There is a blank in British history in the place where British tradition places Arthur. Does it follow he was invented to fill it? There is an alternative possibility, that Arthur fills that gap so neatly for the same reason a missing piece fits the gap in a jigsaw puzzle, because that is where he belongs, because the gap was created by removing him.
Who was King Arthur? In the late fifth and early sixth centuries,
a period now known as the Dark Ages, the native British won a decisive victory
over
the Saxon invaders of their country - the only region of the western Roman
Empire to shake off the dominion of the Germans. British tradition credited
this victory to Arthur.
But it is not as a Dark Age general that Arthur is remembered. The descendants
of the British, the Welsh, Cornish and the Bretons, preserved Arthur’s
memory in a legend still potent in our own day. Their Arthur was a Golden Age
king who would return to lead his people once more. Under his rule they would
regain the land rightfully theirs, and the English, the stranger swarm, would
be finally driven from the island of Britain. This legend was once so powerful,
so ardently believed, that it remained a political threat to the Norman rulers
of England half a millennia after Arthur’s famous victory of Badon.
Badon is an undoubted historical fact, but Arthur, according to the current
historical consensus, is purely a figure of legend. He is a fit subject for
students of medieval literature, not Dark Age British history, since there
is no evidence for his existence in contemporary British record. But in truth
it is not Arthur who is missing from the record, it is record itself which
is missing.
Only one British text survives from this period, a sermon by a monk
named Gildas addressed to Britain’s rulers, both lay and ecclesiastical,
condemning their vices and warning them of the dire consequences that must
follow. It
is titled On the Ruin of Britain. Why has only this one text survived?
Dark Age historians do have an explanation. The Roman Withdrawal caused the
complete
moral and intellectual collapse of Britain, as Gildas testifies.
His sermon directly informs us of the political and moral degeneracy
of his contemporaries, and the historical
introduction to this sole surviving text is a tissue
of
errors which
betray Gildas’ complete
ignorance of the Roman period, and thus the total intellectual collapse of
contemporary
culture. But
this is not
a logical deduction from Gildas' text. What his sermon does prove was that
there was at least one Briton in the period who could write - and who clearly
expected
many others to be able to read. British literacy did not evaporate in consequence
of Rome’s absence. Then there must have been a written record which has
not survived.
The earliest surviving text to name Arthur is the ninth century Historia
Brittonum sometimes ascribed to Nennius. On the assumption that the earliest surviving
must be the first produced, Dark Age historians have now concluded that Arthur
was invented in the ninth century. The Britons faked a glorious past for themselves,
and that fraud was spectacularly expanded in the twelfth century, when Geoffrey
of Monmouth created The History of the Kings of Britain. The Arthur
Geoffrey introduced to western Europe was a British emperor, the equal, and
the rival,
of the Emperor of Rome.
Dark Age historians have nothing but contempt for this Imperial Arthur, but
there is a consistency and cohesion about the twelfth century legend which
cannot be historically irrelevant. It was the enemies of the Roman Church who
upheld and promoted Arthur’s legend. The Grail legend legend connects
him with a non-Roman Christianity, originating before the Empire’s conversion.
In Geoffrey’s story Arthur actually fought Rome.
The riddle of Arthur can, in truth, be resolved from this one text, probably
the most vilified, and certainly the most misunderstood history ever written.
Condemned for centuries as a deliberate fraud, The History of the Kings
of Britain is still used by Dark Age historians as a stick to beat the Arthurians
with. But that is because they haven’t understood it for what it is.
The History of the Kings of Britain is not a fraud, it was never intended
to fool its readers into accepting British tradition as real history. It is
a
satire and a legal case, a case based on the history known and accepted by
Geoffrey’s
contemporaries. Geoffrey directs his readers to critically examine the texts
preserved and
endorsed by the Britons’ opponents, texts which are still extant. And
those texts prove his case.
The native Britons did not collapse into cultural and political darkness the
moment Rome withdrew her legions and her tax collectors. Independent Britain
freed
herself from
Roman and Saxon alike. But her period of glory was brief. A resurgent Roman
Empire destroyed the Arthurian Golden Age. It was Rome’s attempt to regain
control of a lost province which turned Britain over to the Saxons. To the
Roman authorities the rule of pagans was to be preferred to that of Christian
heretics. But Rome’s Church, in later years, preferred this fact to be
forgotten. And the written record which has come down to us has passed through
her hands.
Arthur was not invented to fill the gap in the British record. The gap was
created to remove Arthur. But enough remains to prove his historical reality.
It is only the anti-Celtic bias of Dark Age historians - a bias proclaimed
by their terminology - which prevents them from seeing the obvious. The historical
Arthur
was, as
British tradition remembered him, the Emperor of Britain, saviour
of his country and defender of its religion, a Christian tradition older than
the Roman Church, and which Rome regarded as a heresy.
Heretic Emperor: The Lost History of King Arthur, by V. M. Pickin, is 150,000 words in length and is offered for sale in four parts, in PDF documents, at a cost of £5 each, or all four for £17.50.
Please see contents below, with links to synopses, sample sections and appendices.
Comments and feedback to: mail@hereticemperor.co.uk
Book 1 - The Controversy
Chapter 1: The Riddle of Arthur
The Arthur Stone, The Pseudo-History of Britain, Dux Bellorum, The Arthur Heresy,
Sub-Roman Britain, Arthur and Tintagel, The Question of Arthur
Dark Century, Maximus, The End of Roman Britain, Independent Britain,
The Roman Withdrawal, The Saxon Advent, Vortigern and Ambrosius,
The Roman Missions, The Saxon Revolt, Britain’s Recovery, Riothamus,
Vortimer, The Last of the Romans, Emperor Arthur, The Figure of Arthur,
What’s in a name?
The Arthur Deception, The British Hero, An Age of Darkness, The Heirs of Rome,
The Politics of History, Enlightenment and Empire
Chapter 4: Forbidden Histories
The Nature of the Record, The Druids and Stonehenge, The Celts and Reincarnation,
Bruti Britones, Geoffrey’s Deception, Geoffrey on Gildas, The Return of Arthur
Book 2 - The Legend
The Hidden Church, From Ritual to Romance, The Cup of Sovereignty,
The Sacrament of Marriage, The Matter of Britain, The Vulgate Rewrite,
Wolfram’s Parzival, The Underground Stream
The Celtic Church, The Synod of Whitby, Augustine’s Mission, The British Collapse,
The Politics of Conversion
Chapter 7: The Johannine Tradition
The Celtic Sleepwalkers, Pelagius and Augustine, Colman’s Defence,
The Petrine Claim, The Lucius Legend, The First British Church
Chapter 8: The Church and the Heretics
Priscillian’s Heresy, Simon’s Tonsure, The Church of the Empire,
The Church of the East, Taliesin’s Secret, The Church of the Celts,
The Conhospitae
SS. Joseph and Bran, The Marriage Feast of Kingship, The Welsh Romances,
Arthur and Charlemagne, The Tyrant Arthur
Book 3 - The Sources
Chapter 10: Geoffrey of Monmouth
Geoffrey’s Motives, The Norman use of Arthur, The Anglo-Normans,
King Robert, Robert’s Faction, Geoffrey’s Technical Terminology,
Geoffrey’s Case, The Nature of History, Arthur’s War
Honest Bede, The Last King of Britain, Caedwalla of the Gewissae,
Caedwalla the Tyrant, The New Chosen People, Lying Tales
The Historia Brittonum, The Nennius Preface, The British Record,
The Gap in History
The Sons of Mordred, The Five Tyrants, The Sins of the Britons,
Gildas’ Motives, Gildas’ Sources, The Holy Empire, The Saxon Chastisement,
Britain’s Champion, Vortigern's Heir
Book 4 - The War
Arthur-Riothamus, The Rebirths of Rome, The Year 469-70, The Mighty Shadow
Chapter 15: The Battle for Gaul
The Last Gallic Emperor, The Bacaudae, The Western Succession,
Tibatto’s Revolt, The Rescue of Europe, The Gothic Alliance, The Arian Dominion,
The Fall of Syagrius, Leo and Childeric, Rome’s Champion
Chapter 16: The Fall of Arthur’s Britain
Dark Age Dates, Gildas’ Crusade, Justinian’s Reconquest, The British Collapse Revisited,
Maelgwn's Bards, Arthur's Nephew, Admiral Theodoric, Clovis and his Enemies,
Joseph and his Brothers. The Evidence of Brittany, Conclusion: The Disappeared
Maps, Charts & Timelines
Maps: Roman Empire 476 AD & 526 AD from Muir's Historical Atlas
Dating the Battle of Badon from the source texts, Timeline - Roman Empire 380 - 560 AD,
The Return of the House of Wessex to the Throne of England