Fabulae de Arthuro: Sir John Prise (d. 1555), Early Arthurian Chroniclers and “Superfluous Fables” (John Leland)
Fabulae de Arthuro: Sir John Prise (d. 1555), Early Arthurian Chroniclers and “Superfluous Fables” (John Leland)

Summary/Abstract: The Tudor historian and senior government official Sir John Prise wrote Historiae Britannicae Defensio (published posthumously in 1573), one of the last defenses of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae and with it the long‑rejected Trojan foundation myth of Britain and the historicity of King Arthur. This historian promises to eliminate fabulas de Arthuro from the biography of Arthur, but never fully explains what these fictions contain. We learn that Prise is one of many Arthurian chroniclers who 1) acknowledge the existence of fictional elements in the recorded history of King Arthur, 2) do not describe these fictions in detail, and 3) promise to remove fictional material from the king’s true history.

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