This is Geoffrey's own retelling of the earlier Myrddin legend from Welsh tradition. Lastly, Geoffrey wrote the Vita Merlini ("The Life of Merlin") at some point between 11. It contains little trustworthy historical fact, and many scholars are tempted to agree with William of Newburgh, who wrote around 1190 that "it is quite clear that everything this man wrote about Arthur and his successors, or indeed about his predecessors from Vortigern onwards, was made up, partly by himself and partly by others, either from an inordinate love of lying, or for the sake of pleasing the Britons." Further, his structuring and reshaping of the Merlin and Arthur myths has had a huge influence in the perception of those figures ever since: he may be viewed as the major establisher of the Arthurian canon. Much of it is based on the Historia Britonum, a 9th century Welsh-Latin historical compilation, Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum and Gildas's 6th century polemic De Excidio Britanniae, expanded with material from Roman histories, Welsh legend, genealogical tracts, and Geoffrey's own imagination.
Geoffrey claims to have translated it from an ancient book written in Welsh, although few take this claim seriously. It purports to relate the history of Britain, from its first settlement by Brutus, a descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, to the death of Cadwallader in the 7th century, taking in Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain, two kings, Leir and Cymbeline, later immortalised by Shakespeare, and one of the earliest developed narratives of King Arthur. Next was Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), the work best known to modern readers. The first work about this legendary prophet in a language other than Welsh, it was widely read - and believed - much as the prophecies of Nostradamus were centuries later John Jay Parry and Robert Caldwell note that the Prophetiae Merlini "were taken most seriously, even by the learned and worldly wise, in many nations", and list examples of this credulity as late as 1445. Geoffrey presented a series of apocalyptic narratives as the work of the earlier Merlin who, until Geoffrey's book came out, was known as "Myrddin". The earliest one to appear was Prophetiae Merlini ("The Prophecies of Merlin"), which he wrote at some point before 1135. This is Giles' 1848 revision of Thompson's 1718 edition.Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote several works of interest. More medieval romance than history, Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae represents the oldest versions we have of many legends of Britain, populated by such characters as the Leir, Cymbeline, Uther and Arthur Pendragon and Cadwallader. Download cover art Download CD case insert History of the Kings of Britain
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