SOURCE: An introduction to The “Historia Regum Britannie” of Geoffrey of Monmouth: V, Gesta Regum Britannie, edited and translated by Neil Wright, D. S. Brewer, 1991, pp. ix-cxiii.

In the following excerpt, Wright considers the date of composition and the author of the Gesta Regum Britannie, a 5000-line hexameter version of The History of the Kings of Britain.

I. Date and Authorship

The Gesta Regum Britannie can be dated, though not exactly, through its addressee. In the prologue of the poem (I.16), the dedicatee is referred to as presul Uenetensis or bishop of Vannes; and in the last line of the work (X.501), he is named as Chadiocus. His name, in the form Chadioccus, is also found as an acrostic, set out below, which is spelled out by the opening letters of the ten books of the poem (viz. excluding the short introductory capitula which precede each book):

Caliope...