In Defence of King Arthur

Part 2 - the Malign and False History of Edward Gibbon

In Defence of King Arthur,

by a Canadian Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

Part 2 - the Malign and False History of Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon

According to Xi Jinping, in order for a nation, a society, or a culture, to survive, it must progress in its science and technology, and especially in its arts. Because progress in its arts can give the members of that society, a confidence or a pride in its culture, that is called ‘cultural confidence’.

[Note: By ‘cultural confidence’, I’m referring to an idea of Xi Jinping, that was posted in ‘the Blip Report for Sunday, March 19^th 2023 - On China’s Cultural Confidence, by William Lyon Shoestrap’.]

‘Cultural confidence’ means having a ‘moral compass’ that can be used to measure an idea. But some people say that you can’t measure an idea. Well no, you can’t ‘physically’ measure the size or shape or weight of an idea, but you can measure its ‘directionality’ – whether an idea could be a good one, or whether it could be a bad one. And so having a ‘moral compass’ to measure the ‘directionality’ of an idea gives us a ‘cultural confidence’.

But we, in the west, have been spoon-fed this utter nonsense called the ‘end of history’, that we don’t need to remember our past - just leave it, it’s not important, it’s irrelevant; that we don’t need to worry about the future – leave it to the technocrats and their AI robots to be taken care of; we only need to think about now – our ‘woke’, ‘trans-humanist’ now, and to go along with our ‘pre-determined’ future – with drugs and video games to keep us from getting too bored.

President Xi points us to an opposite way of thinking: that we should cherish and learn from our past (of the good and the bad), and that we should wonder and dream about the good that our culture could do in our future, so in that way, we can have a ‘cultural confidence’ – a confidence or a pride in the positive contributions of our culture, that we can use to better live and work and contribute to the common good in the present. And it is our cultural confidence that is under attack today, by the North Atlantean managers of our cultural narrative.

And in the same way that we should militarily defend our nation’s independence, we also should culturally defend our nation’s independence. And President Xi says that should be one of the missions for our artists, our musicians, our dancers, and our poets. And our historians too, I might add. Because it’s our story tellers that can help to strengthen our ‘cultural confidence’, and to try to regain that confidence, that we’ll need for our voyages into the future.  

And so, I thought it would be a good idea to go way back in our cultural history, and take a look at the story of King Arthur and who he really was, but also how that story had been changed and romanticized to weaken our cultural confidence.

So first, let’s look at the interpretation of the story of King Arthur by the historian of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon.

Between 1776 to 1789, Edward Gibbon’s ‘History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ was published – a massive six volume work of 71 chapters and almost 2500 pages – a very big book. And sometimes people write these huge books when the actual idea could have been said in a sentence or two, but they write these huge tomes to intimidate us into not questioning their accuracy and truth, as if to say that obviously this author must know what he’s talking about, since he wrote so much about it, but … maybe it's all a facade – maybe it’s all much ado about nothing.

In searching through those chapters, I found only one chapter, chapter 38, that contained all of 10 pages on the history of Briton after the Roman legions left, and that contained only 1 page - a mere 13 sentences on King Arthur. And that single page didn’t actually tell anything about historical events, but it was both a defamatory and a not very well researched historiography on Arthur. And it makes me think that this whole overly-hyped and overly-wordy book is of an equally shoddy workmanship.

So, I’d advise you not to put this book on your ‘want-to-read’ list. Life is way too short. But anyway, I wanted to go through Gibbon’s attack on Arthur and try to point out his prejudices.

[the following quotes are taken from chapter 38 of ‘The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ by Edward Gibbon]

“But every British name is effaced by the illustrious name of ARTHUR, the hereditary prince of the Silures, in South Wales and the elective king or general of the nation.”

The story of Arthur was not meant to ‘efface’ anyone, it was meant to provide us with an idea of a ‘hero’ – someone that we should try to be like, because of his good character, or because he accomplished something good. He was ‘illustrious’, yes, but he was not a god, he was but a hero. Gibbon does correctly say that Arthur was an ‘elective’ leader, indicating that people recognized something about him that made them ‘elect’ to follow his leadership.

“According to the most rational account, he defeated, in twelve successive battles, the Angles of the North and the Saxons of the West; but the declining age of the hero was embittered by popular ingratitude and domestic misfortunes.”

What is the ‘most rational account’, Gibbon doesn’t say, so we’ll just have to take his word for it (he does have a lot of words). But ‘embittered by popular ingratitude and domestic misfortunes’ seems to contradict the earlier sentence that he was an ‘elective’ leader – meaning he had popular support. Why would the people turn against him? His ‘declining age’? But he only reigned a short time before he died. Perhaps it’s Gibbon that is embittered.

“The events of his life are less interesting than the singular revolutions of his fame.”

Gibbon is saying that the history of Arthur’s life is not very interesting, but the changes in how he is looked at, are more interesting. So, he is not studying the history of Arthur, but he is studying the subsequent perceptions of him.

“During a period of five hundred years the tradition of his exploits was preserved, and rudely embellished, by the obscure bards of Wales and Armorica, who were odious to the Saxons, and unknown to the rest of mankind.”

Somehow even though Gibbon did not think Arthur’s history was ‘interesting’ enough to tell us about, he somehow did know that this history was ‘rudely embellished’ – no proof or discussion is allowed here to contradict his assertion. Besides, this history was told by some ‘obscure bards’ who were ‘odious’, and ‘unknown’, and (god-forbid) Welsh! Gibbon seems to be concerned with whether someone is considered acceptable and agreeable – not whether there is any truth in the story.

“The pride and curiosity of the Norman conquerors prompted them to inquire into the ancient history of Britain; they listened with fond credulity to the tale of Arthur, and eagerly applauded the merit of a prince who had triumphed over the Saxons, their common enemies.”

So, forget these losers from Wales, we have the Normans (who invaded Briton in 1066), who have ‘pride and curiosity’, and who were tempted with ‘fond credulity’ to listen to this story of Arthur, only because they both were against the Saxons. (i.e. the enemy of my enemy is my ally ?!?)

However … had it not occurred to Gibbon (or maybe it had, but he wished to ignore it) that those ‘obscure bards’ revived this story of Arthur’s fight against the occupying Saxons to compare it with Briton’s fight at that time against the occupying Normans?

“His romance, transcribed in the Latin of Jeffrey of Monmouth, and afterwards translated into the fashionable idiom of the times, was enriched with the various, though incoherent, ornaments which were familiar to the experience, the learning, or the fancy of the twelfth century.”

Gibbon now says that the story of Arthur is not history, but it’s merely a ‘romance’. But Geoffrey of Monmouth did not write a ‘romance’ of Arthur – he was trying to write a history of the kings of Briton, from the time of the first king, Brutus (the grandson of Aeneas of Troy), to the last king, Cadwaladr, before the Norman conquest.

Geoffrey’s history was translated into Norman French – that Gibbon calls the ‘fashionable idiom of the times’, and it seems that the Normans ‘enriched with … incoherent ornaments’ that were the ‘fancy’ of that time. Gibbon seems to have a ‘fancy’ for the ‘fashionable’ Norman conquerors.

“The progress of a Phrygian colony, from the Tiber to the Thames, was easily engrafted on the fable of the Aeneid; and the royal ancestors of Arthur derived their origin from Troy, and claimed their alliance with the Caesars.”

Gibbon is saying that the story of Arthur is just a tale that was added onto Virgil’s fable about Aeneas and the founding of Rome, and that it tried to ally Briton with the Roman Empire. But Geoffrey says that Arthur went to Gaul (France) to fight the Romans! Whose side is Gibbon really on – the Britons or the Romans?

“His trophies were decorated with captive provinces and Imperial titles; and his Danish victories avenged the recent injuries of his country.”

Gibbon is claiming that Arthur’s battles were for imperial designs or for revenge, but Geoffrey says that Arthur freed these countries from the empire, and these countries then willingly joined with him in battle against the Roman emperor.

“The gallantry and superstition of the British hero, his feasts and tournaments, and the memorable institution of his Knights of the Round Table, were faithfully copied from the reigning manners of chivalry; and the fabulous exploits of Uther's son appear less incredible than the adventures which were achieved by the enterprising valour of the Normans.”

Gibbon is now using the Norman ‘romantic’ tales of Arthur to denigrate him, and to show that he was less ‘enterprising’ and less ‘valourous’ than the Normans.

“Pilgrimage, and the holy wars, introduced into Europe the specious miracles of Arabian magic. Fairies and giants, flying dragons and enchanted palaces, were blended with the more simple fictions of the West; and the fate of Britain depended on the art, or the predictions, of Merlin.”

Gibbon is implying that the knights of the crusades brought back stories of ‘Arabian magic’ that were then morphed into the Norman version of Merlin, and how this magic determined the ‘fate’ of Briton, not Arthur.

“Every nation embraced and adorned the popular romance of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table: their names were celebrated in Greece and Italy; and the voluminous tales of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram were devoutly studied by the princes and nobles who disregarded the genuine heroes and historians of antiquity.”

This Norman romance was studied and celebrated by everyone, says Gibbon, so that the ‘genuine heroes and historians of antiquity’ were disregarded. And so, he (inadvertently) shows how Briton might lose its cultural confidence.

“At length the light of science and reason was rekindled; the talisman was broken; the visionary fabric melted into air; and by a natural, though unjust, reverse of the public opinion, the severity of the present age is inclined to question the existence of Arthur.”

And now, Gibbon claims, ‘the light of science and reason’ leads us ‘to question the existence of Arthur’. But Gibbon has not supplied us with any scientific or reasonable explanations for his arrival at this assertion – with only the dead weight of his stacked 2500 pages as his collateral. But why is Mr. Gibbon so pro-Roman and pro-Norman, and so anti-Briton and so anti-Arthur? To be honest, he should at least have stated his real intention.

And so, it would seem that Mr. Gibbon is merely a highly-acclaimed interpreter of the shadows, for the amusement of the ‘perpetual prisoners’ in the cave.

Perhaps, we should try to find an ‘escaped prisoner’ who could tell us the real story of King Arthur.

[ next week - part 3 - Was there a King Arthur?]