The Conquest of the Past in The History of the Kings of Britain

Abstract

Abstract This article surveys a range of twentieth‐century scholarly discourse concerning Geoffrey of Monmouth's apparent political sympathies in his mid‐twelfth‐century Anglo‐Latin The History of the Kings of Britain , especially in regard to his stance toward the Welsh and his use of source materials. In contrast to recent critics, especially Monika Otter and Michelle Warren, who see Geoffrey's enormously popular and influential pseudo‐history as fundamentally ambivalent or ambiguous, the present author aligns Geoffrey with his Norman patrons and contends that The History of the Kings of Britain creates a past that posits the ancient Britons, the ancestors of the twelfth‐century Welsh, as eminently fit for conquest. In terms of its general historiographic emplotment, The History of the Kings of Britain narrates pre‐Saxon British history as a long decline. In tandem with this larger narrative structure, Geoffrey's strategic use of the prophecies of Merlin likewise subverts any potential rallying point for British or Welsh resurgence. Both historiographically and teleologically, Geoffrey's History of the Kings of Britain ultimately works against the ancient Britons and their Welsh descendants, legitimating Norman colonial ambitions in Wales.

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