History of the Kings of Britain Review

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History of the Kings of Britain ReviewGeoffrey of Monmouth is the man who really started the "King Arthur Craze" of the 12th & 13th centuries. After writing "The History of the Kings of Britain" we have the explosion of works by Chretien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Marie de France, Gottfried von Strassburg, the Vulgate Cycle and all the rest, eventually culminating in the 15th century with Le Morte D'Arthur. No matter what oral tradition may have been in place before this time (the "little book" loaned to Geoffrey?), this is THE book that starts the true interest in The Matter of Britain.
While King Arthur is the centerpiece of the work, this book contains many tales, many of which were later reworked by other authors, most notably Llyr (Lear) and his three daughters.
This book is not a history in the modern sense. "History" derives from "historia", a story, a tale; such "historical" stories were meant, first and foremost, to be moral, didactic lessons on how to (or how NOT to) conduct one's life. Very little in this book could be construed by modern standards to be a "true history"; conversely, here are tales of nobility, gallantry, perfidy, excess, and the like. The characters are exemplars, not real people. The book, starting with the Fall of Troy, leads towards the glory of King Arthur and then falls away from this point, with the slow decline of the Britons in the face of the Anglo-Saxons.
This book is not an easy read by modern standards. On the other hand, it was a medieval "best seller", a book for which there are dozens of manuscripts to sort out (often with slight differences in the text). If you have a real interest in the Arthurian legends or in medieval literature in general, you owe it to yourself to read this volume. While the tales of the Mabinogian may be older, this is the spark-point that introduces Europe to King Arthur.History of the Kings of Britain Overview"The History of the Kings of Britain" is a mythical historical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons in a chronological narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans of Homer's Iliad, the founding the British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxons invasion of Britain around the 7th century. Very entertaining and believed to be the source of at least two Shakespeare plays, "King Lear" and "Cymbeline." There is also an account of Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain, and the story of Merlin, Uther Pendragon, and King Arthur and the historical Conan.

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