It belonged to and was probably written by Archdeacon Walter of Oxford, who died in 1151.
This shorter and less polished Latin version of the History is attested in just a handful of manuscripts. Book 2 follows the adventures of three members of Arthur’s court: Merlin, Sir Pellias, and Sir Gawaine. Book 1 covers Arthur’s quests for kingship, the sword Excalibur, and Guinevere’s hand in marriage. This volume presents the first English translation of what may have been his source, the anonymous First Variant Version. The Story of King Arthur and His Knights is split into two books. The History survives in hundreds of manuscripts in Geoffrey’s standard text.
It was the ultimate source of tales retold in Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and King Lear, and Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Merlin, Guinevere, Mordred, Yvain, Gawain, and other popular Arthurian figures first come to life in Geoffrey’s chronicle.
Its sweeping account of the Britons began long before the Romans and challenged the leading histories of the twelfth century. The actors perform the story of the murder of a sleeping king and Claudius. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain-the earliest work to detail the legendary foundation of Britain by Brutus the Trojan and the life of King Arthur-was among the most widely read books throughout the Middle Ages. The kings son Hamlet has come home to Elsinore for his fathers funeral.
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