The History of the Kings of Britain

The History of the Kings of Britain marches through approximately 1,900 years of British monarchs, beginning with Brutus and his founding of Britain around 1200 BCE, through Cadwallader’s departure from Britain in the seventh century CE. Scholars described the text as an epic in verse, meaning it may take certain historical facts as a jumping off point but so widely diverges from those facts as to become fiction. Notably, accepted evidence does not support the existence of a founding king called Brutus, a Briton called Belinus sacking Rome, or a King Arthur being born by mystical circumstances. Further, the highly specific information Geoffrey provides about troop types, movements, and commanders—as well as speeches and conversations—are romanticized creations.

Suggestive of this purpose is Geoffrey’s use of narrative themes and techniques evident in ancient epics like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil’s Aeneid. These include Geoffrey’s allusion to Britain’s founding as being divinely ordained, his description of battle scenes in the epic style, and his attention to prophecy in both pagan and Christian contexts.

The theme of homecoming is central to Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid. Homer’s Odysseus travels from Troy back to his ancestral homeland Ithaca, while Virgil’s Roman Aeneas travels from his ancestral home, Troy after its destruction, to his new and divinely ordained home, Rome. Geoffrey’s Brutus is Aeneas’ grandson, who is prophesied to cause his parents’ death. This prophecy is fulfilled, though unintentionally, when Brutus’ mother dies in childbirth and his father by an errant hunting arrow. Brutus is expelled from Italy and wanders through Greece, where he encounters fellow Trojans and hears Diana’s instructions to lead them to Britain. In this, Geoffrey carefully treads. He invokes the ancient pagan gods to explain Brutus’ decision to travel to Britain but never affirms their existence. Instead, Geoffrey hedges that Brutus himself was unsure whether he dreamt Diana’s visit.

Geoffrey’s text is as concerned with battles as it is with kings since his kings fight both invaders and civil conflicts. Similar to Homer’s Iliad, battle scenes often unfold in a conventional narrative structure (see “Language” in Symbols and Motifs). Geoffrey’s kings also share the bravado and ferocity characteristic of warriors in the epic tradition. In Part 3, Cassivelaunus rejects Caesar’s demand for tribute, declaring that Britons “are more used to making allies than to enduring the yoke of bondage” (89). In a subsequent battle, Cassivelaunus eventually loses due not to his own or his army’s deficiencies, but because Androgeus betrays his own people. This early instance of the Britons having only themselves to fear echoes throughout the text as Geoffrey recounts repeated instances of civil discord (See “Civil Discord” in Symbols and Motifs). Arthur, too, is ruthless when battling his enemies, whether Picts, Scots, or Romans.

Geoffrey incorporates prophecy and divine provenance, staples of ancient mythology, in both the founding of Rome and in the births of two central figures in The History of the Kings of Britain—Merlin and Arthur. Aeneas, the mythical founder of Rome in Virgil’s Aeneid, is a son of the goddess Aphrodite/Venus, making Brutus her grandson. Prophecies also dictate Brutus’ expulsion from Italy, which leads to his journey to Britain, as ordered by the goddess Diana. As previously mentioned, Geoffrey alludes to the goddesses without outwardly admitting their existence. In this way, he notes their significance in Roman legend without seeming to betray his own Christian beliefs.

Through Merlin and Arthur, Geoffrey presents both prophecy and divine origins in a Christianized context. Merlin’s father is described as an incubus demon—part man and part angel. The existence of incubus demons was accepted both before and after Christianity. Merlin possesses prophetic abilities that enable him to help the British kings succeed in their endeavors. Geoffrey claims to have translated these prophecies in book five, and audiences at the time of publication would have recognized many of them as having been fulfilled. While Arthur does not have the gift of prophecy or divine origins, his birth is the result of Merlin’s magic: He transforms Arthur’s father, Utherpendragon, into the likeness of Ygerna’s husband so that she conceives Arthur believing that she is doing so with her husband. At the end of Part 8, “an Angelic Voice” informs Cadwallader that God does not want the Britons to rule Britain.