"patrick boyd" <boyd@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:43d38eb3$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Hmm. It strikes me that the idle fictions he refers to are those of the
> Britons and the fanciful myths that developed around the name of Arthur,
> with the usual Celtic panoply of magical beasts and heroic feats.
>
Patrick
I take it that you are thinking of tales as are found in The Mabinogion?
Whilst you could be right, I think his main objective is to counter
Geoffrey, for the folowing reasons:
a) the circulation of Geoffrey's work of 1136, a work of which William
would
have been well aware
b) whether William *of Malmesbury*, a historian of *English* history,
would
have been so aware of the oral British tales circulating in Wales (not a
strong point, I accept);
c) Williams own second denunciation "a man worthy to be celebrated, not by
idle fictions, but in authentic history" in which he contrasts "idle
fictions" with "authentic history". Such a contrast has mplicit within it
that the two things being contrasted have both similarity and
dissimilarity - both books in circulation, but one fiction, the other
authentic.
c) Geoffrey's own reaction to William of M: "The kings of the saxons I
leave
to William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon. I recommend these last
to
say nothing at all about the kings of the Britons, seeing that they do not
have in their possession the book in the British language which Walter,
Archdeacon of Oxford, brought from Wales"
>Although in the absence of any real evidence to the contrary (pity
William
>didn't give a bibliography, eh?)
Only it seems with regard to English History - Bede (cited with approval),
Anglo Saxon Chronicle, Elward (cited with disapproval) and Elmer
(disapproval) according to the preface.
>I am much more inclined to believe Gildas, that Ambrosius was the victor
at
>the seige of Badon Hill (and that was the REAL business of that period)
and
>Arthur was a mythical Robin Hood-like figure subsequently historicised.
Ahhh!!!! The age old debate. Did he exist? If not, did we invent him?
Kind regards
Malcolm
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