Bad History - History of the Kings of Britain
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 มี.ค. 2019
- An oldie but a baddie, this video shows how one very influential historical text was insanely inaccurate, yet popular for centuries.
English translation in PDF: www.yorku.ca/inpar/geoffrey_th...
Special thanks to my Scottish friend Dearn for the voice overs.
My Patreon: / emperortigerstar
The History of Southern Africa will be up next Friday!
EmperorTigerstar 😎 cool
Anonymous Person yeah that would be cool to
Why do you call him Monmouth? Sounds weird having gone to school there. It’s not his surname it’s a title
@@luxembourgishempire2826 estonia more like egayia
@@joebowden4065 I mean it's the same as saying "Bismarck" when Von Bismarck is just a title that means "of Bismarck".
Looks like King Arthur had a really good CK2 campaign from the random long list of countries he annexed
And he could've done even better if he just switched to seniority.
The original 100 stat man
Too bad the AAR was done before Holy Fury's kill log.
Reecer77 elective is good to unite kingdoms tho
Yeah I'm really laughing of Chapter 10 9:24
"King of the who?"
"The Britons!"
"Who are the Birtons?"
"We are all Britons"
"Well I didn't vote for you!"
"You don't vote for kings!"
AmericanNohbuddy ™
Only in the HRE can you vote for Kings
@@warlordofbritannia and Poland-Lithuania
@@elliotletseka4164 and the holy see
So some aquatic bint gives you a sword and you call that a basis for government?
@@warlordofbritannia Ancient brits and germanic people also elected kings, at a thing called, I kid you not, a kingthing.
King arthur: exists
Gotland: *PLEASE DON'T KILL ME*
The once and future King!!
Of course King Arthur is real. I watched a documentary about it that was made by someone named Monty Python.
YOUR ARM'S OFF
Cheesecake Snuggles It’s only a flesh wound
You sir, are truly man of culture.
Aslo I know you might not believe me but after some research I found out were related (hes like my 40th great Grandfather aslo I'm related to a lot of famous people) again you probably don't believe me
EDIT: I just realized your talking about the Blony Python Movie
LOL I loved that movie
"We are the knights that say NEEP"
Oh, I thought they were that religion that the Bible was a parody of...
If you see this as an epic fantasy novel and not an accurate history book, it's actually quite entertaining
True, especially when it exist in another universe
If it was to be an epic fantasy, it needs extra Neovenator and Iguanodon.
[muffled Monty Python quotes in the background]
A SHRUBBERY?
@Christian W DONA EIS REQUIEM
What is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?!
@@Robi2009 What do you mean? An African or European swallow?
@@asriellian3058 I don't know that? waa...
*gets tossed off the bridge*
King Arthur is best fan fiction ever written, it's basically British fulfillment in that Arthur defeats all the people that threaten britian throughout the ages. However I'm fan of later versions where they added that OC Lancelot to the mix to make a force love triangle.
Screw that frenchman lancelot
@@spartanwarrior1 yes that is what Gwenuver did.
She not Lancelot is the one the infidelity myth is attached to btw, OP is mistaken and regurgitating some British cope themselves. The elopement/infidelity/abduction is the oldest aspect and in fact predates the matter. In the text the video is about the wife of Arthur betrays him to marry Mordred
If you want a legendary God Emperor King who is not a cuck, I recommend Zeus or Charlemagne.
I can't wait for Great, Greatest, Golden, Better than Germany Empire and Russia Empire, Polish Empire, Lechia™ episode
This is why Emperor Tigerstar gets a bell notification from me.
Maybe they just wanted to polish up an empire ...
But if they Was kangz, how'd they get partitioned? Twice? In a row? By the same people?
But why those poles who belive in it can't, like be proind of history like Winged Hussars? But there not many prople that are for that myth in Poland so could be worse. Free arguing with idiots included, prestige +100.
Correction at 5:11 in the video you mixed Albany and Kambria. Albany is in modern Scotland.
Thanks eu4 for making Alba a releasable nation, and giving me useless geography trivia.
What happend to Cornwall?
"Cymru" is the Welsh name for Wales. Kambria/Cambria name comes from the Welsh one. Same thing for Albany/Alba.
I am also thankful for EU4 and other PDX games for teaching me some history.
Also, the Cambrian explosion is named for fossils found in Wales, so it's definitely Cambray.
Albany is a kingdom in M&B Viking Conquest. I started a kingdom on the Isle of Mann, and I called it the Kingdom of Mann, and I conquered Albany.
I knew Kambria from the Cambrian period of the paleozoic era. The names of the periods are all from places in wales. I also play M&B Viking Conquest, who has Alba as a kingdom in Scotland.
Mighty Lechia existed! North Pole is named after pole - field in polish! You can't argue with so strong evidences!
A polished argument.
A truly polarizing issue.
If only people knew the unpolluted truth
@Issac Delgass
Dammit, you broke the joke chain!
Poke Emblem “unpolluted”
In 2100...
Bad history-Mars and its colonisation
Mars was actually first colonized by the Mongol empire, and the Mongols in turn are ancient descendents of extraterrestrials.
VulpesVulpes42 that’s bad history, everybody knows that the Romans had conquered the northern parts of mars.
You can't leave out Trump's space force that was developed to bring civilization to Mars by driving out the Mongols.
Elon Musk's ghost: *sad noises*
@@red_doggo7219 "After the Khazar Khagans converted to judaism in the 6th century they recived sacred technology allowing them to migrate through space and establish the first Khazar-Judeo Interplanetary Khaganate on Mars.
With unlimited wasteland their steppe empire flourished."
-Josef Skarzony Jönsson Intergalactic history professor at ISS, p.1292. Published in 2330 by Shekel Media Inc.
Woah. That book was a poorly sourced pile of trash. Any real historian will tell you that King Arthur was a cute anime girl.
Reverse trap
@@x-fun3149 That is only true most of the time.
No. He was an alcoholic playboy disowned by Uthar Pendragon for taking up with Liza Minelli.
no he was a useless CW looking blonde dude who got help from a preteen merlin and married a black Gweneviere... god you plebs
Nonsense, Arthur was the teenage isekai protaganist. All the Knights of the Round Table, however, were lolis and Lancelot was the only trap.
My impression is that ancient historians were more interested in telling a good story than getting facts right, so really their 'history' is more like historical fiction. Which makes trying to get the actual facts something like trying to get an accurate biography of Lincoln by taking the vampires out of 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter'.
them Ancient writers sounds like the modern US media
Yeah; this was a common occurrence--choosing cool over truth--as late as the early 1900's in some 'non-fiction' generas.
So…where’s the centaur conquistadors fighting Tyrannosaurus with that logic?
A part of me really wishes that King Arthur is in the same boat as Gilgamesh, probably real but really exaggerated. Maybe his fight with Mordred caused his kingdom to collapse and the Germanic tribes trampled all evidence. But that’s probably just hopeful thinking.
There is some speculation that Arthur was some Roman General named Artorius and Merlin was a Roman General named Ambrosius. So it's possible they were based on generals who got a lot of their respect
King Arthur is based off the much older Sigismund, who slain Fafnir with the help of Wotan
@Sketch Stevens Nope. Ambrosius Aurelianus was more Polish and never set foot anywhere in Britain. The Sarmartian hypothesis is long debunked m.
He might be _vaguely_ based on a real king or general, based on references to him in both Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae. Of course, those sources were both written centuries after Arthur's supposed reign, and accounts were already heavily embellished by then, but there's evidence of other mythical figures having a tiny kernel of truth buried at the base. I wouldn't rule out the idea.
@@maddie9602 I would say composite character is the best bet.
The Aeneid is already a fan fiction of the Epic Cycle, so Brutus' Bizarre Adventure is a fan fiction of a fan fiction.
Talkernate History Is that a Jojo reference?
Everyone knows that the Aeneid really happened, and that the Historia Regum Britanniae is also 100% verified facts.
I’m fairly sure Albany is Scotland and Kambria is Wales. Interestingly enough, the Welsh word for England, to this day, is Loegr, which is pretty similar to Loegria.
Lloegr, with LL. :) And Kambria is a variation of the modern name of Wales in Welsh, Cymru.
@@varana Bloody hell, that shows how little I remember of GCSE Welsh...
@@varana For non-Welsh folks reading this, Kambria turning into Cymru makes more sense when you realize Cymru is pronounced "Kemri".
@@varana
Yeah.
Geoffrey is simply using Latinisations of the common Welsh names for England and Wales.
He's generally thought not to have known much Welsh, but he did know some.
1:25 I object. St. George slaying the dragon is a HISTORICAL FACT ok? That was the Emperor of Mankind, at the ripe young age of 7 to 8 thousand, slaying a C'Tan shard that landed in Anatolia. Please do not make that mistake againg thank you.
So that's why we call some Caucasus country "Georgia."
Andrew Vasirov, Yeah exactly man.
Or that dragon is really a crocodile.
Your pronunciation of Meriadoc tells me you weren't paying enough attention to Hobbits.
10:44 Nice to know Poland owned that much land
When Poland has a really good eu4 campaign...
@@michaelpothoven1041 the AI Poland either does extremely well, to the point it's barely defeatable by the player, or screws itself badly somewhere at the start.
@@martinmortyry7444 in my games they always pu austria
Wait, he claimed that Britain was founded by the son of Aeneas, who was a descendand of the goddess of love? Huh... wtf 😅
I'm just mad about how he ripped off the Aeneid.
@@merrittanimation7721
And Im mad how that one ripped off the Odyssey.
Sherlock Smuuug im mad how everyone ripped of gilgamesh
many Anceint historians held this view. it goes along with the idea that a lot of characters in myth may have been real with extremely exaggerated story's. Much of the medieval people viewed the roman?Greek gods as people whom the romans and greeks mistakenly given worship too. for example in the History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, the Queen of the Franks belittles her husbands worship of Roman gods by pointing out that Uranius was nothing more then a man who was chased out by his own son.
Some of the old sources are this way soon, i have been trying to remember the source but i read one ancient Greek author who recorded Heracles parents as Egyptian migrants to Crete. (wish i could remember the source on that one.)
@@devincanada9523 I see. Interesting.
That breakdown of modern, medieval, and ancient historiography is on point
lol
review the Finno-Korean hyper-war.
!?
The only history of the monarchs you need is the song from Horrible History
Agreed.
Horrible Histories was my childhood.
@@CH-wp5hp it was all our childhoods
@Catherine Hunt Henry, Ed, Ed, Ed, Rich II, then three more Henrys join our song!
AY C Edward, Edward, rich the third, Henry, Henry, Ed again, Mary one, good queen Bess, Jimmy, Charles, and Charles, and then
10:43 - :D
Two things:
1. It's pronounced "le'h-ya", "h" (like in "hammer"), not "ch" (as in "cheese") sound. In Polish "ch" is just fancy way of writing "h" sometimes, but is pronounced basically the same.
2. Check Polish "author" named Janusz Bieszk, he has like 3 or more books about "Lechia empire". Sad thing is people buy them and believe in this...
Cool didn't know
I hope you'll allow me to offer some constructive criticism. You're approaching this topic in entirely the wrong fashion. No one today who has heard of Geoffrey of Monmouth takes him seriously as a historian. His account of British history is universally acknowledged to be, well, ahistorical. His work can still be valuable, however, not because of what it claims to tell us about ancient Britain, but because of what it actually tells us about medieval Britain. This book gives us insight into what medieval Britons knew about their own history, what they knew about their neighbors' history, and how they viewed the world and their place in it.
But your analysis didn't touch on any of those topics or what we might infer from reading this book critically. You just pointed out that it contains a bunch of historical inaccuracies, which is something everyone from the 17th century onward knew all along.
Finally, I just want to point out that there's some debate about the status of King Arthur as an entirely legendary figure. Some historians believe he is based on Ambrosius Aurelianus, a very real Romano-British leader from the 5th century, or possibly a few other minor figures from British history. Omitting this controversy and saying that Arthur was definitely nothing more than a legend is in itself a form of bad history.
Wasn't Ambrosius Aurelianus depicted as Arthur's uncle rather than as Arthur himself?
@@talhahhussain5603 That's true enough, although of course Geoffrey of Monmouth puts a great many historical figures into decidedly ahistorical circumstances. Actually, the historical basis for King Arthur probably derives from a number of different figures. There are a lot of similarities between Arthur's adventures and Ambrosius's struggle against the historical Saxons. But Arthur's supposed expeditions into Gaul may be based on the actions of another Romano-British leader named Riothamus, who apparently crossed the English Channel to help the Gallo-Romans resist Visigothic attacks.
We'll probably never know all of the details of who exactly Ambrosius was or how exactly the legend of Arthur came to be, but my broader point was that there is indeed some reason to believe that some of the events in the Arthurian romance are based on history.
@@mjameshenry Huh, now that is interesting. I suppose you learn something new every day. Thanks!
@@talhahhussain5603 My pleasure! :)
I was about to write something like that. Thank you, that is pretty much what I think myself. I have old French school books (published around 1870) about French, ecclesiastical and "modern" history. They contain accurate informations, but it is certain that our knowledge of history has changed since the last 150 years. Still, they are very informative documents on the way history was taught at the time, what events and historical characters were considered important and what were the ideological biases of the writers.
I am a regular listener to the history of English podcasts and I think they covered the same book(in a different way).
I have not read it but my memory is that Arthur was used as the reason Rome fell to the point he sieges the city.
As one of the last Old English / first Middle English works to be made / survive I guess it’s appropriate that’s its essentially a creation myth.
Some say that a Roman-British general Artorius defeated and killed a Saxon king in battle. The legend was made later due to the translation error: Somebody wrote that he took a sword from a saxo (Latin word for stone) instead from a Saxon, since it was a custom to take your enemies' sword after you defeat them
So, could you assume the Saxons were referred to in Latin as... the Stoners?
@@Football__Junkie Well, considering the amount of dragons, trolls and other mythical creatures they believed in, I suppose they were... Stoned!
I think that the historic Arthur was a Romano-briton named Ambrosius Aurelianus who rallied the Romano-britons and their allies against the saxon invasion
I think that the historic Arthur was a Romano-briton named Ambrosius Aurelianus who rallied the Romano-britons and their alloes against the saxon invasion
@@spartanwarrior1 Nope; That was made up by the 2004 King Arthur film. Besides, Aurelianus lived in Poland.
In that book it probably says Britain was a republic
Thomas Turner and England is a city.
Yeah, a movie based on this would be really cool.
7:43 Not sure if that's Gandalf with an owl.....or Dumbledore who has become an Istari
King Odin gone undercover.
Thanks for doing all these bad history videos.
this may not be accurate in any way, but it would make for a very entertaining 10 episode netflix series
What about an anime?
@tony-san I would so watch it!
Wow, what a cool video!
Right on, do make more of such.
*[Insert obscure Game of thrones reference]*
Do an episode on the Finno-Korean Hyper War!
Arthur was Welsh. Geoffrey of Monmouth took a couple of Welsh kings and turned them into legendary king
This book should be called: "The Eternal Anglo, a Novel"
Hooray, another one of these!
Wow, it went from mythology to vague history to downright absurdity
Chapter 11 is where Arthur goes bankrupt, right?
You skipped the best part lol
Can't forget the chapter long prophecy merlin gives while rolling around and crying involing the thames flooding and receding, the red dragon (which is now on the welsh flag) fighting the white dragon, etc
some good meme fodder in there.
The white dragon is on the Wessex flag.
I like that a chapter merely noting a pond turned into the great story of Excalibur
Where are the Brennius and Belinus bros who sacked Rome. I personally found that part the most interesting tbh
This video is literally how I passed my Omnibus final. 😅 Thank you so much!
Awesome video!!
Next step: Medieval prehistory take with King Arthur riding an Iguanodon into battle.
we need to get that video on lechina. it sounds like the perfect textbook case of the things nationalism, in particular slavic nationalism, seem to do to people
"and so much have we been acostumed to liberty"
Huh. I knew that British(English) exceptionalism was old. But not THAT old.
That passage sounds like it was inspired by Tacitus's report of Calgacus's response to the Romans.
I read part of this for a class I took on Arthurian lore a few years ago, I remember it being absolutely bonkers but pretty neat.
The channel is getting better indeed. But dont stop mapping
You should do a series on famous historical forgeries. I would love to see a video on “The Description of Britain” which was an odd forgery using fake accounts from legionaries etc. about Britain in the Roman period.
I’d trust Walter and Robert with anything they’d say. This is definitely a valid source
Maybe he did exist, and maybe in his legendary feats he discovered the fountain of youth and is secretly living in area 51 with the roswell aliens, bigfoot, pyramid builders and has a pen pal here in scotland called nessie! dunno, it's just a theory, a very historically accurate theory! thanks for watching!
I love stories from the Middle ages like this. Stories such as Hungarians and the Huns being descendants of two dudes named Hunor and Magor.
And the silly notion that Cornwall was named after a dude named Corineus, and not a massive wall of corn.
Nice vid. You should cover the Historia augusta next.
Well Geoffrey might be using the story of Alexander The Great and fantasizing it on King Arthur.
Now it's a matter of time before Sir George gets shown fighting a Baryonyx.
A lot of the other medieval historians criticised Geoffrey of Monmouth, so even 800 years ago his work was viewed as fanciful entertainment. His work unfortunately got a boost recently when a documentary talking about how scientists had discovered the original location in Wales that the 'bluestones' at Stonehenge had come from featured an archaeologist joking about how Geoffrey of Monmouth had said that they were moved. A whole load of King Arthur Truthers (sadly they are a thing) jumped on this as proof that Geoffrey's account was more accurate than previously acknowledged. Never mind the fact that the science showed that the Stonehenge bluestones (and not the larger 'sarsen stones') had been moved from Wales in the Neolithic period, whilst Geoffrey claimed that the whole thing had been moved from Ireland in the 5th or 6th century AD... by the wizard Merlin... using magic... and that they were originally created by giants. Literally one tiny detail that Geoffrey coincidentally got partially right was held up as proof that he was telling the truth. Everything else was ignored.
IRL English kings, Hundred Years War: We're going to conquer France!
King Arthur: Hold my beer.
Next, can you do a video about the contentious relationship between the Emperor of Mars and the first Mayor of Earth?
4:05 -"Walter and Robert are boring names"
Me, named Robert: 😥😥😥
Might we get Anatoly Fomenko some day?
I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. I'll just shut up now.
I now want a fantasy series in which all these made up empires from bad histories are real and still active. Like a Neil Gaiman's American Gods but with mythological empires!
10:44 I love how you love to drag on Lechina.
Once again, while factially inacurrate this book at least appears to be entertaining, (and lets be honest, If that guy from the first episode wrote this book, therr would be something about ancient Briton having american colonies or something)
There's a third option between fictional, and exaggerated real, gestalt/composite entities which while not strictly speaking real where based of entities which vary well could have been
Does anyone know any credible sources or books about this time period? I find this transition period from Roman era to the Middle Ages truly fascinating and would love to learn more about it...
Try William of Malmesbury, an excellent historian and contemporary of Geoffrey.
To him we owe the tag that "Christ and his saints slept" during the anarchy which afflicted England from 1135 - 54.
Really nice video btw
This books is the best action movie series never put to film! Friggin love this book
you should talk about how cities change their names over history. For instance, almost all the roman empire had former latin names (paris - lutetia). Also, apparently according to wikipedia, the city of Hanoi has had like 15 different names. its quite fascinating and i think it would fit in a standard map video.
Is there any chance that this author somehow put the Gallic Empire of Postumus in the Arthur legends?
I was thinking it could possibly be talking about Syagrius’s Domain of Soissons
@@InternetLoser-rc2vs Soissons existed, but it wasn't as big as the maps claim. It was confined to only well, the city of Soissons. That area was ruled by various local rulers who we don't know anything about, but Sygarius happened to stand out the most to medieval chroniclers due to his importance as magister millitum and the Battle of Soissons.
What sounds most possible is that King Arthur is a hybrid of various Romano-British imperial usurpers and warlords from the 4th to 6th centuries whose memory became a source of collective pride amongst the Britons/ early Welsh and who, over the centuries, gradually melded into one and had their achievements more exaggerated.
This seems at best pedantic, or even anachronistic, to say “Cassivellaunus wasn’t *king* of the Britons, he was just the leader of all the Britons.” Seems to be reading later historical understandings of kingship into these earlier sources
Medieval Trojan legends are fascinating. A number of European countries had their own, mainly related to the Aeneid of course, a useful way to design a link with Rome; the Franks had one, and it's crazy (and even crazier as it evolves through time).
The discrepancy between the names is pretty hilarious like " i am king Vortiger! Descendent of the legendary king Bob"
Please make more bad history
This isn't even the most ambitious version of Arthur taking on Rome. In Le Morte de'Arthur and other Arthurian legend sources (which are more legendary, and were never taken as history as far as I know), the Emperor Lucius demands tribute from Arthur, and Arthur just goes crazy, and conquers Rome. Just up and conquers it! Arthur is Roman Emperor now! And then he just leaves, because reasons, much like in Geoffry's tale. There is an interesting bit where Arthur takes a Legionary Eagle standard, and parlays that into him being Emperor once Lucius is killed in battle, which as a Roman history nerd, warms my heart to see that even ridiculous quasi-histories remembered that Eagle Standards were an important thing to the Romans.
I wonder if King Arthur was looking for the Lady of the Lake, it's why he's contemplating on ponds?
This might as well be an advertisement to buy a translation, because this book looks entertaining as hell.
Makes me wonder what the inspirations were. Myths, no matter how out there, usually have an inspiration.
Historia Regum Britanniae - in the Oxford pronunciation convention for Latin, that would be an 'aye' sound at the end :)
Well, i heard that King Arthur legends were like forms of trading card game back then. Basically they'd do rap battles of how creatively they could defeat each other.
Isn't this the same book that counted Brutus as the first King of Britain
Yes
Bit mean debunking Monmouth at this point lol. Great vid though!
I know this is quite old but it would've been interesting to briefly cover King Leir/Lear, who was the inspiration for a Shakespeare play.
The King Arthur chapters sound like the Chuck Norris jokes people told in the 2000s.
Where is the Lechnia Empire video? I've been waiting for too long
It’s gonna take me weeks to read this book about bad British kings, bloody hell...
Yes, PLEASE make a video about the Lechina Empire! That'll be hilarious! Oh and also, the ch in it is pronounced h.
Wait But Is Not The Great *MAGNUS MAXIMUS* Mention In It? He Just Had A Really Cool Name.
10:03 every british lad`s secret dream
This is awesome
From what I understand, people were generally better at recording events they or an acquaintance lived through. Things got trickier when they tried to document centuries old events. I wonder how many of Monmouth's sources came from oral histories.
*Edit:* Basically primary sources from the premodern era are generally more reliable than secondary or tertiary sources from the premodern era.
With Hollywood in a rut and everybody else on a nostalgia trip right now I'm surprised that Hollywood hasn't tried to make a live action version of King Arthur and the Knights of Justice.
King Lear also came from this book.
0:22 It's spelled "Bree-TUH-nee-I". The -ae ending stood for two different vowels in Classical Latin, but in Ecclesiastical Latin it became a digraph for the phoneme /e/ (that also matches the difference in pronunciation between the English word "Caesar", see-sur, and the German cognate "Kaiser", ky-sur. The English borrowing was borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin through Norman French, whereas the German borrowing is more ancient and predates even the fall of the Western Roman Empire, because it is also attested in Ulfila's Gothic Bible).
well if we're talking about the **english** monarchs we could mention...
there's William, William, Henry, Stephen, Henry, Richard, John, OI! Henry, Ed, Ed Ed, Rich 2 the three more Henry's join our song! Edward, Edward, Rich the third, Henry, Henry Ed again, Mary 1, Good Queen Bess, Jimmy, Charles and Charles and then Jim, Will, Mary, Anna Gloria, George, George, George, George, Queen Victoria! Edward, George, Edward, George 6 and Queen Liz 2 completes the miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiix.
That's all the English Kings and queens, since William the first that there have been!
'History of the Kings of Britain' would make avery interesting mediaval fantasy novel
Damn, Robert and Walter totally trolled their uneducated friend by giving him some Breton version, fan-fiction take on the Aeneid. They convinced poor Geoffrey that this sci-fi book was real history xD
2:01 good one