Bad History - History of the Kings of Britain

welcome to episode 2 of mad history and today we're going to look at a much older example of mad history while Gavin Menzies is a 21st century pseudo historical theory book the source is something that unfortunately despite its obvious bad history came mainstream history for centuries we're looking at Geoffrey of Monmouth's historia regum Britain a Prytania Britannia anomic Island translated as the history of the kings of Britain so let's get some things out of the way first I already said I don't know Latin enough to read an entire book on it and I certainly don't have a physical copy of something from medieval times with me but I did find a translated PDF of it in English online which I'll link in the description if you want to read it however I wouldn't say that matters because this work has been examined and debunked on several occasions for so long that it's safe to bet to not worry about that factor in case of any awkward translation issues one of the things we have to deal with when it comes to history is that more often than not the older the sources the less accurate it is likely to be mainly because the sources are possibly around before academia was even a thing or at least any system that ensures credibility by demanding citations and things like that you also had some things that were accepted in general society and put into history that by today we know is objectively false for example there are old historical accounts of someone slaying a dragon or another mythological figure that we know didn't actually exist but would be believed and taught by people at the time to have existed because of those accounts if you look at the ancient history of a civilization you'll find quite often that dates also become fuzzier accounts are either simpler or so grandiose that the person is apparently a deity a demigod and solely responsible for the entire people of his nation so obviously when you see this you have two possibilities number one he or she does not exist and is completely made up to make the country's history look better possibility two he or she did exist but it was heavily exaggerated in their accomplishments so it's better to be very cautious when reading accounts of that person monoliths work has one of the biggest examples of this sort of thing all the time but we'll pull that sword out of the stone when we get there ultimately this text goes over the history of the kings of Britain but here's an important set of details that I need to point out at the time this text is written rough 11:36 there is no United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland remember Great Britain is technically the name of the island not to the country that's where it comes from and the reason why the UK is often exchangeable with Britain is because the union of Scotland and England United the island of Great Britain the name even has a nice ring to it after all the united kingdom empire doesn't quite sound as nice as the British Empire in 11:36 there's England Scotland and to wash kingdoms so why would they refer to this history book as history of the kings of Britain because in this case the Kings of Britain are not the kings of the island of Great Britain but rather king of the Britons the Britons is the name given to the Celtic groups that spoke the brittonic languages so basically all the Celtic areas in England and Wales in southern Scotland but still different than the Gaelic Celts who include the Irish and Scottish and then there's also the pict which sadly no one cares much about but they were there the point is though this historical work is supposed to tell the story of the Celtic Britons and actually has nothing to do with the history of the English well at least not until the end but we'll get there monoliths book is divided into twelve sub books you know kind of like chapters or volumes but they sound more important well briefly go over each of the twelve books but first the introduction in the introduction monolith states that he simply couldn't find information on everything but that the world deserves to know of these men's great deeds so he's actually doing a good thing here objectively he's admitting his limitations and still expressing a desire to bring the history to the limelight I mean you gotta admire that right he then goes on to say that most of his information was from his friend Walter who was at Oxford Walter gave him and I quote a very ancient book in the British tongue which he would go on to translate into Latin well it's nice to know how vaguely he cites his sources but again this is medieval time so academic standards are lacking and frankly this is better than nothing but it adds to how faulty most of this book's content is he then thanked his friends Robert Oh cam sorry but Walter and Robert are pretty boring names for medieval standards where are all the cool names anyway he thanked his buddies for helping him out and then he started the rest of the book book one starts with a man named Brutus no not that Maurice the other one this Brutus is a legendary figure who is a descendant of the legendary hero Aeneas so already we're delving into the myth here he and his rescued slave buddies basically go on several adventures after he gets a dream from Diana to find an island out west he eventually settled in Great Britain where he's declared the first king of the Britons and named the place Britain after himself he also supposedly founded a city called troyanova which is supposed to be the predecessor of modern-day London so already were off to a wonderful start here in book two Brutus dies and he has three sons so of course they divide the kingdom now can anyone guess in what way the island of Great Britain was divided into three parts that's right conveniently his sons divided the kingdom into the same areas that correspond to England Scotland and Wales except they were called logorrhea Cambria and Albany then it goes through a bunch of made-up monarchs that I honestly don't have time to go over but basically everything fractures even more same with book three pretty much book for is where it gets interesting however because we finally have a real historical figure Julius Caesar it goes over how Julius Caesar attempted to conquer Britain and failed naming the British King Casabella on also known as Casa vilanis who is a real historical figure however Casa Belen was never the king of the Britons in general interestingly he was just a chief of one of the tribes who managed to become a field commander of a group of tribes that tried to work together against the Romans so in a way based off of what little they knew back then it's understandable they'd confuse him for a king of the Britons but he wasn't before it goes over how Julius Caesar defeats him in battle there is a pretty cool letter given to Caesar from Casabella here's a portion of it we cannot but wonder Caesar at the advertise of the Roman people since that in satiable first for money cannot let us alone though the dangers of the ocean have placed us in a manner out of the one owed but they must have the presumption to covet our substance which we have hitherto enjoyed in quiet man that's quite nation burn right there I'm not gonna lie later on in the letter he adds and so much have we been accustomed to Liberty that we are perfectly ignorant what it is to submit to slavery and even if the gods themselves should attempt to deprive us of our Liberty we would to the utmost of our power resist them in the defense of it this is epic enough to be in a movie but it's also fake but hey Hollywood should work on a movie based around this once they get tired of remaking franchises over and over again anyway I mean why not I'd watch it book 4 meanwhile ends with the Romans eventually coming back and conquering the island under Claudius then it mentioned something interesting about a guy named Conan Mariah doc marry a doc marry a dope who is compensated for not getting some throne by getting Brittany after they conquered it and that's why Brittany is similar to Brittany named interesting but again that's still legendary book 5 is about Rome abandoning Britain which did happen then it's about more made-up people doing more made-up things but book 6 we finally get to the Saxons the Saxons were apparently invited to Britain as mercenaries no mention of the angles or Jutes but you know it's something Saxons then became a nuisance and they fought with the Saxons taking a portion of Britain's territory book 7 then is a bunch of prophecies about Merlin yes Merlin the fictional wizard so as you can imagine we're now at the fun part of the work in book 8 there are two brothers fighting over Britain game dev or dagur and ether now there those are cool medieval names anyway Merlin kind of goes back and forth supporting both until he sees a comet that looks like a dragon's head and he interprets this as a sign that ether will win so he stays on his side Luthor would in fact win and become the father of King Arthur I came Arthur King Arthur is a legendary figure with no evidence of his existence other than these romanticized accounts but some people will still debate his existence today there will be movies TV shows and so on pulling a sword out of the stone is such a well ingrained trope that everyone knows what it references this shows how impactful history can potentially be which is why something false or exaggerated can be so dangerous and hamper our efforts to learn about the actual story of humanity even if the stories that come from it are very entertaining stories there are multiple accounts of him outside of monoliths work before and after him and the one here leaves out several things that we commonly associate with Arthur for example that sword in the stone trope I just talked about wasn't actually mentioned here so it's certainly not the origin of King Arthur but you know it's still an important account for the King Arthur legend what Arthur does do in this story is get the throne from his father by inheritance at the beginning of book 9 kinda boring but ok he then defeats the Saxons and battles so hard they leave Britain alone and it gives a kill count of 470 Saxons the Saxons then become his tributaries and there's a really bizarre chapter coming up in this short chapter Arthur complements a random pond that's it seriously I know book 9 chapter 7 look it up he just complements a pond then chapter 10 in the same book arthur manages to conquer ireland completely then he decided to leave the picks and scots alone and then make another voyage to conquer iceland why not then apparently the Orkney Islands and island of Gotland all the way next to sweden voluntarily submitted to arthur out of fear and became tributaries so according to this piece this would essentially be the map of King Arthur's Kingdom of Britain obviously none of this happened but wow if it isn't ambitious but if you think that's while chapter 11 is even Wilder Europe is afraid of King Arthur and Arthur was so delighted at that that he made a plan to conquer all of Europe no really that's the actual wording so here are the places that Arthur conquers in chapter 11 he conquers Norway Denmark and Gaul which is supposed to still be under Roman control which makes the timeline really confusing since most people associate King Arthur with like post-fall of Western row medieval times but I mean the whole thing's made-up so it really doesn't matter but it does mention Emperor Leo so I guess it's supposed to be in the four 60s okay he conquers Gaul from Rome and then eventually decides that's good enough and abandons all of these mainland European conquests to some buddies of his and then heads back home like this is almost as hilarious as ancient l'chaim no we're saving that for future episode the final book of course has King Arthur died and the anglo-saxons win to form England thus concluding the supposed history of the kings of Britain so this source is so bad for so many reasons but at the same time it's a medieval source so what did you expect but also at the same time though this bad source was so influential it may not have invented King Arthur but it certainly evolved him and kept his legend alive it turned him from a pure myth to a no maybe he existed for multiple centuries but for purposes of actual history it's just an entertaining story I'm in pure Tiger Starr and I'll see you all next time thank you all for watching I hope you liked the video and if you did I hope that you will also subscribe and if you really like this content and want to see more you can help support this channel by donating to my patreon all support is greatly appreciated

Channel: undefined

Views: 157,329

Rating: 4.9005075 out of 5

Keywords: history, geography, Britain, England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Gaul, France, Celts, Rome, Roman Empire, Caesar, Julius Caesar, medieval, vikings, Britons, UK, ancient

Id: H0iOxhUDSK4

Length: 11min 34sec (694 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 22 2019