Gildas and the Fall of the Round Table

The arrangement of the Knights of the Round Table is one of the elements of the Arthurian Romance tales which seems 'obviously' fictional. In reality, though, such an arrangement is referred to in the very earliest mention of Arthur - that is, Historia Brittonum (the reference to Arthur in the earlier Y Gododdin may or may not be authentic). But to realise this, we first need to understand what, exactly, the arrangement of the Knights of the Round Table was actually supposed to have been. 

One of the knights, in these later legends, is Uriens of Gorre. And who was Uriens? He was Urien, a historical king of the north of Britain. Another knight is Ywain the son of Uriens. Historically, this was Owain, the son of Urien. Owain was thus a prince and later became a king, though he could perhaps have been a minor king in his own right under his father. Another knight was Gawain, the supposed cousin of Owain. His father was, so legend tells us, the king of Lothian. Thus, Gawain was a prince of that region. Another famous knight is Percival. He was known in Welsh tradition as Peredur, and he was very probably the same as the historical northern prince Peredur ap Elidur. 

Moving further south, we have Sir Cador, who was actually the king of Dumnonia in the sixth century. Then there is Sir Constantine, the son of Cador and therefore a prince (and later a king) of Dumnonia. Furthermore, there is Sir Caradoc Vriechvras, often considered to have been Caradoc ap Ynyr. This figure was a king of Gwent in the late fifth, early sixth century. 

When these same individuals are mentioned in the earlier Hsitoria Regum Britanniae as being at Arthur's court, the majority of them are, indeed, called kings. Many other kings are mentioned in this account as well. So, if the legendary 'knights' of Arthur's court in the later Romances who can be identified as real (or at least semi-legendary) individuals of the sixth century are all kings or princes (maybe minor kings in their own right) of various parts of Britain, then what conclusion can we draw about the nature of the arrangement of the Knights of the Round Table? 

This arrangement, evidently, was an alliance of the kings of Britain. Specifically, it was an alliance of kings led by Arthur. This is exactly what the Historia Brittonum has always described:

"Then it was, that the magnanimous Arthur, with all the kings and military force of Britain, fought against the Saxons."

One of the only 'fanciful' elements of Arthur's court in the later Romances is the physical Round Table itself, but that is merely aesthetics. It is not of any substantial interest, though obviously, if there was an alliance of kings, they must have gathered somewhere. Another element that makes it seem fanciful is the use of the term 'knights'. If this term had not been used in the Romances, but they were simply referred to as 'the kings of Arthur's court', then much of the apparent fancifulness completely disappears. That this kind of organised arrangement of rulers is perfectly reasonable to believe in is shown by Gildas's almost-contemporary reference to Vortigern and the 'council' deciding to invite the Saxons over to Britain. Admittedly, the rulers who made up this council may not have ruled over a very widespread area (we have no way of knowing for sure either way), but it is nonetheless a demonstration of the same kind of principle involved in Arthur's legendary court. 

Additionally, we know from Julius Caesar's account of the invasion of Britain that the British tribes, even during times of great internal strife, were perfectly capable of putting aside their differences and joining together under one united leader to fight against outside invaders. That is what happened in 54 B.C.E., when various tribes of the south east of Britain united under Cassivellaunus. Therefore, the idea that various tribes of Britain would unite themselves under one leader (namely, Arthur) upon a large-scale invasion of Anglo-Saxons is not only within reason, but is likely. 

However, there is another major element of Arthur's court in the Romances which seems to be totally fictional. This is the Code of Chivalry which the members of Arthur's court were supposed to live by. Surely this is just an invention of French writers, inserting the ideals of the time into the Arthurian story? 

Perhaps partly. But many of the fictional elements in the Arthurian Romances are not really fictional, but just aesthetically anachronistic. For example, Arthur and his men are often presented as wearing armour which actually did not come into being for hundreds of years. Yet, they undoubtedly had armour of some kind. Likewise, there are grand castles in the stories, even though there were no 'castles' of this sort in Britain until hundreds of years after Arthur's time. Yet, they did have fortifications of some kind. 

The same principle could easily apply to the Code of Chivalry. It may be anachronistically styled in the stories, but that does not mean that it is fundamentally fictional. In other words, Arthur's court may well have established a particular code of conduct, but the Romance writers simply filled in the details with their own anachronistic ideas of what this meant (just as they had filled in the details of 'armour' and 'castles' with their own understanding of those concepts). 

Regardless of any potential historical origin, the literary development certainly shows this to be the case. In Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, which was written before the Romances, we are told that Arthur introduced "such politeness into his court," or "such a code of courtliness" (according to the translation by J. A. Giles and the translation by Thorpe, respectively). Then mention is made of Arthur's "munificence," or '"generosity." So the suggestion above does, in fact, seem to be what happened. There was information about Arthur having this 'code of courtliness', but without any detail as to what was actually involved, and so the later Romance writers simply provided the details based on their own ethics and philosophy. 

In fact, there is a slight hint of this code of courtliness and 'munificence' of Arthur's in, once again, the Historia Brittonum, the earliest definite record about Arthur. As seen in the line quoted earlier in this article, the account describes Arthur as 'magnanimous' - the same kind of quality attributed to him in the later account by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Granted, this description only appears in one surviving manuscript of the HB, so we cannot know for sure if it was in the original. In any case, Arthur's munificence and code of courtliness definitely appears prior to the Romances, though without any of the details, and possibly gets a reference in the earliest Arthurian source. 

But that is just the literary development. Is there any evidence that these records actually preserve a true memory of the reality in sixth century Britain? Well, given the lack of archaeological evidence for chivalry, the only way to test this idea would be by comparing the earliest accounts of Arthur's court with the earliest record of sixth century Britain - that is, the work of Gildas, a prominent sixth century preacher. He does not give a very detailed description of the events that occurred in his century, but the information he does give is very interesting indeed. 

After speaking of the battle of Badon (Arthur's decisive victory against the Saxons, according to later records), he says the following: 

"kings, public magistrates, and private persons, with priests and clergymen, did all and every one of them live orderly and according to their several vocations." 

Though not explicitly referring to an 'alliance' of kings, this is consistent with the concept in that it shows that there was order among kings at that time. Then Gildas goes on to say that when 

"a new race succeeded, who were ignorant of this troublesome time, and had only experience of the present prosperity, all the laws of truth and justice were so shaken and subverted, that not so much as a vestige or remembrance of these virtues remained among the above-named orders of men."  

This is some very significant information. It reveals that, during the generation who lived during the battle of Badon (hence, the time of Arthur's rule), not only did kings live orderly, but they lived according to certain virtues, certain laws of truth and justice, which were abolished by the generation that lived after the battle.

So how does this relate to the Arthurian legends? Well, the Romances identify the uprising of Mordred, the nephew of Arthur, as causing the downfall of the Round Table and, therefore, the Code of Chivalry linked to Arthur's court. The much earlier Welsh Annals places the battle of Camlann - the climactic battle between Arthur and Mordred according to the later records - 21 years after the battle of Badon. Gildas, meanwhile, seemed to state that he was writing 43 years after Badon. Therefore, this 21-year gap between Badon and Camlann results in a comfortable middle ground after Badon, in which the new generation could have crushed the laws of justice, and before the time of Gildas's writing, in which he referred to this. 

In fact, it is possible to correlate the timing of the two events even more strongly than that. In Historia Regum Britanniae, Geoffrey describes how, one or two years after Arthur achieved his victory at Badon, he ruled his kingdom in peace for 12 years. Then the next section describes how Arthur helped Lot gain his rightful place as king of Norway (almost certainly a mistranslation of 'Llychlyn', which is a word used variously for Scotland and Scandinavia). At this point, Geoffrey makes the remark that Gawain is 12 years old. In other words, then, Gawain was born one or two years after the battle of Badon. This is an enormously significant detail, for the account also claims that Gawain and Mordred were brothers. The age difference is not given, so we cannot conclude more than that they were similar in age. 

The grand sum of this is that the Arthurian material paints a picture in which someone who was of the generation who lived during the peace established after the battle of Badon (that is, Mordred) rose up in rebellion, causing a civil war and the collapse of an orderly arrangement of kings and princes and a code of courtliness which they had, until that rebellion, lived by. This is completely, totally consistent with the statements of Gildas.

The Book and the Blog - What They're About and Why I'm Writing Them

This blog is about my upcoming book: King Arthur - The Emperor's Son. I hope to generate interest in it in advance through this blog, along with a YouTube series I have been making for the past few months (see here). On this blog, I will produce written versions (though not transcripts) of the videos in the aforementioned series. In addition, I will use this medium to convey my views on an even wider range of topics.

King Arthur - The Emperor's Son is a work-in-progress which I hope many people will find interesting, if not wholly convincing. It presents my theory regarding the reality behind the legends of King Arthur. Of course, innumerable books have been written about this subject, and I have even read one which I found by-and-large compelling. However, the reason I felt so motivated to write my own book on the topic is because there is, I believe, one major aspect of the legends which has remained largely unexplained. This aspect has been left so untouched that, in the end, I was only able to find three relevant theories to discuss in one of the chapters. 

The major aspect in question is the European campaign of King Arthur. While 'Arthur' as a warrior who fought the Saxons has been discussed and 'identified' more than most other legendary figures in the world, 'Arthur' as a mighty conqueror who invaded and killed the ruler of Gaul and warred against the Romans is a much more obscure subject. This is in spite of the fact that the first work to provide an extensive account of Arthur's life - that is, the Historia Regum Britanniae (HRB), written in c. 1137 by Geoffrey of Monmouth - spends about half the material covering this European campaign. 

Several years ago, I read a very convincing theory regarding the origin of the stories of Arthur in an insular, sixth century setting. In the beginning of my book, I present the evidence for this theory, with many additional pieces of evidence and lines of reasoning gathered from my own independent research. The same source from which I found this theory also discussed the origin of the stories of Arthur's European conquest. The theory presented therein was not nearly as convincing as the theory explaining the insular Arthur. However, the basic identification that was made was, in my opinion, quite convincing for a few reasons. Therefore, it is my belief that the researchers had managed to identify the original figure behind that aspect of the Arthurian legends. What they had not done was actually provide a convincing case for how that figure explains the legends. In other words, I disagreed with how his real-life activities were supposed to match up with Arthur's legendary activities. 

So while my book is heavily based on a pre-existing theory, it provides a unique explanation for the stories of the European campaign. I go through Geoffrey of Monmouth's account step by step and explain how each one came from the real activities of this historical figure. 

In addition, my book provides a lengthy discussion of the only part of Geoffrey's HRB whose historicity is established much more firmly than any other part - the Roman era. The pre-Roman era, covering the kings from Brutus of Troy to Lud the brother of Cassivellaunus, is generally taken for granted as being fictional, but the fact is that we have virtually no way of establishing exactly what is and what isn't fictional in that part of the HRB. On the other hand, the post-Roman era is largely devoid of reliable sources (hence 'the dark ages'), so it would be fruitless to compare Geoffrey's account with the other sources regarding that era. Therefore, the only way of determining Geoffrey's general level of accuracy is to analyse his account of the Roman era. 

This is exactly what my book does. This allows me to establish just what Geoffrey's demonstrable 'boundaries of accuracy' are. With this information in hand, it allows me to be better able to assess the validity of other theories regarding Arthur's European conquest; in particular, it allows me to demonstrate that my theory, and my theory alone, falls within these boundaries of accuracy. 

Please feel free to post comments and offer any thoughts you may already have. As I said at the start, much of the material which I am going to write on this blog is already available, though not presented in the same way, on my YouTube series. Feel free to have a browse through those and tell me your thoughts on what I've said so far.