Arthur of the Britons Mansel Jones
Arthur was a warlord of the late fifth and early sixth centuries who defeated the Saxons at the Battle of Badon, a victory that heralded a fifty year period of relative peace. Although sources for Arthur are scarce, he is mentioned in the Annales Cambriae (Welsh Annals), the Historia Brittonum (History of the Britons) and a number of early medieval poems, including Y Gododdin. And yet many modern historians choose to write Arthur out of history. Why should this be?
ferocious dragons and divine boars. In these tales Arthur also appears as a sort of superhero living in the wilds of the landscape and, in the Welsh tradition, as someone who can bridge the gap between this world and the Otherworld or Annwn. Clearly, these tales are just that, stories, but for millennia stories have been written, reshaped and based on real events and real people. Arguably, the same holds true for Arthur.
Historians who dismiss Arthur as an historical figure point to Gildas’ sixth century polemic De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain). In De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, Gildas records the Battle of Badon and yet makes no mention of Arthur by name. That said, Gildas does not mention any leader by name at the Battle of Badon, thus allowing the possibility that Arthur was the leader of the Britons. Those historians arguing against the existence of Arthur also point to the fact that he is not mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, c890s, or in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, c731. However, given that Arthur was a hero of the original Britons and the developing Welsh nation it is little wonder that his name was ignored. The earliest literary references to Arthur can be attributed to Welsh and Breton sources. In these sources Arthur is portrayed as a peerless warrior who protects Britain from the Saxons and from monsters, including giant cats,
A Victorian image of Arthur by Charles Ernest Butler (1864 - 1918)
- 34 -
