King Arthur was born somewhere in the misty region where history and imagination meet. The original legends may have been based on a real person, but scholars have yet to determine who that person was. Whether real or imaginary, the story of Arthur has been shaped by the ancient myths and literary creations that developed around him. The courtly medieval king who appears in the best-known versions of Arthur’s story is a creation of a later time.
Almost fifteen hundred years after the first known reference to Arthur was written, scholars still debate whether or not Arthur was based on a real person. Some believe that King Arthur may be based on a Romano-British war leader, possibly named Artorius, who defended the native Celtic people of Britain against Anglo-Saxon invaders after Rome withdrew its troops from the British Isles in 410 ce. References to this hero appear in a book written around 550 by a Celtic monk named Gildas; in a work by Nennius, a Celtic historian of around 800; and in a genealogy from Wales compiled around 955 from earlier sources. According to these accounts, Artorius fought a series of battles against the Saxons sometime between 500 and 537.
A British researcher named Geoffrey Ashe proposed a different identity for Arthur. He based his theory on a letter that a Roman nobleman wrote around 460 to a British king named Riothamus. Linking this letter with medieval accounts of Arthur’s deeds in France, Ashe suggested that Riothamus, who led a British army into France, was the man upon whom the Arthurian legends are based.
King Arthur has also been linked with Glastonbury in southwestern Britain. Old traditions claimed that early British Christians founded Glastonbury Abbey in the first or second century CE, with the earliest stone structure established in the seventh century. The abbey stood until a fire destroyed it in 1184. According to legend, Arthur and his queen, Guinevere, were buried nearby. Arthur’s tomb bore these words: “Here lies Arthur, king that was, king that shall be.” Some chronicles say that King Henry II ordered the tomb opened in 1150 and that it contained Arthur’s skeleton and sword. Modern scholars, though, have been unable to separate fact from legend.
World History
