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Robin Hood
Robin Hood became a popular folk figure starting in medieval times continuing through modern literature, films, and television. In the earliest sources Robin Hood is a commoner, but he was often later portrayed as an aristocrat wrongfully dispossessed of his lands and made into an outlaw by an unscrupulous sheriff.
History
In popular culture, Robin Hood and his band of merry men are usually portrayed as living in Sherwood Forest, in Nottinghamshire, where much of the action in the early ballads takes place.[4]
So does the very first recorded Robin Hood rhyme, four lines from the
early 15th century, beginning: "Robyn hode in scherewode stod."
However,
the overall picture from the surviving early ballads and other early
references suggest that Robin Hood may have been based in the Barnsdale area of what is now South Yorkshire (which borders Nottinghamshire).
Other traditions point to a variety of locations as Robin's "true" home both inside Yorkshire and elsewhere, with the abundance of places named for Robin causing further confusion. A tradition dating back at least to the end of the 16th century gives his birthplace as Loxley, Sheffield in South Yorkshire, while the site of Robin Hood's Well in Yorkshire has been associated
with Robin Hood since at least 1422. His grave has been claimed to be at Kirklees Priory, Mirfield in West Yorkshire, as implied by the 18th-century version of Robin Hood's Death, and there is a headstone there of dubious authenticity.
The first clear reference to "rhymes of Robin Hood" is from the late 14th-century poem Piers Plowman,
but the earliest surviving copies of the narrative ballads which tell
his story have been dated to the 15th century or the first decade of
the 16th century. In these early accounts Robin Hood's partisanship of
the lower classes, his Marianism and associated special regard for women, his outstanding skill as an archer, his anti-clericalism, and his particular animus towards the Sheriff of Nottingham are already clear.
In popular culture Robin Hood is typically seen as a contemporary and supporter of the late 12th-century king Richard the Lionheart, Robin being driven to outlawry during the misrule of Richard's evil brother John while Richard was away at the Third Crusade. This view first gained currency in the 16th century, but it has very little scholarly support. It is certainly not supported by the earliest ballads. The early compilation A Gest of Robyn Hode
names the king as "Edward," and while it does show Robin Hood as
accepting the King's pardon he later repudiates it and returns to the
greenwood.
The oldest surviving ballad, Robin Hood and the Monk
gives even less support to the picture of Robin Hood as a partisan of
the true king. The setting of the early ballads is usually attributed
by scholars to either the 13th century or the 14th, although it is
recognised they are not necessarily historically consistent.
The early ballads are also quite clear on Robin Hood's social status: he is a yeoman.
While the precise meaning of this term changed over time, including
free retainers of an aristocrat and small landholders, it always
referred to commoners. The essence of it in the present context was
"neither a knight nor a peasant or 'husbonde' but something in
between."
We know that artisans (such as millers) were among those regarded as "yeomen" in the 14th century. From the 16th century on there were attempts to elevate Robin Hood to the nobility and in two extremely influential plays Anthony Munday presented him at the very end of the 16th century as the Earl of Huntingdon, as he is still commonly presented in modern times.
As well as ballads, the legend was also transmitted by "Robin Hood
games" or plays that were an important part of the late medieval and
early modern May Day festivities. The first record of a Robin Hood game was in 1426 in Exeter,
but the reference does not indicate how old or widespread this custom
was at the time. The Robin Hood games are known to have flourished in
the later 15th and 16th centuries. It
is commonly stated as fact that Maid Marian and a jolly friar (at least
partly identifiable with Friar Tuck) entered the legend through the May
Games.
The early ballads link Robin Hood to identifiable real places and
many are convinced that he was a real person, more or less accurately
portrayed. A number of theories as to the identity of "the real Robin
Hood" have their supporters. Some of these theories posit that "Robin
Hood" or "Robert Hood" or the like was his actual name; others suggest
that this may have been merely a nick-name disguising a medieval bandit
perhaps known to history under another name.
Another view is that Robin Hood's origins must be sought in folklore or mythology; Despite the frequent Christian references in the early ballads, Robin Hood has been claimed for the pagan witch-religion supposed by Margaret Murray to have existed in medieval Europe.
Early references
The oldest references to Robin Hood are not historical records, or
even ballads recounting his exploits, but hints and allusions found in
various works. From 1228, onwards the names 'Robinhood', 'Robehod' or
'Hobbehod' occur in the rolls of several English Justices. The majority
of these references date from the late 13th century. Between 1261 and
1300, there are at least eight references to 'Rabunhod' in various
regions across England, from Berkshire in the south to York in the north.
In a petition presented to Parliament in 1439, the name is used to describe an itinerant felon. The petition cites one Piers Venables of Aston, Derbyshire,
"who having no liflode, ne sufficeante of goodes, gadered and assembled
unto him many misdoers, beynge of his clothynge, and, in manere of
insurrection, wente into the wodes in that countrie, like as it hadde
be Robyn Hude and his meyne." The name was still used to describe sedition and treachery in 1605, when Guy Fawkes and his associates were branded "Robin Hoods" by Robert Cecil.
The first allusion to a literary tradition of Robin Hood tales occurs in William Langland's Piers Plowman (c. 1362–c. 1386) in which Sloth, the lazy priest, confesses: "I kan [know] not parfitly [perfectly] my Paternoster as the preest it singeth,/ But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood."
The first mention of a quasi-historical Robin Hood is given in Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Chronicle, written in about 1420. The following lines occur with little contextualisation under the year 1283:
- Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude
- Wayth-men ware commendyd gude
- In Yngil-wode and Barnysdale
- Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale.
Among Bower's many interpolations is a passage which directly
refers to Robin. It is inserted after Fordun's account of the defeat of
Simon de Montfort and the punishment of his adherents. Robin is represented as a fighter for de Montfort's cause.[26] This was in fact true of the historical outlaw of Sherwood Forest Roger Godberd, whose points of similarity to the Robin Hood of the ballads have often been noted.
Bower writes:
- Then [c. 1266] arose the famous murderer, Robert Hood, as well as
Little John, together with their accomplices from among the
disinherited, whom the foolish populace are so inordinately fond of
celebrating both in tragedies and comedies, and about whom they are
delighted to hear the jesters and minstrels sing above all other
ballads.
The word translated here as "murderer" is the Latin siccarius,
from the Latin for "knife." Bower goes on to tell a story about Robin
Hood in which he refuses to flee from his enemies while hearing Mass in the greenwood, and then gains a surprise victory over them, apparently as a reward for his piety.
Another reference, discovered by Julian Luxford in 2009, appears in the margin of the "Polychronicon" in the Eton College library. Written around the year 1460 by a monk in Latin, it says:
- Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw
named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other
law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies.
William Shakespeare makes reference to Robin Hood in his late 16th-century play The Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of his earliest. In it, the character Valentine is banished from Milan
and driven out through the forest where he is approached by outlaws
who, upon meeting him, desire him as their leader. They comment, "By
the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar, This fellow were a king for
our wild faction!" implying that they imagine themselves as similar to
the Robin Hood story.
References to Robin as Earl of Huntington
Another reference is provided by Thomas Gale, Dean of York (c. 1635–1702), but this comes nearly four hundred years after the events it describes:
- [Robin Hood's] death is stated by Ritson to have taken place on
the 18th of November, 1247, about the 87th year of his age; but
according to the following inscription found among the papers of the
Dean of York...the death occurred a month later. In this inscription,
which bears evidence of high antiquity, Robin Hood is described as Earl of Huntington - his claim to which title has been as hotly contested as any disputed peerage upon record.
-
- Hear undernead dis laitl stean
- Lais Robert Earl of Huntingun
- Near arcir der as hie sa geud
- An pipl kauld im Robin Heud
- Sic utlaws as hi an is men
- Vil England nivr si agen.
- Obiit 24 Kal Dekembris 1247
This inscription also appears on a grave in the grounds of Kirklees Priory near Kirklees Hall
Robert is largely fictional by this time. The Gale note is
inaccurate. The medieval texts do not refer to him directly, but
mediate their allusions through a body of accounts and reports: for
Langland, Robin exists principally in "rimes," for Bower, "comedies and
tragedies," while for Wyntoun he is, "commendyd gude."
Even in a legal context, where one would expect to find verifiable
references to Robert, he is primarily a symbol, a generalised
outlaw-figure rather than an individual. Consequently, in the medieval
period itself, Robin Hood already belongs more to literature than to
history. In fact, in an anonymous song called Woman of c. 1412,
he is treated in precisely this manner - as a joke, a figure that the
audience will instantly recognise as imaginary:
- He that made this songe full good,
- Came of the northe and the sothern blode,
- And somewhat kyne to Robert Hoad.
Sources
There is little scholarly support for the view that tales of Robin Hood have stemmed from mythology or folklore; from fairies (such as Puck under the alias Robin Goodfellow) or other mythological origins.
When Robin Hood has been connected to such folklore, it is apparently a later development. Maurice Keen
provides a brief summary and useful critique of the once-popular view
that Robin Hood had mythological origins, while (unlike some)
refraining from utterly and finally dismissing it. While Robin Hood and
his men often show superb skill in archery, swordplay, and disguise,
they are no more exaggerated than those characters in other ballads,
such as Kinmont Willie, which were based on historical events.
Robin Hood's role in the traditional May Day
games could suggest pagan connections but that role has not been traced
earlier than the early 15th century. However, it is uncontroversial
that a Robin and Marion figured in 13th-century French "pastourelles" (of which Jeu de Robin et Marion
c. 1280 is a literary version) and presided over the French May
festivities, "this Robin and Marion tended to preside, in the intervals
of the attempted seduction of the latter by a series of knights, over a
variety of rustic pastimes."
In the Jeu de Robin and Marion Robin and his companions have to rescue Marion from the clutches of a "lustful knight." Dobson
and Taylor in their survey of the legend, in which they reject the
mythological theory, nevertheless regard it as "highly probable" that
this French Robin's name and functions travelled to the English May
Games where they fused with the Robin Hood legend.
The origin of the legend is claimed by some to have stemmed from actual outlaws, or from tales of outlaws, such as Hereward the Wake, Eustace the Monk, Fulk FitzWarin,[42] and William Wallace.[43] Hereward appears in a ballad much like Robin Hood and the Potter, and as the Hereward ballad is older, it appears to be the source. The ballad Adam Bell, Clym of the Cloughe and Wyllyam of Cloudeslee runs parallel to Robin Hood and the Monk,
but it is not clear whether either one is the source for the other, or
whether they merely show that such tales were told of outlaws.
Some early Robin Hood stories appear to be unique, such as the story where Robin gives a knight, generally called Richard at the Lee, money to pay off his mortgage to an abbot, but this may merely indicate that no parallels have survived.
There are a number of theories that attempt to identify a
historical Robin Hood. A difficulty with any such historical search is
that "Robert" was in medieval England a very common given name, and "Robin" (or Robyn) especially in the 13th century was its very common diminutive.[46]
The surname "Hood" (or Hude or Hode etc.), referring ultimately to the
head-covering, was also fairly common. Unsurprisingly, therefore, there
are a number of people called "Robert Hood" or "Robin Hood" to be found
in medieval records. Some of them are on record for having fallen foul
of the law but this is not necessarily significant to the legend.
The early ballads give a number of possible historical clues,
notably the Gest names the reigning king as "Edward," but the ballads
cannot be assumed to be reliable in such details. For whatever it may
be worth, however, King Edward I took the throne in 1272, and an Edward remained on the throne until the death of Edward III in 1377.
On the other hand what appears to be the first known example of
"Robin Hood" as stock name for an outlaw dates to 1262 in Berkshire
where the surname "Robehod" was applied to a man after he had been
outlawed, and apparently because he had been outlawed.
This could suggest two main possibilities: either that an early
form of the Robin Hood legend was already well established in the
mid-13th century; or alternatively that the name "Robin Hood" preceded
the outlaw hero that we know; so that the "Robin Hood" of legend was
so-called because that was seen as an appropriate name for an outlaw.
It has long been suggested, notably by John Maddicott, that "Robin Hood" was a stock alias used by thieves. Another theory of the origin of the name needs to be mentioned here. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica remarks that 'hood' was a common dialectical form of 'wood'; and that the outlaw's name has been given as "Robin Wood." There
are indeed a number of references to Robin Hood as Robin Wood, or
Whood, or Whod, from the 16th and 17th centuries. The earliest recorded
example, in connection with May games in Somerset, dates from 1518.
One well-known theory of origin was proposed by Joseph Hunter in 1852. Hunter identified the outlaw with a "Robyn Hode" recorded as employed by Edward II in 1323 during the king's progress through Lancashire. This Robyn Hood was identified with (one or more people called) Robert Hood living in Wakefield before and after that time. Comparing the available records with especially the Gest and also other
ballads Hunter developed a fairly detailed theory according to which Robin Hood was an adherent of the rebel Earl of Lancaster, defeated at the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322.
According to this theory Robin Hood was pardoned and employed by
the king in 1323. (The Gest does relate that Robin Hood was pardoned by
"King Edward" and taken into his service.) The theory supplies Robin
Hood with a wife, Matilda, thought to be origin of Maid Marian; and
Hunter also conjectured that the author of the Gest may have been the
religious poet Richard Rolle (1290–1349) who lived in the village of Hampole in Barnsdale.
This theory has long been recognised to have serious problems, one
of the most serious being that "Robin Hood" and similar names were
already used as nicknames for outlaws in the 13th century. Another is
that there is no direct evidence that Hunter's Hood had ever been an
outlaw or any kind of criminal or rebel at all, the theory is built on
conjecture and coincidence of detail. Finally
recent research has shown that Hunter's Robyn Hood had been employed by
the king at an earlier stage, this casting doubt on this Robyn Hood's
supposed earlier career as outlaw and rebel.
Another theory identifies him with the historical outlaw Roger Godberd who was a die-hard supporter of Simon de Montfort; which would place Robin Hood around the 1260s. There are certainly parallels between Godberd's career and that of Robin Hood as he appears in the Gest, John Maddicott has called Godberd "that prototype Robin Hood." Some problems with this theory are that there is no evidence that Godberd was
ever known as Robin Hood, and no sign in the early Robin Hood ballads of the specific concerns of de Montfort's revolt.
Another well-known theory, first proposed by the historian L. V. D. Owen in 1936 and more recently floated by J. C. Holt
and others, is that the original Robin Hood might be identified with an
outlawed Robert Hood, or Hod, or Hobbehod, all apparently the same man,
referred to in nine successive Yorkshire Pipe Rolls between 1226 and 1234. There is no evidence however that this Robert Hood, although an outlaw, was also a bandit.
Ballads and tales
The earliest surviving text of a Robin Hood ballad is "Robin Hood and the Monk". This is preserved in Cambridge University manuscript Ff.5.48, which was written shortly after 1450. It
contains many of the elements still associated with the legend, from
the Nottingham setting to the bitter enmity between Robin and the local
sheriff.
The first printed version is A Gest of Robyn Hode (c. 1475), a collection of separate stories which attempts to unite the episodes into a single continuous narrative. After this comes "Robin Hood and the Potter",
contained in a manuscript of c. 1503. "The Potter" is markedly
different in tone from "The Monk": whereas the earlier tale is "a
thriller" the latter is more comic, its plot involving trickery and
cunning rather than straightforward force. The difference between the
two texts recalls Bower's claim that Robin-tales may be both 'comedies
and tragedies'.
Other early texts are dramatic pieces such as the fragmentary Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham (c. 1472).
These are particularly noteworthy as they show Robin's integration into
May Day rituals towards the end of the Middle Ages.
The plots of neither "the Monk" nor "the Potter" are included in the Gest; and neither is the plot of "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne"
which is probably at least as old as those two ballads although
preserved in a more recent copy. Each of these three ballads survived
in a single copy, so it is unclear how much of the medieval legend has
survived, and what has survived may not be typical of the medieval
legend. It has been argued that the fact that the surviving ballads
were preserved in written form in itself makes it unlikely they were
typical; in particular stories with an interest for the gentry were by
this view more likely to be preserved. The story of Robin's aid to the
"poor knight" that takes up much of the Gest may be an example.
The character of Robin in these first texts is rougher edged than
in his later incarnations. In "Robin Hood and the Monk", for example,
he is shown as quick tempered and violent, assaulting Little John for
defeating him in an archery contest; in the same ballad Much the
Miller's Son casually kills a "little page" in the course of rescuing Robin Hood from prison.
No extant ballad actually shows Robin Hood "giving to the poor", although in a "A Gest of Robyn Hode" Robin does make a large loan to an unfortunate knight
which he does not in the end require to be repaid; and later in the
same ballad Robin Hood states his intention of giving money to the next
traveller to come down the road if he happens to be poor.
- Of my good he shall haue some,
- Yf he be a por man.
As it happens the next traveller is not poor, but it seems in
context that Robin Hood is stating a general policy. From the beginning
Robin Hood is on the side of the poor; the Gest quotes Robin Hood as
instructing his men that when they rob:
- loke ye do no husbonde harme
- That tilleth with his ploughe.
- No more ye shall no gode yeman
- That walketh by gren-wode shawe;
- Ne no knyght ne no squyer
- That wol be a gode felawe.
And in its final lines the Gest sums up:
- he was a good outlawe,
- And dyde pore men moch god.
Within Robin Hood's band medieval forms of courtesy rather than
modern ideals of equality are generally in evidence. In the early
ballads Robin's men usually kneel before him in strict obedience: in A Gest of Robyn Hode
the king even observes that "His men are more at his byddynge/Then my
men be at myn." Their social status, as yeomen, is shown by their
weapons; they use swords rather than quarterstaffs.
The only character to use a quarterstaff in the early ballads is the
potter, and Robin Hood does not take to a staff until the 18th century Robin Hood and Little John.
The political and social assumptions underlying the early Robin
Hood ballads have long been controversial. It has been influentially
argued by J. C. Holt that the Robin Hood legend was cultivated in the
households of the gentry, and that it would be mistaken to see in him a
figure of peasant
revolt. He is not a peasant but a yeoman, and his tales make no mention
of the complaints of the peasants, such as oppressive taxes. He
appears not so much as a revolt against societal standards as an
embodiment of them, being generous, pious, and courteous, opposed to
stingy, worldly, and churlish foes. Other scholars have by contrast stressed the subversive aspects of the legend, and see in the medieval Robin Hood ballads a plebeian literature hostile to the feudal order.
Printed versions of the Robin Hood ballads, generally based on the Gest, appear in the early 16th century, shortly after the introduction of printing in England. Later that century Robin is promoted to the level of nobleman: he is styled Earl of Huntingdon, Robert of Locksley, or Robert Fitz Ooth. In the early ballads, by contrast, he was a member of the yeoman classes, which included common freeholders possessing a
small landed estate.
By the early 15th century at the latest, Robin Hood had become
associated with May Day celebrations, with revellers dressing as Robin
or as members of his band for the festivities. This was not common
throughout England, but in some regions the custom lasted until Elizabethan times, and during the reign of Henry VIII, was briefly popular at court. Robin was often allocated the role of a May King, presiding over games and processions, but plays were also performed with the characters in the roles, sometimes performed at church ales, a means by which churches raised funds.
A complaint of 1492, brought to the Star Chamber,
accuses men of acting riotously by coming to a fair as Robin Hood and
his men; the accused defended themselves on the grounds that the
practice was a long-standing custom to raise money for churches, and
they had not acted riotously but peaceably.
It is from the association with the May Games that Robin's romantic attachment to Maid Marian (or Marion) apparently stems. The naming of Marian may have come from the French pastoral play of c. 1280, the Jeu de Robin et Marion, although this play is unrelated to the English legends.
Both Robin and Marian were certainly associated with May Day festivities in England (as was Friar Tuck), but these may have been originally two distinct types of performance - Alexander Barclay in his Ship of Fools, writing in c. 1500, refers to "some merry fytte of Maid Marian or else of Robin Hood" - but the characters were brought together.[71] Marian did not immediately gain the unquestioned role; in Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage, his sweetheart is 'Clorinda the Queen of the Shepherdesses'.[78] Clorinda survives in some later stories as an alias of Marian.
In the 16th century, Robin Hood is given a specific historical
setting. Up until this point there was little interest in exactly when
Robin's adventures took place. The original ballads refer at various
points to "King Edward", without stipulating whether this is Edward I, Edward II, or Edward III. Hood
may thus have been active at any point between 1272 and 1377. However,
during the 16th century the stories become fixed to the 1190s, the
period in which King Richard was absent from his throne, fighting in the crusades. This date is first proposed by John Mair in his Historia Majoris Britanniæ (1521), and gains popular acceptance by the end of the century.
Giving Robin an aristocratic title and female love interest, and
placing him in the historical context of the true king's absence, all
represent moves to domesticate his legend and reconcile it to ruling
powers. In this, his legend is similar to that of King Arthur, which morphed from a dangerous male-centred story to a more comfortable, chivalrous romance under the troubadours serving Eleanor of Aquitaine. From the 16th century on, the legend of Robin Hood is often used to promote the hereditary ruling class, romance, and religious piety. The "criminal" element is retained to provide dramatic colour, rather than as a real challenge to convention.
In the 18th century, the stories become even more conservative, and develop a slightly more farcical
vein. From this period there are a number of ballads in which Robin is
severely "drubbed" by a succession of professionals including a tanner, a tinker and a ranger. In
fact, the only character who does not get the better of Hood is the
luckless Sheriff. Yet even in these ballads Robin is more than a mere
simpleton: on the contrary, he often acts with great shrewdness. The
tinker, setting out to capture Robin, only manages to fight with him
after he has been cheated out of his money and the arrest warrant he is carrying. In Robin Hood's Golden Prize, Robin disguises himself as a friar
and cheats two priests out of their cash. Even when Robin is defeated,
he usually tricks his foe into letting him sound his horn, summoning
the Merry Men to his aid. When his enemies do not fall for this ruse, he persuades them to drink with him instead.
The title page of Howard Pyle's 1883 novel, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
The Victorian era generated its own distinct versions of Robin Hood. The traditional tales were often adapted for children, most notably in Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, which influenced accounts of Robin Hood through the 20th century. These
versions firmly stamp Robin as a staunch philanthropist, a man who
takes from the rich to give to the poor. Nevertheless, the adventures
are still more local than national in scope: while King Richard's
participation in the Crusades is mentioned in passing, Robin takes no
stand against Prince John, and plays no part in raising the ransom to
free Richard. These developments are part of the 20th century Robin
Hood myth.
The 20th century has grafted still further details on to the original legends. The 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland,
portrayed Robin as a hero on a national scale, leading the oppressed
Saxons in revolt against their Norman overlords while Richard the
Lionheart fought in the Crusades; this movie established itself so
definitively that many studios resorted to movies about his son
(invented for that purpose) rather than compete with the image of this
one.
In the 1973 animated Disney film Robin Hood, the title character is portrayed as an anthropomorphic fox voiced by Brian Bedford. Years before Robin Hood had even entered production, Disney had considered doing a project on Reynard the Fox. However, due to concerns that Reynard was unsuitable as a hero, animator Ken Anderson lifted many elements from Reynard into Robin Hood, thus making the titular character a fox.
The Robin Hood legend has thus been subject to numerous shifts and
mutations throughout its history. Robin himself has evolved from a
yeoman bandit to a national hero of epic proportions, who not only
supports the poor by taking from the rich, but heroically defends the
throne of England itself from unworthy and venal claimants.
Connections to existing locations
In modern versions of the legend, Robin Hood is said to have taken up residence in the verdant Sherwood Forest in the county of Nottinghamshire.
For this reason the people of present-day Nottinghamshire have a
special affinity with Robin Hood, often claiming him as the symbol of
their county. For example, major road signs entering the shire depict Robin Hood with his bow and arrow, welcoming people to 'Robin Hood County.' BBC Radio Nottingham also uses the phrase 'Robin Hood County' on its regular programmes. The Robin Hood Way
runs through Nottinghamshire and the county is home to literally
thousands of other places, roads, inns and objects bearing Robin's name.
Specific sites linked to Robin Hood include the Major Oak
tree, claimed to have been used by him as a hideout, Robin Hood's Well,
located near Newstead Abbey (within the boundaries of Sherwood Forest),
and the Church of St. Mary in the village of Edwinstowe, where Robin
and Maid Marian are historically thought to have wed. To reinforce this belief, the University of Nottingham in 2010 has begun the Nottingham Caves Survey
with the goal "to increase the tourist potential of these sites". The
project "will use a 3D laser scanner to produce a three dimensional
record of more than 450 sandstone caves around Nottingham".
However, the Nottingham setting is a matter of some contention.
While the Sheriff of Nottingham and the town itself appear in early
ballads, and Sherwood is specifically mentioned in the early ballad Robin Hood and the Monk, certain of the original ballads (even those with Nottingham references) locate Robin on occasion in Barnsdale (the area between Pontefract and Doncaster), approximately fifty miles north of Nottingham, in the county of Yorkshire; furthermore, it has been suggested that the ballads placed in this area are far more geographically specific and accurate.
This is reinforced for some by the alleged similarity of Locksley to the area of Loxley, South Yorkshire in Sheffield, where in nearby Tideswell, which was the "Kings Larder" in the Royal Forest of the Peak,
a record of the appearance of a "Robert de Lockesly" in court is found,
dated 1245. As "Robert" and its diminutives were amongst the most
common of names at the time, and also since it was usual for men to
adopt the name of their hometown ("De Lockesly" means simply, "Of [or
from] Lockesly"), the record could just as easily be referring to any
man from the area named Robert. Although it cannot be proven whether or
not this is the man himself, it is further believed by some that Robin
had a brother called Thomas - an assertion with no documentary evidence
whatsoever to support it in any of the stories, tales or ballads. If
the Robert mentioned above was indeed Robin Hood, and if he did have a
brother named Thomas, then consideration of the following reference may
lend this theory a modicum of credence:
- 24) No. 389, f0- 78. Ascension Day, 29 H. III., Nic Meverill,
with John Kantia, on the one part, and Henry de Leke. Henry released to
Nicholas and John 5 m. rent, which he received from Nicolas and John
and Robert de Lockesly for his life from the lands of Gellery, in
consideration of receiving from each of them 2M (2 marks). only, the
said Henry to live at table with one of them and to receive 2M.
annually from the other. T., Sampson de Leke, Magister Peter Meverill,
Roger de Lockesly, John de Leke, Robert fil Umfred, Rico de Newland,
Richard Meverill. (25) No. 402, p. 80 b. Thomas de Lockesly bound
himself that he would not sell his lands at Leke, which Nicolas Meveril
had rendered to him, under a penalty of L40 (40 pounds).
It is again, however, equally likely that Nicolas, John, Robert
and Thomas were simply members of a family which came from the area.
This debate is hardly surprising, given the considerable value that the Robin Hood legend has for local tourism.
The Sheriff of Nottingham also had jurisdiction in Derbyshire that was
known as the "Shire of the Deer," and this is where the Royal Forest of
the Peak is found, which roughly corresponds to today's Peak District National Park. The Royal Forest included Bakewell, Tideswell, Castleton, Ladybower and the Derwent Valley near Loxley.
Robin Hood himself was once thought to have been buried in the grounds of Kirklees Priory between Brighouse and Mirfield in West Yorkshire,
although for the reasons given above this theory has now largely been
abandoned. There is an elaborate grave there with the inscription
referred to above. The story said that the Prioress was a relative of
Robin's. Robin was ill and staying at the Priory where the Prioress was
supposedly caring for him. However, she betrayed him, his health
worsened, and he eventually died there.
Before he died, he told Little John (or possibly another of his
Merry Men) where to bury him. He shot an arrow from the Priory window,
and where the arrow landed was to be the site of his grave. The grave
with the inscription is within sight of the ruins of the Kirklees
Priory, behind the Three Nuns pub in Mirfield, West Yorkshire. The
grave can be visited on occasional organised walks, organised by Calderdale Council Tourist Information office.
Further indications of the legend's connection with West Yorkshire
(and particularly Calderdale) are noted in the fact that there are pubs
called the Robin Hood in both nearby Brighouse and at Cragg Vale; higher up in the Pennines beyond Halifax, where Robin Hood Rocks can also be found. Robin Hood Hill is near Outwood, West Yorkshire, not far from Lofthouse. There is a village in West Yorkshire called Robin Hood, on the A61 between Leeds and Wakefield and close to Rothwell
and Lofthouse. Considering these references to Robin Hood, it is not
surprising that the people of both South and West Yorkshire lay some
claim to Robin Hood, who, if he existed, could easily have roamed
between Nottingham, Lincoln, Doncaster and right into West Yorkshire.
List of traditional ballads
Elizabethan song of Robin Hood
Ballads are the oldest existing form of the Robin Hood legends,
although none of them are recorded at the time of the first allusions
to him, and many are much later. They share many common features, often
opening with praise of the greenwood and relying heavily on disguise as
a plot device, but include a wide variation in tone and plot.
The ballads below are sorted into three groups, very roughly
according to date of first known free-standing copy. Ballads whose
first recorded version appears (usually incomplete) in the Percy Folio
may appear in later versions and may be much older than the mid 17th
century when the Folio was compiled. Any ballad may be older than the
oldest copy which happens to survive, or descended from a lost older
ballad. For example, the plot of Robin Hood's Death, found in the Percy Folio, is summarised in the 15th-century A Gest of Robyn Hode,
and it also appears in an 18th-century version.
Early ballads (i.e., surviving in 15th- or early 16th-century copies)
Ballads appearing in 17th-century Percy Folio
NB. The first two ballads listed here (the "Death" and
"Gisborne"), although preserved in 17th century copies, are generally
agreed to preserve the substance of late medieval ballads. The third
(the "Curtal Friar") and the fourth (the "Butcher"), also probably have
late medieval origins.
Other ballads
Some ballads, such as Erlinton, feature Robin Hood in some variants, where the folk hero appears to be added to a ballad pre-existing him and in which he does not fit very well. He was added to one variant of Rose Red and the White Lily, apparently on no more connection than that one hero of the other variants is named "Brown Robin."
Francis James Child indeed retitled Child ballad 102; though it was titled The Birth of Robin Hood, its clear lack of connection with the Robin Hood cycle (and connection with other, unrelated ballads) led him to title it Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter in his collection.
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early sixth century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed
by modern historians. The sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various sources, including the Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum, and the writings of Gildas. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.
The legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest largely through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain). Some Welsh and Breton
tales and poems relating the story of Arthur date from earlier than
this work; in these works, Arthur appears either as a great warrior
defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical
figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn. How much of Geoffrey's Historia (completed in 1138) was adapted from such earlier sources, rather than invented by Geoffrey himself, is unknown.
Although the themes, events and characters of the
Arthurian legend varied widely from text to text, and there is no one
canonical version, Geoffrey's version of events often served as the starting point for later stories.
Geoffrey depicted Arthur as a king of Britain who defeated the Saxons and established an empire over Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Norway and Gaul. Many elements and incidents that are now an integral part of the
Arthurian story appear in Geoffrey's Historia, including Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, the wizard Merlin, Arthur's wife Guinevere, the sword Excalibur, Arthur's birth at Tintagel, his final battle against Mordred at Camlann and final rest in Avalon. The 12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes, who added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story, began the genre of Arthurian romance that became a significant strand of medieval literature. In these French stories, the narrative focus often shifts from King Arthur himself to other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table.
Arthurian literature thrived during the Middle Ages
but waned in the centuries that followed until it experienced a major
resurgence in the 19th century. In the 21st
century, the legend lives on, not only in literature but also in
adaptations for theatre, film, television, comics and other media.
Historical base
The historical basis for the King Arthur legend has long been debated by scholars. One school of thought, citing entries in the Historia Brittonum (History of the Britons) and Annales Cambriae (Welsh Annals), sees Arthur as a genuine historical figure, a Romano-British leader who fought against the invading Anglo-Saxons sometime in the late 5th to early 6th century.
The Historia Brittonum, a 9th-century Latin historical compilation attributed in some late manuscripts to a Welsh cleric called Nennius, lists twelve battles that Arthur fought. These culminate in the Battle of Mons Badonicus, or Mount Badon, where he is said to have single-handedly killed 960 men. Recent studies, however, question the reliability of the Historia Brittonum as a source for the history of this period.
The other text that seems to support the case for Arthur's historical existence is the 10th-century Annales Cambriae, which also link Arthur with the Battle of Mount Badon. The Annales date this battle to 516–518, and also mention the Battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut (Mordred) were both killed, dated to 537–539. These details have often been used to bolster confidence in the Historia's account and to confirm that Arthur really did fight at Mount Badon.
Problems have been identified, however, with using this source to support the Historia Brittonum's account. The latest research shows that the Annales Cambriae was based on a chronicle begun in the late 8th century in Wales. Additionally, the complex textual history of the Annales Cambriae precludes any certainty that the Arthurian annals were added to it even that early. They were more likely added at some point in the 10th century and may never have existed in any earlier set of annals. The Mount Badon entry probably derived from the Historia Brittonum.
This lack of convincing early evidence is the reason many recent historians exclude Arthur from their accounts of post-Roman Britain. In the view of historian Thomas Charles-Edwards,
"at this stage of the enquiry, one can only say that there may well
have been an historical Arthur [but …] the historian can as yet say
nothing of value about him". These modern admissions of ignorance are a relatively recent trend; earlier generations of historians were less sceptical. Historian John Morris made the putative reign of Arthur the organising principle of his history of sub-Roman Britain and Ireland, The Age of Arthur (1973). Even so, he found little to say about a historical Arthur.
The 10th-century Annales Cambriae, as copied into a manuscript of c. 1100
Partly in reaction to such theories, another school
of thought emerged which argued that Arthur had no historical existence
at all. Morris's Age of Arthur prompted archaeologist Nowell Myres to observe that "no figure on the borderline of history and mythology has wasted more of the historian's time". Gildas' 6th-century polemic De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (On the Ruin and Conquest
of Britain), written within living memory of Mount Badon, mentions the battle but does not mention Arthur.
Arthur is not mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or named in any surviving manuscript written between 400 and 820. He is absent from Bede's early 8th-century Ecclesiastical History of the English People, another major early source for post-Roman history that mentions Mount Badon. Historian David Dumville has written: "I think we can dispose of him [Arthur] quite
briefly. He owes his place in our history books to a 'no smoke without fire' school of thought ... The
fact of the matter is that there is no historical evidence about
Arthur; we must reject him from our histories and, above all, from the
titles of our books."
Some scholars argue that Arthur was originally a fictional hero of folklore – or even a half-forgotten Celtic deity – who became credited with real deeds in the distant past. They cite parallels with figures such as the Kentish totemic horse-gods Hengest and Horsa, who later became historicised. Bede ascribed to these legendary figures a historical role in the 5th-century Anglo-Saxon conquest of eastern Britain.
It is not even certain that Arthur was considered a king in the early texts. Neither the Historia nor the Annales calls him "rex": the former calls him instead "dux bellorum" (leader of battles) and "miles" (soldier).
Historical documents for the post-Roman period are
scarce, so a definitive answer to the question of Arthur's historical
existence is unlikely. Sites and places have been identified as "Arthurian" since the 12th century, but archaeology can confidently reveal names only through inscriptions found in secure contexts. The so-called "Arthur stone", discovered in 1998 among the ruins at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall in securely dated 6th-century contexts, created a brief stir but proved irrelevant.[18] Other inscriptional evidence for Arthur, including the Glastonbury cross, is tainted with the suggestion of forgery.
Although several historical figures have been proposed as the basis for Arthur, no convincing evidence for these identifications has emerged.
Name
The origin of the name Arthur remains a matter of debate. Some suggest it is derived from the Roman nomen gentile (family name) Artōrius, of obscure and contested etymology (but possibly of Messapic or Etruscan origin). Some scholars have suggested that is relevant to this debate that the legendary King Arthur's name only appears as Arthur, or Arturus, in early Latin Arthurian texts, never as Artōrius (though it should be noted that Classical Latin Artōrius became Arturius in some Vulgar Latin
dialects). However, this may not say anything about the origin of the name Arthur, as Artōrius would regularly become Art(h)ur when borrowed into Welsh.
Another possibility is that it is derived from a Brittonic patronym *Arto-rīg-ios (the root of which, *arto-rīg- "bear-king" is to be found in the Old Irish personal name Art-ri) via a Latinized form Artōrius. Less likely is the commonly proposed derivation from Welsh arth "bear" + (g)wr "man" (earlier *Arto-uiros in Brittonic); there are phonological difficulties with this theory - notably that a Brittonic compound name *Arto-uiros should produce Old Welsh *Artgur and Middle/Modern Welsh *Arthwr and not Arthur (in Welsh poetry the name is always spelled Arthur and is exclusively rhymed with words ending in -ur - never words ending in -wr - which confirms that the second element cannot be [g]wr "man").
An alternative theory, which has gained limited acceptance among professional scholars, derives the name Arthur from Arcturus, the brightest star in the constellation Boötes, near Ursa Major or the Great Bear. Classical Latin Arcturus would also have become Art(h)ur when borrowed into Welsh, and its brightness
and position in the sky led people to regard it as the "guardian of the bear" (which is the meaning of the name in Ancient Greek) and the "leader" of the other stars in Boötes.
A similar first name is Old Irish Artúr, which is believed to be derived directly from an early Old Welsh or Cumbric Artur. The earliest historically attested bearer of the name is a son or grandson of Áedán mac Gabráin (d. AD 609),
Medieval literary traditions
The creator of the familiar literary persona of Arthur was Geoffrey of Monmouth, with his pseudo-historical Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), written in the 1130s. The textual sources for Arthur are usually divided into those written before Geoffrey's Historia (known as pre-Galfridian texts, from the Latin form of Geoffrey, Galfridus) and those written afterwards, which could not avoid his influence (Galfridian, or post-Galfridian, texts).
Pre-Galfridian traditions
A facsimile page of Y Gododdin, one of the most famous early Welsh texts featuring Arthur, c. 1275
The earliest literary references to Arthur come from Welsh and Breton sources. There have been few attempts to define the nature and character of Arthur in the pre-Galfridian tradition as a whole, rather than in a single text or text/story-type. One
recent academic survey that does attempt this, by Thomas Green,
identifies three key strands to the portrayal of Arthur in this
earliest material. The first is that he was a
peerless warrior who functioned as the monster-hunting protector of
Britain from all internal and external threats. Some of these are human threats, such as the Saxons he fights in the Historia Brittonum, but the majority are supernatural, including giant cat-monsters, destructive divine boars, dragons, dogheads, giants and witches.
The second is that the pre-Galfridian Arthur was a
figure of folklore (particularly topographic or onomastic folklore) and
localised magical wonder-tales, the leader of a band of superhuman
heroes who live in the wilds of the landscape. The third and final strand is that the early Welsh Arthur had a close connection with the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn. On the one hand, he launches assaults on Otherworldly fortresses in search of treasure and frees their prisoners. On
the other, his warband in the earliest sources includes former pagan
gods, and his wife and his possessions are clearly Otherworldly in
origin.
One of the most famous Welsh poetic references to Arthur comes in the collection of heroic death-songs known as Y Gododdin (The Gododdin), attributed to the 6th-century poet Aneirin. In
one stanza, the bravery of a warrior who slew 300 enemies is praised,
but it is then noted that despite this "he was no Arthur", that is to
say his feats cannot compare to the valour of Arthur.
Y Gododdin is known only from a
13th-century manuscript, so it is impossible to determine whether this
passage is original or a later interpolation, but John Koch's view that
the passage dates from a 7th-century or earlier version is regarded as
unproven; 9th- or 10th-century dates are often proposed for it. Several poems attributed to Taliesin,
a poet said to have lived in the 6th century, also refer to Arthur,
although these all probably date from between the 8th and 12th
centuries. They include "Kadeir Teyrnon" ("The Chair of the Prince"), which refers to "Arthur the Blessed", "Preiddeu Annwn"
("The Spoils of Annwn"), which recounts an expedition of Arthur to the
Otherworld, and "Marwnat vthyr pen[dragon]" ("The Elegy of Uther
Pen[dragon]"), which refers to
Arthur's valour and is suggestive of a father-son relationship for
Arthur and Uther that pre-dates Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Other early Welsh Arthurian texts include a poem found in the Black Book of Carmarthen, "Pa gur yv y porthaur?" ("What man is the gatekeeper?"). This
takes the form of a dialogue between Arthur and the gatekeeper of a
fortress he wishes to enter, in which Arthur recounts the names and
deeds of himself and his men, notably Cei (Kay) and Bedwyr (Bedivere).
The Welsh prose tale Culhwch and Olwen (c. 1100), included in the modern Mabinogion collection, has a much longer list of more than 200 of Arthur's men, though Cei and Bedwyr again take a central place. The story as a whole tells of Arthur helping his kinsman Culhwch win the hand of Olwen, daughter of Ysbaddaden Chief-Giant, by completing a series of apparently impossible tasks, including the hunt for the great semi-divine boar Twrch Trwyth.
The 9th-century Historia Brittonum also refers to this tale, with the boar there named Troy(n)t. Finally, Arthur is mentioned numerous times in the Welsh Triads,
a collection of short summaries of Welsh tradition and legend which are
classified into groups of three linked characters or episodes in order
to assist recall. The later manuscripts of the
Triads are partly derivative from Geoffrey of Monmouth and later
continental traditions, but the earliest ones show no such influence
and are usually agreed to refer to pre-existing Welsh traditions. Even
in these, however, Arthur's court has started to embody legendary
Britain as a whole, with "Arthur's Court" sometimes substituted for
"The Island of Britain" in the formula "Three XXX of the Island of
Britain".
While it is not clear from the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae that Arthur was even considered a king, by the time Culhwch and Olwen and the Triads were written he had become Penteyrnedd yr Ynys hon, "Chief of the Lords of this Island", the overlord of Wales, Cornwall and the North.
In addition to these pre-Galfridian Welsh poems and tales, Arthur appears in some other early Latin texts besides the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae. In particular, Arthur features in a number of well-known vitae ("Lives") of post-Roman saints,
none of which are now generally considered to be reliable historical
sources (the earliest probably dates from the 11th century).
According to the Life of Saint Gildas, written in the early 12th century by Caradoc of Llancarfan, Arthur is said to have killed Gildas' brother Hueil and to have rescued his wife Gwenhwyfar from Glastonbury. In the Life of Saint Cadoc,
written around 1100 or a little before by Lifris of Llancarfan, the
saint gives protection to a man who killed three of Arthur's soldiers,
and Arthur demands a herd of cattle as wergeld for his men. Cadoc delivers them as demanded, but when Arthur takes possession of the animals, they turn into bundles of ferns.
Similar incidents are described in the medieval biographies of Carannog, Padarn and Eufflam, probably written around the 12th century. A less obviously legendary account of Arthur appears in the Legenda Sancti Goeznovii,
which is often claimed to date from the early 11th century although the
earliest manuscript of this text dates from the 15th century. Also important are the references to Arthur in William of Malmesbury's De Gestis Regum Anglorum and Herman's De Miraculis Sanctae Mariae Laudensis, which together provide the first certain evidence for a belief that Arthur was not actually dead and would at some point return, a theme that is often revisited in post-Galfridian folklore.[59]
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Mordred, Arthur's final foe according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, illustrated by H. J. Ford for Andrew
Lang's King Arthur: The Tales of the Round Table, 1902
The first narrative account of Arthur's life is found in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin work Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain). This work, completed c. 1138, is an imaginative and fanciful account of British kings from the legendary Trojan exile Brutus to the 7th-century Welsh king Cadwallader. Geoffrey places Arthur in the same post-Roman period as do Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae. He incorporates Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon, his magician advisor Merlin, and the story of Arthur's conception, in which Uther, disguised as his enemy Gorlois by Merlin's magic, sleeps with Gorlois's wife Igerna at Tintagel, and she conceives Arthur. On
Uther's death, the fifteen-year-old Arthur succeeds him as King of
Britain and fights a series of battles, similar to those in the Historia Brittonum, culminating in the Battle of Bath.
He then defeats the Picts and Scots before creating an Arthurian empire through his conquests of Ireland, Iceland and the Orkney Islands. After twelve years of peace, Arthur sets out to expand his empire once more, taking control of Norway, Denmark and Gaul. Gaul is still held by the Roman Empire when it is conquered, and Arthur's victory naturally leads to a further confrontation between his empire and Rome's. Arthur and his warriors, including Kaius (Kay), Beduerus (Bedivere) and Gualguanus (Gawain), defeat the Roman emperor Lucius Tiberius in Gaul but, as he prepares to march on Rome, Arthur hears that his nephew Modredus (Mordred) – whom he had left in charge of Britain – has married his wife Guenhuuara
(Guinevere) and seized the throne. Arthur returns to Britain and defeats and kills Modredus on the river Camblam in Cornwall, but he is mortally wounded. He hands the crown to his kinsman Constantine and is taken to the isle of Avalon to be healed of his wounds, never to be seen again.
How much of this narrative was Geoffrey's own invention is open to debate. Certainly, Geoffrey seems to have made use of the list of Arthur's twelve battles against the Saxons found in the 9th-century Historia Brittonum, along with the battle of Camlann from the Annales Cambriae and the idea that Arthur was still alive. Arthur's
personal status as the king of all Britain would also seem to be
borrowed from pre-Galfridian tradition, being found in Culhwch and Olwen, the Triads and the Saints' Lives.
In addition, many of the elements that Monmouth's King Arthur includes are strong parallels to "Culhwch and Olwen." The
motifs and themes of loyalty, honor, giants, gift giving,
wife-stealing, and magical creatures are prominent in both stories. Furthermore,
Monmouth derived many of his character's names from "Culhwch and
Olwen"; Sir Kay comes from "Kai"; Sir Bedivere is derived from
"Bedwyr"; and lastly Sir Gawain is "Gwalchmei" in Welsh. Also,
the heroines of both tales have similar names: the meaning of Guinever
is "White Phantom", while Olwen equates with "of the white track."
Finally, Geoffrey borrowed many of the names for Arthur's possessions, close family
and companions from the pre-Galfridian Welsh tradition, including Kaius
(Cei), Beduerus (Bedwyr), Guenhuuara (Gwenhwyfar), Uther (Uthyr) and
perhaps also Caliburnus (Caledfwlch), the latter becoming Excalibur in subsequent Arthurian tales. However,
while names, key events and titles may have been borrowed, Brynley
Roberts has argued that "the Arthurian section is Geoffrey’s literary
creation and it owes nothing to prior narrative."
So, for instance, the Welsh Medraut is made the
villainous Modredus by Geoffrey, but there is no trace of such a
negative character for this figure in Welsh sources until the 16th
century. There have been relatively few modern attempts to challenge this notion that the Historia Regum Britanniae is primarily Geoffrey's own work, with scholarly opinion often echoing William of Newburgh's late-12th-century comment that Geoffrey "made up" his narrative, perhaps through an "inordinate love of lying". Geoffrey Ashe
is one dissenter from this view, believing that Geoffrey's narrative is
partially derived from a lost source telling of the deeds of a
5th-century British king named Riotamus,
this figure being the original Arthur, although historians and
Celticists have been reluctant to follow Ashe in his conclusions.
Whatever his sources may have been, the immense popularity of Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae cannot be denied. Well
over 200 manuscript copies of Geoffrey’s Latin work are known to have
survived, and this does not include translations into other languages.
Thus, for example, around 60 manuscripts are extant containing Welsh-language versions of the Historia,
the earliest of which were created in the 13th century; the old notion
that some of these Welsh versions actually underlie Geoffrey's Historia, advanced by antiquarians such as the 18th-century Lewis Morris, has long since been discounted in academic circles.
As a result of this popularity, Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae was enormously influential on the later medieval development of the Arthurian legend. While
it was by no means the only creative force behind Arthurian romance,
many of its elements were borrowed and developed (e.g., Merlin and the
final fate of Arthur), and it provided the historical framework into
which the romancers' tales of magical and wonderful adventures were
inserted.
Romance traditions
The popularity of Geoffrey's Historia and its other derivative works (such as Wace's Roman de Brut)
is generally agreed to be an important factor in explaining the
appearance of significant numbers of new Arthurian works in continental
Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries, particularly in France. It was not, however, the only Arthurian influence on the developing "Matter of Britain". There is clear evidence for a
knowledge of Arthur and Arthurian tales on the Continent before Geoffrey's work became widely known (see for example, the Modena Archivolt), as well as for the use of "Celtic" names and stories not found in Geoffrey's Historia in the Arthurian romances.
From the perspective of Arthur,
perhaps the most significant effect of this great outpouring of new
Arthurian story was on the role of the king himself: much of this
12th-century and later Arthurian literature centres less on Arthur
himself than on characters such as Lancelot and Guenevere, Perceval, Galahad, Gawain, and Tristan and Isolde. Whereas Arthur is very much at the centre of the pre-Galfridian material and Geoffrey's Historia itself, in the romances he is rapidly sidelined.
His character also alters significantly. In
both the earliest materials and Geoffrey he is a great and ferocious
warrior, who laughs as he personally slaughters witches and giants and
takes a leading role in all military campaigns, whereas in the continental romances he becomes the roi fainéant, the "do-nothing king", whose "inactivity and acquiescence constituted a central flaw in his otherwise ideal society".
Arthur's role in these works is frequently that of
a wise, dignified, even-tempered, somewhat bland, and occasionally
feeble monarch. So, he simply turns pale and silent when he learns of Lancelot's affair with Guinevere in the Mort Artu, whilst in Chrétien de Troyes's Yvain, the Knight of the Lion he is unable to stay awake after a feast and has to retire for a nap. Nonetheless, as Norris J. Lacy
has observed, whatever his faults and frailties may be in these
Arthurian romances, "his prestige is never – or almost never –
compromised by his personal weaknesses ... his authority and glory
remain intact."
Arthur and his retinue appear in some of the Lais of Marie de France,
but it was the work of another French poet, Chrétien de Troyes, that
had the greatest influence with regard to the above development of the
character of Arthur and his legend. Chrétien wrote five Arthurian romances between c. 1170 and c. 1190. Erec and Enide and Cligès
are tales of courtly love with Arthur's court as their backdrop,
demonstrating the shift away from the heroic world of the Welsh and
Galfridian Arthur, while Yvain, the Knight of the Lion features Yvain and Gawain in a supernatural adventure, with Arthur very much on the sidelines and weakened.
However, the most significant for the development of the Arthurian legend are Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, which introduces Lancelot and his adulterous relationship with Arthur's queen (Guinevere), extending and popularizing the recurring theme of Arthur as a cuckold, and Perceval, the Story of the Grail, which introduces the Holy Grail and the Fisher King and which again sees Arthur having a much reduced role. Chrétien
was thus "instrumental both in the elaboration of the Arthurian legend
and in the establishment of the ideal form for the diffusion of that
legend", and much of what came after him in terms of the portrayal of
Arthur and his world built upon the foundations he had laid. Perceval,
although unfinished, was particularly popular: four separate
continuations of the poem appeared over the next half century, with the
notion of the Grail and its quest being developed by other writers such
as Robert de Boron, a fact that helped accelerate the decline of Arthur in continental romance.
Similarly, Lancelot and his
cuckolding of Arthur with Guinevere became one of the classic motifs of
the Arthurian legend, although the Lancelot of the prose Lancelot (c. 1225) and later texts was a combination of Chrétien's character and that of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's Lanzelet. Chrétien's
work even appears to feed back into Welsh Arthurian literature, with
the result that the romance Arthur began to replace the heroic, active
Arthur in Welsh literary tradition. Particularly significant in this development were the three Welsh Arthurian
romances, which are closely similar to those of Chrétien, albeit with some significant differences: Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain is related to Chrétien's Yvain; Geraint and Enid, to Erec and Enide; and Peredur son of Efrawg, to Perceval.
The Round Table experience a vision of the Holy Grail. From a 15th century French manuscript.
Up to c. 1210, continental Arthurian romance was
expressed primarily through poetry; after this date the tales began to
be told in prose. The most significant of these 13th-century prose romances was the Vulgate Cycle (also known as the Lancelot-Grail Cycle), a series of five Middle French prose works written in the first half of that century.
These works were the Estoire del Saint Grail, the Estoire de Merlin, the Lancelot propre (or Prose Lancelot, which made up half the entire Vulgate Cycle on its own), the Queste del Saint Graal and the Mort Artu, which combine to form the first coherent version of the entire Arthurian legend. The
cycle continued the trend towards reducing the role played by Arthur in
his own legend, partly through the introduction of the character of
Galahad and an expansion of the role of Merlin. It also made Mordred the result of an incestuous relationship between Arthur and his sister and established the role of Camelot, first mentioned in passing in Chrétien's Lancelot, as Arthur's primary court. This series of texts was quickly followed by the Post-Vulgate Cycle (c. 1230–40), of which the Suite du Merlin
is a part, which greatly reduced the importance of Lancelot's affair
with Guinevere but continued to sideline Arthur, now in order to focus
more on the Grail quest. As such, Arthur
became even more of a relatively minor character in these French prose
romances; in the Vulgate itself he only figures significantly in the Estoire de Merlin and the Mort Artu.
The development of the medieval Arthurian cycle and the character of the "Arthur of romance" culminated in Le Morte d'Arthur, Thomas Malory's retelling of the entire legend in a single work in English in the late 15th century. Malory based his book – originally titled The Whole Book of King Arthur and of His Noble Knights of the Round Table
– on the various previous romance versions, in particular the Vulgate
Cycle, and appears to have aimed at creating a comprehensive and
authoritative collection of Arthurian stories. Perhaps as a result of this, and the fact
that Le Morte D'Arthur was one of the earliest printed books in England, published by William Caxton in 1485, most later Arthurian works are derivative of Malory's.
Decline, revival, and the modern legend
Post-medieval literature
The end of the Middle Ages brought with it a waning of interest in King Arthur. Although
Malory's English version of the great French romances was popular,
there were increasing attacks upon the truthfulness of the historical
framework of the Arthurian romances – established since Geoffrey of
Monmouth's time – and thus the legitimacy of the whole Matter of Britain.
So, for example, the 16th-century humanist scholar Polydore Vergil
famously rejected the claim that Arthur was the ruler of a post-Roman
empire, found throughout the post-Galfridian medieval "chronicle
tradition", to the horror of Welsh and English antiquarians.
Social changes associated with the end of the medieval period and the Renaissance
also conspired to rob the character of Arthur and his associated legend
of some of their power to enthral audiences, with the result that 1634
saw the last printing of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur for nearly 200 years.
King Arthur and the Arthurian legend were not
entirely abandoned, but until the early 19th century the material was
taken less seriously and was often used simply as vehicle for
allegories of 17th- and 18th-century politics. Thus Richard Blackmore's epics Prince Arthur (1695) and King Arthur (1697) feature Arthur as an allegory for the struggles of William III against James II. Similarly, the most popular Arthurian tale throughout this period seems to have been that of Tom Thumb, which was told first through chapbooks and later through the political plays of Henry Fielding;
although the action is clearly set in Arthurian Britain, the treatment
is humorous and Arthur appears as a primarily comedic version of his
romance character.
Tennyson and the revival
In the early 19th century, medievalism, Romanticism, and the Gothic Revival reawakened interest in Arthur and the medieval romances. A new code of ethics for 19th-century gentlemen was shaped around the chivalric ideals that the "Arthur of romance" embodied. This renewed interest first made itself
felt in 1816, when Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur was reprinted for the first time since 1634.
Initially the medieval Arthurian legends were of particular interest to poets, inspiring, for example, William Wordsworth to write "The Egyptian Maid" (1835), an allegory of the Holy Grail.[99] Pre-eminent among these was Alfred Lord Tennyson, whose first Arthurian poem, "The Lady of Shalott", was published in 1832. Although
Arthur himself played a minor role in some of these works, following in
the medieval romance tradition, Tennyson's Arthurian work reached its
peak of popularity with Idylls of the King, which reworked the entire narrative of Arthur's life for the Victorian era. First published in 1859, it sold 10,000 copies within the first week.
In the Idylls, Arthur became a symbol of
ideal manhood whose attempt to establish a perfect kingdom on earth
fails, finally, through human weakness. Tennyson's
works prompted a large number of imitators, generated considerable
public interest in the legends of Arthur and the character himself, and
brought Malory’s tales to a wider audience. Indeed, the first modernization of Malory's great compilation of Arthur's tales was published shortly after Idylls appeared, in 1862, and there were six further editions and five competitors before the century ended.
This interest in the "Arthur of romance" and his
associated stories continued through the 19th century and into the
20th, and influenced poets such as William Morris and Pre-Raphaelite artists including Edward Burne-Jones. Even the humorous tale of Tom Thumb, which had been the primary
manifestation of Arthur's legend in the 18th century, was rewritten after the publication of Idylls. While
Tom maintained his small stature and remained a figure of comic relief,
his story now included more elements from the medieval Arthurian
romances, and Arthur is treated more seriously and historically in
these new versions.
The revived Arthurian romance also proved influential in the United States, with such books as Sidney Lanier's The Boy's King Arthur (1880) reaching wide audiences and providing inspiration for Mark Twain's satiric A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). Although the "Arthur of romance" was sometimes central to these new Arthurian works (as he was in Burne-Jones's The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon,
1881–1898), on other occasions he reverted back to his medieval status
and is either marginalised or even missing entirely, with Wagner's Arthurian operas providing a notable instance of the latter. Furthermore, the revival of interest in Arthur and the Arthurian tales did not continue unabated.
By the end of the 19th century, it was confined
mainly to Pre-Raphaelite imitators, and it could not avoid being
affected by the First World War, which damaged the reputation of chivalry and thus interest in its medieval manifestations and Arthur as chivalric role model. The romance tradition did, however, remain sufficiently powerful to persuade Thomas Hardy, Laurence Binyon and John Masefield to compose Arthurian plays, and T. S. Eliot alludes to the Arthur myth (but not Arthur) in his poem The Waste Land, which mentions the Fisher King.
Modern legend
The combat of Arthur and Mordred, illustrated by N.C. Wyeth for The Boy's King Arthur, 1922
Tennyson had reworked the romance tales of Arthur
to suit and comment upon the issues of his day, and the same is often
the case with modern treatments too. Bradley's tale, for example, takes a feminist
approach to Arthur and his legend, in contrast to the narratives of
Arthur found in medieval materials, and American authors often rework
the story of Arthur to be more consistent with values such as equality
and democracy.
Re-tellings and re-imaginings of the romance tradition are not the only important aspect of the modern legend of King Arthur. Attempts to portray Arthur as a genuine historical figure of c. 500 AD, stripping away the "romance", have also emerged. As Taylor and Brewer have noted, this return to the medieval "chronicle tradition"' of Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Historia Brittonum is a recent trend which became dominant in Arthurian literature in the years following the outbreak of the Second World War, when Arthur's legendary resistance to Germanic invaders struck a chord in Britain.
Clemence Dane's series of radio plays, The Saviours (1942), used a historical Arthur to embody the spirit of heroic resistance against desperate odds, and Robert Sherriff's play The Long Sunset (1955) saw Arthur rallying Romano-British resistance against the Germanic invaders. This trend towards placing Arthur in a historical setting is also apparent in historical and fantasy novels published during this period.
In recent years the portrayal of Arthur as a real
hero of the 5th century has also made its way into film versions of the
Arthurian legend, most notably King Arthur (2004) and The Last Legion (2007).
Arthur has also been used as a model for modern-day behaviour. In
the 1930s, the Order of the Fellowship of the Knights of the Round
Table formed in Britain to promote Christian ideals and Arthurian
notions of medieval chivalry. In the United
States, hundreds of thousands of boys and girls joined Arthurian youth
groups, such as the Knights of King Arthur, in which Arthur and his
legends were promoted as wholesome exemplars.
However, Arthur's diffusion within
contemporary culture goes beyond such obviously Arthurian endeavours,
with Arthurian names being regularly attached to objects, buildings and
places. As Norris J. Lacy has observed, "The
popular notion of Arthur appears to be limited, not surprisingly, to a
few motifs and names, but there can be no doubt of the extent to which
a legend born many centuries ago is profoundly embedded in modern
culture at every level."
Merlin reciting his poems, as illustrated in a French book from the 13th century
Geoffrey's rendering of the character was immediately popular, especially in Wales; later writers expanded the account to produce a fuller image of the wizard. Merlin's traditional biography casts him as a cambion; born of a mortal woman, sired by an incubus, the non-human wellspring from whom he inherits his supernatural powers and abilities. Merlin matures to an ascendant sagehood and engineers the birth of Arthur through magic and intrigue. Later authors
have Merlin serve as the king's
advisor until he is bewitched and imprisoned by the Lady of the Lake.
Name and etymology
The name "Merlin" derives ultimately from the Welsh Myrddin, the name of the bard Myrddin Wyllt, one of the chief sources for the later legendary figure. Geoffrey of Monmouth Latinized the name to
Merlinus in his works; the medievalist Gaston Paris suggests that Geoffrey chose the form Merlinus rather than the regular Merdinus to avoid a resemblance to the Anglo-Norman word merde, for faeces.
The Celticist A. O. H. Jarman suggests the Welsh name Myrddin (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈmərðɪn]) was derived from the toponym Caerfyrddin, the town now known as Carmarthen.[5] This contrasts with the popular but false folk etymology the town was named for the bard; in reality, the name Carmarthen derives from the town's previous Roman name, Moridunum.
Geoffrey's sources
Geoffrey's composite Merlin is based primarily on Myrddin Wyllt, also called Merlinus Caledonensis, and Aurelius Ambrosius, a mostly fictionalized version of the historical war leader Ambrosius Aurelianus [6]. The former had nothing to do with Arthur and lived after the Arthurian period. According to lore he was a bard driven mad after witnessing the horrors of war, who fled civilization to become a
wild man of the wood in the 6th century.
Geoffrey had this individual in mind when he wrote his earliest surviving work, the Prophetiae Merlini (Prophecies of Merlin), which he claimed were the actual words of the legendary madman.
Geoffrey's Prophetiae do not reveal much about Merlin's background. When he included the prophet in his next work, Historia Regum Britanniae, he supplemented the characterization by attributing to him stories about Aurelius Ambrosius, taken from Nennius' Historia Brittonum.
According to Nennius, Ambrosius was discovered when the British king Vortigern was trying to erect a tower. The
tower always collapsed before completion, and his wise men told him the
only solution was to sprinkle the foundation with the blood of a child
born without a father. Ambrosius was rumored to
be such a child, but when brought before the king, he revealed the real
reason for the tower's collapse: below the foundation was a lake
containing two dragons who destroyed the tower by fighting. Geoffrey retells this story in Historia Regum Britanniæ with some embellishments, and gives the fatherless child the name of the prophetic bard,
Merlin. He
keeps this new figure separate from Aurelius Ambrosius, and to disguise
his changing of Nennius, he simply states that Ambrosius was another
name for Merlin. He goes on to add new episodes that tie Merlin into the story of King Arthur and his predecessors.
Geoffrey dealt with Merlin again in his third work, Vita Merlini. He based the Vita on stories of the original 6th-century Myrddin. Though
set long after his time frame for the life of "Merlin Ambrosius", he
tries to assert the characters are the same with references to King
Arthur and his death as told in the Historia Regum Britanniae.
Merlin Ambrosius, or Myrddin Emrys
Geoffrey's account of Merlin Ambrosius' early life in the Historia Regum Britanniae is based on the story of Ambrosius in the Historia Brittonum. He adds his own embellishments to the tale, which he sets in Carmarthen, Wales (Welsh: Caerfyrddin). While Nennius' Ambrosius eventually reveals himself to be the son of a Roman consul, Geoffrey's Merlin is begotten on a king's daughter
by an incubus. The
story of Vortigern's tower is essentially the same; the underground
dragons, one white and one red, represent the Saxons and the British,
and their final battle is a portent of things to come.
At this point Geoffrey inserts a long section of Merlin's prophecies, taken from his earlier Prophetiae Merlini. He tells only two further tales of the character; in the first, Merlin creates Stonehenge as a burial place for Aurelius Ambrosius. In the second, Merlin's magic enables Uther Pendragon to enter into Tintagel in disguise and father his son Arthur with his enemy's wife, Igraine. These episodes appear in many later adaptations of Geoffrey's account. As Lewis Thorpe notes, Merlin disappears from the narrative after this; he does not tutor and advise Arthur as in later versions.
Later adaptations of the legend
Several decades later the poet Robert de Boron retold this material in his poem Merlin. Only
a few lines of the poem have survived, but a prose retelling became
popular and was later incorporated into two other romances. In Robert's account Merlin is begotten by a devil on a virgin as an intended Antichrist. This
plot is thwarted when the expectant mother informs her confessor Blaise
of her predicament; they immediately baptize the boy at birth, thus
freeing him from the power of Satan. The demonic legacy invests Merlin with a preternatural knowledge of the past and present, which is supplemented by
God, who gives the boy a prophetic knowledge of the future.
Robert de Boron lays great emphasis on Merlin's power to shapeshift, on his joking personality and on his connection to the Holy Grail. This
text introduces Merlin's master Blaise, who is pictured as writing down
Merlin's deeds, explaining how they came to be known and preserved. Robert was inspired by Wace's Roman de Brut, an Anglo-Norman adaptation of Geoffrey's Historia. Robert's poem was rewritten in prose in the 12th century as the Estoire de Merlin, also called the Vulgate or Prose Merlin. It
was originally attached to a cycle of prose versions of Robert's poems,
which tells the story of the Holy Grail: brought from the Middle East to Britain by followers of Joseph of Arimathea, the Grail is eventually recovered by Arthur's knight Percival.
The Prose Merlin contains many instances of Merlin's shapeshifting. He appears as a woodcutter with an axe about his neck, big shoes, a torn coat, bristly hair and a large beard. He
is later found in the forest of Northumberland by a follower of Uther's
disguised as an ugly man and tending a great herd of beasts. He then appears first as a handsome man and then as a beautiful boy. Years
later, he approaches Arthur disguised as a peasant wearing leather
boots, a wool coat, a hood and a belt of knotted sheepskin. He is described as tall, black and bristly, and as seeming cruel and fierce. Finally,
he appears as an old man with a long beard, short and hunchbacked, in
an old torn woolen coat, who carries a club and drives a multitude of
beasts before him (Loomis, 1927).
The Prose Merlin later came to serve as a sort of prequel to the vast Lancelot-Grail, also known as the Vulgate Cycle. The authors of that work expanded it with the Vulgate Suite du Merlin (Vulgate Merlin Continuation), which describes King Arthur's early adventures.
The Prose Merlin was also used as a prequel to the later Post-Vulgate Cycle, the authors of which added their own continuation, the Huth Merlin or Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin.
In the Livre d'Artus, Merlin enters Rome in the form of a huge stag with a white fore-foot. He bursts into the presence of Julius Caesar and tells the emperor that only the wild man of the woods can interpret the dream that has been troubling him. Later, he returns in the form of a black, shaggy man, barefoot with a torn coat. In another episode, he decides to do something that will be spoken of forever. Going into the forest of Brocéliande, he transforms himself into a herdsman carrying a club and wearing a wolf-skin and leggings. He is large, bent,
black, lean, hairy and
old, and his ears hang down to his waist. His
head is as big as a buffalo's, his hair is down to his waist, he has a
hump on his back, his feet and hands are backwards, he's hideous, and
is over 18 feet tall. By his arts, he calls a herd of deer to come and graze around him (Loomis, 1927).
These works were adapted and translated into several other languages; the Post-Vulgate Suite was the inspiration for the early parts of Sir Thomas Malory's English language Le Morte d'Arthur. Many later medieval works also deal with the Merlin legend. The Italian The Prophecies of Merlin contains long prophecies of Merlin (mostly
concerned with 13th-century Italian
politics), some by his ghost after his death. The
prophecies are interspersed with episodes relating Merlin's deeds and
with various Arthurian adventures in which Merlin does not appear at
all. The earliest English verse romance concerning Merlin is Arthour and Merlin, which drew from the chronicles and the French Lancelot-Grail.
As the Arthurian mythos was retold and embellished,
Merlin's prophetic aspects were sometimes de-emphasized in favor of
portraying him as a wizard and elder advisor to Arthur. On the other hand in the Lancelot-Grail it is said that Merlin was never baptized and never did any good in his life, only evil. Medieval Arthurian tales abound in inconsistencies.
A manuscript found in Bath from the 1420's simply records a "Merlyn" as having helped Uther Pendragon with his "sotelness" or subtleness, presumably but not necessarily magic. His role could be embellished and added to that of Aurelianus Ambrosius, or he could be made into one of old Uther's favorite advisors and naught more.
In the Lancelot-Grail and later accounts Merlin's eventual downfall came from his lusting after a huntress named Niviane
(or Nymue, Nimue, Niniane, Nyneue, or Viviane in some versions of the
legend), who was the daughter of the king of Northumberland. In
the Suite du Merlin, for example, Niviane is about to depart from
Arthur's court, but, with some encouragement from Merlin, Arthur asks
her to stay in his castle with the queen.
During her stay, Merlin falls in love with her and desires her. Niviane,
frightened that Merlin might take advantage of her with his spells,
swears that she will never love him unless he swears to teach her all
of his magic. Merlin consents, unaware that
throughout the course of her lessons, Niviane will use Merlin's own
powers against him, forcing him to do her bidding.
When Niviane finally goes back to her country, Merlin escorts her. However, along the way, Merlin receives a vision that Arthur is in need of assistance against the schemes of Morgan le Fay. Niviane
and Merlin rush back to Arthur's castle, but have to stop for the night
in a stone chamber, once inhabited by two lovers. Merlin relates that when the lovers died, they were placed in a magic tomb within a room in the chamber. That
night, while Merlin is asleep, Niviane, still disgusted with Merlin's
desire for her, as well as his demon heritage, casts a spell over him
and places him in the magic tomb so that he can never escape, thus
causing his death.
Merlin's death is recounted differently in other
versions of the narrative, the enchanted prison variously described as
a cave (in the Lancelot-Grail), a large rock (in Le Morte d'Arthur), an
invisible tower. In the Prophetiae Merlini,
Niviane confines him in the forest of Brocéliande with walls of air,
visible as mist to others but as a beautiful tower to him (Loomis,
1927). This is unfortunate for Arthur, who has lost his greatest counselor. Another version has it that Merlin angers Arthur to the point where he beheads, cuts in half, burns, and curses Merlin.
Fiction featuring Merlin
Literature
Many parts of Arthurian fiction include Merlin as a character. Mark Twain made Merlin the villain in his 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. He
is presented as a complete charlatan with no real magic power, and the
character seems to stand for (and to satirise) superstition, yet at the
very last chapter of the book Merlin suddenly seems to have a real
magic power and he puts the protagonist into a centuries-long sleep (as
Merlin himself was put to sleep in the original Arthurian canon). C. S. Lewis used the figure of Merlin Ambrosius in his 1946 novel That Hideous Strength, the third book in the Space Trilogy. In
it, Merlin has supposedly lain asleep for centuries to be awakened for
the battle against the materialistic agents of the devil, able to
consort with the angelic powers because he came from a time when
sorcery was not yet a corrupt art. Lewis's character of Ransom has apparently inherited the
title of Pendragon from the Arthurian tradition.
Film and television
Merlin is an important figure in films and
television programs, where he functions often as a teacher or mentor
figure, a role that he shares with other wizard and wizard-like figures
in popular texts, such as Gandalf the White, Dumbledore, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and Qui-Gon Jinn[9]. One of the best known of the filmic Merlins is the Merlin of the 1963 animated Disney film The Sword in the Stone, based on T. H. White's novel of the same name. Disney's
(and White's) version of the character aids and educates King Arthur about various things. He was voiced by Karl Swenson and animated by several of Disney's Nine Old Men, including Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, and John Lounsbery. Kahl also designed the character, refining the storyboard sketches of Bill Peet. Merlin later appeared in a number of Disney productions, where he has been voiced by several different actors. Merlin, played by Nicol Williamson, has a large role in the 1981 film Excalibur, which is roughly based on Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. Laurence Naismith appears as Merlyn in the film version of the musical play Camelot, (based on T. H. White's The Once and Future King). In the 1998 miniseries Merlin, the
protagonist Merlin (played by actor Sam Neill) battled the pagan goddess Queen Mab.
In 2006 and 2007, the television series Stargate SG1 used Merlin and Arthurian legend as major plot points in both Season 9 and 10. Specifically, Merlin is portrayed as an Ancient whose superior knowledge of the universe is the source of many components of the legends. Also in 2007, the film The Last Legion portrayed Merlin (initially called Ambrosinus) as a druid and tutor of both the last Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus Caesar, as well as of his son Arthur. In 2008, the BBC created a television series, also called Merlin, which deviated significantly from more
traditional versions of the myth,
portraying Merlin as the same age as Arthur, and Nimueh as an evil sorceress dedicated to his death. Merlin, portrayed by Simon Lloyd Roberts, was the protagonist of the 2008 fantasy film Merlin and the War of the Dragons, which was based loosely on the legends of King Arthur.
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Historians locate King Arthur's Round Table
Historians claim to have finally located the site of King Arthur’s Round Table – and believe it could have seated 1,000 people.
By Martin Evans of the Daily Telegraph 11.07.2010
Historians claim to have found the site of Camelot
Photo: photolibrary.com
Researchers exploring the legend of Britain’s most famous Knight
believe his stronghold of Camelot was built on the site of a recently
discovered Roman amphitheatre in Chester.
Legend has it that his Knights would gather before battle at a
round table where they would receive instructions from their King.
But rather than it being a piece of furniture, historians believe
it would have been a vast wood and stone structure which would have
allowed more than 1,000 of his followers to gather. Historians believe
regional noblemen would have sat in the front row of a circular meeting
place, with lower ranked subjects on stone benches grouped around the
outside.
They claim rather than Camelot being a purpose built castle, it
would have been housed in a structure already built and left over by
the Romans.
Camelot historian Chris Gidlow said: “The first accounts of the
Round Table show that it was nothing like a dining table but was a
venue for upwards of 1,000 people at a time.
“We know that one of Arthur’s two main battles was fought at a
town referred to as the City of Legions. There were only two places
with this title. One was St Albans but the location of the other has
remained a mystery.”
The recent discovery of an amphitheatre with an execution stone
and wooden memorial to Christian martyrs, has led researchers to
conclude that the other location is Chester.
Mr Gidlow said: “In the 6th Century, a monk named Gildas, who
wrote the earliest account of Arthur’s life, referred to both the City
of Legions and to a martyr’s shrine within it. That is the clincher.
The discovery of the shrine within the amphitheatre means that Chester
was the site of Arthur’s court and his legendary Round Table.”
King Arthur: the 'facts' about the legendary figure.
Published: 13.07.2010. Source: Wiki answers
Historians claim to have finally located the site of
King Arthur’s Round Table. Below are ten "facts" about the legendary
figure.
King Arthur was also known as "The One, True King of the Britons".
He was the son of King Uther Pendragon and Igraine the Duchess of
Cornwall, first wife of Gorlois of Cornwall, and later of Uther
Pendragon
Knights would gather before battle at a round table where they would receive instructions from their King
Morgan le Fay was King Arthur's half-sister of legend
Mordred was the villainous nephew of King Arthur who actually turns out to be his son
Merlin was the teacher and mentor of King Arthur
King Arthur married Guinevere who was the daughter of King Leodegraunce of Cameliard
King Arthur was based at Camelot
He was killed in his last battle, the Battle of Camlann
 St. George ~ Partron Saint of
England
George of Lydda (ca. 275/281 – April 23, 303) was according to tradition, a Roman soldier in the Guard of Emperor Diocletian, venerated as a Christian martyr.
St. George is the patron saint of Aragon, Catalonia, England, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Palestine, Portugal, and Russia, as well as the cities of Amersfoort,
Beirut, Bteghrine, Cáceres, Ferrara, Freiburg, Genoa, Ljubljana, Gozo, Pomorie, Qormi, Lod and Moscow.
In detail... by Michael Collins MA (Oxon) MPhilIn this short essay compiled from secondary sources, I have identified three main themes:
- the historical St George
- the growth and influence of legends about him in England
- the place of St George in English history, literature and institutions
Because the themes are interrelated and affect each other, I present them chronologically.
St
George is the patron saint of England and among the most famous of
Christian figures. But of the man himself, nothing is certainly known.
Our earliest source, Eusebius of Caesarea, writing c. 322, tells of a
soldier of noble birth who was put to death under Diocletian at
Nicomedia on 23 April, 303, but makes no mention of his name, his
country or his place of burial. According to the apocryphal Acts of St
George current in various versions in the Eastern Church from the fifth
century, George held the rank of tribune in the Roman army and was
beheaded by Diocletian for protesting against the Emperor's persecution
of Christians. George rapidly became venerated throughout Christendom
as an example of bravery in defence of the poor and the defenceless and
of the Christian faith.
George was
probably first made well known in England by Arculpus and Adamnan in
the early eighth century. The Acts of St George, which recounted his
visits to Caerleon (Wales) and Glastonbury while on service in England,
were translated into Anglo-Saxon. Among churches dedicated to St George
was one at Doncaster
in 1061. George was adopted as the patron saint of soldiers after he
was said to have appeared to the Crusader army at the Battle of Antioch
in 1098.
Because of his
widespread following, particularly in the Near East, and the many
miracles attributed to him, George became universally recognized as a
saint sometime after 900. Originally, veneration as a saint was
authorized by local bishops but, after a number of scandals, the Popes
began in the twelfth century to take control of the procedure and to
systematize it. A lesser holiday in honour of St George, to be kept on
23 April, was declared by the Synod of Oxford in 1222; and St George
had become acknowledged as Patron Saint of England by the end of the
fourteenth century. In 1415, the year of The Battle of Agincourt,
Archbishop Chichele raised St George's Day to a great feast and ordered
it to be observed like Christmas Day. In 1778 the holiday reverted to a
simple day of devotion for English Catholics.
The banner
of St George, the red cross of a martyr on a white background, was
adopted for the uniform of English soldiers possibly in the reign of
Richard 1, and later became the flag of England and the White Ensign of
the Royal Navy. In a seal of Lyme Regis dating from 1284 a ship is
depicted bearing a flag with a cross on a plain background. During
Edward III's campaigns in France in 1345-49, pennants bearing the red
cross on a white background were ordered for the king's ship and
uniforms in the same style for the men at arms. When Richard 11 invaded
Scotland
in 1385, every man was ordered to wear 'a signe (sic) of the arms of St
George', both before and behind, whilst death was threatened against
any of the enemy's soldiers 'who do bear the same crosse or token of
Saint George, even if they be prisoners'.
The fame of St
George throughout Europe was greatly increased by the publication of
the Readings on the Saints, later known as the Legenda Aurea (The
Golden Legend) by James of Voragine in 1265. The name 'golden legend'
does not refer to St George but to the whole collection of stories,
which were said to be worth their weight in gold. It was this book
which popularized the legend of George and the Dragon. The legend may
have been particularly well received in England because of a similar
legend in Anglo-Saxon literature. St George became a stock figure in
the secular miracle plays derived from pagan sources which continued to
be performed at the beginning of spring.
The origin of
the legend remains obscure. It is first recorded in the late sixth
century and may have been an allegory of the persecution of Diocletian,
who was sometimes referred to as 'the dragon' in ancient texts. The
story may also be a christianized version of the Greek legend of
Perseus, who was said to have rescued the virgin Andromeda from a sea
monster at Arsuf or Jaffa, near Lydda (Diospolis), where the cult of St
George grew up around the site of his supposed tomb.
In
1348, George was adopted by Edward III as principal Patron of his new
order of chivalry, the Knights of the Garter. Some believe that the
Order took its name from a pendant badge or jewel traditionally shown
in depictions of Saint George. The insignia of the Order include a
Collar and Badge Appendant, known as the George. The badge is of gold
and presents a richly enamelled representation of St George on
horseback slaying the dragon. A second medal, the Lesser George, also
depicting George and the dragon, is worn attached to the Sash. The
objective of the Order was probably to focus the efforts of England on
further Crusades to reconquer the Holy Land.
The earliest records of the Order of the Garter were destroyed by fire,
but it is believed that either in 1348 or in 1344 Edward proclaimed St
George Patron Saint of England. Although the cult of St George was
suppressed in England at the Reformation, St George's Chapel, Windsor,
completed in stages from 1483 to 1528, has remained the official seat
of the Order, where its chapters assemble. The Monarch and the Prince
of Wales are always members, together with 24 others and 26 Knights or
Ladies Companion.
Much later, in
1818, the Prince Regent, later George IV, created the Most
Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George to recognize exemplary
service in the diplomatic field. The Order was founded to commemorate
the British protectorate of the Ionian islands and Malta, which had
begun in 1814. Originally membership was limited to inhabitants of the
islands and to Britons who had served locally. In 1879 membership was
widened to include foreigners who had performed distinguished service
in Commonwealth countries. The Order was reorganized by William 1V into
three classes: Knight Grand Cross (GCMG); Knight Commander (KCMG); and
Companion (CMG). Nowadays there are women members of each class with
the title 'Dame'. The medal of the Order shows St George and the Dragon
on one side, and St Michael confronting the Devil on the other with the
inscription,'auspicium melioris aevi' ('augury of a better age'). The
Chapel of the Order is St Paul's Cathedral.
Saint George is
a leading character in one of the greatest poems in the English
language, Spencer's Faerie Queene (1590 and 1596). St George appears in
Book 1 as the Redcrosse (sic) Knight of Holiness, protector of the
Virgin. In this guise he may also be seen as the Anglican church
upholding the monarchy of Elizabeth1:
But on his breast a bloody Cross he bore
The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweet sake that glorious badge we wore
And dead (as living) ever he adored.
 The
legend of St George and the dragon took on a new lease of life during
the Counter Reformation. The discoveries in Africa, India and the
Americas, in areas which maps had previously shown as populated by
dragons, presented vast new fields for Church missionary endeavour, and
St George was once again invoked as an example of danger faced and
overcome for the good of the Church. Meanwhile, the Protestant author,
John Bunyan (1628-88), recalled the story of George and the Dragon in
the account of the fight between Christian and Apollyon in Pilgrim's
Progress (1679 and 1684).
The cult of St
George was ridiculed by Erasmus after his visit (sometime between 1511
and 1513) to the saint's shrine at Canterbury, where the supposed arm
of George attracted a large pilgrim traffic. Edmund Gibbon claimed that
St George was originally George of Cappadocia, the Arian opponent of St
Athanasius, but this theory, says Gibbon's nineteenth-century editor,
J.B.Bury, 'has nothing to be said for it'. Research which established
what little we actually know about the historical George was carried
out around the turn of the century by the Bollandists, a scholarly
society within the Jesuits. On the evidence of fourth century
inscriptions found in Syria, one dating from c346, and the testimony of
the pilgrim Theodosius, who visited Lydda in 530 and is the first to
mention the tomb of St George, they concluded that George had indeed
actually existed.
In more modern
times, St George was chosen by Baden-Powell, its founder, to be patron
of the Scouting Movement, and on St George's Day, scouts are bidden to
remember their Promise and the Scout Law. Baden-Powell recounted in
Scouting for Boys that the Knights of the Round Table 'had as their
patron saint St George because he was the only one of all the saints
who was a horseman. He is the patron saint of cavalry, from which the
word chivalry is derived'.
In 1940, when
the civilian population of Britain was subjected to mass bombing by the
German Luftwaffe (Airforce), King George V1 instituted the George Cross
for 'acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in
circumstances of extreme danger'. The award, which is second only to
the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration, is usually given
to civilians and can be given posthumously.
The award
consists of a silver cross. On one side is depicted St George slaying
the dragon, with the inscription,'For Gallantry'; on the other appear
the name of the holder and the date of the award. For lesser, but still
outstanding acts of courage, the King created the George Medal. This
also is a silver cross, with on one side the reigning monarch and on
the other St George slaying the dragon. The island of Malta was awarded
the George Cross for its heroism in resisting attack during World War
11.
Some confusion
has arisen from the revision of its Calendar of Saints by the Roman
Catholic Church in 1969. Saints have long been honoured with different
degrees of solemnity. What the Catholic Church did was to downgrade the
recollection of St George to the lowest category, commemoration, an
optional memorial for local observance. The Church did not abolish St
George. Indeed, it maintains a fine Cathedral named for him, opposite
the Imperial War Museum in London.
The reason
the Church now simply commemorates St George is that, although he
certainly existed, so little is definitely known about him. Most of the
legends about George are apochryphal and indeed incredible. The Church
has never officially held that these legends are literally true, but
made use of them to illustrate some of its teachings in times when
people were more comfortable with such materials. As early as 496, Pope
Gelasius in De libris recipiendis includes George among those saints
'whose names are rightly reverenced among us, but whose actions are
known only to God'. The virtues associated with St George, such as
courage, honour and fortitude in defence of the Christian faith, indeed
remain as important as ever. St George is also, of course, venerated in
the Church of England, by the Orthodox churches and by the Churches of
the Near East and Ethiopia. The supposed tomb of St George can still be seen at Lod, south-east of Tel-Aviv; and a convent in Cairo preserves personal objects which are believed to have belonged to George.
St George is
still venerated in a large number of places, by followers of particular
occupations and sufferers from certain diseases. George is the patron
saint of Aragon, Catalonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal,
Germany and Greece; and of Moscow, Istanbul, Genoa and Venice (second
to St Mark). He is patron of soldiers, cavalry and chivalry; of farmers
and field workers, Boy Scouts and butchers; of horses, riders and
saddlers; and of sufferers from leprosy, plague and syphilis. He is
particularly the patron saint of archers, which gives special point to
these famous lines from Shakespeare's Henry V, Act 3, Scene 1, l. 31:
'I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge
Cry God for Harry, England and St George!'.
Indirectly, the
spirit of George the soldier saint played a part in modern English
history when Sir Laurence Olivier's film of Henry V was issued in 1944
as an encouragement to our armies fighting for the liberation of
France.
Sources:
H.Delehaye, Les legendes grecques des saints militaires, Paris 1909
I.H.Elder, George of Lydda, 1949
E. Hoode, Guide to the Holy Land, Jerusalem 1962
G.J.Marcus, Saint George of England, 1939
 Saint David and Saint David's Day (Wales)
If you were lucky enough to be in Wales on March
the first, you would find the country in a festive mood. Every
self-respecting man, woman and child would be celebrating St. David's
Day in one way or another. But who was St. David, and why is he so
important to the Welsh? And just how is St. David's Day celebrated in
Wales today?
Well, Saint David, or Dewi Sant, as he is known in
the Welsh language, is the patron saint of Wales. He was a Celtic monk,
abbot and bishop, who lived in the sixth century. During his life, he
was the archbishop of Wales, and he was one of many early saints who
helped to spread Christianity among the pagan Celtic tribes of western
Britain.
For details of the life of Dewi, we depend mainly on his biographer, Rhigyfarch. He wrote Buchedd Dewi
(the life of David) in the 11th century. Gerallt Gymro (Giraldus
Cambrensis), who wrote a book about his travels through Wales in the
12th century, also gives some information about Dewi's early life. Dewi
died in the sixth century, so nearly five hundred years elapsed between
his death and the first manuscripts recording his life. As a result, it
isn't clear how much of the history of Dewi's life is legend rather
than fact.
However, both sources say, so we can be relatively
certain, that Dewi was a very gentle person who lived a frugal life. It
is claimed that he ate mostly bread and herbs - probably watercress,
which was widely used at the time. Despite this supposedly meagre diet,
it is reported that he was tall and physically strong.
Dewi is said to have been of royal lineage. His
father, Sant, was the son of Ceredig, who was prince of Ceredigion, a
region in South-West Wales. His mother, Non, was the daughter of a
local chieftain. Legend has it that Non was also a niece of King
Arthur.
Dewi was born near Capel Non (Non's chapel) on the
South-West Wales coast near the present city of Saint David. We know a
little about his early life - he was educated in a monastery called Hen
Fynyw, his teacher being Paulinus, a blind monk. Dewi stayed there for
some years before going forth with a party of followers on his
missionary travels.
Dewi travelled far on his missionary journeys
through Wales, where he established several churches. He also travelled
to the south and west of England and Cornwall as well as Brittany. It
is also possible that he visited Ireland. Two friends of his, Saints
Padarn and Teilo, are said to have often accompanied him on his
journeys, and they once went together on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to
meet the Patriarch.
Dewi is sometimes known, in Welsh, as 'Dewi
Ddyfrwr' (David the Water Drinker) and, indeed, water was an important
part of his life - he is said to have drunk nothing else. Sometimes, as
a self-imposed penance, he would stand up to his neck in a lake of cold
water, reciting Scripture. Little wonder, then, that some authors have
seen Dewi as an early Puritan!
He founded a monastery at Glyn Rhosyn (Rose Vale) on the banks of the
small river Alun where the cathedral city of St. David stands today.
The monastic brotherhood that Dewi founded was very strict, the
brothers having to work very hard besides praying and celebrating
masses.
They had to get up very early in the morning for
prayers and afterwards work very hard to help maintain life at the
monastery, cultivating the land and even pulling the plough. Many
crafts were followed - beekeeping, in particular, was very important.
The monks had to keep themselves fed as well as the many pilgrims and
travellers who needed lodgings. They also had to feed and clothe the
poor and needy in their neighbourhood.
There are many stories regarding Dewi's life. It is
said that he once rose a youth from death, and milestones during his
life were marked by the appearance of springs of water. These events
are arguably more apocryphal than factual, but are so well known to
Welsh-speaking schoolchildren that it is worth mentioning them here.
Perhaps the most well-known story regarding Dewi's
life is said to have taken place at the Synod of Llanddewi Brefi. They
were to decide whether Dewi was to be Archbishop. A great crowd
gathered at the synod, and when Dewi stood up to speak, one of the
congregation shouted, 'We won't be able to see or hear him'. At that
instant the ground rose till everyone could see and hear Dewi.
Unsurprisingly, it was decided, very shortly afterwards, that Dewi
would be the Archbishop...
It is claimed that Dewi lived for over 100 years,
and it is generally accepted that he died in 589. His last words to his
followers were in a sermon on the previous Sunday. Rhigyfarch
transcribes these as 'Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed. Do
the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. I will walk
the path that our fathers have trod before us.' 'Do the little things'
('Gwnewch y pethau bychain') is today a very well-known phrase in
Welsh, and has proved an inspiration to many. On a Tuesday, the first
of March, in the year 589, the monastery is said to have been 'filled
with angels as Christ received his soul'.
Dewi's body was buried in the grounds of his own
monastery, where the Cathedral of St. David now stands. After his
death, his influence spread far and wide - first through Britain, along
what was left of the Roman roads, and by sea to Cornwall and Brittany.
St David's Day, as celebrated today, dates back to
1120, when Dewi was canonised by Pope Callactus the Second, and March
1st was included in the Church calendar. After Dewi's canonisation,
many pilgrimages were made to St. David's, and it was reported that two
pilgrimages there equalled one to Rome, and three pilgrimages one to
Jerusalem. March 1st was celebrated until the Reformation as a holy
day. Many churches are dedicated to Dewi, and some to his mother Non.
It is not certain how much of the history of St.
David is fact and how much is mere speculation. At the end of 1996,
bones were found in St. David's Cathedral which, it was claimed, could
be those of Dewi himself. Unfortunately, these were later found to be
medieval remains.
Regardless of this, St. David was, and is, a very
important figure to the Welsh. Naturally, then, St. David's Day is a
time of great celebration in Wales. Societies all over Wales celebrate
with special meetings and events. In St. David's Hall, Cardiff, each
March 1st, there will be a concert featuring a 1000-member male voice
choir, specially formed for the occasion. Male voice choirs are flown
to all corners of the globe on St. David's Day, to entertain Welsh
communities. I have my own happy, vivid and very special memories of
St. David's Day as a child, which are typical of how St. David's Day is
celebrated in Welsh schools.
I should say that I was fortunate to be born into a
Welsh-speaking family. My mother tongue is Welsh, and it is only when
we have English-speaking visitors that any English is heard within my
home. Naturally, I attended a Welsh-medium primary school, where all
subjects except English are taught through the medium of Welsh.
St. David himself spoke an old form of Welsh
fourteen centuries ago, and the Saint has become synonymous with
keeping the language alive, and all that is good in the Welsh way of
life. Welsh is one of the oldest living European languages, and
although it has been oppressed for centuries, it has refused to die and
is alive and growing today. The Welsh medium schools, which have
largely been set up during the past four decades, have played an
important part in making the language an everyday language as opposed
to just an academic one.
St. David's Day at the primary school began with a
religious service in one of the chapels or churches in Carmarthen. We
went to school dressed in our Welsh costumes. The girls looked charming
in a pais a betgwn - a petticoat and overcoat, made of Welsh
flannel, and a tall beaver hat, worn over a frilled white bonnet. The
boys wore a white shirt with a jabbot and wrist frills, a Welsh flannel
waistcoat, black breeches, long woollen socks and black shoes. To
complete the outfit we wore a flat beaver hat. I wore my national
costume with pride until I was seven years old, and after that I had to
be bribed to do so... I later wore a Welsh flannel waistcoat in honour
of the great day.
The pupils marched through the town, led by the
Mayor and town dignitaries. People gathered to see us marching past,
and to wave us on. Little did they realise that we, the sons and
daughters of Welsh Wales, almost froze to death on these mornings.
After all, a white shirt was little protection against the cold winds
of a March morning, despite having a woollen jumper underneath. If it
rained we were doubly miserable. To add to our discomfort the churches
and chapels were colder and the services long. Dewi was a strict
disciplinarian: he would have been proud of us.
But we went back to school for a bowl of cawl
- or leek broth: the traditional St. David's Day meal. After lunch we
danced Welsh dances, sang Welsh folk songs and recited Welsh poems. The
highlight of the day was the judging of the longest leek competition,
but I never envied the winner because he was cheered on to 'eat some of
your leek'. Again, Dewi would have approved, because as you probably
remember, he was also a vegetarian.
At my secondary school, which was also a Welsh
medium school, it was no longer compulsory to wear the Welsh costume on
St. David's Day. But we still celebrated: we held an Eisteddfod - a
competitive singing, dancing and reciting festival. This lasted all day
and ended with an inter-house choir competition. And needless to say,
all competitions were in the Welsh language.
Well, I hope that you now have some idea of who St.
David was, and why he is so important to the Welsh. Dewi's words still
ring down through the ages. So perhaps, as we go about our lives, we
would be wise to remember his very last words, and to do the little
things
Saint Andrew (Scotland)
| Saint Andrew the Apostle |
|---|
|
Apostle Andrew (middle) in Calling of Apostles Peter and Andrew by Harold Copping | | Apostle, First-called |
|---|
| Born | early first century AD
Bethsaida |
|---|
| Died | mid- to late first century AD
Patras |
|---|
| Venerated in | All Christianity |
|---|
| Major shrine | Church of St Andreas at Patras, with his relics |
|---|
| Feast | November 30 |
|---|
| Attributes | Old man with long (in the East often untidy) white hair and beard, holding the Gospel Book or scroll, sometimes leaning on a saltire |
|---|
| Patronage | Scotland, Ukraine, Russia, Sicily, Greece, Romania, Diocese of Parañaque, Philippines, Amalfi, Luqa (Malta) and Prussia; Diocese of Victoria, Army Rangers, mariners, fishermen, fishmongers, rope-makers, singers, golfers and performers |
|---|
Saint Andrew (Greek: Ἀνδρέας, Andreas; early first century—mid to late first century AD), called in the Orthodox tradition Protokletos, or the First-called, is a Christian Apostle and the brother of Saint Peter. The name "Andrew" (Greek: ἀνδρεία, Andreia, "manhood, valour"), like other Greek names, appears to have been common among the Jews from the second or third century BC. No Hebrew or Aramaic name is recorded for him.
Life
The New Testament records that Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter, by which it is inferred that he was likewise a son of Jonah, or John. He was born in Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee.
Both he and his brother Peter were fishermen by trade, hence the tradition that Jesus called them to be his disciples by saying that He will make them "fishers of men" (Greek: ἁλιεῖς ἀνθρώπων, halieis anthropon). At the beginning of Jesus' public life, they occupied the same
house at Capernaum.
The Gospel of John teaches that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist, whose testimony first led him and John the Evangelist to follow Jesus. Andrew at once recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and hastened to introduce him to his brother. Thenceforth, the two brothers were disciples of Christ. On
a subsequent occasion, prior to the final call to the apostolate, they
were called to a closer companionship, and then they left all things to
follow Jesus.
Andrew is said to have been martyred by crucifixion at Patras (Patrae) in Achaea. Early texts, such as the Acts of Andrew known to Gregory of Tours, describe Andrew as bound, not nailed, to a Latin cross of the kind on which Christ was crucified. A tradition developed that Andrew had been crucified
on a cross of the form called Crux decussata (X-shaped cross) and commonly known as "Saint Andrew's Cross"; this was supposedly by his request, as he deemed himself unworthy to be crucified on the same type of cross as Christ had been. "The familiar iconography of his martyrdom, showing the apostle bound to an X-shaped cross, does not seem to have been standardized before the later Middle Ages," Judith Calvert concluded after re-examining the materials studied by Louis Réau.
Andrew is the patron saint of the city of Patras.
Basilica of St. Andrew at Patras, where Andrew's relics are kept, said to be erected over the place of his martyrdom.
The Acts of Andrew
The Acts of Andrew was edited and published by Constantin von Tischendorf in the Acta Apostolorum apocrypha (Leipzig, 1821), putting it for the first time into the hands of a critical professional readership. Another version of the Andrew legend is found in the Passio Andreae, published by Max Bonnet (Supplementum II Codicis apocryphi, Paris, 1895).
Relics
In September 1964, Pope Paul VI, as a gesture of goodwill toward the Greek Orthodox Church, ordered that all of the relics of St Andrew that were in Vatican City be sent back to Patras. The
relics, which consist of the small finger, part of the top of the
cranium of Andrew, and small portions of the cross on which he was martyred,
have since that time been kept in the Church of St Andrew at Patras in
a special shrine and are revered in a special ceremony every November
30, his feast day.
Amalfi
The Amalfi cathedral (Duomo),
dedicated to St Andrew (as is the town itself), contains a tomb in its
crypt that it maintains still contains the rest of the relics of the
apostle.
On 8 May 2008 the relic believed to be Andrew's head was returned to Amalfi Cathedral.
Traditions and legends
Georgia
The version was adopted by the 10th-11th-century Georgian ecclesiastics and, refurbished with more details, was inserted in the Georgian Chronicles. The
story of St. Andrew’s mission in the Georgian lands endowed the
Georgian church with apostolic origin and served as a defense argument
to George the Hagiorite against the encroachments from the Antiochian church authorities on autocephaly of the Georgian church. Another Georgian monk, Ephraim the Minor, produced a thesis, reconciling St. Andrew’s story with an earlier evidence of the 4th-century conversion of Georgians by St. Nino and explaining the necessity of the “second Christening” by Nino. The thesis was made canonical by the Georgian church council in 1103.
Malta
The first reference regarding the first small chapel at Luqa dedicated to Andrew dates to 1497. The pastoral visit of Mgr. Pietro Dusina affirms that this chapel contained three altars, one of them dedicated to Andrew. The titular painting showing "Mary with Saints Andrew and Paul" was painted by the Maltese artist Filippo Dingli.
At one time, many fishermen lived in the village of Luqa, and this may be the main reason behind choosing Andrew as patron saint. The titular statue of Andrew was sculpted in wood by Giuseppe Scolaro in 1779. This statue underwent several restoration works including that of 1913 performed by the Maltese renowned artist Abraham Gatt.
The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew on the main altar of the church was painted by Mattia Preti in 1687.
Romania
The official stance of the Romanian Orthodox Church is that Andrew preached the Gospel to the Daco-Romans in the province of Dobrogea (Scythia Minor), whom he converted to Christianity. There is little historical or archaeological evidence for or against this tradition. The idea has been used as part of the nationalist protochronism ideology, which argues that the Orthodox Church
has been a companion and defender of the Romanian people for all of their 2000-year history.
Russia and Ukraine
Legend has it that he travelled up the Dnieper River and reached the future location of Kiev, where he erected a cross on the site where the St. Andrew's Church of Kiev currently stands, and prophesied the foundation of a great Christian city.
It was in the obvious interest of Kievan Rus'
and its later Russian and Ukraninian succesors, striving in numerous
ways to link themselves with the political and religious heritage of Byzantium, to claim such a direct visit from the famous. Claiming direct lineage from St. Andrew also had the effect of disregarding any theological leanings of Greek Orthodoxy over which disagreement arose, since the actual "indirect" proselytising via Byzantium was bypassed altogether. Still, as the same source quotes [7], Andrew only
preached to the southern shore of the Black Sea (current Turkey).
Scotland
About the middle of the tenth century, Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland. Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought under supernatural guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern town of St Andrews stands today (Gaelic, Cill
Rìmhinn).
The only historical Regulus (Riagail or Rule) — the name is preserved by the tower of St Rule — was an Irish monk expelled from Ireland with Saint Columba; his dates, however, are c 573 – 600. There are good reasons for supposing that the relics were originally in the collection of Acca, bishop of Hexham,
who took them into Pictish country when he was driven from Hexham (c.
732), and founded a see, not, according to tradition, in Galloway, but
on the site of St Andrews. The
connection made with Regulus is, therefore, due in all probability to
the desire to date the foundation of the church at St Andrews as early
as possible.
Another legend says that in the late eighth century, during a joint battle with the English at what is now known as Athelstaneford, King Ungus (either the Óengus mac Fergusa mentioned previously or Óengus II of the Picts (820–834)) saw a cloud shaped like a saltire, and declared Andrew was watching over them, and if they won by his grace, then he would be their patron saint. However, there is evidence Andrew was venerated in Scotland before this.
Andrew's connection with Scotland may have been reinforced following the Synod of Whitby, when the Celtic Church felt that Columba had been "outranked" by Peter and that Peter's brother would make a higher ranking patron. The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath cites Scotland's conversion to Christianity by Andrew, "the first to be an Apostle".
Conclusions
The feast of Andrew is observed on November 30 in both the Eastern and Western churches, and is the national day of Scotland. In
the traditional liturgical books of the Catholic church, the feast of
St. Andrew is the first feast day in the Proper of Saints.
Saint Patrick (Ireland)
| Saint Patrick |
|---|
|
| | Born | unknown, late 300s to mid-400s
Banna Venta Berniae, Britain (suggested to be near Birdoswald, Cumbria, England) |
|---|
| Died | 17 March, year unknown, mid to end 400s[dubious – discuss] |
|---|
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church
Eastern Orthodoxy
Anglican Communion
Lutheran Church |
|---|
| Feast | 17 March (Saint Patrick's Day) |
|---|
| Patronage | Ireland, Nigeria, Montserrat, New York, Boston, Loíza, engineers, paralegals, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne, invoked against snakes |
|---|
Two authentic letters from him survive, from which come the only universally accepted details of his life. When he was about 16 he was captured from Britain by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. After
entering the Church, he returned to Ireland as an ordained bishop in
the north and west of the island, but little is known about the places
where he worked.
By the eighth century he had come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland. The Irish monastery system evolved after the time of Patrick and the Irish church did not develop the diocesan model that Patrick and the other early missionaries had tried to establish.
Most available details of his life are from later hagiographies from the seventh century onwards, and these are now not accepted without detailed criticism. Uncritical acceptance of the Annals of Ulster would imply that he lived from 340 to 440, and ministered in what is modern day Northern Ireland from 428 onwards.
The dates of Patrick's life cannot be fixed with certainty, but on
a widespread interpretation he was active as a missionary in Ireland
during the second half of the fifth century. Saint Patrick's Day
(17 March), supposedly the day of his death, is celebrated both in and
outside of Ireland, as both a liturgical and non-liturgical holiday. In the dioceses of Ireland it is both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation and outside of Ireland, it can be a celebration of Ireland itself.
Background
Most modern studies of Saint Patrick follow a variant of T. F. O'Rahilly's "Two Patricks" theory. That is to say, many of the traditions later attached to Saint Patrick originally concerned Palladius, who Prosper of Aquitaine's Chronicle says was sent by Pope Celestine I as the first bishop to Irish Christians in 431.[6] Palladius was not the only early cleric in Ireland at this time. Saints Auxilius, Secundinus and Iserninus are associated with early churches in Munster and Leinster. By this reading, Palladius was active in Ireland until the 460s.
Prosper associates Palladius' appointment with the visits of Germanus of Auxerre to Britain to suppress the Pelagian heresy
and it has been suggested that Palladius and his colleagues were sent
to Ireland to ensure that exiled Pelagians did not establish themselves
among the Irish Christians. The appointment of
Palladius and his fellow-bishops was not obviously a mission to convert
the Irish, but more probably intended to minister to existing Christian
communities in Ireland.
Although the evidence for contacts with Gaul is clear, the borrowings from Latin into the Old Irish language show that links with former Roman Britain were many. Saint Iserninus, who appears to be of the generation of Palladius, is thought to have been a Briton, and is associated with the lands of the Uí Cheinnselaig in Leinster. The Palladian mission should not be contrasted with
later "British" missions, but forms a part of them.
In his own words
Two Latin letters survive which are generally accepted to have been written by Patrick. These are the Declaration (Latin: Confessio) and the Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus (Latin: Epistola). The Declaration is the more important of the two. In it Patrick gives a short account of his life and his mission.
Patrick was born in Roman Britain at Banna Venta Berniae, a location otherwise unknown. Calpornius, his father, was a deacon, his grandfather Potitus a priest. When he was about sixteen, he was captured and carried off as a slave to Ireland.nnPatrick worked as a herdsman, remaining a captive for six years. He writes that his faith grew in captivity, and that he prayed daily. After six years he heard a voice telling him that he would soon go home, and then that his ship was ready. Fleeing his master, he travelled to a port, two hundred miles away he says, where he
found a ship and, after various adventures, returned home to his family, now in his early twenties.
Patrick recounts that he had a vision a few years after returning home:
I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: "The Voice of the Irish". As
I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of
those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the
western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: "We appeal to you,
holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.
A. B. E. Hood suggests that the Victoricus of Patrick's vision may be identified with Saint Victricius, bishop of Rouen
in the late 4th century, who was the only European churchman of the
time to advocate or practice conversion of pagans, and who visited
Britain in an official capacity in 396.
Much of the Declaration concerns charges made against Patrick by his fellow Christians at a trial. What
these charges were, he does not say explicitly, but he writes that he
returned the gifts which wealthy women gave him, did not accept payment
for baptisms, nor for ordaining priests, and indeed paid for many gifts to kings and judges, and paid for the sons of chiefs to accompany him. It
is concluded, therefore, that he was accused of some sort of financial
impropriety, and perhaps of having obtained his bishopric in Ireland
with personal gain in mind.
From this same evidence, something can be seen of Patrick's mission. He writes that he "baptised thousands of people". He ordained priests to lead the new Christian communities. He converted wealthy women, some of whom became nuns in the face of family opposition. He also dealt with the sons of kings, converting them too.
Patrick's position as a foreigner in Ireland was not an easy one. His refusal to accept gifts from kings placed him outside the normal ties of kinship, fosterage and affinity. Legally
he was without protection, and he says that he was on one occasion
beaten, robbed of all he had, and put in chains, perhaps awaiting
execution.
Murchiú's life of Saint Patrick contains a supposed prophecy by the druids which gives an impression of how Patrick and other Christian missionaries were seen by those hostile to them:
- Across the sea will come Adze-head, crazed in the head,
his cloak with hole for the head, his stick bent in the head.
He will chant impieties from a table in the front of his house;
all his people will answer: "so be it, so be it."
The second piece of evidence that comes from Patrick's life is the Letter to Coroticus or Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus, written after a first remonstrance was received with ridicule and insult. In this, Patrick writes an open letter announcing that he has excommunicated Coroticus because he had taken some of Patrick's converts into slavery while raiding in Ireland. The
letter describes the followers of Coroticus as "fellow citizens of the
devils" and "associates of the Scots [ie, the Irish of Argyll and northern
Ireland] and Apostate Picts". Based largely on an 8th-century gloss, Coroticus is taken to be King Ceretic of Alt Clut. It has been suggested that it was the sending of this letter which provoked the trial which Patrick mentions in the Confession.
Death
According to the latest reconstruction of the old
Irish annals, Patrick died in AD 460 on March 17, a date accepted by
some modern historians. Prior to the 1940s it was believed without doubt that he died in 420 and thus had lived in the first half of the 5th century. A lecture entitled "The Two Patricks", published in 1942 by T. F. O'Rahilly,
caused enormous controversy by proposing that there had been two
"Patricks", Palladius and Patrick, and that what we now know of St.
Patrick was in fact in part a conscious effort to blend the two into
one hagiographic personality. Decades of contention eventually ended with
most historians now asserting that Patrick was indeed most likely to have been active in the mid-to-late 5th century.
While Patrick's own writings contain no dates, they do contain information which can be used to date them. Patrick's quotations from the Acts of the Apostles follow the Vulgate, strongly suggesting that his ecclesiastical conversion did not take place before the early fifth century. Patrick also refers to the Franks as being pagans. Their conversion is dated to the period 496–508.
There is plentiful evidence for a medieval tradition that Patrick had died in 493. An addition to the Annals of Ulster states that in the year 553 (approximately two hundred and fifty years before the addition was made):
I have found this in the Book of Cuanu: The relics of Patrick were placed sixty years after his death in a shrine by Colum Cille. Three splendid halidoms were found in the burial-place: his goblet, the Angel's Gospel, and the Bell of the Testament. This
is how the angel distributed the halidoms: the goblet to Dún, the Bell
of the Testament to Ard Macha, and the Angel's Gospel to Colum Cille
himself. The reason it is called the Angel's Gospel is that Colum Cille received it from the hand of the angel.
The placing of this event in the year 553 indicate
a tradition that Patrick's death was 493, or at least in the early
years of that decade, and the Annals of Ulster report under 493:
Patrick, arch-apostle, or archbishop and apostle of
the Irish, rested on the 16th of the Kalends of April in the 120th year
of his age, in the 60th year after he had come to Ireland to baptise
the Irish.
This tradition is also seen in an annalistic reference to the death of a saint termed Patrick's disciple, Mochta, who is said to have died in 535.
St. Patrick is said to be buried at Down Cathedral in Downpatrick, County Down, alongside St. Brigid and St. Columba, although this has never been proven. The Battle for the Body of St. Patrick
demonstrates the importance of both him as a spiritual leader, and of
his body as an object of veneration, in early Christian Ireland. Saint Patrick Visitor Centre
is a modern exhibition complex located in Downpatrick and is a
permanent interpretative exhibition centre featuring interactive
displays on the life and story of Saint Patrick. It provides the only permanent exhibition centre in the world devoted to Saint Patrick.
Seventh-century writings
An early document which is silent concerning Patrick is the letter of Columbanus to Pope Boniface IV of about 613. Columbanus
writes that Ireland's Christianity "was first handed to us by you, the
successors of the holy apostles", apparently referring to Palladius
only, and ignoring Patrick.[35] Writing on the Easter controversy in 632 or 633, Cummian—it is uncertain whether this is the Cummian associated with Clonfert or Cumméne of Iona— does refer to Patrick, calling him our papa, that is pope or primate.
Two works by late seventh-century hagiographers of Patrick have survived. These are the writings of Tírechán, and Vita sancti Patricii of Muirchu moccu Machtheni. Both writers relied upon an earlier work, now lost, the Book of Ultán.[37] This
Ultán, probably the same person as Ultan of Ardbraccan, was Tírechán's foster-father. His obituary is given in the Annals of Ulster under the year 657. These works thus date from a century and a half after Patrick's death.
Tírechán writes
"I found four names for Patrick written in the book of Ultán, bishop of the tribe of Conchobar: holy Magonus (that is, "famous"); Succetus (that is, the god of war); Patricius (that is, father of the citizens); Cothirtiacus (because he served four houses of druids)."
Muirchu records much the same information, adding that "[h]is mother was named Concessa."
The Patrick portrayed by Tírechán and Muirchu is a martial figure, who contests with druids, overthrows pagan idols, and curses kings and kingdoms. On
occasion, their accounts contradict Patrick's own writings: Tírechán
states that Patrick accepted gifts from female converts although
Patrick himself flatly denies this. However, the
emphasis Tírechán and Muirchu placed on female converts, and in
particular royal and noble women who became nuns, is thought to be a
genuine insight into Patrick's work of conversion. Patrick also worked with the unfree and the poor, encouraging them to vows of monastic chastity. Tírechán's account suggests that many early Patrician churches were combined with nunneries founded by Patrick's noble
female converts.
The martial Patrick found in Tírechán and Muirchu,
and in later accounts, echoes similar figures found during the
conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity. It
may be doubted whether such accounts are an accurate representation of
Patrick's time, although such violent events may well have occurred as
Christians gained in strength and numbers.
Much of the detail supplied by Tírechán and
Muirchu, in particular the churches established by Patrick, and the
monasteries founded by his converts, may relate to the situation in the
seventh century, when the churches which claimed ties to Patrick, and
in particular Armagh, were expanding their influence throughout Ireland in competition with the church of Kildare. In the same period, Wilfred, Archbishop of York, claimed to speak, as
metropolitan archbishop, "for all the northern part of Britain and of Ireland" at a council held in Rome in the time of Pope Agatho, thus claiming jurisdiction over the Irish church.
Other presumed early materials include the Irish annals, which contain records from the Chronicle of Ireland. These sources have conflated Palladius and Patrick.
Another early document is the so-called First Synod of Saint Patrick. This is a seventh-century document, once, but no longer, taken as to contain a fifth century original text. It
apparently collects the results of several early synods, and represents
an era when pagans were still a major force in Ireland. The introduction attributes it to Patrick, Auxilius, and Iserninus, a claim which "cannot be taken at face value."
In legend
Pious legend credits Patrick with banishing snakes from the island, though all evidence suggests that post-glacial Ireland never had snakes; one suggestion is that snakes referred to the serpent symbolism of the Druids of that time and place, as shown for instance on coins minted in Gaul (see Carnutes), or that it could have referred to beliefs such as Pelagianism, symbolised as “serpents”.
Legend also credits Patrick with teaching the Irish about the concept of the Trinity by showing people the shamrock, a 3-leaved clover, using it to highlight the Christian belief of 'three divine persons in the one God' (as opposed to the Arian belief that was popular in Patrick's time).
Some Irish legends involve the Oilliphéist, the Caoránach, and the Copóg Phádraig. During
his evangelising journey back to Ireland from his parent's home at
Birdoswald, he is understood to have carried with him an ash wood
walking stick or staff. He thrust this stick
into the ground wherever he was evangelising and at the place now known
as Aspatria (ash of Patrick) the message of the dogma took so long to
get through to the people there that the stick had taken root by the
time he was ready to move on.
The 12th century work Acallam na Senórach tells of Patrick being met by two ancient warriors, Caílte mac Rónáin and Oisín, during his evangelical travels. The two were once members of Fionn mac Cumhaill's warrior band the Fianna, and
somehow survived to Patrick's time. They traveled with the saint and told him their stories.
Saint Patrick's Bell
The National Museum of Ireland, in Dublin
possesses a bell first mentioned, according to the Annals of Ulster, in
the Book of Cuanu in the year 552. The bell was
part of a collection of "relics of Patrick" robbed from his tomb sixty
years after his death by Colum Cille to be placed in a shrine.
The bell is described as "The Bell of the
Testament", one of three relics of "precious minna" (extremely valuable
items), of which the other two are described as Patrick's goblet and
"The Angels Gospel". Cille is described to have been under the direction of an "Angel" for whom he sent the goblet to Down, the bell to Armagh, and kept possession of the Angels Gospel for himself.
The name Angels Gospel is given to the book because it was supposed that Cille received it from the angel's hand. A stir was caused in 1044 when two kings, in some dispute over the bell, went on spates of prisoner taking and cattle theft. The
annals make one more apparent reference to the bell when chronicling a
death, of 1356, "Solomon Ua Mellain, The Keeper of The Bell of the
Testament, protector, rested in Christ." As a museum exhibit, the bell is accompanied by a shrine in which it was encased for King Domnall Ua Lochlainn sometime between 1091 and 1105.
The shrine is a sparkling example of fine jewellry. Intricate
and delicate Celtic design has been worked in gold and silver over
every surface except where encrusted with large precious stones. The
Bell was inscribed in Gaelic: "U INMAINEN" (which translates to:
NOONAN) "who with his sons enriched/decorated it" (metal work was often
inscribed for remembrance).
Although today one or two of the jewels are
missing as well as some of the panels of Celtic artwork, full
appreciation of the shrine's workmanship is unaffected and it is kept,
along with Patrick's Bell, in glittering condition by the National
Museum as a priceless national treasure. The bell itself is simple in design, hammered into shape with a small handle fixed to the top with rivets. Originally forged from iron, it has since been coated in bronze.
The shrine is inscribed with three names, including King Domnall Ua Lochlainn's. The
rear of the shrine, not intended to be seen, is decorated with crosses
while the handle is decorated with, among other work, Celtic designs of
birds. The bell is accredited with working a
miracle in 1044 and having been coated in bronze to shield it from
human eyes, for which it would be too holy. It
measures 12.5 x 10 cm at the base, 12.8 x 4 cm at the shoulder, 16.5 cm
from base to shoulder, 3.3 cm from shoulder to top of handle and weighs
1.7 kg.
Patrick's Bell and shrine were featured on RTE's the Late Late Show,
the world's longest-running talk show, in March 2008 along with part of
the 2000-year-old Broighter Hoard to mark celebrations for St Patrick's
Day.
Sainthood and modern remembrance
March 17, popularly known as St. Patrick's Day, is believed to be his death date and is the date celebrated as his feast day. The day became a feast day in the universal church due to the influence of the Waterford-born Franciscan scholar Luke Wadding, as a member of the commission for the
reform of the Breviary in the early part of the 17th century.
For most of Christianity's first thousand years, canonisations were done on the diocesan or regional level. Relatively
soon after the death of people considered to be very holy people, the
local Church affirmed that they could be liturgically celebrated as
saints. As a result, St. Patrick has never been formally canonised by a Pope; nevertheless, various Christian churches declare that he is a Saint in Heaven (he is in the List of Saints). He is still widely venerated in Ireland and elsewhere today.
St. Patrick is also venerated in the Orthodox Church,
especially among English-speaking Orthodox Christians living in the
United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland and in North America. There are Orthodox icons dedicated to him.
In literature
Robert Southey wrote a ballad called Saint Patrick's Purgatory, based on popular legends surrounding the saint's name. Stephen R. Lawhead also wrote the fictional Patrick: Son of Ireland based on the life of the celebrated Saint.
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