"Why did King Arthur fail?" Topic

Fail? He's just gone to Avalon for hollydays, he will come back soon.

I think we can discern different patterns of conquest in various parts of England. After all it was a slow process.

Roy's point on survival groups of Britons is reasonably well attested but we never find them well situated. We find them haunting the fens or in the case of Wessex subject to legal disabilities that will impoverish them within a generation or two reducing them to unfree people.

Northumbria is different again but even there where dynastic marrage inclused Celtic royalty its clear the Britons were of lesser status than the Angles or Irish.

Hawkswod has the right of it in my opinion.

I am sceptical of geneticists as they think everyone is related to one female from 40k years ago and Ghehgis Khan through male and female DNA.

IIRC the English/Welsh linguistic barrier is the least permeable in the world. i.e., English has remarkably few Welsh words in it – I think half a dozen, and the commonest one 'penguin' dates from the Renaissance and later.

That really doesn't speak, as other have said, of a process of peaceful assimilation.

And, of course, there's no contemporary or near contemporary evidence for it. all the sources such as we have,s peak of a violent take-over.

It's a fascinating bit of history.

and the commonest one 'penguin' dates from the Renaissance and later.

And that's disputed.

As for the Welsh being useless in battle – Gwynedd was the last piece of the Western Roman Empire to fall to invasion in 1282.

Stu, you really have gone native! Arguably true though.

English has remarkably few Welsh words in it – I think half a dozen,

Although plenty of Celtic/Welsh place names persist, which is another way of looking at patterns of settlement. eg link

Even way to the East Celtic names still occur. However, we don't know whether this is a matter of a settlement of Britons staying in place and keeping their name or of Saxons taking over, but with Welsh slaves and asking those slaves what the place is called.
I tend to think that Christianity has a part to play with many priests fleeing to the West or to Brittany and taking their flocks with them.
Of course, nearly everywhere else the invaders of the Empire take on a going concern and continue to tax the population. In the UK, though the towns empty. That sort of argues for a mass immigration rather than a conquering elite.

A few years ago I read a thesis on Northumbrian place names. The English ones dominate the valley bottoms and the Celtic ones are more frequent in the higher lying areas.

I'm with Lewisgunner on this. Upon collapse of Roman governance (and military assets), the country falls into many small localized pieces, some stronger than others. Some fail quickly, some take a long time to be subsumed by Saxon 'culture', some even experience a bit of rennaissance. But ultimately, the Saxon tide floods in.

By the way, Arthur didn't lose, he was stabbed in the back.

CPBelt: very good, my missus buys that stuff in 50 pound sacks.

'The Danes came, ran half the country (even gave us kings and huscarles …) but their legacy barely survives in place names.'

Apart from huge numbers of English place names ending in -by,-wick, -thorpe?

And the Geordie dialect.

"Why did the real king Arthur fail"?

Because the real king Arthur is a myth, and the plot says he failed on several levels. If you don't like it, rewrite the myth, "everyone else" does….

'The Danes came, ran half the country (even gave us kings and huscarles …) but their legacy barely survives in place names.'

Apart from huge numbers of English place names ending in -by,-wick, -thorpe?

Indeed … that was exactly what I meant, Steve (sorry, I'll work on expressing myself better … ): basically, given the extent of Danish influence, you might have expected more influence in our language other than the names of places.

But for some reason some languages seem stronger than others. What that demonstrates about the people speaking them will continue to be debated …

Phil

Wasn't there a serious epidemic of plague late in the Romano British period that reduced the previous Roman levels of population dramatically just after the military withdrawal? Or am I just recalling incorrectly?

Arthur's failure lay in his imprecise understanding of the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.

Can I be a bit heretical here about Danes. I don't think that they settle Durham and Northumberland. They leave that with an English earldorman who just swears allegiance to the York regime. I am not at all sure that wick endings are Norse , but thorpe and by endings are Danish and they start at Midlesborough as you head South. There are few if any North of that line.
Wick endings may refer to the Latin virus, a district and may have a port association such as Hamwic as Southampton.

Roy

"Wasn't there a serious epidemic of plague late in the Romano British period that reduced the previous Roman levels of population dramatically just after the military withdrawal?"

Yes there was but its circa C6th iirc rather than C5th.

Elenderil, IMO those writers who see the great plague of 540 AD or the Volcanic eruption of whatever date as the cause of the Roman Empire falling tend to be opportunists trying to latch together two headlines that will sell books.
So natural disasters sell books and the Fall of the Roman Empire sells books. It is as though someone were to write 'King Arthur versus Hitler, who would have won?' because both names sell. Unfortunately the cataclysmic events are located to a particular time and the event that they seek to explain often happens well later as OB says.

Because he couldn't roll sixes?

Just finished reading " simulating war" by Sabin. He asks his students " who won the war" in Napoleanonic tmes. He gets the usual answers of " Britain, because they were free of France" , etc. Then one bright student says "Napolean – the age is named after him." enough said. It is the " age of arthur".