That this Arthur was a real person seems unarguable. We have no reason to think that he did not exist, and every reason to suppose that he did. This is not all we can say about him. The comparison seems most apt if we take this Arthur as being the character presented to us in Historia Brittonum, the soldier and general who led the kings of the Britons in the wars against the Saxons perhaps two generations before Guaurthur, fighting in the same disputed areas of the north. This seems the obvious background which the poet invokes, comparing the dead warrior to his similarly named forebear.
In order for the comparison in the Gododdin to make sense, the germ of the idea, that Arthur was a warleader of the Britons in the days before the sixth-century Anglian colonisation of Bernicia, must have existed before the poem. If the Guaurthur/Arthur verse genuinely dates back to the sixth century, then Arthur the warleader would have been fighting not far beyond the living memory of the audience, and must have been a real person.
Historia Brittonum does not merely describe an Arthur of the north-east, as we might expect from Y Gododdin. It combines Arthurian material from more than one source, including ones linking Arthur to south-east Wales. It is a work of its time. It does not present ancient documents unaltered from the distant past. What it does do, however, is testify to widespread and consistent material on Arthur the Warleader from before the early ninth century. Equally importantly, it identifies Arthur with another indisputably real person, the leader of the Britons at the battle of Mount Badon.
We know that this man existed, based on his real achievement, the victory at the siege of Badon Hill. The contemporary record is silent as to his name, and indeed the names of just about everyone else in Britain in the period, but that does not detract from the fact he must have existed.
Common sense dictates that somebody coordinated the British military response to the Saxons. He lived, it seems, at the turn of the fifth and sixth centuries and led the Britons in their united defence. For the Saxon advance to be stopped across the country, the fighting must have occurred in other areas beyond the immediate vicinity of Badon. The political reality of the period seems characterised by the growth of small kingdoms. If they combined in a united response against the Saxons, they must have enjoyed military unity on a different basis and at a higher level than the civitas.
Although the victor of Badon was obviously a military commander, the political realities of the time blurred the distinction between military and civil power, with warlords dominating or overthrowing provincial rulers across the western empire. The logistics of supplying and coordinating a united response across the civitates necessitates a higher authority, which the military commander might have dominated. This higher authority combined responsibility for the civitates of Britannia Prima, the wall system of Britannia Secunda and the enclaves of Britons in the east. It is therefore not misleading to state that this authority ‘reigned’ over Britain.
The coincidence between the British Magister Militum and a supporting civil authority, waging wars against the Saxons in the generation before Gildas and Maglocunus, and Arthur the Warleader of Historia Brittonum and the Gododdin is obvious. It is likely they were one and the same person. The only counterargument is wildly unlikely: that in all the British Kingdoms, the true name of the man who led the resistance was forgotten and replaced with that of another man who did not.
This position, at its most extreme, would make the author of Historia Brittonum the creator of a fictional Arthur, which somehow obliterated all traces of the real warlord. It seems impossible that a single work could ensure that among the Britons no trace of an alternative name for the victor of Badon survived.
Historia Brittonum is not the sole authority linking the names Arthur and Badon. Annales Cambriae present independent yet supporting material. This not only provides corroboration for Arthur’s role at Badon, but also an account of his death which seems to place this in a civil war, exactly as Gildas’s characterises the succeeding period. The Gododdin, Historia and Annales describe the same real man, the victor of the battle of Badon, and are perfectly consistent with historical reality.
It is easy to discern a faultline between this material and Welsh Arthurian legends. The historical material pre-dates these legends and does not derive from them. The legends, including the saints’ Lives, do not see Arthur as a warleader coordinating the kings of the Britons against the Saxons. Instead, he is shown as a Dark Age Welsh king, with a similar position to the tyrants of de Excidio. He is shifted in time, to become a contemporary of Gildas, Maelgwn and Owain, son of Urien. Furthermore, he is assigned his own warband of fabulous heroes, rather than his actual colleagues, the kings of the Britons.
All this is a distortion of the picture presented by the historical sources. Even Arthur’s victory over the Saxons at Badon, the touchstone of his existence, is missing. This eleventh-century legendary Arthur is distinct from everything which has gone before. This causes no problem for researchers into the real Cassivelaunus, the real Magnus Maximus, the real Gildas, who similarly became the focus of Welsh legendary material at the same time.
The legendary and the historical Arthurs were blended by the artifice of Geoffrey of Monmouth, producing a fictionalised picture in which the legendary aspect predominated. This has cast doubt on the historicity of Arthur, but it is relatively easy to see where Geoffrey has built on and reinterpreted existing sources. His fictionalised Arthur has no bearing on whether the real Arthur existed or not, and it is unfair to treat a refutation of the former as reflecting on the latter.
The victor of Mount Badon was a real person, and his dominating role in Britain implicit in his achievement. We have every reason to think that he is the original behind the Arthur of the Gododdin and Historia Brittonum. We have equally no reason to think that those sources are wrong in granting him the name Arthur. This man, this Arthur, commanded kings, at a time when private citizens and public officials kept to their allotted positions. In this sense, therefore, it is reasonable to say that the generation which witnessed the siege of Badon did indeed live in the ‘reign of Arthur.’
Abbreviations
DEB
Gildas’s de Excidio Britanniae
EH
Bede’s The Ecclesiastical History of the English People
HB
Historia Brittonum (‘Nennius’)
HRB
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae
YG
Y Gododdin
Abrams, L. and Carley, J.P. (eds) The Archaeology and History of Glastonbury Abbey: Essays in Honour of the Ninetieth Birthday of C.A. Ralegh Radford, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1991
Adams, J.dQ. ‘Sidonius and Riothamus’, Arthurian Literature 12 (1993)
Alcock, L. By South Cadbury is that Camelot, Thames & Hudson (1972)
——, Arthur’s Britain: History and Archaeology AD 367–634, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971
Anderson, W.B. (ed. and trans.) Sidonius Apollinaris: Poems and Letters, 2 vols, Cambridge, Mass: Loeb Classical Library, 1936
Ashe, G. The Quest for Arthur’s Britain, Pall Mall Press, 1968
——, Kings and Queens of Early Britain, Methuen, 1982
——, ‘“A certain very ancient book”: traces of an Arthurian source in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History’, Speculum 56
Barber, R. Arthur Hero and Legend, Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 1986
——, The Figure of Arthur, Harlow: Longman, 1972
——, ‘Was Modred buried at Glastonbury? An Arthurian tradition at Glastonbury in the Middle Ages’, Arthurian Literature 4 (1984)
Barron, W.R.J. (ed.) The Arthur of the English, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999
Bassett, S. (ed.) The Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1989
Bromwich, R. (ed. and trans.) Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Welsh Triads, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1961
Bromwich, R. and Evans, D.S. Culhwch and Olwen: An Edition and Study of the Oldes
t Arthurian Text, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992
Bromwich, R., Jarman, A.O.H. and Roberts, B.F. (eds) The Arthur of the Welsh, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1991
Brooks, D.A. ‘Gildas’ De Excidio: Its revolutionary meaning and purpose’, Studia Celtica 18 (1983–4)
Bryant, N. (trans.) The High Book of the Graal, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1978
Campbell, A. The Chronicle of Æthelweard, Nelson Medieval Series, 1959
Campbell, J. (ed.) The Anglo-Saxons, Phaidon, 1982
Casey, P.J. and Jones, M.J. ‘The date of the Letter of the Britons to Aetius’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 37 (1990)
Castleden, R. King Arthur: The Truth behind the Legend, Routledge, 2000
Chadwick, H.M. and Chadwick, N.K. The Growth of Literature I, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932
Coe, J.B. and Young, S. The Celtic Sources for the Arthurian Legend, Felinfach, Llanerch: 1995
Collingwood, W.G. ‘Arthur’s battles’, Antiquity 3 (1929)
Crawford, O.G.S. ‘Arthur and his battles’, Antiquity 9 (1935)
Cunliffe, B. Roman Bath Discovered, Routledge, 1984
Dark, K.R. From Civitas to Kingdom: British Political Continuity 300–800, Leicester University Press, 1994
——, Britain and the End of the Roman Empire, Stroud: Tempus, 2000
Davies, W. Wales in the Early Middle Ages, Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1982
——, An Early Welsh Microcosm: Studies in the Llandaff Charters, Royal Historical Society, 1978
——, The Llandaff Charters, Aberystwyth: The National Library of Wales, 1979
Doel, F., Doel, G. and Lloyd, T. Worlds of Arthur: King Arthur in History, Legend and Culture, Stroud: Tempus, 1998
Dumville, D.N. Histories and Pseudo-histories of the Insular Middle Ages, Aldershot: Variorum, 1990
——, The Historia Brittonum: The Vatican Recension, Cambridge: Brewer, 1985
Ellis, P.B. Celt and Saxon: The Struggle for Britain, A.D. 410–937, Constable, 1983
Fairbairn, N. A Traveller’s Guide to the Kingdoms of Arthur, Evans Brothers Ltd, 1983
Faral, E. (ed.) La légende Arthurienne: Etudes et documents, les plus anciens textes, 3 vols, Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, 1929
Field, P.J.C. ‘Nennius and his History’, Studia Celtica 30 (1996)
Frere, S. Britannia: A History of Roman Britain, Routledge, 1987
Gantz, J. (trans.) The Mabinogion, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976
Garmondsway, G.N. (trans.) The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Everyman, 1953
Gilbert, A. with Blackett, B. and Wilson, A. The Holy Kingdom: The Quest for the Real King Arthur, Bantam Press, 1998
Griscom, A. The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Longman, Green and Co., 1929
Hay, D. The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil, London: Camden Society 3rd series, 74 (1950)
Higham, N.J. King Arthur: Myth-making and History, Routledge, 2002
——, The English Conquest: Gildas and Britain in the Fifth Century, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994
Holmes, M. King Arthur, a Military History, Blandford, 1996
Hood, A.B.E. (ed. and trans.) St Patrick, His Writings and Muirchu’s Life, London and Chichester: Phillimore, 1978
Howlett, R. (ed.) Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, Longman, 1885
Hughes, K. ‘The Welsh Latin Chronicles; Annales Cambriae and related texts’, Proceedings of the British Academy 59 (1973)
——, Celtic Britain in the Early Middle Ages: Studies in Scottish and Welsh Sources, Woodbridge: Boydell, 1980
Jackson, K.H. ‘Once again Arthur’s battles’, Modern Philology 43 (1945)
——, ‘Arthur’s Battle of Breguoin’, Antiquity 23 (1949)
——, The Gododdin: The Oldest Scottish Poem, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1969
—— (trans.), A Celtic Miscellany, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971
Jarman, A.O.H. ‘The Arthurian allusions in the Book of Aneirin’, Studia Celtica 24–25 (1989–90)
——, (ed. and trans.) Aneirin. Y Gododdin, Llandysul: Gomer Press, 1988
Johnson, S. Late Roman Britain, Book Club Associates, 1980
Jones, G.D.B. and Mattingly, D. An Atlas of Roman Britain, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990
Jones, M.E. ‘The appeal to Aetius in Gildas’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 32 (1988)
Jones, T. (ed. and trans.) Brut Y Tywysogyon or the Chronicle of the Princes, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1952
Jones, T. and Jones, W. The Mabinogion, London and New York: Dent & Dutton, 1949
Kirby, D.P. and Williams, J.E.C. ‘Review of the Age of Arthur, J. Morris’ Studia Celtica 10–11 (1975–6)
Koch, J.T. (ed. and trans.) The Gododdin of Aneirin. Text and Context from Dark-Age Northern Britain, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997
Lacy, N.J. (ed.) The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1991
Lapidge, M. and Dumville, D.N. (eds) Gildas: New Approaches, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1984
Loomis, R.S. ‘Edward I, Arthurian Enthusiast’, Speculum 28 (1953)
——, (ed.) Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959
MacDowall, S. Late Roman Infantryman 236–565 AD, London: Osprey, 1994
——, Late Roman Cavalryman 236–565 AD, London: Osprey, 1995
Major, A. Early Wars of Wessex, Poole: Blandford Press, 1978
Miller, M. ‘Date-guessing and pedigrees’, Studia Celtica 10-11 (1995–6)
——, Bede’s use of Gildas’, English Historical Review 90 (1975a)
——, ‘Historicity and the pedigree of the North Countrymen’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 26 (1975b)
——, ‘Starting to write history: Gildas, Bede and “Nennius”’, Welsh History Review 8 (1976–7)
——, ‘Consular years in the Historia Brittonum’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 29 (1980)
Moffat, A. Arthur and the Lost Kingdoms, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999
Mommsen, T. (ed.) Chronica Minora saec. IV, V, VI, VII, 3 vols, Berlin: Weidmann, 1891–8
——, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctorum Antiqissimiorum, xii, 1, De Excidio et Conquestu Brittaniae. Berlin: Weidman, 1894
Morris, J. The Age of Arthur, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973
—— (ed. and trans.), Nennius, The British History and the Welsh Annals, London and Chichester: Phillimore, 1980
Myres, J.N.L. Anglo-Saxon Pottery and the Settlement of England, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969
——, The English Settlements, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986
Nicolle, D. Arthur and the Anglo-Saxon Wars, Osprey Publishing, 1984
Ordnance Survey, Map of Britain in the Dark Ages, Southampton: Ordnance Survey, 1974
Phillips, G. and Keatman, M. King Arthur: – the True Story, Arrow, 1993
Piggott, S. ‘The sources of Geoffrey of Monmouth’, Antiquity 15 (1941)
Plummer, C. (ed.) Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, Oxford, 1892–9
—— (ed.), Venerabilis Bedae opera Historica, 2 vols, Oxford: Clarendon Press for Oxford University Press, 1896
Rahtz, P, English Heritage Book of Glastonbury, London: Batsford, 1993
Reid, H. Arthur the Dragon King: The Barbarian Roots of Britain’s Greatest Legends, Headline, 2001
Rich, J. (ed.) The City in Late Antiquity, Routledge, 1992
Ridley, R.T. (trans.) Zosimus: New History, Sydney: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1982
Rivet, A.L.F. and Smith, C. The Place-names of Roman Britain, Batsford, 1979
Roberts, B.F. (ed.) Early Welsh Poetry: Studies in the Book of Aneirin, Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1988
Salway, P. Roman Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981
Scott, J. The Early History of Glastonbury, Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1981
Sherley-Price,
L. (trans.) Bede: A History of the English Church and People, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955
Skene, W. The Four Ancient Books of Wales, Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1868
Skene, W.F. Arthur and the Britons in Wales and Scotland, Felinfach: Llanerch, 1988
Smith, A.H.W. ‘Gildas the poet’, Arthurian Literature 10 (1990)
——, The names on the stone, in Ceridwen’s Cauldron 39, Oxford: Oxford Arthurian Society, 1998
Snyder, C. An Age of Tyrants: Britain and the Britons A.D. 400–600, Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998
——, Exploring the World of King Arthur, London: Thames & Hudson, 2000
Tatlock, J.S.P. The Legendary History of Britain, Berkley: University of California Press, 1950
Thomas, C. Tintagel: Arthur and Archaeology, Batsford/English Heritage, 1993
Thompson, E.A. ‘Gildas and the history of Britain’, Britannia 10 (1979)
——, Saint Germanus of Auxerre and the End of Roman Britain, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1984
Thorpe, L. (trans.) Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Britain, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966
——, Gerald of Wales: Description of Wales, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983
Thorpe, L. (trans.) Gregory of Tours: History of the Franks, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974
Vinaver, E. (ed.) Malory, Works, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971
Wacher, J.S. The Towns of Roman Britain, Routledge, 1995
Wade-Evans, A.W. (trans.) Nennius’s ‘History of the Britons’ together with ‘The Annals of the Britons’ and ‘Court Pedigrees of Hywel the Good’, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1938
——, Vitae Sanctorum Britanniae et Genealogiae, Cardiff: University of Wales Press Board, 1944
Walsh, P.G. and Kennedy, M.J. (ed. and trans.) William of Newburgh, Historia Rerum Anglicarum, Warminster: Aris & Philips, 1986
White, R. King Arthur in Legend and History, J.M. Dent, Orion Publishing, 1997
Whitelock, D. (ed.) English Historical Documents c. 500–1042, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955
The Reign of Arthur Page 32