Comprehensive information and links about King Arthur

King Arthur For the 1691 opera by Dryden and Purcell, see King Arthur (opera). For the 2004 movie, see King Arthur (film). is an important figure in the mythology of Great Britain, where he appears as the ideal of kingship in both war and peace. He is the central character in the cycle of legends known as the . There is disagreement about whether Arthur, or a model for him, ever actually existed. In the earliest mentions and in Welsh texts, he is never given the title "King." Early texts refer to him as a " A bronze Arthur in plate armour with visor raised and with jousting shield is one of the chivalrous mourners at the tomb of Emperor Maximilian I (died 1519), in Innsbruck" in plate armour with visor raised and with jousting shield is one of the chivalrous mourners at the tomb of Emperor Maximilian I (died 1519), in Innsbruck

The possible historicity of the Arthur of legend has long been debated by scholars. One school of thought believes Arthur to have lived sometime in the late 5th century to early 6th century, to have been of Romano-British origin, and to have fought against the pagan Saxons. His power base was probably in either Wales, Cornwall, or the west of what would become England. However, controversy over the centre of his power and the extent and kind of power he wielded continues to this day.

Some members of this school, most notably Geoffrey Ashe and Leon Fleuriot, have argued for identifying Arthur with a certain , "King of the Brettones," who was active during the reign of the Roman Emperor, Anthemius. Unfortunately, Riothamus is a shadowy figure of whom we know little, and scholars are not certain whether the "Brettones" he led were Britons or Bretons.

Other members of this school have argued for identifying Arthur with , a Romano-British war leader who won important battles against the Anglo-Saxons probably including the Battle of Mons Badonicus.

Other writers suggest that King Arthur should be identified as one of the 2nd century, whose military exploits in Britain may have been remembered for centuries afterwards. This is linked to a theory by C. Scott Littleton and Linda Malcor suggesting a Sarmatian Arthur, which was the basis of the film . The obscurity surrounding Artorius makes this identification unlikely, as there seems to be little reason for him to have become a major legendary figure.

Less usual theories include one identifying Arthur with , circa 2300 BC. They argue that pulling a sword from a stone and an anvil is a metaphor for making a sword from ore and hammering it into shape on an anvil.

Another theory proposes that the real Arthur was , a war leader of the Scots and Britons. By this theory, Artur was predominantly active in the region between the Roman walls—the Gododdin. Artur was never "king" per se, but rather the son of the Scottish king Aidan Mac Gabran, who ruled from about 574 AD. As claims this website ([1]), Artur led a loose coalition of the Christian Celts against their pagan invaders—effectively holding them off for about one hundred more years. However, his generation also included other people named Artur or some variant of the name, suggesting that it was first popularized by another—namely, our Arthur. In modern times, Mac Aidan's name is spelled .

The late historian John Morris made the alleged reign of Arthur at the turn of the 5th century the organising principle of his history of sub-Roman Britain and Ireland under the rubric (1974), even though he found little to say of a historic Arthur, save as an example of the idea of kingship, one among such contemporaries as Vortigen and Cunedda, Hengest and Coel.

Another school of thought believes that Arthur had no historical existence, explaining that he originally was a half-forgotten Celtic deity that devolved into a personage (citing sometimes a supposed change of the sea-god Lir into King Lear) or a possibly fictive person like Beowulf.

However, the Arthur of legend may simply be a composite of these figures; at the least, tales of the real Arthur's exploits may have been confused and merged with that of other war leaders of the time.

Also, all these theories fail to mention that , which mean "bear-man" in Welsh and Latin respectively (according to some) and "bear" in Greek (ancient and modern), could have been a used by the leader who fought against the Saxons, whose true name is lost to us (if he wasn't any of the above).

Earliest traditions of Arthur

Arthur first appears in Welsh literature. In a surviving early Welsh poem, (ca. 594 AD), the poet Aneirin (ca. 535-600 AD) writes of one of his subjects that "he fed black ravens on the ramparts, although he was no Arthur." However, this poem (as it currently existsKing Arthur is full of interpolations, and it is not possible to decide if this passage is an interpolation from a later period. The following poems attributed to Taliesin are possibly from a similarly early date: ("The Treasures of Annwn"), mentions "the valour of Arthur" and states "we went with Arthur in his splendid labours"; and the poem , which contains the passage "as at the battle of Badon with Arthur, chief giver of feasts, with his tall blades red from the battle which all men remember."

Another early reference to Arthur is in the , attributed to the Welsh monk Nennius, who is said to have written this compilation of early Welsh history around the year 830 AD. In this work, Arthur is referred to as a "leader of battles" rather than as a king. Two separate sources within this compilation list twelve battles that he fought, culminating in the battle of Mons Badonicus, where he is said to have single-handedly killed 960 men. According to the , Arthur was killed at the Battle of Camlann in 537 AD.

Arthur makes an appearance in a number of well-known Welsh , from internal evidence apparently written around 1140 AD, Arthur is said to be a cousin of that churchman. Many of these appearances portray Arthur as a fierce warrior, and not necessarily as morally impeccable as in later Romances. According to the (died ca. 570 AD), written in the 11th century by Caradoc of Llancarfan, Arthur killed Gildas' brother Hueil, a pirate on the Isle of Man.

In around 1100 AD, Lifris of Llancarfan writes in his that Arthur was bettered by Cadoc. Cadoc gave protection to a man who killed three of Arthur's soldiers, and Arthur was awarded a herd of cattle from Cadoc as for his men. Cadoc delivered them as demanded, but when Arthur took possession of the animals, they were transformed into bundles of ferns. The likely original purpose of this story would be to promote popular acceptance of the new Christian faith by "demonstrating" that Cadoc, the Christian leader, had magical powers traditionally ascribed to Druids and of sufficient intensity to outsmart the temporal ruler, Arthur. Similar incidents are described in the late medieval biographies of Carannog, Padern, and Goeznovius.

Arthur also appears in the Welsh tale . In that work, Culhwch visits Arthur's court to seek his help in winning the hand of Olwen. Arthur, who is described as his kinsman, agrees to the request and fulfils the demands of Olwen's giant father Ysbaddaden, which includes his hunt for the great boar Twrch Trwyth described at length by the author.

This may be related to legends where Arthur is depicted as the leader of the Wild Hunt, a folk motif that is also recorded in Brittany, France; Galicia, Spain; and Germany. Roger S. Loomis has listed a number of these instances (Loomis 1972). Gervase of Tilbury in the 13th century and two 15th century writers assign this role to Arthur. Gervase states that Arthur and his knights regularly hunt along an ancient trackway between Cadbury Castle and Glastonbury (which is still known as King Arthur's Causeway [2]), and that he with his company of riders may be seen by moonlight in the forests of Britain or Brittany or Savoy. Loomis alludes to a Scottish mention in the 16th century, and that many of these beliefs were still current in the 19th century at Cadbury Castle, and in several parts of France.

Later parts of the , mention Arthur and locate his court in Celliwig, which is in Cornwall. Celliwig was identified by older Cornish antiquaries with Callington, but Rachel Bromwich, the latest editor of the

The Arthurian romance

The first major popularization of Arthurian legend was Geoffrey of Monmouth's fictional , a medieval equivalent of a bestseller that helped draw the attention of other writers, such as Robert Wace and Layamon, who then expanded on the tales of Arthur. The date of the is given as 1133 by a small proportion of experts; however, the date is more normally given as 1138, as the following quote indicates:

One theory as to why Arthurian legend bloomed in this period proposes that the Norman Conquest of Britain in 1066 stimulated a renewed interest in English history; Edward Gibbon describes this in During a period of five hundred years the tradition of his exploits was preserved, and rudely embellished, by the obscure bards of Wales and Armorica (otherwise known as Britany), who were odious to the Saxons, and unknown to the rest of mankind. The pride and curiosity of the Norman conquerors prompted them to inquire into the ancient history of Britain; they listened with fond credulity to the tale of Arthur, and eagerly applauded the merit of a prince who had triumphed over the Saxons, their common enemies. [Chapter 38, Footnote 138]

Thus, according to Gibbon, the once obscure 500-year-old Welsh legend became more widely known (through the works of the Anglo-Norman poet Wace and others), creating a unified cultural icon under which the Norman rulers and the native Welsh could rally against their common enemy: the Saxons.

One influencing factor may have been that William the Conqueror was one-quarter Breton, and the Bretons had kept alive the legends of King Arthur brought with them when they fled Britain during the Saxon invasions five centuries earlier. Geoffrey of Monmouth was also of Breton stock. The Bretons and other British émigrés had supported William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings, providing a large proportion of the knights in the battle. Since the ethnic British nobility fought against the Saxons at Hastings it was inevitable that their mythology would experience a resurgence when the crown was won.

While many scholars believe that Geoffrey of Monmouth is the source for medieval interest in Arthur, at least one scholar, Roger S. Loomis, has argued that many of the tales surrounding Arthur were independently adapted from Breton oral traditions, spread through the royal and noble courts of Europe by professional storytellers known as . The French medieval writer Chrétien de Troyes recounted tales from the Matter of Britain during the mid-12th century, as did Marie de France in her narrative poems called . In any case, the later stories told by these two writers and by many others appear to be independent of what Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote.

In these Arthurian romances, which gained popularity in the 12th century, Arthur gathered the Knights of the Round Table (Lancelot, Gawain, Galahad, and others). At his court, most often held at Camelot in the later prose romances, could sometimes be found the wizard Merlin. Arthur's knights engaged in fabulous quests, the quest for the Holy Grail being perhaps the best known. Other stories from the Celtic world came to be associated with Arthur, such as the tale of Tristan and Isolde. In the late prose romances the love affair between Arthur's champion, Sir Lancelot, and the Queen, Guinevere, becomes the central reason for the collapse of the Arthurian realm.

In the romances, Arthur is killed in his last battle, the Battle of Camlann, in which he fought against the forces of Mordred. The and the later prose cyclic romances state that Mordred was also a knight of the Round Table and the child of an incestuous union between Arthur and his sister Morgause. In almost all accounts Arthur is said to have been mortally wounded, but to have been taken after the battle to Avalon (sometimes identified with Glastonbury in Somerset, England), where his wounds were healed or his buried in a chapel. Some texts refer to a return of Arthur in the future.

The Arthurian mythos spread far across the European continent. An image of Arthur and his knights attacking a castle was carved into an archivolt over the north doorway of Modena Cathedral in Italy sometime between 1099 and 1120. The surprising fact that these Italian images seem to have been carved more than a decade before the appearance of Geoffrey's "Historia" indicates how limited is our knowledge of the spread of Arthurian legend in the early Middle Ages. Also in Italy, a mosaic pavement in the cathedral of Otranto, near Bari, was made in 1165 with the unexplained depiction of bearing a sceptre and riding a goat. 15th century merchants set up an Arthurian hall in his honour in Gdańsk, Poland.

Other medieval retellings of the Arthurian cycle include the works of Gottfried von Strassburg, Wolfram von Eschenbach, .

In 1191, monks of Glastonbury Abbey announced that they had found the burial site of Arthur and Guinevere. Their grave was shown to many people, and the reputed remains were moved to a new tomb in 1278. The tomb was destroyed during the Reformation, and the bones lost. The antiquary John Leland reports that he saw the cross found with the remains, and transcribed its inion, then it can be dated to the 10th century. At least one scholar has suggested that the cross was added when Arthur's remains were transferred to the abbey.

, later followed by Thomas Malory, Arthur obtained the throne by pulling a sword from a stone and anvil. In this account, this act could not be performed except by "the true king," meaning the divinely appointed king or true heir of Uther Pendragon. This sword was presumably the famous Excalibur and the identity is made explicit in the later so-called , Excalibur was taken from a hand rising from a lake and given to Arthur by The Lady of the Lake sometime after he began to reign. According to many sources, Arthur broke the sword pulled from the stone whilst fighting King Pellinore, and thus Merlin took him to achieve Excalibur from the lake (as cited in many novels including Howard Pyle's , and indeed most modern Arthurian literature). In this Post-Vulgate version, the sword's blade could slice through anything and its sheath made the wearer invincible. Some stories say that Arthur did indeed pull the sword from the stone (Excalibur), giving him the right to be king, but accidentally killed a fellow knight with it and cast it away. Merlin told him to undertake a quest to find another blade, and it was then that Arthur received his sword from the hand in the water, and named it Excalibur, after his original sword. The first appearance of the sword named is in Geoffrey of Monmouth, who asserted that in battle against Arthur "nought might armour avail, but that Caliburn would carve their souls from out them with their blood." ([3]).

is a work based on Thomas Malory's, written in such a way to appeal to the boys of the 19th century.The several books by Norma Lorre Goodrich are very popular, but are based on a poorly received analysis of Arthurian legend and medieval history. She asserts he was a borderlands king whose activity centred around the Roman walls and wall forts. This is so at odds with entrenched beliefs that she is dismissed by many scholars despite some well founded conclusions., was written from the point of view of Mordred in the latter period of Arthur's rule, and provides an interesting counterpoint to the original three novels., David Drake's somewhat unconventional story involving a "King Arthur" who is more great military general than quasi-enchanted king, takes place shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire and long before the Age of Chivalry., a more thourough examination of the myths, especially concerning Taliesin, Merlin, Arthur, and the Grail., a series of books containing more historical fiction than fantasy beginning with Roman Britain and leading through Arthur's reign., and reintroduce many old characters back into the tale. Told by Derfel after Arthur's death they are very realistic in nature even though they do have Merlin and Lancelot and magic. Well worth a read and the author's notes at the end are enlightening. "There is a sword and there is a stone, but one is not in the other", is Cornwell's own summary. These three books are Bernard Cornwell's personal favourites of all his own works. is a fictional trilogy that follows Guenevere and King Arthur through their reign as High King and Queen a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel for young teens. Arthur awakens and maintains a prescence as a sub-plot, leading to a fantastic finale complete with re-born Knights of the Round Table. An interesting re-interpretation of Celtic myth in a post atomic war milleu.Derek Benz and J.S. Lewis' The Revenge of the Shadow King reveals an alternate history of Arthur who was betrayed and murdered by Mordred for possession of a sacred book which had been passed down father-to-son for thousands of years. In this case, Arthur was betrayed when he refused to pass the book on to his illegitimate son., a comedic parody of the traditional King Arthur legend. It was later adapted into a successful Broadway musical called Spamalot, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical of the 2004-2005 season.In 1960, a successful Broadway musical called "Camelot" was created by the team responsible for "My Fair Lady", Moss Hart, Alan Jay Lerner, and Frederick Loewe. It starred Richard Burton as Arthur, Julie Andrews as Guinevere, and introduced Robert Goulet as Lancelot. The original cast album of the show was a particular favorite of then-President John F. Kennedy, and the "Camelot" metaphor has been often associated with his presidency. A film based on the musical starring Richard Harris as Arthur, Vanessa Redgrave as Guinevere, and Franco Nero as Lancelot, was made in 1967., a 1963 Disney animated film about Arthur's childhood, loosely adapted T.H. White's take on the legend., a movie based on the legend, featuring Sean Connery as Arthur, Richard Gere as Lancelot, and Julia Ormond as Lady Guinevere., a motion picture released on July 7, 2004, claiming (despite being heavily criticised for its historical inaccuracies) to be more historically accurate about the legend with respect to new archaeological findings; similar in story line to Jack Whyte's books., although based around the knight's exploits, featured Arthur and many other characters from the legends. This was the first British television series ever to be made in colour., starring Oliver Tobias, sought to create a more "realistic" portrait of the period and to explain the origins of some of the myths about the Celtic leader. followed the adventures of three young warriors training to become Knights of the Round Table. Originally aired in the early 1990s, it featured Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere, and Gawain in its main cast and several other Arthurian characters in recurring roles. featured several tales of Arthur (who was prematurely awakened in a time of need) and the magic and fairies of Avalon. A proposed spin-off for the character never materialized. featured an American Football team called the Knights led by quarterback Arthur King. When the "real" Knights of the Round Table are captured, Merlin magically transports the Knights football team to Camelot to defend the kingdom and rescue the captured knights.In Season Nine of the science-fiction television series Stargate SG-1, Arthur and Arthurian legend, particularly Merlin, are intrinsic to the plot of the season; specifically, Merlin is an Ancient who may have taught Arthur how to Ascend at Glastonbury Tor and hid the wealth of the Knights in an elaborate, puzzle-laden chamber.King Arthur appears in the Babylon 5 Episode A Late Delivery from Avalon. Babylon 5 influences contains more discussion on the King Arthur myths evident in Babylon 5.The role-playing game Pendragon details how to run adventure games set in the time of the Round Table. serial "Battlefield" is based on the Arthurian legends, featuring Mordred and Morgaine, as well as the Doctor as Merlin. from Silent Devil Productions takes the Arthur as he begins his quest for the Grail and pits him against a time-crossing Dracula.Several comic book titles have explored the "Once and Future King" aspect of the legend by bringing Arthur and his knights back from the dead at the time of Britain's greatest need including by Capcom is a light-hearted take on the Arthurian legend in a sword fighting beat-em-up similar to the video game Final Fight. features a young female knight called Saber. It is later revealed that her true name is Arturia Celas, and she was the basis for the legends of both Arthur and Guenevere.Arturius: A Quest for Camelot Summary of war leader theory using evidence in the Annals of Ulster, Annals of Tigernach and Adomnan's A Collection on Britannia.com of brief sketches of personages and writers associated with the legend of King Arthur~arthur A detailed but digestible site containing the research materials and experiences of two college students' experiences while travelling Britain's sites associated with the Aurthurian legend.The Taliesin Foundation: Understanding Celtic tradition in relation to today, in particular the Anglo-Celtic Inheritance of what Winston Churchill called "The English Speaking Peoples", inspired and informed by the mythos of King Arthur, the Round Table, the Quest for the Holy Grail.[6]