Question:
was there any evidence of the Knights of the Round Table ever existing?
catie
2008-08-03 01:25:30 UTC
did the knights of the round table (king Arthur's group) ever exist. what evidence is there to say they did?
Eight answers:
Diapason45
2008-08-03 01:51:36 UTC
There is no evidence that King Arthur existed, nor any part of the Arthurian legend including the Knights of the Round Table. And it probably is just that: a legend.



All European (and Asian and African) countries have a legendary leader from the time after an invader (the Romans in Europe) left their area, and before the next problems (Scandinavians in Europe) arrived. In all these stories, a golden age existed of fresh religion (Christianity in Europe), when harvests were bountiful, there was peace in the land, magicians solved problems, men behaved honourably, children were dutiful, and for all I know beer and wine flowed from springs in the ground !



The Arthurian legend in Britain and Northern France is part of the same pattern of beliefs and wishes. It reflects a desire to have some certainty in the future also, since Arthur is described as "the once and future king". He will return when the realm is in real danger at the end of the world. This has religious connotations with Jesus of Nazareth and also with the old rustic religion via Hearn the Hunter, both of whom are expected to do the same.



The true moral of the Arthurian legend is not the richness of those societies, but the failings of humans to keep up with the goodness and bounty of God's gifts. So Arthur is maligned by his kinsmen, betrayed by his sister, and eventually killed because of his wife's infidelity.



It's a good moral story but it never happened in reality.
cernunnicnos
2008-08-03 02:11:01 UTC
Camelot is the ancient city of Camulodunum (fort of Camul - an old god).

Today the modern city of Colchester is where this used to be. The 'Col' part of Colchester is a shortened form of Camul. It's the same with the Irish hero Finn MacCool with Cool in Irish being spelled Cumhail - no doubt refering to the same god.

It was also common for Roman cavalry to use banners in the shape of dragons like wind socks and is probably where the Dragon motif for Arthur came from. His father was Uther Pendragon and the name Pendragon means chief dragon, he was most likely the highest ranked cavalry officer.

If you mean has any actual evidence been found then no, but he was likely to have existed in some form. Arthur's remains were supposed to have been found during the middle ages and shifted to Glastonbury Abbey but this was probably a mediaeval hoax.
aphrollo
2008-08-03 01:55:02 UTC
there has always been debates of king arthur's exsistence. however some evidence, for example, historical welsh manuscripts included battles of which king authur has fought. however, that is not convincing enough to be held as evidence of his exisistence. some dismiss him entirely as just a fictional character



The Historia Brittonum ("History of the Britons"), 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
Stefan
2008-08-03 07:26:14 UTC
There is some evidence of a powerful warlord named Arthur Pendragon who lived around 450 to 500 c.e. And it is generaly accepted that Arthurian Legends were based on his life. It is believed that there were 20 lesser warlords that swore loyalty to him, and that the "knights of the round table" were based on them. It's been said that they met once a year at stonehenge, and so called themselves "the men of the round stone". It's believed that the "Knights of the round table" was a mistranslation of this.
guberman
2016-10-22 14:45:56 UTC
it really is a legend, yet there are sources that teach that the memories of King Arthur are depending off of a actual guy. If he grow to be actual, he wasn't a actual "king" or grow to be referred to as King Arthur. He grow to be a warrior interior the 400s on the fall of the Roman Empire and early darkish a even as. He grow to be also Celtic.
rohak1212
2008-08-03 08:35:25 UTC
The story of King Arthur is, and always has been fiction. It was written by a man in prison hundreds of years after it supposedly happened. And if it had been true, I'm sure somebody would have found Camelot by now.
anonymous
2008-08-03 02:16:08 UTC
he is about as real as robin hod and his merry men

and sinbad and 40 thieves
anonymous
2008-08-03 09:05:34 UTC
That Camelot is based on Camulodinum is only one suggestion made by some scholars, and not by very many. There are linguistic problems in getting from Camuldodinum to Kaamelot, and “Kaamelot”' or “Kaamalot” and similar forms with a doubled “a”, both pronounced, is the normal early form.



In an case, Camelot is seldom mentioned in Arthurian legend until the late prose French romances, indeed only in one French romance, “Le Chevalier de la Chariot'', and in one German romance, Wolfram von Eschenbach's “Parzival”. Whether Camelot in some sense really existed is a separate question from whether the Knights of the Round Table existed, who are mentioned in many romances that don’t mention Camelot.



The name “Arthur Pendragon” is I believe a Victorian invention. That “Pendragon” is a title and applied to Arthur is not true in the medieval accounts. I believe it first appears in literature in Tennyson’s “Idyls of the King”.



The word “Pendragon” means “head of the dragons”, not “Head dragon”. It may refer to a leader of the dragoons, that is to a cavalry force known as the dragons from their Roman dragon standards, long wind socks with a serpent face on one end. It is a surname of Uther in the medieval texts and never applied to Arthur or to any other character save in Robert de Boron’s “Merlin”. In Robert de Boron’s “Merlin”, Uther’s elder brother is named Pendragon rather than Aurelius Ambrosius. This is probably an error arising from a misunderstanding of Wace’s account where Ambrosius is usually just called “the King” and some lines referring to Ambrosius, and Uther Pendragon have been misunderstood:



“Aureles primes rei sera

E par puisun primes murra

Uther, ses freres, Pendragon

Tendre emprés la regiun.”



That is:



“Aurelius will be king first

And through poison will die first

Uther, his brother, Pendragon

Will afterward hold the region.”



Stories about Arthur meeting at Stonehenge and having 20 followers are not from medieval sources either. They may have been invented by some modern novelist.



The Round Table itself is never mentioned in Welsh texts, save in “Y Seint Graal” which is a translation of two French romances and in Welsh versions of Geoffrey of Monmouth. So it is very doubtful that Welsh tradition knew anything about the Round Table except from French accounts.



Ancient Celts dined sitting or squatting in a circle around a central hearth and did not use tables. Even the Welsh word for table is “bwrd” borrowed from Old English “bord” meaning “board” but used also with the meaning “table” as the medieval table was a board set on trestles. Presumably when the Welsh began adopting the custom of eating off tables from the English, they also accepted the English word.



One can imagine some story teller explaining that Arthur’s warband ate setting in a circle and some of those hearing the account naturally imagined a table, as everyone, so they thought, ate off tables. Thus the Round Table may have been invented. And then the idea of an order of the Knights of the Round Table would have been invented.



The Round Table is first mentioned in surviving texts in Wace’s “Roman de Brut” in 1155.



Of course, if Arthur himself was a real person (which some deny, not without reason), he would have had a war band or a troop of soldiers. So Arthur's knights would be, in a sense historical. Early Welsh accounts refer to his followers Kai and Bedwyr, who appear medieval French accounts as Keu and Beduer and in the 14th century Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory as Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere.



But most knights of Arthur listed in Welsh sources don’t correspond to the knights who appear in medieval French sources. A few do correspond, such as Welsh Caradoc Brechbras to French Carados Briebras, and Welsh Owain ap Urien to French Yvain son of Uriens. However the historical Owain flourished at the end of the fifth century or the beginning of the 6th century, long after the death of the historical Arthur. Again, such history as might appear is very garbled. The story of Carados in French sources is very fantastic.



In some cases the Welsh seem to have identified heroes of French legend with heroes from their own tradition, identifying their Gwalchmai ap Gwyar with the French Gauuain, their Gereint ap Erbin with the French Erec li fils del Roi Lac, their Peredur with the French Perceval, and so forth.



In short, while the idea of the Knights of the Round Table probably comes from the followers of the historical Arthur, very few of those historic followers (if any) would actually appear among the Knights of the Round Table in later legend which only emerges to our view around 1170 when Chrétien de Troyes romance “Erec et Enide” was completed.



We don’t know that history might lie behind some of the Knights of the Round Table in medieval romances, because we don’t know enough of the true history of their supposed era. Similarly in most case we don't know what truth lies behind tales of Charlemagne’s knights. The suspicion is that most of the material that comes down to us is invention or borrowings from stories of other personages.


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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