King Arthur

[Corrosion]

Ok this is the first time I have posted in this part of TWC and don't know much about history myself but I was wondering why more people do not know about king arthur. I mean I asked my parents if they knew they said no. I asked several people on my MSN messenger list and I got:

y wud i wana no tht 4? i dnt do history

yeh!
hes a king!
other than that not a friggin clue lol

Excuse the grammer. I think that they should teach more things about medieval history and later times in schools. What you think?

[Marcus Scaurus]

Wikipedia - King Arthur

[God]

believe me, you don't want to do 'later times in history' in school. All we've studied for the last 2 years is American foreign policy in the 21st century.

[Flogger]

I think that they should teach more things about medieval history and later times in schools.

But Arthur was far from Medieval...

[Corrosion]

believe me, you don't want to do 'later times in history' in school. All we've studied for the last 2 years is American foreign policy in the 21st century.

I did nazi germany in school and found it boring. I looked at college for a course on Romans and Medieval times but there was nothing.

But Arthur was far from Medieval...

Ok well I don't know much either but I do know who he is.

[imb39]

I clearly write too much whilst using MSN. That's one thing I've gleaned so far...

King Arthur probably existed in some form (as in a king of a small part of England - Cornwall is a popular theory, I believe) but the legend we know (well most of us) is that... legend.

[Corrosion]

Yeah. I told one of those people I quoted that he was not english and she never believed me. Is 'king' arthur the movie correct then?

[Sir Matthais]

But Arthur was far from Medieval...

He was more dark ages if anything at all.

I agree that schools should give more focus on the middle ages or roman empire or greece. All the history I had on that was in grade 8 and my teacher didn't even know anything himself (I had to help out alot) but when I look at school curriculums and such they start a history course starting with the renaissaince. It seems that schools are trying to avoid any time periods with grueling volience. King Arthur would be a tochy issue in school because it isn't a fully proven story. Doing the legend itself in an English class, I could see that happening.

[Corrosion]

Well what the nazi's did was pretty bad themselves. I would have been more intrested in history if it was Roman/king arthur/Alexander the great and so on.

[poolie till i die]

King Arthur was is a myth but then again most myths are based on fact so tbh a don’t really know

[Osceola]

He lived in the 500's A.D., Romano-British King who fought against the Saxons.

[the Black Prince]

so little is known about him its hard to say anything for sure, but i'll give you a go

first, there is no direct reference to king arthur in contemporary records.
the earliest source book for him appears to be several references in the saxon chronicle

Arthur, as a name, gains sudden popularity around 550AD which suggests that some time shortly prior to then, a man named Arthur did some great deed, or won some great viuctory that parents would name children for him.
there is no record for him ever being a king.

however
around 480AD (give or take 50 years or so) a unified british army fought the battle of Badon Hill against the saxon invaders, defeating 2 saxon armies and killing Aelle, King of the Saxons. this battle delayed the saxon invasion by about a generation (circa 50 years) the date is inprecise, and the location unknown, but the most commonly cited location is badon Hill near modern day Bath.

no-one knows who led the british army in this battle, or the proportion of troops from which british tribes. we do know that much of the army was probably Dumnonian with maybe spearmen from Gwent and possibly Powys and Kernow as well.

Arthur is often cited as leading this army, not as a king, but as a british warlord, givingf rise to his fict6ional later title Dux Belleorum (latin, war leader)

the common myths and legends of king arthur, a knight of the round table and king of britain are total fabrications that can be first attributed to the historian Geoffrey of Monmouth writing in the 12th century. his work, the Historia Regnum Britannia (history of the kings of britain) devotes 12 chapters to a King Arthur and is the beginnings of a whole library of french medieval romance culminating in the current modern legends first translated into english by Mallory.

as for king arthur the movie
its a better portrayal than arthur as a 13th century armoured knight in a stone camelot, but leaves much to be desired.

the enemy in that film is Cerdic, and his son Cynric, who became the first 2 bretwaldas, a saxon title meaning high king of britain. however, cerdic landed in east anglia, not north of the wall.
he also landed long after the romans had withdrawn, and if arthur did indeed fight cerdic, he didn't do it as a roman.
the celts in arthurs time would also have been romano-british celts, used to roman life, though still maintaining tribal ways. the woad warriors would have been caledonian celts or picts, not the british peoples living south of the wall.
the very idea of a powerful roman family ever living north of the wall is of course, absurd.

what the film does get right is the deployment of Sarmation Knights in britannia, though the legend of King Arthur and his knights, as mentioned, dates to Geoffrey of Monmouth, trying to impress his norman masters by writing a load of heroic rubbish about their ancestors.

[Sir Matthais]

He lived in the 500's A.D., Romano-British King who fought against the Saxons.

That is the most common scientific believe as of now buit there still is contrevercy on if he was one man or a bunch of different men and stories put together.

[Ulf]

For good stories about King Arthur (the legend stories), Read Bernard Cornwell's "The Warlord Chronicle's" or Jack Whyte's "Camulod Chronicle's". I prefer the Camulod Chronicle's even though i've only read one of them.

[Legionary Jezza]

he was a roman legionarre and he led the post up at drians wall against the saxons in about 300.ad the romano british helped;the woads e.t.c lancelot galahad and some other dude had got killed i the battle and after that arthur became king of england and defeater of the saxon army

[Marcus Scaurus]

he was a roman legionarre and he led the post up at drians wall against the saxons in about 300.ad the romano british helped;the woads e.t.c lancelot galahad and some other dude had got killed i the battle and after that arthur became king of england and defeater of the saxon army

The Saxons invaded Britannia in the later 5th/early 6th century, almost a century after the Roman legions left.

Lucius Artorius Castus (fl. 2nd century AD) was a military commander of ancient Rome, suggested by some as the historical basis for King Arthur, and depicted as such in the 2004 movie King Arthur (which moved him forwards 300 years to become a contemporary of the Saxons).

What we know of Castus comes from inscriptions on fragments of a sarcophagus, and a memorial plaque, both found in Podstrana on the Dalmatian coast. Although undated, the likely time period of the sarcophagus (before 200), combined with the inscription's mention of Castus being a dux, suggests that he was the unnamed commander of a 185 expedition to Armorica mentioned by Herodian.

As a member of the gens Artoria he was likely a native of Campania, a region of Southern Italy. According to the inscription, Castus was a centurion of the Legio III Gallica, then moved to VI Ferrata, then to V Macedonica, where he was promoted to primus pilus. He was then made praepositus of the classis Misenensis (the Bay of Naples fleet), followed by a position as praefectus alae of the VI Victrix.

Castus went with VI Victrix to Britain in 181, and likely participated in the guarding of Hadrian's Wall, possibly from Bretennacum with a contingent of Sarmatians. When VI Victrix mutinied, Castus seems to have remained loyal, since Pertinax soon after promoted him to dux and sent him to Armorica with several cohorts of cavalry, where he was successful in suppressing an uprising.

Castus then retired from the army and became procurator centenaris (governor) of Liburnia, a part of Dalmatia. Nothing further is known certainly of him, although the father of Cassius Dio was governor of Dalmatia while Castus was in Liburnia, and some of the material in Dio's history may have come from Castus directly.

The possibility of Castus as Arthur was first suggested by Kemp Malone in 1924. Although Castus was not contemporaneous with the Saxon invasions of Britain in the 5th century, it is certainly possible that he was remembered in local tales and legends that grew in the retelling.

[Yorkshireman]

The Arthur film was the biggest drivel I've ever seen. Anyone who served with the Romans would have had to be about 150 years old by the time the main Saxon invasions of Britain were underway. Typical Hollywood could'nt bear to have a British hero, so has to make him a foriegner instead and try and distort our legend.

I don't even like the term Romano-British. People born maybe 2 or 3 generations after the Romans left Britain are simply Britons/Celts.

[Legionary Jezza]

well celts are scottish from up north william wallace was a scottish rebal against edward longshanks 1240.ad

[Yorkshireman]

well celts are scottish from up north william wallace was a scottish rebal against edward longshanks 1240.ad

All the British tribes were Celts pre Roman and Saxon.

[Lusted]

Not all scots were celts, far from it. The celts originally came from mainland europe and mainly settled in the south of briton, the whole modern idea of scots and irish being celtic is quite absurd. There may have been some celts in Ireland and Scotland, but most people there were not.