History of the kings of Britain. The first variant version by David W. Burchmore (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS History of the kings of Britain. The first variant version, ed. & trans. David W. Burchmore. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 57. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019. ISBN: 978-0-67424-136-7. xxi + 507 pp. $35.00 (cloth). Paul Russell University of Cambridge A new edition of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s first variant version of Historia regum Britanniae is to be welcomed. Neil Wright’s 1988 critical edition, based on a detailed study of the manuscripts, did not contain a translation. The text in Hammer 1951 is thoroughly confusing ; although a quasi-variant version was printed throughout, it is very difficult to see what is going on as it presents a composite text ‘in a seriously mangled form’ (Wright 1988: xi). So it is good to have a first variant text and translation to set alongside Reeve & Wright’s 2007 edition of the vulgate text. The relationship between the vulgate and the first variant version has been a matter of debate. A second variant version has not received much attention and remains unedited in print (‘a gap hard to lament’ (Reeve & Wright 2007: x & n. 17; also discussed briefly by Emanuel 1966); Hammer’s materials towards an edition are kept in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge). The first variant has most recently been examined by Wright, who concluded, after a detailed and judicious discussion of the evidence (1988: lxx): The Variant version was not Geoffrey’s source nor was it written by Geoffrey himself; it is a redaction of a vulgate text made by an unknown contemporary of Geoffrey at some time between 1138, the probable publication-date of the HistoPaul Russell [pr270@cam.ac.uk] is Professor of Celtic in the Department of Anglo Saxon, Norse and Celtic in the University of Cambridge. His research interests include learned texts in Celtic languages (especially early Irish glossaries), Celtic philology and linguistics, early Welsh orthography, Middle Welsh translation texts, grammatical texts, medieval Welsh law, hagiography, and Latin texts from medieval Wales. North American journal of Celtic studies Vol. 4, No. 2 (Autumn 2020) Copyright © 2020 by The Ohio State University 238 North American journal of Celtic studies ria, and the early 1150s—certainly no later than 1155, since the Variant version was used extensively in Wace’s Roman de Brut, which was completed in that year’. There matters have rested with a general acceptance of this line of argument. The present volume in the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series by David Burchmore presents the second modern edition of the first variant version of the text of Geoffrey’s Historia. It consists of a very brief Introduction of 23 pages (vii–xxix), in fact, all too brief for the serious issues it raises; an edited text with facing translation (1–423); Abbreviations (425–426); Notes on the text (427–440); Notes on the translation (441–489); a very brief Bibliography (491–493), and an Index of names of people and places (495–507). The serious issue raised in the Introduction is the claim that the first variant version predates the vulgate and was an early draft of it written by Archdeacon Walter (xiv–xv). There is nothing new in this; it is an argument which has been debated in much greater detail by others (for the debate, see Wright 1988: xi–lxxviii). The important difference in Burchmore’s claim is that it is based on a series of unpublished papers by Robert A. Caldwell in the 1950s. He is known as the author of several articles on Geoffrey (Caldwell 1956 & 1963); it is also known through printed abstracts that he presented in several other conference papers on similar topics (Caldwell 1957, 1958, & 1959). In 2008, the typescripts of two of these three papers (1957 & 1958) were deposited in the Chester Fritz Library in the Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections at the University of North Dakota (Burchmore 2019: xxiv–xxv, nn. 7–8). It is these papers which form the basis of the claims made in the Introduction. It is very difficult to know what to make of this; the abstracts are only a page or so long and provide no details, but, to get a real sense of the arguments...