Arthur, legendary king of Britain

circa 500

The hero of a large body of medieval romance, although in it he seldom plays a very active role and may sometimes appear as weak and pusillanimous. He functions there mainly as the focal point of the chivalric world, presiding over the company of the Round Table, holding great courts from which individual knights set out in search of adventure or to perform specific quests and to which they periodically return. But Arthur does have his own legendary history, behind which may lie one or two elements of fact. The name itself is of Roman origin (Artorius) and was known in Britain at least from the 2nd century AD. The historical prototype of King Arthur, however, seems to have lived and fought in the British cause against the Saxons c. 500. At that time the British achieved an important victory at Mount Badon, a place not firmly identified but certainly in Wessex, and this battle is mentioned by Gildas, writing c.540.

It is in the early 9th-century Historia Brittonum by Nennius that we find Arthur's name associated with the battle, where he appears as a military commander (dux bellorum) but not yet as king. In this, the 12th and last of his victories, he himself slew 960 of the foe; another victory, we learn, was achieved by his carrying on his shield an image of the Virgin. Elsewhere in Nennius references are made to Arthur's hunting of the pig, Troit, (the footprint of his dog being miraculously preserved) and the marvellous properties of his son Amr's grave. Thus legends attached themselves to Arthur's name; and already by c. 600 the early Welsh poem Gododdin had alluded to him as an outstanding warrior.

The legendary process may be seen at work in scattered references and stories appearing in certain Welsh poems and saints lives up to the early 12th-century; and before 1100 we find Arthur figuring prominently in the primitive Welsh romance of Culhwch and Olwen. Already some of the more familiar figures of Arthurian romance are appearing in his company - Kay the steward, Arthur's nephew Gawain, Queen Guinevere and her abductor Mordred (the crime is attributed to Melwas in Caradoc of Lancarvan's Vita Gildae, c. 1130). In 1113 Hermann of Tournai tells of a visit of Breton monks to Cornwall and how they disputed with the natives over Arthur's continued survival just as the Bretons argue the same question with the French. This and other evidence suggests the early spread of legends about Arthur beyond the Channel and even as far as Italy.

In c. 1136 Geoffrey of Monmouth compiled his Historia Regum Britanniae, an important section of which relates the birth and vast conquests of Arthur, Guinevere's infidelity, Arthur's final defeat by Mordred, and his translation, mortally wounded, to the Isle of Avalon 'for the healing of his wounds. Geoffrey's work, based partly on earlier texts, partly perhaps on oral legend, enjoyed wide popularity and stimulated interest in the stories of Arthur, now shown as a great feudal monarch rich in power and dignity. Wace in his Roman du Brut (1155), a free Old French translation of the Historia, added some further details, including the first known reference to the institution of the Round Table. Success was finally assured for the Arthurian legend when, as a result of its adoption by the French aristocracy, it was used as a vehicle for the expression of courtly ideals of love and chivalry and, from c. 1200, for that Christian mysticism associated with the Grail quests. The King, active or inactive, presides over the chivalric brotherhood in French romances which appear from the second half of the 12th century and incorporate much Celtic material not originally associated with Arthur. Chrétien de Troyes is the first known and greatest writer of these romances, which subsequently proliferate in both verse and prose.

In c. 1191 more immediacy was given to the story of Arthur by the reputed discovery of his tomb at Glastonbury, identified with Avalon. This coupled with the legend of the coming there of Joseph of Arimathea, first guardian of the Holy Grail, gave the Somerset town a central place in the Arthurian cult. In Britain Malory's Morte d'Arthur and Tennyson's Idylls of the King are but high points in the literary tradition which after almost a millennium is still not exhausted and preserves Arthur in popular affection as the national hero-king.

© JM Dent/Historybookshop.com