is history: Caerleon is the seat of an
archbishopric and favourite residence of Arthur; Oxford is frequently
mentioned though it did not exist until the end of the ninth century;
the Consul of Gloucester (predecessor of Geoffrey's patron, Robert,
Consul of Gloucester) makes the decisive move in Arthur's battle with
the Romans.

A parallel case is Geoffrey's account of Brutus and the descent of the
Britons from the Trojans. The tradition is found in Nennius, and
perhaps dates from the classical revival at the court of Charlemagne.
It is clearly not a popular tradition, but an artificial tradition of
the learned; but whilst Geoffrey did not invent the legend, he
invented all the details--letters and speeches, and hairbreadth
escapes and tales of love and war.

Probably his detailed accounts of King Arthur's European
conquests--extending over nearly all Western Europe, from Iceland and
Norway to Gaul and Italy--are still more the work of Geoffrey's
inventive genius, though it is possible they may rest on early Celtic
myths about the voyage of Arthur to Hades, as Professor Rhys suggests,
or on late Breton traditions which mixed up Arthur with Charles the
Great.

Now let us consider Geoffrey as a gatherer and transmitter of the
genuine oral traditions of the Welsh and Breton people. Genuine
traditions are true history in the sense that they preserve manners
and customs and modes of thought prevalent at the time when they
became current. Thus they are on quite a different level from
Geoffrey's inventions, though they cannot be taken as containing the
history of any of the individuals to whom they profess to relate. He
tells us in his preface that the actions of Arthur and many others,
though not mentioned by historians, "were celebrated by many people in
a pleasant manner and by heart," were sung by poets and handed down
from generation to generation, like the poetical traditions of every
people in primitive times. There can be no doubt that Geoffrey
collected a number of these old stories and wove them into his
narrative. Thus, the story of King Lear and his daughters has the
ring of a genuine popular tradition about it, though the dates and
pseudo-historical setting were probably supplied by Geoffrey. Again,
there were certainly prophecies attributed to Merlin current in
Geoffrey's time. But one may suspect Geoffrey of doing a good deal
more than translate the prophecies of Merlin; he adapted them; one may
even suspect