 Then, not long after having ascertained David’s
name (for the second time), Saul sets him over the warriors, and the people embrace him:
posuit … eum Saul super viros belli, et acceptus erat in oculis universi populi ‘… Saul set
him over men of war, and he was accepted in the eyes of all the people’ (c. 18.5).
In this fourth instance, the David-Ambrosius parallels are as follows. Ambrosius is
named as a military threat at Section 31, and so must be a man—but by Section 40 he has
gone back to his childhood, much like David has reverted to being a tender of sheep. He is
presented variously as child, as boy, as young man, and as man. Guorthigirn’s magi begin
by searching for an infans ‘infant’ (§§ 40, 41). They find some pueri ‘boys’ one of whom
is Ambrosius, playing a game—although the boyish opponent of Ambrosius then addresses
him as homo sine patre ‘man without a father’ (§ 41); then, after Ambrosius is brought
before Guorthigirn (§ 42), he is called puer, and he continues so up to the time that he
declares that Guorthigirn must seek a realm elsewhere, at which point he is referred to as
adolescens ‘young man’. 145
In his response to Guorthigirn and the news that he is to be sacrificed (§ 42), he is as
fearless as David is when he comes before Goliath, asking the British king belligerently:
Cur viri tui me ad te detulerunt? ‘Why have your men brought me before you?’. Further,
at the end of Section 42, after the boy has explained the significance of the fighting worms,
Guorthigirn asks him (whom he already knows as a threat to the stability of his kingdom, §
31) to identify himself: Quo nomine vocaris? ‘By what name are you called?’. He replies:
Ambrosius vocor ‘I am called Ambrosius’. And in return the king asks, in almost the same
words as Saul does of David: De qua progenie ortus es? ‘Of what family are you born?’.
He replies: Unus est pater meus de consulibus romanicae gentis ‘My father is one from
among the consuls of the Roman people’. Then the king immediately and unhesitatingly
gives him the rule of the western regions of Britain: et arcem dedit rex illi cum omnibus
144 David’s lineage is otherwise mentioned three times (cc. 16.1, 16.18, and 17.12), perhaps
in order to stress his right to the kingdom of Israel through his pedigree. G. C. D. Howley,
ed. A Bible Commentary for Today (London, 1974), notes that the word ‘davidium’ may
mean ‘commander’ (see p. 396). James Hastings, ed. A Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I
(Edinburgh, 1898), p. 562 proposes a reason for Saul’s failure to know David: the text has
been edited or added to; but William Smith, ed, Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I (London,
1863), p. 403, feels that the portrait of David as a shepherd-boy (c. 17.12–31) has been
transposed with the presentation of him as Saul’s armour-bearer (c. 16.23). Interestingly,
the incongruities between the tower-episode and other parts of the Historia Brittonum has
been thought to result from a conflation of sources, rather than as two versions of the same
tale by the same author—e.g., Fletcher, The Arthurian Material in the Chronicles, p. 18,
asserts that the fatherless-boy episode shows ‘confusion’, and takes this as evidence that the
incident is one of the later additions to the text.
145 He is called an ‘young man’ only when he is on the threshold of taking the kingdom,
perhaps because he is about to come to his full standing in life. His nobility has earlier been
challenged by the boy with whom he has been quarrelling (§ 41), and David’s right to be at
the battle is also challenged by his brothers (c. 17.28).

56
regnis occidentalis plagae Brittanniae ‘and the king gave him the tower with all the
kingdoms of the western shore of Britain’.
There are also other, more general, similarities between the two episodes. One is that
David wins easily against Goliath with only a sling and a stone (c. 16.49); and Ambrosius
defeats Guorthigirn without any kind of a fight (§ 42). Another is that Goliath makes a
bargain that his people will become subservient to Israel if he is slain (see c. 17.9), and
when they see that their champion is dead, the Philistines flee (c. 17.51); and Guorthigirn
cedes his overlordship to Ambrosius and goes hence with his wizards into barren parts, just
after he has come to agreement (however non-specific) with Ambrosius as to who shall
rule (§ 42). A third may be that, although Guorthigirn is in many ways like Saul, he is like
the oversized Goliath as well: one is the champion of the enemy forces; the other the
‘superbus tyrannus’, erstwhile champion amongst kings. 146
Thus as a secular hero whose deeds are modelled on those of the biblical hero,
Ambrosius must be viewed as a very important character, and as the leader of the new
Israel, he is typically a hero of the Britons (even if not regarded as British by birth). So
then, when it is realised that Ambrosius is later used as the secular prototype for the
religious leader, Saint David, in Rhigyfarch’s Life of David, written ca. 1095, 147 he
commands even more respect. In writing his story of Bishop ‘Dewi’, the spiritual leader of
the Britons, 148 Rhigyfarch seems to have looked both at Gildas’ story of ‘Ambrosius
Aurelianus’ and at the tale of ‘Ambrosius’ in the Historia Brittonum. In Chapters 61 and
62 he tells how news of the approaching death of Dewi brings a number of saints from
throughout Britain and Ireland to visit him: tunc sanctorum concursus utrimque ueluti apes,
procella imminente, alueario procedunt, ad sanctum patrem uisitandum uelociter
festinat ‘then an assemblage of saints comes together from both parts just like bees, with a
storm approaching, make for the hive, hurry quickly to visit the holy father’ (c. 62). This
echoes the words of the De Excidio on how the wretched Britons flock to those survivors of
146 Although the story of the Philistines versus the Israelites is twice put forth as a battle
between the two champions, David and Goliath (c. 17.4, 23), at c. 17.19 it is said that Saul
et omnes filii Israel ‘and all the sons of Israel’ had been fighting against the Philistines, and
at c. 17.20, when David arrives at the place of the armies, they are just going out to the
battle. Also, David later consents to allow Jonathan, the son of Saul, some political power
after the death of his father, agreeing that he will not fail to recognise Saul’s seed (c. 24.21–
22); and Ambrosius afterwards forms an alliance with the son of Guothigirn which allows
him to hold a part of the kingdom as subaltern after the father has died (§ 48).
147 Ed. J. W. James, Rhigyfarch’s Life of St. David (Cardiff, 1967). On the other versions of
the Life of David, see Elissa R. Henken, Traditions of the Welsh Saints (Cambridge, 1987),
p. 26. See also idem, ‘The Saint as Folk Hero’, in Celtic Folklore and Christianity, ed. P.
K. Ford (Santa Barbara, 1983), pp. 58–74.
148 This man is most frequently referred to in his role as ecclesiastical head, using such
terms as ‘the father’, ‘the holy father’, ‘the bishop’, and ‘the man of God’. He is also
referred to as a saint, and as the ‘holy Dewi’. At Chapter 56, he is the supreme overseer,
protector, and preacher. I call him ‘Dewi’, in order to distinguish him from the David of
the Bible.

57
the first Saxon attacks: confugiunt undique de diversis locis miserrimi cives, tam avide
quam apes alveari procella imminente ‘then the wretched citizens flocked together from all
sides from diverse places, as avidly as bees to the hive when a storm threatens’ (c. 25.2).
As the ‘Ambrosius Aurelianus’ of the De Excidio, Dewi is the people’s leader.
Rhigyfarch also gives the saint and/or his associates characteristics in common with
Ambrosius and/or his. First, Dewi’s mother is a chaste virgin from Dyfed, called Nonnita,
who has been raped by Sanctus, king of Ceredigion, but who continues afterwards chaste in
mind and body (see c. 4)—the mother of Ambrosius may in some respects also be taken as
‘chaste’, for although she has borne a child, she swears to Guorthigirn’s magi that she has
never known a man (see § 41). Second, Dewi’s mother appears in the church before the
preacher, who is struck dumb by her presence, and Dewi will surpass all the doctores
‘teachers’ of Britain (c. 5)—Ambrosius is brought (with his mother) before King
Guorthigirn who (along with his magicians) is soon (metaphorically) dumbstruck by his
revelations, and Ambrosius will be set above all of the kings of the western part of Britain
(§ 42). Third, Dewi’s opponent, Baia, goes in fear of the saint (c. 16)—Guorthigirn lives in
fear of his opposite, Ambrosius (§ 31). Fourth, Baia is in contest for possession of a site—
and so is Guorthigirn (§ 42). 149 Fifth, Baia attempts to have Dewi killed—and so does
Guorthigirn Ambrosius (§ 40). Sixth, Baia is burned inside his fortress by fire from heaven
(see c. 19)—whilst Guorthigirn is said (by some) to have perished inside his tower through
just such a fire (§ 47).
To sum up, the story of Dewi is from the fable of Ambrosius, and the fable of
Ambrosius is in turn from the story of David. But if the famous Arthur is really the heroic
Ambrosius under a different name, and the product of literature rather than history, then
further explanation is required, for in the text of the Annales Cambriae, Arthur is presently
separated from Ambrosius by very many decades. It is now necessary to move from an
examination of sources to an examination of chronology.
The Chronology of Ambrosius and of ‘Arthur’.
The Harleian manuscript of the Historia Brittonum is a copy made by a single scribe of
ca. 1100, but there is evidence that parts of the main text, and parts of its addenda (the
Annales Cambriae, the genealogical lists, and the ‘Mirabilia’), were written up by different
persons, who are perhaps best called ‘scribes’, variously of the ninth century and of the
tenth. The first appears to have been working in the year which he regarded as Year 831
from the birth of Christ, as is shown by the following calculations which appear at the
beginning of the main text (§§ 3–4 of Morris’ edition):
149 Raising a house in one night and having smoke rising from the chimney by morning
gives one the right to take possession of the land; see Alwyn Rees and Brinley Rees, Celtic
Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales (London, 1961), p. 157.

58
Ab adam uero usque ad passionem christi. anni sunt
quinque milia ducenti uiginti octo.
A passione. autem christi peracti sunt anni septingenti
nonaginta. sex. Ab incarnatione autem eius. anni sunt
octingenti triginta unus.
‘From Adam, indeed, to the Passion of Christ, there are
5,228 years.
And from the Passion of Christ have passed 796 years.
And from his Incarnation there are 831 years.’ (fo. 174v)
This scribe apparently converts from Passion- to Incarnation-dating by the addition of
thirty five. 150 He appears to use Prosper’s Chronicon as source—but he himself adds the
date of the Incarnation. 151 A second scribe appears to have worked on the manuscript in
the year which he regarded as Year 859 from Christ’s birth, for a later part of the main text
(§ 16 of Morris’ work) reads:
A primo anno. quo saxones uenerunt in brittanniam usque
ad annum quartum mermini regis supputantur anni
quadringenti \xx/ nouem.
A natiuitate domini \usque ad/ aduentum patricii ad
scottos. quadringenti quinque anni sunt. A morte patricii.
usque ad obitum sanctae brigidae. sexaginta anni. A
natiuitate columbae usque mortem brigidae .iiii. or anni
sunt.
[I]nitium compoti uiginti tres c[icl]i decennou\en/alis. ab
incarnatione domini usque \ad/ aduentu[m] patricii in
Hiberniam. et ipsi annos efficiunt numero quadringentos
triginta octo. et ab adventu patricii usque ad c[i]clum
decennou\en/alem in quo sumus. uiginti duo cicli sunt. id
est quadringenti uiginti unus sunt. duo anni in ogdoade
usque in hunc annum in quo sumus.
150 The age at which Christ died is still being debated today, for the year of his birth might
need to be placed up to six years earlier than our present year 1 A.D., since Herod the
Great—in order to destroy Jesus—ordered the slaughter of all children in Bethlehem under
two years of age, and Herod died in our present year 4 B.C. According to Prosper, Jesus
was once thought to have been crucified in the consulship of Rufus and Rubelius, our year
A.D. 28 (see Mommsen, Vol. 9, pp. 409–410). This might allow that he was between thirty
two and thirty four, or even thirty five, when he died—which might account for a thirty-five
year difference. However, Dumville (‘The Chronology’, p. 439) argues that the difference
(according to the Dionysian system of reckoning) should be thirty three, and so the
designated year 829—but that at some stage in the copying of the manuscript the last two
digits of ‘DCCCXXIX’ were transposed to give ‘DCCCXXXI’. He dismisses any possible
protest about the use of words rather than numerals by showing that at some stage in the
document’s transmission, numerals were actually employed (p. 439, n. 4). Nonetheless, the
deliberate use of a thirty-five year difference is not impossible.
151 See Mommsen, Vol. 9, p. 409.

59
‘From the first year in which the Saxons came to Britain,
up to the fourth year of king Mervin, 429 years are
counted.
From the nativity of the Lord up to the arrival of Patrick
amongst the Irish, there are 405 years. From the death of
Patrick up to the death of St. Brigit, 60 years. From the
birth of Columba up to the death of Brigit, there are 4
years. [Part A]
The beginning of the computation: 23 cycles of nineteen
from the birth of the Lord to the arrival of Patrick in
Ireland, and those years amount to the number 438. And
from the arrival of Patrick up to the cycle of nineteen
years in which we are, there are 22 cycles, that is there
are 421 (years), 2 years in the ogdoad up to this year in
which we are.’ [Part B] (fo. 176v)
This second scribe apparently converts from the year-of-the-Passion to the year-of-the-
Incarnation by the addition of 33—for the information that Patrick arrived in Ireland in the
year 405 from the ‘Nativity’ appears to be an error for 405 years from the ‘Passion’ (since
Patrick cannot have first gone to Ireland in both A.D. 405 and A.D. 438). 152 There is also
a third scribe, who makes a number of entries in the Annales Cambriae using the Annals of
Ulster as source; whose last entry in the Annales (the death of Rhodri ap Hywel) appears to
relate to the 950s; and who enters the year-numbers in that text as far as the 980s. This
scribe would therefore appear to have been working in the second half of the tenth
century. 153
So then, there might have been three different ‘scribes’ who had worked on the
manuscript and its addenda: a compiler and two annotators. What is even more important,
though, is that the entries of the Annales Cambriae may yield more information on the
views on Ambrosius and/or Arthur held by each of them. The Introduction to the Annales
(numbered § 66 in Morris’ edition) contains a chronological summary which reads:
152 Dumville claims (‘Some Aspects’, p. 440) that Part B is a gloss on Part A—and by a
different scribe, and takes the notice of Mervin as having been written by the scribe of
‘82[9]’. However, the fact that the Saxons have not been mentioned before 16A—their
arrival is discussed in detail first in Chapter 31—suggests that this entire passage (all of
Parts A and B) is interpolated, and that Part B is simply a re-calculation of Part A. The
number ‘438’ is made up of 23 cycles of 19 years (= 437 years), plus 1 year. This is the
method of calculating the date of Easter set up by Dionysius Exiguus, who in the year 525
drew up a Table of 532 years extending from A.D. 1 to A.D. 532, basing his calculations on
19-year periods. This was the Easter-cycle used in the Roman Church. The Celts employed
an older, 84-year cycle. A third cycle was that of Victor of Aquitaine, who in 457 had
drawn up his own Table of 532 years. Victor, however, began his Table at the Passion of
the Lord. See Mommsen, Vol. 9, for a 532-year Table.
153 The Annals of Ulster (to A.D. 1131), ed. Seán Mac Airt and Gearoíd Mac Niocaill
(Dublin, 1983). The Ulster Annals were not compiled until after the year A.D. 911.

60
[A] mundi principio usque ad constantinum et rufum.
quinque milia sexcenti quinquaginta octo anni
reperiuntur.
Item a duobus geminis rufo et rubelio usque in
stillitionem consulem. ccc. ti septuaginta tres anni sunt.
Item. a stillitione usque ad ualentinianum filium placide.
et regnum guorthigirni. uiginti octo anni. Et a regno
guorthigirni. usque ad discordiam guitolini et ambrosii.
anni sunt duodecim. quod est guoloppvm. id est
catguoloph. Guorthigirnus autem tenuit imperium in
brittannia theodosio et ualentiniano consulibus. et in
quarto anno regni sui saxones a\d/ brittanniam uenerunt.
Felice et tauro consulibus. quadringentesimo anno. ab
incarnatione domini nostri ihesu christi.
‘From the beginning of the world up to Constantine and
Rufus, 5,658 years have passed.
Item, from the two Twins, Rufus and Rubelius, up to
Stilicho the consul, there are 373 years.
Item, from Stilicho up to Valentinian, son of Placida, and
the reign of Guorthigirn, there are 28 years. And from
the reign of Guorthigirn up to the dispute between
Guitolinus and Ambrosius there are twelve, which is
Guoloppum, that is the battle of Guoloph. Guorthigirn,
moreover, held rule in Britain in while Theodosius and
Valentinian were consuls, and in the fourth year of his
reign the Saxons came to Britain, while Felix and Taurus
were consuls, in the 400th year from the Incarnation of
our Lord, Jesus Christ.’ (fo. 189v)
This information appears also to be derived partly from Prosper’s text, and can perhaps
also be said to be the work of Scribe 1—even though that particular scribe provides dates
from the Passion as well as the Incarnation; and even though Prosper places Felix and
Taurus in the year ‘401 from the Passion’ (not the year ‘400 from the Incarnation’), and
says that Valentinian begins to rule in the year 397 from the Passion (which is in fact the
twenty fourth year after Stilicho). 154 Yet although there are presently some inconsistencies
in this Introduction, the chronology of this part of the text might once have been quite
regular and logical, and indeed the work of Scribe 1. A tentative reconstruction follows.
The Annales as they now stand consist of a Table of 533 (= 532 + 1) years, but it can
be conjectured that the Table once consisted only of one single 84-year cycle of annals
154 From Prosper’s text it can be established that Rufus and Rubelius were consuls in the
year of Christ’s death; that Stilicho became consul in the year 373 AP; that Valentinian,
born in 391 AP, made Theodosius Caesar in 397 AP, and then ruled with his mother. The
year 401 A.P. is that which Prosper gives for the reign of Felix and Taurus, but the number
‘28’ is probably to be explained as a simple error for ‘24’.

61
beginning in the year 421 from the Passion and ending in the year 504 from the Passion,
i.e., the sixth cycle in a series of such cycles beginning at the death of Christ. 155 This
theory is based partly on the fact that the first scribe gives dates from both the Passion and
the Incarnation at Sections 3 and 4, and partly on the statement which ends the
chronological summary quoted above. That statement reads:
[A]b anno quo saxones uenerunt in brittanniam. et \a/
guorthigirno suscep / ti sunt. usque ad decium et
ualerianum. anni sunt sexaginta nouem.
‘From the year in which the Saxons came to Britain and
were received by Guorthigirn up to Decius and
Valerianus there are 69 years.’ (fo. 189v–190r)
By adding 35 to 401 (as the first scribe’s probable means of converting from Passion- to
Incarnation-dating, as in his § 4), and then counting another 69 years (as actually in the
text at § 66), we arrive at the year 505. Had the Table (originally) extended from 421 to
504, then a scribe giving the dates 401 A.P., and A.D. 436, for the arrival of the Saxons,
might then have added 69 to 436 to arrive at (but not in) the year 505, the first year of the
following 84-year cycle, and might then have inserted a statement similar to the following
in the Introduction to that Table:
‘From the year in which the Saxons came to Britain and
were received by Guorthigirn up to the 500th and the 5th
year, there are 69 years.’
Thus the Table would have been placed in context, and its entries would so have been
dateable. If this theory is correct, then it presupposes that Scribe 1 found his Table (based
on Passion-dating) ready-made, but that he perhaps thought it was based on Incarnation-
dating. Then some later copyist, seeing a phrase such as ‘usque ad D m et u tm anum’ (one
possible way of writing the phrase ‘up to the 500th and the fifth year’), might have
interpreted the first word, by whatever process of invention, as ‘Decium’. The final two he
might have read as ‘ualerianum’: by taking the ‘t’ as a crossed ‘l’, expanding the first part
of the word to ‘uale’, taking the next ‘m’ as ‘ri’, ignoring any abbreviation mark over the
‘a’ of ‘anum’ (if one was ever present), and joining the two words together. 156 In this way,
the original indicator of date might ultimately have been lost from the text.
155 The use of 84-year cycles by the Celts is mentioned by Bede (V.21) when he speaks of
the conflict between Dinoot of Bangor and Augustine over various divergent Church
practices. (This is the passage which Geoffrey might have taken exception to.) See
Mommsen, Vol 9, for an 84-year Table. R. P. C. Hanson, Saint Patrick: His Origins and
Career (Oxford, 1968), pp. 67–70, discusses the calculation of Easter and the practices of
the Celtic Church.
156 Such a scenario would require that there had been some misalignment of the superscript
letters, and perhaps some crowding of the words ‘u tm ’ and ‘annum’.

62
However, it might have been lost at a date later than 859, along with the date ‘A.D.
436’. Had Scribe 2 seen the dates ‘401 from the Passion’, ‘436 from the Incarnation’, and
‘69 years to the 505th year’ before him in an 84-year Table, he might have thought that that
Table had ended in 505 (rather than in 504) and had begun in 422 (rather than in 421)—
and (like Scribe 1) that these dates had been calculated from the Incarnation. This is
particularly noteworthy, for the notice of the battle of Badon—fought by Arthur—presently
appears under Year 72 of the Table. It reads:
Bellum badonis in quo arthur portauit crucem domini
nostri ihesu christi. tribus diebus et tribus noctibus in
humeros suos et brittones uictores fuerunt. (fo. 190r)
Had the second scribe been interested in the fight at Badon, had he also had before him a
copy of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (which may be interpreted as giving the year A.D.
493 as the year of Badon), and had he also read the notice at Section 56 of the Historia
Brittonum that Arthur had fought at Badon, he might have made an entry on that battle at
Year 72 of the Table, thinking that it represented the year A.D. 493. 157 Scribe 2 might
have thought that ‘Arthur’ was of the late fifth century but (from the information given by
Scribe 1) that ‘Ambrosius’ was of the first half of the century, and so believed that they
were two separate characters.
Nonetheless, as it stands at the moment, the Harleian Table extends for 533 years, not
merely for eighty four, and contains another entry on Arthur, at Year 93, which reads:
Gueith cam lan\n/ in qua arthur et medraut corruenunt. et
mortalitas / in brittannia et in hibernia fuit. (fo. 190r–v)
If the theory of the original 84-years-only cycle of annals (still available in A.D. 859) is
correct, then the entry at Year 93 cannot have been made by Scribe 2. Yet it is not
impossible that the Table was extended by the third scribe to become a Great Cycle Table,
and that the entry at Year 93 was made at the same time as material was inserted in the
Welsh annals from the Ulster text by the third scribe. 158
Scribe 3, working perhaps in the 950s and seeing before him the same Table of 84
years, with introductory dates from both the Passion (401) and the Incarnation (436), might
have regarded that Table as Passion-dated, and might thus have converted its starting date
(which he might have interpreted as either ‘421’ or ‘422’ from the Passion, 504 or 505
minus 83) to an anno-domini date. If he had added 27 years (as we would today using the
Victorian system of dating) to make it ‘begin’ in the Year 448 or 449, and increased it to
157 The second part of the entry appears to be a corruption of the statements of Chapter 56 of
the main text that Arthur’s twelfth battle was Badon but that in his eighth battle against the
Saxons Arthur carried the image of the Holy Mother on his shoulders.
158 The information on Camblann comes from outside of the main text of the Historia
Brittonum.

63
the size of a Great Cycle of 532 years (plus 1) to make it extend to the year 981 or 982, 159
the result might have been that the entry at Badon, possibly placed by Scribe 2 at Year 72,
might have been ‘re-converted’ (from A.D. 493) to another Incarnation-date, and so might
have provided the information that Badon was fought either in the year A.D. 519 (Year 72
of a Table beginning in 448) or in the year A.D. 520 (Year 72 of a Table beginning in 449).
Scribe 3 might also have entered the notice of Arthur’s fight at Camlann in Year 93
of such a Table, or A.D. 540 or 541 (depending on the year in the the Table was thought to
begin, i.e., 448 or 449). In other words, Scribe 3 might have thought that ‘Arthur’ was of
the early sixth century (but that ‘Ambrosius’ was still of the first half of the fifth), and that
Arthur had died twenty one years after Badon. He might, though, have inadvertently left
the postulated notice of the ‘505 th year’ in the Introduction. That number might then have
been altered by a later copyist to read ‘Decium and Valerianum’—whilst the date A.D.
436, perhaps given by Scribe 1, might have been omitted by mistake, and the phrase ‘the
401st year from the Passion’ might have become corrupted to ultimately read ‘the 400th
year from the Incarnation’.
In conclusion, by looking at the main text of the Historia Brittonum and its addenda,
it is possible to argue for three different scribes who held different views of Ambrosius
and/or of Arthur. Scribe 1, writing in A.D. 831, might have seen ‘Ambrosius Arturus’ as a
man of Roman descent, living in the half century or so after Maximus, and of similar status
to the biblical David. He might also have inserted a notice in the genealogies that ‘Arthur’
was the son of ‘Maxim Guletic’. Scribe 2, of A.D. 859, might have thought, though, that
Ambrosius had fought in the first half of the fifth century and Arthur around the year A.D.
493. Scribe 3, probably of the mid-tenth century, might have thought that Badon was
fought by Arthur around A.D. 519/520, and Camlann around A.D. 540/541. If this is the
case, then neither Scribe 2 nor Scribe 3 could legitimately have regarded Arthur as Roman,
or as the son of the emperor, Maximus.
Perhaps, then, the ‘Arthurian’ material of the ‘Mirabilia’ is to be regarded as the
work of either Scribe 2 or Scribe 3—both of whom might have believed in a wholly British
Arthur. The Mirabilia form the third addendum to the Harleian text. Their Section 73
reads:
Est … mirabile in regione quae dicitur Buelt. Est ibi
cumulus lapidum et unus lapis superpositus super
congestum cum vestigio canis in eo. Quando venatus est
porcum Troynt, impressit Cabal, qui erat canis Arthuri
militis, vestigium in lapide, et Arthur postea congregavit
congestum lapidum sub lapide, in quo erat vestigium
canis sui, et vocatur Carn Cabal. Et veniunt homines, et
159 Today it is sometimes held to begin in the year A.D. 447, on the basis of the notice of the
change of the date of Easter by Pope Leo at Year 9, which is taken as A.D. 453. Yet
Hughes, p. 86, n. 2, notes that this is a purely conventional date.

64
tollunt lapidem in manibus suis per spatium diei et noctis,
et in crastino die invenitur super congestum suum.
Est aliud miraculum in regione quae vocatur Ercing.
Habetur sepulcrum juxta fontem, qui cognominatur Licat
Anir, et viri nomen: qui sepultus est in tumulo, sic
vocabatur Anir; filius Arthuri militis erat, et ipse occidit
eum ibidem et sepelivit. Et veniunt homines ad
mensurandum tumulum in longitudine aliquando sex
pedes, aliquando novem, aliquando duodecim, aliquando
quindecim. In qua mensura metieris eum in ista vice,
iterum non invenies eum in una mensura, et ego solus
probavi.
‘There is … a wonder in the region which is called
“Builth”. There is a heap of stones and one stone placed
on the top of the heap with the footprint of a dog on it.
When he hunted the boar, Troynt, Cabal, who was the
dog of the soldier Arthur, impressed his footprint into the
stone, and Arthur later brought together the pile of stones
under the stone in which was the footprint of his dog, and
it is called “Carn Cabal”. And men come, and carry away
the stone in their hands for the space of a day and a night,
and on the next day it is found on its heap.
There is another miracle in the region which is called
“Ercing”. There is a tomb there beside a spring, which is
called “Licat Anir”, and the name of the man who is
buried in the grave was “Anir”; he was the son of the
soldier Arthur, and he killed him there and buried him.
And men come to measure the grave (and) in length it is
sometimes six feet, sometimes nine, sometimes twelve,
and sometimes fifteen. At whatever length you measure
it on one occasion, at the next you will not find it the
same length, and I myself have tested it.’
Scribe 1 might have attributed the deeds of Ambrosius Aurelianus to ‘Ambrosius Arturus’,
but the fables of the dog and of the son might have been added by either Scribe 2 or Scribe
3, after a man known by the name of Arthur had come to be seen as a real and popular
hero, and after the link between Ambrosius and Arthur had been broken. 160 Even so, the
popularity of Arthur might have been confined largely to the Historia Brittonum, for the
author of the Armes Prydein Mawr, a Welsh nationalistic poem thought to have been
written in the tenth century, 161 does not mention him at all, and neither does Rhigyfarch in
160The stories of the ‘Mirabilia’ are of a different kind from both the tower-episode and
Section 56 of the text. Brynley F. Roberts, ‘Culhwch ac Olwen, the Triads, Saints’ Lives’,
in Bromwich, The Arthur of the Welsh, pp. 73–95 (p. 88), notes that Mirabilia were used for
listing purposes, just as the Triads were.
161 Ed. Ifor Williams, trans. Rachel Bromwich, Armes Prydein: The Prophecy of Britain
from the Book of Taliesin (Dublin, 1972). David Dumville, ‘Brittany and “Armes Prydein

65
his eleventh-century Life of David, even though both of the authors know and use the text
of the Historia Brittonum. The absence of Arthur from the pages of these two texts
suggests that he was not always the universal British hero.
Vawr”, Etudes Celtiques 20 (1983), 145–158, discusses the various datings of the poem.
One ‘Myrddin’ is mentioned in the Armes at line 17, but this is perhaps a late interpolation.
(On this matter, see Bromwich, ed. and trans., Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Welsh
Triads (Cardiff, 1961), p. 469: she feels that this name could easily have been entered by
the thirteenth-century scribe.)

66
SUMMARY OF PART I AND PREVIEW OF PART II.
A look at the three texts, the De Excidio Britanniae, the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglorum, and the Historia Brittonum, shows how the history of early Britain changes over
the course of the centuries; and a knowledge of how key changes have been made to
different parts of these texts provides the impetus for a corresponding investigation of
Geoffrey’s treatment of certain issues within his own history of the period.
The picture which Gildas provides (with its tentative chronology) is as follows. The
Roman emperors—harsh but strong—leave Britain in the 380s, taking with them most of
the island’s military forces, and the result is a long period of unrest for Britain. The
Romans do, however, provide some ongoing assistance against the Picts and the Irish, but
eventually leave the Britons to their own devices. The Britons make one last appeal to
Agitius, whilst he is in his third consulship (A.D. 446f), but he ignores their request for
help. The islanders then inflict a first defeat on their enemies, causing the Irish to return
home (though for no long time), and the Picts to remain quiet in their own territories. Then
there is a period of luxury, dissipation, regicide, and religious apathy. After this, the Irish
return (within that same short time and perhaps ca 461); a plague falls on the people; and
the Saxons arrive at the invitation of the British council and of the ‘superbus tyrannus’
(perhaps ca 463); they plunder the entire land (perhaps ca 468); the Britons put up some
resistance under the leadership of Aurelius Ambrosianus (‘duce Ambrosio Aureliano’); and
under this leadership, the Britons win the day (perhaps ca 470). Aurelius is, no doubt,
descended the Roman nobility; he is the last worthy member of the Roman court; and he
has lost his relatives in the wars against the Saxons.
The battles go first one way and then the other, up until the final victory at Badon,
fought in the year of Gildas’ birth (perhaps ca 475), and with unexpected assistance
(probably from Rome). All of the battles are fought in a single generation—the one before
Gildas’ own—for men of that generation have experienced both the sudden onslaught (of
the Saxons) and the final defeat (given with unexpected assistance). Almost all of the men
of Gildas’ own time (the forty four years after Badon) are ignorant of those days, and know
only the peace stemming from the final defeat of the enemy—and this sense of security
gives rise to a number of civil conflicts, still continuing at the time at which Gildas is
writing (perhaps ca 519). All in all, the British, and especially their kings, are weak and
apathetic, and consistently violate God’s laws, and are unlike the worthy Roman leaders of
the past.
Writing perhaps a little more than two centuries later, and using sources apart from
Gildas, Bede tells rather a different story. For example, he makes Constantine—important
only on the promise of his name—the last Roman Emperor in Britain, and places him

67
ca A.D. 409. 162 He provides dates for the appeal to Aëtius (A.D. 446), the arrival of the
Saxons (A.D. 449f), and Ambrosius Aurelianus (before A.D. 456). He assigns the name
‘Vortigern’ to Gildas’ ‘superbus tyrannus’. He categorically links Ambrosius Aurelianus
with royalty; tells of memories of adversity and defeat (rather than sudden onslaught and
unexpected assistance); and—by (mistakenly) placing Badon in A.D. 493—effectively
denies Ambrosius Aurelianus the leadership at Badon. To him, British religious practices
(such as the method of tonsure or the calculation of Easter) are aberrant (from the Roman);
the British are less worthy than the missionaries of Pope Gregory to preach the faith to the
Saxons; and the Britons need to be redirected in their faith by the emissaries of the Roman
Church.
The authors of the Historia Brittonum take a different approach again—by
amalgamating literary matter with traditionally ‘historical’ material. Here Ambrosius—
fatherless boy and yet son of a Roman consul—defeats ‘Guorthigirn’ (Bede’s Vortigern)
and gains control of the British kingdoms, on the assumption that he will be strong enough
to drive out the Saxons, whilst a man named ‘Arthur’ actually leads the troops against the
Saxons, killing nine hundred and sixty of them in a single attack. This Arthur, described as
‘dux bellorum’, is perhaps to be identified with the ‘leader (of the battles)’ who appears in
Gildas’ text, ‘Ambrosius Aurelianus’, and so, of course, with the Ambrosius of this text.
There are two reasons for arguing this. One is that Arthur fights together with the
kings of the British, but as their leader, whilst Ambrosius is king over all the British kings.
The second is that this Arthur might once even have been seen as the son of Maximus
(Maxim Guletic: according to the Britons, the last Roman emperor in Britain), and so, as
Ambrosius, the son of a consul. The name of this Arthur might have been derived from a
misreading of the abbreviation ‘arln o ’ (in the text of Gildas or of Bede). If such a
supposition is correct, then Arthur’s ‘singlehanded’ attack at Badon might refer to an attack
made on the Saxons by the Roman forces of Ambrosius (Aurelianus).
The Ambrosius of the Tower-Episode of the Historia Brittonum makes two
revelations: one on the defeat of the Saxons (presumably through his own efforts), and
another on the overthrow of Guorthigirn—and so he is a ‘prophet’, of sorts. He is, as
David of Israel, almost simultaneously man and boy; and indeed, as the other, becomes the
commander of the tribes. His existence is, as David’s is, revealed by wise men; as David
is, he is called before the king; and as David, he is regarded as a threat to that king. He
gains easy supremacy over (the tyrant) Guorthigirn, as does David over Goliath; and he is
questioned on his lineage in almost identical words to those in which Saul questions David.
And so, perhaps, because of his (perceived) extraordinary prowess, and his perceived
thematic links with that biblical character, does his story become—some centuries later—
the model for the account of Saint David (or ‘Dewi’)—who also has a mother who is
essentially chaste, and who also faces opposition from a powerful leader (who is also later
162 This small piece of information is derived ultimately from Orosius, and no doubt has real
historical value. How it will later be used, however, is another matter.

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killed by fire from heaven). This Ambrosius is perhaps even more heroic in terms of his
character and his early exploits than is the ‘Arthur’ who wins the twelve battles against the
Saxons.
Yet if Ambrosius is the original hero, how does ‘Arthur’ come to be seen as the
ultimate British saviour, and why are the two characters presently separated by very many
decades? The explanation may lie not only in the original misconstruction of a name, but
in various miscomputations of dates which now appear in the Harleian manuscript of the
Historia Brittonum. Harley is a late copy but, nonetheless, three scribes can be seen to
have worked on the original text: the first in A.D. 831, the second in A.D. 859, and the
third in the second half of the tenth century. The first scribe—who might have thought that
‘Ambrosius Arturus’ was the son of ‘Maxim Guletic’—might have had before him an 84-
year Table of Easter Annals, which spanned the years between 421 and 504, and might
have regarded it as a Table dated from the Birth of Christ. When setting down his
Introduction to this Table, he places Ambrosius—and so Arthur, if he really believes they
are the one character—in the year 413 of the Passion (or, according to our present method
of reckoning, A.D. 440).
The second scribe might have read the Table as covering the years between 422 and
505 (A.D.), and (with Bede as his source, and thinking Ambrosius a separate character
from Arthur) might have entered, using Bede’s untenable date for Badon, the notice of
‘Arthur’s’ victory at Year 72, a year which he might have regarded as A.D. 493—but might
also have left Ambrosius in the first half of the fifth century, simply by copying the
Introduction to the Table just as he found it. The third scribe (also thinking Ambrosius and
Arthur two separate characters), might have regarded the Table as dated instead from the
Passion of Christ, might have ‘converted’ it to an anno-domini Table by the addition of 27
years, thus moving the notice of Badon (and Arthur) to 419 or 420—and might then have
placed the notice of (Arthur’s victory at) Camlann at its Year 93, i.e., at A.D. 540 or 541,
whilst also leaving the Ambrosius of the Introduction in the fifth century. And so might
Arthur, moved forward a century or so, have come to be seen as a British (rather than a
Roman) hero, and stories (such as those of his dog’s cairn, or his son’s grave) have grown
up around him—even though his very existence might originally have been limited to a
single text of the Historia Brittonum, and even though he might not have been well enough
known to find his way into the Life of David or the Armes Prydein.
Thus might the story of ‘Ambrosius Aurelianus’ have changed with each new writer.
Yet Geoffrey of Monmouth, with access to all three of the early texts (and to be sure a
knowledge of the Life of David), might have worked out how the account had changed over
the course of the centuries—but might have decided to exploit the situation so as to leave
Arthur as the ultimate (British) hero at Badon, and, additionally, so as to show the
possibility of textual corruption in the areas of name and chronology. All of this he might
have done within the context of raising the image of the early British kings, and promoting
the talents of British storytellers over those of ‘foreign’ ones.

69
Geoffrey’s literary rivals are William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, and
they do not use the De Excidio at all as a source for the British period, relying instead on
Book I of Bede’s Historia Eccelesiastica, on the chronological outline of the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, and to a very limited degree on the Historia Brittonum. Indeed, William
suggests that Gildas is not worth reading, and Henry thinks that the Historia Brittonum is
really the work of ‘Gildas’. But by ignoring the real Gildas and making very selective use
of the early Historia, they seriously limit their perspective of the early British period. For
example, when writing of Arthur, the former places him in the fifth century by the side of
Ambrosius (ca 476), whilst the latter puts Ambrosius in the time soon after the arrival of
the Saxons, and Arthur in the 520s. Yet both rely for their dates on the unrelated and hence
unreliable chronological outline of the Saxon Chronicle. And William also appears to
confuse the account of Arthur by accrediting him with the singlehanded killing of nine
hundred of the Saxons, whilst Henry says, rather oddly, that not one of the Britons gave
Arthur any assistance at Badon.
In addition, both of them promote themselves over others, both are obsequious in
their addresses to their patrons, both are pro-Roman and pro-Saxon, one of them thinks
himself a successor to Bede, and the other prates about the nobility of the historian (and so
by implication his own nobility). Henry stresses the fact that he uses Bede at the specific
request of Alexander of Lincoln, and William states that he writes his history of England
out of love for his country, but also says that he can vouch nothing for the truth of his
account, that its truth shall lie in his sources, and that he cares nothing for the judgements
of his peers. And whilst the one speaks of the stories told by ‘foolish Britons’, the other
tells of ‘brutish’ creatures, who know nothing of history, and men without patronage who
are condemned to eternal silence. Such words are, quite simply, inflammatory. Geoffrey
speaks of bombastic utterances from foreign gardens, and he speaks of the need to write of
Arthur and of the other British kings. To his mind, the bombast of which he speaks may
well be that of those two ‘foreigners’, William and Henry. His stories of Arthur and the
others may be his reply to them.
Geoffrey dedicates his Historia to Robert of Gloucester, as does William his Gesta
Regum—but he is something less than complimentary in his presentation of different
Gloucester-personages, making the dukes of Gloucester the underlings of British kings and
having one of them slay the leader of the Saxons after the bishop of the town has
determined that he is to be put to death. He includes, as a text within a text, the supposed
‘Prophecies’ of Ambrosius Merlinus, complete with what he claims to be the original
dedication to Henry’s earlier patron, Alexander, saying that he was ‘compelled’ by him—a
man, like the bishop of Gloucester, ‘of the greatest scrupulousness and sagacity’, a man
served by very many—to carry across the ‘Prophecies’ from Britannic into Latin. Yet he
then provides a clearly fictitious text based largely on the set of minor predictions made by
Ambrosius (Aurelianus) about the defeat of the Saxons, and on the prediction made by the

70
earlier boy on the end of Guorthigirn. The two dedications, and especially the second, are
therefore unlikely to have been completely sincere.
Geoffrey, it can be argued, takes up into his own text very many of the problems
which have appeared in Bede, the Historia Brittonum, and the works of Henry and
William—and all apparently by design. For example, he places Aurelius Ambrosius and
Arthur both side by side and separate, in the fifth and in the sixth centuries respectively;
and he leaves some doubt about whether the final victory belongs to him or to Arthur. He
tells of Arthur’s singlehanded slaughter of hundreds of men, and only after this of how the
Britons then follow him in close formation. He allows by his choice of words that Arthur
is not really dead. He adapts the supposed link between Ambrosius and the Roman
emperors to make Bede’s last Roman emperor, Constantine, into a British king, who is the
father of his own Aurelius Ambrosius. He uses and re-uses the themes of the various
David-stories, even to the point of creating a new—and indeed fatherless—boy named
‘Merlinus’—who makes two separate sets of prophecies, just as does the earlier prophetic
boy. He tells more than once how ‘Vortigern’ (the ‘supreme tyrant’ or ‘supreme king’)
becomes overking of the British.
He provides a number of confusions of chronology and genealogy; creates obvious
parallels between his various characters’ motives and actions; leaves in his text a very large
number of contradictions; creates what might be called ‘literary uncles’; makes fairly
obvious references to contemporary political issues, as well as assertions about the correct
British faith; appears to present a number of British in-jokes; 163 makes cryptic allusions to
sources (especially to ‘Gildas’, and to Bede’s ‘lucid’ history); promotes the British brand of
religion at the expense of the Roman, and the British kind of valour at the cost of both the
Roman and the Saxon; and apparently leaves a number of possible clues as to his method
of working.
Since, however, he appears to deal with one or two of these matters at a time within a
number of fairly short episodes, the actual discussion of his text will follow the same
format. It will begin just before the time of Maximus.
163 T. D. Crawford, ‘On the Linguistic Competence of Geoffrey of Monmouth’, Medium
Ævum 51 (1982), 152–162, discusses the question of whether Geoffrey knows enough
Welsh to translate the supposed Britannic sourcebook (p. 152), and points out that
Geoffrey’s statement on the origin of the British language would be lost on any reader who
did not know Welsh (p. 155). However, he takes Geoffrey as a Norman (p. 158).