Page "King Arthur" Paragraph 28

Whatever his sources may have been, the immense popularity of Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae cannot be denied.

Well over 200 manuscript copies of Geoffrey's Latin work are known to have survived, and this does not include translations into other languages.

Thus, for example, around 60 manuscripts are extant containing Welsh-language versions of the Historia, the earliest of which were created in the 13th century ; the old notion that some of these Welsh versions actually underlie Geoffrey's Historia, advanced by antiquarians such as the 18th-century Lewis Morris, has long since been discounted in academic circles.

As a result of this popularity, Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae was enormously influential on the later medieval development of the Arthurian legend.

While it was by no means the only creative force behind Arthurian romance, many of its elements were borrowed and developed ( e. g., Merlin and the final fate of Arthur ), and it provided the historical framework into which the romancers ' tales of magical and wonderful adventures were inserted.