Events and trends

728 BC—Piye invades Egypt, conquering Memphis, and receives the submission of the rulers of the Nile Delta. He founds the Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt.

727 BC—Babylonia makes itself independent of Assyria, upon the death of Tiglath-Pileser III.

725 BC—Shalmaneser V starts a 3 year siege of Israel

725 BC—Sparta conquers the neighboring region of Messenia and takes over the land.

724 BC—The Assyrians start a four-year siege of Tyre.

724 BC—The ''diaulos'' footrace introduced at the Olympics.

722 BC—Spring and Autumn Period of China's history begins as King Zhou ping wang of the Zhou Dynasty reigns in name only.

722 BC—Northern Kingdom of Israel is conquered by Assyrian king Sargon II.

721 BC - The Assyrians conquer the northern tribes.

721 BC—Sargon II starts to rule. He builds a new capital at Dur Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad).

720 BC—End of the Assyrian siege of Tyre.

c. 720 BC—Guardian figure ''(pictured, right)'', from the entrance to the throne room at palace of Sargon II is made. It is now in The Oriental Institute, Chicago.

Significant people

729 BC—Tiglath-Pileser III officially crowned sovereign of Asia in Babylon.

729 BC—Hezekiah succeeds Ahaz as king of Judah (or 726 BC).

729 BC—Luli succeeds Mattan II as king of Tyre.

728 BC—Death of Tiglath-Pileser III, king of Assyria (or 727 BC).

727 BC—Death of Tiglath-Pileser III, king of Assyria (or 728 BC).

727 BC—Shalmaneser V becomes king of Assyria (dies 723 BC).

727 BC—Tefnakhte founds the Twenty-fourth dynasty of Egypt.

726 BC—Hezekiah succeeds Ahaz as king of Judah (or 729 BC).

725 BC—Bakenranef (also known as Bocchoris) succeeds his father Tefnakhte as king of the Twenty-fourth dynasty of Egypt.

724 BC—Ahaz, king of Judah (740 BC–726 BC) dies.

723 BC—Shalmaneser V, king of Assyria, dies.

723 BC—Sargon succeeds Shalmaneser V as king of Assyria.

721 BC—Shabaka succeeds his father Piye as king of the Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt.

720 BC—Shabaka kills Bakenranef (Bocchoris), ending the Twenty-fourth Dynasty of Egypt

720 BC—Death of Zhou ping wang, King of the Zhou Dynasty of China.

c. 720 BC—Birth of Guan Zhong, political adviser of Qi in eastern Ancient China.

bs:720te p.n.e. ca:Dècada del 720 aC cs:729 - 720 př. n. l. da:720'erne f.Kr. es:Años 720 a. C. eu:K. a. 720ko hamarkada fa:دهه ۷۲۰ (پیش از میلاد) fr:Années -720 it:Anni 720 a.C. la:Decennium 73 a.C.n. hu:I. e. 720-as évek mk:720-ти п.н.е. ms:720-an SM uz:Mil. av. 720-lar ru:720-е до н. э. sk:20. roky 8. storočia pred Kr. sh:720-e pne. su:720-an SM fi:720-luku eaa. sv:720-talet f.Kr. zh:前720年代

The Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan (the modern day Israel, western Jordan, southern Lebanon and Palestinian Territories) during the monarchic period (11th to 7th centuries BCE).

The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל (Standard: ; Tiberian: ; ISO 259-3: ). The Hebrew Bible etymologizes the name as from ''yisra'' "to prevail over" or "to struggle/fight with", and ''el,'' "God, the divine". The ethnonym is attested as early as the 13th century BCE in an Egyptian inscription. The eponymous biblical patriarch of the Israelites is Jacob, who was given the additional name "Israel" after wrestling with God. (Genesis 32) Jacob demands a blessing from the God which he eventually receives, hence "prevailing over the divine" or "fighting with God". (Genesis 32:28-30)

The biblical term "Israelites" (or the Twelve Tribes or Children of Israel) means both a people, the descendants of the patriarch Jacob/Israel, and the historical population of the kingdom of Israel, or a follower of the God of Israel and Mosaic law. In Modern Hebrew usage, an Israelite is, broadly speaking, a lay member of the Jewish faith, as opposed to the priestly orders of Kohenim and Levites.

The name Hebrews is sometimes used synonymously with "Israelites". For the post-exilic period, beginning in the 5th century BCE, the remnants of the Israelites came to be referred to as Jews, named for the kingdom of Judah. This change is explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE). It replaced the title children of Israel.

Although most literary references to them are located in the Hebrew Bible, there is also abundant non-biblical archaeological and historical evidence of ancient Israel and Judah.

Terminology

Israel was the name given to the biblical patriarch Jacob after wrestling with an angel on the shores of the Jabbok, prior to a meeting with his brother Esau. Jacob had an intense rivalry with Esau, and this confrontation with the angel bears special significance in the story of the Israelites. ;Pentateuch The Torah traces the Israelites to the patriarch Jacob, grandson of Abraham, who was renamed Israel after a mystical incident in which he wrestles all night with an angel of God. Jacob's twelve sons (in order), Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph and Benjamin, become the ancestors of twelve tribes, with the exception of Joseph, whose two sons Mannasseh and Ephraim become tribal eponyms.

Jacob and his sons are forced by famine to go down into Egypt. When they arrive they and their families are 70 in number, but within four generations they have increased to 600,000 men of fighting age, and the Pharaoh of Egypt, alarmed, first enslaves them and then orders the death of all male Hebrew children. The God of Israel reveals his name to Moses, a Hebrew of the line of Levi; Moses leads the Israelites out of bondage and into the desert, where God gives them their laws and the Israelites agree to become his people. Nevertheless, the Israelites lack complete faith in God, and the generation which left Egypt is not permitted to enter the Promised Land.

;Former Prophets Following the death of the generation of Moses a new generation, led by Joshua, enters Canaan and takes possession of the land in accordance with the curse placed upon Canaan by Noah. Yet even now the Israelites lack strength in God in the face of the peoples of the land, and periods of weakness and backsliding alternate with periods of resilience under a succession of Judges. Eventually the Israelites ask for a king, and God gives them Saul. David, the youngest (divinely favoured) son of Jesse of Bethlehem would succeed Saul. Under David the Israelites establish the kingdom of God, and under David's son Solomon they build the Temple where God takes his earthly dwelling among them. Yet Solomon sins by allowing his foreign wives to worship their own gods, and so on his death the kingdom is divided in two.

The kings of the northern kingdom of Israel are uniformly bad, permitting the worship of other gods and failing to enforce the worship of God alone, and so God eventually allows them to be conquered and dispersed among the peoples of the earth; in their place strangers settle the northern land. In Judah some kings are good and enforce the worship of God alone, but many are bad and permit other gods, even in the Temple itself, and at length God allows the Judah to fall to her enemies, the people taken into captivity in Babylon, the land left empty and desolate, and the Temple itself destroyed.

;Ezra-Nehemiah-Chronicles Yet despite these events God does not forget his people, but sends Cyrus, king of Persia as his messiah to deliver them from bondage. The Israelites are allowed to return to Judah and Benjamin, the Temple is rebuilt, the priestly orders restored, and the service of sacrifice resumed. Through the offices of the sage Ezra Israel is constituted as a holy community, holding itself apart from all other peoples, bound by the Law.

Tribes and peoples

Although most traditional interpretations of Jewish history view the ''Israelites'' as the ancestors of both the Kingdom of Israel and that of Judah, which arose only after David's rule, and ''Hebrews'' as an alternative name for them, the text makes a distinction between groups labeled ''Hebrews'', ''Judahites'', and ''Israelites''. Israelites consistently refers to Saul's forces. It also is used to refer to the supporters of the rebellions against David's reign, in contrast to his supporters. Judahites consistently refers to David's supporters during the rebellions against his rule, in contrast to the rebels. Hebrews is consistently used to designate a group distinct from both Israelites and Judahites, and who sometimes take the side of the Philistines against Israel and Judah. It is weakly associated with Jonathan initially, and then more strongly with David's band of outlaws. However, this labeling appears to be only for convenient grouping, since there are several textual examples that clarify that the Hebrews are of the same people as the Israelites: I Samuel 13:3-4, I Samuel 13:19-20, and I Samuel 14:11-12.

Gilead and Jezreel are listed as tribes of Israel, rather than being treated strictly as locations. In accordance with evidence of this kind elsewhere, all attributed by scholars to the earliest sources, such as in the Song of Deborah, scholars have concluded that the tribal system known as the tribes of Israel evolved over a period of time:

Gilead, Jezreel and Joseph were originally three tribes in the confederation. Jezreel later split into Zebulun and Issachar. Gilead later split into Machir, Gad, and Reuben. Machir later merged with part of Joseph to form Manasseh, while the other part split off to become Ephraim.

Hasmonean conversions

After the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 Judah (Hebrew: יְהוּדָה Yehuda) remained a province of the Persian empire. This continued into the following Hellenistic period, when Yehud was a province sometimes of Ptolemaic Egypt and sometimes of Seleucid Syria, but in the early part of the 2nd century BCE a revolt against the Seleucids led to the establishment of an independent Jewish kingdom under the Hasmonean dynasty. The Hasmoneans adopted a deliberate policy of imitating and reconstituting the Davidic kingdom, and as part of this forcibly converted to Judaism their neighbours in the Land of Israel. The new Israelites included Nabatean groups such as the Zabadeans and Itureans, the peoples of the former Philistine cities, the people of Galilee, and the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites.

"Israelites" in modern Judaism

In the Hellenistic and early Roman periods (i.e., around the time of Christ), and despite the exclusivism championed by the Book of Ezra, (contradicted by other biblical books from the same time, such as Ruth), Judaism became a proselytising religion. As proselytised (and conquered) groups were assimilated into the Israelite lineage the old tribal divisions fell into disuse, and the major divisions within Judaism thus became:

''Kohanim'' (descended from the lineage of Aaron, the first High Priest in the time of Moses)

Levites (other descendants of Levi)

Israelites

This threefold division of the Jewish people persists to this day. To avoid confusion with the broader use of the term Israelite or the modern term Israeli, a member of the Israelite, as opposed to Levite or Aaronite, lineage is usually referred to as a ''Yisrael'' (an Israel) and not a ''Yisraeli'' (which could mean Israelite in the broader sense or in modern Hebrew, an Israeli).

Modern groups descendant from the Israelites

Jews

Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎, Yehudim), also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. Converts to Judaism have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia. There are distinct ethnic divisions among Jews, most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating Israelite population, and subsequent independent evolutions. According to the Books of Chronicles chapter 9 line 2, the Jews who took part in The Return to Zion (whom modern Jews are originated from) are stated to be from the Tribe of Judah (alongside the Tribe of Simeon that were absorbed into it), the Tribe of Benjamin, the Tribe of Levi (Levites and Priests) and also from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (which some biblical scholars consider to be a referring name describing the remaining population of the Northern Kingdom of Israel from all ten tribes who were not exiled during the famous Ten tribes exile; they had stayed to live in their homes and later joined the Israelites of the Kingdom of Judah at the time of King Hezekiah, and formed the Jews of the Babylonian Exile era).

Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenaz is the Hebrew word for "Germany". There are several populations which have lived in Germany at some point in the past 1,000 years and fall under the umbrella term for the group. There is evidence that Jews had settled in Germany since the Roman Era; they were probably merchants who followed the Roman Legions during their conquests. Some Ashkenazi Jews are the descendants of Jews who migrated into northern France and Germany around 800–1000 CE, and were later sent into Eastern Europe. Many Ashkenazic Jews are also Sephardic in origin as a result of diaspora from the Spanish Inquisition. In this sense "Ashkenazi" refers to religious practice, appropriated over time, rather than to a strict ethno-geographic division.

Arthur Koestler claimed in his book "The Thirteenth Tribe" (1976) that Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of central European Khazars who converted into Judaism during the 8th century. Koestler argued that by proving Ashkenazi Jews to have no connection with the biblical Jews, European anti-Semitism would lose all basis. In 2006 Doron Behar and Karl Skorecki of the Technion and Ramban Medical Center in Haifa, Israel claimed that a study carried out by them demoinstrated that: 1) the vast majority of Ashkenazi Jews have some Middle Eastern ancestry; 2) Ashkenazi Jews share a common ancestry with other Jewish groups of European origin; and 3) only 5%-8% of the European Ashkenazi Jews (according to recent studies) were found to have originated in non-Jewish European populations. Dr. David Goldstein, a Duke University geneticist and and director of the Duke Center for Human Genome Variation, has noted that the Technion and Ramban team confirmed that genetic drift played a major role in shaping Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA, therefore mtDNA studies fail to draw a statistically significant linkage between modern Jews and Middle Eastern populations, however, this differs from the patrilineal case, where Dr. Goldstein said there is no question of a Middle Eastern origin.

Sephardic Jews

Sephardim are Jews whose ancestors lived in Spain or Portugal, where they lived for possibly as much as two millennia before being expelled in 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs (see Alhambra decree); they subsequently migrated to North Africa Maghreb and Ottoman Empire (both at the time considered safe havens for Jews). In the Ottoman Empire the Sephardim mostly settled in the European portion of the Empire, and mainly in the major cities such as: Constantinople, Thessaloniki and Bursa. Thessaloniki, which today is to be found in modern-day Greece, had a large and flourishing Sephardic community as was the community of Maltese Jews in Malta. Others settled in Italy, the Netherlands and Latin America. A large population of Sephardic refugees who fled via the Netherlands as Marranos eventually settled in Hamburg and Altona Germany in the early 16th century, eventually appropriating Ashkenazic Jewish rituals into their religious practice (see above). One famous figure from the Sephardic Ashkenazic population is Glückel of Hameln. Others among those who settled in the Netherlands, were some who would again relocate to the United States, establishing the country's first organized community of Jews and erecting the United States' first synagogue. Other Sephardim remained in Spain and Portugal as anusim (forced converts to Catholicism), which would also be the fate for those who had migrated to Spanish and Portuguese ruled Latin America.

Mizrachi Jews

Mizrahim are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The term Mizrahi is used in Israel in the language of politics, media and some social scientists for Jews from the Arab world and adjacent, primarily Muslim-majority countries. This includes Iraqi Jews, Syrian Jews, Lebanese Jews, Maghreb Jews , Yemenite Jews, Persian Jews, Afghan Jews, Bukharian Jews, Kurdish Jews, Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews and Ethiopian Jews.

Yemenite Jews

Temanim are Jews living in Yemen whose geographic and social isolation from the rest of the Jewish community allowed them to develop a liturgy and set of practices that are significantly distinct from those of other Oriental Jewish groups; they themselves comprise three distinctly different groups, though the distinction is one of religious law and liturgy rather than of ethnicity.

Karaite Jews

Karaim are Jews living mostly in Egypt, Iraq, Crimea and Israel. They are distinguished by the form of Judaism they observe. Rabbinic Jews of varying ethnicities have affiliated with the Karaite community throughout the millennia. As such, Karaite Jews are less a Jewish ethnic division, than they are members of a particular branch of Judaism. Karaite Judaism recognizes the Tanakh as the single religious authority of the Jewish people. Linguistic principles and contextual exegesis are used in arriving at the correct meaning of the Torah. Karaite Jews strive to adhere to the plain or most obvious understanding of the text when interpreting the Tanakh. By contrast, Rabbinical Judaism regards an Oral Law (codified and recorded in the Mishnah and Talmuds) as being equally binding on Jews, and mandated by God. In Rabbinical Judaism, the Oral Law forms the basis of religion, morality, and Jewish life. Karaite Jews rely on the use of sound reasoning and the application of linguistic tools to determine the correct meaning of the Tanakh; while Rabbinical Judaism looks toward the Oral law codified in the Talmud, to provide the Jewish community with an accurate understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.

There are approximately 50,000 adherents of Karaite Judaism, most of whom live in Israel, but exact numbers are not known, as most Karaites have not participated in any religious censuses. The differences between Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism go back more than a thousand years. Rabbinical Judaism originates from the Pharisees of the Second Temple period. Karaite Judaism may have its origins in the Sadducees of the same era. Unlike the Sadducees who recognized only the Torah as binding, Karaite Jews hold the entire Hebrew Bible to be a religious authority. As such, the vast majority of Karaites believe in the resurrection of the dead. Karaite Jews are widely regarded as being halachically Jewish by the Orthodox Rabbinate. Similarly, members of the rabbinic community are considered to be Jews by the Moetzet Hakhamim, if they are patrilineally Jewish.

Anusim

During the Jewish diaspora, Jews who lived in Christian Europe were usually attacked by the local population and were portrayed by many Anti-semites motives, many of them were forced to convert to Christianity by the local population or by the religious leadership, and were called by Jews: "Anusim" ('forced-ones'), they continued practicing Judaism in secret, while living outside as ordinary Christians. The most known case of "Anusim" was the one of the Jews of Spain and Jews of Portugal (although "Anusim" were also in other European countries). On the Muslim countries, many Jews were forced to convert to Islam by force over the years since the rise of the Islamic religion, and the most known case of those conversion was the case of Mashhad Jews, that lived as ordinary Muslims in Persia but kept practicing Judaism, and eventually made an Aliyah and returned being Jewish in Israel. Many Anusim's descendants left Judaism over the years. On December 2008, genetic test showed that 19.8% of the Iberian Peninsula are originated from the Anusim.

Samaritans

The Samaritans, who were once a comparatively large group but are now a very small ethnic and religious group of not more than about 700 people who live in Israel and the West Bank, regard themselves as descendants of the tribes of Ephraim (named by them as ''Aphrime'') and Manasseh (named by them as ''Manatch''). Samaritans adhere to a version of the Torah, known as the Samaritan Pentateuch, which differs in some respects from the Masoretic text, sometimes in important ways, and less so from the Septuagint.

Samaritans do not regard the Tanakh as an accurate or truthful history, and regard only Moses as a prophet. They have their own version of Hebrew and their own script for writing Hebrew, which, is descended directly from the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, unlike the Jewish script for writing Hebrew which is a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet the Jews adopted during their captivity in Babylonia.

The Samaritans consider themselves ''Bnei Yisrael'' ("Children of Israel" or "Israelites"), but do not regard themselves to be ''Yehudim'' (Jews). They view this term "Jews" as a designation for followers of Judaism, which they assert is a related but altered and amended religion brought back by the exiled Israelite returnees which is not the true religion of the ancient Israelites, which according to them, Samaritanism is.

Judaism regards the Samaritans as descendants of the northern tribesmen whom the Assyrians settled in the territory they conquered from the kingdom of Israel. Since one of those tribes was the Cutheans, this is the name used for the Samaritans in the Talmud. Both the Bible and external sources such as Josephus record intermarriage between Jews and Samaritans in the Hellenistic period.

Modern DNA evidence has proven both most of the world's Jews and the Samaritans have a common ancestral lineage to the Israelites, largely on the paternal lines in both cases. Maternally, both Jews and Samaritans have very low rates of intermarriage with local host (for Jews, local populations in their host diaspora regions) or alien (for Samaritans, foreigners resettled in their midst in attempts by ruling foreign elites to obliterate national identities) populations. Both populations' DNA results indicate the groups having had a high percentage of marriage within their respective communities; in contrast to a low percentage of interfaith marriages.

Historical Israelites

The name Israel first appears c. 1209 BCE, at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the very beginning of the period archaeologists and historians call Iron Age I, in an inscription of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah. The inscription is very brief and says simply: "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not". The hieroglyph accompanying the name "Israel" indicates that it refers to a people, most probably located in the highlands of Samaria.

Over the next two hundred years (the period of Iron Age I) the number of highland villages increased from 25 to over 300 and the settled population doubled to 40,000. There is general agreement that the majority of the population living in these villages was of Canaanite origin. By the 10th century BCE a rudimentary state had emerged in the north-central highlands, and in the 9th century this became a kingdom. The kingdom was sometimes called Israel by its neighbours, but more frequently it was known as the "House (or Land) of Omri." Settlement in the southern highlands was minimal from the 12th through the 10th centuries, but a state began to emerge there in the 9th century, and from 850 onwards a series of inscriptions are evidence of a kingdom which its neighbours refer to as the "House of David."

See also

Bible

Gentile

Half Jewish

House of Israel (Ghana)

Israeli Jews

Israelis

Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy)

Noahides

Portuguese Jewish community in Hamburg

Shavei Israel

Tribal allotments of Israel

References and notes

External links

Category:Semitic peoples Category:Jewish history Category:Ancient peoples Category:Ethnonyms Category:Jews

ar:بنو إسرائيل bg:Дванайсетте израилски племена ca:Tribus d'Israel cs:Izraelské kmeny da:Israelit de:Israeliten et:Iisraellased el:Δώδεκα φυλές του Ισραήλ es:Tribus de Israel eo:Izraelidoj fa:بنی‌اسرائیل fr:Tribus d'Israël ko:이스라엘 민족 hr:12 izraelskih plemena id:Bani Israil it:Dodici tribù di Israele he:שבטי ישראל lt:Izraelitai ml:ഇസ്രായേൽ ജനത ms:Bani Israel nl:Israëlieten ja:イスラエル (民族) no:Israelitter pnb:بنی اسرائیل pl:Dwanaście Plemion Izraela pt:Tribos de Israel ro:Triburile israelite ru:Колена Израилевы simple:Israelite sk:Izraeliti sr:Дванаест племена Израела fi:Israelin heimot sv:Israeliter tl:Labindalawang lipi ng Israel ta:இசுரவேலர் th:วงศ์วานแห่งอิสราเอล tr:İsrailoğulları ur:بنی اسرائیل zh:以色列人

''The Jews of Islam'' (1984) is a book written by Middle-East historian and scholar Bernard Lewis.

The book provides a comprehensive overview of the history and the state of the Jews living in the Islamic world, (as contrasted to the Jews of Christendom.) The first chapter, Islam and Other Religions, however, is broader in scope, and explains how Islamic society view the Other.

Contents

Chapter I. Islam and Other religions

Chapter II. The Judaeo-Islamic Tradition

Chapter III. The Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods

Chapter IV. The End of the Tradition

A quote from the author

The author claims that: "For Christians and Muslims alike, tolerance is a new virtue, intolerance a new crime. For the greater part of the history of both communities, tolerance was not valued nor was intolerance condemned. Until comparatively modern times, Christian Europe neither prized nor practiced tolerance itself, and was not greatly offended by its absence in others. The charge that was always brought against Islam was not that its doctrines were imposed by force - something seen as normal and natural - but that its doctrines were false."

Reviews

See also

Dhimmi

Jizya

References

Category:Books by Bernard Lewis Category:Judeo-Islamic topics

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th 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 conception 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.

Debated historicity

The historical basis for the King Arthur legend has long been debated by scholars. The first datable mention of King Arthur is in a 9th century Latin text. 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 sub-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.

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. 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 it 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 only 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

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.

Geoffrey of Monmouth

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''. 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.

John Dryden's masque ''King Arthur'' is still performed, largely thanks to Henry Purcell's music, though seldom unabridged.

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. 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

In the latter half of the 20th century, the influence of the romance tradition of Arthur continued, through novels such as T. H. White's ''The Once and Future King'' (1958) and Marion Zimmer Bradley's ''The Mists of Avalon'' (1982) in addition to comic strips such as ''Prince Valiant'' (from 1937 onward). 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. The romance Arthur has become popular in film and theatre as well. T. H. White's novel was adapted into the Lerner-Loewe stage musical ''Camelot'' (1960) and the Disney animated film ''The Sword in the Stone'' (1963); ''Camelot'' itself, with its focus on the love of Lancelot and Guinevere and the cuckolding of Arthur, was itself made into a film of the same name in 1967. The romance tradition of Arthur is particularly evident and, according to critics, successfully handled in Robert Bresson's ''Lancelot du Lac'' (1974), Eric Rohmer's ''Perceval le Gallois'' (1978) and perhaps John Boorman's fantasy film ''Excalibur'' (1981); it is also the main source of the material utilised in the Arthurian spoof ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail'' (1975).

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 the TV series ''Arthur of the Britons'' and the feature films ''King Arthur'' (2004) and ''The Last Legion'' (2007). The 2008 BBC series ''Merlin'' is a reimagining of the legend in which the future King Arthur and Merlin are young contemporaries. ''Camelot'' (2011) is an exclusive short series of episodes which depict Arthur in ancient Briton and his struggle for the throne. Also, a recent Disney film, ''Avalon High'' has been released, the story about a modern day King Arthur and his knights of the round table.

Legacy as a role model

In European Christian culture of the Middle Ages Arthur was created a member of the Nine Worthies, a group of heroes encapsulating all the ideal qualities of chivalry. His life was thus proposed as a valuable subject for study by those aspiring to chivalric status. This aspect of Arthur in the Nine Worthies was popularised firstly through literature, and was thereafter adopted as a frequent subject for painters and sculptors. 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.

Legacy in popular culture

Arthur's diffusion within contemporary culture goes beyond 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."

See also

Historical basis for King Arthur

King Arthur's family

King Arthur's messianic return

King Arthur's weapons

List of Arthurian characters

List of books about King Arthur

List of films based on Arthurian legend

Nine Worthies, of which Arthur was one

Notes

References

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External links

. An excellent site detailing Welsh Arthurian folklore. . A detailed and comprehensive academic site, which includes numerous scholarly articles, from Thomas Green of Oxford University. . The only academic journal solely concerned with the Arthurian Legend; a good selection of resources and links. . Provides texts and translations (of varying quality) of Welsh medieval sources, many of which mention Arthur. . An interesting collection of articles on King Arthur by various Arthurian enthusiasts. . . Provides valuable bibliographies and freely downloadable versions of Arthurian texts. . An online peer-reviewed journal that includes regular Arthurian articles; see especially the first issue.

*"Arthur and Gorlagon", translated by Frank A. Milne, notes by Alfred Nutt. ''Folk-Lore''. Volume 15, 1904.

Category:5th-century births Category:6th-century deaths Category:Arthurian characters Category:British traditional history Category:Britons of the Southwest Category:Burials at Glastonbury Abbey Category:Medieval legends Category:Monarchs of Cornwall Category:Monomyths Category:Mythological kings Category:People in Cornish history Category:Sub-Roman Britain Category:Sub-Roman monarchs Category:Welsh monarchs Category:Welsh mythology Category:Cornish culture Category:People whose existence is disputed Category:Monty Python characters

ar:الملك آرثر an:Rei Artús bn:রাজা আর্থার be:Кароль Артур bs:Kralj Arthur br:Roue Arzhur bg:Артур ca:Rei Artús cs:Král Artuš cy:Y Brenin Arthur da:Kong Arthur de:Artus et:Kuningas Arthur el:Βασιλιάς Αρθούρος es:Rey Arturo eo:Reĝo Arturo eu:Artur erregea fa:شاه آرتور fr:Roi Arthur fy:Kening Arthur gl:Rei Artur gu:કિંગ આર્થર ko:아서 왕 hi:किंग आर्थर hr:Kralj Arthur id:Raja Arthur os:Къарол Артур it:Re Artù he:המלך ארתור kn:ಕಿಂಗ್ ಆರ್ಥರ್ ka:მეფე არტური kw:Arthur Gernow la:Arthurus (rex) lv:Karalis Arturs lt:Karalius Artūras hu:Artúr király ms:Raja Arthur nl:Koning Arthur ja:アーサー王 no:Arthur av britene nrm:Rouai Èrthu pcd:Roé Artur pl:Król Artur pt:Rei Artur ro:Regele Artur ru:Король Артур sco:Keeng Arthur simple:King Arthur sk:Kráľ Artuš sl:Kralj Artur sr:Kralj Artur sh:Kralj Arthur fi:Kuningas Arthur sv:Kung Artur ta:ஆர்தர் அரசர் te:కింగ్ ఆర్థర్ th:กษัตริย์อาเธอร์ tg:Шоҳ Артур tr:Kral Arthur uk:Король Артур ur:بادشاہ آرتھر vi:Vua Arthur zh:亚瑟王