King Arthur Based On Who?

So I'm new to this site but I see that you guys seem to know what you're talking about. I have lots of things I'd like to ask but I'll start with the one that interests me. Obviously we all know that King Arthur is not a real person, essentially the British people's equivalent of a Charlemagne-esque figure since a real life one didn't exist as far as I know. So who exactly is King Arthur based on? Is it multiple people in one? Or is it actually just completely fabricated?
 
Short answer: we don't know.

Long answer: the question of whether King Arthur has any historical basis, let alone who he might be based on, is still up in the air and will probably never be answered with any kind of certainty. There have been multiple candidates suggested, though: Artúr mac Áedáin, son of Dál Riata king Áedán mac Gabráin; Lucius Artorius Castus, a 2nd-Century Roman military commander; Ambrosius Aurelianus, a leader of the Romano-British resistance against the Saxons; and Riothamus, another Romano-British military leader who allied with the declining Roman Empire against the Goths. And these are just some of the most popular. Some have suggested that Arthur may be a composite of any number of these men and/or other figures - both real and mythical - I haven't mentioned.

There are similar debates about Robin Hood, but that's another story.
 
Short answer: we don't know.

Long answer: the question of whether King Arthur has any historical basis, let alone who he might be based on, is still up in the air and will probably never be answered with any kind of certainty. There have been multiple candidates suggested, though: Artúr mac Áedáin, son of Dál Riata king Áedán mac Gabráin; Lucius Artorius Castus, a 2nd-Century Roman military commander; Ambrosius Aurelianus, a leader of the Romano-British resistance against the Saxons; and Riothamus, another Romano-British military leader who allied with the declining Roman Empire against the Goths. And these are just some of the most popular. Some have suggested that Arthur may be a composite of any number of these men and/or other figures - both real and mythical - I haven't mentioned.
Oh wow I didn't know about any of those guys, thanks for the answer! really cool.

Hey, do you know if there's somewhere on this site I can just rapid fire questions from all over history and not annoy people?
 
Short answer: we don't know.

Long answer: the question of whether King Arthur has any historical basis, let alone who he might be based on, is still up in the air and will probably never be answered with any kind of certainty. There have been multiple candidates suggested, though: Artúr mac Áedáin, son of Dál Riata king Áedán mac Gabráin; Lucius Artorius Castus, a 2nd-Century Roman military commander; Ambrosius Aurelianus, a leader of the Romano-British resistance against the Saxons; and Riothamus, another Romano-British military leader who allied with the declining Roman Empire against the Goths. And these are just some of the most popular. Some have suggested that Arthur may be a composite of any number of these men and/or other figures - both real and mythical - I haven't mentioned.

There are similar debates about Robin Hood, but that's another story.


Indeed, I've even heard of (though not read) a book claiming that Arthur was based on the British King Caratacus and that he was actually fighting Romans, not Saxons. Iirc, it claimed that "Camelot Dun" was actually Camelodunum, ie Colchester.

I'm afraid the title and author escape me.
 
I know i have a book lying around somewhere that claims that Owain Danwyn/ddantgwyn was Arthur, though the guy doesn't have any credentials and is criticized by the scholarship. especially because they tie the holy grail AND Robin hood all together with Arthur. Its one of those books that has little academic worth but is entertaining nonetheless.

As for my personal opinion i think there probably was some core romano-british warlord based in the south and claiming the mantle of Duke of the saxon shore, that over ages has accumulated more and more elements till history became story and story became legend. There definitely seems to have been an Arthur that made an impact on british culture as a warrior not long after he would have existed.

Hey, do you know if there's somewhere on this site I can just rapid fire questions from all over history and not annoy people?
Maybe try the pinned miscellaneous thread?
 
I don't think it's at all obvious that Arthur wasn't a real person. We know, from both Gildas and archaeology, that the Britons managed to successfully resist Saxon advances from the late fifth to the mid sixth century. Someone must have led the British resistance of this period, and all the sources that name the British leader give his name as Arthur. I don't think it plausible that a fictional character would have displaced the real hero of the British resistance so completely that not even an alternative name for the victor of Mt. Badon would have survived.

Also, the more legendary/mythological accounts of Arthur generally postdate the historical sources by several centuries, and since Arthur generally plays a fairly minor role in them it's more likely that a famous historical figure got incorporated into pre-existing mythology than that all these historians chose to graft an obscure Welsh folk hero into their histories. We even have an example where we can see this process in action. Compare, for example, Nennius' ninth-century Historia Brittonum on the settlement of Ireland:

After these came three sons of a Spanish soldier with thirty ships, each of which contained thirty wives; and having remained there during the space of a year, there appeared to them, in the middle of the sea, a tower of glass, the summit of which seemed covered with men, to whom they often spoke, but received no answer. At length they determined to besiege the tower; and after a year's preparation, advanced towards it, with the whole number of their ships, and all the women, one ship only excepted, which had been wrecked, and in which were thirty men, and as many women; but when all had disembarked on the shore which surrounded the tower, the sea opened and swallowed them up.

With the tenth-century Preiddeu Annwfn:

Beyond the Glass Fortress they did not see
the valor of Arthur.
Six thousand men
stood upon the wall.
It was difficult
to speak
with their sentinel.
Three fullnesses of Prydwen
went with Arthur.
Except seven
none rose up
from the Fortress of Guts (Hindrance?).

Clearly the latter poem is referring to the same event as Nennius; but, whereas Preiddeu has Arthur involved somehow (probably as the leader of the expedition), Nennius not only doesn't mention him, but sets the story in the mythical past, thousands of years before Arthur's birth.

One final point: the notions that Arthur had a court in Camelot, that his soldiers fought as heavy cavalry, and that he fought wars of conquest on the Continent, all date to the twelfth century or later, and are more plausibly explained as reflecting the social and political situation of high mediaeval Europe than as reflecting genuine historical or even legendary tradition. So theories which take one or more of these ideas as their starting point ("Camelot was actually Colchester, therefore Arthur was really Caractacus," "Riothamus fought on the Continent, therefore he was probably the inspiration for the Arthur stories," etc.) are likely to be wide of the mark.
 
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Oh wow I didn't know about any of those guys, thanks for the answer! really cool.

Hey, do you know if there's somewhere on this site I can just rapid fire questions from all over history and not annoy people?
Don't think you can just pose a question on this site and get a quick answer and walk away; anything will end up in a forty-two post discussion that will dig alarmingly deep into the subject. The posters on here are collectively experts on everything and usually have a stoing opinion on it . :)
 
Don't think you can just pose a question on this site and get a quick answer and walk away; anything will end up in a forty-two post discussion that will dig alarmingly deep into the subject. The posters on here are collectively experts on everything and usually have a stoing opinion on it . :)
Oh wow lol. Well better than alternate history on Reddit which is just ugh
 
Someone must have led the British resistance of this period,

A single figure? Honestly, I find that dubious that a single figure led the resistance, and instead I'd think it likely that there were a multitude of figures leading multiple disconnected resistances. It's possible that those figures were distilled and combined to create one mythological figure.
 
A single figure? Honestly, I find that dubious that a single figure led the resistance, and instead I'd think it likely that there were a multitude of figures leading multiple disconnected resistances. It's possible that those figures were distilled and combined to create one mythological figure.
Thats certainly possible, and early on the victory at mt. Badon was atributed to Ambrosius Aurelianus. But even if we're talking about some anti-saxon alliance, at least one of them would have been named arthur before 'historians' startrd attributing everything to him.

Its kind of a "seven kings of rome" kinda deal. There were definitely more than seven kings, but the broad strokes that they were an alba longian colony that outgrew and absorbed its parent city and later came under increasing etrurian influence before casting them off for a republic makes some sense.
 
Oh wow I didn't know about any of those guys, thanks for the answer! really cool.

Hey, do you know if there's somewhere on this site I can just rapid fire questions from all over history and not annoy people?

There is a stickied Miscellaneous thread at the top of this board, actually where you can do just that! Its kind of a new feature I saw that someone started a few weeks ago, and I'd like to see it take off. So there you go :)
 
A single figure? Honestly, I find that dubious that a single figure led the resistance, and instead I'd think it likely that there were a multitude of figures leading multiple disconnected resistances. It's possible that those figures were distilled and combined to create one mythological figure.

Gildas seems pretty clear that there was some form of centralised authority: of the Badon generation, he says that "kings, magistrates, citizens, priests and ecclesiastics each kept to their own station" (suum quique ordinem servarunt). Since it is difficult to see what could make a king keep to his own station except some sort of supra-kingdom authority, it seems likely that there was some sort of authority during this period, which later fell apart during the period of civil wars which characterised Gildas' own time.

Also, the Saxon expansion seems to have been brought to a halt across the island, and the Saxon kingdoms all seem to have kept the peace for some half a century. Whilst it is possible that there were multiple disconnected resistances which all ended up enjoying a similar level of success and led to a similar outcome, it's more plausible that there was some form of co-ordination between the British kingdoms.

Thats certainly possible, and early on the victory at mt. Badon was atributed to Ambrosius Aurelianus.

That's not strictly true: Gildas (I assume it's him you're talking about) credits Ambrosius with leading the initial rally and counter-attack, but he doesn't say anything about who commanded the Britons in the subsequent stages of the war. Given that Gildas was contemporary with Ambrosius' grandchildren and the Battle of Badon had happened in the generation before Gildas (and so one generation after Ambrosius), it might be that Ambrosius was dead or retired by then; although I wouldn't want to press this argument too far, since people have been known to command armies well into their old age.
 
So I'm new to this site but I see that you guys seem to know what you're talking about. I have lots of things I'd like to ask but I'll start with the one that interests me. Obviously we all know that King Arthur is not a real person, essentially the British people's equivalent of a Charlemagne-esque figure since a real life one didn't exist as far as I know.


I'm not sure about validity of a comparison because Charlemagne definitely existed.
 
Since it is difficult to see what could make a king keep to his own station except some sort of supra-kingdom authority, it seems likely that there was some sort of authority during this period, which later fell apart during the period of civil wars which characterised Gildas' own time.
That position may have been the same one that vortigern occupied, a commander in chief selected by some council that Gildas alludes to.
That's not strictly true: Gildas (I assume it's him you're talking about) credits Ambrosius with leading the initial rally and counter-attack, but he doesn't say anything about who commanded the Britons in the subsequent stages of the war
Fair enough
 
personally, what i like to think (and what i'm going with for more than one of my own projects) is that there's essentially one Arthur-figure for each century from the earliest accounts onwards. even through to the modern period some real-world figures IOTL have been compared to Arthur, particularly the Duke of Wellington and Winston Churchill. after all, not all of the Arthur Cycle legends all originated at once--Lancelot wasn't there at first when Arthur essentially came into being, for example
 
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