onicles and
Anglo-Norman poets have owed so much. Walter, a Deacon of Oxford, it is
said, had procured from Brittany a Welsh chronicle containing a history of
the Britons from the time of one Brutus, a great-grandson of AEneas, down
to the seventh century of our era. From this, partly in translation and
partly in original creation, Geoffrey wrote his "History of the Britons."
Catering to the popular prejudice, he revived, and in part created, the
deeds of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table--fabulous heroes who
have figured in the best English poetry from that day to the present,
their best presentation having been made in the Idyls of the King,
(Arthur,) by Tennyson.

The popular philosophy of Geoffrey's work is found in the fact, that while
in Bede and in the Saxon Chronicle the Britons had not been portrayed in
such a manner as to flatter the national vanity, which seeks for remote
antecedents of greatness; under the guise of the Chronicle of Brittany,
Geoffrey undertook to do this. Polydore Virgil distinctly condemns him for
relating "many fictitious things of King Arthur and the ancient Britons,
invented by himself, and pretended to be translated by him into Latin,
which he palms on the world with the sacred name of true history;" and
this view is substantiated by the fact that the earlier writers speak of
Arthur as a prince and a warrior, of no colossal fame--"well known, but
not idolized.... That he was a courageous warrior is unquestionable; but
that he was the miraculous Mars of the British history, from whom kings
and nations shrunk in panic, is completely disproved by the temperate
encomiums of his contemporary bards."[14]

It is of great historical importance to observe the firm hold taken by
this fabulous character upon the English people, as evinced by the fact
that he has been a popular hero of the English epic ever since. Spenser
adopted him as the presiding genius of his "Fairy Queen," and Milton
projected a great epic on his times, before he decided to write the
Paradise Lost.

OTHER PRINCIPAL LATIN CHRONICLERS OF THE EARLY NORMAN PERIOD.

Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, 1075-1109: History of Croyland. Authenticity
disputed.

William of Poictiers, 1070: Deeds of William the Conqueror, (Gesta
Gullielmi Ducis Normannorum et Regis Anglorum.)

Ordericus Vitalis, born about 1075: general ecclesiastical history.

William of Jumieges: History of the Dukes of Normandy.

Florence of Worcester