“Arthur, as he first appears, in the book that launched his international career, is no more than an amalgam. He is a Celtic superhero created from the deeds of others”.
Have we not found this to have been the case with so many supposedly historical personages – that ‘they’ are in fact a fantastic mix of real (often biblical) persons? For, according to this article: http://theconversation.com/here-are-the-five-ancient-britons-who-make-up-the-myth-of-king-arthur-86874 “Here are the five ancient Britons who make up the myth of King Arthur”:
Arthur, in the Historia [Regum Britanniae], is the ultimate composite figure. There is nothing in his story that is truly original. In fact, there are five discrete characters discernible within the great Arthurian mix. Once you detach their stories from the narrative, there is simply nothing left for Arthur.
Though I think that the roots of the Arthurian legend may go back considerably further than the ancient Britons. That the colourful biblical King David of Israel would have had a significant influence on the Arthurian legends has been noticed at the following blog: http://community.beliefnet.com/dondiegodelaveva/blog/2009/08/17/a_king_arthur__king_david__comparison
A KING ARTHUR and KING DAVID - COMPARISON
One of the more obvious simarities between the story of King Arthur & his court and the themes and element of the Bible, are many. There's obvious parallels between some of the stories of the Bible & of Arthur is that of King David in the Old Testament.
The Arthur legends seem to take on similar elements of the story of King David in aspects of content, theme, character parallels, and morals.
LET'S COMPARE:
The coming of age: both had to go through their right of passage to prove themselves worthy to their own people. Arthur was destined by a higher power. David is [anointed] to be king by Samuel when David killed Goliath--Arthur proved his worth by removing the sword from the stone. Samuel can be paralled to Merlin in many ways which we won't get into.
A common theme between David & Arthur is that of a correlation between the king's action & their dominions' state. At their beginning both began to conquer surrounding kingdoms [1 Sam. 5:6-25] and [Malory 6-17]. The Mighty Sword Excalibur is representative to the Ark of the Covenant in some respects. Both men were great warriors & visionaries, performed good deeds & had a loyal following. Both were of royal ancestry, both were the product of illigit relations [sic] & both true parentage were hidden from their father. Both are listed as the "elect of God," & were appointed through supernatural means, showing divine intervention & appointment. Both kings were young & inexperienced, both needed to fight their own people as well as formidable enemies before they could assume full control over their respective countries. Both fought a giant & killed it with one blow, both giants were beheaded & put on display. Both men are [presented] with a sword: David got Goliath's, & Arthur got Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake.
Both were great soldiers, both very human, both sinned in sexual matters, both were referred to as "everlasting kings." Both tried to create a new order out of the chaos of the time, they both united their nations, both were [known] as "Men of Blood." Both were hero's who had come from an underdog position. Both are someone we can relate to& strive to emulate. Their responsibilities change with the times, but their ideas remain the same: unity under justice.
The Bible has the strongest influence on King Arthur legends. The story of King Arthur is very Christian - synchronized.
With this in mind, we can now take a look at the article “Here are the five ancient Britons who make up the myth of King Arthur”:
King Arthur is probably the best known of all British mythological figures. He is a character from deep time celebrated across the world in literature, art and film as a doomed hero, energetically fighting the forces of evil. Most historians believe that the prototype for Arthur was a warlord living in the ruins of post-Roman Britain, but few can today agree on precisely who that was.
Over the centuries, the legend of King Arthur has been endlessly rewritten and reshaped. New layers have been added to the tale. The story repeated in modern times includes courtly love, chivalry and religion – and characters such as Lancelot and Guinevere, whose relationship was famously immortalised in Thomas Malory’s 1485 book Le Morte D'Arthur. The 2017 cinematic outing, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, is only the most recent reimagining.
But before the addition of the Holy Grail, Camelot and the Round Table, the first full account of Arthur the man appeared in the Historia Regum Brianniae (the History of the Kings of Britain) a book written by Geoffrey of Monmouth in around 1136.
We know next to nothing about Geoffrey, but he claimed to have begun writing the Historia at the request of Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, who persuaded him to translate an ancient book “written in the British tongue”. Many have concluded, as Geoffrey failed to name his primary source and it has never been firmly identified, that he simply made it all up in a fit of patriotism.
Whatever the origin of the Historia, however, it was a roaring success, providing the British with an heroic mythology – a national epic to rival anything written by the English or Normans.
Story teller
As a piece of literature, Geoffrey’s book is arguably the most important work in the European tradition. It lays the ground for not just for the whole Arthurian Cycle, but also for the tales surrounding legendary sites such as Stonehenge and Tintagel and characters such as the various kings: Cole, Lear and Cymbeline (the latter two immortalised by Shakespeare).
As a piece of history, however, it is universally derided, containing much that is clearly fictitious, such as wizards, magic and dragons.
If we want to gain a better understanding of who King Arthur was, however, we cannot afford to be so picky. It is Geoffrey of Monmouth who first supplies the life-story of the great king, from conception to mortal wounding on the battlefield, so we cannot dismiss him entirely out of hand.
A full and forensic examination of the Historia Regum Britanniae, has demonstrated that Geoffrey’s account was no simple work of make-believe. On the contrary, sufficient evidence now exists to suggest that his text was, in fact, compiled from a variety of early British sources, including oral folklore, king-lists, dynastic tables and bardic praise poems, some of which date back to the first century BC.
….
In creating a single, unified account, Geoffrey exercised a significant degree of editorial control over this material, massaging data and smoothing out chronological inconsistencies.
Once you accept that Geoffrey’s book is not a single narrative, but a mass of unrelated stories threaded together, individual elements can successfully be identified and reinstated to their correct time and place. This has significant repercussions for Arthur. In this revised context, it is clear that he simply cannot have existed.
Arthur, in the Historia, is the ultimate composite figure. There is nothing in his story that is truly original. In fact, there are five discrete characters discernible within the great Arthurian mix. Once you detach their stories from the narrative, there is simply nothing left for Arthur.
Cast of characters
The chronological hook, upon which Geoffrey hung 16% of his story of Arthur, belongs to Ambrosius Aurelianus, a late 5th-century warlord from whom the youthful coronation, the capture of York (from the Saxons) and the battle of Badon Hill is taken wholesale.
Next comes Arvirargus, who represents 24% of Arthur’s plagiarised life, a British king from the early 1st century AD. In the Historia, Arthur’s subjugation of the Orkneys, his return home and marriage to Ganhumara (Queen Guinevere in later adaptions) parallels that of the earlier king, who married Genvissa on his return south.
….
Constantine the Great, who in AD 306 was proclaimed Roman emperor in York, forms 8% of Arthur’s story, whilst Magnus Maximus, a usurper from AD 383, completes a further 39%. Both men took troops from Britain to fight against the armies of Rome, Constantine defeating the emperor Maxentius; Maximus killing the emperor Gratian, before advancing to Italy. Both sequences are later duplicated in Arthur’s story.
The final 12% of King Arthur’s life, as recounted by Geoffrey, repeat those of Cassivellaunus, a monarch from the 1st century BC, who, in Geoffrey’s version of events, was betrayed by his treacherous nephew Mandubracius, the prototype for Modred.
All this leaves just 1% of Geoffrey’s story of Arthur unaccounted for: the invasion of Iceland and Norway. This may, in fact, be no more than simple wish-fulfilment, the ancient Britons being accorded the full and total subjugation of what was later to become the homeland of the Vikings.
Arthur, as he first appears, in the book that launched his international career, is no more than an amalgam. He is a Celtic superhero created from the deeds of others. His literary and artistic success ultimately lies in the way that various generations have reshaped the basic story to suit themselves – making Arthur a hero to rich and poor, elite and revolutionary alike. As an individual, it is now clear that he never existed, but it is unlikely that his popularity will ever diminish.
Part Two:
Also like
Constantine XI
“The inability to locate the
emperor’s [Constantine XI’s] body led to myths that he had not died. Just as
King Arthur is taken to Avalon before he can die so he can be healed of his
wound and allowed to return again, so Constantine is preserved from death so he
can return. In one such legend, an angel rescues the emperor as the Ottomans
enter the city”.
Tyler R. Tichelaar
According to Tyler R. Tichelaar, similarities can also be detected
between King Arthur and Constantine XI Palaeologus (also spelled Palaiologos), considered to have been the last of the Byzantine
emperors
(1449-1453 AD, conventional dating):
https://childrenofarthur.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/constantine-xi-king-arthurs-last-mythical-descendant/
Constantine
XI: King Arthur’s Last Mythical Descendant
….
I recently returned from a
wonderful trip to the beautiful country of Turkey. I knew Turkey was filled
with ancient history—the ruins of Ephesus, Troy, etc.—but I have always been
most fascinated with the Byzantines, or the Greeks or Romans, as they called
themselves. I am also struck by the similarities between Camelot and
Constantinople, and particularly between King Arthur and Constantine XI, the
last Byzantine Emperor. Just as Camelot was the brief shining moment before
Britain was conquered by the Saxons, so Constantinople was the last remnant of
the great Roman Empire which had once ruled most of the known world, including
Britain. The city’s fall to the Turks in 1453 marked the end of the Roman
Empire, which had stretched on for over 2,000 years.
Constantine XI, the last
emperor, had a tragic ending that inspired great myths similar to those of King
Arthur, so while the two were not necessarily related, although Constantine XI
was named for Constantine the Great, and Arthur is often believed to be a
relative or descendant of Constantine the Great, Constantine XI may be deemed a
mythical or literary descendant of King Arthur in how they are both depicted as
leaders who may come again.
Constantine’s tragedy lies not
only in the Fall of Constantinople, but that he was the last emperor, without
even an heir. He had two wives but no children, his second wife dying in
childbirth. Similarly, Arthur had no children who survived him. His end is more
tragic in that his son, Mordred, and he slew each other, but nevertheless, both
leaders’ endings spelled the end of an era.
The people of Constantinople,
the city being all that was left of an empire, held out under siege by Mehmet II
for fifty-three days before the city finally fell. In the city’s last hours,
Constantine would have prayed inside Hagia Sophia before going to fight with
his people as the city walls were beaten down.
What happened to the
emperor once the city fell has become the stuff of legend. The emperor’s body
was never found, or if it were, it was not recorded. One source states that
Constantine’s last words were, “The city is fallen and I am still alive,” and
then he tore off his imperial ornaments so he could not be distinguished from
the other soldiers and made a final charge at the enemy. According to Roger
Crowley in his wonderful book about the Fall of Constantinople, 1453,
Constantine was very aware that he would go down in history as the emperor who
let the city fall, so he may not have wanted to be identified because of the
shame he felt, and he also would not have wanted to be taken alive and forced
into shameful positions of submission before the conqueror, Mehmet II.
One story claims that
Constantine was identified by his purple boots, and that his body was
decapitated and his head sent around Asia Minor as proof of Mehmet II’s
victory, but more likely, his body was never identified and he died in a mass
grave with the rest of his soldiers.
The inability to locate the
emperor’s body led to myths that he had not died. Just as King Arthur is taken
to Avalon before he can die so he can be healed of his wound and allowed to
return again, so Constantine is preserved from death so he can return. In one
such legend, an angel rescues the emperor as the Ottomans enter the city. The
angel turns Constantine into marble and places him under the earth in a cave
near the Golden Gate where he waits to be brought back to life to re-conquer
the city for the Christians.
Just as the British have hoped
for Arthur to return in their hour of greatest need—during World War II, the
myth was especially prevalent—the Greeks have held onto the dream of
Constantine’s return.
During the Balkan Wars
and Greco-Turkish War in the early twentieth century, the name of the then
Greek King, Constantine, was used to see him as part of a prophetic myth that
Constantine had returned. Although Constantine XII failed to return
Constantinople to Christian hands, similar British efforts have been made to
recreate King Arthur through another monarch of the same name, such as King
John’s nephew in the thirteenth century being named Prince Arthur, to the brother
of Henry VIII who was also Prince Arthur, and even the speculation that current
Prince William will use his middle name Arthur when he someday ascends the
throne of Britain.
Constantine’s return seems
very unlikely to me, especially when Istanbul is a thriving busy city of nearly
20 million today, and a largely Westernized if Turkish city. Had Constantine
not been the last emperor, doubtless one soon after him would have been, but
his myth speaks to the affection his people had for him, that they did not wish
him ill or blame him for the loss of Constantinople, but rather they see him as
a tragic hero, just as Arthur lives affectionately in the British people’s
bosoms.
________________________
Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D. is
the author of King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition,
available at www.ChildrenofArthur.com
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