Disintegration of King Arthur's Empire For

The Disintegration of King Arthur's Empire

For a bright, shining moment in time, Great Britain enjoyed security from Saxon invaders and warring petty kings because of the rise to power of a remarkable - if somewhat mythic and largely undocumented in his own era - kind. Arthur, or Artoris, was that king, and under his leadership the remnants of the Roman Empire in Great Britain were united to create an empire that sadly fell long before such a fall was necessary. Many writers have taken up the basic elements of the story of King Arthur and his "Round Table" of knights. Among the earliest of these writers was Chretien DeTroyes (1914 translation, published online in 1996 by Douglas B. Killings), who wrote a series of "Arthurian romances" in the 12th century A.D.

DeTroyes (1996) was a poet of the French court, writing his tales in Old French. Some of these tales specifically address such aspects of Arthur's kingship as his coming to power, his struggles against the Saxons and against internal rivals such as King Lot and his own sisters, his marriage to Guinevere and her romance with Lancelot, the Grail Quest, the battle with Arthur's son by his own sister (Mordred), and the ultimate disintegration of the empire that Arthur and his followers created. It is the purpose of this essay to draw upon stories written by DeTroyes (1996) to identify the primary reasons why the empire fell. It will be argued that several forces combined to make this occur: 1) the romance between

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l. Throughout his reign, Arthur was faced with multiple challenges to his sovereignty (DeTroyes, 1996). The invasion of Saxons into the British territory was one of these variables. Arthur himself and many of his knights were descendents of the Romans who, having conquered Britain and established Roman colonies on its shores, brought a certain set of values and norms to that land. They also were descendants of Celts who had (even before the Romans) succeeded in conquering Britain from its native peoples. Militaristic in nature, these "British" fighters and landowners were vastly different from the invading Saxons, whom the British considered to be little more than barbarians. However, as DeTroyes (1996) demonstrates in his descriptions of Arthur's battles against the Saxons at places such as Badon, the Saxons ere a determined and numerous people. They sought land and sovereignty for themselves and their people and were also willing to fight and to die for their own cause. Arthur's military successes against the Saxons were numerous and were essential in not only bringing about a period of temporary peace, but also in uniting a number of petty kings under his leadership. DeTroyes (1996) makes it clear that the Saxons were

Category: History - D