When you click the Amazon logo to the left of any citation and purchase the book (or other media) from Amazon.com, MIT OpenCourseWare will receive up to 10% of this purchase and any other purchases you make during that visit. This will not increase the cost of your purchase. Links provided are to the US Amazon site, but you can also support OCW through Amazon sites in other regions. Learn more.

Course readings are also listed by session.

Text for Purchase

Bede. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN: 0192829122.

Geoffrey of Monmouth. The History of the Kings of Britain. Translated by Lewis Thrope. New York, NY; London, UK: Penguin Books, 1966.

Gerald of Wales. The History and Topography of Ireland. Translated by John J. O'Meara. New York, NY; London, UK: Penguin Books, 1951, 1982. ISBN: 0140444238.

———. The Journey through Wales, The Description of Wales. Translated by Lewis Thrope. New York, NY; London, UK: Penguin Books, 1978. ISBN: 0140443398.

Chrétien de Troyes. The Knight of the Cart (Lancelot). Translated by Burton Raffel. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999. ISBN: 0300071213.

———. The Story of the Grail (Perceval). Translated by Burton Raffel. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999. ISBN: 0300075863.

Marie de France. The Lais of Marie de France. Translated by Joan Ferrante, and Robert Hanning. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1995. ISBN: 080102031X. [LMF]

Arthur, Ross G., tr. Three Arthurian Romances: Poems from Medieval France. London, UK: Everyman, 1996. ISBN: 0460875779.

Lacy, Norris J., ed. The Lancelot-Grail Reader. New York, NY: Garland, 2000. ISBN: 0815334192. [L-GR]

Texts On-Line

Evans, Sebastian, tr. Perlesvaux (The High History of the Holy Graal). 1898.

Texts in Course Reader

Gillingham, John. "The Beginnings of English Imperialism." In The English in the Twelfth Century: Imperialism, National Identity and Political Values. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2000, pp. 3-18. ISBN: 0851157327.

Davies, R. R. "The High Kingship of the British Isles." In The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles 1093-1343. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 4-30. ISBN: 0199257248.

Carpenter, David. "Britain Remodelled: King Stephen, 1135-54, King David, 1124-53, and the Welsh Rulers," and "King Henry II, Britain and Ireland, 1154-89." In The Struggle for Mastery: The Penguin History of Britain 1066-1284. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003, 2005, pp. 163-244. ISBN: 0140148248.

James, Simon. The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? London, UK: British Museum Press, 1999, pp. 15-66. ISBN: 0714121657.

Gildas. The Ruin of Britain and Other Works. Translated by Michael Winterbottom. London, UK; Chichester, UK: Phillimore, 1978, pp. 13-79. ISBN: 0847660796.

Hanning, Robert. "Gildas' De excidio et conquestu Britanniae: In Britain's Fall They Sinnèd All." In The Vision of History in Early Britain: From Gildas to Geoffrey of Monmouth. New York, NY; London, UK: Columbia University Press, 1966, pp. 44-62.

Nennius. British History and the Welsh Annals. Translated by John Morris. London, UK; Chichester, UK: Phillimore, 1980, pp. 9-49. ISBN: 0850332974.

Higham, N. J. "Contested Histories: Anglo-Saxons and Britons c. 730-830." In King Arthur: Myth-Making and History. London, UK; New York, NY: Routledge, 2002, pp. 98-169. ISBN: 0415213053.

White, Hayden. "The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality." In The Content and the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore, MD; London, UK: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, pp. 1-25. ISBN: 0801841151.

Ingledew, Francis. "The Book of Troy and the Genealogical Construction of History." Speculum 69, no. 3 (1994): 665-704.

Warren, Michelle. "Historia in marchia: Geoffrey of Monmouth's Colonial Itinerary." In History on the Edge: Excalibur and the Borders of Britain, 1100-1300. Minneapolis, MN; London, UK: University of Minnesota Press, 2000, pp. 25-59. ISBN: 0816634912.

Pearsall, Derek. "The Romancing of the Arthurian Story: Chrétien de Troyes." In Arthurian Romance: A Short Introduction. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2003, pp. 20-39. ISBN: 0631233202.

Cain, James. "Unnatural History: Gender and Genealogy in Gerald of Wales's Topographia Hibernica." Essays in Medieval Studies 19 (2002): 29-43.

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, ed. "Hybrids, Monsters, Borderlands: The Bodies of Gerald of Wales." In The Postcolonial Middle Ages. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 2000, pp. 85-104. ISBN: 0312219296.

Barber, Richard. "The Eucharist and the Grail." In The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004, pp. 135-147. ISBN: 0674013905.

Readings by Session