4.1 Cornwall: King Arthur

The west of Britain in this period has attracted those who wish to place King Arthur as a historical figure. King Arthur is an important figure in the mythology of Great Britain, where he appears as the ideal of kingship both in war and peace.

He is the central character in the cycle of legends known as the Matter of Britain. There is disagreement about whether Arthur, or a model for him, ever actually existed. In the earliest mentions and in Welsh texts, he is never given the title 'King'. In early texts he may be referred to as a dux bellorum ('war leader'), and medieval Welsh texts often call him ameraudur ('emperor'; the word is borrowed from the Latin ‘imperator’, which could also mean 'war leader'). Arthur makes appearances in a number of well known vitae ("Lives") of the 6th century saints, most of them written at the monastery of Llancarfan in the 12th century.

Another view holds that Arthur was a real person. Though some theories suggest he was a Roman or pre-Roman character, by most theories, and in-line with the traditional cycle of legends, he was a Romano-British leader fighting against the invading Anglo-Saxons sometime in the late 5th century to early 6th century. The late historian John Morris made the alleged reign of Arthur at the turn of the 5th century the organising principle of his history of sub-Roman Britain and Ireland under the rubric The Age of Arthur: A History of the British Isles from 350–650 (1973), even though he found little to say of an historic Arthur, save as an example of the idea of kingship, one among such contemporaries as Vortigern and Cunedda, Hengest and Coel. Recent archaeological studies show that during Arthur's alleged lifetime, the Anglo-Saxon expansions were halted until the next generation. If he existed, his power base would probably have been in the Celtic areas of Wales, Cornwall and the West Country, or the Brythonic 'Old North' which covered modern Northern England and Southern Scotland. However, controversy over the centre of his supposed power and the extent and kind of power he would have wielded continues to this day.

Situated on the north Atlantic coast of Cornwall, the village of Tintagel (pronounced with the stress on the second syllable; Cornish: Dintagell) and nearby Tintagel Castle are associated with the legends surrounding King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The village has, in recent times, become a magnet for tourists and day-trippers.

The modern-day village of Tintagel was known as Trevena (Cornish: Tre war Venydh). It was cited originally as a place of origin for King Arthur by the pseudo-historian Geoffrey of Monmouth. Tintagel is also used as a locus for the Arthurian mythos by the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the poem Idylls of the King. Major excavations around the site of the 12th century castle have revealed that Tintagel headland was the site of a high status princely fortress or trading settlement dating to the 5th and 6th centuries, in the period immediately following the withdrawal of the Romans from Britain. Finds of Mediterranean oil and wine jars show that Sub-Roman Britain was not the isolated outpost it was considered to be, for considerable trade in high value goods was taking place at the time with the Mediterranean region. In 1998 excavations discovered the "Arthur stone" which has added to Tintagel's Arthurian lore.

In 1191, monks of Glastonbury Abbey announced that they had found the burial site of Arthur and Guinevere. Their grave was shown to many people, and the reputed remains were moved to a new tomb in 1278. The tomb was destroyed during the Reformation, and the bones got lost. The antiquary John Leland reports that he saw the cross found with the remains, and transcribed its inscription as ‘Hic iacet sepvltvs inclytvs rex artvrivs in insvla avalonia’ – "Here lies buried the famous King Arthur in the Island of Avalon".