Bernard Cornwell
in researching Arthur in preparation of writing the Warlord Chronicles found that, although the was an upsurge of boys named Arthur circa A.D. 500, there is no evidence of any Guinevere, Lancelot, Excalibur, Round Table, Morgan le Fey, etc. etc. etc.
I'd be very curious to see his sources given we have basically no sources from that period.
The primary near-contemporary source that as any meaningful evidentiary value is Gildas'
On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain, which is notable for
not mentioning Arthur. (Though it does mention the Battle of Mount Badon, which later Welsh sources ascribe to Arthur.) The other sources that make claims about going back that far, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and some Welsh Annals, are near useless for that period. The entry preceding the mention of Arthur and Mordred falling at Camlann is about a monk living to over 300 years old and the text itself was composed several hundred years after the events allegedly took place. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as similar problems, being composed several centuries later with its entries from that period largely consisting how the Saxons drove the dissolute British before them in great victories, and making puns about the names of places to justify their ownership. (ie, that Portsmouth was founded by a Saxon named Port.)
Apart from
Ruin and Conquest and some annals of extremely dubious quality, we have a couple Saints Lives and that is it. Certainly I can't imagine we have enough to make a statistical argument about naming trends.
Per Halsall*, we know of three 'Arthurs' in the late 6th century, one of whom was a son of a Scottish king who crops up briefly in the
Life of St. Columba (which also features St. Columba turning princes into foxes). After that, the name of Arthur basically fades into oblivion with nobody for another 500 years appearing to name their kid Arthur, until we get to Geoffrey of Monmouth. Even then, it wasn't "Britons" naming their kid Arthur, but a lot of Normans and Bretons. It is worth noting the
Armes Prydein, which was composed in the early 900s and is all about how the English will be kicked out of Britain's fair and pleasant land, makes absolutely no mention of Arthur; even though the idea that Arthur was a sort of important person who fought Saxons was already circulating in Wales thanks to Nennius
History of Britain.
*I'm going almost entirely off of Guy Halsall's
Worlds of Arthur: Facts and Fictions of the Dark Ages and I highly recommend anyone with an interest in the Arthur myth or the early Middle Ages read it.
Well yes
Perhaps I am just too happy seeing movies at all about that "dark period" between the Roman collapse and Renaiissance.
There were no "Dark Ages", really. Parts of Northern Europe saw a period that, while featuring a breakdown in long distance trade and a monetary economy, were primarily defined by a lack of written sources. The Carolingian Renaissance on the continent, around 800 AD, along with similar movements in England, saw a much greater number of documents produced; with us getting access to law codes, wills, property deeds, chronicles, charters, etc.
And once we get to the High and Late Middle Ages, they loved writing stuff down and we have a huge number of documents to draw upon.
What do you think about the Bernard Cornwell The Warlord Chronicles ? I loved reading it. I would love to see it as a movie.
Haven't read it, should probably get around to it, but my last experience with King Arthur historical fiction (Jack Whyte) was not very impressive.
Bernard Cornwell is an excellent historical fiction author, but writing a story about King Arthur as understood in later legends as if he were a historical person would be not dissimilar to writing a historical fiction story about WW2 featuring Mecha-Hitler.
The wiki article mentioned that Cornwell uses the "Merlin the Druid" and re-introduction of the Old Gods as a plot point. However, we have absolutely no indication that
paganism was a problem in Britain. Rather,
Life of St Germanus and
Ruin and Conquest both present heresy, not paganism, as the concern in Britain. Similarly, Bede, in justifying the Saxon conquest as God punishing the dissolute Britons, didn't call the Britons pagans, but heretics. If there was a resurgence of paganism in Britain, nothing came down to us and it would have marked Britain as very unique in the post-Roman world.
(Interestingly, Gildas, while railing against the heresy of the Britons, makes no mention of Pelagianism, which was supposedly the defining heresy of Britain; instead railing against Arianism. That, along with Gildas' name being otherwise unaccounted for in any forms in British languages (but does show up in Gothic languages) raises the intriguing idea Gildas was not native to Britain.)
Traitorfish said:
From what I recall, it was carefully couched as "the most historically accurate" adaptation of the Arthur legends. Something which scans to most people as "it's historically accurate" but providing a get-out-of-jail card when nerds like us complain about it.
The worst part is the production designers weren't allowed to use period arms and armor, despite some stellar visual inspiration from artists like Angus McBride.
