Did “King” Arthur really exist?
The death of King Arthur, as imagined by John Mulcaster Carrick (1833-1896)
La storia di Re Arturo ed i suoi Cavalieri della Tavola Rotonda è una delle meglio conosciute storie della cultura del mondo occidentale. Molti presumono di avere a che fare con un re del Medioevo Inglese e che, una volta rimossi gli elementi leggendari (come il Mago Merlino) tutto il resto possieda valore storico. Questo, però, non corrisponde al Consenso degli storici. La maggior parte, infatti, è dell'opinione che non esistette un "Re" Arturo, che le storie abbiano origine nella Leggenda Celtica (Welsh= Gaelica) o nella Mitologia e che non ci possano dire alcunché di preciso circa il quinto e sesto secolo dell' Inghilterra. D'altra parte esiste una minoranza che crede vi sia un nocciolo di verità, in quelle storie, e che dietro di esse si possa scorgere le attività condotte da una figura protetta dall'ombra e conosciuto come Arturo.The story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table is one of western culture’s best known. Many people assume that they deal with a king from the Dark Ages of England and that, once the clearly legendary aspects such as the magician Merlin are removed, they have some value as history. This is not the consensus opinion of historians, though. Many – probably the majority, in fact – are of the opinion that there was no “King” Arthur, that the stories originate in Welsh legend or mythology and that they can tell us nothing of value about the fifth and sixth centuries in Britain. On the other hand, a small minority believe that there is a kernel of truth behind the stories and that it is possible to glimpse the activities of a shadowy individual known as Arthur behind them.
The documentary evidence - le prove documentarie.
Se ci fossero documenti contemporanei che citano "Artù", non esisterebbe alcuna controversia circa la sua reale esistenza (anche se potrebbero esserci contrasti circa l'entità delle sue imprese). Invece, tali documenti non esistono ed è solamente sotto un altro nome che si può pensare tali documenti antichi esistano. Forse Arturo era conosciuto con il nome di Rthamus, durante la sua vita? Se lo era, perché le leggende successive gli cambiarono il nome? E perché il primo documento che lo menziona al di là di ogni ombra di dubbio data solo al principio del nono secolo? If there were contemporary documents mentioning Arthur, there would be no controversy about his existence (although there might well be controversy over other aspects of the story). There are not and it is only by assuming that he lurks under an alias that it is possible to suggest that there might be contemporary evidence. Was Arthur known as Riothamus during his lifetime? If he was, why did later legend change the name? And why is the first source to name him beyond all shadow of doubt dated to the early ninth century?
The archaeological evidence - le prove archeologiche.
Se i documenti non ci parlano di Arturo, certamente ci sarà qualche prova archeologica? Dopo tutto, c'è quella tomba scoperta da frati di Glastonbury e c'è un sito del VI secolo a Tintagel nel quale fu trovata un'iscrizione confermante che gente di nome Art... esisteva nel VI secolo. E South Cadbury, non è stata dimostrata essere Camelot dallo scavo di Leslie Alcock nel 1960? Certamente, l'archeologia sarà di aiuto...If the documents don’t tell us about Arthur, surely there must be some archaeological evidence? After all, there was the grave found by the monks of Glastonbury and there is a sixth-century site at Tintagel, where an inscription confirming that people named Art… existed in the sixth century was found. And wasn’t South Cadbury proven to be Camelot by Leslie Alcock’s excavation in the 1960s? Surely archaeology must be of some assistance…
What are the historical sources for Arthur? Quali sono le prove storiche in favored di Arturo?
Dato che Arturo è potenzialmente un personaggio storico, i documenti che lo riguardano devono essere il punto di partenza dell'indagine. Qui è proprio dove iniziano le difficoltà, dato che non esistono documenti del tempo che rechino il suo nome. né esistono iscrizioni (salvo qualche cosa d'irrilevante, vedi seguito) o monete. As Arthur is potentially an historical character, the documents naming him must form the starting point for any investigation. This is where the difficulties begin, as there are no contemporary documents naming him. Nor are there coins or inscriptions (we will see how several supposed inscriptions are irrelevant).
The earliest evidence - la prova più antica.
A page from the manuscript Book of Aneirin, containing the only text of Y Gododdin
(una pagina dal Libro Manoscritto Aneirin, contenente il testo di Y Gododdin)
(una pagina dal Libro Manoscritto Aneirin, contenente il testo di Y Gododdin)
Y Gododdin
Il riferimento scritto più antico proviene da un ciclo di poesie conosciuto come Y Gododdin, "il Votadini", attribuito ad un poeta di nome Aneirin, che si pensa sia vissuto nel tardo VI secolo. The oldest possible reference comes from a cycle of poems known as Y Gododdin, ‘The Votadini’, ascribed to a poet named Aneirin, who is supposed to have lived in the later sixth century.
The verse in question reads:
Il verso in questione recita:
The verse in question reads:
Il verso in questione recita:
gochore brein do aruur
caer – ceni bei ef arthur –
rug ciuin uerthi ig disur
ig kynnor guernor guaur
caer – ceni bei ef arthur –
rug ciuin uerthi ig disur
ig kynnor guernor guaur
“He sent down black crows from the wall
of the fort – although he was not Arthur –
among men mighty in feats
before the alder grove: Gorddur”
of the fort – although he was not Arthur –
among men mighty in feats
before the alder grove: Gorddur”
del forte - anche se non era Arturo -
tra uomini forti in imprese
davanti al gruppo di ontani: Gorrdur"
Come in molti antichi versi Gaelici il linguaggio è pulito e pieno di allusioni a storie che l'ascoltatore contemporaneo antico doveva conoscere molto più in dettaglio di quello moderno. Tutto ciò che possiamo concludere da questi versi è che Arturo doveva essere un famoso guerriero. E la data in cui il poema fu scritto è un ulteriore problema: il solo manoscritto sopravvissuto (MS 2.81 della Biblioteca di Cardiff, meglio conosciuto come il Libro di Aneirin) risale al tardo XIII secolo. A peggiorare le cose, è composto di testi in tre varianti diverse,, appartenenti a due versioni separate ed il verso che nomina Arturo compare solamente in uno di essi (il testo B2, per i tecnici), che è noto per contenere aggiunte tardive, successive alla originale data di composizione. Ciò ha convinto alcuni commentatori a a concludere che il verso fosse stato composto nel nono o decimo secolo.; d'altro canto il linguista John Koch vi riconosce tracce di antico Gaelico, specialmente dallo schema delle rime, che deporrebbe per una composizione dell'inizio del VII secolo al più tardi. Se da un lato questa resta una possibilità interessante, d'altro canto non è nulla di più. Like so much early Welsh verse, the language is terse and full of allusions to stories that the listener would have known in much greater detail than we can. All we can reasonably infer from this verse is that Arthur was a famous warrior. And the date at which it was written is another problem: the only surviving manuscript (MS 2.81 of Cardiff Library, better known as the Book of Aneirin) dates from the late thirteenth century. To make matters worse, it is a composite of three variant texts belonging to two separate versions and the verse naming Arthur occurs in only one of them (the B2 text, for the technically minded), which is known to contain additions later than the supposed date of composition. This has led some commentators to believe that the verse was composed in the ninth or tenth century; on the other hand, the linguist John Koch sees traces of Primitive Welsh in the text, especially in its rhyming scheme, which would argue for an early seventh-century date for composition, at the latest. Whilst this remains a tantalising possibility, it is nothing more.
A page from a manuscript of the Historia Brittonum, listing the battles of Arthur
Una pagina dal manoscritto Historia Brittonorum, che enumera le battaglie di Arturo.
Una pagina dal manoscritto Historia Brittonorum, che enumera le battaglie di Arturo.
The / La Historia Brittonum
Il primo riferimento preciso ad Arturo viene da un testo complicato e poco studiato, il cosiddetto Historia Brittonorum, spesso attribuito ad un erudito Gaelico noto come Nennius (o Nemniuus) per quanto la prefazione che lo nomina autore sia presente solamente in due versioni tardive.
The earliest definite references to Arthur come from a complex and poorly studied text, the so-called Historia Brittonum (‘History of the Britons’), often ascribed to a Welsh scholar known as Nennius (or Nemniuus), although the preface naming him as author is only found in two late versions. The text tells us that it was composed in the fourth year of Merfyn Frych, king of Gwynned 825-844, placing its composition in 828/9; there are possible hints of a late eighth-century version. Famously, there is a section devoted to the battles of Arthur, who pugnabat contra illos in illis diebus cum regibus brittonum, sed ipse erat dux bellorum (‘fought against them (i.e. the Saxons) in those days, with the kings of the Britons, but he was leader of battles’). Twelve battles are named (one of them four times, so only nine separate locations are mentioned), including duodecimum… bellum in monte badonis, in quo corruerunt in uno die nongenti sexaginta uiri de uno impetu arthur; et nemo prostrauit eos nisi ipse solus (‘the twelfth battle… on the Mount of Badon, in which nine hundred and sixty men fell together on one day from one charge of Arthur; and no-one laid them low except he alone’). We are fortune that the Battle of the Badonic Mount is mentioned as a victory for the British against the Saxons by a near contemporary text, the so-called de Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (‘About the Destruction and Conquest of Britain’) by a British writer known as Gildas, who is generally believed to have written in the early sixth century. Unfortunately, Gildas does not name the victorious commander (there was no reason for him to), but we can at least be confident that this was a real victory for the Britons. On the other hand, the tale that no-one other than Arthur was responsible for enemy deaths looks more like legend than history. Still, this is not any reason to discount the text.
There are other references to Arthur in the Historia Brittonum. The first reads est aliud mirabile in regione quae dicitur buelt. est ibi cumulus lapidum et unus lapis superpositus super congestum cum uestigio canis in eo. quando uenatus est porcum troit, impressit cabal, qui erat canis arthur militis, uestigium in lapide et arthur postea congragauit congestum lapidum sub lapide in quo erat uestigium canis sui, et uocatur carn cabal. et ueniunt homines et tollunt lapidem in manibus suis per spatium diei et noctis et in crastino die inuenitum super congestum suum (‘There is another wonder in the region that is called Builth. There, there is a pile of stones and one stone placed on the pile with the paw-print of a dog on it. When the boar Trwyth was being hunted, the dog Cafall (which was the dog of Arthur the soldier) pressed his print into the stone and afterwards Arthur brought together a pile of stones beneath the stone in which there was the print of his dog, and it is known as Corn Gafallt. And men come and take away the stone in their own hands for the length of a day and a night, and on the next day, the stone is found back on its pile’). The second reads est aliud miraculum in regione quae uocatur ercing. habetur ibi sepulcrum iuxta fontem, qui cognominatur licat amr, et uiri nomen, qui sepultus est in tumulo, sic uocabatur amr: filius arthuri militis erat et ipse occidit eum ibidem et sepeliuit. et ueniunt homines ad mensurandum tumulum in longitudine aliquando sex pedes, aliquando nouem, aliquando duodecim, aliquando quidecim. in qua mensura metieris eum in ista uice, iterum non inuenies eum in una mensura, et ego solus probaui (‘There is another wonder in the region that is called Ergyng. There, there is a tomb next to a spring, which is known as Gamber Head, and the name of the man who was buried in the mound was thus called Amr: he was the son of the soldier Arthur, and he himself killed him and buried him there. And men come to measure the mound and sometimes it is six feet in length, sometimes nine, sometimes twelve, sometimes fifteen. Whatever measurement you will have measured it on one occasion, you will never find it the same measurment again, and I have tested it myself’).
These are at the same time impressive and problematic pieces of text. Arthur is clearly a well known character and he is a soldier. This confirms what we have already discovered. But he is associated in the first with the hunting of the boar Trwyth, an episode found in a much later story, Kulhwch ac Olwen (‘Culhwch and Olwen’), where the boar is in Ireland and is said to have been a king transformed into the beast for his sins. The magical elements of the Kulhwch ac Olwenstory already appear to be present in the apparently folkloric origin story for the dog’s footprint. It should also be noted that cafal is Old Welsh for ‘horse’, which would be an odd name for a dog, so it looks as if there is alreay a degree of confusion in the tale. The site is today Corn Gafallt, near Rhaeadr, where there are indeed some burial mounds south of the summit. With the story of Llygad Amr, we have similarly magical details. The tomb ought to be beside Gamber Head, a spring whose name derives from the Old Welsh Amr. A tomb has been found here, which is an element in aspectacular collection of Bad Archaeology investigated by Time Team in 2001. The location of the original tomb is unknown, although it has been suggested that the nearby but destroyed Wormelow Tump may have been the site of the ‘wonder’.
The Historia Brittonum is the mainstay of those who wish to present Arthur as an historical figure, but as we can see, there are enormous difficulties with those parts of the text naming him that make it impossible to read as a straightforward historical narrative. Instead, when we look at the document as a whole, we can see that it was compiled from largely legendary material. Even so, it has to be said that the other main figures it names from the Roman and early medieval periods were genuinely historical rather than mythological, even if clearly legendary stories have been woven around them.
Manuscript A of the Annales Cambrię; the entry dealing with the Strife of Camlann is at the bottom right; Badon is just above middle right
Annales Cambrię
The next historical source to mention Arthur is known as Annales Cambrię(‘Annals of Wales’), a chronicle of Welsh history that survives in three separate versions. The oldest, contained in a late eleventh-century manuscript (Harleian MS 3859), extends only as far as 954, which is probably close to the date at which this version was written. It has two separate entries: at ‘Year 72’, it readsBellum badonis, in quo arthur portauit crucem Domini nostri ihu xp’i tribus diebus & tribus noctibus in humeros suos & brittones victores fuerunt (‘The Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders and the Britons were victors’), while the second, at ‘Year 93 ’ reads Gueith camlann in qua arthur et medraut corruerunt, et mortalitas in brittannia et in hibernia fuit (‘The strife of Camlan, in which Arthur and Medrawd perished, and there was a great mortality in Britain and Ireland’). The B version of the text, written in the late thirteenth century, has the entries slightly differently: the first reads Bellum Badonis, in quo Rex Arturus portauit crucem Domini nostri ihu xpi tribus diebus & tribus noctibus in humeris suis. In illo proelio ceciderunt Colgrinus et Radulphus Anglorum duces (‘The Battle of Badon, in which King Arthur carried the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders. In that battle, Colgrin and Radulf, leaders of the English, were killed’). We now have Arthur called “King” and the insertion of the names Colgrin and Radulf. The second entry reads:Bellum Camlan, in quo inclitus Arthurus et Modredus proditor suus, mutuis uulneribus corruerunt (‘The Battle of Camlan, in which the famous Arthur and Modred, his betrayer, perished from mutual wounds’). Here, Arthur is now “famous” and Modred has betrayed him. Where did these additional pieces of information come from? They derive from the early twelfth-century work of Geoffrey of Monmouth, of which more below.
The dating of the annals is a source of debate: unlike many other early medieval chronicles, it does not give dates anno domini but a list of years, which, in the A text, are divided into decades. The later entries can be dated with reference to other documents, which allows its first year to be calculated as AD 444. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that logically: ‘Year 9’ corresponds to AD 451, as this was when Pope Leo confirmed the correct method of calculating the date of Easter, which would make 443 ‘Year 1’. Some decades as counted in the manuscript contain eleven years, some only nine, so when historians calculate the date for the Battle of Mount Badon as AD 516 and the Battle of Camlann as AD 437, we must ask whether that is a correct deduction. Badon is placed five years before the birth of Saint Columba and death of Saint Brigid, which are given in Irish annals as occurring in 522 or 523, which might suggest a date for the battle around 517 or 518. At a mere seven years before the death of Ciaran, calculated by Irish annalists as 548, then Camlann ought to be dated to 541. No matter how we look at these numbers, it is clear that we cannot trust them to give us accurate dates.
Other documents
There are no other historical sources naming Arthur before Geoffrey of Monmouth (c 1100-1155) composed his almost entirely fictional Historia Regum Britannię around 1136. True, there is literature in which his name occurs (not always as certainly as we might hope), but these are folkloric literature and poetry. They can tell us about how the legend evolved, not about the history behind the name. And it is quite clear that Geoffrey of Monmouth invented much of his story, which then became authoritative and infected all subsequent literature.
Can archaeology help us to find
Arthur?
Given that there are no contemporary documents telling us about Arthur, what about archaeological remains? Are then any discoveries that date from the period he is supposed to have lived (some time between the mid fifth century and the mid sixth) that might show that he really existed? While some have sought to document a period at which new Anglo-Saxon settlements ceased to be created in the belief that this is evidence for Arthur’s victories over the Saxons, I am more concerned here with the more positive claims of inscriptions, graves and locations for Camelot. And not all of them are necessarily preposterous and put forward by fringe writers: respectable academics have also been seduced by the blandishments of the Arthurian romances.
Inscriptions
The Artognou stone: not evidence for Arthur at all
+ PATERN… COLI AVI FICIT ARTOGNOV COL[I] FICIT
In 1998, an unexpected find was made by archaeologists from the University of Glasgow uner the direction of Chris Morris during their excavation at Tintagel, a site full of Arthurial allusions. Following Courtney Arthur Ralegh Radford’s (1900-1999) excavations there in the 1930s, his interpretation of the site as a “Celtic monastery” had been generally accepted by the academic community. However, following a grass fire on the headland in 1983, new excavations were undertaken by Chris Morris for English Heritage from 1990 onward.
These new excavations showed that Radford’s model was wrong: far from being a community of ascetics living a life of seclusion on an isolated headland, Morris showed that the place had extensive contacts with the outside world and that it was more urban than monastic. This was a shock: there weren’t supposed to be towns in ‘Dark Age’ Britain and the changed interpretation has still not been accepted in some quarters, particularly by advocates of “Celtic Christianity” as a more ‘authentic’ form of the religion than the major modern churches. But this was not the really controversial discovery: it was the finding of an inscription re-used in a seventh-century deposit.
The inscription was made on a piece of slate measuring 350 × 200 × 10 mm, which had been re-used as the cover of a drain. It carried two separate inscriptions. One, in large letters, only survived in part and appears to read …AXE…, which may be part of the Roman name Maxentius or some other name or word. It was the second part of the inscription, though, that caught the attention of the press. Reading + PATERN… COLIAVIFICIT… ARTOGNOV… COL… FICIT…, it presents all sorts of challenges to interpretation, but contains several names: Patern[us], Col (or Coliau) and Artognou. The first is a Roman name, the second and third Celtic. It was the presence of the phoneme Art… in the third name that excited the media.
Although Charles Morris was entirely cautious in his announcement of the discovery, pointing out that the inscription did not name Arthur, others were not so careful. While we might excuse the popular press (and, perhaps, especially the tabloids) for exaggerating and misinterpreting the meaning of the inscription, it is difficult to understand how such august bodies as the Archaeological Institute of America were able to promote it under the heading King Arthur was Real?. The inscription – whatever it actually says (perhaps ‘Patern[us, son of] Coliaw, had this made for Artognou: Col made it’) – does not mention Arthur at all.
The supposed tombstone of Arthur from Mynydd y Gaer
REX ARTORIVS FILI MAVRICIVS
Amateur historians and authors, Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett have promoted their hypothesis that Arthur could be identified with a King Athrwys of Gwent (specifically Athrwys ap Meurig, known from a number of early medieval genealogies). In fact, the identification was first proposed in the eighteenth century, but no matter. The name Athrwys is no more identical with Arthur than than name Artognou on the Tintagel inscription. However, Wilson and Blackett went further, in that they identified the church of St Peter-super-Montem at Mynydd y Gaer, near Bridgend (Glamorgan, Wales), as the burial place of King Arthur. Having announced their hypothesis, they became concerned about the possibility of looting at the site, which they bought. At an unknown date between 1983 and 1990, they claim to have unearthed the tombstone of Arthur, which reads REX ARTORIVS FILI MAVRICIVS. A subsequent excavation in the church, carried out in 1990 under the supervision of Eric Talbot, at that time with the University of Glasgow, revealed earlier structures and a silver cross, again with an inscription (PRO ANIMA ARTORIVS), was found.
Arthur for the soul? Illiterate Latin is hardly evidence!
If genuine, these inscriptions would be good evidence for the existence of someone whose name could be written as Artorius in Latin in early medieval Wales. However, neither inscription has been submitted for analysis by acknowledged experts in the field and even to an outsider, they appear curious. For a start, both are ungrammatical, if they are meant to mean what they are claimed to mean. Wilson and Blackett translate the stone as ‘Arthur son of Mauricius’, which to them confirmes the identity of Athrwys ap Meurig with the “King Arthur’ of the inscription. The problem is that the inscription should actually be translated ‘King Arthur Mauricius, of the son’. And while they would like to see the cross inscription as being ‘For the soul of Arthur’, it is actually ‘Arthur for the soul’ (which is probably not as effective as chicken soup). In other words, these inscriptions are, at best, crude forgeries by someone with a very poor knowledge of Latin and certainly poorer than we would expect in early medieval Wales.
Camden’s illustration of a lead cross allegedly found at Glastonbury in 1191; but there is no evidence that Camden ever saw it!
HIC IACET SEPVLTVS INCLITVS REX ARTVRIVS IN INSVLA AVALONIA
By far the most famous inscription mentioning ‘King’ Arthur is that said to have been found on a lead cross by the monks of Glastonbury who excavated the purported site of his grave there around 1191. Descriptions of the discovery were written by Ralph of Coggeshall in 1221, Giraldus Cambrensis in 1193 and Adam of Domerham (himself a monk at the abbey) in the 1290s. All give slightly different accounts of the discovery of the body, but it was alleged to have lain in an ancient coffin, hollowed from an oak trunk. They also differ in the wording of the inscription said to have been on a lead cross found above the coffin. Ralph gives it as Hic iacet inclitus rex Arturus in insula Avallonia sepultus (‘here lies the famous King Arthur, buried in the Isle of Avalon’); Giraldus adds the phrase cum Wenneveria uxore sua secunda (’with his second wife Guenevere’) at the end.
In the sixth edition of William Camden’s Britannia, published by Richard Gough in 1607, a drawing of the cross appeared for the first time. It is by no means certain that Camden saw the cross, but Leslie Alcock used the shape of the letters in the drawing to suggest a tenth- or eleventh-century date for it. He was subsequently (and, in my opinion, rightly) criticised for his lack of scepticism regarding the alleged cross, last known to have been owned by William Hughes, a chancellor of Wells cathedral, in the early eighteenth century. However, in the Enfield Advertiser of 17 December 1981, a Derek Mahoney claimed to have rediscovered it in the bed of a lake at Forty Hall near Maidens Brook, Enfield (UK), when it was being drained for dredging, but apart from showing the object to an inexperienced assistant at the British Museum (whom he refused permission for photography), no-one else has ever seen it. In the following year, Enfield Borough Council prosectued him for theft as the cross was allegedly found on its property. Mahoney served a year of a two-year sentence in prison for contempt of court.
It is now thought that Mahoney’s cross was a forgery. He had worked as a lead pattern maker and knew that Richard Gough, who prepared Camden’s Britannia for a new edition in 1607, had lived close to the site of the supposed discovery. Members of the Enfield Archaeological Society, which had overseen the dredging operation on the lake, had seen nothing like the cross removed from the sediments and at least some of the members believed that Mahoney was seeking publicity. Mahoney became ill after his release from prison and was found hanged at home in 1989: a verdict of suicide was recorded. There was no trace of the cross among his possessions and it seems that he had disposed of it in order to avoid its exposure as a fraud.
Camelot
If there are no inscriptions that can convincingly be shown to mention Arthur, what are the chances of locating Camelot? Although it is not named before the romance of Lancelot, le chevalier de la charette, written by Chrétien de Troyes between 1177 and 1181, this has not stopped enthusiasts for seeking its location. After all, someone as powerful as Arthur must have had a court (or, if we want to think of him as a Late Roman emperor, a bureaucracy) that was housed somewhere. The serious historian John Morris even proposed identifying Camelot with Colchester, the Romano-BritishCamulodunum on the grounds that the two names contain (almost) the same consonants in the same sequence… So is there really a site that can lay claim to be Camelot?
South Cadbury hillfort: as likely to be Camelot as is Milton Keynes
By South Cadbury is that Camelot…
In 1541, the Tudor traveller John Leland (1506-1552) wrote that “At South Cadbyri standeth Camallate, sumtyme a famouse toun or castelle. The people can tell nothing thar but that they have hard say that Arture much resortid to Camalat”. The first archaeologist to attempt an excavation on the hill was Harold St George Gray who found Late Iron Age structures and material near the entrance in 1913. However, it was Courtney Ralegh Radford’s identification of Merovingian glass among finds brought up by ploughing in the 1950s that reawakened interest in matters Arthurian.
After an abortive proposal for excavation in 1959, a Camelot Research Committee was formed in 1965, which entrusted the excavation to Leslie Alcock (1925-2006), then of the University of Wales, Cardiff. It inevitably became known as the Quest for Camelot. Attracting financing from the British Academy, the BBC, the Society of Antiquaries and various other sources, the project began with trial trenching in 1966. Excavation then continued until 1970, with spectacular results spanning much of later prehistory and, excitingly, the early medieval period, ending with the establishment of a short-lived mint around 1010 under Æthelræd II (‘The Unready’, c 968-1016, King of England 978-1013 and 1014-1016).
It was the early medieval occupation of the late fifth century that attracted the most interest. While Leslie Alcock was always rather circumspect about the Arthurian associations of the site, he nevertheless encouraged the popular press to report it as the base of an ‘Arthur-like’ figure who, naturally, was transformed in the popular consciousness to an Arthur of history. Indeed, Alcock’s 1971 overview of the period was called Arthur’s Britain, an acknowledgement that he believed that someone did the things credited to Arthur around the right time, so we might as well call the period ‘Arthurian’. Geoffrey Ashe has gone further, arguing that South Cadbury was nothing less than Arthur’s headquarters. And we may as well call that Camelot…
Unfortunately, while Alcock’s book was not well received by the archaeological community, it made a larger impact on a more general readership. It became popularly believed that Alcock had found evidence for the existence of Arthur, both in terms of what he had excavated at South Cadbury and, more generally, in the pattern of Anglo-Saxon settlement and its apparent slowing down c 500. However, while Alcock’s excavations had uncovered a new class of late fifth-century site – the heavily fortified British hall – it was soon found that it was not unique. If South Cadbury was the base of an ‘Arthur-like’ figure, there were many more of them. If they were all ‘Arthur-like’, which one was the home of the ‘real’ Arthur? Do any of them actually provide evidence for a ‘real’ Arthur? The answer has to be no…
The baths at Wroxeter: the Milton Keynes of sixth-century Britain?
Wroxeter
One of the great excavations of the twentieth century was that carried out by Phil Barker (1920-2001) at Wroxeter (Shropshire, England) from 1966 to 1990. In a masterpiece of slow, painstaking excavation and recording, he surprised the archaeological community with his demonstration that there was a long sub-Roman occupation of the former Roman city ofViroconium Cornoviorum. Not a place traditionally associated with Arthur, amateur historians Graham Phillips and Martin Keatman built up a case for identifying it with Camelot in King Arthur – the true story (1992). They did so by first equating Arthur with the historical Owain Ddantwyn, an ancestor of the kings of Powys who would have lived around 500. They then argue that Wroxeter was the only place in late fifth-century Powys that could have served as a royal capital. And… well, that’s about it, in a nutshell.
Like all attempts to locate Camelot, it suffers from the fact that there is no evidence that such a place ever existed outside Chrétien de Troyes’s imagination. It starts with an assumption that there was a Camelot to be found and that there was an Arthur to hold court there, then goes out to find the evidence. Without the later stories of ‘King’ Arthur, there is nothing in the archaeology of these places that would lead us to postulate the existence of such a character. We bring our later preconceptions to bear on the interpretation of the data, which is definitely Bad Archaeology.
