225: King Arthur with Professor Dorsey Armstrong

00:02:37:10 – 00:03:02:03
Dan LeFebvre
If you were to take a step back and overall look at the 2004 King Arthur movie, to give it a letter grade for its historical accuracy, what would it get.

00:03:02:28 – 00:03:18:08
Professor Armstrong
As far as a letter grade for its historical accuracy? I think that you would have to break it into sections and some parts would get an A and many parts would get an F, and so.

00:03:18:16 – 00:03:19:00
Dan LeFebvre
That’s quite a.

00:03:19:00 – 00:03:47:04
Professor Armstrong
Gap. So yes, it it’s there are moments that are so carefully, scrupulously paying attention to what would have been going on in the fifth century and what we know about early chronicle accounts of who King Arthur was, that pay attention to details and then others. There are other moments where they’ve just thrown everything out the window and they’ve done something kind of crazy with the story.

00:03:47:04 – 00:04:22:08
Professor Armstrong
And so but I will say this. What is great about this film, the further away I get from it in time, the more I like it. Because despite what he gets wrong, it gets the idea of Arthur. Right. So even if it’s not an accurate historical representation of King Arthur, the character who is noble, good, beloved by his men willing to sacrifice himself, all of those are the elements that we find in the Arthurian legend that have made it so popular.

00:04:22:19 – 00:04:51:29
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. And we’ll chat about some of those a little more specifically later on. But I wanted to quote something from the beginning of the movie because it starts off kind of setting some setting the scene almost that I’ll quote from the movie. It says, Historians agree that the classical 15th century tale of King Arthur and his knights rose from a real hero who lived a thousand years earlier in a period often called the Dark Ages, recently discovered archeological evidence sheds lights on his true identity.

00:04:52:19 – 00:04:55:24
Dan LeFebvre
So as a historian, do you agree with that opening statement?

00:04:57:00 – 00:05:23:09
Professor Armstrong
Again, it’s like my grade that I gave the moving parts. Parts of it get in a prior to that. Get in. So, yes, absolutely. The 15th century hero that we know probably has his origins in a real person, possibly persons who lived during the fifth century. And I will say as much as medievalist, I hate the phrase dark ages.

00:05:23:28 – 00:06:01:24
Professor Armstrong
If there ever was a dark age, fifth century Britain after the Romans have withdrawn, is it it really does count as a dark age. So that part is true. The idea that recent archeology tackle discoveries have located the Arthurian legend in the north. That’s a little less plausible. I will say that every time a fifth century or thereabouts archeological discovery is made, no matter where it is in the British Isles, people attempt to connect it to King Arthur or the Arthur type figure on which he was based.

00:06:02:12 – 00:06:13:05
Professor Armstrong
But generally speaking, as far as the legend goes, most of Arthur’s exploits and tales and stories and legends are focused much more towards the south, in the southwest.

00:06:13:19 – 00:06:27:05
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Of course, keeping in mind the movie came out in 2004. It talks about recently discovered archeological evidence. The impression I get is that there was something that kind of broke open. Oh, this is who who was there. And it’s some sort of discovery.

00:06:27:13 – 00:07:05:29
Professor Armstrong
What I believe happened in the years before that is that up near Hadrian’s Wall, there had been some archeological discoveries that indicated that a local leader had remained in power and had consolidated a base of power there after the Romans had withdrawn. But you can say the same about other parts of Britain as well. There are there are several people, understandably, who try to step into that vacuum of power and we don’t know much about them, which is why almost every one of them could be considered a candidate for the historical Arthur, or as I like to call him, an Arthur type figure.

00:07:05:29 – 00:07:34:07
Dan LeFebvre
Arthur type figure. Okay. I like that. Something else we get kind of at the opening of the movie is an explanation of how one of the other characters, Lancelot, joined Arthur. According to the movie, in 300 A.D., the Romans were expanding their empire to the east, where the summations live. The Romans defeated them, but they were so impressed by the bravery of the cavalry that they let them live in exchange for each generation of summation.

00:07:34:07 – 00:07:59:15
Dan LeFebvre
Boys joining the Roman military as knights for 15 years. And then fast forward to 452 A.D., we see a young Lancelot being taken from his home to join the Roman military. He’s stationed under Arthur in Britain to defend what you just mentioned. Hadrian’s Wall is, as the movie describes it, a 73 mile wall that separating the native fighters in the north with the Roman controlled Britain to the south.

00:08:00:01 – 00:08:09:20
Dan LeFebvre
Then, of course, the movie. Fast forward 15 years to 467 A.D. That’s kind of the timeline for the rest of the movie. But setting all that up, does the movie do a pretty good job of setting the timeline?

00:08:09:21 – 00:08:34:17
Professor Armstrong
So that’s an interesting question because on the one hand, yes, wherever the Romans went, they did tend to try and co-opt or bring into the empire or I’ll just say it, exploit people who had skills that they thought were valuable and especially useful in fighting. And it is true that at one point very early on, that included the summations to the East.

00:08:35:05 – 00:09:02:03
Professor Armstrong
But what’s really interesting about this film is that the summation theory, as far as King Arthur goes, is a theory put forward by Linda Malka and Scott Lyttleton. And they wrote a book called From Cynthia to Camelot. And in that book, they posit that there was no historical Arthur figure that what happened is the summations are conscripted into the Roman army, which which we know happened.

00:09:02:16 – 00:09:34:29
Professor Armstrong
They ended up in Britain. So that also did happen. But then their theory is that they’re there in the second century serving under a Roman leader named Lucius Sartorius. Cassius and that it is a mix of summation mythology with the reputation and the idealized figure of this leader that centuries later would get mushed together to create Arthur and many of the legends that are associated with him.

00:09:35:07 – 00:09:55:27
Professor Armstrong
So it’s interesting that the movie says this is true, whereas the book argues that what a study of the summation question proves is that there was no Arthur and that he wasn’t a real person who lived in the fifth century. And so it puts those two things together in sort of uncomfortable juxtaposition. It makes for a good film.

00:09:56:14 – 00:10:13:15
Professor Armstrong
Absolutely. So part is partially true that there were summations. They were incorporated into the empire. They did make it all the way to Britain, most likely, and they did serve in the second century under someone named Lucius Sartorius. Cast is where we get that Arthur name in his middle name.

00:10:14:13 – 00:10:20:21
Dan LeFebvre
I’m sensing a trend that there’s going to be some a and there’s a you know, I’m sensing a trend here between.

00:10:21:07 – 00:10:39:04
Professor Armstrong
So I will say this again. The further away I get from the original screening of that film, the more I like it and the more I like what it does in how it encapsulates the essence of why Arthur has become such an important figure for 1500 years.

00:10:40:00 – 00:11:02:13
Dan LeFebvre
One of the other characters that we see in the movie is Merlin, and the way the movie kind of explains him. He’s a he’s a world leader. The first interaction that he has with Arthur Soldiers is a fight against them. And he’s not the wizard of the legends that we, you know, we’ve heard. Although there is a line of dialog that caught my ear that I think it’s Lancelot describing Merlin as a quote unquote dark magician.

00:11:02:29 – 00:11:06:18
Dan LeFebvre
Can you fill in a little more historical context around what we know about Merlin?

00:11:07:05 – 00:11:35:23
Professor Armstrong
So this is a really interesting question because the Merlin character does not get associated with the Arthurian legend until the 12th century, when a guy called Geoffrey of Monmouth takes what he knows about one or possibly two figures upon which he bases his Merlin and decides to put it together with the Arthurian legend. Now, we do think that there are possibly two historical figures upon which this Merlin figure is based.

00:11:36:02 – 00:11:59:23
Professor Armstrong
One is Merlin Caledonia’s, who was a warrior who went mad and lived in the woods, and the other is Merlin Ambrosius, who in some of the texts fought by Arthur’s side early on and had skills maybe not necessarily of magic, but he was a great builder, a great engineer. And so what he did kind of looked like magic.

00:11:59:23 – 00:12:27:07
Professor Armstrong
And it appears that Geoffrey of Monmouth, riding around 1136 or so, puts what he knows of this Welsh bard slash warrior wandering through the forest and creates a Merlin character and then moves that Merlin character into the Arthurian legend. So before the 12th century, Merlin is not a wizard who is in any way associated with King Arthur. And his story, which bums my students out so much.

00:12:27:07 – 00:12:42:03
Professor Armstrong
Every time I tell them that because they really want to believe that at least these two figures are true. And I say, You know what? They’re both probably fifth or sixth century. So they’re they both exist at the right time, but we don’t see them together until the 12th.

00:12:42:27 – 00:12:52:07
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I guess what you’re saying there, everybody kind of wants them together. So if you have a movie about King Arthur, you’ve got to have Merlin in there, too. So I could. Maybe that’s why they throw him in there.

00:12:52:08 – 00:13:12:27
Professor Armstrong
What I would say is that anyone who’s trying to make an historical King Arthur movie is going to run into the huge problem of audience expectations. If you hear Arthur, you’re going to expect that they’re there. Better be a Merlin there, better be a Lancelot. And as far as we know, Lancelot seems to appear fully formed in the 12th century.

00:13:13:15 – 00:13:42:19
Professor Armstrong
He’s not there in the original fifth century. If you’re going to have an historical Arthur film set in the fifth century, you can have an Arthur, you can have a Guinevere, you can have a better beer, a K and an early version of Sir Gawain. Walk me. But that’s it. You can’t have a Lancelot. You can’t have a bors, you can’t have a Galahad, you can’t have Merlin.

00:13:42:28 – 00:14:12:11
Professor Armstrong
So you can imagine that if you’re trying to tell the historical story of Arthur in the fifth century and people come to see this film, if there’s not a Lancelot, I think people are going to be very upset. So I sympathize with all movie makers who are trying to wrestle with that question because it’s a hard one, because for hundreds of years now, we have come to associate figures like Merlin and Lancelot with King Arthur to such an extent that they’re really inextricable from each other right now.

00:14:12:11 – 00:14:15:21
Professor Armstrong
And you would disappoint your audience if you didn’t have them in the movie.

00:14:16:01 – 00:14:31:09
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, that’s silly. What about the. So the impression I get. Merlin is the the world leader and the impression that I get that the worlds are like a nomadic people who are fighting against the Roman occupation of Britain. Were they really doing that at that time?

00:14:31:17 – 00:15:01:22
Professor Armstrong
So the worlds are based on a real people called the Picks Picts, and their name comes from Picardy, which means painted because they did paint themselves blue before they went into battle. And the dye that they used is called woad. And so I think that’s where the movie gets that word. The reason that Hadrian’s Wall is built in the first place is because there are some really scary blue people up beyond it.

00:15:01:22 – 00:15:26:06
Professor Armstrong
And the Romans have said, No, thank you. South of here is good. We’re not going to mess with that up there at all. And so another way that the movie stumbles is that if they’re so scary that there’s a wall keeping them out of the south, why is there a Roman senator living in his lovely summer estate north of the wall in the most dangerous story in Britain at the time?

00:15:27:12 – 00:15:30:14
Dan LeFebvre
That is a really good point they don’t even talk about in the movie.

00:15:31:03 – 00:15:32:12
Professor Armstrong
What is he doing up there?

00:15:33:14 – 00:15:57:10
Dan LeFebvre
Just a summer home, right? Apparently another legend that we see in the movie, that is the roundtable. And according to the way we see it introduced in the film, of course, we talked about Lancelot and you mentioned going in as Galahad and Tristan and all of these other knights. And then there’s the scene where Bishop Germaine comes in and he has to sit at the head of the table and they’re like, Oh, you can sit wherever you want.

00:15:57:11 – 00:16:02:17
Dan LeFebvre
Then he comes in. It’s a round table, so there is no head at the table. Do we know if the round table was an actual thing?

00:16:03:00 – 00:16:25:12
Professor Armstrong
So it is when the legend starts to pick up in the 12th century. But again, as you may have noticed, there’s a theme here. A lot of what we think of as the foundational elements show up in the 12th century. Now, that does not mean that they weren’t present, perhaps in some form in earlier texts or stories that have been lost.

00:16:26:12 – 00:16:51:15
Professor Armstrong
It is just that we only have evidence for their existence in the 12th century. What’s interesting is that this idea comes from somewhere, and that’s pretty early in the legend. This idea that Arthur it’s a 12th century writer named Wass who says Arthur sat at a table. He was first among equals, but it was a round table, so no one was above anyone else.

00:16:51:24 – 00:17:16:24
Professor Armstrong
And that’s a remarkable idea for the 12th century. So I would like to imagine that there might be some basis or it might be an ancient memory of when this Arthur type figure gathered with his war band, because that’s what they would have been. They weren’t knights in the fifth century. They would have been his his war band that they gathered in a circle to discuss.

00:17:16:24 – 00:17:29:08
Professor Armstrong
And so it really could have an origin there that they’re gathered around a fire or a hearth. But as far as a physical table, we don’t have any evidence of that for sure before the 12th century.

00:17:30:01 – 00:17:46:06
Dan LeFebvre
What about the concept that you were talking about with the concept of the the round table is that there’s nobody’s above anybody else. And so the idea that I get is Arthur sees everybody as equals. Did did he have that kind of concept of, you know, everybody is equals?

00:17:46:12 – 00:18:23:24
Professor Armstrong
So in the fifth century, that’s a really hard question to answer. If we’re talking about sub Roman Britain and the historical Arthur figure would have been, as far as we can tell, if he existed, I think someone who was the basis for this figure who had a name similar to Arthur did exist. He might not have been all on board with the idea of equality, but whoever this person was, based on archeological evidence that shows a Celtic war band led by a leader in the right time and the right place for historical Arthur, this person must have been an amazing warrior.

00:18:24:06 – 00:18:49:16
Professor Armstrong
He must have been charismatic, and he must have just been a really good guy. Given how clear it is that in the wake of Rome pulling out, he was able to rally to his side, something like a community of over 700 people. It’s estimated when the average war band at that time. And so say the historians who know such things would have been more like 35 people.

00:18:50:12 – 00:19:15:26
Professor Armstrong
So he must have been a great leader, a great warrior, a good ruler, a just person. And I imagine that if you’re going to achieve that measure of success and maintain that level of leadership when the rest of the world is in chaos, that making people feel as if they are valued, even if it’s not actually that they’re being treated as equal with you, would have been important.

00:19:16:09 – 00:19:20:04
Professor Armstrong
So I think that there’s a little bit of truth hiding in there.

00:19:20:29 – 00:19:37:07
Dan LeFebvre
That makes sense. One of the one of the concepts that we see in that meeting with the bishop is we find out that all the knights are following the faith of their forefathers. In other words, not pagans, and not that they are pagans and not Christians, as the Romans are, but they’re still fighting for Rome in the church.

00:19:37:08 – 00:19:42:00
Dan LeFebvre
Was there really a tie between Arthur and the Roman church like the move very heavily implies?

00:19:42:17 – 00:20:10:15
Professor Armstrong
So probably most certainly since the Romans had firmly conquered most of what we think of as Britain or England today by the middle of the first century. And they were in power there until 410. So as the empire went, so went all of the outposts within the Empire. So when the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, all Roman citizens would have been expected to do the same.

00:20:10:29 – 00:20:39:08
Professor Armstrong
And so by the time we get to Arthur’s lifetime, Rome had been Christianized for well over a century. And so we think that that’s the case. He certainly would have been a Christian as far as the tolerance for other faiths. It’s doubtful. It is. It is doubtful that as a Christian leader, anyone would have been tolerant of what they believed to be blasphemy or anathema.

00:20:39:08 – 00:21:03:04
Professor Armstrong
But at the same time, we have to remember that this is the early days of Christianity. So many of its rules, its regulations, its orthodoxy, they don’t exist yet. We see a great example of this. What I really liked was the use of Pelagius and Pelagius was for a time he was he was a British monk in the sixth century.

00:21:03:04 – 00:21:27:10
Professor Armstrong
So he’s a little later than Arthur would have been. And he was ousted from the ranks of the church and declared a heretic because he believed and he preached what came to be called the Palladian heresy, which was essentially do good works and you’ll get to go to heaven. On the face of it, that seems to make sense.

00:21:27:18 – 00:21:48:27
Professor Armstrong
But ultimately, when the church had to decide, they declared this a heresy because in the end, humans cannot earn their way into heaven by doing good. The final decision rests with God. Only God gets to decide who gets in and who doesn’t. So it doesn’t matter what you’ve done yourself during your lifetime, it’s God who makes the final call.

00:21:49:04 – 00:22:11:20
Professor Armstrong
But anything that the heresy we have to remember only gets called a heresy because a lot of people are believing in it and following it. So for quite some time people would have believed in the message of Pelagius and and striven to adhere to it and and thought, I will do good works to get into heaven. And it’s only when the church decides, No, we can’t have this.

00:22:11:20 – 00:22:32:00
Professor Armstrong
This is contrary to our doctrine that he becomes a heretic. And so the idea that Arthur is a Palladian Christian is a great idea. I think that makes total sense and that he is so upset when he discovers that Pelagius had been executed when he returned to Rome. Also makes sense.

00:22:32:28 – 00:22:47:05
Dan LeFebvre
Was Plagiarist then because German is in the movie the bishop that they’re interacting with. We find out towards the end of the movie he seems to kind of be the one that executed poorly just. Was there truth to that then, that that was okay?

00:22:47:08 – 00:23:17:27
Professor Armstrong
Yes. Yes. Plagiarist was declared a heretic. Any who believed in the pillage and heresy were declared heretics. You might be subject to execution or torture and all kinds of nasty ways. And we know that this is a problem for centuries afterward because it’s such a popular idea that even in the 14th century, we have the church still trying to root out the pillage in heresy in all kinds of places, because who wouldn’t want to believe that if one does good, one gets rewarded.

00:23:18:05 – 00:23:20:02
Professor Armstrong
So it’s an ongoing problem.

00:23:20:12 – 00:23:38:04
Dan LeFebvre
You talked about this a little bit earlier, so maybe you already answered the question. But the movie does make a big deal of the final order from Rome for Arthur and his knights to go past that. They go to the north of the wall and rescue the Roman named Marius. And then they also mention Marius, his son Otto, who is the pope’s favorite godson.

00:23:38:04 – 00:23:46:29
Dan LeFebvre
And people, as the movie explains it, they’re in danger from the approaching Saxon army. Is there any truth to that kind of scenario set up with that?

00:23:48:06 – 00:23:54:25
Professor Armstrong
This is where the the history goes off the rails. Okay. Well, first of all, as I said, your.

00:23:54:29 – 00:23:56:12
Dan LeFebvre
Side of the of the rating.

00:23:56:17 – 00:24:20:02
Professor Armstrong
Yeah. Yeah. So first of all, there are no Romans in their luxurious villas north of Hadrian’s Wall. Also, when the Saxons invade, they are not invading up there. They’re invading much further south in what’s England. So they wouldn’t have been up there to begin with. And so the movie is is moving people around and creating a conflict. So there is a family in distress.

00:24:20:16 – 00:24:46:24
Professor Armstrong
They just create a scenario which causes them to be in distress, which is the most implausible scenario that I can think of. And then we have to add an extra enemy in the form of the Saxons, who these were the people that the historical Arthur figure did rally against, did fight against, seems to have stopped and pushed back and their encroachment across southern Britain from the east to the west.

00:24:47:07 – 00:25:00:03
Professor Armstrong
But they’re not up nor threatening. ROMANS That that’s not happening at all. So, yes, Arthur versus the Saxons, but the geographic location is absolutely incorrect.

00:25:00:13 – 00:25:03:16
Dan LeFebvre
But not not in any way. The way the movie portrays it.

00:25:04:03 – 00:25:04:19
Professor Armstrong
Sorry.

00:25:05:02 – 00:25:24:18
Dan LeFebvre
Say something. It’s one of the concepts in the movie from that as as we see him, of course, he’s going up there to when he finally gets to Marius, his estate, we can see that Marius is using his position as a Roman to subjugate the people of the town, telling him he’s a spokesman for God and it’s a sin to defy him.

00:25:25:09 – 00:25:46:12
Dan LeFebvre
And then Arthur stands up against him. Know Marius is not of God. You’re all free people from your first breath, and he proceeds to try to rescue as many of the townspeople as you can, not just the Romans that he went to save. So the notion that I got was that Arthur seems to be a much more honorable person than most were at that time.

00:25:47:05 – 00:25:49:26
Dan LeFebvre
Would that be a fair assessment of the kind of person that he was?

00:25:50:12 – 00:26:16:19
Professor Armstrong
I mean, I think, yes, he as I said before, given the extent of what we think was his following and the number of people who flocked to his side and the length of time he was able to rule and restore peace for a couple of generations, he must have been a very just person. At the same time, another area in which this film gets an F is this idea of all men are born free.

00:26:17:08 – 00:26:59:02
Professor Armstrong
MM No, in the Middle Ages, if you went back in time to the Middle Ages and you asked anybody, would you like to be very or would you like to be beholden to this Lord or subject to him, The first question that anyone would ask would probably be how much land comes with either of those options. And generally speaking, everyone would usually have chosen to be not free because this society depended upon a hierarchy in which lords ruled over people.

00:26:59:02 – 00:27:18:22
Professor Armstrong
The people served their Lords, and in return for that they got the Lords protection. They were part of a social network. There was a safety net. So for example, in times of famine it would be expected that the Lord would find a way to help His people, to keep them from starving in times of warfare in exchange for working his land.

00:27:19:04 – 00:27:45:19
Professor Armstrong
The Lord would take everyone he could into his fortress or stronghold or castle to protect them. If you are free and you are cut loose from this structure, who’s going to help you? You are alone in the world. How do you farm your land? Because much of farming was co-operative back then, so the villagers would come together to plant, to harvest.

00:27:45:27 – 00:28:13:19
Professor Armstrong
And so being all on your own. Well. Well, it’s not impossible. Would not have been considered a desirable situation to be in at all. In fact, we have accounts from some parts of the Middle Ages in which during a time of famine people approached a particular Lord and made themselves his slaves on purpose because in exchange they would get fed, they would be clothed, they would be housed.

00:28:14:01 – 00:28:33:01
Professor Armstrong
And this seemed to have been a temporary arrangement, but they were happy to to give, you know, their lives up into the service of the Lord and be obedient to Him as long as it meant protection for them and their family. So the idea that I am a free man is absolutely incorrect as far as the Middle Ages would go.

00:28:33:19 – 00:28:49:06
Professor Armstrong
But every age, I like to say, makes an Arthur that that age needs so in 2004, that’s that’s what we wanted to hear, that it’s all about freedom. It’s all about individual freedom. And that’s just it’s not the case. It’s historically inaccurate.

00:28:49:06 – 00:29:03:20
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. And even Arthur himself, like the whole reason I mentioned of the final mission, right, was the final mission before they were given their own freedom in that way. But it sounds like maybe even that might not have been the case.

00:29:03:25 – 00:29:25:24
Professor Armstrong
That would not have been something they wanted. They would not have wanted, first of all, no one gets papers of safe conduct, go through the Roman Empire in the fifth century. That’s not a thing. There are not checkpoints everywhere. There aren’t even enough people who can read to tell you what the thing says that you’re carrying that says you have the right to move throughout the Roman Empire.

00:29:26:06 – 00:29:57:15
Professor Armstrong
And so while they may have if we’re going with the summation theory, they may have wanted to go back to their homeland, they would not have wanted to be cut loose from the Roman bureaucracy. In fact, the sack of Rome, which started around 410, and then the Empire sort of staggered to its final collapse around 476. The people who attacked Rome were, first of all attacking, not because they wanted to conquer Rome, but because they wanted to get in.

00:29:57:15 – 00:30:16:25
Professor Armstrong
They said, Yeah, give us some of that. So many of these people, these were what we think of as the Germanic peoples that lived north of Rome. Many of them had already been fighting for the Romans as mercenaries, and they saw all the benefits that Roman citizens got. And they said, Well, we don’t want to just be your hired hands.

00:30:16:25 – 00:30:52:04
Professor Armstrong
We would we would like robes and baths and, you know, reliable food and a functioning government. And so I doubt that many people would have wanted to move away from Rome or felt like Rome was somehow oppressive. And that’s one reason why the Arthur type figure, from what we know from many of the texts, is that apparently his parents had been Romans of some rank in Britain.

00:30:52:16 – 00:31:09:01
Professor Armstrong
And then after the empire collapsed and the legions are withdrawn and called back to Rome, it is someone who has claims to Rome who can rise up and rally the people. And that’s what they were looking for, some sort of vestige of what Rome had done for them.

00:31:09:15 – 00:31:30:22
Dan LeFebvre
And that’s an interesting theory. And then I guess the idea of Marius being the one that is oppressive to his people, then maybe I mean, I’m sure there were some some leaders that were, but it seems like maybe that dynamic would have been very different if, I mean, it’s beneficial to the Lords then to have them do well.

00:31:30:29 – 00:31:55:28
Professor Armstrong
You are exactly correct. So I have no doubt that there and history shows us that there were some terrible lords and that especially in the 14th century, much later when there’s a population crisis and there’s no more land to be worked and the Lords are trying, in this case, trying to oppress the people, to keep them on their land, to keep them beholden to them.

00:31:56:11 – 00:32:22:00
Professor Armstrong
We have the peasants revolt in England in 1381, and part of this is because after the Black Death, the first wave, the Black Death swept through and killed up to half of the European population. What had been a land crunch suddenly became a land free for all. And so there was plenty of land for the taking. So people didn’t need to remain on their particular plot of land.

00:32:22:00 – 00:32:38:23
Professor Armstrong
They weren’t so bounded by tradition and history because the world had changed overnight practically. But up until that point, yes, for most it would be considered a mutual, a mutually beneficial situation.

00:32:39:08 – 00:33:03:15
Dan LeFebvre
If we go back to the movie, there’s another character, Guinevere, and we see her at the village where Mary is at. She’s actually a prisoner that there’s their, quote unquote, sinners and they must be sacrificed. According to the movie, there are two prisoners alive there that Arthur and his men save. One is a little boy. And then Guinevere, who in movie is a world woman?

00:33:03:28 – 00:33:13:05
Dan LeFebvre
Is there any truth to that? And kind of. Well, I’m assuming based on the estate not being there, that’s probably not how they actually met. But do we know how they met or if they even did?

00:33:13:06 – 00:33:40:07
Professor Armstrong
So a lot of that is really, really lost in the mists of time. But there have been some suggestions that certainly the Arthur Guinevere marriage would have been at that point politically motivated, even if there was affection at the same time. And there seems to be a situation that suggests that he married more than one woman named Guenevere.

00:33:41:01 – 00:33:44:18
Professor Armstrong
That was a very popular name. It’s the early version of Jennifer.

00:33:45:05 – 00:33:45:27
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, okay.

00:33:45:27 – 00:34:10:28
Professor Armstrong
So and Guinevere, in some instances, appears to possibly have come from north of where Arthur was so closer to Scotland, probably northern Wales. She has a Welsh name, but as far as her being a pagan who lives north of the wall and is a pict, probably not.

00:34:10:28 – 00:34:32:21
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, well then I’m guessing the movie then the connection in the film is going to be or kind of becomes the connection between Arthur and Merlin the world later. And that’s kind of how that whole thing happens. Is there any sort of connection then, between Guinevere, Arthur and Merlin in that historical record?

00:34:32:22 – 00:34:53:02
Professor Armstrong
No, there is not. But I think we can safely say that whomever the Arthur type figure married, that would have been a marriage that brought together peoples, united them and created, you know, a larger network of support against the invading Saxons. So I think it would be safe to assume that.

00:34:53:22 – 00:35:11:22
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, mentioning the Saxons there in the movie, the first confrontation that we see with Arthur and his knights and the advancing Saxon army takes place on this ice covered lake. There’s Arthur and his knights there. Okay, we’re not going to run anymore. We’re tired of running. We’re going to stay behind the rest of the people they’re trying to rescue.

00:35:11:22 – 00:35:35:16
Dan LeFebvre
Ken can get a head start. As you know, we hold off the Saxons and the movie says it’s seven knights against 200. Well, eight because Guinevere joined in the fight. Right? Eight people against 200 Saxons. And there’s this battle. And of course, you know, the arrows and people breaking the ice and falling into the ice and everything. Is there any sort of historical truth to this fight on the lake that we see in the movie?

00:35:35:21 – 00:36:05:22
Professor Armstrong
No. And in fact, that fight scene owes lot to an earlier medieval film called Alexander Nevsky, which had a very similar scene. And I actually wasn’t aware of that film until after I saw the King Arthur film. And I was commenting to someone about how much I enjoyed that fight scene and how clever it was, and people who know medieval film better than I do said, Oh no, that that’s lifted straight from Alexander Nevsky, that fight scene.

00:36:06:06 – 00:36:19:05
Professor Armstrong
And so then I went and checked and yes, indeed, it’s still a great scene. But no, there’s no historical basis for that. Okay. In the sense that another movie did it before this one.

00:36:19:15 – 00:36:42:08
Dan LeFebvre
What we were talking kind of about the person that Arthur was. And in that fight scene, we see him being willing to sacrifice himself for one of his men, Dagny, when he rushes out to break the ice under the Saxons, and then Arthur runs out himself to help pull the injured knight away from the icy waters, Do we know if he would have sacrificed himself for his men?

00:36:42:08 – 00:36:44:12
Dan LeFebvre
Like the movie? Obviously very heavily implies.

00:36:44:12 – 00:37:14:29
Professor Armstrong
Here we can only surmise. But again, my guess would be anyone who was able to arouse so much loyalty from his people must have been someone who made clear that he was willing to fight and die alongside his men. And that is another thing the movie does get right, is that in the Middle Ages, Kings and leaders are not like modern day generals who are back looking at maps and plotting strategy.

00:37:15:17 – 00:37:20:17
Professor Armstrong
You’re right. They’re at the front lines with your men. Otherwise they wouldn’t have considered you a leader worth following.

00:37:20:21 – 00:37:42:18
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Well, in that way, yeah, we do. We definitely do See him right there. Yes, man, that’s for sure. Yeah. At the very end of the movie, after being freed, Guenevere convinces Arthur that these are his people. So Arthur decides to stay and fight the main force of Saxons. After initially leaving with the Romans and the rest of the Knights come back and decide to stay and fight with their leader.

00:37:43:04 – 00:37:58:09
Dan LeFebvre
So that’s how we end up having this big battle at the end between Arthur and his knights, alongside Guinevere and Merlin’s boat army against the full Saxon army. And the movie calls this the Battle of Baden Hill. Was that a real battle? And did the movie do a good job of showing how it happened?

00:37:59:04 – 00:38:26:12
Professor Armstrong
The Battle of Baden Hill comes from a ninth century chronicle in, and we do believe it was a real fight, but at the same time, it wouldn’t have been at Hadrian’s Wall. People have been trying to find Baden for a while, and we think it’s in the south of of Britain, somewhere in the south. And this supposedly was one of the key battles in which Arthur, the leader, pushed the Saxons back.

00:38:26:12 – 00:38:55:10
Professor Armstrong
But also the same text tells us that there were 12 battles and he’s victorious at this one in the final battle, which is at Camden. And no one could find Caroline. Exactly. There have been lots of theories, people trying to pinpoint it. That is where he is finally killed and defeated at the end. But as far as the Arthurian legend goes, the battle of Mount Baden, yes, was attested very, very early on in the Chronicles.

00:38:55:20 – 00:39:08:18
Professor Armstrong
Now, where it was exactly not so clear cut, but it does show up. So naming that final battle after the battle in the Chronicles makes sense.

00:39:09:07 – 00:39:30:08
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Would have been in them at the end. The movie in that version of the Battle, at least we do see some of Arthur’s men die, Tristan and Lancelot dying in the battle. And so they’re down to just just four knights. But then, of course, you know, there’s the whole world army. Do we know what happened with. With his men?

00:39:31:20 – 00:39:57:06
Professor Armstrong
No, no. I mean, we know almost nothing about him from contemporary documents. That would be, you know, from the fifth century or, you know, even a century or two later. That’s as close as we can get. So we can assume, though, that when Arthur passes away, certainly along the way, some of his men would have also been killed.

00:39:57:18 – 00:40:31:11
Professor Armstrong
But again, remember, they’re not knights, they’re warriors. He wouldn’t even have been called king probably until maybe the end of his reign if then But earlier on, he would have been called either by a Roman title like a Duke’s balaram, a war leader, or you might have been called commerce count. And not early on would he have been called King Arthur and so one thing the movie does get right is that if he’s going to be called king, it wouldn’t happen till very, very late in his life if it ever happened at all.

00:40:31:11 – 00:40:52:22
Dan LeFebvre
There is another Arthurian legend that I want to ask you about that we do see in the movie, although it’s in a flashback, and that is the Sword in the Stone. There’s a flashback. Arthur’s childhood is his mom is killed by Merlin’s people attacking their village, which is initially why he didn’t like the words And but Arthur pulls the sword from the stone so he can go and kill Merlin to have revenge for his mother’s death.

00:40:53:12 – 00:41:10:26
Dan LeFebvre
Then Merlin. And while present time, as far as the movie is concerned, says, Oh, it was it was the love for his mother that let Arthur pull Excalibur from the stone, not hatred for Merlin. How old is the movie do showing the story of the sword in the stone that has obviously tied to the legend?

00:41:10:26 – 00:41:38:03
Professor Armstrong
So if we if we go to the 15th century and saw Thomas Malory, which is my main area of study, what we learn then, and that’s sort of where the stamp is put on this part of the legend is that there is a sword in a stone and it appears by magic, and Merlin helps to set it up and the stones in an anvil that says who whosoever shall pull it the sword from the stone is right wise born king of all England.

00:41:39:10 – 00:42:05:12
Professor Armstrong
But that’s not Excalibur. Excalibur is a sword of Arthur’s very, very early on as well, especially in early Welsh legends. But it comes from the lady of the lake. So it comes out of the water. So she emerges from the water with the sword for him and he is considered worthy of the sword because she deems it so.

00:42:05:20 – 00:42:41:21
Professor Armstrong
So there are two swords and later on they get conflated into one that Excalibur is the sword in the stone. But the idea of a sword being pulled out of a stone. I have seen a documentary on I’ve seen several actually historical Arthur. And one theory is that in early metalworking you would use a stone mold and would pour the metal into it to make a sword, and that perhaps the legend comes from it being stuck in this stone mold and someone of great strength pulling it out intact.

00:42:42:14 – 00:43:15:09
Professor Armstrong
So that could be the origin of the legend. But the magical sword, Excalibur, is called Caliburn, or in Welsh Ricola burness, which means cut steel. And that shows up early on. There’s no mention of it being pulled out of a stone. If anything, it is gifted to Arthur by this mysterious fairy woman who has otherworldly power. And so that is how Arthur is sort of threading this needle between the real and the supernatural.

00:43:15:09 – 00:43:29:21
Professor Armstrong
And he has this sort of ordination that he is meant to rule because he’s favored by people in the in the fairy world. And he’s also lauded and praised and held up to be a leader by real human beings.

00:43:30:09 – 00:43:35:11
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. So, yeah, again, the movie kind of merging a lot of different things together.

00:43:35:14 – 00:43:57:09
Professor Armstrong
Well, what I would say is that if you were doing an Arthur movie, you better have a sword in the stone or the audience is a a right. And so I thought that making it the marker on the grave made a lot of sense that he is still would drawing it from, you know, something that could be considered partially stone from the earth.

00:43:57:09 – 00:44:06:18
Professor Armstrong
So that meant that made a lot of sense to me to try and figure out how to represent this motif, this theme that is so important in the Arthurian legend.

00:44:06:26 – 00:44:27:15
Dan LeFebvre
At the very end of the movie, there is a single ceremony where everybody’s happy. Merlin marries Arthur and Guinevere and they unite the people. And then and that’s when he is proclaimed to be King Arthur. Is there any truth to that sort of single marriage ceremony slash proclaiming the leader?

00:44:28:04 – 00:44:54:03
Professor Armstrong
No, that is okay. And in fact, that wasn’t even supposed to be the original end of the movie. Oh, okay. That is an alternate ending. Originally, the movie ended with the death of his Knights and it ended on a much more down note, which I think would be much more true to the legend. And I guess in test screenings, the audience said, This is not how we want this to end.

00:44:54:03 – 00:45:16:26
Professor Armstrong
And so they did what movie makers have done in order to bump up the happy factor for their audience and close with a wedding and better yet, let’s have it at a fake Stonehenge. Yeah, right. So all of that, all of that is is made up. I understand why it’s there, but it is a it’s a bit over the top.

00:45:17:21 – 00:45:32:10
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah. What kind of like we were talking about kind of throughout, you know, you have to have you have to Merlin in that you have to have a sword in the stone. There’s certain things, it’s a King Arthur movie and people are going to expect it. So it sounds like they’re playing to audience expectations for a lot of it.

00:45:32:20 – 00:45:50:13
Professor Armstrong
And I don’t think you have any choice if you’re going to make a successful Arthurian movie unless you choose to just go completely dark and historical and it wouldn’t be a happy movie, I don’t think. And I don’t know that anyone would want to go see it. It’d be more like an art film.

00:45:51:00 – 00:45:51:08
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah.

00:45:52:09 – 00:45:55:27
Professor Armstrong
Rather than any sort of popular blockbuster film.

00:45:56:12 – 00:46:15:21
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, that makes sense. Now, speaking of the film, I know we’ve talked mostly about the 2004 movie, but there have been so many movies and stories throughout history about King Arthur. What’s something that most people kind of know? The Arthurian legend? What what would what do you think would surprise most people when they find out about the real Arthur?

00:46:16:05 – 00:46:36:29
Professor Armstrong
Well, I can tell you what I tell my students every time I teach Arthurian literature. And what’s fascinating is I ask them to tell me on the first day of class, and many of them have not encountered the Arthurian legend in any sort of systematic way. So they haven’t read the early text. They maybe have seen a film or read a story.

00:46:37:06 – 00:46:56:25
Professor Armstrong
And so I ask them to tell me everything they know about the legend, and I write it all up on the board. And so they’re telling me Merlin and he’s married to one of Vere, and Guinevere commits adultery with Lancelot, and Arthur has knights, and they sit at a round table and they go on quests, including for the Holy Grail.

00:46:57:20 – 00:47:22:10
Professor Armstrong
And he lives in a big stone castle called Camelot. And then I have to tell them it’s the fifth century and Rome has left. So unless they’re occupying Roman structures, no big stone castles. It’s smoky little huts. Although it’s possible that, you know, Roman buildings that were left behind could have been reused. Reoccupied? That’s possible. We’re not sure where Camelot was.

00:47:23:01 – 00:47:43:16
Professor Armstrong
As I’ve said earlier, there’s no Merlin. There is a gun of here, but there’s also no Lancelot. The idea of the round table comes much later. The sword in the stone comes much later. Although he does have a sword with a name like Excalibur from very early on. And the Holy Grail shows up in the 12th and 13th centuries.

00:47:44:12 – 00:48:04:08
Professor Armstrong
And that’s another. It’s actually a French writer who says this is a great idea. Arthur’s knights need to go on a quest. What’s the best thing they could? Quest for the Holy Grail? And so that wasn’t part of the original legends either. And so I usually have a student from the back of the room. Stop it, You’re ruining it.

00:48:04:28 – 00:48:31:10
Professor Armstrong
That’s. But then by the end of the semester, I think that they have learned to have a deeper appreciation for how and why the legend accreted to it. All of these elements. Because I say the Arthurian legend like a magnet. And as time goes by, is there a hero over here who’s fantastic? For example, Sir Tristan. Tristan had a long history as a legendary figure all his own.

00:48:32:03 – 00:48:51:27
Professor Armstrong
But at some point late in the Middle Ages, someone said, You know what would be great? Let’s make him a knight of the round table. And then all of his adventures are connected to Arthur. And so he’s brought it. Same with the Holy Grail. It becomes a quest for the Knights. So you Arthurian legend is like a giant magnet that attracts to it all the cool stuff.

00:48:54:08 – 00:49:10:16
Dan LeFebvre
And makes some great stories along the way. But thank you so much for coming on to chat about King Arthur. I know you’ve written a lot. One of your books said King Arthur, History and Legend. I’m a huge fan of that book. Before I let you go, can you kind of give an overview of the book as well as where listeners can find your work?

00:49:10:19 – 00:49:34:17
Professor Armstrong
So the King Arthur history or legend is a series of lectures I did for the teaching company, which is now part of Wondrium. And you can get those lectures. There’s 24 lectures. It’s about the evolution of the Arthurian legend from its origins to the modern period. It’s available in DVD, can also download it online, or you can purchase the book that goes along with the lectures.

00:49:34:17 – 00:50:04:01
Professor Armstrong
It gives some detail and bibliography. So that’s the easiest way to access that. My other books tend to be more for a scholarly academic audience. They have lots of footnotes, if you like footnotes, great. But one thing I have done is I translated Sir Thomas Morte D’arthur into Modern English because every time I taught that text, I was not happy with the translations that were available to me that I was sharing with my students.

00:50:04:01 – 00:50:37:20
Professor Armstrong
And I finally decided, Well, I’ll just do my own. And it’s malory’s text more than any other at the end of the 15th century that gives us the shape of the legend that sort of codifies. It puts the template down for everything that comes after. And so that’s now available in a modern English translation. And my goal was to make it as accessible as possible so that people could enjoy the this huge it’s a massive work that took years for Malory to write, and in fact it took me longer to translate it.

00:50:37:20 – 00:50:56:08
Professor Armstrong
I realized that it took him to write it, which was a moment that when I hit that point, I realized, Oh, well, I’m a little bummed out right now, but I’m really proud of it. And I think that it conveys the sense of the time and the culture. Well, still maintaining accessible language that anyone can read and test.

00:50:56:09 – 00:50:59:26
Dan LeFebvre
I made sure to add a link to that in the show notes for this episode. Thank you again so much for your time.

00:51:00:01 – 00:51:04:28
Professor Armstrong
Is my pleasure. I’m always happy to talk about King Arthur inviting you back any time. Next time a movie comes out.

00:51:05:08 – 00:51:09:21
Dan LeFebvre
Invite me that course. Oh, there’s so many movies yet.

00:51:09:21 – 00:51:18:29
Professor Armstrong
It is a pleasure chatting with you.