Home / About Somerset / Somerset Myths & Legends / King Arthur / Who claims King Arthur

Who claims King Arthur

That is the next part of the quest, for among the Welsh poems are a few calling Arthur the Lord of the Hosts of Cornwall, and telling how Medraut insulted Gwenhwyfar at his court and of the tragedy of the battle of Camlann which followed.

A foreign visitor to Devon in the early 12th century was shown King Arthur's Chair and Oven, and he found a Cornishman at Bodmin convinced that Arthur was still alive.

Cornwall's claims were strengthened by the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. In his History of the Kings of Britain Geoffrey identified Tintagel as Arthur's birthplace, and put Camlann by the river Camel near Padstow. But Geoffrey had a special purpose in choosing Cornwall. His patron, to whom he dedicated the work, was Robert, Earl of Gloucester, one of Henry I's illegitimate sons. Another illegitimate son, Reginald, had land in the county, and had built a castle at Tintagel. What splendid flattery to link the Royal Family to such antecedents! And yet Tintagel was home to an ancient Cornish chieftain.

And now the quest moves eastwards. About 1130 the monks of Glastonbury invited a highly respectable historian, William of Malmesbury, to write their history. Trying tactfully to distinguish fact from a great deal of fiction, William produced a fascinating work. But nowhere in that early version of his history is there any mention of Arthur. Now enter another Welshman, Caradoc of Lancarfan, who about the same time was writing a life of St Gildas, also for the monks. William did not actually believe, it seems, that the saint had ever come near Glastonbury, but Caradoc (or at least a version of Caradoc which might have been tampered with later as William of Malmesbury's work certainly was) not only brought him to the monastery, but told how Gildas and St Kea had intervened in the dispute between Arthur and Melwas, King of the Summer Country, who had taken Gwenhwyfar to his castle. Peace between them was made in the old church of the monastery. Was this Melwas none other than the Medraut of the Welsh Annals; and was Glastonbury the Ynis Wydrin, the Isle of Glass, which an earlier poet had written about?

But why Glastonbury? Opinion is still divided, but there is more than a suspicion that the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's version of the Arthur story was both a stimulus to old traditions and an incentive to create new ones. On the 25th May 1184 a fire destroyed the ancient buildings at Glastonbury Abbey, including the old church which the monks later claimed had been dedicated by Christ himself. Gifts from the King and others opened the building fund, and the monks produced relics of saints such as Patrick and Gildas to attract pilgrims. But that was not enough. The beautiful Lady Chapel, still standing in the Abbey ruins, was the first to rise, but the task was enormous.

And then in 1191, inspired by 'visions and relations' and by 'certain indications' in writings in their library, the monks dug between two ancient memorial pillars in their churchyard. Gerald of Wales, who visited the site a year or so later, described how the bones had been found deep down in a hollow oak, with a leaden cross under a stone.

Gerald described the cross, which he had touched with his own hands, bearing the words: 'Here lies buried the renowned King Arthur with Guenevere his fortunate wife in the Isle of Avalon'. Here was proof that Glastonbury was Avalon. No matter that Gerald's version of the words and drawings of the cross (the cross is now lost) do not agree. All was quite clear: Geoffrey of Monmouth's Ynis Afallon, the Isle of Apples, where Arthur's sword was forged, and where the king was brought for the healing of his wounds, was Ynis Wydrin, the Isle of Glass, the seat of Melwas, King of the Summer Country. This did not cancel Cornwall's claims, but brought the magnetism of Glastonbury and Arthur together in a powerful force.

That magnet drew pilgrims to Glastonbury, and still does. Medieval visitors to the Abbey could read its history, fixed on one of the pillars in the great nave, and then could see the sites around: the Island of Beckery, Wearyall Hill, the Tor and Pomparles Bridge. There was Chalice Well, mentioned in the first Grail Romance, and the chapels of St Gildas and St Kea near Street. Their gifts, and the income from Glastonbury's vast estates, made good the damage caused by the fire. A new Abbey arose in place of the old whose magnificence, even in its ruins, is there for all to see and wonder at.