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Archival description
Geoffrey, of Monmouth, Bishop of St. Asaph, 1100?-1154. Historia regum Britanniae.
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Beunans Ke

  • NLW MS 23849D [RESTRICTED ACCESS].
  • File
  • [16 cent., second ½]

A volume containing a copy, in a hand of the second half of the sixteenth-century, of a verse play in Middle Cornish, based upon the life of St Kea, a Celtic saint venerated in Cornwall and Brittany (see Albert le Grand (de Morlaix), Les vies des saints de la Bretagne Armorique (Quimper, 5th edition, 1901), pp. 561-567) (ff. 1-8 verso).
The second part of the text (ff. 9-20 verso) derives from the accounts given in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniæ (Books ix.15, x.1-13, xi. 1-2) of King Arthur's quarrel with the Roman emperor Lucius Hiberius over the tribute which the Britons were required to pay to Rome, and of the clandestine relationship of Arthur's nephew, Modred, with Queen Guenevere.

Geoffrey of Monmouth: Historia Regum Britanniӕ,

Two photostat copies (one positive and one negative) of Brogyntyn MS I.7, made in New York in 1926 while the manuscript was on loan to Acton Griscom, then preparing his edition of The Historia Regum Britanniӕ of Geoffrey of Monmouth (London, 1929) (each copy 92 ff., unfoliated); together with an off-print of Acton Griscom, 'The Date of Composition of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia: New Manuscript Evidence', Speculum, I (1926), 129-156, signed by the author and sent to Lord Harlech (ff. 93-111); and twelve letters, 1925-1927, mainly from Acton Griscom, New York, to Lord Harlech, August 1925-July 1927, with one letter from J. Pierpont Morgan, Jr., New York, to Harlech, 10 December 1925, and one from Harlech to Griscom, 5 August 1927, concerning arrangements for Brogyntyn MS I.7 to be deposited temporarily in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, for Griscom's use (ff. 112-32).

Acton Griscom and others.

'Historia regum Britanniae'

  • NLW MS 13052E [RESTRICTED ACCESS].
  • File
  • [13 cent., first ½]

A folio manuscript containing a Latin text of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 'Historia Regum Britanniae'. The spine is inscribed in gilt 'Galfrid Monvmetensis Historia'. A small, square label bearing the number 32 has been pasted on at the base of the spine. A note 'Bound by Lewis' and the inscription 'Sir T. P., Middle Hill, No. 32' under the figure of a lion rampant are found on the centre panel of the inner side of the upper cover. The name 'Thos. Phillipps' and the note '32 MSS. Ph.' have been inscribed on the recto of the first (modern) fly-leaf, and the bottom left - hand corner of the verso of the same leaf is stamped 'Bound by Hering'. The vellum leaves have a generous margin but some have natural medial flaws and irregular edges and a few have flaws which have been repaired. The text is written in double columns of forty lines each in a regular, somewhat angular, Gothic hand probably of the first half of the thirteenth century and possibly the first quarter. The preface and 'Historia' proper have large initials in red and blue and each chapter has a large initial in red or blue often with decorative work in the same or the contrasting colour. Most of the catchwords appear to have been cut away probably in the process of trimming for binding. The text is not divided into books. It has the customary preface (Incipit and Explicit, f. 1 recto) but there is no direct reference to a patron. Robert, earl of Gloucester, is referred to obliquely as follows - 'Si autem in hoc libello corrigendum est aliquid a to corrigatur nec gaufndi monomutensis censeatur sed sale minerue minerue (sic) tue conditus illius dicatur editio quem henricus anglorum rex generauit . . .'. The 'Historia' proper commences on f. 1 recto, and the prophesies of Merlin, with the prefatory remarks referring to Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, are introduced on f. 29 verso. The explicit of the 'Historia' (f. 60 verso) is preceded by the epilogue with references to [William] of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon. The following note in French - 'an 11? 52 mommouth an angletere' - has been inserted in the space between the heads of the two columns of f. 1 recto.