Meredith Mansfield, Author

Well, my computer has been glitchy for a week, blue-screening out and restarting every time I tried to use the internet. But I think (knock on wood) that I may have gotten it back on its feet. At least, it was stable all day yesterday. Meanwhile, I’ve got a back-up ordered.

So, back to the Arthurian legend and what there may be of an historical basis for it.

Gildas was a sixth-century monk, trained at Llanilltud Fawr monastery in southeastern Wales, though he later emigrated to Brittany, which may be why his writing survived. (Though there were certainly monasteries that were centers of learning in Britain and there must have been people writing, very little survives from Britain of the Dark Ages and most of that is copies made hundreds of years later.) What Gildas wrote wasn’t a history or the beginning of the Arthurian legend. In fact, he never mentioned Arthur’s name. The nearest modern equivalent I can come up with for what Gildas wrote, is a very angry letter to the editor—only there weren’t newspapers or newspaper editors in the sixth century. The title, translated from the Latin is On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain.

Gildas begins with a brief history, including the arrival of Hengist and Horsa in Kent, at the invitation of Vortigern. Although Gildas never mentions Vortigern either, but merely refers to the superbus tyrannus. That’s usually interpreted as a play on Vortigern’s name, which means something like “High King” or “Generalissimo” or “Most Kingly”. He goes on to praise Ambrosius effusively for holding back the Saxons, calling him the “last of the Romans”. And then, in the next paragraph, he mentions the Battle of Badon Hill, without using any names. Because it is the next paragraph, sometimes this is interpreted to imply that Ambrosius was the leader of the Britons in that battle, but, again, Gildas doesn’t name anyone in that paragraph and never uses Arthur’s name at all.

One thing he does say, though, is that he was born in the same year as the Battle of Badon Hill, which he places forty-four years before writing this text. This means that Gildas’s life would have overlapped Arthur’s—if there was an Arthur. And he would certainly have known and grown up around people who had lived through that time.

Back to On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain. Gildas goes on to criticize the Britons for continuing to fight amongst themselves rather than unite against the Saxons. He denounces the governments as corrupt. And he particularly condemns five contemporary rulers for everything from adultery to murder and sacrilege. Some of that criticism, particularly of Constantine of Dumnonia, has some interesting parallels with some obscure parts of Arthurian legend, but I’ll get back to that.

All of this would seem to indicate that there never was an Arthur. Surely Gildas would have mentioned him if there had been, right? Although, Gildas seems to have been a man of strong opinions and, if there was some reason he didn’t want to praise Arthur he might just not use Arthur’s name as he also refused to use Vortigern’s.

But there’s one little fragment to be found in Scotland—or at least in a poem about a battle that took place on the border between what are now Scotland and England, Y Goddodin. This poem was likely composed shortly after the battle, which probably occurred around the year 600, but the only surviving copies are much later—and probably amended over that time. However, there is one part that, at least according to some, seems to be original. The word forms, apparently, are older and they are integral to the rhyme. (I’m no linguist. I have to take their word for it.) And this part praises one particular warrior for being totally awesome in this battle and the last line of that stanza translates as “though he was no Arthur”.

This would mean a couple of things. First, that some kind of story about Arthur had made it all the way to Scotland by that time. Second, that the poet could reasonably expect his audience to know immediately who Arthur had been and what he was famous for—apparently being a badass warrior.

So, we can place Arthur—if he existed—in the Dark Ages. That it was the Dark Ages means a few things. It means Arthur certainly wasn’t High King of all Britain. There’s no way the fractious British tribal rulers would have accepted any such thing. There wouldn’t be a king even of most of England until Alfred the Great about three centuries later.

And his companions weren’t knights—certainly not in the medieval form. They might have worn chain mail, though leather armor or none at all, other than helmets, was more likely. But they certainly didn’t wear head-to-toe plate mail, because that hadn’t been invented yet. And they didn’t joust, either, because the stirrup, invented on the Eurasian steppes, had not reached Western Europe yet. I can only imagine that a Dark Ages warrior would have laughed himself silly at the concept of chivalry and courtly love.

So where did all that we think of as the legend of Arthur come from?