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3 days ago · King Arthur, legendary British king who appears in a cycle of medieval romances (known as the Matter of Britain) as the sovereign of a knightly fellowship of the Round Table. It is not certain how these legends originated or whether the figure of Arthur was based on a historical person. The legend possibly originated either in Wales or in those ...
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King Arthur married Guinevere and held court at Camelot. He...
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It is not certain how these stories originated or whether...
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Table of Contents Excalibur, in Arthurian legend, King...
- Historia Brittonum
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This told of King Arthur’s having a round table made so that...
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- Historia Regum Britanniae
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The timeless popularity of the Arthur legend has overshadowed a central, unresolved question: Was there really a King Arthur, or at least a historical prototype upon whom Geoffrey’s hero is based?
- Joshua Hammer
- Overview
- HISTORY Vault: King Arthur: His Life and Legends
We’ve all heard stories about King Arthur of Camelot, who according to medieval legend led British forces (including his trusted Knights of the Round Table) in battle against Saxon invaders in the early sixth century. But was King Arthur actually a real person, or simply a hero of Celtic mythology?
Though debate has gone on for centuries, historians have been unable to confirm that Arthur really existed. He doesn’t appear in the only surviving contemporary source about the Saxon invasion, in which the Celtic monk Gildas wrote of a real-life battle at Mons Badonicus (Badon Hills) around 500 A.D. Several hundred years later, Arthur appears for the first time in the writings of a Welsh historian named Nennius, who gave a list of 12 battles the warrior king supposedly fought. All drawn from Welsh poetry, the battles took place in so many different times and places that it would have been impossible for one man to have participated in all of them.
The Myth of King Arthur
Later Welsh writers drew on Nennius’ work, and Arthur’s fame spread beyond Wales and the Celtic world, particularly after the Norman conquest of 1066 connected England to northern France. In the popular 12th-century book History of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote the first life story of Arthur, describing his magic sword Caliburn (later known as Excalibur), his trusted knight Lancelot, Queen Guinevere and the wizard Merlin. An irresistible blend of myth and fact, the book was supposedly based on a lost Celtic manuscript that only Geoffrey was able to examine.
He pulled Excalibur out of the stone, gathered knights at the Round Table and was trained by Merlin the Magician. Trace the myth and the legend of Camelot's King Arthur, who has inspired art and politics from medieval times to the age of Kennedy.
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Other theories suggest that King Arthur may have been based on several historical figures who lived during the period following the Roman withdrawal from Britain. Arthur may have been inspired by the real Romano-British leaders who fought against Saxon invaders, including Aurelianus and Vortigern, or the character could be a composite of several warlords from that era.
The historicity of King Arthur has been debated both by academics and popular writers. While there have been many claims that King Arthur was a real historical person, the current consensus among specialists on the period holds him to be a mythological or folkloric figure. [ 1 ][ 2 ] The first definite mention of Arthur appears circa 828 in the ...
King Arthur (Welsh: Brenin Arthur, Cornish: Arthur Gernow, Breton: Roue Arzhur, French: Roi Arthur), according to legends, was a king of Britain. He is a folk hero and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In Welsh sources, Arthur is portrayed as a leader of the post-Roman Britons in battles against ...
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May 16, 2017 · Considering the early sources for the legend and its later development it is entirely possible that the Arthur of history was none of these on the list nor any others who have been suggested; most likely King Arthur was based on a war chief named Arthur of the 5th or 6th century CE who became a champion of the people in a dark time.
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