Arthur, King. The romantic figure of King Arthur has probably some historical basis. He was probably a chieftain or general (
dux bellorum) in the 5th or 6th cent. The
Annales Cambriae place the battle of Mount Badon, ‘in which Arthur carried the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ on his shoulders’, in 518, and the ‘battle of Camlan, in which Arthur and Medraut fell’ in 539. There is mention of him in certain ancient poems contained in the
Black Book of Camarthen and in the ancient Welsh romance
Kilhwch and Olwen. According to the
Arthur of the marquis of Bath's manuscript (1428) he died in 542 after a reign of 22 years. He was said to be the father of Modred by his half-sister Morgawse; his sister was Anna. Guinevere was the daughter of Arthur's ally Leodegan. According to
Malory, the Grail was accomplished 454 years after the passing of Christ (i.e. in 487). The legend of the return of Arthur to rule Britain again is told by Malory and in the stanzaic
Le Morte Arthur. According to the alliterative
Morte Arthure, he definitely died.
The Arthur of the cycle of legends first appears at length in the
Historia Regum Britanniae of
Geoffrey of Monmouth. According to this, Arthur is the son of
Uther Pendragon and Ygaerne (Igraine), wife of Gorlois of Cornwall, whom Uther wins through Merlin's magic. Geoffrey's version was developed by the 12th-cent. Norman writer
Wace; the Round Table is first mentioned by him as a device for the settlement of disputes over precedence. Wace was the principal source of
Laзamon's Brut, the first English version of the story which adds to both the magic and martial aspect. In Laзamon, Arthur is borne off after the last battle at Camelford to Argante (Morgan le Fay) in Avalon in a magic boat. The story was very significantly developed in the French ‘
Matter of Britain’ by such writers as
Marie de France,
Chrétien de Troyes, and the authors of the 13th-cent. Vulgate prose cycles. Other characters—Merlin, Launcelot, and Tristram—gradually became associated with Arthur, and he himself is the central character only in the narratives describing his early years and his final battle and death; in the intervening tales his court is merely the starting-point for the adventures of various knights. Through the history of the legends Arthur himself is exceeded in excellence by first
Gawain and then
Launcelot. Malory's
Morte D'Arthur was the most authoritative version of the legend in the English tradition. Malory gives great prominence to the exploits of the knights of the Round Table, the quest of the Holy Grail, the love of Launcelot and Guinevere, and the love of Tristram and Isoud. For other Arthurian writings, see
Tennyson,
William of Malmesbury,
Glastonbury.
