The Arthur of Medieval Latin Literature: The Development and Dissemination of the Arthurian Legend in Medieval Latin

by Sian Echard (Editor)

Overview

Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, written in Latin, is one of the earliest sources for many of the legends we now associate with King Arthur and his knights. What is little known, however, is that the tradition of Arthur stories in Latin extended well beyond Geoffrey. This collection offers essays that highlight different aspects of that broader Latin Arthurian tradition.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781783168569
Publisher:	University of Wales Press
Publication date:	10/15/2016
Series:	Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Siân Echard is professor of English and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia. Her books include Arthurian Narrative in the Latin Tradition and Printing the Middle Ages.

Read an Excerpt

The Arthur of Medieval Latin Literature

The Development and Dissemination of the Arthurian Legend in Medieval Latin

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By Siân Echard

University of Wales Press

Copyright © 2011 The Vinaver Trust
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7083-2201-7

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CHAPTER 1

THE CHRONICLERS OF EARLY BRITAIN

Nick Higham

As a figure of Latin literature, Arthur derives from the central Middle Ages and most particularly the fertile mind of the British cleric responsible for the Historia Brittonum (HB). This work was arguably written in 829–30 in Gwynedd and under the patronage of King Merfyn, who was then in his fourth regnal year. HB appears, however, to have been composed by an author with greater personal experience of the southern March and south-east Wales than of north-west Wales. This is particularly clear as regards his collection of marvels (chs 67–75): several comparatively detailed narratives relate to the south east (chs 67–74), including instances which betray a personal presence in these vicinities, and these contrast with the very brief listing of four marvels relating to Anglesey, offered in as many sentences, which along with two somewhat fuller Irish stories seem to have been appended to the author's initial foray into this particular genre.

The HB is far from being an attempt at what we might consider history, but was presented as a kind of sermon, carrying a nationalist, dynastic and ideological agenda and – like other early medieval narratives – seeking to manipulate the past to serve present needs. The popularity of HB during the Middle Ages led to numerous recensions, which have in turn made establishment of the primary text and its authorship problematic. The following will focus specifically on the Harleian text, on the assumption that it is the earliest and closest to the original.

First, we should place this work in its immediate political and cultural context. In the early ninth century, British kingship was limited to the extreme west, specifically to Strathclyde, Wales and Cornwall, and contemporary historical perspectives were necessarily conditioned very largely by the creation of Anglo-Saxon England across what had formerly been the economic and demographic heartland of the Roman diocese. This author clearly has very little accurate knowledge of the Roman/medieval interface but displays familiarity with a 'Loss of Britain' story which stemmed ultimately from Gildas's De excidio et conquestu Britannie (DEB: Concerning the Loss and Lament/Complaint of Britain). Gildas, writing at an ill-defined point in the very late fifth or early sixth century, portrayed the Britons as if latter-day Israelites, so God's chosen people, but interpreted Roman-period and sub-Roman history, and particularly the arrival of the Saxons in Britain, as indicative of recurring episodes of cowardliness and sinfulness, via which they had brought down divine punishment upon themselves. In his opening remarks he compared their present and recent history to that which Jeremiah had lamented concerning the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar, and offered a blueprint for the recovery of divine protection via moral reform and a return to obedience to God, which had not, however, been achieved by the close of the work.

While Gildas's vision retained the expectation of future redemption, Bede's influential Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum (HE), completed in 731 and based as regards the fifth century very largely on his reading of Gildas, further developed this negative portrayal by reference to British unwillingness to convert the Anglo-Saxons, rejection of Rome's authority, and refusal to accept Catholic practices (as regards the dating of Easter and the tonsure). Bede, therefore, portrayed the Britons in the present (i.e. the early eighth century) as a community stubbornly unresponsive to righteous Catholic attempts at inclusion and in a sense outside the Christian fold, 'opposed by the power of God and man alike', with their place as the Lord's elect within Britain having been taken by the English whom he foreknew.

Such views on the comparative value of English and Britons were unlikely to be welcomed by the audience of HB. Merfyn seems to have come from the Isle of Man to seize power in Gwynedd c.825/6, just as Mercian efforts to conquer Wales collapsed: the death of King Coenwulf in 821, the deprivation of his brother and successor, Ceolwulf I, in 823, and then Beornwulf's defeat and death in East Anglia in 825 left the most powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the previous century in crisis and Egberht of the West Saxons as the most powerful figure in southern England, and capable of extending his protection to Welsh rulers. Mercia's failure following a generation characterized by military intervention in Wales provided the space for a new nationalist rhetoric in Gwynedd. The author of the HB was thereby encouraged to contradict Bede, highlighting Britons as having in the past been militarily successful, as effective missionaries to both the Irish and the Northumbrians, and as characteristically beloved of the Lord. In contrast, he presented the English as of dubious morality, recently pagan and lacking in courage, and, implicitly at least, looked forward to ultimate British victory against the invader. We have, therefore, inter alia the prophetic story of the struggle between the red dragon of the Britons and the white one of the English, which posits three heroic but unsuccessful attempts to throw the Saxons back and then a final triumph which has the red dragon pursuing the defeated enemy overseas. Via the campaigns of Vortimer, Arthur and Urien, the author implied that the first three attempts had already occurred, so only the final, successful war of expulsion remained to be achieved. Merfyn was, therefore, being established rhetorically as a potential pan-British war leader, whose destiny was to expel the English from Britain. Several references to the Isle of Man, from which he arguably derived, seem to have been included for their topical relevance, and Cunedda, who had much earlier supposedly come from the north to eject invaders from Wales, the red dragon itself, Vortimer, Arthur and Urien should all, perhaps, be read as metaphors for the present king, whose infamous freckles (he was known as Merfyn Frich) may well imply that he had reddish hair.

An essential precondition of the success of this narrative was effective moral positioning of the Britons as a people, and there is a reaction herein against both Gildas and Bede. The putative sins of the Britons were re-focused in the HB on the single figure of Vortigern, whom Bede had named as responsible for the initial invitation to the Saxons. Vortigern was depicted, therefore, as thoroughly evil – as incestuous, lecherous, cowardly, criminal and heathen, and having suffered the consequences in the manner of his death. To balance his moral impact, a series of virtuous individuals were introduced through whom divine approval of the Britons could be illustrated and carried forward. The prophetic boy-child Emrys arguably derives from a foundation story attached to the hillfort of Dinas Emrys, which has been conflated with the figure of Ambrosius Aurelianus whom both Gildas and Bede had named, to produce a Christ-figure (as the child with no father) and Moses-figure, in the context of his contest with the magicians of Pharaoh. Vortipor, Vortigern's putative son, seems to have been developed as the obverse of his father, so as a brave, far-sighted and successful warrior, combating his father's Saxon allies. His presentation has debts to Gildas and Bede and his short battle-list is arguably apocryphal, given the presence of English place-names, so there is no reason to think him historical. St Germanus is herein a conflation of the historical bishop of Auxerre who visited Britain in 429, as Bede reported, and St Garman, whose cult developed primarily in eastern Wales and to whose Life the author referred, but developed for rhetorical effect again as a Moses- and Christ-figure to confront the Satanic Vortigern. St Patrick, the British missionary bishop to the Irish, was then presented as if an antidote to Vortigern, his triumphs for the Lord coming immediately after the latter's death. The author relied here on comparatively late hagiographical material from Ireland and set out quite explicitly to portray Patrick as a British type of Moses. Each of these figures was developed to rhetorical effect for a particular purpose, therefore, primarily via biblical imagery. Particularly for an audience versed in the Testaments, these somewhat stereotypical characterizations served to rebut the assertion that the Britons were either by their nature cowardly or had in the era of Vortigern and as a consequence of his actions for ever lost divine favour. Although some obviously originated as historical figures, it was not their historicity that was central to their depiction here but their adaptability to the author's rhetorical purposes.

Arthur miles is the last of this cast of characters developed so as to present the Britons as both courageous and beloved of the Lord, and his story closes this section of the HB, comprising chapter 56. This chapter heralds the shift to the final 'historical' section (chs 57–65) which was constructed around a group of Anglian genealogies, annotated so as to provide details of 'British' interest, again primarily in praise of the types of achievement already noted. So, here the successes of Cædwallon, Cunedda and Urien all feature as illustrations of British military prowess, Outigern provides an exemplar of British courage, and Rhun is credited with converting Edwin of Northumbria to Christianity. In contrast, the English are termed ambrones (best translated here as 'savages'), their earliest bishop was said to be the very late figure of Egbert (bishop, then archbishop of York, 732–66), which were it true would imply a real tardiness in accepting conversion, and the narrative closes with Penda's victories over his neighbours achieved as a non-believer through Satanic powers.

Let us focus, therefore, on chapter 56. The first two sentences signal the growing menace posed by the number of Saxons in Britain and how authority passed from Hengist on his death to his son:

At that time the English increased their numbers and grew in Britain. On Hengest's death, his son Octha came down from the north of Britain to the kingdom of the Kentishmen, and from him are sprung the kings of the Kentishmen.

Arthur does not occur here or in the last two sentences, which revert to the same theme and the arrival with reinforcements of barbarian kings from Germany. The 'Arthurian' passage is strictly, therefore, just 186 words long, and embedded within a chapter which acts as a bridge between the preceding section, based on British and Irish material, and that which follows, which was structured around English material. It is inserted between two somewhat derivative sets of remarks about the Saxons, which apparently were drawn largely from Bede, whose various references to Hengist, Octa, Oeric, Ida and the influx of immigrants from Germany they loosely paraphrase.

The 'Arthurian' filling of this Saxon sandwich seems entirely original to the text, and the construction should arguably be read as this author's, and not a result of his copying some pre-existing source. There is a clear logic to the ordering of these three blocks. The first 'Saxon' section establishes the threat. The 'Arthurian' text then proclaims British successes against the invader under God's protection, which spells out very clearly just where this episode and the participants within it belong in providential history. Then the second 'Saxon' passage describes the response of the defeated English, who brought in overwhelming forces from Germany along with their kings. In very general terms, therefore, it was the Britons who won the victories named, who fought heroically, and who enjoyed the support of both Christ and the Virgin Mary on the battle field. That they finally lost is acknowledged only by default and is to be understood against the moral juxtapositioning of the two sides. Like Bede writing of Rædwald (in HE II.12), for example, this author felt that it was acceptable to acknowledge the victory of the 'baddies' provided they had overwhelming numerical superiority. Therefore mass migration by the English was an essential part of this explanation of the loss of Britain.

The 'Arthurian' passage in chapter 56 consists of a single, introductory sentence which contextualizes Arthur and positions him within the author's vision of contemporary 'British society', followed by a group of eight interconnected sentences detailing eleven of his glorious victories. There is a brief concluding sentence, which credits Arthur with fantastic achievements at the twelfth battle, of Badon, then provides a separate and concluding phrase of just six words which sums up and emphasizes his achievements. That he was in this conclusion 'victorious in all his campaigns', connects neatly with the introductory sentence, in which 'Arthur fought against them [the Saxons] in those days, together with the kings of the British'; but he was their 'leader in battle'.

There are several features which spring immediately to our attention. One is a sense of déjà vu: there are significant parallels between this passage and that describing the campaigns of Vortimer in chapters 43 and 44, even down to use of some of the same language and similar structures – most noticeably their respective battle-lists, both of which were biblically numbered. A second is the sense in which, excluding chapter 73 (see below), Arthur is entirely contained within this specific context, and has no part to play in this text other than as an iconic, Christian, British war-leader against the Saxons in this rhetorical interlude inserted between two references to Saxon immigration and the growth of Anglo-Saxon power inside Britain. His exploits are used here to break up the otherwise depressing story of Saxon occupation, for powerful ideological and rhetorical purposes. Arthur provides a very necessary 'feel-good' factor at this point in the tale. A third is Arthur's status as miles and dux, by which he is exclusively being celebrated in this chapter as a warrior and leader in battle. The annotated contents list which precedes the main text of the Historia in Morris's edition refers to Arthur as rex belligerus ('warlike king') but this introductory apparatus is absent from the Harleian and Chartres texts, which are the earliest available, so are arguably a late addition: it is important to note that there is no hint of royal status in chapter 56. A fourth is the looseness of Arthur's chronological positioning. That might not be a matter of much concern in some other early medieval texts, but this author was as interested in the passage of time as was Bede and was careful to make sure he located such figures as Vortigern with some precision (if not necessarily accurately). Arthur is, by contrast, located only by the phrase In illo tempore ('At that time') with which the author began his initial remarks about the Saxons, then the Tunc ('then') with which he began the Arthurian passage proper. Thereafter, Ida and other unnamed Anglo- Saxon kings were introduced as a consequence of an appeal to Germany 'dum they were defeated in all their battles'. There is no attempt even to denote the number of years across which Arthur purportedly won his great battles, and so his years of service, to compare with the regnal years which occur in the following sections.

Finally, this passage is infused with biblical number. This is only to be expected, perhaps, since so too are the previous sections dealing with Germanus and Patrick, but the fact does little to inspire confidence in the detail. So, for example, Arthur's name occurs three times and he fought twelve battles. This emphasizes the rhetorical construction of the text. If we look in a little more detail at the points in this story at which his name actually appears, the first reference introduces Arthur as the overall military leader, leading the warriors of the British kings; the second stresses his achieving victory while bearing the emblems of the Virgin and slaughtering the pagani under the protection of both Mary and Christ, and the third positions him as the superhuman hero who killed 960 men in a single charge at Badon. The twelve battles necessarily equate Arthur with the Saviour, so confirming and reinforcing the connections made in the second reference to 'Our Lord Jesus Christ'.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Arthur of Medieval Latin Literature by Siân Echard. Copyright © 2011 The Vinaver Trust. Excerpted by permission of University of Wales Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Preface
      Ad Putter
Abbreviations
Introduction: The Arthur of Medieval Latin Literature
      Siân Echard

Section One: The Seeds of History and Legend
1. The Chroniclers of Early Britain
      Nick Higham
2. Arthur in Early Saints’ Lives
      Andrew Breeze
Section Two: Geoffrey of Monmouth
3. Geoffrey of Monmouth
      Siân Echard
4. Geoffrey and the Prophetic Tradition
      Julia Crick
Section Three: Chronicles and Romances
5. Latin Historiography after Geoffrey of Monmouth
      Ad Putter
6. Glastonbury
      Edward Donald Kennedy
7. Arthurian Latin Romance
      Elizabeth Archibald
Section Four: After the Middle Ages
8. Arthur and the Antiquaries
      James P. Carley

Bibliography
Index of Manuscripts
General Index

Editorial Reviews

It requires no more than a simple listing of contributors to demonstrate that the chapters of this book were in extraordinarily good hands. That is what we would expect of Echard—as both editor and contributor—and of all the others. The volume is a collection of admirable contributions, presented with authority and clarity, . . . [and] delivers what Echard promises: to ‘introduce readers to saints, monsters, knights, werewolves, and to many Arthurs.’ The Arthur of Medieval Latin Literature will surely be the authoritative standard half a century from now.

Speculum - Norris J. Lacy