L..0J 6AA J 152 Riddles rrz.l (. A,J'i1./,Ld~ :?f €,.)Us t( l.,. k and dash of waves; few men I saw my home in that wilderness, V.7l. I (1...~ n. P,.-) /~~). but each dawn, each dusk, 1 the tawny waves surged and swirled /.}\JV) /)M«.D5c{ {{) . around me. Little did I think that I, mouth less, should ever sing to men sitting at the mead-bench, 10 vary ing my pitch. It is rather puzzling, a miracle to men ignorant of such arts, how a knife's point and a right hand (mind and implement moving as one) could cut and carve me-so that I 15 can send you a message without fear, and no one else can overhear or noise abroad the words we share. Solutions: 1. Penis or onion; 2. Bible; 3. Book worm; 4. Pen and fingers; 5. Reed. After the Norman Conquest P ERSPECTI VES Arthurian Myth in the History o f Britain A lmost since it first appeared, the story of King Arthur has occupied a contested zone between myth and history. Far from diminishing the Arthurian tradition, though, this ambiguity has lent it a tremendous and protean impact on the political and cultural imagination of Europe, from the Middle Ages to the present. Probably no ocher body of medieval legend remains today as widely known and as often revisited as the Arthurian story. O ne measure of Arthur's undiminished importance is the eager debate, eight centuries old and going strong, about his historical status. Whether or not a specific "Arthur" ever exist­ ed, legends and attributes gathered around his name from a very early dace, mostly in texts of W elsh background. Around 600 a Welsh poem refers briefly to Arthur's armed might, and by about 1000, the story C ulhwch and O lwen, from the Mabinogion, assumes knowledge of Arthur as a royal warlord. Ocher early Welsh texts begin to give him more-than-mortal attributes, associating Arthur with such marvels as an underworld quest and a mysterious tomb. In the ninth century, the Latin History of the Briwns by the Welshman Nennius confidently speaks of Arthur as a great leader and lists his twelve victories ending with that at Mount Badon. Some of chis at lease fits with better-documented history and with less-shadowy comman­ ders who might have been models for an Arthurian figure, even if they were not "Arthur." When the Romans withdrew in 410, the romanized Britons soon faced territorial aggression from the Sa.xons and Piers. In the decades after midcentury, the Britons mounted a successful defense, led in part by Aurelius Ambrosius and culminating, it appears, with the battle of Badon in roughly 500, after which Saxon incursions paused for a time. In those same years of territorial threat, some Britons had emigrated to what is now Brittany, and in the 460s or 470s a warlord named Riothamus led an army, probably from Britain, and fought successfully in Gaul in alliance with local rulers sympathetic to Rome. His name was latinized from a British title meaning "supreme king." Both Riothamus and Aurelius Ambrosius correspond to parts of the later narratives of Arthur: his role as high king, his triumphs against the Saxons, his links co Rome (both friendly and hostile), and his campaigns on the continent. Geoffrey of Monmoulh 153 Whether the origins of Arthur's story lie in fact or in an urge among the Welsh to imag­ ine a great leader who once restored their power against the ever-expanding Anglo-Saxons, he was clearly an established figure in Welsh oral and written literature by the ninth century. Arthur, however, also held a broader appeal for other peoples of England. The British Isles were felt to lie at the outer edge of world geography, but the story of Arthur and his ancestor Brutus served to create a Britain with other kinds of centrality. The legend of Brutus made Britain the end point of an inexorable westward movement of Trojan imperial power, the rranslario imperii, and Arthur's forebears became linked to Roman imperial dynasties. Finally, the general movement of Arthur's continental campaigns neatly reversed the patterns of Roman and then Norman colonization. In the later Middle Ages and after, Arthur and his court are most often encountered in works chat lay little claim to historical accuracy. Rather, they exploit the very uncertainty of Arthurian narrative to explore the highest (if sometimes self-deceiving) yearnings of private emotion and social order. These Arthurian romances also probe, often in tragic terms, the lim­ its and taboos that both define and subvert such ideals, including the mutual threats posed by private emotion and social order. .d fingers; 5. Reed. Nevertheless, the Arthurian tradition has also been pulled persistently into the realm of the real. le was presented as serious historical writing from the twelfth century through the end of the Middle Ages. Political agents have used Arthur's kingship as a model or precedent for their own aspirations, as seen in the Kennedy administration's portrayal as a version of Camelot. Even elements of the Christian church wrote their doctrines into Arthurian narra­ tive or claimed Arthur as a patron. The texts in th is section present three illuminating moments of Arthur's emergence of Britain into history and politics. Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, finished around 11 38, was the fu llest version yet of Arthur's origin and career. Geoffrey was the first to make A rthur such a central figure in British history, and it was largely through a contested zone between Geoffrey's Latin "history" that Arthur became so widespread a feature of cultural imagina­ 1ough, this ambiguity has tion in the Middle Ages and beyond. W ri ting at the close of the twelfth century, Gerald of al imagination of Europe, Wales narrates an occasion , possibly orchestrated by Henry 11, in which Arthurian tradi­ medieval legend remains tion was slightly altered and folded into emergent Norman versions of British a nt iquity. The section ends with two politically charged versions of nat ional origin, English and thedebate, eight centuries Scottish, proposed in 130 I as part of Edward l's efforts to influence royal succession in !cific "Arthur" ever exist­ Scotland. ly date, mostly in texts of 1ur's armed might, and by 1mes knowledge of Arthur :e-than-mortal attributes, I E::il:::a: I mysterious tomb. In the nius confidently speaks of Geoffrey of Monmouth t at Mount Badon. C. 1100-1155 th less-shadowy comman­ they were not "Arthur." From the perspective of surviving British peoples in Wales and Cornwall, the Norman iced territorial aggression Conquest of 1066 was only the last among successive waves of invasion by Romans, Picts, ons mounted a successful Anglo-Saxons, and Vikings. The Celtic Britons had long been pushed into the far south­ •pears, with the battle of west by the time the Normans arrived, where they continued to resist colonization. The 1e. In those same years of Welsh maintained a vital language, culture, and ethnic mythology, including a memory of y, and in the 460s or 470s their fellow Celts in Brittany and a divided nostalgia for the long-departed Romans. Thus nd fought successfully in a whole Celtic linguistic and political world offered an alternative to the languages and as latinized from a British legends of the Normans, much of which derived ultimately from Mediterranean antiquity. ,ius correspond to pares of Arthur, king of the Britons, emerged as a key fi gure as these peoples and cultures began to inst the Saxons, his links - articulate the complex new forms of political and private identity precipitated by the 1ent. Conquest. 154 Arthurian Myth in che Histo ry of Britain No one was more important in chis process chan Geoffrey of Monmouth. He was prior of the Abbey of Monmouth in Wales and later was named bishop of Saint Asaph, though civil disorder prevented his taking the pose. Yee he was also act ive in the emerging schools of Oxford, he was patronized by Norman nobles and bishops, and he wrote in Latin. Geoffrey's learning reflects this double allegiance. W ell schooled in the Latin curriculum chat embraced ancient Roman and Christian literature, he was also deeply versed in the oral and written cul­ ture of Wales. As a creative negociater between Welsh and Anglo-Norman legends and lan­ guages, his influence was without parallel. Both of Geoffrey's surviving prose works, the Prophecies of Merlin ( fi nished around 1135 ) and the History of the Kings of Britain (about l 138) present themselves as translations of ancient texts from Wales or Brittany. Geoffrey also wrote a Life of Merlin in Latin verse. He probably synthesized a number of sources and added material of his own in his "translations." It was a pointed gesture, nevertheless, to posit a Celtic text whose authority rivaled the Latin culture and legends chat had underwritten later Anglo-Saxon and then Norman power in Eng­ land. Geoffrey daringly inverted the general hierarchy of Latin and vernaculars in his time; instead, he offered "British" as the ancient tongue that he wanted to make more broadly acces­ sible for Latin-reading newcomers. Geoffrey's central heroes are Brutus, the exiled Trojan descendant who colonized and named Britain, and Arthur, who reunified England after Saxon and Pictish attacks, and repulsed Roman efforts to re-establish power there. Geoffrey's own purposes in the History were complex but he was responding in part to contemporary events. T he 1130s were a decade of civil strife in England, as nobles shifted their allegiances between King Stephen and the ocher claimant to the throne, the future Henry II.