THE CORONATION OF ARTHUR AND GUENEVERE IN GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH’S HISTORIA REGUM BRITANNIAE, WACE’S R OMAN DE B RUT, AND LAWMAN’S BRUT 1
CHARLOTTE A.T. WULF
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, Wace’s Roman de Brut and Lawman’s Brut recount the successes and failures of the early British monarchs, with the reign of King Arthur as the centrepiece of each of these narratives. In these three texts the crowning of Arthur (Geoffrey’s Arturus) and Guenevere (or Ganhumara, as Geoffrey names her) at the plenary court held in Caerleon represents the apex of Arthur’s power and glory. A careful analysis of this scene in the Historia reveals Geoffrey’s political purpose in telling Arthur’s story plus Geoffrey’s subtle skill in his portrayal of Guenevere. A study of the same scene in the Roman de Brut and the Brut reveals shifts in purpose and audience in the portrayals of both setting and character, and raises the question of whether Lawman, at least, regarded this event as a coronation or a crown-wearing.
1 My thanks to Jeanne Krochalis for providing advice and encouragement; the participants at three conferences (including Gregynog 2008) for listening to parts of this article, commenting, and offering suggestions; Stevenson University for supporting my attendance at the conferences; Carol Maxwell, Virginia Polley, and Nanette Tamer at SU for various kinds of assistance; Suzanne Thomas for her advice on medieval Latin; David Carpenter for responding promptly and helpfully to an inquiry asking for information; and to my family. 230 Charlotte A.T. Wulf
At the time when Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his Historia, kings were sometimes crowned more than once. As David Carpenter observes, “Nearly all the Norman and Angevin kings, moreover, enjoyed more than one coronation (or what chroniclers called coronations), quite apart, under the Normans, from more regular festal crown-wearings”.2 The ceremony held at Caerleon described in Geoffrey’s Historia may therefore be intended as a second coronation. Certainly, this passage is longer and includes more detailed descriptions than most of the major events in the Historia, painting a memorable picture of theatrical opulence, and leaving the reader in no doubt that Arthur is the pre- eminent monarch of his time. Was this whole scene the result of Geoffrey’s inventive imagination, or was it, perhaps, based in part on an actual historical coronation or crown-wearing? To address this question, both the history and the nature of the medieval coronation ritual must be examined. W.J. Passingham, while discussing Anglo-Saxon coronations, traces coronation rituals in all Christian countries back to Old Testament accounts of the anointing and crowning of kings, although he notes that a number of pre-Christian customs persisted in British coronation rituals.3 Passingham stresses that the anointing with holy oil was considered the most important part of the ceremony, explaining that –
By virtue of the unction received the sovereign became even as a priest. A king anointed became a person set apart from the rest of humanity, a being endowed with authority both spiritual and material.4
Robert Murray, also reviewing early coronation ceremonies,5 points out that the coronation ritual “shares a priestly as well as a military character ... the priestly character predominates in it”, adding that the older name
2 David Carpenter, The Reign of Henry III, London, 1996, 444. 3 W.J. Passingham, A History of the Coronation, London, 1937, 89-91. 4 Ibid., 92. 5 Robert H. Murray, The King’s Crowning, London, 1936, 43-44.