SOURCE: “The Britains as Trojans: The Legendary World of Geoffrey of Monmouth,” in Racial Myth in English History: Trojans, Teutons, and Anglo-Saxons, Harvest House Ltd., 1982, pp. 7-27.

In the following excerpt, MacDougall discusses the significance of The History of the Kings of Britain, the controversy surrounding its authenticity, and its reception.

In the history of myths of national origin few have been as influential and have had such a curious development as those popularized by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his History of the Kings of Britain. His writing, appearing about 1136, was destined to become “the most famous work of nationalistic historiography in the Middle Ages.”¹ It had a marked influence in subduing the social animosities of the Bretons, Anglo-Saxons, and Normans and drawing them together into a single nation. Geoffrey's fanciful account was used by early Plantagenet monarchs to support their regal claims and for both Tudors and...