The story of King Arthur
Who really was this semi-legendary hero King Arthur?
One thing is certain: he is a historical figure, not a fictional character like Don Rodrigo or a paradigmatic figure like Gregor Samsa. He is almost certainly one of the Breton leaders who animated the successful resistance of the Cornish Celts against the Anglo-Saxon conquest at the end of the 5th and beginning of the 6th century AD.
The first British source that talks about Arthur is a mention of the «Gododdin», a 6th century text where he appears as a warrior leader. Later, during the 10th century Annales de Cambrie mention Arthur's victory at Mont-Badon in 516 and the battle of Camlann in which Arthur and Mordret killed each other (537). The story then takes on epic features in the "Historia Brittonum", a chronicle in Latin by Nennius from the 10th century, and in the "Roman de Brut" by Robert Wace (11th century) dedicated to the homonymous grandson of Aeneas, the mythical ancestor of the Bretons.
From these texts, Bishop Godfrey of Monmouth drew the "Historia Regu Britanniae" (1135). The work mixes Celtic and Christian history and traditions with the aim of providing the Britons with a national hero equal to Charlemagne. In the Historia we find Merlin, Vortigern, Uter Pendragorn, Guinevere, but no Parsifal, Lancelot or the Holy Grail, which enters the saga only in the unfinished poem "Perceval" (1190) by Chrétien de Troyes and in «Parzifal» by Wolfram von Eschenlbach.
Previously Arthurian heroes had appeared in Marie de France's Lais (1167), love and fantastic poems and in the two Tristans by Béroul and Thomas (1165-70).
In the poems of Chrétien, Wolfram and other contemporaries the chalice is a sacred vessel endowed with mystical powers.
Only in Robert de Roron's poem "L'Estoire du Graal" (1202) does the Chalice of Christ's blood appear, guarded by Joseph of Arimathea. Roron was followed by the monumental Arthurian summa constituted by Lancelot, The quest for the Grail, The death of Arthur, a work by several authors who, from the mid-1200s, inspired poets, musicians, filmmakers: from the anonymous "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" of 1360 to Sir Thomas Malory's "Death of Arthur" of 1485, up to Wagner's operas Lohengrin (1848), Tristan and Isolde (1865), Parsifal (1882); but also to the film «The Knights of the Round Table» (1954) with Mel Ferrer, Ava Gardner and Robert Taylor, to the splendid Disney feature film «The Sword in the Stone» (1963) and to the recent «Arthur», which attempts to frame the Arthurian legend in the history of the dying Roman empire.
In the legend, built on successive onion-like layers by all these generations of writers, Arthur would have been the son of Uter Pendragon, king of Britain after the departure of the Roman legions, and of Igerna, widow of Duke Hell of Cornwall. He was born in Tintangel Castle around 460 AD and would die on the battlefield of Camlann in 537 AD, killed by his son Mordret, whom he had from his half-sister Morgana, daughter of Hell and Igerna.
As for the name Arthur, it could derive from the Celtic terms Art ("Rock") or Artos Viros ("Bear Man", in Gaelic Arth Gwyr).
But, what can we trace today of all this legendary history?
It is certain that in 410 AD the emperor Honorius, the inept son of Theodosius the Great, was forced to withdraw his legions from Britain, which was never completely Romanised, to defend Gaul and Italy from the attacks of the Visigoths. After a futile appeal to Rome, the kings and dukes of the Britons decided to elect a supreme king, to whom all the tribes owed obedience, to resist the overbearing raids of the Picts and Scots. Thus Britain was alone of all the Roman provinces in returning to its pre-conquest status after the fall of the Empire.
To the traditional enemies, at the end of the 4th century, were added the invasions of the Jutes and Saxons, coming from the Scandinavian peninsula.
The Britons were already largely Christians, converted by St. Patrick and St. George around 300 AD while the Saxons were still pagans, and were therefore feared by the Britons as much as a vampire fears holy water.
The first of these great kings would have been killed by the pagan Vortirgern, who in turn was then eliminated by the son of the ousted king, Uter Pendragon. During the reign of Vortrgern, he would have been welcomed to Benoic in Armorica (present-day Little Britain) by the old Christian king Celidon, father of King Ban, in turn father of the legendary Lancelot, and descendant of the legendary chief Nascien, who according to tradition had been converted by Joseph of Arimathea.
As we can see, a galaxy of real or fictitious characters revolves around Arthur, whose historical reality today can no longer be traced in any way, because it has been distorted by legend. However, Arthur was still one of the generals of the Britons, perhaps a former Roman general as shown in the film "Arthur", who was able to gather around himself enough armed men to organize an effective resistance, and prevent the Saxons from conquer Wales and Cornwall as well as Britain.
Haven't you ever noticed that the name London never appears in the Arthurian sagas? The reason is incredibly simple: London immediately fell into Saxon hands. All the most important names of the Celtic epic, starting from Camelot, contain the Welsh root Caer, which simply means "castle" (remember the Latin Castrum). Where Arthur's palace was, however, no one knows for sure.
How about the other places in the saga?
There are still ruins of a castle at Tintangel, on a promontory on the Cornish coast, under which there are indeed remains from the late Roman period.
In 1983 a series of fires brought to light the foundations of rectangular-shaped buildings, where the archaeologist Charles Thomas found ceramics from Gaul but also from North Africa and even from the Eastern Mediterranean. This demonstrates the considerable commercial relevance of the site; the finds allow us to follow its history from the moment of its construction in the 3rd century up to the destruction caused by the Anglo-Saxon attack.
Tintagel's flowering period is consistent with the traditional chronology of the saga made famous by Chretien de Troyes.
But it doesn't end here.
In 1998 Chris Morris of the University of Glasgow found in Tintagel a drainage stone on which a Latin inscription with some Celtic runes was engraved, which read
PATER COLI AVI FICIT ARTOGNOV
that translates in «I did Artognov, father of a descendant of Col». Nothing authorizes us to believe that this Artognov is the Arthur of the sagas, but the news still caused a great stir: it is in fact the definitive proof that a name similar to that of the greatest king of the Britons was in any case in use in the Britain of 5th century.
However, no plaque with the name of Camelot has been found on South Cadbury Hill, in Somerset, where according to tradition Arthur had his palace. Here too, however, the excavations have reserved surprises: in the remains of a large building built between 460 and 500 AD, therefore in the middle of the Arthurian age, where found the same Tintagel pottery.
South Cadbury was therefore an important complex: not a castle in the sense that this word took on after the year one thousand, but rather a fortified headquarters, certainly capable of hosting a king with his army.
Was it the King Arthur's house?
Camlann, the battlefield where Arthur died, means "round enclosure" from the Celtic Camb, "bent", and Landa, "enclosed land". It has been identified with Camelford, Cornwall, but no finds have supported the hypothesis.
In Glastonbury, Somerset, tradition places the mythological island of Avalon or island of the druids, where Arthur would have been buried. What does Avalon have to do with Glastonbury, which isn't on the sea?
Today we are certain that Glastonbury in the High Middle Ages was surrounded by the waters of a vast marsh, from which it emerged like an island. In ancient times the site was called Ynis Witryn, "glass island". It was a hill that rose like an island from a sea of marshes with canals, paths and terraces. According to local legends, the door ("Tor") to the underworld opened wide at Glastonbury.
In 1191 the monks of the nearby abbey, now in ruins, declared that they had found the remains of the tombs of Arthur and Guinevere on the southern side of the Chapel, remains which on 19 April 1278 were removed and transferred to a white marble tomb in the presence of King Edward I and Queen Eleanor. The tomb would then survive until the suppression of the abbey in 1539 following the advent of the Protestant Reformation: at least this is what we read on a caption still present on the alleged tomb. However, it is needless to say that the testimony is very doubtful, and that the tombs could have been those of any Celtic leader and his wife. The discovery, which occurred in 1966, of the remains of a settlement from the 5th century AD demonstrates how every tradition is born from a historical core.
As Enrica Salvatori reports in an article in the October 2004 issue of the magazine "Quark", history has handed down to us the names of some Breton leaders who lived in that era, who could be identified with the protagonists of the Arthurian epic. For example, the existence of Riothamus, king of the Britons, to whom the Latin scholar Sidionius Apollinaris, bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, wrote a letter in 470 AD. Riothamus is none other than the Latin version of the Celtic Rigotamos, which can be translated as "Supreme King", therefore it is a title and not a proper name. However, Riothamus disappeared in Burgundy (now Burgundy) shortly after 470, so the times do not coincide. Furthermore, since Siconius was a bishop of Gaul, it is almost certain that the Britons of which Riothamus was king were those who fled to the continent, i.e. to present-day French Brittany which took its name from them, to escape the Saxon invasion. But I have my hypothesis. If Riothamus were Ban or was his father Celidon, then the times would correspond perfectly: the Arthur saga speaks of King Ban's premature death due to betrayal.
Furthermore, Saint Gildas, a 6th century historian, sings in epic tones the great victory of the Britons at Mount Badon against the Saxons around the year 493. Although the proportions of the victory have certainly been exaggerated, it is certain that this defeat prevented the Saxons from conquering Wales and Cornwall, which together with French Little Britain remained the last, reduced extremes of Celtic culture in Europe.
Even if Gildas never mentions Arthur, this is a further confirmation of the historical existence of a strong leader of the Britons, be it an indigenous chieftain or a Roman-barbarian general like Stilicho and Aetius, capable of opposing the advance of the Germans coming from the continent, performing feats worthy of being sung by bards and transfigured by legend.
But Arthur is only one of the thousand protagonists of the saga that bears his name. Among the wedding gifts from Leodegrant, Guinevere's father, there was also a famous round table that Arthur would have placed in the audience hall in Camelot. The legendary king would then have invited all the young scions of the British aristocracy to court and, to overcome the ancient differences, would have created them all Crown Counselors.
The Council met precisely around the Round Table to signify that even the King was none other than the Primus inter Pares; among the champions called to be part of the Council were Gaius or Keu, the King's seneschal, Lionel, Gawain (the Gawain of chivalric romances), Perceval (Wagner's Parsifal) and above all Lancelot, the Lancelot of Chretien de Troyes.
Among the knights of the Round Table who had so much weight in the construction of the legend only Drystan (Tristan) probably existed. He was the son of King Cynfawr, and the remains of what may have been his castle can still be seen on the hill of Castle Dore, in Cornwall.
Instead, those of Lancelot and Guinevere are certainly later creations for introduce a love story into the epic saga.
Someone has attempted to identify Lancelot with King Anguselsus of Scotland (in ancient Scots Angus meant "head of a clan") but the chances are very low.
As for the wizard Merlin, according to legend, Arthur's guardian and advisor, he perhaps lived in the 6th century. His name, Myrddyn, came from that of Caermyrddyn, the city where he was born; some have identified him with another famous filid ("bard") called Taliesin who lived (perhaps) in that era. According to the limited data that have come down to us on his figure, Myrddyn was an advisor to the Welsh king Vortirgern (5th century AD) and fought alongside King Gwenddolau (i.e. King Arthur, according to Nikolai Tolstoy) against Rhydderch the Generous. His life would therefore have been incredibly long, so much so that some commentators believe that two different Merlins existed.
Tradition has it that, after the defeat inflicted on him by Rhydderch at Arfderydd (573) the magician, driven mad by grief, withdrew as a hermit in a forest, identified by some as the fantastic Broceliande of the Irish sagas. Of his literary production we have received a fragment of the work Afallenau. The verse reads:
«Saith ugein haelion e aethant ygwyllon / yng koed Kelydon y daruyant: / kanys mi vyrdin wedy Tatiessin / Byathad kyffredin vynn darogan»
So far no one has yet managed to translate it.
And Excalibur?
It would be none other than the druidic sword of the Great Kings prior to the Roman conquest, which was said to have been forged in heaven by the gods, but was most probably made with meteoritic iron, therefore not coming from this Earth.
One hypothesis is that a Latin writing was engraved on the hilt and then corrupted by time, from which his name derives. For example Valerio Massimo Manfredi in his beautiful novel "The Last Legion" (which among other things identifies Uter with Romulus Augustulus) suggests that Excalibur could be a popular contraction of ENSIS C. IUL. CAES. CALIBURNI. Certainly, however, the most adventurous of all the epics linked in some way to the legendary figure of Arthur remains that linked to the search for the Holy Grail, the chalice in which Jesus instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist on the evening of the Last Supper, and which was then used by the pious Joseph of Arimathea to collect the Precious Blood dripping from the Cross.
According to a very widespread legend, it was Saint Joseph of Arimathea himself who brought the sacred vase from Palestine to Britain, through a thousand vicissitudes, while his son Alan the Fat had built the castle of Crobenic, in agreement with king Nascien, converted by himself after being miraculously cured of leprosy by mere contact with the Grail. It is from Nascien that King Pelles, lord of Crobenic and guardian of the Grail, descended, who allegedly deceived Lancelot, who set off in search of the Holy Vessel, convincing him to lie with his daughter Elaine, known as "the bearer of the Grail" because in religious ceremonies she usually carries the Grail holding it above her head. From this love relationship Galahad would be born, destined to become the "knight without blemish and without fear". As a result, according to legend Pelles was punished because he lost the kingdom and his daughter was no longer able to carry the Grail, which from then on was carried by invisible hands; Lancelot, however, no longer being "stainless", lost the possibility of conquering the Grail, and could only look at it through a veil.
This is the fairy tale.
In reality the Grail was the chalice in which the Druidic priest, during solemn religious ceremonies in pre-Roman Britain, collected the blood of the victims sacrificed on the altar.
Christianity has never wiped out pre-existing traditions but has instead integrated with them as evidenced by the date of 25 December, which in ancient Rome marked the feast dedicated to the Sun god, and for Christians it became the celebration of the birth of the new Sun, Jesus Christ. The ancient chalice of the shamanic religion had indeed been preserved, but tradition had made it the chalice where the blood of the victim par excellence, the Savior of humanity, had been collected.
Nascien was probably the first Druidic priest to accept the syncretism between the old and new religions. Therefore, Elaine would have been the last descendant of a line of priests of this "mixed" religion, who worshiped Christ through the symbols of the ancient religion; and we know that lying with the priestess or "sacred prostitute" is one of the characteristics of the shamanic religion, since she was also practiced in pre-Israeli Palestine, because the Jewish prophets repeatedly and terribly railed against this practice.
Even Lancelot did not escape it, who thus conceived a new "Christian druid", Galahad precisely. Again according to the fable, the Grail would have been preserved in the Palestinian city of Sarras, completely unknown, from whose name that of the Saracens descended, in an era (that of the Roman-barbarian kingdoms) in which the Saracens and Islam did not still existed. In reality the Grail was destroyed by the Saxons after their conversion to Catholicism, partly because it was a pagan symbol (we know that neophytes are always fundamentalists) and partly because it was part of the hated culture of their Celtic rivals.
And now, one last question.
It is known that Arthur, in all versions of the saga, never had an heir. From a historical point of view, this is not credible: he probably had a crowd of them. So why doesn't tradition mention it? The answer is simple. These sons were unworthy of their father, because after Arthur's death they fought each other to the death to grab the throne, thus leaving the field free for the Saxon conquerors, who destroyed the Great Kingdom by trampling it under their boots.
Tradition has discarded them, mentioning only Mordret to highlight his crime, and has exaggerated the deeds of the knights of the Round Table, the true "spiritual sons" of Pendragon, obscuring the exploits of Arthur's legitimate sons.
As Montanelli points out in his "History of Rome" heroes emerge only in beaten armies to try to overshadow the defeat and glorify the exploits of individuals to the detriment of the general route. Victorious armies do not need heroes, and in fact Julius Caesar does not mention any in his Commentaries. But, surprisingly, it is precisely the unworthiness of Arthur's fleshly sons that gives us such a splendid epic: not having had a sequel, the Great Kingdom of the Britons remains in the imagination as a model of a happy and splendid era, marked by the chivalric exploits of unforgettable characters.
It remains so in the eyes of us, men of the 21st century, because legends, unlike men and kingdoms, never die.
