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 û if somewhat mythic and largely undocumented in his own era û 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 Lancelot and Arthur's queen divided the knights and the people and left Arthur vulnerable; 2) the incestuous interaction with Arthur's sister, which occurred without his knowledge of their relationship, created a power-hungry son in Mordred, who sought to displace his father on the throne; 3) the Grail Quest, pursued at Arthur's direction to restore the Kingdom, led to the deaths of many Round Table knights and rendered Arthur's reign vulnerable to Mordred's ...