18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quite interesting, May 3, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The Real King Arthur: A History of Post-Roman Britannia A.D. 410-A.D. 593 (2 Vol.Set) (Paperback)
and particularly refreshing in it's lack of hype about discoveries of secrets leading to some revealed truth that are all too common in this sort of book. It is simply an attempt to dig through the historical record and construct a consistent and reasonable history of Britain in the late 5th and early 6th centuries, and of the Romano-British military leader Lucius Artorius Castus, and how his story could well have become the story of King Arthur. I found it quite readable. The book is careful to document the references it draws on without drowning in footnotes, and it does a good job of balancing the historical presentation with discussions of how the stories could later have transmuted into the literary tradition of Arthur.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful fun...., January 13, 2003
This review is from: The Real King Arthur: A History of Post-Roman Britannia A.D. 410-A.D. 593 (2 Vol.Set) (Paperback)
Turner has done a masterful job of assembling, analyzing, and interpreting the extant material about THE REAL KING ARTHUR. He presents a coherent, comprehensive, and scholarly opinion. He suggests the last Romano-British Imperator, Lucius Artorius Castus was the man we know today as Arthur. He says Arthur not only preserved the Romano-Britannic culture for two generations following the demise of the Western Roman Empire, he decisively shaped modern Scotland, and modern Wales, which still flies his `Red Dragon', is his legacy. Although the invaders from the continent (Anglo-Saxon) eventually conquered most of the island, they did not subdue the Celtic culture which can still be found in the western parts of the United Kingdom.
Turner's book is complexly written and filled with detail. Scholars will recognize his sources...Patrick, Gildas, Nennius, Bede, the Mabinogian, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, etc. In addition, Turner draws on recent archeological evidence to support his work. His knowledge of Latin, as well as the ancient Anglo-Saxon and Celtic (Welsh, Irish, Scots) languages is impressive. Using language as a tool, Turner first identifies and then links the relevant puzzle pieces. For example, he suggests Arthur's sister Anna Ambrosia (known as Mawr-anna or "great Anna" in her lifetime because she was the sister of Arthur) and the Celtic war goddess Morrigan became conjoined in the transmission of the Arthurian tales until, by the time of the Middle Ages, the French Romances characterized her as Morgan le Fey-traitorous sister and necromancer.
Arthur's stepfather Aurelius Ambrosius was the "utherpendragon" (overall big dragoon or "chief war leader" in Celtic) or "Magister Militum" (Latin). He married Ygerna, Arthur's mother after he slew her husband Gorlois (Arthur's father) in a battle for supremacy in southwestern Britain. A more recent example of this Celtic practice occurred when the Welsh Henry VII (red rose) married Elizabeth of York (white rose) after he slew her brother Richard III, thereby uniting the royal households (Tudor Rose). Turner suggests there was no prior connection between Aurelius and Ygerna and that Anna was Aurelius' daughter by a former wife. Aurelius, lacking a male heir, adopted the adult Arthur just as Julius Caesar adopted Augustus Caesar, his sister's son. Geoffrey of Monmouth did not understand the Roman practice of adult adoption so he used the wizardry of Merlin to explain the inconsistency between Aurelius' and Ygerna's wedding date and Arthur's birth date.
Probably the most interesting sleuthing Turner does involves the identity of the real Lancelot. Apparently, Anna's son and Authur's nephew Medrawd (Celtic) or Medrautus Lanceartius (Latin) was a brilliant horse soldier known for his skill with a lance. The gallant Mordred was left to guard the home front while Arthur was away, and he became restive and adulterously involved with Arthur's second young wife the beautiful but bored Gwenhwyfar (Findabair or white phantom because she was blonde). Understanding his uncle would probably kill him for his actions, he plotted Arthur's destruction which sadly led both to their deaths at Camlann in 542 A.D. In the Middle Ages, the Romancers could not grapple with the complexity of a man who was both good and bad, so they divided Medrautus Lanceartius into Mordred and Lancelot.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Try Turner's "The Real King Arthur", May 17, 2001
This review is from: The Real King Arthur: A History of Post-Roman Britannia A.D. 410-A.D. 593 (2 Vol.Set) (Paperback)
As coherent a discription of 5th Century Britain and the motives of it's inhabitants as anything else I've read. It's written in a roughly chronological sequence, and easy to read. I've found it to be one of the best books on the topic of a historical Arthur.
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