Concepts of Arthur

concepts of arthur Concepts of Arthur THOMAS GREEN For Frances, Evie, John, Jeannette and Vikki First published 2007 Tempus Publishing Cirencester Road, Chalford Stroud, Gloucestershire, gl6 8pe www.tempus-publishing.com Tempus Publishing is an imprint of NPI Media Group © Thomas Green, 2007 The right of Thomas Green to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. isbn 0 7524 4461 1 Typesetting and origination by NPI Media Group Printed and bound in Great Britain CONTENTS Chapter The Arthur of history: the evidence and its critics Chapter The earliest stratum of the Arthurian legend Chapter The nature of Arthur: ‘a mighty defender’? Chapter The nature of Arthur’s war-band and family Chapter The origins of ‘Arthur’ Chapter The historicization of Arthur Chapter ‘The Arthur of the British’: a maximum view Notes Bibliography THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY: THE EVIDENCE AND ITS CRITICS introduction: ‘no smoke without fire’? The principle of ‘no smoke without fire’ is both popular and ancient. It is also a creed of credulity. Why, it is asked, would anyone claim a person or place existed without having a solid basis for the belief? An inability to conceive a situation in which this might happen means that any hint of history is often seized upon with a zeal that can surprise those of a more cautious or sceptical bent. These sometimes brief and ambiguous hints are the ‘smoke’, and adherents to this creed often expend an astonishing amount of time and energy searching for the ‘fire’ they believe must have produced them. This credulity often appears to be increasingly unchecked. We find the Epic of Gilgamesh interpreted as a true story that proves aliens visited ancient Mesopotamia. Plato’s exemplar of utopia, Atlantis, is similarly made into a real country that existed, exactly as Plato describes it, at the end of the last Ice Age before being destroyed by some geological catastrophe. We also encounter elaborate theories about the origins of the Merovingian kings of France, built upon the most transparently false legends. Even avowedly fictional and literary heroes such as Sherlock Holmes are, on the strength of a ‘real’ address being assigned to him by Conan Doyle, treated as historical by some readers, who go so far as to write him personal letters that they mail to his Baker Street lodgings (Ashe, : ). Arthur suffers from this creed of credulity perhaps more than any other single figure of folklore and legend. The shelves of bookshops are heavy with tomes that claim to have ‘finally’ identified the ‘true’ Arthur, from whom the whole vast body of medieval and modern legend and fantasy stemmed. Sometimes these are modest and claim him only as a local fifth- or sixth-century warlord; other times we are told that Arthur was indeed an emperor and all the tales 8 concepts of arthur of his knights, the Round Table, Guinevere and the rest have their origins in history. The question we must ask, naturally, is whether this creed is right in its a priori assumption that, for figures of medieval legend, where there is smoke there must be fire? Whether the supporters of this creed are right to assume that, if one of these figures is portrayed as historical in some sources, there must be some reason for this, some element of truth to the portrayal? Certainly it is not a wholly foolish belief. Charlemagne is a fine and oft-cited example of someone who was, like Arthur, at the centre of a vast legend in the medieval period but who is indisputably historical in his origins. But, contrary to what many Arthurian enthusiasts seem to think, his is not the only relevant parallel to Arthur that can be found. There are in fact numerous examples of the opposite development – not a move from history to legend, but from legend, folklore and myth to history. Fionn mac Cumhaill is a particularly splendid example of this. He, like Arthur, has a vast legend associated with him in the medieval period, this dominating in the Gaelic-speaking areas (Ireland and parts of Scotland) of the British Isles, in contrast to the Arthurian legend which was strongest in the Brittonic (British- speaking) regions, such as Wales, Cornwall, parts of southern Scotland and also Brittany. Fionn, in fact, is often said to be the ‘Irish’ Arthur on the basis of the close similarities and parallels between their native legends. Fionn, like Arthur in the early British tradition (see below), exists in a world of giants and magical animals, taking part most especially in supernatural boar-hunts and appearing constantly in legends connected with remarkable features in the landscape. He arbitrates in disputes between mythical and divine beings and he defends the land from demoniacal and supernatural invaders and threats, such as the Fomore, submarine demons. Nevertheless, Fionn is also assigned by medieval writers, like Arthur, a place in the history books – he is frequently associated with the winning of great battles against the Viking invaders of Ireland and this became a dominant feature of his legend (Arthur is, of course, ascribed a role in the – temporary – defeat of the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain). However, in this case ‘no smoke without fire’ clearly cannot work – a detailed study of the Fenian legends reveals that Fionn’s role as a figure of myth, folklore and legend comes first, and his historical associations are a later (and natural) development of these. Indeed, not only was he not genuinely a historical figure, he was quite clearly originally a pagan god (see Ó hÓgáin, ; Ó hÓgáin, ; Murphy, , especially pp.lxx-lxxxvii; Padel, : -; Van Hamel, ; MacKillop, ). In this case, then, despite there being smoke, there is no fire to be found: if Charlemagne is an example of a historical figure mythicized, then Fionn is an example of a mythical figure historicized. Another interesting instance of this concerns the two famous brothers, Hengest and Horsa. This pair, once a staple of British schoolroom history, owe their modern the arthur of history 9 renown to their supposed role in the fifth-century conquest of Kent by Germanic invaders. Bede is the first to mention them in this context, this notoriously careful historian saying rather tentatively of the Kentish settlers that ‘the first chieftains are said [Latin perhibentur] to have been the brothers Hengest and Horsa’ (Historia Ecclesiastica, I, ). Although these figures were assigned this important role in earlier histories of the period, and still have it in many popular accounts, Bede seems to have been correct in his doubts over their existence. They are now considered to be, in fact, totemic dioscuric horse-gods of the type well-known on the continent, who were historicized by the eighth century with an important role in the fifth-century Anglo-Saxon conquest of eastern Britain, though their original nature survived on the continent as the protective horse-heads named Hengest and Hors carved above the crossing gables of houses (see Turville-Petre, -; Ward, ; Brooks, ; Stanley, : ; Yorke, a. Moisl, : -, looks at a similar royal animal-cult, with its divine representative made progenitor, amongst the Franks). There are plenty of other examples of this type of development, which is unsurprising given that the portrayal of mythical or folkloric figures as historical is a common and widely recognized feature of medieval literature. In fact, it has been noted that the process of historicizing legends was a particularly widespread feature of ‘Celtic’ literary activity in the Middle Ages, an important conclusion in the present context (Padel, : ; Dumville, -). Merlin, Welsh Myrddin, for example, despite claims that he was a genuine sixth-century poet, has been shown to be in fact an eponymous founder-figure derived from the place-name Caer- fyrddin and historicized with the deeds of one Lailoken ( Jarman, ; Bromwich, : -). Similarly if we turn to Ireland, we find divinities historicized. St Bridget (Bride) is perhaps the best known example of this, but Nuada, Lug and the others are all assigned a ‘real’ place in the history of Ireland by medieval authors too. A final interesting example of the historicization of myth is that of the Norse demigod Sigurd/Siegfried, who was historicized by being associated in the Nibelungenlied with a famous historical battle in AD between the Huns and the Burgundians (Thomas, : ). To sum up, anyone with any serious or academic interest in medieval history and the sources that claim to record it should be aware that ‘no smoke without fire’ is very poor methodology when it is used as an a priori assumption. Medieval texts include examples of both historical figures mythicized and mythical and folkloric figures historicized, with no a priori grounds for privileging one explanation of such figures over the other. Fundamentally, the historical existence of figures from medieval legend cannot simply be assumed – there is no possible justification for doing this. It must be demonstrated to be likely, possible or proven via a detailed and critical examination of the relevant sources, taking into account the date of the various concepts of that person, the reliability of the sources they appear in, and the whole weight of the evidence in question. Charlemagne isn’t accepted 10 concepts of arthur by historians as a historical figure because of some a priori assumption that he must have existed.

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