Even educated people are falling for pseudohistory!

Badboy,

Can you give a link for that Rennes le Chateau item ?

I think it may have been the following

Priory-of-Sion.com

I least I think it may have been.

Is Arthur pseudohistorical?

I read a history book that said he existed.

Arthur very likely did exist. There is a rash of first sons being named Arthur in the two centuries following the era in which he is said to have existed, and the Turks said that they found a warrant in Hagia Sophia for "Arturus, Dux Bellorum Britannicum" (War Duke of Britain), which is a title which the early historian of Britain, Nennius, also gave him. (Hagia Sophia--literally, Holy Wisdom--was the great church of Constantinople, which became a mosque after the conquest of the City by Mehmed, the Osmali Turk Sultan. It was a repository of records of the latter Roman Empire, and we can be grateful to the Turks for having preserved those records.)

The significance is that the legends which grew up around Arthur were based upon the social milieus of the authors who wrote about him. So, Thomas Mallory puts the entire legendary cycle in terms of the chivalric ethos of the fifteenth century.

Arthur very likely existed, and past that, almost nothing about the story is likely to be true. The story of Arthur, however, is one of the richest literary cycles in Europe--especially among the French poets of the middle ages.

As for the belief that Ramses II was the pharaoh at the time of the Jewish exodus has been a common, if minority, view for several centuries. Serious students of Egyptology, however, generally reject that contention, because the timing is wrong. More specifically, the island of Thera "blew up" (volcanic eruption) in about 1500 BCE--and many scholars (although not necessarily a majority) believe that that eruption (one of the major volcanic eruptions known to have occurred in an historical age) accounts for the pillar of fire (at night) and the pillar of smoke (in the day) mentioned in Exodus. Generally, though, it is believed that Amenhotep II was pharaoh at the time of Exodus.

There are still problems with this, though. Biblical scholars, who indulge a good deal of certitude despite the historical unreliability of the bible, contend that the Exodus took place either in about 1450 BCE, or in 1290 BCE. In fact, most biblical scholars take the "late date" version--1290 BCE. That would support the contention that the pharaoh was Ramses II. But historians without a biblical axe to grind aren't buying it, and most of them adopt the roughly 1450 BCE date. That makes a problem with the eruption of Thera (now called Santorini), though, and this is the meat and bread of students of historical minuteae. To complicate if further, there are those who claim that there were two pharaohs called Ramses II. Archaeological evidence on the destruction of Jericho contradicts the "late date" school, and Ramses, and seems to support the "early date" and Amenhotep II.

You will always have problems with historical "evidence" based on biblical accounts, because biblical scholars have a persistent habit of ignoring evidence which contradicts or even simply seems to contradict, the account in the bible, which necessarily restricts the range of materials to which they can refer. Furthermore, modern archaeology usually throws a wrench (a spanner, for our friends in Merry Old) into the works, as with the Jericho evidence. There is evidence of the destruction of the city of Jericho (one of the oldest, and possibly the oldest city in the world) in the mid- to late-fifteenth century BCE, which would correspond to an Exodus circa 1450 BCE, in the reign of the Pharaoh Amenhotep II.

Only a book I was reading claimed Arthur was the commander of Ambrosius Aurelius's army(Is there actual proof of this,because I read in another book,who don't seemed to have checked their facts,that Arthur was mentioned by ST GILDAS, I don't think that is true either.)

I've not read Gildas, but i have read Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth (whose work verly likely relied heavily on Nennius), and they both mention Arthur--minus all the elaborate trappings of the literary cycle.

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH WORK is actually pseudohistorical,we are told Vortigern married his own daughter,fathering a child by her.

Does this sound true?

I cannot say if it were true--but is it plausible? Certainly it is. The abuse of female children and of women has been common throughout history--if you want a truly graphic example, read up on Lucretia Borgia. Her father was the Pope, and it is reported (and the probability is high the reports are correct), that she was the sexual lover of both her father and her brother. She was probably simply a horribly abused girl and young woman.

Consider, if you will, that William III of Orange married Mary Stuart, the daughter of James, Duke of York (and later James II), and that William's mother Mary Stuart was the sister of James, Duke of York. None of that was considered unusual at the time. If, in an earlier age, fathers married (or matrimonially raped) their daughters, no one should be surprised.

On the topic of Geoffrey of Monmouth, it is highly likely that all of his sources were derivative, and none of them original. It is because i read Monmouth that i learned about and then read Nennius, who is a better source, and, as applies to this thread, refers to "Arturs, Dux Bellorum Britannicum." (And even then, one runs into trouble, as it is now claimed that this Nennius may well not have written the History of Britain--at least, the manuscript upon which his authorship had been claimed has been convincingly "re-dated" to two centuries after Nennius lived; on that basis, many historians now refer to the author of the History of Britian as "pseudo-Nennius.)

Just because there are many things which we cannot know to a certainty about history does not mean that it is "pseudo-history." You will only run into "pseudo-history" when you meet someone who makes a claim that they know to a certainty something for which he or she cannot provide reliable evidence. A wonderful example of where you are likely to run into such claims is the History Channel. The Learning Channel and other such television outlets are just as bad--like any such commercial enterprise, they are far more concerned with attracting an audience than in historical accuracy.

There is some doubt as to whether `Nennius' actually existed.

There does to be a tendacy to mix fact and fiction together,eg Wace's version of battle of Hasstings included his friend and family(he lived over a hundre years later)

By the way, both Gildas and Bede mention Vortigern, although the name is not certain (one manuscript refers to "Guthrigern"), and it is generally assumed that he may have actually existed, although on a strictly historiographical basis, it is necessary to always keep in mind that he may have been legendary, or that he is simply an avatar (an embodiment) of whatever tribal chieftan or chieftans first allowed Saxons to settle in the island. In fact, it is Nennius (or pseudo-Nennium, if you will) who first mentions incest on the part of Vortigern. Given the hatred which would have attached to any tribal leader who invited the Saxons in, no charges against him should surprise us, and their reliability would be highly suspect. (I just went out to check my information, by the way, and found confirmation of it at four different sources).

The Romans had a means of dealing with "barbarians." That was federation. A "barbarian" tribe would be admitted to the empire as foederati, being give one third of the land in the area in which they settled, in return for providing troops on demand. This was the means by which a great many German tribes settled in the empire. When the Goths sacked Rome in 410 CE, the Magister Militum (army commander) who opposed them was Stilicho, who was himself of German descent, from a federated tribe. Whether or not a chieftan named Vortigern actually existed, it is likely that whoever allowed the Saxons in was applying the Roman custom of federation--it simply failed of its object.

Geoffrey of Monmouth was simply repeating historical gossip with his remarks about Vortigern. The entire concept of "Kings of the Britons" is suspect--they were tribal, as we know from Caesar's time, and this remained true right up to the conquest of Wales by Edward I in 1272--when the Welsh of Powys "rebelled" agains Llewellyn ap Griffith and allied themselves to the English. When Boudicca rebelled against the Roman rule at the beginning of the current era, it was not because she was "Queen" of the Britons--she was simply the tribal leader of the Iceni.

That is why history is so frustrating for people who are not familiar with history and historiography--there is very little which can be known to a certainty, and careful historians and students of history always hedge their statements. That is not because they are dishonest, but because they are being scrupulously honest about what they know, and what they can only conjecture.

There is no doubt that he existed--the doubt centers around whether or not he wrote "The Kings of Britain."

TWO OF THE BATTLES ASCRIBED TO ARTHUR BY NENNIUS WERE MYTHICAL!

Well, i'm excited . . .

Some of the others seemed to have taken place,hundred(s) of years apart.

So what, Badboy? If there is actually any significant number of people who believe that every jot and tittle of the Arthurian legends are actually history, then that is just a sad comment on the quality of their education. It's not "pseudo-history," it's just literature.

`VORTIGERN' actually means `high king'.

His real name c. 410 AD may have been Vitalianus/Vitalus(He was the bishop of London).


On a different subject, its seems that Henry Lincoln has put two fake pictures in his latest work on RENNES-LE-CHATEAU.

Around a year and a half ago there was a show on the History channel that speculated that Arthur was Aurelius's successor.