List of legendary kings of Britain

The following list of legendary kings of Britain (Welsh : Brenin y Brythoniaid, Brenin Prydain) derives predominantly from Geoffrey of Monmouth's circa 1136 work Historia Regum Britanniae ("the History of the Kings of Britain"). Geoffrey constructed a largely fictional history for the Britons (ancestors of the Welsh, the Cornish and the Bretons), partly based on the work of earlier medieval historians like Gildas, Nennius and Bede, partly from Welsh genealogies and saints' lives, partly from sources now lost and unidentifiable, and partly from his own imagination (see bibliography). Several of his kings are based on genuine historical figures, but appear in unhistorical narratives. A number of Middle Welsh versions of Geoffrey's Historia exist. All post-date Geoffrey's text, but may give us some insight into any native traditions Geoffrey may have drawn on.

Contents

• Brutus of Britain (Brutus of Troy)
• Lucius of Britain
• Des grantz geanz
• Scota
• Monarchs derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth
• Forgeries
• Pseudo-Berossus
• Iolo Morganwg's Welsh Kings
• Tea Tephi
• See also
• References
• Sources
• Bibliography

Geoffrey's narrative begins with the exiled Trojan prince Brutus, after whom Britain is supposedly named, a tradition previously recorded in less elaborate form in the 9th century Historia Brittonum . Brutus is a descendant of Aeneas, the legendary Trojan ancestor of the founders of Rome, and his story is evidently related to Roman foundation legends.

The kings before Brutus come from a document purporting to trace the travels of Noah and his offspring in Europe, and once attributed to the Chaldean historian Berossus, but now considered to have been a fabrication by the 15th-century Italian monk Annio da Viterbo, who first published it. Renaissance historians like John Bale and Raphael Holinshed took the list of kings of "Celtica" given by pseudo-Berossus and made them into kings of Britain as well as Gaul. John Milton records these traditions in his History of Britain, although he gives them little credence.

Brutus of Britain (Brutus of Troy)

Historia Brittonum, which is a history of the Celtic Britons written in north Wales in 829–30, claims that the Celtic Britons were descended from Trojans from the ancient city of Troy, who were the first to settle on the island of Britain. ^[1] It is also claimed in Historia Brittonum, as well as Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth that the first king of the Britons was Brutus of Troy and that the island of Britain was named after him. ^{[2] [3] [4]}

Lucius of Britain

Lucius was a legendary 2nd-century king of the Britons traditionally credited with introducing Christianity into Britain. Lucius is first mentioned in a 6th-century version of the Liber Pontificalis , which says that he sent a letter to Pope Eleutherius asking to be made a Christian. The story became widespread after it was repeated in the 8th century by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People , who added the detail that after Eleutherius granted Lucius' request, the Britons followed their king in conversion and maintained the Christian faith until the Diocletianic Persecution of 303. Later writers expanded the legend, giving accounts of missionary activity under Lucius and attributing to him the foundation of certain churches. ^[5]

There is no contemporary evidence for a king of this name. In 1904 Adolf von Harnack proposed that there had been a scribal error in Liber Pontificalis with 'Britanio' being written as an erroneous expansion for 'Britio', a citadel of Edessa, present day Şanlıurfa in Turkey. The name of the king of Edessa contemporaraneous with Pope Eleutherius was Lucius Aelius Aurelius Abgar VIII. ^[5]

Des grantz geanz

Des grantz geanz ("Of the Great Giants"), a 14th-century Anglo-Norman poem, contains a variant story regarding Albion, the oldest recorded name for Britain, and also contains a slightly different list of kings. ^{[6] [7]} The poem states that a colony of exiled Greek royals led by a queen called Albina first founded Britain but before their settlement "no one dwelt there". ^[8] Albina subsequently gave her name first to Britain, which was later renamed Britain after Brutus. The poem also attempts by euhemerism to rationalise the legends of giants; Albina is thus described as being "very tall", but is presented as a human queen, a descendant of a Greek king, not a mythological creature.

The Albina myth is also found in some later manuscripts of Wace's Roman de Brut (1155), attached as a prologue. ^[9]

Scota

Scota, in Scottish mythology, and pseudohistory, is the name given to the mythological daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh to whom the Gaels and Scots traced their ancestry. Scota first appeared in literature from the 11th or 12th century and most modern scholars interpret the legends surrounding her to have emerged to rival Geoffrey of Monmouth's claims that the descendants of Brutus (through Albanactus) founded Scotland. ^{[10] [11]} However some early Irish sources also refer to the Scota legends and not all scholars regard the legends as fabrications or as political constructions. ^[12] In the Scottish origin myths, Albanactus had little place and Scottish chroniclers (e.g., John of Fordun and Walter Bower) claimed that Scota was the eponymous founder of Scotland and the Scots long before Albanactus, during the time of Moses.

Monarchs derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey synchronises some of his monarchs with figures and events from the Bible, Greek, Roman and Irish legends, and recorded history. These are given in the "Synchronisation" column of the table below. Geoffrey dated Brutus' arrival in Britain (and subsequent founding of the Trojan-British monarchy) to 1115 BC. ^[13] Geoffrey's book was later retold by Wace (in French) and Layamon (in Middle English); the final column represents Layamon's version.

After the death of Cadwallader, the kings of the Brythons were reduced to such a small domain that they ceased to be kings of the whole Brythonic-speaking area. Two of his relatives, Yvor and Yni, led the exiles back from Brittany, but were unable to re-establish a united kingship. The Anglo-Saxon invaders ruled the south-eastern part of the island of Great Britain, which would become England, after that point in time under the Bretwaldas and later the kings of England. The heirs to the Celtic-British throne continued through the Welsh kings of Gwynedd until that line was forced to submit itself to the Plantagenets in the 13th century. Princes and lords of Gwynedd ruled until the reign of Dafydd III, who ruled from 1282 to 1283. His death marked the end of the house of Brutus. Owen Tudor, grandfather of Henry VII of England, was a maternal descendant of the kings of Gwynedd; Henry's marriage with Elizabeth of York thus signified the merging of the two royal houses (as well as the feuding houses of York and Lancaster).

Forgeries

See also

• List of governors of Roman Britain
• List of legendary rulers of Cornwall
• List of rulers of Gwynedd

Related Research Articles

Geoffrey of Monmouth was a Catholic cleric from Monmouth, Wales, and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur. He is best known for his chronicle The History of the Kings of Britain which was widely popular in its day, being translated into other languages from its original Latin. It was given historical credence well into the 16th century, but is now considered historically unreliable.

Brutus, also called Brute of Troy, is a mythical British king. He is described as a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, known in medieval British legend as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain. This legend first appears in the Historia Brittonum, an anonymous 9th-century historical compilation to which commentary was added by Nennius, but is best known from the account given by the 12th-century chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae.

The Matter of Britain is the body of medieval literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and Brittany and the legendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularly King Arthur. The 12th-century writer Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae is a central component of the Matter of Britain.

Tasciovanus was a historical king of the Catuvellauni tribe before the Roman conquest of Britain.

Cassivellaunus was a historical British military leader who led the defence against Julius Caesar's second expedition to Britain in 54 BC. He led an alliance of tribes against Roman forces, but eventually surrendered after his location was revealed to Julius Caesar by defeated Britons.

Gwendolen, also known as Gwendolin, or Gwendolyn was a legendary ruler of ancient Britain. She came to power in 1115BC.

Leir was a legendary king of the Britons whose story was recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudohistorical 12th-century History of the Kings of Britain. According to Geoffrey's genealogy of the British dynasty, Leir reigned around the 8th century BC, around the time of the founding of Rome. The story was modified and retold by William Shakespeare in his Jacobean tragedy King Lear.

Sisillius I was a legendary king of the Britons as accounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth. He came to power in 753 BC.

The Molmutine Laws were the laws said to have been instituted over the Britons by Dyfnwal Moelmud, who is also referred by the Latin form of his name, Dunvallo Molmutius. The Laws were most famously described by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae. Little remains known of these laws, with surviving Welsh codes simply noting that Dyfnwal's laws were largely superseded by the new codes instituted by Hywel Da. Hywel was said, however, to have retained Dyfnwal's units of measurement.

Ingenius is a legendary king of the Britons as recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistorical work Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1138 CE. Ingenius was the fourth son of King Morvidus and the brother of Gorbonianus, Archgallo, Elidurus, and Peredurus. He came to power in 317BC.

Catellus was a legendary king of the Britons, as recounted in Geoffrey of Monmouth's work Historia Regum Britanniae. He came to power in 269 BC.

Porrex II was a legendary king of the Britons as recounted in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. He came to power in 257 BC.

Historia regum Britanniae, originally called De gestis Britonum, is a fictitious historical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons over the course of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxons assumed control of much of Britain around the 7th century. It is one of the central pieces of the Matter of Britain.

Peredur is the name of a number of men from the boundaries of history and legend in sub-Roman Britain. The Peredur who is most familiar to a modern audience is the character who made his entrance as a knight in the Arthurian world of Middle Welsh prose literature.

Innogen is a character in the Historia Regum Britanniae and subsequent medieval British pseudo-history. She was said to have been a Greek princess, the daughter of King Pandrasus, and to have become Britain's first Queen consort as the wife of Brutus of Troy, the purported first king of Britain who was said to have lived around the 12th century BC. Her sons Locrinus, Camber, and Albanactus went on to rule Loegria, Cambria, and Alba respectively.

Guiderius is a legendary British king according to Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae and related texts. He can probably be identified as deriving from the historical Togodumnus.

Hafren is a legendary British princess who was drowned in the River Severn by her repudiated stepmother Gwendolen. The legend appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistorical chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae. According to Geoffrey, Hafren is the eponym of the Severn, which bears one of Britain's most ancient river names.

Brut y Brenhinedd is a collection of variant Middle Welsh versions of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin Historia Regum Britanniae. About 60 versions survive, with the earliest dating to the mid-13th century. Adaptations of Geoffrey's Historia were extremely popular throughout Western Europe during the Middle Ages, but the Brut proved especially influential in medieval Wales, where it was largely regarded as an accurate account of the early history of the Celtic Britons.

A number of medieval chronicles of the history of Wales survive, notably the 9th century Historia Brittonum and the 10th century Annales Cambriae. These early chronicles are written in Latin, while from the 12th century, some are composed in Middle Welsh. The oldest surviving manuscripts of chronicles kept in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth date to the 13th century.

Gogmagog was a legendary giant in the Matter of Britain. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, he was a giant inhabitant of Cornwall, who was thrown off a cliff during a wrestling match with Corineus.

References

Sources

• Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae (1136) – online at Wikisource
• Pseudo-Berossus, The Travels of Noah into Europe – online at Annomundi.com
• Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles: "The History of England" Vol 1 – online at Project Gutenberg
• John Milton, "The History of Britain", Prose Works Vol 2 – online at The Online Library of Liberty

Bibliography

• Asher, R. E. (1993). National Myths in Renaissance France: Francus, Samothes and the Druids. Edinburgh University Press.
• Charles W. Dunn, in a revised translation of Sebastian Evans, History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth. E.P. Dutton: New York. 1958. ISBN   0-525-47014-X
• John Morris. The Age of Arthur: A History of the British Isles from 350 to 650. Barnes & Noble Books: New York. 1996 (originally 1973). ISBN   0-7607-0243-8
• John Jay Parry and Robert Caldwell. Geoffrey of Monmouth in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, Roger S. Loomis (ed.). Clarendon Press: Oxford University. 1959. ISBN   0-19-811588-1
• Brynley F. Roberts, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Welsh Historical Tradition, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 20 (1976), 29–40.
• J. S. P. Tatlock. The Legendary History of Britain: Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae and its early vernacular versions. University of California Press. Berkeley. 1950.