Oh no, not another Camelot!

[eques]

I tend to agree that there was an original Arthur, around whom legends grew.  However, I'm not convinced we can pinpoint him in the evidence.  Where is he hiding in Gildas' narrative, for example?  How many of Nennius' Arthurian battles featured the original Arthur?  What part did he play in the Battle of Mons Badonicus, for example?  I tend to think of him as the key commander there because of later tradition but Gildas doesn't mention him.

That is problematic but....

Gildas was writing a generation after Badon, roughly equivalent to the distance of a modern writer from Thatcher and Reagan.

A modern writer ranting about the state of modern politics on an internet forum who mentioned the Falklands war in passing would not necessarily attach Thatcher's name to it.

"Britain hasn't won a military conflict since 1982...." for example.

He would be more likely to mention the names of the contemporary politicians he was complaining about.

Alternatively, he may not have liked Arthur (in some early legends, Arthur has a problematic relationship with the church)

Alternatively, Arthur may be Aurelius Ambrosianus.

The mention of Badon in both Gildas and Nennius is striking, as is Nennius' use of a quite specific, non-Royal and Romanesque description of Arthur's constitutional position.  If Nennius was just spinning yarns he would surely have described Arthur as a mighty King or Emperor or some such.

Between Gildas and Nennius in time we have the poem describing a certain warrior as fearsome in battle "though he was no Arthur", which fits quite well with Nennius' "Arthur killed 960 men all by himself....and in all his battles he was victorious"

Then there is the prevalence of the Arthur name amongst petty rulers in the Century after his alleged existence.

[Erpingham]

I don't disagree with nearly all of that but, you have to admit, it doesn't answer the questions, because they are probably unanswerable.  Its back to grounding the debate in what we know and what is surmise, then us making our judgements. 

On Nennius' list, at risk of being caught out because its a while since I last read it, it is a list of battles attributed to Arthur.  By this stage, there has been plenty of time for Arthur's fame to grow and his real accomplishments to be embellished.  So it cements Arthur's hero status but it is risky to try to create campaigns or a military career from it.

On the "Romanesque" title, I'm guess this is Dux Bellorum?   It's main argument as a Roman title seems to be the word dux, with the actual title "Dux Bellorum" not being recorded elsewhere in the Roman military hierarchy.  So whether its a formal rank, an honorary title or just a form of words which appealed to Nennius is perhaps more speculation than some writers admit.

[eques]

Absolutely we will most likely never know until time travel is invented, but that is how I interpret it.

I was referring to Dux Bellorum but also to the description around it and the fact that it would be an odd detail for yarn spinners to make up.  Why bother to point out that he was not a King but worked with a number of different Kings to fight the Saxons?  Why bother to give him a title which was not a common one for the time?  Of if they were going to make that up they would go into more elaborate detail on it, not just state it as bald fact and then move on.

For reference the exact lines are:

"Now Arthur fought against them in those days, with all the Kings of the Britons, though he himself was Dux Bellorum"

[Patrick Waterson]

I would be happier with scenarios that have a post Roman organisation by province or diocese if;
a) there was any indication of this happening elsewhere. In Gaul or Spain it appears that when Roman imperial authority was removed organisation defaulted to civitas ( city and surrounding territory ) level.

But what about when it was restored?  This is the situation with our 'Arthur': he has reunited the civitates and hence seeing the administration and organisation as peaking out at civitas level is no longer relevant.

b) The Roman administration at the diocese or province level had any substance. There appear to have been very few civil servants and tax collection was the responsibility of the civitas or large landowners. Hence there was no systemic strength behind organisations above the civitas.  Governors were appointed from the centre, there was no method or tradition for appointing them locally. No doubt civitates saw local interest as paramount and the removal of oppressive taxes as a blessing.

And their reimposition under renewed authority as decidedly a mixed blessing, but preferable to the penalty for non-payment.

The other organisations that held things together were the army and the church.

I have my doubts about the church.

The army had commands and garrisons. It may be that most of the command structure departed with the legions. Even if it did not just go the army problem is that it has garrisons that are now settlers on the borders and federate allies, also settled beyond the borders and some internally. The organisation has lost its field forces and most likely the ability to control them. When we had this same debate about northern Gaul I think it might have been Rodger who pointed out that Syagrius most likely controlled as far as his horsemen could ride in a day or two. Syagrius likely started with an army and authority over federates and laeti...in Britain the army was withdrawn.

But following the failed appeal to Aegidius it looks as if someone in Britain started building a new one.

Rome's weakness was that it had generally taken over areas organised by tribe or city and it moved to create a city within the tribal area so that the tribal territory could be taxed to support the army and its nobility 'civilised'.  Wider organisations had not existed and no wider loyalties were created. You were a citizen of Rome and of your city, nothing in between had any active meaning. When the centre collapsed, localism ruled.

But a charismatic national who could get the locals to pull together, as in Armorica, could create such a wider loyalty - and be remembered for it by future generations.

Patrick's construction based upon mediaeval romantic novels is fine fantasy and a campaign could be based upon it, as long as no one thinks that fleets of 200 ships or armies of 15000 men were really involved in Britain in the fifth century or later.
As an in eresting check, the sources of the time and the traditions surviving in the much later A/S chronicle have three ships arriving in Kent and the Solent, just as the Goddodin has 300 horsemen, as someone said 36 men is an army. Of course that does not mean that most armies were 36 men, it is a way of creating a limit for a potential crime....raise 36 men or more without royal assent and you can be accused of rebellion. That likely has a relationship to how many men an A/S king kept around him to defeat any coup.

This is not, however, a sensible way of assessing how many Saxons constituted a fleet.  Saxon raiders had earlier necessitated the establishment of the Channel Fleet and the Count of the Saxon Shore, i.e. they were larger than local forces and organisation could cope with.  Aegidius had to deal with a force of several thousand Saxons in Gaul.  Why should nearer and more convenient England attract less?

What, pray, is the real objection to having 18,000 Saxons and 15,000 Bretons landing in Britain c.AD 490?

[Erpingham]

I was referring to Dux Bellorum but also to the description around it and the fact that it would be an odd detail for yarn spinners to make up. 

I've not making myself clear.  Nennius has not made anything up, in my opinion.  He has reported what his sources (histories, annals, poems, triads ... whatever) say about about Arthur.  He was Dux Bellorum (assuming the capitals are in the original).  Does that just indicate he was the leader of the combined armies on that occasion?  Or he was generally the overall war leader for whatever federation of civitates there was?  Was this something that poets christened him after his great victory at Badon?  Or is it a relic or attempt to recreate a former rank in the Roman Imperial hierarchy?  Opinions on this may depend on where on the spectrum of Arthur belief you stand.

[aligern]

Only , Patrick, that there is no evidence for such large armies being involved in Britain.

You refer to the Saxon shore organisation of the Roman fleet. It is a distributed force, with about ten bases. The Romans are not expecting major fleet actions. What they face is small penetrations by groups that land and raid and later, when the Roman system has broken down , land and settle. The Anglo Saxon invasions are insidious because they do not involve large forces , they do not penetrate at one point and set off on a march of conquest, they infiltrate. We have, also to imagine the same situation in the West with the Irish. The Saxons very likely had information on geography and where the best land was from those who had been settled as foederati as protectors of the British cities. Significantly these settlements are well inland, for example Dorchester on Thames  as well as on the coast. If we take the A/S Chronicle as at least strongly indicative of the nature of warfare at the time the story is one of small fights, The Saxons take Pevensey, the Northumbrian Angles fortify themselves at Bamburgh. The Jutes land and take the isle of Wight and really go no further. Some Saxons  land in the Solent,nthey push North and fight battles, but effectively conquer only two counties. The Early Saxon kingdoms include Kent...one county, Essex, one county, Middlesex, maybe two counties, Norfolk and Suffolk , one county each. These are not large armies. The Britons were organised by civitas in the lowlands, by tribal kingdom in the West and North. None of these entities are large, a county or two at most and have forces in proportion.
As to Arthur reimposing a Roman dicesan or provincial organisation, our best example is Vortigern and then the Saxon concept of a Bretwalda which I believe to be based upon his position. That was to be the acknowledged leader of the whole island. However, this is a role based upon precedence, there is no formal administration, no tax powers, though you might get tribute. Yes such a leader might claim to represent Rome, but we must remember that he did not! Ambrosius or Arthur would face the problem that he was not legitimately appointed by the emperor, nor been declared and accepted as emperor by the army (which was how it was done) because there was no army. Arthur, or AA, could have received contingents from towns and princes, but after the campaign they would have gone home, very likely because the money economy had collapsed and coin would have enabled a leader to run a centralised force dependent upon him, not some town council...but this was not the case in Britain.
In Gaul there are larger amies. The barbarian foederati are settled in tribal groups that take up rich provinces, they arrive en masse, ( The Visigoths, the Burgundians) they take over Roman organisation and occupy the cities. The Civitates work for the barbarians in Gaul, they can tax in cash and kind, there is an accepted system of them getting a share of the land. None of this is true inbBritain. The civitates ate smaller and weaker, they are abandoned when the Saxons take over. Estates might have been occupied, but there is little evidence of the Saxons melding with the locals. There was no mechanism to support large armies, even where Bede saw a tribal commonality of origin of Angle or Saxon  we get five kingdoms of Angles and four of Saxons.
Roy

[eques]

I was referring to Dux Bellorum but also to the description around it and the fact that it would be an odd detail for yarn spinners to make up. 

I've not making myself clear.  Nennius has not made anything up, in my opinion.  He has reported what his sources (histories, annals, poems, triads ... whatever) say about about Arthur.

That' why I was careful to say yarn spinners, not Nennius  .  The point I was trying to make was that the level of detail and subtlety around Nennius' description of Arthur's job title lends Nennius' account a ring of authenticity, whoever he got it from.  Otherwise he would have just described Arthur as a "mighty King/Dread Lord" or whatever.  Originally it was with a view to answering your question about what links Arthur to Badon.

  He was Dux Bellorum (assuming the capitals are in the original).  Does that just indicate he was the leader of the combined armies on that occasion?  Or he was generally the overall war leader for whatever federation of civitates there was?  Was this something that poets christened him after his great victory at Badon?  Or is it a relic or attempt to recreate a former rank in the Roman Imperial hierarchy?  Opinions on this may depend on where on the spectrum of Arthur belief you stand.

Well we will never know but for me it implies he was a sort of troubleshooter - someone who could beat Saxons and therefore found himself frequently being asked for help by the Kings of the Britons.  There are plenty of examples from history of a talented General being put in charge of a turbulent coalition of temporary allies.  I would guess there were various shifting incarnations of this coalition throughout his career.

[Imperial Dave]

we really really have to be careful with the use of the name Arthur. Reading around the subject and taking into account missing mentions of him (or them...ie Arthurs!) eg by Gildas strongly leads me to the proposal that Arthur was a cognomen originally. The parallel example of this is Julius Caesar. Caesar was a cognomen within the Julii family and was used (eventually) to denote being (Roman) Emperor. So in this case, Arthur could be a cognomen for, lets say, 'Arthur no.1' (ground zero) whatever his real name is. If he was spectacular in battle then the use of that cognomen could be attached to other leaders or outstanding commanders eventually turning into a name that people generally wanted to use to hopefully instil greatness on their progeny.

Others have done (much) work on this angle and come up with a variety of suggestions with alot settling for some variation around 'bear' - Arth being Welsh for bear and interestingly ur could be a shortened version of ursus (Latin for bear). Very conjectural and anothe rrabbit hole. But, following it for a moment it would help out with our conundrum of why Arthur is mentioned by some authors and not by others and why he crops up an awful lot with a whole heap of battles placed at his feet which might be difficult to fit into 'generation'

Just something to bear (sorry) in mind

[Patrick Waterson]

Only , Patrick, that there is no evidence for such large armies being involved in Britain.

Except the evidence of our sources ...

As to Arthur reimposing a Roman dicesan or provincial organisation, our best example is Vortigern and then the Saxon concept of a Bretwalda which I believe to be based upon his position. That was to be the acknowledged leader of the whole island. However, this is a role based upon precedence, there is no formal administration, no tax powers, though you might get tribute.

You can also decree mass mobilisation.  This would be, after all, the quintessential function of a war chief.  I think also we should be careful about equating Vortigern's dubious primacy with Arthur's apparently clear supremacy: the one was inviting Saxons in to maintain a shaky position while the other was mobilising his countrymen to clear them out.

Yes such a leader might claim to represent Rome, but we must remember that he did not! Ambrosius or Arthur would face the problem that he was not legitimately appointed by the emperor, nor been declared and accepted as emperor by the army (which was how it was done) because there was no army.

Unless someone had begun rebuilding one.  In any event, a man on the spot with troops has more real authority than a shadow appointed by some remote figure in Constantinople.  Aegidius and Syagrius built themselves a state in northern Gaul on the basis of Aetius' arrangements; I see no reason why 'Arthur' could not have done the same with the legacy of Ambrosius and Uther.

Arthur, or AA, could have received contingents from towns and princes, but after the campaign they would have gone home, very likely because the money economy had collapsed and coin would have enabled a leader to run a centralised force dependent upon him, not some town council...but this was not the case in Britain.

There is the open question of whether the money economy had in fact collapsed: the continuing existence of the civitas suggests that some form of currency other than barter was still in use.  Also, the auctoritas for raising troops would lie with a war leader; the towns' role would be to work out how they can manage their contribution.

In Gaul there are larger amies. The barbarian foederati are settled in tribal groups that take up rich provinces, they arrive en masse, (The Visigoths, the Burgundians) they take over Roman organisation and occupy the cities. The Civitates work for the barbarians in Gaul, they can tax in cash and kind, there is an accepted system of them getting a share of the land. None of this is true in Britain. The civitates are smaller and weaker, they are abandoned when the Saxons take over.

But until the Saxons take over they are free to work for themselves - or their national war-leader.  Let us not overlook this point.

Reading around the subject and taking into account missing mentions of him (or them...ie Arthurs!) eg by Gildas strongly leads me to the proposal that Arthur was a cognomen originally.

Agree entirely.

So in this case, Arthur could be a cognomen for, lets say, 'Arthur no.1' (ground zero) whatever his real name is. If he was spectacular in battle then the use of that cognomen could be attached to other leaders or outstanding commanders eventually turning into a name that people generally wanted to use to hopefully instil greatness on their progeny.

King John's nephew Arthur was one of these.  However for some reason he never became attached to the Arthur legend ... the fact that none of the rulers Gildas mentions carries the 'Arthur' cognomen (aside from Cuneglass' bear chariot hints) but have different cognomens of their own suggests it was not a very well established tradition.  By contrast, every Roman emperor or would-be emperor was a Caesar (or an Augustus or a Sebastos or an Autokrator, depending upon when and where he was crowned).  So while I like the theory I feel disinclined to adopt it.

[Duncan Head]

Only , Patrick, that there is no evidence for such large armies being involved in Britain.

Except the evidence of our sources ...

Or "later works of historical fiction", as we call them.

[Imperial Dave]

So in this case, Arthur could be a cognomen for, lets say, 'Arthur no.1' (ground zero) whatever his real name is. If he was spectacular in battle then the use of that cognomen could be attached to other leaders or outstanding commanders eventually turning into a name that people generally wanted to use to hopefully instil greatness on their progeny.

King John's nephew Arthur was one of these.  However for some reason he never became attached to the Arthur legend ... the fact that none of the rulers Gildas mentions carries the 'Arthur' cognomen (aside from Cuneglass' bear chariot hints) but have different cognomens of their own suggests it was not a very well established tradition.  By contrast, every Roman emperor or would-be emperor was a Caesar (or an Augustus or a Sebastos or an Autokrator, depending upon when and where he was crowned).  So while I like the theory I feel disinclined to adopt it.

its not perfect I agree although I still think there is much mileage in it. The Cuneglas passage in Gildas reads:

ut quid in nequitiae tuae uolueris uetusta faece et tu ab adolescentiae annis, urse, multorum sessor aurigaque currus receptaculi ursi

[Erpingham]

I would be inclined to see King John's nephew Arthur as someone named after a figure from popular literature.  Born in 1187, he is post the first wave of popular Arthurian fiction, which painted Arthur as a chivalric paragon which any high born young aristocrat might emulate.

[Patrick Waterson]

I would be inclined to see King John's nephew Arthur as someone named after a figure from popular literature.

Or popular tradition, given the literacy rate of the period.  Either way, I believe your point is that 'Arthur' had by then already been romanticised and 'young Arthur' was named after the ideal rather than the original.

Dave essentially has a slightly different process occurring significantly earlier, perhaps within reminiscing distance of Arthur's own lifetime.  He also has Arthur as a Caesarish-connotation cognomen rather than a personal name per se.  This has the implication that anyone claiming the name would need some sort of force to back it up.

Either way, it points to an original 'Arthur' who made enough of an impression to spawn this tradition.  I think where I differ from Dave is that I do not see the deeds of later Arthur-cognomened individuals necessarily being added to the achievements of the original, although where bards are concerned no such bet is entirely safe.

My own campaign analysis, such as it is, depends upon the internal consistency and military logic of Geoffrey's source rather than the who's who of post-Roman Britain.  The stumbling-block for some is the belief that everything collapsed down to collections of rustic ruffians once Roman administration evaporated, which on the whole seems to be true, but does not consider the rather different situation that would have existed when someone rebuilt some form of overall rule.

[Patrick Waterson]

Only , Patrick, that there is no evidence for such large armies being involved in Britain.

Except the evidence of our sources ...

Or "later works of historical fiction", as we call them.

Except where they cite earlier sources, e.g. 'The Frensshe Booke'.

[Erpingham]

My own campaign analysis, such as it is, depends upon the internal consistency and military logic of Geoffrey's source rather than the who's who of post-Roman Britain.

Geoffrey's source is a stumbling block.  He is unclear what this source is other than it is an old book in the British language.  It is difficult therefore to speak of its "internal consistency and military logic".  Some certainly doubt it's existence (a bit unfair on Geoffrey perhaps) but it could be legendary material, it might be short annal entries like the well known Camlann one, we don't know.  So, we know Geoffrey assembled some sources, some of which we can identify.  Many suspect he assembled these to create a narrative, rather than simply translating a pre-existing narrative.  In which case, any "internal consistency and military logic" would be down to Geoffrey's skills as a narrator.