Aurelius Ambrosius, as noted by Macrae-Gibson (pp 27–29), appears in at least one French manuscript for the Story of Merlin and in the Middle English translation of that work as the man who made Pendragon king, and so is presumably a bishop.'
But the name Aurelius Ambrosius appears in the pseudo-historical Arthurian works as the name of the king himself, which the Story of Merlin replace by Pendragon.
Sources[]
The French manuscript in which this oddity occurs is B.N. 105 at f. 141rb, 45–7, which reads:
Aurelius Ambrosius fist roy Pandragon si leur fu moult loiaus Aurelius Ambrosius made Pendragon king, and was very loyal towards him.
The English manuscript of the Vulgate Merlin reads at the same point:
Aurelius Ambrose made Pendragon kynge, whiche was a iuste man and a trewe.
Possibly this ghost character resulted from a marginal note, intended to indicate that Pendragon was the same person as the Aurelius Ambrosius of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace, but some copyist has misunderstood and inserted a garbled version of the note into the text.
References[]
- Macrae-Gibson, O. D. (Ed.). (1979). Of Arthour and of Merlin (Vol. II). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Some Name Variations[]
FRENCH: Aurelius Ambrosius; ENGLISH: Aurelius Ambrose.