King Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory

King Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory

the feast of Pentacost all manner of men assayed to

pull at the sword that wold assay, but none might prevail but Arthur,

and he pulled it afore all the lords and commons that were there,

wherefore all the commons cried at once, 'We will have Arthur unto

our king; we will put him no more in delay, for we all see that it is

God's will that he shall be our king, and who that holdeth against it,

we will slay him'.

And therewith they all kneeled at once, both rich and

poor, and cried Arthur mercy because they had delayed him so

long. And Arthur forgave them, and took the sword between

both his hands, and offered it upon the altar where the Archbishop

was, and so was he made knight of the best man there.

The above passage is from LeMmorte d'Arthur : the history of King Arthur

and his noble knights of the Round Table, by Sir Thomas Malory, a book that

was written and published between 1469-1470, during the reign of King Edward

IV. Prior to this document, the exact origins of Arthurian legend are difficult to

trace reliably before the twelfth century, when Geoffrey of Monmouth produced

the History of the Kings of Britain, in which he devotes the last third of the book

to King Arthur, with the first two thirds leading up to this climax. Although

Monmouth's history contains passages which can be deemed 'mystical' in

nature, especially in regards to Arthur, the preceding pages leading up to King

Arthur's appearance, read as straight history as opposed to mythical tale. I found

this not only hard to follow but also hard to swlaoow. I htink it’s all in the

interpeators eyes. Some see the same facts or so-called-facts and read the

same documents of the same time periods and come up with completly different

ideas. King Arthur would have lived in the end of the fifth century to the

beginning of the sixth century, with his birth most likely occurring around 470

A.D. and his death, as related in the folklore, in the year 539, at the Battle of

Camlan. This means that six hundred years transpired between Arthur's life span

and any surviving written account, history or folklore, of a king named Arthur.

Although the majority of the British population in the fifth and sixth centuries was

illiterate, there was a classically educated, 'Romanized' minority that could read

and write, as well as a lite...

... middle of paper ...

...te has the 'right' types of finds located in

soil layers and pottery types to the 5th to 6th century AD. Does this prove that

King Arthur existed and defended Camelot, and was conceived at Tintagel? No.

Does it prove that he didn't exist and was not at these places? No, it doesn't.

What the archaeological remains do are create a record, a time line based on

tangible physical evidence for a mythic, literary figure.

What is important to remember, is that the archaeology of Arthurian sites

is one thing and Arthurian literature is another. The same is true for early

'histories' of King Arthur; they may be based on fact but there was such a time

lapse between the actual events and recorded history, that these sources are

questionable at best. These written sources, both fact and fiction, may dissect at

times and compliment the archaeological record, but the characters of Morgaine

le Fay, Lancelot, Merlin, Guinievere, or even Arthur are not going to be buried in

the years accumulation of soil, waiting to be discovered, to tell us their tales; but

the archaeology of these sites, taken as a key to the factual past of Anglo-Saxon

history, can be just as fascinating.