"King Arthur's Birthplace Found?" Topic

Has the real birthplace of King Arthur been found? Archaeologists unearth Dark Age royal palace – just where legends said he was born – but which had already vanished by the time they were written down…

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What's the point of digging up a pile of dirt if you can't link it to somebody famous to a tabloid?

I bet it's written up a lot different in the peer reviewed journals.

Are there still people who think that King Arthur was real?

Except that te site is dated to the 6th century, so probably too late to be "Arthur's" birthplace.

Why does it have to be too late? Do we even know when aaryhur was born?

We don't even know IF Arthur was born!

Back in the mid 1970s I read all the Archaeological stuff that I could and but no matter how folks like Geoffrey Ashe spun it they couldn't get by the fact that there were no contemporary mentions of him in what was, for the time, a highly educated and literate society. The theory that he had somehow so angered the Christian Monks that they refused to mention him just seemed to me at the time, and more so now, as a silly theory. I like the Arthurian Legends but that's what they are, legends.

What's the point of digging up a pile of dirt if you can't link it to somebody famous to a tabloid?

The first major digs at South Cadbury Castle happened while the musical "Camelot" was a major hit on Broadway and while JFK's White House was starting to be called Camelot, needless to say you couldn't find a newspaper article that didn't tie them all together. Of course it's also always easier to get funding if you sell a dig as tied to Arthur than if you say a "Dark Age fort".

Got to be the first Blackadder's.

I can't find the original quote so I may have it a bit mangled, but I recall reading a historian who wrote something along the lines of, 'Everyone who goes searching for Camelot invariably finds it within 20 miles of their living room.'

I once had a poolside chat with an American lady who claimed to be a descendant of King Arthur.

I just smiled.

What was disconcerting was that this lady was a schoolteacher.

"I once had a poolside chat with an American lady who claimed to be a descendant of King Arthur"

Thing is that if she is of European descent and IF ( a much bigger IF) of course King Arthur existed and had children then she's not wrong.

Shes also a descendant of Chralamagne, Alfred the Great, William the Conquerer, Merlin( ok another big if there,) Finn McCool, and basically anyone else who existed in europe more than 1000 years ago as long as they had children there. This has been proven by mere mathematics.

Seriously, you only have to go back 1000 years to find a common european ancestor, and only about 6000 year to find a common global ancestor.

No surpise that the site is Tintagel.

I did find it annoying that the article kept saying that the site is popularly associated with Arthur because of the Artognou stone. Tintagel was popularly associated with Arthur long before the stone was unearthed. I would go so far as to guess that the majority of people who associate Tintagel with Arthur these days do so because of John Boorman's Excalibur, not some obscure stone they've never heard of.

As for the reality of the historical Arthur, I tend to favour the composite character theory. Various exploits and legends of a variety of actual men over time came to be told and retold as being those of Arthur.

So, yes, that poolside lady may have been a descendant of Arthur, but which one?

@Mike and Dave

Maybe this 'lady' is not wrong but she's very very far from right.

With all due deference to the historicity (or not) of Arthur, what I found most interesting about all this is that (as I recall) up to this point Tingtael had been dismissed as a site because it had what looked to be some minor buildings from about the right date, perhaps a small monastery (memory fails me here), fortified village stronghold, etc.

Now they are finding 5th/6th C. serious stonework on a scale that can be identified as a fortress? Well, life is sure interesting <grin>!

IIRC Tintagel was first associated with Arthurian Legend by Geoffrey of Monmouth who refers to it as "the Town of Tintagel."

The problem with "Arthurian" scholarship is that, instead of proceeding from evidence to a conclusion, it starts with a conclusion (there was a King (or powerful leader) named Arthur) and looks for evidence to back it up. This method, as any Historian will tell you, tends to lead you to bending the evidence. Geoffrey of Monmouth may have been working from Celtic Legend, he said that he had a book in his possession that he was working from, however he also has a political axe to grind, the West Country and Wales continuing beefs with the Norman and Plantagenet Aristocracy. After all the Chanson d'Roland had been composed to instill a feeling of pride in William the Conqueror's Army during the Conquest. So later you get a counterpoint. Of course the Arthurian Legends will be adopted and greatly expanded by Eleanor of Aquitaine and that's how you wind up with elements like Sir Lancelot and the Holy Grail.

I bet it's written up a lot different in the peer reviewed journals.

I quite agree, you say "Arthur" to get funding but unless you actually find something that says "Arthur slept here" or the like, contemporaneous with the early-mid 6th Century there is no way you say that name in a written academic piece.

BTW I would just like to add that I grew up on "Prince Valiant" and "Once and Future King" and Howard Pyle's Books on Arthur (his illustrations were incredible) and I really wish that there was some evidence to back up the stories. But unfortunately there isn't.

Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset was a life changer for me. It was the archeological approach (conceit) that I had never run into before. In her prologue she pointed out the evidence for a "historical" Arthur. That was an angle I had never heard of. And so it continues.

Wm the Conqueror is a great many times great granddad of mine too, and Charlemagne, and Harald Hardrada, and Guy of Ponthieu (that one is particularly satisfying), various Welsh, Scots and Norse, Germans, Franks, Russians and Middle Eastern persons, Romans, "Trojans", et al., all the way back to Adam and Eve, at least three times that I bothered to keep clicking; it took hours….

"I quite agree, you say "Arthur" to get funding but unless you actually find something that says "Arthur slept here" or the like, contemporaneous with the early-mid 6th Century there is no way you say that name in a written academic piece."

I did find Guy Halsalls Worlds of Arthur amusing for this- on the one hand it derided the endless array of books full of nonsense that try to peddle a historical arthur , on the other it had Arthur in the title and a picture of excalibur on the front- I suppose you could day it was camoflage so it could sneek in amongst those other books of Arthurian quackary unnoticed in the hopes that someone will pick it and discover the "truth":

That there probably was no such chap as Arthur. And if there was we don't know a single thing about him that wasn't made up in a fairy story.

This reminds of my time in academia where bids for funding often went 'The Study of "X, Y and Z" which often failed to produce support but other bids entitled "Global Warming and the Study of X, Y and Z" often got funded.

Mentioning 'Arthur' rings that little attention bell, doesn't it.

Odd that he appears twice in Brythonic/early Welsh praise poetry isn't it. Odd that his name starts being chosen for scions of very martial Celtic dynasties. Perhaps they hadn't read Halsall?

The castle, Disney Land, Florida. And no other place I guarantee you.

Odd that he appears twice in Brythonic/early Welsh praise poetry isn't it. Odd that his name starts being chosen for scions of very martial Celtic dynasties. Perhaps they hadn't read Halsall?

Yes, I've seen this argument before. The first written reference to Arthur, and this as a Warrior not a King, is from Nennius, who might have lived as early as the 7th Century or as late as the 9th. Whichever century you choose you are still far removed from Contemporary. The name Arthur, deriving from the old Celtic word for Bear was apparently pretty common before the "historical" Arthur as well. Once again it is someone seeking to use the evidence to prove an already developed conclusion rather than the other way around. It is up to those who believe that "Arthur" existed to prove he did, it is not up to the rest of us to prove he didn't.

It's like Sgt. Buster Kilrain, of the 20th ME, killed at Gettysburg. People look at the monument which lists the men killed there and are certain that they have discovered an error when they find his name missing. They complain to the Park, I know because I've heard people do it. The problem of course is that Buster Kilrain is simply a character in the novel "Killer Angels". He didn't exist, therefore he couldn't have been killed at Gettysburg or anywhere else. But the people have read it so they are certain he was real.

Once again, if we're looking for "odd" it would be in the fact that no one wrote down an account of his life at anywhere near the time in which he was accomplishing these great deed. We have accounts of others from the time, why not Arthur?

He was in a bunch of movies, so of course he existed.

I did find Guy Halsalls Worlds of Arthur amusing

There's a name I've not heard in a while. He is pretty thorough in his research. He was the one who championed Saxon mounted troops. He could also be pretty argumentative as if his opinion was the only one that mattered and anything you thought was folly. Kind of turned me off of his work. Never spent a dollar on his stuff and probably never will.

Truly you have not missed much.

"The first written reference to Arthur, and this as a Warrior not a King, is from Nennius, who might have lived as early as the 7th Century or as late as the 9th."

You need some J T Koch jowady, it would put you right on the dates. The earlier references seem to confirm the soldier rather than King theme though.

"There's a name I've not heard in a while. He is pretty thorough in his research. He was the one who championed Saxon mounted troops. He could also be pretty argumentative as if his opinion was the only one that mattered and anything you thought was folly."

I'd agree with all that, but I rather liked worlds of Arthur. Not many proper historians actually bother to sit down and lay out the facts on this kind of subject ( possibly because scholarly credibility is the sort of thing you can only lose once!) hence why we are subjected to the ramblings of quacks and anyone who can hold a pen the right way round at the third attempt. The amount of rubbish penned in arthurs name is incredible.

I like Bill Brysons writings for the same reason – when he wrote a book on shakespeare he didnt pad out the page count by making stuff up, keeping to what could be known or at least reasonably inferred.

If you do that with arthur or shakespeare you end up with a really short book (hence the chapters covering the more amusing dross from the world of psuedo-history, which helps make it more of a book than a pamphlet.)

"Odd that he appears twice in Brythonic/early Welsh praise poetry isn't it. Odd that his name starts being chosen for scions of very martial Celtic dynasties"

Oh gawd, not this again- are these the ones which weren't written down until 400 years after the supposed arthurian period, but could have been composed at any point in the previous 100,000 years , or the ones with Gods, giants, dragons and other mythical creatures? 'Cos thats the kind of historical accuracy this discussion needs ;)

So lets look at the evidence for Arthur existing. Well, we have the Annales Cambriae, these state that Arthur fought in two named battles, Badon (or Mount Badon) and Cammlann. We also have Nennius' Historia Brittonum, which confirms Arthur's presence at Badon. Now Historians have a rather high degree of confidence that Badon actually happened, it's named in a few sources. But was Arthur there? Here's a problem, the Annales (or at least the "Arthurian" sections of them) thought before the Twentieth Century to have been much older, instead date from the mid 10th Century. So you're talking about at least 400 years after the event. Okay, but we have Nennius' Historia Britonnum. Here, I will admit having the dates wrong, the perils of going off of memory. Now when did Nennius write? Well, he tells us 831 years since the birth of Christ and 796 since His Passion. That puts us in the first half of the 9th Century. So neither would be considered, by any University, to be a "Primary Source". So let's look at a primary source shall we?

Fortunately we do have a primary source, it is Gildas' De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. Now there is no doubt that Gildas lived and that he lived at the time when Arthur should have been operating. Gildas himself said that he was born the same year as the Battle of Badon. Although we don't have a precise date for that event it does give us a frame of reference. We know from "Arthurian Tradition" that Badon is perhaps Arthur's Greatest Victory. Now if you look at Gildas' work he names certain contemporaries and near contemporaries such as Ambrosius Aurelianus. He mentions events that we know happened, such as the Battle of Badon. His work is a polemic on who he blames, and who he doesn't, for the poor state of affairs in the ongoing war against the Saxons (okay, Angles, Saxons and Jutes). So we have a comprehensive work, contemporary with what happened and guess whose name isn't in it? Ding Ding Ding, that's right, Arthur. Odd isn't it?

Now let's look at those who say, "but suddenly everyone was naming their kids Arthur". Now there are those who say that there is no Latin version of Arthur which isn't correct. Artôrius was a Roman Family name that may very well have originated with the Etruscans. Now that spelling mutated into Arturus which could very easily have become Arthur. So we had Romans using the name independent of any British Hero. But let's assume that our British folk didn't like using a Roman name. Well, we have a possible Celtic derivative from the Brittonic Artorîgios . Evidently the theory that I subscribed to of Arthwyr or "bear man" has been somewhat dismissed, as I say the last time I paid any real attention to this was back in the 90s.. Now these names were used throughout Celtic Britain, from Scotland to Wales, to Southwestern Britain both before and after the 6th Century.

So we have the poetry. Most notably perhaps Y Gododdin . Our copies of it stem from the Middle Ages but it does mention Arthur in passing, again assuming that the versions that we have are unabridged it would most likely be the first literary mention of Arthur. Of course, at it's earliest it stems from the 7th Century. And also, it's a poem, not a chronicle.

Now I would be happy to see any evidence that shows that a Historical Arthur, not a literary figure, actually existed.

"Cos thats the kind of historical accuracy this discussion needs ;)"

Actually what the discussion needs is a willingness to weigh the evidence as objectively as one can manage. If linguistic evidence, as advanced by respected scholars in that discipline, dates the Arthur mentions in praise poems to the early period we should accept that. We can then consider what the implications are for wider scholarship.

Jowady I suggest you look at Koch's treatment of Marwnad Cunedda a very early praise poem and its mention of Arthur. Consider it alongside the Arthur phrase in the better known Y Gododdin. Both seem to have originated from the same area of Britain-roughly speaking.

I don't think who Gildas didn't mention is much of an argument. Gidlow said something like mention Waterloo and two people come to mind. Gildas expected his audience to know who fought at Badon he was writing a jeremiad not a history.

As to the name, Malcor's Roman confection apart, I cannot think of a single use of it by any Celtic people predating the supposed lifetime of Arthur. In fact Greene comes to mind who believed that Arthur was a taboo'd god whose name could not be uttered. Hence the absence of the name pre 410 AD.

"I suggest you look at Koch's treatment of Marwnad Cunedda "

Can you be bit more specific? I've just read several translations of it, including kochs, plus several analysis's of it, including Kochs, but I can't find a single mention of Arthur in any of them.

"I don't think who Gildas didn't mention is much of an argument"

Probably true- he rambled on a lot but only named about 5 people.

"In fact Greene comes to mind who believed that Arthur was a taboo'd god whose name could not be uttered"

I don't think you can use absence of evidence as evidence…

" If linguistic evidence, as advanced by respected scholars in that discipline, dates the Arthur mentions in praise poems to the early period we should accept that"
Well, I've seen some claims made, but they all seem very tenuous. Far to many ifs to deal with. And you pick any two "experts" and they'll disagree. And lets take the most well known example-
In the Gododdin a chap is mentioned as being no Arthur- fine, we all know that bit right? Whatever or whoever he was, he was no Arthur. Unfortunatly its also true that he was no Homer Simpson, and no Frodo Baggins either. Nor was he Thomas the Tank Engine, or Captain Picard. I'm sure you see where I'm going with this; If he wasn't Arthur it doesnt neccesarily follow that somebody else WAS Arthur.

You can deal with most of the poetic references in the same way, and as for the rest- well, association with Giants and Dog-headed men hardly suggests person grounded in reality.

If you want to prove Arthur exists you're going to need something a bit more solid.

Actually what the discussion needs is a willingness to weigh the evidence as objectively as one can manage.

I used to joke on the Arthurian* yahoo group that you will not find who Arthur really was until you stop looking for him. Basically, I was trying to get folks to be more objective like a detective and stop following their gut feelings as if to say, "I don't know much about the subject but I know what i feel."

One of the best parts of this era is how little written evidence there is. It is very easy to scan the whole body of written evidence in just a few days or even a couple of weeks.

So we have a comprehensive work, contemporary with what happened and guess whose name isn't in it? Ding Ding Ding, that's right, Arthur. Odd isn't it?

There is actually a good reason for this. Arthur is probably not a christian. There are several mentions of him in near contemporary texts of the time. They all paint him as the bad guy. Gildas is a monk…a christian monk…or perhaps priest when he delivers his own letter. He does name those petty kings around the western kingdoms and even points to Maelgwyn as the bad guy for murdering his Uncle. Owain right? The guy in Snowdonia. The guy that probably hailed from Din Arth or the fortress of the bear. Therefore, Owain is the real King Arthur. I have found him. You're welcome!

If you try hard enough, you can probably find some contradictory problem with the narrative I just laid out. But, never the less, it is as strong of a theory as many proposed. It's a wonderful era to game simply because you can go in any direction you choose and nobody can say you are wrong with any degree of certainty. History meets fantasy in a realistic and engaging way. That is and has always been what does it for me about this period.

"In the Gododdin a chap is mentioned as being no Arthur- fine, we all know that bit right? Whatever or whoever he was, he was no Arthur. Unfortunatly its also true that he was no Homer Simpson, and no Frodo Baggins either. Nor was he Thomas the Tank Engine, or Captain Picard. I'm sure you see where I'm going with this; If he wasn't Arthur it doesnt neccesarily follow that somebody else WAS Arthur."

The man who composed Y Gododdin knew nothing of Homer Simpson, Frodo Baggins, Thomas the Tank Engine or Captain Picard-he seems to have known about Arthur and he used him as an exemplary warrior in a praise poem. We might reasonably think the poet held Arthur to be a military paragon.

Sorry wrong Marwnad – if you have Koch's 2013 translation turn to page 290 and read it. If you are able you can then say why you think he is wrong or find a scholar of linguistics who disputes the argument and tell us why he is right.

You miss the point about Greene distracted by Frodo and the lads no doubt.

" We might reasonably think the poet held Arthur to be a military paragon."

Well yes we might…except that still doesnt say anything about whether he existed. For example-

I could say of you that " 'Oh ' ate loads of donuts, 300 did he consume in a single sitting, though he was no Homer Simpson…" . this would effectively describe your donut eating capacity but in no way confirms the existence or otherwise of Homer Simpson.

Ill have another look at Koch later…

"Well yes we might…except that still doesnt say anything about whether he existed."

It seems terribly important to you that he did not. Me, I'm open to the possibility that he did. I could have talked about Marwnad but since you are sticking with Homer Simpson I see no point.

"There he gluuted many ravens, though he was no Arthur" tells us only that the name Arthur called to mind a character of great martial prowess. It does not say anything about the historicity of such character. It may have, even at that time, called to mind a character who was believed to be legendary just as likely as to have called to mind a character who was believed to be real.

We might say to someone today "Who do you think you are, James Bond?" It doesn't mean we think James Bond is a real person.

I don't think that teh search for "The" historical Arthur is ever going to be successful, because I don't think there was *one*, there were many and most of them weren't named anything like Arthur.

Guy Hallsal is quite a fun guy to argue Arthur with. He has done his research and holds strong opinions.

And yes, what makes this story interesting to me too is that they are finding there was something significant interms of settlement at Tintagel in the period.

I just find the whole thing enthralling, and very exciting.

John

"He has done his research and holds strong opinions."

And published a book on the subject that screamed Arthur with no footnotes or adequate indexing all the while constantly reminding us that he is an academic. Not peer reviewed of course. His Saxon cavalry argument fell apart fast enough when people here chased down the references so I guess once bitten.. Then there is Peter Heather.

The question to ask about Y Gododdin is was it thought appropriate to introduce legendary characters into an elegiac poem? There were rules for such things and we have a fair few specimens to work from.

"It seems terribly important to you that he did not. "

Incorrect. I would love there to be a historical basis for the legend, but for me to believe it there must be evidence.

"There he gluuted many ravens, though he was no Arthur"

As in he was no specific great leader named Arthur OR he was no War leader (generic). The latter holding to the notion that "Arthur" is a rank or title rather than a proper name of someone.

Or that his verse brought to mind Arthur for the audience -breeding and giving of horses etc, fighting (and dying?) near a wall, being heroic naturally enough, but no Arthur, that would be to go too far.

The Celtic world had quite a few specific terms for rank I cannot fit the name or word Arthur into that. Also if it had been a title we would see it occur elsewhere and we don't. When we see it again its a name.

I think the title comes from a loose translation of the name. "Arth" being "Bear" and "Ur" being (something like) "man." And we do have Din Arth so it all lines up nicely!

I personally don't think it is a title either but a reference to a specific man, either real or some fictitious larger than life character.

So all that we really have are those who claim that Arthur wasn't mentioned because he wasn't a Christian (BTW, many of the earliest sources tie "Arthur" and Christianity together, in fact one at least mentions that he carried an image of The Virgin Mary at Badon)or that mentions in literary works, still hundreds of years after events, are somehow evidence. Look, there are these things called "Primary Sources" in historical research and so far NO ONE has been able to produce a Primary Source that mentions anyone named "Arthur". WE have one Primary Source for the period when Arthur is operating and he isn't mentioned. The Battle that was supposedly his signature victory is, he isn't.

As for "Arthur's" appearance in poetry well, those are literary works, they are fiction that may or may not contain actual History. Frankly if you are to rely on literary works as "proof" that Arthur existed you might as well say that the two foremost Captains of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars are Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hornblower because we have exactly the same amount of "proof" that the existed as we do for Arthur.

"As for "Arthur's" appearance in poetry well, those are literary works, they are fiction that may or may not contain actual History."

I see you have no concept of what those two poems are otherwise you would not describe them as fiction. It was a different world and whatever exposure you have had to poetry or whatever you think modern poets do is of little help in considering these poems.

The poems were highly complex oral compositions by high status professionals who worked within rules- they could not just make stuff up about the honourant.

My question remains- was it permissible to include legendary figures in a marwnad? If yes, then maybe Arthur was a legendary figure. If no, then Arthur was a widely known heroic human exemplar.

Oh has it right. Poems are a sort of aural history performed by bards. They are also a form of entertainment. So you will get some fantastic exploits of said people but for the most part will deliver approximately what happened.

Aneirin, for instance, is attributed to Y Gododdin. However, he probably lived in the late 6th early 7th century. But we are not sure. So maybe he didn't exist either? Of couse that's not my point. He makes mention of this "Arthur" who is at least a great man of not THE Arthur we are looking for. The time is probably not later than about 200 years from Arthur's death…if he existed. That is as close a memory as, say, the American revolution. Even if I know little of my country's history, I will always be able to pick out important figures who lived then. That is likely what these people knew in there time. They may not know Arthur's 12 battles but they would be able to pick Arthur out just as I would be able to pick out George Washington. The proof? Go ask any relatively new immigrant in the US who George Washington is. Amazingly they will at least say "He is the father of this country."

"was it permissible to include legendary figures in a marwnad?"

Surely for many folk of the 6th century there is little difference between a legendary character and a real one? All sorts of Gods/mythical creatures are believed in throughout history and pretty much all of them are treated if they are real by somebody even when they are obviously made up.

Other Elegys do mention gods etc, both Christian and otherwise.

" Even if I know little of my country's history, I will always be able to pick out important figures who lived then…"

Thing is, if you're on this site I'd kinda expect you to have a bit of an interest in history , but even if you're a dabbler in the subject and not a scholar then you'd be astonished just how much more about your history you know than the average joe …wasn't there a thing recently about how even uni students could identify Hitler? I'd expect any immigrant to know more about american history than most; theres a test on it isn't there for those that want to become citizens? I'd imagine a lot of people are very keen to pass that!

"Surely for many folk of the 6th century there is little difference between a legendary character and a real one? All sorts of Gods/mythical creatures are believed in throughout history and pretty much all of them are treated if they are real by somebody even when they are obviously made up."

Can you demonstrate how you know that? It seems to me a strange thing to say but no doubt you have done the research.

"Other Elegys do mention gods etc, both Christian and otherwise." Good, give us the appropriate examples and how they work in the context we are discussing.

Mike,

First off, I did say relatively new immigrant. he does have 10 years to study our history you know.

The fact that I am a member, and therefore, have an interest in history is immaterial. Part of my example was that if I didn't know anything about history.

Finally, Aneirin knew his audience. If he were to say anything that did not have the ring of truth, then the audience would have become disinterested. The fighting techniques, the personalities and their capabilities have to appear to be real or it does not make much of a history does it?

As he mentions "Arthur" by name, we can and should assume that the audience has some idea of who is is/was.

"Can you demonstrate how you know that? It seems to me a strange thing to say but no doubt you have done the research."

Folk who believe in Gods generally believe them to actually exist- I'm pretty certain that most Christians for example believe that their God is as real as you or me, if not more so. Theres no room for being a Christian and thinking God is a mythical creature with some interesting yarns. With little in the way of standardised universal education its hard to see how they'd even tell the difference. In any case figures that are known to be legendary (or gods )are repeatedly hammered into king lists etc to gain whatever authority those names carry; how do the anglo-saxon ones go? Usually something like: ' me (the king now), my dad, my grandad, some bloke we made up with a name a bit like that of a place we're trying to claim belongs to us, some ancient hero who may or may not be related to or even have existed, God. Maybe another God'. Don't names like Beli Mawr usually show up in the British lists? a Legendary/Mythical crature passed off as real with no evidence to suggest he was to gain legitimacy. Quite hard to do if the people doing that don't think he's real…

"Finally, Aneirin knew his audience. If he were to say anything that did not have the ring of truth, then the audience would have become disinterested." Well thats obvious nonsence. I cant recall the details but I think Halsall pointed out several examples that demonstrated writers and poets etc of the period regularly messed around with the facts to suit their own oratory. They do it today- just look at anything in the Daily Mail or on Fox News…

"As he mentions "Arthur" by name, we can and should assume that the audience has some idea of who is is/was."
Yes, but it still doesn't tell us who or what He was.

"Good, give us the appropriate examples "
hang on a mo I'll have to look them up again…