TRADITIONS AND HISTORY BEARING UPON THE LIFE OF ARTHUR
Apart from the evidence of names, we may inquire what is to be found in the way of history or circumstantial tradition.
Arthur has been regarded as a somewhat shadowy character; it has even been doubted whether he was not wholly imaginary. Milton[3] thus expresses his uncertainty: ‘Who Arthur was, and whether any such person reigned in Britain, hath been doubted heretofore, and may again with good reason.’ It is said that Tennyson, who has partaken of Arthur’s immortality, doubted his existence; and so much has the Arthurian story been overlaid with romance that it is no easy matter to discover the historical facts which are concealed under the superstructure of fiction.So much has the story of Arthur been magnified and embellished by the romancers of the twelfth and subsequent centuries, so much has it been glorified by impossible details and inflated by obvious anachronisms,[4] that we cannot wonder that the whole tale was distrusted where there was so much reason for rejecting the greater part. The later Arthurian story presents conditions rather befitting the Black Prince than the British king. To get to the foundations, we must dig below the superstructure, which is mostly of French origin, and examine the records, scanty though they be, which belong to Arthur’s country and as nearly as may be to his time. The ancient literature of Cornwall, if there ever was any, has perished with its language, but there remains much of that of Wales, some going back possibly to the time of Arthur, probably to the century in which he lived. Some of the Triads and some of the songs of the bards are confidently believed to have been handed down from the sixth century, though we possess no manuscripts which have an earlier date than the twelfth. Among these survivals are many allusions to Arthur, mentioning him by name and referring to him as a fighting man and a leader, and more than one associating him with Cornwall, and with a particular earthwork which, I venture to think, can still be identified. One of these writings is entitled ‘Triads of Arthur and His Warriors,’[5] and is thus translated:
Arthur the chief lord at Kelliwic in Cornwall, and Bishop Betwine the chief Bishop, and Caradawe Vreichvras the chief elder.
This is referred to by Dr. Guest[6] as ‘a poem of the sixth century, whose genuineness no scholar has ever doubted.’[7] The Triads do not deal with narrative; their purpose is served when three names are linked together. The mention of Cornwall in connection with Arthur may be taken to indicate that he was a Cornish rather than a Welsh potentate; while that of Kelliwic, as will presently be shown, is of especial interest as indicating the locality to which he belonged. The ‘Black Book of Caermarthen’ contains a poem of somewhat uncertain date and authorship, in which the same place is referred to in connection with Arthur:
he killed every third person
When Celli was lost.
Celli is evidently the place elsewhere referred to as Celliwig, another form of the name Kelliwic. The same ‘Black Book’ gives a poem relating to Geraint, who was killed in the course of it. Arthur was there, and attracted the notice and commendation of the author:—
In Llongborth I saw Arthur,
And brave men who hewed with steel,
Emperor and conductor of the toil.
I presume that Llongborth is a place elsewhere spoken of as Longporth, and believed to be Portsmouth; and the battle referred to, one between Arthur and Cerdric.
The same manuscript gives a poem entitled ‘The Verses of the Graves.’ Many graves are mentioned which are not to the present purpose; that of Arthur is referred to as unknown in the following line:—
A mystery to the world the grave of Arthur.
Taliessin was a Welsh bard who, among others, is assigned to the sixth century. He refers to Arthur frequently as the Guledig—a term, according to Skene, equivalent to Ruler or Imperator. That Arthur was not Imperator of all Britain will presently appear; that he held some position of supremacy in the west may well be believed. Taliessin refers to Arthur frequently, once as ‘Arthur the blessed’:—
on the face of battle,
Upon him a restless activity.
The same poet describes with much repetition a certain expedition, of which one stanza may serve as a sufficient sample:—
And when we went with Arthur, a splendid labour,
Except seven none returned from Caer Vedwyd.
The same poet alludes to ‘the steed of Arthur’ in a poem which enumerates memorable horses. In the ‘Book of Aneurin,’ a Welsh poet who belonged, as it is thought, to the sixth century, Arthur is made use of as a standard of comparison. A certain warrior is thus referred to:—
He was an Arthur
In the midst of the exhausting conflict.[8]
Further quotations from similar sources might be brought together, but enough have been adduced to show that the name of Arthur was so widely celebrated by the Welsh bards, and was so connected by them with place and circumstance, that it is not possible to doubt that the traditions had reference to a real person. Whether any of the bardic effusions which have come down to us are correctly assigned to the sixth century, as Welsh scholars believe, I am not competent to decide. Many of them are obviously of later date; but if we may accept what is generally believed, we must attribute some of these poetic remnants to a time when Arthur was a recent memory, and give credence to them as at least founded on fact. By the bards Arthur was represented as a military chief paramount in the country to which their knowledge extended; as a soldier of exceptional activity, and one who attracted the admiration of those who fought under him; as concerned in a variety of fights in a variety of places, most of which are not now to be exactly identified, but one of which was Kelliwic, a place of strength which will receive further notice; and as resembling another great leader in the invincible obscurity which shrouded his place of rest. ‘In the lost battle borne down by the flying,’ his sepulchre may have been the maws of kites.
From the time of the bards—not to limit that period to the sixth century—until the ninth century no records concerning King Arthur have come down to us. It is more likely that some were written, utilised, and lost, than that the historian of the ninth century was guided only by oral tradition. The earliest connected history of Arthur, though, as has been seen, this by no means contains the earliest mention of him, is that of Nennius, a Briton who, according to his own statement, wrote in the year 858, and concludes his history in the time of the ‘Heptarchy.’ Thus three centuries elapsed between the supposed death of Arthur in 542 and any collected record of his doings which is still extant. This interval, however, was not barren of Arthurian lore, for we have derived from it, as I have shown, a sufficiency of fragments and allusions to certify to the existence of Arthur, to mark his position as ‘Dux Bellorum,’ to present him in his fighting character, and in more than one instance to associate him with places which can still be identified.
As against the positive testimony of the Bards we have a certain amount of negative evidence to which due weight must be attached, though the negation may be held to apply not so much to the existence of Arthur as a chieftain in the west as to the general supremacy assigned to him by later writers and popular tradition as King of Britain, Comes BritanniÆ, lord of the whole country comprising the ‘Saxon shore’ as well as the remote districts of the west and north. Proceeding in chronological order, the first historical record (for the bardic fragments can scarcely be so termed) relating to ‘Britain’s Isle and Arthur’s days’ is that of Gildas, a British priest of reforming tendencies, who was born, according to his own statement, in the year of the famous battle of Badon Hill, or Mons Badonicus, and received in consequence the addition of Badonicus to his name. This battle, which was fought in the year 520, or, according to another reckoning, 516, was connected in later times with Arthur, and regarded as his crowning victory. If Gildas was born in the year of Badon Hill, he must, supposing we accept the date 520 for that engagement, have been twenty-two years old at the time assigned by tradition to Arthur’s last battle. Yet Gildas makes no mention of Arthur, though he refers by name to Ambrosius as the successful leader of the Britons against the Saxons at this epoch. If, as there is reason to believe, Scotland was the scene of the latter part of Arthur’s career and of his death, it is the less remarkable that he should have escaped mention by Gildas, who apparently belonged to the south of England, for he is known to have spent part of his time at Glastonbury. Similar negative evidence is provided by the Venerable Bede, who lived nearer to the place of Arthur’s exploits than did Gildas, though he was more remote from them in time. Bede was a Northumbrian priest in the time of the ‘Heptarchy.’ He was born in 673 and died in 735. As a writer on ecclesiastical history, it is remarkable that he found no place for Arthur as a Christian champion. Bede, who closely follows Gildas, mentions only Ambrosius. I may venture to quote from the ‘Ecclesiastical History’ the passage which refers to Ambrosius, from which it will be seen that this historian does not explicitly attribute the victory of Badon Hill to Ambrosius, though his words have been thought to bear that signification. ‘Under him’ (Ambrosius) ‘the Britons revived and, offering battle to the victors, by the help of God came off victorious. From that day, sometimes the natives, and sometimes their enemies, prevailed, till the year of the siege of Baddesdown Hill, when they made no small slaughter of those invaders.’ Putting Badon Hill aside, there are other battles, which will be enumerated in due course, of which Arthur has the sole credit, which might have been expected to have drawn the attention of the priest to the hero had he been all that later chronicles represent.
Here is a difficulty which cannot be ignored; and which consists not so much of conflicting testimony as of testimony conflicting with the absence of testimony. In such a case it is probable that more weight should be attached to positive evidence than to negative. The ignoring of Arthur by Gildas and Bede, and as I shall presently show by the ‘Saxon Chronicle,’ may imply no more than that he held no such position as would have caused him to be mentioned by the British writers, who named no one but the commander-in-chief, and that the field of his activity did not bring him under the notice of the Saxon chroniclers, who took no cognizance of what went on at this time in the west. The two British writers, whose notice of the wars of the Saxon invasion is confined to the briefest epitome, mention no leader on either side but Ambrosius. There must have been others, of whom Arthur may have been one. Arthur was never, like Vortigern, King of Britain, or, like Ambrosius, commander-in-chief of the British forces: he had no concern with the ‘Saxon shore’; he was, as we are frequently told, Guledig, or Imperator, but his authority must have been limited to the west and north.
Between the history of Bede and that of Nennius, the Arthurian legend appears to have taken tangible shape, and by the later historian was written in a connected though condensed form. If, as is probable, Nennius was guided by earlier manuscripts, they have perished or not come to light. Little is known of this writer. His ‘Historia Britonum’ is said to have been edited by Mark the Hermit in the tenth century. According to his own statement, Nennius, who was apparently a Briton and a priest, wrote his history in the year 858. It concludes with the battle of Cocboy (or Maserfield), between two kings of the ‘Heptarchy’ in the year 642. Importance (as will presently be seen) is to be attached to the date of this conclusion. Nennius in the course of his history deals with the conflicts between the Britons and Saxons after the death of Hengist, and introduces us to Arthur in these words:—‘Then it was that the magnanimous Arthur, with all the kings and military force of Britain, fought against the Saxons. And although there were many more noble than himself, yet he was twelve times chosen their commander and was as often conqueror. The first battle in which he was engaged was at the mouth of the river Gleni. The second, third, fourth and fifth were on another river, by the Britons called Duglas, in the region Linuis. The sixth on the river Bassas. The seventh in the wood Celidon, which the Britons call Cat Coit Celidon. The eighth was near Gurnion Castle, where Arthur bore the image of the Holy Virgin, mother of God, upon his shoulders, and through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Mary put the Saxons to flight, and pursued them the whole day with great slaughter. The ninth was at the City of Legion which is called Cair Lion. The tenth was on the banks of the river Trat Treuroit. The eleventh was in the mountain Breguoin, which we call Cat Bregion. The twelfth was a most severe contest, where Arthur penetrated to the hill of Badon. In this engagement nine hundred and forty fell by his hand alone, no one but the Lord affording him assistance.’[9] It is worth noting that a later writer, Geoffrey of Monmouth, tells a story with regard to the battle of Badon Hill resembling that which Nennius attaches to that of Gurnion Castle. Arthur had a picture of the Virgin painted on his shield, and with his own hand and his sword Caliburn slew 470 men; Giraldus Cambrensis explains that the picture was on the inside of the shield, so that Arthur might kiss it without inconvenience.
These battles are indicated by Nennius only by their localities, without mention of the chiefs to whom Arthur was opposed. It is believed that Cerdric was prominent in this capacity: he may have been so in the south, but we find no evidence that this commander ever got far enough north to take part in the majority of the fights of which Nennius is the historian and Arthur the hero. The river Gleni has been thought to be the Glen in Ayrshire; by others to be a river of the same name, a tributary of the Till in Northumberland. The Duglas, or Dubglass, has been supposed to be the Dunglas, which forms the southern boundary of Lothian; by others one of the rivers in Scotland which bears the name of Douglas; by others to be the Duglas in Lancashire. The wood Celidon may be the Caledonian Forest or Englewood in Cumberland. Gurnion Castle is supposed by some to have been a Roman station near Yarmouth, by Skene to be one near Lammermoor. The City of Legion or Cair Lion, where the ninth battle was said to have been fought, should be Caerleon-upon-Usk, though this position does not correspond with that of the other contests, and on this and other grounds must be held in doubt. Giles supposes Cair Lion to have been Exeter. The river Trat Treuroit, on which was the tenth battle, cannot be satisfactorily located. The eleventh battle was apparently fought at Edinburgh, not against the Saxons but the Picts. Cadbury in Somersetshire, according to another hypothesis, has also been assigned as the place of this battle. The famous twelfth battle, which was between the British and Saxons, and resulted in the taking of Mons Badonicus or Badon Hill, has been placed at Bannesdown near Bath, at Badbury in Dorsetshire, and at Bouden Hill in Linlithgowshire. This great battle, whatever may be the doubts as to its position, stands out as an indubitable historical fact, though Gildas and Bede have occasioned a certain ambiguity between Arthur and Ambrosius in regard to it. If, as is believed, Ambrosius died, whether by sword or poison, in 508, and Mons Badonicus was fought in 520, we may disconnect Ambrosius from this battle and give the sole credit of it to Arthur. The opponent of Arthur on this occasion was, according to evidence and probability, Cerdric, who had landed at the mouth of the Itchen in 495, defeated Natanleod near Netley in 508; and was himself defeated at Badon Hill in 520.[10] If these statements be accepted, as it seems they should be, we can scarcely place Mons Badonicus in Scotland, whither Cerdric, so far as we know, never went. He was probably sufficiently occupied at this time in establishing his kingdom of Wessex. It is possible that at Badon Hill Arthur and Cerdric may have met, not for the first time, for a bardic fragment to which I have referred (see page 14) represents Arthur as fighting, probably with Cerdric, at Llongporth or Portsmouth. English, as distinguished from Scottish, historians concur in placing Badon Hill in the south. Geoffrey says that the battle was near Bath (not that this is by any means conclusive); Bannesdown has been generally accepted as its situation, though Dr. Guest prefers to place it at Badbury in Dorsetshire. At any rate, we must believe that it took place in the southwest and within stroke of Cerdric. Amid much that is obscure, this battle, as between the British and Saxons and Arthur and Cerdric, presents itself as a sort of anchorage in a sea of doubt.
We may look back upon the preceding battles having regard to the presumption that in 520 Arthur was in the south of England. Of these battles, eleven in number, we have no exact knowledge as to either time or place. With regard to three of them we cannot form any reasonable conjecture. Of the remaining eight each has more than one position hypothetically assigned to it—always one in the lowlands of Scotland, where Arthurian names most abound, another generally in the north of England. It would be vain to pretend that we know enough of the particulars of the invasion to give us more than vague guidance as to the movements of Arthur. It may be supposed that in his time the Angles were penetrating the island by the Humber and the Forth, and it is possible that he may have been concerned in the fighting which ensued. Manifestly he obtained great fame in the north, though we do not know when. Between the battle of Badon Hill in 520 and Camlan in 542 we are in absolute darkness as to his whereabouts. We may presume that he was in the south of England in 520 and in Scotland in 542; between the two dates there is room for conjecture and for much fighting. If we could adapt the traditions to probability, we should suppose that the Scotch battles took place after, and not before, Badon Hill; that in the early part of his career Arthur was at war with Cerdric and the Saxons of Wessex, in the later part with the Angles of the north and possibly with the Picts. But if we accept the list of battles as given by Nennius, and in the order in which he places them, we must believe that Arthur went north before Badon Hill[11] and returned to fight there, for all the little evidence we have indicates that some at least of the battles which this historian records were in Scotland. If this be so, Arthur must have gone north again to conclude his career at Camlan, and thus must have made more than one Scotch campaign, to the multiplication of Arthurian names.[12]
The ‘Saxon Chronicle,’ which gives a detailed account of the battles in Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire, makes no mention of any in the west or north, or of Arthur. The ‘Saxon Chronicle’ is an apparently truthful, if somewhat bald, history. It mentions Vortigern as King of Britain and the opponent of Hengist, it names Natanleod, Commail, Condida and Farinmail as British kings who were defeated and slain; but neither Arthur nor Ambrosius find place in this record. It has been supposed that Natanleod, who was killed, together with five thousand men, by Cerdric at Netley in the year 508, was no other than Ambrosius, but I have not been able to find the evidence on which this theory rests; and there is another tradition with regard to the death of Ambrosius, namely, that he was poisoned in the same year by a Saxon monk. The silence of the Chronicle, if so it be regarded, as to Ambrosius throws no doubt upon his existence; and as to Arthur, though it may indicate that he had no position of national supremacy in the east and south, it goes for nothing as touching the west and north, of which this record takes no cognizance.
The fame of Arthur may have been, or rather must have been, founded upon his deeds, but the vast superstructure raised on that foundation is to be attributed to the close association between the branches of the Celtic race in Cornwall, Wales and Britanny. The fame of Arthur, once established among the Welsh Bards and the Romancers of Britanny, easily lent itself to exaggeration and attracted to itself much that was due to others or was purely imaginary.
I have called Geoffrey of Monmouth an imaginative writer: it may admit of question whether he should be termed imaginative or credulous. He was an indiscriminate collector of Arthurian legends, some of which may contain a modicum of truth, while others are wholly false. Of the latter variety Arthur, according to Geoffrey, conquers Ireland, Iceland and the Orkneys, subdues Norway, Dacia, Aquitaine and Gaul, bestows Normandy upon Bedver the butler, and establishes his court in Paris. He was crossing the Alps to attack Rome when he was recalled by the treachery of Mordred, to conclude his career on the Camel. Such inventions savour more of the twelfth century than the sixth, and mark Geoffrey as one whose statements are not to be accepted without concurrent testimony.
So overloaded is the story of Arthur with fiction or romance that it is difficult or impossible to discern the truth that must necessarily be at the bottom of it. The more remote are the Arthurian writings from the Arthurian epoch, the more voluminous, the more circumstantial, and the more obviously superadditional, they become. But there must necessarily be a root under all this efflorescence, the presence of which is clearly indicated, though it cannot be fully exposed to view.
