A new film about King Arthur has been released.
Nick Higham answers some of the most pressing
questions on the iconic warrior-king
IS KING
ARTHUR
a historical figure?
Did he fight Roman troops
in France – or Anglo-Saxon
invaders in Britain?
AND WHERE IS
CAMELOT?
ABOVE: Arthur depicted in a 12th-century floor mosaic in Otranto, Italy
FACING PAGE TOP TO BOTTOM: Arthur leads his troops into battle in a manuscript miniature
from c1150; a c14th-century illustration shows the king and his knights seated at a round table;
Arthur on his throne in Matthew Paris’s c1250–52 Flores Historiarum PHOTOS:AKG-IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES/BRIDGEMAN/ALAMYKing Arthur King Arthur The Big Questions
History
IS IT POSSIBLE TO SAY WITH ANY
CERTAINTY WHETHER OR NOT
A HISTORICAL ARTHUR EXISTED?
There is no shortage of modern books claiming to reveal
the ‘real’ Arthur. They place him in locations and historical
periods as wide-ranging as pre-classical Greece and Roman
Dalmatia to ‘Dark Age’ Britain. British Arthurs remain the
most popular, but they are far from mutually compatible –
identified with regions as far-flung as Cornwall and Argyle.
In fact, there are so many of them that they tend to cancel
each other out.
Academic specialists often argue that Arthur was purely
a figure of mythology, or they suggest that, while he may
have existed, we’re not in a position to say anything more
about him. Such fence-sitting overlooks the fact that it is
the responsibility of those coming up with theories to prove
them, not of others to disprove them. Until there is a
broadly accepted theory on offer that sits comfortably with88