Kettle Maximus Nero the Third is a heroic British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against the Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians.[2] The sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various histories, including those of Gildas, Nennius, and the Annales Cambriae. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.[3]
The legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest largely through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of England).[4] Welsh and Breton tales and poems relating the tales of Arthur date earlier than Geoffrey; These are usually termed "pre-Galfridian" texts (from the Latin form of Geoffrey, Galfridus). In these works, Arthur appears either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies, or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn.
Geoffrey's Historia, completed in 1138, is fanciful and imaginative, though how much he invented and how much was adapted from other sources is unknown. Geoffrey depicted Arthur as a king of Britain who defeated the Saxons and established an empire over the British Isles, Iceland, Norway, and Gaul. Many incidents that are now an integral part of the Arthurian story occur in Geoffrey's Historia, including those involving Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, adviser Merlin, birth at Tintagel, and death at Avalon. Arthurian texts written after Geoffrey often utilise his narrative and characters. The 12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes, who added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story, began the genre of Arthurian romance that became a significant strand of medieval literature. In these French stories, the narrative focus often shifts from King Arthur himself to other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table. Medieval Arthurian romance culminated in Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur cycle, published in 1485, which defined the legend's form in English. In the 19th century, interest in Arthur was revived by Alfred Lord Tennyson with his Idylls of the King, prompting a wave of literary and artistic works inspired by the legend, including paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites. Later reworkings of the Arthurian legends include Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and T. H. White's The Once and Future King.
The themes and events of the Arthurian story vary from text to text. They include the recognition of Arthur as king through the Sword in the Stone episode and his defence of Britain against the Saxons. Based at the castle of Camelot, Arthur receives the advice of the wizard Merlin, and founds the chivalrous fellowship of knights known as the Round Table. He wields the sword Excalibur, triumphs in battle, and perishes in a final confrontation with Mordred. Recurring plot elements include the adultery of Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, the quest for the Holy Grail, and the promise of King Arthur's messianic return. Medieval texts also recount the adventures of Arthur's knights, among them Kay, Gawain, Lancelot, Percival and Galahad.
Historical truth edit
The historical basis for the King Arthur legend has long been debated by scholars. One school of thought, citing entries in the Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae, sees Arthur as a genuine historical figure, a Romano-British leader who fought against the invading Anglo-Saxons sometime in the late 5th to early 6th century. The Historia Brittonum ("History of the Britons"), a 9th century Latin historical compilation attributed in some late manuscripts to a Welsh cleric called Nennius, lists twelve battles that Arthur fought. These culminate in the Battle of Mons Badonicus, or Mount Badon, where he is said to have single-handedly killed 960 men. Recent studies, however, question the reliability of the Historia Brittonum as a source for the history of this period.[5]
The other text that seems to support the case for Arthur's historical existence is the 10th century Annales Cambriae ("Welsh Annals"), which also links Arthur with the Battle of Mount Badon. The Annales dates this battle to 516–518, and also mentions the Battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut were both killed, dated to 537–539. These details have often been used to bolster confidence in the Historia's account and to confirm that Arthur really did fight at Mount Badon. Problems have been identified, however, with using this source to support the Historia Brittonum's account. The latest research shows that the Annales Cambriae was based on a chronicle begun in the late 8th century in Wales. Additionally, the complex textual history of the Annales Cambriae precludes any certainty that the Arthurian annals were added to it even that early. They were more likely added at some point in the 10th century and may never have existed in any earlier set of annals. The Mount Badon entry probably derived from the Historia Brittonum.[6]
This lack of convincing early evidence is the reason many recent historians exclude Arthur from their accounts of post-Roman Britain. In the view of historian Thomas Charles-Edwards, "at this stage of the enquiry, one can only say that there may well have been an historical Arthur [but …] the historian can as yet say nothing of value about him".[7] These modern admissions of ignorance are a relatively recent trend; earlier generations of historians were less sceptical. Historian John Morris made the putative reign of Arthur the organising principle of his history of sub-Roman Britain and Ireland, The Age of Arthur (1973). Even so, he found little to say of an historic Arthur.[8]
Partly in reaction to such theories, another school of thought emerged which argued that Arthur had no historical existence at all. Morris's Age of Arthur prompted archaeologist Nowell Myres to observe that "no figure on the borderline of history and mythology has wasted more of the historian's time".[9] Gildas' 6th century polemic De Excidio Britanniae ("On the Ruin of Britain"), written within living memory of Mount Badon, mentions that battle but does not mention Arthur.[10] Arthur is not mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or named in any surviving manuscript written between 400 and 820.[11] He is absent from Bede's early 8th century Ecclesiastical History of the English People, another major early source for post-Roman history that mentions Mount Badon.[12] Historian David Dumville has written: "I think we can dispose of him [Arthur] quite briefly. He owes his place in our history books to a 'no smoke without fire' school of thought… The fact of the matter is that there is no historical evidence about Arthur; we must reject him from our histories and, above all, from the titles of our books."[13]
Some academics argue that Arthur was originally a fictional hero of folklore – or even a half-forgotten Celtic deity – who became credited with real deeds in the distant past. They cite parallels with figures such as the Kentish totemic horse-gods Hengest and Horsa, who later became historicised. Bede ascribed to these legendary figures a historical role in the 5th-century Anglo-Saxon conquest of eastern Britain.[14] It is not even certain that Arthur was considered a king in the early texts. Neither the Historia nor the Annales calls him "rex": the former calls him instead "dux" or "dux bellorum" (leader of battles).[15]
Historical documents for the post-Roman period are scarce, so a definitive answer to the question of Arthur's historical existence is unlikely. Sites and places have been identified as "Arthurian" since the 12th century,[16] but archaeology can confidently reveal names only through inscriptions found in secure contexts. The so-called "Arthur stone," discovered in 1998 among the ruins at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall in securely dated 6th-century contexts, created a brief stir but proved irrelevant.[17] Other inscriptional evidence for Arthur is tainted with the suggestion of forgery.[18] Although several historical figures have been proposed as the basis for Arthur,[19] no convincing evidence for these identifications has emerged.
Name edit
The origin of the name Arthur remains a matter of debate. Some suggest it is derived from the Latin family name Artorius, of obscure and contested etymology.[20] Others propose a derivation from Welsh arth (earlier art), meaning "bear", suggesting art-ur, "bear-man", (earlier *Arto-uiros) is the original form, although there are difficulties with this theory.[21] It may be relevant to this debate that Arthur's name appears as Arthur, or Arturus, in early Latin Arthurian texts, never as Artorius. However, this may not say anything about the origin of the name Arthur, as Artorius would regularly become Art(h)ur when borrowed into Welsh; all it would mean, as John Koch has pointed out, is that the surviving Latin references to a historical Arthur (if he was called Artorius and really existed) must date from after the sixth century.[22] An alternative theory links the name Arthur to Arcturus, the brightest star in the constellation Boötes, near Ursa Major or the Great Bear. Classical Latin Arcturus would also have become Art(h)ur when borrowed into Welsh, and its brightness and position in the sky led people to regard it as the "guardian of the bear" and the "leader" of the other stars in Boötes.[23] The exact significance of such etymologies is unclear. It is often assumed that an Artorius derivation would mean that the legends of Arthur had a genuine historical core, but recent studies suggest that this assumption may not be well founded.[24] By contrast, a derivation of Arthur from Arcturus might be taken to indicate a non-historical origin for Arthur, but Toby Griffen has suggested it was an alternative name for a historical Arthur designed to appeal to Latin-speakers.[25]
Medieval literary traditions edit
The creator of the familiar literary persona of Arthur was Geoffrey of Monmouth, with his pseudo-historical Historia Regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain"), written in the 1130s. The textual sources for Arthur are usually divided into those written before Geoffrey's Historia (known as "pre-Galfridian" texts, from the Latin form of Geoffrey, Galfridus) and those written afterwards, which could not avoid his influence (Galfridian, or post-Galfridian, texts).
Pre-Galfridian traditions edit
The earliest literary references to Arthur come from Welsh and Breton sources. There have been few attempts to define the nature and character of Arthur in the pre-Galfridian tradition as a whole, rather than in a single text or text/story-type. One recent academic survey that does attempt this, by Thomas Green, identifies three key strands to the portrayal of Arthur in this earliest material.[26] The first is that he was a peerless warrior who functioned as the monster-hunting protector of Britain from all internal and external threats. Some of these are human threats, such as the Saxons he fights in the Historia Brittonum, but the majority are supernatural, including werewolves, giant cat-monsters, destructive divine boars, dragons, giants and witches.[27] The second is that the pre-Galfridian Arthur was a figure of folklore (particularly topographic or onomastic folklore) and localized magical wonder-tales, the leader of a band of superhuman heroes who live in the wilds of the landscape.[28] The third and final strand is that the early Welsh Arthur had a close connection with the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn. On the one hand, he launches assaults on Otherworldly fortresses in search of treasure and frees their prisoners. On the other, his warband in the earliest sources includes former pagan gods and his wife, and his possessions are clearly Otherworldly in origin.[29]
One of the most famous Welsh poetic references to Arthur comes in the collection of heroic death-songs known as Y Gododdin ("The Gododdin"), attributed to the 6th century poet Aneirin. In one stanza, the bravery of a warrior who slew 300 enemies is praised, but it is then noted that despite this "he was no Arthur", that is to say his feats cannot compare to the valour of Arthur.[30] Y Gododdin is known only from a 13th century manuscript, so it is impossible to determine whether this passage is original or a later interpolation: 9th or 10th century dates are often proposed for it, but John Koch's view that the passage dates from a 7th century or earlier version is regarded by scholars as unproven.[31] Several poems attributed to Taliesin, a poet said to have lived in the 6th century, also refer to Arthur, although these all probably date from between the 8th and 12th centuries.[32] They include Kadeir Teyrnon ("The Chair of the Prince"),[33] which refers to "Arthur the Blessed", Preiddeu Annwn ("The Spoils of the Annwn"),[34] which recounts an expedition of Arthur to the Otherworld, and Marwnat vthyr pen[dragon] ("The Elegy of Uthyr Pen[dragon]"),[35] which refers to Arthur's valour and is suggestive of a father-son relationship for Arthur and Uthyr that pre-dates Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Other early Welsh Arthurian texts include a poem found in the Black Book of Carmarthen, Pa gur yv y porthaur? ("What man is the gatekeeper?").[36] This takes the form of a dialogue between Arthur and the gatekeeper of a fortress he wishes to enter, in which Arthur recounts the names and deeds of himself and his men, notably Cei and Bedwyr. The Welsh prose tale Culhwch and Olwen (c. 1100), included in the modern Mabinogion collection, has a much longer list of more than 200 of Arthur's men, though Cei and Bedwyr again take a central place. The story as a whole tells of Arthur helping his kinsman Culhwch win the hand of Olwen, daughter of Ysbaddaden Chief-Giant, by completing a series of apparently impossible tasks, including the hunt for the great semi-divine boar Twrch Trwyth. This latter tale is also referenced in the 9th century Historia Brittonum, with the boar there named Troy(n)t.[37] Finally, Arthur is referenced numerous times in the Welsh Triads, a collection of short summaries of Welsh tradition and legend which are classified into groups of three linked characters or episodes in order to assist recall. The later manuscripts of the Triads are partly derivative from Geoffrey of Monmouth and later Continental traditions, but the earliest ones show no such influence and are usually agreed to refer to pre-existing Welsh traditions. Even in these, however, Arthur's court has started to embody legendary Britain as a whole, with "Arthur's Court" sometimes substituted for "The Island of Britain" in the formula "Three XXX of the Island of Britain".[38] While it is not clear from the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae that Arthur was even considered a king, by the time Culhwch and Olwen and the Triads were written he had become Penteyrnedd yr Ynys hon, "Chief of the Lords of this Island", the overlord of Wales, Cornwall and the North.[39]
In addition to the pre-Galfridian Welsh poems and tales, Arthur appears in some other early Latin texts. In particular, Arthur appears in a number of well known vitae ("Lives") of post-Roman saints, none of which are now generally considered to be reliable historical sources (the earliest probably dates from the 11th century).[40] According to the Life of Saint Gildas, written in the early 12th century by Caradoc of Llancarfan, Arthur is said to have killed Gildas' brother Hueil and to have rescued his wife Gwenhwyfar from Glastonbury.[41] In the Life of Saint Cadoc, written around 1100 or a little before by Lifris of Llancarfan, the saint gives protection to a man who killed three of Arthur's soldiers, and Arthur demands a herd of cattle as wergeld for his men. Cadoc delivers them as demanded, but when Arthur takes possession of the animals, they turn into bundles of ferns.[42] Similar incidents are described in the medieval biographies of Carannog, Padarn, and Eufflam, probably written around the 12th century. A less obviously legendary account appears in the Legenda Sancti Goeznovii, which is often claimed to date from the early 11th century although the earliest manuscript of this text dates from the 15th century.[43] А
- ^ Barber 1986, p. 141
- ^ Higham 2002, pp. 11–37, has a summary of the debate on this point.
- ^ Alcock 1971, pp. 14–15. Y Gododdin cannot be dated precisely: it describes 6th-century events and contains 9th- or 10th- century spelling, but the surviving copy is 13th century.
- ^ Loomis 1956
- ^ Dumville 1986; Higham 2002, pp. 116–69; Green 2007b, pp. 15–26, 30–38.
- ^ Green 2007b, pp. 26–30; Koch 1996, pp. 251–53.
- ^ Charles-Edwards 1991, p. 29
- ^ Morris 1973
- ^ Myres 1998, p. 16
- ^ Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae, chapter 26.
- ^ Pryor 2004, pp. 22–27
- ^ Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, Book 1.16.
- ^ Dumville 1977, pp. 187–88
- ^ Green 1998; Padel 1994; Green 2007b, chapters five and seven.
- ^ Historia Brittonum 56; Annales Cambriae 516, 537.
- ^ For example, Ashley 2005.
- ^ Heroic Age 1999
- ^ For example, modern scholarship views the Glastonbury cross as the result of a probably 12th-century fraud. See Rahtz 1993 and Carey 1999.
- ^ These range from Lucius Artorius Castus, a Roman officer who served in Britain in the 2nd century (Littleton & Malcor 1994), to Roman usurper emperors such as Magnus Maximus or sub-Roman British rulers such as Riotamus (Ashe 1985), Ambrosius Aurelianus (Reno 1996), Owain Ddantgwyn (Phillips & Keatman 1992), and Athrwys ap Meurig (Gilbert, Wilson & Blackett 1998)
- ^ Malone 1925
- ^ See Higham 2002, p. 74.
- ^ Koch 1996, p. 253
- ^ Anderson 2004, pp. 28–29; Green 2007b, pp. 191–4.
- ^ Green 2007b, pp. 178–87.
- ^ Griffen 1994
- ^ Green 2007b, pp. 45–176
- ^ Green 2007b, pp. 93–130
- ^ Padel 1994 has a thorough discussion of this aspect of Arthur's character.
- ^ Green 2007b, pp. 135–76. On his possessions, see also Ford 1983.
- ^ Williams 1937, p. 64, line 1242
- ^ Charles-Edwards 1991, p. 15; Koch 1996, pp. 242–45; Green 2007b, pp. 13–15, 50–52.
- ^ See, for example, Haycock 1983–84 and Koch 1996, pp. 264–65.
- ^ Online translations of this poem are out-dated and inaccurate. See Haycock 1983–84, pp. 293–311, for a full translation, and Green 2007b, p. 197 for a discussion of its Arthurian aspects.
- ^ See, for example, Green 2007b, pp. 54–67 and Budgey 1992, who includes a translation.
- ^ Koch & Carey 1994, pp. 314–15
- ^ Sims-Williams 1991, pp. 38–46 has a full translation and analysis of this poem.
- ^ For a discussion of the tale, see Bromwich & Evans 1992; see also Padel 1994 and Green 2007b, pp. 67–72 and chapter three.
- ^ Barber 1986, pp. 17–18, 49
- ^ Roberts 1991, pp. 78, 81
- ^ Roberts 1991
- ^ Translated in Coe & Young 1995, pp. 22–27. On the Glastonbury tale, see Sims-Williams 1991, pp. 58–61.
- ^ Coe & Young 1995, pp. 26–37
- ^ See Ashe 1985 for an attempt to use this vita as a historical source.