The legend of King Arthur

King Arthur is one of the most familiar figures of Western lore to ever exist. Literature, art, stage, and screen have all paid tribute to this mysterious figure seen as the saviour-king of Britain. Historians have alternately proclaimed and scoffed at Arthur’s existence over the centuries, and yet none wants to be the first to totally tear the legend apart. So who is this mysterious king who has so inspired both the Arts and science?

Many historians believe that Arthur very likely did exist, if not quite as the romantic hero he has become. Since many of the early Dark Age heroes were real men upon whom mythical ability and position were often thrust by storytellers, it is very likely that Arthur was a Dark Age warrior, perhaps even a petty king or war-leader (as the later applied title of Pendragon implies) of the Celts upon whom all the rest of the mythological superstructure was formed.

Archaeologists believe that two documented battles, those of Badon in AD 516 and Camlann in 537, are the nearest historical events which could prove Arthur’s existence, and possibly even his prominence in sixth-century politics as well. There is irrefutable proof that, if Arthur did live, he shared his leadership with other war-leaders and kings. The existence of several war-lords in the fifth century AD make it highly possible that Arthur could have held a similar role in the sixth century, but he was likely not the only one to do so.

Because Arthur’s life was later garnished with so much fiction and mystique, many historians have been quick to declare it highly unlikely that he ever existed at all. However, archaeological evidence and the duration of the legend tend to indicate otherwise. The best way to study Arthur is to begin by examining the documentary evidence for the period between AD 450-550, the century most likely to have covered Arthur’s lifetime.

In the 1930s, R.G. Collingwood went a step further than Ritson, attesting that Arthur could very well have held the post of the Roman military official known as the Comes Brittannorum (Count of Britons), who employed cavalry to defeat Saxon foot-soldiers, thereby securing his victorious image. In fact, one candidate for the historical Arthur is Lucius Artorius Castus, a Roman centurion of the third century AD who led two legions from Britain against the Armoricans. However, this individual is too early to be accurate, and very few legends ever placed Arthur in any campaigns on the continent.

Nowhere in the histories of his own time, including Gildas and Bede, is Arthur ever mentioned by name. However, curious allusions to an unnamed leader and “King of Britons” appear in Gildas’ meticulous histories, and it is highly possible that, had Arthur been at odds with the Church, the monk Gildas would have been compelled to write what he was told by the Church he served above historical accuracy. Stories of Arthur in the context of various saints’ lives of the period in fact suggest that Arthur’s relations with the Church were at very least strained, and quite likely openly hostile. It must be assumed, then, that a very chauvinistic state of affairs existed, and mention of Arthur, and thus irrefutable proof of his existence, was suppressed by the Church due to some altercation or another.

The earliest source which make mention of Arthur often refer to him as either Dux Bellorum (Duke of Battles), or the prevalent Comes Brittannorum. The fact that he doesn’t appear in any of the surviving king-lists, while not particularly indicative of the idea as many have been lost over the centuries, suggests that he may not have been royalty at all. However, if Arthur was indeed an unrecognised bastard, as legend suggests, at the time of his ascension, it is possible that the historians of the day did not accept him as a true king, eventually leading to the formation of the story of the sword in the stone, to justify his rise to power.

From the documents and references that exist, historians believe that Arthur lived during the opening days of the sixth century, most likely between AD 485 and 537. It’s known that his most likely death date was AD 537, during the well-documented Battle of Camlann. It is also very likely that he was approximately fifteen when he came to power, explaining why legend persists to call him “the boy-king.” To have garnered the support needed to hold as long a siege as took place at Mount Badon, Arthur would have to have been well-established as king or war-leader. To assume Arthur had been on the throne about sixteen to twenty years already by the time the Battle of Mount Badon took place would have cemented his support by the nobles and warriors of his day. Assuming that he was approximately fifteen when he came to power, and that the siege of Badon took place in AD 516, it is only a matter of simple mathematics to determine that Arthur’s birth date is sometime between 478 and 488. He was alleged to have fought his major campaign against invaders between his success at Badon in 516 and his death in 537, which would have been starting in his prime, and slowly melting into the decay of old age. That would explain his tragic demise at Camlann, as well as the popular image of Arthur as an aged man with white hair and beard. The timeline fits too perfectly to be ignored. So how did the very real warrior become the near-mythical king? The answer that question lies not in Arthur’s own time, but in the Middle Ages, some six or seven centuries later.

As the Medieval Kings of England sought to prove themselves worthy of an already-glorified Arthur to win the support and adoration of the common folk, the legend of King Arthur began to flourish, as poets and troubadours added their own skills at storytelling to the already legendary exploits of Arthur and his “knights.”

The beginning of the artistic creation of the mythic King Arthur and the final death of the Dark Age heroic figure can be traced not to Medieval England, but, rather, to Medieval France. As Queen of England, Eleanor of Aquitaine had heard all the peasant legends of the hero Arthur, and she was fascinated by the new Arts of Chivalry filtering West from the Holy Land. Combining the two, she established a Court of Love in her duchy seat at Poitiers. There, many of the Medieval world’s greatest poets and troubadours flocked to tell their tales of great heroes and lovers. From these Courts of Love, which soon spread across France, and then Europe, came the romanticised tales of King Arthur and his chivalrous knights, his magic sword, and his faithful advisor and magician, Merlin. Among the gifted storytellers who performed before Eleanor were the famed Chretien de Troyes, who created the original romance of Launcelot and Guinevere, and King Henry’s own sister, Marie of France.

The original growth of the legend of Arthur, however, belongs firmly in Britain, with the old Celtic culture. One distinctive facet of Celtic culture was that, although they sought and praised victory, it was defeat which they remembered the longest and empathised the most with. It was the leader of the losing side who became the hero, and who impressed himself onto the imagination of the common person. Such was the case with Arthur, after the disastrous Battle of Camlann.

In the Dark Ages, overrun by first Saxon and then Norman invaders, the Celts clung to Arthur as the lost leader who had given them the temporary bliss of victory and peace. He became the symbol of a way of life and a glorious Golden Age they had lost to Saxon invaders. Desperate hope for the return of that glory and peace birthed the belief that Arthur had somehow escaped death, and would return one day to drive away all invaders.

So, from Dark Age warrior to chivalrous legend and myth of the twentieth century, the legendary figure of Arthur has transcended mortality to become one of the most beloved figures of hope, courage, and tragedy to ever exist. Whether or not he ever truly lived no longer matters, for he has come to live in the heart of the world in the centuries since.