Reinventing King Arthur

The Arthurian Legends in Victorian Culture

Inga Bryden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138380066
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351905268
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

In her systematic reassessment of the remaking of the Arthurian past in nineteenth-century British fiction and non-fiction, Inga Bryden examines the Victorian Arthurian revival as a cultural phenomenon, offering insights into the relationship between social, cultural, religious, and ethnographic debates of the period and a wide range of texts. Throughout, she adopts an intertextual and historical perspective, informed by poststructuralist thinking, to reveal nineteenth-century attitudes towards the past. Starting with a review of the historical evidence available to Victorian writers and an examination of how historians of the time represented Arthur, the author connects Victorian accounts of Arthur's quest to contemporary scientific and historical searches for origins and knowledge, and to his appropriation by competing religious movements. She shows how writers explored the dynamics of heroism by recruiting Arthur and his knights to define codes of chivalric service, and to personify the psychological complexities of love. Finally, the legend of his death and transportation to Avalon is deconstructed and placed in the context of cultural attitudes towards commemorating the dead and theological debates about the afterlife. Inga Bryden engages not only with well-known Arthurian texts by Tennyson, Swinburne, Morris and Rossetti, but with lesser-known works by Bulwer-Lytton, Robert Stephen Hawker, Sebastian Evans, Diana Maria Mulock, Christiana Douglas and Joseph Shorthouse.

Chapter 1

Nineteenth-Century Arthurians and the Mythical Inheritance

– and that night the bard

Sang Arthur’s glorious wars, and sang the King

As wellnigh more than man (‘Guinevere’ in Ricks, ed., 949, ll.283–5)

The Literary and Historical Inheritance

Arthur, ‘the real or fabulous king of Britain’ (DNB, 1885), is an elusive character, mystery enveloping even the natures and places of his birth and death. The dark period between the fifth and seventh centuries A.D., when Arthur is held to have lived at some point, was itself a time of shifting social structures and alliances. As the institutions made by Roman rule in Britain were declining, the Welsh and English kingdoms were being formed. It is in the west and, to a lesser extent, in the north that continuing oral traditions for the Dark Ages are most evident. Yet Arthur’s context, if any, is of a body of vanished stories belonging to a geographical area which was invaded at an early stage. What this relates to is the destruction of knowledge. As Gildas was composing On the Ruin of Britain in the mid-sixth century, ‘knowledge of the outside world and knowledge of the past had been wiped out of men’s minds’ (Thompson, 114–15). Gildas attacks a corrupt British society, focusing on the west. Arthur is not referred to by name, although the battle of Mount Badon, legendary by the eighth century as Arthur’s victory, is mentioned. Richard Barber in King Arthur: Hero and Legend (1986) designates Arthur a ‘hero without deeds’ (11). Paradoxically, it is the combination of famous hero and mysterious context which renders the Arthurian legend so compelling and malleable for writers.

The Historia Brittonum or The History of the Britons is, towards the end of the nineteenth century, taken as ‘the earliest writing in which Arthur is spoken of at any length’ and is assigned to Nennius (DNB, 1885). Concerned with the revival of Welsh political fortunes at the close of the eighth century, it includes a list of twelve military victories assigned to Arthur. Arthur is also twice referred to in the Mirabilia, a group of wonder stories attached to the Historia Brittonum. Natural marvels of Britain are linked with particular heroes and the stories indicate that in popular tradition, Arthur was set against a south-central Welsh background by the ninth century. Behind the account of Arthur in the Historia Brittonum lie two Arthurian entries in the late eighth-century Annates Cambriae.¹ The Annals of Wales in turn draw on lost historical notes from the northern Celtic territories in which a poet lists heroes’ battles, Arthur being assigned nine (Barber, 5–6).

Of further deeds associated with Arthur, mention is made in verse from the sixth century onwards which is contained in the thirteenth-century manuscripts the Black Book of Carmarthen and the Book ofTaliesin. The ‘Verses on the Graves of the Heroes’ in the Black Book of Carmarthen shrouds the death and burial of Arthur in mystery: his grave is an eternal wonder (Jarman, in Varty, ed., 3–4).

It is among the Welsh literary records of the ninth to eleventh centuries that the image of Arthur’s court is first forged. The Triads, bardic storytelling devices, contribute to this process, as do the Welsh prose stories The Mabinogion, first translated into English by Lady Charlotte Guest in the nineteenth century (1838–49). The Triads reveal the tradition of the battle of Camlann being in Cornwall: the court site is indeed first given as ‘Celliwic’.

The Lives of the Welsh Saints, written in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, reveal varying portraits of Arthur in relation to his sphere of influence. Stories in the Life of Cadoc portray Arthur as local tyrant, rather than the tyrannous British king he becomes in the Life of Saint Gildas by Caradoc of Llancarfan. The Life of Saint Gildas, written around 1130, is also the first source to connect Arthur with Glastonbury and to establish Glastonbury’s mystical, supernatural nature: Arthur rescues Gwenhwyfar from Melwas’s castle on the ‘Island of Glass’ (Jackson, in Loomis, ed., 12–19).

By the twelfth century a belief in Arthur’s return was current and the nature of that return was to become clearer. The difference between the historical and the literary images of Arthur became more marked and from the twelfth century onwards ‘the visionary kingdom of Arthur hovered behind the real kingdom of his supposed successors who wore the English crown’ (Ashe, ed., 1), affecting its politics, shaping its literature.

The main Arthurian medieval source was Geoffrey of Monmouth’s (a man of Celtic descent who became Bishop of St Asaph) Historia Regum Britanniae or The History of the Kings of Britain, which appeared around 1136. This text heralded a new era of popular romances, conveniently filled a gap in England’s knowledge of its pretended British kings and was a source for the chronicles of medieval historians. Despite increasing scholarly scepticism concerning Arthur’s historicity, English acceptance of the historical Arthur was, until the nineteenth century, largely based on Geoffrey’s Historia. The Historia was translated into English in 1718 by Aaron Thompson, and a new edition of Thompson, revised and corrected by J. A. Giles, appeared in 1842.²

Yet the Historia is an amalgam of Celtic elements, romance, imaginative literature and commentary on the art of rewriting the past. Marked by patriotism and propaganda, it is dedicated to Robert Earl of Gloucester (d.1147), illegitimate son of Henry I. Geoffrey employs the literary device of claiming a historical source, saying that his book is based on an original in the British language which he received from ‘Walter, archdeacon of Oxford’. One aim is to forge a national history, whether it be for the Welsh or for the Bretons, as William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon had already done for the English. Barber sees Geoffrey’s text as a ‘conscious attempt to create a national epic’; an effort to form Arthur as an emperor-hero, whilst providing Britain with a ‘golden age’ to celebrate (35). In so doing, Geoffrey was inspiring noblemen with a sense of purpose related to the glory of their ancestors. The Matter of Britain needed to compare favourably with that of France (the tales of Charlemagne) and that of the classical world (the stories surrounding Troy).

Indeed, the story of Arthur forms a climax in the Historia. It occurs in the context of an account of rulers stretching from Brutus, who arrives in Britain after the fall of Troy, to Cadwallader, who dies in 689 A.D. Arthur, born at Tintagel,³ child of Uther Pendragon by Ygerne, is pictured by Geoffrey as very much the Christian, patriotic warrior who displays exceptional courage and generosity. We are told of his successful campaigns against the Saxon invaders; his marriage to Guinevere, of Roman family; his conquering of Ireland, the Orkneys and Iceland, followed by twelve years of peace, and then the conquering of Norway and Gaul. Arthur is crowned at Caerleon-upon-Usk, by which time Britain is the most sophisticated, wealthy and courteous of all kingdoms. The court women will love only those thrice proved in battle, thereby becoming ‘chaste and more virtuous and for their love the knights were ever more daring’ (Thorpe, trans., 229). The concept of a code of courtliness was to be adopted and developed in nineteenth-century society in specific ways (see chapter six).

Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia subsequently deals at some length with Arthur’s war against Rome. Eventually Arthur is recalled to Britain by his nephew Mordred’s rebellion, and in fighting him at Camblam, receives a fatal wound. In the year 542 A.D. Arthur is carried off to the Isle of Avalon ‘so that his wounds might be attended to’ (261).

By 1100, Arthur was returning in stories which had a topographical basis, and Arthurian material reached a new audience. An instance of this cited by Susan Pearce is Herman of Laon’s De Miraculis S. Mariae Laudeniensis, written about 1155, which recounts the happenings of a fund-raising tour in England taken by nine canons of Laon (149). In parallel were the Bruts, or chronicles, giving successive reigns of ancient British kings. Wace and Gaimar translated Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia into French: Maistre Wace’s Roman de Brut appeared in 1155 and was dedicated to Henry IPs consort, Queen Eleanor. Wace’s most important addition to Arthurian story was that of the Round Table, symbol of equality, and with him, Arthur was widely recognized as occupying the central role in an epic poem. At this stage, as Barber indicates, Arthur had also attained most renown as a heroic king styled on Charlemagne (40).

Layamon’s Brut (1189–99), a translation of Wace, was the first English vernacular version of the legend of King Arthur. Layamon, a parish priest, wrote despite there being no likelihood of patronage. The world he depicts, with its supernatural elements, is that of the Anglo-Saxon epic rather than of the chivalric romance, and Arthur is prominent as a sincere, courageous leader. Yet this picture was reshaped by the late fourteenth century so that in the alliterative Morte Arthure, Arthur became a Plantagenet king fighting a fourteenth-century war. Paradoxically though, the Morte Arthure ends by rejecting Arthur’s possible return. Paralleled with Alexander and Charlemagne, Arthur is seen as a ‘fallen prince’ (Barber, ch.2).

However, Arthur’s ‘return’ had already assumed a more tactile aspect. Henry II, on learning from a Welsh bard that Arthur was possibly buried between two pillars in Glastonbury Abbey cemetery, asked the monks to investigate. In 1184 the abbey was wrecked by fire, its rebuilding supervised by Henry, and it was only after the King’s death in 1189 that supposed remains of Arthur and Guenevere were exposed: the past was put on show. A leaden cross was reported found, inscribed ‘HIC IACET SEPULTUS INCLITUS REX ARTURIUS IN INSULA AVALONW’: here lies buried the renowned King Arthur in the Island of Avalon. Nine feet below was a coffin of hollowed oak. The coffin was said to contain the bones of a tall man whose skull had been damaged, besides smaller bones, and a remnant of yellow hair. The relics were casketed and added to the abbey’s treasures. In this way the legend of Arthur was also casketed, and the visual remains of his heritage claimed by a royal line.

In the nineteenth century, Arthurian writers, and Tennyson in particular, would dissect the nature of a people’s response to the past: in what ways should the past and its relics be utilized? Tennyson’s The Epic: Morte d’Arthur (1842) recounts Bedivere’s confusion in his attempt to cast away Arthur’s sword Excalibur. An actual sword, said to be Excalibur and recovered at Glastonbury Abbey, had been carried by Richard I as he rode to the Third Crusade. Both doubt and certainty can surround an emblem of the past: with Arthur, any boundaries between what people regard as fictional and what they take to be real, become fluid.

Yet English monarchs were certain that the figure of Arthur could be employed to political advantage. In 1278 for example, Edward I, with his queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury, visited Glastonbury and had the supposed bones of Arthur put on display. Such an act reinforced the impossibility of Arthur returning to aid the Welsh at a time when Edward was attempting to conquer Wales. Later, the remains were reinterred before the abbey church’s high altar: they were there until the Dissolution.

Glastonbury was also visited by Edward III in 1331. Edward afterwards sanctioned a search on the abbey site for the body of Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph, according to Robert de Borron, carried a vessel containing droplets of Christ’s blood to Britain. The focus of this Christian interpretation of Celtic myth was Glastonbury and it was by Arthur’s reign that the Grail was supposed to be lost, whilst yet remaining in Britain. The legend of Arthur further affected Edward’s reign: in 1348 the Order of the Garter was formed, influenced by the chivalric brotherhood of the Round Table, and a pageant known as a ‘Round Table’ became a popular entertainment for nobles (Ashe, ed., ch.1).

In literature after Wace and Layamon, the Matter of Britain tended to be treated in a more imaginative manner, rather than taken as just folklore or as claiming to be history. Arthur’s story diversified and its influence spread. In Britain, Walter Map was believed to have incorporated new narratives with Arthur’s history, whilst with twelfth-century French writers Arthur became a figure of romance. The role of Arthur is reduced in the French romances, the focus instead being on the court and on the adventures of individual knights. This form of setting embraces the concepts of courtly love, chivalry and empire. Chretien de Troyes, writing for the Champagne court between about 1170 and 1190, produced such verse romances as Eric et Enide, Cliges, Yvain, Perceval and Lancelot. He was the first to name Camelot as the site of Arthur’s court and to view the Round Table as the centre of chivalry.

Arthurian romance developed into an epic cycle of individual stories framed by Arthur’s life: the most popular version of Arthurian legend in the late Middle Ages was the Vulgate Cycle. The Vulgate Cycle had five main sections: an account of the Grail’s early history, based on Robert de Borron; the story of Merlin going on to the fourth year of Arthur’s reign; the Prose Lancelot; the Quest for the Holy Grail, in which Galahad replaces Perceval as hero, and the Death of King Arthur. Overall, the love between Guenevere and Lancelot is seen as having a vital role in Arthur’s tragic fall from greatness. Exterior to the Vulgate Cycle and also popular, was the Prose Tristan, an elaboration of the Tristan and Iseult story, earlier versions of which were rediscovered in the early nineteenth century. Meanwhile, the Arthurian romances in the hands of German writers were coloured by a fresh interpretation of the ‘ideal’. Both Wolfram von Esenbach’s Parzival and Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan display a purer spiritual approach (Barber, ch.3).

Within the English Arthurian tradition there was an absence of large-scale romances. Instead, the English medieval audience required simpler episodes (as opposed to a complex mesh of interwoven stories), evidence of marvels and descriptions of the amazing wealth of kings. For example, the stanzaic he Morte Arthur m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• General Editors’ Preface
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Nineteenth-Century Arthurians and the Mythical Inheritance
• 2 Historians and Historicism
• 3 Ethnology and the Search for Origins
• 4 The Holy Grail
• 5 Victorian Heroism and the King Remodelled
• 6 Arthurian Lovers: Psychology, Purity and Adultery
• 7 Arthur’s Death
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index