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 15th 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.
