SOURCE: “Geoffrey Monmouth, Prince of Liars,” The North Dakota Quarterly, Vol. 31, Nos. 1 & 2, Winter-Spring, 1963, pp. 46-51.

In the following essay, Caldwell argues that the original work from which the Variant version of The History of the Kings of Britain stemmed was compiled by Archdeacon Walter and was not in the British language, but in Latin.

Probably in 1135 or 1136 a.d. Geoffrey of Monmouth, or Geoffrey Arthur as he sometimes called himself, a member of the house of Augustinian canons at Osney near Oxford, released to the world his Historia Regum Brittaniae, or The History of the Kings of Britain. That his work created something of a sensation and was immediately a success seems certain, though not all the reviews, if there had been book reviews in those days, would have been favorable.

Thus, a sober, serious chronicler William of Newburg, writing a History of the English about 1196, doubted the...