King Arthur
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King Arthur is a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against the Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians. The sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various "histories", including those of Gildas, Nennius and the Annales Cambriae. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.
Miscellaneous facts
- King Arthur is much beloved of Americans, and fits in with their conceptions of "Merry Olde England". The love affair probably started with Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court[1]" and continued in films such as Disney's "The Sword in the Stone"[2] and musicals such as "Camelot"[3]. This American obsession almost certainly one of the inspirations for the famous Monty Python film[4].
- The British historical author Alfred Duggan[5] suggested that Arthur was a leader of a troop of heavy cavalry known as the "cataphracts"[6],[7]. This theory, although prosaic, has the advantage of being sensible.
- King Arthur - if he existed - probably wasn't a "King" as such, as that title comes from the Anglo-Saxon word "cyning"[8]. Similarly in the 5th century the Latin title "Rex" was one more likely to be used by "barbarians"; "Rex Romanorum" was a title invented by the Germans[9]. If anything, Arthur was more likely to have been a Count or "Comes", not unlike the "comes litoris Saxonici"[10] listed in the "Notitia Dignitatum"[11].
- According to Wikipedia Arthur is a common male name, meaning "bear-like," believed to possibly be descended from the Roman surname Artorius ("plowman") or the Celtic bear-goddess Artio or more probably from the Celtic word artos ("bear")[12]. The real life Roman Lucius Artorius Castus was rather fancifully thought by the American academic Kemp Malone[13] to be the seed for the Arthurian legends[14].
