Say "King Arthur" and the majority enter into flights of fancy about suits of armour and round tables, holy grails and Sir Lancelot wooing Guinevere right under the monarch's nose. However,
that Arthur is the literary one of medieval creation. On the question of origins, the authentic Arthur lived in what we call the Dark Ages (c. 400 to 800 AD), that period following the fall of the Roman Empire, when Europe and Great Britan were over-run by hordes of "barbarians". The historic Arthur became a key figure, defending the Isle against these marauding peoples (actually cultured and civilized Angles and Saxons) - and lost. So, what is it about Arthur that endures: who was he and why does he live on in meta-memory?
Recent research points to the Roman town of Viroconium, a small village in Shropshire, not far from Wroxeter. This town was at least significant enough to have been written about by Roman scribe Ptolemy. Its name is a Latinized form of a British or Celtic word "Uiroconion", which means "man wolf". One prominent citizen was Uir-oter or (guess what!) Arthur. It makes perfect sense that this Celtic citizen of a crumbling Roman town should defend the British populace in the 400's against the wicked, Anglo-Saxon hordes.
But later writers muddied the picture: look at my opening preamble in scorn and derision. Suits of armour were a Norman addendum whose arrival was not heralded until 1066. The holy grail suggests a Christian tradition, but preachers from Roman and Europe Britain did not arrive until 597 AD, a date far too late in the calendar to have suffused Arthur's warriors with religious zeal. Round tables and Lancelot belong to the writings of Chretien de Troyes (1160-1191) a writer determined to Normanise the British king. With the birth of modern English and the printing press, Arthur had another evolution in the pen of Thomas Malory, who allegedly wrote his epic poem,
Morte d'Arthur while imprisoned in the Tower of London. And who was Thomas Malory: that is another story?
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