King Edward and King Arthur
Both King Edward and King Arthur have been the topic of other videos. Today I wanted to put them together, specifically to talk about how the Normans, in a triumph of medieval propaganda, claimed King Arthur for themselves and King Edward, in particular, used the King Arthur legend to justify his conquest of Wales. Many historians don’t believe King Arthur ever existed, but medieval people were certain that he did. The first mentions of him are in Welsh sources, namely the Welsh bards Taliesin and Anieren, writing in the 6th and 7th centuries respectively. To them, Arthur was a late 5th century British war-leader, credited with holding back the Saxon advance for a generation. With the coming of the Normans, the story of this Welsh warlord, who might not even have been a king, was expanded and embellished (and outright Read more…
The Menai Strait
The Menai Strait is the narrow body of water, approximately 16 miles long, between mainland Wales and the island of Anglesey, called Ynys Mon in Welsh. At its center point, the Strait is roughly 1600 feet from shore to shore, widening to over 3000 feet at either end of the Strait. The Strait was formed through glacial erosion of the bedrock and was flooded after the end of the ice ages. Before the Strait was dredged in the modern era, it was possible to walk across the Lavan Sands, located to the east of Bangor, at low tide. Llanfaes, the town King Edward destroyed to build Beaumaris Castle, was the largest commercial center in North Wales prior to the conquest, and it was located along this ancient pathway, which went from Holyhead, through Anglesey to Llanfaes, across the Lavan Sands Read more…
About The Last Pendragon
The ‘Dark Ages’—the era in which The Last Pendragon is set—were ‘dark’ only because we lack historical material about the period between 407 AD, when the Romans marched away from Britain, and 1066, when William of Normandy conquered England. For Wales, the time was no more or less bright than any other. The relative peace the Romans brought was predicated on the brutal subjugation of the British people. When the Romans left, the Britons faced the Irish from the west, the Scots from the northwest, the Picts from the northeast and ‘Saxons’ (who were Angles and Jutes too, not just ‘Saxons’) from the east. To a certain degree, it was just more of the same. The Britons had their lands back—the whole expanse of what is now Wales and England—for about five minutes. It does seem that a ruler named Read more…
Tintagel
We are talking about Tintagel today because it is associated with King Arthur as the place he was conceived. This comes only, however, from Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote his highly fantastical History of the Kings of Britain in the early 12th century. Honestly, Geoffrey’s work is so ahistorical that the fact he claims Arthur was there is reason enough to doubt the veracity of the legend. As he tells it, Arthur’s farther was turned into the likeness of Gorlois, Igraine’s husband, and thus he slept with her, and she conceived Arthur. Even with the unlikeliness of this particular aspect of the story, Tintagel does have a fascinating history. The castle, as it exists today, was begun in the 12th century by Earl Reginald, brother to Robert of Gloucester, for whom Geoffrey wrote his history to justify the Norman Read more…
King Arthur: did he exist?
I have A LOT to say about King Arthur, most of which can’t fit into a five minute video. But we can make a start. Perhaps the most important question everyone wants answered about King Arthur is: did he exist? Whether or not King Arthur was a real person is an either/or query. He either lived or he didn’t. Many scholars, researchers, and Arthurophile’s have strong opinions on this topic, both for and against. Because of the paucity of written records, much of the academic work has come down on the side of ‘didn’t—or at least if Arthur was a real person, his name was not ‘Arthur’ and he possibly wasn’t even a king. I, however, look at the poetry and tales from the early Middle Ages, and choose to believe he did actually exist. Medieval people certainly thought he did, and throughout Read more…
The Welsh Dragon
For most of history, the Welsh dragon was not a very common symbol. In fact, it was flown by only one king, Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon, who reigned from 655-682 AD. It was so distinct that his flag came to be known as “the Red Dragon of Cadwaladr”. Today, it is known as the ‘Welsh dragon’ and the the Welsh flag looks like this: (my The Last Pendragon Saga is about a mythic version of Cadwaladr) Within Welsh mythology, the story of the two dragons, one red (for the Welsh) and one white (for the Saxons) fighting beneath Dinas Emrys dates back to Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing in the 12th century. The coat of arms of the Welsh princes in the 13th century was this: With the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and the complete suppression of everything that had belonged to or Read more…
Lancelot
Here’s the real deal on Lancelot: In the Welsh tales, he doesn’t exist. The only adultery that may or may not have occurred is between Gwenhwyfar and Modred and not by Gwenhywfar’s choice. The French made him up. There. I said it. “Sir Lancelot first appears in Arthurian legend in ‘Le Chevalier de la Charrette’, one of a set of five Arthurian romances written by the French poet Chrétien de Troyes (completed by Godefroy de Lagny) as a large collection of verses, c.1180 to 1240. Lancelot is characterised alongside other knights, notably Gawain, Kay, and Méléagant (or Meliagaunce) – a consistent rival and parallel anti-hero against Lancelot – and is already heavily involved in his legendary romance with Guinevere, King Arthur’s queen. …Chrétien de Troyes composed ‘Le Chevalier de la Charrette’ at the request of the Countess Marie de Champagne, Read more…
The Triumph of Medieval Propaganda
Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his History of the Kings of Britain back in the 12th century as a triumph of medieval propaganda. It was at the behest of Robert of Gloucester, his patron, that he claims to have transcribed/copied/invented his history, placing King Arthur at the center of a national–and by that I mean English–origin myth. The idea was to justify the conquest of Britain by the Normans as a mirror to what King Arthur had done in the 5th century, including crossing the English Channel from Normandy to Britain. Children’s author Phillip Womack (author of The Other Book and The Liberators) said in the Times Online: “As inhabitants of these islands, we don’t have many myths that bring us together, but King Arthur is one. I think that we will always seek him as a saviour, whatever situation we’re Read more…
The Great Prophecy of Britain
Armes Prydein Fawr, the Great Prophecy of Britain, is a poem attributed to Taliesin (although could not be his work as it was composed in the 10th century) in which he sings of the return of Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon (the hero in my book, The Last Pendragon) and Cynan, another dark age leader of the Welsh people. Among the Welsh, it was these two, not Arthur, who would return in the future to save Britain. The motivation was the same, however, in that the poet desires to drive the invading Saxons out of the land that had belonged to the Cymry. In the poem, Taliesin predicts the allliance of the Irish and Scots with the Welsh towards that purpose. John Davies, in his book, The History of Wales, writes that the poem expresses frustration with the peaceful, compromising policies of Hywel Read more…
Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon
Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon was a real person. His father, Cadwallon, was killed in the battle of Catscaul or “Cad-ys-gual”, the Battle of the Wall (Heavenfield, near Hexham) in 634 AD. An unknown usurper, Cadfael ap Cynfeddw, placed himself on the throne of Gwynedd, and was himself overthrown in 655 AD by the twenty-two year old Cadwaladr, Cadwallon’s son, who’d been raised in exile until he could return to claim his birthright. Cadwaladr is mentioned in the following sources: The Harlaein Genealogies: a collection of old Welsh genealogies preserved in British Library, Harleian MS 3859. They’ve been dated to the reign of Hwyel Dda (10th century). Cadwaladr is mentioned as the son of Cadwallon and the father of Idwal, all Kings of Gwynedd. Annales Cambriae (the Annals of Wales): A single line: 682 – A great plague in Britain, in which Cadwaladr Read more…
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Geoffrey of Monmouth was born sometime around 1100, probably in Monmouth in southeast Wales, though his family was undoubtedly from France, having come with the Norman conquest of Britain. “His father was named Arthur. Geoffrey was appointed archdeacon of Llandsaff in 1140 and was consecrated bishop of St. Asaph in 1152. He died c. 1155. Geoffrey is one of the most significant authors in the development of the Arthurian legends. It was Geoffrey who, in his Historia Regum Britanniae (completed in 1138) located Arthur in the line of British kings. Such an action not only asserted the historicity of Arthur but also gave him an authoritative history which included many events familiar from later romance. Geoffrey also introduced the character of Merlin as we know him into the legends. Geoffrey’s Merlin, a combination of the young and prophetic Ambrosius in Read more…
All about King Arthur
King Arthur: Was he real? Was he even a king? Someone reached my blog the other day by typing in “King Arthur wasn’t Welsh”. What? Clearly that person needed to be pointed in the proper direction and I’m glad my blog was here to do it. I have written extensively about King Arthur in many places on this blog, and with that poor lost soul in mind, I realized that it might be of some benefit to put these posts all in the same place. To find out about the origins of King Arthur, see: The Fictive and Historical King Arthur Geoffrey of Monmouth Historical Sources for King Arthur Possible King Arthur (s) Was King Arthur Real? King Arthur: fact or fiction Who Was Guinevere? Lancelot Morgan/Morgana/Morgan le Fey The British (Welsh/Cymry) High Council For information on the places associated with Read more…
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