Rhiwbina Living Issue 55

Arthur
Did King Arthur
walk our land?
The legend of King Arthur has fascinated generations of historians.
But is there any truth in the myth of the man and his kingdom?
In the sacred stone walls of Llandaff
Cathedral sits a large stained glass
window. The window is a three-light
window with standing figures of
each saint, with scenes below. But
on closer inspection, the scenes
depict someone you'd probably not
expect to see.
The windows depict scenes of
King Arthur, the legendary leader of
the Celtic Britons in battles against
Saxon invaders in the late 5th and
early 6th centuries.
The question remains - why is he
depicted in a Cardiff cathedral?
The answer could lie several miles
from the iconic cathedral. Just north
of the city lies a field and its history
could hold an astonishing secret.
Still popular today, the Arthurian
legend came out of South-Eastern
Wales into France, via the Normans,
in the 12th century. The depiction
of Arthur still resonates - romantic
visions of knights sitting around
Round Tables, dashing around and
rescuing damsels in distress.
Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia
Regum Britanniae, completed in the
early 12th century, provides the first
narrative account of Arthur's life and
introduced him to the world.
Geoffrey had been commissioned
34
to write his account by Robert
of Gloucester - the book is even
dedicated to him. Having been
commissioned to write the book, it
was inevitable the Geoffrey wanted
to please his patron.
And so Arthur and the stories that
surrounded him soon filtered down
into society. For many centuries,
Geoffrey's book was accepted as
fact without question. It has only
been more recently that it has
come under more scrutiny.
With the narrative came a place
that will forever be associated with
King Arthur - Camelot - a mythical
place where chivalry and honour
went hand in hand with peace and
social justice. Absent in the early
Arthurian material, Camelot first
appeared in 12th-century French
romances and, eventually came
to be regarded as the wonderful
capital of Arthur's kingdom and a
symbol of the Arthurian world.
The stories that revolved around
Camelot place it somewhere in
Great Britain although its exact
location was never revealed.
In more recent times, scholars
have dismissed Camelot as a work
of fiction, its deliberately vague
details seemingly perfect for