Britain AD: A Quest for Arthur, England and the Anglo-Saxons
Leading archaeologist Francis Pryor retells the story of King Arthur, legendary king of the Britons, tracing it back to its Bronze Age origins.The legend of King Arthur and Camelot is one of the most enduring in Britain's history, spanning centuries and surviving invasions by Angles, Vikings and Normans. In his latest book Francis Pryor – one of Britain’s most celebrated archaeologists and author of the acclaimed ‘Britain B.C.’ and ‘Seahenge’ – traces the story of Arthur back to its ancient origins. Putting forth the compelling idea that most of the key elements of the Arthurian legends are deeply rooted in Bronze and Iron Ages (the sword Excalibur, the Lady of the Lake, the Sword in the Stone and so on), Pryor argues that the legends' survival mirrors a flourishing, indigenous culture that endured through the Roman occupation of Britain, and the subsequent invasions of the so-called Dark Ages.As in ‘Britain B.C.’, Pryor roots his story in the very landscape, from Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, to South Cadbury Castle in Somerset and Tintagel in Cornwall. He traces the story back to the 5th-century King Arthur and beyond, all the time testing his ideas with archaeological evidence, and showing how the story was manipulated through the ages for various historical and literary purposes, by Geoffrey of Monmouth and Malory, among others.Delving into history, literary sources – ancient, medieval and romantic – and archaeological research, Francis Pryor creates an original, lively and illuminating account of this most British of legends.
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BRITAIN A.D.
A Quest for Arthur, England and the Anglo-Saxons
FRANCIS PRYOR
Harper Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2004
Copyright © Francis Pryor 2004
Francis Pryor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this book
Maps and diagrams by Leslie Robinson and Rex Nicholls
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007181872
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2009 ISBN: 9780007347582
Version: 2017-01-05
For Maisie
From the reviews of Britain AD:
‘Controversial, deceptively clever and a damn good read’
BBC History Magazine
‘Pryor’s opinionated (yet fairly argued) text rollicks along, informed by a great deal of recent research and new discoveries…Eminently readable’
British Archaeology
‘Francis Pryor has been an eloquent advocate for a new, fascinating vision of the prehistoric past. After Seahenge and Britain BC, this book completes an exhilarating trilogy in which the received ideas of far too long are swept away’
Scotsman
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE Origin Myths: Britons, Celts and Anglo-Saxons
CHAPTER TWO The Origins and Legacy of Arthur
CHAPTER FIVE Late- and Post-Roman Britain: The Situation in the South and East
CHAPTER SIX The ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Origins of England
CHAPTER SEVEN Arthurian Britain: The Situation in the West and South-West
CHAPTER EIGHT The Making of the English Landscape
Britain ad is in a sense the third volume of an informal trilogy on the archaeology and early history of Britain. It was not planned as a trilogy from the outset, because the idea only came to me gradually, as I was writing the first of the three books, Seahenge. I knew then that I had to write Britain bc, and in my heart of hearts I also wanted very much to tackle the challenge posed by the collapse of Roman rule and the onset of the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ of the fifth to seventh centuries ad. But I felt more than a little daunted by the task. It was the writing of Britain bc that gave me the broader perspective and confidence to undertake the present work.
As I worked on Seahenge, I became aware that I was writing a book about what archaeologists refer to as ‘process’: the methods, approaches and techniques whereby archaeology is actually done. In that sense, Seahenge is a book less specifically about Britain than the other two; but if you read Seahenge first you will derive more from the Britain books, because you will better understand the thought processes behind the work of the various archaeologists and historians involved. Incidentally, I should add here that Mark Brennand and Maisie Taylor have written the full detailed, academic report on that most remarkable of sites.>1 Their detailed analysis of the fifty-five timbers—the way they were worked and how they were positioned—has given us a unique insight into the way Early Bronze Age people viewed their world. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that it has transformed our understanding of Early Bronze Age ritual and religion, and has confirmed many theories that had hitherto been based largely on speculation.
My approach is a personal one. I believe with some passion that archaeology is a personal discipline, and consider it misleading to suggest that there are such things as impersonal, dispassionate or objective archaeological books, just as there are no absolute facts in archaeology, other than the objects themselves. The objects are facts, but anything we attribute to them is interpretation. You may think that a term like ‘cremation urn’ has to be factual; but that presupposes that we all agree on what constitutes a cremation—and here, as elsewhere, there are many grounds for argument. If archaeologists and historians care about their subject, they will have axes to grind, and I prefer to sharpen mine in public.
