The amount of authentic biographical detail ascertainable concerning Geoffrey is exceedingly scanty, and it is, therefore, not surprising that what is told about him in many reputable literary histories is distressingly inaccurate. Even the name of his famous book is, often, wrongly given; it is constantly cited as _Historia Brittonum_--the title of Nennius’ compilation--instead of as _Historia Regum Britanniæ_. Walter, the archdeacon of Oxford, again, has been confused with Walter Map, who could hardly have been more than about twelve years old when Geoffrey died. Geoffrey himself is loosely designated “archdeacon of Monmouth,” whereas there was no archdeaconry of Monmouth in his time. He is said to have become, ultimately, bishop of Llandaff, and to have died in the year 1152,--the actual facts, however, being that he was ordained priest and, almost simultaneously, appointed bishop of St Asaph in 1152, and that he died at Llandaff in 1155. The exact dates of the beginning, and of the completion, of his _History_ cannot be definitely fixed; but we know enough about the work to say that it must have existed, in some form, as early as 1139, at the latest, and that it was complete in the form in which we now have it by the year 1148. There is no conclusive evidence that Geoffrey was of Welsh birth, or that his home, other than a monastic domicile, was at Monmouth. The dedication of his _History_, however, proves that he claimed the patronage of a Norman prince who was lord of a tract of Welsh country, the north-west boundary of which all but extended to the town of Monmouth. Early in the twelfth century Robert, earl of Gloucester, acquired the lordship of Glamorgan by marriage with Mabel, the daughter and heiress of Robert Fitz-Hamon. Eminent as both statesman and warrior, Robert of Gloucester, like his father, Henry Beauclerc, was a student of letters and a generous friend of literary men. It is no empty compliment that Geoffrey pays Robert when he hails him as “one nurtured in the liberal arts by philosophy, and called unto the command of our armies by his own inborn prowess of knighthood,” and “whom in these our days Britain haileth with heart-felt affection as though she had been vouchsafed another Henry.”[71] Robert’s enlightened patronage of men of letters is sufficiently attested by the fact that William of Malmesbury, the most distinguished historian of his day, dedicated to him his _History of the Kings of England_. The abbey of Margam, whose chronicle is an important authority for the history of mediæval Wales, was founded by him; another abbey in which a valuable chronicle was compiled--that of Tewkesbury--had in him one of its chief benefactors. On his estates at Torigni in Normandy was born Robert of the Mount, afterwards abbot of Mont St Michel, eminent as a chronicler and known as a lover of the legends of his own Breton race. Robert of Gloucester’s close connection, as thus indicated, with both South Wales