Prophetiae Merlini
Latin work of political prophecy attributed to Merlin.
Around 1130, and by 1135, Geoffrey of Monmouth circulated a short Latin work, sometimes called the Libellus Merlini, containing prophecies credited to the legendary wizard Merlin. Geoffrey likely invented Merlin’s mythical life himself, though he claimed to base the figure on older, now-lost Brittonic traditions, possibly oral. This work, the Prophetiæ Merlini, came before Geoffrey’s larger Historia Regum Britanniæ (around 1136) and was mostly folded into its seventh book, but the prophecies remained influential and widely read on their own. Geoffrey said he produced this section separately at the urging of Alexander of Lincoln.
Quick Facts
- Author
- Geoffrey of Monmouth
- Language
- Latin
- Date of circulation
- about 1130
- Also known as
- Libellus Merlini
- Incorporated into
- Historia Regum Britanniæ (Book VII)
- Prompter
- Alexander of Lincoln
Facts from the source article.
Background
The Prophetiæ is in some ways dependent on the De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniæ of Gildas. From Gildas and Nennius Geoffrey took the figure of Ambrosius Aurelianus, who figures in the preface to the prophecies (under a variant name): there is then a confusion made between Ambrosius and Merlin, deliberately done. When Geoffrey's Historia was largely translated by Wace into the Roman de Brut, he omitted the material on Merlin's prophecies, though he does profess knowledge of them. It was still read in Latin, but was displaced for readers in French, and then English, by other political prophecy. This work not only launched Merlin as a character of Arthurian legend: but it also created a distinctively English style of political prophecy, called Galfridian, in which animals represent particular political figures. Political prophecy in this style remained popular for at least 400 years. It was subversive, and the figure of the prophetic Merlin was strongly identified with it.
Content and the character of Merlin
The Prophetiae Merlini is the text that first brought the wizard Merlin into Arthurian legend. Geoffrey of Monmouth created this Merlin, blending pagan and Christian elements, and claimed to base him on older Brittonic traditions, though his knowledge of the Welsh sage Myrddin seems limited at this point. In the preface, the king Vortigern asks Ambrosius—who is actually Merlin—to explain a vision of two fighting dragons. Merlin interprets the red dragon as the British people and the white dragon as the Saxons, predicting Saxon victory. The main body of the work is a long series of prophecies, mostly about wars. Many of these prophecies refer to events up to Geoffrey’s own time, such as the 1120 sinking of the White Ship, which killed Henry I’s son William Adelin. Geoffrey introduced the spelling “Merlin” from the Welsh “Myrddin.” Scholar Rachel Bromwich noted the odd change from “dd” to “l,” which Gaston Paris explained as avoiding the French word “merde.” Alternatively, the spelling might come from a Breton or Cornish source, as seen in John of Cornwall’s version, which localizes the prophecies in the southwestern region of Dumnonia.
Influence
The first work about the prophet Myrddin in a language other than Welsh, the Prophetiae was widely read — and believed — much as the prophecies of Nostradamus were centuries later; John Jay Parry and Robert Caldwell note that the Prophetiae Merlini 'were taken most seriously, even by the learned and worldly wise, in many nations', and list examples of this credulity as late as 1445. Ordericus Vitalis quoted from the Prophetiae around 1134–5. At much the same time, and in the same area, Abbot Suger copied some of the prophecies almost exactly in his Life of Louis the Fat, for the purpose of praising Henry I of England. In the 1140s or early 1150s John of Cornwall produced another work collecting prophecies, that drew on the Prophetiae. It contained elements from other sources, however, which predominate. This work was also named Prophetiae Merlini. Gunnlaugr Leifsson made an Icelandic translation of the prophecies, Merlínússpá. There is a 15th-century English manuscript commentary on Geoffrey's work. In the 16th century the founding legends of British history came under strong criticism, in particular from Polydore Vergil. On the other hand, they had their defenders, and there was a revival of Arthurian lore with a Protestant slant, used in particular by John Dee to develop the concept of the British Empire in the New World. By the 17th century Geoffrey's history in general, and Merlin's prophecies in particular, had become largely discredited as fabrications, for example as attacked by William Perkins. But the politics of the Union of the Crowns of 1603 gave the prophecies a short new lease of life (see Jacobean debate on the Union). The Whole Prophesie of Scotland of that year treated Merlin's prophecies as authoritative. James Maxwell, a student of prophecy who put it to political use in the reign of James VI and I, distinguished between the Welsh and 'Caledonian' Merlins.
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