Introduction

As one of the few pieces of Welsh literature written outside of Wales, Benedict of Gloucester’s Vita Dubricii holds a curious place in the history of medieval British literature. It chronicles the life of Dyfrig, a Welsh saint who is not only portrayed as an exceptional ecclesiastic and miracleworker but also as King Arthur’s main spiritual support. A peculiar mix of hagiography and Arthurian history, Benedict’s Vita Dubricii combines two previously separate accounts of the saint – an earlier version of Dyfrig’s life and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae. The resulting narrative stresses Dyfrig’s sanctity and historical importance by claiming that King Arthur’s great success was possible only through Dyfrig’s piety and prayers. Written in the mid-twelfth century, just as enthusiasm for Arthurian literature began to seize Britain, Benedict’s life of Dyfrig is strikingly pioneering in the way that it deploys and reworks Arthurian history. Nonetheless, Benedict’s Vita Dubricii is not well known. This edition and translation of the Vita Dubricii addresses this neglect, while revealing that the work can help shed light on the early reception of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae. Indeed, as a collation shows, the text’s exemplar belongs to a small group of Historia manuscripts that circulated in southwestern England. Furthermore, Benedict’s Vita Dubricii is testament to the vibrant literary culture of the Welsh March and demonstrates how Welsh texts could find audiences outside of Wales.

Aside from the starring role in a few footnotes, Benedict’s Vita Dubricii has attracted little scholarly attention. This lack is understandable as Benedict’s Vita is, at its core, a reworking of two earlier sources, both of which have suitable editions: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, which has been well served by scholarship, and an earlier life of Dyfrig. This earlier life of Dyfrig, which I will call the Vita prima Dubricii for ease of reference, survives in two copies, one in Cotton Vespasian A.xiv, an important collection of Welsh saints’ lives, and the other in Liber Landauensis (The Book of Llandaf), an equally important manuscript containing charters, vitae and a host of material concerning the ecclesiastical history of southeastern Wales. The Liber Landauensis was edited by Gwenogfryn Evans and John Rhys in 1893, and their edition contains the standard, and only, edition of the Vita prima Dubricii.