King Arthur in history and legend

by William Lewis Jones

That hover’d between war and wantonness,”

it is well to remember that Caxton held that all that was in it was “written for our doctrine.” “For herein may be seen noble chivalry, courtesy, humanity, friendliness, hardiness, love, friendship, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue and sin. Do after the good and leave the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame and renommee.”

Caxton’s preface to the Morte Darthur has here been taken as a sort of preliminary text, not only because that famous work is, by general consent, the fullest and the most fascinating presentment in English of the great congeries of tales that make up the so-called Arthurian “cycle,” but also because Caxton’s own words, as already hinted, serve to raise, in a peculiarly suggestive way, most of the questions with which the critical student of the Arthurian legends and their origin has to deal to-day. The Morte Darthur itself, it has become a commonplace to say, remains unchallenged, in spite of its inconsequences and inconsistencies, the supreme Arthurian “prose epic” in English. The work is not, of course, “epic” in any strict sense, but it was issued by Caxton to the readers of his day as pre-eminently an English Arthuriad. Arthur alone of “the Nine Worthies” had not had justice done to him in his own country. The two other Christian “worthies,” Charlemagne and Godfrey of Boulogne, had been adequately celebrated abroad, and Caxton himself had contributed to spread the latter’s fame in England. Why should the great English “Christian king” remain unhonoured in his own land? It was, therefore, with the patriotic object of blazoning the fame of the greatest of English heroes that Caxton undertook the publication of Malory’s book. Now, the historical Arthur, so far as we know him, is not English at all, but a “British” hero, who fought against the Saxons, and whose prowess is one of the jealously treasured memories of the Celtic peoples, and particularly of the Welsh. By what process of transformation had this British warrior become, by Caxton’s time, the ideal “Christian king” of England? And why, again, should he be singled out as pre-eminently one of the three Christian kings of the world, and his name linked with “the noble history of the Saint Greal”? Here we come at once upon one of the disturbing influences in what ought to be a straightforward record of the doings of a fighting chieftain of early Britain. The quest of the Holy Grail had, originally, nothing to do with Arthur.[7] But, by Caxton’s time, the mystic, or religious, element in Arthurian romance had become so prominent as to make it impossible to think of Arthur except in association with the “high history” of the Grail. A further complication meets us when we are told that Malory took his material for his narrative of the deeds of the paramount English, or British, hero “out of certain books of French.” Why should Malory so constantly refer to “the French book” as his authority, and have so little to go upon that had been written in English, or in Welsh? Why is it that to-day, after four centuries of diligent search in both private and public libraries, the amount of extant British literature of an indubitably ancient date dealing with Arthur’s exploits is so scanty? For Caxton’s statement still remains substantially true that, down to the fifteenth century, “the books that had been made about Arthur over sea,” and in foreign tongues, far outnumbered those that had been made in Britain. How are we to account for the popularity which the Arthurian stories thus enjoyed on the European continent, and for the way in which they became, during the Middle Ages, practically international literary property?

These are the main questions which have to be answered to-day by those who attempt to trace the origin and growth of the Arthurian legends, and they are all suggested in Caxton’s preface. This little book does not pretend to furnish a final answer to any one of them. It simply essays to present in a summary and, it is hoped, a clear form the substance of what is told about King Arthur in history and legend, together with a brief notice of the development of Arthurian literature mainly in England. No attempt will be made to trace the many ramifications of the subsidiary stories which have been grafted upon the original Arthurian stock. Characters like Perceval, or Lancelot, or Tristram, who figure so largely in the full-orbed Arthurian cycle, could each easily be made the subject of a separate volume far exceeding the dimensions of the present one. Here, attention will be concentrated, as far as possible, upon the figure and the fortunes of Arthur himself.

CHAPTER I
THE EARLIEST ARTHURIAN RECORDS

If, in Caxton’s words, “such a king called Arthur” ever lived in these islands, he must have flourished during the period between the first coming of the Saxons and the middle of the sixth century. So much, at any rate, is clearly attested by the meagre historical records which profess to recount his deeds. Nothing, however, can be found in these records to warrant the belief that he ever became “king” of any part of Britain. His achievements as a warrior alone are mentioned, and all that we can gather besides from Welsh tradition only serves to emphasise the fact that his renown among the British people rested mainly upon his warlike prowess. His admission to the so-called “Celtic pantheon,” and his gradual evolution in Celtic tradition as a great mythological figure, are matters of purely speculative interest, and cannot be taken into account in an attempt to answer our first question—Who, and what, was the historical Arthur? In Welsh we read of an “emperor” Arthur,[8] but this title, as we shall see, implies nothing more than that he was a war-leader, or a commander-in-chief of a group of more or less celebrated generals. His kingship, and his state as the head of a great court, are entirely the creations of later romance.[9]

Little, if anything, of historical significance is to be deduced from the form of Arthur’s name. It appears in the Latin chronicles as Arturus, and is probably of Roman origin, derived from the form Artorius.[10] This is much more likely than that, as Rhys suggests, it was “a Celtic name belonging in the first instance to a god Arthur.” For the latter explanation, as readers of Rhys’s Arthurian Legend will know, carries us into the world of mythology, and is made the foundation of an ingenious hypothesis to account for Arthur’s Celtic fame. That hypothesis, so far as it bears upon the name, is thus summarised by its author. “The Latin Artôrius and the god’s name, which we have treated as early Brythonic Artor, genitive Artôros, would equally yield in Welsh the familiar form Arthur. In either case, the name would have to be regarded as an important factor in the identification or confusion of the man with the divinity. The latter, called Arthur by the Brythons, was called Airem by the Goidels, and he was probably the Artæan Mercury of the Allobroges of ancient Gaul. His rôle was that of Culture Hero, and his name allows one to suppose that he was once associated, in some special manner, with agriculture over the entire Celtic world of antiquity. On the one hand we have the man Arthur, whose position we have tried to define, and on the other a greater Arthur, a more colossal figure, of which we have, so to speak, but a torso rescued from the wreck of the Celtic pantheon.”[11] The mythological Arthur, as he appears in Welsh literature and tradition, will claim our attention in another chapter; here, our inquiry will be confined mainly to the Latin records in which we find, or should expect to find, the earliest authentic information about “the man Arthur.”

The oldest historical document in which Arthur is mentioned by name is the famous Historia Brittonum ascribed to Nennius. Parts of this work may have been put together as early as the seventh century,[12] but the compilation, as we now have it, was due to a Welshman named Nennius, or (in Welsh) Nynniaw, who lived about the year 800.[13] The work may be roughly divided into two parts,—the first, of sixty-six sections or chapters, professing to give a cursory sketch of the history of Britain from the earliest times down to the eighth century; the second containing a list of the twenty-eight “cities of Britain,” together with an account of certain “marvels” (mirabilia), or wonderful natural phenomena, of Britain, which, the compiler tells us, he “wrote as other scribes had done before him.” The quasi-historical part of the work contains much the fullest notice of Arthur’s military exploits to be found in any chronicle before that of Geoffrey of Monmouth, while from sundry allusions to Arthur in the section on the ‘marvels of Britain,’ we gather that legend was already busy with his name. The celebrated passage in which Arthur is mentioned in the Historia proper[14] runs as follows:—

“At that time, the Saxons increased and grew strong in Britain. After the death of Hengist, Octha his son came from the northern part of the kingdom to the men of Cantia, and from him are descended its kings. Then Arthur fought against them in those days, together with the kings of the Britons, but he himself was leader in the battles.[15] The first battle was at the mouth of the river Glein; the second, third, fourth and fifth on the river Dubglas, in the region Linnuis; the sixth on the river Bassas; the seventh in the wood of Celidon, that is, Cat Coet Celidon[16]; the eighth at the castle of Guinnion, when Arthur bore the image of the holy Virgin Mary on his shoulders, and when the pagans were put to flight and a great slaughter made of them through the might of our Lord Jesus Christ and of Holy Mary his mother. The ninth battle was fought at the city of Legion, the tenth on the shore of the river, which is called Tribruit, and the eleventh on the mountain which is called Agned. The twelfth battle was on Mount Badon, where there fell nine hundred and sixty men before Arthur’s single onset; nor had any one but himself alone a share in their downfall, and in all the battles he was the victor. But the enemy, while they were overthrown in all their battles, sought help from Germany, and continually increased in number, and they brought kings from Germany to rule over those who were in Britain up to the time of the reign of Ida, who was the first king in Beornicia.”

One notes, in the very first words in which mention is here made of Arthur, that he is not called a “king,” but that he fought “together with the kings” of the Britons, not, seemingly, as their auxiliary, but as their commander-in-chief—sed ipse dux erat bellorum. It has been suggested,[17] with much plausibility, that the term dux bellorum in this passage implies that Arthur held, after the departure of the Romans, a military office similar to one of those established in the island during the later years of the Roman administration. Since the time of Severus Britain had been divided, for defensive purposes, into two districts. At first, most pressure came from the Picts and the Scots in the North, and the defence of Upper Britain was entrusted to a commander called dux Britanniarum. Later, when the Saxons began to threaten the eastern and southern shores, a second officer—comes littoris Saxonici—was appointed to command the armies of Lower Britain. Finally, a third officer, the comes Britanniæ, was given a general supervision over the other two, and the supreme charge of the defences of the entire country. Sir John Rhys discovers in Arthur the representative in the sixth century of this third officer of the Roman military organisation. This supposition undoubtedly helps to explain better than any other both Nennius’s description of Arthur as dux bellorum, and the seemingly wide range of country covered by the twelve battles which he is said to have fought.