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The Growth of the Glastonbury Traditions and Legends in the Twelfth Century1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Antonia Gransden
Antonia Gransden
Affiliation:
Reader in Medieval History, University of Nottingham
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Extract

Arecent scholar has written of ‘the widespread belief, by no means the monopoly of high Anglicans only, that it was to Glastonbury, first of all places in these islands of ours, that the Christian faith first came, and that Glastonbury is therefore the fountain and headspring of Christianity in England, and indeed in the whole of the British Isles’.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , October 1976 , pp. 337 - 358
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

page 337 note 2 Treharne, R. F., The Glastonbury Legends, London 1967; reprinted, without the index, Abacus Books 1975, 4.Google Scholar

page 337 note 3 See Robinson, J. Armitage, Two Glastonbury Legends: King Arthur and St. Joseph of Arimathea, Cambridge 1926, 40–1Google Scholar and n.1.

page 337 note 4 See Sumption, Jonathan, Pilgrimage, an Image of Medieval Religion, London 1975, 165–7.Google Scholar

page 338 note 1 For the lucrativeness of the pilgrim trade see Cheney, C. R. ‘Church-building in the Middle Ages’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, XXXIV (1951–1952), 29–32Google Scholar (reprinted in Cheney, Medieval Texts and Studies, Oxford 1973, 346–63)Google Scholar, and Sumption, op. cit., 158–65.

page 338 note 2 For Glastonbury's claim to the relics of St. Patrick and St. Dunstan see below, 343, 346, 347–9 passim.

page 338 note 3 See the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 1083; The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a revised translation ed. Whitelock, Dorothy with Douglas, D. C. and Tucker, S. I., London 1961, 160Google Scholar, and Adami de Domerham Historia de Rebus gestis Glastoniensibus, ed. Hearne, Thomas, Oxford 1727, i. 113–16.Google Scholar

page 338 note 4 Adam de Domerham, i. 110–13.

page 339 note 1 The Life of St. Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury by Eadmer, ed., with an English translation, Southern, R. W. (Nelson's Medieval Texts, 1962), 50.Google Scholar Cf. Gransden, A., Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307, London 1974, 105.Google Scholar

page 339 note 2 See Gasquet, F. A. and Bishop, E., The Bosworth Psalter, London 1908, 27–39.Google Scholar

page 339 note 3 Adam de Domerham, ii. 334.

page 339 note 4 For this dispute, a full account of which is given by Adam of Domerham (Adam de Domerham, ii. 352f. and see below, 340), see Knowles, M. D., ‘Essays in Monastic History: V. The Cathedral Monasteries’, Downside Review, LI (1933), 94–6Google Scholar, and Robinson, J. Armitage, ‘The First Deans of Wells’, Somerset Historical Essays, London 1921, 68–70. The monks appealed to the antiquity of Glastonbury in the dispute; they ask in one of their articles against Jocelin bishop of Bath (1206–42) ‘An omnibus ecclesiis Angliae Glastoniensis ecclesia sit antiquior et vetustior, saltem per famam?’: Adam de Domerham, ii. 453.Google Scholar

page 339 note 5 Printed in Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. Arnold, Thomas (Rolls Series, 1882, 1885, 2 vols.), i. 3–135Google Scholar, and Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham, ed. Macray, W. D. (Rolls Series, 1863). Cf. Gransden, op. cit., 111–21.Google Scholar

page 339 note 6 For Osbern and his hagiographies see Southern, R. W., Saint Anselm and his Biographer, Cambridge 1963, 248–52.Google Scholar

page 339 note 7 For Eadmer's hagiographies, see Ibid., 277–87.

page 339 note 8 See Gasquet and Bishop, op. cit., 33–4.

page 340 note 1 For the printed edition of Adam's chronicle see above, 338 n. 3.

page 340 note 2 John's chronicle and the continuation are printed in Johannis Glastoniensis Chronica sive Historia de Rebus Glastoniensibus, ed. Hearne, Thomas, Oxford 1726, 2 vols.Google Scholar

page 340 note 3 For Goscelin and other foreign hagiographers see Gransden, op. cit., 107–11.

page 340 note 4 Eadmer says this in his letter to the monks of Glastonbury countering their claim to have the relics of St. Dunstan (cf. below 347 and n. 4); Memorials of St. Dunstan, ed. Stubbs, William (Rolls Series, 1874), 415.Google Scholar

page 340 note 5 His work, De Sanclis Ecclesiae Haugustaldensis, et eorum Miraculis Libellus, is printed in The Priory of Hexham, Us Chroniclers, Endowments and Annals, ed. Raine, James (Surtees Society, XLIV, xlvi, 1864, 1865, 2 vols.), i. 172–203.Google Scholar

page 340 note 6 Printed in Migne, Patrologia Latina, CXCV, coll. 737–90, from Roger Twysden, Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores X, London 1652, i, 369. Cf. The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx by Walter Daniel, ed., with an English translation, Powicke, F. M. (Nelson's Medieval Texts, 1950). xlvii–xlviii.Google Scholar

page 341 note 1 For the value of hagiography for local history see Gransden, op. cit., 69, 71–3, 85–6, 89–91, 106–114 passim.

page 341 note 2 Printed in The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, ed. Griscom, Acton, London 1929.Google Scholar

page 341 note 3 For an example, see below, 353.

page 341 note 4 The text of the De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae as it survives today (see below, 342 and n. 5) is dedicated to Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester (1129–1171), who also ruled Glastonbury as abbot. But originally William addressed the work to the monks of Glastonbury; see Adam de Domerham, i. 121–2. Cf. Armitage Robinson, ‘William of Malmesbury “On the Antiquity of Glastonbury“,’ Somerset Historical Essays, 4.

page 341 note 5 For William's two Lives of St. Dunstan see below, 343. The surviving Life is printed in Memorials of St. Dunstan, ed. Stubbs, 250–324. For the dedication to the monks of Glastonbury, see Ibid., 250.

page 342 note 1 Printed Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi de Gestis Pontificum Anglorum, ed. Hamilton, N.E.S.A. (Rolls Series, 1870).Google Scholar

page 342 note 2 See Ibid., 4, and Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi de Gestis Regum, ed. Stubbs, William (Rolls Series, 1887, 1889, 2 vols.), i. 2.Google Scholar

page 342 note 3 Coleman's work does not survive but William of Malmesbury's Latin translation is extant and is printed in The Vita Wulfstani of William of Malmesbury, ed. Darlington, R. R. (Camden Society, third series, XL, 1928).Google Scholar

page 342 note 4 Memorials of St. Dunstan, ed. Stubbs, 92. See William of Malmesbury's comment in his De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae; Adam de Domerham, i. 71. William makes the same criticism of Osbern in his own Life of St. Dunstan (for which see below, 343); Stubbs, op. cit., 251.

page 342 note 5 The interpolation of the De Antiquitate is fully discussed by Newell, W. W., ‘William of Malmesbury on the Antiquity of Glastonbury’, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, XVIII (1903), 459–512CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and, independently, by Armitage Robinson, ‘William of Malmesbury “On the Antiquity of Glastonbury”’, Somerset Historical Essays, 1–25. For specific references to the fire in two of the interpolations see Adam de Domerham, i. 23, 37. Adam of Domerham's version of the De Antiquitate and his own chronicle (Adam de Domerham, i. 1–122, ii. 303–596, respectively) are in Trinity College, Cambridge, MS.R.5.33, fols. 1–18v, 21–73v, respectively. The De Antiquitate and Adam's chronicle are in the same good thirteenth century charter hand to fol. 51v; thereafter the handwriting of Adam's chronicle becomes progressively rougher. Both De Ant. and Adam's chronicle have long marginal additions in at least three hands of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The MS. is described in James, M. R.Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. Cambridge 1900–1904, ii. 199Google Scholar. For two other references to the MS. see below, 350 n. 4, 6.

page 343 note 1 For the printed edition see above, 341 n. 5.

page 343 note 2 William mentions that he wrote lives of SS. Patrick, Benignus and Indract, besides the two lives of St. Dunstan, in his prologue to the De Antiquitate; Adam de Domerham, i. 3; cf. Ibid., 24, 113. For St. Indract and his connexion with Glastonbury see below, 349 n. 1.

page 343 note 3 See Memorials of St. Dunstan, ed. Stubbs, 252 and n. 4, 258 and n. 1, 263 and n. 1, 265 and n. 1.

page 343 note 4 For ‘B’ and suggestions as to his identity see Stubbs, op. cit., xi–xxvi.

page 343 note 5 Ibid., 6–7.

page 343 note 6 Ibid., 10–11.

page 344 note 1 Historia Ecdesiastica, Bk. I, cap. iv; Bk. IV, cap. xxiv; Venerabilis Baedae Historia Ecdesiastica, ed. Plummer, Charles, Oxford 1896Google Scholar, i. 16, 352. The mission is also noticed in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, s.a. 167; ed. Whitelock, Douglas and Tucker, 8.

page 344 note 2 See Armitage Robinson, Somerset Historical Essays, 10–11.

page 344 note 3 Gesta Regum, ed. Stubbs, i. 23–4.

page 344 note 4 Adam de Domerham, i. 17–18, 28, 53–4. A parallel to this method of renovating a wattle church is in Bede who states that bishop Finan (651–661) built the church at Lindisfarne of hewn oak and thatched it with reeds. Bishop Eadbert (688–698) removed the reeds and covered the whole with plates of lead: Historia Ecclesiastica, Bk. III, cap. XXV; ed. Plummer, i. 181 (cf. Joan, and Taylor, Harold, ‘Pre-Norman Churches of the Border’, Celt and Saxon: Studies in the Early British Border, ed. Chadwick, N. K., Cambridge 1963, 254Google Scholar and n. 1.). Similarly Wilfrid re-roofed the church at York with lead: The life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus, ed., with an English translation, Bertram Colgrave, Cambridge 1927, 34 (cap. xvi; cf. Plummer, op. cic, ii. 188).Google Scholar

page 344 note 5 See Taylor and Taylor, op. cit., 256.

page 344 note 6 Adam de Domerham, i. 54, and Memorials of St. Dunstan, 271.

page 344 note 7 Taylor and Taylor, op. cit., 256, and the same authors' Anglo-Saxon Architecture, Cambridge 1965, i. 251.Google Scholar

page 344 note 8 Adam de Domerham, i. 44–5.

page 345 note 1 See Watkin, Aelred, ‘The Glastonbury “Pyramids” and St. Patrick's “Companions”’, Downside Review, LXIII (1945), 30–41. However, Dom Aelred Watkin's identifications are, perhaps, more definite than the evidence warrants.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 345 note 2 William of Malmesbury's information, brief though it is, on the Anglo-Saxon charters of Glastonbury, which date back to the seventh century, is of great value because many of the texts are lost. See Finberg, H. P. R., The Early Charters of Wessex, Leicester 1964, 15 (Professor Finberg includes William's particulars in his hand-list; op. cit., 109 f.).Google Scholar

page 345 note 3 For William on Glastonbury's relics see Adam de Domerham, i. 18–30 passim (cf. Armitage Robinson, Somerset Historical Essays, 17–21, and the same author's The Times of St. Dunstan, Oxford 1923, 98–103)Google Scholar. William includes SS. Ceolfrid, Aidan, Benedict Biscop, Gildas (see below, 347 and n. 1), and Patrick (see below and the next note). Evidence on the association with Glastonbury of a number of Northumbrian and Celtic saints in the tenth century is provided by the calendar of the Bosworth Psalter from Christ Church, Canterbury, which is based on a Glastonbury calendar almost certainly taken to Canterbury by Dunstan when he became archbishop, in the late tenth century Glastonbury calendar in the Leofric Missal, and in a late tenth or early eleventh century tract on die resting places of saints: printed respectively in Bosworth Psalter, ed. Gasquet and Bishop, 76–118, cf. Korhammer, P. M., ‘The Origins of the Bosworth Psalter’, Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Clemoes, Peter, Cambridge 1972–1975, ii. 175–80Google Scholar; Leofric Missal, ed. Warren, F. E., Oxford 1883, 23–34Google Scholar (for the association of the calendar in the Leofric Missal with Glastonbury, see Ibid., liv); Die Heiligen Englands, ed. Liebermann, F., Hannover 1889.Google Scholar The Bosworth Psalter and Leofric Missal both state that abbot Ceolfrid was buried at Glastonbury: Gasquet and Bishop, op. cit., 21, 106; Warren, op. cit., 31. The Leofric Missal and the tract on the resting places of saints state that Aidan was buried there: Warren, op. cit., 30; Liebermann, op. cit., 17. Moreover, the calendars show that besides the feasts of Ceolfrid and Aidan, those of Benedict Biscop (12 January), Gildas (29 January) and Bridget (1 February) were kept at Glastonbury. Relics of the Northumbrian saints may have reached Glastonbury between c. 900 and c. 970: see Hohler, Christopher, ‘Some service books’, Tenth Century Studies: essays in commemoration of the millenium of the Council of Winchester and the Regularis Concordia, ed. Parsons, David, London and Chichester 1975, 69–71Google Scholar (cf. Adam de Domerham, i. 29). It should also be noted that the calendars in the Bosworth Psalter and Leofric Missal show that the feast of Paulinus (10 October) was observed at Glastonbury, which confirms that he had traditionally some connection with the abbey (see above, 344 and n. 3). I am indebted to Mr. Christopher Hohler and Mr. C. P. Wormald for help with the subject matter of this note.

page 346 note 1 William of Malmesbury had stated that St. Patrick the apostle of Ireland came to Glastonbury; Ibid., 18–19 (cf- Armitage Robinson, Somerset Historical Essays, 12–17). Besides the passage cited from ‘B’, the two calendars cited in the previous note show that the feast of Patrick, ‘the bishop', i.e. the apostle of Ireland (17 March), was keptat Glastonbury. The tenth-eleventh century list of saints’ resting places states simply that ‘St. Patrick’ was buried there (Liebermann, op. cit., 17). The two calendars also show that the feast of Patrick ‘the elder’ (24 August) was kept at Glastonbury, and the Bosworth calendar adds that he rested there; see Gasquet and Bishop, op. cit., 21. For the problem as to which St. Patrick was buried in the abbey see Memorials of St. Dunstan, ed. Stubbs, lxxviii n. 3, 10 and n. 8; Slover, C. H., ‘William of Malmesbury and the Irish’, Speculum, II (1927), 271–3Google Scholar; Finberg, H. P. R., ‘St. Patrick at Glastonbury’, Irish Ecclesiastical Record, CVII (1967), 345–54Google Scholar passim; the latter article is reprinted in the same author's West-Country Historical Studies, Newton Abbot 1969, 70–88. Cf.Google Scholar below, 349.

page 346 note 2 Printed, in Mommsen, T., Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctorum Antiquissimorum, xiii, Chronica Minora, Berlin 1898, iii. 107–10.Google Scholar

page 346 note 3 Ibid., 3, 110. Cf. Tatlock, J. S. P., ‘Caradoc of Llancarfan’, Speculum, XIII (1938), 140.Google Scholar

page 346 note 4 Historia Regum Britanniae, Bk. XII, cap. xx; ed. Acton Griscom, 124 and n. 2, 125, 536.

page 346 note 5 Tatlock, op. cit., 141.

page 347 note 1 Adam de Domerham, i. 18. For a tenth-century tradition connecting Gildas with Glastonbury see above, 345, n. 3.

page 347 note 2 For references to king Arthur in Caradoc's Life see below, 353.

page 347 note 3 Adam de Domerham, i. 19–22. The charter is printed in translation and discussed in Armitage Robinson, Somerset Historical Essays, 12–16. Cf. Finberg, ‘St. Patrick at Glastonbury’, 345–6.

page 347 note 4 Eadmer's letter, which provides the evidence for Glastonbury's claim, is printed in Memorials of St. Dunstan, 412–22. Cf. Ibid., cxv-cxvi, and Southern, St. Anselm and his Biographer, 282, 285.

page 347 note 5 Adam de Domerham, i. 35–8; cf. Ibid., ii. 335–6.

page 349 note 1 Ibid. ii. 335. St. Indract was according to tradition the son of an Irish king who followed St. Patrick to Glastonbury and was murdered in the vicinity with his companions by robbers. William of Malmesbury wrote his Life, now lost (see above, 343 and n. 2), and asserts that king Ine translated his relics to Glastonbury and placed them in a pyramid on the left of the high altar (Adam de Domerham, i. 35–6), which may be true; see Doble, G. H., ‘Saint Indract and St. Dominic’, Somerset Record Society, LVII (1942)Google ScholarCollectanea, iii, 3, 21. There is evidence suggesting that he was venerated at Glastonbury at least by the early eleventh century; Ibid., 1.

page 349 note 2 Ibid., i. 27.

page 349 note 3 Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden Monachi Cestrensis, ed. Babington, Churchill and Lumby, J. R. (Rolls Series, 1865–1886), v. 304, 306.Google Scholar

page 349 note 4 Johannes Glastoniensis, i. 7–8.

page 350 note 1 What is meant by the monks' church baffled Dr. Nitze, who argues that the Lady Chapel is intended. This, however, leads to problems with the texts which are unnecessary if it is assumed that the new tomb was put in the abbey church even though rebuilding was in progress. See Nitze, W. A., ‘The Exhumation of King Arthur at Glastonbury’, Speculum, IX (1934), 360–1.Google Scholar

page 350 note 2 Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. Brewer, J. S. and others (Rolls Series, 1861–1891, 8 vols.), viii. 126–9Google Scholar. For the date of De Principis Instructione see Ibid., xiv–xviii.

page 350 note 3 Ibid., iv. 47–51. For the late date of the Speculum Ecclesiae see The Autobiography of Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. and translated Butler, H. E., with an introductory chapter by Williams, C. H., London 1937, 351.Google Scholar

page 350 note 4 Both accounts are on fol. 26v in Trinity College, Cambridge, MS.R.5.33: printed pardy in two columns in Adam de Domerham, ii. 341–3 (the added account is in the right hand column on page 341 and in the left on page 342, and continues on page 343 which has no columns).

page 350 note 5 For an addition to the account in the Speculum see below, 354 n. 4.

page 350 note 6 One short passage (Adam de Domerham, ii. 342) resembles the Speculum Ecclesiae. It reads ‘Dehinc tumbam reginae, Arturo consepultae, aperientes, tricam muliebrem flavam et formosam, miroque artificio consertam, inveniunt’. The Speculum (Giraldus Cambrensis, iv. 47) reads ‘inventa fuit in eodem sepulchro trica muliebris, flava et formosa, miroque artificio conserta et contricata, uxoris scilicet Arthuri, viro ibidem consepultae’. However, this does not prove that the author of the account in Adam was here copying the actual words of the Speculum because the passage is apparently the work of a reviser, being mainly on an erasure and with one word in the margin. Another passage in Adam (Adam de Domerham, ii. 342) resembles one in Gerald's De Principis Instructione. It reads ‘os unius tibiae a terra usque ad medium cruris et amplius in magno viro attingeret’. The passage in De Princ. Instr. (Giraldus Cambrensis, viii. 129) reads ‘Os enim tibiae ipsius appositum [tibiae] longissimi/viri loci, quem nobis abbas ostendit et juxta pedem illius terrae affixum, large tribus digitis trans genu ipsius se porrexit’.

page 351 note 1 The evidence does not warrant the firm opinion expressed by Dr. Nice (op. cit., 360) that Adam's account is independent of Gerald's. Professor Treharne and Professor Alcock also treat Gerald and Adam as independent sources: Treharne, The Glastonbury Legends, 102–3, and Alcock, Leslie, Arthur's Britain, London 1971, 74Google Scholar, respectively.

page 351 note 2 Radulphi de Coggeshall Chronicon Anglicanum, ed. Stevenson, Joseph (Rolls Series, 1875). 36.Google Scholar

page 351 note 3 The chronicle of Margam in Annales Monastici, ed. Luard, H. R. (Rolls Series, 1864–9), i 21–2.Google Scholar

page 351 note 4 Nitze's contention (op. cit., 359) that the entry in the Margam chronicle is dependent on Coggeshall cannot be sustained. Coggeshall follows almost verbatim the Margam text for three quarters of the account and then ends abruptly.

page 351 note 5 In addition to the important variant discussed below (356), the version of the inscription on the lead cross differs in both Margam and Coggeshall from that given by Gerald of Wales, and agrees with that given by Adam of Domerham: Gerald alone adds ‘cum Wenneuereia vxore sua secunda’. As this reference to Guinevere does not appear in the copy of the inscription given by Camden (see below, 352 n. 7), it seems likely that it was Gerald's invention. Professor Alcock argues that Coggeshall's account differs from Gerald's in another particular, i.e. in the description of the coffin: Coggeshall states that the bones lay ‘in quodam vetustissimo sarcophago’, while Gerald places them ‘in terra quercu concava’: Coggeshall, 36; Giraldus Cambrensis, viii. 127; Alcock, Arthur's Britain, 74. However, there is no conflict here because in the medieval period the word sarcophagus does not necessarily mean, as it did in Roman times, a stone coffin; it merely signifies a coffin: see Latham, R. E., Revised Medieval Latin Word-List, London 1965, 419Google Scholar, under sarcographia. Indeed, Adam of Domerham describes the coffin in question as sarcophagum ligneum mirae magnitudinis: Adam de Domerham, ii. 341.

page 351 note 6 Although there is general similarity in content, verbal echoes are hard to find because the Margam account is so much shorter than Gerald's narratives. Professor Treharne and Professor Alcock both treat Coggeshall as an independent authority for the exhumation: Treharne, op. cit., 93, and Alcock, op. cit., 74. As they overlook the Margam chronicle they fail to recognise that it and Coggeshall's account derive from an exemplar which may well have been of Glastonbury provenance (see below, 356 and n. 2).

page 351 note 7 Treharne (Glastonbury Legends, 97) expresses the opinion that Gerald wrote his account after visiting Glastonbury in 1192 or 1193. The evidence for this date is the fact that Gerald saw the new tomb already prepared, but while Henry de Soilli was still abbot (he was consecrated bishop of Worcester in December 1193). However, it seems almost certain that he was an eyewitness; he could have seen the tomb on a later occasion, or heard about it.

page 352 note 1 Adam de Domerham, ii, 341.

page 352 note 2 Giraldus Cambrensis, iv. 47–8; viii. 127.

page 352 note 3 Ibid., viii. 129; cf. above, 350 n. 6.

page 352 note 4 Ibid., iv. 50.

page 352 note 5 Professor Alcock argues in favour of the authenticity of the exhumation. He asserts that though the forgery of documents was well known in the Middle Ages, ‘the Glastonbury exhumation, if it was a fake, was of a quite different character from the general run of monkish forgeries’ (op. cit., 76). His argument neglects the probability that the monks themselves had recently faked the ‘discovery’ of St. Dunstan's relics. Professor Alcock also states that he would find it easier to accept that the exhumation was bogus if ‘we believed that Glastonbury already had a traditional Arthurian connection’ (op. cit., 80; cf. 75–6). Here he overlooks the fact that Glastonbury had already been associated with king Arthur in Caradoc of Llancarfan's Life of St. Gildas (a work not referred to by Professor Alcock); see below, 353.

page 352 note 6 For a summary of the evidence on king Arthur's historicity see J. S. P. Tatlock, The Legendary History of Britain (University of California Press 1950), 178–229. See also Jones, Thomas, ‘The Early Evolution of the Legend of Arthur’, Nottingham Mediaeval Studies, VIII (1964), 3–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, (this article was first published in Welsh in Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, XVII (1958), 237–52Google Scholar, and was translated by Morgan, Gerald), and K. H. Jackson, ‘The Arthur of History’, Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, ed. Loomis, R. S., Oxford 1959, 1–11Google Scholar. Professor Alcock argues in favour of the authenticity of the Arthurian entries in the Annales Cambriae; the extant text is mid-tenth century although it used earlier material; Alcock, op. cit., 45–55.

page 352 note 7 William Camden gave the inscription but did not reproduce the cross itself in his Britannia, London 1586, 104. In the sixth edition (London 1607), 166, he gives a picture of the cross with the inscription on it. All discussion of the cross and inscription depends on accepting that Caniden's picture of the cross and his epigraphy of the inscription is correct (it could of course be the result of his antiquarianism). Professor Alcock's opinions (op. cit., 78–80), which coincide with those of C. A. Ralegh Radford (see The Quest for Arthur's Britain, ed. Ashe, Geoffrey, London 1968, 126–38Google Scholar passim), deserve attention. Accepting Camden's reproduction as accurate, he dates the epigraphy to the tenth or eleventh century. He suggests that the monks of St. Dunstan's time copied a sixth century inscription, perhaps reading ‘Hic sepultus iacit Arturius,’ which marked the burial place of king Arthur which was, it is postulated, next to a mausoleum in the old cemetery. They copied it to mark Arthur's grave when the mausoleum was demolished, prefixing ‘Rex inclitus’ and appending ‘in insula Avalonia’. It should be noted that Professor K. H.Jackson dates the epigraphy of the inscription to the sixth century (see his review of Professor Alcock's book in Antiquity, XLVII (1973), 81)Google Scholar; this suggests the possibility that the cross was the actual one used to mark Arthur's original burial. However, it seems much more likely that the monks faked the cross in 1191 and deliberately used archaic letter forms. It is most improbable that the monks of St. Dunstan's day (and even less of the sixth century) would have added ‘in Avalonia’, because the identification of Glastonbury with Avalon was first made, at least in writing, by Gerald of Wales (below, 354 and n. 1). And they might well have imitated the lettering of an old inscription, perhaps one in the cemetery; the ancient letters on the two pyramids had certainly attracted attention (see above, 345, and Giraldus Cambrensis, viii. 127). In this context an example of visual antiquarianism at Wells may be noted. Early in the thirteenth century the canons commissioned a series of effigies of the pre-Conquest bishops of Wells, to increase their prestige in their struggle with the monks of Bath over the right to elect the bishops. Two of these wear the low, rounded mitres and simple dress of the Anglo-Saxon period (‘clear signs of genuine antiquarianism’): Stone, Lawrence, Sculpture in Britain in the Middle Ages, Penguin Books 1955, 106–7.Google Scholar I am indebted in writing this foot-note to a discussion with Mr. P. W. Dixon.

page 353 note 1 For the popularity of the Historia see Gransden, Historical Writing in England c. 550–c. 1307, 201–2 and nn.

page 353 note 2 See Historia Brittonum, cap. lvi; ed. T. Mommsen, M.G.H., Auctorum Antiquissimorum, xiii, Chronica Minora, iii. 199.

page 353 note 3 Hisloria Regum Britanniae, Bk. IX, cap. iv; ed. Acton Griscom, 438.

page 353 note 4 Mommsen, op. cit., 109–10.

page 353 note 5 Historia Regurn Britanniae, Bk. XI, cap. ii; ed. Acton Griscom, 501.

page 354 note 1 Ciraldus Carnbrensis, iv. 49; viii. 128.

page 354 note 2 ‘Rex Angliae Henricus secundus, sicut ab historico cantore Britone audierat antiquo, totum monachis indicavit, quod profunde, scilicet in terra per xvi. pedes ad minus, corpus invenirent, et non in lapideo tumulo sed in quercu cavato: Ibid., viii. 128. ‘Dixerat enim [i.e. to Abbot Henry] pluries, sicut ex gestis Britonum et eorum cantoribus historiis rex audierat, quod inter pyramides duas, quae postmodum erectae fuerant in sacro coemeterio, sepultus fuit Arthurus …’: Ibid., iv. 49.

page 354 note 5 ‘Dictus autem abbas corpore reperto, monitis quoque dicti regis Henrici, marmoreum ei sepulchrum fieri fecit egregium …’: Ibid., iv, 51.

page 354 note 4 ‘Conditus fuit Rex Arthurus (sicut per regem Henricum abbas Henricus didicerat, cujus consanguineus et dudum familiaris extiterat: qui eciam Rex hoc ex gestis Britonum, et eorum cantoribus historicis, frequenter audierat …’: Adam de Domerham, ii. 341.

page 354 note 5 See Tatlock, J. S. P., ‘Geoffrey and King Arthur in Normannicus Draco’, Modern Philology, XXXI (1933), 124–5.Google Scholar

page 354 note 6 Maistre Wace's Roman de Rou et des Dues de Normandie, ed. Andresen, H., Heilbronn 1877, 1879Google Scholar, and Chronique des Ducs de Normandie par Benoit, ed. Fahlin, Carlin, Lund 1951–1967.Google Scholar See Tatlock, Legendary History of Britain, 465, 467, and Legge, M. D., ‘The influence of Patronage on Form in Medieval French Literature’, Stil-und Formprobleme in der Literatur, ed. Böckmann, Paul, Heidelberg 1959Google Scholar; Vorträge des VII Kongresses der Internationalen Vereinigung für moderne Sprachen und Literaturen in Heidelberg, 139.

page 354 note 7 Adam de Domerham, ii. 334–5.

page 354 note 8 Tatlock, ‘Geoffrey and King Arthur in Normannicus Draco’, 122–3.

page 355 note 1 Adam de Domerham, ii. 588–9.

page 355 note 2 For Edward I's interest in king Arthur (with a reference to his visit to Glastonbury) see Loomis, R. S., ‘Edward I, Arthurian Enthusiast’, Speculum, XXVIII (1953), 114–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 355 note 3 See VCH, Somerset, ii, 91. For a list of buildings put up by John of Taunton see Adam de Domerham, ii. 573.

page 355 note 4 See Powicke, F. M., King Henry III and the Lord Edward, Oxford 1947, ii. 724.Google Scholar

page 355 note 5 Adam de Domerham, ii. 341. Treharne (Glastonbury Legends, 106) does not accept that Henry 11 could have originated the idea of the search for king Arthur's bones.

page 355 note 6 Above, 340.

page 355 note 7 The Autobiography of Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. Butler, 81 and n. 1.

page 355 note 8 Ibid., 86 ff. After the campaign Gerald wrote the Expugnatio Hibernica and the Topographia Hibernica (printed in Giraldus Cambrensis, v); he dedicated the Topographia to Henry II (Ibid., 20) and the Expugnatio, first to king Richard and then to king John (Ibid., 222, 405).

page 356 note 1 Ibid., 99 ff. After the tour Gerald wrote the Itinerarium Kambriae and the Descriptio Kambriae (printed in Ibid., vi.).

page 356 note 2 A copy may have reached Christ Church, Canterbury, in the early thirteenth century: this is suggested by the fact that Gervase of Canterbury knew of the identification of Avalon, as Arthur's burial place, with Glastonbury. See The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. Stubbs, William (Rolls Series, 1879, 1880), ii. 19.Google Scholar

page 356 note 3 Above, 341. The Margam chronicle also alleges that Mordred was buried with Arthur and Guinevere.

page 356 note 4 Radulfus de Coggeshall, 36; Annales Monastici, i. 21.

page 356 note 5 Giraldus Cambrensis, iv. 49; viii. 128.

page 356 note 6 Adam de Domerham, i. 16–17.

page 357 note 1 Previous scholars do not seem to have appreciated the use of the Glasteing eponym in linking Glastonbury with Avalon.

page 357 note 2 See Slover, ‘William of Malmesbury and the Irish’, 276–80 and nn. for further references, and Finberg, ‘St. Patrick at Glastonbury’, 354–5 and n. 36.

page 357 note 3 Aeneid, Bk. III, lines 389–93; Bk. VIII lines 42–5.

page 357 note 4 See Virgil, Aeneid Book VIII, ed. K. W. Gransden, Cambridge 1976, 188.

page 357 note 5 ‘Haec de antiquis Britonum libris sunt’: Ibid., 17.

page 357 note 6 Geoffrey states that his source was a book lent him by Walter, archdeacon of Oxford— ‘quendam britannici sermonis librum vetustissimum’: Historia Regum Britanniae, Bk. 1, cap. i; ed. Acton Griscom, 219.

page 357 note 7 The false etymology resulted from the confusion of sugga, a marsh, with sugu, a sow; see Finberg, op. cit., 354.

page 358 note 1 See above, 337.

page 358 note 2 Above, 344.

page 358 note 3 Historia Regum Britanniae, Bk. IV, cap. xix, ed. Acton Griscom, 328–9; Adam de Domerham, i. 19–21.

page 358 note 4 Above, 344.

page 358 note 5 Adam de Domerham, i. 20.

page 358 note 6 See Armitage Robinson, Two Glastonbury Legends, 28.

page 358 note 7 Johannes Glastoniensis, i. 56–7.