The Romance of Arthur

An Anthology of Medieval Texts in Translation

Norris Lacy, James Wilhelm, Norris J. Lacy, James J. Wilhelm

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317341833
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The Romance of Arthur, James J. Wilhelm's classic anthology of Arthurian literature, is an essential text for students of the medieval Romance tradition.

This fully updated third edition presents a comprehensive reader, mapping the course of Arthurian literature, and is expanded to cover:

• key authors such as Chrétien de Troyes and Thomas of Britain, as well as Arthurian texts by women and more obscure sources for Arthurian romance
• extensive coverage of key themes and characters in the tradition
• a wide geographical range of texts including translations from Latin, French, German, Spanish, Welsh, Middle English, and Italian sources
• a broad chronological range of texts, encompassing nearly a thousand years of Arthurian romance.

Norris J. Lacy builds on the book's source material, presenting readers with a clear introduction to many accessible modern-spelling versions of Arthurian texts. The extracts are presented in a new reader-friendly format with detailed suggestions for further reading and illustrations of key places, figures, and scenes. The Romance of Arthur provides an excellent introduction and an extensive resource for both students and scholars of Arthurian literature.

Chapter 1

Arthur in the Latin Chronicles

James J. Wilhelm

The romantic legend of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table seems more and more to have had some foundation in history A man named Artorius in Latin or Arthur in Welsh and English is mentioned in the Latin histories that describe the collapse of the christianized Roman Empire in Great Britain and the invasions of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from the lowlands of northern Germany.

After the Romans’ conquest of Britain, begun in A.D. 43, they extended their advanced culture into the faraway Celtic island and later promoted the spread of Christianity there. Eventually the Roman Empire was weakened in the west by barbarian invasions. Denuded of troops, Britain passed from imperial control in 410, and the Britons were thrown back on their own resources. They still preserved something of Roman civilization, regarding themselves as Roman citizens who were superior to their insular barbaric enemies, the Irish, Scots, and the Picts from the never-Romanized northern region, and to the Germanic peoples of Holland, Germany, and Scandinavia, who were often marauding.

The first important writer to speak of these events was Gildas, a monk who around the year 547 composed his polemical treatise On the Downfall and Conquest of Britain (De excidio et conquestu Britanniae). In Chapter 23 he tells how a “proud tyrant,” whom we usually associate with the British chieftain Vortigern, and his counselors asked “the most ferocious Saxons of cursed name” to come over from Germany to help them fight against their insular enemies. This was a most impolitic move. Seeing that the island was relatively defenseless, the Saxons probably inflicted some losses on the British enemies, but then turned on their hosts themselves. They drove the Britons into the hills of Wales and Cornwall, where their descendants live even today, speaking the Celtic tongues of Welsh (or Cymric) and Cornish. Gildas speaks of these dispersed people in this way:

Chapter 25. And so many of the miserable survivors, who were trapped in the mountains, were slain in droves. Others, driven by hunger, stretched their hands to the enemy, offering themselves into endless servitude—if they were not cut down at once in an act that was kinder. Others ran off to overseas regions with loud wailings of grief…. Still others trusted their lives to the mountainous highlands, the menacing cliffs and crags, the dense forests, and the rugged sea caves, remaining, however timorously, in their homelands.

Then some time passed, and the cruel invaders retreated to their home bases…. The survivors collected their strength under the leadership of Ambrosius Aurelianus, a most temperate [modestus] man, who by chance was the only person of Roman parentage to have come through the catastrophe in which his parents, who had once worn the royal purple toga, had been killed, and whose present-day descendants have far degenerated from their former virtue. He and his men challenged their previous conquerors to battle, and by the grace of God, victory was theirs.

Chapter 26. From that time, now the native citizens and now the enemy have triumphed … up to the year of the siege of Mount Badon [Badonici montis], when the last but certainly not the least slaughter of these lowly scoundrels occurred, which, I know, makes forty-four years and one month, and which was also the time of my birth.

[Text in Chambers, Arthur, pp. 236–37]

Gildas seems to offer us many details, but his language is overdramatized and ambiguous, especially with reference to “forty-four years.” Is that the span of time from the arrival of the Saxons or from the leadership of Ambrosius? Also, we do not know the date of Gildas’s birth; his death is listed as 572 in the highly suspect Annals of Cambria, below. And who was Ambrosius Aurelianus? He is also mentioned by the other important chronicler, Nennius, and William of Malmesbury links him with Arthur, whom Gildas ignores. Yet despite his omissions and ambiguities, Gildas clearly establishes the milieu from which the legend springs: a downtrodden people finds salvation in a great military leader who is connected with the civilization of Rome and the Holy Church. As for the intriguing Mount Badon, it has been identified as Bath, Badbury, and Baddington, although many authorities today connect it with Liddington Castle near Swindon.

The next Latin writer, the Venerable Bede (673?–735), tends largely to repeat Gildas in his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (731):

Book 1, Chapter 15. In the year of Our Lord 449…. At that time the races of the Angles or the Saxons were invited by the previously mentioned king [Vortigern] to come to Britain in three long ships…. After the enemy had killed or dispersed the natives of the island, they went home, and the natives gradually recollected their strength and courage, and they came out of their hiding places and collectively called on heaven for help to avoid a general disaster. At that time they had as their leader Ambrosius Aurelianus, a temperate man, who by chance was the only person to have come out of the previously mentioned catastrophe in which his parents, who had a famous royal name, had been killed. With him in command the Britons gathered their strength and challenged their previous conquerors to battle. With the help of God they won the victory. And from that time, now the native citizens and now the enemy have triumphed, up to the year of the siege of Mount Badon, when the Britons inflicted great losses on their enemies, approximately forty-four years after their arrival in Britain.

[Text in Chambers, pp. 237–38]

The span of forty-four years is clarified, and since the arrival time is dated, the year for the battle is put at 493. This date is not totally unlikely, although Bede’s indebtedness to Gildas does not inspire much confidence in his presentation.

The first Latin chronicle to mention the name “Arthur” is The History of the Britons (Historia Brittonum), which is believed to have been compiled about 800 by a Welshman named Nennius. (See Chapter 2 for an earlier reference in Welsh.) This work was written in Latin, but many scholars feel that Nennius based his details about the Twelve Battles of Arthur upon native Welsh sources. We should remember that the modern Welsh people are the direct survivors of the ancient Britons. The passage has always led many to believe that there must be something historically real behind it, despite the sacramental nature of the number “twelve” and the shadowy geography, yet only the Caledonian Forest of Scotland and the City of the Legion (almost certainly the Welsh Caerleon) can be identified:

Chapter 56. At that time the Saxons were thriving and increasing in multitudes in Britain. With [their leader] Hengist dead, his son Octha crossed over from the left side of Britain to the realm of the Kentishmen, and from him are descended the kings of Kent.

Then Arthur fought against these people along with the kings of the Britons, and he was the leader in their battles. His first battle was at the mouth of the River Glein. The second to the fifth took place above the River Dubglas [Douglas or Dark Water], in the region of Linnuis. The sixth battle occurred at the River Bassas. The seventh was a battle in the Forest of Celidon, that is: the Battle of the Caledonian Forest. The eighth was at Castle Guinnion, in which Arthur carried an image of St. Mary, the Perpetual Virgin on his shoulders, and the pagans were put to flight on that day, and there was a great massacre of them through the power of Our Lord Jesus Christ and his mother Mary. The ninth battle was in the City of the Legion. The tenth was fought on the banks of the River Tribruit. The eleventh occurred on Mount Agned. The twelfth was the Battle of Mount Badon, in which nine hundred and sixty men fell from a single attack of Arthur, and nobody put them down except him alone, and in every one of the battles he emerged as victor. But although the others were overcome in the battles, they sent for help from Germany, and their forces were ceaselessly reinforced. The Saxons brought over leaders from Germany to rule the Britons up to the reign of Ida, Son of Eobba, the first king of Beornica.

[Text in Chambers, pp. 238–39]

Later in his history, Nennius includes the following passage, which shows that the legend of Arthur was already becoming a popular myth:

Chapter 73. There is another wonder in the region known as Buelt—a heap of stones piled up with the footprint of a dog upon it. While hunting the boar Troynt, Cabal, the hunting dog of Arthur the soldier, stepped on a stone, and Arthur later collected a pile beneath this and called it Carn Cabal. Men come to carry away the stone in their hands for a day and a night, yet the next day the imprinted stone is back on the pile.

There is another wonder in the region called Ercing. It is a tomb near a brook that is called the Mound of Anir, for Anir is the man buried there. He was the son of Arthur the soldier, who killed and buried him there. Men come to measure the mound, which is sometimes six feet long, sometimes nine or twelve or fifteen. However you measure it again and again, you will never get the same figure—and I have tried this myself.

The Carn Cabal has been identified as existing in Breconshire in southern Wales, while Ercing has been placed in Herefordshire. The hunting of the boar figures prominently in the Welsh Tale of Culhwch and Olwen in Chapter 3.

The next document is called The Annals of Cambria, another name for Wales, which the Welsh themselves call Cymru. It dates from the 900s, and offers these dates, which nowadays seem to be a bit late:

A.D. 518 The Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders, and the Britons were victors….

A.D. 539 The Battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut both fell; and there was widespread death in Britain and in Ireland….

A.D. 572 Gildas died….

This source, suspect as it is, nevertheless supplies us with a mention of a final catastrophic battle in which Arthur will go down, along with a man whose name evolves into Modred or Mordred. Although this figure will eventually become an adversary, he could here be one of Arthur’s allies.

The next source is The Legend of St. Goeznovius, a Latin account of the life of the Breton St. Goeuznou. The work bears the date of 1019. That has been dismissed by J.S.P. Tatlock as too early, but Léon Fleuriot has since defended it as correct. In any case, an important article in Speculum by Geoffrey Ashe has shown that the legend must be examined closely. It is important because it establishes a continental base of operation for Arthur, which figures in the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth and later writers. It establishes, in short, a historical link between Britain and Brittany, which we know existed in literature for the transmission of such tales as those of Tristan and Parsifal. The pertinent section runs as follows:

After the passage of time the usurping King Vortigern, in order to guarantee support for himself for the defense of the realm of insular Britain, which he was ruling unjustly, invited some warlike men from the region of Saxony and made them his allies in his kingdom. Since these were heathenish and devilish men, who from their natures lusted to make human blood flow, they called down many evils upon the British.

Shortly afterward their arrogance was checked for a time by the great Arthur, King of the Britons, who forced them for the most part from the island or into servitude. But after this same Arthur had brilliantly won many victories in Britain and Gaul, he was finally called from human life, and the way once again lay open to the Saxons to return to the island to oppress the British, to overthrow churches, and to persecute saints.

[Text in Chambers, p. 242]

Before this the anonymous author had described how a Briton had emigrated to Gallic Armorica and founded many colonies, thereby linking the insular and continental Britons and Bretons.

The next important chronicler is the Englishman William of Malmesbury, who wrote The Deeds of the English Kings (De rebus gestis regum Anglorum) in about the year 1125. In one passage from Book 1, Section 8, he verifies the earlier writings and notes that the Bretons (or Britons or both) now treat the deeds of the heroic Arthur (bellicosi Arturis) as if he were an earthly Messiah:

But with Vortimer [Guortimer, son of Vortigern] dead, the vigor of the Britons flagged, and their hopes diminished and flowed away, and indeed would have vanished entirely if Ambrosius, the lone survivor of the Romans who ruled after Vortigern, had not checked the unruly barbarians with the exemplary assistance of the heroic Arthur. This is that Arthur who is raved about even today in the trifles of the Bretons (Britons)—a man who is surely worthy of being described in true histories rather than dreamed about in fallacious myths—for he truly sustained his sinking homeland for a long time and aroused the drooping spirits of his fellow citizens to battle. Finally at the siege of Mt. Badon, relying on the image of the Lord’s mother, which he had sewn on his armor, looming up alone, he dashed down nine ...