King Arthur and the Battle for Britannia is the last in a series of
three books. The first, King Arthur: Man or Myth, weighed the evidence
for and against a historical figure. The second, The Battles of King
Arthur, looked in detail at the famous battle list from the Historia
Brittonum. Having looked at the questions of whether and where, this
final book takes on the different question of who was Arthur? The book
is intended to save readers time and money wading through the scores
of competing theories. It explains the problems with many of these
theories to date, their failure to gain widespread support and why
many historians remain sceptical about the existence of a historical
Arthur. There is however a reasonable consistency in medieval
genealogies and a good reason why Arthur does not appear in any of the
list of kings of early kingdoms. Instead he is placed in the context
of a fragmenting post-Roman provincial structure, alongside the
emergence of petty kingdoms with new cultural identities. A heroic
Brythonic culture in the west and north and a Germanic culture in the
east and south. The book looks at the evolution of the legend
comparing the chivalric French Romances with the Arthur of the darker
Welsh tradition. A mythical figure may have emerged from the mead
halls and war band culture of the sixth century. However the book
describes how a historical figure may have been mythologised and who
such a warrior may have been.
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Dux Bellorum and the Kings of the Britons
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781399048729
Publisert
2025
Utgiver
Casemate Publishers and Book Distributors, LLC
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter