Manuel E. Díaz Noda

Universidad de La Laguna

Arthurian historiography in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae and Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles

The relationship between history and fiction in the Arthurian legend is an ancient question. Far from trying to solve it, our intention in this lecture is to analyse two works where this dichotomy reaches a great importance. Geoffrey of Monmouth's chronicle of the history of Britain from its foundation by Brutus to the coming of the Saxons substituted historic reliability for legendary fiction. On the other hand, twentieth-century writer Bernard Cornwell based the fiction of his Warlord Chronicles on a profound study of the fifth-century British historical and social background. Our analysis of these works will be centred on the purpose of their authors and the resources they used in order to inject historic veracity in their fictions.