The famous King Arthur, did he exist or not? Scientists still disagree. Jozef Janssens has his own opinion and describes the development of a Celtic warrior into a courtly king on the basis of historical texts.
He is one of the most famous literary figures:King Arthur with his Knights of the Round Table. The mythical adventures of this king have been spreading across Europe since the early Middle Ages. Mainly orally, but also in writing for the first time in the early seventh century, in an Old Welsh poem. Jozef Janssens, emeritus professor of medieval literature, gives with King Artur in plural. The myth unraveled a nice overview of the oldest Arthurian stories and shows how the content changes over time.
Janssens has been an Artur fan for decades and wrote his public book as an introduction to Arturistics, a specialist part of research into the Middle Ages. Within this field, linguists, historians and archaeologists are constantly fighting each other over Arthur. Did he or did he not really exist, that is the question. Janssens does not go into all the details of these differences of opinion, but does outline the pain points. A lack of early sources is one of the most important.
Celtic hero
Everyone agrees that Arthur is an early medieval figure. If he lived, then between 450 and 550. This period falls within the great migrations in Europe. Between 360 and 500 more and more Germanic Angles and Saxons came from the mainland to the island of Britain. They drove the original inhabitants, the Celts, to the west. These Celts, whom the Romans called Britons, are today called Welsh.
It is nice to read how this turbulent period of many centuries can still be found in the names of English areas. The Angles eventually managed to get England named after themselves and counties ending in -ex were Saxon. South Saxony is now called Sussex, West Saxony Wessex and so on. Many British fled the Germans and settled on the French coast, where New Britain was corrupted into Brittany.
What is especially interesting about Janssens' story is the role of King Arthur in this violent period. He was king of the Britons, at least according to the stories, and his oppressed people took him to mythical proportions. Centuries later, the British still believed that Arthur would return and drive out the Angles and Saxons.
This fervent desire was politically cleverly seized upon by the Norman king William the Conqueror. He defeated the Anglo-Saxons in 1066 at the famous Battle of Hastings and took the island. The oppressed British welcomed William with open arms. Not long after, about 1138, the scholar Galfridus of Monmouth wrote his Historia Regum Britanniae. With this History of the Kings of Britain, the author justified the Normans as successors to the early British kings. He gave the greatest of them, Artur, contemporary Norman touches.
Artur in writing
Galfridus was not the first to write about Artur. Around 600 the bard Aneirin performed the Welsh poem Y Gododdin (About the Gododdin, a Celtic tribe) at the court, in which the name Artur appears. The oldest surviving manuscript, however, dates from the thirteenth century. The oldest surviving text is the Historia Brittonium from the ninth century. In this History of the Britons by the Welsh monk Nennius, Arthur is a general with an already legendary reputation:single-handedly slaying no fewer than 960 enemies.
The oldest complete story about Arthur that has survived dates back to the 11th century. This Celtic mythological version, Culhwch ac Olwen, would do well in the fantasy genre now. It is full of mystery, magic, giants and talking animals.
Courtly King
Outside England, the Arthurian stories became really popular with translations and adaptations of Galfridus' version into the vernacular, such as the French Roman de Brut (1155). Norman nobles spread the stories about Arthur to the farthest corners of Europe. In this French adaptation, which is already full of courtly virtues, the Round Table appears for the first time.
The major cultural change to courtly king and his court can be seen at Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory (1485). The image we still have of King Arthur and his knights in armour, tournaments and courtly feasts in slender castles has been sketched by Malory. It is not without reason that Janssens calls this book a pivotal moment in Artur's history.
Myth or history
Because there are no sources from Arthur's own time that mention him and his name is not first recorded until centuries later, many scholars doubt whether the legendary king ever existed. Janssens shows how much historians, archaeologists and linguists have disagreed with each other (for centuries) regarding the interpretation of the scarce sources.
The rugged island of Tintagel in Cornwall, for example, has been known as Arthur's birthplace since the Middle Ages. Historians denied this and the remains of buildings were seen as a remote monastery. However, the discovery of refined Mediterranean pottery and glass in 1998 seems to indicate a thriving trade rather than an isolated location. Because of these luxury items, Janssens even thinks of a royal residence, which would fit with the medieval stories.
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Janssens writes that he himself is in the camp of the 'believers':Artur did indeed exist. The lack of contemporary written sources about Arthur is not so bad in an oral culture, is one of his arguments. When you look past that, you see, for example, that a number of princes in Wales and northern Celtic kingdoms were given Arthur as their baptismal names in the sixth and seventh centuries. Janssens sees this as the explanation that a Briton must have existed with such a positive reputation that royal families wanted to name their sons after him.
His arguments are convincing, but he also leaves enough room for the 'non-believers'. And I? I tend to go along with Janssens' explanation. The great thing about this is that Artur has continued to exist because of the hope that an oppressed people for centuries drew from the stories about their (future) savior. In that respect, it does resemble a religion.
Modern Arthur
In addition to the old writings, Janssens also gives plenty of examples of recent books and films about Artur or indebted to Artur. He shows that the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter series and the Da Vinci Code are all based on the stories surrounding the British king. But even without this link, everyone has heard of Artur and the Knights of the Round Table or Merlin the Wizard.
This is mainly due to the 1963 Walt Disney cartoon Merlin and the first color film about Artur, Knights of the Round Table, from 1953. The general public came into contact with Artur again and many re-films followed since then. Only, these Arthurian stories have little resemblance to the original versions from the early Middle Ages. The makers found their inspiration in the most famous courtly version Le Morte d'Arthur .
A lot has been written about Artur and all the different opinions don't make it any easier. Janssens has managed to sketch a fairly clear overview in less than 250 pages. The many beautiful illustrations in color, some of which have never been released before, complete his story.