Geoffrey of Monmouth

We cannot explore North Cornwall, its manors and Tintagel Castle without an understanding of the role the Breton Nobles played in our area and the connection they had with Geoffrey of Monmouth and the legend of King Arthur. Hopefully you will have read the history piece on the Breton Nobles who settled in our area following the Conquest of 1066.

This history piece, therefore, explores our Breton/North Cornwall shared interest in Geoffrey of Monmouth (1095-1144 AD), his legends and chronicles, many of which were probably taken from ancient Breton plays and romances (the Lais).

But first a little anecdotal story. In 1113 AD there was a riot in a church in Bodmin, Cornwall, between the French and the Bretons. The quarrel was about the existence of King Arthur and whether he was still alive. When I first read this story, I thought that it was just an old Cornish yarn. But, no, it really did happen. So, who were these French people and who were the Bretons, and what were they doing in Bodmin, becoming involved in a heated argument about King Arthur in a church?

In fact, “the French” were a group of French Canons from Laon, who were visiting the church and it was an individual Breton who started the riot. He was a servant employed locally at one of the many local Breton households. This story was recalled by Hermann of Tournai, the Abbot of Saint Martin of Tournai, who was also a social historian and chronicler of his times (1095-1147AD). Hermann, who appears to have been part of this group of visitors, records that it was said that the Bretons and French are always quarrelling about the existence of Arthur. “The Bretons” in this instance is interpreted as the local Bretons living in Cornwall, who were always arguing with the visiting French! So, the story of Breton Cornish and Arthur have a long history and this story demonstrates just how real these heroes of old had become in the imagination of Cornish and Breton people.

Of course, we all know Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his romance of King Arthur, centred around Tintagel Castle, but he also wrote a chronical about “The Bretons living in Cornwall”. In fact, his account of “The Breton Cornish” was presented at the Tenth International Arthurian Conference at Nantes, August 1972.

This begs two questions, why did a Cleric (historian) from Monmouth write about Bretons living in Cornwall and why did he choose the Tintagel location for his King Arthur romance?

Let’s take the first subject, “The Bretons living in Cornwall”.

According to one of the journals at the Library of Wales, Geoffrey showed bias towards Breton stories and people, despite his home being in Monmouth. Geoffrey was most probably educated at the priory of Monmouth and there he may have encountered touring “conteurs” and “trouvѐres”, that is story tellers and minstrels (raconteurs!). These wandering minstrels surely put into his head stories of past heroes and legends – probably of Breton origin and possibly taken from the romances of love and chivalry, which was an important component in the Breton Lais (plays etc.) In fact, his contemporaries appear to have called him Galfridus Arturus because of his interest in the Breton culture; a name that he used himself at times and a name which was popular in Brittany.

It is also thought that he may have had close Breton family connections. In fact, he may have been the son of a follower of the Breton, Wihenoc, to whom the town of Monmouth had been granted by William the Conqueror.

This family connection may have secured him work as a Clerk in the household of Robert of Caen who subsequently inherited the Earldom of Gloucester through marriage- which brought with it a number of manors in North Cornwall.

Geoffrey, therefore, may have had Breton ancestry, met with minstrels spreading folktales of past Breton and English heroes and legends and his benefactor or Patron the Earl of Gloucester, had properties in North Cornwall.

Travel to Cornwall by road or track from Monmouth would have been very difficult in the eleventh and twelfth century, so it is quite possible that Geoffrey travelled by boat across what he called “the Severn Sea”, that is the Bristol Channel; this took him to Ilfracombe and from there he could follow the high ground of the county to friendly manors in North Cornwall.

This gave him direct access to a network of Breton Nobles and landlords. These connections enabled him to write the account of Breton people living in Cornwall, which would ultimately be presented at the Arthurian Conference in Nantes, 840 years later. You may ask why King William gave so many Breton Nobles lands in Wales and Cornwall? The answer is, of course, they spoke a very similar language.

We can now place Geoffrey of Monmouth travelling to, and living at, manors owned by his Patron the Earl of Gloucester in North Cornwall.

I do not know why Geoffrey chose to create his King Arthur story centred around Tintagel. But it is not hard to put together a strong argument for this choice. There was much about the environment of Tintagel that would have stirred his imagination. And, no doubt, creating the story around the manors of his Patron would be no bad thing for Geoffrey.

Tintagel Castle, as we now know, was a centre of much trade and learning during the fifth and seventh centuries and, in Geoffrey’s time, the ruins of buildings could still be seen. No doubt, locally, there would have been tales of great adventure, daring and romance associated with the Island. This remote, dramatic, romantic island would be an obvious choice for a castle of a great warrior.

Although clearly based in Cornwall, Geoffrey mentions only three Cornish place-names in his King Arthur; Tintagel, the River Camblan (Camel) and Dimelioc, which was a Breton held manor to the south of Newquay, but very much on a north-south trackway used by all travellers.

Another Breton held manor was Penfound at Poundstock. Penfound Manor used to have an open river running through the house (now closed in, apparently) and this may account for Geoffrey’s interpretation of the Tristan and Iseult legend where Tristan floats sawdust down the river flowing through his palace, to communicate clandestinely with Iseult. This story, incidentally, is taken up by the Poet, Marie de France (1160-1215), in her Poem, Chevrefoil (honeysuckle). This is an episode from her romance of Tristan and Iseult and in this she conflates the symbiosis of the honeysuckle and the hazel with the inextricable life-bond between Tristan and Iseult. I mention this as Marie de France spent much of her life living somewhere in England (Cornwall?) and she incorporated many Breton Lais into her work, in which she used the idea of branches floating down rivers etc.

In Breton folklore, knights hunt with dogs in the great Breton forests of Broceliande (Paimport); known as the Forest of King Arthur. In Cornish folklore we have Arthur and his knights hunting in the forests between Dimelioc and Castle-an-Dinas. Of course, there were, and still are, numerous stone relics scattered around the Tintagel area with inscriptions on them attributed to early Cornish Kings, but some were mis-attributed to King Arthur.

In summary, there are so many Cornish and Breton locations, folktales, relics and lakes that can be associated with, or cited as, inspiration for Geoffrey’s King Arthur story, too many to mention here. Sufficient to say that there is much shared history, culture and legend all blended/borrowed between our two peoples which form the basis for Geoffrey’s works and has entered into our shared folklore and culture.

This further demonstrates the long association of Cornwall with Brittany.