King Arthur: Myth-Making and History

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More About This Textbook

Overview

King Arthur's story encapsulates the medieval romance and the tragedy of the Dark Ages. Yet legends shroud his life, and to this day scholars cannot agree on his dates, his location or even whether he really existed.
King Arthur penetrates both the historical literature and the fantastic legends of this hero, king, demigod. Probing the ever-popular cultural icon, historian N.J. Higham traces the changing face of Camelot from its birth in the ninth century to contemporary films such as Excalibur, Monty Python and the Holy Grail and First Knight. How did the idea of King Arthur evolve? What role was Arthur intended to perform in the political and cultural worlds that constructed him?
Higham sheds new light on the genesis of this beloved figure, scrutinizing the first two Arthurian texts: The History of the Britons and the Welsh Annals. His conclusion: historians created Arthur to fit their present political agendas, rather than relying on primary sources. An eye-opening, fresh look at the Arthurian myths, King Arthur follows his kingship's longevity in the popular imagination from the ninth century to the twenty-first.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780415213059
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • Publication date: 6/28/2002
  • Edition description: New Edition
  • Pages: 320
  • Product dimensions: 6.20 (w) x 9.30 (h) x 1.10 (d)

Table of Contents

List of figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction 1
I A King out of Time: Arthur in the twentieth century 10
Arthur comes of age 26
Arthur in the spotlight 31
II The Genesis of Arthur 38
Being 'British': The political and ideological context 39
Alternative ideologues and British authority 59
Prototype Arthurs 74
Bears and gods 80
III Contested Histories: Anglo-Saxons and Britons c.730-830 98
Bede and the Britons 98
Welsh-Mercian interactions 102
Reclaiming the past: Writing British history in the early ninth century 116
The Historia Brittonum: Authorship and purpose 119
Britons, Trojans and Romans 124
Vortigern and the Adventus Saxonum 128
St. Patrick and Arthur 136
Arthur and the Old Testament 141
Arthur's battles 144
The image of Arthur 150
The English historical framework 157
Conclusions 164
The Pillar of Eliseg 166
IV Text in Context: The Annales Cambriae c.954 170
England, Wales and the Vikings 171
Heroic poetry 174
Y Gododdin 180
Asser 185
The Armes Prydein 188
The Annales Cambriae 193
V The Rise and Fall of the 'Historical' Arthur 218
The Arthurian legend to c.1100 218
Arthur as cultural icon 221
Arthur as royal cult 226
Arthur in question 235
The fall of King Arthur 239
VI Postscript: The Rhetorical Arthur 267
Bibliography 275
Index 296
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