Stories about King Arthur have been told for a long time, and most recently in such films as Excalibur, First Knight, The Mists Of Avalon etc. However, if Arthur lived between the times of the fall of the Roman empire and the Norman conquest, the popular culture of Arthur must be an anachronism. I have been interested in what the Real Arthur must have been like, and here is what I have been able to learn (or think I know). I would like anyone interested to add or criticise as they see fit.
Arthur- not an actual man, but based possibly on a number of obscure kings that ruled in Britain around the 600s to the 900s. No one king ruled very much territory at that time.
Camelot - if it existed, it would not have been the magnificent stone castles shown in popular entertainment. These castles did not appear in Britain until the 1300s. Instead, Camelot would have more likely resembled a wooden stockade, possible built on a mound of earth.
Britains - these Celtic people were slowly being pushed out of Britain by Germanic peoples. Thus, the ‘King of the Britains’ likely did not rule very much of Britain at all.
The Knights of the Round Table - knights as we know them did not appear this early in European history. If King Arthur did exist, he would have been surrounded by a group of housekarls, which were men sworn to be loyal just to him. These men would not have worn the fabulous suits of armor in the movies because these suits did not appear until at least the 1300s. Any armor they wore would have been a chainmail shirt and plate metal helmet at best. In all likelyhood, they would have fought on foot, although I did find a reference to one Britain king in this time period actually reviving some Roman cavalry tactics.
Excalibur - the king really did rule by the sword in this time period. Swords required a lot of time and effort to make and were thus very rare and valuable. They were often given names and handed down from father to son. I even found references to oaths being sworn on them.
This is a brief summary of what I have discovered through years of amateur research. I invite any history buffs out there to chime in.
Well, that’s the problem with finding the “real” Arthur. The legends were either made from whole cloth, or loosely based on someone not named Arthur who didn’t have any of the stuff Malory wrote happen to him. “King Arthur” likely bears as little resemblance to his inspiration as, say, Jeb Bartlett bears to JFK.
You’re on firmer ground trying to find the “real” Tarzan or Sherlock Holmes.
We had a thread about this a few months ago. In the other thread, I posted links to a discovery that the Arthurian legends originated in the Caucasus and were brought to Britain by some of the Caucasus tribesmen who joined a Roman legion that was transferred to Britain.
I have visited some of these areas in France and they are very serious about King Arthur, Merlin and all the rest having lived there. They are also serious about the ancient Breton language that they wish to keep alive.
Does the legendary King Arthur have to be Celtic? Could he not be Germanic?
While this is only speculation on my part, it is based on the fact that the victors of any war usually got to write the history. So if/when the germanic invaders actually conquered england, wouldn’t they tell the story from a germanic perspective? The fact that the story exists today seems to corroborate this idea.
Because the Arturian tales are Welsh legends that filtered into English society during the 13th-14th centuries. The Welsh, of course, are descended from the Celtic inhabitants who were driven out of Britain proper by the Germans.
The Arthurian legends are thought to be based on a Romano-British warlord who managed to inflict a temporary reverse on the invading Anglo-Saxons at Mons Badonicus.
The legends themselves probably come from Brittany, where many of the insular celts fled and came to Britain through France.
Look up the work of Geoffrey Ashe, a controversial scholar of Arthuriana. His theory is that the Arthur legends are based on the life of one Riothamus, a historical (if shadowy) figure who did much of what the legendary Arthur is supposed to have done, and in the right time period.
One major problem with trying to pin anything down regarding Arthur is that the sole historian roughly contemporary with the dates in which he would have had to have lived, presuming any historicity whatsoever behind the legends, was a monk named Gildas who despised anything governmental or political.
There is a good book (well two, actually) by P.J.F. Turner called, The Real King Arthur: A History of Post-Roman Britania A.D. 410 to A.D. 593 (2 vol.). He discuses the various possibilities and personas assosiated with the myth.
I’ve always envisioned Arthur as Roman, or Romano-British.
Maybe an ex-Legion soldier, who got together with some of his old war buddies {the “Knights Of The Round Table”}, and tried to keep Roman order & law going in Britain, once it became clear the Empire wasn’t ever coming back.
“Camelot” could have been an old Roman fortification, used as a HQ.
Yes, you don’t see the stone castles in Britain at this time, they had hill forts and the like.
The Carolingians (Frankish dynasty 8th-10th centuries) were the first real knights riding large chargers and wearing some armour (though not full-plate, obviously) and it was from them that the idea of chivalry which is much evident in the Arturian tales originates.
The King that revived Roman infantry tactics was Alfred the Great (r.871-899) (also connected with the Carolingians as his father was a lieutenant of Charlemagne), the first real King of England.
The first person known to use the title ‘Lord of Britain’ (Bretwalda) was the Anglo-Saxon King Aelle of Sussex (?477), according to Bede anyway, who also is purported to of fought at Mons Badonicus.
Eh, Ive just been to two hill forts, Maiden Castle and Old Sarum;
they were very impressive and daunting structures, and would have resisted most forms of attack available after the departure of the Romans.
However there isn’t really much evidence of intensive occupation from Arthur’s period at any of these structures as far as I am aware,
so the wars we are told about in Gildas and elsewhere were probably low key affairs fought between small groups of tribesmen.
No wonder the evidence is minimal for the true identity of this shadowy figure.
Numbering system starts with the Norman Conquest. That’s been decided since 1307, when Edward II became the fourth Edward to wear the crown, but only the second since the Conquest, and references to the late King Edward I referred to him as that, ignoring Edward the Elder and Ironside.
There was almost a King Arthur, the eldest Son of Henry VII (and therefore Prince of Wales and heir apparent) and elder brother of Henry VIII was a ceratin Prince Arthur though he died in 1502 aged 15 seven years before his father died. Also Queen Victoria’s third son was also a Prince Arthur.
But as PolyCarp says, the numbering system starts with the Norman Kings, though he’s wrong about the Edwards there were three: the Elder, the Matyr (the former patron saint of England) and the Confessor, Ironside’s first name was Edmund.
Well, the stories handed down about Arthur are legend, but there is at least a microscopic grain of truth behind it all. Arthur probably was a real person, though his true role is debatable. Most of the posts above hit pretty close to the generally accepted theory: Arthur was a British (or Romano-British) general who helped hold back the Germanic migration in the late 5th/early 6th centuries. He is referred to by at least some early Welsh authors (Nennius and Aneirin) which date to the 9th century at the earliest, so Arthur wasn’t a complete work of the imagination by later French authors. Other than that, of course, it’s all pure fancy.
If the Arthur legends are based on the King who fought the Saxons at Mons Badonicus, then there is certainly some historicity to them as the battle is briefly refenced by the monk Gildas as happening at about the time of his birth.
Many legends are indeed based on fact and the actually historicity of Arthur is unknown.