to
contemporary events: an instance of the genuine article is given in
Gerald's Itinerary. "In 1188, Urban III. being pope, Frederick,
Emperor of the Romans, Isaac, Emperor of Constantinople, Philip, King
of France," &c., &c. Now take Geoffrey's parodies: "At this time,
Samuel the prophet governed in Judaea, AEneas was living, and Homer was
esteemed a famous orator and poet." Or again: "At the building of
Shaftesbury an eagle spoke while the wall of the town was being built:
and indeed I should have transmitted the speech to posterity, had I
thought it true, like the rest of the history. At this time Haggai,
Amos, Joel, and Azariah were prophets of Israel." One may be quite
sure that passages like these are not derived from the writings of the
ancients, or from oral traditions. One can in some cases trace back
his statements and see how much he added to his predecessors. A good
instance is his account of the conversion of the Britons under King
Lucius, in Bk. IV., cap. 19 and 20, and V., cap. 1 (A.D. 161).
Geoffrey's account is circumstantial: King Lucius sent to the Pope
asking for instruction in the Christian religion. The Pope sent two
teachers (whose names are given), who almost extinguished paganism
over the whole island, dedicated the heathen temples to the true God,
and substituted three archbishops for the three heathen archflamens
at London, York, and Caerleon-on-Usk, and twenty-eight bishops for the
twenty-eight heathen flamens. Now all this is based on a short passage
in Bede: "Lucius King of the Britains sent to the Pope asking that he
might be made a Christian; he soon obtained his desire, and the
Britons kept the faith pure till the Diocletian persecution," which
itself is amplified from an entry in the _Liber Pontificalis_: "Lucius
King of the Britains sent to the Pope asking that he might be made a
Christian." This last does not occur in the early version of the
_Liber Pontificalis_, and is irreconcilable with the history and
position of the papacy in the second century; but is a forgery,
inserted at the end of the seventh century by the Romanising party in
the Welsh Church--the party desiring to bring the Welsh Church into
communion with the Roman, and so interested in proving that British
Christianity came direct from the Pope; and all the talk about the
archflamens and archbishops, &c., is pure invention. Notice too what
an important part the places with which Geoffrey is specially
connected play in h