THE KEYS TO AVALON - REVIEW!
TMMatthews99
My considered and fairly detailed review of The Keys to Avalon by Blake and
Lloyd. Your comments are more than welcome! The review itself is to be featured
in the forthcoming issue (number 2) of the UK newstand magazine Quest and
Astronomer which, for my many sins, I edit. Our circulation is around 15,000.
"Q+A REVIEWS
THE KEYS TO AVALON, THE TRUE LOCATION OF KING ARTHUR’S KINGDOM REVEALED BY
STEVE BLAKE AND SCOTT LLOYD. ELEMENT BOOKS, SHAFTESBURY, DORSET. £18.99, HB,
ISBN 1 86204 735 9.
This is a very dangerous and misleading book; it is a work of near-fiction and
disinformation and serves two primary functions:
- To distort the truth about the known and proven kingdoms of the two King
Arthurs
- To encourage tourism into Northern Wales
Only the neo-nazis of the late and unlamented Institute for Historical
Review could be proud of such a pseudo-intellectual effort. We are told that
the authors, not known for their Arthurian researches and who appear to have
come from nowhere, have devoted "years of research" to the subject and yet, in
the preface, we learn that this book is the product of a chance meeting held in
a Chester café during 1994!
Blake and Lloyd pretend to know a great deal; the slick and glossy advanced
information from their publishers, Element Books, claims that theirs is "the
first book to establish an accurate geographical location of Avalon", "the
first to challenge the academic stranglehold on Arthurian material" and that
they have referred to "original Welsh (ie,. British) textual sources, backed up
with numerous maps and genealogical charts."
If only this were true. For a start, they haven’t accurately located
anything Arthurian, theirs is not "the first book" to establish the accurate
location of the Kingdom of ‘King Arthur’ (which one?) and neither is it the
first to challenge to the "academic stranglehold" on Arthurian material. A
detailed look at their limited bibliography indicates that they are, in fact,
in the pocket of academia and vested interests - the University of Wales Press
is given as a "source publisher" on page 282. This same press, located in
Cardiff, deliberately fights the mass of historical and archaeological evidence
of an Arthurian realm on its own doorstep. (This is political; in the early
1980s powerful business interests with close links to the Thatcher government
hoped to build a massive open cast mine on the sites of the ancient Kingdoms of
Glamorgan and Gwent. Anyone arguing for south Wales became a target for
harassment - and several court case victories prove this. Luckily, the plans
fell through although the attacks had begun and continue to this day.)
Blake and Lloyd are looking for one King Arthur - even though the mythical
character would have been well over 250 years old. Despite their claims to have
used "numerous maps and genealogical charts" their references and footnotes
tell us that they have not consulted the most important texts and have failed
to provide any evidence of grave mounds, accession stones or other supporting
archaeological or historical materials for a North Wales Arthur. Why do they
ignore the dozens of Welsh texts that point to Glamorgan and Gwent as the
Arthurian dynasty’s seat of power? Even John Davies’ flawed A History of
Wales (Penguin, 1994) speaks of "the uniqueness of south-east Wales….[that]
may explain the key importance of those regions as the cradle of the Celtic
Church…" The foundation of churches is evidence of a powerful kingdom.
They misidentify Cerniw, or Kernyw as they prefer, in North Wales - when all
the evidence points to its being in South Wales. Numerous identified and
prominent southern Welsh families are found in Cerniw - with burial stones and
churches. Glastennen, or Old Bury (see Q+A issue 1 for information on the
location of "Glastonbury") is completely obscured by Blake and Lloyd, whose
vaults of illogic in their chapter "In Search of Glaestingaburgh" defy belief.
They have "Glaestingaburgh….somewhere in the area around Valle Crucis Abbey
and the town of Llangollen itself.". Somewhere? Where? If other Arthurian sites
can be visited, if stones can be touched, photographed, recovered and presented
to the public by Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett then why such vagueness from
our well-funded Northwelian ‘experts’?
There are two acid tests for the Arthurian researcher and these are 1) to
locate the site of the battle of Camlann and 2) the site of the epic battle of
Baedan. Blake and Lloyd - surprise, surprise - have the "site of Arthur’s
final battle with Medrod at Camlan…in the Rhinog Mountains in North Wales"
and Baedan (or "Breiddin" as they call it) near Welshpool!
Luckily for the truth, these sites are all easily traceable - and were 20
years ago. Ironically, the real Camlann - Mynydd Camlann/Camlann Mountain - IS
in mid-Wales - the Camlann Valley runs below it ten miles south of Dolgellau
off the A470 road. Camlann means "crooked glen" - which it is. Masses of grave
mounds - war cemeteries - are to be seen at the site clearly located on
government Ordnance Survey maps. Blake and Lloyd can visit it tomorrow -
I’ll give them directions.
The battle of Mynydd Baedan - Mons Badonicus - was fought "near the banks of
the Severn" (as they admit). This is the same Mynydd Baedan above the Maesteg
Valley just 6½ miles from the Severn shores. What is more, there are other
supporting clues in the geography and place names - place names being one of
the methods Blake and Lloyd claim to have used - directing us towards the
obvious locations. For instance, on Ordnance Survey Landranger 170 (the pink
one, guys) we find Mt. Baedan at map reference 8785, north of Baidan Farm,
Ffordd y Gyfraith and just south of Maescadlawr. Translated from Welsh (the
language which Blake and Lloyd claim to be conversant with) Maes-cad-lawr means
"Field of Battle Area" whilst Ffordd y Gyfraith means "Road to the Tumult".
There is a nearby stream called Nant y Gadlys or "Stream of the Battle Court".
The Welsh place names have not changed since the Dark Ages - and there are
numerous others of similar import in the immediate area.
Other significant landmarks are ignored and the authors completely
misconstrue the location of the Sarn Helen or "Causeways of Helen", an
interconnected series of trackways across the Welsh countryside. Sarn Helen is
also located in south-eastern Wales (see OS Landranger 170 again, ref. 8103)
but Blake and Lloyd have it connecting only Carmarthen, Chester and Caernarfon.
Other real sites in south-eastern Wales include the system of interconnecting
hillforts clearly marked on OS Maps and referred to in Artorius Rex Discovered
(1984). Not to forget Mynydd y Gaer (Fortress Mountain), or Mynwent y Milwyr
(Grave Monument of the Soldiers) which are found in this same area! No
significant Arthurian remains have been found at any of Blake and Lloyd’s
chosen locations for Arthur whereas plenty have been in south-eastern Wales and
the English Midlands where, they tell us, nothing of interest is to be found.
It is interesting to note that this particular book was printed by Ebbw Vale
Press, whose relationship with officialdom is under the microscope. Apparently,
the press receives government grants to publish books - no wonder there have
been allegations and rumours - as yet unsubstantiated - that something untoward
has taken place.
In case you don’t believe me I quote directly from a list of related books -
other Arthurian titles - from Element’s own publicity documents dated April
2000; "…none of the evidence presented in these titles stands up to
scrutiny."
Just in case you were wondering about their objectivity, Element tell us
that "Steve Blake and Scott Lloyd…work as historical consultants for the
North Wales Tourist Board". Need I say more?
Steff
promotion of it. Plastic swords in plastic stones. I shan't be buying it,
but maybe if my local library does I'll give it a whirl.
However, I can't accept an argument against it based on the views of
Blackett and Wilson. Yet another book based on research involving a Modern
Welsh dictioary and an OS map will probably find itself piled up on the
floors of those cheap reject bookshops.
Many of the points in your 'review' are more than an echo of Holy Kingdom.
What is flawed in Davies' History of Wales, and what has UWP done to deserve
your wrath?
Steffan Ellis
TMMatthews99 <tmmatt...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000609201329...@ng-fb1.aol.com...
Wales..[that]
> may explain the key importance of those regions as the cradle of the
Celtic
> Church." The foundation of churches is evidence of a powerful kingdom.
> They misidentify Cerniw, or Kernyw as they prefer, in North Wales -
when all
> the evidence points to its being in South Wales. Numerous identified and
> prominent southern Welsh families are found in Cerniw - with burial stones
and
> churches. Glastennen, or Old Bury (see Q+A issue 1 for information on the
> location of "Glastonbury") is completely obscured by Blake and Lloyd,
whose
> vaults of illogic in their chapter "In Search of Glaestingaburgh" defy
belief.
> They have "Glaestingaburgh..somewhere in the area around Valle Crucis
Abbey
> and the town of Llangollen itself.". Somewhere? Where? If other Arthurian
sites
> can be visited, if stones can be touched, photographed, recovered and
presented
> to the public by Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett then why such vagueness
from
> our well-funded Northwelian 'experts'?
> There are two acid tests for the Arthurian researcher and these are 1)
to
> locate the site of the battle of Camlann and 2) the site of the epic
battle of
> Baedan. Blake and Lloyd - surprise, surprise - have the "site of Arthur's
> final battle with Medrod at Camlan.in the Rhinog Mountains in North Wales"
> 2000; ".none of the evidence presented in these titles stands up to
> scrutiny."
> Just in case you were wondering about their objectivity, Element tell
us
> that "Steve Blake and Scott Lloyd.work as historical consultants for the
Steff
TMMatthews99 <tmmatt...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000611200009...@ng-cc1.aol.com...
> Hi there!
>
> UWP? Not sure whom you mean.
Sorry. UWP + University of Wales Press.
>
> As to modern dictionaries and OS maps they haev their place although
Wilson and
> Blackett are careful to base their work upon the ORIGINAL manuscripts.
Hmm. Without going into the merits of the 'original' manuscripts, there does
seem to be a reliance on some modern translations of placenames. They are
also quite colourful at times, as if to beef up their arguements.
Fortress for Caer, when fort is nearer the mark. Mynwent as a monument
rather than graveyard.
Others seem to be a bit more like wishful thinking or making the facts fit
the story.
I am genuinely interested in the St Peter's excavation. However, I get the
feeling that Wilson and Blackett have become so obsessed with their project,
they are grasping at straws now. The place-name thing is a symptom of this.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tim M
>
> PS - I can think for myself, Steffan!
I'm sure you can, Tim - didn't mean to infer otherwise.
Steffan
TMMatthews99
As a matter of fact I phoned Baram yesterday and got on to asking him about
translation. They stand 100% by their translations; Alan W was brough up in
Welsh-speaking West Wales and the dictionaries they use are dated 1688 and 1846
(1840 something anyway!).
Yes; the St. Peter's excavation is VITAL because, for the first time, they
found something tangible linking the site to Arthur; his stone. The results are
fully supported by Dr. Eric Talbot, formerly of Glasgow Universirt and he
supports their position on Old Bury too...
Jason Godesky
There were quite a few Arthur's who popped up after the battle of Badon. Is
everyone who was ever named Arthur a candidate for being the historical Arthur?
The reason Blackett & Wilson get academics so hot under the collar isn't because
they're getting close to the truth all the researchers are trying to hide from you
(just look at them--can I say us, with my amateur essays and such?--we argue over
everything, you think we have some kind of conspiracy going here? I hope somebody
tells me about it someday, because I don't know any, I'm feeling left out....),
it's because the theory is silly.
Most serious researchers in the period hold by one of two theories: either they
think Arthur is totally a myth made up by the Welsh, or he was a Briton, a
proto-Welshman, if you will. There was no Wales at the time in question, so being
a Welshman is right out.
As for the stone, I can show you a few others. They happen to be frauds, and I
wouldn't be surprised if B&W's is, too, but I don't want to throw around charges
like that without being sure. However, the first free-standing Celtic cross ever
by several centuries, the only one made of metal, and the sole example of the type
of writing it bears in its inscription "for the soul of Arthur," make me wonder a
little bit more. Either it was the most revolutionary thing any human had ever
made, anticipating Celtic crosses by several centuries, coming up with their own
unique style of writing just for this cross, or it's a forgery. Gee, guess which
one I'm going to guess......
The idea that someone in the fifth century fighting against invasion would be found
solely, or even mostly in SE Wales is preposterous. That there are stories later
are to be expected .... that's where the people who once followed him ended up
living. Why do people need something as foolish as Blackett & Wilson to feel good
about themselves? Wales is an incredible country, with a past as glorious as any
other country's, why resort to this to justify your country's distinction? It
needs no justification, and this just makes it look bad, frankly.
Jason Godesky
Steff
I'm not sure if I'm batting for the same team; we may be playing the same
game however.
Whether the dictionaries used are C19th or even C17th, they still, more or
less are Modern Welsh dictionaries. Place names change, get corrupted,
misunderstood and redefined through the centuries. A common trend to this
day is creating Welsh names for places where thwe original name is long
lost, or explaining something away as being a personal name. Carmarthen and
the Merlin connection is a prime example.
English place-names in Wales (especially in the south-east) are not
necessarily corruptions of Welsh/Brythonic ones. Therefore when I read in
Holy Kingdom that Lodge Hill is corrupted from Llys, I cringed more than a
little.
The same goes for the 'ancient' books and documents referred to. A book
produced 13 hundred years after the event, is not particularly more
authorative than one produced 15 hundred years afterwards.
Steffan
TMMatthews99 <tmmatt...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000613192635...@ng-fb1.aol.com...
news_surfer
Jason Godesky <jm...@trib.infi.net> wrote in message
news:3946C89B...@trib.infi.net...
>
> As for the stone, I can show you a few others. They happen to be frauds,
and I
> wouldn't be surprised if B&W's is, too, but I don't want to throw around
charges
> like that without being sure.
Please show us a few others Jason. Where on the web can we see pictures of
these stones?
Adrian Gilbert.
John Greenall
Arthur, or more importantly that the legend of king arthur is based on
Ambrosius, it is really the only sensible outcome.
You just cannon find any evidence that an Arthur fought any battles in the
6th century, and the only historical person to have been recorded as
fighting a battle mentioned in arthurian legend is ambrosius.
Arthur is a character of a name in legend, but I would suspect the legend is
probably about somebody else.
As far as him been in south wales or cornwall (even further down) isn't
really possible, ok it's possible he may have originated from there, but he
never fought any battles against the saxons there, the saxons from what I
know mainly stayed on the south east part of Britain. and some in the north
east.
There is no evidence from what I know that the saxons went to the west to
wales or cornwall, whoever arthur was he would have had to have gone to them
and fight them on there own land (or at least he fought it was HIS land) and
they where pbviosly seens as the invaders of that land.
At the end of the day there has never been any recorded name of Arthur from
the 6th century, that definetly refers to a living person, and today there
is still no evidence only fragmented slates that don't have his name on
them, but somebody elses.
The only historical person I can beleive is Ambrosius who did fight at badon
hill, because gyldas does mention him, so he is historical.
I may be puttng my foot in my mouth here, but I belive that Ambrosius was
Arthur, or he is until there is some strong evidence regarding the existence
of an historical person, named Arthur, to wich there is none.
Im'e not saying arthur didn't exist as such, i do belive in the underlying
story of the legend, but the names may have changed over many hundreds of
years, but the underlying story may be OK, and may have some historical
truth in it after all.
At the end it there is verry little differnece between Ambrosius and Arthur,
they where both Celtic Romano warlords that where fighting against the
saxons. (and probably many others).
John.
"Jason Godesky" <jm...@trib.infi.net> wrote in message
news:3946C89B...@trib.infi.net...
> > Thai's OK and we're all batting for the same team!
> >
> > As a matter of fact I phoned Baram yesterday and got on to asking him
about
> > translation. They stand 100% by their translations; Alan W was brough up
in
> > Welsh-speaking West Wales and the dictionaries they use are dated 1688
and 1846
> > (1840 something anyway!).
> >
> > Yes; the St. Peter's excavation is VITAL because, for the first time,
they
> > found something tangible linking the site to Arthur; his stone. The
results are
> > fully supported by Dr. Eric Talbot, formerly of Glasgow Universirt and
he
> > supports their position on Old Bury too...
>
> There were quite a few Arthur's who popped up after the battle of Badon.
Is
> everyone who was ever named Arthur a candidate for being the historical
Arthur?
>
> The reason Blackett & Wilson get academics so hot under the collar isn't
because
> they're getting close to the truth all the researchers are trying to hide
from you
> (just look at them--can I say us, with my amateur essays and such?--we
argue over
> everything, you think we have some kind of conspiracy going here? I hope
somebody
> tells me about it someday, because I don't know any, I'm feeling left
out....),
> it's because the theory is silly.
>
> Most serious researchers in the period hold by one of two theories: either
they
> think Arthur is totally a myth made up by the Welsh, or he was a Briton, a
> proto-Welshman, if you will. There was no Wales at the time in question,
so being
> a Welshman is right out.
>
> As for the stone, I can show you a few others. They happen to be frauds,
and I
> wouldn't be surprised if B&W's is, too, but I don't want to throw around
charges
Steff
John Greenall <Jo...@greenall1215.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:8iqq8u$bsr$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Historical Arthur?, I personaly think that Ambrosius was the historical
> Arthur, or more importantly that the legend of king arthur is based on
> Ambrosius, it is really the only sensible outcome.
Possibly, but then all the candidates put forward by various authors have
different names. The 'folk memory' idea could be applied to them all.
>
> You just cannon find any evidence that an Arthur fought any battles in the
> 6th century, and the only historical person to have been recorded as
> fighting a battle mentioned in arthurian legend is ambrosius.
That doesn't mean that someone called Arthur *didn't* fight any battles. Our
knowledge of the period is so scant we can't have evidence of them all,
surely.
>
> Arthur is a character of a name in legend, but I would suspect the legend
is
> probably about somebody else.
>
> As far as him been in south wales or cornwall (even further down) isn't
> really possible, ok it's possible he may have originated from there, but
he
> never fought any battles against the saxons there, the saxons from what I
> know mainly stayed on the south east part of Britain. and some in the
north
> east.
>
> There is no evidence from what I know that the saxons went to the west to
> wales or cornwall, whoever arthur was he would have had to have gone to
them
> and fight them on there own land (or at least he fought it was HIS land)
and
> they where pbviosly seens as the invaders of that land.
On the other hand, who says that he fought the Saxons? If Blackett and
Wilsons theory about Badon being Baedan in Glamorgan, it could have been
between the Britons and Irish.
robert...@dial.pipex.com
"Steff" <tym...@lineone.net> wrote:
> >
> > You just cannon find any evidence that an Arthur fought any battles
in the
> > 6th century, and the only historical person to have been recorded as
> > fighting a battle mentioned in arthurian legend is ambrosius.
>
> That doesn't mean that someone called Arthur *didn't* fight any
battles. Our
> knowledge of the period is so scant we can't have evidence of them
all,
> surely.
True, but then John wasn't actually correct in saying that none of the
other battles can be identified with historical personages - Chester
could well be taken from Urien of Rheged, and other similar
identifications have been made. One of the battles even looks as if it
is genuinely Arthurian in origin - only problem is that the Battle in
the Caledonian Wood also looks as if it is purely legendary. Mind you,
all of this is thoroughly disputable - and the evidence isn't good
enough to come to a conclusion. Even the identification of Ambrosius
with Badon is solely because in the absence of all other evidence the
way Gildas phrases it makes Ambrosius marginally the most likely name
for the victor.
> > wales or cornwall, whoever arthur was he would have had to have
gone to
> them
> > and fight them on there own land (or at least he fought it was HIS
land)
> and
> > they where pbviosly seens as the invaders of that land.
>
> On the other hand, who says that he fought the Saxons? If Blackett and
> Wilsons theory about Badon being Baedan in Glamorgan, it could have
been
> between the Britons and Irish.
The HB, the source from which all versions of a historical Arthur are
taken, strongly implies that Arthur primarily fought against the
Saxons, and Gildas states that Badon was the last but not the least
slaughter of those same Saxons. Ignore both of these, and one is
rather left wondering what basis there is for even speculating about a
historical Arthur.
Rob
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Steff
<robert...@dial.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:8it496$1ef$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <Oum45.6604$_55.1...@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com>,
> "Steff" <tym...@lineone.net> wrote:
>
> True, but then John wasn't actually correct in saying that none of the
> other battles can be identified with historical personages - Chester
> could well be taken from Urien of Rheged, and other similar
> identifications have been made. One of the battles even looks as if it
> is genuinely Arthurian in origin - only problem is that the Battle in
> the Caledonian Wood also looks as if it is purely legendary. Mind you,
> all of this is thoroughly disputable - and the evidence isn't good
> enough to come to a conclusion. Even the identification of Ambrosius
> with Badon is solely because in the absence of all other evidence the
> way Gildas phrases it makes Ambrosius marginally the most likely name
> for the victor.
There's even some doubt (I forget by whom) as to whether or not Rheged even
existed.
> <SNIP>
> The HB, the source from which all versions of a historical Arthur are
> taken, strongly implies that Arthur primarily fought against the
> Saxons, and Gildas states that Badon was the last but not the least
> slaughter of those same Saxons. Ignore both of these, and one is
> rather left wondering what basis there is for even speculating about a
> historical Arthur.
>
> Rob
>
I know. So many of these books start with the question 'who was the real
Arthur?', they seem to ignore 'was there a real Arthur?'. To be honest, the
more I read, the less convinced I am that there was anyone of this name.
The idea that Arthur was a title rather than a personal name is another
possibility. I often wonder about the etymology of the Welsh word 'arwr'. I
have no idea myself; could it come from a description of someone as strong /
brave as a bear? If Middle Welsh spells gwr (man) gur (as in 'Pa gur ...')
could arwr originally have been spelt 'Arthur'?
Are we all just chasing after several sub-Roman heroes?
Steff
TMMatthews99
I can give you directions if necessary.
Tim M
TMMatthews99
malice.
Either is bad news.
If you made such comments publicly and not on the 'Net you'd be sued - perhaps!
You forget to mention that other stones - visitable and touchable - are of the
same design AND that Dr. Eric Talbot of Glasgow Uni - an eminent archaeologist
- has verified B+W's claim.
An apology would be nice - but we'vd been holding our breath for years now.....
Tim M
John Greenall
did find was that ARTH, as in ARTH-UR or even ARTH-NOU the beginning of the
name ARTH was a family name of some kind.
I think somebody in these posts put it quet right when they said "ther just
is not enough evidence to come to a conclusion", and i would agree with
that.
I wouldn't try to find the truth or exacly what did happen in these events
just enjoy the stories and legends that are there to read, it IS more than
just a story, but it isn't 100% truth ether.
The remainder of the evidence that would tell the truth just has not been
found yet, or never existed, or has been lost or been destroyed after the
saxons took most of britain over.
And I suspect the saxons probably destroyed any written texts regarding
Arthur (or whoever) that could today have been used as evidence of his
existence.
John.
"Steff" <tym...@lineone.net> wrote in message
news:tpu45.7654$fw6.1...@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com...
Malcolm Martin
> And the battle of Mount Baedan took place in southeastern Wales.
> I can give you directions if necessary.
Which Battle Of Badon?
--
Kind Regards
Malcolm Martin
London UK
malcolm...@zetnet.co.uk
Doug Weller
cited author.]
In article <20000622172550...@ng-fy1.aol.com>, tmmatt...@aol.com
says...
> If you made such comments publicly and not on the 'Net you'd be sued - perhaps!
>
At the moment this post is hanging off one by Steff. Are you really suggesting
Steff might be sued? How is anyone to know what you are talking about if you
don't quote the post you are replying to and name the author?
YOU may see all the posts on AOL, but others may see only those they just
downloaded.
Doug
--
Doug Weller member of moderation panel sci.archaeology.moderated
Submissions to: sci-archaeol...@medieval.org
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.demon.co.uk
Co-owner UK-Schools mailing list: email me for details
arthuriana
> I know. So many of these books start with the question 'who was the
> real Arthur?', they seem to ignore 'was there a real Arthur?'. To be
> honest, the more I read, the less convinced I am that there was
> anyone of this name.
>
> The idea that Arthur was a title rather than a personal name is
> another possibility. I often wonder about the etymology of the Welsh
> word 'arwr'. I have no idea myself; could it come from a description
> of someone as strong / brave as a bear? If Middle Welsh spells gwr
>(man) gur (as in 'Pa gur ...') could arwr originally have been
> spelt 'Arthur'?
>
> Are we all just chasing after several sub-Roman heroes?
Quite probably. Re: who they might be etc. and on the derivation of
Arthur from Arth + gwr see
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~tomgreen/arthur.htm
Cheers :-)
--
Coming Soon: http://www.arthuriana.co.uk
Steff
Steff
Doug Weller <dwe...@ramtops.co.uk> wrote in message
news:MPG.13bdc3d75...@news.cableinet.co.uk...
TMMatthews99
Have you never heard of the hundreds of ancient british manuscripts with
detailed genealogies of the ancient Kings?
They are there in libararies and collections, faithfully restored by people
like Wilson and Blackett.
Contact the Arthurian Research Foundation or visit the site;
Thanks,
Tim M.
ellis
TMMatthews99 <tmmatt...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000703104917...@ng-fl1.aol.com...
> oh for God's SAKE!
>
> Have you never heard of the hundreds of ancient british manuscripts with
> detailed genealogies of the ancient Kings?
>
> They are there in libararies and collections, faithfully restored by
people
> like Wilson and Blackett.
Is that 'faithfully restored' by people like Wilson and Blackett taking a
penknife to mss in libraries etc?
Steffan Ellis
TMMatthews99
What is the point of even debating the points with you?
The MSS are there for ALL to see, and those who take time to read and research
them tend to agree with Wilson and Blackett.
Why, Sfeffan, don't you tell us what you believe about "King Arthur" for a
change?
And then why not hire a decent lawyer.....
Tim M - Arthurian Research Foundation.
ellis
TMMatthews99 <tmmatt...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000704083147...@ng-da1.aol.com...
> Here you go again; this is the second disgusting smear in two weeks.
>
I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Perhaps you are still
confused regarding the thread as mentioned by Doug Weller somewhere
previously.
BTW, as regards what you call my 'second disgusting smear', it simply comes
from your website:
'Alan Wilson always carried a small penknife with him when studying in the
Cardiff and other Welsh Libraries, so that he could slit open the many still
joined pages of 150 year old never-ever-read volumes.'
I'm sure he is well qualified in manuscript preservation techniques and had
the full permission of the archivists / librarians.
> What is the point of even debating the points with you?
I was unaware that you were debating anything. All I have experienced from
your posts is a wall of intolerent intransigence somewhat akin to the
rantings of a fundamentalist religious fanatic.
>
> The MSS are there for ALL to see, and those who take time to read and
research
> them tend to agree with Wilson and Blackett.
Far from all of them, I'm sure.
>
> Why, Sfeffan, don't you tell us what you believe about "King Arthur" for a
> change?
I believe there may have been a real Arthur, but then again there may not.
I'm open to any evidence presented. So far you have presented none.
> And then why not hire a decent lawyer.....
Is that a threat? You seem to be quite fond of this sort of action. AFAIK
scepticism is not illegal. If you don't know how to conduct a discussion on
a ng, perhaps you should stick to the letters page in the Times or the Sun.
>
> Tim M - Arthurian Research Foundation.
>
BTW - I have checked out the website you referred to; the same one Adrian
Gilbert directed us to a month ago. However, we now seem to be treated to
new information on Jesus Christ's visit to South Wales. Have I missed any
other additions?
Steffan Ellis
TMMatthews99
own cost. The Arthurian Research Foundation has pushed back the boundaries and
provided plenty of evidence for the existence of two King Arthurs.
If you REALLY want some truth then I suggest you do some reading.
As to fundamentalism, this is not always a good thing because it allows us to
expose the ill-considered opinions of diletaantes like yourself. It makes it
clear that opposition to our research is based upon
emotion
wishful thinking
lack of effective research
Thanks,
Tim M.
OPS - I assume that you've read and inwardly digested the genealogies of the
Arthurian Dynasty as posted by me yesterday? You did want evidence....
Graham Nowland
that
(1) there is no evidence of a historical Arthur, suggesting Ambrosius
was really Arthur and
(2) Gildas said Ambrosius fought at Mons Badon.
John
To take the second point first, Gildas only says Ambrosius led an
early rally. His actual wording is: "Under him our people regained
their strength and challenged the victors to battle. The Lord assented
and the battle went their way."
One battle only, notice, and not Badon Hill. Check his change of tone
in the following paragraphs and the skilful glossing over of who
actually led the subsequent battles, including the one at Badon Hill.
"From then on victory went now to our countryman, not to the enemies,
....this lasted right up till the year of the siege of Badon Hill,
pretty well the last defeat of the villains.."
One theory is that Gildas named Ambrosius, because he admired Romans
but not the later leaders. Possibly this was because he and/or the
Roman Church had specific grudge/s against them. His work is famous
for its hostility to his unnamed contemporaries.
Other writers also make Ambrosius an early leader, but say he was
murdered, then Uther took over to also be murdered, making way for
Arthur. The Gildas wording allows this.
Some writers suggested Ambrosius was Arthur's uncle, while Merlin has
also been called Ambrosius as part of a second name.
That's the first point. The second is this. When you say there is no
historical evidence for Arthur in the military role, you discount at
least two choice items.
One is the Welsh elegy Gododdin by the poet Aneurin. This dates from
about 600 and is discussed in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages,
edited by RS Loomis.
In his essay there Kenneth Jackson highlights Aneurin's line about a
certain hero: 'he glutted black ravens on the ramparts of the city,
though he was not Arthur'.
"Arthur is treated here as a famous historical chief; Aneurin might
easily have known personally old men who had met Arthur in their
boyhood, if the generally accepted dates for his floruit are right.
Unfortunately there are interpolations in Gododdin, and it is
impossible to prove that this is not one of them. Otherwise the
historicity of Arthur would be proved beyond doubt."
Jackson goes on "we know of at least four, perhaps five, people called
Arthur, hailing from the Celtic areas of the British Isles, who were
born in the latter part of the sixth century…It is specially
significant that Aedan mac Gabrain, king of Scottish Dal Riada, who
had British connections, christened one of his sons Arthur, (and
perhaps a grandson), since he headed what was meant to be a massive
attempt to drive the English out of Northumbria."
What I am asking, John, is if Ambrosius is a candidate as main leader
against the AngloSaxons/English, is there any evidence that his name
was used in similar heroic christening gestures?
Using Gildas's emotional but crafty text alone to support an Ambrosius
theory does not seem to me to hold up.
Regards
Graham
John Greenall
he must have had the monk on with arthur and his gang.
John.
--
Caer Conan - A Local History Website. Including: King Arthur, his legend and
myth, and local folklore and history.
Visit the site at www.greenall1215.freeserve.co.uk
"Graham Nowland" <graham....@bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:396458b5...@news.bigpond.com...
> born in the latter part of the sixth century.It is specially
robert...@dial.pipex.com
graham....@bigpond.com (Graham Nowland) wrote:
> "John Greenall" <Jo...@greenall1215.freeserve.co.uk> recently wrote
> that
> (1) there is no evidence of a historical Arthur, suggesting Ambrosius
> was really Arthur and
> (2) Gildas said Ambrosius fought at Mons Badon.
>
> John
>
> To take the second point first, Gildas only says Ambrosius led an
> early rally. His actual wording is: "Under him our people regained
> their strength and challenged the victors to battle. The Lord assented
> and the battle went their way."
>
> One battle only, notice, and not Badon Hill. Check his change of tone
> in the following paragraphs and the skilful glossing over of who
> actually led the subsequent battles, including the one at Badon Hill.
This isn't a skilful gloss - it's a rapid historical overview as a very
brief preface to the meat of his sermon. He doesn't go into any more
detail because the detail is irrelevant to his subject matter. In the
absence of any other evidence (and I'm afraid we have no other credible
evidence) the implication of this single paragraph is that Ambrosius
started it and ended it at Badon; but it's a very slender implication.
As I've said elsewhere, I reckon it's about 55-45 in Ambrosius' favour.
>
> "From then on victory went now to our countryman, not to the enemies,
> ....this lasted right up till the year of the siege of Badon Hill,
> pretty well the last defeat of the villains.."
>
> One theory is that Gildas named Ambrosius, because he admired Romans
> but not the later leaders. Possibly this was because he and/or the
> Roman Church had specific grudge/s against them. His work is famous
> for its hostility to his unnamed contemporaries.
I beg to differ - it is famous as a sermon against his thoroughly
*named* contemporaries (and some of their precursors like Vortigern).
Gildas certainly admired Ambrosius, not least as a useful stick for
whacking his grandsons with; but there is no reason to think that he
disapproved of the people who won the war at Badon. After all, he
makes it quite clear that it is only after the generation that knew the
evils of war with the Saxons had died away that everyone went seriously
morally adrift. Gildas' failure to make it clear who exactly led at
Badon is solely evidence of something we already knew - that he isn't
writing history, and is interested in history only in so far as it
helps his sermon against his contemporaries.
>
> Other writers also make Ambrosius an early leader, but say he was
> murdered, then Uther took over to also be murdered, making way for
> Arthur. The Gildas wording allows this.
>
> Some writers suggested Ambrosius was Arthur's uncle, while Merlin has
> also been called Ambrosius as part of a second name.
The writer you are referring to is Geoffrey of Monmouth (I think in all
of the above cases), writing in the 12th century without source
material (apart from Nennius and Gildas, neither of whom say the
above). Hardly a compelling reason to believe a word he says. For
instance, Merlin is surnamed Ambrosius solely because Geoffrey wanted
to give Merlin (his own literary creation, taken mainly from the
actions of one Lailoken in the late 6th century) a story attributed in
Nennius to Ambrosius. So Geoffrey said that Merlin was also called
Ambrosius. This is actually one of Geoffrey's more historical moments,
in that he hasn't made it up off the top of his head, and gives a
flavour of how generally reliable he is as a historian (rather than a
writer of very good and enjoyable fiction, which he excelled at).
>
> That's the first point. The second is this. When you say there is no
> historical evidence for Arthur in the military role, you discount at
> least two choice items.
>
> One is the Welsh elegy Gododdin by the poet Aneurin. This dates from
> about 600 and is discussed in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages,
> edited by RS Loomis.
>
> In his essay there Kenneth Jackson highlights Aneurin's line about a
> certain hero: 'he glutted black ravens on the ramparts of the city,
> though he was not Arthur'.
>
> "Arthur is treated here as a famous historical chief; Aneurin might
> easily have known personally old men who had met Arthur in their
> boyhood, if the generally accepted dates for his floruit are right.
> Unfortunately there are interpolations in Gododdin, and it is
> impossible to prove that this is not one of them. Otherwise the
> historicity of Arthur would be proved beyond doubt."
Rubbish, frankly - I think the reference genuine, but it could as
easily be a reference to a mythical hero ("although he was no Hercules"
would be a reasonable comparison as a statement). How do you decide
whether it is a real person or a legend he is being compared to? The
Welsh tales certainly have a very pugilistic Arthur, but it is giants
and serpents and large cats he fights, not Saxons.
>
> Jackson goes on "we know of at least four, perhaps five, people called
> Arthur, hailing from the Celtic areas of the British Isles, who were
> born in the latter part of the sixth century…It is specially
> significant that Aedan mac Gabrain, king of Scottish Dal Riada, who
> had British connections, christened one of his sons Arthur, (and
> perhaps a grandson), since he headed what was meant to be a massive
> attempt to drive the English out of Northumbria."
>
> What I am asking, John, is if Ambrosius is a candidate as main leader
> against the AngloSaxons/English, is there any evidence that his name
> was used in similar heroic christening gestures?
What scholars of the period have since asked is whether there are any
other examples of children of the time being named after a known
historical hero (like Coel of Rheged or Urien). The answer is a
resounding no - there isn't a single one. It doesn't seem to be
something which happened in that culture. Moreover, all the
occurrences of the name Arthur come from non-British tribes, like the
very Scots you mention; not the British ones for whom he would have
actually been a hero. One suggestion is that the incoming Irish
encountered the name Arthur as a widespread folk lore to which
superstitions were attached which they did not share, leaving them
happy to use the name for their kids where the British were not so
happy.
>
> Using Gildas's emotional but crafty text alone to support an Ambrosius
> theory does not seem to me to hold up.
Gildas is certainly emotional, but the insistence on seeing his lack of
reference to Arthur as crafty is irrational, and comes only because
people approach his work already believing that Arthur existed as a
hugely important historical figure who won at Badon, and then have to
explain away Gildas' failure to mention him. Gildas is our only source
for who led the British at Badon; John is quite right to conclude that
the balance of probability is consequently in favour (just) of
Ambrosius.
Rob
Graham Nowland
Rob
Re Gildas passage about Ambrosius. Thanks for your interesting and
stimulating reply about Gildas, Ambrosius and Arthur,
Of Gildas you said
>>>-it's a rapid historical overview as a very
>brief preface to the meat of his sermon.
Up to a point I agree but the main body is more of a political tract
than a sermon, fanning the spark of a new monastic movement backed by
Rome.
Gildas deliberately launched a bitter attack to his countryman about
kings and clergy, with a very clear idea about who are the good guys.
Ambrosius was one of them and through him he toadies to the Roman
ethos.
But at the beginning he says he will "say a little about the situation
of Britain," and the remarks indicate a recognisably historical
intention. He admits he will leave out much "in the interests of
brevity," which is a little disingenuous, given his self-admitted
bias.
The Ambrosius/Badon section reads "Under him our people regained their
strength and challenged the victors to battle. The Lord assented and
the battle went their way."
You say:
>the implication of this is that Ambrosius
>started it and ended it at Badon: but it's a very slender implicatian
It's so slender it's invisible. Gildas is more capable of the opposite
interpretation, that Ambrosius wasn't at Badon. You almost agree
anyway when you say
>"Gildas' failure to make it clear who exactly led at Badon
>is solely evidence of something we already knew - that he
>isn't writing history, and is interested in history only in so far as it
>helps his sermon against his contemporaries.
Unfortunately that doesn't prevent you and John Greenhill using Gildas
to advance the argument that Ambrosius "55-45" fought at Badon.
A key element is the time between the battle credited by Gildas to
Ambrosius, and the Mons Badon one. This has to be short enough to
allow Ambrosius to have been at both as leader.
Gildas not only fails to say Ambrosiuss fought at Badon, his text also
suggests Badon was an awfully long time after the one Ambrosius did
lead.
At the Ambrosius battle Gildas says: "From then on victory went now to
our countryman, now to their enemies: so that in this people the Lord
could make trial (as he tends to) of his latter day Israel to see
whether it loves him or not. This lasted right up till the year of the
siege of Badon Hill, pretty well the last defeat of the villains. That
was the year of my birth: as I know, one month of the forty-fourth
year since it has already passed"
The Israel remark alone suggests a long time indeed and you also have
the other hints "from then on" and "lasted right up to the year of
Badon." Michael Winterbottom in the preface to the Phillimore Gildas
suggests the total time could have been up to 30 years.
This still doesn't rule out Ambrosius, but by now you should now be
considering the likely life expectancy in that era. An open-minded
person would then cautiously consider what tradition has to say, about
who fought at Badon.
It's a pity you can't see any significance in the Aneurin poem, which
in AD 600 mentions Arthur as a familiar warrior hero.
I take your point about the way the period's birth records show the
Arthur name crossing culture barriers.
However I am surprised you should say of me, "Gildas is emotional but
the insistence on seeing his lack of reference to Arthur as crafty is
irrational."
I think it is quite important to read things carefully.
What I actually wrote was "Using Gildas' emotional but crafty text
alone to support an Ambrosius theory does not seem to me to hold up."
A great stylist, Gildas did not let facts get in the way, had an axe
to grind, including about Ambrosius, and for his time was as skilful
as any modern polemical journalist.
In both senses the Gildas' emotional text is "crafty" and my careful
choice of the word was hardly irrational.
I would be interested to know what other evidence there is for the
Ambrosius theory.
Regards
Graham
news_surfer
> On Thu, 06 Jul 2000 15:20:00 GMT, robert...@dial.pipex.com wrote:
>
> Rob
>
> Re Gildas passage about Ambrosius. Thanks for your interesting and
> stimulating reply about Gildas, Ambrosius and Arthur,
>
> Of Gildas you said
>
> >>>-it's a rapid historical overview as a very
> >brief preface to the meat of his sermon.
>
> Up to a point I agree but the main body is more of a political tract
> than a sermon, fanning the spark of a new monastic movement backed by
> Rome.
>
> Gildas deliberately launched a bitter attack to his countryman about
> kings and clergy, with a very clear idea about who are the good guys.
> Ambrosius was one of them and through him he toadies to the Roman
> ethos.
>
>
> A great stylist, Gildas did not let facts get in the way, had an axe
> to grind, including about Ambrosius, and for his time was as skilful
> as any modern polemical journalist.
>
> In both senses the Gildas' emotional text is "crafty" and my careful
> choice of the word was hardly irrational.
>
>
According to various Welsh histories and genealogies, St Gildas is to be
identified with Aneurin of Coed Aur a son of Caw Cawlwyd. In a manuscript
called "The Genealogy and families of the saints of the island of Britain"
it says that:
"Caw, the son of Geraint, lord of Cwm Cawlwyd (Strathclyde in modern
terms), in North Britain, was driven from his country by the Gwyddelian
Picts (i.e. the "Irish" Picts or Scots), and he came to Wales, where he and
his sons had lands of the Emperor Arthur (King Athrwys of Glamorgan who was
Pendragon of Britain), and of Maelgwn Gwynedd, (Geoffrey of Monmouth's
"Maglo" who was King of North Wales or Gwynedd and succeeded Arthur as
Pendragon of Britain), in Anglesey, namely in that island, Twrcelyn; and he
was also called Caw of North Britain, and Caw of Cawlwyd."
Caw and his family feature prominently in a number of lists of saints.
Gildas is expressly identified as Euryn or Aneurin of Coed Aur (the Golden
Grove) in some of them. He is also listed as having at least four sons. In
one list they are named as Rhun, Tyvaeloc, Gwynno and Saint Cynddylan.
There seems to have been some confusion in this as in another list they are
given as: Cennydd, Gwynnoc, Nwython and Madoc the Bard. In this list the
sons of Nwython are named as Cynddilic, Teilo Vyrwallt and Rhun. We may
therefore guess that in the former list Gildas's grandsons have become
confused with his sons.
Gildas or Aneurin was certainly around at the time of Arthur II or Athrwys
ap Meurig, who had indeed, we are told given sanctuary in South Wales to
both Gildas and some of his brothers when they were driven out of the
Strathclyde area of what is now Scotland. He is described as a saint of the
college of Cattwg. We are told elsewhere that:
"Cattwg, the son of Cynlais, the son of Glywys, the son of Tegid, king of
Morganwg (Glamorgan). He was a kinsman to Illtyd (a cousin of King Arthur
who founded the Bangor Illtyd at what is now Llantwit Major), and
established a college for a thousand saints in Llancarvan: and that place
became very celebrated for piety, and every kind of learning known. And
Cattwg was principal over all."
Llancarvan Abbey was very famous. It lay nine miles west of Cardiff. St
Cattwg or Cadoc seems actually to have been its second abbot, the first
being St Dubricius or Dyfrig who became Biship of Caerleon and Llandaff and
crowned the young King Arthur. Like Llandaff Cathedral, Llancarvan Abbey had
many charter grants associated with it, confirming the identity of many
kings of Glamorgan including Arthur.
According to Alan Wilson (though I haven't yet checked on the references
myself), one of Gildas's brothers murdered a kinsman of Arthur and
subsequently sought sanctuary in Llancarvan Abbey for a number of years.
When he eventually came out, Arthur had him beheaded. The killing of his
brother would appear to be the reason Gildas was reluctant to sing the
praises of Arthur, even though he knew full well that he was the victor of
the Battle of Badon.
The many lists of saints and so on are adamant in identifying Gildas of Coed
Aur with Aneurin son of Caw. It therefore seems very likely that he was the
"Aneurin" who was the author of the poem "y Goddodin", which would have been
written after Arthur's death and not long before 600 AD.
Adrian Gilbert.
Robert Elliot
Graham Nowland wrote:
>
> Up to a point I agree but the main body is more of a political tract
> than a sermon, fanning the spark of a new monastic movement backed by
> Rome.
>
> Gildas deliberately launched a bitter attack to his countryman about
> kings and clergy, with a very clear idea about who are the good guys.
> Ambrosius was one of them and through him he toadies to the Roman
> ethos.
>
I think I'd like a little more evidence of this, please; I'm not aware that
Gildas particularly singles anyone out as a good guy in the main part of the
book. It looks a lot more like a sermon of the old testament prophet
variety, designed to call the people to repentance, than a political tract in
anyone's favour, to me at least. Furthermore, Gildas admires the Romans and
is mightily pissed off with his fellow countrymen - but he is in absolutely
no doubt that he is British himself, not Roman, and that the Romans are
foreigners with whom he does not identify himself: see Snyder, "An Age of
Tyrants", Ch 7 p79:
"Cives remains Gildas' most often used term for ... the inhabitants of his
patria, his fellow citizens" and " In Gildas, there are no lingering
sentiments about Britons as Roman citizens or Christians as heirs to the
Romans". See surrounding text for (very comprehensive) evidence.
I will answer the specific points on Badon now as one unit - I cut your
arguments, but I hope I will not misrepresent them. To other readers -
please read Graham's arguments again to ensure for yourselves I am not doing
so.
We have very few texts which can possibly be read as giving a clue to the
identity of the man who led the Britons to victory at Badon. All (apart from
Gildas) ascribe it to Arthur. However, every single one of the texts
ascribing it to Arthur is derivative from the HB. Now the passage in which
the HB ascribes the victory to Arthur is one in which a number of the other
battles look distinctly like battles fought by other people, not Arthur, and
as the granting of other people's battles to a famous hero is a known
practice of the era, it looks very much as if that was what was going on,
particularly as Dumville has so comprehensively proven that the HB is a
conscious work of synthesised history. This obviously raises the question,
was Badon actually fought by someone else? So the evidence of Nennius is
shown to be suspect immediately.
However, we can pretty well actually answer this question. Arthur looms
large in pre-Monmouth Welsh literary tradition; so does Badon. Yet
*no-where* else are the two viewed as linked. This strongly suggests that
until the writer of the HB ascribed it to Arthur, it was not considered to be
an Arthurian battle. We can therefore with some confidence rule out the HB
and all derivative works from the court of evidence.
That leaves us with Gildas, and only Gildas. He is our sole source on the
matter. He is far from clear, because he is frankly not that interested - he
is following a good old fashioned OT theme lifted whole-sale from the book of
Kings about the people of God being brought back to the straight and narrow
by a period of adversity and then falling of into moral torpor when things
get easy again. His purpose is to lambast his fellow countrymen, so all that
is necessary for his purpose is that the period of adversity where God
allowed his people to triumph happened. He grants Ambrosius a huge one line
(and that one positive, but far from effusive) - hardly phenomenal toadying.
If, in a single paragraph (see Padel on this), you mention a war started by
somebody and mention no-one else, then the slight (and I do keep emphasising
that it is slight) implication is that he won it as well - unless there is
any evidence to the contrary. You suggest some evidence - the time period.
Now, we have to be quite careful here - you are using an English translation
to argue about some very subtle hints. Sadly I don't have the Latin here,
and I can't find it on the web, but here is Alcock's translation: "From that
time forth sometimes the Britons, and sometimes the enemy, were victorious
(that the Lord might try, in customary fashion, whether the modern Israel
would choose him or not), up to the year of the siege of Mount Badon." Not
quite so pejorative in time terms, is it? Ten years could quite easily be
covered by that (Winterbottom frankly has no better idea than you or I, since
he has no more evidence than you or I). After all, plenty of times in the
Bible the same person begins a successful fightback against the enemy and
ends it as well - David being a prime example.
Perhaps you have the Latin, and have access to research on use of Latin time
terms in this period that suggests Gildas meant far longer - I'd be very
interested in it if you do, as I must confes to being ignorant in that area,
and I could well be wrong. However, I don't trust translations, however
good, for matters of subtlety like the above.
So if there is no time evidence, we are back to that very slight implication
in favour of Ambrosius - which is all I ever claimed. Gildas might well, if
only he were here, say that no, it was x who won but it didn't seem important
and he was in a hurry to get on with damning those tyrranous kings; but since
he isn't here, yes, I still think the balance of probability is that
Ambrosius was the victor.
On the Gododdin reference - it was Bromwich, I think, who argued that Arthur
looks like a mythical hero because the poet is praising Gwawrddur with a
negative comparison. If it's a huge compliment (and this is after all a
eulogistic poem) to say that you were good, but not as good as x, x had
better be something *really* special. I'm not totally convinced - a modern
boxer might take the phrase "he knocked his opponents senseless, although he
was no Ali" as a compliment because it is a compliment to compare someone
with Ali, even negatively. I think it's just yet another frustratingly
neutral piece of evidence, open to either interpretation.
On the crafty business - I took you, evidently wrongly, to be referring to
the specific passage about Badon, not to the whole work. I still cannot see
any craftiness in Gildas' wording in that passage, or reason to think he is
deliberately and craftily concealing the true victor of Badon, and I would
stick by my statement that people only see it in this way because they
approach it with the unwarranted pre-conception that Arthur *did* win Badon,
and have to explain Gildas' failure to mention him - a pre-conception which I
still hold to be irrational. I apologise for misunderstanding you. I quite
agree that Gildas shows great craft in his use of Latin; I disagree that he
is being crafty in the devious sense of knowingly pushing a political line
like a modern political journalist, since I do not think he has a particular
political (as opposed to religious) axe to grind; however, I certainly
wouldn't call your opinion to the contrary irrational, and I am open to
persuasion in the other direction.
All the best,
Rob
Graham Nowland
"news_surfer" <definite...@freeuk.com> wrote in message
news:%vp95.97$6W.1...@nnrp4.clara.net...
> According to Alan Wilson (though I haven't yet checked on the references
> myself), one of Gildas's brothers murdered a kinsman of Arthur and
> subsequently sought sanctuary in Llancarvan Abbey for a number of years.
> When he eventually came out, Arthur had him beheaded. The killing of his
> brother would appear to be the reason Gildas was reluctant to sing the
> praises of Arthur, even though he knew full well that he was the victor of
> the Battle of Badon.
Fascinating. I would really like to know the source for that if you find it.
I can almost hear Robert Elliot typing furiously that its unhistorical. But
the fact that Gildas has some sort of axe to grind is clear from his
wording. He is clearly suppressing something in the two or three paragraphs
leading up to his Badon Hill reference.
Regards
Graham
news_surfer
contains the Llandaff Charters and copies of English translations of other
important Welsh documents, there is a picture of the presnt church of
Llancarfan. This is on the site of the old Llancarvan Abbey. The caption to
this picture says that this is the place where Arthur and Gildas met after
King Arthur executed Hueil, the rebellious brother of Gildas. I dare say
there is more about this incident somewhere in the book but as it
unfortunately does not have an index, things are difficult to find.
Certainly in the listings of the British saints, which I quoted from in an
earlier posting, there is a Hueil (or Huail) listed as a brother of
Aneurin/Gildas. In the "Genealogy and families of the saints of the island
of Britain" (which is taken from the Long Book of Thomas Truman of
Pantlliwydd) it says the following: "Huail, the son of Caw, a saint of
Cattwg's college [i.e. Llaancarvan Abbey]. His church is in Ewyas."
From this short note we can at least see that Huail, like many of his
brothers was a churchman and he is here called a saint. Ewyas is the old
name for the region of the river Wye. Huail mush have built a church there
somewhere. If I find more about this story I will let you know.
Adrian Gilbert.
I have mentioned that Gildas had sons. One of these, Cennydd, is said to
have formed a Bangor or college at Llangennydd in Gower and another at
Senghenydd [Caerphilly]. The notes say that both of these colleges were
destroyed by the pagan Saxons.
Graham Nowland
"Robert Elliot" <robert...@dial.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:3966679B...@dial.pipex.com...
>>I'm not aware that Gildas particularly singles anyone out as a good guy in
the main part of the
> book.
Rob
At 25.3, not in the main part, but right on the point under discussion,
Gildas wrote: "Their leader was Ambrosius Aurelianus, a gentleman who
perhaps alone of the Romans, had survived the shock of this notable storm:
certainly his parents who had worn the purple were slain in it. His
descendants in our day have become greatly inferior to their grandfather's
excellence. Under him our people regained their strength."
Looks like a good guy to me.
Of the whole Gildas text you wrote:
>It looks a lot more like a sermon of the old testament prophet
> variety, designed to call the people to repentance, than a political tract
in
> anyone's favour, to me at least.
I see it as Gildas wanting to change society. He identified key sections,
kings and clergy, as his targets. John Morris' term for the Gildas screed is
"manifesto." He wrote the historical introduction to the Phillimore edition
of Gildas, and I quote from this.
"But Gildas did not write in vain. On the contrary, few books have had a
more immediate and far reaching impact than his. He uttered what tens of
thousands felt. His readers did not reform society. They opted
out.....within ten years monasticism had become a mass movement... its
extensive literature reveres Gildas as its founding father, named more often
than any other individual." In his The Age of Arthur Morris offers several
chapters about the monastic movement.
>I would stick by my statement that people only see it in this way because
they
> approach it with the unwarranted pre-conception that Arthur *did* win
Badon,
> and have to explain Gildas' failure to mention him - a pre-conception
which I
> still hold to be irrational.
The intense interest in the Arthur legend, plus the comments in the Cambrian
Annals and Nennius texts are enough to ensure a permanent head of steam
about the Gildas Badon remark.
But it is self evident that Gildas was more than keen to discredit the
Ambrosius descendants, including Arthur if he was among them. See above
Gilda text. As you say whether he actually suppressed Arthur can't be
proved.
However the structure of the Badon Hill reference has an interesting
tendency. If you substitute a 20th century general over Gildas's structure
you can see it better.
"Under Montgomery the British regained their strength and challenged the
Nazis to battle in North Africa. The Lord assented and the battle went their
way. From then on victory went now to the Britons, now to the Nazis, so that
in this the Lord could make trial (as he tends to) of his latter day Israel
to see whether it loves him. This lasted right up till the year of the entry
into Berlin, pretty well the last defeat of the Nazis and certainly not the
least." So what happened to the real leaders into Berlin?
Does this WW2 template fit so well over the Gildas structure because the
verbal structure is intended to marginalise later leaders, including Arthur?
It certainly works well as the WW2 example shows.
On the question of time, you put this at ten years, from the Ambrosius
battle to the Badon one, giving Ambrosius a better chance to be at Badon.
Morris gauges a span of thirty to thirty five years and doesn't rule a
period of joint leadership.
I appreciated your lament at not having the original Latin of the Badon
paragraph. I can understand you don't fully trust translations, and also
your feeling that the time factor might shift in favour of the Ambrosius
theory in the original language.
Here is the Latin, courtesy of the Gildas edition, published by Phillimore.
"Ex eo tempore nunc cives, nunc hostes, vincebant, ut in ista gente
expiriretur dominus solito more praesentum Israelum, utrum diligat eum an
non: usque ad annum obessionis Badonici montis, novissimaeque ferme de
furciferis non minimae stragis, quique quadragesimus quartus (ut novi)
orditur annus mense iam uno emenso, qui et meae nativitatis est. "
I would be most interested to see what you make of it. But I'm not up to
typing any more Latin.
There's just been an interesting post in this thread by Adrian Gilbert about
Aneurin, Gildas and Arthur, possibly based on old Welsh texts which I have
never seen.
I was very interested in your Nennius comments but there has to be time left
for doing other things. When next I get drawn into an exploration of some
Arthurian byway, I would like it to be about one or other of the mystical
layers. I agree with the comments about the bias towards the historical
arguments here.
Thanks for your gracious response and your interest.
Best regards
Graham
robert...@dial.pipex.com
your e-mail - sorry for leaping to the conclusion that you only sent it
by e-mail. I don't have my response to you handy, so I can't post it
now.
Rob
In article <Jtca5.9035$c5.2...@newsfeeds.bigpond.com>,
"Graham Nowland" <graham....@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> "Robert Elliot" <robert...@dial.pipex.com> wrote in message
> news:3966679B...@dial.pipex.com...
>
> >>I'm not aware that Gildas particularly singles anyone out as a good
guy in
> the main part of the
> > book.
>
> Rob
>
> At 25.3, not in the main part, but right on the point under
discussion,
> Gildas wrote: "Their leader was Ambrosius Aurelianus, a gentleman who
> perhaps alone of the Romans, had survived the shock of this notable
storm:
> certainly his parents who had worn the purple were slain in it. His
> descendants in our day have become greatly inferior to their
grandfather's
> excellence. Under him our people regained their strength."
>
> Looks like a good guy to me.
<snip>
news_surfer
about
> Aneurin, Gildas and Arthur, possibly based on old Welsh texts which I have
> never seen.
>
meeting with King Arthur is a "Life of St Gildas". I haven't seen this
myself but Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett make reference to it in their book
"King Arthur, King of Glamorgan and Gwent". They say that Gildas' brother
Hueil was a traitor and Arthur had him put to death. Naturally Gildas was
very put out about this but later there was a reconciliation between Gildas
and Arthur. This reconciliation took place at Llancarvan Abbey, the College
of St Cadoc or Cattwg. When I have time I will post more on this fascinating
story of St Gildas, who travelled to Ireland, lived as a hermit for many
years on an island in the Bristol Channel and ended his days in Brittany.
Adrian Gilbert.
Doug Weller
> Mea culpa! This hadn't shown up on any news-servers when I replied to
> your e-mail - sorry for leaping to the conclusion that you only sent it
> by e-mail. I don't have my response to you handy, so I can't post it
> now.
>
mailed. I get really annoyed when I get email and find later that it was also
posted.
jim irvine
>
(snip)
> At the Ambrosius battle Gildas says: "From then on victory went now to
> could make trial (as he tends to) of his latter day Israel to see
> siege of Badon Hill, pretty well the last defeat of the villains. That
> was the year of my birth: as I know, one month of the forty-fourth
> year since it has already passed"
>
> Regards
> Graham
Have you read the new book by Michael Wood "In Search of England"?
In it he considers Gildas and the reference to Ambrosius; in particular
he considers the punctuation in what remains of one of the earliest
surviving copies of Gildas. I note that you have punctuated the above
passage in modern style - a style which did not exist in medieval
times. Reading was done aloud and punctuation was apparently inserted
to allow pauses for breath and between passages. He suggests that the
way this document is punctuated seems to allow the text referring to
Ambrosius to run on to the Badon entry implying that Ambrosius and Badon
are linked together.
It is worth reading to see what you think about it.
Jim
robert...@dial.pipex.com
Doug Weller <dwe...@ramtops.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <8kc0pj$79v$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
robert...@dial.pipex.com says...
> > Mea culpa! This hadn't shown up on any news-servers when I replied
to
> > your e-mail - sorry for leaping to the conclusion that you only
sent it
> > by e-mail. I don't have my response to you handy, so I can't post
it
> > now.
> >
> Gravity inserts a statement at the top that the article has been
posted and
> mailed. I get really annoyed when I get email and find later that it
was also
> posted.
>
> Doug
No need for recriminations - Graham just hit the wrong button when he
went to reply. Easily done, and I apologised because my return e-mail
to him was perhaps a trifle on the analy retentive side. (Me, anal?
Shurely not...)
Rob
Robert Elliot
Graham Nowland wrote:
> "Robert Elliot" <robert...@dial.pipex.com> wrote in message
> news:3966679B...@dial.pipex.com...
>
> >>I'm not aware that Gildas particularly singles anyone out as a good
> guy in the main part of the
> > book.
>
> Rob
>
> At 25.3, not in the main part, but right on the point under
> discussion, Gildas writes: "Their leader was Ambrosius Aurelianus, a
> gentleman who perhaps alone of the Romans, had survived the shock of
> this notable storm: certainly his parents who had worn the purple were
> slain in it. His descendants in our day have become greatly inferior
> to their grandfather's excellence. Under him our people regained their
> strength." Looks like a good guy to me.
>
You misunderstand me - I said the main part of the book, as opposed to
the preface. There would be little political point in toadying to
Ambrosius any way, since he would have been at a bare minimum 75, and
therefore probably dead and certainly politically inactive; the only
conceivable political reason I can think of to pump him up is to curry
favour with his descendants, but as we know that was not Gildas'
intention. So we are left with two possiblities - that he mentions him
because he genuinely admires him, or he mentions him because he wants to
use him to whack his grandchildren with. Neither gives us any reason to
think he was writing for a particular political side in his own day.
> Of the whole Gildas text you wrote:
>
> >It looks a lot more like a sermon of the old testament prophet
> > variety, designed to call the people to repentance, than a political
> tract in
> > anyone's favour, to me at least.
>
> I see it as Gildas wanting to change society. He identified key
> sections, kings and clergy, as his targets. John Morris' term for the
> Gildas screed is "manifesto." He wrote the historical introduction to
> the Phillimore edition of Gildas, and I quote from this.
>
> "But Gildas did not write in vain. On the contrary, few books have had
> a more immediate and far reaching impact than his. He uttered what
> tens of thousands felt. His readers did not reform society. They opted
> out.....within ten years monasticism had become a mass movement... its
> extensive literature reveres Gildas as its founding father, named more
> often than any other individual." In his The Age of Arthur Morris
> offers several chapters about the monastic movement.
>
I find this a little odd; I thought you were arguing that Gildas was on
a political side? If his intent was solely religious (and I quite agree
it was), then in what possible way does being devious about who won at
Badon help his cause? And if it doesn't help his cause, what is our
basis for thinking he was being devious?
>
> >I would stick by my statement that people only see it in this way
> because they
> > approach it with the unwarranted pre-conception that Arthur *did*
> win Badon,
> > and have to explain Gildas' failure to mention him - a
> pre-conception which I
> > still hold to be irrational.
>
> The intense interest in the Arthur legend, plus the comments in the
> Cambrian Annals and Nennius texts are enough to ensure a permanent
> head of steam about the Gildas Badon remark.
>
I said it was irrational, not inexplicable...
>
> But it is self evident that Gildas was more than keen to discredit the
> Ambrosius descendants, including Arthur if he was among them. See
> above Gilda text. As you say whether he actually suppressed Arthur
> can't be proved.
Gildas was more than keen to discredit every single secular (and
Christian!) authority of his own day - that was the purpose of his
book. He wasn't exactly singling out Ambrosius' descendants. Besides
which, there really is no reason to think Arthur was related to
Ambrosius - he only shows up as a relation at all in Monmouth (who makes
Ambrosius childless anyway).
>
> However the structure of the Badon Hill reference has an interesting
> tendency. If you substitute a 20th century general over Gildas's
> structure you can see it better.
>
> "Under Montgomery the British regained their strength and challenged
> the Nazis to battle in North Africa. The Lord assented and the battle
> went their way. From then on victory went now to the Britons, now to
> the Nazis, so that in this the Lord could make trial (as he tends to)
> of his latter day Israel to see whether it loves him. This lasted
> right up till the year of the entry into Berlin, pretty well the last
> defeat of the Nazis and certainly not the least." So what happened to
> the real leaders into Berlin?
>
> Does this WW2 template fit so well over the Gildas structure because
> the verbal structure is intended to marginalise later leaders,
> including Arthur? It certainly works well as the WW2 example shows.
>
I think you have missed my point a bit. You see, I don't see anything
particularly disingenuous about the above paragraph. If it was written
by someone I knew to have a chip on their shoulder about the Americans
and/or Russians, or if I knew their over-all thesis required Britain
and/or Montgomery to be seen as the main winners of WW2, I would be
suspicious that they were deliberately glossing over others involvement,
but if I didn't have any reason to think these things it would just seem
to me a brief exposition of WW2 events, by someone who particularly
admired Monty.
And here is the crucial thing - the above opinion of mine would be
despite the fact that I actually know what did happen. In the case of
Gildas, not only do I have no internal reason for thinking he has a chip
on his shoulder about the winner of Badon or that the identity of the
winner of Badon is crucial to his thesis, but I also have no source of
knowledge apart from him. I don't read it thinking "hang on, I know
someone else did that!", because I don't know anything of the sort.
You are quite right - if you ask the question "is Gildas deliberately
suppressing the fact that Arthur won at Badon for his own ends?" then
ultimately I can't prove it either way. However, if I ask you the
question "is Gildas deliberately suppressing the fact that Ambrosius was
really called Antoninus?" then you can't prove it either way - but I
think you would probably ask me why on earth I was asking the question.
Unless I have a basis for thinking Ambrosius was called Antoninus (and
of course I don't), and moreover a basis for thinking Gildas had good
reason to suppress the fact, which again I don't, the question is
absurd. The same goes for the Arthur question. Unless you have a basis
for thinking Arthur won at Badon (and I've already explained why Nennius
isn't even a bad basis, let alone a good one), and a reason why Gildas
might want to suppress the fact (and believe me, you don't want to go
down the road Adrian Gilbert is taking - his "evidence" is from about
700 years after the event, without any reason to think there was any
intermediate transmission; I have more personal knowledge about Genghis
Khan than his sources do about Gildas), then the question itself is
absurd.
>
> On the question of time, you put this at ten years, from the Ambrosius
> battle to the Badon one, giving Ambrosius a better chance to be at
> Badon. Morris puts it at 30 years so it becomes a matter of opinion.
>
> I appreciated your lament at not having the original Latin of the
> Badon paragraph. I can understand you don't fully trust translations,
> and also your feeling that the time factor might shift in favour of
> the Ambrosius theory in the original language.
>
> Here is the Latin, courtesy of the Gildas edition, published by
> Phillimore.
>
> "Ex eo tempore nunc cives, nunc hostes, vincebant, ut in ista gente
> expiriretur dominus solito more praesentum Israelum, utrum diligat eum
> an non: usque ad annum obessionis Badonici montis, novissimaeque ferme
> de furciferis non minimae stragis, quique quadragesimus quartus (ut
> novi) orditur annus mense iam uno emenso, qui et meae nativitatis est.
> "
>
> I would be most interested to see what you make of it. But I'm not up
> to typing any more Latin.
>
I had a feeling it was just an "Ex....usque ad" effort. No real
definition of time given; it probably signifies a reasonable length of
time as the "usque" is in there, but as far as I can see (my lack of
knowledge admitted!), there's no way of choosing between 5 years and 60,
at least in terms of the Latin structure. I can think of one way to
suggest the length of time, however; we know that Gildas' grandchildren
were politically active when Gildas was writing. If we assume Ambrosius
was c.30 when he started the fight-back, and take the standard 25 year
generations, then with a ten year stretch between the start of the war
and Badon his grandchildren would be c.34 when Gildas was writing, about
right; a thirty year stretch would see them c.54, a bit old for
politically active people in the dark ages. In fact, 25 is probably a
bit long for generations at this time, which would increase the
likelihood of the war being towards the short end of the scale. Mind
you, this is admittedly extremely flimsy evidence which doesn't even
pretend towards proof; just a suggestion to help with the probabilities
of the case. If Ambrosius started fighting early and had kids late, the
long war is quite feasible.
Rob
Doug Weller
> No need for recriminations - Graham just hit the wrong button when he
> went to reply. Easily done, and I apologised because my return e-mail
> to him was perhaps a trifle on the analy retentive side. (Me, anal?
> Shurely not...)
>
that all newsreaders indicated when they were posting and emaililng.
Jason Godesky
> in question, and someone who actually knows latin, to take up all the
> grammatical issues. It could be done with an attachment to this news group I
> believw, but I don;t know how to nor do I have access to the page. Any
> offers?
Please don't post binaries to an alt. group. If anyone has such a facsimile,
I'd love to have one ..... email me, and I'll post it at my website, and then we
can just put a link to it in a message, how's that? But don't start posting
binaries to alt. newsgroups.
Jason Godesky
Graham Nowland
>I said the main part of the book, as opposed to
the preface.
Rob, this piece of text appears in the historical section of Gildas, which
is substantial, about a fifth of the whole text. It should really not be
called the preface, because there is already a preface containing Gildas
agonising about whether he should write at all.
The section is a major necessity in his carefully wrought structure. It
comes before he issues his admonition to the kings and clergy about their
shortcoming and amounts to a sort of "how did we get into mess" theme. It
helps him to focus blame before he launches on his main attack. The whole
work is constructed to achieve this purpose and he uses historical and
scriptural sources ruthlessly to nail the authorities.
>I thought you were arguing that Gildas was on a political side?
What I actually said was "but the main body is more of a political tract
than a sermon, fanning the spark of a new monastic movement."
I really didn't expect you to pick up on this and using the word political
reveals my rather broad view of the word. My pespective is that if someone
makes an analysis of society based on a historical backgournd, attacks kings
and clergy, calls for change and the result is a sweeping monastic movement,
then religion has crossed whatever boundary there is between religion and
politics. He invokes God and the scriptures I grant you that.
I find the overlap betwen religion and politics quite interesting and could
go on at length, but it would all be a distraction and you would dispute
every point to defend your concept of "solely religious." It would be easier
for me to concede it was probably a mistake to use word "political" in this
context and forum.
>If his intent was solely religious (and I quite agree it was), then in what
possible way does being devious about who won at
> Badon help his cause?
You can only conjecture. The text itself is open to interpretation, as the
controversy about it indicates. What is self evident is that Gildas invokes
Ambrosius to discredit his descendants, who are unnamed in that section. It
strengthens his attack on them considerably. If he was leaving out stuff to
create a better spin, he wouldn't be the first one who's done that.
What we don't know is who exactly these degenerate descendents were. Who do
you think he meant? What are the possible names? What was their role at
Badon? Did they fight alongside Ambrosius? Or given the ambiguity of the
text, could one of them actually have been the leader? These are some of the
real questions if you come at it without any bias towards Arthur.
>Unless you have a basis for thinking Arthur won at Badon (and I've already
explained why Nennius
> isn't even a bad basis, let alone a good one), and a reason why Gildas
> might want to suppress the fact...
Here you digress a bit about Adrian Gilbert going down a false road
>...then the question itself is absurd.
Wow, it's amazing how contentious you can be in such a few words.
But I was hoping you would have a stab at Nennius again. First there's no
real reason to dismiss him just because Dumville said something about
his technique. Forgive me, I don't know what Dumville actually wrote but I
assume it was something in an historical journal about 1977. Despite your
conviction it hasn't prevented others, such as Salway, cautiously admitting
Nennius into their texts. I think if he had said Nennius was a forgery I
would have heard. I understand it is more subtle than that.
If Nennius's technique of ordering old sources into a chronological digest
were practised by modern historians it might be considered good practice.
How much the sources were tampered with
when he ordered them is another thing and you would need the sources to
discuss that with any authority.
But Nennius writing in 800 is all there is of the older sources. He mentions
Badon and a lot of other stuff highly relevant for anyone interested in the
Arthur legends and what their basis in fact might be. So he is likely to
stay on the table.
You also might not like Nennius specifically because he includes extracts or
paraphrases from a Kentish chronicler who may have been writing about 600 or
earlier. This has Ambrosius fighting against Vortigern. I am not willing to
speculate on just how old that would make Ambrosius to also have fought at
Badon, but why do I keep thinking of a Zimmer frame or a birthday message
from the Queen?
Vortigen may have lost it by around mid fifth century, say between 440 and
455, as some historians have suggested. Part of their evidence is knowledge
of a letter to the Roman Consul Aetius asking for help. Ambrosius would have
stepped in somewhere near to that date. Presumably the Gildas/Ambrosius
battle would have been not all that long after.
At the other end of the time period is Badon, which also seems to be a
movable feast, ranging from 495 to 515.
Let's make Ambrosius 25 years old at the Gildas battle. Let's assume the
battle was around 450 which also allows Amboisus to fight Vortigern and fits
in the historical context of a turn against the Anglos Saxons who rebelled
against Vortigern. To do this Ambrosius could be as old as 90 at Badon. You
can play around with the dates to get Ambroisus down to a sprightly 65 or
70. Or push him up to a 100
If you claim Gildas' ambiguous text suggest Ambrosius was at Badon, you
naturally can't accept that Nenius faithfully transcribed the Kentish
chronicler. But the Aetius letter is also working against you, especially as
there is a theory that Ambroisus wrote it.
What you could do to get out of this is postulate there were two
Ambrosius's.
Now what is it you were saying about Adrian Gilbert....
I think I may have exhausted my contribution to this Gildas theme but will
continue to watch this fascinating channel with interest.
Best regards and tnaks for the interest.
Graham
Graham Nowland
"jim irvine" <jim.i...@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:396A56...@virgin.net...
> Graham Nowland wrote:
> Have you read the new book by Michael Wood "In Search of England"?
No Jim but it looks like I will have to.
>In it he considers Gildas and the reference to Ambrosius; in particular
> he considers the punctuation in what remains of one of the earliest
> surviving copies of Gildas.
>I note that you have punctuated the above passage in modern style - a style
which did not exist in medieval
> times.
>Reading was done aloud and punctuation was apparently inserted
> to allow pauses for breath and between passages. He suggests that the
> way this document is punctuated seems to allow the text referring to
> Ambrosius to run on to the Badon entry implying that Ambrosius and Badon
> are linked together.
But you inserted the English. I have put the original Latin below.
Unfortuntely I have only the faintest smattering but I think I can a glimmer
of what you mean.
The Phillimore modern typeset edition from which this is lifted makes a
break between the two sections which separates it form the Ambrosius
section. If Michael Wood makes that kind of statement I assume he looked at
the manuscript or a facsimile.
The whole of the previous section is one sentence running to about 11 lines
of printed text. I just haven't got the patience to type it all in.
What I can see is that from the time Ambrosius is mentioned the subject of
the verbs shifts to "our poeple," which becomes the main subject of the last
three lines until a colon ie : Then the words "quis victorii domino
annunete cessit" complete the passage with a full stop.
("The Lord assented and the battle went their way," although whether this is
literal is anothe thing.)
Then comes the space, followed by the passage. "From then on etc...." which
in the Latin is
"Ex eo tempore nunc cives, nunc hostes, vincebant, ut in ista gente
expiriretur dominus solito more praesentum Israelum, utrum diligat eum an
non: usque ad annum obessionis Badonici montis, novissimaeque ferme de
furciferis non minimae stragis, quique quadragesimus quartus (ut novi)
orditur annus mense iam uno emenso, qui et meae nativitatis est. "
I find it hard to see how anyone can read the passage out loud up to "quis
victorii domino annunete cessit." ("The Lord assented and the battle went
their way") without pausing n either language. From a story tellers point of
view, it's is a perfect place to draw a breath, before moving into: "Ex eo
tempore nunc cives" ("From then on victory now went to our countrymen...")
before heading off to Badon hill via Israel.
The sense of a break is thus conveyed in four ways in the Phillimore printed
edition. (1) the change of the subject to the verb from "Ambrosus" to "our
people," (2) the punctuation of a colon and a full stop. (3) the actual
sense of the words after the colon. (4) a break in the Phillimore rendering.
I am really glad you brought this up. If Ambroisus wasn't at Badon his
contempories would know what the exact subtext was, especially given the
entire mood of the surrounding passages. If he was there he gets the credit
for the entire campaign. But if you take the latter view other quesions
start to arise about Ambrosius's age and why Gildas wrote so ambiguosly.
I suppose what is really needed next is a facsimile of the manuscript page
in question, and someone who actually knows latin, to take up all the
grammatical issues. It could be done with an attachment to this news group I
believw, but I don;t know how to nor do I have access to the page. Any
offers?
Afterthought: This piece of text appears in the historical section of
Gildas, which is substantial, about a fifth of the whole text. It should
really not be called the preface, because there is already a preface
containing Gildas agonising about whether he should write at all. The
historical first movement is a major necessity in his carefully wought
structure, before he issues his admonition to the kings and clergy about
their shortcoming. It amount to a sort of "how did we get into mess" theme
in which he is able to focus blame. The whole work is constructed to achieve
this purpose and he uses historical and scriptural sources ruthlessly to
nail the authorities.
Regards
Graham
Graham Nowland
No but it looks like I will have to.
>In it he considers Gildas and the reference to Ambrosius; in particular
> he considers the punctuation in what remains of one of the earliest
> surviving copies of Gildas.
>I note that you have punctuated the above passage in modern style - a style
which did not exist in medieval
> times.
>Reading was done aloud and punctuation was apparently inserted
> to allow pauses for breath and between passages. He suggests that the
> way this document is punctuated seems to allow the text referring to
> Ambrosius to run on to the Badon entry implying that Ambrosius and Badon
> are linked together.
But you inserted the English. I have put the original Latin below.
Unfortunately I have only the faintest smattering but I think I get a
glimmer
of what you mean. If Michael Wood said that I guess he looked at
the manuscript or a facsimile.
The Phillimore modern typeset edition from which the paragraph below is
lifted makes a
break which separates it. The whole of the previous section is one sentence
running to about 11 lines
of printed text. I just haven't got the patience to type it all in.
What I can see is that from the place Ambrosius is mentioned the subject of
the verbs shifts to "our people," which becomes the main subject of the last
three lines until a colon ie : Then the words "quis victorii domino
annunete cessit" complete the passage with a full stop.
("The Lord assented and the battle went their way." although whether this is
exactly literal translation is another thing.)
Then comes the space, followed by the passage. "From then on etc...." which
in the Latin is
"Ex eo tempore nunc cives, nunc hostes, vincebant, ut in ista gente
expiriretur dominus solito more praesentum Israelum, utrum diligat eum an
non: usque ad annum obessionis Badonici montis, novissimaeque ferme de
furciferis non minimae stragis, quique quadragesimus quartus (ut novi)
orditur annus mense iam uno emenso, qui et meae nativitatis est. "
Maybe you can read the passage out loud up to "quis
victorii domino annunete cessit." ("The Lord assented and the battle went
their way") without pausing in either language. But from a story tellers
point of
view, it's a natural break, as well as a perfect place to draw a breath,
before moving into: "Ex eo
tempore nunc cives" ("From then on victory now went to our countrymen...")
before heading off to the Badon Hill clause.
The sense of a break is therefroe conveyed in at least four ways in the
Phillimore printed
edition. (1) the change of the subject to the verb from "Ambrosus" to "our
people," (2) the punctuation of a colon and a full stop. (3) the actual
sense of the words after the colon. (4) a paragraph break in the Phillimore
rendering.
I am really glad you brought this up.
I suppose what is really needed next is a facsimile of the manuscript page
in question, and someone who actually knows latin, to take up all the
grammatical issues. It could be done with an attachment to this news group I
believe, but I don;t know how to, nor do I have access to the mansucript.
Any
offers?
Regards
Graham
jim irvine
>
> "jim irvine" <jim.i...@virgin.net> wrote in message
> news:396A56...@virgin.net...
>
> > Have you read the new book by Michael Wood "In Search of England"?
>
>
> The Phillimore modern typeset edition from which this is lifted makes a
> break between the two sections which separates it form the Ambrosius
> section. If Michael Wood makes that kind of statement I assume he looked at
> the manuscript or a facsimile.
>
> The whole of the previous section is one sentence running to about 11 lines
> of printed text. I just haven't got the patience to type it all in.
>
> What I can see is that from the time Ambrosius is mentioned the subject of
> the verbs shifts to "our poeple," which becomes the main subject of the last
> three lines until a colon ie : Then the words "quis victorii domino
> annunete cessit" complete the passage with a full stop.
>
> ("The Lord assented and the battle went their way," although whether this is
> literal is anothe thing.)
>
> Then comes the space, followed by the passage. "From then on etc...." which
> in the Latin is
>
> "Ex eo tempore nunc cives, nunc hostes, vincebant, ut in ista gente
> expiriretur dominus solito more praesentum Israelum, utrum diligat eum an
> non: usque ad annum obessionis Badonici montis, novissimaeque ferme de
> furciferis non minimae stragis, quique quadragesimus quartus (ut novi)
> orditur annus mense iam uno emenso, qui et meae nativitatis est. "
>
> I find it hard to see how anyone can read the passage out loud up to "quis
> victorii domino annunete cessit." ("The Lord assented and the battle went
> their way") without pausing n either language. From a story tellers point of
> view, it's is a perfect place to draw a breath, before moving into: "Ex eo
> tempore nunc cives" ("From then on victory now went to our countrymen...")
> before heading off to Badon hill via Israel.
>
> The sense of a break is thus conveyed in four ways in the Phillimore printed
> edition. (1) the change of the subject to the verb from "Ambrosus" to "our
> people," (2) the punctuation of a colon and a full stop. (3) the actual
> sense of the words after the colon. (4) a break in the Phillimore rendering.
>
>
> Regards
> Graham
The book has since gone back to the library but as I recall he looked at
a surviving (although partly burnt) copy of (IIRC) one of the earliest
copies of Gildas.
As to the Philimore edition, good though it is, it has to some extent
been translated with a modern slant. From what Wood was saying it seems
to me that the modern puntuation does not fully equate to the medieval
puntuation and so the meaning could be somewhat in dispute. I suggest
you look at the book and see what you think.
Jim
Graham Nowland
> The book has since gone back to the library but as I recall he looked at
> a surviving (although partly burnt) copy of (IIRC) one of the earliest
> copies of Gildas.
> As to the Philimore edition, good though it is, it has to some extent
> been translated with a modern slant. From what Wood was saying it seems
> to me that the modern puntuation does not fully equate to the medieval
> puntuation and so the meaning could be somewhat in dispute. I suggest
> you look at the book and see what you think.
Once again I am glad you have made me think more about this. The mansucript
you mention sounds like one the Phillimore translator, Michael Winterbottom,
describes in these words.
- "The eleventh century Cotton mansucript Vitellus A vi was treated by
Mommsen as primary, but it was badly damaged in the disastrous fire that
ravaged the Cotton collection in the 18th century and had to be supplemented
from two early editions (Polydore Virgil, 1525 Josselin 1568), whose
compilers made use of the undamaged book."
He says his text is basically that established by Mommsen, and includes a
short list of minor variants he introduced. He doesn't discuss punctuation,
beyond saying Gildas thought in paragraphs rather than sentences. The bit I
am interested in has two such "paragraphs". The only variant Winterbottom
made in the section Winterbottom is - alveari] alvearii. Somethings about
bees and beehives maybe?
I have this awful feeling that sooner or later I am going to have to type
the whole section of both "paragraphs" in Latin and English. After all this
I really just want to know what the facts are about the famous Gildas
section.
O well I am off to the libary to see if I can get the Michael Wood book
Thanks again and regards
Regards
Graham
Graham Nowland
news:396D007A...@trib.infi.net...
>If anyone has such a facsimile, I'd love to have one ..... email me, and
>I'll post it at my website, and then we
> can just put a link to it in a message, how's that?
Jason, thanks for the offer. I hope someone takes it up. I found your
website/s (by putting your full name in a search engine) but haven't got
time explore just now.
Regards
Graham
[Conversation in previous thread was about Gildas's The Ruin Of Britain
sections 25 and 26 Latin MS, which mentions Ambrosius and Badon. Ambiguity
about whether the two sections taken together mean he led the battle (widely
attributed to Arthur) or not. A key sub-question is whether later
punctuation in published latin editions alters the meaning translated to
modern readers.]
Eramon1
>Fascinating. I would really like to know the source for that if you find it.
>I can almost hear Robert Elliot typing furiously that its unhistorical. But
>the fact that Gildas has some sort of axe to grind is clear from his
>wording. He is clearly suppressing something in the two or three paragraphs
>leading up to his Badon Hill reference.
Graham,
Why do you think that? The historical details are so sketchy through the whole
volume that one would have to conclude he's suppressing something in the entire
book. I can't see why that section is any different.
As you say, knowing the sources for any Gildas/Arthur differences would be
useful. Until those are named and produced I have to assume it's all made up.
It's a good story but still fantasy unless proven otherwise.
-Eric Ramon
Portland, Oregon
Robert Elliot
in a few paragraphs. I think I'll have to let the debate rest there, I'm afraid
- life is becoming a trifle hectic as I'm moving and starting a new job and all
sorts of other alarming things.
Gildas
You are, of course, right to say that the first part of the work is more than a
preface. I tend to express views too emphatically, and the error of viewing the
historical section as the primary one of the book is common. I also agree with
you that it is fundamental to his argument. However, I think I disagree with
you over interpretation of his argument. As I understand it, you think that
Gildas is using the historical section much as he uses the rest of the work - to
pin the blame for the current lamentable state of affairs on a section of
British society, in this case those in authority. I think this is why I say
that your view is "political". I didn't mean to involve us in some silly
semantic debate over the term - only to contrast this view of Gildas holding
*some* people to blame with my own, that Gildas held the *whole* of contemporary
British society to blame. Naturally, particularly to the medieval mind, he
holds up examples from those in authority; however, I canot see any evidence
that he considered anybody from his own time, from whatever walk of life or
background, a "good guy". Because I do not think he can be said to be on any
particluar group of people's side (except God's!), I cannot see any reason why
he should take a partisan attitude to individuals in the past - and consequently
I cannot see why we should look at the account of Britain between the Saxon
rebellion and Badon and say that he is being devious in his account.
This is not to say that his account is not coloured, indeed highly coloured, by
the position from which he wrote. Gildas was applying the template of the Old
Testament to the Britons; indeed in the passage you quoted, he refers to them as
a modern Israel. The basic biblical formula is quite simple; God blesses the
Israelites, they become lazy, slothful and sinful (often particularly summed up
in the failings of their king, but his sins are symptomatic of society as a
whole), God brings the Israeiltes under judgement and allows their enemies the
upper hand, the Israelites eventually repent and God allows them the victory,
and then the cycle starts again. This pattern is the basis of the De Excidio.
I think the part of his account that comes closest to being devious due to this
is the period between the departure of the Romans (410) and the Saxon rebellion,
which I am highly inclined to date to 440/441 on the basis of the Gallic
chronicles. Within this 30 year period, Gildas has the Britons hitting new lows
of being hammered around by the Picts; however, they begin to resurge due to
repentance and reliance on God and eventually drive the Picts out and win. They
then establish a quite extraordinarily prosperous nation which inevitable
becomes deeply sinful, kings are anointed and overthrown and everything goes to
pot, the Picts come back and the Saxons are invited in to sort them out - with
the disastrous consequences we all know so well.
This seems quite a lot of events to me for 30 years, and also a quite remarkable
degree of knowledge for things which happened over one hundred years before
Gildas wrote. In truth, it looks to me like a quick object lesson for the
people of his own day. One of the most extraordinary features of the work, as
far as I can see, is its title. "Of the Ruin and Conquest of Britain" - yet
Gildas makes it quite clear that whilst Britain has indeed been ruined in the
past, at the time of writing it is doing very well thank you. As for conquered
- the Angles and Saxons are still a minority in the east of the island, and at
this time the Britons are still enjoying their years of peace with their
neighbours ever since their conclusive victory at Badon hill. The title doesn't
really fit Britain's past, and it certainly doesn't fit Britain's present.
But it does fit Britain's future, or so Gildas believes. He is lambasting the
whole of British society because he believes it is in the part of the cycle
where blessings, victory, peace and prosperity have led to deep sinfulness - and
he knows what God will have in store for his modern Israel if they don't pull
their socks up pretty damn fast. He sees himself as a classic Old Testament
Prophet, bewailing the sins of the people of God and calling to them to repent
before it is too late. So there are at one level good guys and bad guys - but
the good guys are the generation that fought the war with the Saxons, who God
tried and found acceptable and gave the victory, exemplified by Ambrosius. The
bad guys are the whole of present British society, the generation that never
knew the horrors of war and have grown up sinful in their slothful luxury. This
is his message; and I cannot see how this message leads us to imagine that
Gildas would have been deceitful about who did or did not lead the British at
Badon. Indeed, if there were to have been an Arthur who won at Badon, Gildas'
argument would portray him as a good guy *unless* he specifically said
otherwise.
As a matter of fact, I think devious is too strong a word for his account of the
previous events, as well. Frankly, he knew precious little about what had
happened before the Saxon revolt (as far as I can see he even gets the "Appeal
to Aetius" in the wrong place; surely it belongs to the period after the Saxon
revolt of 440/441?). What he did know - the departure of the Romans, the
Pictish incursions and the eventual invitation to the Saxons to operate as
mercenaries - he fits into a historiographical tradition which has to account
for why God allowed heathens to defeat Christians (i.e. the Christians must have
been pretty sinful) and then adds what appears to be a fictitious period of
peace and prosperity in order to bash home his point about where things are
headed in his own day. It's not exactly great historical method, but it isn't
wilfully malicious and deceitful.
Nennius
You have taken slight umbrage at my use of the terms "irrational" and "absurd";
I'd better explain that I've been using them in reference to the ultimate logic
of an argument, not to disparage those who hold certain views. A bit like a sum
- once you have done it correctly, it is apparent that any answer other than the
correct one is irrational and absurd, but that doesn't mean that those who have
come to another answer are necessarily either of those things, they may just
have got the sum wrong for very good reasons. So all I really meant was that I
think I'm right, and that I think I can logically prove I'm right - which sounds
so appallingly arrogant that I'd better set about trying to do so!
As I have said before, to ask a question of a text without having a reason to do
so is <cough> irrational and absurd - my Ambrosius/Antoninus example. We are (I
believe!) discussing the question "did somebody other than Ambrosius, somebody
who was so important that Gildas' failure to mention him can only be viewed as
deliberately obscuring the truth and hence being devious, actually lead the
British at Badon?" Now the only reason to ask this question is if we have some
reason to believe that person might have done so. As I have argued above, I can
see no *internal* evidence in the De Excidio to lead me to believe this, so I
have to turn outside to other texts. *All* of the other texts which might lead
us to believe this are directly dependent on Nennius. Therefore if Nennius is
demonstrably too flimsy to be a basis to ask any questions of the 5th century,
then we have no reason to ask the question, and if we insist on still doing so
we are being irrational and absurd (you're going to get tired of my harping on
those words - I'm just joking!).
Obviously this hinges on the interpretation of the HB. I cannot here give full
justice to the extent of Dumville's work on this topic, so instead I will cite
his articles and give a precis. You referred to his 1977 article, "Sub-Roman
Britain, History and Myth". I can remember that the first time I read that I
was incandescent - I was a strong supporter of a historical Arthur and it seemed
to me a very unpleasant, partial and far from conclusive article. I'm not sure
I was so far wrong! However, that article doesn't come near to providing all
the evidence that has since been amassed.
Here are Dumville's articles that put the nails in the HB's coffin as a
historical source for the 5th and 6th centuries:
1974, 'Some Aspects of the Chronology of the Historia Brittonum' in Bulletin of
the Board of Celtic Studies 25
1975-6, 'Nennius and the Historia Brittonum' in Studia Celtica 10/11
1986, 'The Historical Value of the Historia Brittonum' in Arthurian Literature 6
1990, Histories and Pseudo-Histories of the Insular Middle Ages
1994, 'Historia Brittonum: an Insular History from the Carolingian Age' in A.
Scharer and G. Scheibelreiter (edd.) Historiographie im frühen Mittelalter
[Taken from Tom Green's bibliography at
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~tomgreen/arthur.htm]
Well worth geting hold of - they transformed my opinions when I read them,
though they depressed me a lot too since I had quite a lot emotionally riding on
the existence of a historical Arthur!
The basic fact about the HB is that it was composed in 829 AD - 330 years after
Badon. I think sometimes the sheer length of time is obscured by the fact that
they are both in the "Dark Ages", but put it in terms of somebody today writing
about 1670. Unless we have some very good reasons for thinking that that person
has evidence for their assertions, they are worthless to us. Consequently,
people have historically seized on Nennius' assertion in his preface that due to
his utter lack of skill he has merely lumped together all the evidence he has
found. As a result of this they have posited that the battle list might be in
origin a Welsh paean, perhaps sung to Arthur's face. Now this is pretty
methodologically dubious anyway - no actual evidence of where the battle list
actually came from, even if Nennius did just copy it wholesale. Still, it
probably does provide sufficient gounds to at least ask our question about
Gildas.
What Dumville did was point out something everyone really ought to have spotted
- and if they hadn't been so desperate for any fragments of evidence, they
probably would have done. The preface to the HB is just the classic topos from
the period, excusing the writer's affrontery in actually writing something new,
which was generally felt to be a potential sign of insufferable arrogance since
surely the Bible and the Classics between them provided all the learning that
could ever be needed. Classic versions of this include "I felt terribly
embarassed at being so arrogant as to subject you to reading my terrible writing
and presuming to write a book, but I felt I had to as a duty to God", as in
Gildas, or "I felt terribly embarassed at being so arrogant as to subject you to
reading my terrible writing and presuming to write a book, but I felt I had to
to preserve the memory of a great king" as in Einhard's Life of Charlemagne.
Einhard's is particularly rich - there was precious little chance of the memory
of Charlemagne being forgotten given the amount of written material and annals
being churned out during his lifetime, and Einhard's work self-consciously
displays an excellent written style with lots of classical allusions to show us
how erudite he was.
What better way to excuse writing something new than to claim it is old? Hence
Monmouth, and Nennius. Nobody was meant to take his assertion that he had
merely lumped evidence together without any purpose or skill *seriously* - he
would be mortified if he knew that people had taken him at such face value! So
one of the main bulwarks of the case for Nennius being usable evidence for the
5th and 6th centuries went by the wayside. However, Dumville didn't stop at
showing that the preface is not evidence for what Nenius had done - he went on
to examine what Nennius had actually produced from the internal evidence of the
HB. His conclusion (and it is very difficult to dispute the evidence he
produces) is that far from lumping things together, Nennius produced a
deliberate and structured history of the Britons according to his own vision.
Furthermore, by reference to other examples from the same period, he shows that
it is an example of what he calls "synthesised history" - which is to say that
the writer has set about providing the British with a written history because
they did not previously have one, and has used classical mythology, British
myths, legends and folk tales quite happily to do so. As such it is all but
impossible to distinguish which bits are myth, which legend, which fiction and
which just perhaps have some basis in things which actually happened. The
battle list is particularly suspect - too much of it looks like a composite of
other people's actions, and it is too reminiscent of Irish battle lists in Irish
synthesised histories which make Finn mac Cool fight the Vikings, despite the
fact that we know he was a popular hero long before the Vikings went anywhere
near Ireland.
So the HB is unusable as evidence for the 5th and 6th centuries, so asking
questions of Gildas on the basis of it is... well, I won't say it. Thanks for
the discussion - I hope it has been taken in an amiable spirit! My apologies if
I have put my opinions offensively strongly at any stage.
Rob
P.S. A couple of brief notes:
1. Since Alcock's book and Dumville's 1977 article, quite a lot of work has been
done on the Annales Cambriae. Essentially, it has been conclusively proven that
they were produced in the 9th or 10th century from Irish annals which are
identifiable - and which do not mention Arthur. It is supremely unlikely that
the Arthur entries were added on the basis of any surviving contemporary
evidence from 300-400 years before, and the similarities between the Badon entry
and the HB battle list make it all but certain that the AC entries are
derivative from the HB in one form or another.
2. Dumville does not actually believe that Nennius wrote the HB - he thinks it
was done by someone else hoping to add to the respectability of the work by
pretending to be Nennius. This obviously adds to his argument that it is
consciously promoting an image, not merely copying other documents; however,
this opinion is disputed and the evidence unclear, and it is not ultimately
important to his fundamental arguments which demonstrate the nature of the HB
from its own internal evidence. For the sake of clarity I have assumed that
Nennius was the author throughout this post.
Graham Nowland
news:20000718134253...@ng-ft1.aol.com...
> Graham Nowland wrote:
> As you say, knowing the sources for any Gildas/Arthur differences would be
> useful. Until those are named and produced I have to assume it's all made
up.
> It's a good story but still fantasy unless proven otherwise.
Eric,
Is the glass half full or half empty?
The subject of this channel seems huge, a body of facts, plus much which is
something else: perhaps fantasy is the right word - I don't know.
Some of the fascination of the Arthurian saga for our era seems to be
figuring out what is true and what is fantasy. The professional historians
and archaelogists are good at paring it down, but often lose lose something
in the process.
Maybe what's left after they've finished belongs to anthropologists and
literary historians, who don't post here very much.
The ups and downs of the Arthurian saga over the centuries certainly seems
worth studying.
For example why did the whole body of legend more or less die out for two
hundred years, then come back again in the 19th century? What is fuelling
the current boom which has lasted at least 35 years and seems to be getting
stronger?
On more detailed things: Why did Galahad displace Perceval in some versions
as the main grail seeker? And how is the late evolution of the grail idea
explained? Exactly what nerve is touched by the Merlin character and his
spinoff developments in Lord of the Rings and Star Wars? Why is the
magician so popular in this age? Isn't technology enough?
Just a few ideas to suggest its more than just fantasy
Regards
Graham
Graham Nowland
>>I'm just going to sum up where I'm coming from in a few paragraphs. I
>think I'll have to let the debate rest there, I'm
>afraid - life is becoming a trifle hectic as I'm moving and starting a new
>job and all sorts of other alarming things.
>>Gildas....
That's OK I have learnt a lot from the debate and re-read Gildas -
discovering all sorts of new and interesting things. Except for his use of
great slabs and pastiches of religious quotes in the second half, I admire
his broad construction skills as a writer. I may write something on this
later.
>>Nennius....
Thanks very much for the details of Dumville's articles which I will try to
find.
So far I haven't shifted very much, because I haven't yet seen any evidence
that Ambrosius fought at Badon. That was what kickstarted me.
But I admit I am now far more wary of Nennius. Thanks.
Don't work too hard.
Best regards
Graham
Cherith Baldry
<snip>
> For example why did the whole body of legend more or less die out for two
> hundred years, then come back again in the 19th century?
I suspect this has something to do with the rise and fall in the fortunes of
mediaeval studies and people's attitude towards the mediaeval. In the
eighteenth century Enlightenment, the Middle Ages were considered
barbarous - and Arthur with them, I suppose. The revival came in the
nineteenth century with the revival of interest in mediaeval life and
culture - in the PreRaphaelite movement, for example.
<snip>
> On more detailed things: Why did Galahad displace Perceval in some
versions
> as the main grail seeker?
Perceval, so I believe, was considered too flawed a character to be suitable
for such a holy role. The perfect Galahad was substituted. Also the rise of
Lancelot as a central character possibly made writers wish to incorporate
him in the Grail legend. He can't be the Grail Knight because of his
adulterous relationship with Guenevere. But he can be the father of the
Grail Knight. Incidentally, the conception of Galahad is a good example of
double-think of the period - apparently to get the Grail Knight born it's OK
for Lancelot to be enchanted so that he believes he is making love to one
woman when actually his bed partner is someone totally different - and
neither, as it happens, his wife.
>Exactly what nerve is touched by the Merlin character and his
> spinoff developments in Lord of the Rings and Star Wars? Why is the
> magician so popular in this age? Isn't technology enough?
Perhaps because we have so much technology we look for different ways of
expressing ourselves.
> Regards
> Graham
Best regards,
Cherith
Joe Jefferson
>
> <snip>
> >Exactly what nerve is touched by the Merlin character and his
> > spinoff developments in Lord of the Rings and Star Wars? Why is the
> > magician so popular in this age? Isn't technology enough?
>
> Perhaps because we have so much technology we look for different ways of
> expressing ourselves.
Science and technology are wonderful for dealing with the lesser
problems of existence, but for the greater matters - Why am I here? What
is the point of my life? How should I live it? Given our inevitable
mortality, there anything at all worth doing? - they are wholly
inadequate.
--
Joe of Castle Jefferson
http://www.primenet.com/~jjstrshp/
Site updated October 1st, 1999.
"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the
poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the
hand of the wicked." - Psalm 82:3-4.
Eramon1
>
>Is the glass half full or half empty?
>
>The subject of this channel seems huge, a body of facts, plus much which is
>something else: perhaps fantasy is the right word - I don't know.
Graham,
You're right, of course. I tend to think of the history and the romances as two
distinct categories, even though they have much in common. I put Gildas in the
"history" section, despite there being so little history there, and Geoffrey in
"romance" although I suspect there's more history in Geoffrey than we know for
sure.
Since I think of Gildas as a source of historical information and since he left
behind something written, I can't make the connection between "The Ruin of..."
and the legends concerning his family and Arthur. I mean, for me it's mixing
the two threads. I find it interesting conjecture but when I'm thinking solely
on the historical nature of Arthur and 5th/6th century Britain I take a more
discriminating/cynical view of "the evidence"....such as it is.
-Eric
Graham Nowland
news:8lcvq5$ntr$1...@plutonium.btinternet.com...
(in reply to my question on the return of Arthurian legend after long
obscurity from around 1600)
> I suspect this has something to do with the rise and fall in the fortunes
of
> mediaeval studies and people's attitude towards the mediaeval. In the
> eighteenth century Enlightenment, the Middle Ages were considered
> barbarous - and Arthur with them, I suppose. The revival came in the
> nineteenth century with the revival of interest in mediaeval life and
> culture - in the PreRaphaelite movement, for example.
What I realised, after reading your response and then thinking a bit more,
was
that I had the resources to dig at this anyway and had forgotten all about
them. These
books (details below) partly corroborate your answer. In fact you seem very
accurate,
maybe only underestimating the influence of the Enlightenment slightly,
according to what I have read so far.
This is a sketchy assessment based on fairly fast skimming of two books that
cover the topic and dredged up memories of others I read some time ago.
The original Arthurian romances were often used to create a mood of respect
and some credibility for the right of kings to rule. Sometimes links to
Arthur were in the background of a claim to the throne. But the stories
totally
lost any political value in the upheavals of the late 16ht and 17th
centuries.
Changing methods of warfare also had an impact. Reliable field guns, ansd
fast improving muskets put cavalry in a different role and methods of
organising armies also changed.
The last tournament was in 1624, according to one of the books.
It all fits so neatly. Cervantes gentle but effective satire of the
chivalric ideal and his errant knight Don Quixote came in 1600 and was a
huge best seller throughout Europe.
There was little Arthurian literature through the 1600s and nothing that I
can find in the first
half of the 1700s, althought someone might know the odd publication.
The roots of the revival seem to have come during the mid 18th century,
perhaps beginning even before 1750.
With the rational atmosphere of the mid 1700s a new respect for
history developed and people wanted to understood what had actually happened
in the Middle Ages. Old
documents were re-examined. At the same time people studied medieval
buildings and the rich started to build neo-medieval houses and castles and
fill them with mock armour.
Ownere commissioned paintings of knights in armour to decorate the houses
and castles . Meanwhile books about medieval chivalry were being written.
One of the first was by the Bishop of Worcester in about 1762, who extolled
the moral virtues he found there.
Others followed and just as people like
Edmund Burke were declaring that chivalry
was totally dead, it was quietly re-emerging in a new form all around them.
The English public schools adopted the revived form of the ideals, which
then also began to percolate into the upper clases and into outdoor sports
such as cricket and football.
The broad movement also triggered a literary exploration of the murkier
sub-texts of medievalism, the Gothic novels. At least some of these
writers of the late 1700s and early 1800s were also into chivalry -
certainly that applies to Horace Walpole, who wrote the Castle of Otranto.
It is easy to imagine writers with access to large libraries delving and
finding fictional treasure that had not really seen much light for a couple
of hundred years.
And there was an untapped new market for it. Even before 1800 new Arthurian
poems were being writen and in 1801 John Thelwall published the Fairy of the
Lake, a dramatic romance in three acts,
which has been described as: "unintentionally ludicrous."
But it was a full blown Arthurian creation, partly based on Nennius.
Characters included Arthur, Vortigern, Rowenna, Guinevre and the Lady of the
Lake but set
against Northern mythology with Giants of Frost and a frozen demon.
Things kept picking up. In 1813 Walter Scott weighed in with the Bridal
of Triermain, a light satire of Arthurian lore. Others followed, not meaning
to be funny, although Thomas Love Peacock did when he
wrote The Misfortunes of Elphin of 1829. The momentum was increasing now and
Tennyson in the early 1830s published the first of his Arthurian poems, the
Lady of Shalott.
Idylls of the King came much later, but a lot of the individual poems
which make it up were written well before the The PreRaphaelite Brotherhood
was formed. That was in 1848. Thre's a quite a lot more to be said about how
things developed since then.....
The two relevant books are:
(1) The Return of King Arthur by Beverley Taylor and Elisabeth Brewer:
Brewer/Barnes and Noble 1983
(2)The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman, by Mark
Girouard: Yale UP 1981
Best regards
Graham
Cherith Baldry
<snip extremely informative post>
Thank you for this lucid summary.
Best regards,
Cherith
Michael Flynn
Thanks for your post. I found it very thoughtful and enlightening.
It appears that with the information available, it is clearly not
possible to prove the historicity of Arthur through history. I take a
different approach. I don't feel the need to prove anything, but I would
like to know what is the most likely and reasonable case.
There are incredible coincidences in the social/political situation
surrounding 5th century Britain that resonate with the romantic tales if
they do not completely agree with them. Instaed of getting lost in the
details I think this calls for a broad view of the situation.
The Arthurian theme and ideal rivaled religion as the principal theme of
Western civilization for nearly a thousand years. There is something
important here, what is it? I believe that Arthur and his society
represented a brief golden age which was the marrying of the technical
competence of the Romans with the idealism and sense of honor of the
barbarian world. This idealism changed Western civilization and made it into
something no other civilization had ever been before. The idea that it is
the duty of the strong to protect the weak may sound natural to you, but it
is absolutely bizarre relative to any other civilization that ever existed.
In Rome the poor existed only to serve the rich. They had no other
justification for even existing. None.
Then we discover that Britain actually was such a place (golden city on
the hill) for a while. Not only that but the time coincides with the
discovery of the stirrup and heavy armored cavalry which revolutionized
warfare and the first time in hundreds of years that upper class Romans went
to war as citizen soldiers instead of having mercenaries do it.
There are so many things. That the Bretons tended to be well better
educated than their peers on the continent and were more literate. That
Avalon has a religious basis with Joseph of Arimathea and that even Mary may
have died there. That the druids had their principal training grounds near
Avalon in earlier times and that the British church got along with them
suggests that Merlin, whoever it is, could be compatible with a Christian
Arthur who used religious relics to authenticate his authority, relics which
had been the personal property of Joseph (the last supper took place in his
home and the cup of the eucharist was his houshold property). That
Camulodunum was not only the ancient capital of Britain, but in Roman times
it was the second most important cultural/religious center in the entire
Roman empire. Also that the villas in Britain were more prosperous and that
they were owner occupied, which gave Britain a large upper class with
something to defend and the means to defend it. There are so many things
that say that *someone* provided leadership which resulted in the kind of
thing that people admired about the Arthurian stories.
Regards, Michael
Robert Elliot <robert...@dial.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:3974DC12...@dial.pipex.com...
Anopheles
"Michael Flynn" wrote
I see why you need to take a "different" approach to the historical one.
Your contribution here is full of historical and literary errors. By all
means go after Arthur as created by medieval writers but don't pretend that
the fictional creation then has reality by linking it to historical facts
and events.
Anopheles
> > Scharer and G. Scheibelreiter (edd.) Historiographie im fr・en
Michael Flynn
Anopheles <hi...@jeack.com.au> wrote in message
news:8oi2kq$ao4t5$1...@ID-34438.news.cis.dfn.de...
>
> I see why you need to take a "different" approach to the historical one.
> Your contribution here is full of historical and literary errors. By all
> means go after Arthur as created by medieval writers but don't pretend
that
> the fictional creation then has reality by linking it to historical facts
> and events.
>
> Anopheles
>
literay errors. It is difficult to respond to such a vague criticism.
As far as I know, the only people on this board who are certain that
Arthur can be found in history are the Welsh nationalists who insist that
their literature be taken as contemporary history. I am willing to look at
that. Is your name really Anopheles?
Michael
Anopheles
"Michael Flynn" wrote
Seeing you deleted your text from your reply, I had to cut and paste to
provide this for you. My main problem with what you say is that you mix
facts with fantasy. I don't line up with any faction but I do lean towards
the Welsh as having a case that has never been considered adequately by
others.
> Robert,
> Thanks for your post. I found it very thoughtful and enlightening.
>
> It appears that with the information available, it is clearly not
> possible to prove the historicity of Arthur through history.
>I take a
> different approach. I don't feel the need to prove anything, but I would
> like to know what is the most likely and reasonable case.
> There are incredible coincidences in the social/political situation
> surrounding 5th century Britain that resonate with the romantic tales if
> they do not completely agree with them. Instaed of getting lost in the
> details I think this calls for a broad view of the situation.
Here is where you have a problem with history. You confuse the "romantic
tales" (fiction) with recorded history. When discussing provable 5th century
history, how many romantic tales do we know? Roamntic tales (by definition)
did not begin until the 11th century.
> The Arthurian theme and ideal rivaled religion as the principal theme
of
> Western civilization for nearly a thousand years.
Starting from when and ending when?
>There is something
> important here, what is it? I believe that Arthur and his society
> represented a brief golden age which was the marrying of the technical
> competence of the Romans with the idealism and sense of honor of the
> barbarian world. This idealism changed Western civilization and made it
into
> something no other civilization had ever been before. The idea that it is
> the duty of the strong to protect the weak may sound natural to you, but
it
Again, you are talking about the storybook Arthur. The fantasy developed by
the 11-14 century group of writers who took from "The History of the Kings
of Britain" and developed the legend of Arthur as we know it today. It is a
far cry from any warrior or society of the 5th century.
> is absolutely bizarre relative to any other civilization that ever
existed.
Of course, one is fiction the others are reality.
> In Rome the poor existed only to serve the rich. They had no other
> justification for even existing. None.
I see you may have a problem with Roman history as well.
> Then we discover that Britain actually was such a place (golden city on
> the hill) for a while. Not only that but the time coincides with the
> discovery of the stirrup and heavy armored cavalry which revolutionized
> warfare and the first time in hundreds of years that upper class Romans
>went to war as citizen soldiers instead of having mercenaries do it.
We can argue about the timing of the stirrup but it is your thesis that it
was this that led to Roman upper class cavalry that I question.
Consider this viewpoint:
http://www.ukans.edu/ftp/pub/history/Europe/Medieval/articles/stirrup_thesis
.html
> There are so many things. That the Bretons tended to be well better
> educated than their peers on the continent and were more literate.
Why do you call Britons Bretons? Or are you saying the Bretons are the
Britons?
> That
> Avalon has a religious basis with Joseph of Arimathea and that even Mary
>may
> have died there. That the druids had their principal training grounds near
> Avalon in earlier times and that the British church got along with them
> suggests that Merlin, whoever it is, could be compatible with a Christian
> Arthur who used religious relics to authenticate his authority, relics
which
> had been the personal property of Joseph (the last supper took place in
his
> home and the cup of the eucharist was his houshold property). That
> Camulodunum was not only the ancient capital of Britain, but in Roman
times
> it was the second most important cultural/religious center in the entire
> Roman empire. Also that the villas in Britain were more prosperous and
that
> they were owner occupied, which gave Britain a large upper class with
> something to defend and the means to defend it. There are so many things
> that say that *someone* provided leadership which resulted in the kind of
> thing that people admired about the Arthurian stories.
>
> Regards, Michael
Anopheles
(Who choses to post under this name in this and writing groups.)
Michael Flynn
I am not mixing history with fantasy. I am trying to correlate the two to
see how the fantasy might have originated from the reality. If you see that
as a totally invalid approach then we really have little to talk about. Is
it your requirement that nothing can be historical if any flavor of it shows
up in literature?
>
> > Robert,
> > Thanks for your post. I found it very thoughtful and enlightening.
> >
> > It appears that with the information available, it is clearly not
> > possible to prove the historicity of Arthur through history.
>
>
> >I take a
> > different approach. I don't feel the need to prove anything, but I would
> > like to know what is the most likely and reasonable case.
> > There are incredible coincidences in the social/political situation
> > surrounding 5th century Britain that resonate with the romantic tales
if
> > they do not completely agree with them. Instaed of getting lost in the
> > details I think this calls for a broad view of the situation.
>
> Here is where you have a problem with history. You confuse the "romantic
> tales" (fiction) with recorded history. When discussing provable 5th
century
> history, how many romantic tales do we know? Roamntic tales (by
definition)
> did not begin until the 11th century.
>
For one thing there is precious little provable 5th century history and
of course I know that the literature developed later. So what is your
problem? Maybe a beer would help. How on earth do you get the notion that I
am confusing the literature with history? I am simply suggesting (and many
authors have come from the same point of view) that something of
significance happened that was told and retold. The stories we have now are
quite corrupted, but it may be possible to determine what reasonable
circumstance might have caused them to get going.
When the Normans arrived it was important for them to find the historical
Arthur to justify their rule. They found no hard evidence that I know of and
may have manufactured some, but they did find hundreds of oral traditions
over large areas of the country.
> > The Arthurian theme and ideal rivaled religion as the principal theme
> of
> > Western civilization for nearly a thousand years.
>
> Starting from when and ending when?
>
Beginning a few hundred years befor the Norman invasion and ending at the
Rennaisance, or more precisely at the Hundred years' War. otherwise known as
the Age of Chivalry. I'm sure you can argue about exact dates but I am not
interested in your petty nitpicking, so keep it to yourself. Actally I don't
mind if someone has information to add but you bring with it an assinine and
childish attitude of superiority which generally hides grave personal
insecurities and inadequacies.
>
> >There is something
> > important here, what is it? I believe that Arthur and his society
> > represented a brief golden age which was the marrying of the technical
> > competence of the Romans with the idealism and sense of honor of the
> > barbarian world. This idealism changed Western civilization and made it
> into
> > something no other civilization had ever been before. The idea that it
is
> > the duty of the strong to protect the weak may sound natural to you, but
> it
>
> Again, you are talking about the storybook Arthur. The fantasy developed
by
> the 11-14 century group of writers who took from "The History of the Kings
> of Britain" and developed the legend of Arthur as we know it today. It is
a
> far cry from any warrior or society of the 5th century.
>
Ok, then where did these ideas come from? You pretend to know something
about the Romans but this certainly did not come from them. Besides I was
not talking about "storybook" Arthur, but about Celtic (and other
"barbarian" tendencies). I don't know if we have any stories about 5th
century warriors or if they accurately reflect that time, but we do have
comments from several late Romans who are disgusted with the cynicism of
their own culture and find much to admire about the barbarians.
> > is absolutely bizarre relative to any other civilization that ever
> existed.
>
> Of course, one is fiction the others are reality.
>
> > In Rome the poor existed only to serve the rich. They had no other
> > justification for even existing. None.
>
> I see you may have a problem with Roman history as well.
>
You see the Romans as great humanitarians? Amazing.
To discern Roman attitudes is subjective as there are always exceptions
and attitudes changed with time, but in general if you were well off you
were considered blessed by the gods and if you were not then obviously the
gods had cursed you. The reason every emperor was the choice of the gods is
that if you got to sit in the chair it had to have been with the approval of
the gods. Another general characteristic of the time was that if you did not
speak the language then you were worth no more than an animal and certainly
had no rights.
> > Then we discover that Britain actually was such a place (golden city
on
> > the hill) for a while. Not only that but the time coincides with the
> > discovery of the stirrup and heavy armored cavalry which revolutionized
> > warfare and the first time in hundreds of years that upper class Romans
> >went to war as citizen soldiers instead of having mercenaries do it.
>
> We can argue about the timing of the stirrup but it is your thesis that it
> was this that led to Roman upper class cavalry that I question.
>
Go ahead and question it.
> Consider this viewpoint:
>
http://www.ukans.edu/ftp/pub/history/Europe/Medieval/articles/stirrup_thesis
> .html
>
>
> > There are so many things. That the Bretons tended to be well better
> > educated than their peers on the continent and were more literate.
>
> Why do you call Britons Bretons? Or are you saying the Bretons are the
> Britons?
>
What is your definition of the two? They are related and close enough for my
purpose. The Britannic tribe actually lived in Brittany and the name was
mistakenly applied to England by Julius Caesar because the people he saw
there were so much like the Brittanic tribe, at least to him.
This is pointless nitpicking.
So you have an alter identity, like Batman.
If you don't like my ideas then please do not read them. Your responses have
not provided any information or put forward any position. They are only
negative and disparaging and completely useless for the purpose of finding
truth.
The questions here are meant for the board and don't require an answer
from you.
Michael (my real name)
Graham Nowland
Anopheles maculipennis is a common British species and one of the
distributers of
malaria in tropical countries. Everyman's Encyclopaedia 1930.
Peter
> If you don't like my ideas then please do not read them.
Sorry to be a party pooper chaps but doesn't this attitude to a great extent
destroy the purpose of Newsgroups. I would suggest that if you can't deal
with reasoned argument against your ideas maybe you shouldn't post them.
Peter
Anopheles
Mmm! Let's see, all my comments are disparaging, right? They didn't work
though. You seem still entrenched in that silly world, trapped between
reality and real. Why not pop over to alt.history,mystics?
Oh, and you completely overlooked the website I pointed out to you. Or,could
it be, you failed to comment on it because it totally showed up your
ignorance. No. that wouldn't be right, would it?
Anopheles
Anopheles
"Graham Nowland" wrote
$c5.1...@newsfeeds.bigpond.com...
You forgot to mention about the bloodsucking.
Anopheles
Michael Flynn
>
> Mmm! Let's see, all my comments are disparaging, right? They didn't work
> though. You seem still entrenched in that silly world, trapped between
> reality and real. Why not pop over to alt.history,mystics?
> Oh, and you completely overlooked the website I pointed out to you.
Or,could
> it be, you failed to comment on it because it totally showed up your
> ignorance. No. that wouldn't be right, would it?
>
> Anopheles
>
and put forward your own views and amaze us with your brilliance. You have
yet to say anything that a 10year old retard coulnd't have said more
eloquently.
Michael
Michael Flynn
Peter <pe...@aysgarth90.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:8omcl0$png$2...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...
(saying that "everything you say is wrong" without offering an alternative
is not an argument, although I grant that it is argumentative).
Michael
Graham Nowland
>
> "> You forgot to mention about the bloodsucking.
>
Oh alright then...if you insist
The mosquito genera Anopheles, not only carries malaria, but also
transmits filariasis and encephalitis...Mosquitos are said to be important
in public health because of the bloodsucking habits
of the females....The males of most species feed on nectar and plant juices
....the females require a blood
meal in order to mature their eggs..."
Incidentally the mosquito's characteristic hum come from its high frequency
wingbeats; the female's slightly lower frequency may serve as a means of sex
recognition.
Kind regards
Graham
Anopheles
"Michael Flynn" wrote
$3E6.1...@news1.alsv1.occa.home.com...
I gave you "one" reasoned argument; that's all I needed to show you up. It
destroyed all that crap about stirrups and "Roman cavalry". You chose to
ignore it. Now you bray on and on like the jackass you are. If you can't
handle criticism, go back to alt.divinelight.justme.
Anopheles
Anopheles
"Michael Flynn" wrote
$3E6.1...@news1.alsv1.occa.home.com...
It seems there is a need to speak as a 10 year old retard to deal with your
lack of comprehension. If you can't access the page, try something new,
something daring - like research!
As you sem so totally inexperienced in this area, I'll help. Use Google and
search for "stirrup Rome". That seems to get the site I posted as well as
others in the same vein.
Happy embarrasment!
Anopheles
Anopheles
"Graham Nowland" wrote
That's what that is? Bugger! I've been missing out.
Of course, you know about the CO2 antennae, right?
Anopheles