Papers
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The Cassiterides
The extraction and working of metals seems to have arrived in the British Isles with the Beaker People, who immigrated from Central Europe in about 2400 BC. At that time, DNA analysis suggests, the previous population of Britain was all but wiped out, and 90% of the DNA of the population was replaced within a century. The Amesbury Archer, whose grave (dated to c.2300 BC) near Stonehenge was found in 2002, seems to have been a member of this new population, and indeed he may have been a metalworker, specifically a goldsmith…
The Land Of Cal
“Gaul is a whole divided into three parts” Julius Caesar famously tells us in c.50 BC1. The three parts were Gallia Celtica, Belgica (the north-east) and Aquitania (the south-west) and “All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws.”2 “The greater part of the Belgae were sprung from the Germans, and having crossed the Rhine at an early period, they had settled there, on account of the fertility of the country”3
IN SEARCH OF AN HISTORICAL ARTHUR
There can be few subjects that have inspired more writers than the historicity of ‘Arthur’, so I take up my pen to contribute to the discussion with trepidation. The bald facts are that there is almost no solid evidence of the existence of this most famous of semi-mythological figures, and any useful insight on the topic can only be based on circumstantial evidence.
MORDRED
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles for AD 573 record a Battle of Arfderydd at Arthuret in Cumbria where ‘Briton fought Briton and weakened their numbers’, so we have reason to believe that conflict between the British tribes continued after the Anglo-Saxon adventus.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his pseudo-history ‘Historia Regum Britanniae’ tells /us that Arthur fought battles against a British rebel called Mordred, in places like Winchester, and that he was mortally wounded in a final battle at Camlann in Cornwall (fighting either alongside or against Mordred). The purpose of this paper is to try to understand whether Geoffrey’s account is at all plausible.
ARTHUR THE ORIGINS OF THE ANGLO-NORMAN LEGENDS
How the Arthurian legends were exported to Brittany is lost in the mists of ‘the Dark Ages’, but we may presume that émigré Welsh monks of the 6th century, like Brioc (who established the monastery at St Brieuc), Samson (who established the abbey of Dôl-de–Bretagne (‘Dôl’)) and/or their followers, took the tales with them. What is clear is that, by the 12th century, there was a body of material in Breton tradition (including the Arthurian legends), which came to be known as ‘the Matter of Britain’. This material was, for example, the basis of the lais written by Marie de France (in the Anglo-Norman language) at the end of the 12th century.