Texts
Historia regum Britanniae
Incoming data
Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistorical narrative of the kings of Britain, from the foundation of Britain to the Anglo-Saxon conquest.
Manuscript witnesses
MS
Cambridge, University Library, MS Ff. 1. 27/pp. 253-642, 41-72
rubric: Incipit uaticinium Merlini incipit: Sedente itaque Vortegerno
p. 610–
MS
Dublin, Trinity College, MS 514/ff. 78-92
incipit: Sedente itaque Uortigerno
Book VII, containing the prophecies of Merlin.
f. 79v–
MS
London, British Library, MS Harley 4003
Ten books, lacking the beginning of book 7 (after f. 113), followed by a continuation up to the reign of William Rufus (r. 1087–1100).
f. 81r–
MS
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 4126
According to Friedman, the explicit is written by Poppleton.
f. 211vb.i
MS
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 4126
rubric: Cronica Galfridi Monumentensis. Incipit Ystoria Britonum
f. 134v–
Quoted in
Foras feasa ar ÉirinnSources
Primary sources Text editions and/or modern translations – in whole or in part – along with publications containing additions and corrections, if known. Diplomatic editions, facsimiles and digital image reproductions of the manuscripts are not always listed here but may be found in entries for the relevant manuscripts. For historical purposes, early editions, transcriptions and translations are not excluded, even if their reliability does not meet modern standards.
[ed.] [tr.] Reeve, Michael D. [ed.], and Neil Wright [tr.], Geoffrey of Monmouth. The history of the kings of Britain: an edition and translation of De gestis Britonum, Arthurian Studies, 69, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2007.
[ed.] Wright, Neil [ed.], The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth, vol. 1: Bern, Burgerbibliothek, MS 568, Cambridge: Brewer, 1985.
[ed.] [tr.] Wright, Neil [ed.], The Historia regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth, vol. 2: The first variant version: a critical edition, Cambridge: Brewer, 1988.
Secondary sources (select)
Dumville, David N., “An early text of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae and the circulation of some Latin histories in twelfth-century Normandy”, Arthurian Literature 4 (1985): 1–36.
Dumville, David N., “XIV: An early text of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae and the circulation of some Latin histories in twelfth-century Normandy”, in: David N. Dumville, Histories and pseudo-histories of the insular Middle Ages, 316, Aldershot: Variorum, 1990. 1–36. Reprint.
Edel, Doris, “Geoffrey's so-called animal symbolism and insular-Celtic tradition”, in: Doris Edel (ed.), The Celtic west and Europe: studies in Celtic literature and the early Irish church, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001. 264–279.
