'dark-age') setting follow the medieval traditions (of myth, folklore, chronicle, and romance) by sending Arthur and his warriors beyond the shores of Britain. Many modern works of Arthurian fiction with an historical (i.e. Arthur or Ambrosius?) and sensibly concludes that neither Historia Brittonum nor the Annales Cambriae can be viewed as reliable historical evidence, and that that the case for an historical Arthur is ‘unproven’. Finally it carefully unpicks the primary sources and demonstrates a number of problems concerning dating, later interpolations, inconsistencies, lack of clarity due to brevity (e.g.

It concisely distills all the relevant arguments and compares and contrasts various viewpoints.

The discussion is conducted using a framework for examining the texts, their wider historical and literary contexts, the authors’ motivations and the texts’ usefulness as historical ‘evidence’. This discussion considers the Arthurian elements presented in De Excidio, Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae and analyses to what extent these may be indicative of the religious and political motives of their authors, rather than simplistically accepted as early primary sources recording reliable ‘evidence’ for an historical Arthur.

Origin legend grail glastonbury tor