Michael Faletra’s chapter does just that, arguing that Geoffrey’s work supportscolonialist policies.

A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth introduces Geoffrey’s oeuvre to first-time readers and provides a synthesis of current scholarship, all while offer-ing new readings of his work. This volume also seeks to bring Celtic studiesand Galfridian studies into closer dialogue, especially given the importanceof Wales to Geoffrey and his work. To that end, many of the essays are writtenby specialists in Welsh history and literature, whose voices have at times beenhard to discern in the general din of Galfridian scholarship. We have also askedcontributors to focus on all of Geoffrey’s work, and not merely the Arthuriansections. Geoffrey has been well-served by Arthurian scholarship, and we haveno desire to replicate many of the excellent recent studies in that field.7 Instead,we hope a holistic approach to his work will reveal subtleties often overlookedin scholarship that concentrates primarily on the Arthurian portions.

For a list of PM manuscripts, see Crick, SC, pp. 330–32.

Geoffrey included the PM in his next work, the De gestis Britonum(“On the Deeds of the Britons”, hereafter abbreviated DGB). He had finishedthis work by January 1139 at the latest, when Henry of Huntingdon reports hisastonishment at finding a copy at the abbey of Le Bec.3 The count of survivingmedieval manuscripts of the DGB is now 225, making Geoffrey one of the mostwidely-read secular authors from medieval Britain.4

third and final extant work is the Vita Merlini (“The Life of Merlin”, hereafterabbreviated VM), completed around 1150 and extant in only four independentmanuscripts.6 Written in dactylic hexameter, this poem recounts how MerlinSilvester goes mad after battle and retires to the woods to live; this enigmaticand difficult work seems to be deeply in touch with Welsh literature, thoughits ultimate sources are unknown.

Until recently, Geoffrey’s history was called the Historia regum Britanniae(“The History of the Kings of Britain”), but Michael D. Reeve’s textual studyhas confirmed that the title used in the earliest manuscripts, and by Geoffreyhimself, was the De gestis Britonum.5 After much debate among contributors,this volume begins the lugubrious process of using the original title in place ofthe received one.