After the great city of Troy fell to Greek invaders, Aeneas, a Trojan prince, fled
with his family to the distant land
of Italy Rome . But not all would remain in Italy . A child was born in the new royal household
of the Trojans, his father a prince named Silvius, his mother a niece of
Aeneas’s wife, Lavinia. Before his birth an oracle predicted that he would
cause the death of his parents, and that after wandering in exile he would
someday rise to greatness. The oracle’s
unsettling predictions would prove to be true all too soon: the child’s mother
died in giving birth to him, and when he reached his teens, a tragic accident
with a bow and arrow would leave his father dead, an unintended victim of his deadly
aim. Being cast out of Italy by his
angry relatives, the young man traveled to Greece, the land of his ancestor’s
enemies, and there found that many Trojans were living in bondage, suffering
slavery as the final humiliating price of their defeat. The young man rallied his kinsfolk to revolt,
and although his band of ex-slaves was greatly outnumbered, in a final assault
against the king’s armies that was as cunning as it was bold, the Trojans
massacred the Greek forces, and took the king himself as hostage. In return for his freedom, the king offered
the young man his own daughter’s hand in marriage, and a fleet of ships with
which the Trojans could find freedom in a new land, far away from the bitter
and vengeful malice of the Greeks. In a
dream, the goddess Diana told the young Trojan to take his ships westward,
beyond the setting sun, to an island in the sea that had once been occupied by
giants. She promised him that the new
land would be a second Troy ,
that he would father a race of kings there, and that its kingdom would one day
have dominion over peoples and countries spanning the entire world. The man was named Brutus, and the island that
he and his followers settled upon would bear the stamp of that name. It was called Britain , in his honor, and true to
Diana’s prediction, his descendants would reign as kings over a nation that
would someday hold the entire world in its sway. But long before Britain
would make its mark in the world, the relatives of Brutus in Italy would create their own empire based in Rome . And after centuries of rule, as the empire of
Rome began to shake and totter in the face of
German invaders at its outer reaches, a young king in Britain would
make his own stand against these invaders, facing them in a series of desperate
conflicts on the island itself. While
the Germans would eventually carry the day, the heroism of this British king
and his fellow warriors in holding them back would become the stuff of legend -
the legend, in fact, of King Arthur.
Of all of the legendary heroes of
history, Gilgamesh, Theseus, Achilles, and Moses, there is probably none who
has been more romanticized, and whose story has been so often retold in so many
different ways, than King Arthur. This
fabled ruler of Britain, who was supposed to have lived in the late fifth or
early sixth century, still has throngs of devoted fans to this day. And in many respects the legends about the
manners and traditions of his court made him and his fellow knights, with their
code of chivalry, “role models” for European courtly life centuries later. But did King Arthur really exist, and if so,
what part of the legend is based in fact, and what is just poetic fancy?
To understand the role that a
historic Arthur would have played in Britain, around 500 A.D., we have to
return to Rome, and trace its fate after the rise of emperor Constantine and
his establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the empire. In fact, the reign of Constantine in the early
fourth century marks in many ways the beginning of the fall of the Roman
Empire, a connection that would not be lost to many pagans who would later link
the rise of Christianity with the fall of Rome.
Besides the establishment of a new official religion, Constantine also
introduced another major change to the empire: he moved its capital from Rome
to a new, more central location in Byzantium, in present-day Turkey. By the end of the fourth century, the empire
would be permanently divided, between an eastern one with its capital in
Constantinople, the city founded by Constantine, and a western one with its
capital still in Rome. And in 410, Rome
would be overrun and sacked by barbarian invaders led by Alaric, king of the
Visigoths. This disaster was the signal
event that prompted many pagans to declare that the traditional gods were
punishing the people for deserting them, and adopting the strange, new faith of
Christianity. The charge would inspire
the famous Christian bishop and early Church father, St. Augustine, to write a
book called The City of God, which was his defense of Christianity
against the pagans. The pagan gods, he contended, with their amoral and fickle ways, were never worthy of allegiance to begin with, as was the moral god of the Hebrews. And in his book,
Augustine actually refined the argument of St. Paul that a spiritual allegiance
to God does not necessarily contradict an allegiance to an earthly state, and
that Christians, with their otherworldly aspirations, were no threat to the
safety of Rome. But he went further,
saying that the earthly city of man will pass away, but the city of God
is eternal, and to find membership in it should be the most important hope and
concern of any human being. In fact, the
city of Rome recovered from Alaric’s attack, but its salvation was only
temporary. In 476 it would see its last
emperor, Romulus Augustulus, surrender the throne to a rebel German general,
who in turn surrendered it to the Ostrogoths in 493.
 |
| The Sack of Rome by Alaric's Visigoths: 410 AD |
The empire had actually been under siege for centuries, contending with barbarian invaders attacking from many fronts. Around 100 B.C., the Roman general Marius fought off an attempted invasion of Italy by the Cimbri and the Teutons, and in 50 B.C. Julius Caesar fought and subdued the Suevi in Gaul. The Goths, who had originally come from Sweden, plagued Rome and its holdings as early as the third century A.D., when they plundered the city of Athens and then threatened Italy itself over the next one hundred years. Around 370 A.D. the Goths split into two separate tribes, the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, and it was the Visigoths who would, after invading Greece, turn their wrath upon Rome in 410. The Vandals were another persistent enemy of the empire; in 439 AD they took over Rome’s holdings in Africa, and looted and plundered ships sailing in the Mediterranean Sea, linking their name forever with random acts of violence and destruction. And from the east, the empire faced the wrath of the Huns, an Asian horde, who under their famous leader Attila attacked Gaul and Italy, beginning in 451 AD. In their expedition against Gaul, the Huns enlisted the aid of the Ostrogoths and Vandals, but were resisted by the combined forces of Rome’s legions and the Visigoths. The battle that ensued was one of the bloodiest in ancient history, and although Attila and his forces lost, he returned a year later to threaten Rome itself. It was only a personal appeal from Leo the Great - bishop of the city - that saved it from being sacked again. A similar appeal from the bishop three years later would spare the lives of the Roman people from an attack by the Vandals, but he could not spare the city itself from being plundered by the barbarians. And in 477 AD, the Vandals attacked the city again, which by then had already fallen under the control of barbarian rebels. But it was the Ostrogoths, under the leadership of Theodoric, who would eventually bring Rome and the entire Italian peninsula under their rule in 493, the year that marks the end of the Roman Empire in the west, and the beginning of the Dark Ages for Europe.
Who were these Germans, that brought an entire empire to its knees? To the Greeks and the Romans, they were uncivilized savages, and their strange customs were both fascinating and terrifying to the citizens of the empire. While a good Roman wife, for example, might bear one or two children for her husband, it was observed that the German wife would have several, and it soon became apparent that while the Roman population was barely maintaining itself, the German population was exploding. The German men were renowned for their savagery, but so were the women. It was a popular belief that a German warrior, retreating from a battle, would have to face the vengeful and possibly deadly wrath of a wife who had been shamed by his cowardice. For such a soldier, it required less bravery to stay on the battlefield than to leave it. And while the Greeks and the Romans enjoyed wine as their drink of choice, the Germans preferred a bitter-tasting alcoholic beverage which they called “ol” (ale) made from fermented barley or wheat and other herbs. It was reported that in nightly gatherings, when the men enjoyed drinking large quantities of this brew, what would begin as an orderly social event would descend into an out-and-out brawl. This must have been shocking behavior to the wine-drinking Greeks and Romans, whose own drinking parties would produce only spirited, invigorating conversation, or in the most extreme cases, perhaps an orgy. The growth of population, and the pressure of other migrating hordes from beyond the empire, continuously impelled the barbarians to search for new land to occupy, and when the Romans realized that they could no longer keep them out, they tried to find ways to use them, or at least to control them. Barbarian tribesmen were inducted into the legions as auxiliaries, and veterans were rewarded with grants of land within the empire. It was a practical, but ultimately shortsighted, solution to contain the German menace. Ironically, after
 |
| Gothic Warriors |
The island of Britain had been
inhabited, in prehistoric times, by a people called the Picts, who in turn
endured waves of invasions by another people known as the Celts. It was Julius Caesar who first attempted to
bring the island under Roman rule, in 54 B.C., but it was not until nine years
later that it became an imperial province.
And resistance to Roman domination continued, prompting the Roman
emperor Hadrian to construct a 70-mile wall across the island, to keep the most
violent rebels, the Caledonians, north of the wall in Scotland. For two hundred years, the Britons lived
peacefully as subjects of the empire, benefiting from the technological
advances and cultural influences bestowed upon them by the Romans. But by 300 A.D., as the empire faced mounting
threats in other regions, its legions began to pull out of Britain, and when
Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410, its armies withdrew completely,
leaving the islanders to fend for themselves.
Over the next two hundred years, the civilization established by the
Romans in Britain disintegrated, while the islanders had to contend with their
own hordes of Germanic invaders, the Angles and the Saxons.
The earliest historical records of
what actually happened in Britain Rome Rome
But who was this hero? The earliest surviving account of this
conflict with the Saxons, written by a man named Gildas in 540 AD, says that
the champion of the Britons was one Ambrosius Aurelianus. Gildas never refers to this man as a king,
but does say that he had Roman ancestors.
Two hundred years later, Saint Bede, a historian, also described the
battle of Mount Badon and identified Ambrosius as its hero, now a king. Arthur’s name, and his link with the battle,
first appears around the year 800, in a history called The Annals of Wales,
and some years later in an account by Nennius called the History of the
Britons, in which twelve battles against the Saxons are described, under
the leadership of Arthur in alliance with the kings of Britain, the final
battle being the one at Mount Badon. In
the Cambrian Annals, written by an anonymous Welsh writer around 950, Arthur is
again mentioned as the victor at the battle of Mount Badon. This account goes on to describe the death of
Arthur and one Medraut at the Battle of Camlann in 537. And finally, in William of Malmesbury’s Exploits
of the English Kings, written in the early twelfth century, the names of
Ambrosius and Arthur appear together.
Arthur is credited with assisting Ambrosius in his victory over the
barbarian invaders, and is also honored for his victory at the battle of Mount
Badon.
 |
| Arthur at the Battle of Mount Badon |
But while Arthur’s name shows up
relatively late in the historical accounts of Britain, he had apparently become
a folk hero among the Welsh and other Celtic peoples of Britain very early on,
appearing in poems, ballads, and tales that were recited by the natives and
passed on from generation to generation.
Already in these accounts, Arthur has a supernatural aura, and the tales
of his exploits are tinged with magic.
In 1139 A.D. the Arthur of history
and the Arthur of legend were thrown together for the very first time in
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Histories of the Kings of Britain. Geoffrey claimed that his history was a
translation of an earlier work written in the Welsh tongue, but evidence of
that earlier work has never been found.
And like Plato’s story of the lost land of Atlantis, Geoffrey’s history
was regarded by many as a tall tale, even in his time. Nevertheless, it enjoyed wide popularity
after its publication. Geoffrey himself
was of Celtic descent, and in an age in which Celtic pride was reasserting
itself, the story of Arthur’s valiant defense of Britain against the German
invaders, whose descendents in Britain now
treated the Celts with condescension, must have struck a sympathetic
chord. What’s more, the island had
fallen to foreign invaders in recent times once again. In 1066, less than one hundred years before
the publication of Geoffrey’s history, Norman invaders from France, under
William II, conquered the land and established William as its new king. It’s probably no coincidence that Geoffrey
traced the history of Britain’s early rulers back to the Trojans, since Norman
royalty believed that their own ancestry also had ties to Troy.
Geoffrey of Monmouth gives us the
first full-blown account of the story of Arthur’s life, complete with Merlin,
Guinevere, and Mordred, an enchanted sword, and many of the other features of
the Arthurian legend that would survive in all later versions. In his story, the direct line leading to
Arthur begins with Constantine – not the Roman emperor, but a nobleman who was
called upon to lead the Britons as their king and protect it from barbarian
invaders after Rome abandoned the island.
Constantine rallied his people to victory against the barbarians, but
was assassinated soon afterward by one of their spies. After his death, the oldest of his three
sons, Constans, was set up as a puppet ruler by the evil Vortigern, who
pretended to be a trusted counselor to the young king, but secretly wanted the
crown for himself. Vortigern had
Constans assassinated, and rose to the throne, but then he made a fatal
mistake. In an effort to secure his
tenuous hold over the island, Vortigern enlisted the aid of the Saxons, and
invited them to send soldiers to his kingdom and even to settle there. Vortigern would come to realize that the
Saxons were not his protectors, but his conquerors, and that he was in imminent
danger of losing his own life at their hands.
In desperation, he consulted his magicians for advice on how to protect
himself from the invaders, and they advised him to build a strong tower where
he could flee and find refuge if all of his other fortresses fell. But when his masons found that they could not
establish a foundation for the tower at the site that he had chosen, because
with each attempt it would sink into the earth, Vortigern consulted his
magicians again. This time they advised
him to seek out a boy who had no father, and to make of him a human sacrifice
whose blood, when sprinkled on the mortar and the stones, would make the
foundation firm. Messengers were
dispatched throughout the kingdom to find such a boy, and after searching the
island, they produced one, whose mother was the daughter of a king, but who apparently
had no earthly father. His name was
Merlin. But Merlin proved to be more
than a match for the magicians who had called for his death. After being presented to the king, Merlin so
impressed him with his knowledge and his boldness that his life was spared, and
he was retained as a court prophet, although his prophecies did not bode well
for Vortigern. Merlin predicted that
Vortigern would soon face vengeance at the hands of Constans’ two younger
brothers, Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon, and the very next day
Aurelius arrived on the shores of Britain and rallied the people to his
cause. Vortigern fled to a tower, but
died as the forces of Aurelius set it to the torch.
| Stonehenge: A Gift from Merlin? |
After driving off a large remnant of
the Saxons on the island, and subduing many others, Aurelius sought to erect a
monument to commemorate the bravery of his soldiers. He sent for Merlin, and the young wizard told
of a ring of huge stones in Ireland, used for religious rites, which had
magical properties. The stones had been
moved to Ireland from Africa by a race of giants many years earlier, Merlin
explained, and now he proposed to bring them into Aurelius's realm. Aurelius had laughed at Merlin as he began to
recount this story, but he would later discover that this was no idle tale. Merlin recovered the stones, astonishing the
men who accompanied him to Ireland as he lifted them effortlessly with the aid
of his magic, and later set them up at the site chosen by Aurelius in Britain,
the site that is known as Stonehenge today.
Aurelius Ambrosius soon met his own end after falling ill, when a Saxon
spy, disguised as a doctor who had come to treat the illness, poisoned
him. The crown of Britain now passed on
to the youngest of Constantine’s sons, Uther Pendragon.
Uther continued his brother’s rout
of the Saxon enemies, winning a decisive victory at the Battle of Mount
Damen. But in a victory celebration in
the town of London, Uther’s courage and heroism would give way to baser
instincts. One of his allies in the
battle had been the Duke of Cornwall, and at the celebration, Uther became
enthralled with the Duke’s wife, Ygerne, showering her with admiration and
unseemly attention. The Duke, annoyed at
this spectacle and fearful that he would lose his wife to the covetous desires
of the king, withdrew from the court in the company of his wife. Enraged at this insult, Uther collected an
army and pursued the Duke back to Cornwall.
The Duke, who was more concerned about his wife’s safety than his own,
put her up in Tintagel castle, which seemed to be impregnable to outsiders. And Uther, unable to restrain the passion
that he had for Ygerne, appealed to Merlin to help him find a way to reach
her. Through Merlin’s magic, he assumed
the appearance of the Duke, and gained access to Tintagel castle, and to
Ygerne. The real Duke met his death at
the hands of Uther’s armies in another castle, while in Tintagel, Ygerne
believed that she had been reunited with her husband. It was during this time that Uther and Ygerne
conceived a child, the future King Arthur.
Uther Pendragon would meet his own
end the same way that his brother Ambrosius had, through poisoning at the hands
of Saxon spies. At the news of his
death, the Saxons who had remained in Britain urged their relatives from
Germany to join them, since they believed that with the king gone there would
no longer be a champion to rally the Britons in defense of the island. In desperation, the bishops bestowed the
crown upon the king’s son, Arthur, though he was only fifteen years old. He proved to be a more than worthy successor
to his father. With his sword, Caliburn,
forged in the Isle of Avalon, he led the fight against the Saxons, until they
were again driven off the island. But
Arthur did not settle for defensive victories.
After marrying Guinevere, a noblewoman of Roman ancestry, he led his
armies in wars of conquest against Ireland, Iceland, Gaul, and eventually in a
war of revolt against Rome itself, after emissaries of the empire demanded that
Britain resume paying a tribute to the empire that had been levied against it
since the days when Julius Caesar ruled.
Although Arthur’s army would be victorious in this war against the
empire, the victory would yield the seeds of his own doom. For while he had been away on the continent,
his traitorous nephew Mordred, in whom he had entrusted the care of Britain,
had entered into an adulterous affair with Queen Guinevere, and had declared
himself king. Arthur returned with his
army to face Mordred, who had enlisted the aid of the Saxons, Irish, Scots, and
Picts in his cause, and the two opponents met at the River Camlann in 542 AD,
where Mordred met his death, and Arthur was mortally wounded. Arthur passed the crown on to his cousin
Constantine, and was carried off to the isle of Avalon, to be treated for his
wounds.
 |
| King Arthur, Mortally Wounded |
That’s it – the earliest written
account that gives us a complete story of Arthur’s origins and accomplishments,
by Geoffrey of Monmouth in 1136 AD, nearly a thousand years ago. Geoffrey’s version, in addition to giving us
the first fully formed story of Arthur’s life, also introduces other features
of what would become the Arthurian legend.
We are told that his knights were famed for their bravery, and
descriptions of his court are livened by the simultaneous spectacle of pomp and
ceremony, religious devotion, and military tournaments. Courtly love finds its first expression in
this tale, as the women of noble rank only show affection to knights who prove
themselves in battle. And many of the
knights who would be immortalized in all of the later Arthurian stories appear
here, such as Arthur’s nephew, Gawain, and Sir Kay. But other features of the legend would only
arise in later accounts, such as Merlin’s role as Arthur’s tutor, the sword in
the stone, the round table, Arthur’s evil sister, Morgan le Fay (who in earlier
versions was merely a healer and enchantress unrelated to Arthur), and many of
his other principal knights, like Lancelot, Percival, and Galahad. About half a century after Geoffrey’s history
of Arthur appeared, the lyrical poems of French writer Chrestian De Troyes
would add color and substance to the tale.
In these poems, we learn of the knights’ quest for the Holy Grail, the
cup that Christ drank from during the Last Supper. And in these poems we find the tragic love
triangle between Arthur, Guinevere, and Arthur’s trusted knight, Lancelot. Two hundred years later, in 1485, the legend
would find its fullest expression in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’ Arthur.
 |
| Knights of the Round Table |
In many respects, the saga of King
Arthur and his battles is not unlike the saga of the Trojan War, in which Greek
forces fought valiantly against a foreign power that dared to offend their
honor. Both of these sagas seem to have
a basis in fact, alluding to real conflicts that occurred in the distant past,
that have been embellished and glossed over with mythic and supernatural
imagery, exaggerated deeds of valor, and struggles of literally epic
proportions. But in the case of Troy
What is it about Arthur’s legend
that makes it so compelling, and so fascinating to readers and listeners, even
now, some fifteen hundred years after this hero supposedly lived? What is the source of its power, and what has
been its relevance to the generations that continue to preserve it? A key to this question’s answer is the
reality of life, both in Arthur’s day, and in the days of those who chronicled
his life. We know that in the years
preceding Arthur’s birth, the empire of Rome collapsed, succumbing to waves of
Germanic invaders, just as the island of Britain itself was fending off
incursions from the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, German tribes that were
endeavoring to establish a new homeland there.
In the centuries that followed, the conquering Germans established
kingdoms of their own on the ruins of the Roman Empire. One of the most notable of these was
Charlemagne, who was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor by the pope in 800 A.D. The fact that Charlemagne allied himself to
the Pope is a testament to the fact that the one institution which survived,
unscathed, after the fall of Rome, was the Christian Church. Every other relic of the great Roman
civilization crumbled, sending Europe into a time called the Dark Ages, or the
Gothic Era, as it was contemptuously labeled by Italians centuries later during
the Renaissance. The Roman roads, which
had criss-crossed the European continent, fell into disrepair, and the great
cities went into decline. Agricultural
productivity also declined, as fields and estates fell into the hands of local
kings, who bestowed them upon powerful nobles as rewards for faithful
service. These “nobles” were little more
than well-armed thugs, who treated the serfs who worked their lands with contempt,
and offered them only a share of the food that they cultivated for their
overlords. But by the time of Geoffrey’s
age, in the twelfth century, towns and cities began to re-emerge as centers of
commerce, farming techniques were improved, and roads were reconstructed. Serfs were actually able to accumulate some
wealth, and a rising commercial class came into existence. Meanwhile, the nobility developed a new sense
of social pride, based upon ancestral lines, and a code of conduct, called
chivalry, that defined their relations with each other, with women, and with
the other members of their society.
Chivalry literally means “horsemanship”, and the code had a particular
bearing on the behavior of the warrior class, the knights, demanding that in
addition to bravery they exhibited a gentle personality towards those with whom
they came in contact.
 |
| The Gallantry of Medieval Knights |
By Geoffrey’s time, much of the land
of the Britons had become the land of the Angles – “Angle-Land”, or England
The story of Arthur and his court
also has another parallel to a legend that we have looked at: the story of the
ancient kingdom
of Atlantis
