Editors Weekly Round-up, May 21, 2017

by the EHFA Editors

Every week, our authors contribute wonderful and informative posts on British history. Check out this week's articles.

Lordship in the Tenth-Century – 

What was its Political and Social Function?

by Annie Whitehead

Foods the Romans Brought to Britain

by Cindy Tomamichel

Digging Up Folklore
by Mary Anne Yarde

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Digging Up Folklore

by Mary Anne Yarde

In 1846 William John Thoms, a British writer, penned a letter to The Athenaeum, a British Magazine. In this letter, he talked about “popular antiquities.” But instead of calling it by its common name, he used a new term — folklore.

What did Thoms mean by this new word? Well, let's break it down. The word folk referred to the rural poor who were for the most part illiterate. Lore means instruction. So folklore means to instruct the poor. But we understand it as verbal storytelling. Forget the wheel ~ I think storytelling is what sets us apart. We need stories, we always have and we always will.

Edward III

But what does folklore have to do with history? Quite a lot actually. Let's take a look at one of the greatest British stories ever told, and that is the tale of King Arthur and his Knights.

Historically, Arthur is difficult to pin down. There are so many theories about who he was and where he came from that it is like chasing a phantom. Some experts have their feet firmly planted in the 2nd Century when they talk of Arthur. Others believe him to be a Scottish Dark Age warlord or an English Christian King. Of course, the Welsh and the Breton's also have candidates that fit the role. For a person whose very existence screams folklore—screams myth—there seems to be an awful lot of interest in him. And that interest has never gone away. We love the stories of Arthur and his knights, there is no getting away from that, and these stories have helped shape a nation. Look how obsessed Edward III was with Arthurian Legend. Edward was determined that his reign was going to be as spectacular as Arthur's was. He believed in the stories of Arthur and his Knights. He had even started to have his very own Round Table built at Windsor Castle. He also founded The Order of the Garter— which is still the highest order of chivalry that the Queen can bestow. Arthur, whether fictional or not, influenced kings.

The Sculpture at Tintagel Castle by Rubin Eynon

Likewise, Arthur and his Knights are, and always have been, a lucrative tourist attraction ~ those pragmatic monks at Glastonbury in the 12th century can contest to that. But so can English Heritage. Arthur draws in the crowds. At this very moment, the story of Arthur is being retold on the big screen. There is something about Arthur. There is something about the story that we want to believe is true. So how do we separate the fact from the fiction?

With difficulty.

In our search for Arthur, we are digging up folklore, and that is not the same as excavating relics. We have the same problem now as Geoffrey of Monmouth did back in the 12th Century when he compiled The History of the Kings of Briton. His book is now considered a ‘national myth,’ but for centuries his book was considered to be factually correct. So where did Monmouth get these facts? He borrowed from the works of Gildas, Nennuis, Bede and The Annals of Wales. There was also that mysterious ancient manuscript that he borrowed from Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, but let’s not get into that today! Monmouth then borrowed from the bardic oral tradition. In other words, he listened to the stories of the bards. Add to the mix his own imagination and Monmouth was onto a winner. Those who were critical of his work were brushed aside and ignored. Monmouth made Britain glorious, and he gave us not Arthur the general, but Arthur the King. And what a king he was.

Glastonbury Abbey

So is Arthur a great lie that for over a thousand years we have all believed in? Should we be taking the Arthurian history books from the historical section and moving them to sit next to George R. R. Martin's, Game of Thrones? No. I don't think so. In this instance, folklore has shaped our nation. We should not dismiss folklore out of hand just because it is not an exact science. We should embrace it because when you do, it becomes easier to see the influence these ‘stories’ have had on historical events.

 All photographs are my own, apart from the portrait of Edward III which can be found on Wikipedia.

~~~~~~~~~~

Mary Anne Yarde is the award-winning author of The Du Lac Chronicles series. 

Set in the 5^th and 6^th Century, The Du Lac Chronicles follows the fortunes and misfortunes of Lancelot du Lac’s sons as they try to navigate their way through an ever-changing Saxon world.

Book 3 of The Du Lac Chronicles is due to be released later on in the year.

Website/Blog

Amazon UK
Amazon US

King Arthur, Man or Myth? Check Scotland....

by Mary Anne Yarde

“The legendary Arthur is said to be buried in an island in the Western Seas – Avalon – but in the South of Britain there are no islands in the Western Seas.” Adam Ardrey

Growing up in the Southwest of England, the tales of King Arthur and his knights were a part of my childhood. We all knew who he was, we knew what he did, we knew about his knights, and we knew about his code of honour. We couldn’t get away from him, even if we tried.

Arthur and his knights is an obsession that I have never grown out of, but as an adult I wanted to look for the truth behind the myth. I thought it would be easy. He was, after all, buried just down the road in Glastonbury Abbey. Avalon and Cadbury Castle was a stones throw away, and Tintagel Castle, a simple day trip. I thought I had it all figured out. I was wrong.

The hunt for Arthur has taken me away from my beloved Southwest of England. I have journeyed to Wales where I listened to the tales of their King Arthur – so similar to mine. But even then there seemed to be more myths than facts - the shape of a horse hoof in a stone, a large river and a cave where it is said Merlin is imprisoned - I was not convinced.

So I journeyed on and found myself in Scotland. When I think of Scottish heroes, I think of Wallace and The Bruce, not Arthur - never Arthur. But the evidence that Arthur was not only very real, but of Irish/Scottish heritage is very compelling.

There was a man, a prince, who went by the name of Artúr mac Aedan. He was born c599, and his father was the King of Dalriada. This Artúr is mentioned in three ancient manuscripts that predate Nennius and his great work, The History of the Britons. I always thought that the first mention of Arthur was by Nennius in the 9th Century. But maybe I was wrong about that as well.

In c.700 there lived a monk on the remote island of Iona. His name was Adomnan. Life of St.Columbia is Adomnan's masterpiece. And in this masterpiece Adomnan talks about Artúr, the son of King Aedan. This account was written a mere hundred years after Artúr lived, and it is probably as close as we are going to get to a reliable source. It is accepted by historians as a genuine document, so maybe, for once, there is something in this story.

So why has no one ever heard of this so called Scottish King Arthur?

The answer to that is easy - no one wanted to contemplate such a truth - because Arthur came from the South of England, he was an ancient Briton...end of story...how dare you try and tell us differently.

Artúr mac Aedan, may not have been an ancient Briton, but Adomnan states that he fought on the side of the Britons, against the Saxons. Does that sound like a familiar story to you? Arthur fighting the Saxon’s is a common thread in Arthurian Legend. But remember, this isn’t a story, this is fact. Which begs the question, how did a Scottish prince become an English hero? This is where it gets really interesting. Artúr and his father, King Aedan, formed a coalition with the Britons, or the Welsh to be more precise, and together they fought the Saxons of Northumbria as well as the Picts. Is it the case of an ally becoming a subject with the passage of time? Possibly.

Prince Artúr never became King. Columbia prophesised that he would fall in battle, which he did. Should we dismiss this Artúr then? We are, after all, looking for a king not a prince. Or are we? Even Nennius, 200 years later, stated that Arthur was a great general, he said nothing about him being a king.

Arthur is mentioned again in The Annals of Tighernac, another ancient text.

"Death of the sons of Aidan. Bran, Domingart, Eochach find, Arthur at the battle of Chirchind, in which Aidan was victorious".

Can we trust these sources?

Well according to the scholars, yes. They are genuine and without the fictitious traits of later works such as Geoffrey Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain.

But what about Nennius and his famous 12 battles that Arthur supposedly fought in? Surely they must fit in somewhere?

The British academic, Andrew Breeze, has discovered that seven of these battles can be linked to places in Scotland, and one was at the River Glen in Northumberland. And even the last famous battle at Camlann, the battle in which Arthur fell, was in Carlisle. What would a Southern King being doing fighting in Scotland?

Also, in yet another ancient manuscript "The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee" states that Artúr had a sister called Morgan – Morgan le Fray; recognise the name?

Much of what we think we know about Arthur and his Knights comes from the work of Geoffrey Monmouth and a few French poets. Their stories are beautifully told and very enjoyable, but they are stories and should not be used as a source of historical evidence.

So should we dismiss the legend completely? Was there a Camelot? Was there a Sword in a Stone? A Round Table? Avalon? Are they just stories too?

There was never a kingdom or a castle called Camelot. Camelot was the invention of Chrétien de Troyes, a 12th century French poet. If Arthur were a prince then he would have lived in a hill-fort, one can assume. But if he were Scottish then Cadbury Castle in Somerset would no longer be a contender as the once mighty seat of Arthur. Ardrey suggest a hill fort in Argyll.

In 2011, Glasgow University Archaeologists, Stirling Local History Society and Stirling Field and Archaeological Society, were surveying the King’s Knot at Stirling Castle. The Kings Knot was constructed in the 1620’s for Charles I, but the survey uncovered a much older, ancient would probably be a better word, earthwork than was previously thought. It has been suggested that maybe this was Arthur’s burial ground, or maybe it had something to do with The Round Table. King Arthur has been long associated with Stirling Castle, which would hardly be surprising if he was Scottish, but such a link, or rumour, which ever you want to call it, first seemed to come about in c.1375, when John Barbour, a Scottish poet claimed that Arthur’s Round Table was south of Stirling Castle. In 1478 the English chronicler, William of Worcester, claimed that;

“King Arthur kept the Round Table at Stirling Castle.”

And so it continued, as legends often do...they seem to get better with the retelling. Whether there is any truth in them, I don’t know.

So how about Avalon. If not at Glastonbury, then where is it? Ardrey states;

“Iona fits all the criteria. It’s an island where hundreds of kings were buried. Some say 128. Other members of Arthur Mac Aedan’s family were buried there too. I say Arthur was also buried there.”

There are places in Scotland that have been put forwards as a possible Avalon but Iona makes logistical sense. As for the Sword in the Stone...what do you think?

There are so many what if and maybes, so many contenders who could be Arthur. But maybe, in Artúr mac Aedan, we have stumbled upon the real man behind the legend of The Once and Future King.


Bibliography

Adam Ardrey Finding Arthur: The Truth Behind The Legend Of The Once and Future King (2013)
Adomnan Life of St.Columbia Adomnan's (c. AD 697/700)
The Annals of Tighernac
The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee
David Francis Carroll Arturius: Quest for Camelot (1996)
Simon Andrew Stirling The King Arthur Conspiracy: How a Scottish Prince Became a Mythical Hero (2012)
Robin Crichton On the Trail of King Arthur: A Journey into Dark Age Scotland (2013)

All illustrations are in the public domain and are part of the British Library's Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts and Wikipedia.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Born in Bath, England, Mary Anne Yarde grew up in the southwest of England, surrounded and influenced by centuries of history and mythology. Glastonbury—the fabled Isle of Avalon—was a mere fifteen-minute drive from her home, and tales of King Arthur and his knights were part of her childhood. Her debut novel The Du Lac Chronicles is out in the spring of 2016.

The Du Lac Chronicles

A generation after Arthur Pendragon ruled, Briton lies fragmented into warring kingdoms and principalities.
Wounded and left to die in the cold, young Alden du Lac has lost his army, his kingdom, and his friends. Is the shadowy figure approaching death or salvation?