Originally posted by Ushgarak
But the point remains that large parts of the Arthurian legend are based on fact.
There is nothing to make us believe King Arthur existed. Nothing. Not a shred of evidence.
We don't know what, where, why, how and still people think he really existed. It's because they want to believe he did. And because it's a beautiful legend.
Good God you are entirely wrong! Hahahaha!
We have reasonable evidence to conclude 'Arthur' existed.
We have reasonable evidence to conclude 'Mordred' existed
We have reasonable evidence to conclude battles such as Badon Hill and Camlann existed.
So I will repeat, large parts of it are based on fact. That is not supposition, it is truth.
It's the Dark Ages, so you are not going to get a darn video record. But this isn't rand imterpretation of some Renaissance minstrel. We have historical sources giving us clues and information about these events dating back to the sixth century. We have easily as much information- or more- about these things than we have about anicent events that we take for granted as happening.
So is all history from more than a few centuries ago. I mean, what is our entire record for the Battle of Hastings? The Bayeaux Tapestry. But people treat that as 100% solid established stuff, and then want to dismiss the very similar evidence we have about Arthurian stuff.
We have reasonable evidence to show that he was indeed a Romano-British overlord fighting against Saxon invaders who set up a court to help focus on that very goal; his feats of those and his immediate comrades were great and passed into history. It's not just those two battles, and it is fairly contemptuous of you to infer that from what I said. I used two prominent battles as examples; clearly your knowledge of this area is pretty much zero.
Junk the stone castles and the metal armour. Lancelot is a separate French legend who got added in later. Excalibur is based on Celtic legends about swords. Like all big legends, the Arthurian story picked up elements of others. But the very source of it, the British warlord who represented the last great effort of the genuine British people against the foreign invaders... history supports that.
So I will repeat- large parts of the Arthurian legend are based on fact. Not exaggeration- solid history. You, of course, rushed to an ignorant conclusion about that statement, because you have some vision of historians, instead of doing the very genuine historical and archaeological work they have done on this area, are instead just trying to falsify and lie because they are seduced by visions of Holy Grails, trying to live up to the legend. Feeble- and very, very far from the truth.
It does not matter that Camelot was a tent and not a castle. It doesn't mattter that there were no such thing as Knights at the time- or, for that matter, Kings, at least in Britain. It does not matter that Arthur predates the ideas of chivalry by centuries. because none of this stops the point under debate being true- that the Arthurian legend is not a totally fictional story, but that it is based on fact.
Whereas your statement:
"There is nothing to make us believe King Arthur existed. Nothing. Not a shred of evidence."
... is either an outright lie or an outright demonstration of ignorance. It is simply and absolutely not true. There is simply no other way to put it; there is evidence that makes people believe the basis for the King Arthur legend existed.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
So is all history from more than a few centuries ago.
I mean, what is our entire record for the Battle of Hastings? The Bayeaux Tapestry.
But people treat that as 100% solid established stuff, and then want to dismiss the very similar evidence we have about Arthurian stuff.
We have reasonable evidence to show that he was indeed a Romano-British overlord fighting against Saxon invaders who set up a court to help focus on that very goal
his feats of those and his immediate comrades were great and passed into history.
It's not just those two battles, and it is fairly contemptuous of you to infer that from what I said. I used two prominent battles as examples
But the very source of it, the British warlord who represented the last great effort of the genuine British people against the foreign invaders... history supports that.
So I will repeat- large parts of the Arthurian legend are based on fact.
Last time I checked, the only thing that has been decided more or less, is the fact that there was a guy who fought against foreign invaders. That's about it.
We don't know if he was a king, we don't know a thing about his background, his date of birth, his death, his wife, his children.
We know nothing about his brothers in arms, about his battles, about his beliefs, his motivation.Whereas your statement:
"There is nothing to make us believe King Arthur existed. Nothing. Not a shred of evidence."
You have to learn to read. I clearly wrote "King" Arthur. I didn't argue about the fact that there has existed some military guy who fought the foreign invaders, and who did apparently pretty well.
Good for him. But still no reason whatsoever to assume that "King Arthur" really existed.
Of course King Arthur like we know him in the story's did not exist, the story's even today can't even agree on who or what Arthur was. But that makes no real difference, the person of King Arthur is obviously based on story's of other people. Rumors legends myths and all of that crap.
That doesn't mean that there is no truth, if you want an Arthur like in the movies or in the books then you are right that person never existed, that doesn't mean however that there is no person Arthur was based on. In more then a thousand of years of people re telling the story it's never going to be perfect and 100% true, thinking it will is just dumb
OK I'm putting in the penny's worth as I study all this stuff at school to do with the factual side of "King Arthur"
As he was a Romanised Brit and not a Roman very little about him will have been written as the Britons wrote very little. And the Roman evidence we have mainly written by Tacticus was pretty bias.
And also Kings as we refer to King George or Queen Elizabeth did not exist, their "Kings" back then were merely titles given that really meant governor. And as he was around near the end of the Roman rule in Britain it’s highly unlikely there is anyway he could have become king as there was already a king.
However there is evidence that he was alive and he was fighting on the Roman side against the Saxons because if he’d been on the Saxons side we wouldn’t even have enough information about him to make up a myth. From the way the myth was formed and the nature of the myth many historians would say that it is likely he triumphed at the battle and his freedom from Rome was probably granted.
I’d say he was head of a group of soldiers (their “king”) and I do believe the alchemist Merlin was some somewhere in his story (perhaps healing after the battle, I think that may be in the 2004 film?) Then when the battle was won Arthur and his knights were freed, (pulling the sword from the stone) which probably lead to a lot of other men being freed. As for Guinevere I presume most of that is legend to tie the tale of happily.
Originally posted by miss_swann
OK I'm putting in the penny's worth as I study all this stuff at school to do with the factual side of "King Arthur"
As he was a Romanised Brit and not a Roman
However there is evidence that he was alive
and I do believe the alchemist Merlin was some somewhere in his story
Kurdy, you were talking crap before annd you are talking crap now.
My first statement on all history from more than a few centuries ago is absolutely true. it is all based on hearsay, biased record and archaeological evidence.
We actually know as much about King Arthur as we do about the Battle of Hastings, so you were wrong there as well. All we know about Hastings is that the Normans won. Everything else about it which you assume to be true is based on no more, or even less, than the things we know about Arthur.
There is aactually a considerable amount of archaeological evidence about the Arthurian vibe.
There is no 'could' about him being an overlord. He definitely was and was probably known by a word that would now translate to 'King'.
And I get this information from decent historians, not clueless fools like you.
And we DO know about hist battles, in fact.
You are a complete ignorant in this area. Don't wade into something you clearly know nothing about; just makes you look like an idiot.
The fact of the matter is we have absolute evidence of things like the existence of the Overlord who held back Saxon expansion which is the basis for the Arhtur myth, and battles he fought in like Badon Hill. We have direct record of the time of battles like Camlann directly mentioning Arthur by name. There is lots and lots of stuff like that and you simply cannot just close your eyes and ears and pretend it does not exist.