King Arthur
by Steve Haas
The Rise of
Constantine
In order to understand Arthur, you have to have a little time-sense.
Rome was in the process of decay; Rome fell to Alaric, the Hun in 403, A.D.,
and this marked the effective end of the Eastern Roman Empire, though it
continued on in various forms for a few years after. The story of Arthur is
also the story of the fall of the Roman Empire. I shall give a brief history of
THAT as it relates to Britain (don't worry, I'm not doing a Gibbons here,
re-writing 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.' Just insofar as Britain
is concerned)...
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The Rise of Vortigern
Skipping ahead a couple of decades, in 382 A.D., another Roman general in
Britain, Maximus Magnus, seizing the opportunity of disorder in the Empire,
declared himself Ceasar and invaded Gaul, taking with him two Legions in
Britain, which never returned. The current Roman Emperor, Theodosius, was
willing to accept a join regentship with Maximus, but this was not good enough
for Maximus. In 387, Maximus invaded Italy, taking Milan, was defeated by
Theodosius in two battles and was beheaded. The memory of Magnus Maximus was
retained by the people of Britain, later to become the Welsh, in the
Mabinogion, a collection of Celtic stories first written down in 1300. The
relevant story is entitled, "The Dream of Macsen Wledig," and is the only one
of the Mabinogion which bears any relevance to history...
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The
Beginning of the End
We are now at 435 A.D., and are getting closer and closer to Arthur.
Unfortunately, the closer we get to Arthur, the further we get from facts. In
fact, I shall probably not be able to finish this story to anyone’s
satisfaction because any answer would be as good a speculation as any other.
I’ll give several lines of speculation, but that is probably the best I can
do. Vortigern’s policies had proven successful. He had neutralized the
Picts and the Irish, and his treaty Anglo-Saxon troops were successful in
keeping the foreign Anglo-Saxons at bay. There were internal problems, however,
and these had to do with another player in the field, the
Ambrosii...
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Who was
Arthur?
Now we come to the essential question. Who was Arthur? Did he exist?
What do we know about him? What did he accomplish that was so significant? I am
appending a text file to this listing all the current scholarly claimants to
the identity. It is not necessary to post it here. It is just for your
information. First, the question of his existence. There is no independent
documentation as to the existence of Arthur. The earliest reference is a Welsh
drinking song, known to exist in 630 or so, where there is a line about the
hero which says, "he fought like Arthur." After this, we have Gildas, writing
about the same time, who writes a panagyric against the British kings, and
doesn’t mention Arthur at all, though he does mention Arthur’s final battle at
Mount Badon. Gildas’ lack of mention is actually considered a plus for those
who favor Arthur’s existence; he was inveighing against the British kings that
he thought were sinful, and the lack of mention of Arthur might just mean that
Arthur didn’t do anything that pissed Gildas off…
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Arthur, King
of Britons
Arthur, it seems, is claimed as the King of nearly every Celtic Kingdom
known. The 6th century certainly saw many men named Arthur born into the Celtic
Royal families of Britain but, despite attempts to identify the great man
himself amongst them, there can be little doubt that most of these people were
only named in his honour. Princes with other names are also sometimes
identified with "Arthwyr" which is thought by some to be a title similar to
Vortigern...
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Arthur's
Twelve Battles
Nennius, the earliest witness to mention Arthur, in his History of the
Britains, written somewhere between 700 and 800 A.D, describes Arthur’s twelve
Battles this way: "In that time, the Saxons increased in numbers and their
strength grew in Britain. When Hengist was dead, Octha, his son crossed
from the left hand side of Britain into the kingdom of the Cantii, and from him
descended the Kings of the Cantii. Then Arthur fought against those
people in those days with the Kings of the Britons, but he himself was the dux
Bellorum, or General in these battles. The first battle was on the mouth
of the river, which is called Glein. The second, and the third, and the fourth,
and the fifth upon another river, which is called Dubglass, and is in the
Kingdom of Linnus. TH esixth battle was upon the river which is called
Bassas...
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King Arthur written by Steve Haas.
Copyright © 2001 Steve Haas
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