Matter of Britain: Encyclopedia - Matter of Britain

Matter of Britain

Arthurian legend or the Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the legends that concern the Celtic and legendary history of the British Isles, especially those centering around King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. The twelfth century French poet Jean Bodel created the name in a chanson de geste he wrote, the Chanson de Saisnes, in which appear the lines:

The name distinguishes and relates the Matter of Britain from the mythological themes taken from classical antiquity, the "matter of Rome", and the tales of the paladins of Charlemagne and their wars with the Moors and Saracens, which constituted the "matter of France". While Arthur is the chief subject of the Matter of Britain, other lesser-known legendary history of the British Isles, including Brutus of Britain, Old King Cole, King Lear, and Gogmagog is also included in the subjects covered by the Matter of Britain: see King of the Britons.

Matter of Britain - Themes and subjects

Matter of Britain - Legendary history of Britain

The legendary history of Britain was created in part to create a body of patriotic myth for the island. Several agendas appear in this body of literature.

The Historia Britonum, earliest known source of the story of Brutus of Britain, seems to have been devised to create a distinguished genealogy for a number of Welsh princes in the ninth century. Attributed to Gildas or Nennius, its actual compiler is unknown; it exists in several recensions. This tale went on to achieve greater currency because its inventor linked Brutus to the diaspora of heroes that followed the Trojan War, and thus provided raw material which later mythographers such as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Michael Drayton, and John Milton could draw upon, linking the settlement of the British Isles to the heroic age of Greek literature, for their several and diverse literary purposes. As such, this material could be used for patriotic mythmaking just as Virgil linked the mythical founding of Rome to the Trojan War in The Æneid. Geoffrey of Monmouth also introduced the fanciful claim that the Trinovantes, reported by Tacitus as dwelling in the area of London, had a name he interpreted as Troi-novant, "New Troy".

More speculative claims link Celtic mythology with several of the rulers and incidents compiled by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniæ. It has been suggested, for instance, that Leir of Britain, who later became Shakespeare's King Lear, was originally the Irish sea-god Lir. Various Celtic deities have been identified with characters from Arthurian literature as well: Morgan le Fay was often thought to have originally been the Irish goddess Mórrígan. Many of these identifications come from the speculative comparative religion of the late nineteenth century, and have been questioned in more recent years. The whole of Geoffrey's royal line can be found on the Mythical British Kings page.

William Shakespeare seems to have been deeply interested in the legendary history of Britain, and to have been familiar with some of its more obscure byways. Shakespeare's plays contain several tales relating to these legendary kings, such as King Lear and Cymbeline. It has been suggested that Shakespeare's Welsh schoolmaster Thomas Jenkins introduced him to this material, and who perhaps directed him to read Geoffrey of Monmouth. These tales also figure in Raphael Holinshed's The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which also appears in Shakespeare's sources for Macbeth. A Welsh schoolmaster appears as the character Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Other early authors also drew from the early Arthurian and pseudo-historical sources of the Matter of Britain. The Scots, for instance, formulated a mythical history in their Picts and their Dalriada royal lines. While they do eventually become factual lines, unlike those of Geoffrey, their origins are vague and often incorporate both aspects of mythical British history and mythical Irish history. The story of Gabhran especially incorporates elements of both those histories.

Matter of Britain - The Arthurian cycle

The Arthurian literary cycle is the best known part of the Matter of Britain. It has succeeded largely because it tells two interlocking stories that many later authors have been intrigued by. One concerns Camelot, usually envisioned as a doomed utopia of chivalric virtue, undone by the fatal flaws of Arthur and Sir Lancelot. The other concerns the quests of the various knights to achieve the Holy Grail; some succeed (Galahad, Parsifal), and others fail (Lancelot).

The mediaeval tale of Arthur and his knights is full of Christian themes; those themes involve the destruction of human plans for virtue by the moral failures of their authors, and the quest for an important Christian relic. Finally, the relationships between the characters invited treatment in the tradition of courtly love, such as Lancelot and Guinevere, or Tristan and Isolde. In more recent years, the trend has been to attempt to link the tales of King Arthur and his knights with Celtic mythology, usually in highly romanticized, early twentieth century reconstructed versions.

Matter of Britain - Characters and subjects

Matter of Britain - Legendary kings and founders

• Brutus of Britain
• Corineus
• Old King Cole
• Cymbeline
• Leir of Britain (King Lear)
• Cassibelanus
• Caradocus
• Aurelius Ambrosius
• Uther Pendragon
• Cadwallader

Matter of Britain - Arthur and his entourage

• King Arthur
• the Round Table
• Guinevere, wife of Arthur
• Excalibur, Arthur's magic sword
• Uther Pendragon, father of Arthur
• Camelot, Arthur's capital
• Mordred, Arthur's heir and enemy
• Avalon, Arthur's resting place

Matter of Britain - Knights of the Round Table

• Lancelot
• Galahad
• Tristan
• Gawain
• Percival
• Bors
• Geraint
• Gareth
• Kay
• Lamorak
• Gaheris
• Bedivere
• Agravaine

Matter of Britain - Other important figures

• Merlin
• Morgan le Fay
• The Green Knight
• Sir Ector

Matter of Britain - Noteworthy authors

Matter of Britain - Medieval

• Béroul
• Chrétien de Troyes
• Geoffrey of Monmouth
• Hartmann von Aue
• Layamon
• Sir Thomas Malory
• Marie de France
• Nennius
• Robert de Boron
• Taliesin
• Thomas of England
• Wace
• Wolfram von Eschenbach

Matter of Britain - Modern

• René Barjavel
• Marion Zimmer Bradley
• Michael Drayton
• Hal Foster
• Raphael Holinshed
• Stephen Lawhead
• Rosalind Miles
• William Shakespeare
• Edmund Spenser
• Mary Stewart
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson
• Mark Twain
• Charles White
• T. H. White
• Jack Whyte

Matter of Britain - Anonymous

• The Lancelot-Grail Cycle
• The Mabinogion
• The Gawain Poet
• The Post-Vulgate Cycle
• The Prose Tristan

See also

• List of ancient mysteries
• Holy Grail
• The Mists of Avalon
• Corineus
• Glastonbury
• Mons Badonicus
• Breton romance
• chivalry
• The Faerie Queene
• Knights of the Round Table
• List of Arthurian Characters
• Sites and places associated with Arthurian legend
• Historical basis for King Arthur
• English historians in the Middle Ages
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Matter of Britain - References and sources

Derek Pearsall, Arthurian Romance: a short introduction, Blackwell, Oxford, 2005 D. H. Green, The Beginnings of Medieval Romance: Fact and fiction, 1150-1220, CUP Cambridge 2005 Carol Dover (ed), A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, Boydell & Brewer, 2005

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Matter of Britain", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki