Historia Regum Britanniae - Sources

Sources

See also: Brut y Brenhinedd#Brut Tysilio and Geoffrey's putative British source

Geoffrey claimed to have translated the Historia into Latin from "a very ancient book in the British tongue", given to him by Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford. However, few modern scholars take this claim seriously. Much of the work appears to be derived from Gildas's 6th century polemic The Ruin of Britain, Bede's 8th century Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the 9th century History of the Britons ascribed to Nennius, the 10th century Welsh Annals, medieval Welsh genealogies (such as the Harleian Genealogies) and king-lists, the poems of Taliesin, the Welsh tale Culhwch and Olwen, and some of the medieval Welsh Saint's Lives, expanded and turned into a continuous narrative by Geoffrey's own imagination.

Read more about this topic:  Historia Regum Britanniae

Famous quotes containing the word sources:

    “The sources of poetry are in the spirit seeking completeness.”
    —Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)

    “I count him a great man who inhabits a higher sphere of thought, into which other men rise with labor and difficulty; he has but to open his eyes to see things in a true light, and in large relations; whilst they must make painful corrections, and keep a vigilant eye on many sources of error.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “My profession brought me in contact with various minds. Earnest, serious discussion on the condition of woman enlivened my business room; failures of banks, no dividends from railroads, defalcations of all kinds, public and private, widows and orphans and unmarried women beggared by the dishonesty, or the mismanagement of men, were fruitful sources of conversation; confidence in man as a protector was evidently losing ground, and women were beginning to see that they must protect themselves.”
    —Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)