Arthur, King of Britons: From Celtic hero to cinema icon

256 Pages·2004·0.98 MB·English

by  Daniel Mersey

Excalibur Rises Into View
A R T H U R
K I N G O F T H E
B R I T O N S
From Celtic hero to cinema icon
Daniel Mersey
s u m m e r s d a l e
ARTHUR KING OF THE BRITONS
From Celtic hero to cinema icon
Copyright © Daniel Mersey 2004
Illustrations by Deanna Tyson 2004
Sword on cover © Spiral (www.spiral.org.uk, 01634 401274)
The right of Daniel Mersey to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Condition of Sale
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed
on the subsequent publisher.
Summersdale Publishers Ltd
46 West Street
Chichester
West Sussex
PO19 1RP
UK
www.summersdale.com
Printed and bound in Great Britain by J. H. Haynes & Co. Ltd
ISBN 1 84024 403 8
Contents
Chapter One… King Who?.................................................................9
Chapter Two… The Historical Arthur.................................................19
Chapter Three… Arthur’s Medieval Biographers..............................57
Chapter Four… Arthur of the Celts.................................................85
Chapter Five… The Legend of King Arthur.....................................115
Chapter Six… All Mod Cons: Arthur in the Modern World........149
Chapter Seven… Will the Real King Arthur Please Stand Up?.....175
Chapter Eight… The Quest for King Arthur..................................209
Appendix A… The Arthurian Companion.......................................215
Appendix B… Arthurian Sites in the UK.......................................228
Appendix C… The Arthurian Bestiary............................................243
Appendix D… A Guide to Welsh Pronunciation............................247
Bibliography........................................................................................249
Author biography
Daniel Mersey was born in 1974 in the aptly named Tintagel House, in
Edmonton, London.
He read Archaeology at the University of York between 1993 and
1996. The thrilling world of discovering previously unknown treasures
in distant lands awaited. Sadly, reality is seldom as exciting as fantasy,
and far from a career of self-inflicted Mummies’ curses and recovering
the Lost Ark in the heat of the desert, as an archaeologist he has excavated
in such exotic places as Cambridge, Peterborough, Yorkshire and Wales.
He is now an editor and writer, but still takes an active interest in field
archaeology. In addition to editing and rewriting other peoples’ work,
Daniel has over one hundred writing credits of his own. His previously
published work includes Legendary Warriors: Great Heroes in Myth and
Reality (Chrysalis, 2002). Off the written page and onto the airwaves,
Daniel has also written comedy for radio.
He is also a Contributing Editor for the Castles of Wales website and
has undertaken work for several museums, cataloguing archived
material, assessing displays and access, and providing explanatory text.
Daniel currently lives on the south coast of England with his partner
and seven guitars.
A R T H U R
K I N G O F T H E
B R I T O N S
ARTHUR: KING OF THE BRITONS
Arthur King Of The Britons And Guinevere His Queen
8
Chapter One
King Who?
If you really did pick this book up and think ‘Who is this King Arthur
then?’ don’t worry. This question has passed many millions of people’s
lips over the past 1,500 years. Fortuitously, most of those who have
asked were glad they did so, uncovering details of one of the most
exciting periods of British history and a whole host of the world’s most
exciting legends in the process. Many historians and researchers have
tried to pin the tail on the historical donkey, conjuring up all sorts of
theories along the way. Far too many modern researchers have tended
to champion one candidate as the King Arthur. Doing so has often proved
a thankless task, and in pursuit of their goal writers will far too often
ignore the evidence that does not support their pet theory. Approaching
this book as a ‘biography’ rather than as a ‘solution’ allows me to present
as wide a picture of the historical and literary Arthur as I may in a book
of this size, and hopefully fills in some of those gaps that others have
neglected to explain. What this book isn’t is a dense academic tome for
the expert Arthurian reader to learn more from; what it is, hopefully, is
a great place for us lesser mortals to find out more about one of the
most famous characters from folklore: a popular history of Arthur.
There are two very distinct King Arthurs to consider – the Arthur of
children’s stories, literature and folklore, and the Arthur of history. The
two are very different, but both are the subject of this ‘biography’,
which charts their rise from their earliest incarnations right up to the
modern day.
The essence of King Arthur
Arthur’s name first emerges from the shadowy history of the fifth and
sixth centuries AD. The strong controlling hand of Roman government
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ARTHUR: KING OF THE BRITONS
had crumbled away in Britain and, as happened in so many other parts
of the former empire, post-Roman riches were there for the picking by
ferocious, foreign barbarian tribes. A handful of passing references in
the Celtic languages suggest that Arthur was a native British warlord
who fought back against the enemies of Britain. Stories of Arthur’s
supposed historical feats (and some superhuman deeds also) became
popular and spread throughout the surviving British and, later, Welsh
cultures by the tenth century.
Five hundred years later, Arthur had become a byword for medieval
kingship – both good and bad – and over the flourishing epoch of
medieval romantic and chivalric writing, he came to stand for everything
that was just and virtuous in the medieval world. What’s more, medieval
writers were passing these fantastical tales off as real history – concepts
of ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’ writing were very different in the medieval
world to today’s black and white view. Stories about Arthur and his
court became so popular that Alanus de Insulis, writing in the latter
half of the twelfth century, noted that anyone who said that Arthur was
dead would almost certainly have a volley of stones thrown at them
(Alanus wrote shortly after a poet named Wace popularised the theory
that Arthur was not dead, just sleeping).
In a nutshell, the story of Arthur as dramatised by popular medieval
authors – and built upon by modern authors – is as follows:
Arthur was born into a divided kingdom where the Britons and their
enemies were fighting bloody wars. Arthur’s father, Uther, was the leader
of the Britons and Arthur was born illegitimately to him after the
powerful and enigmatic sorcerer Merlin helped him deceive the wife
of the Duke of Cornwall. When Uther died leaving no obvious heir,
the British nobles continued to fight among themselves for dominance.
Merlin announced that the leader of the Britons would become evident
through a challenge – he summoned the nobility to a site where a
beautiful sword stood magically embedded in a stone; whoever could
draw the sword, Merlin decreed, would rule the country. The foremost
British nobles tried but all failed; yet Arthur, as yet unknown to all to be
the son of Uther, succeeded.
Although Arthur had led his early life as the lowly squire of a just
knight, his charisma and leadership qualities evidently shone through
when he took the royal throne – the enemies of the Britons were expelled
and Arthur set about restoring order to his realm. As Arthur grew in
power, he married the beautiful Guinevere, and bold knights flocked to
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