King Arthur , also called Arthur or Arthur Pendragon , legendary British king who appears in a cycle of medieval romances known as the Matter of Britain as the sovereign of a knightly fellowship of the Round Table. It is not certain how these legends originated or whether the figure of Arthur was based on a historical person. The legend possibly originated either in Wales or in those parts of northern Britain inhabited by Brythonic -speaking Celts. For a fuller treatment of the stories about King Arthur, see also Arthurian legend.
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But was King Arthur actually a real person, or simply a hero of Celtic mythology? Though debate has gone on for centuries, historians have been unable to confirm that Arthur really existed. Several hundred years later, Arthur appears for the first time in the writings of a Welsh historian named Nennius, who gave a list of 12 battles the warrior king supposedly fought. All drawn from Welsh poetry, the battles took place in so many different times and places that it would have been impossible for one man to have participated in all of them. An irresistible blend of myth and fact, the book was supposedly based on a lost Celtic manuscript that only Geoffrey was able to examine. Though Arthur may not have been a real person, his mythic power would only grow stronger as the centuries passed. English rulers from Henry VIII to Queen Victoria have appropriated the Arthur legend for political purposes, while countless writers, painters, photographers, filmmakers and other artists have produced their own versions for posterity.
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King Arthur Welsh : Brenin Arthur , Cornish : Arthur Gernow , Breton : Roue Arzhur was a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances , led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and modern historians generally agree that he is unhistorical. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin. Arthur is a central figure in the legends making up the Matter of Britain. The legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest largely through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth 's fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae History of the Kings of Britain. Although the themes, events and characters of the Arthurian legend varied widely from text to text, and there is no one canonical version, Geoffrey's version of events often served as the starting point for later stories.
King Arthur is a medieval, mythological figure who was the head of the kingdom Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table. It is not known if there was a real Arthur, though it is believed he may have been a Roman-affiliated military leader who successfully staved off a Saxon invasion during the 5th to 6th centuries. His legend has been popularized by many writers, including Geoffrey of Monmouth. Little is known about the possible figure who inspired the story of King Arthur, a heroic monarch who has been a popular mythological and literary character for some time. In contrast, the 6th-century bard Aneirin crafted the Welsh collection of poems The Gododdin in which a heroic Arthur is spoken of. Yet with the work originally shared orally as opposed to being written down, it is impossible to ascertain if Arthur was part of the original story. Another poet, Teliesin, mentions a valiant Arthur in his work as well. There has also been another suggestion circulated that references to Arthur were actually a way of honoring via myth a Celtic bear deity with a similar name. During the s, Nennius of Wales wrote History of the Britons , which became a core Arthurian text in that it listed a dozen battles in which the warrior fought, though it would have been logistically impossible for him to have done so. Due to cultural intermingling in Europe, political influences and writers' imagination, the Arthurian story developed into a full-fledged legend and complex story, with an emphasis on a noble kingdom called Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table and the queen, Guinevere, who has an affair with the knight Lancelot.
