August 5, 2025 • 27 mins
King Arthur is arguably the most famous monarch in British history, the subject of countless films and books of both non-fiction and fantasy. But there's one tiny, but important question worth asking: did he even exist?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
One quick and very exciting note before we begin today's episode.
I have a brand new podcast. It's called Hoax and I,
with my co host Lizzie Logan, will focus on a
lesser known or famous poax from history or relatively modern history,
discussing the question of why people believe things that aren't true, Unfortunately,
(00:25):
a question that seems all too relevant today. The very
first episode about the Cuttingly Fairies was released yesterday. It
should be in the Noble Blood feed. I hope that
you like it, that you want to listen to the podcast.
If you do, please subscribe, leave a review or rating.
It absolutely helps. Doing podcasts about history is my absolute
(00:49):
favorite thing in the world, and your support means the
absolute world. It means I get to do what I
love to do. And don't worry. This podcast is not
in any way a replacement for Noble Blood. Both are
continuing on for as long as people want to listen.
Hoax will drop every other Monday, and I hope you
(01:09):
love it. And now into this episode, which you might
be able to pick up, has a slight hoax theme.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised. In nineteen
ninety eight, an archaeologist digging at Tintagel Castle had this
sort of moment which I imagine makes people want to
(01:40):
become archaeologists in the first place. Tintagel Castle, on the
coast of Cornwall is famous today mainly for being the
ancestral home of King Arthur.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Well according to popular myth, there's actually no archaeological evidence
that King Arthur or or his family was ever associated
with Tintagil. In fact, there's no actual archaeological evidence that
King Arthur was real, but maybe all of that was
(02:13):
about to change. In nineteen ninety eight, the archaeological team
from Glasgow was digging on the castle's eastern terraces when
someone uncovered a piece of Cornish slate. The archaeologists pulled
it away from the craggy earth and saw on the
slate carved letters. The archaeologists saw an A, an R.
(02:38):
We can only imagine the excitement he must have felt
when he saw the third letter A T. The Latin
inscription on the stone, dated from the sixth century, is faint,
but it's thought to read something that translates to art.
No descendant of Paternus Colis made this. It's not exactly
(03:02):
a smoking gun, but the fact that a Latin carving
with a name similar to Arthur dated from the historical
period during which the mythological king might have lived was
enough to cause excitement in the media. Doctor Jeffrey Wainwright,
the chief archaeologist at the English Heritage was happy to
(03:25):
play into that excitement. Quote, Tintagel has presented us with
evidence of a prince of Cornwall in the Dark Ages,
living in a high status domestic settlement at the time
Arthur lived. It has given us the name of a person,
Artneau Artna was here. That is his name on a
(03:47):
piece of stone. It is a massive coincidence. At the
very least, this is where myth meets history. It's the
find of a lifetime end quote. The connection, in my view,
is extremely flimsy. But you can't blame doctor Wainwright for
trying to get the public excited about what would otherwise
(04:09):
be a fairly dull project about faint Latin inscriptions in
sixth century stones. King Arthur is a marquee name, someone
who like King Henry the Eighth, or Anne Boleyn or
Elizabeth I or Shakespeare seems to get people interested in history.
(04:31):
King Arthur is arguably one of the most famous historical
figures in the world, but there's almost no evidence he
ever existed at all. So who is King Arthur? And
how did someone who maybe never existed become so famous
and so sought after. It's a story not about stones
(04:56):
from the five hundreds, but a story about story about
how sometimes a mystery that lets the audience play detective
makes for a better version of history than the real thing.
I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. If King
(05:20):
Arthur did really exist, most consensus estimates that he would
have lived around the fifth or sixth century, a period
after the Romans left Britain, during which the island was
in institutional and economic collapse. Rome withdrew from Britain in
(05:41):
four hundred and ten AD while they were under siege
from the Visigoths back home, and what was left on
the island was, in a word, chaos. Former Roman institutions
were left abandoned and collapsing. Local economies were crumbling, and
the people in fragmented fiefdoms were tormented by plague, drought,
(06:06):
and invading Saxons. Mark Morris, the historian and author of
the twenty twenty one book The Anglo Saxons, A History
of the Beginnings of England four hundred to ten sixty six,
puts it very succinctly, quote it was a miserable time
to be alive. End quote. So why do people think
(06:28):
King Arthur would have existed during this period? Well, there
are a few vaguely suggestive sources. The oldest possible reference
to a historical Arthur comes from a book called Historia
Britonum or History of the Britons, written by a monk
(06:48):
named Nennius around eight hundred and twenty eight, although it
only survives in copies from the eleventh century on. Before
we even begin, it's worth paying attention to the tenuousness
of that source. It's a text from the eleventh century,
which is actually a copy of a book from two
(07:10):
centuries before that, which is talking about a period several
hundred years before that. Historia Britonum contains a section including
a battle list twelve battles in which someone named Arthur
led troops. This Arthur isn't actually called a king, but
(07:32):
rather a dux belorum or military leader, a general. The
battle list ends with the Battle of Baden, where Nennius
claims that Arthur killed nine hundred and sixty men, a
resounding and impressive victory. If you're interested in proof that
that battle actually happened, there's some pretty good evidence you
(07:55):
can cite. There's some archaeological evidence that Anglo Saxon my
gration reversed around that time, which is consistent with a
massive victory of the British. After all, who wouldn't turn
around when faced with a general who could kill nearly
one hundred other soldiers himself. There's also another extremely early source,
(08:17):
a text written in the sixth century called on the
Ruin and Conquest of Britain by Guildess, which mentions Baden,
and that's huge. That battle would have been within living
memory of when Gildas was writing his book, except Guildess
doesn't actually mention Arthur. It's possible maybe that Arthur figure
(08:42):
was just too obvious to need to be mentioned, or
maybe Ninius in the ninth century got his battles mixed
up and that heroic general Arthur fought in a different
later battle. But there's also no Arthur mentioned in the
Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which would have covered the period he
(09:04):
was alive. Nor is there an Arthur in the seven
hundred and thirty one Ecclesiastical History of the English People,
which also mentioned the battle at Baden Guildis does mention
someone named Ambrosius Arelenius, which excites some people because I
suppose it starts with the letter A. But that seems
(09:27):
like the type of thing that only matters if you're
already determined to find evidence for a real king Arthur.
Even Nenius's book, which does mention Arthur, the source that's
most helpful if you're someone clinging to the idea that
someone named Arthur exists, gets a little, let's say, less
than factual. There's another section of Nenius's Historia Brittnam that
(09:53):
claims that Arthur had a dog named Cabal who was
chasing a bore, and while the dog was running, his
pawprint became permanently embedded in stone, and people would try
to steal the stone, Neneas says, but then the very
next day it would be right back where it was.
Nenius also tells us that Arthur's son was buried in
(10:17):
a tomb that's never the same length if you measure
it more than once quote, And men come to measure
the grave and find it sometimes six feet in length,
sometimes nine, sometimes twelve, sometimes fifteen. And whatever length you
might measure in at one time, a second time you
will not find it to have the same length. And
(10:38):
I myself have put this to the test end quote.
And so even back then, the oldest source we have
mentioning a candidate who could ostensibly be our King Arthur.
He's not a king, first of all, and second of all,
he's already a figure of popular mythology. There's another source
(11:02):
people often bring up, the Analyst Cambria or welsh Annals,
originated in the tenth century, but which survives as a
copy from two centuries after that. The welsh Annals also
mention Arthur and the Battle of Baden, but the text
went through so many revisions over the centuries it's impossible
(11:24):
to know what the original text was, or whether it
was ever a corroboration of the Historia Brittonum, or whether
it was just using the Historia Brittonum as a source.
And so the King Arthur of our popular imagination exists
really only in the margins of historical sources, and it
(11:47):
requires plenty of squinting. Certainly, a very very long time
ago people had an idea of someone called Arthur, whether
he was real or not. There's a Welsh poem called
Egododeine from between the seventh and eleventh centuries, and it
mentioned some random warrior and then adds he was no Arthur,
(12:12):
the way someone today might say he was no George
Clooney or whatever. Of course, once again we're faced with
the question of whether it's possible the author of that
poem had just read the Historia Brittonam and took note
of this guy who allegedly killed nine hundred men. He
(12:33):
might be referring to Arthur as a man who was
understood to be a figure of myth already and not
of history. That's really kind of all we have. Countless
books and articles have been written about the quote unquote
real King Arthur, and the idea that there might be
(12:54):
some hidden clues we've overlooked sends historians and amateurs alike
into Da Vinci code esque tizzies every few decades, only
for nothing really worthwhile to come up. The archaeologist Noel
Miles once Riley made the declaration that no figure on
(13:16):
the borderline of history and mythology has wasted more of
the historian's time. On the evidence, it does seem astonishing
that an occasionally referenced general somehow became one of the
most celebrated figures in all of British mythology. So how
did Arthur dux Belorum become a king? We have a
(13:43):
Welsh cleric named Jeffrey of Monmouth to thank for the
King Arthur, who has captivated our imagination for centuries. Three
hundred years after Nennius wrote his battleist that included a
battle leader named Arthur, Jeoffrey of Monmouth decided on a
slight rebrand. In his eleven thirty six Historia Regnum Brittania,
(14:09):
he wrote about King Arthur, the monarch who defeated the Saxons.
This is the first version of Arthur that has elements
of the story that remain in our mythology today, sort
of the biggest hits of Arthurian legend Guenevere, Excalibur Merlin.
(14:30):
In Jeffrey's version of the story, King Arthur's father was
Uther Pendragon, and Arthur was conceived at Tintagel Castle and
then ultimately died while battling Mordred, and he was laid
to rest in Avalon. The larger cast of side characters
aren't there, but the general shape should be familiar to
(14:50):
anyone who went through a King Arthur phase. But Jeffrey
didn't even really purport to historical accuracy, or at least
not all that convincingly. Remember, he's writing in the twelfth
century about something that allegedly was taking place in the
sixth century. Jeffrey claimed he was basing the Arthur story
(15:15):
on a quote very ancient book, but inconveniently for us,
he doesn't actually mention what that book might be. Even
at that time, Jeffrey's contemporaries were aware that he was
writing a work of if not entirely fiction, then almost
entirely fiction. William of Newburgh, a twelfth century historian, wrote
(15:39):
of Jeffrey, quote, it is quite clear that everything this
man wrote about Arthur was made up, partly by himself
and partly by others, either from an inordinate love of lying,
or for the sake of pleasing the Britons. The legend
of Arthur was forming in real time, a folk story
(16:02):
that was giving Britain its own identity. Jeffrey's book did
please the Britons. It was a sensation. The most popular
text in the Middle Ages after the Bible. The idea
of Arthur was exciting a matter of national pride. In
twelve thirty three, the Earl of Cornwall made what objectively
(16:26):
seems like a terrible trade three prime estates in exchange
for Tintagel. Tintagel was remote and served no real defensive
or strategic function, but it did have one thing going
for it. It was romantic in the sense that it
was already associated with the man who was swiftly becoming
(16:48):
a mascot for Britannia herself. The next big leap in
the story of King Arthur as he became a legend,
was a leap across the English Channel. The twelfth century
French poet Schretien de Troy added his own spin on
the Arthur lore, and, like a game of improv adding
(17:09):
in new elements, he came up with Lancelot, the Holy
Grail and Camelot, And from this point in the Arthur
legend it becomes interwoven with Welsh mythology and Romantic traditions,
and so our version of King Arthur is born not
from sixth century history, but from twelfth century literature. But
(17:36):
there were a lot of stories circling around nine hundred
years ago, and the vast majority of them aren't household names.
Why has this legend of Arthur stood the test of time.
The answer is something that every good female pop star understands.
When it comes to longevity, you've got to rebrand yourself.
(17:59):
Arthur stories are incredibly malleable. They can fit like liquid
into containers of any shape. Over the centuries, Arthur evolved
into whatever the current moment needed. According to historian Nicholas Hyam,
back when Nenius was writing about the great general who
(18:20):
killed nine hundred Saxons in battle, Britain needed quote, a
god beloved warrior to rally behind. One important detail of
Neneus's historia is that Arthur went into battle with an
image of the Virgin Mary on his shield. According to Hyam, quote,
(18:40):
Arthur was winning battles with the support of Jesus Christ
and Mary against the Saxons. The Saxons were presented as barbaric, dishonest,
and latecomers to Christianity. By the time Jeffrey of Monmouth
was writing his version, he was doing some pr for
(19:01):
the Welsh, who were seen by some as Celtic speaking savages. Jeffreys.
Arthur has his roots in the western craggy castle of Tintagel,
and elements of his story are derived fairly linearly from
Welsh and Irish folklore. Hard to think of the Welsh
(19:22):
as savages when British history is oriented around a noble,
valiant Celtic king, But Arthur wouldn't belong to the Welsh forever.
In eleven ninety one, monks at Glastonbury made a shocking
announcement they had found skeletons which they claimed were the
(19:44):
remains of King Arthur and Queen Guenevere. What a lucky happenstance,
of course, it's just a happy byproduct that that discovery
would mean plenty of visitors and pilgrims coming to the abbe.
One of those pilgrims was King Edward the First. He
(20:04):
visited the Glastonbury Graves in twelve seventy eight and actually
disinterred the remains. When observer wrote at the time, there
in two caskets were found, the bones of the said
King of wondrous size and those of Guenevere of marvelous beauty.
I personally would love to know how beautiful a skeleton
(20:27):
can be, but I'll take their word for it. Edward
reinterred those skeletons after wrapping them in silk and giving
them the Royal seal. But his little pilgrimage wasn't just
to honor a fellow monarch. His loudly and publicly proclaiming
that he saw the remains of King Arthur served an
(20:50):
important political purpose. Edward was saying, King Arthur is definitely dead.
So any Welsh enemy King Edward had who had any
great notion that this heroic king might be immortal or whatever,
return from the grave to challenge Edward for the throne.
(21:10):
While they were sadly misguided. A few centuries later, other
English monarchs would also use Arthur for their own pr purposes.
As I've probably alluded to on this show, before, the
Tudor claim to the throne of England was fairly tenuous.
(21:32):
King Henry the seventh was really doing everything he could
after the Wars of the Roses to try to establish
himself as legitimate, and one way he did that was
by claiming that on his Welsh side, he was a
direct descendant of King Arthur. Henry the Seventh further bolstered
(21:53):
that connection by naming his first son Prince Arthur. Although tragic,
Arthur died young and cleared the way for his younger
brother Henry to become King Henry the Eighth, and even
later in the Victorian era, Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote Idols
(22:14):
of the King, repopularizing Arthur and framing Arthur's story not
as one of a Welsh battle saga, but as a
romance and a love triangle. It's no accident that Arthur
re emerged during a period when the Industrial Revolution was
adding a sense of uncertainty and chaos to the country.
(22:38):
Arthur became a comforting figure of power and stability, and
new elements of the Arthur story, notably of Guenevere as
an adulterer, were introduced to reinforce notions of Victorian morality.
Even today, the myth of King Arthur is pretty profitable,
(22:59):
despite the fact that Arthur isn't real, and even if
he was never actually lived At Tintagel Castle, the place
receives three thousand visitors a day in the summer, most
of whom probably imagine they're seeing the real Camelot, a
fantasy not dispelled by the fact that English heritage, which controls.
(23:22):
The site plays into that lower with Arthurian decor and carvings,
Tintagel does have an incredible archaeological history. During the Arthurian period,
the settlement was home to Celtic people who were writing
on slabs, forging metal, and organizing relatively sophisticated systems of agriculture.
(23:47):
It's easy to imagine, plausible even that at some point
that group of people had a leader, and that leader
was a valiant warrior, and when the Saxon Horde tried
to cross the narrow Rocky strait to the castle, that
leader might have been able to defend his people. Maybe
(24:09):
that man was named Arthur or something like it, and
the story of his noble victory embedded itself in Welsh folklore,
eventually becoming embroidered until he was a king with noble,
pious knight who carried a sword called Excalibur. When you
(24:30):
tell a story like that, it almost sounds plausible. That's
the history of King Arthur as we know it today.
But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear
about how another aspect of Arthur's story came into the
popular imagination. If you are familiar with the myth of
(25:02):
King Arthur. You probably know that he became king because
he was able to pull a sword from the stone.
Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil
is right wise king born of all England. You know
the drill. All of these nobles fail, and then lowly
Arthur is able to do it. That part of the story,
(25:23):
and in fact, lots of the most popular elements of
the Arthur legend today come from a fifteenth century text
called Lemoort d Arthur by Thomas Mallory. But the identity
of who Thomas Mallory actually was is a question that
has been the subject of speculation and debate among historians.
(25:47):
Not as much debate as who King Arthur was, but
you know debate. The most prominent answer is that he
was Thomas Mallory of Noubled Revel in Warwickshire. And that's
the case. He was sort of an anti Arthur. That
Thomas Mallory was a thief and a criminal and actually
(26:08):
would have published Lemoor to Arthur while he was in
prison for robbery and rape. That is a very downer
of an epilogue. And so I'll leave you with something
a little happier. We had an addition to the Noble
Blood family last November on Thanksgiving Day, a little boy
(26:28):
named Arthur, and as his chubby cheeks and giggle and
the fact that I can't stop taking pictures of him
can attest, he is entirely and definitely real. Noble Blood
(26:50):
is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from
Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz,
with additional and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender,
Amy Hit and Julia Milaney. The show is edited and
produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producerrima il Kaali and
(27:14):
executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
One quick and very exciting note before we begin today's episode.
I have a brand new podcast. It's called Hoax and I,
with my co host Lizzie Logan, will focus on a
lesser known or famous poax from history or relatively modern history,
discussing the question of why people believe things that aren't true, Unfortunately,
(00:25):
a question that seems all too relevant today. The very
first episode about the Cuttingly Fairies was released yesterday. It
should be in the Noble Blood feed. I hope that
you like it, that you want to listen to the podcast.
If you do, please subscribe, leave a review or rating.
It absolutely helps. Doing podcasts about history is my absolute
(00:49):
favorite thing in the world, and your support means the
absolute world. It means I get to do what I
love to do. And don't worry. This podcast is not
in any way a replacement for Noble Blood. Both are
continuing on for as long as people want to listen.
Hoax will drop every other Monday, and I hope you
(01:09):
love it. And now into this episode, which you might
be able to pick up, has a slight hoax theme.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised. In nineteen
ninety eight, an archaeologist digging at Tintagel Castle had this
sort of moment which I imagine makes people want to
(01:40):
become archaeologists in the first place. Tintagel Castle, on the
coast of Cornwall is famous today mainly for being the
ancestral home of King Arthur.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Well according to popular myth, there's actually no archaeological evidence
that King Arthur or or his family was ever associated
with Tintagil. In fact, there's no actual archaeological evidence that
King Arthur was real, but maybe all of that was
(02:13):
about to change. In nineteen ninety eight, the archaeological team
from Glasgow was digging on the castle's eastern terraces when
someone uncovered a piece of Cornish slate. The archaeologists pulled
it away from the craggy earth and saw on the
slate carved letters. The archaeologists saw an A, an R.
(02:38):
We can only imagine the excitement he must have felt
when he saw the third letter A T. The Latin
inscription on the stone, dated from the sixth century, is faint,
but it's thought to read something that translates to art.
No descendant of Paternus Colis made this. It's not exactly
(03:02):
a smoking gun, but the fact that a Latin carving
with a name similar to Arthur dated from the historical
period during which the mythological king might have lived was
enough to cause excitement in the media. Doctor Jeffrey Wainwright,
the chief archaeologist at the English Heritage was happy to
(03:25):
play into that excitement. Quote, Tintagel has presented us with
evidence of a prince of Cornwall in the Dark Ages,
living in a high status domestic settlement at the time
Arthur lived. It has given us the name of a person,
Artneau Artna was here. That is his name on a
(03:47):
piece of stone. It is a massive coincidence. At the
very least, this is where myth meets history. It's the
find of a lifetime end quote. The connection, in my view,
is extremely flimsy. But you can't blame doctor Wainwright for
trying to get the public excited about what would otherwise
(04:09):
be a fairly dull project about faint Latin inscriptions in
sixth century stones. King Arthur is a marquee name, someone
who like King Henry the Eighth, or Anne Boleyn or
Elizabeth I or Shakespeare seems to get people interested in history.
(04:31):
King Arthur is arguably one of the most famous historical
figures in the world, but there's almost no evidence he
ever existed at all. So who is King Arthur? And
how did someone who maybe never existed become so famous
and so sought after. It's a story not about stones
(04:56):
from the five hundreds, but a story about story about
how sometimes a mystery that lets the audience play detective
makes for a better version of history than the real thing.
I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. If King
(05:20):
Arthur did really exist, most consensus estimates that he would
have lived around the fifth or sixth century, a period
after the Romans left Britain, during which the island was
in institutional and economic collapse. Rome withdrew from Britain in
(05:41):
four hundred and ten AD while they were under siege
from the Visigoths back home, and what was left on
the island was, in a word, chaos. Former Roman institutions
were left abandoned and collapsing. Local economies were crumbling, and
the people in fragmented fiefdoms were tormented by plague, drought,
(06:06):
and invading Saxons. Mark Morris, the historian and author of
the twenty twenty one book The Anglo Saxons, A History
of the Beginnings of England four hundred to ten sixty six,
puts it very succinctly, quote it was a miserable time
to be alive. End quote. So why do people think
(06:28):
King Arthur would have existed during this period? Well, there
are a few vaguely suggestive sources. The oldest possible reference
to a historical Arthur comes from a book called Historia
Britonum or History of the Britons, written by a monk
(06:48):
named Nennius around eight hundred and twenty eight, although it
only survives in copies from the eleventh century on. Before
we even begin, it's worth paying attention to the tenuousness
of that source. It's a text from the eleventh century,
which is actually a copy of a book from two
(07:10):
centuries before that, which is talking about a period several
hundred years before that. Historia Britonum contains a section including
a battle list twelve battles in which someone named Arthur
led troops. This Arthur isn't actually called a king, but
(07:32):
rather a dux belorum or military leader, a general. The
battle list ends with the Battle of Baden, where Nennius
claims that Arthur killed nine hundred and sixty men, a
resounding and impressive victory. If you're interested in proof that
that battle actually happened, there's some pretty good evidence you
(07:55):
can cite. There's some archaeological evidence that Anglo Saxon my
gration reversed around that time, which is consistent with a
massive victory of the British. After all, who wouldn't turn
around when faced with a general who could kill nearly
one hundred other soldiers himself. There's also another extremely early source,
(08:17):
a text written in the sixth century called on the
Ruin and Conquest of Britain by Guildess, which mentions Baden,
and that's huge. That battle would have been within living
memory of when Gildas was writing his book, except Guildess
doesn't actually mention Arthur. It's possible maybe that Arthur figure
(08:42):
was just too obvious to need to be mentioned, or
maybe Ninius in the ninth century got his battles mixed
up and that heroic general Arthur fought in a different
later battle. But there's also no Arthur mentioned in the
Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which would have covered the period he
(09:04):
was alive. Nor is there an Arthur in the seven
hundred and thirty one Ecclesiastical History of the English People,
which also mentioned the battle at Baden Guildis does mention
someone named Ambrosius Arelenius, which excites some people because I
suppose it starts with the letter A. But that seems
(09:27):
like the type of thing that only matters if you're
already determined to find evidence for a real king Arthur.
Even Nenius's book, which does mention Arthur, the source that's
most helpful if you're someone clinging to the idea that
someone named Arthur exists, gets a little, let's say, less
than factual. There's another section of Nenius's Historia Brittnam that
(09:53):
claims that Arthur had a dog named Cabal who was
chasing a bore, and while the dog was running, his
pawprint became permanently embedded in stone, and people would try
to steal the stone, Neneas says, but then the very
next day it would be right back where it was.
Nenius also tells us that Arthur's son was buried in
(10:17):
a tomb that's never the same length if you measure
it more than once quote, And men come to measure
the grave and find it sometimes six feet in length,
sometimes nine, sometimes twelve, sometimes fifteen. And whatever length you
might measure in at one time, a second time you
will not find it to have the same length. And
(10:38):
I myself have put this to the test end quote.
And so even back then, the oldest source we have
mentioning a candidate who could ostensibly be our King Arthur.
He's not a king, first of all, and second of all,
he's already a figure of popular mythology. There's another source
(11:02):
people often bring up, the Analyst Cambria or welsh Annals,
originated in the tenth century, but which survives as a
copy from two centuries after that. The welsh Annals also
mention Arthur and the Battle of Baden, but the text
went through so many revisions over the centuries it's impossible
(11:24):
to know what the original text was, or whether it
was ever a corroboration of the Historia Brittonum, or whether
it was just using the Historia Brittonum as a source.
And so the King Arthur of our popular imagination exists
really only in the margins of historical sources, and it
(11:47):
requires plenty of squinting. Certainly, a very very long time
ago people had an idea of someone called Arthur, whether
he was real or not. There's a Welsh poem called
Egododeine from between the seventh and eleventh centuries, and it
mentioned some random warrior and then adds he was no Arthur,
(12:12):
the way someone today might say he was no George
Clooney or whatever. Of course, once again we're faced with
the question of whether it's possible the author of that
poem had just read the Historia Brittonam and took note
of this guy who allegedly killed nine hundred men. He
(12:33):
might be referring to Arthur as a man who was
understood to be a figure of myth already and not
of history. That's really kind of all we have. Countless
books and articles have been written about the quote unquote
real King Arthur, and the idea that there might be
(12:54):
some hidden clues we've overlooked sends historians and amateurs alike
into Da Vinci code esque tizzies every few decades, only
for nothing really worthwhile to come up. The archaeologist Noel
Miles once Riley made the declaration that no figure on
(13:16):
the borderline of history and mythology has wasted more of
the historian's time. On the evidence, it does seem astonishing
that an occasionally referenced general somehow became one of the
most celebrated figures in all of British mythology. So how
did Arthur dux Belorum become a king? We have a
(13:43):
Welsh cleric named Jeffrey of Monmouth to thank for the
King Arthur, who has captivated our imagination for centuries. Three
hundred years after Nennius wrote his battleist that included a
battle leader named Arthur, Jeoffrey of Monmouth decided on a
slight rebrand. In his eleven thirty six Historia Regnum Brittania,
(14:09):
he wrote about King Arthur, the monarch who defeated the Saxons.
This is the first version of Arthur that has elements
of the story that remain in our mythology today, sort
of the biggest hits of Arthurian legend Guenevere, Excalibur Merlin.
(14:30):
In Jeffrey's version of the story, King Arthur's father was
Uther Pendragon, and Arthur was conceived at Tintagel Castle and
then ultimately died while battling Mordred, and he was laid
to rest in Avalon. The larger cast of side characters
aren't there, but the general shape should be familiar to
(14:50):
anyone who went through a King Arthur phase. But Jeffrey
didn't even really purport to historical accuracy, or at least
not all that convincingly. Remember, he's writing in the twelfth
century about something that allegedly was taking place in the
sixth century. Jeffrey claimed he was basing the Arthur story
(15:15):
on a quote very ancient book, but inconveniently for us,
he doesn't actually mention what that book might be. Even
at that time, Jeffrey's contemporaries were aware that he was
writing a work of if not entirely fiction, then almost
entirely fiction. William of Newburgh, a twelfth century historian, wrote
(15:39):
of Jeffrey, quote, it is quite clear that everything this
man wrote about Arthur was made up, partly by himself
and partly by others, either from an inordinate love of lying,
or for the sake of pleasing the Britons. The legend
of Arthur was forming in real time, a folk story
(16:02):
that was giving Britain its own identity. Jeffrey's book did
please the Britons. It was a sensation. The most popular
text in the Middle Ages after the Bible. The idea
of Arthur was exciting a matter of national pride. In
twelve thirty three, the Earl of Cornwall made what objectively
(16:26):
seems like a terrible trade three prime estates in exchange
for Tintagel. Tintagel was remote and served no real defensive
or strategic function, but it did have one thing going
for it. It was romantic in the sense that it
was already associated with the man who was swiftly becoming
(16:48):
a mascot for Britannia herself. The next big leap in
the story of King Arthur as he became a legend,
was a leap across the English Channel. The twelfth century
French poet Schretien de Troy added his own spin on
the Arthur lore, and, like a game of improv adding
(17:09):
in new elements, he came up with Lancelot, the Holy
Grail and Camelot, And from this point in the Arthur
legend it becomes interwoven with Welsh mythology and Romantic traditions,
and so our version of King Arthur is born not
from sixth century history, but from twelfth century literature. But
(17:36):
there were a lot of stories circling around nine hundred
years ago, and the vast majority of them aren't household names.
Why has this legend of Arthur stood the test of time.
The answer is something that every good female pop star understands.
When it comes to longevity, you've got to rebrand yourself.
(17:59):
Arthur stories are incredibly malleable. They can fit like liquid
into containers of any shape. Over the centuries, Arthur evolved
into whatever the current moment needed. According to historian Nicholas Hyam,
back when Nenius was writing about the great general who
(18:20):
killed nine hundred Saxons in battle, Britain needed quote, a
god beloved warrior to rally behind. One important detail of
Neneus's historia is that Arthur went into battle with an
image of the Virgin Mary on his shield. According to Hyam, quote,
(18:40):
Arthur was winning battles with the support of Jesus Christ
and Mary against the Saxons. The Saxons were presented as barbaric, dishonest,
and latecomers to Christianity. By the time Jeffrey of Monmouth
was writing his version, he was doing some pr for
(19:01):
the Welsh, who were seen by some as Celtic speaking savages. Jeffreys.
Arthur has his roots in the western craggy castle of Tintagel,
and elements of his story are derived fairly linearly from
Welsh and Irish folklore. Hard to think of the Welsh
(19:22):
as savages when British history is oriented around a noble,
valiant Celtic king, But Arthur wouldn't belong to the Welsh forever.
In eleven ninety one, monks at Glastonbury made a shocking
announcement they had found skeletons which they claimed were the
(19:44):
remains of King Arthur and Queen Guenevere. What a lucky happenstance,
of course, it's just a happy byproduct that that discovery
would mean plenty of visitors and pilgrims coming to the abbe.
One of those pilgrims was King Edward the First. He
(20:04):
visited the Glastonbury Graves in twelve seventy eight and actually
disinterred the remains. When observer wrote at the time, there
in two caskets were found, the bones of the said
King of wondrous size and those of Guenevere of marvelous beauty.
I personally would love to know how beautiful a skeleton
(20:27):
can be, but I'll take their word for it. Edward
reinterred those skeletons after wrapping them in silk and giving
them the Royal seal. But his little pilgrimage wasn't just
to honor a fellow monarch. His loudly and publicly proclaiming
that he saw the remains of King Arthur served an
(20:50):
important political purpose. Edward was saying, King Arthur is definitely dead.
So any Welsh enemy King Edward had who had any
great notion that this heroic king might be immortal or whatever,
return from the grave to challenge Edward for the throne.
(21:10):
While they were sadly misguided. A few centuries later, other
English monarchs would also use Arthur for their own pr purposes.
As I've probably alluded to on this show, before, the
Tudor claim to the throne of England was fairly tenuous.
(21:32):
King Henry the seventh was really doing everything he could
after the Wars of the Roses to try to establish
himself as legitimate, and one way he did that was
by claiming that on his Welsh side, he was a
direct descendant of King Arthur. Henry the Seventh further bolstered
(21:53):
that connection by naming his first son Prince Arthur. Although tragic,
Arthur died young and cleared the way for his younger
brother Henry to become King Henry the Eighth, and even
later in the Victorian era, Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote Idols
(22:14):
of the King, repopularizing Arthur and framing Arthur's story not
as one of a Welsh battle saga, but as a
romance and a love triangle. It's no accident that Arthur
re emerged during a period when the Industrial Revolution was
adding a sense of uncertainty and chaos to the country.
(22:38):
Arthur became a comforting figure of power and stability, and
new elements of the Arthur story, notably of Guenevere as
an adulterer, were introduced to reinforce notions of Victorian morality.
Even today, the myth of King Arthur is pretty profitable,
(22:59):
despite the fact that Arthur isn't real, and even if
he was never actually lived At Tintagel Castle, the place
receives three thousand visitors a day in the summer, most
of whom probably imagine they're seeing the real Camelot, a
fantasy not dispelled by the fact that English heritage, which controls.
(23:22):
The site plays into that lower with Arthurian decor and carvings,
Tintagel does have an incredible archaeological history. During the Arthurian period,
the settlement was home to Celtic people who were writing
on slabs, forging metal, and organizing relatively sophisticated systems of agriculture.
(23:47):
It's easy to imagine, plausible even that at some point
that group of people had a leader, and that leader
was a valiant warrior, and when the Saxon Horde tried
to cross the narrow Rocky strait to the castle, that
leader might have been able to defend his people. Maybe
(24:09):
that man was named Arthur or something like it, and
the story of his noble victory embedded itself in Welsh folklore,
eventually becoming embroidered until he was a king with noble,
pious knight who carried a sword called Excalibur. When you
(24:30):
tell a story like that, it almost sounds plausible. That's
the history of King Arthur as we know it today.
But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear
about how another aspect of Arthur's story came into the
popular imagination. If you are familiar with the myth of
(25:02):
King Arthur. You probably know that he became king because
he was able to pull a sword from the stone.
Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil
is right wise king born of all England. You know
the drill. All of these nobles fail, and then lowly
Arthur is able to do it. That part of the story,
(25:23):
and in fact, lots of the most popular elements of
the Arthur legend today come from a fifteenth century text
called Lemoort d Arthur by Thomas Mallory. But the identity
of who Thomas Mallory actually was is a question that
has been the subject of speculation and debate among historians.
(25:47):
Not as much debate as who King Arthur was, but
you know debate. The most prominent answer is that he
was Thomas Mallory of Noubled Revel in Warwickshire. And that's
the case. He was sort of an anti Arthur. That
Thomas Mallory was a thief and a criminal and actually
(26:08):
would have published Lemoor to Arthur while he was in
prison for robbery and rape. That is a very downer
of an epilogue. And so I'll leave you with something
a little happier. We had an addition to the Noble
Blood family last November on Thanksgiving Day, a little boy
(26:28):
named Arthur, and as his chubby cheeks and giggle and
the fact that I can't stop taking pictures of him
can attest, he is entirely and definitely real. Noble Blood
(26:50):
is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from
Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz,
with additional and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender,
Amy Hit and Julia Milaney. The show is edited and
produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producerrima il Kaali and
(27:14):
executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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