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The story of Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table has captivated us for a thousand years. But is there any truth behind the tales? ... Filed Under: Based on a True Story, ...
- Joshua Hammer
- Overview
- HISTORY Vault: King Arthur: His Life and Legends
We’ve all heard stories about King Arthur of Camelot, who according to medieval legend led British forces (including his trusted Knights of the Round Table) in battle against Saxon invaders in the early sixth century. But was King Arthur actually a real person, or simply a hero of Celtic mythology?
Though debate has gone on for centuries, historians have been unable to confirm that Arthur really existed. He doesn’t appear in the only surviving contemporary source about the Saxon invasion, in which the Celtic monk Gildas wrote of a real-life battle at Mons Badonicus (Badon Hills) around 500 A.D. Several hundred years later, Arthur appears for the first time in the writings of a Welsh historian named Nennius, who gave a list of 12 battles the warrior king supposedly fought. All drawn from Welsh poetry, the battles took place in so many different times and places that it would have been impossible for one man to have participated in all of them.
The Myth of King Arthur
Later Welsh writers drew on Nennius’ work, and Arthur’s fame spread beyond Wales and the Celtic world, particularly after the Norman conquest of 1066 connected England to northern France. In the popular 12th-century book History of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote the first life story of Arthur, describing his magic sword Caliburn (later known as Excalibur), his trusted knight Lancelot, Queen Guinevere and the wizard Merlin. An irresistible blend of myth and fact, the book was supposedly based on a lost Celtic manuscript that only Geoffrey was able to examine.
He pulled Excalibur out of the stone, gathered knights at the Round Table and was trained by Merlin the Magician. Trace the myth and the legend of Camelot's King Arthur, who has inspired art and politics from medieval times to the age of Kennedy.
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- What was King Arthur’s Round Table, and how many Knights of the Round Table were there? The Round Table is the centerpiece of the Arthurian world. According to the 13th-century poet Layamon, Arthur ordered the table to be built for him by a famous Cornish carpenter, who somehow made the table capable of seating 1,600 men (clearly an exaggeration), yet easily portable to wherever Arthur set up his mobile base of operations.
- Who were the ‘faery women’ of Arthurian legend? Many faery women thread together the stories of Arthur and his knights. This is probably because a good number of the stories originated not in Britain, but in Brittany – or, as it was known then, Armorica or Aermorica, where belief in ancient deities and the faery race lived on.
- Where did the story of the quest for the Holy Grail come from? The greatest task undertaken by Arthur’s knights was the quest for the grail, a mysterious vessel linked to the Passion of Christ [the story of Jesus Christ’s arrest, trial, suffering, and eventual execution by crucifixion].
- Lancelot and Guinevere – what happened and what became of them? The love story of Lancelot and Guinevere, originating in France, became one of the best known of the Arthurian tales.
Caerleon, South Wales. Both Geoffrey of Monmouth and Chrétien de Troyes place Camelot, Arthur’s chief court and fortress, in Caerleon, South Wales, one of three Roman legionary forts in Britain. Although the name ‘Caerleon’ sounds typically Celtic, it is actually a corruption of the Latin words castrum (fortress) and legio (legion).
Sep 28, 2021 · Was Camelot based on a real place. A 19th-century painting of the Death of Arthur. The Arthurian legends have enthralled people from all over the world for centuries. These tales have inspired many books, poems, plays, television series, and movies. The characters from the cycle of Arthurian stories are well-known, such as Merlin.
Still, the legend includes a round table, knights, Lancelot, a wizard named Merlin and a quest for the Holy Grail, which is where things extend into the realms of fantasy. The story’s details are made up of folklore, and literary invention, so many historians are a bit hesitant to concede the story was based on a real person.
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3 days ago · King Arthur, legendary British king who appears in a cycle of medieval romances (known as the Matter of Britain) as the sovereign of a knightly fellowship of the Round Table. It is not certain how these legends originated or whether the figure of Arthur was based on a historical person. The legend possibly originated either in Wales or in those ...
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