The Biography Show #007 – King Arthur
Was King Arthur fact or fiction?
There’s some debate over that on this edition of The Biography Show. While David acknowledges that we don’t know much about him, he does think Arthur was a historical person. Cameron, on the other hand, believes Arthur is a composite of various stories from genuine historical personages as well as myths adopted from Norse and Celtic mythology.
Listen in and decide for yourself!
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If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also like the our other podcast Napoleon 101.
The theme music for this show is:
Black Violin
“Brandenburg” (mp3)
from “Black Violin”
(Di Versatile, Inc)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
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October 15th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Nice podcast.
I’ll have to go find a book on Pre Norman Britain now.
And thanks for explaining how much of history is based on sketchy, inaccurate, biased pieces of info often written hundreds of years after the fact. History as an inexact science makes it all the more fun, I guess.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:50 am
Hi, I like very much your podcast (also the Napoleon podcast) and I am learning a lot not only History but English language.
I would like to suggest two figures which are very interesting in my opinion. The first is Saladin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin
I read this book long time ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crusades_Through_Arab_Eyes
and I was impressed because he was (at least in the book) a very fair and I intelligent leader.
The other is Juan MartÃn DÃez “el Empecinado†who fought against Napoleon in Spain and won most of the times :), and after this war he fought against the king “el rey felón†and against the absolutism. I don’t know whether there are many information sources available in English.
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:48 pm
I think it is important that the origin of the Arthurian literary tradition was more or less contemporary with another tradition, which was very much alive on the European continent: That of the “Chanson de Geste” starring the emperor Charlemagne and his paladins. The most famous of those is of course “La Chanson de Roland”, of which the oldest extant copy is slightly older than the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Charlemagne is undoubtedly a historical figure. But he was also the hero of quite a few poems and adventure stories, which in their themes closely approach the Arthurian literature. Not so surprising, as authors and knights of the two story cycles belonged to the same culture.
But as that the Charlemagnian literary tradition is slightly older and was no doubt well-known to educated Englishmen, one wonders whether the Arthurian literature was simply a conscious attempt of poets to “nationalize” this to appeal more to the local audience. For Charlemagne, a little-known semi-mythical leader from the past as substituted. The places of Roland and Oliver were taken by Perceval and Lancelot. The traditional traitor role of Gamelon was filled in by Mordred. The bare bones of the Arthur myth were then fleshed out with common medieval themes.
In this way Geoffrey and his contemporaries created a national literature of their own, instead of one which had Frenchmen and Germans as its heroes. Adding to the stories a few accounts of invasions of the continent led by Arthur, further improved the boost the new storyline provided to English self-confidence.