Customer Reviews

Arthur's Britain: History and Archaeology: A.D. 367-634

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I wish I could give it 5 stars, because the good parts of the book are so good. It does, however, have a couple of mistakes in it. For example, Alcock is correct in trying to shift the dates of the Arthurian entries from the Welsh Easter Annals back several years, but his math is misused; by speculating that the dates were counted in years from Jesus' Passion, as opposed to his Incarnation, and that the two dating systems were confused, he subtracts 28 years from the dates in the Annals in an attempt to correct them. If he had used that sort of math correctly, however, he would have had to add 28 years to the dates, which would only confound the problem of incompatibility with other evidence even further. The dates in the Annals do appear to be erroneously late, but the nature of the error remains a mystery. Parts of the book have since been bested by Alcock's associate, Geoffrey Ashe, in _The Discovery of King Arthur_(which I have also reviwed), but one cannot fairly fault Alcock on this point since Ashe's insights in _Discovery_ were so revolutionary that they had been missed by everyone, Ashe included, for nearly two centuries until the early 80s. On the whole, however, Alcock's book is astoundingly fascinating, extremely informative, and downright entertaining. It gets confusing too, but that is to Alcock's credit; this subject is naturally confusing because the evidence is so sparse and disjointed; Alcock is frank enough to address this head on; he doesn't misleadingly oversimplify things like, sadly, many authors do. Alcock is a great archaeologist, as well as a great historian. One of the most important archaeological discoveries (one in which Alcock was instrumental) relating to Arthurian Britain is the massive 5th century reoccupation and refortification of the hill now known as Cadbury Castle, which is documented in this book. Whether this site was actually called Camelot by its inhabitants is unknown, but the evidence indicates that its lord must have been the most powerful British noble of his generation. Other evidence (particularly in Ashe, mentioned above) harmonizes with this by identifying Arthur-Riothamus (Riothamus is a title meaning "royalest") as such a leader. I would love to see this book back in print again, but it would be best if Alcock prepared an updated edition which takes into account newer evidence and insights, and includes any corrections that would be in order.

This book is a fascinating introduction into the search for the historical Arthur. It covers the various forms of evidence: historical, literary and archaeological; and presents the arguments for and against the existence of a historical Arthur.

It was written almost 30 years ago, so parts of it are out-of-date and superceded by subsequent research. In the second edition (1989), Leslie Alcock wrote a supplementary bibliography to the work and addressed the criticism of the work since its publication. I greatly appreciated this, and feel that it was terrific to have more recent research on the topic pointed out to us.

As to the book itself, how to describe it. This is a very fascinating, dense and informative introduction into the scholarly research into the search for King Arthur. Instead of an examination of the Arthurian romance, it concentrates on the reality that was 5th and 6th century Britain.

We are given the background on what happened after the Romans abandoned Britain. We are given information about the early Christian Church in the British Isles, and the arrival of the Saxons. We are also shown through archaeological evidence the technological and architectural setting of this period of British history.

This book covers a lot of territory, and does not attempt to be the ultimate reference for the historical Arthur. Leslie Alcock, in his introduction to Arthur's Britain, states that this book is a preliminary sketch for a vast canvass. I feel that sums up the book admirably. I certainly came away with a much better understanding of the impact of the departure of Rome and the arrival of the Anglo Saxons for the British Isles.

A fascinating book, and a must read for someone wanting to know more about the scholarly search for the historical Arthur and not just a review of the romance. The only reason this book received 4 stars instead of 5 is that it is a bit out of date.