《不列颠诸王史》与12世纪英格兰的国王观念

Historia Regum Britannie and the Ideas of Kings in England during the 12th Century

蒙茅斯的杰佛里所著的《不列颠诸王史》是一部叙述盎格鲁—撒克逊时代之前不列颠历史的伪史著作。在这部著作中,世俗教士杰佛里用一些或来源于传说或由自己虚构的故事描绘了近百位国王。在杰佛里所处的12世纪,英格兰已成为一个典型的封建国家,带有现实关怀的《不列颠诸王史》对虚构的古王的描述,证明了该时期理想的君主应该是什么样的:既应当是征战的武士型国王,又应当是虔诚的信徒型国王,但是对其身为世俗国王的要求要高于对其宗教性的要求,其对外作战功能则被视为比其他世俗功能更重要。这一国王观念来源于现实,被伪史所建构并影响着整个12世纪国王形象的塑造。

Historia Regum Britannie by Jeffrey of Monmouth is a pseudo-historical work on the history of Britain before the Anglo-Saxon period.In this writing,the secular clergyman Jeffrey created nearly a hundred fictional kings,either from folklore or from his own fictional stories.In twelfth Century,which time Jeffrey was living,England had become a typical feudal country.The description of the fictional kings of Historia Regum Britannie undoubtedly provides us with sufficient evidence to prove what the ideal monarch should be under the feudal system.From the analysis of the text,we can see that the ideal king at that time should be both a warrior king and a devout believer king.However,the demands of its feudal secular king were higher than its religious requirements,and its external combat function was also considered to be more important than other secular functions.These ideas of Kings which originated from this pseudo history influenced the shaping of the image of the king in twelfth Century after Jeffrey.