Was there a real King Arthur?

In the Dark Ages of Britain a great Christian King, together with his good knights, defeated the marauding Saxons and united Britain. His court was called Camelot and his Round Table of couragous knights, at which they were all equal, was the envy of all Europe. This brave and fearless King was the epitomy of honour, integrity and wise leadership. Some believe that this 'once and future King' will return one day to save Britain from imminent disaster.

This King was, of course, King Arthur. If he did exist, he would have been very different from the man depicted in the largely medieval legend. Stories about the Round Table, chivalry, knights; even Guinevere, his wife, and Lancelot, the handsome French knight with whom she fell in love, and the other characters in the stories, such as Morgause, Morgan Le Fay, and his illegitimate son, Mordred, were all invented by medieval English and French writers, who added to the oral and written accounts of this famous man. The best known of these is probably Sir Thomas Mallory's Le Morte d' Arthur.

The real Arthur, if there was such a man, would probably have been pagan, not Christian; he would have been more like a Scottish clan chieftain than a King; there would have been no Round Table (an invention of the French romancers) , no knights, and no notion of chivalry. In fact, the legendary man is much more interesting!

There was great excitement among historians in 1999 when a piece of slate was discovered in the ruins of Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, a place associated in the legends with the kingdom of Camelot. Inscribed by knife in sixth-century script, it stated: Pater Coliavi ficit Artognov (Artognou, father of a descendent of Coll, has made this). Artognou would have been the word for Arthur in those days.

Unfortunately this does not provide proof of Arthur's existence. However, most historians agree that the legends are based on a real man, a war leader in the Dark Ages. The modern version of the legend is based on Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain which places Arthur in the late 5th to early 6th centuries. Monmouth based his story on a very ancient book which has never been found, making it difficult to check the veracity of this work. He was also a Welsh man, who probably wanted to promote the idea of a splendid Welsh King, in order to give his people some notion of their former glory. He also wanted to give the Normans a hero with which they could be pleased - hence the idea of Arthur defeating the Saxons. Geoffrey's Arthur was a medieval, chivalric King, based on English and Welsh folklore - although his setting was the Dark Ages, Geoffrey added the accroute ments of a medieval court to the original stories.

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