by Mary Malloy
There was a peacefulness about the place on a pleasant afternoon. The grass was meticulously tended and what remained of the walls was now clearly protected. The violence with which the building had been attacked in the name of the Church of England had disappeared with the centuries. Lizzie mentioned this to Alison, and was told that the same church had reconsecrated the site only a few years earlier.
When they reached the top of what had been the nave, a metal sign planted in the grass caught Lizzie’s attention. “Site of King Arthur’s Tomb,” it read. “In the year 1191 the bodies of King Arthur and his Queen were said to have been found on the south side of the Lady Chapel. On 19th April 1278 their remains were removed in the presence of King Edward I and Queen Eleanor to a black marble tomb on this site. This tomb survived until the dissolution of the Abbey in 1539.”
“How interesting,” Lizzie said.
“What?” Alison asked suspiciously.
“That Henry VIII would not have had the tomb of Arthur protected. Didn’t he, like Edward, try to make a link between himself and Arthur?”
“Perhaps he didn’t really believe it was Arthur’s tomb.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“Of course not!” Alison exclaimed. “I told you Arthur is a literary character, not a historical figure.” She thumbed through the guidebook they had picked up as they passed through the gift shop and read aloud, adding emphasis where she thought it was needed: “In this grave were laid bones thought to be those of King Arthur and his Queen, Guinevere. King Arthur was probably a chief who helped to defend this part of the country against the pagan Saxons. The stories of the Round Table came many years after his death.”
“Not quite a declaration of belief!” Lizzie said with a laugh.
“They are waffling nicely,” Alison said. “I like that they are so cautious; they don’t try to prove the existence of a historical Arthur just because they happen to have his grave on their premises.” She added that many historians over the years had allowed the vast Arthurian literature to influence them unreasonably.
“It’s a compelling story,” Lizzie argued. “Arthur had idealistic notions of government and was a wonderfully flawed human.”
“Indeed,” Alison said. “That is what makes him good literature. Accidental incest with his sister, his dysfunctional son, his ménage a trois with Guinevere and Launcelot, the Knights of the Round Table, it is great drama! It is not history, however. At the time the so-called corpses were found here, the Plantagenet Kings, who were of course Normans, were looking to link themselves to a Saxon-fighting royal lineage in Britain.”
“I need to look more closely at your books on this topic when I get back to your house.”
“I have been thinking about that,” Alison said. “You might as well come home with me tonight and I will drive you to Castle Cary tomorrow, which is the next place mentioned in the Weaver’s journal.”
When Lizzie agreed, Alison said that there were a few more places they should visit in Glastonbury before returning to Bath. “Some people claim that the Holy Grail is here, you know.”
“Because of the Arthurian connection?”
“No, interestingly enough, it is a coincidence that the Knights of the Round Table were seeking it. Some people claim that Joseph of Arimathea, the man who provided the burial place for Jesus, brought the chalice of the last supper to England after the crucifixion.” There was, she said, a well in town that was one of several locations claimed for the chalice.
As they walked to the car, Lizzie was struck by the number of shops that sold New Age paraphernalia, especially crystals, magic potions, Celtic jewelry, and prints of pre-Raphaelite paintings of Arthur’s women. One store, located near the ancient market cross on the small square, was called “Archangel Michael’s Soul Therapy Centre, Providing Tools for Personal and Planetary Ascension.”
“It seems that there may be other reasons for a pilgrimage here today,” she said, stopping to look in the window of the shop. A leaflet taped to the glass described Glastonbury as a global energy source, the chakra at the heart of the planet, a place of druids and goddesses, and then named them: the Morgans, the Merlins, Brigit the Swan Maiden, and Mikael the Sun Lord.
“The Arthur connection has attracted a whole range of knuckleheads,” Alison said unsympathetically. “All this mystical nonsense!”
Lizzie could not help reminding her that there had been a strong mystical component to the medieval pilgrimage as well.
“Yes, but they had legitimate reasons to seek an escape from their lives in mysticism. The Weaver lived through the ravages of the Black Plague and the War of the Roses. The Catholic Church, which might have imparted some structure beyond the vagaries of patriotism or nationalism, was split under two different popes for half of her lifetime. There was little ‘science’ to speak of, the vast majority of the people were illiterate, and their lives were controlled by a grasping aristocracy.” She realized she was ranting and took a breath. “It’s no wonder they sought escape in a pilgrimage,” she said finally.
“I would think for a woman like the Weaver it was also an opportunity for the adventure of travel.”
“I think that was an important part of it.”
“So what do you think the motives are of these New Age pilgrims?”
“They are embracing fantasy. I’ve been here many times; I’ve seen them in the shops and up at the well. The majority of these mystic seekers are solidly middle class. It is not hardship that drives them here—no plague or oppressive regime.”
“Perhaps their burdens are more mundane. Misfortunes of love, failure at school, loss of health, or a job crisis can seem like huge burdens; perhaps those things lead them here.”
Alison groaned. “To seek out the swan maidens and goddess sites and heart chakras and mythic nobles? Good lord!”
Lizzie didn’t know if she should laugh or not. “It can’t be an escape from technology,” she said, “because I see their websites advertised on every building, and it appears that you can readily buy computer games here that are set in Arthurian landscapes on distant planets.”
They reached the car. Lizzie wanted to offer to drive as Alison was looking so stiff, but the older woman went immediately to the driver’s side and lowered herself in.
“Are you, as a historian, disturbed by the way history is used in support of this fantasy?” she asked, shifting the car into gear.
“Of course,” Lizzie answered. “History is a process of interpreting evidence about the past, and that interpretation is always subject to question and criticism.” She paused as she thought how best to express herself. “In each age, our interpretation changes because the questions that we ask about the past are influenced by events and ideas in our own time. In that way, history is always something of a tool to be used in the present.”
“But you aren’t saying that anyone can just use the past in any way they like,” Alison demanded.
“No, of course not,” Lizzie responded. “There were real events and ideas that we want to capture as best we can. The study of history provides us with a way of looking at human beings and how they respond to adversity, how they deal with each other, and how they fit into the natural world.” She paused again and spoke slowly as she articulated things she had long thought about. “But if the people and events of the past are worth studying for what they tell us about the present, they are also intrinsically interesting, and it seems like we ought to have some responsibility to represent them fairly.”
“That is what I hope we might achieve for the Weaver.”
“I hope that too,” Lizzie said. As she thought about the whole of the conversation, she wanted to add that religious folk from the Weaver’s day to the present had always embraced a certain element of fantasy as part of their faith, but Alison looked exhausted from the outing, mentally and physically, and Lizzie thought there had been enough challenging discussion for the day.
As she entered Alison’s house, the piles of books—whi
ch had once seemed like an impossibly disorganized mess—beckoned to her. One pile, Lizzie realized, was the one she herself had made to learn more about King Arthur. She settled into her customary chair with her now customary scotch and began to read.
Chapter 14
Two things that Alison said were of special interest to Lizzie, and they directed the course of her inquiry about King Arthur. The first was that he was a literary character and not a historical person, the second was that historians had notoriously misinformed the public about that fact.
She began with the grave at Glastonbury. Few modern historians doubted that the discovery of the bones was a medieval hoax, a way of bringing attention to the abbey at a time when its fortunes were at their lowest following a devastating fire; it was an age of relics and false relics. The Plantagenet Kings wanted to eliminate any question of their right to rule, and sought to link themselves to a character from English history. The fact that Arthur, like them, fought the Saxons, made him a brilliant choice. Henry II had died just two years earlier, Richard the Lionhearted was on the throne, and his nephew and potential heir was named Arthur, the Duke of Brittany.
The thirty-five-year reign of Henry II had solidified Norman rule in Britain, and Henry’s marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine had brought additional territory on the continent. Henry had been raised on the tale of Arthur, as penned in 1138 by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Lizzie found the book beside her, the Historia regum Britanniae or “History of the Kings of Britain,” and leafed through the translator’s introduction. Geoffrey of Monmouth had incorporated a number of earlier historical sources into his book, but where the story bogged down, where it lacked romance, or where alteration could advance political motivations, Geoffrey filled in, and Arthur was born. Thus an Arthur was created who defeated all comers on the Continent, and whipped the Saxons, Irish, Scots, and Picts for good measure.
Henry II, according to other sources, liked the story of Arthur so much that he commissioned another version of it by a cleric named Wace, with even more drama, and positing that he himself, Henry II, was the legitimate heir of Arthur. When the monks at Glastonbury handily found the remains of Arthur and Guinevere, the legend gained legitimacy and began to be accepted as fact.
Henry’s heirs took advantage of this and embraced their relationship with Arthur. His son Richard I, as Lizzie knew, was said to have presented Arthur’s sword Excalibur to a foreign king while on a crusade to the Holy Land. Another Arthur would have succeeded Richard as king had he not been murdered by his uncle John, who took the throne himself. John’s grandson, Edward I, brought a book of Arthurian romances with him on a crusade, sponsored “Round Table” feasts, and was the recipient of Arthur’s crown when it was “found” in 1284. And when the Glastonbury bones were rein-terred in a glorious black marble tomb in a rebuilt Abbey, Edward himself carried Arthur’s coffin. His grandson Edward III is said to have been inspired by the Knights of the Round Table in the creation of the Order of the Garter.
Lizzie made notes as she looked at book after book, creating a time line of additional Arthur stories by French, English and Italian writers. Dozens of medieval authors contributed to the fanciful escapades of Arthur, including Rusticello, who had helped Marco Polo write his travel narrative, and Thomas Malory, whose La Morte de Arthur first appeared in 1460. Twenty-five years later, when Henry VII defeated Richard III in battle and claimed the English crown, Malory’s book became important again. Richard was the last of the Plantagenets, Henry was the first of the Tudor kings, and he immediately linked himself to Arthur, christening his first son by that name in a ceremony at Winchester, the city Malory had identified as Camelot.
Much later, in the nineteenth century, Victoria and Albert found in Tennyson a writer who could do justice to the Arthur saga, and they too gave the name to one of their numerous children. Arthurian murals decorated the walls of their neo-medieval castle at Balmoral.
Lizzie pulled a big illustrated book from the pile and looked at the Balmoral murals, and at Arthurian scenes painted by the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, artists who had picked up on the romantic theme of courtly love and explored every facet of the story in lush romantic paintings of red-haired Guinev-eres. Lizzie owned a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the founders of the pre-Raphaelite movement, given to her by George Hatton, and she was fond of the style.
She was looking closely at the details of one of Rossetti’s paintings reproduced in the book when she heard Alison’s footsteps behind her.
“I thought you had gone to bed,” she said, turning.
“I’ve been thinking about finding the Weaver’s mark on Bishop de la Marchia’s tomb,” Alison said.
Lizzie closed the book and put it back in the pile. “It’s exciting, isn’t it.”
“Yes it is,” she said. Alison moved to her own chair and sat. “I don’t think I’m paying you enough, Lizzie. I can’t believe that in such a short time you have seen so many things that I never observed.”
Lizzie gave her a warm smile. “It’s a good thing I’m not doing this job for the money. I live for these small thrills!”
“Really though, I am quite rich.”
“So am I,” Lizzie said with a laugh. “I own a Rossetti painting!” She explained to Alison how George had come to give her the painting, and a medieval triptych, which was worth even more. “I really am doing this because I love the work,” she said, hoping to put an end to any further discussion of monetary compensation.
Alison took the hint and changed the subject. “What are you thinking now of Arthur?”
“That you are absolutely correct. He belongs in your literature class and not my history course.”
“If you don’t mind my being a Literature Professor for a moment, tell me what you think are the most important aspects of these legends, as you are going to write a footnote to the Weaver’s visit to Glastonbury.”
This took some thought to answer, but a few clear themes had occurred to Lizzie as the pile of books shifted from the floor beside her to the table in front of her, and back to the floor on the other side of her chair.
“I think the most interesting thing to me is how specifically the world described is that of the Plantagenet era, though any historical Arthur would have lived seven hundred years earlier, in the fifth or sixth century. All the details are of chivalrous armored knights, courtly love, quests, hunts, jousts, and revels at court, all from the twelfth or thirteenth century, when the first books were written. There is nothing in any of them that grounds them in an earlier time period.” The idea became clearer as she articulated it. “It is really rather remarkable,” she continued, “that this is true of Wace, who was basically describing his own world of the mid-twelfth century; of Malory, for whom these things would have been old-fashioned but not beyond the realm of the audience’s memory; and continue all the way to Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” in the nineteenth century.”
“So in the world described in these texts do you see any evidence of history?”
“Certainly no historical details that inform us about a real Arthur or that early age in which he might have lived, though in the earliest texts we get good information about how later medieval society worked. For our purposes, though, there are a lot of wonderful descriptions of the English countryside, and the pilgrimage path will take me right across a number of specific locations associated with Arthur.”
“None more potently than Glastonbury, I think,” Alison said.
“The discovery of a grave there was certainly put to very good use in supporting the legend. Bones are evidence of a person, and it seems that there have been a lot of people over the last nine hundred years who have been willing to believe that person was Arthur.”
Alison picked up one of the books, The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain, by Ralph Adams Cram. “Did you read this?” she asked.
“I skimmed it. He seems like a credible source until he gets to Glastonbury, when he simply stopped being critical.”
“Exactly! He was a well-respected architectural historian at the turn of the twentieth century, and he perfectly illustrates my point about how historians have allowed themselves to be taken in by the literature on this subject.”
Lizzie opened the book to the description of Glastonbury. “He basically says that the fact that there was a grave proved that there was an Arthur. He relies on the account of Giral-dus Cambrensis, who was an eye witness to the opening of the tomb.”
Alison scoffed at that. “He was just as much a tool of the nobility as Geoffrey of Monmouth or Wace.”
“Cram says that the description is ‘concise, detailed, convincing, and full of internal evidences of perfect veracity.’ He adds that if it is false it is ‘a masterpiece of circumstantial evidence quite unimaginable in the twelfth century.’”
“Tosh!” Alison said, using an expletive reserved for English people of her class. “There is plenty of evidence that medieval confidence men were just as able to perpetuate scams as their modern counterparts, and Cram places a ridiculous amount of faith in so-called eyewitness testimony. There are many medieval narratives that begin with the claim that everything therein was witnessed by the author, and then go on to describe sheep growing on trees, bands of Cyclops, and sea monsters.”
Lizzie added that it was also a period of false relics, into which category she would put the bones of Arthur. “At that time there were relics circulating around Europe that included the staff of Moses, samples of the manna from heaven, thorns from the crown of Jesus, and enough pieces of the true cross to build a boardwalk back to the Holy Land.”
Alison smiled at the description. “The Pardoner in Canterbury Tales is an example of one such charlatan.”
Lizzie had continued to scan down the page of the Cram book. “Here is the description of the opening of the tomb by Cambrensis: ‘Between the two mysterious pyramids beside the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, seven feet below the surface, was found a large flat stone, in the under side of which was set a rude leaden cross, which, on being removed, revealed on its inner and unexposed surface the roughly fashioned inscription, “Hic jacet sepultus inclitus Rex Arthurius in Insula Avalonia.” Nine feet below this lay an huge coffin of hollowed oak, wherein were found two cavities, the larger containing a man’s bones of enormous size, the skull bearing ten sword wounds, the smaller the bones of a woman and a great tress of golden hair, that on exposure to air crumbled into dust.’”