For the record, it is important to state out front that N.J.
Higham (in his ‘King Arthur: Myth-Making and History’, London and New York:
Routledge, 2002) does not discount the possibility of a historical
Arthur. Unfortunately, he does ultimately settle for the Roman-period
Lucius Artorius Castus as the ultimate derivation of the hero – and this
despite his awareness (pp. 76-77) of “a group of Arthur names within the
secular elite in the late sixth century”.
Higham does address the argument of several scholars “that
this apparent rash of Arthurs requires, or at least implies, that an Arthur
figure of renown had recently caught the attention of these several families in
western Britain.” And he does astutely acknowledge that “this upsurge in
Arthur-naming seems to be exclusive to Irish or Irish-connected families.”
But he then makes some grave errors in reasoning.
He concludes that this naming occurred because the Irish in
Britain desired “to capture whatever mythological kudos and religious potency
already surrounded the name”, while British/Welsh families avoided “its use
primarily because of its newly acquired mythological connections, which might
have been considered un-Christian.”
It apparently does not occur to Higham that the famous
Arthur of the 6th century may not have been a resident of Wales (or
the Southwest of England); in fact, all my research indicates he is to be set
on the western half of Hadrian’s Wall. Nor does he allow for the
possibility that the famous Arthur may himself have been half British and half
Irish, something that would immediately have endeared him to the Irish
newcomers, and not necessarily to the native royal families. Finally, and
most importantly, as we know the Dalriadan Aedan son of Gabran was a supporter
of St. Columba (he actually crowned the king!), and Aedan’s son (or grandson)
bore the name Arthur, it is absurd to suggest that Arthur was chosen because it
had un-Christian connotations.
On p. 97 of his book, Higham states that “The most plausible
conclusion is, therefore, that the historical Arthur of the central Middle Ages
has his roots in a Roman Artorius who had been taken up and developed within
British folk stories already widespread by the beginning of the ninth century.”
He does not elaborate on why this Roman Artorius should have become so
famous. Nor can he demonstrate the process through which a third century
prefect of York “was adopted into overtly political, ‘historical’ texts in
order to provide a prototype of the successful British warrior…”.
The outright invention of a ‘Savior’ hero is not a task
undertaken lightly. To begin with, an author of such a forgery would
surely have to contend with contemporary opinion. Furthermore, the gap between
Lucius Artorius Castus and an Arthur whose dates are firmly situated in the 6th
century is immense. If you are going to concoct of military hero as the
primary opponent of the Germanic invaders who were post-Vortigern in date, why
on earth would you choose someone FROM THE SECOND OR THIRD CENTURY? That would
require a major temporal shift, and is not something any learned men of time
would have tolerated.
Higham compounds his difficulties when he claims (p. 272)
that “In the late 820s… this warrior/hero-type Arthur-figure was adopted into
his Latin text by a Welsh cleric writing in Gwynedd… this author transplanted
Arthur as a martial exemplar into an historically organized, political polemic
which he was sketching out for very specific and immediate ideological purposes
at (or at least for) the court of Merfyn Frych…. Arthur was used therein
symbolically to serve as a British Joshua figure and constructed as the second
half of a pairing of virtuous Britons, alongside St. Patrick. So Patrick
was presented as a British type of the Old Testament Moses and Arthur as his
younger contemporary and successor as leader, the dux bellum Joshua.”
On the surface this seems like good theory. However,
there are a couple of inherent problems with it. I have shown in my book
THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY that both Arthur and Patrick MAY WELL ORIGINATE IN THE
SAME PLACE, viz. Birdoswald on Hadrian’s Wall. If Arthur’s main power
center was not Birdoswald, it may well have been Stanwix further west on the
Wall. In either case, these two men of renown heralded from the same
region. This alone would be reason enough to associate them – were
it not for the fact that both appear to have excelled in their respective
sphere of expertise.
But, truth is, the parallel between Moses and Joshua and St.
Patrick and Arthur that Higham appears to see in Nennius’s text does not
exist! St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland. Arthur brought
military success to Britain. For there to be a Moses-Joshua parallel,
Arthur would have had to bring military success to Ireland – or Patrick to
Britain. If a British Moses were to have been chosen, the St. Germanus
who occupies much of Nennius’s text would have been the logical choice.
One of the concluding statements made by Higham (p. 273)
also desperately needs to be addressed. He announces that “Nor does the
Annales Cambriae provide original information on Arthur of any obvious
historical merit.” Could any pronouncement be any more wrong? For
it is the Welsh Annals dates ALONE which give us a very firm fix on Arthur’s
date. And it is the Welsh Annals that gives us our first reference to the
fatal battle of Camlann (the Camboglanna Roman fort on the west end of
Hadrian’s Wall) and to the name Medraut (the later Mordred of romance).
I’ve elsewhere shown (and have had Oliver Padel agree with me!) that Medraut is
actually a Welsh form of Cornish Modred, itself from the Roman name
Moderatus. If we did not have these dates and names in these
earliest texts, we would have to depend on a source like that of Geoffrey of
Monmouth of the 12th century.
All in all, I find Higham’s book to be a rather weak
contribution to the field of Arthurian Studies. It does succeed in
further defining the “Arthur Problem”, but fails to do anything other than
offer as a sort of consolation prize for those seeking a historical Arthur a
third century Roman whose characteristics do not in any sense qualify for
the hero of 6th century Britain.
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