Samartia and King Arthur

Sarmatia was located in the southern part of what is now the Ukraine. Classical authors have located them all across what would now be European Russia, from the Baltic to the Ural Mountains, and from the White Sea to the Black Sea. The claim is made somewhat dubious by the fact that classical sources from the same period place the Scythians in the same regions, but no classical or modern author suggests that the Sarmatians and the Scythians were the same people. What is more likely is that the Sarmatians in ancient times occupied an eastern region of what was known as Scythia, near the Carpathian Mountains. The Sarmatians were speakers of an Indo-Aryan language akin to the Farsi of the Persians, or to put it in modern terms, an Indo-Iranian language.

In Roman times, they occupied what we would know as the Ukraine, at least the southern portion of it. Pliny and Tactitus mention them, and it is the geographer Ptolemy who place them in the southern Ukraine. That would suggest that they had supplanted the Scythians. The Goths who appear in ancient history descending the valleys of the Oder and the Elbe were driven to the East by population pressures, and set up a loose confederation sometimes referred to as the Gothic Empire. They lived in the region north of the Black and Caspian Seas until driven eastward by the Hunnic migrations beginning in the late 2nd century of the current era. The obvious implication is that they had either driven out or made the Sarmatians tributary. Both Sarmatians and Scythians are mentioned by ancient writers (who sadly often failed to distinguish one from the other) as allies of the Huns. The Goths eventually entered the Roman empire and became feoderati, meaning they were allowed to settle on imperial public lands in return for military service. The Sarmatians are then taken notice of by the Romans, who also place them in the southern Ukraine. It is alleged that Constantine helped them to put down a slave revolt, and in return, the Sarmatians provided mounted auxiliaries for the Romans. (Until the Gothic and Hunnic invasions convinced the Romans that heavy cavalry should replace heavy infantry as the core of Roman armies, the Romans themselves did not supply very much cavalry, usually 10% or less in every legion, something which had been the case since the earliest days of the Republic. The Romans in that period relied upon auxiliary cavalry, so the claim that the Sarmatians provided mounted auxiliaries is entirely plausible.)

You are wrong about one thing, though, in regard to that rather silly motion picture. Arthur is not portrayed as a Sarmatian, but rather as a Roman citizen of Britannia who is the commander of a detachment of Sarmatians. This is in line with nearly every modern fictionalization of the life of Arthur, which has him as a "Romanized" Briton. It is important to remember that that motion picture is based on actual fiction.

There was long not much to choose between the Sarmatians and the Scythians, and ancient writers are rather careless about the distinction. Literally dozens and dozens of ancient tribes mentioned by classical authors have been ascribed to either the Sarmatians or the Scythians, and often the same tribes have been ascribed to both peoples. Modern archaeology, however, has confirmed that there are two distinct dominant cultures in the region, the Sarmatians and Scythians. What is likely is that the Scythians initially dominated the region, but that the Sarmatians eventually became ascendant, and extracted tribute from the local tribes. Whether Sarmatian or Scythian, the dominant people would have been hegemons. It is unlikely that the dozens of tribes mentioned were all various forms of either the Sarmatians or the Scythians, and ancient sources mention most of these tribes as being tributary to one or the other at various times. Roman sources, including bas-reliefs showing Sarmatians in "Persian" robes and with typical "Persian" beards, strongly suggest that the Sarmatians were dominant in that region (southern Ukraine) before the Gothic and Hunnic invasions. It is also of interest that many ancient sources independently mention female warriors among the Sarmatians, which may be the origin of the story of the Amazons. Herodotus mentions this, and subsequent writers have referred to the "woman-ruled" Sarmatians. The Indo-Iranian name for the Sarmatians--Sauromatae--means "the archers," and that conforms to the classical Greek and the Roman descriptions of them as mounted archers--something else the makers of the motion picture seem either not to have known, or decided to ignore because they thought it would be dramatic to make them mounted "knights."

The motion picture was entertaining, especially with Keira Knightley in scanty battle dress, but it has about as much truth in it as a politician's campaign speech.

Ok, I stand corrected about Arthur being a romanized briton. I must have confused him with the boy in the beginning who was Lancelot and had to enrol in the roman army for 15 years.

As far as Kiera Knightley ... I suppose someone had to play the part of Guinevere ...

Also, thanks Setanta for giving me the location of Sarmatia and the link with the Scythians.

But did King Arthur really exist? I've been told that legends are created from facts and embellished each time the story of any individual is told.

I have no comment on whether or not "legends are created from facts and embellished . . ."

No one can say to a certainty if such an Arthur ever existed. The closest basis upon which to allege it in the way of evidence is that there is a period of about 200 years during which naming one's first son Arthur was quite popular, roughly corresponding to the times alleged for Arthur. That's pretty thin stuff upon which to base one's claim, and no basis at all for any of the details people like to attach to the legend. It does suggest that someone named Arthur lived around the requisite time period, and was important to a lot of people.

It hardly matters, though, what was or wasn't true. What really matters is that so many people chose to believe it. Gildas, writing within a generation of when Arthur is alleged to have lived, mentions the battle of Mount Badon. This, by inference, is taken as evidence for Arthur. But Gildas doesn't mention him, and the "kings" of the Britons he does mention he castigates as tyrants. There are versions of Gildas which actually mention Arthur, but they are from the 16th century or later, and a thousand years is a long time to go before one finds a copy of a work which mentions someone or something.

A monk called Nennius was supposed to have written about Arthur a few centuries after he lived, and the most lurid versions are described as "Arthur's twelve battles." Once again, we have the problem that the earliest copy is from the 12th century, almost 400 years after Nennius is reputed to have lived. A lot can happen to a manuscript in 400 years. Some people claim that the surviving manuscript versions of both Gildas and Nennius lend credence to their contents--but that ignores that popular tales are likely to be copied again and again. It is entirely possible that all versions of Gildas and Nennius which mention Arthur are copied from only one version of each was was copied, recopied, "pirated," recreated from memory, etc.--the standard ways that popular stories get passed down. Even the 12th century version of Nennius inferentially undermines its own authenticity, because it acknowledges that it is from a 9th century source, while stating that Nennius died late in the 8th century.

We don't get the entire Arthur "story" until we get to Geoffrey of Monmouth writing in the 12th century. He supplies us with the names of Uther Pendragon, Merlin, Gorlois, Igerna (rendered as Igraine by the French sources, Igraine she becomes in English versions after the 13th century), Kay, Gawain, Bedevere and Mordred--although all of their names are "Latinized." From Geoffrey of Monmouth onward, there is no source which can said to be reliably based on an earlier, authoritative source. The French thought enough to the Arthurian legends that they wrote many, many lais (a lai is a sort of chanted song by which traveling minstrels would recite a popular story) about Arthur and the characters in the legends. A problem with this is they make up stories, such as the story about Lancelot, which are later incorporated into popular versions of the Arthurian cycle, such as Le Morte d'Arthur, by Thomas Mallory. Scholars cannot even agree upon which Thomas Mallory in the 15th century wrote the work, as there are several possible candidates of that name from the period.

There was also a document from the 10th century, the Annales Cambriae, which purports to relate historical events in Wales (as the title suggests) as well as surrounding "countries." This document mentions Arthur twice, once in a line which also mentions Mordred, but is ambiguous in that it doesn't say if Arthur and Modred were allies or enemies. It also mentions someone who might be construed as Merlin--but that is almost 60 years later than the battle of Mount Badon. It used to be considered a prime source for Arthur, the argument running that since everyone else mentioned in the Annales was real, Arthur must have been real, too. The big problem with that is that Annales is the sole source for many of the people it mentions, so it's a pretty thin argument that they are real, let alone that they are real and therefore Arthur must have been real. None of the versions of the Annales (there are four, and no two are identical) date from any earlier than the 13th century.

My personal opinion is that, on balance, the evidence suggest that someone named Arthur must have been been important to people in Britain in the 6th century. But that's about all one can say with much confidence. As for Uther Pendragon, Merlin, Gorlois, Igerna and Mordred, that's speculation, and Geoffrey of Monmouth who retails those tales was a notorious liar (he claims with a straight face that someone named Brutus founded Britain as a refugee from the Trojan War!) Even the Welsh sources upon which Geoffrey dubiously claims to base his account don't support most of what he says--as an example, no Welsh versions earlier than the 16th century (a hundred years after Mallory's Death of Arthur was first printed) make Mordred out to be an enemy of Arthur.

So, there's too much confusion and contradiction to do anything more than to say that such a person as Arthur probably existed--and that's it.

Wow !! Goodness me !! Phew !! Now this is historical legend telling at its best. Thanks ever so much Setanta for the detailed information supplied. I guess you are a history or English teacher because you have a way with words and sentences that makes one want to read more and more of your work and makes one want to dig through libraries and hitorical archives to find more and more information.

I wonder if you'd be good hearted enough to tell me more about ... Robin Hood, King Richard the Lion-Hearted ... Please ?

Yours faithfully and ever so curious,
Manilla

Manilla, most of us on a2k think of Setanta as brilliant on history for good reason. He is presently enraged at me, or so it seems, but that doesn't erase that most of us respect him about history.

Trust me, you could spend hours looking up Set's history posts and learn a great deal. He has read widely and well and remembers it and puts information into context, not an easy move. You can check his posts out by looking at the google white spot in the upper right under his name, or typing in History.

First, ignore Osso--i'm not "enraged" at her, she's not that important. While it is gratifying to have flattery of that kind, i don't myself suggest that i am an oracle. If challenged, i could provide sources for what i write--i usually don't, however, unless a dispute arises.

Robin Hood is created almost entirely out of whole cloth. There is a grave site for someone alleged to have been Robin Hood, but the dates are wrong for a contemporary of King Richard (who died in 1199). The Robin Hood story as the modern world knows it is almost entirely taken from the Walter Scott story embodied in the novel Ivanhoe, in which Friar Tuck is at least as important a character as Robin Hood. There are several problems with the Robin Hood story. The first is that Anglo-Saxons did not commonly use missile weapons. They did not commonly use throwing spears or javelins, and they did not commonly use the bow and arrow. The Beauvais archers who accompanied William the Bastard of Normandy in the invasion of England had expected to replenish their arrows by picking up from the ground arrows fired at them by the enemy, a common practice on battlefields of the middle ages. They were disappointed in that, though, because King Harold's army did not include any archers.

Then there is the problem of the portrayal of John Lackland, who was Richard's younger brother and who eventually became King John. When Richard went on crusade, although he dearly loved his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, he did not trust her as his father, Henry II, had done--so he left the Bishop of Ely to run his kingdom in his absense (Richard came to the throne in 1189, and almost immediately left the kingdom to go on crusade--he left in 1190). Longchamp, the Bishop of Ely, was almost universally despised, and when John came to London to "liberate" the people from the Bishop's "mismanagement" of the government, he was popularly acclaimed. The picture which Walter Scott paints of him in Ivanhoe is great for dramatic effect, but has little basis in reality.

Richard spent about two years or less in England in the ten years he was king. He was on crusade from 1190 to 1194, and on his way back from the Holy Land, he was captured by an Austrian Duke and held for ransom by the Holy Roman Emperor. The heavy taxation under which England allegedly groaned (according to Walter Scott) was needed to support Richard's crusade and then to ransom him from the HRE. So in fact, in those early days, John was popular and Richard was not. When Richard finally got back to England, he spent a few months there gathering up troops and squeezing every penny out the people that he could, and then ran off to France to fight for the land his father had claimed there, and was eventually killed in France while campaigning there.

Richard was not the oldest son, he was the third son, but his older brothers Henry and William died before their father died. So Richard succeeded Henry II as King. But John was the youngest brother, and between Richard and John there was another brother, Geoffrey, who had been Duke of Brittany. In that capacity, he had proven to be no friend of either his father or of Richard, but the concept of descent in the right line meant that he would succeed Richard if Richard died without issue (no children), or that his son would. Well, Richard was a homosexual, and unlike most homosexual kings in history, he didn't make the slightest effort to get it up and make a woman pregnant (he was married, to a woman from Navarre which straddles the northern border of Spain and France--but "Spain" did not actually exist at that time--and i don't remember her name, or consider it important). So when Richard died, the son of his brother Geoffrey, Arthur of Brittany (born after his father died) should have succeeded Richard on the throne.

Well, while Richard was being held for ransom, John snapped up all the land he c0uld (he was called Lackland because as the youngest son of a father with more than half a dozen children, he couldn't expect to inherit much), and he plotted to keep Richard in the HRE's prison--he and the King of France paid the HRE to keep him there--and he plotted to exclude Arthur of Brittany from the succession. Those were the earliest hints that John might be the most stable of monarchs. John had been spoiled by his father, who seemed to love him best, but Henry II had no illusions about John, and warned his courtiers about him before he, Henry, died.

So although John was somewhat popular while Richard was King, by the time Richard died, people in England had their doubts about him, and before very long, while John was King, most people in England had come to mistrust him, if not actually to despise him. But that was well after the events Walter Scott depicts in Ivanhoe.

So, there might have been a character like Robin Hood, but there is absolutely no historical support for such a claim. The earliest certain accounts are popular ballads which were sung in the 15th century, when England was convulsed with the Wars of the Roses, and when printing presses were just being set up which could run off copies of ballads to sell in the street. Thereafter, Robin Hood was a popular figure among the commons whenever they felt oppressed by "over-mighty Lords" or by the crown. When Walter Scott created the Robin Hood character in his novel, he was just using an already popular figure of legend in England. There is no reason at all to assume that anything about the Robin Hood character as described in Ivanhoe has any basis in fact.

Here's a short course in the history of the Kings of England in the middle ages. William the Bastard of Normandy became William the Conqueror, and made himself King of England. To his oldest son Robert he gave extensive lands in France, especially Normandy, which he expected Robert to hold in his name. He gave England to his son William Rufus (William "the Red"), as England was not considered that important among Normans, who considered France the center of their world. William Rufus was murdered, and a Frenchman visiting England at the time was framed for the murder. (English forensic investigators in the 1930s were unable to say who had killed William Rufus, but they were able to prove that the Frenchman who was accused, convicted and executed could not possibly have done the deed.)

So, a succession dispute arose immediately. Many people thought Robert should have inherited, including, of course, Robert. But when William Rufus was murdered in 1100, his younger brother Henry showed up right away (suspiciously quickly) and claimed the throne. Robert was fighting to keep Normandy at the time, and was really in no position to attempt an invasion of England. The son of Henry I died when the White Ship was lost in a storm, and many people at the time thought the circumstances suspicious, because Henry's son William was visiting Normandy, still under the control of his hostile uncle Robert. Within 20 years of Henry taking the English throne, his sons were dead. Henry ruled for 20 more years, and when he died England suffered what was then known as "the Anarcy," until Stephen of Blois took the throne. Stephen's mother was a daughter of William the Conqueror, so Stephen's claim was based on that.

But Henry had left a daughter, Matilda, who had married the Holy Roman Emperor. When he died, they had no children, and Matilda married Geoffrey of Anjou. When her father Henry I died, Matilda, usually known as Maud the Empress (because she had once been married to the Holy Roman Emperor) claimed the throne, but Stephen got there first, and Stephen was a warrior king, who loved going to war so much he usually endangered the kingdom. Maud the Empress and Stephen (whose wife was named Matilda, just to add to the confusion) fought a civil war over England and in England for a dozen years. Eventually, they reached a settlement, and Stephen agreed that Matilda's son Henry (her son by the Duke of Anjou) would succeed Stephen, rather than Stephen's son William (his oldest son had already died).

Well, Matilda's son Henry was just about the most capable man who ever sat the English throne. At that time, most of the western part of France was under the control of the Dukes of Aquitaine. The old Duke had died many years earlier, though, and had made a point of leaving his entire estate to his daughter, Eleanor. The King of France hurried to name himself guardian of Eleanor (even though no one asked him to do it), and he took the 15-year-old Eleanor into his court, and betrothed her to his son, the Dauphin. (They were all named Louis, so don't ask.) Eleanor married Louis, went on crusade with him, grew bored with him, and eventually got the marriage annulled. Eleanor and Louis had required a papal dispensation to get married because of consanguinity--they were cousins, and related by blood--which had been granted, and now that they no longer wished to be married, the Pope obliging annulled the marriage on the same basis, consanguinity. Not long after, Eleanor, aged 31, married Henry of Anjou, aged 19, and it required another papal dispensation on the grounds of consanguinity, because Eleanor and Henry were cousins and even more closely related than Eleanor and Henry had been.

So, that meant when Henry II became King of England, he also ruled or claimed the right to rule about half of France. Louis claimed that since he had married Eleanor, he could claim her inheritance. Henry claimed that since he was now married to Eleanor, her inheritance came with her, and he could claim it. This was to lead to no end of strife between France and England, and it was also to destabilize both countries.

Henry and Eleanor got busy, and produced five sons and (i think) three daughters. Henry spent a lot of time out of England, fighting in France to maintain his claim to Anjou, Poitu and Normandy, and his claim to Eleanor's inheritance. While he was gone, Eleanor usually ruled in his stead, but they used to have wonderful fights, and he imprisoned her on several occasions. He also would set her free, because the truth was that there was really no one better to rule the country in his absence. The problem was that Eleanor would play favorites between their children, and Richard was her favorite son. This caused problems because Henry was attempting to set up a succession which would avoid the problems which Henry I and Stephen of Blois had had--and he failed. His favorite son was the youngest, John.

So, Henry spent a lot of time fighting in France, and so did his son Richard. After Richard died, and John seized the throne, he then, very unwisely, decided that he would fight in France, too, to maintain or recover his mother's inheritance. It was unwise because of the expense, and because, militarily speaking, John couldn't find his ass with both hands and printed instructions. This turned the suspicions about John into outright hostility, and the wealthy and powerful men of London withdrew their support, and many members of the baronage (the "over-mighty Lords") rebelled against him. That was the origin of Magna Carta, which John was forced to sign in 1215. The following year, John died, leaving his nine-year-old son Henry to an unstable throne. Several things happened at once. One was the decisive one--Guillaume le Maréchal (William Marshall in English) was named Lord Protector. Guillaume had started life as a man-at-arms for Eleanor of Aquitaine, and was one of the greatest athletes of his age. He was considered the finest knight then going, and there is documentary evidence that he won more than 500 passages at arms with other knights during tournaments. He had proven loyal to Eleanor, sharing her imprisonment when the French locked her up, or when her husband Henry II locked her up. Therefore, he decided to remain loyal to her son John. So when John died, William undertook to defend the inheritance of his son Henry III. He was 70 years old at the time. He did successfully defend Henry's birthright, and died himself in 1219.

The other two things that happened were that the barons rose in revolt again (uselessly, as it proved, William Marshall at 70 was more than a match for them), and, the Dauphin (remember, they're all called Louis) decided to claim that he was the King of England. So, in 1216, the Dauphin landed at Dover, and laid siege to Dover Castle, and attempted to send troops and supplies to London to support the rebels.

Between Dover and London lies the county of Kent, which was then covered by a vast forest known as the Weald of Kent. For the French to get men and supplies to the rebels at London, they had to march them through this great forest. A man of some influence in Kent was William of Kensham, and he was loyal to Henry III and William Marshall. So he began to harass the French columns as they marched through the forest. When they took a wagon train, he would hand out a lot of the plunder to the local people, which made him and his cause more popular, and gained him recruits. Being a Norman rather than an Anglo-Saxon, it was normal for him to use archers. So, he became known as Williken of the Weald, and the entire story of an "outlaw" in the woods, who robs the forces of the evil Prince (in this case, the Dauphin, Louis--remember, they're all named Louis) and gives the proceeds to "the poor" comes from Williken of the Weald.

The greatest likelihood is that the story of Williken of the Weald, who was soon after forgotten, was taken over for the Robin Hood story. William of Kensham was no fool. He didn't give plunder away to the first poor woodcutter he found. He gave it to substantial local men whose support would mean something, and who could help him recruit. But these things tend to get glamorized.

For a real, historical figure on which Robin Hood was based, i vote for Williken of the Weald.

I venture to suggest that the (latinised ) name of Sarmatia can be linked to the group of people known to us today as Same, or Lapps. They pronounce this as 'Sarmer'. In turn they are related to the Samoyed people further east. These peoples today occupy the north of Europe between the Atlantic and the Urals, and only the Finns relatively recently became a national state, which they call Suomi, and the their cousins the Estonians even more recently: NB the second word of their national anthem: Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm (English: 'My Fatherland, My Happiness and Joy'). All others live as minorities in Norway, Sweden and the Russian Federation, although some groups in the latter such as Mordovans, Mari and Komi have theoretical autonomy in their ethnic republics. Typically these peoples, as marginal reindeer nomads, have been continually pushed further to the north by pastoralists during historical times. I recommend Wikipedia's entry on Sarmatia, where you can read: 'Around the year 100 BC, Sarmatian land ranged from the Barents Sea or Baltic Sea ('Oceanus Sarmaticus') to a tributary of the Vistula River, to the Carpathian Mountains, to the mouth of the Danube, then eastward along the northern coast of the Black Sea, across the Caucasus to the Caspian Sea and north along the Volga up to the polar circle.' It should be remembered that it is unwise to link ethnicity and language, due to cultural and political subjugation/domination. This often leads to the people of a modern nation or state mis-identifying themselves due to historical forces, such as the people of Turkey who think of themselves as ethnically turkic, whereas they are overwhelmingly mediterranean. As with the Normans in Britain, the Turkic warriors who invaded Asia Minor introduced a tiny genetic component into the existing population. So I surmise that as the Sarmatian refugees were graduallypushed north they adopted the Finnic languages of their northern neighbours, who in turn adopted the names of the culturally more advanced new arrivals.

I see absolutely no good reason to believe any of that.

Ok. Thanks to all who have put in this discussion all their worth. I've got lots to print and read at leisure. I'm going to have to do my own research in the location of Sarmatia. But, with my only reference to this lost land being a film, I remember Sarmation being north of Eastern Europe, much like I've just been told.

Also, greatest thanks to all to "urge and encourage" me to write other stuff than that found in penfriends letters. It's great to be able to practise written English which is what I consider to be my mother tongue. But, being Belgian born, it's considered here to be a "second" language. Some employers have said that I'm anglophile. And that's a good thing for me and I'm thoroughly proud of it. Thank you.

Berengaria of Navarre was the name of King Richard's long suffering wife

I can't think she suffered overmuch, given that Richard has so little to do with her.

As Set has already mentioned, the earliest semi-historical record of Arthur that we have is by one Nennius, writing a couple of hundred years later. The interesting thing is that Nennius never refers to Arthur as 'king' (rex in Latin, the language in which Nennius was writing.) Instead he calls Arthur throughout his narrative dux bellorum which can be translated into English as 'war lord' or 'leader in battle.' If such a person as Arthur actually existed, he would have been a crude Celtic warrior, probably driving a chariot rather than riding horseback in armor.

It has been suggested that the name 'Arthur' might be a nickname; it roughly corresponds to the Welsh word for 'bear.' Some historians have tried to conflate this semi-mythic Arthur with a Romano-Briton mentioned by the Venerable Bede in his History of the Anglo-Saxon People, written even later than Nenius' account. Bede speaks of a British leader named Ambrosius, a chieftain of mixed Roman/Briton heritage who fought the invading Anglo-Saxons tooth and nail in the 5th century c.e. Could it be that 'Arthur' was just a nickname for 'Ambrosius'? Anything is possible but chances are we wil never know.

At any rate, the whole Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot story is pure mythology with no hstorical basis whatsoever. So is the Round Table, the knights thereof and the rest of that Medieval bullshit. Some of the Arthurian stories are clearly traceable to myths of other peoples, including Greek folk-tales.

It has been suggested recently, based on very early accounts, that if there were an Arthur, he was a pagan, and that this would account for the short shrift he gets from monastic sources. Let see if i can find the note i made.

OK, here we go. My note directs me to a novel of Bernard Cornwell, with reference to having found some confirmaton online. Unfortunately, i did not give the name of any site online, or the search criterion i used--i'm not going to attempt to duplicate the search.

Cornwell is a very successful author of "buckets of blood" historical novels. At the end of each of his novels, he includes an historical note. I've checked quite a few of them, and they stand up to scrutiny. The second novel of Cornwell's Arthurian tiology, Enemy of God, has this (my comments in brackets):



One can take that as one will. However it is stronger evidence for the historical existence of Arthur than anything i've previously seen. Perhaps, on a day when i'm less lazy, i'll look up those other sources again.

My own thinking on this is that there's really insufficient evidence as to whether Arthur was Christian or Pagan. Those anecdotes served up by Cornwell (whom I respect greatly as an author of historical fiction) are just that -- unsubstantiated anecdotes, probably spread later by the Anglo-Saxons who, at the time of their invasion, were certainly not Christians themselves. Looking at the Briton society at the time of the Roman withdrawal from the island, it is evident that almost all the Roman Legions had become Christians by then. This being so, it's quite likely that the upper echelons of Briton society were also mostly Christian, at least nominally. And, particularly, if the half-mythic Arthur can be conflated with the mostly credible Ambrosius, then Arthur was very likely an early Christian, fighting in opposition to the invading pagan Ango-Saxons. Later anecdotes about his uncouth behavior were no doubt widespread and promulgated mostly by his former enemies, the Anglo-Saxons who by then had become baptized into Christianity themselves.

Btw, if you haven't read them yet, I highly recommend Cornwell's trilogy set during the waning years of 100 Yrs. War. Can't remember a single title definitely (Heretic. I believe, was one, maybe Harlequin another). Some of the most realistic descriptions of Medieval mayhem I've ever come across.

Harlequin, Vagabond and Heretic--yes, i've read them.

I cannot at all agree with what you've written. The legions were first withdrawn from northern and western Britain in the fourth century, when christianity had only very recently been adopted as the "state religion" (not at all an established church as we know one) in the East, in Constantinople. The west of Britain was the critical scene of action. I suspect the legionaries were largely devotees of Mithras, and it is well attested that they considered christianity a religion of women and slaves.

There was also little reason for Saxon monks (and christiaity was only widely accepted by Anglo-Saxons in the eighth century, almost 400 years after Arthur would have lived) to have inserted interpolations in the lives of "saints" of the Celtic or Insular Church, simply because they didn't recognize them. For that reason, if no other, i can't agree with your speculation.

By the way, if you liked the Grail quest series of novels, i recommend one of his newest novels, Azincourt--and no, i didn't mispell the title.