| History of Wales |
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Latin versions of "King of Wales" (Welsh: Brenin Cymru) were titles used on a handful of occasions in the Middle Ages. They were very seldom claimed or applied by contemporaries, because Wales, much like Ireland, usually had neither the political unity nor the sovereignty of other contemporary European kingdoms such as England and Scotland. While many early rulers of areas within Wales used the title of "King", they were not, and did not claim to be, rulers of all Wales.[1]
Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain achieved wide circulation from 1136. It has almost no historical value, but it popularised a fictitious list of legendary kings of Britain that remains central to the stories that make up the Matter of Britain.[2][page needed]
- ^ Bartrum, Peter (1993). A Welsh Classical Dictionary: People in History and Legend Up to about A.D. 1000. National Library of Wales. p. 2-3. ISBN 0907158730.
- ^ Tatlock, J. S. P. (1950). The Legendary History of Britain: Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae and its early vernacular versions. Berkeley: University of California Press.