Arthurian Novels and the Spirit of Welsh Place

Abstract

Perhaps nothing has entertained the literary imagination more than the Matter of Britain. The stories of King Arthur date originally from the fifth century, but what is generally accepted as Arthurian canon are medieval overlays to the original tales. The notion of a charismatic war leader who managed to unite, at least in part and temporarily, the divided British tribes, seems to have drawn to itself archetypal imagery from other heroic and religious characters and events. Arthurian stories proliferate at a rate too great for anyone but the most intense scholar to keep any kind of record of them. Most are based on the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose Historia Regum Britanniae was written about 1136. According to W.A. Cummins and other Arthurian scholars, Geoffrey’s history had become widely read within twenty years of its publication; it had been translated into French by Wace and from French into English by Layamon; before the end of the twelfth century, the French Chrétien de Troyes had produced, not a history but rather a set of romances which featured Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (Cummins 6)¹. The Matter of Britain also had much French input; Cummins notes that

Many of the familiar elements of Arthurian literature were first introduced by the French writers of the twelfth century. The round table was the creation of Wace, in his French translation of Geoffrey’s history. The location of Arthur’s court at Camelot and the quest for the Holy Grail were both introduced by Chrétien de Troyes, together with such important characters as Sir Lancelot, Sir Galahad and Sir Percival. The stories spread right across Europe during the ensuing thirteenth century and continued to develop in England through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. (6)