During the rest of this course we will be reading texts about King Arthur. These first two classes are devoted to the historical background. This material is easily understandable, but not easy to remember because there are so many names and dates. So here are some suggestions.
The historical Arthur was in the late 5th century (late 400s) or early 6th century (early 500s). We'll see more about this when we start to read the historical sources, beginning with our next class.
In order to "find" -- that is, identify -- the "real" Arthur, the Arthur whose exploits gave rise to the stories and legends which were the basis for the Arthurian tales in Medieval England (and still are today), we have to learn something about the history of the 5th and 6th centuries in Britain after the Roman legions withdrew (about 409 A.D.).
Chapter 3, "The Darkness Descends," pp. 35-68 outlines the political disintegration of Britain from 4 Roman dioceses (like provinces -- see Ashley's map on p. 12) into dozens of "kingdoms", a few larger but most of them small and some very small.
Remember the quotation from Tacitus, Agricola 1, 12 quoted in the last HW assignment?
Their strength is in infantry. Some tribes fight also with the chariot. The higher in rank is the charioteer; the dependants fight. They were once ruled by kings, but are now divided under chieftains into factions and parties. Our greatest advantage in coping with tribes so powerful is that they do not act in concert. Seldom is it that two or three states meet together to ward off a common danger. Thus, while they fight singly, all are conquered.
This is how the tribal Britons acted (Celtic-speaking peoples, divided into tribes, in Britain) at the time the Romans came in 43 A.D. After Roman rule disintegrated the Britons returned to this same kind of ferocious inter-tribal warfare.
This political context of constant warfare among the British "kingdoms" -- a "kingdom" at this time was basically a tribal organization -- is what produced Arthur.
It is also a likely cause of the defeat of the Celtic-speaking Britons by the Germanic peoples, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. The Germanic tribes were less fragmented and formed much larger political units. Anglo-Saxon kingdoms traditionally numbered seven, the "Heptarchy." That may seem a lot -- but these kingdoms were far larger than the dozens of tribal "kingdoms" that made up post-Roman Celtic Britain.
In Chapter 3 you will meet a number of the "Arthurs" which you read about on page 4 of Chapter One. You will also meet Coel Hen, or "Old King Cole."
[Hen means "old" in the Britonic (Celtic, or Old Welsh) language. It comes from the same root as the "sen-" in "senator" or "senior" (the initial consonant 's' in Latin becomes 'h' in Celtic).]
Ashley's last words in Chapter Three are these:
The purpose of exploring these pedigrees in such detail has been to try and ascertain an approximate chronology as a backcloth against which we can paint in some detail. Now we can start our exploration for Arthur amongst the cncient chronicles. (68)
Chapter Four has three parts: an Introductory part (pp. 69-76); the Welsh Annals (pp. 76-79); and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, or ASC (pp. 79-88).
Notice that the Welsh Annals discuss Arthur on page 77!
But the Germanic tribes, the Angles and the Saxons, are on the move, invading and then remaining in Britain.
It is against these Angles and Saxons that Arthur leads the kings of Britain into battle -- and wins, at the Battle of Badon Hill.
But when was this battle, and where? Wait for the following chapters.
No writing assignment today! We'll discuss all this in class -- meaning, YOU will discuss it in your groups. Bring your copy of Ashley, and your maps.