Imagining Britain in the Twelfth Century: Geoffrey of Monmouth (and Oxford), bishop of St Asaph

Geoffrey of Monmouth (†1155) had a Welsh surname but seems to have been of Breton descent. In his (in)famous masterwork, Historia regum Britanniae, ‘The History of the Kings of Britain’, he created a phantasy-narrative of almost two millennia of British ‘history’, ending with the entirely historical creation of the kingdom of England by King Æthelstan (927). It is a remarkable work of literature, highly influential for at least five centuries after its publication in the later 1130s. But it was also a work of mockery, with an invented extended prophecy (attributed to Merlin) at its very heart. Geoffrey had created an imagined, complex polity for prehistoric Britain, complete with a sub-Vergilian origin-legend. That detailed polity had a complex history too, and one seemingly replete with messages for his own day.

Any attempt to understand Geoffrey’s work (something not yet achieved) must depend on an analysis of his imagined British polity and the articulation of its various parts. These need to be understood in relation to the contemporary political contexts of the early twelfth century. In sum, the various constitutional (or constitutive) elements of the imagined polity, both political and institutional, need to be reconstructed as narrative and then analysed for their contemporary significance in Geoffrey’s world, thus at last (after almost a millennium) unlocking the message of his Historia.

Selection will be made on the basis of academic merit. Languages: a good working knowledge of Latin will be essential; there is some relevant scholarship in French and German.