So, King Arthur is a real person?

Factual Questions
21

[QUOTE=CookingWithGas]
I must say that although the OP has done some annoying things in other threads, it looks like he is being jumped on here without proper provocation. The point of the title coupled with the story at the link was clear to me, though possibly with too great an economy of expression. At most I might have asked: “I thought Arthur was a legend. This article says otherwise. What’s the Straight Dope?” The boad is filled with such brevity. A gentle suggestion might be in order, but I think a rebuke from a mod is overkill.

Also, if everyone used Google and other online resources skillfully and exhaustively before posting to this forum, there would be damn few threads. Half the fun here is in the discussion that ensues, not just the dry, scholarly answer.
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps you should join us in this pit thread if you wish to continue the discussion. It might give you an understanding of some of the apparent hostility.

Jim

22

[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
I have an entire collection of books claiming to identify particular historical persons as King Arthur, starting with Geoffrey Ashe’s 1985 book The Discovery of King Arthur (which pegged Riothamus).
[/QUOTE]

I would be interested in your opinion of “The Real King Arthur” by P.F.J. Turner, I think. It’s something I ran across in the library and somehow it caught my attention. It’s a startling and puzzling (two-volume) work. First of all, it seems to have been printed on a circa 1982 dot-matrix printer – the maps are made with ASCII characters.

And it makes its claims in rather conclusory language – that Arthur was a Roman named Lucius Artorius Castus (or something), that Lancelot and Mordred were the same person, that the reason that it seems that Arthur fathered a child on his sister has really to do with the complex Roman system of adoption rather than incest (in other words, Arthur and Morgan were not blood siblings and Mordred was Arthur’s adopted heir, or something).

It seems a thoroughly eccentric work and it has that kind of charm. I fully expect it to be a work of a total crackpot, but I have this kind of sentimentality towards it for its earnestness.

23

[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
Now, I hjave no idea what the “KC” is. I don’t recognize it as a legitimate post-nominal recognition in the British Honour system, at least.
[/QUOTE]

Knights of Columbus? :wink:

24

King’s Counsel?

25

I have to admit that I was shockingly ignorant of this one until set straight by this very Board. This one is entirely different from the other claimants, in that he doesn’t fit the time period at all. The idea was proposed by Malone in 1924, and tries to account for Arthur being a mounted knight and for apparent Central European associations of Arthurian legend by claiming that this significantly-named Roman brought those traditions to Britain at the end of Roman rule. See the Wikipedia article:

This formed the basis of the recent motion picture King Arthur, which was pretty good when it concentrated on Roman stuff, asnd laughable when it tried to introduce woefully out-of-place elements like Lancelot and Merlin in this eaerly Romano-Celtic venue. Nifty photography and battle scenes, though.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0349683/
In short, interesting theory, but I don’t buy it. I have to add, in all fairness, that I haven’t read an extended work advancing and defending this thesis.

26

Yes, but I don’t see how that would work in this case. It’s kind of hard to be a King’s Counsel when there’s no King.

27

[QUOTE=severus]
King’s Counsel?
[/QUOTE]
But that would not have been a possibility in 1990 (it would have been “Queen’s Counsel”) – and is in any case rather an unlikely career move even for the esteemed Prof. Goodrich (and hubby!).

[QUOTE=colibri]
Knights of Columbus?
[/QUOTE]
I don’t think that they’ve ever admitted women. [Although I have to admit it would be wonderful if Prof. Goodrich could have linked Columbus to Scotland, perhaps via the Knights Templars, Freemasons, and Henry Sinclair. Umberto Eco would love it! We don’t really know where Columbus was born. Perhaps he was really Kit McCollum?]

There’s also Knight of the Crescent, but (despite the Union Flag next to the “KC” in the link) that appears to be a Turkish honor.

In other words, I got nuthin’.

28

[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
Yes, but I don’t see how that would work in this case. It’s kind of hard to be a King’s Counsel when there’s no King.
[/QUOTE]

I have to admit. I guess I figured that maybe she could have received this honour when there was a King, but apparently her title would have changed to “QC” anyway. On the other hand:

Maybe she received her KC from the real King of Scotland? Maybe this guy? :eek: :smiley:

29

King is Bea Arthur’s son, isn’t he? :wink:

30

Well, there is such a thing as a Knight Companion, but the designation is always follwed by the name of the order of knighthood, i.e., “Knight Companion of the Bath” or “Knight Companion of the Garter.” Not that there is any chance that this woman have been a member of either order, which are pretty exalted.

Anyway, she wouldn’t be a knight, she’d be a dame.

31

[QUOTE=AskNott]
King is Bea Arthur’s son, isn’t he? :wink:
[/QUOTE]

No, he’s her rottweiler.

32

Continuing the “knighthood” hijack, which I think has partial relevance to the OP, since Prof. Goodrich made her name establishing the truth behind the myths of a possible member of British Royalty who is now deceased, and we here at the SDMB seem to be turning the (Round?) tables on her!

Okay, here is a press release from the University of Vermont dated April 16, 1993, and saying:

So we know that the “knighted into British royalty” claim dates back at least 13 years, and thus was not invented after her death by her assistant, nor was it a misunderstanding by the writer of her obituary in the LA Times.

Having made my little joke in post #27 about Columbus being Scottish too, I did a :smack: and realized that of course St. Columba really was in Scotland in the 6th Century AD – that’s when he brought Christianity (back) to Scotland! Now, most of what we know about St. Columba is from the Vita Columbae by Adomnán. The linked Wikipedia page continues:

What’s more, the Knights of St. Columba are a Scottish Catholic Fraternal Order, in many ways similar to the Knights of Columbus!!

Could this be the source of the mysterious “KC”?

Unfortunately, the Knights of St. Columba do not admit women, and in any case the initialism is “KsC” not “KC”. Darn. If only she were still alive, I’m sure we could get to the bottom of this (but she would probably have said the same about Arthur).

[It’s a shame she couldn’t have been KsC, since this authoritative-looking site :wink: manages to link the Knights of Columba with Opus Dei, the Freemasons, and the Illuminati…]