GERAINT IN GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH: CONSPICUOUSLY ABSENT (AT LEAST BY NAME)

Chartres Cathedral, France

I have been asked a reasonable question by an interested reader: if you are going to push Uther Pendragon as a Dumonian Geraint given the rank of the earlier Gerontius magister utriusque militiae, what you can tell us about the apparent absence of Gerontius from Geoffrey of Monmouth's story?

My answer?  Not much!  Geoffrey includes two Geraints and before I briefly discuss these characters, here are their descriptions as drawn from entries in P.C. Bartrum's A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY:

"GERAINT ab ELIDIR WAR. (Fictitious). (179-159 B.C.) The name in Brut y Brenhinedd of a fictitious king of Britain called Gerontius or Gerennius son of Elidurus Pius by Geoffrey of Monmouth. He succeeded his cousin Runo son of Peredurus [Rhun ap Peredur] and was succeeded by his son Catellus [Cadell ap Geraint] (HRB III.19). Corresponding names in ByB are shown in [ ]."  

"HRB speaks of Guerinus Carnotensis (G. of Chartres) as being present at Arthur's special coronation and bringing with him twelve peers of Gaul (IX.12). This becomes Gereint Carnwys, or the like in ByB. The twelve peers who came with Guerinus Carnotensis are again mentioned in IX.19. There is nothing corresponding in Brut Dingestow, but the ‘Cleopatra’ version here calls him Gereint vab Erbin. Guerinus Carnotensis took part in Arthur's wars against the Romans Lucius and Leo (X.4, 6, 9). In all these cases ByB in ‘Dingestow’ and ‘Cleopatra’ has Gereint Carnwys."

The son of Elidir is just a name among the list of Geoffrey's ancient kings.  He can have nothing whatsoever to do with Britain or Brittany during the Later Roman Empire.

Guerinus Carnotensis (or Gerin/s, Geryn) is NOT Geraint.  That is a fictional identification made by the Welsh.  In reality, he is one of Charlemagne's Twelve Paladins.  

Consideration of these two Geraints leads us inevitably to a firm conclusion: Geoffrey appears to say nothing at all about any of the famous Dark Age Geraints we know were kings of Dumnonia.  He does not know of the Geraint of Llongporth, nor the one who fought the Saxons in 710 A.D.  Nor was he aware of the great Gerontius MVM, general of the Western Empire.

But we do have Uther Pendragon - quite prominently, in fact.  

In closing, I will remind my readers that Gorlois, a duke of Cornwall invented out of the poetic descriptor gorlassar Uther uses of himself in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN elegy, makes his first appearance in Geoffrey of Monmouth's story at a site that had been in the kingdom of the ancient Midlands CORNOVII tribe (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-discovery-of-uther-pendragons-mount.html). The Cornovii have a name of the same nature as Kernyw. And Geraint was the king of Cornwall (as part of Dumnonia). 

For those interested in the Gerontius name, I would urge you to consult the following excellent study on that subject:

WILLIAM J. CHERF, WHAT’S IN A NAME? THE GERONTII OF THE LATER ROMAN

EMPIRE, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 100 (1994) 145–174

http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/zpe/downloads/1994/100pdf/100145.pdf