King Arthur

Pinball1970 said:
This is why you need to consult scholarship not YouTube.
Occasionally you may get lucky and stumble on a Flint Dibble (real archaeologist) or a Bart Ehrman (real Biblical Scholar/historian) but it is best to read the general consensus first.
Click to expand...

King Arthur seems destined to be sidelined as a fable, just look how popular it is in Hollywood. TV series over here called Merlin even. It makes more money as a fable then it would if it was real.
 
Just to add Alan Wilson is not an academic and his work has been dismissed by mainstream scholars.

A quick showed Bangor University to be a starting point.
Prof Raluca Radulescu.

Also, "A history of Arthurian Scholarship" Norris J Lacy.
 
davewhite04 said:
I don't trust the fact that history is written by the winners. I trust genuine people.
Click to expand...
Then find genuine people, not paranoid cranks. If by “winners” you mean that British history is too Anglocentric, which arguably the traditional accounts are, read Norman Davies’s book “The Isles”. He’s a proper historian, Welsh, married to a Pole and takes great pains to give the so called Celtic fringe its proper place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Isles:_A_History

Do not go credulously believing some random internut [sic] on YouTube, of all places, whose credentials you have not checked. That’s just goofy: the road to Gwyneth Paltrow and eventually QAnon. :eek:
 
exchemist said:
Then find genuine people, not paranoid cranks. If by “winners” you mean that British history is too Anglocentric, which arguably the traditional accounts are, read Norman Davies’s book “The Isles”. He’s a proper historian, Welsh, married to a Pole and takes great pains to give the so called Celtic fringe its proper place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Isles:_A_History
Click to expand...
Thanks.

exchemist said:
Do not go credulously believing some random internut [sic] on YouTube, of all places, whose credentials you have not checked. That’s just goofy: the road to Gwyneth Paltrow and eventually QAnon. :eek:
Click to expand...

The best/worst thing about the internet, choice.

Thanks for your posts in this thread.
 
davewhite04 said:
Just in case it got lost in the melee.

Looks like someone backs Alan up....
Click to expand...
What points does this video make, then?

OK, let me do it. The clip refers to the work of Geoffrey Ashe, a Cambridge historian who thinks the Arthur of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account, although a composite figure, may have been based in part on a historical c.5th Briton warlord called Riothamus. He also thinks there is evidence that Cadbury Castle in Somerset (in England) may have been the basis for Monmouth’s fictional Camelot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Ashe

In what respects does this back up the claims of your crank protégé? As far as I can see he invents 2 other quite different Arthur prototypes and is preoccupied with making preposterous links to Troy and the lost tribes of Israel, and even invents a catastrophe in the c.6th due to cometary debris. Barking.

(I am mildly interested in that Ashe relies in part on the Breton tradition of Arthur. I am writing this from an island in the Golfe du Morbihan, in Brittany. There’s a lot of Arthurian ballocks round these parts, largely associated with the mythical enchanted Forêt de Brocéliande. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocéliande)
 
Last edited:
exchemist said:
What points does this video make, then?

OK, let me do it. The clip refers to the work of Geoffrey Ashe, a Cambridge historian who thinks the Arthur of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account, although a composite figure, may have been based in part on a historical c.5th Briton warlord called Riothamus. He also thinks there is evidence that Cadbury Castle in Somerset (in England) may have been the basis for Monmouth’s fictional Camelot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Ashe

In what respects does this back up the claims of your crank protégé? As far as I can see he invents 2 other quite different Arthur prototypes and is preoccupied with making preposterous links to Troy and the lost tribes of Israel, and even invents a catastrophe in the c.6th due to cometary debris. Barking.

(I am mildly interested in that Ashe relies in part on the Breton tradition of Arthur. I am writing this from an island in the Golfe du Morbihan, in Brittany. There’s a lot of Arthurian ballocks round these parts, largely associated with the mythical enchanted Forêt de Brocéliande. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocéliande)
Click to expand...

Yes, Alan's king was actually called Arthur. Still there are historians who specialise in Arthurian mythology and take it serious, that is what Alan did(I think he has passed on) without any funding, he was self funded, made no money just wanted to tell the people, there is truth in the Arthurian legend. I think Alan is a kind of a genius, hence he is cuckoo but he tried his best without any motive or money gain.

Back to Arthur, or maybe Riothamus. I met a young historian last night coincidentally enough, I couldn't believe my luck. He doesn't think King Arthur existed, we don't exchemist, it's a different name.

Fascinating subject. We might find a different way to understand other tales because of this.
 
davewhite04 said:
Yes, Alan's king was actually called Arthur. Still there are historians who specialise in Arthurian mythology and take it serious, that is what Alan did(I think he has passed on) without any funding, he was self funded, made no money just wanted to tell the people, there is truth in the Arthurian legend. I think Alan is a kind of a genius, hence he is cuckoo but he tried his best without any motive or money gain.

Back to Arthur, or maybe Riothamus. I met a young historian last night coincidentally enough, I couldn't believe my luck. He doesn't think King Arthur existed, we don't exchemist, it's a different name.

Fascinating subject. We might find a different way to understand other tales because of this.
Click to expand...
This is a muddle. It is neither insightful nor controversial to opine that the legend may have had some roots in real historical figures and events. The issue is what figures and events could conceivably have inspired the legend. Wilson’s ideas are quite mad and obviously bogus. Whereas Ashe’s are sensible and backed by a certain amount of evidence, e.g. the archaeological evidence of refortification of Cadbury Castle in the c.5th, which aligns with the independent literary tradition that this was the site of Arthurian Camelot.

Wilson cannot get a free pass to talk shit, just because he was not an academic historian. On the contrary, the fact he was not should make the reader more careful in accepting his claims.
 
Last edited:
exchemist said:
This is a muddle. It is neither insightful nor controversial to opine that the legend may have had some roots in real historical figures and events. The issue is what figures and events could conceivably have inspired the legend. Wilson’s ideas are quite mad and obviously bogus. Whereas Ashe’s are sensible and backed by a certain amount of evidence, e.g. the archaeological evidence of refortification of Cadbury Castle in the c.5th, which aligns with the independent literary tradition that this was the site of Arthurian Camelot.

Wilson cannot get a free pass to talk shit, just because he was not an academic historian. On the contrary, the fact he was not should make the reader more careful in accepting his claims.
Click to expand...

It must be me, I've got a soft spot for special cases(Alan in this case).

You're right.

I think I'm more interested in people than subjects. I love that period in British history. I will make sure Camelot and all the characters stay firmly in my universe.
 
davewhite04 said:
It must be me, I've got a soft spot for special cases(Alan in this case).

You're right.

I think I'm more interested in people than subjects. I love that period in British history. I will make sure Camelot and all the characters stay firmly in my universe.
Click to expand...
What’s interesting is that one finds related Arthurian legends in Brittany, which was only settled by people from Cornwall and Wales in the c.5th and 6th. This actually makes me doubt that a body of legends could have already grown up, based on a real character who was alive only, say, 50 - 100yrs earlier. So perhaps after all these are older Celtic stories, conceivably retrofitted in places to fit this Riothamus guy.
 
exchemist said:
What’s interesting is that one finds related Arthurian legends in Brittany, which was only settled by people from Cornwall and Wales in the c.5th and 6th. This actually makes me doubt that a body of legends could have already grown up, based on a real character who was alive only, say, 50 - 100yrs earlier. So perhaps after all these are older Celtic stories, conceivably retrofitted in places to fit this Riothamus guy.
Click to expand...
I was mainly talking about Alfred the Great for some reason last night, he didn't appear until 9th century according to Wikipedia, I think. King Arthur was something like 300 year before Alfred.

Pinball mentioned the Celtic history I think, how it would be good to look into. I sent a friend a copy of the celtic and something else, not a textbook, if I get time to look into Celtic myth in depth, I think it might be usful.
 
exchemist said:
...and even invents a catastrophe in the c.6th due to cometary debris. Barking.
Click to expand...
I know Barking isn't a great place, but this might explain much. ;)
exchemist said:
(I am mildly interested in that Ashe relies in part on the Breton tradition of Arthur. I am writing this from an island in the Golfe du Morbihan, in Brittany. There’s a lot of Arthurian ballocks round these parts, largely associated with the mythical enchanted Forêt de Brocéliande. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocéliande)
Click to expand...
Chrétien de Troyes was responsible for much of that, and also the enhancement of the Arthurian legend, such as Lancelot.
 
Last edited:
davewhite04 said:
I was mainly talking about Alfred the Great for some reason last night, he didn't appear until 9th century according to Wikipedia, I think. King Arthur was something like 300 year before Alfred.

Pinball mentioned the Celtic history I think, how it would be good to look into. I sent a friend a copy of the celtic and something else, not a textbook, if I get time to look into Celtic myth in depth, I think it might be usful.
Click to expand...
Alfred is a well-attested historical figure. Arthur is legendary and it remains a matter of speculation as to who, if anyone, inspired the legend. He may be entirely made up.

Riothamus is merely one candidate and, as I say, it is suspicious that Arthurian legends were imported to Brittany by people settling there not long after the time that Riothamus was alive.
 
There's the idea that "Arthur" was an amalgamation of characters, from stories that villagers told about their greatest warriors. It is possible that such men were bear-like in their ferocity, at least after the typical embellishment of such stories, and it is thought that the name Arthur might come from the Welsh "Art" meaning "bear". So "Artur" would be "Bear-man" etc.
No proof to any of this, of course, but it's quite a nice one that stories of the famous King of Britain was an amalgam of stories from around Britain.

But, yeah, the origins of the legend and any resemblance to reality are lost in the past.
 
Sarkus said:
There's the idea that "Arthur" was an amalgamation of characters, from stories that villagers told about their greatest warriors. It is possible that such men were bear-like in their ferocity, at least after the typical embellishment of such stories, and it is thought that the name Arthur might come from the Welsh "Art" meaning "bear". So "Artur" would be "Bear-man" etc.
No proof to any of this, of course, but it's quite a nice one that stories of the famous King of Britain was an amalgam of stories from around Britain.

But, yeah, the origins of the legend and any resemblance to reality are lost in the past.
Click to expand...
Robin hood got similar treatment. Possibly a combination of different characters and events.
 
davewhite04 said:
Yep, very similar situation that we have with King Arthur.
Click to expand...
It has been alluded to but what is interesting about these stories is finding out what the initial seed was, the grain of truth.
I am totally happy for someone putting forward the case for AN Arthur, an Arthur figure or possibly figures if there is some ancient, text, inscription, drawing, painting, engraving or other archaeology to support it.
Absolutely not wanting to go off topic but this is also interesting for Biblical figures, a kernel of truth behind a fantastic story.
Perhaps a stout chap called Noah managed to save his family by floating on a stable roof when the Euphrates burst it's banks? Then combine that was the Gilgamesh story that was widely popular via oral tradition at that time?
I am not an historian and there is no evidence of my invention, I am just giving a possible scenario for a Moses, or Noah, Robin hodd and Arthur.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top