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.
In Tomb Raider: Legend Lara Croft supposedly finds King Arthur's grave (and that of his knights of the round table) as well as a part of Excalibur in Professor Worth's King Arthur Museum in the England level. The way he museum's animatronics tell Arthur's story can be seen as a reference to the Monty Python movie (see below).
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 is 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].
References
- ↑ [1] Wikipedia article on "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"
- ↑ [2] Wikipedia article on the film "The Sword in the Stone"
- ↑ [3] Wikipedia article on the musical "Camelot"
- ↑ [4] Wikipedia article on the Monty Python film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"
- ↑ [5] Wikipedia article on historical author Alfred Duggan
- ↑ [6] Wikipedia article on "Cataphracts"
- ↑ [7] Wikipedia article on the novel "Conscience of the King"
- ↑ [8] Wikipedia article on Germanic king
- ↑ [9] books.google.com page on The Cambridge history of medieval political thought c. 350-c. 1450 By J. H. Burns, James Henderson Burns
- ↑ [10] Wikipedia article on "Count of the saxon Shore"
- ↑ [11] Wikipedia article on "notitia Dignitanum"
- ↑ [12] Wikipedia article on the name Arthur
- ↑ [13] Wikipedia article on Kemp Malone
- ↑ [14] Wikipedia article on Lucius Artorius Castus
