Recent Work on the Origins of the Arthurian Legend: A Comment

Abstract

Recent Work on the Origins of the Arthurian Legend: A Comment O. J. PADEL I have been asked to comment on four of the articles appearing in the present number of Arthuriana. It is unusual for articles to be reviewed simultaneously with their appearance; yet Arthurian studies are so much a matter of opinion, with the same material being treated many times over with different interpretations, that it may nevertheless be helpful for readers to have a second opinion upon four stimulating articles. For many people the question 'Did Arthur exist?' is the central issue concerning the legend. The debate, or something similar to it, existed already in the 1 120s, before the appearance of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History, and thus has continued for almost eight centuries at least. It can be claimed, indeed doubtless has been claimed, that this debate is intrinsic to the figure himself: Arthur is one of whom that very question is a key attribute. It is open to doubt whether anyone truly takes a dispassionate view of this matter: those who deny his existence, and even more those who proclaim it, are all open to the charge of arriving at their conclusions first, and then finding arguments to justify them. Second only to that question is the one of Geoffrey of Monmouth's role in the development of the legend. This has several aspects. One is the problem of his sources: on the one hand, his claimed source, the 'liber vetustissimus' in a Brittonic language; and, on the other, the known works that he drew upon, and his treatment of them. Another aspect is Geoffrey's purpose in writing his work, and its overall structure: is it primarily about Arthur, although he occupies only the final portion of the work; or was it intended as an overall history of Britain, with Arthur merely its high point? A third aspect is the reception and effect of Geoffrey's work. His History was immediately, and widely, popular on the Continent, as well as among the Anglo-Normans for whom it was purportedly written. Indeed, our earliest knowledge of the work is the copy that Henry of Huntingdon was astounded to find ('stupens inveni') at Bee, in Normandy.1 Yet there are hints that interest in Arthur had been growing on the Continent before Geoffrey's History appeared. To what extent did Geoffrey create the Continental Arthurian industry of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, or did he (by luck or judgement) produce a work which satisfied an already-growing need? And (an even harder question) to what extent was the later industry, particular that of the vernacular romances, influenced primarily by his work, or was there also a parallel, unwritten, tradition of Arthur, which first becomes clearly visible in the romances of ChrZtien?2 What is certain is Geoffrey's subtlety and the complexity of his work: the gravest error that we students can commit is to underestimate it. The more one learns about his work, the more one feels that Geoffrey was always one step ahead of his twentieth-century readers: anything that we may establish, by dint of hard work and detailed scholarship, is open to revision by some future discovery. All four of the articles under consideration are, for one reason or another, closely concerned with Geoffrey and the material that he drew upon. Two of the articles, 'From Alexander of Macedonia to Arthur of Britain' (Furtado) and The Origins of the Arthurian Legend' (Ashe), are concerned with the origins of Geoffrey's Arthur himself, and a third, 'Some Notes on Merlin' (Littleton and Malcor), is similarly concerned with his Merlin. The fourth, The Literary Context of Geoffrey of Monmouth' (Howlett), applies techniques which its author has used fruitfully in studying other texts to the examination of Geoffrey's famous preface, which contains his equally-famous claim concerning his source. Furtado's article suggests that Geoffrey's portrayal of Arthur was based on the figure of Alexander, which by Geoffrey's time was already the centre of a body of Latin legend of growing popularity. The suggestion is very reasonable; and it is not new. Tatlock, in 1950, judiciously reviewed the hypothesis, which goes...