KING ARTIIUR'S REMAIXS. 133 



Magna Tabula Glastoniensis. These, according to Usher's 

 Primordia, glve substantially the same account of the 

 exploration and discovery which is found in tlie works of 

 Giraldus Cambrensis, namely his Liber Distinctionum and 

 bis Institutio Frincipis. In the raain facts all these are 

 agreed, but the testlmony of Giraldus Cambrensis is most 

 deserving of attention, because he visited Glastonbury 

 about fourteen years after the event, and professes to give 

 the account of the occurrence which he had received from 

 the lips of the then Abbot, who had also been an eye 

 witness of the search and the discovery. The date of this 

 Visit was about A.D. 1184, the coflSn having been dug up 

 in A.D. 1170; but the accounts do not seem to have been 

 Avritten by Giraldus tili between thirty and forty years 

 after the date of his visit, and at an interval of about ten 

 years, which accounts for some slight discrepancies that 

 appear in his narratives. 



The account which gives the füllest detalls occurs in the 

 Liber Distinctionum of Giraldus, beginning with the 8th 

 chapter. He states that, "In their own times while the 

 2nd Henry reigned, the long celebrated tomb of Arthur 

 the British king -was dug up in the consecrated cemetery of 

 St. Dunstan at Glastonbury, between two lofty obelisks on 

 which were inscriptions to the memory of Arthur, and 

 which had been erected with great labour, the search being 

 undertakcn by the command of the fore-said king, and 

 under the supervision of Henry the Abbot, who was after- 

 ward s translated to the bishoprick of Winchester. The 

 body had become reduced to dust and bones." The writer 

 then states that " after the battle of Kemelen in Cornwall, 

 Arthur, being mortally woundcd, was borne to the Island 

 of Avallonla, noAV called Glastouia, by a noble matron 

 named Morganis, his relative, at whose instance he was 



