Fact or Fiction: King Arthur and the Knights of the round table?

Answer 1

the king arthur you always get in the films and storybooks is a warlord of the medieval period - usually wearing armour and using battletactics of the period around 1200 (give or take a century).

that king arthur is entirely fictional. in 1200 there was no war in britain between the welsh and the saxons. the normans had conquered england at the lake of blood (senlac) in 1066 and between about 1100 and the peasants' revolt of 1381 the main friction in britain was between the english working- and middle-classes and their norman-french overlords.

in a poem like 'sir gawain and the green knight' (written around 1350) you can see the fictional story of king arthur being used as a metaphor to talk about the very real 'war on terror' (ie 'war on ordinary people') that the british ruling class had going at the time.

(you get a very similar thing these days. think about 'team america: world police').

the earliest mention of an actual war leader called 'arthur' is five hundred years earlier. nennius in the 700s talks of a celtic leader who led resistance against the invading german tribes (the people who would soon become the english) who was called arthur and who established a long-lasting peace after his victory at the battle of mount badon.

an even earlier historian:- gildas (who lived in the 500s) - mentions the victory at badon and the peace that followed, but doesn't name the leader.

....

so there probably was a welsh resistance leader called 'arthur' who fought the saxon invaders (someone like al-zarqawi perhaps). this doesn't mean his name was 'arthur'. 'arth' in welsh means 'the bear', which sounds like a good nickname for a general specialising in defensive guerilla tactics.

but the medieval king who rallied the people of britain against the saxons never existed. by the medieval period the people of britain were the saxons.

(by the medieval period even the welsh were starting to be 'british'. but that is a story for another day).

Answer 2

There was a piece on Dateline NBC about King Arthur. It said that he actually lived closer to the end of the Roman Empire than in the Medieval times. Historians found written evidence of an officer named Arturius who defended the farthest outreach of the Roman Empire, which happened to be out by Scotland, or something like that.

With the passage of time, and legends being told over and over again, King Arthur slid forward a few centuries into the Medieval period. This is believable because during those times, painters portrayed even ancient Biblical events as happening during the medieval times.

Answer 3

King Arthur ( but not necessarilly the round table knights) is a recurrent folk myth in many regions of England, Scotland and Wales and relates to a very turbulent period of which there is little written history. There is probably some truth to the legend but it has been greatly elaborated. The Trojan war was regarded as myth until the ruins of Troy were identified.

Answer 4

Fiction

Answer 5

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table provides history, legend, and everything in between for those interested in Arthurian Legend and Tradition

Answer 6

Fiction

Answer 7

A lot of legend wrapped around a very few facts. From "A Brief History of British Kings and Queens" by Mike Ashley:

"All we can safely...conclude is that a battle leader named Arthur lived at about the year 500 and during this period succeeded in rallying the kings of Britain against the invading Saxons and soundly defeating them at Badon. For the next twenty years, there was a period of relative calm, before he was killed in a second wave of fighting".

Answer 8

There was an historical King Arthur, but not much is actually known about him except that he was a minor king, and nothing like the fictional tales about him.

Answer 9

Definately fact, I go for a drink in it every Friday night and sometimes on a Saturday. I've had many happy Knights in there. They also have some square tables. I've seen a few queens in there as well, but as of yet no kings.

Answer 10

I had to do a report on whether he was fact or fiction and the friend that i did my report with, her and i decided that he may not have been named king arthur or pull a sword out of a stone...but he was fact