Smittims
To pick up the discussion, Russell's position is that GoM's "History of the British Kings" does incorporate some grains of truth but the compilation of a single narrative from various sources resulted in a hotch-potch which seriously clouds what is credible. It is interesting that he was ridiculed by his contemporaries who doubted the veracity of his writing and more modern historians who have the benefit of more thorough and disciplined research as well as archaeology. Russell teases out some of G o M's resources (such as Caesar's "Gallic Wars" where he miscounts the number of incursions into Britannia by adding a confused, third visit.) and implies that there are other sources which are now missing. I think the issue of intent is, as you suggest, important and even more so when you can understand who the original audience was for this book. (In GoM's case this meant the Normans as well as a desire to put the "Celtic" Welsh centre stage and so discredit the "Saxon English.) Unfortunately, Geoffrey's exercise was poorly executed and includes a lot of fantasy. I like the book but , as a piece of historical research, I feel it palls in comparison with other ancient historians as diverse as Suetonius and Gregory of Tours who were more thorough and capable as historians. He is not much better than Gerald of Wales as a chronicler of history and has the disadvantage of not being as amusing either! What is amazing is how the stories from one book have , unconsciously, been burned in to the national identity.
The fact that G of M recounted stories about Iron Age kings through an early medieval lens makes the stories regarding Lear, etc a furtile ground for the likes of Shakespeare to project his own politcal bias regarding late 16th Century . The stories are good enough to remain popular 900 years after they were written. Both writers and their audience seemed to view Roman history as being identical to early medieval periods and it was only until 17th / 18th century that you find people taking a more "serious" approach. When you read about Roman armies in much medieval literature, for example, what is being described is a medieval army - a good example of this is in much of the Arthurian tales that were popular at that time.
Back in the 1990s I spent a lot of time reading medieval literature. For a better "grasp" of that period, I think "Sir Gawain & the Green Knight" takes some beating, albeit it was written long after G o M. This book really strikes me as being "authentic" and, as I think I made the point before, diminishes Victoriana like "Ivanhoe" in my opinion.
As far as the Bible is concerned, I would love to read a book where the NT in particular was framed within a Roman context. Adrian Goldsworthy partly dealt with this in an epilogue to his thorough birography of Augustus but I think that the scope should have been widened. Has anyone ever written about the NT from the presepctive of being a verifiable historical record, I wonder ?
BTW - The new Asterix is pretty good!
To pick up the discussion, Russell's position is that GoM's "History of the British Kings" does incorporate some grains of truth but the compilation of a single narrative from various sources resulted in a hotch-potch which seriously clouds what is credible. It is interesting that he was ridiculed by his contemporaries who doubted the veracity of his writing and more modern historians who have the benefit of more thorough and disciplined research as well as archaeology. Russell teases out some of G o M's resources (such as Caesar's "Gallic Wars" where he miscounts the number of incursions into Britannia by adding a confused, third visit.) and implies that there are other sources which are now missing. I think the issue of intent is, as you suggest, important and even more so when you can understand who the original audience was for this book. (In GoM's case this meant the Normans as well as a desire to put the "Celtic" Welsh centre stage and so discredit the "Saxon English.) Unfortunately, Geoffrey's exercise was poorly executed and includes a lot of fantasy. I like the book but , as a piece of historical research, I feel it palls in comparison with other ancient historians as diverse as Suetonius and Gregory of Tours who were more thorough and capable as historians. He is not much better than Gerald of Wales as a chronicler of history and has the disadvantage of not being as amusing either! What is amazing is how the stories from one book have , unconsciously, been burned in to the national identity.
The fact that G of M recounted stories about Iron Age kings through an early medieval lens makes the stories regarding Lear, etc a furtile ground for the likes of Shakespeare to project his own politcal bias regarding late 16th Century . The stories are good enough to remain popular 900 years after they were written. Both writers and their audience seemed to view Roman history as being identical to early medieval periods and it was only until 17th / 18th century that you find people taking a more "serious" approach. When you read about Roman armies in much medieval literature, for example, what is being described is a medieval army - a good example of this is in much of the Arthurian tales that were popular at that time.
Back in the 1990s I spent a lot of time reading medieval literature. For a better "grasp" of that period, I think "Sir Gawain & the Green Knight" takes some beating, albeit it was written long after G o M. This book really strikes me as being "authentic" and, as I think I made the point before, diminishes Victoriana like "Ivanhoe" in my opinion.
As far as the Bible is concerned, I would love to read a book where the NT in particular was framed within a Roman context. Adrian Goldsworthy partly dealt with this in an epilogue to his thorough birography of Augustus but I think that the scope should have been widened. Has anyone ever written about the NT from the presepctive of being a verifiable historical record, I wonder ?
BTW - The new Asterix is pretty good!
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