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Camelot was the name of the place where King Arthur held court and was the location of the famous Round Table. Perhaps a clue to its possible location might be found in the sources we have for the legend of King Arthur. Did he exist and if so, who was he? Was he perhaps a Romano-Celtic leader defending his lands from Anglo-Saxon invaders?
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? The real thing? Not quite. This regal chamber, King...
- Joshua Hammer
Camelot is a legendary castle and court associated with King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and, since the Lancelot-Grail cycle, eventually came to be described as the fantastic capital of Arthur's realm and a symbol of the Arthurian world.
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- 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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In some of the medieval French stories, Camelot was the capital of Arthur’s realm before Britain's conquest by the Anglo-Saxons. Camelot had a brilliant court, where the most chivalrous knights from as far as France gathered to serve the monarch.
Camelot was King Arthur’s capital, where he reigned over the Britons before the Saxon invasion, according to legend. It does not appear on any authentic early map from that time period. The words “cam” and “camel” do, however, appear as elements in pre-Saxon British location names.
Dec 20, 2016 · As the first born son of King Uther Pendragon in the 5th century, Arthur was heir to the throne, however with the power struggles that gripped the country after the Romans had left, the wizard Merlin advised the King to raise his son in secret to protect him.
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