Christian Works : Historia regum Britanniae

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Christian Works

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Contains a fourteenth-century copy of Geoffrey of Monmouth's <i>Historia regum Britannie</i>. This enormously popular pseudo-historical work, written in 1136, chronicles the kings of the Britons from the foundation of the kingdom of Britain by the Trojan Brutus to the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, including the deeds of King Arthur and the prophecies of Merlin. It survives in 215 manuscripts and was enormously influential on later Arthurian literature.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>MS CUL Ff.1.25 is a composite manuscript made up of five different parts of different dates compiled in the sixteenth century. It was donated to the University Library by Archbishop Matthew Parker who gave 25 manuscripts from his collection in 1574. The parts were separated and bound individually in 1862.</p>