Researchers have announced that they believe that they found the location of the famed round table of King Arthur. They believe it was not in a castle and not actually a table but a Roman-built structure designed to house up to 1000 knights. It was, however, round.
A recently discovered Roman amphitheatre in Chester is believed to be the location for the gatherings. They believe that, rather than complete equality as in so many movies, regional noblemen would been given seats in the inner circle while lower ranked subjects on stone benches grouped around the outside.
Researchers have long identified one of two known locations of the main battles of King Arthur: St. Albans. Recently, researchers concluded that the missing location was Chester. They state that “[i]n the 6th Century, a monk named Gildas, who wrote the earliest account of Arthur’s life, referred to both the City of Legions and to a martyr’s shrine within it. That is the clincher. The discovery of the shrine within the amphitheatre means that Chester was the site of Arthur’s court and his legendary Round Table.”
There still remains a debate over the specific system of government in such areas and shown by this rare footage of Arthur speaking with English peasants:
There is no record of the discovery of coconuts used to make the sound of horses, however, at the Chester site.
Source: Telegraph
I will remain skeptical until they find the Holy Hand Grenade.
A subject very close to my heart and very much a labour of love
Whilst Gildas does not mention Arthur by name, There are numerous references to a figure called “The proud tyrant” which scolarly scources are now believing is a biased reference to the King known as Arthur.
There is also the Artorius/Dux Bellorum discussion regarding a possible Roman lineage brought forward by Nennius in his Historia Brittonum. and there appears to be a growing believe that Arthur was known by different names in different regions/lands and that Ambrosius Aurelianus and Vortigen himself may also be names for Arthur.(a very good discussion can be found in “Arthur and the Fall of Roman Britain” Edwin Pace 2008)
As for Chester being Arthurs seat of power? who knows, since Roman ampitheatres seem to follow a standard design of concentric circular seating I would imagine that one ampitheatre in a former Roman settlement is much the same as another.
One must always remember that History tends to be written by the victor and “Arthur” according to common belief was eventually defeated.
” …..but Christians say we have to believe there was a Christ, or the miracles don’t make sense.”
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More properly, I think, Christians must believe in miracles or Jesus doesn’t make sense.
help help I’m being repressed!………….
Blouise,
Me and Joe go way back. 😉
Buddha Is Laughing
The same can be said of the historical Jesus (or Mohamed or Buddha). Real or not, he’s had an effect on the collective human psyche. Campbell didn’t call his book “The Power of Myth” for no good reason.
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As usual you are right on target for the last part of the quote reads:
” …..but Christians say we have to believe there was a Christ, or the miracles don’t make sense.” The Power of Myth (Anchor Edition, 1991)by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers
The same can be said of the historical Jesus (or Mohamed or Buddha). Real or not, he’s had an effect on the collective human psyche. Campbell didn’t call his book “The Power of Myth” for no good reason.
david,
“You don’t have to believe that there was a King Arthur to get the significance of those stories …” The Power of Myth (Anchor Edition, 1991)by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers
Blouise,
Thnks! I had always thought that it must reference Caerleon.
The question is, how’d he become King? Likely by ‘exploiting the workers, by ‘anging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society!’
And, my favorite, ‘strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcicial aquatic ceremony!’
Seriously, thanks for reporting on this. I wish I could hear Joseph Campbell’s take on what this find means.
I demand that you chop down the tallest tree in the forest with . . . a herring!
So a watery tart tossing scimitars around IS a basis for government?
That’s so cool!
ackbar,
His CITY OF THE LEGIONS are concerned mostly with the relics of three saints … here’s some info:
“The identity of Gildas’s city of the legions is not immediately obvious. The phrase urbs legionum is not known to have been used by any other writer in Roman Britain either as a place-name in the strict sense or as a recognised description of a place. It is recorded in the Middle Ages, but almost all the known instances seem to derive from Gildas. The place Gildas intended must be somewhere in the part of Britain that he knew, which certainly stretched from the Straits of Dover in south-east Britain round to Cornwall in the south-west and Gwynedd in north-west Wales but which may have extended beyond that. Even the meaning of the phrase is not quite certain. Depending on the relationship between its two terms, it could mean a legionary camp large enough to be a kind of city or a city with legionary associations. Modern scholarship has taken Gildas to have intended the former but the latter has never been excluded, and we will have to return to it. The former sense would present fewer problems. The part of Britain that Gildas knew contained many legionary encampments, but he knew it well enough to have known the difference between lesser camps and the major permanent fortresses, of which Britain had three. If his urbs legionum was a legionary camp, it must have been one of the three fortresses, despite the lack of evidence that any phrase like his was ever used of any of them.”
What does Gildas actually say about the City of Legions?
Mike Appleton
Thanks, Blouise. Once again my personal vision of chivalry and Camelot has been severely thrashed.
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Oh no, my liege … continue to believe for it is a lovely legend … my favorite presentation is the movie “Excalibur” (except for the hanging corpses and eye plucking ravens) … just take note of the obvious lies a newspaper tells in order to establish a tourist trap.
Nih!
Thanks, Blouise. Once again my personal vision of chivalry and Camelot has been severely thrashed.
As much as I would love to believe this latest attempt to resurrect Arthur … I tend to believe that this find, although real, has nothing what so ever to do with Arthur or the “round table” but more to do with establishing a new tourist trap for the city of Chester.
Take particular note of this quote from the article. “[i]n the 6th Century, a monk named Gildas, who wrote the earliest account of Arthur’s life, referred to both the City of Legions and to a martyr’s shrine within it. That is the clincher.”
Gildas never once in all his writings mentioned Arthur. He wrote about the times in which Arthur was supposed to have lived as his life was contemporary to the time but Arthur, supposedly the main figure of those times, is unknown to Gildas. The above quote from the article is purposely misleading i9f not an out and out lie.
I give you this historian’s view:
“J. N. L. Myres – “The English Settlements” (1986)
“His [Gildas’s] silence is decisive in determining the historical insignificance of this enigmatic figure. It is inconceivable that Gildas, with his intense interest in the outcome of a struggle that he believed had been decisively settled in the year of his own birth, should not have mentinoed Arthur’s part in it had that part been of any political consequence. The fact is that there is no contemporary or near-contemporary evidence for Arthur playing any decisive part in these events at all. No figure on the borderline of history and mythology has wasted more of the historian’s time. There are just enough casual references in later Welsh legend, one or two of which may go back to the seventh century, to suggest that a man with this late Roman name – Artorius – may have won repute at some ill-defined point of time and place during the struggle. But if we add anything to the bare statement that Arthur may have lived and fought the Saxons, we pass at once from history to romance.”
[In a footnote, Myres says that to describe the period 350-650 AD as the ‘Age of Arthur’ “shows a total disregard of the valid historical evidence”.]
LOVE the Monty Python clip!