DID KING ARTHUR REALLY EXIST?

The question of whether or not Arthur truly existed continues to puzzle historians. One view is that Arthur lived at the end of the 5th century and was a warrior, not a king; following the retreat of the Romans from Britain, he united the Celts against the Saxon invaders.

Most believe that Arthur is a composite of several historical and mythological characters, embellished and romanticised with the retellings of successive authors. The first writer to tell Arthur’s story was the 12th-century monk Geoffrey of Monmouth, who in his History of the Kings of Britain presented the tale of King Arthur as fact, and introduced key elements such as Arthur’s father Uther Pendragon, his wife Guinevere, the wizard Merlin and the sword Excalibur.

Geoffrey begins his History with a dedication claiming that the book is merely a translation of a “very ancient book”, but this was a common claim at the time to add authenticity to new writing. Whatever the truth, medieval readers eagerly swallowed the story, and heroic King Arthur entered public consciousness.

More romantic, whimsical twists to the tale – Camelot, Avalon, the Holy Grail, and Lancelot, Gawain and Galahad – came later, woven out of folklore. Works such as Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur in the 15th century and Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King in the 19th century further embellished the legend to fit the social and political mood of their time.