Matter of Britain

The Matter of Britain (French: matière de Bretagne; Welsh: Mater Prydain; Cornish: Mater Brythain; Breton: Afer Breizh-Veur) is the body of medieval literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and Brittany and the legendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularly King Arthur. The 12th-century writer Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain) is a central component of the Matter of Britain.

It was one of the three great Western story cycles recalled repeatedly in medieval literature, together with the Matter of France, which concerned the legends of Charlemagne and his companions, as well as the Matter of Rome, which included material derived from or inspired by classical mythology and classical history. Its pseudo-chronicle and chivalric romance works, written both in prose and verse, flourished from the 12th to the 16th century.

Name

The three "matters" were first described in the 12th century by French poet Jean Bodel, whose epic Chanson des Saisnes ("Song of the Saxons") contains the lines:

Ne sont que III matières à nul homme atandant:
De France et de Bretaigne et de Rome la grant

There are only three subject matters for any discerning man:
That of France, that of Britain, and that of great Rome.

The name distinguishes and relates the Matter of Britain from the mythological themes taken from classical antiquity, the "Matter of Rome", and from the tales of the Paladins of Charlemagne and their wars with the Moors and Saracens, which constitute the "Matter of France".

Themes and subjects

King Arthur is the chief subject of the Matter of Britain. The others are stories related to the legendary kings of Britain, as well as lesser-known topics related to the history of Great Britain and Brittany, such as the stories of Brutus of Troy, Coel Hen, Leir of Britain (King Lear), and Gogmagog.

Legendary history

The legendary history of Britain was created partly to form a body of patriotic myth for the country. Several agendas thus can be seen in this body of literature. According to John J. Davenport, the question of Britain's identity and significance in the world "was a theme of special importance for writers trying to find unity in the mixture of their land's Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Roman and Norse inheritance."

Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae is a central component of the Matter of Britain. Geoffrey drew on a number of ancient British texts, including the 9th-century Historia Brittonum. The Historia Brittonum is the earliest known source of the story of Brutus of Troy. Traditionally attributed to Nennius, its actual compiler is unknown; it exists in several recensions. This tale went on to achieve greater currency because its inventor linked Brutus to the diaspora of heroes that followed the Trojan War. As such, this material could be used for patriotic myth-making just as Virgil linked the founding of Rome to the Trojan War in The Æneid. Geoffrey lists Coel Hen as a King of the Britons, whose daughter, Helena marries Constantius Chlorus and gives birth to a son who becomes the Emperor Constantine the Great, tracing the Roman imperial line to British ancestors. Geoffrey's pseudo-history prominently included the King Arthur material, in which the post-Roman Britons of Arthur briefly conquer much of Europe including Rome itself, in the style of world conquerors of the antiquity. It provided a national myth for the new Norman England, portraying the Norman Conquest as a restoration of Britain of the Britons, delivered from the rule of Arthur's ancient enemies, the Anglo-Saxons. His work, especially the Arthur material, was further expanded on and reworked by later medieval chroniclers.

Others also drew from the early Arthurian and pseudo-historical sources of the Matter of Britain. The Scots, for instance, formulated a mythical history in the Pictish and the Dál Riata royal lines. While they do eventually become factual lines, unlike those of Geoffrey, their origins are vague and often incorporate both aspects of mythical British history and mythical Irish history. The story of Gabrán mac Domangairt especially incorporates elements of both those histories.

William Shakespeare was interested in the legendary history of Britain, and was familiar with some of its more obscure byways. Shakespeare's plays contain several tales relating to these legendary kings, such as King Lear and Cymbeline. It has been suggested that Shakespeare's Welsh schoolmaster Thomas Jenkins introduced him to this material. These tales also figure in Raphael Holinshed's The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which also appears in Shakespeare's sources for Macbeth.

Arthurian legend

Arthurian legend, also known as Arthuriana, is the best-known part of the Matter of Britain. The aforementioned "historical" (but already containing fantasy elements) Arthur of Geoffrey and his successors (notably Wace), along with Welsh and Breton tales (notably the Mabinogion), became the foundation for writers of Arthurian chivalric romances. Many fantastic stories in verse and prose came from France and later England (due to its close ties with France), as well as various other European countries, in the sub-genre known as Arthurian romance, established in France in the second half of the 12th century. Besides original works of Arthurian romance from France and other countries (such as from Germany since the late 12th century), especially the Francophone prose works became highly popular across other cultures, having been translated (and often altered) in many countries throughout Europe.

The Arthurian tales have been changed throughout time, and other characters have been added to add backstory and expand on various members of Arthur's chivalric order, the Knights of the Round Table. The medieval legend of Arthur and his knights is full of Christian themes; those themes involve the destruction of human plans for virtue by the moral failures of their characters, and the quest for an important Christian relic, the Holy Grail. Finally, the relationships between the characters invited treatment in the tradition of courtly love, such as Lancelot and Guinevere, or Tristan and Iseult. Arthurian romance's English-language quasi-canon, based on French prose cycles and some other works, was eventually established by Thomas Malory in his 15th-century compilation Le Morte d'Arthur, which continues to be highly influential today.

The advanced form of Arthurian romance in its cyclical prose form since the 13th century (i.e. Lancelot-Grail, Post-Vulgate, Malory's compilation) contains two interlocking threads. One concerns Arthur's kingdom of Logres and his court of Camelot, usually envisioned as a doomed utopia of chivalric virtue, undone by the fatal flaws of the heroes like Arthur, Gawain, and Lancelot. The other concerns the history of the Grail, or at very least (Malory) of the grand quests of the various knights to achieve it: some succeed (Galahad, Perceval) while others fail. Many of these and other key or iconic motifs and elements (i.e. the Grail, Camelot, Excalibur, Merlin, or the romance of Lancelot and Guinevere) have been first either introduced or modified and popularised by French poets Chrétien de Troyes (often drawing on Celtic sources) and Robert de Boron. The popularity of Arthurian romance waned by the end of Middle Ages, and by the 17th century it has been holding out only in England, before fading away there too.

Celtic theories

In modern times, since both the Celtic Revival and the renewed interest in Arthuriana in the 19th century, there have been attempts by some scholars, as well as many enthusiast writers and authors of fiction, to link the tales of King Arthur and his knights with Celtic mythology, usually in highly romanticized, reconstructed versions. Various characters from this literature have been identified with Celtic deities: for example Morgan le Fay as originating from the Welsh goddess Modron or Irish The Morrígan. Similarly, the legendary king Leir of Britain, who later became the Shakespearean King Lear, has been connected to the Welsh sea-god Llŷr, related to the Irish Ler.

The work of Jessie Weston, in particular From Ritual to Romance, traced Arthurian imagery through Christianity to roots in early nature worship and vegetation rites, though this interpretation is no longer fashionable. It is also possible to read the Arthurian literature, particularly the Grail tradition, as an allegory of human development and spiritual growth, a theme explored by mythologist Joseph Campbell amongst others. Such identifications come from the speculative comparative religion of the late 19th century and later decades and have been questioned in more recent years. Nevertheless, much of Arthurian content does have roots in ancient Celtic material, in particular from Brittany, but which was already Christianised and otherwise transformed (if not just forgotten) by the 12th century.

Medieval authors

Named

Author	Century	Language	Œuvres
Béroul	12th	Old Norman	Tristan
Chrétien de Troyes	12th	Old French	Erec and Enide, Cligès, Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, Perceval, the Story of the Grail
Geoffrey Chaucer	14th	Middle English	The Canterbury Tales
Thomas Chestre	14th	Middle English	Sir Launfal, Libeaus Desconus
Geoffrey of Monmouth	12th	Latin	Historia Regum Britanniae, Vita Merlini
Gottfried von Strassburg	13th	Middle High German	Tristan
Hartmann von Aue	12th	Middle High German	Erec, Iwein
Layamon	13th	Middle English	Brut
Thomas Malory	15th	Middle English	Le Morte d'Arthur
Marie de France	12th	Anglo-Norman	Lais of Marie de France: Lai de Yonec, Lai de Frêne, Lai de Lanval (...)
Nennius	9th	Latin	Historia Brittonum
Robert de Boron	12th	Old French	Merlin
Taliesin	6th	Middle Welsh	Book of Taliesin
Thomas of Britain	12th	Old French	Tristan
Wace	12th	Old Norman	Roman de Brut, Roman de Rou
Wolfram von Eschenbach	12th	Middle High German	Parzival
Raoul de Houdenc	12th	Old French	Meraugis de Portlesguez, La Vengeance Raguidel
Païen de Maisières	12–13th	Old French	La Mule sans frein
Rustichello da Pisa	13th	Franco-Italian	Roman de Roi Artus, Guiron le Courtois, Meliodus
Ulrich von Zatzikhoven	13th	Middle High German	Lanzelet

Anonymous

Œuvres	Century	Language
Alliterative Morte Arthure	14th–15th	Middle English
The Awntyrs off Arthure	14th–15th	Middle English
L'âtre périlleux	13th	Old French
Le Chevalier au papegau	14th–15th	Middle French
Elucidation	13th	Old French
Floriant et Florete	13th	Old French
Folie Tristan d'Oxford	12th	Anglo-Norman
De Ortu Waluuanii	12–13th	Latin
Gliglois	13th	Old French
Hunbaut	13th	Old French
Jaufre	13th	Old Occitan
The Knight with the Sword	13th	Old French
The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain	15th	Middle Scots
Lancelot-Grail Cycle	13th	Old French
Life of Caradoc	12th	Old French
Mabinogion	11th–13th	Middle Welsh
The Marvels of Rigomer	13th	Old French
Meliadus	13th	Old French
Of Arthour and of Merlin	13th	Middle English
Palamedes	13th	Old French
Perceforest	14th	Middle French
Perceval Continuations	13th	Old French
Perlesvaus	13th	Old French
Post-Vulgate Cycle	13th	Old French
Prose Tristan	13th	Old French
Roman de Fergus	13th	Old French
Romanz du reis Yder	13th	Anglo-Norman
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight	14th	Middle English
Stanzaic Morte Arthur	14th	Middle English
La Tavola Ritonda	15th	Tuscan
Vera historia de morte Arthuri	12th/13th	Latin

See also

• Avalon and Glastonbury
• Battle of Badon and Battle of Camlann
• Breton mythology and Cornish mythology
• English historians in the Middle Ages
• Historicity of King Arthur
• List of Arthurian characters
• List of Arthurian literature
• List of works based on Arthurian legends
• Sites and places associated with Arthurian legend

References

Cited works

• Campbell, Joseph; Moyers, Bill (1991). "Sacrifice and Bliss". Power of Myth. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group. pp. 113–150. ISBN 978-0385418867.
• Davenport, John J. (2004). "The Matter of Britain: The Mythological and Philosophical Significance of the British Legends" (PDF). Retrieved 24 May 2022.
• Evans, Barry (25 October 2012). "King Arthur, Part 1: The Matter of Britain". North Coast Journal. Retrieved 24 May 2022.
• Geoffrey of Monmouth (1966). Thorpe, Lewis (ed.). The History of the Kings of Britain. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-044170-0.
• Surette, Leon (Summer 1988). "The Waste Land and Jessie Weston: A Reassessment". Twentieth Century Literature. 34 (2): 223–244. doi:10.2307/441079. JSTOR 441079.

External links

• Arthurian Folklore - a website detailing Welsh Arthurian folklore
• Arthurian Resources: King Arthur, History and the Welsh Arthurian Legends - detailed and comprehensive academic site, includes numerous scholarly articles, from Thomas Green of Oxford University
• Arthuriana - the only academic journal solely concerned with the Arthurian Legend with a selection of resources and links
• Celtic Literature Collective - provides texts and translations (of varying quality) of Welsh medieval sources, many of which mention Arthur
• International Arthurian Society
• The Camelot Project - provides valuable bibliographies of freely downloadable Arthurian texts from the sixth to the early 20th centuries, from the University of Rochester
• The Heroic Age - an online peer-reviewed journal which includes regular Arthurian articles
• The Medieval Development of Arthurian Literature - from H2G2
• Vortigern Studies - a collection of articles on King Arthur by various Arthurian enthusiasts