The Reign of Arthur

by Christopher Gidlow

  Up to this point, the story of Arthur offers nothing particularly un-expected. Now Geoffrey launches into what appears to be an extreme flight of fancy, Arthur’s continental wars. Arthur fights against King Gilmaurius of Ireland, conquering the whole of his country. He then sails to Iceland and the kings of Gotland and the Orkneys submit to him. He returns to Britain for a twelve-year reign of peace, during which the kings of all the countries across the sea build castles and fortifications for dread of him.

  This goads Arthur into further action and he starts his campaign by placing Loth on the throne of Norway. Loth, we hear, is the nephew and heir of the King of Norway. Arthur and Loth drive out the Norwegian pretender before devastating Norway and Denmark for good measure. These Scandinavian locations suggest a milieu no earlier than the tenth-century Viking invasions. They seem to borrow closely from eleventh-century episodes in William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon and nothing leads us to suspect any source other than Geoffrey’s imagination.

  Next and without provocation, Arthur invades Gaul, ruled from Paris by the gigantic tribune Frollo, a subject of Roman Emperor Leo. Arthur defeats him in single combat on an island. This bears far more affinity to the heroic Welsh legends than to the historical events previously described. This is not the last time that Geoffrey shows Arthur fighting single-handedly against a gigantic continental adversary on an island in France, which suggests some sort of source, if only folklore, for the episode.

  With Frollo dead, Arthur is free to take on the rest of France. Hoel conquers Poitou and Aquitaine and ravages Gascony. After nine years of fighting, Arthur bestows Neustria (Geoffrey’s pre-Norman name for Normandy) on Bedivere and Anjou on Kay. None of this is likely to pre-date Geoffrey. It seems deliberately intended to give Arthurian antecedents to the French partisans of the Empress Mathilda. Possessions of her rival King Stephen’s family, Blois, Mortain and Boulogne are not mentioned.

  Generally, it is thought that the continental exploits of Arthur are unique to Geoffrey. However, Ashe (1982) draws attention to the Breton Life of St Goueznou (Wohednovius). This is allegedly an early eleventh-century text, though it has more in common with the twelfth-century hagiographic material. The writer draws on Historia Brittonum to give background to his picture of a church persecuted by diabolical Saxons. Their pride is checked for a while by ‘the great Arthur, King of the Britons’ who ‘famously wins many battles in Britain and parts of Gaul’. If this is genuinely of such an early date, then this is the first indication that Arthur was active on both sides of the Channel, and indeed was famous for doing so. We must be careful here. It is possible that the Breton writer has nothing more than the Historia Brittonum battle-list and imagines that some of the battle sites are on the continent. The phrase ‘kings of the Britons’ could easily, for him, have evoked the idea that Bretons are involved, since his ‘Greater Britain’ has only one king.

  An early eleventh-century book of Breton origin is the only tenable candidate we have come up with for the ‘very ancient book in the British language’. The accounts of the wars in Gaul are the main parts of the narrative that suggest such an unknown source. The Life of Goueznou does seem to have some affinity with the alleged contents of the Book of Exile, the other source Geoffrey claims to possess. It has the characteristics of a tenth-century version of Historia Brittonum, expanded to include Breton hagiography, we have deduced for the ‘very ancient book’.

  The Court at Caerleon

  Geoffrey places at the heart of his Arthurian section a literary tour-de-force, the Plenary Court at Caerleon. Its significance is shown by the fact that it takes up as much space as the campaigns against the Saxons.

  That Geoffrey’s imagination is at play is obvious: Arthur’s feast is pure twelfth-century, being accompanied by two innovations of the period, the tournament and heraldry. The first example of identifiable arms in English history are the gold lions of Geoffrey Plantagenet, husband of the Empress Mathilda. The popularity of arms and tournaments owes something to the illustrious ancient origins given to them by Geoffrey. It was his imagination which showed how characters from an obscure ancient period could be presented as modern paragons.

  Geoffrey’s description of Caerleon is typical of his idiom. Thus he develops Gildas’s brief allusion to the martyrdom of Aaron and Julius in the ‘City of the Legions’ to create two fantastic churches with their complements of nuns and canons in the saints’ honour. Ancient Caerleon has ‘a college of two hundred learned men, who were skilled in astronomy and other arts’. They prophesied for King Arthur ‘any prodigies due at the time’. Soon afterwards members of Arthur’s entourage interpret the prophetic message of one of his dreams. Geoffrey later alludes to the British renaissance prophesied by Merlin to Arthur, an incident which does not feature in his book.

  Stripped of its twelfth-century trappings, the feast condenses to two elements. One is Arthur’s position as overlord of the British Church. Dubricius, saintly Primate of Britain, resigns to become a hermit. Arthur makes his uncle, David, archbishop in his place. Tebaus (Teilo) ‘the celebrated priest of Llandaff’ is made Archbishop of Dol in Brittany in place of St Samson. The bishoprics of Silchester, Winchester and Alclud go to Maugannius, Diwanius and Eledenius respectively. Geoffrey knows of St Samson of Dol, but if his source tells him this much, it is not clear why Teilo succeeds him rather than his actual Breton successor. It is difficult to know what to make of the minor bishops. Diwanius looks a little like Dewi, the Welsh spelling of St David’s name, but that gives us little to go on.

  The other is a catalogue of Arthur’s men. The list includes the vassal kings of Scotland, Murefensium, Lothian, North and South Wales, Cornwall (Cador ‘promoted’ to royal rank) and Brittany. One block of knights have ‘Welsh-style’ names, with the ‘map’ patronymic. They may have been invented by Geoffrey in the same way as he produces ‘Irish’ and ‘Saxon’ names. Some are found elsewhere; Peredur, for instance, has the same name as a character in Annales Cambriae.

  Many of the characters bear names from the Harleian Genealogies. Cadwallo Laurh, in some manuscripts the King of North Wales, is given as Maelgwn’s father, Run map Neton is a late sixth-century ancestor of the kings of the Isle of Man. Kymbelin is the father of Clytno Eidin, who features in the Gododdin. ‘Mavron’ Earl of Worcester could be Mermin (later spelled Mervin), one of the later kings of Man. Anarauth Earl of Salisbury appears, next to Mavron in Geoffrey’s list, paralleled by Mermin’s son, Anaraut, in the genealogy. Geoffrey’s Artgualchar could be the son of Anaraut, Tutagual.

  That these are no more than names to Geoffrey, for him to use as his narrative requires, is clear in the case of Morvid, who appears here as Consul of Gloucester. Morvid is a name which Geoffrey has already used for a son of King Ebraucus and for a pre-Roman king of Britain eaten by a sea-monster. What Geoffrey did not know was that Morvid was actually a girl’s name in Welsh! Morvid, daughter of Urien, is listed among the ladies of Arthur’s court in Culhwch and Olwen. In Geoffrey’s list, Morvid’s name is linked (unknowingly) to those of her father, Urbgennius, and grandfather, Kinmarc. Geoffrey is thus using a source containing genealogical material, of whose context he is utterly ignorant.

  King Arthur Versus the Romans

  The feast brings us to the point where Geoffrey parts company from any previous sources, the Roman wars. Geoffrey takes as much space to cover this as he has for all the previous Arthurian episodes put together. Although the story is quite simple, Geoffrey invents long speeches, troop dispositions, battle plans and descriptions of single combat.

  It has been suggested that Arthur’s continental exploits derive from Geoffrey’s conception of British history (Bromwich et al. 1991). The Historia begins with Brutus invading from [the future] Rome. He founds a line of British kings culminating in Brennius, who returns to conquer Rome. The second act begins with the Roman invasion of Britain and culminates in the British leader Constantine taking over the Roman Empire. The final act reaches its apogee in King Arthur.
But this time he is unable to take Rome, due to the civil war and immorality of the Britons, which not only bring his downfall but that of British rule in Britain.

  Thus Geoffrey need have no source suggesting that Arthur fought the Romans, only a narrative plan which makes this an essential dramatic device. However, Geoffrey had sources for all those earlier episodes. They did not spring from his imagination. If he had no information to suggest that Arthur had a continental career, he could have used Maximianus, Constantine III, Hoel or any other Breton king to make the point that a re-match against Rome would be unsuccessful. Dramatic structure does not present a prima facie case for Arthur’s war against the Romans being twelfth-century fiction.

  Arthur is holding his plenary court at Caerleon when envoys arrive with an unwelcome letter from ‘Lucius, Procurator of the Republic’. We find out later he is the Emperor Lucius Hiberius, ruler of the Romans of the continent. His envoys accuse Arthur of insulting the Roman senate ‘to which the entire world owes submission’, of withholding the tribute due to Rome and of seizing Roman territory.

  Arthur takes counsel and predictably decides to respond in force. The principal advisers are Cador of Cornwall, Hoel of Brittany and Auguselus of Albany. When the armies are mustered, they include men from Britain (principally England), Brittany, the recent conquests in Ireland, Scandinavia and northern France, but not Wales.

  Their opponents are a Roman Empire of the mind. As with the (Holy) Roman Empire of Geoffrey’s own time, the Empire is composed of vassal kings, with a few actual Romans incorporated. Contingents arrive from Greece, Africa, Spain, Parthia, Media, Libya, the Iturei, Egypt, Phrygia, Syria, Boethia and Crete. The Romans bear such classically sounding names as Marius Lepidus, Gaius Metellus Cocta and Quintus Milvius Catullus, in contrast to their vassals’ more outlandish ‘Mustensar’, ‘Echion’, ‘Micipsa’ and so on. The presence of Aliphatima, King of Spain, shows that Spain is envisaged as being under Muslim rule, a feature probably derived from the Chansons de Geste, and certainly not pre-dating the eighth century. These names have no connection with any actual rulers of the fifth/sixth centuries.

  Lucius Hiberius is a slightly different matter. Geoffrey ought to have known that there was no Roman emperor of this name at the time that he sets the action. This seems apparent from his references to the Emperor Leo, ruling (presumably in Constantinople?) at the same time. The only similarly named character in history was Liberius (read as L[ucius] Iberius), a Roman general operating in the sixth century in France and Spain, latterly for the Emperor Justinian. Actual opponents of fifth-century Britons, like Euric King of the Goths who defeated Riothamus, or the real sub-Roman rulers Aegidius and Syagrius, are conspicuous by their absence.

  If Lucius is not Liberius, he may be identified with the Lluchs of the Welsh material. One suggestion is that he is the Lluch Lleawc of Preideu Annwfyn. The argument runs that, although Lluch is in the otherworld in this poem, he plays an analogous role to Llenlleawc the Irishman in Culhwch and Olwen. If the original was called Lluch the Irishman, this might have been Latinised as Lucius Hibernius, and read mistakenly, perhaps by Geoffrey, as Lucius Hiberius. This would imply that Geoffrey’s immediate source was in Latin.

  This suggested sequence of transmission and error is unduly complicated. The fact remains that, alone of the continental adversaries of Arthur, Lucius bears a name which may be connected with that in the Welsh material. In Preideu Annwfyn, Lluch is shown as a warrior fighting during an overseas expedition of Arthur and his men. Spain is generally seen as an otherworldly or fantastically distant location in Dark Age sources.

  If this section of Geoffrey is thought of in terms of an overseas expedition to legendary locations, possibly involving a character called Lluch, then the material is much more in keeping with the Arthurian canon than a historical expedition to France. Sure enough, when Arthur arrives he is confronted by a ferocious giant from Spain which he has to defeat in single combat.

  This episode is in a different idiom from the rest of the Arthurian material and its antecedents are not difficult to see. The giant has carried off Hoel’s daughter Helena to what is now Mont St Michel. The Breton knights pursue him but are unable to defeat him. The newly arrived Arthur with his companions Kay and Bedivere set out to confront him. ‘Being a man of outstanding courage, he had no need to lead a whole army against monsters of this sort. Not only was he himself strong enough to destroy them, but by doing so he wanted to inspire his men’ (HRB X.3, Thorpe 1966:238).

  The heroes arrive too late to save Helena, but Arthur kills the giant in single combat, after which Bedivere cuts off his head. Hoel has a chapel built on one of the twin peaks of Mont St Michel, ‘which is called to this day Helena’s tomb’.

  That this giant-killing episode was a rather familiar motif is referred to directly. Arthur himself states that he has never fought anyone so strong since he took on Ritho the Giant of Mount Aravius (Snowdon), who wanted to wear Arthur’s beard on his cloak of beards. Arthur beat him in single combat too, and took his beard instead.

  We have seen all of these features elsewhere, and we can imagine the sort of source from which Geoffrey derived them. The beard incident involving giant Ritho recalls solving the tasks of Urnach the Giant and Dillus the Bearded in Culhwch and Olwen. The abduction of a royal lady to a famous ecclesiastical hill is found in Caradoc’s Life of Gildas. The association of Arthur with Kay and Bedivere alone is familiar too from the saints’ Lives, as is the denouement of a prince’s endowment of an ecclesiastical foundation. A seeming interpolation in William of Malmesbury’s ‘On the Antiquity of the Church at Glastonbury’ tells of a combat between one of Arthur’s knights, Ider, son of King Nut, against three giants at Brent Knoll in Somerset. Arthur turns up later, after Ider has succumbed to his wounds. He makes amends by granting the knoll to Glastonbury Abbey. Geoffrey adds ‘Hyderus son of Nu’ to Arthur’s forces later in the Roman campaign. We might speculate that Geoffrey found the episode in a Breton source, a saint’s Life or a charter, and recalled its similarity to Welsh tales.

  With the giant-killing out of the way, Arthur marches for the River Alba (Aube) outside Augustudunum (Autun) to confront the Romans. Four Britons are named in the episode: Boso, Gerinus, Hyderus and Gualguanus. None has featured in the British wars. Boso of Oxford is unknown in any earlier source. The suspicion is that he is Geoffrey’s creation, deriving his name from ‘Bos’ – ox. If locating Gerinus in Chartres is just Geoffrey’s artifice (as Kay and Bedivere are described as of Anjou and Normandy respectively), then we have no difficulty in identifying him as Gereint. Gerennius was an acceptable Latin form, found earlier in Geoffrey and in the Book of Llandaff. Lands named Dumnonia and Cornwall, home of the historical Gereints, are also found in Brittany. This leaves the possibility that Geoffrey found Gerinus in a Breton source, perhaps mistakenly giving him a continental location.

  Hyderus, son of Nu, appears in Culhwch and Olwen, in pseudo-William of Malmesbury and carved on an archivolt of Modena Cathedral, built c. 1105, where he is called ‘Isdernus’. We thus know that he is a pre-existing character.

  The fourth knight would become one of the most famous in the Arthurian cycle, the king’s nephew Gualguanus – Sir Gawain.

  Sir Gawain

  Gualguanus is the son of Loth of Lodenesia and Arthur’s sister ‘who Loth married in the time of Ambrosius’, Loth . . . qui tempore Aurelii Ambrosii sororem ipsius [i.e. Arthur] duxerat (HRB IX.9). In fact, Loth married her in Uther’s reign, and the confusion led Thorpe to make her ‘sister of Ambrosius’, although Gualguanus is unequivocally Arthur’s nephew throughout the book. At the time of Arthur’s conquest of Norway he is twelve years old and has been sent to serve in the household of Pope Sulpicius, who dubs him knight. St Sulpicius flourished in the early fifth century. However, there was no Pope of this name, the nearest being Simplicius (468–83).

  Gawain joins Arthur between the Plenary Court and this battle on the River Alba. He acts as both a hot-headed envoy and a co
mmander. At the next battle he and King Hoel command one of the king’s divisions. ‘No better knights than Hoel and Gawain have ever been born down the ages’, Geoffrey writes. ‘Gawain, fearless in his courage . . . was the bravest of all the knights’. ‘Hoel was in no way less brave . . . It would be difficult to say which of these two was the braver’ (HRB X.10; Thorpe 1966:254). Gawain takes on Lucius himself in single combat, and the Emperor rejoices at the opportunity of proving himself against one of whose fame he had heard so much. Gawain survives the Roman war, only to be killed by the forces of his brother Modred at Rutupi Portus (Richborough in Kent).

  Geoffrey gives more information about Gawain than any of the other warriors who accompany Arthur. Unlike Kay and Bedivere, we learn about his parents and upbringing. There is more material about his exploits than about most of the kings of Britain in the book.

  The most reasonable supposition is that Gawain was a famous warrior, whom Geoffrey wished to incorporate. But in what context did he find him? He might share a source with his companion Hoel or alternatively Geoffrey may be trying to reconcile competing regional claims as to who is Arthur’s greatest warrior. He does not figure in Arthur’s historical campaigns, whether against the Saxons or at Camblan.

  The account of Gawain’s childhood reads like the ‘Enfances’ romances that he and many other Arthurian characters are later to figure in. At this point in the development of the legend it is unique. We have not even heard about Arthur’s childhood, let alone those of his men. The nearest genre to this is hagiography. The Life of St Kentigern, for example, already noted as sharing some features with Geoffrey, gives Kentigern’s parentage, birth and upbringing.