Tasciovanus, Coel, & Tacitus
KHF...@aol.com
someone to talk to about these things. I wrote an article a few years back on
"The Search for Geoffrey of Monmouth's Sources." Although parts of that
article was a roundtable discussion with a group of Anglo-Saxon scholars and
British archaeologists, most contributors could not get beyond the bias of
hate and disrespect that Geoffrey has come to engender.
One of my very favorite things and one of the most interesting parts of the
early genealogies is attempting to trace where legends came from and
speculating as to how they grew. It is detective work of the first order and
more interesting to me, personally, than either the fictional work of Sherlock
Holmes or the Columbo.
In a message dated 2/7/1999 9:49:27 PM, anfo...@geocities.com writes:
<< Elen II was daughter of the British king Eudaf Hen, who, if real, almost
certainly ruled in Siluria. ... HRB [Geoffrey of Monmouth] says that Eudaf
died without male heir, and that his son-in-law Macsen quarreled with his
nephew Cynan Meiriadog over the succession, against the unanimous statement of
Welsh and Breton genealogies that Cynan was son of Eudaf ... Coel ap Cyllin is
mentioned by Iolo in nearly the same context as Coel ap Meurig in HRB.>>
Meurig, then, is the same as Marius. If Geoffrey had to change some
information to make a British connection to the Roman emperors, this would be
a good place to do it.
It seems that all the information has more in common than not in common:
PENIARTH MS GEOFFREY: IOLO
HARLEIAN GEN
1.Tynefan [Tasciovanus] Tenuantius Teuhant
2. Cynfelin Kybelinus (Cymbeline
Cinbelin (Cunobelinus)
3. Gweirydd Guiderius Bran
[Guidgen] ghosted from 5
4 . Arviragus /Genuissa Caradog =
Caratauc (Caractacus)
5. Meurig Marius Cyllin
Guidgen (misplaced?)
6. Coel Coillus (Coel) Coel
Lou hen [Coel hen?]
7. Deheuwaint=Emerita Lucius Lucius Cinis
scaplaut [Cyllin?]
8. Tegfan Elen (Helen of the cross)
What, if anything, does this tell is? Could, for example, Arviragus have been
a brother of Caractacus? Could Cyllin have been a brother of Marius (Meurig)?
Is Bran an imaginary character or a brother if Guiderius (Gweirydd/Guidgen)?
- Ken
Kenneth Harper Finton
Editor/ Publisher
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KHF...@aol.com
Let me say that I have let a few days pass because I am in awe that I have
someone to talk to about these things. I wrote an article a few years back on
"The Search for Geoffrey of Monmouth's Sources." Although parts of that
article was a roundtable discussion with a group of Anglo-Saxon scholars and
British archaeologists, most contributors could not get beyond the bias of
hate and disrespect that Geoffrey has come to engender.
One of my very favorite things and one of the most interesting parts of the
early genealogies is attempting to trace where legends came from and
speculating as to how they grew. It is detective work of the first order and
more interesting to me, personally, than either the fictional work of Sherlock
Holmes or the Columbo.
In a message dated 2/7/1999 9:49:27 PM, anfo...@geocities.com writes:
<< Elen II was daughter of the British king Eudaf Hen, who, if real, almost
certainly ruled in Siluria. ... HRB [Geoffrey of Monmouth] says that Eudaf
died without male heir, and that his son-in-law Macsen quarreled with his
nephew Cynan Meiriadog over the succession, against the unanimous statement of
Welsh and Breton genealogies that Cynan was son of Eudaf ... Coel ap Cyllin is
mentioned by Iolo in nearly the same context as Coel ap Meurig in HRB.>>
Meurig, then, is the same as Marius. If Geoffrey had to change some
information to make a British connection to the Roman emperors, this would be
a good place to do it.
It seems that all the information has more in common than not in common:
PENIARTH MS GEOFFREY: IOLO HARLEIAN GEN
1.Tynefan [Tasciovanus] Tenuantius Teuhant
2. Cynfelin Kybelinus (Cymbeline) Cinbelin (Cunobelinus)
3. Gweirydd Guiderius Bran [Guidgen]ghosted from 5
4 Arviragus/Genuissa Caradog = Caratauc(Caractacus)
5. Meurig Marius Cyllin Guidgen (misplaced?)
6. Coel Coillus (Coel) Coel Lou hen [Coel hen?]
7. Deheuwaint=Emerita Lucius Lucius Cinis scaplaut [Cyllin?]
8. Tegfan Elen (Helen of the cross)
What,if anything, does this tell is? Could, for example, Arviragus have been
Luke Stevens
> What, if anything, does this tell is? Could, for example, Arviragus
> of Marius (Meurig)? Is Bran an imaginary character or a brother if
> Guiderius (Gweirydd/Guidgen)?
First let me clarify some things. One dimension of the complex problem
of the personal names in HRB is the Welsh forms that the names took in
the Bruts. Peniarth MS 128 (note there are many, many Peniarth MSS
bearing on early Welsh genealogies) is doing nothing more remarkable
here than repeating the names found in the Bruts. In my posts I have
been using the Welsh & Latin forms interchangeably.
HRB: Heli, Cassibellaunus & Lud, Tenuantius, Kimbelinus,
Guiderius & Arviragus, Marius, Coill, Lucius
Bruts: Beli Mawr, Caswallon & Lludd, Tynefan, Cynfelin,
Gwydr & Gweirydd, Meurig, Coel, Lles
This is mostly a sensible attempt to convert Latinized names back into
Welsh equivalents, but why the Bruts wrote "Gweirydd" is a mystery. It
is not for his brother Guiderius, who becomes "Gwydr". I think it most
likely that Gweirydd or somesuch was in the earlier versions of the
story, and was trasmitted correctly to the Bruts but was erroneously
replaced with Arviragus in HRB; of course, many hold opposing opinions.
Comparing HG 16, HRB, and Iolo shows that the the first two coincide in
the beginning (precisely where we have confirmation from classical
sources), the latter two coincide in the end, but only HRB knows of
Meurig, and Iolo and HG 16 are completely divergent.
Now that I check my notes, Iolo writes "Lleurwg, the son of Coel, the
son of Cyllin, called Lleufer Mawr, or Lucius the Great". Lleufer Mawr
is found in some Historia Britonum MSS as a name for Lucius. Here the
footnote cites the Te-bryn MSS, and for another part of the genealogy,
"one of MSS of the late Mr. Thomas Truman, of Pantlliwydd, in the parish
of Llansannor, Glamorganshire," which was discussed in the preface,
though I no longer have access to it. There is also a footnote on why
the editor (Iolo's son) thinks Dio Cassius was mistaken in giving the
father of Caratacus as Cunobelinus rather than Bran.
I should also mention that Iolo traces the main genealogy, all styled
kings of Siluria, down to the kings of Morgannwg, through Einydd ap
Gorddyfwn ap Gorwg ap Meirchion ab Owain ap Cyllin ap Caradog ap Bran.
The earliest extant source for this is MP 3 in EWGT (16th cent.), though
Iolo's differs greatly in the earlier (pre-Bran) generations. Since Bran
appears in the Mabinogion he tends to be regarded as mythical. In some
early sources (e.g. ByA 33) Eudaf Hen is said to be son of Caradog ap
Bran, which is chronologically inconsistent, though a few later ones I
am aware of only second-hand (e.g. pcr's review of RFC) show more
reasonably Eudaf son of Einydd, descended from Caradog as above. Bran's
father is always given as Llyr Llediaith.
So other than the mention collaterally of Lucius as son of Coel, the
genealogies Iolo gives do not correspond to anything in HRB or in HG 16.
But there is an interesting twist. What it does correspond to (though
with significant differences) is ByA 33, the only extant pre-Geoffrey
pedigree traced to Brutus (as evidenced by its following HB 18 in
Brutus's ancestry against HRB). Bartrum discussed ByA 33 and its
implications in depth in "Was There a British 'Book of Conquests'?",
_The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies_, 23:1 (1968) p. 1-6.
I believe I discussed the Arviragus problem in a previous post. To
reiterate: The Arviragus mentioned in Juvenal is too late to fit the
character in HRB, but is probably the source for the name. Bartrum
suggests that Caratacus and his brother Togodumnus are the historical
basis for HRB's Arviragus & Guiderius, which fits chronologically and
genealogically. I suggested that Caratacus might have evolved into
Gweirydd (rather than the expected Caradog) and that his epithet
Adarweinidog in Old Welsh might have misled HRB to identify him with
Arviragus, though the philology is more than a little shaky. This does
not explain Togodumnus -> Guiderius, though I might further guess that
Guiderius was a third brother of Caratacus whose brief rule was not
noticed in extant Roman sources.
Luke Stevens