Week 1: Arthur – the construction of a history

This image is from the 1893-4 Dent publication of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, with illustration by the famous Art Deco artist, Aubrey Beardsley.

The basic story on which much of the popular understanding of Arthur is based is derived from Sir Thomas Malory’s 15^th century Le Morte d’Arthur (Death of Arthur). In this we are told of Arthur’s conception when Igraine was courted by Uther, who had been made, by Merlin’s sorcery, to resemble her husband. The child was given to Ector to be raised in secret. After Uther’s death there was no king ruling all England. Merlin had placed a sword in a stone, saying that whoever drew it out would be king. Arthur did so and Merlin had him crowned. This led to a rebellion by 11 rulers which Arthur put down. He married Guinevere whose father gave him the Round Table as a dowry; it became the place where his knights sat, to avoid quarrels over precedence. A magnificent reign followed, Arthur’s court becoming the focus for many heroes. In the war against the Romans, Arthur defeated the Emperor Lucius and became emperor himself. However, his most illustrious knight, Lancelot, became enamoured of Guinevere and an affair between them followed. The quest for the Holy Grail took place and Lancelot’s intrigue with the queen came to light. Lancelot fled and Guinevere was sentenced to death. Lancelot rescued her and took her to his Continental realm; this led to Arthur crossing the channel to make war on his former knight. While away from Britain he left his natural son Mordred in charge. (Mordred was also his nephew, the result of an unwittingly incestuous affair between Arthur and his sister Morgause. Arthur had been unaware of the incestuous nature of the intrigue because he was ignorant of his own parentage.) Mordred rebelled and Arthur returned to quell him. This led to Arthur’s last battle on Salisbury Plain, where he slew Mordred, but was himself gravely wounded. Arthur was then carried off in a barge, saying he was heading for the vale of Avilion (Avalon). Some said he never died, but would one day return.

In the first lecture we will be looking at this story and thinking about whether there is a balance of history and myth to be found. To do this we will need to share an understanding of both "history" and "myth". The following definitions from Encyclopedia Britannica may be helpful.

This is Clio, the Muse of History. She was one of the 9 daughters born to Mnemosyne, the goddess of Memory and Zeus, the most powerful of the Olympian gods.

History: the discipline that studies the chronological record of events (as affecting a nation or people) based on a critical examination of source readings and usually presenting an explanation of their causes.

Modern historians aim to reconstruct a record of human activities and to achieve a more profound understanding of them. This conception of their task is quite recent, dating from the development in the late 18th and early 19th centuries of “scientific” history and the simultaneous rise of history as an academic profession. It springs from an outlook that is very new in human experience: the assumption that the study of history is a natural, inevitable human activity. Before the late 18th century, historiography did not stand at the centre of any civilization. History was almost never an important part of regular education, and it never claimed to provide an interpretation of human life as a whole. This larger ambition was more appropriate to religion, philosophy, and perhaps poetry and other imaginative literature.

Bullfinch's medieval mythology is a large collection of myths, national and universal. The volume entitled The age of chivalry captures the entirety of the Arthurian stories and is available online.

myth, a symbolic narrative, usually of unknown origin and at least partly traditional, that ostensibly relates actual events and that is especially associated with religious belief. It is distinguished from symbolic behaviour (cult, ritual) and symbolic places or objects (temples, icons). Myths are specific accounts of gods or superhuman beings involved in extraordinary events or circumstances in a time that is unspecified but which is understood as existing apart from ordinary human experience.

As with all religious symbolism, there is no attempt to justify mythic narratives or even to render them plausible. Every myth presents itself as an authoritative, factual account, no matter how much the narrated events are at variance with natural law or ordinary experience. By extension from this primary religious meaning, the word myth may also be used more loosely to refer to an ideological belief when that belief is the object of a quasi-religious faith; an example would be the Marxist eschatological myth of the withering away of the state.

While the outline of myths from a past period or from a society other than one’s own can usually be seen quite clearly, to recognize the myths that are dominant in one’s own time and society is always difficult. This is hardly surprising, because a myth has its authority not by proving itself but by presenting itself. In this sense the authority of a myth indeed “goes without saying,” and the myth can be outlined in detail only when its authority is no longer unquestioned but has been rejected or overcome in some manner by another, more comprehensive myth.


For the second lecture it may also be helpful to understand the term Pelagianism and who Bishop Germanus was. See below (again taken from Encyclopedia Britannica online):

Pelagianism, also called Pelagian Heresy, a 5th-century Christian heresy taught by Pelagius and his followers that stressed the essential goodness of human nature and the freedom of the human will. Rejecting the arguments of those who claimed that they sinned because of human weakness, he insisted that God made human being free to choose between good and evil and that sin is a voluntary act committed by a person against God’s law.

Pelagianism was opposed by Augustine, bishop of Hippo, who asserted that human beings could not attain righteousness by their own efforts and were totally dependent upon the grace of God. Condemned by two councils of African bishops in 416, and again at Carthage in 418, Pelagius was finally excommunicated in 418; Pelagius’ later fate is unknown.


Saint Germanus of Auxerre, French Germain (born c. 378, Autissiodurum, Gaul [now Auxerre, France]—died July 31, 448, Ravenna [Italy]; feast day: Wales, August 3; elsewhere, July 31), Gallic prelate who was twice sent on crucial missions to England that helped effect the consolidation of the British church. After practicing law at Rome, Germanus was made a provincial governor in Armorica (probably Britanny) by the Western Roman emperor Flavius Honorius. In 418 he was chosen successor to Bishop St. Amator of Auxerre, after which his life dramatically changed to that of an ascetic. Near Auxerre he founded the Monastery of SS. Cosmas and Damian. Concurrently, Pelagianism was spreading through Britain, causing an ecclesiastical upheaval there. In 429, in reply to an appeal for help by the British bishops, Pope St. Celestine I deputed Germanus, with the assistance of Bishop St. Lupus of Troyes, to combat the Pelagian heresy in Britain. Their fervent campaign was successful: according to tradition, they victoriously debated Pelagianism at Verulamium (later St. Albans in Hertfordshire). It was probably during this trip that he assisted the Britons against a joint attack by the Saxons and the Picts. He reportedly led the Britons, having them shout “Alleluia!”; the sound was so ominous that it frightened off the marauders and thus led to what was called the Alleluia Victory.


Later Germanus returned to Auxerre, where he built St. Alban’s Church. Through his appeal in 431, St. Palladius was sent to Scotland by Celestine as the first bishop of the Scots. According to tradition, while he was there he answered an appeal from St. Patrick, patron of Ireland, for assistance by sending to Ireland bishops who helped evangelize the country and establish Irish monasticism. Meanwhile, Pelagianism persisted in Britain, and in 447 Germanus was asked to return there and exterminate the heresy. With the aid of Bishop Severus of Trèves, his second mission succeeded in ending Pelagianism in England and banishing its advocates.