Vita Merlini - Speculum

SPECULUM
A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES

VOL. XVIII JULY, 1943 No. 3
GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH'S VITA MERLINI

BY J. S. P. TATLOCK
THE little-read second work of one of the most influential literary men of the
entire middle ages, Vita Merlini at first reading seems incoherent, uncertain in
mood, unaccountable, and its experienced manner makes its course and content
at first more baffling. For this reason it will be more enlightening to defer any
summary to a more pertinent position in this article; except to say that it tells
of the aged Merlin running mad, his life in the Caledonian woods, his return
now and again, and surprising exploits, — two-thirds of the poem being irrele-
vant discourses on this and that. Its unattractiveness as a whole no doubt is
why it has been too little studied to be well understood. It has been referred to
by moderns chiefly for the question as to its authorship, and for sources or deriva-
tives of certain details or short episodes. The best and largest studies, also includ-
ing the text, are that by J. J. Parry,1 and especially that by E. Faral, who intends
to show the content to be chiefly of Latin not Celtic origin. But with no surpass-
ing merit, it is one of those works which when one scrutinizes, scales seem to fall
from one's eyes, and one sees something in three dimensions and related to its
surroundings.
First I deal with certain inevitable matters on its history. All its recent and
best students agree that it is by Geoffrey of Monmouth, as its last five lines in
1
The Vita Merlini (Univ. of ID., 1923; includes an extremely literal translation), which has been
used throughout this work, together with Faral's text in Llgende Arthurienne, ni, 807-352 (Paris,
1929), whose editorial study is in n, 28-36, 341-885. This is the most valuable study of the whole
subject, even if one must question much of his opinion and literary criticism. The chief other recent
studies are by J. D. Bruce in Evol. of Arth. Rom. (Gottingen and Baltimore, 1923), i, 185-43, which
summarizes some fact and opinion, but not always critically; and by Sir E. K. Chambers, Arthur of
Britain (London, 1927), pp. 48-51. Good summaries of the Vita are in Faral, n, 842-6; Bruce, i,
138-40; Chambers, 48-9. It has been accessible in the Cotton collection in the British Museum for
over three centuries, and been printed six times beginning 1880 (see Parry, pp. 22-25). — The bibli-
ography throughout this article is kept down to a minimum. For some references I am indebted to
Dr Howard Stone. It would be hard to overstate my debt and thanks to Mrs Arthur J. Dempster of
Chicago, her learning, enterprise, fresh ideas, and critical judgment. Only in order not to irritate the
reader have I refrained from mentioning the debt as often as was due. America is regrettably less
rich than England in highly competent people who pursue scholarship solely for the pleasure of it.
265
266 Geoffrey of Monmouitis Vita Merlini
effect state.1 Needless to rehearse all the evidence. The more familiar one is with
the Historia Begum Britanniae the surer one is that the Vita too is by Geoffrey.
Since none of the alleged evidence to the contrary is worth a thought, mostly
showing unconsciousness as to how to estimate evidence, one need say no more,2
1
We have finished this poem (they say), and ask from the Britanni a laurel wreath for 'Gaufrido
de Monumeta,' who has earlier sung of their wars and leaders, and written the book Gesta Britonum
of their world-famous deeds. Possibly this alludes to some other repute of Geoffrey's as a poet. The
self-confidence shown here smacks of him. The completest proof of his authorship is Faral's {Lig.
Arth., II, 29-36), following the cautious and admirable discussion by H. L. D. Ward in 1883 (Catal.
of Romances in B. M., i, 279-286).
• The latest argument against Geoffrey's authorship is a feeble one in 1927 by E. Brugger, Zt. f.
frz. Spr. u. Lit., L, 368-378. Incredibly, he (p. 373) and some predecessors take a pi. neut. for a sing,
masc. (1. 1529), and think the book, not the deeds, world-famous, though the former statement too
would be near enough the facts. Any contradictions between the two works are unimportant; e.g.,
Vortegirnus' new wife as 'soror' not 'filia' to Hengistus (1. 1033; vi, 12) is merely because the former
fitted the verse; no mediaeval writer would have hesitated at this. There is always danger of a careful
modern making much of difficulties unnoticed by a mediaeval writer and his readers. No one but
Dante (not quite always he) wrote with tight consistency. Cf. Speculum, xiv, 361-363. Even within
the Hiatoria there are inconsistencies; though perhaps they could be reconciled were this historical
fact, they are actually mere heedlessness about trifles, e.g., matters about Arthur's family, vm, 20,
ix, 2, 9. — Mrs Dempster points me to an evident echo in the Vita, 11. 958-959, of Gildas' De Ex-
eidio, §23, a scarce book much used in the Historia (both speaking of the Saxons): 'non sic gens ilia
recedet Ut semel in uestris ungues infixerit ortis'; 'evectus, [the Saxon race] primum in orientali parte
insulae . . . terribiles infixit ungues . . .' Gildas' celebrity as a teacher appears in the Vita, 687-8.
She also points me to two probable echoes of Horace's Carmina (bk. in, 3 and 30), of which the
very first line, i, 1) had been quoted by Geoffrey in the Historia (XII, 6). The Vita (1-2) opens with
Fatidici uatis rabiem musamque iocosam
Merlini cantare paro. Tu corrige carmen . . .
Horace ends a serious poem
Non hoc iocosae conveniet lyrae:
Quo, Musa, tendis? . . .
Geoffrey's lyric close along with other arrogances has 'Laurea serta date Gaufrido'; just so does Horace
end a closing ode ('Exegi monumentum'),
mihi Delphica
Lauro cinge volens, Melpomene, comam.
In both works Merlin evidently owes some of his prophetic power to astrology (V. M., 429-440, 555-
61; H. R. B., vin, 15); but in both the author shows no sign of detailed knowledge of either astrology
or magic. See p. 272 below. Further, both works are notablysecular in tone; the Ftfahas relatively little
Christian feeling, and some strikingly pagan (174, 736, etc.; and 375, where Merlin lets his wife wed
another man), and in the Historia (vm, 19) Merlin has no objection to abetting adultery. Without
trying for completeness, or recording all of several dozen recurring names or all the most obvious
echoes in the Vita to the Historia, the following may serve someone else's purposes:
11. 51, 605, 773 (cuneus a favorite military term in H. R. B., vm, 5, ix, 4, x, 4. 8; many of its favorite
words are in V. M.)
1. 53: ix, 11, x, 9
138-140: vm, 10
275-276: i, 2 (echoing Gildas, §3)
438: VIII, 14-15
623: VII, 3 (early)
687-688: I, 1, 17, n, 17, in, 5, iv, 20, vi, 13, XII, 6
969-970: vn, 3, 4 (panceltism; see SPECULUM, IX, 136)
1099: ix, 11. etc. (Daci, Dacia, for Danes, of course not confined to Geoffrey)
Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini 267
except a little on title and date. The title has some bearing on the authorship.
That in use now doubtless comes from the colophon at the end of the only com-
plete MS., of the late thirteenth century, — 'Explicit vita Merlini Calidonii per
Galfridum Monemutensem';1 any conceivable implication in 'Calidonii' that this
Merlin is not the same as he of the Historia (on all which more presently), which
could not possibly be attributed to Geoffrey, is offset by the fact that mediaeval
authors' titles, even if they gave any, often were not retained exactly by them
or others. No one can say whether Geoffrey ever chose a title, but 'Vita Merlini'
serves well. As to the date, Bruce, Parry, Chambers and Faral, with whom one
must fall in, agree on 1148 or shortly after,2 because the dedicatee, Robert de
Chesney, had only recently (modo, 11. 9, 12) ascended the throne of Lincoln, as
he did in that year. In discussing the vogue of the Vita a little below (p. 272) we
shall see evidence that it was known in Normandy at latest before 1154.
A few words about the poetic form and style. They are not so good as in the
seven fine distichs in the Historia at Diana's temple.3 But the Vita is a favorable
specimen of mediaeval metrical verse, with relatively scarce false quantities,4 and
as usual avoiding elision or hiatus,6 and rather though not to excess cultivating
1488-1504: VII, 4 end
1499: VII, 4 (Urgenius, Urianus a mountain)
1511-1512 VII, 3 (anti-Norman)
See also Faral, n, 29.
1
Parry, p. 116; another copy, abridged, is headed (ib., p. 80; Ward, i, 290) 'ffata Merlini Siluestre'
[tie], etc.
1
Dr Parry's argument (Mod. Philol., xxn, 418-415) for a date after 1150 is not convincing. A con-
nection seems likely between the dedication of the Prophecies of Merlin in the Historia to Bishop
Alexander of Lincoln, and that of the Vita to his immediate successor Robert. Whether Geoffrey
wished to rouse or gratify his interest, or the churchman-poet was playing pickthank toward the new
occupant of one of the greatest sees in England, or the bishop gave a 'command' for something light
on Merlin (as Queen Elizabeth is said to have done as to Falstaff in love), Merlin's repute evidently
flourished in Lincoln. At any rate the sensational earlier success of Merlin and his prophecies made
him an attractive hero.
• i, 11; deliberately classical, Virgilian or Ovidian in quality, including four elisions and hardly any
false quantities (though dicabo with short ultima in 1. 6); Professor Hammer, working on the text
of the Historia, tells me the best MSS have 'tibi sedes' (1.11).
4
There are such in 11. 57, 242, 838, 384 and 1159 and 1269, 426 and 885, 611, 712, 749, 756, 760,
1011,1070,1526. For most of these my thanks to Mrs Dempster. Mulieres, etc. (698,783) in medieval
verse regularly has a long penult (L. Traube, Vorles. u. Abhandl., n, 107). The author's scrupulousness
is shown in the unparalleled spelling T(h)el</esinus, in order that the first syllable may always be
long 'by position.'
• See the rule laid down close to the end of the 12th century by the Norman Alexander de Villa
Dei,
dictio vocali finita vel m, sibi subdi
versu vocalem nunquam permittit eodem
(in his Doctrinale, 11. 1603-04, ed. D. Reichling, Berlin, 1893). The same disapproval of hiatus and
elision is in G. de Vinsauf's Poetria Nova, 11. 1923-27, and Evrard l'Allemand's Laborintus, 11. 825-
826 (Faral, Arts PoMiqtus, Paris, 1924, pp. 256,365), both of the thirteenth century. These are worth
citing for a subject which has had little attention, but needs it, like the rest of mediaeval Latin versi-
fication. Though of course some mediaeval verse like classical avoids hiatus and allows elision, it
shows the vitality of mediaeval Latin poetry that it changed the classical rule to suit its own manner
of speech. See Traube's sketchy treatment of the subject (n, 111-112), who gives some references;
268 Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini
1
verbal jingles. In the Historia no trait is more praiseworthy than its uniquely
skilful structure, notably the alternation of picturesque detailed episodes with
stretches of swift narrative summary, like a stream with rapids and quiet pools.
Just so the Vita continually breaks up its heavy descriptions and expositions (in
the latter half) with lively incidents. Lacking as the poem is in unity, Geoffrey
stands out among mediaeval writers for skill in organization, and in avoidance
of the plodding. He shows no extraordinary wide reading, nor ostentation about
his reading, nor as much of the rhetorical as one might fear perhaps; he was a
good Latinist, and a man of cultivation and good taste.
II
The best study of the sources, by Faral,2 should be reexamined, especially of
those of the four highly entertaining marvels of divination by the mad Merlin:
concerning his sister's adultery betrayed by a leaf in her hair (11.254 ff); a boy
who he foretells will die of a fall from a high rock, in a tree, in a river, — and who
does so;3 the beggar who in secret is rich; the foresighted man who buys new
shoes and patches for mending them when worn out, but is shortly afterwards
drowned (11. 490-532). The two latter divinations are of oriental connections
and probably origin, with no known Celtic connections4 and need not be dis-
cussed. Adultery betrayed by leaf, at which Merlin laughs, is somewhat paralleled
centuries earlier in India,8 and more closely in a Latin saint's legend from south-
west Scotland in a MS. of the fifteenth century. The triple-death divination is in
this latter, also in another legend in the same MS. Both legends are of a prophetic
madman named Lailoken who is befriended by St. Kentigem of Glasgow (died
603), and whose story is so like Vita Merlini that they are certainly connected.
Without going into detail, one merely may state the opinion that these two leg-
ends in their present form are later than and show the influence of the Vita.*
Professor Kenneth Jackson has practically proved that wherever Geoffrey got
the three other divination-incidents, he got the triple-death one directly or in-
directly from earlier Gaelic tradition.7
and especially E. Voigt, Ysengrimus (Halle, 1884), p. xxxi, many references. — Here I am indebted
to Mrs Dempster.
1
'Regna regebat,' 27; 'rubeo . . . rubetis,' 58; also 287,1016,1037,1503-04.
8
II, pp. 347-85.
»LI. 811, 321, 338, 891 ff.
4
Faral n, 368-369; Parry, p. 120. For these and a partial and very conservative study of the
connections of the Vita see L. A. Paton, PMLA, x x n , 234-277, especially 276-277.
8
L. A. Paton, PMLA, XXII, 241-242, 261.
6
The evidence may be put together from H. L. D. Ward, Catal. of Romance!, I, 290-291; Romania,
XXII, 504, 510, 513, 515 (top), 525 (middle); Faral, n, 348-852, 355-356. Even as to some theoretical
earlier forms of the Lailoken-narrative I see no evidence for the frequent opinion that it preceded the
Vila; which it is true has no such conspicuous reason for a location in southwest Scotland as the other,
but may have been there localized because Geoffrey knew the region (signs of this in the Historia,
and wished some region other than familiar Wales for the highly romantic Vita. The Lailoken-legends,
especially the first, do not seem to me primitive, but rather civilized and even sensitive. Much further
might be said of them were it more relevant in the present article.
7
This is made abundantly clear in an important article which came to my attention only after the
present one was in proof, 'The Motive of the Threefold Death,' Essays and Studies Presented to Pro-
Besides the Gaelic origin of the triple-death divination, the Vita further un-
doubtedly shows strong Celtic elements. The main situation, a warrior going
mad after a battle, shunning humanity, living in the wilds, recovering and relaps-
ing, assuredly looks Celtic. In fact, as is familiar, all this is paralleled in a Middle
Irish chante fable, the very good Buile Suibhne, along with more specific trifling
likenesses; some sort of genetic connection will suggest itself to an attentive
reader. But prophesyings in it are inconsiderable, and the Suibhne (though
Suibhne and other details are earlier) is pronounced not earlier than 1200-1500.1
The likeliest conclusion seems that Suibhne and the Vita draw on a common fund
of Celtic tradition, or perhaps some single tradition. And perhaps real life. The
main outline, paralleled elsewhere, very probably reflects actual reality, espe-
cially Celtic. Just as today one may find eccentrics living alone in wild country, so
doubtless no less in the middle ages. Probably some of the hermits (dare I add
early Celtic 'saints'?) were little better, less deranged than the moderns because
less shunned.2 Further, in the Vita S. Samsoni, a sixth century saint of Welsh
origin, written probably in the eighth or ninth century in Brittany, we find the
saint in Wales falling foul of a wild hag living in the woods for years, called
'theomacha' and 'malefica.'8 For other Celtic elements, there are certain tradi-
tional Briton personages.4 But one must be wary of assuming that every authentic
legendary or historical Briton name here reflects in the attached narrative
fessor Eoin MacNeitt (Dublin, 1940), pp. 535-550. The considerable number of parallels from Ireland
and Scotland in Gaelic and Latin begin with the late seventh century. Those from non-Celtic regions
begin in the twelfth, with one (or two) formerly attributed to Hildebert (d. 1183) but now to Matthew
of Vendome (probably after the Vila; see Faral, n, 366-367). Since only here and in the Vita does the
victim die through catching his foot in a tree with his head under water (Jackson, pp. 535-536), these
two are probably closely connected, and the Vita the source for the other.
1
P. 100. Parry gives a good summary in PhUol. Qrly., rv, 199-201, with other illustration; so does
Faral, pp. 847-848, 853-855, 857-358, 861-363. The text and translation are in J. G. O'Keeffe's
edition (Irish Texts Soc, vol. xn, London, 1913); on dates of this text and the whole tradition, see
his pp. xiii-xix. Some of the above-mentioned detail is also in Lailoken, but alone would prove no
direct connection among the three. H. M. Ohadwick (Growth of Literature, Cambridge, 1932, i, 113)
mentions other Irish cases of going mad in battle. The essentials above are confirmed in Jackson's
far fuller and more important treatment, found by me at the hist moment, and discussed above. It
is imperfectly sorted out; see his pp. 536,539,542-544,546,549. The wild man in the wood, maddened
in battle, sometimes with prophesyings, once or twice with the triple-death, was in Irish or Scotch
tales before Geoffrey, much better exemplified in another Suibhne story, and elsewhere. In the Vita
Geoffrey let loose an interest in Celtic folkish material of which he showed a little in the Historia.
1
Consider Elgar the hermit of Bardsey (SPECULUM, XIII, 145-149).
1
Ed. by R. Fawtier (BiU. £c. Hantes St., vol. 197) tr. by Tho. Taylor (London, 1925), §§26-27.
See also Jour*. Theolog. Stud, xxvn, 44-47. The scarce and vague word 'theomacha' seems from
8tofii.x<* >n the Greek Aets, v, 89, perhaps by way of Bede or Rufinus Aquileiensis' translation of
Eusebius (l, 1; Basle, 1523, p. 5); meaning of course enemy of God, not necessarily witch. Perhaps
there is a dissertation subject on wild people in the forest during some part of the middle ages. There
is a starting-point in this article. I add that Mr Jackson is writing on it (p. 544).
4
To disregard several who had appeared in the Historia, and perhaps others, there are Guennolous
(1. 27), Rodarcus (1. 82, etc.; called 'Rodarcus Largus,' dating 730, meaning the same as 'Rhydderch
Hael,' the Generous, of Welsh history), Telgesinus (685, etc.) On these see Parry, pp. 18-19; J. E.
Lloyd, Hist, of Wales (N. Y., 1912), pp. 166-167,169-170, and in Diet. Nat. Biogr. I disregard several
dozen place and personal names recurring in the Historia; and see pp. 266-267 above.
270 Geoffrey of Monmovth's Vita Merlini
authentic tradition. Invented narrative attached to authentic names, belonging
to the period concerned or other periods, is so common in the Historia as to be
fairly called its formula. Further the interest, emphasis, as to insanity (may one
say without being invidious?1) might be thought Celtic; assuredly it is neither
earlier Latin, French nor English. Finally, without collecting parallels, one can
hardly miss a Celtic, Welsh, tone in the wild and sylvan setting and spirit of the
whole. No doubt enough Celtic parallels to this or that detail, element or spirit
can be found to justify recognizing here much of the inspiration, the vitality, to
be Briton, more than in the Historia.1 This conclusion should be completed by
considering general aspect or silhouette, the kinds of earlier work which it approxi-
mates. It is so original that it is hard to point to any precedent, certainly not in
'mediaeval romance.' This is all later than the Vita, which also is without the
love element.* It is assuredly very unlike the Germanic epic, and equally unlike
the chansons de geste, even the Pblerinage de Charlemagne; or the classical epic or
Ovid's Metamorphoses and their mediaeval posterity. It is safe to believe that
any general starting-point in the back of Geoffrey's mind for type, not matter, if
any there was, would be Celtic, vastly more than in the Historia.
For the rest as to sources one may be brief. Various familiar allusions without
detail put the poem in the general swim of mediaeval tradition, and assume
readers' knowledge of it. The Guielandus who modeled cups (285) is of course
mere familiar early Germanic folktale, his name in a Latinized Romance form,
because his tradition was much cultivated by the French.4 Barinthus, who knew
1
If one may not, I will merely quote from another eminent Celt (The Death of Dr Stoift):
He gave the little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad;
To shew, by one satyrick touch,
No nation wanted it so much.
* Faral (p. 862) shows a striking likeness between Geoffrey's Maeldinus (1. 1452), maddened by
poisoned fruit, and the Irish Mael Duin, in a work of about 1100 or before, thrown into a prolonged
sleep by a strange fruit. But this sort of thing is often paralleled; see p. 280 below. Merlin riding
a stag (11. 452-455) recalls St Kentigern ploughing with a stag and a wolf in Jocelin's life, chap. 20,
but this is later and might come from the Vila. — The woodland house built for Merlin by his sister
(11. 555-559) with 70 doors and 70 windows has a fantastic Celtic air. — Marvelous springs suddenly
bursting out (1136 ff., 1254 ff., 1434 ff.) do occur in Celtic literature (Spec., xiv, 358; and Parry, p.
123), but elsewhere too (Exodus, XVII, 6), and healing waters are everywhere (in the Vita itself,
1179-1258, from Isidor, recited by Telgesinus). — One may well see mere characteristic Welsh po-
etical hyperbole (11.1270-78), rather than an early Merlin-myth, where Merlin avers he saw the acorn
drop from which sprang an oak now aged and rotted. Parry (pp. 123-4) has a late close analogue, and
three-fourths through Kulhwck and Olwen, usually printed with the Mabinogion, there are four
analogues, one of them close; but there is nothing else in the Merlin of the Vita which looks mythic or
preternatural. — There is no indication of a wizard Merlin before Geoffrey in an Irish 'Melinus'
wrongly mentioned by 'San Marte' (Sagen c. Merlin, p. 52), as in Jocelin of Furness' life of St Patrick,
in Ada SS, vol. vin, 536-577. The name is not to be found there, though a similar anecdote is told
there (pp. 545-546) of a 'magus' (druid of course) called Lochu, who flies on high and crashes because
of the prayers of Patrick. (See also San-Marte, pp. 51-52; and on the incident, PMLA, xxv, 170, and
H. R. B., ii, 10.) If some later name 'Melinus' has any connection with 'Merlinus,' this is amply ex-
plained by imitation from the celebrated though very different wizard or prophet of Geoffrey. —
See Miss Paton's article cited above; Slover, Texas Stud, in Eng., vn, 90 on springs.
* On the relation of the Vita to romance see the end of this article.
1
While Wayland Smith's forge produced mostly arms, he was a goldsmith also; see W. Grimm,
well sea and stars, and is said by Telgesinus (930-1) to have conducted the
wounded Arthur to Insula Pomorum, is of course the Barint(h)us who in the
Brandan-legend starts the saint off on his voyage by telling him of a marvelous
isle. He too whether or not originally from Celtic tradition was mediaeval com-
mon property.1 The pseudo-science to be spoken of later which occupies most of
the second half of the poem (11. 737-1386) comes from familiar mediaeval schol-
arship, such writers as Isidor (especially), Solinus, William of Conches, Rabanus
Maurus, Bede, Pomponius Mela, even Ovid, one cannot always tell which.2 Else-
where Ovid, Virgil and probably Horace are to be recognized; and especially as
we have seen, the chief source, Geoffrey's own Historia Begum Britanniae. All
this and more, however much or little Celtic matter the poem contains, shows
to what degree it belongs in the general mediaeval literary family, aimed not at
Celts particularly but at a fairly cultivated general reader.
Ill
The Merlin of the Vita is meant as one and the same man as he of the His-
toria. Could there be the least doubt of this it would be settled by his being a
South Welsh sage, who long before had prophesied under Vortigernus." Nor is
there any shred of evidence or presumption that a Merlin-tradition existed in
the north before Geoffrey. Though moderns have exclaimed and mediaevals
been misled by some contrasts between the two, the former has merely become
more human and touching, and has more nearly faded into the light of common
day. Though still a diviner, he is no longer properly a magician, and has obvi-
ously inherited the kingship of Demetia from his mother's father in the Historia.*
Deutsche Heldensage (Gottingen, 1829), pp. 29, 41; also G. B. Depping and Fr.-Michel, tr. by S. W.
Singer, Wayland Smith (London, 1847), pp. xxxi, 1, 82; also H. M. Smyser and F. P. Magoun, Sur-
vivals in Old Norwegian (Baltimore, 1941), pp. 54-55,62, 69, 70. This does not mean a clearly-defined
saga of which we have only the leavings; it means a vague but vital saga to which anyone might add.
An indication of its vitality in Geoffrey's day is in John of Marmoutier's Historiae Gaufredi (Bouquet,
Recueil des Hist, des Gardes, XII, 521), where in the splendid knightly equipment given by Henry i
to his son-in-law Geoffrey of Anjou is an ancient sword from his own treasury wrought by Galannus,
— 'ad ultimum allatus est ei ensis de thesauro Regio ab antiquo ibidem signatus, in quo fabricando
fabrorum superlativus Galannus multa opera et studio desudavit.' This latter form of the name would
surprise no medievalist; Singer (preface) gives as French forms only 'Galans,' 'Galant.'
1
He may be from the Latin prose (mid-eleventh century) voyage of St Brandan, variously named
by moderns; ed. by A. Jubinal, Ltgende Latine de S. Brandaines (Paris, 1836), pp. 1-2; and by C.
Schroder, Sanet Brandan (Erlangen, 1871), p. 1; important study by H. Zimmer, Zt.f. deutsch. Altert.,
xxxm, 129ff.,257ff.,esp. pp. 177,819-20. He may as well be from the Norman poem (ed. Fr.-Michel,
Voyagei Meneill. de S. Brandan, Paris, 1878), where 'Barinz' does the same (11.75,101); it was written
about 1121, at any rate before 1151, for Henry I'S queen Adeliza.
* Lot in Romania, XLV, 1-15; Faral, n, 878-884 (especially valuable on Latin influences); L. A.
Paton, Fairy Mythol., pp. 41H.4; Parry, pp. 20,122; Chambers, p. 49; Mod. Philol., xxxi, 12-18.
» LI. 19-20, 681; H. R. B., vi, 18-19, etc.
4
Vita, 21-22; Hist., \i, 17. The Vita develops, does not perceptibly contradict, the Merlin of the
Historia. It simply denies the facts to say with H. M. Chadwick (Growth of Literature, I, 112), 'The
second, however, owes nothing but the form of his name to Geoffrey.' But the earlier is the grander and
more romantic figure, with his marvelous paternity, his complete sanity yet loneliness and the
mystery in his abiding-places, his 'clarum ingenium,' his deep reverence for his own spirit of prophecy,
272 Geoffrey of Monmoutk's Vita Merlini
The Vita holds rather less closely than the Historia to historical consistency.
The events happen in the reign of Conanus (11.1128-85), which according to the
latter (xi, 2-5) would seem to be between the years 545-546 and 547-548, while
the battle at the beginning of the Vita is recognized by critics as alluding to that
of Arderydd, in the year 573 (according to the Annaies Cambriae, in Y Cymmro-
dor, ix, 155; Rolls Ser., p. 5). But the moderns who aver that the Merlins of the
two works are too unlike to have sprung from the same imagination overlook the
fundamental difference between historical and imaginative writing; whether he
of the Vita could actually have been he of the Historia grown old we need not
discuss, but that Geoffrey after the lapse of ten or fifteen years could have con-
ceived him to have been needs no discussion either. Some moderns too are slow
to learn how indifferent the mediaevals were to consistency in unimportant detail.
Indeed the whole Vita is not too strangely unlike the Historia. Both works are
meant on the whole to seem matter-of-fact, if like the mediaevals we accept
prophecy and divination and healing springs as veritable.
But soon the various contrasts between the twofiguresproduced a distinction,
comparable one might say to 'Notre Dame de Lourdes' and 'de Guadalupe,'
between 'Merlinus Ambrosius' and 'Merlinus Caledonius' or 'Silvester.' The
earliest flat assertion to be found that there were two Merlins is by Gerald de
Barri in Itinerarium Cambriae (of 1188-91),1 a highly intelligent man who thus
put positiveness albeit false into haziness. But the distinction began more
promptly, which shows not that the second Merlin existed in tradition before
the Vita but rather how speedily among the well-informed grew a knowledge of
the poem. In two contemporary library-catalogue descriptions of Geoffrey's
Historia, one copied from the other in Normandy, we read . . . 'libri XII, in
quorum septimo continentur prophetiae Mellini, non Silvestris, sed alterius, id
est Mellini Ambrosii.' The second dates between early 1152 and 1154; the first
rom very shortly earlier.2 Few are likely to doubt that these betray knowledge
of the Vita; that Norman monks would allude to a second work by Geoffrey
— the gift would be destroyed by disrespect for it, he says, not by restored sanity as in the Vita (11.
1160-67; vm, 10-11). His seeming magic is so evasive as to escape the odium which attached to
serious magic in the middle ages (later at least, for civilization advanced in two centuries; see Kit-
tredge Anniversary Papers, Boston, 1913, pp. 849-50; Tatlock, Scene of Frankl. T. (London, 1914),
pp. 80-87; also pp. 266 above and 284 below). His easy removal of the rocks of Stonehenge (vm, 12)
seems in part due to some superfine engineering, and the transforming of Uther into Gorlois' figure
(vm, 19) to 'medicamina.' Geoffrey's ideas will stand scrutiny less often than Chaucer's and Dante's.
In the Historia there is no suggestion of madness (but Merlin's emotional weeping before prophesying
shows Geoffrey's intelligence about abnormality, — vn, 3, v m , 15). His resorting to favorite springs
in the valley of Galabes (viii, 10, vn, 4) is not for their curative power. In him of the Vita, on the
other hand, there is nothing of the preternatural (unless his prophetic power), which is essential in
him of the Historia. In his original in Nennius there is nothing except his divination, and no indication
of its source unless his own marvelous origin. In the three works one sees a strengthening of Geoffrey's
rationalism. »Rolls. Ser., vi, 183,196, v, 401.
* This one is with the Leyden MS.of the Historia (which is not later than 1188), but is prefixed to
the whole volume (which contains much besides the Historia), and must be later than the Historia
part. The allusion to the Vita confirms the date of the Vita as not much after 1148. See Delisle in
Bibl. So. des Chartes, LXXI, 506-509; Faral, u, 20-22.
rather than to some north-British tradition for the existence of which no evidence
whatever exists. Another notable appearance of Silvester heads in a later hand the
first Lailoken narrative above described,—'Vita Merlini siluestris';1 inappro-
priate as a heading to the ensuing anecdotes of Lailoken, it shows recognition
of the resemblances between the two madmen's stories, and is plainly a reminis-
cence of the Vita; though it does not necessarily imply belief in two Merlins.
Silvester was a natural label for Merlin of the Vita. To say nothing of his life in
the forest, and of him as wild or insane (sauvage comes from silvaticus), near the
beginning (1. 80) the poet says of him, 'Fit siluester homo.'2
The earliest appearance of Merlinus 'Caledonius' seems to be in the works of
Gerald de Barri, who may have given this phrase and even the separate identity
much of their later vogue.3 It comes of course straight from the Vita, where nemus,
patulae, silvae Calidonis appear constantly4 as Merlin's resort, and is almost
equivalent to Silvester, for Calidon in other passages is forested (275, 1281), and
called by Merlin 'my Calidon' (1288). Though not a synonym for Scotland it is
thereabouts,6 and of course was taken by Geoffrey from the Historia, — 'nemus
Colidonis' or 'Calidonis,' a forested region vaguely in the north.6 'Caledonius'
and 'Caledonia' and their various forms applied to Scotland are at the very
1
Romania, xxii, 514-515; Ward, Catal. of Rom., i, 290-291. The MS is of the 15th century.
1
The same phrase used of Lailoken (Romania, XXII, 516), — Kentigern prays 'pro illo siluestri
homine.' — The name Myrddin Wyllt is sometimes given the prophet in much later Welsh. See, with
thanks to Dr T. P. Cross, J. G. Evans, Report on MSS in Welsh, n, i, 807-308, etc.; E. J. L. Jones,
Mynegai i Farddoniaeth (Cardiff, 1928), pp. 210, 292. The (g)wyllt (savage, wild) shows nothing as to
M. Silvester before Geoffrey, but is undoubtedly a mere translation of Silvester: 'Wild Wales' is a
very old phrase; see also Rolls ed. of Giraldus Cambr., I, ix.
• Indexes to Gir. Cambr. in Rolls Ser., vols. v, vi, vni, list some three dozen occurrences of all the
Merlins. See also Chambers, Arth. of Brit., p. 99; Bruce, Evol. of Arth. Rom., I, 143; Parry, p. 16
(with whom one must differ). Such a passage as vi, 199 (on Merlin's madness) is clearly based on
V. M., which Gerald of course knew; for the different identity of M. A. and M. C. or S., see v, 279,
401-402, vi, 133, 196. The only possible instance of Gerald identifying the two Merlins found by
Mrs Dempster after thorough search is vin, 216, probably due to Gerald's carelessness (cf. v, 374).
The curious habit as late as the sixteenth century of nicknaming Gerald himself Silvester is found
(as Mrs Dempster shows me) in Bale's Scriptorum . . . Catalogus, R. Stanyhurst's De Rebus in Hi-
bernia, S. White's Apologia pro Hibernia. Gerald denies (m, 206) that he is 'sylvester,' uncivilized, as
his enemies call him, but admits he may be 'campester.' Who can decide whether this may have some
connection with Gerald's frequent talk of Merlin Silvester, or is a mere gibe at his race and personal-
ity? Or whether Gerald used 'Caledonius' of Merlin to avoid suggesting the 'Sylvester,' which he had
resented? One cannot over-state Gerald's humanness and vanity. There is no indication of any con-
nection with Gerald's earlier French contemporary Bernardus Silvestris (unknown why so called).
4
LI. 132, 241, 244-245, 250, 1255.
• Scocia, Scoti, etc., in 11. 27, 60, 605, 610, 613, 969,1095.
• vn, 4, early; ix, 3. Classical Latin lexicographers and other moderns suggest that Caled- is the
Welsh celydd (pi. celyddon), found from the late twelfth century, and meaning a woody place, a
retreat. 'Coed Keliton' (Forest of Keliton) occurs four times in the Black Book of Carmarthen of the
late twelfth century, in a poem connected in some way with the Vita (see the index in J. G. Evans'
edition, and Skene, Four Anc. Bks., l, 870-873; also elsewhere in Welsh). This phrase is obviously the
same as silva or saltus Calidonius of Pliny, Florus and Martianus Capella; and as 'silva Celidonis,'
'Coit Celidon,' in 'Nennius' (§56), the scene of one of Arthur's battles, whence it reached the His-
toria (ix, 3). See also Nitze in Mod. Philol., xxxrx, 8; Loth in Rev. Celt., XLVII, 1-9. The location in
274 Geoffrey of Monmouih's Vita Merlini
least extremely scarce in the middle ages.1 Various of the MSS of the Vita from
the later thirteenth century on have one or other epithet in a colophon or the
like.2 There is every reason to believe that they come only from the Vita, and
not from some imagined tradition. Needless here to list all the occurrences of
either word or both together, numerous to the sixteenth century, especially in
prophecies.8
IV
The preceding paragraphs contain abundant evidence for at least hearsay in-
fluence of the Vita, as well as for its originality. There is much evidence for more
exact knowledge of its contents in the last half of the twelfth century and later;
more than one might expect from a comparatively slim showing of MSS. First,
though only one complete MS exists, this is of the late thirteenth century, which
shows that some demand continued; and there are several partial MSS, and evi-
dence of some now lost; which is not so bad for a poem (later outmoded as we
shall see) of the mid-twelfth century.4 Nearly half the Vita (11. 1-1291 with
the above is vague, but in northern Britain. The word 'Caledonian' here (though connected) is not
quite in the same line of tradition as
Caledonia stem and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child.
1
They are not in the mediaeval Latin dictionaries of Ducange and of J. H. Baxter and C. Johnson.
Wide search in the more likely writers, mediaeval and modern, turns up nothing. They occur of course
in classical writers from the first century. Only in Gerald de Barri and later writers do wefindthem,
and applied only to Merlin (so I am assured by Mrs Dempster, who has carefully searched). These
words never appear in Geoffrey's Historia; the country is Albania or sometimes Scotia, the people
Scoti, twice Albani (v, 4, vn, 4).
' Faral, u, 29; Ward, Catal. of Romances, i, 288, 290. (Strangely omitted in Faral's and Parry's
editions.) Further, some of the condensed MSS of the Vita deliberately omit the verses 680-8 which
make the identity of the two Merlins clear, as if the non-identity was by that time an article of
belief (Parry, p. 70; U. of 111. photostats).
* With the vogue of prophecy in the later middle ages, a new father for it in a new Merlin was wel-
come. See Ward, Catal. of Romances, i, 288-317; Catal. of Addit. to MSS in B. M., 1916-20 (London,
1933), p. 284; M. R. James, Catal. of C. C. C. C. (Camb., 1911-2), n, 117; James, Western MSS. of
T. C. C. (Camb., 1900-2), n, 154; Catal. Libr. MSS Angl. et Hib. (Oxf., 1697), pp. 78, 118, 837;
Catal. Cott. Libr. B. M. (London, 1808), p. 614; MSS in Lambeth Palace (Camb., 1930), p. 288; J. J.
Smith, MSS in Gonville and Caius (Camb., 1849), p. 132; Catal. of Ashmolean MSS (Oxf., 1845).
Most or all of the above are in prophecies. Other occurrences of the epithets are in Higden, Polychron.
(Bolls. Ser.), i, 418-421 (has no doubt of two different Merlins); Eulogium Hist. (Rolls. Ser.), n,
137-138; also Holinshed (see index); and seemingly Bale, and John Hardyng. Sometimes calling him
of the Historia Merlinus Ambrosius may show acquaintance with M. Silv. or M. Cal.; but not neces-
sarily, e.g., not in Ordericus Vitalis (Soc. Hist. France, vol. iv, 486), who merely takes this double
name from Geoffrey's Historia itself (vi, 19; vn, 8, early). Further, anyone could see that Geoffrey's
Merlinus is developed from Nennius' Ambrosius (§42), Ordericus being familiar with 'Nennius.'
Though his good editor le Prevost does not name the latter among the sources, 'Nennius' was doubt-
less bound up, as usually in the middle ages, with Gildas, whom the editor does name; and more,
Ordericus got from 'Nennius' the spelling Guortigernus and his account of the red and white dragons
interpreted by Merlin (iv, 486-489;Hist. Brit., §§42-48, etc.). For modern works touching on Merlin
Silv. and Caled. see W. E. Mead in Merlin (E. E. T. S., 1899), i, dxxxvft*.;and Miss M. E. Griffiths,
Early Vaticination in Welsh (Cardiff, 1937), pp. 77 ff. (ill-judged).
4
See Parry, pp. 21-22.1 have fully examined, through the good offices of the University of Illinois
many omissions), some 700 lines, is inserted at a suitable chronological point in
four MSS of Higden's Polychronicon. Further, there are two very late MSS of
extracts from the Vita prophecies. A considerable passage bearing on Avalon is
quoted somewhere about 1400 by John of Glastonbury. John Leland quotes the
Vita, from a copy which he found at Glastonbury, perhaps that used by John;
and Leland's friend Sir John Price also quotes it.1 There is no reason for surprise
at the scarcity of copies. The Historic, multiplied because it was trusted as history,
which Geoffrey deliberately disclaimed for the Vita in its opening words. Even
the mid-thirteenth century Latin verse version of the Historia called Gesta
Regum Britanniae is known in only three MSS.2 People who wished history
found less value in poetic outgrowths. Later I discuss other reasons for loss of
vogue by the Vita. There is no reason to doubt that plenty of MSS existed in its
early years.
But there is much other evidence of vogue.8 Further cases where the Vita has
been thought to have been used for the location and description of Avalon are
in the Gesta Regum Britanniae,* in De Antiquitate Glaston. Eccl.,i and in the poem
Normannicus Draco by Stephen of Rouen.6 Other cases where the Vita may very
probably have influenced ideas of Avalon and its queen and her marvelous powers
of healing are in Chretien's and Hartmann's Erec, one of the Percival romances
and La Mort le roi Artus,7 and in 'Layamon's Brut'8 (this last probably through
hearsay). Further, the Briton poet Taliessin while probably early familiar to the
Library, photostats of the partial MSS, Cott. Vespasian E IV being the only complete one. In Harl.
655, Royal IS E i, Cott. Jul. E VIII, and Cott. Titus A XIX, described above, the excerpting is not
done with discrimination, — looks as if a dullard had merely meant to put in about a half. While
judgment is shown in the circumstances by omitting much of the pseudoscientific and historical dis-
courses, some of the diverting incidents are also omitted, including the last 238 11. with the idyllic
ending. The narrative is far from rounded out, nor even severely from the 'historic' part. Probably it
was the reputation of the Historia as important history which produced this heedless selection from
Geoffrey's second work.
1
Faral, n, 429-480; H. L. D. Ward, Catal. of Romances, I, 279, 287-288; J.Leland, Collectanea (Ox-
ford, 1715), II, 16-17. Leland was not confined to the Polychronicon abridgement, since he quotes
from the ending of V. M.
1
Ed. Fr.-Michel (Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc, 1862), pp. vii f.; Ward, Catal. of Romances, i, 274.
1
I disregard resemblances in Welsh poems in the Black Book of Carmarthen, owing to the uncer-
tainty as to their dates and origins. On the possibility of their debt to the Vita see Faral, n, 871, 878;
Bruce, i, 130; Lot, Annales de Bret., xv, 515-520; L. A. Paton, M. L. N., xvm, 169. Without being
a Celtist, I should favor this view. For the contrary opinion, Parry, V. M., p. 127, PhUol. Quarterly,
iv, 197-198, 202-205. At any rate it is hard to believe that such highly conscious lyric poems would
have been handed down for a long time by word of mouth. Possibly mediaeval English scholars have
a grievance against Celtists for doing so little to establish the date of the language of these poems. —
Geoffrey may just as possibly as another, to say the least, have been the first to devise conversations
between Merlin and Taliessin.
* LI. 4213-84; fully accepted by Faral, Chambers, less positively by R. H. Fletcher (Arth. Mater.,
p. 167); and see L. A. Paton (Fairy Mythol., pp. 45-47).
8
Faral, n, 429. • Mod. Philol., xxxi, 18,15-16.
7
Lot, Romania, XLV, 16-22; the last ed. by Sommer, Vulg. Rom., vi, 238, 881-382.
8
Better called Lawman's Historia Britonum (ed. Madden, n and in, 11. 23067-73, 28610-17).
Chambers (p. 105) agrees here; Bruce is not unfavorable (i, S3). Neither passage is in Wace, Lawman's
source.
Welsh appears in Latin only in 'Nennius' (merely named among five poets)1
before the Vita, where he is so prominent, and which is therefore the likeliest
source for later general knowledge of him. There are other indications of influ-
ence. In the Annales Cambriae, in a MS of the thirteenth century but not in the
earlier MS, we read 'Merlinus insanus effectus est'; we may well follow Lot and
Parry in believing this due to the Vita;2 Merlin's sensational plight had become
notorious. It is certain that Gerald de Barri knew the Vita; in view of seeming
echoes, and of his opportunities, his wide curiosity and reading, his interest in
the Welsh past, and his constant discrimination between the Merlin of the His-
toria and Merlin Silvester or Caledonius, we must agree in this with Paris, Lot
and evidently Chambers.3 I disregard other and less convincing possibilities of
influence, e.g., borrowings of mere proper names.
Influence of the Vita on the later Arthur-romances4 is the most extensive and
essential. Two of Merlin's marvelous divinations, about the shoe buying and the
three-fold death (of which the former is not in Lailoken) are in two prose Merlin-
romances of the thirteenth century,6 and were probably in the lost portion of
Robert de Boron's late twelfth-century romance of Merlin. One or two critics
have not accepted the Vita as the source; yet since in all these works it is Merlin
of whom the anecdotes are told, and unless one makes the gratuitous assumption
that Geoffrey was using some now unknown but highly-developed Merlin-story,
one must agree with Lot, Bruce and Chambers that the Vita is the source. This
opinion is clinched by the appearance of many other resemblances here to the
1
Not in all texts, but in the good Harl. 3859 (11-12 cent.), §62, in the 'Saxon genealogies.' —
Thelesin, Teleusin (Wace, Brut, 4972-93 in de Lincy's ed., 4855-76 in Arnold's, reappearing as Teile-
sin in Lawman, II. 9090-9169) as a Briton prophet of Christ's coming, at the time of Christ, seems
likeliest to be a negligent recollection of Geoffrey's Vita Merlini, in a work which is based on his
Hiatoria. This extraordinary mixture of chronology is due of course to sheer ignorance and heedless-
ness, which should surprise no one into elaborate surmise as to oral tradition, and is often paralleled;
in the Merlin prose-romance edited by H. 0. Sommer (Vulgate Romances, II, 281) Merlin leaves
Arthur and goes to 'Romenie,' the emperor of which then is Julius Caesar. A personage in a late ro-
mance of the Tristan cycle is son of 'Fee Morghe' and Julius Caesar {Zt. row.. Philol., xxv, 653);
in two poor texts of the Roman de Troie (11. 8023-26) she is vainly in love with Hector, which shows
scribes were not shocked by such chronology. — The reference to 'Thelesinus' falsely implied to be
in Peter of Blois by de Lincy (Wace's Brut, n, 359), is from a note in de Goussainville's scarce edition
which note has much on later mediaeval scholarly skepticism about Merlin as a prophet, and has
things which show knowledge of the Vita among such writers. Peter himself makes curious remarks
about Merlin (Migne, P. L., ccvn, 811, 1124). On Taliessin, J. M. Jones, Y Cymmrodor, xxxvin,
1-290.
2
H. Petrie, Mon. Histor. Brit., i, 831; Bolls Ser. ed., p. 5. For the scholars mentioned see Ann. de
Bret., xv, 531-532; Philol. Quarterly, iv, 207. On Gerald de Barri's knowledge of Merlin's madness
see p. 273 above.
• Romania, xn, 375-376; Ann. de Bret., xv, 334 (suggesting that Merlin's prophecies found by
Gerald at Nevyn may have been those in the Vita or a derivative); Arth. of Brit., p. 99. Gerald would
have seen the Vita at latest in 1192-98, when he was in Lincoln (Rolls. Ser ed., I, lvi); there would
be a copy at the see-city of the dedicatee. We have seen above (p. 272) that in 1188-91 he states that
there were two Merlins.
4
See above also on Avalon. I have mentioned above the possible origin in the Vita of a poem by
Matthew of Vendome, and of the Lailoken narrative.
• Ed. by G. Paris and J. Ulrich (Soc. Ane. T. Franc., 1886), i, 48-49, 80-84; Vulgate Romances, ed.
Sommer, n, 28-29, 45-47,
Geoffrey of Monmouitis Vita Merlini 277
Vita, especially the two other divinations (adultery detected by leaf, the secretly
rich beggar), appearing later in the longer of these two prose Merlins.1 Some critics
seem unaware that all four Vita divinations are in the longer Merlin. I defer
(to pp. 284ff.)the probable influence of the madness of Merlin in the Vita upon
that of others in later romance. For the matters mentioned in this and the pre-
ceding paragraphs some may appeal to 'a common source' in tradition or lost
literature, but for this there is no hint of presumption or evidence, merely that
a priori assumption in favor of oral tradition which was so common a generation
or two ago, and mediaeval hazy notions (especially in Gerald de Barri) about the
two Merlins which have been fully accounted for above. A second work during
the vogue of the Historia would be bound to attract much notice immediately,
though perhaps losing it later; one might say, like a second and inferior novel
today by the author of a first novel which had proved a 'best-seller.' It is es-
pecially incredible that anyone would write a prodigious romance on Merlin
without knowing a Life of Merlin by the eminent Geoffrey. Not in every case
above must the writer have read the whole Vita; and the poem is sensational
enough so that much of its gist and spicy detail would survive through hearsay.
Its seeming relative lack of popularity was not so marked as the slim MS-tradi-
tion might suggest; the vogue of the poem began promptly owing to its author-
ship, originality and sensational timeliness, but owing to its incongruities, which
moderns also feel, did not continue into the generations whence most mediaeval
MSS have come down to us. Its lack of harmonious unity of spirit would not
have baulked mediaeval readers as it baulks us. A full appraisal of the relation
of the Vita to the whole Arthurian cycle of romance is still a desideratum. The
plain conclusion must be that in its own day the Vita was well known.
We come now to closer quarters with the poem as a whole. King of the south
Welsh and long a prophet, Merlin becomes violent and melancholy-mad because
his three younger brothers are among many killed under him in battle against
the Scots; he frantically takes to the Caledonian woods, and lives many months
alone among the beasts.2 Drawn hopefully back to his grieving sister Ganieda's
Scottish court by a skilled musician sent by her, he is maddened again in the
concourse of people and only by force is restrained from flight. His divinations
concerning her adultery follow, her tricks to discredit him, and his exposure of
her tricks, which vindicates him later; also his rejection of his wife and permission
for her to remarry, his flight again to his sad wild life in the woods, return in
fantastic guise with remarkable gifts for his now remarried wife, his killing the
husband, escape and recapture. Here come his two other divinations, and final
return to the woods. Hence to the end (11. 580-1529) there is mostly a series of
1
See Sommer, pp. 282-291; some of L. A. Paton's comments and reasoning (PMLA, xxn, 248-
268, esp. 266-268) will seem to some mechanical and unacceptable, and to beg the question.
* With a mild suggestion of lycanthropy, as in the charming passage beginning 'Tu lupe care
comei' (102-112); later a group of madmen behave 'more lupino' (1417-22). 'Lycanthropy' is vague;
see, mentioned on pp. 281, 282 below, Zilboorg, pp. 105, 167, 169, and Oesterreich, Demon. Possess.,
p. 191.
discourses. First are his prophecies as to wars and politics in the manner of those
in book vn of the Historia; he is joined by the sage Telgesinus, and from the
two come discourses on the constitution of the universe, strange fishes and their
ways, islands and their denizens, more foretellings, history. He is permanently
cured by drinking from a newly-erupted spring; which occasion Telgesinus im-
proves by telling of many other springs and waters. Then arrive Merlin's princes
with a request to resume his throne, whom he refuses, and regales with talk
about birds wondrous in their habits. The pair are joined by another madman
cured by the same spring, and by Merlin's now widowed and reformed sister, to
whom the gift of prophecy passes after leaving Merlin; and the four continue to
lead an enlightened, pious and comfortable life in the woodland. Such is the cheer-
ful ending of this heterogeneous poem.
What makes the Vila less unaccountable than it seems is that it was not meant
seriously, as the very first line assures us, —
Fatidici uatis rabiem musamque iocosam
Merlini cantare paro.
This means a jeu d'esprit, jocus sjriritus,1 a light, entertaining poem on Merlin
and his madness. Jocosus keeps recurring all though. Merlin addresses 'iocosis
uerbis' the musician who restores him (201-2); his brother-in-law finds a treasure
through his means, 'uatemque iocosus adorat' (532). The two sages capture a
noisy violent madman, and make him sit with them, that his speech may excite
their 'risusque iocosque loquendo' (1392). Notably there is a constant recurrence
of smiles and laughter, and it abounds in grotesque ironical incidents. Merlin's
frequent melancholy is merely a part of his transitory insanity, and the reader is
kept in a genial frame of mind. The poet intends, as he warns us from the first
and throughout, a very different work from the serious-seeming and ambitious
Historia? The Last Years of Merlin were not like the first; the infirm grip and
wavering step with which Geoffrey follows them allows one to guess (as suggested
above) that we may have here something like a 'command performance,'8 —
that we have not a spontaneous generation of Geoffrey's own brain. At all events,
the phrase 'musamque iocosam' is the most significant thing in the poem for
understanding it.
The last two-thirds of the poem are political and racial prophecies, pseudo-
history, and extravagant details about the wonders of nature, interspersed with
short picturesque incidents. The first two partly repeat and have the same inter-
1
Consider joculator (jongleur), jocale, jocalia (jewels); also joe- in J. H. Baxter and C. Johnson's
Med. Lot. WorirLUl (Oxford, 1984). Jocosus does not mean humorous.
> But the Historia has its lighter touches; witness giant Ritho and his fur of kings' beards, Brianus
and his venison cut from his own thigh, and Geoffrey's final chaff at the historians William and Henry
( X , 3 ; X I I , 4, 20).
' If we had not the dedicatee Robert de Chesney to think of, we might have the young Plantagenet,
later Henry H, who a few years before had been brought up by Geoffrey's chief patron, the bookish
Earl Robert of Gloucester, and himself liked scholars, had good reason for interest in Arthurian mat-
ten, and evidently encouraged another matter-of-fact religious to try his unskilled hand at imagina-
tion. See an article on Stephen of Rouen, M. P., xxxi, esp. 124-125, and references there.
est as the like in the Historia. The incidents show Geoffrey's skill in narration
(as we saw), shown already in the Historia, by breaking up the heavier by the
lighter; the discourses being broken successively by the death of Ganieda's
husband, the coming of Telgesinus, the freshly-erupting spring, its cure of Merlin,
his refusal of his throne, its cure of another madman, and the final union of the
four of them.
Assuredly the wonders of nature which are the chief thing in the second half
are meant as iocosa. As such a feature they are highly unusual in narration,1
and are treated in a way equally unusual, conspicuous evasion of vouching for
their truth. Such evasive statements as dicuntur, fertur, perhibentur, used in the
Vita almost never elsewhere,2 are so plentifully sprinkled among the marvels*
as completely to shuffle off responsibility for truth, and to mark the aim as not
instruction but entertainment. With such an attitude who would not have been
interested in she-fish which reproduce by means of snakes (11. 830 ff.), goat-
women who in speed outstrip hares (898 f.), two islands which have gold and
silver for common stones (900 f.) ? Eleven marvels are qualified by such evasions
between lines 803 and 900, with nearly three dozen in two or three hundred lines,
so that the words become tiresome. Similar marvels with fertur, etc., are two
Boeotian springs which make the drinker remember or forget (1194 f.) one in
Epirus which will ignite a torch (1231 f.), one elsewhere too cold to approach by
day and too hot by night (1233 ff.); ten such between 1185 and 1247. The Mem-
nonides birds fly every fifth year to the tomb of Memnon to lament the death of
this Trojan hero (1378 ff.); eight such between 1312 and 1378. All these marvels
without the disclaimers of responsibility would be received by the most readers,
not as by us with prompt fatigue, perhaps contempt, but with interest which
raised little question between belief and disbelief. The mediaeval was far less
prone than we to ask, — Is it true? He just listened, with his imagination. But
by his evasions Geoffrey puts these marvels in a different class from other things;
he belonged among and wrote for more critical people than most of us are aware
were alive in the twelfth century. He meant the marvels ad narrandum non ad
probandum, — as iocosa, like the rest of the poem.
1
Faral (n, 877) encourages one to draw a slapdash parallel with the Roman de Thebes and Roman
a"Eneas as to 'curiosities borrowed from natural history.' It is not correct that these romances are
full of them; and they reject many chances for them. Occasionally merely the authors' misguided
erudition led them to put in their very straightaway narration enough of these to make it more vivid
and intelligible. See especially Eneas (Bibl. Normannica, no. iv), pp. Ixviii f. Any suggestion of con-
geniality with the Vita is misleading. I find no contemporary parallel to the Vita here. The much ear-
lier 'Nennius' {Historia Britonum, §§67-75), from whose Ambrosius Geoffrey had got his Merlin,
ends with the brief Mirabilia of Britain, a little like those in the Vita, but used in no such manner. —
Today there is an amusing parallel in the shrewd use of 'the wonders of nature' in The National Geo-
graphic Magazine, which has so wide an appeal, to make money for scientific research.
2
The only case I note is in 1110, — Arthur 'transire uolens ut fertur.'
• LI. 808-940, 1179-1258, 1292-1886. Occasionally these words mean merely 'are reckoned as*
(11. 746, 869, 888). Such evasive words are often used in the chief source of the marvels, Isidor's
Etymologiae, but Geoffrey much oftener uses them where Isidor does not than omits them where he
does. And Geoffrey was never a dull plodding copyist, but very much aware.
VI
One sign of the light mood of the poem is probably the insanity itself. Though
it was an explanation of Merlin's prophetic powers which would appeal to the
rationalistic Geoffrey, others were at hand, as we shall see. Not only is the mad-
man met in the woods an occasion for laughter and sport,1 but Merlin's own
madness is indicated in line 1 as the object of the 'musam iocosam.' The poet
constantly has insanity on his mind. Various madmen appear,2 and among the
wonders of nature a half-dozen times are causes and cures of insanity,* some as-
tonishing and even laughable. Later I show plenty of cases of a light attitude to
insanity in the middle ages, which notoriously was usual later, and would be
forced on us today for spiritual self-defence if insanity were a commoner sight;
the 'emotional instability' as well as the delusions would inevitably be amusing
to the tough-minded sane.
Now as to background for the insanity, in literature and in fact. Besides a
few similarities in Celtic already mentioned, in the experience of the mad Merlin
there are scriptural reminiscences. Nebuchadnezzar like him abandons his king-
dom, lives in the wilderness with beasts, till 'sensus meus redditus est mihi,'
'reversus est ad me,' and his lords seek him out to restore his kingdom to him,
as in the Vita.* King Saul6 prophesies through Spiritus Domini (though he has a
malign spirit also, and at times himself is malign); so Merlin and his sister proph-
esy through a spiritus clearly not evil (1470, 1522). As Merlin is restored by
music, — singing and the playing of a cithara, so is Saul by David playing a
cithara.6
We cannot ignore technical medical literature mediaeval and modern. In-
sanity and its treatment were of course ill understood in the middle ages, though
it was far more conspicuous than to-day because cases not dangerous to others
were usually neglected and allowed at large.7 Such theory as there was came down
from the ancients, and was liable to be muddled up with superstitions of pagan,
Christian, and folk origin. The subject is very baffling, and no wonder the few
modern historians of psychiatry contribute little to knowledge. Such men nat-
urally are not familiar with mediaeval literary and historical writings, which give
an idea of insanity as it was, and of how it was regarded and treated; but also
1
'Cogunt ut moueat risusque iocosque loquendo' (1892).
» LI. 821, 1387, 1417-18.
«1197, 1201, 1203, 1256-57, 1387, 1408-41. — A parallel to the last case, a malady or bodily
damage strangely caused and cured by eating or drinking something, is in H. Oesterley's Gesta
Romanorum (Berlin, 1872), p. 468, and in Hilka's Hist. Sept. Sap. (Heidelberg, 1912-18), i, 18. In
the long French prose romance of Lancelot, he is badly poisoned by a spring (Sommer, Vulgate Rom.,
v, 71-73). Also see 11. 1145-58, and p. 270 above. Faral mentions a more remote Irish parallel (pp.
362-868), as well as classical ones. See also Bruce, Arth. Rom., I, 438; and especially L. A. Paton,
M. L. N., xviil, 163-164. * LI. 209,1152,1160,1259-63; Daniel, iv, 28-84.
1
'Prophetare,' / Sam., x, 10-11, xix, 23. A modern diagnosis of these two cases is in J. R. Whitwell,
Historical Notes on Psychiatry (Phila., 1937), pp. 21-24.
« LI. 166, 206, 226; called also lira, 204. And see I Sam., xvi, 23.
7
Dangerous cases were imprisoned; J. H. Baas, Outl. of Hist, of Medicine (tr. Handerson, N. Y.,
1910), p. 847; Fosseyeux (below), p. 22; Neuburger (below), n, i. 116.
(for whatever reason) they almost entirely neglect the numerous mediaeval Latin
medical works, which give vastly more than theory, and which show some gen-
uine perception. Intelligible though the fact may be, it is only fair to say that
all modern accounts of mediaeval psychiatry are superficial and misleading.1
There is a rich though to some uninviting field for research, using all the records
both medical, philosophical, historical and imaginative, on the mediaeval theory,
treatment and attitude toward madness. Perhaps more system would come out
of the confusion than appears now. At any rate everything shows that the mad
were treated with more humanity and practical good sense than in some later
centuries.2 In fact this is the most cheerful part of the picture, for from the second
to the nineteenth century psychiatry lagged behind the rest of medical science
(not dropped out as some say), and made little progress of any kind. Good sense
and mercy did better than misguided theory.
Two main lines of tradition emerge and often merge in mediaeval ideas of
1
1 suppose the least inadequate discussions are that by Th. Kirchhoff, Geschichte d. Psychiatrie, in
Handbuch d. Psychiatrie, ed. G. Aschaffenburg (Leipzig u. Wien, 1912), Allgem. Teil, Abt. 4, pp?
8-28 (extensive bibliography, pp. 8-6); and that by Gregory Zilboorg and G. W. Henry, History of
Medical Psychology (N. Y., 1941). Dr Zilboorg ignores almost all the mediaeval Latin authorities,
stating erroneously (p. 127) that they do not discuss mental diseases; his work is far from 'exhaustive,
and his mediaeval chapters far from 'masterly,' as stated by a flattering review in The Saturday Review
of Literature, 17 Jan., 1942. M. Fosseyeux, 'Cure balneaire et thaumaturgique des Alienes au moyen-
ftge,' in Bull, de la soc. franc, d'hist. de la midecine, XXXIII, 21-32 (1939) is serviceable; he uses records
and historical works. Bruno Cassinelli,|Sfona della pazzia, 1936 (French tr., Paris, 1939), is misnamed,
miscellaneous, undocumented and amateurish. L. S. Selling, Men against Madness, contributes noth-
ing. Strangely enough the best starting point, which shows there is hope of important results for the
history of psychiatry, is by a historian of literature, J. L. Lowes, in Mod. Philol., xi, 491-546, writing
on madness due to love ('heroical love') as viewed by mediaeval authorities, and showing in what de-
tail it and its treatment were discussed by a dozen or two mediaeval Latin and Arabic authorities
(the latter in Latin translations). Doubtless one reason why these are almost ignored by modern his-
torians of psychiatry is their inaccessibility, few or none printed since the sixteenth century. They
show once more that mediaevals had far more sense and experience, even in science, than superficial
moderns are disposed to realize. — The shorter general histories of medicine have almost nothing of
importance, in the mediaeval part sometimesflyingthe danger-signal of a rhetorical style. Longer his-
tories mention mediaeval medical writers who should be looked up; such histories are H. Haeser,
Gesch. d. Median (Jena, 1875-81), and above all M. Neuburger and J. Pagel, Handbuch d. Gesch. d.
Medizin (Jena, 1902), i, 447-756; see also Neuburger's Hist of Medicine (tr. E. Playfair, London, 1910-
85), which drops a little on insanity, — i, 336,886, n, i, 29,75,115-116,118-135. — General histories
of science have little on so unscientific a subject; see L. Thorndike, Hist, of Magic and Exper. Sci.
(N. Y., 1928), ii, 142-143, etc. — There is little discrimination between the half-witted ('court-
fools' appear as far back as William i) and the insane, among either mediaeval writers or moderns,
and rarely between various types of insanity; but the Arabs were more discriminating than the
Christians (Zilboorg, p. 123; but see Lowes, pp. 495, 498, etc.). As to fools see E. Welsford, The Fool
(N. Y., 1985 ?), esp. pp. 114, 125; Romania, xxn, 507); Jocelin's Vita Kentegerni, chap. 45. I have
searched widely, in far more works than are mentioned in this article. I mention also H. E. Sigerist,
Medical Lit. of Early M. A., in Bull, of Hist, of Med., n, 26-50; see also vm, 781-782, on the extraor-
dinary St Hildegard of Bingen's views on insanity. H. Crohns has written on 'amor hereos,' in ancient
and especially mediaeval times, in Ofversigt afFinska Vetenskaps Societetens Forhandlingar, XIJX, and
Archivf. Kuliur-Gesch., m, 66-86 (my thanks to Professor Archer Taylor).—It may be that social
tolerance and sympathy encouraged the actual occurrence of love-madness in the later Middle Ages.
* See, e.g., Zilboorg, p. 148.
insanity, the classical and semi-scientific, and the mythological or religious (to
ignore a vast amount of miscellaneous hocus-pocus). The former was bound up
with the theory of the four humors, which (especially the black bile) were thought
the cause of insanity, and the purgation of which might relieve it. Galen made
this last claim.1 Diet, bleeding, drugs, baths, soothing words, cheerful surround-
ings and music also were recommended.2 The insane were admitted to 'hospitals'
and religious houses;* not all were abandoned to their fate. The mythological or
religious tradition involved chiefly possession by spirits, evil spirits in the mediae-
val view, though with characteristic vagueness not all the mad were thought to
be possessed. This idea was bound up with supposed prophetic powers in the
insane.4 Healing at holy wells or springs may de facto have had some vague con-
nection with the semi-scientific purgation;6 and of course various religious rites
were used, including invocations of special saints, and relics and pilgrimages.6
In mediaeval non-technical literature (mostly latish) there is here and there
a lifelike picture of the light and the humane attitudes to the insane. St Romual-
dus, Italian abbot of the eleventh century, learning of a smart plan for murdering
him to secure his body for relics, feigns madness and is thus spared, — 'corpus
laedere dedignati sunt.'7 A compassionate and merciful attitude to the insane is
shown by Gerald de Barri; also in Piers Plowman.* In various versions of the
Lailoken story the madman, though tormented by the ignorant, is treated kindly
1
Opera Omnia (Leipzig, 1821-38), vn, 202, XI, 841; xvn, ii, 624. See also Zilboorg, pp. 45, 50, 57,
71, 92, 105, 114, etc.; R. Semelaigne, Les. pionniers de la psychiatrie frang . . . (Paris, 1930-32), I,
10, 17; Cassinelli, p. 431; and A. O'Brien-Moore, Madness in Ancient Literature (Princeton diss.,
Weimar, 1924), p. 29. There is less light than might be expected in Robert Burton's Anatomy of
Melancholy, but see I, i, 3; i, ii, 1, 2; i, ii, 8, 4; i, ii, 4, 7; n, ii, 6, 3; n, iv, 2.
» Fosseyeux, pp. 22, 25, 32; Zilboorg, pp. 63, 124, 127, 187-138; J. R. Whitwell, Histor. Notes on
Psychiatry (Phila., 1937), pp. 21-24, 37, 70 (ancients, very little on middle ages).
3
Fosseyeux, pp. 22-28, 25-26; Kirchhoff, p. 26.
4
T. K. Oesterreich, Possession Demonaical and Other (N. Y., 1980; tr. Ibberson from Die Besessen-
heit, 1921), esp. pp. 176, 186; Fosseyeux, pp. 28 f.; Zilboorg, p. 107. See also Gerald de Barri (Rolls
Ser.), v, 130-181. The ancients believed the same,— see O'Brien-Moore, pp. 96 ff., 188, 160; F.
Cumont, L'Sgypte des Astrologues (Brussels, 1937), p. 168. So did the Irish; see Buile Suibhne (de-
scribed above), pp. 105,141,145; also Welsford, The Fool, p. 97, who says also the Slavs, p. 77. As
to the Bible, see Whitwell, pp. 21,27. — 'Prophecy' is ambiguous, may mean foretelling, or utterance
which sounds impressive or mysterious. On the origin and reception of mediaeval political prophecy
I venture to refer to 'Geoffrey of Monmouth and Regnum Scotorum' in SPECULUM, IX, 188-189; and
on the attitude toward pseudo-science discussed above to Mod. Philol., xxxi, 5, 17-18, 128, and
SPEC, VIII, 228. — Madness was associated with various supernatural powers, not only prophecy
but magic; see Kirchhoff, pp. 24-25, and much other evidence. Therefore the mad Merlin of the Vita
was a natural realistic development from the more mysterious prophet and (evasively) magician of
the Historia.
s
See D. H. Tuke, Chapters in Hist, of Insane in British Isles (London, 1882), pp. 11-19; Zilboorg, p.
42.
6
Cure of lunacy by saints and their relics, pilgrimages and the like was to be expected, and of course
still is reputed to go on. See Jocelin's Vita Kentegerni, chaps. 84, 41, 44; the prose Lancelot (below);
Gerald de Barri (Rolls Ser., vn, 127, 184); Adolph Franz, Kirchl. Benediktionen (Freiburg, 1909).
11, 524-527, 540 ff., 551-586; Fosseyeux, pp. 22-28,27; Kirchhoff, pp. 28, 26, 28.
7
Migne, Patrol. Lot., c x u v , 966-967.
8
Giraldus (Rolls Ser.), vn, 134; P. PI. (ed. Skeat), C-text, x, 105-136.
by their betters; he causes amusement, in one version is a court-fool, is possessed
by a devil, and is not cured. His prophecies come from Christ according to him,
according to others from the devil. The account is realistic.1 Tristan, suddenly
appearing disguised as a thoroughly insane court-fool, though ill-used and ridi-
culed by townspeople, is good-naturedly laughed at but kindly treated by the
better sort, who do not recognize him.2 In a debate as to the souls of suicides,
though damned if the cause is 'sola tristitia et desperatio,' there is no doubt of
their salvation if they are irrational 'furiosi et fatui,' provided they die in a state
of charity.* A short interesting article by E. A. Wright4 cites a number of French
romances and plays, all later than the Vita, from the twelfth to the fourteenth
century, mostly showing a realistic, reasonable, humane attitude, much as in
the Vita, with cures mostly by kindness and rest, less by religious or 'scientific'
means. A similar attitude in Arthurian romance I defer a little.
The rational Geoffrey shows no interest in the hazy semi-science concerning
insanity. The chief suggestion of it is in the cure of Merlin by drinking from the
new spring, which purges his melancholy; this combines the semi-scientific treat-
ment by purgation of humors5 with the very different religious and popular no-
tion of cure by 'holy wells,' sacred to certain saints (though doubtless venerated
long before Christianity). Indeed the whole incident looks like an after-thought
development from Merlin in both Vita and Historia frequenting springs,6 a
natural resort for a man living alone in the wilds. There is a like haziness in the
three causes indicated for his prophetic powers. They are bound up with his
madness, and when cured he prophesies no more,7 — a situation illustrated in his
sister and Telgesinus; they are also due to a spirit, not evil;8 but also to
astrology.9 Take your choice; nothing clean-cut here. Prophecy as a product of
1
Romania, xxn, 507, 516-517, 520-522. On the devil, and on the increase of the humors as the
moon waxes, as causes of madness, Gerald de Barri, v, 70. Another case of demoniac possession in
Lancelot (Vulgate Romances, Sommer, iv, 30).
• Late twelfth-century Fdie Tristan (ed. Bedier, Soc. Anc. T. Fr.), pp. 1,25-36.1 disregard genuine
cases of court-fools.
' Early thirteenth-century Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dial. Mirac., ed. J. Strange (Cologne, 1851),
i, 212 (rv, or in, 44).
4
'Mediaeval Attitudes towards Mental Illness,' Bulletin of Hist, of Medicine, vn, 352-356.
6
Vtque per internos alui stomachique meatus
Humor iit laticis subsedauitque uaporem
Corporis interni.
See 11. 1136-58, 1434-41.
• LI. 138-140,1404; vin, 10. The combination is quite in Geoffrey's manner, like the evasive com-
bination of magic and skilled engineering in Merlin moving the Chorea Gigantum in the Historia
(vin, 12); with this last compare angels erecting for Kentigern a huge stone cross when others and
their engines have failed (Lives of Ninian and Kentigern, ed. A. P. Forbes, p. 233).
7
LI. 1160-68, 1522. Telgesinus, who shows no sign of madness, though full of strange lore never
prophesies, — in 1. 976 he merely guesses. Ganieda prophesies when 'rapiebat ad alta spiritus'
(1468-69, — 'exaltation' rather than insanity). The mad Merlin prophesies with such frenzy that he
would have seventy scribes at hand with waxed tablets (556-61) to record his words.
8
1470, 1522; clearly to a good spirit in the Historia (VII, 8, beginning; vin, 10, 15), as of course in
the Bible, and in ancient literature, but not in mediaeval; except in what the mad Lailoken says of
himself (Romania, xxn, 518-519), and in hazy legends of prophetic saints, and the like.
> LI. 429-440,555-561.
madness we have seen to be often accepted in the middle ages, and may well be
why the rationalistic Geoffrey turns Merlin into a madman. Astrology as source
of extensive and marvelous prophecy is unparalleled in mediaeval literature, so
far as I find, and here comes out of Geoffrey's matter-of-fact adoption of con-
temporary pseudo-science. He is unusual also in attributing these powers to a
spirit not evil. There is nothing of any Christian explanation of insanity, such as
demoniacal possession, or of cure by exorcism or relics. No exact theory lies be-
hind. Rather Geoffrey shows some insight into the actual facts, the provocation
of insanity by shock, grief, crowds and ordinary life, and its alleviation by soli-
tude, rest, music and affection;1 and into the variability caused by feeling un-
controlled, as in Merlin's permission to his wife to remarry, fantastic gifts to her,
and then killing the bridegroom.2 We have earlier seen much of all this paral-
leled elsewhere in the middle ages, and doubtless it was recognized by many
enlightened people, but in Geoffrey's picture we should see a victory of humane-
ness and common-sense over theory.
VII
Earlier in this article there is a collection of probable reminiscences of details
of the Vita in later literature, mostly pointed out by previous writers. We come
now to resemblances and influence more far-reaching and no less probable. One
matter is madness in Arthurian romances.3 It did not exist in the earliest of them,
not in Chretien's Charrette, and I shall mostly speak of his Yvain (not far from
1170), and the prose Tristan and Lancelot (both of the earlier thirteenth century).
— Yvain goes mad for love, because his wife is severe with him; yet who could
blame her? — evidently soon after marriage he has left her for fourteen months,
and forgotten that he had promised to return at the end of twelve. He becomes
violent, strips off his clothes, tears his own flesh, lives long in the woods on raw
venison and on food supplied him by a hermit, who is afraid of him but kindly.
A kindly tactful damsel rubs a certain ointment on his temples and whole body,
and his rage and melancholy leave him, ashamed of his nakedness.4 There is so
little attempt at plausibility as to the cause of the madness that one inclines to
say that we have here a detailed picture of madness for its own sake and for
romantic incident, assuredly not chiefly to prove the intensity of his love. —
Tristan becomes half-frantic, through groundless jealous resentment toward
Iseut, and takes to the forest. Though temporarily benefited by music from an
emissary sent for him, who finds him by a spring, he becomes quite mad; he is
kindly used by some, maltreated by shepherds, used for amusement by both
knights and varlets. He meets another knight who has become mad after being
worsted in fight and losing his mistress. Tristan is cured by being let blood and
1 s
88ff.,221ff.,497-498, 534; 165-220, etc. 375-384, 464-470.
3
For further treatment, and non-Arthurian cases of love-madness, I refer to 'The Lunatic Lover,'
in Estays and Studies (Univ. of Calif., 1943), intended for other readers.
4
Christian v. Troyes, ed. W. Foerster (Halle, 1887), vol. n, 11. 2804-3023 (for relevant antecedents,
2148-55, 2566-99, 2677-2701).
by Iseut.1 The most elaborate in all mediaeval imaginative literature is the
account of Lancelot's madness,2 composed by a highly neurotic man (or woman)
with an almost Freudian interest in symbolical dreams (whence come those in
Malory). The unstablest and most intense of these emotional knights, Lancelot
has no less than three or four attacks, only the last being caused by love. Military
reverses and captivity drive him into "vne folie & vne rage' and extreme violence,
which require putting him under restraint; when released it is some time before
even Guenevere can cure him even transiently; relapsing soon again into raving
madness, he is cured through anointing by his foster-mother the Lady of the
Lake, and through bathing and long-deferred sleep. Later, grieved by losing his
intimate Galehot, he runs away in drawers and shirt only, eats and sleeps little,
and roams the country mad for nearly a year, till found in a forest by the same
Lady, and nursed and cured by her. The last attack, the best-known, is the most
lifelike and indeed pathetic of all, caused by love, and grief at Guenevere's un-
deserved jealousy. He becomes frantic, does not eat, takes to the woods, in a
few days is quite demented and violent, and is a wild man for years; after
various adventures (some fantastic), ridicule, pity and long nursing, he is cured
by the Holy Grail. On his recovery he is deeply embarrassed over his former plight,
and asks anxiously if anyone has recognized him.
No one can miss the detailed resemblance here to the madness in the Vita, —
the alternation of violent frenzy and melancholy, taking to the forest, amusement
in some, kindness from the better sort, cure mostly by rational methods, not to
mention further details. It is true that this harmonizes vaguely also with what
we have seen as to the frequent mediaeval attitude, and with the actual realities;
and if any variety of insanity would appeal to writers, this the most dramatic and
sensational might be the one. But why should any insanity appeal? Insanity is
not and never was an attractive state for a fine man. As folk say in the Lancelot,*
'Co est grant damages que si beax hom a perdu lo sen.' After search and consid-
eration I find it making no such striking and essential appearance anywhere at
all in imaginative literature (except in Greek tragedy and a single case in the
younger Seneca)4 before the Vita Merlini, and not at all prominent even in
1
See summary of this enormous unpublished romance by E. Loseth, Roman en Prose de Tristan
(Paris, 1890), pp. 64H59, 83-86. Later (p. 876) he feigns madness, as in Folie Tristan. — The de-
servedly little-known fourteenth or fifteenth-century prose Ysaye le Triste (tedious rtsumi by J.
Zeidler, Zt. f. rom. Philol., xxv, 175 ff., 472 ff., 641 ff., without even guidance by brief summary)
is attached to the Arthur-cycle; Ysaye is son of Tristan and the Irish Iseut. This highly sentimental
romance has at least one case, of Ysaye's son (quaintly bearing the wronged husband's name Marc),
mad for four months after staying in a bewitched room, cured by religious means (pp. 473-474).
• Vulgate Arthurian Romances, ed. Sommer, in, 412-419, iv, 154-15S, v, 880-381, 393-401 (esp.
894-896). » Sommer, v, 899.
* In his tragedy Hercules Furens in a brief episode toward the end Hercules through Juno's wrath
goes mad, with delusions and murderous mania, but shortly is cured by sleep. This is nothing like
the cases above. Seneca's tragedies were not specially familiar in the middle ages; though the thir-
teenth-century John of Garland does recommend reading them (J. G. Sandys, Hist, of Class. Schol.,
Cambridge, 1921, i, 550), and Dante mentions 'Senecam in suis Tragoediis' (Epist., x, 10). Ajax in
Ovid (Met., xin) is passionate and suicidal, but not mad, as in the Greeks; nor is he in Dictys or
Dares.
mediaeval medical writings till after the dates involved here. The rationalistic
explanation which I have shown for Geoffrey's adoption of insanity as explaining
Merlin's gift of prophecy does not exist in these romances. It is highly probable
that Geoffrey's extremely original and striking poem, together with mediaeval
freedom from modem mysterious horror of insanity, started the vogue of the
hero as madman sympathetically regarded; not that all the later writers had
studied the Vita, but that its most striking theme lived on of its own vitality.
It will be noted that half the cases described are not of love-madness just as
Merlin's is not. But about half are, and these are the most interesting. At just
the time of these romances the new literary romantic love was culminating in the
extreme form which we call 'Courtly Love,' with its exaggerated abasement of
the male and exaltation of the lady.1 Though most mediaevals found sufficient
relish in sane emotion, which they were adept at enlarging on, why not exaggerate
still more? 'L'art c'est I'exag6ration a propos,' — why not flatter patrician women
by exhibiting the mighty warrior turned actual maniac for love? The emotion-
ality of romantic love caught at the extreme form in melancholia and frenzy,
the utmost of power becoming the utmost of helplessness, and all for love. It is
highly significant that (so far as I find) madness from love is always in men, never
in women, though there are deeply touching cases of women suffering and even
dying from unreturned love.2 One need not now undertake to prove, but it is
probable that this whole motif with its distinguished history was born of two
things, the Vita Merlini and 'Courtly Love.' I said its distinguished history. For
Tristan and Lancelot started something vital for centuries, which proceeds from
Arthurian romance, culminates with a far lighter tone in Charlemagne romance in
one of the greatest of Italian poems Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, and in the seven-
teenth century is finally laughed out of court in Cervantes' Don Quixote. It had
appealed more to women than men, never to the most critical, and finally the
whole world grew beyond it. Since Geoffrey's Historia is to say the least in the
basis of later romance, one should not be surprised if the Vita his later and
equally original creation is there too. It is as if we could detect the fossilized foot-
prints of a vanished dinosaur in this and the other marks left on literary history
by the imperfectly successful Vita before it lapsed into obscurity.
The Vita Merlini was a stumbling step toward mediaeval romance in general,
which followed within the generation, and expressed the same impulse. In con-
trast with the unique condensation and organization of the Historia and its seri-
ous factual claims, the Vita is loose and rambling, states in its very first line that
it is to be entertaining, and with its irresponsibility and freedom from tendency
throughout, is as good as its word. Above all, it is inventive. These are the traits
of romance for centuries, and must have been so recognized by its intelligent
1
May I refer to a review of Parry's translation of Andreas Capellanus' De Arte Boneste Amandt,
SPECTMJM, xvn, 805-808?
1
Beside Isolt of Brittany, there is the 'damoisele descalot' in the prose Mort Artut (ed. Sommer,
Vulg. Ram., vi, 22ft-227, 242-248, 256-259) and in Malory's Morte d'Arthur (Eleyne), bk. xvm, 9-
20. Even in Latin literature we have pathetic thwarted women like Oenone (and others in Ovid's
Heroiiei).
writers and readers, in spite of its partial annexation by the church, and the occa-
sional pretence of historic truth in order to produce temporary suspension of
disbelief. 'Musa iocosa" means almost 'a romantic poem' in the sense of mediaeval
romance, and shows a literary self-consciousness rare in the middle ages. Geof-
frey's fumbling attempt, that of a germinal mind in a germinal century, is com-
parable to Richard Steele's in The Conscious Lovers with sentimental drama, and
still more to Horace Walpole's in The Castle of Otranto with the gothic novel; and
the Vita fell out of sight as these did. Its originality is just what makes it, as said
at my beginning, uncertain and baffling. It conforms to no earlier-made pattern.
Though it contributed certainly matter and probably inspiration to Arthurian
romance, it is impossible to estimate exactly how much it contributed to ro-
mance in general. Geoffrey was very intelligent, but not intuitive, and did not
anticipate all the newer directions of French literature, so primatial in the later
middle ages. The Vita has no characterization, no love, little feeling and instinc-
tive human truth. Though sometimes touching in situations, it shows less ob-
servation and insight into insanity even than the romances which followed it.
Merlin himself here is a digression from the unique and imposing development
of the Merlin of the Historia to him of the vast romances. The Vita had not even
a decision of silhouette which might have maintained its vogue even when it was
not followed. The fact that it is in Latin makes its alignment in the genealogy
of romance less inevitable, along with the earliest chansons de geste, even though
it is a product of the same time-spirit. It is less harmonious with French taste
than with Celtic, in its moments of grotesqueness and its relish for woodland life.'
Yet for these last it is none the worse, to our way of thinking. Most of all in
the calm idyllic ending,— the aged prophet, fighter and king too old to reign
again, and the second madman, who have both won sanity and peace, Merlin's
sister after her checquered life, the old sage Telgesinus, living together in tranquil-
ity without hardship, remote in the wild forest in a vague distant region.
Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please.
The ending is full of honest sentiment. There is hardly such appreciation of
life in the wilds elsewhere in the middle ages, unless in the Tristan romances.
Geoffrey himself was getting along in years, and his Celtic side found a voice.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
1
On madness in early Irish tradition I refer to A. C. L. Brown's learned and sensible Origin of the
Grail Legend (1948), pp. 10, 19, 111, 122; J. R. Reinhard's searching Amadas et Ydonne (1927; I
regret not seeing it before), 11. 98-123,157-8,170,190; The Lunatic Lover (p. 284 above), p. 47; C. H.
Slover's thorough and critical work in Texas Studies in English, vi, 5-52, vn, 5-111, on the intimacy
of Ireland and Britain time out of mind. Undoubtedly through many channels (including monks,
slaves, wives) incidents, situations and conceptions were adopted from one people by the other when
they suited contemporary taste, and these became attached to native sagas. This explains elements
found in Irish tradition echoing in British and French Arthurian story. No searcher of Celtic matters
has found any love-madness unless in a few lines at the end of The Sickbed of Cuchulainn, more
ferocious than that discussed above. But as one source Irish interest in madness perhaps passed into
British tales and thence into the romances.

Vita Merlini - Speculum

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SPECULUM

A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH'S VITA MERLINI

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