A Latin Chronicler.—­One chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth, although he wrote in Latin, must receive some attention because of his vast influence on English poetry.  He probably acquired his last name from being archdeacon of Monmouth.  He was appointed Bishop of St. Asaph in 1152 and died about 1154.  Unlike the majority of the monkish chroniclers, he possessed a vivid imagination, which he used in his so-called History of the Kings of Britain.

Geoffrey pretended to have found an old manuscript which related the deeds of all British kings from Brutus, the mythical founder of the kingdom of Britain, and the great-grandson of Aeneas, to Caesar.  Geoffrey wrote an account of the traditionary British kings down to Cadwallader in 689 with as much minuteness and gravity as Swift employed in the Voyage to Lilliput.  Other chroniclers declared that Geoffrey lied saucily and shamelessly, but his book became extremely popular.  The monks could not then comprehend that the world’s greatest literary works were to be products of the imagination.

In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain we are given vivid pictures of King Lear and his daughters, of Cymbeline, of King Arthur and his Knights, of Guinevere and the rest of that company whom later poets have immortalized.  It is probable that Geoffrey was not particular whether he obtained his materials from old chroniclers, Welsh bards, floating tradition, or from his own imagination.  His book left its impress on the historical imagination of the Middle Ages.  Had it not been for Geoffrey’s History, the dramas of King Lear and Cymbeline might never have been suggested to Shakespeare.

Layamon’s Brut.—­About 1155 a Frenchman named Wace translated into his own language Geoffrey of Monmouth’s works.  This translation fell into the hands of Layamon, a priest living in Worcestershire, who proceeded to render the poem, with additions of his own, into the Southern English dialect.  Wace’s Brut has 15,300 lines; Layamon’s, 32,250.  As the matter which Layamon added is the best in the poem, he is, in so far, an original author of much imaginative power.  He is certainly the greatest poet between the Conquest and Chaucer’s time.

A selection from the Brut will give the student an opportunity of comparing this transition English with the language in its modern form:—­

“And Ich wulle varan to Avalun:    And I will fare to Avalon,
To vairest alre maidene           To the fairest of all maidens,
To Argante ethere quene,            To Argante the queen,
Alven swiethe sceone;               Elf surpassing fair;
And heo scal mine wunden          And she shall my wounds
Makien alle isunde,               Make all sound,
Al hal me makien                  All hale me make
Mid halweige drenchen.             With healing draughts. 
And seoethe Ich cumen wulle         And afterwards I will come
To mine kineriche                 To my kingdom
And wunien mid Brutten            And dwell with Britons
Mid muchelere wunne.”              With much joy.

With this, compare the following lines from Tennyson’s The Passing of Arthur:—­