Welsh Journals

I tempus inter Anglos celebranturj given by the national law- giver, and there is the national emblem of the Red Dragon. It is in no way appropriate here to examine Geoffrey's motives; it may well be that lie was inspired to create an epic of the Angevin empire or that he intended so convey to the world that this great race, endowed with all the attributes of a nation, needed but a metropolitan see to fulfil its destiny, and that the humble author of the History was manifestly fitted to be the occupant of that see, whether at Caerleon or at Menevia.2 Geoffrey's ambitions were foiled, the hopes of a metropolitan were soon to vanish, but the Historia Regum remained. It remained to become a fount of Romance and to bequeath a delineation of nationalism that was treasured and guarded by Geoffrey's countrymen for three centuries. For it was this conception, fashioned with a wealth of colour and presented with great power, that captured the imagination bf the fifteenth century. 1 Historia Regum (ed. San Maite), I, xvii. 2 My colleague, Mr. J. Glyn Davies, has advanced an ingenious surmise on Geoffrey's treatment of this question. He assumes, with Sebastian Evans, that there were two editions of the History- the first without the Merlin prophecies, the second with them. In the first Geoffrey indicated Caerleon as the historic metropolitan see in the second "Menevia shall be robed in the pall of Caerleon" (Bk. viii, c. 3). This change would seem to be accounted for by an event which put Caerleon out of the running, possibly the canoniza- tion of St. David by Pope Calixtus II or the death of Bernard, which left Geoffrey a candidate for St. David's, coming after the appearance of the first edition. Or it is possible that Bernard, the first Norman bishop of St. David's, was attempting to obtain the metropolitan there. Further, in the Chartularies of Llandaff, a great historic claim is made for Llandaff as the chief of the Welsh sees-the bishopric of no less a saint than Dyfrig. Bishop Urban, who fought for the supremacy of Canterbury, thus argued before Calixtus II that the greatest see in Wales had always been under Canterbury. In this three-cornered contest, Geoffrey abandoned Caerleon and declared for Menevia, in the Merlin prophecy.