In the heart of the quiet countryside of southwest England, a yellow limestone hill rises sharply above the village of South Cadbury. Old men who have lived all their lives in its shadow have strange tales to tell. It’s a hollow hill, they believe, and if, on St. John’s Eve, the summer solstice, you could find the golden gates that lead inside, you would discover King Arthur holding court. Sometimes, they say, on stormy winter nights, you can hear the king trot by along the well-worn track. As one man put it, "Folks do say that on the night of the full moon King Arthur and his men ride round the hill, and their horses are shod with silver and a silver shoe has been found in the track where they do ride, and when they have ridden round the hill, they stop to water their horses at the Wishing Well.”
For generations, such legends have been told of Arthur, the Once and Future King, and his knights at South Cadbury, which has long been identified with Arthur’s home of Camelot, but also across England, Wales, and Scotland.
Each county has its legends. In Cornwall, the tale goes that all the farmlands and the forests “swarmed with giants until Arthur, the good king, vanished them all with his cross-sword.” In Northumberland, beneath the castle of Sewingshields, Arthur and his queen, Guinevere, their knights and ladies, and the king’s hounds lie sleeping in the vaults. So, too, do they rest beneath the ruins of Richmond Castle in Yorkshire, waiting to be awakened by the blast of a horn that lies on a table by the entrance to their cavern. An unwary farmer once stumbled upon them, it is said, but lacked the courage to blow the horn that would bring them back to life. Wales is full of tales of caves and hollow hills in which Arthur and his knights await the call to return. One day, these legends agree, Arthur will be roused from his slumber and ride forth to save his people, at a time when they most need him.
As well as legends, there are places Arthur is said to have traveled. His name can be found the length and breadth of the country - from the Scilly islands of Great and Little Arthur off the southwestern coast of Cornwall, to Arthur’s Seat, looming above Scotland’s capital city of Edinburgh, far to the north; and from Arthur’s Chair in the hills of Breconshire in Wales to Arthur’s Hill at Newcastle, on the northeastern coast of Northumberland. No other name in Britain turns up so frequently except that of the Devil. No one knows exactly how old these place names are, just as no one knows how old the legends are. But somewhere in the mists of history, there was a real Arthur who inspired them.
The Arthur who has become part of our imagination today is mostly a creation of medieval times, when troubadours and chroniclers made him into a romantic hero, a Christian champion, a noble ruler whose knights were models of chivalry. These Arthurian tales have taken their place in our literature, and over the centuries, poets and painters have recreated the characters and their adventures many times over. The myth has become so real that most people forget the existence of a historical Arthur. He may not have been a king or even a particularly good or idealistic man. Yet, despite the vague historical record, he must have been a remarkable person because fame does not come without merit, and Arthur’s fame seldom has been equaled.
The earliest known reference to Arthur dates from the turbulent centuries immediately after 410 A.D., when the last Roman garrison was withdrawn from Britain, then the westernmost outpost of the crumbling Roman Empire. Following the legions’ departure, the island suffered constant invasions by Jutes, Angles, and Saxons from across the North Sea. In an epic poem written circa 603, the Welsh bard Aneurin describes one of the many desperate battles that took place between these invaders and the Britons. From this long poem, Y Gododdin, Arthur’s name already was identified with outstanding courage, for Aneurin describes the feats of a British hero by saying that his valor was remarkable, “although he was no Arthur.”
It’s also significant that a century before Y Gododdin was written, the name Arthur virtually was unknown in Britain. By the late sixth and early seventh centuries, however, there are four or five Arthurs in the scanty records that have survived from this period. One of them was a prince of Argyll born to the Scottish king Aedán mac Gabráin about 570. Another Arthur entered the world at much the same time in southwestern Wales, great-grandson of a ruler named Vortiporius, while in 620 the Irish king Morgan was killed by one “Artuir, son of Bicoir, a Briton.” It is difficult to account for this sudden popularity of the name unless a real Arthur existed whose exploits had so excited his contemporaries that several British leaders named their sons in his honor.
Although these references suggest that a historical Arthur was living in Britain sometime during the sixth century, the sources do not mention his name directly. It is not until some 250 years later that Arthur’s name first appears in the Historia Brittonum, compiled in Latin by a Welsh monk named Nennius in the ninth century. In tantalizingly brief references, Nennius mentions Arthur as the British victor in a series of sixth-century battles fought by the Britons against the Saxons. Nennius gives little reliable information, but he does confirm Arthur’s legendary reputation for bravery and makes clear that Arthur was a figure around whom fantastic legends already had begun to cluster.
Nennius recounts two stories that illustrate this; he calls them mirabilia - marvels. The first concerns Carn Cavall, a cairn, or monument, made from stones piled on top of each other, in the Welsh county of Breconshire. On the top of the cairn was a stone bearing the footprint of Arthur’s dog, Cavall, who had marked it by treading on it during a boar hunt. Arthur had built the cairn as a memorial to his beloved dog; whenever the stone with the footprint was removed, within twenty-four hours, it would be back on its heap.
The other story was of the miraculous tomb of Arthur’s son Anir, who was buried beside the River Gamber in Herefordshire on the Welsh border. Anir “was the son of Arthur the soldier,” Nennius writes, “and Arthur himself killed him there and buried him. And when men come to measure the length of the mound, they find it sometimes six feet, sometimes nine, sometimes twelve, and sometimes fifteen. Whatever length you find it at one time, you will find it different at another, and I . . . have proved this to be true.”
Fanciful as Nennius’ stories appear, they were outdone by a twelfth-century scholar known as Geoffrey of Monmouth. In his book, Historia Regum Britanniae (A History of the Kings of Britain), he provided an account of “the kings who dwelt in Britain before the coming of Christ,” and “especially of King Arthur and the many others who succeeded him after the coming of Christ.” Geoffrey probably was born in South Wales, although he may originally have been of Breton stock. All we know for certain is that his father was called Arthur and that he ended his life as bishop of St. Asaph, a town in North Wales. Geoffrey, an imaginative man who was proud of his Celtic origins, also was a well-read and ambitious man who shared the heritage of the Normans, the overlords of Britain at the time. His History of the Kings of Britain presents the Arthurian legend in a way that appealed to a far wider audience than the Norman noblemen to whom it was dedicated.
History is divided into twelve books, three of which are devoted to Arthur, and it is clear that he excites the author’s imagination more than all the other British kings. Here, Arthur appears as the great romantic hero of the Celtic tradition. He has a magical sword, shield painted with the likeness of the Blessed Mary, Mother of God, spear “thirsty for slaughter,” and helmet whose crest is “carved in the shape of a dragon.” His court is described as magnificent as that of the Emperor Charlemagne, and its atmosphere is pervaded with twelfth-century chivalric ideals: “For none was thought worthy of a lady’s love, unless he had been three times approved in the bearing of arms. And so the ladies were made chaste and the knights the better by their loves.”
In Geoffrey’s History of the Kings of Britain, the traditions and stories of the
Arthurian epic are established for the first time. Here, too, is the first suggestion that Arthur did not merely defeat the Saxons. He led British armies overseas on triumphant campaigns that ranged from Ireland to the borders of Italy, bringing them victories worthy of those won by Caesar.
According to Geoffrey, his vivid - or as many were to say, incredible - narrative was based upon “a very ancient book in the British tongue.” It was brought to England from Wales by his friend Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, “a man well informed about the history of foreign countries, and most learned in all branches of history.” Because no one other than Geoffrey and Walter appears ever to have seen this old book, and no Welsh or Breton chronicle that resembles it ever has been discovered, it long has been supposed that Geoffrey just invented it. It was customary in those days, when compiling a history whose accuracy might be questioned, to claim that its authority was vouched for by a work of antiquity. In any case, Geoffrey of Monmouth ended his book with a note that he has left the retelling of the biographies of the later Welsh and Saxon kings to three other contemporary historians. Perhaps he expected them to be his critics as well, because he recommends that they “say nothing at all about the kings of the Britons, since they have not in their possession the book in the British language which Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, brought from Wales. It is this book which I have been at such pains to translate thus into Latin, for it was composed very accurately about the deeds of these princes and to their honor.”
One historian undeterred by this warning was William of Newburgh, who was born about 1136, the year Geoffrey finished his History, and who subsequently wrote a history of English affairs from the Norman Conquest onward. A far more critical historian than Geoffrey, William strongly condemned his predecessor’s work, remarking that if the events it related ever happened, they must have taken place in a different world. Geoffrey, according to William, had made “the little finger of his Arthur thicker than the loins of Alexander the Great.”
Later historians agreed with early skeptics in disbelieving the tale that the ancient book had been found by the Archdeacon of Oxford and argued Geoffrey made up his stories. Geoffrey’s History appeared during the troubled reign of King Stephen, when the Norman dynasty ruling England was in danger of losing its power and influence and its members felt the need for a glorious predecessor on the throne. Charlemagne was already an accepted folk hero who, legend said, was not dead, but only sleeping, waiting to return in triumph with his paladins. A relationship with the legendary Arthur could greatly benefit the Norman kings in their efforts to throw off French domination.
Other historians have stressed that Geoffrey was brought up in the atmosphere of Celtic lore. While complimenting the royal court by presenting Arthur as the ideal Anglo-Norman king, he also was flattering the Celts by exaggerating the splendors of their past. In truth, he was not writing history at all, but recounting the stupendous victories of the British over their enemies.
Yet Geoffrey of Monmouth’s place in this story is important, for it was he who created the Arthurian legend that fired the imagination of the Christian world. His popularity can be judged from the fact that nearly 200 of his manuscripts have survived, some dating from the twelfth century. Throughout the Middle Ages, Geoffrey’s History remained the primary source for all writers about Celtic Britain.
On the Continent, the legend of Arthur was expanded and embellished. As early as the 1140s, Geoffrey Gaimar had translated Geoffrey’s History from Latin into French. In 1155, the Anglo-Norman poet Maistre Wace brought out a verse paraphrase, “Le Roman de Brut,” introducing the legend of the Round Table. He presented Arthur as “a lover of glory, whose famous deeds are right fit to be kept in remembrance: He ordained the courtesies of courts, and observed high state in a very splendid fashion.”
Around 1175, the Arthurian legend was taken up by the French poet Chrétien de Troyes, who, in response to the wishes of his patroness, Countess Marie de Champagne, added fresh characters and a fresh flavor to the stories, casting the tales in an ethereal setting in which love was a kind of religion. This type of ritualized behavior glorified the affection between a knight and his lady - who could not be his wife, since all marriages were arranged, and true love within such a relationship was almost out of the question. Courtly love dictated that the lover should be humble and courteous, and revere and obey his lady as if she were his lord; in return, the lady would reward his devotion by loving him as completely as she pleased. Understandably, the ideals of courtly love became popular, and the stories that glorified it were read and recited all over Europe.
Following Chrétien’s example, several other French writers produced prose and verse romances, and began grouping them together. Storytellers from Brittany added to the increasing body of material with their detailed accounts of Arthurian adventures based on old Celtic tales of marvels and magic, which they retold as they wandered from one nobleman’s hall to the next.
In England, a Worcestershire priest named Layamon translated Wace’s “Roman de Brut” from French into English, again expanding and elaborating the basic material. In Layamon’s Brut, the emphasis changes once more: Layamon was writing not for the aristocracy, but for the common people of England, who mainly were interested in the characters and adventures already familiar to them from their native heritage. Layamon treats the legend as an epic of early Britain in which Arthur is a practical, nationalistic, somewhat barbaric leader, very different from the magical fairy king of the French romances. This earthier, straightforward Arthur is an essentially British hero, and this treatment of him is continued in several later English poems and romances that retell the adventures of the king and his knights.
The first appearance of King Arthur in a work of art was not in his native realm of Britain, but in Italy, where a relief of Arthur and his knights was carved above the north doorway of the Modena Cathedral sometime between 1099 and 1120. In 1165, Arthur was again depicted, this time on a mosaic pavement in the cathedral of Otranto, on the southern heel of Italy. The mosaic portrays the king bearing a scepter and riding a goat, which seems an odd mount for a king - except that goats at that time had some association with those who, like Arthur, supposedly ruled subterranean kingdoms.
About thirty years after this mosaic was laid down, an English visitor to the island of Sicily, not far distant, reported that its inhabitants believed Arthur could be found in the volcanic depths below Mt. Etna. He had also been seen on a Sicilian plain by a groom in search of a runaway horse. This man had crossed the plain, entered an ornate palace, and found King Arthur lying on a bed. The king told him of his last battle and that each year, on the anniversary of that battle, his wounds broke out afresh. It is surprising that the tradition of Arthur’s survival traveled so far from its British origins, but the island of Sicily was ruled at this time by a Norman dynasty. The legend well could have been imported by storytellers in their service and transplanted into a Mediterranean setting by their eager listeners.
Within two centuries, the legend of King Arthur and his knights spread across Europe and into parts of Asia. In France, Arthur’s fame almost eclipsed that of Charlemagne, who was not restored to his preeminence until the Middle Ages had drawn to a close. In Germany, medieval poets celebrated Arthur’s deeds and the adventures of his knights, particularly Tristan and Percival. In Italy, Dante wrote of Lancelot. Translations of Arthurian texts made their way from Ireland to Greece; his name was familiar throughout the Low Countries and in Scandinavia and Switzerland, Spain and Portugal, Cyprus and Sicily.
“Whither has not flying fame spread the name of Arthur the Briton?” asked an English writer as early as the 1170s. “Even as far as the empire of Christendom extends. Who, I say, does not speak of Arthur the Briton, since he is almost better known to the people of Asia than to the Britanni, as our pilgrims returning from the East inform us. The Eastern people speak of him, as do the Western, though separated by the width of the whole earth.”
Early in the thirte
enth century, noblemen and knights began festivities that came to be called Round Tables, in honor of the great table around which Arthur’s knights sat at Camelot. The idea of a round table that made no distinction between the ranks of the knights who sat at it seemed to appeal to the medieval mind - no doubt in contrast to the rules of precedence that governed every other activity, especially eating in company. Crusaders who battled to free the Holy Land from Moslem domination also entertained themselves with jousts and banquets that honored the legendary Arthur; the Lord of Beirut honored the knighting of his eldest sons with a celebration at which “there was much giving and spending; there were bohorts [a tournament at which blunted weapons were used], the adventures of Britain and the Round Table were enacted, and there were many other amusements.”
Similar Round Table festivities are reported from places as diverse as Cyprus in 1223, Acre in 1286, Valencia in 1269, Prague in 1319, and as far west as Dublin in 1498. Here and many other places, kings, dukes, and emperors founded orders in imitation of King Arthur’s “goodly fellowship.” They, their knights, guests, and rivals adopted the names, supposed heraldic badges, splendid clothes, and outfits of Arthur’s famous knights and competed in energetic and dangerous tournaments for the pleasure and favors of the ladies of the court.
Popes condemned the immorality and wantonness of the Round Tables; those who died after a heavy fall or ferocious blow were denied Christian burial. But the Round Table continued to be the most fashionable diversion among European nobility.
Although primarily associated with the aristocracy, the Round Table was not an exclusively upper-class activity. In 1281, a citizen of Magdeburg in Saxony sent invitations to various acquaintances, asking them to attend a Round Table and compete in a tournament, the prize to be a woman named Dame Feie. Those who came to demonstrate their skill were met by constables outside the city and escorted to the tourney grounds. The shields of the defending champions were hung from trees, and a touch with a lance on one would bring its owner out from his tent nearby to meet the challenger and defend his honor. Dame Feie was, indeed, won - by an old merchant who presented her with a considerable dowry - but it is hard to believe that he won her by force of arms alone.
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