Geoffrey of Monmouth was a Catholic cleric from Monmouth, Wales, and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur. He is best known for his chronicle The History of the Kings of Britain which was widely popular in its day, being translated into other languages from its original Latin. It was given historical credence well into the 16th century, but is now considered historically unreliable.
Brutus, also called Brute of Troy, is a mythical British king. He is described as a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, known in medieval British legend as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain. This legend first appears in the Historia Brittonum, an anonymous 9th-century historical compilation to which commentary was added by Nennius, but is best known from the account given by the 12th-century chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae.
Beli Mawr was an ancestor figure in Middle Welsh literature and genealogies. He is the father of Cassivellaunus, Arianrhod, Lludd Llaw Eraint, Llefelys, and Afallach. In certain medieval genealogies, he is listed as the son or husband of Anna, cousin of Mary, mother of Jesus. According to the Welsh Triads, Beli and Dôn were the parents of Arianrhod, but the mother of Beli's other children—and the father of Dôn's other children—is not mentioned in the medieval Welsh literature. Several royal lines in medieval Wales traced their ancestry to Beli. The Mabinogi names Penarddun as a daughter of Beli Mawr, but the genealogy is confused; it is possible she was meant to be his sister rather than daughter.
King Lot, also spelled Loth or Lott, is a British monarch in Arthurian legend. He was introduced in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae as King Arthur's brother-in-law, who serves as regent of Britain between the reigns of Uther Pendragon and Arthur. He has appeared regularly in works of chivalric romance, alternating between the roles of Arthur's enemy and ally, and is often depicted as the ruler of Lothian and either Norway or Orkney. His literary character is probably derived from hagiographical material concerning Saint Kentigern, which features Leudonus as king of Leudonia and father of Saint Teneu.
Leir was a legendary king of the Britons whose story was recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudohistorical 12th-century History of the Kings of Britain. According to Geoffrey's genealogy of the British dynasty, Leir reigned around the 8th century BC, around the time of the founding of Rome. The story was modified and retold by William Shakespeare in his Jacobean tragedy King Lear.
Cunedagius was a legendary king of the Britons, as recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth. He came to power in 850BC.
Historia regum Britanniae, originally called De gestis Britonum, is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons over the course of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxons assumed control of much of Britain around the 7th century. It is one of the central pieces of the Matter of Britain.
In Arthurian legend, Gorlois of Tintagel was the Duke of Cornwall. He was the first husband of King Arthur's mother Igraine and the father of her daughters, Arthur's half-sisters. Her second husband was Uther Pendragon, the High King of Britain and Arthur's father, who marries her after killing him.
Cador is a legendary Duke of Cornwall, known chiefly through Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae and previous manuscript sources such as the Life of Carantoc. In Welsh genealogical records, he appears as Cado, the son of Cornish king Geraint. Early sources present him as a relative of King Arthur, though the details of their kinship are usually left unspecified.
The Brut or Roman de Brut by the poet Wace is a loose and expanded translation in almost 15,000 lines of Norman-French verse of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin History of the Kings of Britain. It was formerly known as the Brut d'Engleterre or Roman des Rois d'Angleterre, though Wace's own name for it was the Geste des Bretons, or Deeds of the Britons. Its genre is equivocal, being more than a chronicle but not quite a fully-fledged romance.
The Battle of Chester was a major victory for the Anglo-Saxons over the native Britons near the city of Chester, England in the early 7th century. Æthelfrith of Northumbria annihilated a combined force from the Welsh kingdoms of Powys and Rhôs, and possibly from Mercia as well. It resulted in the deaths of Welsh leaders Selyf Sarffgadau of Powys and Cadwal Crysban of Rhôs. Circumstantial evidence suggests that King Iago of Gwynedd may have also been killed. Other sources state the battle may have been in 613 or even as early as 607 or 605 AD.
Saint Tysilio was a Welsh bishop, prince and scholar.
Llefelys is a character in Welsh mythology appearing in the medieval Welsh tale Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys. In the tale, Llefelys is king of Gaul while his brother Lludd is king of Britain. The tale appears in the Red Book of Hergest and the White Book of Rhydderch, the source texts for the Mabinogion, and embedded into various versions of the Brut y Brenhinedd, the Welsh adaptation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae.
Pridwen was, according to the 12th-century writer Geoffrey of Monmouth, King Arthur's shield; it was adorned with an image of the Virgin Mary. Geoffrey's description of it draws on earlier Welsh traditions found in Preiddeu Annwfn, Culhwch and Olwen, and the Historia Brittonum. The shield is also named and described by Wace, Layamon, Roger of Wendover and Robert of Gloucester among other medieval writers, and it directly inspired the description of Sir Gawain's shield in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Swainswick is a small village and civil parish, 3 miles (4.8 km) northeast of Bath, on the A46 in the Bath and North East Somerset unitary authority, Somerset, England. The parish has a population of 265. The village name was also spelled Sweyneswik and Sweyneswick in the early 13th to 14th Century.
Ewyas was a possible early Welsh kingdom which may have been formed around the time of the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century. The name was later used for a much smaller commote or administrative sub-division, which covered the area of the modern Vale of Ewyas and a larger area to the east including the villages of Ewyas Harold and Ewyas Lacy.
Brut y Brenhinedd is a collection of variant Middle Welsh versions of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin Historia Regum Britanniae. About 60 versions survive, with the earliest dating to the mid-13th century. Adaptations of Geoffrey's Historia were extremely popular throughout Western Europe during the Middle Ages, but the Brut proved especially influential in medieval Wales, where it was largely regarded as an accurate account of the early history of the Celtic Britons.
Walter of Oxford was a cleric and writer. He served as archdeacon of Oxford in the 12th century. Walter was a friend of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who claimed he got his chief source for the Historia Regum Britanniae from him.
Goffar known as Goffar the Pict, was a pseudo-historical king of Aquitaine around the year 1000 BCE in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. In the story, he was defeated by Brutus of Troy and Corineus on their way to Britain. Later histories of Britain and France included Goffar from Historia Regum Britanniae, and sometimes expanded the story with some additional details.
Gogmagog was a legendary giant in Welsh and later English mythology. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, he was a giant inhabitant of Albion, thrown off a cliff during a wrestling match with Corineus. Gogmagog was the last of the Giants found by Brutus and his men inhabiting the land of Albion.
