Arthur and the Fall of Rome
by Vincent Bridges
Part One - The Fall of Rome
By the late fourth and early fifth centuries of our Common Era, the Roman Empire in the west was collapsing under the weight of its own decadence. Every historian has their own opinion about what happened to bring about this “decline and fall” of the great empire, but however it happened, by the turn of the fifth century Rome was no longer the Imperial City. Constantinople reigned as the capital of the eastern portion of the Empire, and most western Emperors preferred Milan or Ravenna to the slums and pestilence of the Eternal City.
To her official poets, Rome remained very much the city “whose beauty no imagination can picture, whose praise no voice can sound, who raises a golden head under the neighboring stars, and with her seven hills imitates the seven regions of heaven; mother of arms and law, who extends her sway over all the earth, and was the earliest cradle of justice: this is the city which, sprung from humble beginnings, has stretched to either pole, from one small place extended its power so as to be coterminous with the light of the sun.”
Claudian, from whose “On the Consulate of Stilicho” these lines are taken, had no idea in 400 A.D. that he was writing Rome’s eulogy. In the same poem, Claudian sounds the major chord of Rome’s greatness: “To her rule of peace we owe it that the world is our home, that we can live where we please, and that to visit Thule and explore its once dreaded wilds is but a sport; thanks to her, all and sundry may drink the waters of the Rhone and quaff Orontes stream. Thanks to her we are all one people.”
An enchanted and grateful Senate erected a statue in Claudian’s honor in the Forum of Trajan, calling him the most glorious of poets. In the aftermath of Stilicho’s assassination in 408, Claudian fell out of favor with the Emperor Honorious, who preferred his poets to rhapsodize over the pleasures of fowl breeding rather than praise troublesome generals, and was either killed or forced to commit suicide. Sic transit gloria. . . Such were the rewards of literary greatness in the early fifth century Roman Empire.
Perhaps it was a blessing that Claudian did not live to see what happened next to his heavenly city.
* * * * *
Fourth century Christians anticipated, as Christ himself had foretold, an apocalyptic Second Coming. After the union of Imperial state and orthodox church, the end of the world came to mean the fall of Rome. “The fall and ruin of the world will soon take place,” predicted Lactantius Firminianous in his Divine Institutions, written early in the fourth century, “but it seems that nothing of the kind is to be feared as long as the city of Rome stands intact.” But as the century wore on, this certainty eroded. Saint Ambrose of Milan, after the Goths had annihilated the imperial army at Adrianople in 378, identified them as Ezekiel’s Gog, and proclaimed “the end of the world is coming upon us.”
Who were these Goths?
Their origin remains obscure, but around the time of Saint John’s Revelation their long march from the far north began. Jordanes, the first Gothic historian, called their homeland Scandza and claimed it was an island whose western shores faced an impassable sea. This could be the Scandinavian peninsula, or possibly the island of Gottland in the Baltic Sea, but at any rate, they landed on the coast of Pomerania, near Danzig, now the Polish city of Gdansk. Trekking southward along the banks of the Vistula, they crossed Poland and the Ukraine and by the third century A. D. had established themselves along the shores of the Black Sea.
The neighboring Roman province of Dacia, now Romania, was both rich and weak, and the Goths turned to foraging off the Empire. The Roman legions and the Gothic hordes met for the first time in 251, deep in the Bulgarian swamps. The Emperor Decius challenged the barbarians and was almost sucessful. The first two lines of the Goths buckled under the Roman assault, but the third held against the tired legionaires. It was the Romans who eventually turned to flee, as the battle swiftly became a massacre. Decius’s body was lost, and his son died as well, killed by an arrow during the retreat. The Goths claimed Dacia, and demanded an annual tribute from Rome to stay north of the Danube.
In the fourth century, many of the Goths were converted by Ulfias, or Little Wolf. The grandson of Cappadocian Christians captured and enslaved by the Goths, Little Wolf grew up as a Goth but retained his sense of Roman heritage. At age twenty, he was sent, either as a hostage or an envoy, to Constantinople, where he dreamed of returning to the forest and converting his people. Ordained by Eusebius, The Arian Archbishop of Constantinople, Ulfias translated the Bible into Gothic — leaving out the Book of Kings because he felt the Goths were bellicose enough without scriptural authority. Returning to Dacia, he was at first repulsed, but around 350, returned with a large group of Gothic converts. But even as he made headway with the pagan Goths, Ulfias’ Arian views were on their way to becoming branded as heresy. In 380, three years before Ulfias’s death, the Emperor Theodosius officially pronounced anathema on the type of Christianity to which Ulfias had converted the Goths.
As if heresy were not enough, just as the Goths were on their way to becoming a buffer state on the borders of the great Roman Empire, the Huns appeared from the east. Originally named the Hiung-nu, or slaves, by the Chinese, who drove them westward across the steppes ahead of their invading armies, the Huns were a sort of scourge which historians such as Jordanes had trouble believing were human. He relates that they were the children of witches and unclean spirits, “. . .scarcely human. . .fiercer than ferocity itself.”
Claudian, in his usual elegant style, has left us a portrait of the Huns: “The Northern Bear looked down on no uglier crew/ Base is their garb, their bodies foul to view;/Their souls are ne’er subdued to sturdy toil/ Or Cere’s art, their subsistance is spoil.”
The Huns fell first on the Gothic tribes to the northwest of the Black Sea. Three great barbarian battles, struggles of entire peoples, (great masses of warriors, their wives and children engaged in deadly combat against the savage horsemen) were fought until, on the banks of the Dniester River, the Goths were utterly routed. The remnants of the whole Gothic nation fled for the protection of the Roman Empire.
The Emperor Valens granted asylum in 376, and settled them in the same Bulgarian swamp where the Goths had defeated the Emperor Decius. The Goths became colonists of the Empire, sworn to defend its borders. This swarm of refugees was hardly the conquering barbarian horde of Imperial legend, or so the greedy Roman adminstrators thought. They imposed heavy taxes and tried to assassinate the Gothic leader, Fritigern. In 378, the Goths rose in revolt and marched to attack Adrianople, 150 miles from Constantinople. The Emperor Valens, without waiting for reinforcements, rode out to subdue them.
At first, the discipline of the legions gave Rome the advantage in close combat. But at an unexpected moment, the Gothic heavy cavalry charged the Roman flank and swept them away. Ammianus Marcellinus, a contemporary chronicler, called it the worst disaster since Cannae, the crushing Roman defeat by Hannibal in 216 B.C. The battle of Adrianople was indeed a turning point, the “coming of the end of the world” as Saint Ambrose had predicted. It marked the beginning of a barbarian invasion that would, within thirty years, throw the western Empire into chaos, and eventually, oblivion. Adrianople also proved the value of heavy armored horsemen, and so began the rise of the mounted warrior class which would in time become the “Flower of Knighthood.”
* * * * *
Despite the disasters, Rome still stood. Theodosius the Great re-unified the eastern and western halves of the Empire, briefly, and order was restored to the Balkans. When Theodosius died, the stage was set for that surreal parody of a Greek tragedy known as the “Sack of Rome.” It would take the talents of a Fellini, a Shakespeare and a Barnum to do justice to this absurd and tangled drama, but for our purposes, only the high, and the low, spots are necessary.
The Goths settled in Bulgaria, keeping their ethnic culture intact. But they were ready to fight for the empire. In 392, the Roman general Arbogastes, a Frank, strangled to death the western Emperor Valentinian and replaced him with Eugenius. The Goths rallied to Theodosius, and among them was a young noble of the Balthi clan named Alaric. With the Goths on his side, Theodosius was invincible. Eugenius was killed as he lay begging for mercy; Arbogastes fell on his own sword. The Goths saved the empire, but four months later Theodosius was dead.
Theodosius left the eastern portion of his empire to his son Arcadius, the western to Honorius. An effete weakling, with no interests other than his pet birds, Honorius at least meant well and had good morals for an Emperor. Arcadius, however, was a true chip off the old Imperial block, a throw-back to the age of Nero and Claudius. Administration of the empire, both halves, were left to sycophants and opportunists, with the usual predictable results.
In the western empire, Imperial Chancellor Olympius epitomizes the type, as does Rufinius in the east. For what they believed to be the best of reasons, these patrician Romans, though they were Greek and Armenian, would conspire to kill the Empire itself. Contrasted to this is the Vandal, General Stilicho, who saved the Empire on at least three major occasions, and would go to his death a martyr to Roman justice. And of course, none of this would have been quite so lethal without the Imperial ambitions of Alaric the Goth, a Christian of the Arian persuation who had learned the arts of war as a follower of the great Theodosius. Motivated mainly by a desire to become the commander in chief of the Imperial forces, Alaric would stumble his way through rivers of blood until he, almost unwillingly, plundered the Eternal City.
After Theodosius’s death, Alaric rose to the kingship of the Visigoths, or western Goths and began to threaten the eastern approachs to the Imperial capitial, Constantinople. Here the Emperor Arcadius and the sycophant Rufinius entered the scene, scheming all the while. Instead of ravaging the eastern empire, Arcadius’ realm, it was subtly suggested that Italy and its rich provinces made for better and easier pickings. Arcadius hoped that the Visigoths would keep Stilicho and his ambitions busy, and whatever happened, Arcadius could then step in and pick up the pieces.
Twice, Alaric invaded Italy and was beaten back by the military prowess of General Stilicho. The good General, Defender of Rome, was a Spaniard who had also trained with Theodosius and was by far and away the greatest military leader of the age. Stilicho understood the situation in the empire and realized that it was much better to make allies of the Visigoths than to try to annihilate them. It was this willingness to negotiate with Alaric that led to the General’s downfall.
To Olympius and the Roman Senate, it was inconceivable that a Roman general preferred to negotiate. They were surfeited with tales of Roman greatness and could only see treachery in Stlicho’s realism. Olympius convinced Honorius — which wasn’t hard: Honorius usually believed the last person with which he spoke — that Stilicho was actively plotting with Alaric to overthrow the Emperor. Only a threat to his person, or his beloved fowls, could rouse the diffident Emperor. Thoroughly frightened, Honorius ordered an Imperial hit squad to kill Stilicho.
The General’s friends were ready to resist, but Stilicho refused, unwilling to dishonor what he had fought so hard to preserve. He offered his neck to the sword and died a martyr to Romanitas. Claudian called him the last of the Romans and followed him into oblivion. A few months later, Alaric re-entered Italy at the head of the Visigothic hordes.
The legions were demoralized by Stilicho’s death and disorganized by the persecutions of his friends and supporters. After extensive pillaging in northern Italy, while Honorius cowered behind the swamps of Ravenna, the Goths swept down on Rome. On August 24, 410 A.D., Alaric’s forces entered the city to spend a hectic three days looting the corpse of Imperial Rome.
The image lingers, even in our post-modern unconscious. The blazing city — its gates shattered, its citizens raped and slaughtered by savage barbarians, its treasure plundered –has become a symbol of the triumph of chaos over the forces of order. “Quid salvum est si Roma perit?” Saint Jerome wrote soon after the fall of Rome. What is safe if Rome perishes?
* * * * *
In the fantasy world of Ravenna, according to Procopius, the Imperial chamberlain came rushing to tell Honorius that Rome had perished.
“Rome perished!” Honorius shrieked. “Tis not an hour she was feeding from my hand.”
Whereupon the chamberlain was forced to explain that he meant the city of Rome, not the chicken Honorius had named after his capital. The Emperor was relieved, “I thought, my friend, that you meant that I had lost my bird, Rome.”
* * * * *
Rome survived to be plundered again and again. (Some of the worst destruction was caused by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V more than a thousand years later.) But, to the religious minded Romans, both Christian and pagan, the sacking of the great city was an event of supernatural significance. Pagans thought it fitting punishment for the lack of faith in the old gods. Christians struggled with this in any way they could. From this need to justify catastrophe would come Saint Augustine’s masterpiece, The City of God.
By the traditional date for the “Fall” of Rome, 476 A. D., which merely marked the moment the usurpers of Roman power no longer felt it necessary to assume the title of Emperor, Europe was deep into the Dark Ages. What made these coming centuries so “dark?”
First and perhaps foremost, the descent of the political darkness completed the Christianization of the Empire. Alaric, as a Christian, had respected church property, and therefore the destruction in Rome had fallen most directly on the remaining pagan colleges and temples. Powerful pagans remained in the Empire. As late as the Eugenius/Arbogastes revolt of 392, paganism was a political issue. But after 410, their academies and colleges shattered, their priesthood obliterated, the influence of classical paganism dwindled rapidly. In Europe, Christianity would have no organized rivals but those from inside the Church.
The Empire did not become completely Christian in the west, however, until the political structure of Rome itself had collapsed. In this vacuum of political and cultural leadership, the Church became the sole custodian and arbitrator of civilization, with devastating results. Rome, for all its faults, supplied what Claudian had called the sense that “we are all one people.” (This unity and universal focus created a world view which we retain to this day. That the Imperial Christianity of the next thousand years failed utterly to restore the Peace of Rome has, however, been lost on every power hungry national leader from Theodoric to GeorgeW. Bush. Hic Eternae Roma. . .) This sense of citizenship was eroded as the central authority disintegrated. The very shape of future national identities arose from the fragments of the Empire, much as our modern European languages emerged from the influence of Latin.
As the Empire grew weaker, the local darkness thickened. Where once information, trade and military might had flowed through the arteries of the Empire, now each province had to shift for itself, grow its own food, fight its own battles. Nowhere do we see more clearly than in Britain.
Part Two - Roman Britain
For Britain, the year 410 was even more of a turning point than it was for the rest of the Empire. Britain had been a latecomer to the Roman system, but by the third century, Roman Britain, southern England and Wales, was an imperial province whose free male citizens were the equals of any in the empire. The upper classes received a Roman education and were bilingual, using Latin as their written and commercial language. The wealthier citizens lived in villas or luxurious country homes much like the plantation society of the pre-Civil War era in America. John C. Calhoun would have felt right at home in Roman Britain. Ironically enough, this villa rich society dominated the south of England, such as Gloucestershire.
Britain was Roman for almost three hundred years before it became officially Christian. For most of those years, it was more peaceful and prosperous than the rest of the Empire. Its population in the early fourth century was over two million. Industry and mining prospered, agriculture produced surpluses that were exported to the rest of the Empire. Peace and prosperity produced a sense of its own uniqueness. Britain was a place where powerful forces surfaced. Constantine had been proclaimed Emperor in York Catherdral, beginning his messianic career that would eventually change the nature of the Empire and create a new religion, Imperial Christianity.
Even after Constantine, Imperial Christianity was slow to catch on in Roman Britain. The Empire had only been Christian for about 70 years when the Visigoths sacked Rome, and part of those years, the reign of Julian, called the “Apostate,” the Empire was officially pagan. There was even a brief revival of Celtic paganism, including a new temple to the Celtic Mercury, Nodens, near Monmouth. It took several generations before a new hybrid form of semi-orthodox Christianity emerged.
But if this new religious spirit was only loosely orthodox, it was very genuine. Its promoters were from the higher classes of the society. The people still adhered to their age old beliefs, which a Christian veneer effected only slightly. The country folk celebrated Yule and did not mind that the new priests called it the birthday of God’s son. The educated upper classes could see the difference, but their formulation of the message of Christ was affected by the common pagan ground of belief, which was broad enough to have swallowed Christianity whole, leaving Jesus as just the latest way to see Lugh or Cuchulain. That this didn’t occur was due more to the strength of the Saxon princes than to the vitality of Christian theology.
In that truly extravagant era, and the early fifth century seems to have more dazzling egos than any other historical period, one of the most amazing personalities was the British heretic Pelagius. A large, easy-going Scotsman, Pelagius was not dogmatic in his heresy. In fact, he was that most dangerous of all thinkers, an open-minded skeptic. He was a well-read amateur of theology and possibly a doctor, which implies some Druidic training and its possible connection with Glastonbury. His version of Christianity credited human nature with more self-determination than the Imperial Church thought wise.
Pelagius’ teachings stressed freedom and moral responsibility. In his most serious depature from the Imperial Church, Pelagius denied the doctrine of original sin, and held, like a good pagan, the notion that human beings were born untainted. This was an idea that the church thought it had squelched back in the second century. Original sin had become an effective lever of social control.
Holding that the body is not inherently evil, which is the punch-line of all original sin theology, allows for a whole new social perspective; one that seemed decidely left of center to the power elite of the Imperial Church. Pelagius even had the audacity to address the role of the layman in the religious structure of Christianity. This was too much, and left his opponents sputtering about “Scots porridge.”
His ideas even drew the fire of that great and saintly Augustine, whose somber lapsed paganism guilt-trip expounded the concept of the City of God. Rome had fallen, and Augustine was replying to the accusation that it had been the falling away from the old Gods that had caused the Visigothic disaster. His answer was to equate Rome with heaven, and the age got even darker. In 418 Pelagianism was denounced as heresy, and in 421 Honorius declared that the dangerous Pelagians could come no closer to Rome than the hundreth milestone.
Pelagianism never quite disappeared. The Protestant Reformation was deepest in the Celtic west, thanks to a long-standing Pelagian attitude: free will, self-determination and lay involvement in religious practices. Even much of the New Age, or Human Potential movement can be seen as a non-ecumenical Pelagianism.
As for Pelagius himself, all we know for sure is that he died sometime after 410 in North Africa.
In Britain, it was not that black comedy of intrigue and treachery we call the Sack of Rome that made the year 410 significant, but a letter from Honorius explaining that the free holders of each civitates should look to their own defense. No more legions would be coming to the rescue. Pelagianism became the religious expression of this new and frightening independence.
Truly, the people of the province had no one to blame for the problem except themselves. It started with Magnus Clemens Maximus who tried to pull a Constantine, and in failing denuded the island of its legions. Then General Stilicho, in return for a few insignificant raids into the Pictish Highlands of Scotland, began to withdraw legions for the defense of Italy. The only positive note from this period was the formation of the mobile field army of heavy mounted calvary, led by a Count of the Britains. Then, in a sense of panic over the possible dissolution of the Empire, the province promoted three would-be usurpers in a row. After the departure of Constantine the third, Britain was at the mercy of the Picts and the Saxons. Honorius, not having control even over Gaul, was forced to let the province fend for itself.
But the Church was not so willing to let a province go. Hence, the first mission of St. Germanus of Auxerre began in 428. The mission was charged with combating the insidious heresy of Pelagianism. This was not easy, because the adherents of Pelagius were among the most wealthy and influential element in Britain. The Pelagians were the same group of influential citizens who had favored the path of native self-help, the would-be usurpers of 407-10, and would have been the main supporters of King Vortigern, a local version of an Emperor or a High King. Vortigern actually means “over-king” and probably was a title used for all the High-Kings between 410 and the final Saxon invasions.
Our main source for this era is Constantine’s Life of Germanus, which was not written in the saint’s lifetime, but within living memory. In addition to being a classic example of hagiography, it also contains some priceless glimpses of independent Celto-Roman Britain.
St. Germanus and his followers seem to have travelled freely around Britian, for the most part among people who were living at peace in a culture that was still civilized in a recognizably Roman sense. In 428, some form of romanized administration still existed. We are told that the saint healed the daughter of a man of “tribunal power” which is clearly recognizable as a judge of the civitates to which Honorius had remitted responsibility in 410. Since we know that the saint visited St. Albans’ tomb at Verulamium, then we can surmise that these peaceful scenes represent the state of the south and west, Gloucestershire and the Salisbury Plain. But even in 428, there were signs of things to come.
A large raid by a combined force of Picts and Saxons found the Britains unprepared and panic-stricken. St. Germanus was compelled to take charge and arranged an ambush in a valley surrounded by hills.
The Life gives the romatic flavor of the scene: the deep valley in the heavily wooded hills, the quiet and disciplined Britons waiting in silence for the barbarian invaders to reach just the right place in the valley. And then, a booming, roaring and echoing Alleluia shook the superstitious pagans and they fled, plunging over the cliffs and drowning themselves in the nearby river. This bloodless victory turned an important part of the British power structure — the army — to the orthodox side. In all probability, this group had retained the most rigidly Romanophile cultural ethics, as shown by the preference for Roman names.
The Saxon chiefs whose war bands Vortigern hired had the unusual names of Hengist and Horsa, which is Old Saxon for “stallion” and “mare.” These Saxons were successful in the short run at disposing of the Picts. They seem to have been defeated in battle, in which Horsa was killed. Later, the victorious Saxons settled down as colonists on the eastern coast. Inspired by their victory and enticed by the fertility of the island, large scale reinforcements arrived from the North Sea coast. From 428 to 449 the danger grew, year by year, until in 449 the Anglo-Saxon Revolt erupted.
(In compressing and streamlining such a complex and historically uncertain tale, I have, of course, taken the libery of making up my own mind as to dating and chronology. On some things I adhere closely to the traditional, and on others, I am traveling with the historical avant-guard. The sources are so scanty and minimal when applicable, that various dates are available for any scenario. I would encourage anyone who takes exception with my version to hit the primary sources and create one that seems more appropriate. It could be the start of a lifetime endeavor).
Traditionally, 450 is given as the year of the Saxon invasion with the arrival of Hengist and Horsa. This seems almost impossibly late given the extent of archeological evidence that has accrued since the last century. The Saxons had been in Britain at least a generation before the conflicts of the 450’s. If we assume that Vortigern was a title, held first by the son-in-law of Magnus Maximus, and then by at least one other person between 410 and 450, I believe that we can discern three “overkings” within this period. Magnus Maximus’ son-in-law may or may not have actually held the office associated with the title, but there was a Vortigern in 428, the time of St. Germanus’ first visit.
This Vortigern was a Pelagian with strong pagan roots, a leader of the independence party, but essentially still a governor. We see him in the later sources building a castle in Wales, which would reflect the defensive position of 428, when a combined assalt of Picts and Saxons panicked the countryside. We are told that he sought a sacrifice of an orphan child to make his castle impregnable, and in the earliest version, that child is Emrys or Ambrosius, showing that he was of Roman consular rank. The child is spared because of a spectacular gift of prophecy.
This is Merlin’s story from Geoffry of Monmouth, and although the original version gives a glimpse of the political situation in the fifth century, it could not be speaking of the historical Merlin, a sixth century bard who lived in the Forest of Celidon, beyond Hadrian’s wall. Nennius, our ninth century original source, simply misunderstood the meaning of the events of 428, leaving it to Geoffrey to add Merlin into the mix.
Vortigern retreated to Wales, and blamed the disaster on the Dux Bellorum, the Count of the Army, Ambrosius. He demanded his execution, possibly as a sacrifice to the Celtic war goddess, Cerydwin. Ambrosius avoided this by his prophecy of the Red Dragon and the White Dragon. The meaning of his tale was: if you have to fight a Dragon (the Picts) hire another Dragon (the Saxons) to fight them for you. Vortigern followed this idea and became the villain to thousands of interpreters of English history.
The Saxons might have become a part of the British Romanitas, except that the level of Roman Culture continued to decline, without any help from the devastating Saxons. We have the evidence of St. Germanus , who visited the island for a second time in 446. In his first visit, we are told that he healed the daughter of a Roman official; on his second visit he heals the sick child of “Elafius, the leading man in the region.” Note that the name is no longer Roman. Elafius is British and even though he is the leading man in the region, he has no Roman title. By this time, the Roman structure of the society had come apart, all on its own. The third Vortigern, who in all probability died fighting the Saxons and was the role model for Geoffrey’s Uther Pendragon, ruled a contentious horde of vaguely Romanized Celtic Warlords.
This motley army of Celtic Kings faced the Saxon Revolt, and lost. Vortigern sent an appeal to the Master of Armies in Gaul for assistance which was not answered. Gaul at this point had its own probelms with Vandals, Visigoths and Huns as well as the Saxons. Gildas, in his half history/half sermon on the destruction of Britain, written at least a century later, tells us of various ups and downs, firmness and peaceful periods and then plague, all before the Saxon Revolt of 450. And then, in a single sentence, Gildas goes from the initial victory of Ambrosius, who would have been quite old, through a campaign of fluctuating fortunes, to the siege of Mount Badon, circa 490.
Within that single sentence, which covers forty years, is contained the bare fact of “Arthur’s” existence. Gildas, the orthodox monk of the next century, passes by Camelot without even a mention, while eulogizing the two peaceful generations that it produced. “Arthur” disappeared from history, not because he lost against the Saxons — ultimately, he didn’t — but because he was only a vaguely Christian heretical Celtic Pelagian. History, as always, was written by the victors, in this case the orthodox churchmen of subsequent centuries.
The historical Arthur is a key figure in the history of the underground stream. He takes the form of a might-have-been, but the ideal is made even more durable because of its underdog, lost-cause quality. His significance, both to history and to legend, lies in what he tried to accomplish.
First of all we must understand Arthur within his contemporary setting — the fall of the Empire. It is within this context that his most knowledgeable biographer, Geoffrey of Monmouth, places him. We should think of Geoffrey’s History of the Kings of Britian as historical fiction, not precise factual reportage. But he is working from fact, and some of his sources are very good indeed.
Geoffrey claimed to have access to an ancient book in the British tongue from which he took his information about Arthur. For this to be possible, given that Geoffrey is writing in the 12th century about events which happened in the fifth century, requires that we demonstrate Geoffrey’s connection with any probable sources. And there are several suggestive connections available.
The closest source was near Monmouth, Geoffrey’s hometown in south Wales. A temple to Nodens had been built during the brief Celtic renaissance of the fourth century. As Nodens was a form of Mercury, at least to the Roman mind, then some type of scholarship is suggested. it is not unlikey that some form of Celtic King list was preserved at the temple. Written down in the eighth or ninth century, it could have survived to become Geoffrey’s source.
Geoffrey also had strong ties to Brittany, including the monastery at Rhuys, which was reputedly founded by St. Gildas himself. The monks seemed to have had historical interests, perhaps dervied from their founder, and in the tenth century, they were driven from Brittany inland to Berry to escape the Vikings. In Berry, they were protected by the Lord of Deols, which is the clue we are seeking. Deols, near Bourges, was the scene of the final battle of a real fifth century King of the Britians, and a local tradition of the battle and the events leading up to it could have gone back with the monks to Brittany and contributed, by way of Geoffrey, in the conception of Arthur.
However, there is conclusive proof of an Arthurian tradition completely different from the one Geoffrey reports in the 12th- century. The Legend of St. Goeznovius opens with a prologue that supplies a reasonably accurate picture of fifth century Britain and its struggles, one that supports Geoffrey’s rather colorful rendering. This Breton work clearly mentions “the great Arthur, King of the Britains,” without any fantasatic or mythological trappings. There are other mentions in European chronicles that allow us to place this King of the Britains, or the High King Artorius Riothamus, in a sixteen year reign, from 454 to 470.
This independent determination of Arthur’s dates gives even more credence to Geoffrey’s story. The one thing that Geoffrey does that the earlier English sources do not is supply a chronological fix. Geoffrey says three times that the events he is describing, the conquest of Gaul and the subjugation of the Saxons occurs in the reign of Leo I. Indeed, Leo I was the Eastern Emperor in this time period. Artorius, Arthur, begins to look a lot like Riothamus’ (the High King of the Britains) first name. Arthur steps out of the historical shadows and becomes a real person, one to whom Latin letters, written by the foremost Romans of the day, have survived. By finally placing Arthur in time, we can assess his true significance.
Briefly, Arthur’s story goes like this:
Vortigern the Third may have provoked the Saxon Revolt by lusting after the daughter of the Chief of the Horsa clan, at least the Uther Pendragon story of Geoffrey and the earlier Welsh tales of Vortigern’s lust, suggest this possibility. Then the Saxons are defeated at first by Ambrosius, who is said to be Artorius’ uncle. It would be a mistake to confuse Merlin and Ambrosius as Geoffrey does. Ambrosius is the Dux Bellorum, the Master of the Army, the mobile corps of heavy cavalry that is the country’s main defense against the Saxons. Geoffrey’s story required a Druid. His source would have mentioned one, perhaps again simply by title: Myrdyn or Merlin. Geoffrey, reading Gildas, appropriated the story of the prophetic sacrifice, unaware of how badly Gildas had garbled his sources.
But, soon after the initial victory, the Saxons flare up again and this time Vortigern is killed, possibly along with Ambrosius, who disappears at about this point. Several years of chaos follows, until Artorius claims the High Kingship in 454, under a different version of “vortigern,” the more Roman-British title of Riothamus. The change, from a purely Celtic title to a Romanesque one, implies that the unifying force behind Artorius was the desire to return to the peace and prosperity of the Empire. The Celtic Kings united behind Artorius, as had their forefathers in 407 and 410 when Britain tried to put an Emperor on the throne who could stabilize the deteriorating situation. Artoriuis realized that the problems of Britain could only be solved if there were no more Saxons coming from the continent, hence the conquest of Gaul. Riothamus meant to be a World Restorer in the ancient and honored sense of Constantine himself. He aimed for nothing less than a new empire of the west, a Charlemagne three centuries too soon.
He fought twelve great battles to subdue the Saxons in Britain, and had himself crowned as High King. The coronation scene in Geoffrey is notable mostly for his mention of a group of sages, astrologers and mystics who attach themselves to his court. We will have more to say about this Invisible College later.
Around 468, Artorius departed for Gaul, and after a series of victories, was betrayed and defeated near Deols in Berry. Riothamus fades from the chronicles of Gaul at this point, his legions retreating in the direction of the Vale of the Apples, the village of Avalone on the outskirts of Bourges, where Artorius Riothamus died in the great retreat. Unlike the legions of the usurpers of the early fifth century, Arthur’s men did return to Britain.
This return creates some confusion, such as the mistaken idea that Arthur fought at the battle of Mons Badonicus in 490. This reference has been ridiculed for its fantastical description of Arthur fighting 900 Saxons by himself. But if we see this as the work of Arthur’s men, then the image of a private battle emerges from the absurdly mythological hero tale. After 490, Gildas tells us, the Saxons were driven back for two generations. At the time that Gildas was writing his sermon, the invasions and pillaging excursions were on the rise and would culminate in the destruction of the British in 577. There would be no Arthur to try and restore the Empire in the sixth century. The classical era was over and Charlemagne could do no more than animate a corpse centuries dead. The Holy Roman Empire lasted, officially, until 1918, but it was never again to be truly holy or Roman or even an empire.
The importance of Arthur lies in the quality of Romanitas that he embodies. Rome was civilisation. But in the sixty years between 410 and 470, Roman Britain had evolved into a new form or style of civilization. Celtic and Roman influences had blended so throughly as to become the same current. Pelagian Christianity, as we have seen, contained much of the older pagan traditions and philosophy. That Artorius was a Pelagian seems certain, given his deliberate omission by such orthodox scribes as Gildas.
We are told that Arthur went into battle with an image of the Virgin on his shield. Given Arthur’s early and persistent association with Glastonbury, this clue assumes major significance. Glastonbury is the site of the original Celtic Christian compromise: Joseph of Arimathea and possibly Mary, Jesus’ mother, combining primitive Christianity with the Druidic college of medicine and astrology. This early blend was lost when the Romans imposed their own civic version of classical paganism. but traces of it may have survived among the Druids and other educated Celts. Pelagius in fact seems closer in attitude to the life-embracing early Coptic Christians of the first century than he does to any of his more orthodox contemporaries. This could also be explained by a Glastonbury connection.
Given these clues, it seems that the civilization Arthur would have supported and helped to create would have been one of tolerance, with emphasis on human freedom and dignity, with a strongly pagan flavor of sensuality and encouragement of women’s spirituality. It would have been Christian, on the surface, but the pagan elements would have been plainly included. The promise of the historical Camelot was the glimpse of a religious society, around which the culture of the universal civilization could have pivoted. This would have avoided the persecutions and inquisitions that the Imperial Church embraced as matters of routine policy. An empire of romanized Celts in the northwest of Europe, based on a pagan-flavored Pelagianism would have changed our subsequent society so completely that we can only look on in awe at the possibility. The loss of this possibility haunted Europe for a thousand years and has continued to haunt our collective psyche for much longer. Calling the presidency of JFK Camelot harkens to how deep our sense of loss and regret truly runs.
Arthur was the last great opportunity for wholeness in our culture, although the myth is still viable. The Matter of Britain, as the later Middle Ages would call the Arthurian tradition, contains within it the seed of both a Goddess centered theology and the cultural imperative that demands that we restore the world to some primary unity and sense of grace.
Part Three - The Historical Arthur and Arthur’s Men
The wave of barbarian invasions began to recede in the middle of the sixth century, leaving pockets of untouched Romanitas alongside barbarian kingdoms. For the most part, these barbarian rulers aped the style of Rome, and were Christian, though occasionally heretical. However, the majority of these rulers not only couldn’t read Latin, they couldn’t understand it; even in their native tongues they were barely, if at all, literate.
Rome itself made a come-back in the sixth century, with the help of the Eastern Emperor Justinian, who conquered the Ostrogothic Kingdom and established the Imperial zone from Ravenna to Rome. The authority in this area would no longer be the Emperor, who the Lombards would expel from the rest of Italy in 568, but the Pope, the Patriarch of Rome.
Taking its cue from the saintly Augustine, it was as if Rome decided that if it couldn’t be the City of the Empire any longer, then it wqould settle for second best and be the City of God. Leo the Great, the Pope who tried a Mexican stand-off with Attila the Hun and won, had this idea of Rome as God’s City firmly in mind. He threatened Attila with it.
We will never know what would have happened to Christianity if Attila had not died soon after his stand-off with Pope Leo. We can be fairly sure that Attila was not impressed by Leo’s threats; the Huns were never Christian, at all. But the miracle happened. Attila died. The Huns retreated to Hungary to fight over the spoils and Europe settled down to a resemblance of peace. Barbarian warlords ruled the provinces, the population dropped, cities shrank, culture declined, freeman became serfs, and the heavily armored mounted warrior became the nobility.
Even Justinian reconquered only part of Italy. Northern Italy and Gaul, Spain and Britain were far beyond the reach of the eastern empire by the sixth century. In Spain the Visigoths endured as a stable kingdom until Islam invaded in the eighth century. Ed Cid is a classic Visigothic warrior, cast in an early medieval role. Only in Spain. . .
Gaul was unified by the Merovingian Franks. The Celts of Gaul had absorbed the Roman culture so completely that parts of Gaul, even as late as the period of the worst invasions of the fifth century, retained the serene Romanita that was the very standard of a civilized life.
Sidonius Apollinarius, writing about five years before the death of Artorius Riothamus, describes the pleasures of country life in Gaul in glowing terms. “The hills which rise above the buildings are cultivated by the vine dresser and the olive-grower: you would think them Aracynthus and Nysa, those so greatly lauded in poetic song. One house has a view over flat and open ground, the other looks out on woods; yet though they differ in their situation they are alike in their charms.” To Sidonius, the height of civilized charm lay in athletic competition, gambling and books, books, and more books. He says that his prefectorian cousin Ferreolus has so many books that “you might have imagined yourself looking at the shelves of a professional scholar or at the tiers in the Athenaeum at the towering presses of the booksellers.”
This information comes from Sidonius’ letter to his friend Donidius explaining why it is taking him so long to reach Nemansus and return home. Sidonius tells his friend that he was delayed by two “most sympathetic hosts,” who insist that he stay no less than seven days. The description of Sidonius’ good time (”Well, I was hurried from bliss to bliss”) includes a full measure of good books, good food and pleasant conversation. He tells of discussing Origen in Turranius Rufinus’ translation with his friends before lunch, which we are told is “short and lavish, in the style of the senators.” After lunch the Roman good ole boys sat around the table and told jokes and tall stories over the wine until they got soused. Then they headed off for a nap to shake “off the midday drowsiness,” arising after an hour or two to take a short ride in order to whet their jaded appetites for dinner.
In the evening, they made do with a Gallo-Roman version of a sweat lodge, since neither villa had a decent Roman bath, although both had one under construction. One wonders if they were finished by the time the Visigoths came through. Perhaps it is that sense of all pervasive doom that hind-sight gives to Sidonius’ letters which makes them so compelling. This charming life-style was about to be snuffed out, and to read Sidonius, no one even suspected that there was a problem.
It would all be gone by the mid 480’s, about twenty years after Sidonius’ letter to his friend, swept away in waves by the Visigoths, the Vandals, and then by the Huns. In the early 480’s, the region of Belgium, Luxembourg and northern France coalesced into the Kingdom of the Franks. In the sixth century, under the Merovingians, the Franks would control most of the territory of present day France and Belgium. Brittany remained Celtic and the Visigoths in Spain controlled the southern coast as far as Arles. By the end of the sixth century, medieval France had taken shape.
This political stability allowed the survival of classical traditions and literature, such as the letters of Sidonius, who seemed to be quite the social climber and wrote in an over-elegant Latin to all the great leaders of the age including Riothamus, King of the Britons.
The letter introduces its bearer, a landowner who complains that the Britons have been enticing his slaves away. Sidonius, in his usual unctuous manner, reminds the king of their prior acquaintance and flatters him that he is “a direct witness of the conscientiousness which weighs on you so heavily, and which has always been of such delicacy as to make you blush for the wrongdoing of others,” He explains the landowners’ grievance, then states the real problem: “I fancy that this poor fellow is likely to make good his plaint, that is, if amid a crowd of noisy armed and disorderly men who are emboldened at once by their courage, their number and their comradeship, there is any possibility for a solitary unarmed man, humble rustic, a stranger of small means, to gain a fair and equitable hearing.”
We see Artorius Riothamus’ men in this letter at the height of their continental adventure, besieging Bourges, deep in Berry, one Saxon army already defeated, and their King courted by the Emperor himself as the last great hope west of the Alps. It was a moment of incredible excitement, but Artorius already had the reputation for justice and equality that would later adhere to the legends of the Round Table.
Jordanes, in his History of the Goths, a work of what we would now call oral history, compiled in the mid-sixth century, tells us that the Emperor made an alliance with the Britons. “Their King Riotimus came with twelve thousand men into the state of the Bituriges by the way of ocean, and was received as he disembarked from his ships.”
Arthur steps into the light of history for one fleeting moment and then disappears into the shadows to become a myth and a legend. The once and future king
Interestingly enough it is archeology that has supplied the best glimpse of Arthur’s significance. Wroxeter, near Shresbury in England is very unusual. Unlike most Roman towns, Wroxeter did not become a modern city. It still lies under farmland and in the last decade was painstakingly uncovered. Excavation has revealed a great brick wall or basilica and a bath complex, which fell into disuse around the middle of the fourth century, was demolished and covered by shanties made from the rubble. This would fit the declining civic pattern of the late fourth and early fifth centuries. It is significant to its decline that Wroxeter did not have a wall for defense. As the political situation deteriorated, the inhabitants moved to a safer location.
However, to the great surprise of the excavators, a later phase was discovered that showed that the whole area had been rebuilt in the mid-fifth century. The basilica was leveled and the area covered with thousands of tons of carefully laid rubble. On this base a large number of wooden buildings were erected including a massive hall laid on beams, 125 feet long and 52 feet wide with a narrow extension on one end, about 80 feet long. South of this building were rows of timber booths, roofed like a pedestrian precinct, and at the upper end of the street was a series of large wooden buildings with classical facades, perhaps the last classically inspired buildings in Britain until the 18th century revival.
Such a drastic reorganization of the whole city center needed wealth, a high degree of organization and strong motivation. It has all the hallmarks of Roman public works, only constructed with timber. It was certainly not the work of demoralized peasants or barbarian invaders. At Wroxeter, we see perhaps the work of Vortigern the Third or Riothamus himself. And we see the promise of civilization that the new kingdom embodied. From the surviving masonry of the Wroxeter basilica, it is easy to see how the illiterate Anglo-Saxons thought it the work of giants. “Wondrous is this wall-stone,” the Saxon story tellers would chant, “Broken by fate, the cities have decayed, the work of the giants is crumbling.”
The end of this phase is just as intriguing as the beginning. The great Hall was not sacked or hurriedly abandoned. The entire civic center was deliberately dismantled and all useful materials taken away. When did this happen? Our best guess is toward the end of the fifth and the beginning of the sixth century. Probably it happened for the same reason the earlier decline occurred, Wroxeter was just too hard to defend.
As the cities declined, many of the local warlords went back to the Iron Age Celtic hill forts that had been abandoned at the time of the Roman conquest. These citadels were easier to defend than long and poorly maintained city walls. By the early sixth century these hill forts had become the rule throughout the southwest of England and Wales. Local tradition connects Arthur with one of these hill forts, South Cadbury in Somerset. This battlement, about twenty miles southeast of Glastonbury, was excavated in the late 1960’s and the finds created quite a stir.
Cadbury may not have been Camelot, Wroxeter is a better candidate, but it was quite a castle for the late fifth century. At the very top of the hill an eighteen acre enclosure had been refortified with a dry stone wall. Inside this wall were timber buildings similar in style to the Wroxeter basilica. The site contained elements of refortification that recalled Roman military architecture, and most interesting of all, pottery from the Mediterranean, which gives us a very precise date, the last quarter of the fifth century. If this was not Arthur’s hill fort, it belonged to some one much like him.
By understanding that Artorius is Riothamus, the King of the Britons who appears in Gaul with twelve thousand men, which, by the way, would be two corps of the classical six thousand man mobile armored cavalry of the old Dux Bellorum, we can easily explain the mystery of the hill forts.
Civic reconstruction, such as Wroxeter, represents the period of stability after the initial Saxon defeat in Britain. There are no refortifications of hill forts from this early period, in fact, the earliest of the refortifications take place at the time of Riothamus was marching through Gaul. Open cities, again such as Wroxeter, can only be defended by a large and mobile field army. When that army is absent, as it was after 468, then the best defensive is to circle the wagons and use the remaining six thousand men of the third corps to garrison them. And that is exactly what happened.
The circles were the ancient Celtic forts and the Cadbury dig proved that someone was powerful enough to wall in this hill fort, erect buildings and build gates, someone with a large retinue of warriors who lived in a hybrid Roman-Celtic style. After 470, as the remnants of Arthur’s Men, the first two corps, returned from the continent, this policy of fortification and entrenchment became the dominant strategy of the loose confederation of Kings and warlords, united under Arthur’s Men, who won the battle of Mons Badonicus. There are several possibilities for this battle site, but the most likely is a prominent Iron Age hill fort near Swindon in Wiltshire. Close by is the village of Badbury, from the Celtic Badon. The fort, now known as Liddington Castle, controls a major Dark Age road junction, that of Ermine Street, the north-south road and the Great Ridgeway which cuts straight across the island. Cirencester, the ancient legion station, lies only fifteen miles away and on a clear afternoon, Liddington castle is visible from the old Roman campground.
The retreat to the Celtic forts had other ramifications, both political and religious. The decentralization required by the defense of the network of hill forts meant that there would never again be a High King like Artorius. The Roman administration fell completely apart and the legal and political structure returned to the jurisdiction of the bards and the Druids. In the same manner, separation from Rome meant separation from orthodoxy, and the heretical Pelagians co-existed side-by-side with the pagan Druids and the Roman oracles.
That marvelous Celtic masterpiece, Culwch and Olwen, probably dates from this twilight golden age as does the Predeu Annwfyn, which tells of Arthur’s voyage to the underworld in search of a magic cauldron. Most interesting of all is the poem in the Black Book of Carmarthen which begins “Pa gur” This question and response poem is far older than the thirteenth century manuscript in which it is anthologized. It seems to hint of something of great importance.
In the poem, we find Arthur seeking entry into a “house” of which Glewwlwyd, He of the Mighty-Grasp, is porter.
A: What Man is porter?
G: Glewlwyd Mighty-Grasp.
What man asks it?
A: Arthur and Cei Wyn.
G: Who goes along with thee?
A: The best men in the world.
G: Into my house thou shalt not come
Unless thou disclose them.
A: I shall disclose them.
And thou shalt see them.
The Arthur names and calls forth nine mighty heroes as his companions. Among these companions are Mabon son of Modron and Manawydan, son of Lyr, said to be “of profound counsel,” as well he should being none other than the Welsh God of the Sea. Mabon is the ancient God of the Sun and Light, a redemptive culture hero of the late Neolithic era. Arthur is traveling in exalted company indeed.
With a little imagination we can see these stories developing in the hill fort stations of Arthur’s men as the bards wove the story of Arthur’s vision into the tapestry of Celtic mythology. It was natural to include such a cultural hero as Arthur had become by the sixth century in the company of the other cultural heroes of the society. His status as almost an Emperor lent classical pedigree to his divine pretensions, Arthur could be no less a God than Augustus. Around the basic fact of Arthur, which is that the Saxons were driven back for almost fifty years, the first tentacles of the legend began to cling within a few years of Riothamus’ defeat in Gaul.
But there is something different about the “Pa gur” poem. It seems to be an initiation rite of some kind, the call and response echoing down through the years as part of every western secret society’s induction ritual. A Freemason would easily grasp the poem’s intent. Some “House” or college is making Arthur announce his divine sponsors before he is allowed to enter.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his description of Arthur’s coronation, tells us of an “invisible college” of astrologers and mystics who become part of Arthur’s court. These are in all probability the Druids, and it is to their mystic “house” that Arthur is being admitted in the “Pa gur” poem. It is hard to know exactly what to make of this connection. Geoffrey thought it was important enough to create the figure of Merlin, using the sixth century original to show the power of a fifth century connection. it seems clear however that in the years after his death, the Druids used the prominence of Arthur’s protection and patronage to ensure that the traditions would survive.
It would be a precarious survival, but survive they did. Geoffrey himself is a witness. He would not have been so knowledgeable about the fifth century if someone had not thought it important to record the information. It is remarkable how much of this British Arthur has indeed survived into the 12th century version, just as it is surprising how much of the Culwch and Olwen suggests and foreshadows Arthur’s role as High-King and Emperor in the History of the Kings of Britain. The coherence of the fragments that we do have from the era suggest that there was some sort of planned survival, perhaps at the hands of Geoffrey’s “invisible college.”
Other very suggestive evidence for the survival of some form of ancient initiatory practice can be found in Geoffrey’s works. His Life of Merlin abounds with descriptions of the “college” and its community. But most interesting of all is the description of the triple death, a form of archaic shamanic technique, which would eventually become, in the fifteenth century, the Tarot image of the Hanged Man. This sort of esoteric survival, tenuous as it is, proves some sort of connection. It is not difficult to infer that Geoffrey had access to this “college” and its information, and from Geoffrey, as we will see, it is not hard to follow the doings of the “house” of initiates. As century follows century, the form of this “house” will change, growing and then maturing as it greets its eastern half, the Builders, and then emerging at last in the political turmoil of the early 17th century.
The ancient Welsh House of Initiates, Geoffrey’s college of mystics and star-gazer, became Shakespeare’s School of Night, Bacon’s “Invisible College,” echoing Geoffrey directly, and eventually Newton’s Royal Society. Newton and Geoffrey of Monmouth are like the bookends of an age.
The House of the Initiates was the guardian of the myths. They did their work so well that the old pagan deities are present even in such a late retelling of the legend as Sir Thomas Mallory’s. We are startled at the ease with which pagan beliefs and practices co-exist with Christianity in these stories. Even in the late middle ages of Mallory, British Christianity was a very special and peculiar variety, closer perhaps to the original strain than it had ever been to Imperial Orthodoxy. Earlier, we noted the close connections in the early Roman era and even before the conquest, between Cornwall and the Mediterranean. The Coptic influence on early Celtic religious art was noted, along with the Gnostic vision of a spiritual Christ, and a physical Jesus.
The recent archeological discoveries indicate that this Coptic, or Egyptian connection continued right up to the emergence of the Saxon Kingdoms at the end of the seventh century. By then, the Coptic Christians had been killed or converted to Islam. This closeness between the Gnostic Copts and the British Pelagian Druids created a version of Christianity that was virtually unique.
More fundamentalist and austere than the Imperial Orthodoxy, the Celtic Church was always closer to the people and their needs. Their clergy were beloved and learned men, as opposed to the orthodox political appointees, who were concerned with incomes and sinecure, not saving souls or relieving suffering. The greatest difference lay in the church’s treatment of women.
Celtic women had always been unusually free. In a passage of pillow talk in The Cattle Raid of Cooley, an ancient Irish epic poem, we find Queen Medb, Shakespeare’s Queen Mab, telling her lover, King Ailill, that she needs a man equal to her in generosity, boldness and spirit. Most of all, though, she requires a man free from jealousy, because, as she tells him with engaging directness, “I never had one man without another waiting in his shadow.” To soothe the King’s ego, even Celtic males could be deflated by a comment such as that one, Medb goes on to say that she had found “the kind of man she wanted: Rus Ruad’s son — yourself Ailill.”
Celtic women had character, to be sure, even Arthur has his “second” or spiritual wife in the usage of the ancient Celts. Guinevere is Arthur’s Goddess wife, the source of the king’s vitality and potency, as the stories of her abduction by an underworld figure makes clear. The pagan Celtic ambiance is unmistakable in these stories, even when they are told in French with Lancelot as the abductor. As the memory of Rome faded after generations of independent government, Arthur, the perfect Roman war chief and would-be Emperor, became the glittering Hero-King out of the most ancient stories.
We can not be sure that the women in the generation after Arthur were just as free as their ancient sisters, Roman culture and Christianity had eroded this tradition somewhat, but even in the Celtic Church, women had an equality that was disturbing to the more orthodox. A letter has survived from the sixth century from a bishop or some other local authority to two priests, Lovocrat and Catihern or Brittany, warning them against employing women in the celebration of the mass, as the Britons did. It seems that the Celtic variety of Christianity found it needed both the God and Goddess at the altar of the Dying God. These woman priests were officially known as conhospitae, and they administered the wine as the priest offered the host.
It was not until Charlemagne impressed the Imperial Church on the west that the priest became a servant of the secular state, and the priestess completely disappeared. The governmental structure of the Church, and later its inquisitional might, destroyed any local modification of procedure. Women, of course, could pursue a life of devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. It s hard to see Queen Medb doing this, but all too often, the nunneries became holding pens for unwanted or politically dangerous noble women. Other than the nunnery, the Imperial church offered little to the spiritually inclined women of the medieval period. No wonder the heretical faiths, most of whom offered some form of participation for women, caught on with such intensity, and created such martyrs.
We will examine some of these other heretical faiths later. Many of them have a direct bearing on the nature of what would come to be called witchcraft, the real source of which can be found in the post-Roman world of peasant agriculture and its mysteries of life and death and birth.
Tags: fall of rome, holy grail, king arthur, rome