King Arthur: The History and Story of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table

King Arthur, Camelot, Excalibur, Merlin, Lancelot, Guinevere and the Holy Grail. These well-known figures and objects and their adventures, quests and love stories are legendary. But where did the stories come from and who wrote the legend as we know it today? Stick around to learn all about the long history of King Arthur. Hello and welcome to World History Encyclopedia. My name is Kelly and today we're going to have a look into the legendary story of King Arthur Don't forget the easiest way to support us is by giving this video a thumbs up and subscribing to our channel and hitting that bell icon for notifications so you don't miss out on our new videos every Tuesday and Friday. Before we get into the exciting tales of King Arthur, let's have a look at the history of his tales and how they developed into the stories we are familiar with. Arthur's story has its earliest roots in Celtic poetry from the time of the Saxon When the Romans left Britain in around 400 CE, they left the people there helpless against invaders, namely the Picts and the Scots. The Saxons agreed to come and help fight against the Picts and the Scots, but then decided to stay and continually looted and sacked the region. It was at this time that a British leader appeared to defend the land against the Saxons. He rallied his men and defeated the Saxons at the Battle of Badon Hill in around 500 CE. This hero was called Ambrosius Aurelianus by the historians Gildas Ambedi, and Arthur by Nennius, who was writing in the 9th century, later than Gildas Ambedi. Before his mention in Nennius' work, Arthur was mentioned by name as a great hero in the Welsh poem Y Go Dodon, which was believed to have been written shortly after the Battle of Catrae in 600 CE, since it's an elegy for the warriors who fell there. Other than mentioning that Arthur was a great warrior, the Y Go Dodon doesn't say anything else about him. And so, when Geoffrey of Monmouth was writing his Historia Regium Britanniae, or History of the Kings of Britain, in the 12th century, he pieced together bits of poetry and myth of Arthur, in addition to some creative license, and created a story which would elevate Arthur to an unforgettable legend. At the time Geoffrey was writing his history, in the loosest possible sense of that term, Arthur was already considered a great king. Although, he was probably a military leader rather than a king, but that didn't quite fit the story Geoffrey wanted to tell. Geoffrey wrote in Latin and finished his Historia Regium Britanniae in around 1136, establishing him as the father of the Arthurian legend. Geoffrey tells the history of King Arthur like this. Uther Pendragon was in love with a woman named Aegirna, but Aegirna, who loved Uther back, was married to Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall. Uther and Gorlois were fighting a war over Aegirna, and during this time, Merlin, who was a mysterious sorcerer, transformed Uther to look like Gorlois, so he could sneak past enemy lines and then sleep with Aegirna, which brought Arthur into the world. During the battle, Gorlois dies, and Uther and Aegirna get to stay together, and they have another child, a daughter named Anna. When Uther is poisoned by enemy Saxons and dies, Arthur becomes king at the age of 15. Because all the Saxons who have heard of Uther's death have poured into northern Britain, Arthur lays siege to the city of York in retaliation, and he goes up against the Saxons in a bunch of battles. He is depicted as fearless in battle and a skilled leader and tactician, and at the Battle of Badon Hill, Arthur defeated the Saxons. Arthur then marries the noblewoman, Guinevere, and then he goes about conquering as much of Europe as possible, including Norway, Denmark, and Gaul. The Roman emperor at this time was Lucius Tiberius, and when he calls Arthur a tyrant, Arthur decides to rally his troops and go to battle for vengeance against Rome for their former enslavement of Britain. Before departing, Arthur leaves the defence of Britain to his queen, Guinevere, and his nephew, Mordred. In battle, the brother of Mordred, Gawain, is depicted as rash, defiant, and hot-headed, which are characteristics which stick with the character throughout the development of the Arthurian legends. During the fight against Rome, Lucius is killed by an unknown hand, and the Britons win. Arthur has taken revenge for their oppression, and the Romans have brought their failure on themselves. Arthur never actually gets to Rome though, because on his way, he hears about how Mordred has seized the crown for himself, and is having an adulterous affair with Guinevere, so he absolutely has to return home. On the way back to British lands, Gawain is killed. Meanwhile, Mordred has been gathering forces and has ended up with allies from Britain's enemies, including the Saxons, the Picts, the Scots, and the Irish. Arthur and Mordred meet in Camlin, and Mordred is killed, although not specified as by Arthur, and Arthur is mortally wounded and carried off to Avalon. Although the noble knights are killed and Arthur himself finally falls, their sacrifice restores order to the land as good triumphs over evil. This theme became the underlying message of hope and redemption in the development of the legend after Geoffrey. By around 1160, Geoffrey's work had already been translated into French by Robert Weiss of Normandy. Weiss was writing in French and composed his Roman du Brut in around 1155. Weiss didn't really make many additions or changes to Geoffrey's tale, but wrote it in the French vernacular, which made it more accessible for readers. Although he doesn't alter the story much, Weiss is responsible for the addition of the concept of the round table, so Arthur and all his knights or guests would be seated the same, with no one at the head or foot of the table, and so no special seat of honour. The round table introduced the concept of equality to the story, showing Arthur as a king who cared more about people's merits instead of social class. Weiss also changed the name of Arthur's sword from Caliban to Chaliban, so when it was translated into English, it became known as Excalibur. His small changes have carried through all the developments and additions to the legend up until the modern day. Next, we have Robert de Boron, who wrote two romances, known as Merlin and Joseph of Arimathea, and he potentially wrote a third called Percival, which only survives as an edited prose version written later. In Boron's tale, he turned the grail from a dish with pagan connotations to the grail as a cup or chalice that we are familiar with today, and makes it explicit that the grail was the cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. Boron does not, however, introduce the quest for the grail, that will come later. His story Merlin is the first time that the motif of the sword in the stone, which was actually initially a sword in the anvil, but it just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? Is mentioned in around 1200. He also Christianised Merlin by giving him a backstory and turning him from a mysterious sorcerer to an omniscient foiled antichrist who acted as a guide for Arthur through his childhood and early adulthood. We also have the poet Barreau, who was writing in the 12th century and developed the Roman de Tristan, which is known in English as Tristan and Isolt, which is another adulterous love story and chivalric romance, which was developed from Chrétien. Another version of this tale is written by Thomas of Britain in the 12th century, which only exists in eight fragments and around 3000 lines. The next stop in the history of the Arthurian legends was to add some romance to the tales, and that was done by the French poet Chrétien de Troyes. Chrétien was responsible for the additions of courtly love and chivalry, the quest for the grail and the character of Sir Lancelot. It is thanks to Chrétien that we have the love triangle between Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere. Chrétien was writing in France during the latter half of the 12th century and wrote a total of five Arthurian romances, but the ones we're going to take a look at are Le Lancelot Chevalier de la Cherie, or Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and Percival. Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, is the first time Lancelot is mentioned, and the story goes a bit like this. An evil knight by the name of Mallegent threatens Arthur and tricks Arthur into letting him abduct Guinevere. After Guinevere is taken, Arthur lets Gawain pursue them. On his travels, Gawain runs into a knight, we don't know at the time, but it's Lancelot, who has ridden his horse to death. Lancelot borrows a horse from Gawain and joins in the search for Guinevere. When Lancelot wears this horse out as well, he encounters a dwarf, who says he will tell Lancelot where Guinevere is if he gets in the cart, which is a very dishonourable way to travel if you're a knight. But Lancelot gets in the cart, and Gawain, who refuses to get in, follows on his horse. They encounter many obstacles on their journey, and after the two knights split up, Lancelot goes through a bunch of trials. Eventually, he finds Guinevere in the Castle of Gore and rescues her from Mallegent, and they have a passionate night together. Guinevere, though, refuses to leave with Lancelot when she sees that he's travelled in a cart. Lancelot agrees to fight Mallegent in a year's time to defend Guinevere's honour, and when he goes to fight in the tournament, Guinevere asks him to lose in order to prove his love. But when he starts to lose, she changes her mind and asks him to win instead, and so he wins. During that year, Lancelot was held in a prison, so after the tournament, he is returned to the prison, but is freed by a woman who he had saved from a kidnapping during his many trials on his way to find Guinevere. Who actually ends up being Mallegent's sister. Lancelot battles with Mallegent, finally, and after cutting off Mallegent's arm, he beheads him. Lancelot and Guinevere timidly embrace, since they're in public and people cannot know of their affair, and the story ends. This story emphasises the concepts of courtly love, which were very prevalent in France at the time they were written, which includes concepts such as marriage is no real excuse for not loving, love is desire never to be fulfilled, and the ennobling power of love, and overall makes the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere not a bad thing at all, but within the chivalric bounds of courtly love, which ultimately makes Lancelot more chivalrous. The second story by Chrétien we're going to look at is the unfinished tale of Percival. This tale depicts Percival, a country boy, who embarks on a chivalric quest with Gawain for the grail, and ultimately becomes a knight. Percival heads out with Gawain, and they have a number of adventures, and at some point, Percival starts wondering what's become of his mother, and so he heads off to find her. On his way, he meets two men, and one of them has been wounded. They send him to the nearby castle where the king who has been maimed cannot rise, and bequeaths him with a sword. This king is known as the Fisher King. While they speak, Percival witnesses a procession with a squire holding a bleeding lance, a maiden holding a silver bowl, and another maiden holding a vessel, which is known as the grail. Percival was taught not to ask too many questions, so he kept them to himself, and the next morning, the castle was empty. He learns from a weeping maiden that his host was the Fisher King, and if he had only asked about the grail, the wounded king would have been healed. He then has to go on a bunch of quests to fix his mistake, or else the kingdom of the Fisher King will remain barren due to the king's injury. This is a pagan belief that the fertility of the land is equal to the fertility of the ruler. The tale is unfinished, so we do not know what Chrétien had in mind for the end of Percival's tale. From there, more and more French, British, Celtic, and German poets added to the stories of Arthur, notably by Wolfram von Eschenbach, a German poet who wrote Percival as an adaptation of Chrétien's Percival. Wolfram really developed the concept of the quest and wrote a story where Percival went on a quest for the grail without turning away from a chivalric life. His story is both an Arthurian romance and a quest for the grail, and retains the pagan and magical origins of the story and doesn't incorporate priests or chapels or clerics. Another German writer was Gottfried von Strasberg, who, just like Wolfram, developed a middle-high German tale, but this was an Arthurian romance titled Tristan, which was left unfinished. Coming to the early 1200s, we get to the Vulgate Cycle, which takes it upon itself to adopt the Christianized backstory of Merlin and then highly Christianize the rest of the legend, with key changes being adding the holy part to the holy grail, which is now firmly associated with the cup of Jesus Christ at the Last Supper, and the transformation of Arthur from a pagan warrior chief to a Christian king. In this version of Arthur's life and death story, he didn't know he was Uther's son and heir, and so to prove his birthright, he had to pull the sword out of the... Wait, no, it's still an anvil at this point. The story of Lancelot de Luck doesn't follow the same beliefs that chivalric love makes adulterous love affairs okay, and so punishment for cheating and adulterous behavior is introduced, and basically meant that Lancelot was unworthy to find the grail because of his love affair with Guinevere. Instead, the hero of this tale is Lancelot's son, Galahad, whose mother was Elaine, and had to literally disguise herself as Guinevere so that Lancelot would sleep with her. Galahad inherits the virtues of his father and accomplishes the quest of finding the grail, which is something that Lancelot could have done if he hadn't sinned. It's worth noting that prior to the Vulgate Cycle, Galahad didn't exist and was introduced specifically for this development of the legend. In the tale known as Quest, Lancelot actually repents his sins with Guinevere, and although he knows he's unworthy of finding the grail, he still gives it a crack anyway. He actually gets a glimpse of it in the grail castle before being cast out and called unworthy. In this story, Lancelot is more of a relatable character and depicted as a good man who still tries to find the grail, even though he ultimately fails because of his previous mistakes. Finally, there's the Mort Arc, in which Lancelot actually wins salvation and redemption after embarking on a quest. Lancelot destroys the evil sons of Mordred, but he loses his king and the woman he loves, and so he spends the rest of his life as a holy man and goes to heaven after he dies. These stories show the dichotomy between courtly love, where an affair was no big deal, and the Christian value of fidelity to one's spouse in a way that earlier versions did not. Then you've got Thomas Mallory, writing in English much later in the 15th century, who builds on the works of his predecessors to produce what is considered the foundation for the English texts of the legends of King Arthur. Sir Thomas Mallory compiled, edited, revised, and added to the legend of King Arthur in a book known as La Mort d'Arthur, or Death of Arthur. Thomas Mallory's additions to the already long and rich history of Arthur created what would become the foundation of the modern depictions and retellings. Finally, we have Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who was writing during the Victorian era in the 1800s, and it was his Idols of the King which revived interest in the Arthurian legend and became the main influence for Arthurian stories from around 1850 onwards. So now that we've answered the question, where did the stories come from? It's time to answer the other one. Who wrote the legend as we know it today? The legend of King Arthur as it is known in the present is the result of all these authors' works, of course, but mainly Mallory's and Tennyson's. Although Geoffrey of Monmouth is recognised as the father of the Arthurian legend, his story lacks many of the most famous motifs of the story. Mallory drew upon all the earlier writers to create his Mort d'Arthur as an original work which weaves all the previous tales into a single cohesive narrative. Mallory's work, which gave world culture the concepts of the quest for the grail, the round table where all are equal, and the image of the noble knight who fights for justice instead of power, might actually have been lost, however, if it were not for Tennyson. Tennyson's Idols of the King not only revived interest in the story, but made Arthur a national and then international model for the ideal hero king. Tennyson's work is also understood as original and was the inspiration for later retellings, but Sir Thomas Mallory is recognised as the author of the legend as he was the first to create the most comprehensive version of the story. The story of Arthur has developed and transformed through the years and has not only become one of the most popular legends of all time, but has inspired countless retellings and reimaginings of the stories. Arthur himself often plays a minor role in many of the most famous stories, but it's always understood he is the reason the knights are able to perform the great feats that they do. Arthur is the stabilising force in a world of chaos who inspires the best in others to do the same. Whether Arthur was ever a chief or a king, or if he or any of the other world famous characters actually ever existed in some form at all, it's hard to know for sure. But that is not as important as what the legend has come to mean to people. The legend of King Arthur continues to be among the most popular in world literature because it's ultimately the story of the triumph of good over evil, order over chaos, and hope over despair. Who is your favourite Arthurian character and why? Or your favourite story? Let us know in the comments below. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel so you don't miss out on our new videos every Tuesday and Friday. 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