King Arthur, Man, Myth, And Legend

Evan C. Oliver http://excelsior12.blogspot.com/ P a g e | 1

King Arthur, Man, Myth, and Legend

Origins

The Roman army pulled out of Britain around 390 A.D. Behind them they left a country

far different from what we think of as pre Norman Britain. The southern part of Briton was

largely empty of Britons, or at least Britons who were British. Southern Briton and a good way

north was filled with people who considered themselves Romans. Some of them were retired

legionaries, some were exiled Roman statesmen, some were Romanized Celts, but they all

considered themselves to be a part of Rome. They lived in Roman style houses and towns, had

Roman style government, had Roman wealth and culture, and depended on Rome for protection.

When the message arrived from Rome sometime around 410 A.D., telling Briton that it

was on its own as far as any kind of military aid was concerned, there must have been not a little

dismay. This terror however, probably did not extend very much to the part of Britain we now

call Wales, which was still fairly similar to what Briton was before the Roman invasion. The

Roman army posted in Britain was never big enough to conduct a hostile occupation of the entire

island and spent much of its time and energy Romanizing the more hospitable center of Britain.

At the time of Boudicca’s rebellion there were three legions, and one of them disappeared thanks

to Boudicca’s army. Most of the Britons who didn’t like the Romans simply moved north or west

to become the Welsh or the Irish

With the Roman Army gone, the Germanic tribes across the channel, Jutes, Saxons, and

Angles primarily, realized that a short swim away was all the wealth and gold of Rome with

none of the protection. Briton literally had no army. The details of what happened from here

onward do not survive in any contemporary texts. People who are fighting for their lives do not

typically hang around making long lasting records of their deaths. From evidence and writings

gathered later we can guess that Britain split into a multitude of little kingdoms, all incredibly

proud, selfish, jealous, and individually weak. Records from many years after the fact, such as

the Annales Cambriae from the ninth century, mention a warrior, not a king, named Artorius or

Arthur, who fought the invaders in several major battles, the greatest and last being at Badon Hill

where Arthur paused the invasion of Britain for several years. About twenty years later, the


records state, Arthur was killed by Medraut in one of the many civil wars that the British

kinglings waged whenever the Saxons weren’t burning their Roman Cities.

Whatever the lasting strategic effect of Arthur, the Germanic invaders took over most of

Britain, bringing in their Anglo-Saxon tongue and renaming most of what the Romans had built.

Most of Britons, or Celts, retreated back into Wales and Ireland and it is here that the first

Legends of Arthur were told.

The Celtic Arthur became a mighty soldier who led his mounted warriors through all

manner of adventures. The Tale of Culhwch and Olwen mentions Arthur, who helps Culhwch

complete the impossible tasks necessary for Culhwch to marry Olwen. In the Celtic stories,

Arthur has one foot in Ancient Briton, fighting off Saxon invaders, and one foot in the Celtic

otherworld, fighting faeries and having all manner of dealings with the Lords of the Celtic faery

reamls. In one of his adventures, Arthur chases a magical cauldron around faerie land, and

though what exactly the cauldron does varies from tale to tale, the theme was taken up by the

French in later centuries.

Adapting the Arthurian Legend.

In the Middle Ages, numerous writers further developed the Arthurian story, and the

stories from this time form the Arthur that is most familiar to

us today. He was elevated to one of the Nine Worthies and

became one of the premier models of kingliness and

knightliness. Geoffrey of Monmouth began the revival in

Arthur in his work History of the Kings of Britain. While

much of his work was probably a mixture of guesswork and

flattery toward his benefactors, he may have had access to

records and writings we do not. Monmouth’s Arthur fought

and defeated invading Germans and restored peace to

England. According to Monmouth, he was then so offended

by a letter from Rome demanding tribute that he invaded

Europe and dealt out great wrack and ruin before returning to

Britain. Monmouth introduced the figure of Merlin as we

know him, but his focus was still on the actions of Arthur.

The Nine Worthies The Nine Worthies were nine

historical figures drawn from

history as examples for the

Knighthood of the Middle Ages.

Each warrior, besides

demonstrating great prowess in

war, demonstrated some central

value of Chivalry. The Nine

consisted of three pagans before

Christ; Hector of Troy, Alexander

the Great, and Julius Caesar; three

Jews from before Christ, Joshua,

King David, and Judas

Maccabeus. The last three were

Christian warriors after the Life of

Christ, Charlemagne, Godfrey of

Bouillon, and King Arthur.


The French got their hands onto Arthur during the Muddled Ages with the Vulgate Cycle

and numerous other smaller works. The Vulgate Cycle is a five volume work that introduced for

the first time two characteristics of Arthurian legend that are most familiar today; Lancelot and

his love affair with Guinevere, and the Holy Grail. Put simply, the tales about the Grail were

written by an order of monks who wanted to

demonstrate the love man should have for God, and

the tales about Lancelot and Guinevere were written

by poets and bards under the protection of Eleanor of

Aquitaine and her family, the originators of the

extreme concept of ‘Courtly Love’. Perhaps the most

important of these poets was Chretien de Troyes

whose works include Yvain, the knight of the lion,

Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and Eric and Enide.

Chretien’s work was central in defining the role that

Lancelot and Courtly love would play in future

Arthurian tales.

During the War of the Roses, a knight by the

name of Sir Thomas Mallory fought for the House of

York for six years before he switched sides and

fought for the Lancastrians When the House of York

regained power he was thrown in jail. While there, he penned one of the most important works

on Arthur ever written. It was so massive, so complete, so inclusive, that little else was written

about Arthur until Victorian times. In Le Morte D’arthur, Malory used the Arthurian landscape

to demonstrate the code of chivalry he believed in and to vividly portray the horror of civil war.

Malory drew on the vast and disparate body of Arthurian work from both France and England,

relying heavily on the Vulgate Cycle, and also drew from his personal experiences in the War of

the Roses. Malory’s work is important for many reasons, and it began several trends that have

run deep in Arthurian literature ever since. First is the use of the Arthurian setting to make

certain points about how we should live. The French began doing this in the Vulgate Cycle, but

not to the extent or with the finesse of Malory. Second was the almost complete neglect of

Arthur. For most of the story about himself, Arthur sits on his throne and ponders mournfully the

Courtly Love vs. Chivalry Courtly Love and Chivalry were

two distinct and separate things to

the medieval mind. Courtly Love

was a code of conduct a knight

should follow toward women while

Chivalry was a code of conduct

concerning battle and war. Courtly

Love was more than just a way to

treat women as defined by Eleanor

of Aquitaine however; it was a

special relationship between a

knight and a woman who was not

his wife. When asked if Courtly

Love could exist in marriage,

Eleanor reportedly said it could not,

since at least the woman was forced

into the relationship, there was no

opportunity for her to deny or reject

her knight. It is suspected that much

of Chretien’s writing is a hidden

warning against this extreme view

of courtly love.


fate of his kingdom. Whereas most Arthurian tales up to Geoffrey Monmouth were spent

describing the prowess and battles of Arthur, Malory was more concerned with the interactions

between Arthur’s knights. Many French tales had also focused on Arthur’s knights, but they

neither affixed him permanently to his throne nor even claimed to be a somewhat complete tale

of his reign. Le Morte D’arthur did both.

Adaptations in Victorian England and Modernity

Malory’s work essentially closed the book on Arthur. He had written of Arthur’s

beginning, detailed the acts of his knights during his reign, and showed the tragic destruction of

his kingdom through conflicting loyalties, misguided pride, and foolishness. Little else was

written on Arthur until the Victorian era, when many artists and writers attached their own vision

of what the Arthurian court should have looked like. Malory was taken as a starting point, but

Victorian artists felt free to invent, add, or change anything in order to create a vision of what

they believed to be the perfect code of conduct modeled off of the oath sworn by the Knights of

the Round Table in Malory. Many of our modern conceptions of ‘Chivalry’ were formed at this

time. By the Victorian era, Arthur was no longer written about as a historical character. Rather,

he and his court were a beautiful artistic background against which to display proper behavior

and the consequences resulting from violations there from.

The last defining work on Arthur is The Once and Future King by T.H. White. White was

a conscientious objector during World War I. Explaining the psyche of the writers who came out

of this time, White, Orwell, Vonnegut, Tolkien, etc. would take far more space and time than I

have available here. White was concerned most with what he saw as the self destructive

tendencies of humanity. Living through the War to End All Wars only to live through far greater

and more destructive conflict less than two decades later he believed Mallory had given man far

too much credit, and while the stories he includes in his book are basically the same as the ones

written by Malory, he changes vital details that change how humanity is portrayed making it

more bloodthirsty and irrational.

Whether or not there was ever a man named Arthur who led a war band in early Britain

has become less important than the colossal foot print he left behind in our cultural landscape.

Arthur and his court is a very powerful tool for communicating values. Arthur has been used to

display moral truth and commentary on society for centuries because it is such a powerful tool.


Arthur is still important because his legend holds the key to many of the ideas and mindsets we

still hold today and because he remains such a powerful cultural figure.

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King Arthur, Man, Myth, And Legend