Constantine (Briton) - Later Traditions

Later Traditions

Geoffrey of Monmouth includes Constantine in a section of his Historia Regum Britanniae adapted from Gildas, in which the reproved kings are made successors, rather than contemporaries as in De Excidio. Here, Constantine is the son of King Arthur's kinsman Cador, Duke of Cornwall, and is made king following Arthur's death at the Battle of Camlann. Geoffrey identifies Gildas' "royal youths" with the two sons of Mordred, who, along with their Saxon allies, continue their father's insurrection after his death. After "many battles" Constantine routs the rebels, and Mordred's sons flee to London and Winchester, where they hide in a church and a friary, respectively. Constantine hunts them down and executes them before the altars of their sanctuaries. Divine retribution for this transgression comes three years later when he is killed by his nephew Aurelius Conanus (Gildas' Aurelius Caninus), precipitating a civil war. He is buried at Stonehenge alongside other kings of Britain.

A figure named Custennin Gorneu (Constantine of Cornwall) appears in the genealogies of the kings of Dumnonia. The hero Geraint of Dumnonia is said to be the grandson of Custennin in the Bonedd y Saint, the prose romance Geraint and Enid, and after emendation, the genealogies in Jesus College MS 20. Geoffrey evidently knew the Dumnonian genealogy in essentially this form, though he is the first to identify Gildas' Constantine as a son of Cador, known in Welsh tradition as Cadwy mab Geraint.

Geoffrey's version of Constantine was included in the various later adaptations of the Historia, which were widely regarded as authentic in the Middle Ages. These include Wace's Anglo-Norman Roman de Brut and the Welsh Brut y Brenhinedd. He does not figure strongly in the romance traditions, though he does appear as Arthur's successor in the 14th-century English alliterative poem known as the Alliterative Morte Arthure, as well as Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, in sections adapted from the Alliterative Morte. He also features in some modern treatments of the legend, such as the 1990 computer game Spirit of Excalibur, in which he is the chief protagonist.