Page 90 - All About History - Issue 53-17

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ARTHUR AND THE

KINGS OF BRITAIN:

THE HISTORICAL TRUTH BEHIND THE MYTHS

Teasing out British history from the early medieval
confabulations of Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth
Author Miles Russell Publisher Amberley Price £20 Released Out now

ake news’ did not, of course, who took to the skies on handmade
begin at the kingly court of wings and, like Icarus, fell to his doom;
Donald Trump. Early medieval Corineus (and later Arthur) wrestling
historians, for all their giants to death; and prophetic dragons
‘F protestations to the contrary, under castle foundations.
were little more than fabulists But come to this book with your
extrapolating tales from an indivisible eyes on the main title and you may
mush of real and imagined events — or be disappointed: Arthur gets but 30 of
were they? Russell chooses to take two the 300 pages; the rest is a painstaking
of their accounts seriously: Nennius’ textual study and analysis of those
9th-century Historia Brittonum (‘History myriad other ‘Kings of Britain’. Instead,
of the British’) and Geoffrey of it is the subtitle that is the key to an
Monmouth’s 12th-century Historia Regum admirable but sometimes stodgy read.
Britanniae (‘History of the Kings of Britain’). However, when we get to it, the
He teases out consistencies from conclusion is — in Russell’s word —
among duplications and exaggerations, “explosive”. From all his close reading,
cleverly arguing that simple etymological Russell confidently states that “King
errors led his authors to wildly inaccurate Arthur cannot have existed, at least
geography that can nonetheless be in the form in which he is presented”,
corrected. Nennius and Geoffrey have instead he is “the ultimate composite
in fact blended the oral traditions of the character… there being nothing in his
Catuvellauni and Trinovantes, rival Iron story that is truly original”. Fans of
Age tribes, with the hereditary lists of chivalric heroes look away now.
kings to create something that can, with
care (Russell’s catchphrase in this book is “Early medieval
“garbled”), be treated as a kind of history historians, for all
of prehistory.
Unlike academics, armchair historians their protestations
thrive on narrative. Fortunately, deep to the contrary,
in his forest of careful comparisons and
qualifications, Russell does take the time were little more
to recount many diverting episodes —
the death of Bladud, father of King Lear, than fabulists”
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