My Thesis

I would just like to make a few comments here. First of all, I hope you find my thesis as interesting as I did. I put a lot of work into it and I hope you get a lot out of it. If you find any errors, they are probably the fault of the RTF to HTML converter I used. Still, I'd like to know about them, so if you find errors or have any questions, comments, or criticisms, all are welcomed; please simply e-mail me at levins (at) westnet (dot) com.

There are several links, and more may be added to link to the bibliography. However, since the biblio and the footnotes (which are the links already present) are in this document, it may take a while to go to them. I may separate them into separate docs to make the links quicker, but otherwise your best bet (unless your system is caching) would be to wait until the end to read the notes (there are only six of them) and the biblio.

As for the legal stuff, the thesis is copyrighted, so please respect my work. I give permission for anyone to quote parts of the thesis as long as you properly note it using an accepted notation style. You may use an entire copy of it as long as (1) you DO NOT alter this text AT ALL and you include it in its entirety, (2) you give me proper credit for the work, and (3) you do not charge for its distribution in any way. If you have any specific questions about using it or distributing it, I encourage you to e-mail me at levins (at) westnet (dot) com.

I would like to thank Kaviyd@aol.com for pointing out a small error that wasn't caught by me nor by my two editors (wife and professor). In the section entitled The early works and the history, 22nd paragraph, just after the second footnote, there appears the statement

Gildas wrote around 540, and said that the Battle of Mount Badon occurred 44 years previously, putting the death in 496.

Also, I'd like to recognize Stefanie Piel over in Germany -- she's doing some graduate work and as her project she chose to translate part of this thesis into German. I hope to include her work here with mine when she's finished. Of course, by carefully translating, she's managed to find another mistake. Again in The early works and the history, in the ninth indented quote beginning "Not once but three times...", in the next-to-the-last sentence I make note of the "...report of Modred's reason". That should, of course, read, "...report of Modred's treason...".

Because Stefanie is doing such in-depth work, she's finding a lot of stuff, including places where I could have been more clear. Again in The early works..., paragraph 14, the second sentence should read, "The Welsh material, thought to be an important base for Geoffrey's work, does not account for more than one fifth...".

Another error: thanks to Christopher Webster Peck for finding this one. It's in paragraph 5 of "The middle works...". The word "impressi ve" has an extra space in it.

Thanks,
Adam

King Arthur's Death in Legend, History and Literature

by Adam Levin (c) 1994

A Thesis

Submitted to the Faculty of Stevens Institute of

Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Bachelor of Arts

_____________________________
Adam Levin, Candidate

_____________________________
Dr. Deborah M. Sinnreich-Levi
Thesis Advisor

Stevens Institute of Technology
Castle Point on the Hudson, Hoboken, New Jersey
1994

Thesis Abstract:

King Arthur's Death in Legend, History and Literature

Stevens Institute of Technology, Spring, 1994.

Adam Levin,
Thesis Candidate

Dr. Deborah M. Sinnreich-Levi,
Thesis Advisor

From the very beginning of English Literature there have been legends of great heroes and powerful kings. King Arthur is perhaps the best known and most loved of all of these legendary figures.

This thesis explores one small aspect of the plethora of works about King Arthur and his knights. Specifically, this thesis examines Arthur's death in several different versions of his legend spanning almost ten centuries.

The first section examines the earliest Latin works, starting with the monks Gildas, Bede, and Nennius, writing in A.D. 540, 731 and 800, respectively. Then, the Annales Cambriae of 960 are examined, followed by William of Malmesbury's work in 1125.

The majority of the first section is made up of a discussion of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Brittaniae written c. 1136. The discussion includes an historical perspective studied in depth by one of Arthuriana's most prolific writers of the twentieth century, Geoffrey Ashe. Ashe explores the possible historicity of his namesake's chief character, attempting to show a correspondence between Arthur's actions and the actions of a fifth century "King of the Britons" named Riothamus.

The later works discussed in this thesis include the English priest Layamon's translation and expansion of the Frenchman Wace's reworking of Geoffrey's Historia. Layamon's work is followed by a discussion of the Vulgate Cycle, also known as the Prose Lancelot for its focus on Sir Lancelot du Lac and because it is written in prose instead of poetry. The last work discussed is the Alliterative Morte Arthure, a Middle English work of the fourteenth century Alliterative Revival period, in which the unknown author wrote using the Old English alliterative meter.

Finally, there is a brief discussion of the role Queen Guinevere plays in the different versions of Arthur's death.

Introduction

From the very beginnings of the English language there have been legends of great heroes. From the first settlements of Britain come stories rooted in ancient Celtic and Germanic imagination. Out of these stories, certain figures enjoy pre-eminence as the strongest, the bravest and the best. King Arthur is one such hero, known perhaps over all other mythical medieval figures as a chivalrous knight, a powerful warrior and a just and intelligent leader.

This thesis will explore a small number of the huge mass of works about King Arthur and his court. It will examine some of the earliest materials in an attempt to discover the origins of the myths. It will look at one of the most important writers of Arthurian legend and trace a possible link to a real historical King of the Britons. Finally, it will look at some middle and later works in which the authors were more intent on telling the story than they were in keeping facts straight.

One of the earliest references to Arthurian legend dates back to the year A.D. 540 in Gildas' writing about the history and conquest of Britain. While Gildas interspersed a lot of proselytizing with his history, he is a valuable source because he lived so close to the supposed real life of King Arthur. Then there is the Venerable Bede, writing in A.D. 731. His Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum follows Gildas, but is clearer on some of the history. Finally, there is the Historia Brittonum of Nennius c. A.D. 800, which not only lists many battles of Arthur's, giving a fairly complete geographic picture of his exploits, but also is the first work to mention Arthur by name.

In addition to the Latin sources, there are also many Celtic sources from which Arthurian legends spring, including The Mabinogion. One of these sources is the Annales Cambriae (A.D. 960), a year by year listing of historical events including two important entries about King Arthur.

Completing the early material studied here is William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum Anglorum (A.D. 1125) in which there is mention of Arthur's tomb and the beginnings of the myths about King Arthur's possible return. Also taken from the early material is Giraldus Cambrensis' De Principis Instructione in which we are told that Arthur's grave has indeed been found in Glastonbury, also known as the Isle of Avallon.

The bridge between the fairly simple early material and the more complex later material is Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Brittaniae (History of the Kings of Britain) written c. 1136. In this one work is the basis for almost all of the Arthurian legends that we know today. In it also is the basis for several arguments about Arthur's possible real-life existence. While much of the information in Geoffrey's book is fabricated, there is enough basis in real life events to warrant examination. Of course, there will never be a definite answer to whether or not Arthur was real, but some of the evidence is quite interesting.

Geoffrey's straightforward Latin prose was widely read by scholars, especially monks in monasteries both in England and across the channel in Europe. From these monks came some of the first works about King Arthur in the native tongues of their respective countries, bringing Arthur to a wider audience than ever before.

These authors who copied and expanded on Geoffrey's material were numerous. One of the most famous is the priest Layamon, who wrote his Brut around the turn of the thirteenth century, based heavily on a work by a Frenchman named Wace, who in turn based his Le Roman de Brut heavily on Geoffrey. Wace's French translation used what came to be known as the "Variant" version of Geoffrey's work for his first half, and then used Geoffrey's original for the part after Merlin's appearance. Wace also incorporated many more reliable sources such as Bede. Wace's French verse was more widely readable by the local people than Geoffrey's Latin, and so Arthur and his knights became more popular than ever. Basing his version on this example, Layamon wrote his Brut in the Old English of his day, making the legends of Britain and especially King Arthur, whose own history takes up the largest chunks of space in all of the works mentioned, more widely available than ever before (Lawm an xv).

Layamon's work is well constructed and easy both to read and to hear. It is split into small episodes that could constitute one evening's reading or listening. He directs the action with his own narration and also adds in some humor. His narrative mode is a mixture of chronicle, romance and sermon, all mixed together smoothly (Lawman xxiv).

Eventually, these new combined versions of Arthur's story, in which each successive version was filled with more vivid detail and dialogue than the last, were meshed into the huge, multi-volume work known as the Vulgate Cycle or the Prose Lancelot. The first title is because it was written in the language of the commoners: French. The second was because it focused more on Lancelot than on the King, and it was a romance written in prose instead of the usual poetry. It was a romance of huge proportions, and it meshed the early historical works with the later narratives of Wace and Layamon along with the rich chivalric romances of Chrtien de Troyes.

In the fourteenth century, there appeared the Alliterative Morte Arthure, an anonymous work from the Alliterative revival period. This rich and colorful work combines previous versions of Arthur's story in a retelling full of the Old English imagery seen in works such as Beowulf.

Finally, one of the most popular and well-known versions of Arthur's story comes from Sir Thomas Malory. Le Morte D'Arthur was written in the mid-fifteenth century while Malory was in prison. Its mixture of nearly every earlier version of the myths and legends of King Arthur makes it an impressive if convoluted work.

This thesis will focus on one important aspect of King Arthur's legend, his death. Malory, because he wrote later on, will not be covered. Wace has been left out in favor of concentrating more on Layamon's English translation and expansion. The focus will primarily be on the early works and the possible real-life history, but will include some later works such as the Vulgate and the Alliterativebecause these two are especially interesting. The Vulgatewritten in French instead of Latin and is "one of the major literary monuments that mark the shift from verse to prose in the writing of Arthurian romance" (Encyclopedia 609).

The Alliterative author wrote during the Alliterative Revival. In fact, the Alliterative Morte Arthure is "one of the principal works of [the] school of anonymous poetry that flourished in the midlands and north of England during the second half of the fourteenth century..." (Alliterative xvi). The poetry of the Alliterative Revival dates from about the time of Geoffrey Chaucer, yet is much different. Chaucer was much more revolutionary, whereas the Revival authors were clinging to an older tradition. While Chaucer pulled his style from French verse, the Alliterative Revivalists copied their style from the Old English alliterative long line. Alliteration is "the repetition of speech sounds in a sequence of nearby words" (Abrams 7). The long line refers to the alliterative meter of Old English, in which "alliteration is the principal organizing device of the verse line; each line is divided into two half-lines...by a decisive pause" (Abrams 7). In fact, another famous Arthurian legend, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, dates from around the same period and follows a similar style (Alliterative xvii).

This thesis will explore the events leading up to King Arthur's death. These include his leaving England for a battle, the differing accounts of the sizes of the respective armies, the seizing of the crown by Mordred, the actions of Queen Guinevere, and Arthur's final scene in which he either dies or is carried off to be healed or both.

The first section of this thesis describes the earliest works from Gildas to William of Malmesbury including Geoffrey of Monmouth and a possible explanation for an historical Arthur called Riothamus. The next section covers Layamon and the Vulgate. The following section covers later material focusing on the Alliterative. The last section discusses the Queen's role in bringing about Arthur's death.

The early works and the history

One of the earliest sources that scholars believe deals with Arthur is Gildas's De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (The Ruin and Conquest of Britain). This important work was written around A.D. 540, which puts it very close to the "actual" events. In fact, it is within living memory of the time Arthur supposedly lived, and Gildas lets us know,

Since that period, at one time our countrymen, and another the enemy, were victorious...up to the year of the besieging of Mount Badon...which, as I know, begins the forty-fourth year (one month having passed already), which is also the year of my birth. (Brengle 4, my emphasis added)

The next important document is Nennius's Historia Brittonum (History of the British) from around A.D. 800. Nennius himself admits that he is artless, and that he collected all of the old documents he could find and combined them into one story. This gives some, though not much, credence to what he says. However, much of his work contains errors and inconsistencies, and so is not trusted very much for accuracy (Encyclopedia 404). Nennius' version has the first actual mention of Arthur by name on record,

At that time the Saxons grew powerful in great numbers and increased in Britain....Then Arthur fought against [the Saxons] in those days together with the kings of Britain, but he was himself the leader of battles. (Brengle 5)

The earliest mention of Arthur's death occurs in an entry in the Annales Cambriae, Welsh Annals, written around A.D. 950. The entry reads, "Year [537] The Battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut fell..." (Brengle 7). The late date in the Welsh Annals

hangs in a void unrelated to history.... However, since everyone else who is mentioned in the Annales did exist, there is a certain presumption that a real Arthur must underlie [this] questionable [phrase]. (Encyclopedia 8)

Then, around 1125, William of Malmesbury wrote his Gesta Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Kings). It is here that is found the hint that Arthur is not dead but may return: "But the tomb of Arthur is nowhere seen, whence ancient dirges still fable his coming" (Brengle 8). In 1125, a tomb had yet to be found.

Perhaps the most well known of all Arthurian legends is that of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey wrote the Historia Regum Brittaniae (The History of the Kings of Britain) c. 1136, and, "Besides planting highly erroneous notions of British history, it supplied a basis and framework for Arthurian romance and exerted an influence extending through Spenser, Shakespeare, and many others" (Encyclopedia 209). In it, Geoffrey recounts the history of Britain's leaders all the way back to the very beginnings, from Brutus' coming to the British Isles in 1115 B.C. to King Cadwallader's death in A.D. 689. Geoffrey's account, though many agree that it is not strictly factual, offers a clear and concise look into the events surrounding Ar thur's death.

In examining Geoffrey's work it is important to keep in mind whom he was writing for and what interests he had:

Presumably born at Monmouth in southeast Wales, Geoffrey may have been Welsh. However, he shows an interest in Brittany and a pro-Breton bias that suggest that his family came from across the Channel, as numerous Bretons did in the wake of the Norman Conquest.... Charters relating to church properties reveal that he was acquainted with Walter, archdeacon of [Oxford], whose name figures in his scanty account of his sources. After 1151, Geoffrey...was consecrated bishop of the Welsh see of St. Asaph. This appointment tells in favor of his being of Breton stock, since under the Anglo-Norman monarchy Welshmen were not usually made bishops of Welsh sees. (Encyclopedia 209)

Geoffrey is clearly a fiction writer, but there is little doubt that he drew from older works, both historical and fiction. "Besides Roman historians, he draws upon Gildas, Nennius, Bede, and probably the Annales Cambriae, as well as Welsh genealogical and hagiographic matter (Encyclopedia 212). However, there is one usually overlooked sentence that might be an important clue as to the authenticity of Geoffrey's Arthur. In the preface, Geoffrey makes a very intriguing claim,

At a time when I was giving a good deal of attention to such matters [The history of British Kings], Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, a man skilled in the art of public speaki ng and well-informed about the history of foreign countries, presented me with a certain very ancient book written in the British language. This book...set out all the deeds of these men, from Brutus...down to Cadwallader... (51)

An important missing element possibly relating to this ancient book might be found in Brittany (Ashe "Ancient Book" 302), since there was a British settlement there, and since Arthur fought in Gaul according to Geoffrey. In fact, Geoffrey tells us that the book was written in the "British language" -- brittanicus sermo. This language

is frequently assumed to be Welsh, and some have construed an epilogue to the History as implying that the book was in Wales when Walter found it. In the twelfth century, however, brittanicus could mean Breton as well as Welsh. (Ashe "Ancient Book" 302)

In addition, Geoffrey claims that the book's contents gave him material on Arthur's downfall. The Welsh material, thought to be an important base in Geoffrey's work, does not account for more that one fifth of what he says about Arthur as compared with Vortigern, whose story is merely expanded a little from the Welsh. Geoffrey did something significantly different with Arthur (Encyclopedia 213).

An interesting point appears in considering a previous book of Geoffrey's, the Vita Merlini (Life of Merlin). Merlin prophesies to Vortigern foretelling Arthur,

The race that is oppressed shall prevail in the end, for it will resist the savagery of the invaders.
The Boar of Cornwall shall bring relief from these invaders, for it will trample their necks beneath its feet.
The Islands of the Ocean shall be given into the power of the Boar and it shall lord it over the forests of Gaul.
The House of Romulus shall dread the Boar's savagery and the end of the Boar will be shrouded in mystery. (Qtd. in Ashe Discovery 90)

Still another point is that Geoffrey and those after him took hold of the legend that Arthur went to the Isle of Avallon to heal after his final battle. However, the Welsh name for the "place of apples" is Ynys Avallach. Geoffrey's Latin Insula Avallonis is not really equivalent. It is quite probable that the spelling of Geoffrey's Avallonis was influenced by a real place called Avallon. "In fact, Avallon is a Gaulish name with the same meaning, and the real Avallon is in Burgundy--where Arthur's Gallic career ends" (Ashe Discovery 95).

While Geoffrey claims that Arthur's tomb is nowhere to be found, and, in fact, it was not found until after he died, his treatment affected almost every major work that came after him. However, a work followed closely after Geoffrey's death which made an interesting claim. In 1195, Giraldus Cambrensis mentions Arthur's tomb in his De Principis Instructione (On the Instruction of Princes), "Now the body of King Arthur...was found in these our days at Glastonbury deep down in the earth and encoffined in a hollow oak...[The letters in the tomb] run as follows. HERE LIES BURIED THE RENOWNED KING ARTHUR WITH GUENEVERE HIS SECOND WIFE(*1) IN THE ISLE OF AVALON" (Brengle 9). It is not surprising that the tomb was found in Glaston, since, as Giraldus explains,

...the place which is now called Glaston, was in ancient times called the isle of Avalon. For it is as it were an isle, covered with marshes, wherefore in the British tongue it was called Inis Avallon, that is 'the apple-bearing isle'. Wherefore Morganis, a noble matron and the ruler and lady of those parts, who moreover was kin by blood to King Arthur, carried him away after the war of Camlan to the island that is now called Glaston that she might heal his wounds. (Brengle 10)

There appear to be definite ties to Arthur in Gaul, and these ties might be connected with his death. However, there are still several problems.

One problem is that of the date. Almost every author puts Arthur's death in a different year. The Welsh Annalsa date of 539(*2), while Geoffrey tells of his passing in 542, and Wace goes even farther with a date of 642. Gildas wrote around 540, and said that the Battle of Mount Badon occurred 44 years previously, putting the death in 496. However, all of these dates are late, and there is a possible explanation.

Several events in Geoffrey help to pinpoint the dates around which things occurred, even though much of his writing is fabricated. First, while his dating is not entirely coherent, he sets up Arthur's ancestry so that Arthur must rule in the late fifth century (Encyclopedia 213).

Also, there are several times that Geoffrey mentions people or events that will help in fixing Arthur's exact year of death in history. The first step is that he mentions someone very important in his History:

Not merely once but three times, and during both Arthur's marches into Gaul, Geoffrey names the "real" Emperor, the one at Constantinople--and we can recognize him. First: "The province of Gaul was at that time under the jurisdiction of the Tribune Frollo, who ruled it in the name of the Emperor Leo." Second: "Lucius Hiberius...could not make up his mind whether to engage in a full-scale battle with Arthur or to withdraw inside Autun and there await reinforcements from the Emperor Leo." And third, at the report of Modred's reason: "Arthur immediately cancelled the attack which he had planned to make on Leo, the Emperor of the Romans." This can only mean Leo I, who reigned at Constantinople from 457 to 474. (Ashe Discovery 93)

However, there is still more evidence to support a time fix around the third quarter of the fifth century:

Geoffrey speaks of a Pope called Sulpicius. No such Pope ever existed. But Sulpicius is usually thought to be a garbling of Simplicius, the name of a Pope who reigned fro m 468 to 483. In other words, he was Pope during six full years when Leo was Emperor, 468 to 474. They overlap. (Ashe Discovery 94)

Finally, there is Lucius himself, the man who comes to Arthur demanding fealty. He is called an emperor several times near the end of Arthur's history although he was a procurator or a Roman dignitary earlier. It is not unlikely that he would have been appointed to the office of emperor when a previous emperor died. In fact, one of the last Western emperors was named Glycerius.

In a chronicle which Geoffrey may well have known, by Sigebert of Gembloux, this ephemeral person is called Lucerius and assigned, incorrectly, to the years 469-470, again during Leo's reign in the East. An arresting conclusion follows. If some book that gave Geoffrey material focused his interest on just those years, 469-470, he could have made out not only that the Eastern Emperor was Leo but that the Western Emperor was Lucerius and the Pope was Simplicius -- from which, by changes he was quite capable of, he could have got his Lucius and Sulpicius. (Ashe Discovery 94)

Perhaps then there is an explanation of where Geoffrey obtained the 542 date of Arthur's passing to Avallon. One likely explanation turns out to be fairly simple. In 457, Victorius of Aquitaine compiled tables to calculate Easter in any year. Chronicles using these table counted not from Christ's birth, but from his death, which was counted as A.D. 28. However, in 525, Dionysius Exiguus devised the Anno Domini system counting from Christ's birth. This caused problems, since old dates were sometimes transcribed with an A.D. prefix, without being changed themselves (Ashe "Ancient Book" 317; Ashe Discovery 99). So Arthur's demise and the dating of the wars in Gaul can be matched up and fixed within the lives of the three important men mentioned in Geoffrey.

The errors surrounding Geoffrey's date are not all that uncommon. Nennius himself has the 28 year discrepancy several times. "It gives intelligible details putting the Saxons' arrival, under Vortigern, in a year we can fix as A.D. 428, and then says it was A.D. 400" (Ashe "Ancient Book" 317).

It is therefore possible that Geoffrey saw the 442 date in his ancient book and had to move it because it was too early for his version. Reading the Annales Cambriaehave shown a date of 539. Thus it is not unlikely that Geoffrey thought the first 4 to be an error and "fixed" it to 542. This happens in Wace's reworking of the legend in which Arthur ends his career in 642. If 442 was a date mistakenly copied as A.D., then adding 28 would give the real A.D. date, 470, which matches perfectly with the triangulation of the two emperors and the pope.

Thus we have a fairly exact date for Arthur's passing. However, there is another problem because having a date says nothing about whether or not he existed; indeed, all it implies is that Geoffrey was well versed in older legends. However, there is a wealth of evidence to suggest that Arthur was in fact another man referred to in historical texts as "Riothamus, king of the Britons."

Riothamus is

the style given in continental documents to a fifth-century "king of the Britons," whose career seemingly underlies parts of the account of Arthur in Geoffrey of Monmouth. It Latinizes a title or honorific in the British language--that is, the parent tongue from which Welsh, Cornish, and Breton evolved. (Encyclopedia 453)

It is not unheard of that a great ruler be known by a title instead of a name. The first Roman Emperor, Octavian, went by the name Augustus meaning "[His] Majesty." After that, the emperor was known as Augustus regardless of his real name. Examples closer to the Arthurian legends are "Vortigern" and "Vortimer," both of which in the early British language meant "over-king" or "over-chief" (Encyclopedia 607). Also, since many famous men had multiple names, local and Roman, it is not unlikely that the British Arthur was Artorius in Roman. Since rulers sometimes used honorifics, as did Augustus Octavian, so too may Arthur have been Riothamus Artorius (Ashe Discovery 97; Encyclopedia 454; Ashe "Ancient Book" 320).

The connection between Riothamus and Arthur lies in the historical letters and manuscripts written early Middle Ages. A writer named Jordanes wrote the Gothic History in 551. It explains, among other things, that after Valentinian III's murder there were several fleeting Emperors. When Leo rose in the east, he appointed Anthemius Emperor of Rome. Faced with a Gothic threat in Gaul, Anthemius sought a British alliance,

Leo...chose as Emperor [of the West] his patrician Anthemius and sent him to Rome....
Now Euric, King of the Visigoths, perceived the frequent changes of Roman emperors and strove to hold Gaul in his own right. The Emperor Anthemius heard of it and asked the Britons for aid. Their king Riotimus came with twelve thousand men into the state of the Bituriges by the way of Ocean, and was received as he disembarked from his ships. Euric, King of the Visigoths, came against them with an innumerable army, and after a long fight he routed Riotimus, King of the Britons, before the Romans could join him. So when he had lost a great part of his army, he fled with all the men he could gather together, and came to the Burgundians, a neighboring tribe then allied with the Romans. (Qtd. in Ashe "Ancient Book" 310)

Once across the Channel, the Britons advanced up the Loire, crossed into Berry, and occupied Bourges. At this time a man named Sidonius Apollinarus wrote a letter to the Britons' king (Ashe Discovery 54). Sidonius is a very vital historical resource because he wrote letters and poems to many leaders in the Empire and in the Church. Because there is mention in the letter to the British King indicating possible earlier contact between the two men, "[this] earlier contact with the King suggests a passage of time, putting the letter in late 469, even early 470" (Ashe Discovery 55). This means that Riothamus was in Gaul around the time that Arthur was there. In addition, Jordanes tells that Riothamus ended up among Burgundians when he fled, and Avallon is very near Burgundy.

Still another connection occurs while Riothamus is waiting for Euric, the Gothic chieftain leading the attacks in Gaul. Another letter from Sidonius, this time to Vincentius, tells that "the Britons were victims of a betrayal at high level" (Ashe "Ancient Book" 311).

The Emperor's deputy ruler in Gaul at that time was named Arvandus. His second term in office was "marked by bitter unpopularity," and he wrote a treasonous letter to Euric "urging the Visigoth not to come to terms with the 'Greek emperor' (a sneer at Anthemius) but to crush "the Britons posted north of the Loire...." The letter was intercepted, and Arvandus was recalled to Rome, impeached by the Senate, and tried for treason. He was found guilty, but Euric heard of the plan and acted on it (Ashe Discovery 55-6). This probably occurred early in A.D. 470. Jordanes wrote of Euric's "innumerable army" marching on the Britons in Bourges, and Gregory of Tours, sixth-century author of History of the Franks, adds geographic details:

The Britons were expelled from Bourges by the Goths after the killing of many of them at Bourg-de-Dols. (Ashe Discovery 56).

There is an obvious connection to Geoffrey here with his story of Mordred and the treachery perpetrated by him. The first event leading to Arthur's eventual fall is Mordred's action back in Britain while Arthur is away engaging the Roman Empire. Geoffrey does not expand upon the events that occurred, saying only that Mordred crowned himself King and "[lived] adulterously and out of wedlock with Queen Guenevere" (257). In fact, he goes on to say, "About this particular matter [Mordred's treachery],...Geoffrey of Monmouth prefers to say nothing" (257). It is likely that Geoffrey meant this as an "authorial disclaimer of responsibility for narrating [the] treason" of Mordred (Lawman 460). However, it is also likely that Geoffrey preferred to say nothing since he knew that the real action took place in Gaul, but since the Welsh legend had Arthur's death in Camlann, Geoffrey needed some way to pull Arthur back to Britain. Therefore, Geoffrey used the "treason at high level" and combined it with the Camlann legend. Again, since Geoffrey did not have Merlin mention Camlann in the earlier Vita Merlini, it is likely that Geoffrey found out some new information and changed his story.

In addition, Geoffrey relates what happened in the ensuing battle between Arthur and Mordred. Mordred raised a total of eighty thousand troops and met Arthur when the latter landed at Richborough.(*3) Euric raised an "innumerable army," possibly eighty to one hundred thousand troops. Instead of Arthur's meeting Mordred on the coast of Britain, Euric may have met Arthur on the coast of Gaul, or perhaps the two leaders met inland, near Bourges.

Also, in the Gallic warfare Arthur and his men retreated several times as mentioned by Jordanes and Gregory. Not only could Geoffrey have reversed roles, making Mordred (Euric) retreat instead of Arthur, but he could have enhanced the retreats with his own narrative story-telling.

Now the two leaders rallied their men and attacked at the River Camblam. Arthur's division assailed Mordred's battalion and killed him. In the ensuing chaos, Arthur fell. In the end, Geoffrey tells us that "Arthur himself...was mortally wounded and was carried off to the Isle of Avalon, so that his wounds might be attended to" (261). "Avalon" has already been shown to be more related to the Gaulish "Avallon" than the Welsh "Avallach," so it is quite possible that Geoffrey merely transferred the place from Gaul back to Britain regardless of whether he knew of the Welsh place name.

Finally, there is much mention of Arthur not only outside of Britain, but also outside of Geoffrey's and the Welsh context. Around 1019, a man calling himself William wrote the Legenda Sancti Goeznovii (The Legend of St. Goeznovius). The name "Goeznovius" is a Latinized version of Goueznou, a saint of Brittany. While the exact date is not known, he likely lived in the sixth or seventh century, which is too late for Arthur's actual life. However, the prologue "contains the only early historical narrative in which Arthur is mentioned plainly, with no obviously dubious or fantastic touches." It mentions Vortigern's involvement with the Saxons, the subsequent Saxon uprisings in Britain, the British charge into Gaul against more Saxons, the British divisions with many kings and fighting all over the area, and the emigration of saints. William seems to get all the historical events as we know them in the correct order, and dates Arthur's Gallic campaigns not by names, as Geoffrey does, but by circumstances (Encyclopedia 246-7; Ashe Discovery 102-6). And William's circumstances lead to the same 470 date as Geoffrey, and those circumstances match with the accounts from Sidonius and Jordanes about Riothamus. Thus, there is a tight correspondence between what we know happened with Riothamus and what is attributed it to Arthur.

While many other chronicles mention what Arthur did, and many match up with Riothamus's actual accomplishments, it is not necessary to list them all here. It seems very possible that Arthur and Riothamus are indeed the same person. Of course, nothing is positive, and we may never know the truth, but all of this data seems to indicate that there is a definite connection between these two men.

It is believed that the priest Layamon wrote another history of Britain, Brut, in the early thirteenth century. He gathered his material from several sources, including a chronicle from Bede in 731 and Geoffrey's History. While a large part of Layamon's work is a translation of a work by the Frenchman Wace entitled Le Roman de Brut written around 1155, Layamon adds a significant amount of narrative and dialogue that is not found in the other sources. This translation is very important because it brings the Arthurian legend away from the Latin of Geoffrey, which was all that was available to the general public until that time. The people were mostly illiterate in Latin, so Geoffrey was essentially unavailable to them. Layamon's treatment spread King Arthur's story throughout England by making it widely available to the lower classes.

Layamon adds to Geoffrey's simple list of events including much dialogue that is not present in the latter's work. While Layamon likely took many of his details from other sources, possibly including Geoffrey's Vita Merlini, much of the extra dialogue comes from Wace. Also, the priest may have been familiar with the earlier works that Geoffrey himself based his history on, such as the early Celtic tales (Lawman 460). Geoffrey probably excluded many details in order to relate strictly the history of Britain, and did not get involved in the political or emotional circumstances surrounding the tales, except in a very rudimentary way.

Layamon's account, on the other hand, adds greatly to the deceit perpetrated by Modred and the way in which Arthur hears about and deals with the information. Arthur learns of Modred's treason through a messenger. However, before the messenger can work up the nerve to tell Arthur the news, the messenger interprets a dream about Modred and the Queen attacking Arthur and their subsequent deaths at Arthur's hand (13981-14020). After Arthur hears the messenger's news regarding Modred's treachery, he swears that he will kill Modred and burn the Queen. From Geoffrey, one might assume that Mordred seized the crown and Queen. Here, however, the reader is led to believe that the Queen is in league with Modred. Layamon adds to the tale, saying that even Sir Gawain wants Modred hanged and the Queen quartered(*4) (14075-85).

Layamon introduces to the reader the idea of spies in Guinevere's employ:

Now there was a wicked soldier in King Arthur's army
Who, as soon as he heard discussion about Modred's death,
Took his squire at once and sent him to this land,
With a warning to Guinevere of what had been happening,
And how Arthur was travelling with numerous troops,
And what he was proposing to do and exactly how he would act.
The Queen came to Modred, whom she loved best of all men
And told him the tidings of Arthur the king... (14095-102)

In Layamon's version, as in Geoffrey's History, Modred rallies troops against Arthur, this time numbered in excess of one hundred thousand. King Arthur's victories are getting more impressi ve with each telling of the legend. Here, Layamon is adding men to the enemy's army to make Arthur look even better when he defeats them. Layamon also tells of a delay of a fortnight while Arthur waits for favorable winds in order to cross the Channel (14092-4), and says that spies are all the while conveying information to Modred, making Arthur's job still more difficult.

Eventually, the two armies meet as they did in Geoffrey, this time at Romney.(*5) More attention is given to Gawain's heroics in Layamon's account; he is said to have defeated eleven Saxon leaders before finally receiving a mortal wound. Modred again flees, this time to London whence he is turned away before going to Winchester (Lawman 14152-161). The siege at Winchester is also given much more attention, as is the fact that instead of fleeing from Winchester with his men, Modred sneaked away, leaving most of them behind. This left much of his force without his leadership although they thought he was still with them. This betrayal of his men is added evidence of Modred's perfidy. He fled to Southampton and sailed to Cornwall.

The Queen, meanwhile, ran from York to Caerleon with two knights to protect her. Contrary to Geoffrey's statement, Layamon implies that Guinevere did not actually become a nun, but merely hid disguised as one: "She came to Caerleon by night, with two of her knights,/And she had her head covered with a holy veil,/And she was there as a nun ... " (14210-12).

Modred raised another army while Arthur rounded up more men, and the two leaders met again at the River Tamar, near Camelford. It is likely that the "Camel" is related to Geoffrey's "Camblam" and to the Annales Cambriae's "Camlann." Modred was slain in this battle, and Arthur received "Fifteen appalling wounds" (14261). This is a significant number, since Christ received five wounds on the cross. Here, the priest Layamon is making Arthur into a Christ figure and making him suffer three times worse than Jesus himself.

Out of two hundred thousand men, only Arthur and two knights survive. After handing his crown to Constantine, who is with Arthur in the end, unlike in Geoffrey where he is simply named King, Arthur is taken away to Avallon to be healed by an elf named Argante. This mention of the elves and the presence of two women in the boat that takes Arthur away (14254-92) are both Layamon's additions, according to Allen, who says,

Only in Lawman is Arthur said to be living among elves; in several early traditions he is said to be with his sister Morgan, who is one of those in the boat in Malory's [ Le Morte d'Arthur]....Lawman does not mention Glastonbury here...The boat and its occupants are Lawman's addition; Malory is imprecise as to whether there are three or four ladies in the boat. (Lawman 461)

Finally, Arthur, as he leaves, states that

[Queen Argante] will make quite sound every one of my wounds,
Will make me completely whole with her health-giving potions.
And then I shall come back to my own kingdom
And dwell among the Britons with surpassing delight. (14278-82)

Perhaps the biggest difference between the accounts of the early authors and of the Vulgate author is the series of events leading to Mordred's being left with the kingdom of Logres. In the other stories, Arthur must leave to fight the Romans, who are demanding homage. In the Vulgate, it is Lancelot who initially causes the trouble because of his adulterous affair with the queen. Because the Vulgate is a romance, it focuses more on the chivalric knights and their escapades, both official and sexual, than it does on Arthur. A romance is "a medieval narrative...in some Romance dialect, treating of heroic, fantastic, or supernatural events, often in the form of allegory" (Random House 1668). The romances are different from the chronicles in that they add much more color and adventure to the story instead of just reporting the facts. Because the king is at court most of the time and the romances deal with adventure and the supernatural, the Vulgatemore with Arthur's nights, specifically with Lancelot, than it does with Arthur himself.

The book before Le Mort de le Roi Artu (The Death of King Arthur), is the Queste del Saint Graal (The Quest of the Holy Grail). In this previous campaign, the Knights of the Round Table set out to search for the holy grail. Lancelot is not allowed to see it because of his sinful state, that is, because of his adulterous affair with the queen. At the end of the grail story, one knight who obtained the vision returns to Logres. The others have either died or gone away somewhere else. The only loose end left is between King Arthur and Lancelot. The Vulgate author therefore writes the last book to explain what happens to Arthur, Lancelot and the queen after the grail adventure has ended. In keeping with the romance form, the entire Vulgate is very allegorical, propounding the benefits of a good Christian life. The last book is no different, showing the post-grail quest court and how Lancelot has not changed his ways, causing the ultimate downfall of the kingdom.

Lancelot, who is banished from the presence of the Queen for his indiscretions at a tournament, is at war with Arthur because of Gawain. Lancelot accidentally killed Gawain's brother Gaheriet, and so Gawain convinces the king to wage war against Lancelot. However, we see a significant change in the characters here: Gawain controls the king like a marionette. The king wants to make up with Lancelot, and Lancelot is repentant and courteous towards the king. However, Gawain presses Arthur to go to war, and he does. While Lancelot and Arthur are at war, Mordred is given charge of the kingdom.

The Romans are still involved, but to a much lesser degree. In this version, the emperor himself comes to Arthur to tell him to pay homage and engages in a small battle, killing Kay and wounding Girflet. Then,

King Arthur saw these two blows and was quite aware that it was the emperor; so he spurred on his horse towards him and with his bright and keenly sharp sword he struck the emperor on his helmet with all his strength. Nothing could prevent him from feeling the blade as far down as his teeth....Then Arthur had the emperor's body taken and put in a bier [and sent back to Rome as tribute.] (Death 190)

King Arthur is then confronted with the news of the treasonous Mordred. In this version, Arthur is informed of the news by a servant sent by the Queen. Mordred is besieging the Tower of London where the Queen is hiding. He has taken over the lands and the people as his own, and crowned himself the King of Logres. There is, however, an interesting twist to this story. Because of the Christian motif, the author shows that without a doubt, Arthur and his court are never going to follow the "correct" ways of the Jesus when the King says the following,

Ah! Mordred, now you make me realize that you are the serpent I once saw issuing from my stomach, which burnt my lands and attacked me. But never will a father have done to a son what I shall do to you, because I shall kill you with my two hands. May the whole world know this; God forbid that you die at anyone else's hands but mine. (Death 192)

This is the worst thing anyone could do, to kill one's own child, and it clearly shows that the court of Arthur has fallen to such a point that it will never recover. In addition, this is the first instance where we are told that Mordred is the king's son, and not just a nephew. It is likely that the Vulgate author simply wanted to make the point that the kingdom has fallen completely, and worse than killing one's nephew is killing one's own son.

An interesting episode in the Vulgate version is the episode with Queen Guinevere and the nunnery. When she flees because she think that whoever wins the battle between Arthur and Mordred will kill her, she goes to a nunnery, as she did in previous tales. However, she was told that she couldn't become a nun yet because King Arthur would kill the nuns for taking in his wife. The abbess tells her, "If...the king had passed on from this world, we should have been delighted to make you a lady and a companion of our order, but as he is still alive, we dare not receive you, because he would certainly kill us as soon as he discovered it" (Death 198). This is certainly not the King Arthur that we are used to from the other stories. Earlier, Arthur was a strong, brave and fair warrior-king. He ruled justly and was intelligent and honest. Now, he has completely broken down, not only killing a man but killing his own son, and willing to kill nuns. The Queen agrees to stay with the sisters until the outcome of the war is known; if Arthur loses, she will become a nun, and if he wins, the abbess will help them get back together.

The story then relates that Arthur had a "good strong wind" that helped him to arrive at Dover Castle very quickly (Death 199). However, in this version, Mordred is not waiting to meet them, and Gawain is not a victorious leader of battles as he was previously. In fact, he is on his death bed. He is carried ashore and laid to rest with his brother Gaheriet, both dead by Lancelot's hand.

Arthur has a vision of Gawain, who tells him to seek out Lancelot because without him, Arthur will not win. Arthur, however, believes that Lancelot would not help him since they have warred. He also has a vision of Fortune and her wheel in which he is crushed underneath it, a prophecy of what is to come in his battle with Mordred. Arthur confesses to an archbishop, who interprets the dreams. Again Arthur is told to seek out Lancelot, and again Arthur refuses. An interesting point here is that the archbishop tells Arthur that if he does not get Lancelot's help, he will be "mortally wounded or killed" (Death 206). Perhaps at this point in writing the book the author was still not sure which of the two possible "historical" ideas to follow, that of Arthur's wounding and healing or that of Arthur's death and burial. More likely this is a device the author uses to make the already heavily Christian series even more so,

Despite its emphasis on chronological sequence, however, this chronicle of Arthur's last days does not come to a definitive close. The text's apparent grounding in linear time and secular history is undermined in the final pages by a timeless openendedness reminiscent of scriptural narrative. Arthur, though dead and buried, is expected to return miraculously at a later date, effecting a human resurrection in line with the Second Coming. (Encyclopedia 613)

The king refuses the advice of the archbishop to flee, and, while out riding with him on Salisbury Plain, he sees a prophetic stone on which is inscribed, "ON THIS PLAIN WILL TAKE PLACE THE MORTAL BATTLE WHICH WILL ORPHAN THE KINGDOM OF LOGRES" (Death 207). The archbishop again tells Arthur that he "will die or will be mortally wounded" (Death 207), keeping up the uncertainty of Arthur's fate.

In this version, a messenger comes from Mordred to Arthur with an ultimatum. Arthur must either leave the land, in which case there will be no fight, or he must fight Mordred. Arthur chooses the latter option, believing it is too late to turn back.

In this version, the two armies are split into battalions and meet on Salisbury Plain,

it was to lead to the destruction of the kingdom of Logres and also of many others, because afterwards there were fewer noble men than there had been before. Moreover, after their deaths, lands remained devastated and waste, through lack of good lords, because they were all killed in great pain and slaughter. (Death 210)

First, Sir Yvain kills the king of the Saxons, followed by a successful offensive by Arthur's men. Then, King Yon joins the battle shortly after the Irish join the Saxons. King Yon is killed by the Irish, and King Caradoc brings in the third battalion for Arthur. Caradoc routs the Irish, and the Scots come to defend their badly beaten comrades. Caradoc and the lord of the Scots kill each other.

Now, Arthur's men are on the run. King Kaberentin of Cornwall breaks rank and attacks the enemy with his fourth battalion. Mordred sends two more battalions to counter-attack, and King Aguisant takes his fifth battalion into battle.

Finally, all of the battalions except the last two, Mordred's and Arthur's, are in battle. Arthur takes his battalion and charges Mordred.

This huge accounting of the battle, including all of the famous kings' names, is in line with the earliest legends of both the English and Celtic worlds. Catalogues of famous warriors and places, as in Nennius' catalog of Arthur's twelve famous battles, helps the listeners and readers to place the subjects in time and space. It also allows them to compare the abilities of the person talked about with previous well-known heroes.

Many of Arthur's knights fall dead. Finally, Arthur and Mordred meet, and Arthur kills Mordred, but not before Mordred mortally wounds him. Arthur goes back to the Black Chapel and prays. He hugs Lucan, one of his few remaining men, to death. Finally, it is just Arthur and Girflet (Death 208-21).

Arthur's entire court has disappeared because it is the end of an era. With the solidification of Christianity in Britain, there is no room for the chivalric warrior sleeping with his neighbor's wife and killing every other knight who challenges him. The courtly love convention of the middle ages is dying, and the military codes of chivalry are falling away in favor of Christian brotherhood. Thus, knights are no longer needed, and Arthur's court disappears from the world.

In the Vulgate, we see a beginning to the legendary Lady of the Lake although at this point it is merely an arm that comes from the water to take Arthur's sword Excalibur away from Girflet. Arthur asks Girflet to dispose of the sword, and, after two attempts in which he couldn't bring himself to throw it in,

he hurled it into the lake as deep and as far from him as he could, and as it fell near the water, he saw a hand come out of the lake which revealed itself up to the elbow, but he saw nothing of the body to which it belonged. The hand seized the sword by the hilt and brandished it in the air three or four times....When Girflet had clearly seen this, the hand disappeared back into the water together with the sword. (Death 223-4)

The king then dismisses Girflet and awaits his death. The final episode of Arthur's life is his seeing the ship coming, as in the earlier versions already discussed. In this version, the ship is "entirely occupied by women" (Death 224-5) instead of there merely being two as in Layamon, and their lady is holding the hand of Arthur's sister Morgan. Girflet watches them take Arthur away, and then returns to the Black Chapel. There, he sees Lucan's tomb, and, next to it, a "very splendid and rich tomb [which said]: 'HERE LIES KING ARTHUR WHO THROUGH HIS VALOUR CONQUERED TWELVE KINGDOMS'" (Death 225). Thus, in the Vulgate, Arthur is taken away by the ship full of women, and his tomb is found. The hermit tells Girflet that "he truly lies there; he was brought here by some ladies whom I did not know" (Death 226).

The twelve kingdoms were likely derived from the twelve battles on record very early in Arthurian legend. Nennius, around A.D. 800, wrote in his Historia Brittonum,

Then Arthur fought against them [the Saxons] in those days together with the kings of Britain, but he himself was the leader of battles [dux bellorum]. The first battle wa s at the mouth of the river...Glein; the second, third, fourth, and fifth on another river...called Dubglas...the sixth battle on a river...called Bassas. The seventh was the battle in the wood of Celidon...The eighth was the battle at the castle Guinnion...The ninth battle was fought in the city of the Legion. The tenth battle he fought on the shore of the river...Tribruit. The eleventh was the battle waged on the mountain...Agned. The twelfth was the battle at Mount Badon, in which...nine hundred and sixty men fell to the ground during one onset of Arthur... (Brengle 5-6)

In the latter half of the fourteenth century, there appears a work entitled The Alliterative Morte Arthure. The author is unknown, but the poem is written in the alliterative form then common in English poetry. As previously mentioned, during the late fourteenth century, the Alliterative Revival was in full force, from it coming works such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Piers Plowman (Alliterative xvii).

This version is unlike the earlier Vulgate series in that it focuses on King Arthur instead of his knights as the romances do. The scale of the war between Arthur and Mordred is larger than in earlier versions, and the added dialogue occupies many more lines than even Layamon's talkative telling. This version contains a mixture of material from the early histories and reworkings as well as the romances like the Vulgate.

The Alliterative Morte begins at the point where Arthur is asked to pay tribute to Rome. Angry words are exchanged, both Arthur and the Roman Emperor Lucius Iberius rally their armies, and they all go to war. Many of the Knights of the Round Table die in the war, but in the end, Arthur is victorious and Lucius is slain. Then Arthur turns on a local Duke in France because he is allegedly disloyal, beginning Arthur's conquest of Europe (Alliterative xiv-xv).

After marching down through Italy and being offered the Imperial crown by the Romans and an emissary of the Pope, Arthur has a terrible dream foreshadowing his downfall. The dream in the Alliterative Morte seems very different from the dream that the priest Layamon relates in his Brut. However, examining them closely reveals that they are quite similar probably because of the popular myths of the day. The similarities include the parallels in setting between the court or mead hall and the wilderness, the appearance of a golden feminine prophetic figure, and the maiming or killing of King Arthur.

In the Alliterative Morte, Arthur dreams that he is in a wood far from the civilized court. Like the Old English mead hall, this split between the court and the wild forest is a common theme in English literature. The court represents the familiar, a place of joy and peace.(*6) There are wild beasts all around. Arthur comes to a beautiful meadow full of flowers and fruits. Then, Lady Fortune comes down with her wheel of past kings and famous rulers, all lamenting that they ever took their chances with fortune,

Round the rim there clung kings, one after another,
With crowns of pure gold, all cracking apart. (3268-9)

Arthur's sage explains the kings,

The most ancient was Alexander, whom all earth bowed before,
The next Hector of Troy, that hardy hero,
The third Julius Caesar, renowned as a giant,
Acclaimed by knights in all battles as mighty;
The fourth was Sir Judas, a jouster most noble,
That unconquered Maccabee, mightiest of strength;
The fifth was Joshua, that gallant man-at-arms...
The sixth, David the peerless, deemed by kings
One of the noblest that ever was knighted;
...
[The seventh] shall be called Charles, the king's son of France;
...
[The eighth] shall be Godfrey, who shall avenge God
On a Good Friday, with his gallant knights.
(3408-39)

Lady Fortune is arrayed in beautiful silk lined with gold, and she wears jewels and gold jewelry. Her wheel also is rimmed with gold and rare stones. The myth of Fortune's Wheel is very old. Fortune controlled the lives of people, and if she were in a good mood, people would prosper. However, she was very temperamental, and her mood could change quickly. This is why she is portrayed with a wheel. The wheel is easily sent spinning, and one minute someone might be on top while the next minute that same person might be crushed underneath it. Thus, it was important to always be prepared, no matter what Fortune sent.

In the dream, Arthur walks over to the woman, who places him on a throne, gives him an orb, a scepter, a crown and a sword. She gives him food and drink, but then at noon she changes her mood and throws the wheel around, sending Arthur crashing to the ground, breaking his limbs and his back (3230-3393). According to Arthur's sage, this meant that his good luck had come to an end. The sage tells Arthur that he has reached his zenith and will "achieve nothing more." The sage also tells Arthur that he has killed many sinless people and now he must repent before it is too late (3394-3455).

Layamon's dream sequence is similar, substituting an actual mead hall for the throne on Fortune's wheel. Arthur is lifted atop the mead hall and sits as if riding it, looking out over all the lands he owns. The parallel again is to the wilderness outside of the mead hall while joy and comfort are inside. Then Modred and Guinevere appear and destroy the mead hall, breaking the king's arm in the process. The king kills Modred and the queen. He then finds himself in a meadow filled with strange animals, with no way to return to the now destroyed mead hall, indicating that he has no way to get back to the safety of Camelot. A beautiful golden lioness comes to him and clenches him in her teeth, taking him away to the sea, foreshadowing his eventual trip to Avallon later in the poem (13982-14020).

Both of these dreams involve a meadow with strange creatures and a large structure that ends up injuring the king. Both dreams involve a beautiful golden female figure, and both of these female figures end up showing Arthur his death in one way or another. However, both do this in different ways, showing the diversity of Arthurian legend from different times and from different perspectives. Layamon was writing a pseudo-historical document, and so was not very interested in myth and magic. He was more interested in relating the events as they happened, including only a short segment in which Arthur relates his dream and has it interpreted. The Alliterative author was writing a fantasy tale; this was to be entertainment, full of magic and myth. Thus, Layamon's dream was closer to the actual history of the event as he knew it, showing the mead hall representing Camelot, Modred destroying Camelot together with the queen, and Arthur dying and being taken over the sea to Avallon. The Alliterative's dream was much more mystical and prophetic, including Lady Fortune and a prophetic spin of the wheel, indicating that Arthur's time was coming to an end.

After the dream in the Alliterative Morte, Arthur receives the news of Mordred's adultery and seizure of the crown. The messenger in this version is Sir Cradok, who has run from Caerleon after it was taken by "barbarous men" hired by Mordred (3509-14),

Sire, your regent is wicked and wild in his ways,
For he has wrought woe since you went away;
He has captured your castles and crowned himself king,
And raked in all the revenues of the Round Table.
He has carved up the kingdom, passed it round as he wished...
Joined to Saracens and Saxons on every side,
He has brought together a band of barbaric men...
Picts and paynims and practiced knights,
From Ireland and Argyle -- outlaw men...
And there is Sir Childrik held up as a chieftan.... (3525-37)

Arthur rallies most of his troops and heads back to Britain to stop Mordred. There is a huge battle at sea which Arthur wins. Then Sir Gawain lands his boat full of men and attacks Mordred's army. Gawain and most of his knights are killed, but so are many in Mordred's army. Mordred retreats with his army through Cornwall to the Tamar where he writes a letter to Guinevere. He tells her to run away from York into Ireland and to take her children with her. Instead, she flees to Caerleon and becomes a nun,

Toward Chester in a chariot [her maids] lead her on her way,
Dressed as for death, with dole in her heart.
And she traveled to Caerleon and there took the veil...
But all in falseness and fraud and fear of her lord. (3913-18)

Arthur hears of Gawain's death and immediately charges to the land. After grieving for Gawain, Arthur swears to avenge his death and begins chasing after Mordred and his army (3119-4051). After several days, Arthur finds the army of sixty thousand warriors in seven battalions. Arthur, with only eight hundred knights left, charges ahead, and a great battle ensues. Arthur's men fight "giants from Argyle" and kings and warriors from many lands (4105-26). Most of Arthur's army is routed by this huge mass, outnumbering Arthur seventy-five to one. Not even in the greatly changed Vulgate was this difference as pronounced. In the Vulgate, Arthur was outnumbered by between two or four to one. This makes the Alliterative version much more heroic and fantastic, and therefore much more interesting to the average listener or reader.

In the end, Arthur and Mordred meet and deal several death wounds each, Mordred with Arthur's family's sword and Arthur with his own Caliburn, called Excalibur in later works. The two exchange words and blows until finally Mordred is slain and Arthur is mortally wounded. Seven score knights are left with Arthur when he orders them all to Glastonbury to tend to their wounds. As in the other earlier versions, Arthur names Constantine his successor. However, he also condemns all of Mordred's children and forgives Guinevere everything she did or may have done,

My kinsman, Constantine, shall wear the crown,
In keeping with his kinship, if Christ will allow it.
...
And then sternly mark that Mordred's children
Be secretly slain and slung into the seas:
Let no wicked weed in this world take root and thrive
--I warn you, by your worth, work as I bid.
I forgive all offenses, for Christ's love in Heaven:
If Guinevere has fared well, fair fortune be with her. (4316-25)

Finally, he "[gives] up his spirit and [speaks] nevermore," and then is carried off to Glastonbury to be buried (4060-4341). No mention is made of his potential return, contradicting the last line of the poem, which gives the source for the entire work: "so says the Brut" (4346). The Alliterative follows the Brut fairly closely, although it adds a lot of dialogue and changes some numbers to make the legend more impressive. The discrepancy at the end makes it likely that the Alliterative Author took material from other sources in addition to Layamon. As already noted, Layamon was writing a history for the most part. Although his version was certainly intended to entertain, he was following Wace's French translation of Geoffrey. The Alliterativewas following Layamon, but just as Layamon added to Wace, so the Alliterative author added to Layamon. With every retelling, this legend grows larger and larger, and no matter how it is told, people seem spellbound by the magic and mystery of King Arthur.

Queen Guinevere plays different roles in King Arthur's death in the different versions of the legend. In Geoffrey, very little is said of her with respect to Mordred and his treachery,

the news was brought to him that his nephew Mordred, in whose care he had left Britain, had placed the crown upon his own head. What is more, this treacherous tyrant was l iving adulterously and out of wedlock with Queen Guinevere, who had broken the vows of her earlier marriage. (257)

Only a short while later, Layamon has a significantly different version of what happened. Mainly, Layamon is much more explicit in the facts of what took place,

Now there arrived at this time a bold man on horseback;
News he was bringing for Arthur the king
From Modred, his sister's son: to Arthur he was welcome,
For he thought that he was bringing very pleasant tidings.
...
...the knight responded: "My Lord...
If it should have happened--as may Our Lord not allow it--
The your sister's son, Lord Modred, your own queen might have wedded,
And all your royal domains might have annexed to his own name,
Those which you entrusted to him when you intended to go to Rome,
And if he should have done all this by his treacherous deeds,
Even then you might avenge yourself honorably with arms..." (13971-14035)

Layamon, as noted earlier, adds a spy who overhears Arthur's plan to kill Modred. The spy sends his squire to the queen, who informs Modred. Layamon makes it clear that the queen was with Modred of her own free will,

The queen came to Modred, whom she loved best of all men
And told him the tidings of Arthur the king.
What he was proposing to do and exactly how he would act. (14101-4)

During the battles between Arthur and Modred, the queen is worried and scared. She stays in York for a while before running off to Caerleon to become a nun, after which nothing is known of her.

In contrast, the Vulgate relates a different story. In it, the queen sends a messenger to Arthur instead of Arthur's men sending a squire to the queen. The news brought by the messenger is quite different from before,

"My Lord, your wife Queen Guinevere has sent me to you to say that you have betrayed and deceived her, and have not prevented her from being dishonoured, together with all her kinsmen."
Then he related how Mordred had erred, how he had been crowned King of Logres, and how all the high-ranking barons holding fiefs from Arthur had paid Mordred homage, with the result that if King Arthur returned he would not be received as their lord but as their mortal enemy. He also told how Mordred had besieged the queen in the Tower of London, which he attacked every day. (Death 191)

Arthur gets back to England and Mordred leaves his siege of the tower to fight Arthur. Once Mordred is gone, the queen runs away to the abbey. However, they refuse to receive her because Arthur may be angry and kill them all. The abbess refuses to make the queen a nun, but she does allow her to stay in the abbey until the outcome of the war (Death 197-8).

Finally, in the Alliterative Morte Arthure, the king is notified of the treason by Sir Cradok,

Sire, your regent is wicked and wild in his ways,
For he has wrought woe since you went away;
He has captured your castles and crowned himself king,
And raked in all the revenues of the Round Table.
...
He has wedded Guinevere and calls her his wife,
And lives in the wild lands of the west marshes,
And has got her with child, so say those who have seen." (3523-52)

King Arthur's story is a long one, spanning over fifteen centuries. And, after all that time, it is still not known if King Arthur really lived. As with any legend, it has been strengthened and changed by master storytellers, some of whom to this day remain unknown.

Arthur's myths and legends have been used throughout history to inspire fear, anger and hope in the people to whom they were told. His stories spread from the Celts in the British Isles down through France and Germany and across the rest of Europe, each culture putting their own twists and signatures on one of the greatest legends of all time.

The legends started with the chronicles written in Latin by monks and used both as rallying cries against the invasions of the Vikings and the Germans, and as sermons about the virtues of being a believing Christian. Eventually the legends reached the lower classes through translations into local languages and dialects. The authors not only kept people interested by making the stories into poems, but they also fostered regional and national chauvinism. Every country has its own Arthur, like France's Charlemagne and Rome's Julius Caesar. Britain needed a hero and a leader to inspire nationalism in its people, and Arthur filled that role perfectly. Finally, the creative talents of men such as Chrtien de Troyes were felt through the rich and exciting romances. Throughout all of these works, as complicated and revised as they are, Arthur remains a great and admirable hero, deserving of his place among the Nine Worthies of the early fourteenth century.

Arthur's legends are loved by men and women of all ages and nationalities. Although Arthur is somewhat shrouded in mystery, not everything about him is unknown. This thesis has been an exposition of one small part of the immense world of Arthuriana and its many colors and characters. Perhaps one day we may find Geoffrey of Monmouth's "very ancient book," but until then, we will just have to keep enjoying the legends and waiting for Arthur's return from Avallon to explain what really happened.

Footnotes

(2) Although the quote from Brengle has the date as 537, most other sources, including Geoffrey Ashe and The Arthurian Encyclopedia, list the date as 539. Go back to text.

(3)Throughout Arthurian literature, names of characters as well as place names change often, sometimes barely resembling their references. Much of this is due to transliterations between Celtic, Latin, Saxon, Breton and French. In this case, it is possible, though quite a stretch, to conclude that "Richborough" is really a corruption of "Bourges", which would put Arthur in Gaul, where Riothamus was, instead of in Britain, which is where Geoffrey wanted and needed him. Go back to text.

(4)It should be noted that Gawain was in fact Modred's brother, and thus was his peer. Under their system of law, every noble was to be judged by his peers. According to Allen, quartering, or "ripping apart by attaching limbs to unbroken horses is a punishment often applied to romantic traitors" (Lawman 460). Go back to text.

(5)In his notes in Lawman, Allen mentions that archaeological digs have revealed "that Romney Marsh held a large population in Roman and Saxon times, Saxon OldRomney having been a major port; [Layamon] might have been aware of its former importance" (460-461). Go back to text.

(6)This can be noted in episodes such as that of the Joyeuse Garde, or "Joy of the Court", in several Arthurian legends. Also, note that the court is not always a place of peace, as in the fairly tumultuous affair between Lancelot and the Queen, seen most clearly in the Vulgate series. Go back to text.

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