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The Sources of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The Stonehenge Story

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Stuart Piggott
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Extract

In a previous paper in ANTIQUITY (September 1941) I indicated briefly the complexity of the interpretation of the jumbled myth, legend and fantasy contained in the Historia Regum Britanniae, and discussed the sources which seem likely to have been used by its unscrupulous author for those parts of the work which purport to deal with the pre-Roman ages of Britain. These sources appear in the main to have been a version of the Historia Britonum of Nennius and a collection of pedigrees of ruling houses of the Welsh Dark Ages; a variety of other classical and Celtic material was laid under contribution for embellishments, but there was certainly nothing that could be connected, even indirectly, with any source earlier than that of the classical writers' accounts of the Roman conquest and occupation of Britain. Geoffrey's prehistory is in fact completely bogus, and while it may sometimes incorporate interesting fragments of early medieval history or legend, it bears no relation whatsoever to the period it professes to chronicle.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 15 , Issue 60 , December 1941 , pp. 305 - 319
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1941

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References

1 Antiquaries Journ., 1923, 111, 239–60.

2 ANTIQUITY, 1936, X, 220–1, with references.

3 cf. the First Report of a Committee of the Southwestern Museums on this problem in Proc. Prehist. Soc. 1941, VII.

4 Map of South Wales showing the distribution of Long Barrows and Megaliths, pp. 7–9 of introduction. (Ordnance Survey, 1936).

5 e.g. John Aubrey, Remains of Gentilisme (Folk-lore Society, 1881), 273.

6 J. J. Parry, The Vita Merlini (Univ. of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature), 20.

7 Chorog, 111, 6, 48 ; Vita Merlini, ll. 908 ff.

8 Vita Merlini, 11. 235–6 . . . aunan gemmasque muantes, poetila que sculpsit guielandus in urbe sigeni. Geoffrey’s reference to Wayland as a worker in precious metals (cf. King Alfred’s hzvaer sint nu thaes whan welandes ban, thaes goldesmithes the waes geo maerost—Boethius De Consol. Philos. 11, VII) suggests a knowledge of the original Norse legend, in which Wayland makes silver-mounted cups from the skulls of Niduth’s children, rather than the French romances, where ‘ Galland ‘ is invariably a magic swordsmith. It was in this latter capacity of course that he gave his name to the famous chambered tomb in Berkshire. (Depping & Michel, Wayland Smith (1847) ; Grinsell in Trans. Newbury F.C., 1939, VIII, 136–9).

9 op. cit. esp. 15–20 ; 127 ff. ; Philolog. Quarterly (Iowa), 1925, IV, 193–207.

10 Early Vaticination in Welsh (Cardiff, 1937).

11 In conversation with my friend Mr Peter Fitzgerald Moore.

12 Mabinogion, Everyman’s Library, no. 97, pp. 33–48.

13 Soc. Antiq. Lond. Research Comm. Reports : Richborough I, 35 ; 11, 3–4 ; 111, 5.

14 ANTIQUITY, 1941, XV, 284.

15 Antiquaries Journ., 1939, XIX, 372–3.

16 For Iron Age cauldrons in Ireland see Mahr in Proc. R. Irish Acad., 1934, XLII, Sec. c. 11–29.

17 Oxoniensia, 1940, V, 166–7. The Frilford excavation is described ibid, 1939, IV, 1–70 ; comment on the post structure in the Iron Age temple by Bersu in Proc. Prehist. Soc, 1940, VI, 90, n. 3.

18 Proc. Prehist. Soc., 1936, 11, 1–51 ; 1938, IV, 57 ; Arch.Journ., 1940, XCVI, 193.

19 Antiquaries Journ., 1941, XXI, 97–127; ANTIQUITY, 1941, XV, 142–61. Sir Cyril Fox, commenting on this, urges the importance of distinguishing ‘ between construc tions based on the driven stake and those on the dug-in post ; between hurdlemakers’ and carpenters’ technique—they may have different cultural origins ‘. (In litt., Sept. 1941).

20 cf. Hawkes in Antiquaries Journ., 1933, XIII, 434–5.

21 Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., 1936, LXX, 278–303.

22 I have discussed this more fully in Arch. Journ., 1940, XCVI, 213 ff.

23 R. H. Cunnington, Stonehenge and its date, 1935. But see my review in Arch. Journ., 1935, XCI, 336–9.

24 As for instance the golden sickle for the cutting of the mistletoe, which Fox has plausibly equated with one of gilded bronze in the Late Bronze Age style. Proc. Prehist. Soc, 1939, V, 242.

25 J. R. R. Tolkien in Soc. Ant. Lond. Research Comtn. Report: Lydney, 1932, pp. 132–7.

26 ANTIQUITY, 1938, XII, 323–31.

27 The sense of this passage has been obscured by Giles’ misleading, though ‘ stand ard’ translation. He quite unwarrantably translates moenia as ‘temples’, and seems to miss the point of lineamentis deformibus in taking it to be ‘ mouldering away ‘, whereas it seems more likely that the reference is to a distorted style of representation (i.e. a ‘ Celtic ‘, non-Roman, artistic convention). A similar translation of this phrase to that of Giles is given by A. W. Wade-Evans in his S.P.C.K. edition of the De Excidio, 1938. Rigentia was emended by C. W. King to ringentia, which would give ‘snarling’ : an attractive reading. (I am indebted to Prof. H. E. Butler for his views on the translation I have adopted).

28 Bede, Hist. Eccles. 1, XXX. The only possible example of such reconsecration seems to be at Knowlton in Dorset, with a church as early as the 12th c. in a Bronze Age earthen circle (ANTIQUITY, XIII , 152–5). The site of Yspytty Cynfyn in Cardiganshire, often claimed as a church within a stone circle, has been discussed and discarded by Grimes (op. cit. supra, 21).

29 Wilts. Arch. Mag., 1932, XLV, 525–7.

30 Bede, op. cit. 11, xiii.

31 The incident is described in the early 7th cent, life of St. Samson of Dol, cap. XLVIII (Acta Sanctorum VI (July), 573–91 (Venice 1749), trans, by T. Taylor, S.P.C.K. 1925 ; cf. Hencken, Arch, of Cornwall, 1932, p. 214 ; Crawford in Custom is King, 1936, pp. 195–6).

32 Joscelyn of Furness’ Life of St. Kentigern (late 12th cent.), quoted by Baring- Gould and Fisher, Lives of the British Saints, II, 238.

33 e.g. that of Theodore of Canterbury (late 7th cent.) ; the practice had previously been denounced by the Council of Auxerre in the 6th cent. (Margaret Murray, The Witch Cult in Western Europe, 1921, p. 21).

34 Walter of Coventry, Memoriale (Rolls Series, 1872), 1, 60; ANTIQUITY, 1932, VI, 214–6 ; 1938, XII, 330.

35 Eddi, Vita Wilfridi (Rolls Series, 1879), cap. XIII.

36 ‘Eltutus .... omnium artium philosophiae omnium Britannorutn peritissimus erat, getter eque magicus sagacissimus, et futorum praescius’. (Vita Sansoni, cap. VII).

37 Parry op. cit. ; for the Merlin-Ambrosius equation see also the introductory essays to Merlin (Early English Text Soc., 1899).

38 Mon. Germ. Hist., Chronica Minora III, 171.