"Colonial Preoccupations in Geoffrey of Monmouth's De gestis Britonum"
In A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth, eds. Georgia Henley and Joshua Byron Smith (Brill, 2020).
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s De gestis Britonum is a text that captures many of the colonialist and imperialist dynamics of 12th-century Britain, and it may especially reflect Anglo-Norman territorial ambitions in Wales. This chapter focuses on Geoffrey’s use of King Arthur as a polyvalent figure of imperial power, his accounts of an aboriginal Britain and of the primitive divisions of the island kingdom, and his canny deployment of the prophecies of Merlin. It also highlights Geoffrey’s studied ambiguity regarding the status of the Welsh in particular: the De gestis Britonum offers praise for the glories of the ancestral Britons while also emphasizing the degeneracy of their contemporary Welsh descendants.
"Welsh Mythology"
Forthcoming in A Companion to Medieval Wales, eds. Kathryn Hurlock and Emma Cavell (Brill, 2021).
"Giraldian Beavers: Revision and the Making of Meaning in the Early Works of Gerald of Wales"
Published in Gerald of Wales: New Perspectives on a Medieval Writer and Critic, eds. Georgia Henley and Joey McMullen (University of Wales Press, Spring 2018). Available for purchase here.
Gerald of Wales’s preoccupation with the Welsh beaver is a marked feature of his early historical writings on both Ireland and Wales. He first drafts his account of beavers and their habits in the first version of his Topographia Hibernica, revises it in subsequent versions, and develops the material further and in different directions in both his Itinerarium Kambriae and his Descriptio Kambriae; he tweaked and modified all of these accounts throughout his career. In this essay, I attempt to make sense of this idiosyncratic interest. I first examine in detail the shape the beaver narratives take in each individual text and demonstrate that Gerald very cannily crafted the material to fit the particular agenda and narrative context of each of the different works. From there, I reflect on what this ever-changing description can tell us about how Gerald thinks about the making of meaning. In particular, I note how he distances himself, on the one hand, from a strictly naturalistic account of the beaver, and, on the other hand, from the narrowly overdetermined modes of reading dictated by the bestiary tradition (one of his primary sources). The essay concludes that Gerald’s use of the beaver is in fact symptomatic of his developing understanding of the polysemic nature of zoological, cultural, and historical phenomena.
"Merlin/Myrddin"
Published in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, 4 vol., eds. Sian Echard and Robert Rouse (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017). Also available online here.
This piece focuses on the development of the figure of Merlin over roughly a 900-year span of medieval history and culture. First examining the genesis of this figure in the quasi-historical sixth-century Welsh bard Myrddin, I trace the character's emergence as a mouthpiece for Welsh political prophecies by the tenth century, his co-optation by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century, and his flourishing as one of the chief characters of the cycles of Arthurian romance during the thirteenth century and beyond.
“Merlin in Cornwall: The Source and Contexts of John of Cornwall’s Prophetia Merlini.”
Published in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 111.3 (July 2012): 304-338. Also available on JSTOR, here.
This essay provides a new argument for the importance of an oft-overlooked text of the mid-twelfth century, John of Cornwall’s Prophetia Merlini. I argue here that John’s Prophetia offers one of the most incisive responses to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. John translates an independent Old Cornish version of Merlin’s prophecies while also providing an elaborate apparatus of marginalia and interlinear glosses that help to focus the text’s polemic energies. Notably, John’s version of Merlin’s prophecies programmatically avoids the many ambiguities that allow Geoffrey to put his Merlin to the use of Norman audiences. And in claiming to directly translate an authentic Cornish source, John’s Prophetia trumps the seeming monopoly that Geoffrey attempts to claim for his version of the British past – and future. John of Cornwall articulates an anti-English position and thereby shows how Merlinic political prophecy can be harnessed to undermine colonialist discourse.
“Chivalric Identity at the Frontier: Marie de France’s Welsh Lais.”
Published in Le Cygne: The Journal of the International Marie de France Society 4 (Fall 2007): 27-41.
In this piece, I argue that several of the so-called “Breton” lais of the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman poet Marie de France may best be understood against the context of English colonial activity in Wales. Reading the characters of Muldumarec in Yonec and the eponymous hero of Milun as figures for the indigene, I explore how, after setting these lais in Wales, Marie employs the plot situation of the extramarital affair to comment upon the complexities of the colonial situation on the Welsh frontier. Despite her linguistic alignment with the Anglo-Norman polity, Marie’s works bear witness to the compromises and tragic losses engendered by the ongoing colonization of Wales.
“The Conquest of the Past in The History of the Kings of Britain.”
Published in Literature Compass 4/1 (2007): 121-133.
This article surveys a range of twentieth-century scholarly discourse concerning Geoffrey of Monmouth's apparent political sympathies in his mid-twelfth-century Anglo-Latin The History of the Kings of Britain, especially in regard to his stance toward the Welsh and his use of source materials. In contrast to recent critics, especially Monika Otter and Michelle Warren, who see Geoffrey's enormously popular and influential pseudo-history as fundamentally ambivalent or ambiguous, I align Geoffrey with his Norman patrons and contend that The History of the Kings of Britain creates a past that posits the ancient Britons, the ancestors of the twelfth-century Welsh, as eminently fit for conquest. In terms of its general historiographic emplotment, The History of the Kings of Britain narrates pre-Saxon British history as a long decline. In tandem with this larger narrative structure, Geoffrey's strategic use of the prophecies of Merlin likewise subverts any potential rallying point for British or Welsh resurgence. Both historiographically and teleologically, Geoffrey's History of the Kings of Britain ultimately works against the ancient Britons and their Welsh descendants, legitimating Norman colonial ambitions in Wales.
"The Ends of Romance in the Middle English Havelok."
Published in Exemplaria 17 (2005): 347-380.
In this article, I examine how a pre-modern narrative cultivates ethnic and political identities that anticipate later discourses of nationhood. Although the thirteenth-century Middle English romance Havelok focuses on the exploits of an exiled Danish prince, I compare the poem to its historical sources to show how the hero’s rags-to-riches story in fact serves to define the epitome of Englishness. By defeating evil usurpers and marrying the English princess, Havelok ensures the integrity and continued sovereignty of his island realm. Most importantly, I analyze Havelok’s prophetic dream – in which he envisions himself grasping the entire island of Britain in his hand – to show how this compelling medieval text posits an idea very similar to later nationalisms as it underscores the unity of the people, the land, and their king.
"Once and Future Britons: The Welsh in Lawman's Brut."
Published in Medievalia et Humanistica 28 (2001): 1-23.
This essay stands as a companion piece to my earlier article on Geoffrey of Monmouth, as I show how this epic early Middle English poem – itself an adaptation of Geoffrey’s History of the Kings of Britain – thinks about the British past in ways that pointedly do not strip the Welsh of their claims to autonomy. I look specifically at the places where the priest-poet Lawman (Layamon) seems to deliberately avoid Geoffrey’s moments of ambiguity and ambivalence. Focusing especially on Lawman’s use of the prophecies of Merlin as well as on how he rewrites Geoffrey’s ending, I argue that the Brut envisions a British future where the constituent peoples of the island – including both the Normans and the Welsh – might peaceably coexist.
"Narrating the Matter of Britain: Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Norman Colonization of Wales."
Published in The Chaucer Review 35 (2000): 60-85. Also available on JSTOR, here.
This article polemically rethinks Geoffrey’s relationship to the ongoing Anglo-Norman settlement in twelfth-century Wales by looking at the Historia Regum Britanniae’s larger narrative structures. I argue that, while Geoffrey certainly remains ambivalent in his representation of the ancient Britons as individuals (particularly King Arthur), the wider historiographic contexts of the work reveal the extent to which it advances Anglo-Norman territorial interests in Wales, relegating the Welsh to barbarism and an irretrievable pastness.
In A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth, eds. Georgia Henley and Joshua Byron Smith (Brill, 2020).
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s De gestis Britonum is a text that captures many of the colonialist and imperialist dynamics of 12th-century Britain, and it may especially reflect Anglo-Norman territorial ambitions in Wales. This chapter focuses on Geoffrey’s use of King Arthur as a polyvalent figure of imperial power, his accounts of an aboriginal Britain and of the primitive divisions of the island kingdom, and his canny deployment of the prophecies of Merlin. It also highlights Geoffrey’s studied ambiguity regarding the status of the Welsh in particular: the De gestis Britonum offers praise for the glories of the ancestral Britons while also emphasizing the degeneracy of their contemporary Welsh descendants.
"Welsh Mythology"
Forthcoming in A Companion to Medieval Wales, eds. Kathryn Hurlock and Emma Cavell (Brill, 2021).
"Giraldian Beavers: Revision and the Making of Meaning in the Early Works of Gerald of Wales"
Published in Gerald of Wales: New Perspectives on a Medieval Writer and Critic, eds. Georgia Henley and Joey McMullen (University of Wales Press, Spring 2018). Available for purchase here.
Gerald of Wales’s preoccupation with the Welsh beaver is a marked feature of his early historical writings on both Ireland and Wales. He first drafts his account of beavers and their habits in the first version of his Topographia Hibernica, revises it in subsequent versions, and develops the material further and in different directions in both his Itinerarium Kambriae and his Descriptio Kambriae; he tweaked and modified all of these accounts throughout his career. In this essay, I attempt to make sense of this idiosyncratic interest. I first examine in detail the shape the beaver narratives take in each individual text and demonstrate that Gerald very cannily crafted the material to fit the particular agenda and narrative context of each of the different works. From there, I reflect on what this ever-changing description can tell us about how Gerald thinks about the making of meaning. In particular, I note how he distances himself, on the one hand, from a strictly naturalistic account of the beaver, and, on the other hand, from the narrowly overdetermined modes of reading dictated by the bestiary tradition (one of his primary sources). The essay concludes that Gerald’s use of the beaver is in fact symptomatic of his developing understanding of the polysemic nature of zoological, cultural, and historical phenomena.
"Merlin/Myrddin"
Published in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, 4 vol., eds. Sian Echard and Robert Rouse (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017). Also available online here.
This piece focuses on the development of the figure of Merlin over roughly a 900-year span of medieval history and culture. First examining the genesis of this figure in the quasi-historical sixth-century Welsh bard Myrddin, I trace the character's emergence as a mouthpiece for Welsh political prophecies by the tenth century, his co-optation by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century, and his flourishing as one of the chief characters of the cycles of Arthurian romance during the thirteenth century and beyond.
“Merlin in Cornwall: The Source and Contexts of John of Cornwall’s Prophetia Merlini.”
Published in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 111.3 (July 2012): 304-338. Also available on JSTOR, here.
This essay provides a new argument for the importance of an oft-overlooked text of the mid-twelfth century, John of Cornwall’s Prophetia Merlini. I argue here that John’s Prophetia offers one of the most incisive responses to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. John translates an independent Old Cornish version of Merlin’s prophecies while also providing an elaborate apparatus of marginalia and interlinear glosses that help to focus the text’s polemic energies. Notably, John’s version of Merlin’s prophecies programmatically avoids the many ambiguities that allow Geoffrey to put his Merlin to the use of Norman audiences. And in claiming to directly translate an authentic Cornish source, John’s Prophetia trumps the seeming monopoly that Geoffrey attempts to claim for his version of the British past – and future. John of Cornwall articulates an anti-English position and thereby shows how Merlinic political prophecy can be harnessed to undermine colonialist discourse.
“Chivalric Identity at the Frontier: Marie de France’s Welsh Lais.”
Published in Le Cygne: The Journal of the International Marie de France Society 4 (Fall 2007): 27-41.
In this piece, I argue that several of the so-called “Breton” lais of the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman poet Marie de France may best be understood against the context of English colonial activity in Wales. Reading the characters of Muldumarec in Yonec and the eponymous hero of Milun as figures for the indigene, I explore how, after setting these lais in Wales, Marie employs the plot situation of the extramarital affair to comment upon the complexities of the colonial situation on the Welsh frontier. Despite her linguistic alignment with the Anglo-Norman polity, Marie’s works bear witness to the compromises and tragic losses engendered by the ongoing colonization of Wales.
“The Conquest of the Past in The History of the Kings of Britain.”
Published in Literature Compass 4/1 (2007): 121-133.
This article surveys a range of twentieth-century scholarly discourse concerning Geoffrey of Monmouth's apparent political sympathies in his mid-twelfth-century Anglo-Latin The History of the Kings of Britain, especially in regard to his stance toward the Welsh and his use of source materials. In contrast to recent critics, especially Monika Otter and Michelle Warren, who see Geoffrey's enormously popular and influential pseudo-history as fundamentally ambivalent or ambiguous, I align Geoffrey with his Norman patrons and contend that The History of the Kings of Britain creates a past that posits the ancient Britons, the ancestors of the twelfth-century Welsh, as eminently fit for conquest. In terms of its general historiographic emplotment, The History of the Kings of Britain narrates pre-Saxon British history as a long decline. In tandem with this larger narrative structure, Geoffrey's strategic use of the prophecies of Merlin likewise subverts any potential rallying point for British or Welsh resurgence. Both historiographically and teleologically, Geoffrey's History of the Kings of Britain ultimately works against the ancient Britons and their Welsh descendants, legitimating Norman colonial ambitions in Wales.
"The Ends of Romance in the Middle English Havelok."
Published in Exemplaria 17 (2005): 347-380.
In this article, I examine how a pre-modern narrative cultivates ethnic and political identities that anticipate later discourses of nationhood. Although the thirteenth-century Middle English romance Havelok focuses on the exploits of an exiled Danish prince, I compare the poem to its historical sources to show how the hero’s rags-to-riches story in fact serves to define the epitome of Englishness. By defeating evil usurpers and marrying the English princess, Havelok ensures the integrity and continued sovereignty of his island realm. Most importantly, I analyze Havelok’s prophetic dream – in which he envisions himself grasping the entire island of Britain in his hand – to show how this compelling medieval text posits an idea very similar to later nationalisms as it underscores the unity of the people, the land, and their king.
"Once and Future Britons: The Welsh in Lawman's Brut."
Published in Medievalia et Humanistica 28 (2001): 1-23.
This essay stands as a companion piece to my earlier article on Geoffrey of Monmouth, as I show how this epic early Middle English poem – itself an adaptation of Geoffrey’s History of the Kings of Britain – thinks about the British past in ways that pointedly do not strip the Welsh of their claims to autonomy. I look specifically at the places where the priest-poet Lawman (Layamon) seems to deliberately avoid Geoffrey’s moments of ambiguity and ambivalence. Focusing especially on Lawman’s use of the prophecies of Merlin as well as on how he rewrites Geoffrey’s ending, I argue that the Brut envisions a British future where the constituent peoples of the island – including both the Normans and the Welsh – might peaceably coexist.
"Narrating the Matter of Britain: Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Norman Colonization of Wales."
Published in The Chaucer Review 35 (2000): 60-85. Also available on JSTOR, here.
This article polemically rethinks Geoffrey’s relationship to the ongoing Anglo-Norman settlement in twelfth-century Wales by looking at the Historia Regum Britanniae’s larger narrative structures. I argue that, while Geoffrey certainly remains ambivalent in his representation of the ancient Britons as individuals (particularly King Arthur), the wider historiographic contexts of the work reveal the extent to which it advances Anglo-Norman territorial interests in Wales, relegating the Welsh to barbarism and an irretrievable pastness.