Today we are going to deal with Arturian Literature.

Of course that the name Arturian

Literature itself is already telling us that the main focus is going to be King Arthur. Acoording
to Dr. Carsley, there was a gigantic body of literature devoted to Arthur during the high
middle ages, between 1100 (eleven hundred) and 1500 (fifteen hundred), of all kinds and in
many languages including French, German, English and Latin. But who was really King
Arthur and why were the writers of the middle ages so obsessed with this figure? To begin
with, there is no real evidence that Arthur actually existed, we only have hypothesis that
revolve around him and many creative minds that have written his stories over time. One of
the first writers of Arthur’s story was a British cleric called Geoffrey of Monmouth who wrote
a chronicle named “Historia Regum Britanniae” or The History of the Kings of Britain which is
now considered to be historically unreliable. However, this was the manuscript in charge of
creating his widespread popularity. The first Arthurian Chivalric romances were written in
France and then the Germans quickly followed.
As I have already said there’s no evidence of his existence, but if we decide to
believe that he did, the information that we have about him are the following: he would have
lived between 420 and 540, he was supposedly Welsh with Celtic origins, and his deeds
would be being a war hero who went to the Breton land to fight and that is why the British
adopted him as a national hero, he may have fought the Germans or maybe the Romans
depending of the moment in history in which we decide to believe he lived, he established a
court which became a magnet for the best knights in the world but then had to return to
Wales because of a civil war in his territory when the person who he had left in charge
claimed the kingship for his own.
Legends grew up around him really quickly, let’s take into account that in the middle
ages there were three dominating narrative themes, they were called: The Matter of Rome
(mainly with Troy as protagonist), The Matter of France which told the deeds of
Charlemagne and last The Matter of Britain that was basically the story of Arthur and the
Round Table. I took this example to illustrate how important these stories were in the middle
ages and what an established figure he was. Medieval writers didn’t understand the concept
of plagiarism and this is useful for us to see that the huge amount of texts about Arthur were
written taking a previous story as an example and adding some extra details or introducing
some new character that made the narration more interesting. So the central story that dealt
with Arthur alone was expanded through the ages. This may be the reason of the success of
the Arturian Legend.
There was a shift of focus from Arthur to his knights in the late stories; It wasn’t just
about the heroes’ life or the history of a fixed location such as Troy, but in this case heroes
could acquire unknown siblings or children who were at the same time maini characters of
other stories. As in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight were the character is Arthur’s nephew,
this story in particular is focused on one character but for instance in the case of The Grail
quest the protagonists are a group of knights. There was even one subgenre called the Fair
Unknown where a young protagonist whose origin is unknown at the beginning turns out to
be for instance Gawain’s son, that is to say a member of Arthur’s family. This subgenre of
identity loss and recovery was quite common in Arthurian Literature and included of course a
recognition scene.
It could be said then, that to the original story of Geoffrey of Monmouth a huge
amount of characters were added and changed, some acquired more protagonist and others
less. However, the figure of Arthur was always somehow present in the center of all of them.

EVOLUTION
6th century: The earliest known reference to Arthur occurs in a Welsh poem composed
about the year 600 by the bard Aneirin. It is known as the Gododdin. It purports to describe
the almost complete destruction of a band of heroes who set out from what is now south-
eastern Scotland to do battle at a place called Catraeth, now thought to be Catterick in
Yorkshire. The period concerned is apparently the late sixth century. One of the warriors
concerned, Guaurthur, is compared to Arthur. This reference indicates that a figure called
Arthur was so famous at the time of the poem’s original composition that a warrior could be
praised simply by comparison. The poem is an elegy - or rather series of elegies - to the
band of 300 soldiers of the Gododdin tribe who fought against the Anglo-Saxons at the battle
of Catraeth.

8th century: The Welsh historian Nennius, writing around 800, names Arthur and calls him
‘leader in battles’, who participated in twelve victories over the Anglo-Saxons, in the last of
which he slays 960 enemies.
Nennius records two Arthurian marvels. The first has to do with a heap of stones, one of
which contains a footprint of Arthur’s dog. Wherever men may take the stone, the next day it
is back on top of the heap. The second marvel concerns the burial mound of Arthur’s son,
which could not be measured because it seemed to keep changing size. However you
measure it on one occasion, you will never find it of the same measure again.

Geoffrey of Monmouth
12th century: King Arthur came into his own in the twelve century. The real founder of the
Arthurian legend as we know it is Geoffrey of Monmouth, a canon at Oxford. One of his most
valuable works in the early history of Arthurian legend is an imaginative chronicle, in Latin
prose. He introduces Merlin, the Magician destined to become the central character in many
Arthurian romances.
Geoffrey is the author of three surviving Arthurian works. The earliest, The Prophecies of
Merlin, was followed by the History of the Kings of Britain (1137), and The life of Merlin, a
long poem in classical hexameters.

Robert Wace

Geoffreys’s History was limited to the learned who could read Latin. Several translations
appeared in French and the most notable was a verse chronicle by Robert Wace, a Norman
poet. He prepared Roman de Brut (1155), a verse paraphrase of Geoffrey. His only
significant plot addition is The Round Table, probably never previously mentioned.

Layamon
13th century: After his literary fame crossed the Channel into France, Arthur returned to his
land as a literary hero at the beginning of the 13th century in an English version Layamon’s
Brut. There was still no version of Arthurian material for the common people until an English
priest, Layamon, produced the first Arthurian account in English.

Sir Thomas Malory

14th century: Arthurian romance flourished in England in the 14th century. For English
literature, the finest telling of the Arthurian material was the work of Sir Thomas Malory
(1470). His prose work under the title Morte d’Arthur was completed in prison and printed by
William Caxton, the first English printer. Malory traces the early career of Arthur and includes
an account of his birth, his coronation and his acquisition of the sword Excalibur.