You can also see the new 2019 updated information website of the whole book at https://geoffreyofmonmouth.com/



The extract below is from the Reverend Francis Lot's book titled 'The Island of Avalon' in which he shows that the construction of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 'History of the Kings of Britain' was in fact written by Henry Blois under a nom de plume.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Island-Avalon-Volume-2/dp/132630979X

Pytheas and the Island of Ictis

The island of Ictis was engaged in the tin trade. The Island was referred to by the explorer named Pytheas c.325 BC. Our interest in this island is to establish its whereabouts.[1] Ictis was a central market place which gathered tin to be sold to Phonecian traders….not an island where tin is produced. Its location made it the ideal marketplace. The reason this is important to this exposé of our three genres is because of two people already mentioned; Joseph of Arimathea and the elusive Melkin are intricately linked to this island.

In the next chapter, I will show the prophecy of Melkin contains precise directional data which points out Joseph of Arimathea’s burial site on this island of Ictis. As we have alluded to already, it later becomes clear that Henry Blois changed the name of Ineswitrin for Insula Avallonis in the copy of Melkin’s prophecy. The only copy of Melkin’s prophecy which has been passed down to posterity is included in John of Glastonbury’s Cronica which must have been derived from Henry’s inclusion of the prophecy in another work....in which he substituted the name of Insula Avallonis for Ineswitrin so that it would tie back to his own Island invention which we find in ‘Geoffrey’s’ HRB (as Geoffrey of Monmouth is the pen name used by Henry Blois).

 We may speculate that Henry Blois may have seen more of Melkin’s work before the fire at Glastonbury in 1184. Bale and Pitts both attest further works of  Melkin's. Leland witnessed some of Melkin’s work at Glastonbury while browsing through their library.  The name Avallon is derived from Henry Blois as it was named after a town in the region of Blois and close to where the HRB sets King Arthur’s continental battle scene. My intention is to show that the island of Ineswitrin is the identical location as the ancient island of Ictis. Also that the prophecy of Melkin which geometrically directs us to Burgh Island,(once decrypted).... is the same Island upon which Melkin states Joseph of Arimathea is buried, along with the enigmatic duo fassula.  The geometric directions found in the prophecy of Melkin supposedly lead us to Insula Avallonis....only because Henry Blois changed the name of Ineswitrin which has originally been on the original  Melkin prophecy document before it was substituted for his own concoted Island name of Insula Avallonis.
The prophecy, once decoded, in fact, locates Ineswitrin. Henry substituted Ineswitrin for Insula Avallonis on the prophecy purely because he had secreted a bogus grave containing Arthur at Glastonbury before he died.  This island presently called Burgh Island is the same as the Devonian King donated to Glastonbury in the charter dated 601 referred to by William of Malmesbury.
This will become clear as we progress, but firstly we need to understand how it is that Joseph of Arimathea is buried on Burgh island and the reasoning behind why this Island was chosen as a burial site. The obstacles which have prevented the discovery of the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea are many. The first is the meddling of Henry Blois by changing the name of Ineswitrin to Avallon in Melkin’s original prophecy. Secondly, modern scholars such as Carley and Lagorio have been duped by the fraud of Henry Blois and have misdirected others. They have been led to false conclusions as to the existence of Melkin. A major factor has been scholarships’ inability to decode the prophecy of Melkin which has led them to believe that it is a spurious fourteenth century invention. The other main problem is that another branch of classical scholarship has been unable to determine the location of Ictis.

What needs to be made clear is that the Ineswitrin donated by the King of Devon to Glastonbury on the 601 charter; the Island of Ictis attested to be on the southern coast of Britain, discovered by Pytheas and described by classical writers such as  Diodorus and Timeaus; are in fact one and the same place, i.e. the Insula Avallonis of Melkin’s prophecy.  On this Island presently called Burgh Island is Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb awaiting discovery. It is accessed by a long tunnel[2] leading to a hewn vault. The naturally formed vaulted tomb originally was used to store tin ingots on Burgh Island (the old Ictis) in an era when the Phoenician’s came to Britain to trade tin c.325 -43 BC.

Cornish traditions have maintained that Joseph of Arimathea was a tin merchant who visited Britain. It is part of Cornish tin-miners folklore that there is a saying and song that "Joseph was a ‘tin-man’ and the miners loved him well." Let us assume for the moment that if this legend has any truth to it, one could conclude that he would have visited the island which sold tin to the ancient world. The Island of Ictis was referred to by Pytheas, Strabo, Pliny and Diodorus amongst many others. The search for the Island of Ictis originated due to a Greek named Pytheas, who made a journey by sea, circa 325 BC and wrote a chronicle of his voyage, which no longer exists. He mentioned the island in his journals and left quite specific detailed eye witness references to it, the most pertinent being that it dried out at low tide and was located in southern England

It is because of Pytheas’s notoriety and the fact that his original writings no longer exist, that over time, spurious references with conflicting evidences from other ancient chroniclers both Greek and Latin, have almost made the island's location indeterminable. The original account of his journey and his description of the island and its environs, have become garbled. Some of the subsequent chroniclers when referring to Pytheas’s voyage disbelieve what Pytheas had related. Pytheas’s log or account of his journey was called ‘On the Ocean’. We know something of his travels through the other Greek historian called Polybius, who lived around 200 BC. Timaeus writing in the third century BC mentions Ictis before Polybius. The most pertinent ancient writers who relate to Pytheas’ voyage are Diodorus Siculus and Strabo. Diodorus gives a good description of the island of Ictis and its trade. He ascertained his account from Pytheas’ original eye witness description. It tells how large cart loads of tin were brought to the island.

Diodorus’s ‘Bibliotheca Historica’ in the following passage relates to the Island of Ictis and the British tin trade: “We shall give an account of the British institutions, and other peculiar features, when we come to Caesar’s expedition undertaken against them, but we will now discuss of the tin produced there. The inhabitants who dwell near the promontory of Britain, known as Belerium, are remarkably hospitable; and, from their intercourse with other people’s merchants, they are civilized in their mode of life. These people prepare the tin, in an ingenious way, quarrying the ground from which it is produced, and which, though rocky, has fissures containing ore; and having extracted the supply of ore, they cleanse and purify it, and when they have melted it into tin ingots (Astragali), they carry it to a certain island, which lies off Britain, and is called Ictis. At the ebbing of the tide, the space between this island and the mainland is left dry and then they can convey the tin in large quantities over to the island on their wagons. A peculiar circumstance happens with regard to the neighbouring islands, which lie between Europe and Britain, for at flood tide, the intermediate space being filled up, they appear as islands; but at ebb tide, the sea recedes, and leaves a large extent of dry land, and at that time, they look like peninsulas. Hence the merchants buy the tin from the natives, on Ictis and carry it over into Gaul (Galatia); and in the end after travelling through Gaul on foot about a thirty days journey, they bring their wares on horses to the mouth of the river Rhone.”

Diodorus is witnessed to be quoting from Posidonius.  Pliny, who wrote circa 50 AD on the subject of Ictis, quotes from Timaeus who was contemporaneous with Pytheas. 
It is evident that over the period of four hundred years when these Greek and Latin speaking historians were recounting Pytheas’ exploits, mostly second or third hand, an inaccurate account has been passed down about an island that traded tin. The only inaccuracy in Diodorus’ account is obviously a mix up with the ‘Channel islands’ as being in the same group where Ictis is located. Diodorus has conflated these ‘neighbouring islands’ as being in the proximity of Ictis.The word “near” when referring to neighbouring islands has made it impossible to find a relative location on the South West coast of Devon and Cornwall. The most probable explanation of this confusion is that it is a combination of Pytheas’ original eye witness account combined with that of a later trader who gives account of passing the Channel Islands or even Pytheas’ original mentioning other islands nearby. There is no location which fits Diodorus’ description on the coast of Devon and Cornwall i.e. no conglomeration of islands on the peninsula of Belerion. Pliny quotes Timaeus’ account of Pytheas’ voyage ’six days sail inland from Britain, there is an island called Mictis in which white lead is found, and to this island the Britons come in boats of Osier covered with sewn hides’. Pytheas, sailing from Ushant, made the southern tip of Cornwall. Diodorus’ quotes from Posidonius who travelled in Britain around 80BC and describes the metal workers of Belerion carrying their tin to a certain Island called Ictis which acted as a great trading post for merchants. Ictis was the central point from which tin was sold until the Roman invasion. At this time accounts given by Strabo show that Ictis and its location was actively being sought out by the Romans in order to plunder it.

Pytheas as a ships navigator had mastered the use of the "Gnomon," an instrument similar to the hexante or Sextant as it is known today. This instrument was used by Phoenician and Greek navigators since very early times and Pytheas used it to calculate the latitude of Massalia, which he found to be 43' 11' N, almost matching the exact figure of 43' 18'N where Marseilles is in fact situated. It was a committee of merchants from Marseilles that engaged the services of Pytheas to undergo his voyage of discovery. He was a renowned mathematician of that city, who was already famous for his measurement of the declination of the ecliptic, and for the calculation of the latitude of that city, by a method which he had recently invented of comparing the height of the gnomon or pillar with the length of the solstitial shadow.

The important fact is that Pytheas in 325 BC, is capable of working out latitude. This can only be done by appreciating that the nautical mile measure is one sixtieth of a degree. Now, if Pytheas knows of this measurement it would be ludicrous to think that someone in the sixth century AD called Melkin does not understand the same unit of measurement.

The only reason I bring this up now is that many sceptics do not realize that the ancients, like us, are constrained to the same unit of measurement, defined by the size (circumference of the earth. Thus there are sixty nautical miles to one degree and it is the only natural division of measurement, given that there are 360 degrees in a circle. All navigators or mathematicians at whatever time they lived, lived on this same earth and its size has not changed. Therefore there has always been only one immutable measurement which subdivides the earth. This is the nautical mile of which there are 60 in one degree.  Melkin who gives us instructions to Burgh Island as the resting place of Joseph of Arimathea, uses this same unit of measurement as it cannot change over time. It is a function of measurement of the circumference of our earth.

Ictis is a single Island in Pytheas’ account. However one might view the confusion of the plurality of Islands, we know that Pytheas is talking of a singular Island called Ictis to which wagons cross over when the tide recedes.

The Belerion mentioned by Pytheas is most likely defined as the southern promontory of Great Britain commencing with Salcombe in South Devon. This ‘promontory’ stretching to Land’s End geographically adheres to Pytheas’ description. We can therefore understand his definition of the south west peninsula or ‘promontory’ as a description derived by a Navigator. There is also the fact that the name of Belerion tends to suggest the area defined by a people and that same area would then latterly become known as Dumnonia which included both Devon and Cornwall. Incidentally, the chronicler Ptolemy says this area was populated by the Hebrews and may well be the origin of the name of Belerion derived from the God Bel. They were being defined by a people:‘the natives of this promontory area more than the norm, being ’friendly to strangers’.

Just west of the entrance into Salcombe estuary, about 2.5 miles west of ‘Bolt tail’, there lies a small island called Burgh Island which fits Pytheas’ description exactly.

Copyright. The Francis Frith Collection

The Island of Ictis as it appeared in 1918 and relatively unchanged since Pytheas first visited. This was known in the British tongue as the ‘Island of White Tin’ and is synonymous with the Ineswitrin on the 601 charter. Note approximately 5 buildings on the Island (5 cassates).[3] Pliny, who is using Timaeus as a source says, “there is an island named Mictis where tin is found, and to which the Britains cross”. He uses the word ‘proveniat’ which commentators have assumed as meaning that Tin was actually mined on Ictis.  The real meaning is ‘provend’ as a supplier which matches the concept of ‘Emporium’ found in other accounts describing Ictis.  Diodorus writes that tin is brought to the island of Ictis, where there is an Emporium, literally being translated as a ‘marketplace or agency’ and this is the definition which defines the role of Ictis.
Diodorus relates that Ictis was dry at low water and “the natives conveyed to it wagons, in which were large quantities of tin”. The fact that Burgh Island is connected by a causeway at low tide, across which these wagons could convey the tin are the essential facts relayed by Pytheas himself.

The fact that large quantities of tin at this stage in 350BC and more specifically before that, was produced in Devon can be seen archeologically. It makes little practical sense to think that the Isle of Wight or Hengistbury point or Thanet are even viable candidates for the island of Ictis as proposed by previous commentators.

It is known that tin mining had first started in between the Erm and Avon estuary in the early British Bronze Age. There is ample archaeological evidence to show that tin streaming existed high up on the moors behind South Brent at Shipley Bridge on the Avon c.1600BC.

The Island of Ictis, first heard of in the chronicles of the ancient writers, was probably coined from the Greek ikhthys meaning fish, because up until recently Burgh Island was renowned for the shoals of pilchards that congregated naturally around it in Bigbury Bay. We can speculate that Pytheas referred to the Island as ikhthys island or ‘fish island’ i.e. Ictis Island. The shoals of pilchards in the bay were legendary well into the 18th century. Fishing fleets are recorded to have made catches of 12 million fish in a single day. The pilchards were cured with salt and were either pressed for oil or shipped by the barrel load to Europe. It seems extraordinary that the one Island described by Pytheas as ‘Fish Island’ and renowned for its huge shoals that sometimes darkened the whole bay, would not be associated with the Greek word ikhthys. Especially, being the only tidal island which dries out with a sand spit[4] on the southern promontory as described by Pytheas (apart from St Michael’s mount in Cornwall).

 More importantly it is situated just 10 miles from the huge alluvial tin deposits that existed on southern Dartmoor which prompted the name in old British. The island was called Ineswitrin in the language spoken in Dumnonia in the time of Melkin. If we accept the old English name of Melkin’s Ynis Witrin is synonymous with Insula Avallonis (only because the name was changed/substituted by Henry), and this island is where Joseph the tin merchant is buried; if we can then establish this island as the Island of Ictis which then links to Joseph and his tin mining affiliation…. we can accept more easily how it is that he is buried there with something Melkin refers to as the duo fassula. As we have covered, there seems to be no doubt that Ynis pertains to ‘Island’ in old English, but if the name ‘Witrin’ were derived from an island known as ‘white tin’  from the Old English hwit for white, we have a solid connection with tin.

The reasoning behind the appellation of ‘White tin’ is based upon the ancient world’s fascination with tin’s shininess. Tin is a metal as well as being an alloy which adds to copper to make a much harder bronze. Tin is shiny and the ancients termed this shininess as ‘white’ which is clearly seen in the French and Latin terms for tin. The French termed it fer-blanc (or white iron).  Pliny’s Latin refers to tin as plumbum album, (or white lead). We can see the primitive association of shiny with ‘white’ and can understand the provenance of how a known metal became ‘shiny lead’ or ‘shiny iron’.The origin is unknown for the English word 'tin' i.e. no-one has understood any etymological connection for our present day English word ‘tin’.  It is quite feasible that an r was dropped from ‘trin’ to give ‘tin’ and hence ‘white trin’ is contracted to ‘witrin’.

It is not silly to posit this explanation for the provenance of the name Witrin if the island donated in the 601 charter is synonymous with Pytheas’ Ictis. The fact that Pytheas’ island is on the ancient promontory of Belerion which was later known as the equivalent area of Dumnonia would suggest why its King is donating it to Glastonbury. The island of Ineswitrin was never anything to do with Glastonbury’s location. Nor was Melkin’s Island which unequivocally is situated in Devon by the solution to the data provided in the prophecy as seen in the next chapter. This will become clearer as we progress and understand the separate agenda’s of Henry Blois. There is little doubt that the 601 charter existed and is genuine as related by Malmesbury. In fact he originally started his proof of Antiquity for Glastonbury starting with the 601 charter which now constitutes chapter 35 of DA. As I have explained, Ineswitrin is identified to pertain to Glastonbury simply because of the etymological contortion pulled off by the author of the Life of Gildas….where we are led to believe Ineswitrin is identified as the old name of Glastonbury.  The fact that it was Henry Blois who changed Witrin to Gutrin to more suggest the Glass of Glastonbury in the explanation found in the last paragraph of Life of Gildas, (which differed from the name seen on the charter), indicates someone is trying to convince us of something which is not true. If we also consider that Joseph of Arimathea was never mentioned before Henry’s arrival at Glastonbury, and nor was Ineswitrin, it suggests Henry is the cause of this confusion between Avalon and Ineswitrin and both of their spurious connections to the location of Glastonbury.

Now, this gets further complicated by the fact Henry reverses his original need to convince us that the charter pertains to the Island Glastonbury when, later, after 1158…. Henry undertakes to hide the body of King Arthur to be discovered in Avalon (in the future). It then becomes important for Henry Blois to reverse his initial need of Ineswitrin to be equitable as the old name for Glastonbury…. and subsequently convince us that Glastonbury is now Avalon. This will become much clearer when we cover the chapter on DA. But, if we remember Avallon is named from the French town and is ‘Geoffrey’s’ invention in HRB (where Arthur supposedly died), it should not be difficult to grasp that the interpolator of DA is the person who tells us where to look to find Arthur’s body. Henry Blois also provides us with a cross which confirms the name of the location as Avalon. For the moment we must continue with the present evidence which shows why Joseph is buried on this island, because of its connection to tin.

In a recent discovery on the Eastern shore at Wash Gully, 300 yards off the coast on the approaches to the Salcombe estuary, divers recently uncovered 259 copper ingots, a bronze leaf sword and 27 tin ingots. The wreck of an old trading vessel found there, dates from around 900BC and measures 40ft long and is constructed from timber planks. It is thought to have been powered by a crew of 15 seamen with paddles. This indicates like the evidences on Dean Moor just above the island that there was a tin trade prior to Pytheas’era.
There is more physical archaeological evidence along this small stretch of coast, between the mouth of the river Erm and Salcombe, which adds credibility to Burgh Island being synonymous with Ictis and its links with the tin industry. The archeological evidence indicates that there was considerable trade in tin ore being shipped abroad from an early period. The tin trade must have been seriously interfered with by Julius Caesar's expeditions in 55 and 54 BC. The recent find of tin ingots at the mouth of the River Erm 2.5 miles distant from Burgh Island should confirm it as the ancient island of Ictis and its link with the tin trade. Especially with Strabo’s concise account of how these ingots arrived in their present location, inshore of the reef just a short distance from Burgh Island.

 Strabo relates the fact that the people who controlled the Island of Ictis took great pains to hide the business of the island from Roman vessels seen on that part of the coast. Late in Ictis’ history, with the emerging Roman Empire trying to get their hands on as much tin as possible, it proved necessary, in its final century of trading, to conceal the active trade of the island as so much tin was being stored there. Strabo relates: ‘Now in former times it was the Phoenicians alone who carried on this commerce for they kept the voyage a secret from everyone else. At one time when the Romans were closely pursuing a certain Phoenician ship-captain in order that they too might uncover the tin markets in question, jealously guarding the secret, the ship-captain drove his ship on purpose off its course into shoal water; and after he had lured his pursuer into the same ruin, he himself escaped by a piece of wreckage and received from the State the value of the cargo and what he had lost. Still, by trying many times, the Romans learned all about the voyage.’

Strabo tells us of a Phoenician trading vessel whose captain lured a Roman pursuing vessel onto a reef. The fact that the only evidence we are likely to find of the outcome of such an account appears as archeological evidence today and so close to the Island we are identifying as Ictis.... should be a strong case in favour of Burgh Island’s identification as the ancient location of Ictis.

Strabo’s vessel, obviously on its return voyage from the “Tin Isles”, while being followed by a Roman vessel and unable to elude it; duly steered into the reef at the mouth of the river Erm which caused the sinking of both vessels on a shoal. This endeavour, as we saw in the passage earlier, was to maintain the secrecy of the location of Ictis. The only thing we could hope to find are ingots inshore of a reef nearly 2000 years later and this is what the divers found. The  ingots were spread inshore of the reef just as a moving sinking vessel would distribute them as it sank after having had its own keel ripped out by the partially submerged reef.

Now, there would be no point in this selfless deed unless of course the captain was seen heading to seaward from the proximity of Ictis. He must have been fully laden because he was on a return journey and hence the cargo mentioned by Strabo. If overhauled and captured, the Phoenician captain would have difficulty explaining, being laden with ingots in close proximity to an island…. without the Roman deducing this was the Island which sold tin.

If the Phoenician was somewhat distant from the island and then captured, he might convince the Roman that Ictis was at any location.  But to be seen heading to seaward departing from what looks to be a Lee shore and in close proximity to an island, would surely have made a Roman captain suspicious…. if he had indeed survived to tell the tale or captured the captain with his cargo.

This caption shows the white water at the head of the river Erm caused by the submerged rocks. These are called West Mary’s rocks onto which the Phoenician pilot ran his vessel.  The image also shows the proximity of these rocks where the ingots were found to the fabled Island of Ictis situated in Bigbury Bay. The captain of the Phoenician vessel, whose own life was preserved, was rewarded by his countryman or the agency on the island for managing to maintain the secrecy of the island.

Under normal circumstances, it is very strange that a trading vessel laden with a cargo of tin ingots, having just left the coast would fall upon Mary's rocks at the mouth of the Erm estuary. The only explanation to why the ingots are inshore of the reef can reasonably be explained by Strabo’s account. If we have located Ictis, (as Melkin later confirms), it seems extraordinary for a cache of ingots to be found which correlates with Strabo’s ancient record.  Logically, why would a vessel set out in foul conditions after having loaded a cargo…. only to fall prey to rocks on the next river mouth from where one had just set sail.Strabo’s account explains the archaeological find.

Strabo’s report that this island was held in such high esteem by the Phoenicians as an Island from which tin was obtained…. was probably kept secret to avoid plunder. It is why the vault itself within the island was never discovered. The Island remained unexposed to Roman discovery and takeover as Strabo indicates until the era of Joseph of Arimathea.

It is probable that the early wagoner’s who brought the tin down to the island mentioned by Diodorus would be a detail mentioned by Pytheas and it is strangely coincidental that the only wagon pin found in Devon is only a couple of miles from the island…. and on an old track way leading up to where the tin was found at Shipley bridge and Dean Moor. The island’s monopoly and establishment as the most convenient place from which to export came about by its proximity to the tin source and its ease of navigation…. for the foreign tin traders to land onshore.

The word ‘Emporium’ (used in a description of Ictis) indicates that Ictis acted as a market, which indicates some sort of central agency, trading post or even monopoly from which the tin was traded. This would make sense practically, understanding that a trading vessel would not want to wait around for the tin to be brought down from the various tin streamers high up on the moors, or from miners in the various river valleys i.e. Ictis is a central delivery and pick up point below Dartmoor. This leads to a natural conclusion that Ictis maintained some sort of vault or storage area from which tin was dispersed as trading vessels arrived. This would also concur with the ‘wagon loads’ being transported ‘to’ the island of Pytheas’ eye witness account. Vessels arriving from abroad could expedite their business by landing and loading on the sand causeway and if the winds were fair, return home without a long wait in the anchorage at Bantham.

The island of Ictis acted as the main tin agency for the western peninsular of England, declining from around 50BC until its closure due to Roman encroachment.  Until that point, miners up on Dartmoor would have found it very difficult to deliver as demand dictated, without an agency on the shore to deal with the comings and goings of foreign vessels. There is no question that the tin was traded with Europe…. the Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century B.C, referring to the tin trade as occurring in the "Isles of the West".
Herodotus in book 3 says ‘I cannot speak with certainty nor am I acquainted with the islands called the Cassiterides from which tin is brought to us….it is never the less, certain that both our tin and our amber are brought from these extremely remote regions, in the western extremities of Europe’.

Ptolemy, writing c.140 A.D. says of the British Isles, ’they were peopled by descendants of the Hebrew race who were skilled in smelting operations and excelled in working metals’. Biblical records recording the use of tin as far back as the ‘coming out of Egypt’ with Moses; ‘Tubal-Cain the instructor of every artificer in works of brass and Iron’, and the building of the first Temple. Ictis might have had an ancient heritage, but at some stage evolved into its role as a market place or pick up point for foreign vessels. Ictis’ central agency, originally determined by geographical convenience; dissolved, as the industry changed or as the Roman’s search for the tin island became ever closer to discovery as we saw in Strabo’s account.

 Ictis contains what probably can be likened to one of the first bank vaults to ever exist…. an old cave where the Ingots were stored for collection.  As such it would allow the miners to bring their tin down from the moors when they wished and the foreign traders to purchase their ingots at their arrival point. To store this quantity of tin in one location needed some sort of security from plunder and therefore the vault was built to secret the tin on the island. It is the old tin vault which then became Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb and to which Melkin’s instructions lead us to.

If Ictis is the ‘White Tin’ island of Ineswitrin in Devon and Ictis is synonymous with Burgh Island; the information that Melkin later provides by geometrical precision which leads us to this island and Joseph’s connection with the tin trade…. and the fact that Melkin shows us that Joseph’s tomb exists there…. should under normal circumstances indicate to the scholastic community that the island needs to be archaeologically investigated.

Barry Cunliffe[5] who wrote about Ictis has fixated upon Mount Batten in Plymouth as the location for Ictis. He refers in his book to the wreck site which produced the find of the tin ingots in the mouth of the Erm River.  By the caption above we can see it is in clear sight of Burgh Island…. which to any perceptive investigator might be a match for Diodorus’ description.  But, Cunliffe does not even mention Burgh Island. This is because there is no superficial archaeological evidence on the island. The archaeological community’s ignorance of the part the island played in secreting and storing the tin is the reason there is no evidence of its role as a storage facility. For archaeologists to investigate they must first understand how the island operated. The scholastic community which denies Melkin’s existence (and hence the directional data in his prophecy) has led to the assumption that any burial place of Joseph is fictitious. This is of course true relative to Glastonbury, but not to the vault secreted 50ft under Burgh island which became Joseph’s tomb.[6]

It was the community at Folly Hill just above Bigbury on Sea which operated Ictis as a storehouse and mart for tin…. due to its close proximity for loading tin ingots on foreign vessels. The island remained uninhabited so as not to draw attention to pillagers. There would be no community which has left archaeological evidence of dwelling on the island itself. As the charter shows, in 601AD there were only five cottages on it long after Joseph had been buried there.

Courtesy of Francis Frith.  Bantham with Ictis in the background.

The Folly Hill site just above Burgh Island which is being archeologically excavated shows evidence of a large community living along the hillside from the present Bigbury Golf course to the other side of what used to be the cart route down from the tin deposits on the moors. Bronze Age pits were uncovered underneath the Iron Age surfaces and have been dated by ceramics. Only a small area along this ridge at Folly Hill has been archeologically surveyed, but there is evidence through high resolution ‘magnetic gradiometry’ and from surface evidence that a large community lived along the ridge. This was probably the community which controlled and operated the Ictis trade.
Presently the archaeological excavation has dated the site to around 300BC through to approximately 300 AD and shows evidence of extensive trade with the continent, but what is most interesting is the find of some locally made granite clays and these are surely evidence of the earlier culture that initially set up Ictis.

In 2003 a component of an Iron-age ‘Linch-pin’ was found south west of the iron-age hill fort of ‘Blackdown Rings’. No other iron-age finds have been found in the area, which indicates that the cart pin was lost ‘en route’ down from Shipley Bridge to Ictis. The Pin is of the Kirkburn type and dated to around 300BC. Where this pin was found is right next to the oldest road down from the alluvial tin deposits on Southern Dartmoor which leads to the tidal road in Aveton Gifford…. the same track that the wagons took to get to Ictis. Just as Pytheas had said, carts brought the tin to the tidal beach. The use of carts is rare in the hilly terrain of Devon, compared with the rest of the country and for the most part, pack horses were used. So this really is a singular link to the usage of carts in a prehistoric period. The Devon Archaeological Society goes on to say in their report: ‘The Loddiswell find is the only example known so far in Devon of a piece of equipment which can with reasonable confidence be attributed to the prehistoric chariot or cart. It therefore provides the earliest evidence in the county for the use of a wheeled vehicle.

There is strong evidence to indicate that Burgh Island is the ancient Ictis…. and that Melkin’s island which has been given the name Insula Avallonis…. is in reality the ‘White Tin island’ of Ineswitrin donated to Glastonbury by the King of Devon. As we progress we shall understand all the reasons which clearly show that Henry Blois has substituted the name of Ineswitrin on the prophecy of Melkin. Posterity has received Melkin’s prophecy with all its attributes in what it intended to point out i.e. the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea. The crucial difference now is that the prophecy of Melkin names the fictional island of Avallonis, invented by the muses of Henry Blois in HRB.

If we can accept that Henry Blois changed the name on the Melkin prophecy so that it coincided with the name of island where Arthur was taken after Camblan, I shall also show in progression how it is that we can be certain that the Prophecy of Melkin existed in Henry Blois’ era and that he in fact saw it.  Let us, for the moment, see why Melkin says that Joseph of Arimathea is buried on this Devonian Island.

---

[1] The original connection between Burgh Island and Ictis was put forward by Michael Goldsworthy And did those feet. Much of his theory is employed in this chapter.

[2] See image 4

[3] Also see Image 3

[4] See Image 3

[5] The extraordinary voyage of Pytheas the Greek

[6] See image 5

The following is an extract from a book by the Reverend Francis Uriah Lot called 'The Island of Avalon' which shows that Galfridus Artur was an early pen name used by Henry Blois.


You can also see the new 2018 updated information website of the whole book at http://www.islandofavalon.com/



http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Island-Avalon-concerning-Geoffrey-ebook/dp/B011NWHSR6/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdt_img_top?ie=UTF8

The Annals which mention King Arthur and the methods used in the composition of Geoffrey of Monmouth's HRB.

The evidence concerning Arthur from the unadulterated British annals of Gildas and Bede concerns Ambrosius Aurelianus as a British warlord fighting against the Saxons.  In ‘Geoffrey’s’ HRB  the name Ambrosius Aurelianus is purposefully conflated with either Merlin or Arthur purely on the basis that this person in Bede and Gildas is carrying out a campaign against the Saxons which parallels Geoffrey’s fictional account of  King Arthur.

Many have suspected interpolation in Malmesbury’s GR and most recognise the first 34 chapters of DA are fraudulently interpolated. No scholar recognises that the Matter of Britain stems from one architect. Most have accepted the mire of confusing evidence which exists around King Arthur and Glastonbury myth, as a haphazard coalescing from disparate sources in history. A state of bemusement exists because the British annals seem in part to corroborate what all commentators knew was a book of invention written by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Events and fictitious persons were corroborated in part by the DA, GR and the life of Gildas (supposedly written by Caradoc) and the conflation and corroboration pervades our three genres of works in this present study, i.e. Glastonbury Legend, Grail Legend (the Matter of Britain) and the composition of Geoffrey's work. So, few scholars have been able to separate fact from fiction.

Firstly, let us find how Henry Blois was able to perpetuate this myth. As we know, up until his brother Stephen died, he was the most powerful prelate in Britain with an endless resource of wealth. Winchester and Glastonbury were both under his control. Winchester hall was part of a palace in London and Henry ran his own judiciary and Jail. Glastonbury was the wealthiest institution in the land by quite a margin at the Norman invasion (attested by Doomesday). Winchester was the seventh wealthiest religious house at the time of Domesday. Winchester could be considered the capital of the Old Saxon dynasty. Both Glastonbury and Winchester had some of the oldest records such as Bede, Gildas, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle etc. with many of the lives of the saints, within their libraries. They also had one other vital key to ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’s’ (Henry Blois') success, which was the many scriptoriums with educated monks from around the country under his control.

Tatlock, for the most part, set out how Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudo-history and fable of Arthur was put together. He recognises fraud and the invention of a pseudo-history in HRB…. parts of HRB being corroborated with names like Phagan and Deruvian in DA. Tatlock fails to see the connection in Henry Blois. He covers, like most other commentators, early Grail legend and the works of Chrétien de Troyes and Robert de Boron, but fails to investigate how it is that the earliest forms of Grail literature are known to derive from Master Blehis. Scholarship has failed to recognise Henry Blois as the common denominator of these fraudulent works put out by Henry Blois, because even when modern scholarship  recognises fraud, little attention is given to motive. ‘Geoffrey’s’ HRB is where the chivalric King Arthur persona first appears, but Henry has fabricated his pseudo-history and Arthurian epic upon a background of history which sufficiently conflates and parallels events and personages within the British annals.... that his account seems to concur with history…. to a point where most investigators merely comment and compare Arthurian accounts.

The portrayal of Arthur in the HRB is entirely of ‘Geoffrey’s’ imagination. However, there does seem strong evidence of a legendary Arthur which supports a previous oral tradition to which William of Malmesbury infers existed. There is previous evidence of Arthur’s name and reputation and the ‘hope’ of his return before ‘Geoffrey’s’ concoction. If the witness of the priests of Laon is anything to go by, where a recorded confrontation between the Cornish and one of Herman of Laon’s traveling party breaks out, concerning Arthur’s return; it would appear to corroborate such a zeitgeist. This ‘hope of the Britons’ is conveyed in the De Miraculis S. Mariae Laudunensis whereby nine Laon canons travelling in Cornwall in 1113 to raise money for their church were shown Arthur’s ‘Chair’ and ‘Oven’ and were told they were in Arthur’s country. The account relates that the argument took place in Bodmin. It may be possible that the ‘hope’ of Arthur’s return was not specific to the Breton region and may well have been encountered by Henry on the continent. Tatlock says that: It is important to observe that while Geoffrey’s Historia has nothing avowedly of the Briton hope, the ambiguous way in which he disposes of Arthur, tacitly recognizes it. The ‘hope’ was recognized by Bretons according to Huntingdon and if any mention of Avalon had been in the Primary Historia, one can be certain Huntingdon would have considered mentioning it; at least as part explanation which might have elucidated what actually happened to Arthur.

King Arthur on Avalon was a direct result of Henry’s possession of the Melkin prophecy which gave him the idea of putting Arthur on a Mystical island. It was a later evolutionary element of HRB and was not mentioned in the first copy of Primary Historia, found at Bec. It is this ‘hope’ which is expressed in Huntingdon’s précis of the Primary Historia in his letter to Warin. So, the death of Arthur, (if there was a tradition) remains a latent point and something ‘Geoffrey’ never wishes to contradict by leaving the possibility open when composing Primary Historia where the word letaliter ‘mortally wounded’ is omitted. So as not to dash this tradition or hope, we are left unsure of Arthur’s fate in Primary Historia. There is no mention of Avalon until the First Variant and Vulgate HRB where Arthur gave up the crown of Britain unto his kinsman Constantine. The inference is that he died…. but it is not explicitly stated. Again in the VM, he is delivered to the Fortunate isle to Morgan, where she said that health ‘could’ be restored to him, if he stayed with her for a long time and made use of her healing art. We know the VM was written in 1156-7 and ‘Geoffrey’ is still content to leave what happened to Arthur open-ended. So, if there was this oral tradition concerning the hope of Arthur’s return, ‘Geoffrey’ was not going to contradict it…. but employ its force in propagating his book. However, what is not understood by modern scholars is that ‘Geoffrey’ did eventually consign Arthur to death as Henry Blois informed the world where to look for a planted grave in DA which only came into the public domain at his death. This becomes evident when we cover the DA later.

Rather than going over old ground, it should be understood that the concept of a chivalric Arthur in Wales is pure invention based upon Henry’s ability to supply a location where contradictory evidence was minimal. Caerleon had Roman remains and Henry Blois knew the lay of the land from his time there in 1136 (as is seen in GS).  Also as ‘Geoffrey’ makes clear, he thinks the Welsh are the residue of the Britons in both HRB and the last paragraph of life of Gildas.

Henry Blois knows the two British annals of Gildas and Bede don’t mention Arthur. His opening sentence in the HRB: Often turning over in my own mind the many themes that might be subject-matter of a book, my thoughts would fall upon the plan of writing a history[1] of the Kings of Britain, and in my musings thereupon, it seemed to me a marvel that, beyond such mention as Gildas and Bede have made of them in their luminous tractate, nought could I find as concerning the Kings that had dwelt in Britain before the Incarnation of Christ, nor nought even as concerning Arthur……

Henry Blois knows there is no chivalric Arthur in history and the Arthuriad is entirely concocted. As I have maintained, the Arthurian epic was spliced onto an already partially constructed pseudo-history. At the same point in the text in the First Variant he employs the Nennius scenario with Vortigern to make the crucial splice to introduce Merlin where initially he had spliced the Arthuriad onto the pseudo-history. The splendour at court, the subject matter of Kings, the battle scenes, the knowledge of the continent, the political intrigue of the prophecies and their concern for Henry’s family and state affairs are all considered to be the concerns of a Welsh cannon living at Oxford by modern scholars.

‘Geoffrey’, when referring to the 28 bishops in the Primary Historia, supposedly omits to mention the three arch bishops (a note surely to have been mentioned by Huntingdon, if mention of them had originally existed in the Primary Historia). Henry did not omit them, but until such time it becomes useful to concoct the third metropolitan,,,, the archflamens were not a feature. Henry Blois’ skill in oratory and rhetoric is evident and is witnessed in his subtle speech at Winchester recorded by Malemesbury. It is these skills throughout the HRB which he uses to graft such as Aurelius Ambrosius by association onto Arthur. Next they did betray Aurelius Ambrosius, unto whom, after vowing the most awful sacraments of allegiance, they gave poison as he sat at meat with them at a banquet. Next, they betrayed Arthur, when, casting aside the allegiance they owed him, they fought against him with his nephew Mordred.

Aurelius Ambrosius is made to be Arthur’s uncle and he even marries Arthur’s sister. Henry Blois is associating as closely as possible the only verifiable character in Bede and Gildas who fought against the Saxons, with his fictitious chivalric Arthur. Henry even goes one stage further.... just before he introduces the prophecies, he informs us: Merlin, that is also called Ambrosius

Anyway, Henry’s most enduring invention was Avallon and this was confirmed to be located at Glastonbury by his greatest fraud which involved the planting of some bones in a grave and the construction of a leaden cross to be found in the grave at some future date.  The bogus cross fatuously informs the gravediggers what the location was named and who was in the grave.  The reader should not forget the name Avallon came from the town in the region of Blois just like Arthur’s continental battle scene was chosen from the same region of Blois. Without doubt Henry Blois is the inventor of Avalon and its only promoter in its translocation to Glastonbury. Henry Blois had not come up with the name of Avallon in connection with the place of Arthur’s last known location in the Primary Historia, otherwise Huntingdon would have mentioned it…. as it contradicted the fact that Bretons thought Arthur still alive. Huntingdon, at least would have given the location from where Arthur might return.

There is no mention of Avallon in the Life of Gildas. In 1144, Henry Blois’s agenda does not concern Avalon but Ineswitrin. He is trying to assert that Glastonbury is Ineswitrin so that the 601 charter stands up as a credible witness to Glastonbury’s antiquity. Tatlock is correct in thinking there was no previous connection between Arthur and Avalon prior to ‘Geoffrey’. Unfortunately he does not realise the inventor of Avallon is Henry Blois in the guise of ‘Geoffrey’…. who is the inventor of the chivalric Arthur persona.

It is no coincidence Arthur was disinterred at Avalon and this just happens to be the place where Henry Blois was abbot for 45 years. The main thrust of this investigation is the effect that the prophecy of Melkin had in determining many factors in the construction of both HRB and Grail stories. The confusion when unpeeling the layers of obfuscation in the ‘Matter of Britain’ is contained largely in one seemingly innocuous act: The changing of the name of Ineswitrin on the original prophecy of Melkin and substituting it for Henry Blois’ wholly invented Insula Avallonis.

There is no commentator who remarks on the subtlety found in the Life of Gildas which transposes Ineswitrin to Glastonbury simply because no motive is found to disbelieve it.  Yet modern scholarship is aware that the life of Gildas is a fraudulent composition. The bogus etymology is credulously accepted: Glastonia was of old called Ynisgutrin, and is still called so by the British inhabitants. Ynis in the British language is insula in Latin, and gutrin (made of glass). But after the coming of the English and the expulsion of the Britons, that is, the Welsh, it received a fresh name, Glastigberi, according to the formation of the first name, that is English glass, Latin vitrum, and beria a city; then Glastinberia, that is, the City of Glass. Caradoc of Nancarban's are the words; Who reads, may he correct; so wills the author.

We also know the initial propagator of continental Arthuriana and Grail stories is Master Blihis. It is not difficult to understand therefore how the Isle de Voirre appears in continental literature. No-one questioned the implications of Henry’s bogus etymology in Life of Gildas and its bearing on providing a known location (at Glastonbury) for the old charter granted by a Devonian King.   Modern scholars accept a fraudulent work without questioning the reliability or existence of the author. They have maintained this position based on the specious colophon in Vulgate HRB which states that Caradoc is contemporary with ‘Geoffrey’. Now I hope the reader not only sees clearly the extent to which Henry Blois goes to complete his illusion…. but also how necessary is this late addition of the colophon to the Vulgate HRB.

Without the 601 charter there was no physical proof upon which to base Glastonbury’s existence prior to Augustine. For this reason alone, Ineswitrin is changed from a genuine island location in Devon to appear to be synonymous with a fictious estate supposed to exist in the environs of Glastonbury.

Henry Blois was patron to Gerald of Wales until Henry’s death. Henry most surely persuaded and primed the impressionable Gerald of certain facts which Henry himself had invented. Gerald certainly understands his account of King Henry II invasion of Ireland as a prophetic history, a historia vaticinalis based upon the Sixth in Ireland prophecy.

There is evidence which supports that Gerald had also seen the DA. From Gerald’s Liber de Principis instructione c.1193 we get Henry Blois’ full propagandist viewpoint. What is now known as Glastonbury was, in ancient times, called the Isle of Avalon. It is virtually an island, for it is completely surrounded by marshlands. In Welsh it is called Ynys Afallach, which means the Island of Apples and this fruit once grew in great abundance. After the Battle of Camlann, a noblewoman called Morgan, later the ruler and patroness of these parts as well as being a close blood-relation of King Arthur, carried him off to the island, now known as Glastonbury, so that his wounds could be cared for. Years ago the district had also been called Ynys Gutrin in Welsh, that is the Island of Glass, and from these words the invading Saxons later coined the place-name 'Glastingebury'.

We shall get to how Gerald has complicated the issue of the discovery of Arthur’s body by saying it occurred in the reign Henry II (as opposed to Richard) and we will also get to the importance of the substitution of the genuine island of Ineswitrin in the Melkin prophecy for Avalon when we cover the DA later on and show the proof of how this can be reliably established.

If Arthur was not dead, (as the hope of the Britons suggested), Arthur must exist somewhere. Hence the invention of Insula Avallonis.  Knowing how ‘Geoffrey’ has a template or source for nearly every icon, personage and episode in HRB, the question should be: From where does ‘Geoffrey’ get his inspiration for the mystical island of Avalon? Where does the name come from?

No–one (not even Henry) knew where ‘Witrin’ island was located but Henry Blois had seen mention of Ineswitrin in two documents…. one pertaining to the prophecy of Melkin and the other in the 601 charter. The island of Ineswitrin’s actual existence (not the nomenclature of Avallon), is the basis for ‘Geoffrey’s’ inclusion of the fictitious Insula Avallonis in HRB.

The name served as a fabricated name to define a location where Arthur may have remained. In a way, the icon of a mythical island and a previously unheard of name served as an obscure locus from which Arthur might come in the scenario of the ‘Briton hope’ which pervaded in popular culture at the time.

Generally, before ‘Geoffrey’ the hope could have been conceived as Arthur biding his time before his return or even simply that he had not died. The fact that Arthur is connected to a mythical Island called Avallon is entirely of ‘Geoffrey’s’ making. Ferdinand Lot’s (my relation) Avalon, a mysterious island in the western seas which was ruled in Celtic mythology by the God Avaloc is piffle…. since we know Henry has derived the name from the French town.

Henry Blois’ inspiration for the island and the name of it are derived from different sources, but are wholly compliant with the usual way Henry Blois has constructed the rest of the HRB.

The name of an Island came from the name of the town of Avallon in the region of Blois in Henry’s era (now in the Yonne department in Burgundy). The town of Avallon fell under the control of Henry’s brother Theobald.  Aballo appears on the Antonine Itinerary and in the Tabula Peutingeriana.  But by the time Henry wrote HRB it was already attested as Avallon.

The French town is near where Henry Blois sets Arthur’s continental battle scene.... as it is only 38 miles from Autun. It is also about the same distance from ‘Karitia’ (La Charité), where King Lear’s daughter lived with the King of the Franks. Henry Blois was born c.1101 and spent time as an oblate child at the Benedictine but Cluniac convent of La Charité sur Loire before going to Clugny.

I am sure it is not lost on the reader the implication that the kind hearted and helpful King of the Franks was based in the region controlled by the Counts of Blois. We may speculate also that King Lear’s story is be based upon the real life experience of the disgraced father of Henry Blois arriving home from the Crusades to find he was disowned by Henry Blois’ older brother’s and his wife Adela. Ironically, Tatlock observes about 'Geoffrey's' invention of the King Leir story ' But since he (Geoffrey) never shows inventiveness of this sort, it is hard to believe that he invented the core of this'.  There is not a single instance in the Historia where it cannot be more accountable to Henry's education, travel and personal experience which has governed 'Geoffrey's' output more so than what could be accountable to the cleric living at Oxford. For instance Gaston Paris' comment on Geoffrey's Psuedo history as a whole (Il a tres pauvement invente) might as example refer to Arthur's continental campaign which as I have explained is based on the knowledge of Henry's knowledge of the Blois region but it is ridiculous to propose that 'Geoffrey's' knowledge of the tribes in the region and minute differentiation in location between towns is an invention of which a cleric at Oxford would be appraised.

The story of Henry’s father’s return is strikingly similar. Henry’s father, who could only be likened to a King, being brought so low into dishonour is coincidentally close to King Lear’s predicament. The only difference is that Henry Blois when impersonating ‘Geoffrey’ has substituted daughters for sons. As we know, Stephen Etienne, Count of Blois died in battle in Ramelah after having returned to the east to redeem his honour. His wife Adela had pressured him to do so to regain the family honour.

 However, the concept of the mysterious island was directly inspired by Melkin’s prophecy.... now the only extant part of Melkin’s work (if other works ever existed). The fact that the Grail is based on the ‘duo fassula’ and a body is awaiting discovery in the future on the island in Melkin’s prophecy should awaken the interest of scholars. The Melkin prophecy along with the 601 charter both cited the Island as Ineswitrin ‘originally’…. but we will understand the consequences and reasons for Henry Blois changing this name of Ineswitrin to Avalon on the prophecy of Melkin further on in progression.

The book[2] or books which Melkin composed are no longer extant. It is the fact that what constitutes Melkin’s prophecy provided the inspiration for ‘Geoffrey’s’ ancient book which he maintains is his source for HRB. Certainly, no source book from which HRB might have been transliterated could possibly exist.... as the whole of HRB with its Merlin prophecies is a medieval composite.

 Henry Blois is responsible for the name change of Ineswitin to Insula Avallonis in the extant copy of the Melkin prophecy. What we do know as fact is that it would be a remarkable coincidence if Melkin’s prophecy with its highly specific data which points out an island in Devon were not the same as the Island in Devon donated to Glastonbury. What we can learn from this is that Henry in no way changed the wording in the original Melkin prophecy because he knew it was genuine.... and within its wording was encrypted the actual geographical location of Ineswitrin. Henry inserted the name Insula Avallonis instead of Ineswitrin because (as we shall see), his agenda had changed from wishing to portray Glastonbury as Ineswitrin in 1144 to portraying Glastonbury as Avalon post 1156 when he started the composition of VM. 

Henry must have transcribed the extract (found in JG’s Cronica with the substituted Avalon) which constitutes Melkin’s prophecy in a work he had composed supposedly authored by Melkin.

The prophecy which initially pertained to the Island of Ineswitrin now pertains to Avallon and it is Henry Blois who is responsible for this change. This was the Island of which Melkin speaks in his prophecy, where Joseph of Arimathea was buried. Modern scholars have divined quite wrongly that the Melkin prophecy was composed c.1400 when JG mentions it…. recycling information he had obtained from the impostered work of Melkin. Material on Arthur, as Bale and Pits imply, in a book thought to have been written by Melkin i.e. the book titled ‘De Regis Arthurii mensa rotunda’ was obviously written by Henry Blois.

We might now understand the reasoning behind the connection between Joseph of Arimathea and Arthur in Grail literature. Although Henry did not mention Joseph in HRB, he used the mysterious island posited in the Melkin prophecy as a place (in a concocted episode) which has no basis in history…. to which Arthur was taken after the battle at Camblanus. The inspiration for the battle location is made to coincide with the Annales Cambriae: the strife of Camlann in which Arthur and Mordred fell… It is only later that Henry combines the Island where Joseph was in reality buried…. to form his motif for Grail literature using the same duo fassula found in the prophecy as a template for the Grail.

The real island of Ineswitrin was now made to coincided with the mythical island of Avallonis, the last place Henry describes Arthur was taken to in HRB. The Grail itself is inspired by Melkin’s duo fassula and its association with Joseph of Arimathea comes directly from the Prophecy of Melkin.

Contrary to how most scholars have rationalised the germs of the Matter of Britain, it was Melkin’s work which inspired Henry Blois to compose what were the beginnings of the Grail stories. It was certainly not Grail literature which inspired the invention or myth of Melkin and his prophecy as is deduced by scholars today. I will show not only that the prophecy existed in Henry Blois’ era and that the mythical island in Melkin’s prophecy was originally called Ineswitrin and is a genuine location in Devon.

Melkin’s prophecy was obviously seen by Malmesbury. William, who was cautious, omits reference to a document which to him was unintelligible. It appeared fraudulent as it mentioned Joseph of Arimathea’s sepulchre on the island of Ineswitrin. If Malmesbury had mentioned Joseph of Arimathea’s name in conjunction with Ineswitrin, it would have brought into suspicion the very charter which had the same name of Ineswitrin on it…. on which the antiquity of Glastonbury rested. I hope the reader will understand now the reasoning behind the etymological contortion in Life of Gildas and how necessary it was to establishing an actual location, albeit at Glastonbury. The charter was 500 years old when Malmesbury discovered it and no-one had the faintest idea where Ineswitrin was located…. and this would be ammunition for those who contested the charter i.e. those who were asserting Dunstan was the first abbot and Glastonbury; the very reason for commissioning the DA in the first instance. 

William of Malmesbury saw the prophecy along with the charter, but dismissed it as unintelligable. If it had not been seen by the inventive and inspirational mind of Henry Blois, it would have laid dormant on a dusty shelf in the scriptorium to be burnt at Glastonbury in the great fire in 1184. Instead it was included in a book about Arthur and the round table composed by Henry Blois written under the guise of Melkin. This is where J.G has sourced his version which has replaced the name Ineswitrin and substituted the name Insula Avallonis in the text of the original prophecy.

The point of this exposé is to consider the ramification of the discovery of a body on an island two thousand and seventeen years after its burial. Up to the present era there is not one discipline in scholarship which covers the material which enables us to make an informed assessment of where the body of Joseph of Arimathea is buried.

We, should accept why there would be no early tradition regarding Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury, as logically, the Island in the Melkin prophecy (before Henry Blois’ era) had no connection with Glastonbury except that the island of Ineswitrin had been donated to that institution under the name of Ineswitrin in the 601 Charter. This is the island where Joseph of Arimathea is buried today. But 500 years after the prophecy was constructed and left in the archives of Glastonbury, along with a charter confirming the donation of the Island to that monastic institution; Henry weaves what he finds as a puzzle into Grail legend and infiltrates its main icon of an Island into Arthuriana in HRB as Insula Avallonis. 

The fact that the 601 charter, the Prophecy of Melkin and possibly other works of Melkin witnessed by Leland are all found at Glastonbury should imply a possible connection between the three. We should also consider that once Melkin’s prophecy is decoded…. the instructional data found within it direct us to an island in Devon which is Burgh Island (as we shall cover shortly) and to which Joseph of Arimathea would have association by way of his livelihood as a tin trader. 

Not even Henry Blois knew what happened to the historical Arthur, the warlord recorded in some ‘saint’s lives’ and Nennius. William of Malmesbury in his unadulterated GR1 does not know where Arthur is buried. Henry Blois therefore develops the position that King Arthur is on this mythical island (or at least that was the last place he was posited to be), and links the ‘hope of the Britons’ to Arthur’s return with Melkin’s mysterious island.... where he has changed the name from Ineswitrin to Avalon. As a consequence of such an action, the Island, where (in the future) Melkin foretold of the discovery of the body of Joseph of Arimathea, is now looked upon as a mythical and non-existent location. In reality it is not Arthur that is buried on the island in Devon which used to be known as Ineswitrin in 600AD.... but Joseph of Arimathea. But, through Henry’s efforts to convert Glastonbury into Avalon as part of his second agenda (witnessed in DA interpolations), Arthur is latterly discovered on Avalon (now at Glastonbury) where Henry had fabricated a grave to be found in the future.

‘Geoffrey’ is responsible for the name of Avalon (derived from the burgundian town) and the fact that Henry obtains the mythical Island motif from the prophecy of Melki, but the existence of Arthur’s island is make believe. However, the existence of Ineswitrin and what is buried on it is an entirely different matter. Joseph’s body on Burgh Island is the point of Melkin having left to posterity his set of directions. It is most probably the reasoning behind the Devonian King granting the Island to the Old Church at Glastonbury when the Saxons landed in Dumnonia.

 As I have maintained and is perfectly evident, Huntingdon’s synopsis of HRB is somewhat different to Vulgate HRB in storyline. It is hardly likely that he would omit the Island of Avalon as the last place Arthur is seen as Huntingdon relateswhat isfound in the Primary Historia found at Bec: ‘Companions, let us put a high price on our deaths. I will now cut off the head of my Nephew and betrayer with my sword. After that death will be sweet’. Huntingdon’s ending says that Arthur took hold of Mordred’s helmet and severed Mordred’s neck with one stroke of his sword, as if it were a head of corn. But he received so many wounds in so doing that he also fell. Straight after, Huntingdon continues on in EAW with no mention of Avalon: But the Bretons your, your ancestors, refuse to believe that he died. And they traditionally await his return. For in his day he was certainly supreme over all men in warfare, liberality and courtesy.[3]

The account ends without mention of one of the most significant icons in HRB simply because Avalon was not recorded in the Primary Historia. If it had been Huntingdon most certainly would have mentioned it as he too is quizzical about what transpired with King Arthur.

‘Geoffrey’ made use of Huntingdon’s history in constructing HRB. Since Huntingdon died in 1154, logically, one would think, given his initial interest in Galfridus’s early Historia, he would at least have made mention of Merlin, who, modern scholars believe was mentioned in the Primary Historia. Huntingdon’s history had been in general circulation in the 16 years since he had first clapped eyes and commented on the Primary Historia to his friend Warin. So, it is inconceivable that Huntingdon could have ignored Merlin particularly when both authors (he and ‘Geoffrey’) shared a patron in Alexander[4].  The fact is, the Primary Historia version was finished and deposited at Bec in the first half of 1138 by Henry Blois and the Alexander dedication was added post 1155 at the finalisation of the Vulgate version. Henry could not base Arthur in Wales without having any idea of its topography or where ruins existed. 

Huntingdon makes his views on Henry Blois clear in his letter to Walter as we have covered. In either case concerning Huntingdon or Malmesbury, the colophon at the end of Vulgate HRB could present no offence, as they were both dead at the time of publication. The whole colophon is a ploy and could never fit (all things considered) even in the conventional sense in which scholars have understood an early publication date for Vulgate HRB. ‘Geoffrey’, supposedly still on the career ladder, before he was to become a fictitious bishop, would (if it were a genuine instruction in reality) not wish to inflame controversy with two well established and respected historians one of which supposedly had a patron in common. Some commentators who believe in an early publication date of HRB have assumed this instruction to two historians to be silent, must have appeared as insulting. Henry did not care as he held them both (in reality) in the same disdain and they certainly had no chance of countermanding his bogus instruction or reacting to his arrogant dismissal.

William of Malmesbury had not toed the line in writing what the monks at Glastonbury had been trying to induce him to include into DA; and Malmesbury had near enough accused Henry’s father in GP of being a liar. Henry Blois would probably have read Huntingdon’s letter to Walter, which, as we have covered, leaves no flattering character reference regarding Henry for posterity. In fact, Henry Blois must have looked on Huntingdon as a dullard using parts of ‘Geoffrey’s’ Primary Historia as credible History when he updated his redaction of his own history.

The point of the late colophon into the Vulgate HRB is to reiterate (before supposedly living historians) the fact that ‘Geoffrey’ had a source which they did not. All this, supposedly before Huntingdon had already used ‘Geoffrey’ as source material in his later redactions. The other point in producing the colophon, establishes that the colophon appealed to Malmesbury and Huntingdon while alive (i.e. it establishes that the book was written pre- 1143 when Malmesbury died).  This in effect retro-dated the publication of the Vulgate HRB. This has the effect for instance, that Merlin’s prophecy about the ‘Sixth’ invading Ireland became seemingly and marvelously prophetic   The colophon also made it appear that Caradoc followed on from Geoffrey’s Historia rather than ‘Geoffrey’ terminated his account where Caradoc started. Additionally the colophon eradicates suspicion that the Life of Gildas had been written by someone posing as Caradoc who is dead. Caradoc, by what the colophon infers, is alive and well and logically must have been to have taken up ‘Geoffrey’s’ mantle.... or that is what we are led to believe.

This is the point of subtly stating that Caradoc is ‘contemporary’ (my fellow student) so that those who doubted the words found in the life of Gildas could not disprove them on the grounds that Caradoc’s name had been impersonated and argue that Caradoc was already dead when Vulgate appeared. In truth, all those supposedly contemporaneous people mentioned in the Vulgate version of HRB, Archdeacon Walter, Alexander, Robert of Gloucester, Stephen, Caradoc, Huntingdon and Malmesbury and ‘Geoffrey’ himself were all dead when the Vulgate appeared post 1155.

Crick’s solution to the colophon is: we may surmise that Geoffrey first published the Historia without any reference to other historians, and that, not until his published work was challenged, did he add in a later edition a renewed statement about his sources.

This is the perfect rationale for the colophon’s existence. However, Crick is entirely ignorant of the fact that in essence the Vulgate version (by such an avowal) is retro-dated.  The colophon is a reaction to criticism of ‘Geoffrey’s sources as he covers a huge swathe of history previously unmentioned by earlier authors. It is ‘Geoffrey’s’ response to how such a mountain of material was divulged in the pretence of a translation from an old book. The colophon acts equally as a propagandist statement regarding the contemporaneity of Caradoc and his separate authorship of ‘Geoffrey’s’ continuation.... which, Caradoc’s work, once interpolated, further evidences and corroborated that which had been fabricated in HRB.

These are the finer points upon which the Blois fraud exists and which modern scholars have naïvely taken at face value. If Crick really considered the full implications…. does she really believe ‘Geoffrey ‘supplied the materials’ for Caradoc to obediently continue ‘Geoffrey’s’ work? Another boon to backdating, by pretending contemporaneity to Malmesbury (before 1143) also makes prophecy (which was supposedly in the same Vulgate book at that time) appear more accurate. Nowhere is this more conclusive than in the Orderic interpolation! This is the subtlety of the inserted sentence summing up the section of prophecies in Orderic’s interpolation…. which is plainly devised to appear as having existed when King Henry Ist was alive. Henry’sinterpolation into Orderic concerning the Merlin prophecies backdates the prophecies to before 1135. 

Henry Blois went further in his propaganda and the insistence of ‘Geoffrey’s’ source being an ancient book long after he returned from Clugny in the invention of Gaimar’s epilogue which we will get to. We also have at the end of the chronicle called Brut Tysilio[5] (another variant) the following statement: I, Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, translated this Book from Welsh into Latin, and in my old age I translated it a second time from Latin into Welsh…

We must not forget Henry’s resources and the abundance of Welsh speaking Latin translators. Maybe Henry’s guile is more evident in trying to provide a further re-adjustment of the contemporaneity himself (Geoffrey) and Caradoc in the said colophon enjoy: The princes who were afterwards successively over Wales, I committed to Caradog of Llancarvan; he was, my contemporary, and to him I left materials for writing that book. From henceforward the Kings of the English and their successors I committed to William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntington, to write about, but they were to leave the Welsh alone; for they do not possess that Welsh book, which Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, translated from Latin into Welsh; and he narrated truly and fully from the history of the aforesaid Welshmen’.

‘Geoffrey’ supposedly provides the materials to Caradoc. The one thing this implies is that not only does ‘Geoffrey’ condone Caradoc’s continuation, but it also appears as though Caradoc’s work supposedly follows chronologically ‘Geoffrey’s’. No-one but Henry Blois would make such a statement as to leave the history of the Welsh alone because they lack the fictitious book which Walter supposedly gave ‘Geoffrey’. Henry’s gambit is a direct attempt at making the Vulgate HRB and its prophecies appear much older.

Where the prophecies are concerned, there was suspicion that a modern contemporary was back dating past events so as to appear prophetical. When the historicity of ‘Geoffrey’s’ work came under suspicion, Walter’s source book is introduced into the Vulgate version. Hence, Walter nor his source book are mentioned in the Primary Historia nor the First Variant as these early editions were not widely published. It is only when the circulation of the Vulgate became more widely read that Henry reacted to the suspicion.   Henry is scrambling firstly to cover his own authorial tracks and secondly to substantiate the credibility of both the prophecies and the historicity of HRB. Even Crick realises that the HRB and its prophecies might have been challenged. It is likely that it was known at what early Caradoc died, so it provides Geoffrey’s text with an earlier provenance. Caradoc supposedly establishes the Arthurian and Gildas connection with Glastonbury, so one is led to think his continuation of HRB should not be doubted. ‘Geoffrey’s’ word concerning Walter should supposedly not be doubted either…. as Walter in his own words says he has translated the same book from Latin into Welsh (and back again), which, if this were true, one would logically assume that if Geoffrey is carrying out the same task…. why is it that Walter is not as famous as ‘Geoffrey’ became. The farce is cyclical and has had scholars chasing their tails.

Tatlock[6] tries to sort this puzzle out concerning Caradoc: There is no reason why a canon at a loose end should not be received by the Benedictines of Glastonbury. Much of Caradoc’s Life of Gildas is based upon the life of St Cadoc. Tatlock recognizes Gildas has no connection whatever with Glastonbury and yet believes Caradoc is writing while at Glastonbury as part of the Officine de faux. Tatlock is also duped by Henry’s clever contrivance that Caradoc is a contemporary of ‘Geoffrey’s’, based on the assertion in the Colophon. The naivety in modern medieval scholarship is incredible given the understanding that Life of Gildas and HRB are both visibly concocted accounts.

 It cannot be established whether Walter may have translated Caradoc’s Brut into Latin as this whole propaganda exercise concerning Archdeacon Walter and his relationship with ‘Geoffrey’ is purely to establish and muddle the source of HRB and is probably only based (like the Ralf relationship to ‘Geoffrey-Gaufridus Artur’) on the Archdeacon’s name being present when Henry signed (in one sitting) the improvised signing of the seven charters at Oxford.  Whether or not Walter was an antiquarian is an unimportant point considering his name also was not employed until after his death in 1151. The signing of the ‘Galfridus charters’ at Oxford c.1153 after Wallingford is importantly relevant to Henry Blois having knowledge that Walter had recently expired, and thereafter, his name could be employed retrospectively. We must not be fooled by such personal details about Walter in that he was well read in history and experienced in ‘oratoria arte’ or that he brought the ‘book’ from Brittany.

‘Geoffrey’ is not translating from a book given to him by Walter, but Henry Blois ends his Primary Historia at the relevant point because Henry has already read a copy of Caradoc’s work. It seems highly unlikely Caradoc had been translated into Latin by Walter as Caradoc’s work (as I cover in chapter 22) was written in Latin.  It can only be Henry who wrote the passage above implying that ‘Geoffrey’ supplied materials to Caradoc to continue where he had left off.

Caradoc supposedly wrote the Latin Life of Gildas which substantiates the Arthurian episode of the kidnap of Guinevere on the Modena archivolt. The Life of Gildas substantiates Glastonbury’s antiquity in its contention with Canterbury. The Caradawc or Caradog from the Gwentian Brut or more likely the Caradoc, Duke of Cornwall in HRB may be Henry Blois’ reason for the inscription of Carrado on the Modena archivolt (as he is not mentioned in the Life of Gildas or the Vita Cadoci along with Kai). Perhaps the mention of Carrado-Caradoc is Henry’s attempt at irony, since the only version of this kidnap of Guinevere episode is found in Caradoc’s Life of Gildas.... which he himself had written. It is not surprising therefore, that this dispute between Melvas and King Arthur is corroborated in the DA where Henry Blois has interpolated the story and where Gildas is seen as the mediator.

To understand the reasoning behind the construction of the original pseudo-history which evolved into the Primary Historia found at Bec and its evolution to the First Variant and Vulgate HRB, it is necessary to grasp that initially it was started (the part from Brutus to the point of start to the ‘Arthuriad’) in Henry Ist time.... while Henry Blois was a young man at Glastonbury c.1128-9.  As we have covered, the History of the Franks also posited the hereditary descent from Troy and it is highly probable that Henry Ist, (who was a scholar in his own right), was probably the intended recipient of the pseudo-history (as it set the stage in previous British history for female monarch’s which was the contention since the White ship disaster and the death of William Adelin. Matilda’s prospective rule, most likely accounts for the inclusion of the many Queens posited by ‘Geoffrey’. If I am correct in my assumption that Henry Blois was the ‘someone’ who recounted the Frank’s history to Henry Ist, as recorded by Huntingdon…. it would surely be in Henry Blois’ interest initially to provide his uncle with an equally grand rendition of British history as that of the Franks from Troy.

 The crux to howthe Historia was constructed  is that when Henry Blois’ uncle died, the gist of the yet unfinished pseudo-historia was remoulded (adding to it the Arthuriad), but certain features of the fictitious storyline remained unaltered in Primary Historia; especially concerning the five British queens which had been included to fulfil a specific and earlier agenda regarding the Empress Matilda as Henry Ist next in line. At that time, the prospective book had political ramifications in setting a precedent for accepting a queen.

As for the motive behind some other preferences, attitudes or allegiances which Geoffrey shows, we can only be conjectural.  My guess is that links were highlighted with a more prominent connection concerning Brittany when Stephen came to the throne as the point of the pro-Brittany stance held in HRB seems unclear in its motivation (apart from Walter’s copy of the ancient book have hailed from there in some accounts).  Trying to divine the motive and what accurately transpired is a can of worms….foremost, because Henry is trying to achieve many things at different times and the reader will see that these different agendas are reflected in DA. Where HRB is concerned, firstly, Henry is Norman and trying to hide his authorship in pretending to be a Welsh ‘Geoffrey’. Secondly, the text is squewed to conform more with known historical sources when he comes to re-editing the Primary Historia as the First Variant. The reasoning behind this is so that the First Variant is to be presented as viable history/proof in his case for Metropolitan at Rome in 1144 and tailored toward an ecclesiastical Roman audience.(This is evident as I cover later in discussing the format of the First Variant). Thirdly, the prophecies which started out with innocuous intent, merely composed to fascinate the contemporary audience of their ability to see so many relevant episodes which had transpired in their time…. becomes a political invective against Henry II (once the prophecies are updated in 1155), predicting that should the Britons/Celtic tribes rebel…. the Normans would be defeated.  What has confused scholars more is why the First Variant adheres more historically to the insular, Roman and Continental annals and has a biblical bent. We know the First Variant has an 1155 updated version of the prophecies attached, so we are unable to know in what form it was presented at Rome and what other editorial changes to the prophecies were added which we find in the Vulgate version which were not in the presentation copy for the case of Metropolitan.

Henry Blois groomed Eustace expecting to have influence over Eustace after Stephen’s death until such time as the truce was made at the end of the Anarchy. After Henry’s brother died and Henry II came to the throne, Henry Blois found himself in a difficult position in self imposed exile. It is here we see the concoction of VM and JC prophecies as Henry Blois has one last attempt at regaining power by inciting rebellion by predicting an adopted seventh King. Once back in England in 1158 and there is no chance of regaining his original power, Henry settles for the aura of Venerable statesman where age had moderated political ambition and his writing at Clugny had brought calm.[7]

In 1158 Henry set about the third phase of his authorial edifice which he has left to posterity. This was the updating of the DA with Joseph material and the invention of a new tale which was to be the pinnacle of his inventive mind. It was based on a historical truth, but he had no way of understanding Melkin’s prophecy. He knew it held the key to finding the island of Ineswitrin on which Joseph was buried. Henry was not a fool and knew the 601 charter which referred to the same Island was not a fake. Because Henry came across the prophecy of Melkin, he introduced a forgotten character from antiquity into British history; one Joseph of Arimathea. Because of Henry Blois’ muses.... Joseph of Arimathea then became the focus of Grail literature along with Arthur. This is a brief synopsis of Henry’s evolving edifice which culminated in Grail literature and is only mentioned here so that certain previous misunderstandings as to how the three main bodies of literature link up can be understood by the common denominator of Henry Blois. I have wished to avert the reader to the direction of where the evidence we are about to cover is leading us in our coverage of three genres of Arthuriana, Glastonburiana and Grail literature.

If one does not understand Henry Blois as the author of HRB, it is impossible to see through the affiliations he makes, or account for the anachronistic association of Arthur and Joseph and the Grail heroes…. or understand ‘Geoffrey’s’ seemingly contradictory views. As a ‘Norman’ Henry sees himself and his heritage through his grandfather as a rightful inheritor of Britain. The Welsh of his present era he hates and makes it plain in GS and HRB saying they are nothing more than savages. There is a lot of rationalisation of this position as his affiliations only stretch as part of the heritage of the emigration of the British (to Brittany) at the Saxon invasion.

 This position changes of course as he entices rebellion in the later prophecies and even predicts Henry II loss of power as the end of Norman rule. Of the Angli and the Saxones he feels the same and politically posits the Normans as eradicators of the Saxon invaders and holds the same tone as that intonated by both Gildas and Bede. The Scots also, he holds in contempt, coloured by King David’s affiliation with Matilda. He is contemptuous that his brother has made a deal with King David three times and each time David has broken his word. We witness this in the prophecies and GS.

Glastonbury is not mentioned in HRB, but if it had been, suspicion would fall on Henry as author of HRB. Winchester features heavily and by so doing provides evidence of an early monastic house at which Constans stayed. It is all part of what the First Variant brings as reliable history upon which Henry Blois’ metropolitan is granted in 1144. Winchester is much vaunted in HRB second only to London. St Amphibalus is posited and Arthur’s Dragon was sure to turn up if all had gone according to plan. Arthur’s dragon as a (forged) standard was clearly inspired by the Bayeux tapestry. Harold’s dragon standard or banner may well have been in Henry’s possession to be produced or ‘found’ at an opportune moment. No-one is sure of what became of it after its capture at Hastings. Adam of Damerham however, does say that Henry endowed a banner to Glastonbury.

Canterbury is ignored in HRB for obvious reasons because of Henry Blois’ enmity with Theobald and the Ass of Wickedness (William of Corbeil), both treated with distain. Henry does his utmost to promote Winchester as a metropolitan in real life as well as by implication in the prophecies and by providing adequate proof in the storyline of HRB that in terms of primacy it antedated Canterbury.

Henry Blois’ medieval mind is fascinated by Stonehenge. He has no idea how it came to be there. ‘Geoffrey’ loves to astound by providing bogus anecdotal history and etymology. His cleverness runs throughout HRB where we witness his Mons Ambrii which the contemporary reader would know to be Amesbury.  Geoffrey lets his reader deduce the eponym is so called by its proximity to the Giants Dance brought back from Ireland by Merlin Ambrosius and instigated by Aurelius Ambrosius.  Here we get a good idea of how ‘Geoffrey’s’ mind works. He obviously knows the lay of the land and weaves etymology with known geography. ‘Geoffrey’ is not a parochial Welshman; he is a man of state affairs who is well travelled throughout insular Britain and has an exceptional grasp of historical names of populations on the continent and of course geographical regions. By comparison with many others in Henry’s own era, he travelled extensively on the continent and on errands for his brother or carrying out ecclesiastical duties. For the description of the Giants Dance for Stonehenge, we only have Henry Blois’ imagination to thank. Geoffrey’s twist on Nennius’s slaughter of the Britons and the connection with Stonehenge just highlights his art form.  Initially in Huntingdon’s report to Warin there was no miracle: 'Uter Pendragon, the son of Aurelius, who brought from Ireland the Dance of Giants which is now called Stanhenges’. Henry Blois in his later Vulgate HRB providing an answer to people such as Huntingdon who had commented that ‘none can imagine by what art the stones were raised or for what purpose’.  At the introduction of Merlin into HRB along with the prophecies, Henry Blois’ resolution as author of HRB as to how the edifice appears on the landscape is also weaved into the storyline providing a fascinated audience of the Vulgate Version the solution to how the monument occurred and the fact that this must be evidential of Giants in history as found in many old texts. Coincidentally, these may be the giants that Arthur or Brutus fought.   The fact Henry has Merlin transfer Stonehenge from Ireland shows also that Henry is aware of Megalithic structures in Ireland. Henry loves to provide solutions in eponyms or myths to things that puzzle him and his audience.  Stone circles were common and therefore, apart from the fact that the stones come from Killaraus mons, they also are provided with an array of bogus detail: For in these stones is a mystery, and a healing virtue against many ailments. Giants of old did carry them from the furthest ends of Africa and did set them up in Ireland at what time they did inhabit therein. And unto this end they did it, that they might make them baths therein when so ever they ailed of any malady, for they did wash the stones and pour forth the water into the baths, whereby they that were sick were made whole. Moreover, they did mix confections of herbs with the water, whereby they that were wounded had healing, for not a stone is there that lacks in virtue of leechcraft.[8]

Henry Blois has no problem with pure invention, but the state of his mind is anything but pure.[9] What is most interesting is that between 1138 when Primary Historia was produced and 1144, when the Anarchy was in full swing and the First Variant was finalised as a presentation copy for Rome, Henry’s pleasure in his private hours was given over to refining an already bogus history with more mythical detail as he wove Merlin into HRB. It is not a certainty that the First Variant changed that much between 1144 and the second attempt at metropolitan in 1149. Until his brother’s death in 1154, Henry must have been refining the text.

Henry detested Alexander, Robert of Gloucester, Robert de Chesney and Waleran also, so his dedicatees were more chosen as a guise to hide his authorship than any other reason. However, the city of Gloucester (for reasons in context of the initial unpublished pseudo-historia) is given prominence in being founded by Claudius (Claudiocestria)….. or its alternative eponym from Gloius, son of Claudius, where both the dubiously historical Lucius and Arviragus[10] are conveniently buried. Gloucester supposedly had a large See and the bishop Eldadus has a brother who is one of Aurelius’s brave knights who killed Hengist.  The Consul Claudiocestrie is given prominence and is distinguished in battle against the Romans. Henry must have known Gloucester well as it is en route travelling into southern Wales. Certainly the writer of HRB and GS has a good knowledge of it. The writer of GS is also at pains to tell us that the city of Bath gets its name from ‘a word peculiar to the English language signifying wash place’, but ‘Geoffrey’ in HRB is also cognisant of this as Bladud built the baths. Obviously Henry knew Bath well as he was in attendance with his brother there in GS. The invention of Bladud, who was from Badon.... no-one had ever heard of before.  Kaer Badum is really introduced at Bath to correlate with Badonicus Mons or Mons Badonis which Geoffrey locates from mention in Gildas, Bede and Nennius and connects to Arthur’s last battle in ‘Geoffrey’s’ usual conflationary method of association of disparate anecdotal information.

As regards Exeter and Totnes in Devon, we know Henry Blois has knowledge of Uffculme from his early days at Glastonbury and he has been to Plympton as he describes the early morning attack in GS with eyewitnessdetail. The siege of Exeter, Henry Blois was definitely involved in... and probably used Totnes as Brutus’ and Vespasian’s landing as he would have known that it was the highest navigable point on the Dart. Also one would probably pass through it on the way to Plympton. A certain Judhel of Totnes built the castle and was succeeded by his son and the Cannons of Laon on their journey visited Judhel at Barnstable. We might speculate that given that their travel record bears witness of the contretemps about Arthur, there is a chance of this very tradition being an interpolation…. given that Laon is close to Meuse and Bec and on the route down to Rome which Henry often frequented. I am suggesting that in their travelogue Henry might have inserted the anecdote in regard to having seen that the earlier travellers passed through Devon; and this might have been done while resting over at Laon. After all, if he goes to the extent of promoting his rescue of Guinevere into the engravings on the Modena Archivolt, this would only be a small effort by comparison. Another interest which is also corroborated in GS is Henry Blois’ love of Castles. Of the many towns mentioned in HRB, nearly all have early Norman castles.

‘Geoffrey’s’ Saltus Geomagog which is ‘near Totnes’ where the Giant is thrown over a cliff by Corineus is probably the cliffs at the entrance to Salcombe…. (Salgoem)’as it is still so named’, says ‘Geoffrey’. Salcombe has the giant’s name of Magog spliced onto it and is posited as the location of the wrestling. For Henry to know that there are cliffs there on which to base his fight scene with the giant and the fact that it is stated to be near Totnes…. one must assume, Henry has been to those cliffs. My point is that later the reader will understand that there is reasonable evidence that Henry Blois has actively searched for the Island of Ineswitrin. He is one of the few people who knows it is in Devon. It just so happens that these cliffs overlook Burgh Island. Burgh Island is the Ineswitrin in the 601 charter and the island to which the geometrical data in the Prophecy of Melkin locates…. with alarming accuracy. It is doubtful a Welsh ‘Geoffrey’ would be so well travelled having a good grasp of the geography from the south west of England and all the way to Scotland. Also well-travelled from Brittany to Flanders, with highly specific knowledge of  the environs of Burgundy and the ports on both side of the channel. HRB was not written by a parochial Welshman. Our author’s geography is extremely detailed even down to the Aravian Mountains on the French side of the Alps.

‘Geoffrey’s’ affiliation and the prominence he assigns to the Cornish or Cornwall has been puzzling for most commentators as Gildas, Bede, Nennius, nor Annales Cambriae pay much attention to the South west. This affiliation of Arthur with Cornwall might be more based on the genuine tradition of the Warlord Arthur rather than the totally fictitious chivalric Arthur from Caerleon. The propensity to things Cornish are based upon mostly Arthurian detail but the question is why has ‘Geoffrey’ after his invention of Arthur’s Welsh base at Caerleon, brought a tradition of Arthur’s southern heritage to the fore…. unless there is some substance to it in association with Warlord Arthur. I refer back to the travellers from Leon. There is no substance at all to King Arthur at Caerleon and the reason for the Welsh backdrop is based upon a Welsh and Bardic oral tradition, not specifically about Arthur, but more on memory of old wars of the Britons. Lifris was from Llancarfon and relates episodes about Arthur in the Vita Cadoci. There are Roman Archaeological remains at Caerleon and so prominence was given to this area as a credible setting. It existed within an area that ‘Geoffrey’ associated with the ancient Britons and Henry had been there. Given Henry’s interest in architecture and visits to Rome, he makes out through the residue of ruined Roman buildings that Caerleon: passing fair was the magnificence of the Kingly palaces thereof with the gilded verges of the roofs that imitated Rome.[11]In reality ‘Geoffrey’ distinguishes his own present hate for the Welsh in GS while at the same time situating the grandeur of the Arthurian court at an obscure Caerleon where there were ancient remains. There is this hate for the Welsh so evidently expressed in both HRB and GS which totally negates a real Geoffrey being from Monmouth and certainly not ‘Brito’.

The conundrum for most commentators on the HRB has been Geoffrey’s contradictory attitude to the insular races and his lack of damnation of the Norman overlords in the prophecies. In fact Henry is the Norman overlord!  Henry’s prospective self-adoption as a returning Briton as evidenced in JC is contrasted with his own current hatred for the residue of the remaining Celtic races. Henry’s opinion has mostly been coloured by their rebellion in the time of King Stephen’s rule, but he also holds the same opinion about the Irish. The Cornish and the Breton’s as Celts are looked upon in a much more favoured light.

Geoffrey’s knowledge of the sea ports of France is more than a Welsh cleric living at Oxford could reasonably be acquainted with. Henry Blois writes from experience, knowing intimately Mont St. Michel, Rennes, Tréguier and Kidaleta, journeying through the channel island ports on his many excursions to and fro across the channel. In Henry Blois’ usual lack of attention to detail regarding distance (to affect an air of a chronicle rather than first hand experience), he has Arthur travel to the small island of ‘Tumbe Helene’ to avenge Hoel’s niece.... knowing full well that Barfleur is 72 miles away. He must have visited Mont St Michel with his uncle or as a monk…. but we know he went to Mont St Michel and met Robert de Torigni in 1155. Henry certainly knew of Barfleur and may indeed be an indication of why he wrote the poem found in Orderic from which he uses the same expression (fish food) as found in the Merlin prophecies.[12]  ‘Geoffrey’ mentions a few places in Normandy and there is a Duke of Normandy as well as the Duke of Poitou. The name of Ruteni comes directly from Lucan’s Pharsalia and ‘Geoffrey’ has placed them in Flanders on the basis that the town of Ruthia was in Flanders and Ruthena was a city near Paris.  The Ruteni and Moriani seem to be from Flanders, but to avoid detection as author of HRB their provenance is uncertain i.e. not specifically defined. As it happens, his brother is the Count of Flanders. However, Gerinus of Chartres, again in Blois lands, is given prominence over the twelve peers of Gaul.  The Allobroges, who are from Burgundy, are prominent, but again, there is no sign or hint of Blois glory…. where after the battle: Arthur made grant of Neustria, which is now called Normandy, unto Bedevere his butler, and the province of Anjou unto Kay his seneschal. Many other provinces also did he grant unto the noblemen that did him service in his household.

One can be sure that the Blois region is omitted on purpose without being specifically named. Funnily enough, every other province is named; Aquitaine, Brittany, Normandy and Anjou get mentioned along with Maine. The region of Blois is the only one not glorified by name, but Henry compensates for this by deciding to place the epic battle in Burgundian Blois lands instead. ‘Geoffrey’s’ ease linking continental names is an indicator of his knowledge of continental saints such as St Leodegarius which name he gives to the Consul of Boulogne.  Bladud’s son Leir is one of Geoffrey’s greatest triumph’s…. but without an eponym to fascinate his audience he would not feel satisfied; and so it was Leir who builded the city on the river Soar, that in the British is called Kaerleir, but in the Saxon, Leicester. The story of Leir incorporates so many aspects of the human experience and it is parabolic, dealing with empathy and true love. When the story finishes and Cordelia and her husband Aganippus defeat the wicked dukes in Britain and restores the Kingdom to her father, it appears as if Henry of Huntingdon in hisletter to Warin makes an observation, Hence the saying: words said in moderation should be all the more valued. We could speculate that this was an observation made by Galfridus Arthur and not Huntingdon’s observation to his friend Warin i.e. it was in the script of the Primary Historia, as it is a precept of Cicero’s work on Oratory.

 When King Leir hits hard times, he goes in search of Cordelia for succour and: Landing at last, his mind filled with these reflections and others of a like kind, he came to Karitia, where his daughter lived…   Henry’s bogus eponym in his favoured region of Blois is La Charité in a supposedly archaic Latinised form as Karitia. The town of La Charité-sur Loire began as the first of the Cluniac priories on an island site in the Loire. The Priory of La Charité-sur Loire is a Cluniac monastery not far from Clugny, Autun and Langres, in which Henry started his life as an oblate. Henry of Blois was rumoured to be Abbot of Bermondsey, a substantial monastery, before becoming Abbot of Glastonbury.... and Bermondsey was a dependent priory of the Cluniac monastery of La Charité-sur-Loire. This may be the reason for ‘Geoffrey’s’ choice of Cordelia’s place of residence with the King of the Franki, Aganippus. Aganippe is best known as a spring on Mt Helicon where we find the Muses of classical Greek literature. Given Henry’s own personal reference in the Meusan plates to Muses, and in the preamble of HRB, it seems fair to assume Henry is versed in Greek literature.

In a life of St Folcuinus by Bishop of Therouanne, a lighthouse is mentioned and Therouanne is only 25 miles from Boulogne. This ‘Turris ordrans’ or tower Odraus Farus is a structure (a tower on which a fire was lit to guide ships through the Dover straights) known to ‘Geoffrey’ in his travels most likely or from the life of St Folcuinus…. but ‘Geoffrey’ fictionalises that it was built by Caesar: He (Caesar) then threw himself into a certain tower he had constructed at a place called Odnea. 

‘Geoffrey’ loves to distort names such as Charité to Karitia and we can see the same in Geoffrey’s Odnea from ordrans or ordrensis and ‘Wace’s’ Ordre. The only reason ‘Wace’ made Karitia into Calais was again a case of Henry Blois distancing himself from a suspicion of authorship of Wace’s Roman de Brut…. Henry Blois impostors Wace, as I shall get to later. King Arthur fights Frollo on an island outside the city of Paris in front of onlookers. This again shows topographical acquaintance with the lay of the land of a certain island which would in Henry’s estimation have been outside the walls of Paris in Arthur’s day. We could postulate that this would be a difficult presumption for a Welsh ‘Geoffrey’ to make without having eyeballed the topography.

Throughout the HRB ‘Geoffrey’s’ knowledge of regions, cities and towns is not that of a parochial cleric living in Oxford who originated from the Welsh Marches. Henry Blois, as a well-educated, well-travelled and continentally born person has no problem inventing the Basclenses for the Basques and is not favourable to Poitou which is a reflection of his own bias (in 1138) and knows regions such as Guasconia. As in this instance of Gascony, Henry Blois loves to Latinize nomenclature giving his readers a sense of the archaic; but also providing recognisable forms for his contemporary Anglo-Norman/continental audience. When it comes to his own region of Blois or Burgundy, avoiding suspicion of authorship completely, he refers to his own family’s southern region as the people of the Allobroges. This nomenclature is found in Fulcher of Chartres Historia Hierosolymitana and the eleventh century Chartres cartulary. How would a Welsh Geoffrey know this and why is our author coy about any specific mention of the region known to be that of Blois? The Senones Galli are of course only slightly differentiated geographically from the Allobroges….the distinction obvious to the native Henry Blois. Again, the town of Sens is within the Blois region of lands, yet he knows and differentiates the areas. All these family lands were held now by his brother Theobald.

‘Geoffrey’s’ Augustodunum is Autun where we find the see of St Leodegarius who we just mentioned. After having lost a skirmish at the river Aube, Thorpe translates wrongly that the city of Autun is on Arthur’s left hand whereas the Latin text has relicta a leava civitate i.e. Langres…. as Arthur is coming down from the imaginary skirmish on the Aube. It was the fictional Lucius Hiberius who could not make up his mind what to do on his way to Autun and therefore marched his army into Langres for the night.’King Arthur’ knew that the quickest way to Autun from Langres for an army was along the Roman road through Dijon. Why Faral says: Il faut reconnoitre que la Geographie de Geoffrey est assez indècise…is plainly non-sensible in this instance as ‘Wace’ is even clearer about certain facts, indicating that Henry has the picture straight in his mind. The problem most commentators have had is a want to place Siesia in conjunction with a known name rather than employing another of Geoffrey’s attributes by giving the valley its eponym by who built the road through it.

The First variant has Siesia, Siessia or Soissie Sesie in Wace and sounds like Ceasar; but as we will discuss later, material in Wace is specifically squewed to make it seem as if it were not Henry Blois (or Geoffrey) who wrote the Roman de Brut.  Arthur, leaving the city (of Langres) on his left, he took up a position in a certain valley called Siesia,[13] through the which, Lucius would have to pass.[14]

Henry Blois or ‘Geoffrey’ had chosen for Arthur’s pitched battle a place on the Roman road of the Via Agrippa. We may speculate that it was known locally to the Burgundian inhabitants and to Henry Blois, (a frequent traveller and native), as the ‘Vale of Caesar’. Tatlock gives two other pieces of relevant information which are more interesting to us since we know it is Henry Blois writing HRB. There was a monastery near Donzy called Sessiacum 36 miles from Avallon and about 60miles from Autun. But, even more likely as to the naming by ‘Geoffrey’, since Henry is attempting to use ancient allusions, is a castle called La Sessie which the count of Champagne held of the Roman emperor.[15] The Fact that a Welsh cleric at Oxford knows that the River Aube flows from the Plateau de Langres seems unlikely. The fact that a Welsh Geoffrey knows the Allobroges[16] are the people of the region of Blois i.e. Burgundy.... seems more unlikely, or their distinction from the Senones.

Henry Blois throughout the HRB combines accuracy with vagueness like Cordelia’s ‘Karitia’.  Henry names the location where Arthur cuts off Lucius Hiberius’ forces as ‘Ceasar’s Valley’ or the valley of Siesia. The Via Agrippa is a long Roman road which runs in what is a vast vale and there are hills in the distance on both sides of the Roman road.

Arthur is envisaged as heading south marching from the North. He has Langres on his left as Henry (‘Geoffrey’) imagines Arthur’s progress down to the Via Agrippa. Henry’s local geographical knowledge understands that if Lucius wanted to get an army from Langres to Autun he would naturally travel on the Via Agrippa. It may not be by accident that Saussy (a small village) is only six miles from the Via Agrippa…. mid-way between Langres and Autun.

Henry Blois portrays a visualised engagement somewhere between Vaux-sous-Aubingny and Dijon. The Roman road runs straight as an arrow in a valley plain for 22 miles from Dijon before turning at Vaux-sous-Aubingny to run perfectly straight for another 14 miles to Langres. Commentators have thought the supposed Welshman ‘Geoffrey’ had spuriously identified a non-existent location. The appellation is nowhere found in the Roman Annals, but was probably known locally as such in Henry’s time. The remarkable point to make about Henry calling the Valley plain, the valley of Siesia is his purposeful mis-spelling of ‘Caesar’, just as Charité is intentionally corrupted to Karitia....or his knowledge of the village of Saussy.  Would the courtly Norman and clerical audience for HRB know the locations referred to from their own geographical knowledge? It is odd to think the contemporary readership (post 1155) believe in the literal translation from ‘Geoffrey’s’ ancient (Briton) book from which he is supposedly transcribing.

There are many coincidences to cover like the ‘round table’ appearing at what was Winchester Castle during the last years of Henry’s life. While we are at this juncture it is worth noting that ‘Wace’ knows exactly, in his mind, where this battle is taking place and becomes more specific about its topography than the supposed ‘Geoffrey’.  Even though most commentators believe Wace is merely transliterating in a more vibrant French octo-syllabic couplet than Geoffrey’s HRB Latin prose.... one can tell that it is the same author. ‘Wace’ knows exactly the topography also and expands in places where Geoffrey remains vague. Henry impersonates Wace to widen his audience into the continent by retelling HRB in colloquial French verse: Now Langres is builded on the summit of a mount, and the plain lies all about the city. So Lucius and part of his people lodged within the town, and for the rest they sought shelter in the valley. Arthur knew well where the emperor would draw, and of his aim and purpose. He was persuaded that the Roman would not fight till the last man was with him. He cared neither to tarry in the city, nor to pacify the realm. Arthur sounded his trumpets, and bade his men to their harness. As speedily as he might he marched out from camp. He left Langres on the left hand, and passed beyond it bearing to the right (just as the Roman road bends today at Vaux-sous-Aubingny). He had in mind to outstrip the emperor, and seize the road to Autun. All the night through, without halt or stay, Arthur fared by wood and plain, till he came to the valley of Soissons.

There Arthur armed his host, and made him ready for battle. The highway from Autun to Langres led through this valley and Arthur would welcome the Romans immediately they were come. The King put the gear and the camp followers from the host. He set them on a hill nearby, arrayed in such fashion as to seem men-at-arms. He deemed that the Romans would be the more fearful, when they marked this multitude of spears. Arthur took six thousand six hundred and sixty six men, and ranged them by troops in a strong company. (Wace)

He is writing for a continental French audience in Wace. Henry re-names what in HRB was Ceasar’s valley to the valley of Soissons (Soissie, Saoise) in Wace which is a pun on Soixant or sixty’s. The number appears to be randomly generated by mystic association most probably with the 666 from Revelation.[17]

Henry Blois knows the topography of the region but is vague when he envisions a spot on the River Aube to camp for Arthur’s troops and around Langres; he just passes it to the left of Langres in HRB and the valley is just a place ‘through the which Lucius would have to pass’. So, if Wace is merely copying a dead Bishop’s work (of Asaph), how is it he knows there is a highway between Langres and Autun and also that Langres[18] is on a hill with a plain beneath? How does Wace write: Lucius rose early in the morning, purposing to set forth from Langres to Autun his host was now a great way upon the road…. and know that it is 14 miles to the right turn ( at Vaux-sous-Aubingny) and the battle is envisaged about 10 miles after that where the bogus army is situated on a hill. How is it both know of the right turn bend in the Roman road? This is the same mind imagining the same fictional battle in the same mind’s eye.   The surprising fact that is little mentioned is ‘Geoffrey’s’ and ‘Wace’s’ obvious talent at battle strategy, yet the ease with which Henry describes some of the goriest scenes. ‘Wace’ is even better at it than ‘Geoffrey’ and we know Henry fought and witnessed many a pitched battle as is made plain in GS. This ability and interest in military strategy is highlighted in GS; and Henry himself  had obviously experienced sieges[19] and open field battle on many occasions and understands the subtleties of tactical warfare and ruses.  This again qualifies Henry so much more than a Welsh cleric at Oxford to describe the many strategic battle scenes and especially in a region governed by Henry’s family and forebears and in which he travelled in his youth.

 Henry’s Roman vassals and his geography are supplied by accounts of Crusaders, which probably derive from his Father’s tales, mixed with biblical names. One name stands out as a total invention, Alifatima King of Spain. This is Henry’s invention, as he conjoined the names of Ali and Fatima, Mohammed’s cousin and son in law. This information was probably sourced from his good friend Peter the Venerable who had translated the Koran.  Henry’s knowledge of the Moors in Spain would also have provided the background for such an invention.

Obviously, there was an historical Arthur or there would be no canvas, but he can resemble nothing of the picture painted by ‘Geoffrey’ because his greatness would have been recorded before ‘Geoffrey’ (as Newburgh complains), rather than been anecdotally mentioned in Annales Cambriae, Nennius or William of Malmesbury’s GR. Arthur may or may not have been a King of the Britons or merely a rebellious warlord, but the point is it does not matter.

 The only thing that matters is we know Geoffrey’s account is untrue and if some unscrupulous Bishop can invent such an account…. why should we even believe the slim and doubtful record of the persona of Geoffrey of Monmouth ever having existed.  Why is it that commentators are duped into believing what the author of an obviously fraudulent book has wanted to portray to secrete his own personality? There was never any flesh on Geoffrey’s bones, but what little there appears to be…. was put there by Henry Blois. Once, little regard for the truth is uncovered in the material composition of HRB…. why is that researchers have naïvely accepted the persona of Geoffrey?

Our scholars force the pieces to fit concerning Merlin and Arthur rather than accepting there was an Arthurian ‘tradition’, but HRB and Arthur’s exploits recorded in it, are wholly the composition of a fertile yet learned mind. The whole of the HRB is constructed by Henry Blois. Does it matter how he constructed it or from which source a certain detail or inspiration came. As long as scholarship strains at every detail yet swallows the flimsiest premise upon which the persona of ‘Geoffrey’ is built…. there will be no resolution to the edifice which Henry Blois’ has composed known as the Matter of Britain.

No-one will ever discover the most important fact which is embedded in the constructed edifice of Henry’s work which is to be found in the Grail literature as long as they disassociate the Josephean Grail from the Arthurian HRB and both of their connection to the Prophecy of Melkin…. and the prophecy’s association with Avalon and Henry’s association with Glastonbury.

Henry’s work covers three main genres; the HRB, Glastonburyana and Grail literature and without understanding that the HRB was constructed by a man who not only wished to hide his identity…. the real importance of a potential present day discovery that is part of this Matter of Britain will remain undiscovered. One will never understand the Matter of Britain and its connection to Grail legend without the inclusion of Henry Blois. One will never understand the Matter of Britain if one does not understand that the same person corrupted William of Malmesbury’s works so that one work corroborated another. Once this chicanery is grasped and while understanding the methodology of the construction of HRB and the fraudulence found in the Glastonburyana of DA…. the important implications of the prophecy of Melkin (upon which Grail literature is based) will remain hidden. If Henry Blois uses the same methodology employed in HRB (that of mixing fact and fiction) as he does in his precursor to Perlesvaus or Grail book (Sanctum Graal), upon which all subsequent Grail literature is built…. we can be certain Joseph’s relics and the enigmatic duo fassula will be discovered in the near future on Burgh Island. This can only happen if scholarship as it stands today dismisses the ready acceptance of the false premise upon which Geoffrey of Monmouth’s persona is held to be a reality. It also assumes scholars will no longer advocate the invention of Melkin and his prophecy as a14 century fake since the very purport of that prophecy when deciphered locates Ineswitrin in Devon.

 Unless the evolving agenda of Henry Blois is understood by scholars, false assumptions based upon false dating will lead to false conclusions. For example, Tatlock’s credulity is influenced by believing details in Caradoc and DA are derived from different people: As for Glastonbury, later to loom so large in Arthur’s tradition, he first appears there in this life of Gildas. Should anyone wonder why Geoffrey’s later-written Historia ignores Glastonbury…. this very local legend may have been unknown to him, or he may have had his reasons for not wishing to join the chorus of praise for Glastonbury. Best of all, the Arthur here historically inharmonious with the masterful grandeur of Geoffrey’s Arthur; and anyone who fancies ignoring necessarily proves ignorance has a very different conception of Geoffrey’s personality and purposes from that book.  Just how ‘Right and Wrong’ can one be in a sentence. Although Tatlock refers to the difference between the ridiculous or rebellious figure of Arthur in some of the ‘Saints Lives’ legend, he never suspects that the Life of Gildas and the author of ‘Geoffrey’s’ Arthur are one and the same. He labels any connection between Arthur and Glastonbury as ‘Monk-craft’.  ‘Monk-craft’ or the officine de faux was of a later date and followed what Henry had instigated in DA.

It is my own opinion that Culhwch and Olwen was written after the HRB and has several points in common with the Life of Gildas which Tatlock[20] witnesses. As Tatlock points out, there is a commonality and we cannot be sure of the influence that Henry Blois might have had on Culhwch and Olwen[21]considering that his influence spread far and wide.

This was not a hobby or bumbling project for Henry Blois, because when he returned from Clugny and found his hopes of Celtic rebellion were never going to come to fruition, he embarked upon his greater venture of promulgating Grail literature based upon the Melkin prophecy. Henry is solely responsible for the embryonic germs of Grail literature and the linking of ‘his’ Arthur to a discovery he had made at Glastonbury concerning Joseph of Arimathea.... and manufacturing Arthur’s grave to be found in the future.

It is sure that there was an Arthur with a different character to ‘Geoffrey’s’ in various ‘Saints Lives’ and this is probably why Henry Blois chose the medium of a saints life i.e. The Life of Gildas in which to write his propaganda.  Especially since the writer was well known to have written the Brut y Tywysogion and was Welsh. There seems little evidence to support a pre-Arthur tradition in Wales prior to Geoffrey as seen in the older branches of the Mabinogion. Henry Blois has merely concocted the grandiose myth of Chivalric Arthur based upon the slim details in Annales Cambriae and Nennius and saints lives. Whether the mention of Arthur in Nennius or the anecdotal references in the annals have any substance we will never know, but Henry has done his best with Aurelius and Ambrosius to fit with the Arthur Legend. Henry has employed what scant details existed in insular annals to the fullest.

The early rescue of Guinevere may or may not be Henry’s invention as an episode and may have its basis elsewhere as I have covered, but Henry could not employ this previously concocted episode in HRB without raising suspicions about his previous authorship of the Life of Gildas and its affiliations in storyline with Glastonbury.  However, the most conclusive proof that Henry Blois is in fact Geoffrey Monmouth comes from the fact that there is not one mention of Glastonbury or Joseph of Arimathea who is connected with Arthur in Grail legend. The fact that Phagan and Deruvian, who, as we will cover, are wholly an invention of Henry Blois are in HRB and referenced in the first 34 chapters of interpolated DA, indicates HRB and the interpolations in DA were written by the same man. There is more evidence of Henry Blois’ early hand at Glastonbury which we shall cover in conjunction with Eadmer’s letter and latterly with Henry’s Perlesvaus in which he ties Arthur and Joseph together and contrives the myth involving the Ealdechurche in its connection with Joseph in DA.

The matter covered here in Part I is meant to show Henry’s direct involvement with the prophetic work of Merlin as it pertained to his political position as brother of King Stephen and nephew to Henry Ist  and how he used these prophecies to try to regain political power from Henry II. Once the reader is satisfied that ‘Geoffrey’ is Henry Blois, a Pandora’s Box opens up to how the Matter of Britain evolved and why it is that King Arthur was found at Glastonbury.

The critical point of this exposé is to show that the myth involving Joseph of Arimathea is in fact a reality and the reason it is assumed a myth is because Henry Blois has mixed fact with fiction, just as we have witnessed in HRB. As long as our most renowned scholars behave like the blind leading the blind Joseph’s relics will remain on Burgh Island.

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[1]It is odd that no scholar remarks how fortuitous it was that Walter’s supposed book was given to him to be merely translated when just such a book covered the subject ‘Geoffrey’ wished to write about. To believe Walter’s book ever existed is fatuous. Scholars have been so easily duped by Henry’s interpolation into Geffrei Gaimar’s work with the production of the confusing epilogue.

[2]John Leland in his Assertio Arturii cited Melkin. He gives information from the extract he has seen of Melkin’s, stating that Melkin ‘celebrated the name of Gawain’ and that he ‘praised Arthur’. Leland cites a few anecdotes which he purportedly thought Melkin had written. I would suggest (given the relation of the prophecy of Melkin to Henry Blois), that it was Henry Blois who wrote the Arthurian anecdotes in a book. We know ‘Geoffrey’ is Henry Blois who invents the chivalric Arthur in HRB. It seems fair to assume also that there is no mention of Melkin in the DA interpolations by Henry Blois, because he has made a connection to Arthur through the Assertio Arturii. This manuscript which Leland obviously saw is no longer extant but must have been written by Henry Blois.

[3]Historia Anglorum, Letter to Warin. Diane Greenway. P.581

[4] It is obvious Galfridus did not seek patronage from Alexander but in the Vulgate (completed after 1155) and after Huntingdon’s death.... ‘Geoffrey’ now has the patronage of the recently dead Bishop Alexander.

[5]Myvyrian Archaiology. vol. ii

[6] J.S.P. Tatlock, Caradoc of Llancarfan p.145

[7]Dom David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England: “When Henry II came to the throne the Bishop of Winchester left the country, not to return until 1158. During the 13 years of life that still remain to him he appeared in a very different character. Age had moderated ambition and brought calm; under the new King there was no room or need for military Bishops; the aims and outlook of the papacy had changed and the generation of Clugny ecclesiastics had almost all passed away. Henry could now fill the role of an elder statesman, the father of the hierarchy. He supported Beckett quietly, but staunchly, as 20 years before he had supported his nephew, William of York, in his day of distress, and he, who 20 years before had been the opponent of the Cistercians of the North, and the object of Bernard’s most violent invective, was now the advocate of the friend of the Cistercians, Gilbert of Sempringham. He was indeed, universally respected, even revered, and the praise of Gerald of Wales who knew him only in these mellow years of generous patronage, has secured his reputation with posterity”.

[8] HRB. VIII. xi

[9] Macabre scenes are depicted from a bent mind: The Dragon shall bear him aloft, and swingeing his tail shall beat him upon his naked body. Then shall the Giant, again renewing his strength, pierce his gullet with his sword, and at last shall the Dragon die poisoned, entangled within the coils of his tail.

[10] We shall see that both Lucius and Arviragus are both embellished false personas invented by Geoffrey.

[11] HRB IX, xii

[12] Note 6. If Henry did not write the poem, he certainly had read Orderic.

[13] MSS of Wace have Soissie, Suison, Soeefie, which is meant to hide Henry Blois’ previous accurate knowledge of the Roman road which occupies Caesar’s Valley

[14] HRB, X,vi

[15]Recueil des Histoires des Gaules, X11,322. Henry’s brother was Count of Champagne.

[16] The Allobroges occur in two periods in HRB and are given exalted status. They and their Duke Seginus befriend Brennius. Arthur subdues them and of course meets the Romans in their territory. Are we to be duped into believing a Welsh Cleric knows the Burgundian’s archaic name and topography of the region? Yet Henry Blois would be fully aware of the peoples in his family’s region. Fulcher of Chartres refers to the Allobroges in his Historia Hierosolymitana in the eleventh century; a copy of which probably existed at Clugny. How does a Welsh ’Geoffrey’ have local knowledge to differentiate the Allobroges by region from the Senones Galli?  How is it that ‘Geoffrey’ has read Orosius?  As Tatlock points out…. where the Senones Galli really belong is in early accounts of the capture of Rome by the Celts in fourth century BC; just the place where ‘Geoffrey’ uses it. Orosius’ Historia II, 19 tells of the ‘Galli Senones, Duce Brenno’ attacking Rome. Again, we see the source of Henry’s inspiration. The same exploits of Brennus and his Galli Senones are related by Landolfus Sagax which we know is a source ‘Geoffrey’ follows closely in the First Variant. It is not by accident that ‘Geoffrey’ highlights this region in eastern France; but Tatlock unwittingly comments that to his mind ‘there is scarcely reason why it should have been well known in History’.  I know that this exposé seems like an ode against scholarship, but it beggars belief that the Abbot of Glastonbury is never implicated as author of HRB. Especially with such perfect knowledge of the region of eastern France and being in charge of the place where Arthur’s relics are discovered. Principally, when Master Blehis is reckoned the source for Arthurian and Grail Literature…. and more so, when Glastonbury is not even mentioned in HRB and Joseph and the Grail and Arthur are intricately connected to Glastonbury in the interpolated DA dedicated to Henry Blois where the location of Arthur’s grave is stipulated.

[17]HRB .X viii.  Roman fashion, in the shape of a wedge, so that when the army was in full array each division contained six thousand six hundred and sixty-six soldiers.

[18] ‘Geoffrey’ calls Langres Lengrias which was never its name. Henry is affecting an archaic form but he does refer to Autun as Augustodnum correctly. ‘Geoffrey’s’ knowledge of France and its people and regions in relation to each other is just too informed to be anything other than interested and first hand.  None of this is as M. Faral believes, mere ignorant archaic colouring. Continental regions were known by Henry and personages apportioned fictitiously to them but done to a level of expertise which surpasses the capability of someone from Wales.

[19]It seems probable that Henry Blois was in Wales in 1136 at Kidwelly castle fighting against Gwenllian's forces where her army was routed. She was captured in battle and beheaded. Her son Morgan (a name featured in Wace) was also slain and another son, Maelgwyn captured and executed. ‘Geoffrey’ invented a Briton queen called Gwendoloena to lead the troops in HRB. Should we suppose that Lidelea is Kidwelly (given Geoffrey’s penchant for distorting names) and was it the castle which belonged to the Bishop of Winchester?

[20] The legendary history of Britain. P 196-199

[21] Culhwch and Olwen, has the exaggerated claims made for Arthur. Also there is a passing mention of campaigns that he had conducted in India, Europe, Scandinavia, Corsica and Greece and Africa. O.J. Padel comments: The difficulty lies in knowing how far this text is independent of Geoffrey’s History. It must follow that since Arthur’s continental campaign is a fabrication by ‘Geoffrey’…. the poem has either been interpolated by Henry Blois or it follows in chronology the HRB.

My initial aim, as stated in the preface, was to alert anyone interested that the bones of Joseph of Arimathea were on Burgh Island. Others have come to the same conclusion.  The relics have not been unearthed simply because our scholars have advised the owner of Burgh Island that the prophecy of Melkin is a fake and the geometry displayed therein has no substance. It is a question of competency versus credentials. One does not have to be an authority to realise that all the geometry in Melkin’s prophecy is exact and this could not happen by chance. The reason no scholar has counteracted what Yale and Goldsworthy have pointed out is simply because there is no way to counteract the truth without looking silly especially in Carley and Crick’s case. There are also glaring questions which I cannot myself answer and these are mainly to do with the alignments of the Michael line and how both Montacute and Burgh Island also had St Michael churches on them at one time. We can understand it is perfectly possible for Melkin to measure the 104 nautical mile line but how is it that that line passes through Montacute? It is these types of questions which have made the decryption of Melkin’s prophecy seem to be highly incredible.

So, let us recap on how we got here and how the scholastic community missed what common sense  (for the most part) lights upon. If we start with the prophecies and conclude Henry Blois has written them, which I feel I have exposed in this exposé…. we know Henry Blois must have written HRB…. because it is painfully obvious the author of the prophecies is the author of the HRB and VM and the JC version. Once we understand that it is Henry Blois, we can then conclude that an array of misinformation has been proffered regarding Geoffrey of Monmouth. We can now also clearer understand the circumstances under which HRB was composed…. and the misinformation was meant to mislead to mask Henry’s authorship. We then should ask, what other material has been tampered with?.... and we find that Caradoc’s life of Gildas puts a chivalric Arthur at Glastonbury. Because it is stated that on account of his wife Gwenhwyfar, (in life of Gildas) that Arthur is brought into association with Glastonbury, we can deduce Henry Blois is the instigator because Guinevere is Henry’s invention in HRB. So then, we understand how the Modena archivolt has an engraving of an episode from that book and we know Henry Blois must have passed by Modena on several occasions. We can conclude therefore, that the trips over the snowy mountains, the Alps, and Aravian range (mentioned in the prophecies) are all constructs of a person having made the trip to Rome. We can also understand that Wace’s allusion to the ‘Bernard’ pass is from the same mind along with other expansions which parallel the author’s thinking in HRB which indicate both are one and the same author.

 So, if we follow the Glastonbury connection, because Henry was Abbot there…. we find Malmesbury’s book (DA) which convinces us that Avalon is Glastonbury. The book was not only dedicated to Henry Blois, but the name Avalon was indeed invented by Henry Blois…. the author of HRB. Then, we must understand that the Melkin prophecy, which we know is accurate to within yards, has the name Avalon on it and yet we now know Henry has transposed that name from a Burgundian town and implanted it in HRB and replaced the name of Ineswitrin on the Melkin Prophecy. Therefore, if the prophecy’s directions are accurate and the name of the island which it locates is deemed invented, we should ask: which island name did the prophecy originally have on it? Then we find that an Island mentioned by William of Malmesbury is donated to Glastonbury in 601 AD and one can assume that Island is located in Devon as it was donated by its King. If the data which constructs the line (when decoded from the prophecy), locates an island in Devon called Burgh Island, we can assume that the chances are that it could be Ineswitrin. When we then look at the etymology of Ineswitrin, we find that it means possibly ‘white tin Island’. We should also ask, (if we understand that Ineswitrin is in Devon)….who might it be, and in what tract, are we misdirected to believe that Ineswitrin is synonymous with Glastonbury? We find it is in Caradoc’s life of Gildas and the book of DA which was dedicated to Henry Blois. We also find out that Caradoc died c.1130.  We find also that an episode from Caradoc’s book is found on the Modena archivolt before 1140 just a year after the discovery of Primary Historia at Bec. So, if we look to the author of HRB and life of Gildas we find he is a bishop making regular trips passing Modena with ample wherewithal and enough clout to have commissioned the engraving which relates to the kidnap episode at Glastonbury.

Joining the dots out of pure common sense, we find that Diodorus describes an Island which traded in tin on the south west peninsula and his description of an Island matches Burgh Island. We have confirmation that Burgh Island is the Island of Ictis to which Pytheas referred, because tin Ingots of the same date are found two miles away with an account from Strabo which explains how the Ingots came to be found at the head of the Erm estuary. The confirmation that Burgh Island is Ictis is deduced simply because a Phoenician ship wrecked itself in order to preserve the ‘secrecy of Ictis’. Once Ictis is established as a tin trading Island in Devon we remember that Joseph of Arimathea by Dumnonian/Cornish tradition was a tin merchant. Once we establish that Burgh Island (Ictis) and Joseph have a connection through the tin trade, we also remember that Melkin’s prophecy directs us to the same Island purporting to contain his sepulchre…. with an amazing display of geometric precision. Once we establish why this Island has a connection to Joseph through two different sources i.e. tin trade and Melkin Prophecy; we then ask how is it that Avalon and Joseph are linked and we find that the author of the book HRB who first mentions Avalon is the abbot of Glastonbury, the same place where a prophecy is found which links Avalon to Joseph. Glastonbury is also linked to Joseph very early on by Perlesvaus and Robert de Boron’s allusion to vaus Avaron. If we follow this trail, we can see there is no natural connection between King Arthur and Joseph (except they are both linked to Glastonbury and Avalon) and we should then ask; in what material do we find this connection to them both? We see it in DA as both are connected to Glastonbury. We can also grasp that the Grail literature which anachronistically joins Arthur to Joseph emanates from the Blois region and its provenance can be connected to close family relations of the Abbot of Glastonbury in Champagne, who are known as the patron of Chrétien. This literature speaks of the Grail which is a vessel which contains the Lord’s blood and it is connected to Joseph and Arthur in continental literature, but also in a tract called the Perlesvaus. This tract relates to the Old church at Glastonbury and its lead roof. It mentions in the colophon that Guinevere and Arthur are buried at Glastonbury…. but more importantly, it speaks of the vessel which is also related to the mysterious ‘duo fassula’ in the prophecy of Melkin at Glastonbury. We then find that features of the prophecy relate to the composition of the HRB in that the Island of Avalon which has been substituted by name in the only extant example of the Prophecy of Melkin is named as the mysterious island where Arthur is last seen. This island, as we all know, turns out to be Glastonbury, established for the naïve by the existence of a bogus ‘leaden cross’. The cross reiterates spuriously (redundantly naming) where it is…. in Avalon; not forgetting, Avalon is Henry’s own invention.

Not only does the Melkin prophecy portend the finding of Joseph’s relics in Avalon, but we are led to believe (by it being named as the last place Arthur is seen), that King Arthur (if we are naïve) was also buried and found in Avalon. We see that the Grail object is modelled on the duo fassula (if we have our eyes open).Also the search for the relics of Joseph, (the whole point of the prophecy of Melkin) suggests that the prophecy is encoded and involves the locating of an island; followed by a search for the tomb itself.  Both the enigmatic duo fassula is mirrored in Grail literature and the search for the same object in la quête du GraalorChrétien de Troyes Perceval orle Conte du Graal. Here it is presented as a quest for the same enigmatic object that is said by the prophecy to be in the tomb along with Joseph’s relics. Because Henry Blois is employing the prophecy as an inspirational template, he too invents a totally fatuous semblance of a hidden meaning (mirroring the decryption of the prophecy) in which the gullible search for meaning in the Grail procession.[1] This vast array of linked material, which, by association is known as the Matter of Britain (as we have covered by repetition and I hope not tedium), and looking from every perspective throughout these pages…. has two factors which are inextricably linked: Glastonbury and Henry Blois. The one extraordinary piece of this entire puzzle is wrapped up in the book of DA which coalesces what would seemingly be disparate associations and we know this book was dedicated to and interpolated by Henry Blois.  We know it could only be him who transformed his own invented name of Avalon to be commensurate with the physical Glastonbury because Gerald says the location of Arthur’s body was previously known and was written in Glastonbury annals.

 If we ignore the ignorant decrees of the experts…. it could only be Henry Blois (who has the copy of DA) who lets everyone know the location, because whoever planted the body knew where he had located it between the pyramids. It is for this reason Arthur and Guinevere are said to be buried in Avalon, in Perlesvaus (a tract written before the disinterment of Arthur). It could only have been Henry Blois who knew that Avalon was situated at Glastonbury in the interim years (where it becomes widely accepted) between his death and Arthur’s disinterment. Therefore, it has to be Henry Blois who had the leaden cross constructed (which ludicrously states in which location it is, when it is discovered) and who pointed out where to find the grave. It does not take a huge amount of imagination to understand that his inspiration for manufacturing Arthur’s grave to be found in the future is based on the prospect of finding Joseph in the future…. spelled out in the Melkin Prophecy. It was originally this prophecy which spoke of an Island named ‘White tin Island’ (which we know exists in Devon because of the 601 charter)…. that Joseph’s relics are said to exist there (and the reason for them being there is because Joseph was a tin merchant). Therefore, to those who use common sense, the prophecy of Melkin is not a fake, but was extant in the era of Henry Blois.

What has prevented these events coming to light is simply the arrogance of the scholars. They have made some money on the gravy train regurgitating the same drivel from generation to generation postulating untenable positions employing a method peculiar to the modern medievalist scholars much like a pick and mix. Some scholars have positively made a cottage industry of inviting all and sundry to contribute papers which they compile into books which agree with their views. I do not pretend accuracy in every statement, far from it; but I have put forward an explanation because I have understood that no scholar wants the gravy train to stop. Without an explanation provided to the scholars, common sense cannot prevail.Scholars will continue to hide behind an impenetrable wall of learning, which, up until now, has had to be accepted because they are supposedly the experts.

 There are three critical premises upon which modern scholarship’s erroneous edifice is built and when these a prioris are not accepted (founded upon an unclear chronology of events), a clearer picture emerges.

Firstly, if one does not insist that a mention of Arthur’s name in DA could only transpire by interpolation after the exhumation of his bones, the answer to several questions become more discernible because several solutions become tenable…. which, by erroneous chronology had been previously denied. For instance: Why is Gerald saying there is previous knowledge of the location; why dig in that spot etc. If we accept that the location was pointed out in which Arthur was buried with his wife, in between the pyramids…. we have to accept it is highly probable it was Henry Blois (once we have allowed this possibility). There is no rational reason why the interpolation in DA mentioning the location of Arthur’s grave could not have been in DA before his disinterment. The reason we should allow this possibility is there is no other information surrounding the dig given in DA. If the mention of Arthur’s gravesite had been a later interpolation (after the disinterment) some circumstances would have been related and certainly the cross would have been mentioned. Henry Blois provided the only information he could before the event (while remaining incognito). The entire account would not have been left in the hands of Gerald to relate. Once this position is understood….it opens a multitude of positions concerning not only chronology of the events but also who did what and who wrote what when.

Secondly, if there is no intransigence and insistence that Avalon was not previously know as Glastonbury before the leaden cross was discovered, this then allows that in the interim between Henry Blois death and the disinterment…. an understanding of Avalon as Glastonbury at least was known at the abbey because it was written in DA. It then becomes possible to explain how it is that the forerunner of Perlesvaus, said to be in Latin and written at Avalon, which tells of Arthur and Guinevere’s burial at Glastonbury, could have existed prior to the disinterment. This, therefore, enables us also to implicate Henry Blois as the original inventor of Grail material which ties the Grail, Avalon, Arthur and Joseph all to Glastonbury. But, more importantly to Master Blehis…. said by Gerald to have lived ‘shortly before our time.’[2] But this position confutes entirely Logario’s synopsis of events and allows that Joseph in Perlesvaus could pre-exist Arthur’s exhumation and of course to be present in chapters one and two of DA in 1171.

Thirdly, the most despicable act of negligence and intransigence by modern scholarship is the insistence that Melkin’s prophecy is a fake. On this subject in particular there are only haughty pronouncements of hot air. The denial of the geometry found in the prophecy of Melkin could only be maintained by someone with a good reason to reject it; and it is not the geometry which lacks veracity.  It is simply not possible to possess so many distinctions after ones name, and not understand that the geometry locates Burgh Island; and also to be cognisant of the fact that an island in Devon was donated to Glastonbury. The real crux to finding the solution to the Matter of Britain is that any investigator has to realise that there has been single-minded fraud at Glastonbury and this same mind has proliferated Grail lore and Arthuriana to the continent. The general consensus of scholarship which promotes a view that many different monks over time each added his own interpolation into DA and miraculously lore just evolved by a fortuitous convergence of factors is shown to be incorrect and fatuous.

This exposé may have seemed like a rant against scholarship and expertise and it is plain to see I excel in neither. My attribute is that I am not a scholar and as I said at the beginning…. what I have said is verifiable in that Joseph of Arimathea is on Burgh Island along with his son and DNA tests will show that. Now, the reader may enquire how it is that I know Joseph’s relics exist there. There are two ways of answering this and neither would you find credible apart from the explanation found in these pages. My credibility lies in the fact that hopefully the reader has been able to follow my explanation of how the Matter of Britain transpired. The proof is in the pie. But unless one presents the facts so that scholars can have it explained to them; Joseph and Jesus’ relics will never see the light of day and the Roman religion will continue to perpetuate the lie.

The Reverend F. U. Lot. 

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[1] The Grail procession is a fatuous invention with seemingly mystical relevance, which in fact uses two other icons, the Menorah and the lance mentionedin the Gospel of John 19:34, One of the soldiers, however, made a thrust at His (Jesus) side with a lance, and immediately blood and water flowed out.Henry recognises the duo fassula as a religious object but has no idea what it is except from the allusion to two vessels in the prophecy. Howeve, at the battle of Ascalon where Henry’s father was kille, Raymond of Aguilers carried the relic of the Holy Lance that had been discovered recently at Antioch.

[2] The passage in which Gerald of Wales refers to Bledhericus, famosus ille fabulator who tempora nostra paulo praevenit, was written c. 1194.  So, Gerald has no idea the man who he refers to who had died 20 years previously, was in fact his patron in his youth.