Arthur

by Brian Edward Rise

 
Arthur – King of Britain and focus of the legend started by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Following medieval practice, he portrays Arthur in contemporary terms but he places Arthur’s reign shortly after Britain’s separation from the Roman Empire during its final period in western Europe around 410 CE. Geoffrey frames Arthur as a British messianic figure so common in Late Roman antiquity- a “World-Restorer,” or Restitutor Orbis – the king who, binding the wounds of internal strife, would defeat the barbarians and destroy all enemies reestablishing peace and ushering in a golden age. While Europe and a collapsing empire never found its savior, a recently Roman Britain does in Geoffrey’s delightful fiction. What’s important is that his conception of an age of peace based on a salvation from disintegration endures on down through Malory and the romancers though they never touch on the real problems of the period.