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From: Volucris <>
Subject: Re: Anna of Arimathea - who is HER husband?
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 16:41:33 -0700
References: <c9d.18cc1ac6.341b251c@aol.com><mailman.2267.1189729028.7287.gen-medieval@rootsweb.com>
In-Reply-To: <mailman.2267.1189729028.7287.gen-medieval@rootsweb.com>


Hi Will,

An interesting post you made here. Friday, dusting the bookshelves, I
came across an English book I bought in Canada in 2000:

Steve Blake, Scott Lloyd with John Baldock, 'The Keys to Avalon. The
true location of Arthur's kingdom revealed' (2000).; HB ISBN 1 86204
735 9 and PB ISBN 1 86204 723 5. Published in the USA in 2000 by
Element Books, Inc., 160 North Washington Street, Boston, MA 02114.

It seems that Geoffrey translated a book in the Welsh language into
Latin, that Walter the archdeacon of Oxford brought with him from his
travels to Wales. In translating the text Geoffrey interpretated
wrongly the geographical names with the consequense that (his-)stories
happening in the past of Wales were situated in Great Brittain (England
+Wales+Scotland). These stories as Geoffrey related them have been
long regarded long as real. They have even been politically exploited
but as time went by and new generations of reseachers and historians
found faults, Geoffreys work has been categorised as a fancyfull mix
of facts and fiction.

'Brittain' in 1136 should be read as Wales. The authors deduced that
as Geoffrey was translating a Welsh book there may have been more
Welsh versions of the text he had in front of him. Those versions do
indeed exist. There are over 70 surviving manuscripts of a Welsh text
known as Brut Y Brenhinedd (Chronicle of the Kings). These manuscripts
have been thought versions of a Welsh translation of the Latin
translation of Geoffrey. The Brut has details that Geoffrey's
translation does not have:

"within Geoffrey's translations there are numerous instances where the
name is still to be found in its original Welsh form alongside the
'corrected' location provided for the book's Norman audience." "These
corrections - or 'explanations' - were absent from nearly all of the
Welsh copies of the Brut, presumably because because the latter were
intended for a Welsh audience who would have known where these places
were."

So Geoffrey kind of corrupted the Welsh text and provided all who just
read his work a wrong track for study, research and debate. It is not
my intention to claim the work of Geoffrey is factual, but it seems
that in the Welsh versions of the Brut there may be more real facts
and hints that meet the eye than in Geoffreys work. So anyone quoting
"The History of the kings of Britain" should stop doing that. Try the
above mentioned book as an eye opener and for some new research
tracks.

I can say no more on the subject as I just started reading it again in
my spare time.

Hans Vogels




On 14 sep, 02:15, WJhonson <> wrote:
> <<In a message dated 09/13/07 16:44:24 Pacific Standard Time, Jwc1870 writes:
> I seem to recall reading in the forward of my penguin
> paperback edition of Geoffrey of Monmouth`s " History of the Kings of Britain" that
> Geoffrey copied a lot of his material from earlier work written by Welsh monks
> which doubtless came from the lips of Welsh poets and genealogists who had
> it from the lips of their teachers, et cetera. >>
>
> --------------------
>
> Geoffrey states that he got his material from an old book. The accepted wisdom is either that he made it all up which seems hardly likely if you read it; OR that he was relating actual stories mixed in with some of his own fiction.
>
> Certainly it seems pretty odd that he would believe that King Arthur (who per the loose chronology I've built based on Geoffrey, must have reigned around 500) had actually conquered Paris and all of Gaul, etc, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark....
>
> That part, I can certainly believe, Geoffrey very greatly exaggerated. Arthur it seems, based simply on the *amount* of material he gives him and his exploits, was the main point of the work, although we don't get *to* Arthur until the last few "books" (12 books in all).
>
> He mentions Merlin here and there, but quite a lot of the book is very dry detailing of genealogies, apparently stretching back to perhaps 1500 to 2000 BC, not all of which obviously connect to each other. If this is a work of pure fiction is a very boring one, and judged by the things he says about Arthur he certainly *could* have made up a lot more about everyone else. If you're going to write a whopper of fiction pretending to be fact, why make parts of it dreadfully dull?
>
> In particular, although he claims British lineage for Constantine the Great among others, he doesn't really dwell on what Constantine exactly did. Seems a bit odd to just skip merrily past one of the greatest leaders of the past if your main point is to show how amazing the British were.
>
> Will Johnson


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