by Mike Ashley
This problem about dates, which will keep resurfacing, is crucial to identifying Arthur, because we need to know when he lived and how his life related to other events. Imagine a future historian trying to understand events if the outbreak of World War II were placed 28 years earlier, in 1911, or 28 years later in 1967? How could you possibly relate it to individuals’ lives?
The events of the fifth century were every bit as critical to those living then as World War II is to us. The Roman Empire, which had existed for over 400 years, was crumbling and so-called “barbarians” were taking over Europe. To individuals at that time the world was collapsing about them and chaos reigned. To help us interpret it and get back to what really happened, we need to understand the complete history and geography of those times. The secret to identifying Arthur is to find the right name in the right place at the right time, and it’s those three criteria which we need to tackle at the start of this book.
Where do we start?
The search for the real Arthur – and the legendary one – will take us through a mass of material, some of it detailed and much of it complicated. Piecing together the Arthurian world is like trying to complete a jigsaw in which a lot of the pieces are missing. Many of those that remain may have only a partial picture, some may have the picture re-drawn, and some belong to another jigsaw entirely. We have to look at each piece in detail and see what it is, whether it fits and, if so, where it fits.
First, let’s start by looking at the big picture. It will help us keep things in perspective and give us a framework within which to fit the pieces.
If we are to find the real Arthur, we need to look somewhere in the two hundred years between the end of Roman administration of Britain, a date usually assigned as 410AD, and the emergence of the Saxon kingdoms, which were taking a strong hold by the start of the seventh century.
The general history of those two centuries can be described fairly easily, and that is our big picture. After the passing of Roman authority Britain sank into a period of decline. There were civil unrest, plague and famine, and Britain – i.e., the territory south of Hadrian’s Wall – was constantly under threat of invasion by Germanic forces from the east, the Irish (Scotii) from the west and the Picts from the north. By the middle of the fifth century the Saxons and other tribes had gained a hold on territory in the east, and progressively, over the next hundred years or so, infiltrated Britain, pushing the British nobility west, primarily into Wales and Cornwall, and Brittany. The British, though weakened by their own strife, put up a resistance under various leaders. One Briton in particular managed to defeat the Saxons so significantly at Badon, sometime towards the end of the fifth century, that the Saxon advance was halted. For a period of at least twenty-five years the British held their ground, and the Saxons did not advance further for at least a generation. From the middle of the sixth century, the Saxons advanced again and – presumably after the death of Arthur – began to win territory in the west. After a series of battles in the west (Dyrham in 577 and Chester in 615) and the north, the British were divided. Soon after 600 the powerful warlord Athelfrith established his own kingdom of Northumbria, stretching across northern Britain. The heartland of Britain, where a few Celtic enclaves struggled on, was also crushed by the Northumbrians and the next wave of Angles, who created the kingdom of Mercia under Penda. By 625, the territory later to be called England was under Saxon control.
During these two hundred years several British kingdoms emerged. We know some better than others, depending on what records have survived. Perhaps not surprisingly, the best known were those in Wales, which survived beyond the Arthurian age and well into the Middle Ages. The major kingdoms were Gwynedd (originally called Venedotia) in the north, Powys along the Welsh Marches, Dyfed (originally Demetia) in the south-west and Gwent in the south-east. There were several smaller Welsh kingdoms, such as Ceredigion, Builth and Brycheiniog, all of which will feature in our explorations, but the history of Wales is really the history of those four main kingdoms.
In the south-west of Britain was the kingdom of Dumnonia, primarily Devon and Cornwall but also, for much of the fifth century, covering parts of Dorset and Somerset.
There were also several kingdoms in the north. The Scottish Highlands remained the domain of the Picts, but between Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall further north there were three main British kingdoms: the Gododdin (originally called the Votadini) in the east, with centres at Traprain Law and Din Eityn (Edinburgh), Strathclyde (originally Alclud) in the west, with its centre at Dumbarton, and Galloway in the south-west. At some stage Galloway seems to have become part of the kingdom of Rheged, which at its height stretched from Galloway, down through Cumbria and into Lancashire, probably as far as Chester, and thus bordering onto Gwynedd and Powys.
These were the main Celtic kingdoms to survive through the Dark Ages. There were further kingdoms in the east of Britain, but we know much less about these, because they were the first to be overrun by the Saxons and the cultures soon merged. The main eastern kingdom in the north was York (originally Ebrauc). To the north of York was Bryneich, in Northumbria; to the south was Lindsey (originally Linnuis), which covered much of Lincolnshire and Norfolk. To the west of Lindsey was Elmet, based around Leeds, one of the last British kingdoms to survive in England. There were other smaller kingdoms north of Elmet, in the Pennines, one of which will prove of some interest to us, but no formal record of them survives.
To the south was a kingdom stretching from London into Essex and parts of Suffolk. There was also a kingdom in Kent, though this hardly seems to have started before it was snuffed out. Beyond these it is probable that there were kingdoms based in the Chilterns, Oxford, Gloucester, Sussex and so on. The map opposite shows the approximate location of these kingdoms, but we do not know for certain their extent. Their boundaries remained fluid depending on the individual warlord’s power.
1. British Kingdoms of the Fifth Century
The importance of these kingdoms is that if Arthur really was a king, then he must have ruled one of these territories. Not all the pedigrees survive; the best preserved are for the Welsh kingdoms and those of the North. We do not know the names of any of the rulers of London, for instance, and even the one name for a ruler of Kent is somewhat dubious. We will encounter several people with a name like Arthur in the pedigrees, all of whom I outline in the first chapter, but whether any of them is the real Arthur, or whether the real Arthur was a composite of them or of any other characters, is something that we need to explore.
At this stage we can think of Arthur solely as a British resistance leader. Whether he mustered that resistance from Cornwall, Wales or the North is something else we will have to consider. Whether he did this in the late fifth or early sixth century, or perhaps another time, we will also have to deduce.
There are plenty of clues, but none of them is straightforward, and some are very misleading. And it’s dangerous to leap straight in and expect the clues to declare themselves. We have to go looking for them, and we have to go armed with some basic information. First we need to consider the name Arthur itself.
Note on Spelling
Whilst I have tried to retain a consistent and generally recognizable form of spelling for all of the names used (e.g. Guenevere, Lancelot, Bedivere) there is such a huge variance in these names across the mass of Arthurian literature that when citing a character from a specific work I have used the spelling used there. This is especially confusing with Celtic names where spelling has changed over the generations and where there is not really a consistent or generally accepted spelling. On occasions I may use both forms of names (e.g. Dumnagual or Dyfnwal) depending on the source but have endeavoured to cross reference within the text. Both the Index and the entries in Chapter 23 and 24 list all variants.
SECTION 1
THE HISTORICAL ARTHUR
1
AN INTRODUCTION TO ARTHUR – WHAT’S IN A NAME?
1. Myth, History and Mystery
You will find in the course of this book that we encounter several Arthurs. There’s not just one Arthur of legend, for a start, and there’s certainly not one Arthur of history.
The Arthur we remember from our childhood reading is, for the most part, a fiction. Most of us know the basic legend from Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur. Arthur was born of a deceitful relationship. With the help of the magician Merlin, Arthur’s father Uther Pendragon, king of Britain, was able to take on the guise of Gorlois, duke of Cornwall, and seduce Gorlois’ wife Ygraine. After Uther’s death, there was a contest to find the next king, who would be the one who could pull the sword out of the stone. All the champions and dukes tried and failed but young Arthur, still only fifteen, succeeded. Not all of the dukes and other rulers were happy about this, and Arthur had to fight for his kingdom. But he won and, for a while, ruled happily and wisely. Thanks to Merlin, Arthur acquired the sword Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake, the scabbard of which protected him from harm. He established the Round Table of brave and valorous knights, including Sir Kay, Sir Bedivere, Sir Gawain, Sir Bors, Sir Tristram and, of course, Sir Lancelot. We learn of the adventures of these knights, saving damsels and fighting villains, and we follow the quest for the Holy Grail. But there is a dark side. Arthur’s queen, Guenevere, fell in love with her champion, Lancelot, and those knights who disliked Lancelot plotted against him. These included Arthur’s illegitimate son Sir Mordred, whose mother, Margawse, was the wife of King Lot of Orkney and Arthur’s half-sister. Mordred, caught up in the scheming of other knights, especially Sir Agravaine, revealed the truth about Lancelot to Arthur, and Guenevere was sentenced to burn at the stake. She was rescued by Lancelot, but in the fracas Gawain’s brothers were killed. Lancelot exiled himself to France, but Arthur, urged on by Gawain, followed, allowing Mordred to usurp the kingdom. Arthur returned to do battle with Mordred and was mortally wounded at the battle of Camlann. The heroes of the Round Table not already killed in the war with Lancelot lay dead, all but Bedivere who returned Arthur’s sword to the Lady of the Lake. Arthur was taken to the Isle of Avalon where his wounds would be cured, and one day he will return. Thus he is remembered as the Once and Future King.
That, in a nutshell, is how we remember Arthur.
Myth? Well, mostly. History? Well . . .
Malory took this story from earlier accounts, mostly from the so-called Vulgate Cycle, which drew on the work of Chrétien de Troyes. Chrétien got his stories from local tales and legends in France and Brittany, including some of the Welsh tales later collected under the title The Mabinogion. It was Chrétien who invented the name Camelot and created the character of Lancelot. In his stories we find much of the original of Malory’s Arthur, but his sources, the Welsh tales, portray a different, earlier Arthur, an Arthur of legend, far removed from the world of Plantagenet chivalry. This Arthur’s world is still one of fantasy and magic, but beneath that surface is a sense of history. The Celtic Arthur feels as if he really belonged in his own time, unlike Malory’s Arthur who is rooted in a contemporary Britain ravaged by plague and war.
But there is yet another Arthur of legend, the creation of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Three hundred years before Malory, Geoffrey set out to write (or, according to him, translate) a history of Britain from a mysterious and ancient book. The result, the Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain), contains a huge section on the exploits of King Arthur, which proved so popular that Geoffrey’s History became a medieval best-seller. It was Geoffrey who created the fascination with Arthur and who created most of the myth, though his story differs in certain parts from Malory’s later version and significantly from the Welsh tales. Yet both Geoffrey’s and the Welsh Arthurs have some basis in history. Or at least a memory of history.
Geoffrey also had his sources. These included Nennius, a ninth-century collector of old documents and chronicles, and a sixth-century monk called Gildas. Both writers furnish some historical background to the story. Nennius provides a list of Arthur’s battles whilst Gildas, without naming Arthur, refers to the most famous battle associated with him, Badon, and mentions Arthur’s illustrious predecessor Ambrosius Aurelianus. When you dig around other ancient documents, like the Welsh Triads and the Welsh Annals (Annales Cambriae), and the various pedigrees of the ancient British kings, you find further references to Arthur.
Now you feel that you’ve moved out of legend into history, but Arthur doesn’t quite fit into this history. A chronology proves difficult. By all accounts the original Arthur, that is, Arthur of Badon, ought to be living in the period between 490 and 520, but he’s difficult to find there. The Welsh Annals place him a little later, around 510–540, but he’s difficult to find there as well. Historical Arthurs pop up in the period 540–620, but these dates are too late for Badon. Does that mean that these later Arthurs became credited with the exploits of an earlier hero? Or does it mean that the chronology is all wrong and that these events happened a century later? Or does it mean that these exploits were really by a number of people spread over a much longer period of time?
That’s what we need to unravel.
2. The Historical Arthurs
You will encounter several Arthurs in this book and rather than introduce them one by one, which becomes confusing, I’ll mention them now so you’ll know who they are when they appear and how I shall refer to them.
(1) Lucius Artorius Castus, the Roman Arthur, who lived from about 140–197AD.
(2) Arthwys ap Mar, sometimes called Arthur of the Pennines, who lived around 460–520.
(3) Artúir ap Pedr, known as Arthur of Dyfed, who lived around 550–620.
(4) Artúir mac Aedan, prince of Dál Riata, who lived around 560–596, but who never survived to become king.
(5) Athrwys ap Meurig, known as Arthur of Gwent, who lived around 610–680 by my calculations, but is given an earlier date by others. He may be the Arthur of the Mabinogion.
(6) Arthfoddw of Ceredigion, or Arth the Lucky, who lived about 550–620.
(7) Artúir ap Bicor, the Arthur of Kintyre, who also lived about 550–620.
(8) Armel or Arthmael, the warrior saint, who lived about 540–600.
(9) Arzur, the Arthur of Brittany, who may or may not be the same as,
(10) Riothamus, or Rigotamus, a military leader in Brittany last heard of in 470.
These are not the only contenders, but they are the primary ones called Arthur. As we explore the many old documents and pedigrees I shall frequently refer to these names as well as, of course, the original Arthur of Badon, who may be one, some or all of the above.
3. The name of Arthur
Much is made of Arthur’s name, one argument being that there was a sudden flush of people in the late sixth century being named Arthur after some hero of the previous generation or two. In fact Arthur isn’t that uncommon a name and it has its origins in two primary sources.
First and foremost, it is an Irish name, Artúr, derived from the common name Art, meaning “bear”, which is well known from the Irish ruler, Art the Solitary, son of Conn of a Hundred Battles, and his son, the more famous Cormac mac Art, High King from 254–277. There are several diminutives (Artan, Artúr, Artúir), and these names passed into Wales with the Irish settlers during the fourth and fifth centuries. These were descendants of Art Corb, or Artchorp, the ancestor of the Déisi, a tribe who were exiled from Ireland and settled in Demetia, now Dyfed, in west Wales, and include the Artúir ap Pedr listed above. Other Irish, from the Dál Riatan kingdom in Ulster, settled in Kintyre and Argyll at around the same time, and Artúir mac Aedan is descended from them.
The other source is the Roman family name Artorius. It is not certain when or from where this family originated, but it may well have been Greece. The earliest known member was Marcus Artorius Asclepiades, physician to Octavian, the future Caesar Augustus. The Artorii lived in Campania in Italy, but also occupied southern Gaul and Spain. Apart from Lucius Artorius Castus, they seem to have had little impact in Br
itain, but the memory of his name may have lingered on, becoming adopted by the Celtic tribes in Gaul and gradually leeching into Britain. The name would have evolved to Arturius, and then to Artur, and would more likely have been used within the highly Romanised parts of southern Britain than in Wales or the North, where the name more probably came from the Irish.
There may be other sources. One is Artaius, a minor Romano-Celtic deity rather like Mercury, whose cult may have helped popularise a form of the name. Another slightly more tortuous derivation may be based on the Celtic for High King, Ardd Ri. The Brythonic dd is pronounced th, so that the title, pronounced Arth-ri, may later have been remembered as a name.
There is, though, a danger in looking at any name beginning with “Art” and assuming it has some Arthurian connection. It doesn’t, and in any contemporary documents would otherwise be ignored, just as we would not confuse Tony with Tonto or George with Geoffrey. But we can’t ignore the possibility that scribes working from inferior documents several centuries after the event might have misread, misinterpreted or miscopied names, so that an Arthwyr – a name which means “grandson of Arth” – became Arthur. The excitement in the press in 1998 over the discovery of a stone at Tintagel bearing the name Artognou, is a case in point. Artognou means “descendant of Art” and has no direct connection with Arthur, but because it was found at Tintagel, there was an immediate assumption that the two had to be connected.
Our quest is to find an Arthur whose credentials fit as much of the history as we know. In order to understand the world of Arthur, we have to understand the state of Britain from the arrival of the Romans, five hundred years before. So let us first explore Roman Britain and see what it has to tell us about the Arthurian world that followed.