The King Arthur Page


Some of the Most Important Texts:

Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae (The Ruin of Britain). Written about 540. When the Romans left the British Isles, they left the Britons more or less without defences against the Germanic warriors, like the Angles and the Saxons, who were a constant threat. Eventually the Germanic peoples displaced the Britons and pushed them west into Wales and Ireland. Gildas, who sounds like an Old Testament prophet takes the position that the Britons were only suffering the consequences of their sins. In this context Gildas tells about how a remnant of beleaguered Britons rallied round a leader, Ambrosius Aurelianus a Roman who stayed behind and who seems to have led the Britons in a victory at Badon Hill ( Mons Badonicus) in about the year 497. According to Gildas that victory, while being the last for the Britons, was a great one. It was doubtless charged with all kinds of patriotic significance.

The Gododdin (c. 600). A series of Welsh laments about further reverses at the hands of the English, mentions the name 'Arthur' as if Arthur were already the type of the great warrior.

"Nennius", Historia Brittonum (History of the Britons) (c.800). This book names Arthur , calls him a dux bellorum (leader of wars), and the leader in a series of twelve battles that had their climax at Badon Hill, where Arthur is said to have accounted personally for 960 of the enemy. So here is the first connection made between Gildas' Badon Hill and Arthur.

Annales Cambriae (Annals of Wales) (c. 955). This work contains two entries: one for the year 518 reports that Arthur fought at Badon Hill and wore a cross on his shield. The entry for 539 reports that Arthur and Medraut (Mordred) died at the battle of Camlann. So here are some dates in conflict.

William of Malmsbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Kings) ( 1125). Here we learn again that Arthur fought against the barbarians and slew 900 of them at Badon Hill. William suggests that some of the accounts of Arthur are mere fictions.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Brittaniae (History of the Kings of Britain)(1138).

Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur (1485, Caxton)

On-Line Texts:
Some Arthurian Texts from The Online Medieval and Classical Library.

Arthurian References:
Arthurian Studies Links from The Labyrinth (Scroll down to "Arthurian Studies").
Arthur Complete

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Last Updated 8-20-02