Was Arthur a king or just a battle commander?
The figure of Arthur begins as a war
hero, the praises of whom are sung in war poems by the Celts
and the Welsh. Y Gododdin celebrates one particularly
brave warrior, then says he "was no Arthur." The
Triads are full of wonderful, courageous things
Arthur did. The most important early source
for Arthur's deeds is Historia Brittonum,
written by the monk Nennius
in the 9th century. Nennius calls Arthur dux
bellorum and tells us of 12 great battles
Arthur fought. Although Nennius tells us the
location of each battle, those locations are hard
to come by these days. Scholars are still arguing
over the locations. Even the agreed on locations
suggest that Arthur got around literally from
Scotland to the lowlands of Wessex to Wales.
He fought everywhere. He won
great victories. A strong tradition has him a Roman
heldover who uses his knowledge of cavalry to rout
the Saxons time and again, counting on their
inexperience in fighting mounted men. And even though the authors likely have
exagerrated his deeds (killing 960 men single handedly, for
example), Arthur is likely to have been a bona fide war
hero, a man who led his countrymen to victory time and
again. It is certain that the Battle of Badon
Hill, wherever and whenever it
was, set the Saxon occupation back for a good many years.
Whether Arthur fought at the battle is still not proved, but
is generally believed. Arthur was conceived amidst a war and was
mortally wounded in a particularly bloody battle. His life
was full of battle; it was the word of the times. But was he a king in the traditional
sense? The legends name him High King of Britain, a title
held by his father, Uther
Pendragon, and his uncle,
Ambrosius
Aurelianus. Noted historian
Geoffrey Ashe identifies Arthur with Riothamus, who was
called the King of the Britons even though he operated
mostly in Gaul (Breton territory). A recent book by Graham
Phillips and Martin Keatman identifies Arthur as the King of
Powys
and Gwynedd,
two powerful kingdoms in Wales. The northern tradition has
Arthur king of some or all of Scotland. But these identifications would seem to
point toward a man who held regional sway but not national
advantage. Beginning with Geoffrey
of Monmouth, we see authors
embellishing the tales to fit their own purposes. In
Geoffrey, Arthur has a magical sword, Caliburn, and a
powerful fortune teller on his side, Merlin.
Geoffrey tells us that Arthur conquers half the known world,
including defeating a Roman emperor along the way. Much of
Geoffrey has been proven to have been made up; is the rest
fiction as well? A conclusion can probably not be made on
this subject because the evidence is just too sketchy.
Arthur's being a battle commander is somewhat easier to
prove, but again we suffer from too little reliable
information. See also The legends tell us that Arthur was a
wise and powerful king, who ruled from a giant and glorious
castle and who commanded the loyalty of hundreds of men.
First and foremost of these followers
were the Knights of the Round
Table. That the greatest knight
in skill of arms, Lancelot,
pledged his loyalty to Arthur is testament to the fact that
the king was worthy of such admiration, both as a king and
as a warrior. For war was a way of life in Arthur's
day. Just after he pulled the Sword
from the Stone, he hurried to
Bedegraine
and defeated a rogue band of 11 powerful men who had
rebelled against his leadership. He faced constant pressure from the
Saxons and the Picts and the Irish and (according to
Malory,
who got it from Geoffrey)
the Romans; in the end, he faced a mortal threat from his
own men. He was also the backdrop against which
many other advenures took place. Beginning with
Chretien
de Troyes, writers wrote
adventures of Arthur's knights, telling us of their
wonderful adventures and of courtly love. The court, of
course, was Arthur's. In a sense, Arthur was moved above the
day to day adventures his knights was having and put on a
pedestal as the symbol of what a knight could hope to
achieve. He was also the one whom
everyone looked up to and whom everyone trusted to
pass judgment if they had a dispute. Important men
bowed to his authority and his wisdom He held court
and was the arbiter of justice. He made his own
laws and enforced them himself, with the respect of
his subjects. He fought in battles and sent his
knights out to do battle. As such, he was both king
and battle commander. As the legend writers searched for deeper
meanings, they found the Holy
Grail; with it, they found it
sin. Arthur was said to have conceived a son out of wedlock;
Guinevere
was said to have consummated her affair with Lancelot. Both
of these acts were sins. With the Holy Grail the symbol of
true knightly goodness, the picture of Arthur as all that is
good and right was weakened; so, too, with Arthur's failure
to eradicate the adultery in his midst. The idea, which had
been building for a while, that his rule was intertwined
with the fate of the country was shaken to its
core. As the legend writers tied a knight's
goodness to piety, they tied Arthur's fate inextricably to a
bad end. The king who was the symbol of the prosperity of
the nation and the land was sick in his heart and his soul
and had sinned against his God; the nation and the land
would surely suffer as well. And so Arthur died or was mortally
wounded (take your pick) in a battle as a battle commander
who was king of all the land. See also
Was
Arthur a king or just a battle commander? Was
Guinevere really an adulteress? Was
Morgan Le Fay really a witch? Was
Morgause to blame for all of Arthur's
troubles?
Explorations in Arthurian History and Legends
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