King Arthur, Man, Myth, and Legend

Origins
The Roman army pulled out of Britain around 390 A.D. Behind them they left a country
far different from what we think of as pre Norman Britain. The southern part of Briton was
largely empty of Britons, or at least Britons who were British. Southern Briton and a good way
north was filled with people who considered themselves Romans. Some of them were retired
legionaries, some were exiled Roman statesmen, some were Romanized Celts, but they all
considered themselves to be a part of Rome. They lived in Roman style houses and towns, had
Roman style government, had Roman wealth and culture, and depended on Rome for protection.
When the message arrived from Rome sometime around 410 A.D., telling Briton that it
was on its own as far as any kind of military aid was concerned, there must have been not a little
dismay. This terror however, probably did not extend very much to the other half of Britain. The
Roman army posted in Britain was never big enough to conduct a hostile occupation of the entire
island. At the time of Boudicca’s rebellion there were three legions, and one of them disappeared
thanks to Boudicca’s army. Most of the Britons who didn’t like the Romans simply moved north
or west to become the Welsh, the Irish, or the Celts.
With the Roman Army gone, the Germanic tribes across the channel, Jutes, Saxons, and
Angles primarily, realized that a short swim away was all the wealth and gold of Rome with
none of the protection. Briton literally had no army. The details of what happened from here
onward do not survive in any contemporary texts. People who are fighting for their lives do not
typically hang around making long lasting records of their deaths. From evidence and writings
gathered later we can guess that Britain split into a multitude of little kingdoms, all incredibly
proud, selfish, jealous, and individually weak. Records from many years after the fact, such as
the Annales Cambriae from the ninth century, mention a warrior, not a king, named Artorius or
Arthur, who fought the invaders in several major battles, the greatest and last being at Badon Hill
where Arthur paused the invasion of Britain for several years. About twenty years later, the
records state, Arthur was killed by Medraut in one of the many civil wars that the British
kinglings waged whenever the Saxons weren’t burning their Roman Cities.

Evan C. Oliver http://excelsior12.blogspot.com/ Page |1

 Regardless of the lasting strategic effect of Arthur, the Germanic invaders took over most
of Britain, bringing in their Anglo-Saxon tongue and renaming most of what the Romans had
built. Most of Celts retreated back into Wales and Ireland and it is here that the first Legends of
Arthur were told.
The Celtic Arthur was a mighty warrior who led his mounted warriors through all manner
of adventures. The Tale of Culhwch and Olwen mentions Arthur, who helps Culhwch complete
the impossible tasks necessary for Culhwch to marry Olwen. In the Celtic stories, Arthur has
one foot in Ancient Briton, fighting off Saxon invaders, and one foot in the Celtic otherworld,
fighting faeries and having all manner of dealings with the Lords of the Celtic Otherworld. In
one of his adventures, Arthur chases a magical cauldron around faerie land. What exactly the
cauldron does varies from tale to tale, but the theme was taken up by the French in later
centuries.
Adapting the Arthurian Legend.
In the Middle Ages, numerous writers further developed the Arthurian story, and the
stories from this time form the Arthur that is most familiar to us today. He was elevated to one of
the Nine Worthies and became one of the premier models of kingliness and knightliness.
Geoffrey of Monmouth began the revival in Arthur in his work History of the Kings of Britain.
While much of his work was probably a mixture of guesswork and flattery toward his
benefactors, he may have had access to records and writings we do not. Monmouth’s Arthur
fought and defeated invading Germans and restored peace to England. According to Monmouth,
he was then offended by a letter from Rome demanding tribute that he invaded Europe and dealt
out great wrack and ruin before returning to Britain. Monmouth introduced the figure of Merlin
as we know him, but his focus was still on the actions of Arthur.
The French got their hands onto Arthur during the Muddled Ages with the Vulgate Cycle
and numerous other smaller works. The Vulgate Cycle is a five volume work that introduced for
the first time two characteristics of Arthurian legend that are most familiar today; Lancelot and
his love affair with Guinevere, and the Holy Grail. Put simply, the tales about the Grail were
written by an order of monks who wanted to demonstrate the love man should have for God, and
the tales about Lancelot and Guinevere were written by poets and bards under the protection of
Eleanor of Aquitaine and her family, the originators of the extreme concept of ‘Courtly Love’.
Perhaps the most important of these poets was Chretien de Troyes whose works include Yvain,

Evan C. Oliver http://excelsior12.blogspot.com/ Page |2

the knight of the lion, Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and Eric and Enide. Chretien’s work was
central in defining the role that Lancelot and Courtly
love would play in future Arthurian tales. Courtly Love vs. Chivalry
During the War of the Roses, a knight by the Courtly Love and Chivalry were
two distinct and separate things to
name of Sir Thomas Mallory fought for the House of the medieval mind. Courtly Love
was a code of conduct a knight
York for six years before he switched sides and should follow toward women while
fought for the Lancastrians When the House of York Chivalry was a code of conduct
concerning battle and war. Courtly
regained power he was thrown in jail. . While there Love was more than just a way to
treat women as defined by Eleanor
he penned one of the most important works on of Aquitaine however, it was a
Arthur ever written. It was so massive, so complete, special relationship between a
knight and a woman who was not
so inclusive, that little else was written about Arthur his wife. When asked if Courtly
Love could exist in marriage,
until Victorian times. In Le Morte Darthur, Malory
Eleanor reportedly said it could not,
used the Arthurian landscape to demonstrate the code since at least the woman was forced
into the relationship, there was no
of chivalry he believed in and to vividly portray the opportunity for her to deny or reject
horror of civil war. Malory drew on the vast and her knight. It is suspected that much
of Chretien’s writing is a hidden
disparate body of Arthurian work from both France warning against this extreme view
of courtly love.
and England, relying heavily on the Vulgate Cycle,
and also drew from his personal experiences in the War of the Roses. Malory’s work is important
for many reasons and it began several trends that have run deep in Arthurian literature ever since.
First is the use of the Arthurian setting to make certain points about how we should live. The
French began doing this in the Vulgate Cycle, but not to the extent or with the finesse of Malory.
Second was the almost complete neglect of Arthur. For most of the story about himself, Arthur
sits on his throne and ponders mournfully the fate of his kingdom. Whereas most Arthurian tales
up to Geoffrey Monmouth were spent describing the prowess and battles of Arthur, Malory was
more concerned with the interactions between Arthur’s knights. Many French tales had also
focused on Arthur’s knights, but they neither affixed him permanently to his throne nor even
claimed to be a somewhat complete tale of his reign. Le Morte Darthur did both.
Adaptations in Victorian England and Modernity
Malory’s work essentially closed the book on Arthur. He had written of Arthur’s
beginning, detailed the acts of his knights during his reign, and showed the tragic destruction of
his kingdom through conflicting loyalties, misguided pride, and foolishness. Little else was

Evan C. Oliver http://excelsior12.blogspot.com/ Page |3

written on Arthur until the Victorian era, when many artists and writers attached their own vision
of what the Arthurian court should have looked like. Malory was taken as a starting point, but
Victorian artists felt free to invent, add, or change anything in order to create a vision of what
they believed to be the perfect code of conduct modeled off of the oath sworn by the Knights of
the Round Table in Malory. Many of our modern conceptions of ‘Chivalry’ were formed at this
time. By the Victorian era, Arthur was no longer written about as a historical character. Rather,
he and his court were a beautiful artistic background against which to display proper behavior
and the consequences resulting from violations there from.
The last defining work on Arthur is The Once and Future King by T.H. White. White was
a conscientious objector during World War I. Explaining the psyche of the writers who came out
of this time, White, Orwell, Vonnegut, Tolkien, etc. would take far more space and time than I
have available here. White was concerned most with what he saw as the self destructive
tendencies of humanity. Living through the War to End All Wars only to live through far greater
and more destructive conflict less than two decades later he believed Mallory had given man far
too much credit, and while the stories he includes in his book are basically the same as the ones
written by Malory, he changes vital details that change how humanity is portrayed making it
more bloodthirsty and irrational.
Whether or not there was ever a man named Arthur who led a war band in early Britain
has become less important than the colossal foot print he left behind in our cultural landscape.
Arthur and his court is a very powerful tool for communicating values. Arthur has been used to
display moral truth and commentary on society for centuries because it is such a powerful tool.
Arthur is still important because his legend holds the key to many of the ideas and mindsets we
still hold today and because he remains such a powerful cultural figure.

Evan C. Oliver http://excelsior12.blogspot.com/ Page |4