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2008

September

The legend of king Arthur
WHAT IS CAMELOT

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2008 (3:13 AM)

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WHAT IS CAMELOT

(I'm feeling cheerful)

What is camelot,who is camelot

1)

Camelot is the most famous fictional castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Later romance depicts it as the fantastic capital of Arthur's realm, from which he fought many of the battles and quests that made up his life. Camelot as a place is associated with ideals like justice, bravery and truth, the virtues Arthur and his knights embody in the romances. It is absent from the early material, and its location, if it even existed, is in Britain. Most modern academic scholars regard it as being entirely fictional, its geography being perfect for romance writers; Arthurian scholar Norris J. Lacy commented that "Camelot can be anywhere."[1] Nevertheless arguments about the location of the "real Camelot" have occurred since the 15th century and continue to rage today in popular works and for tourism purposes.

2)

The castle is mentioned for the first time in Chrétien de Troyes' poem Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, dating to the 1170s, though it is not mentioned in all the manuscripts.[2] It is mentioned in passing, and is not described:

A un jor d'une Acenssion / Fu venuz de vers Carlion / Li rois Artus et tenu ot / Cort molt riche a Camaalot / Si riche com au jor estut.
Upon a certain Ascension Day King Arthur had come from Caerleon, and had held a very magnificent court at Camelot as was fitting on such a day.

Nothing in Chrétien's poem suggests the level of importance Camelot would have in later romances. For Chrétien, Arthur's chief court was in Caerleon in Wales; this was the king's primary base in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae and most subsequent literature. Chrétien pictured Arthur, like a typical medieval monarch, holding court at a number of cities and castles. It is not until the 13th century French prose romances, including the Lancelot-Grail and the Post-Vulgate Cycle, that Camelot began to supersede Caerleon, and even then, many descriptive details applied to Camelot derive from Geoffrey's earlier grand depiction of the Welsh town. Arthurian romances of this period produced in English or Welsh such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight did not follow this trend; Camelot was referred to infrequently and only in translations from French. In Britain Arthur's court continued to be located at Caerleon, or at Carlisle, which is usually identified with the "Carduel" of the French romances.[5] It was not until the late 15th century Thomas Malory created the image of Camelot most familiar to English speakers today in his Le Morte d'Arthur, a work based mostly on the French romances. He firmly identifies Camelot with Winchester, an identification that remained popular over the centuries, though it was rejected by Malory's own editor, William Caxton, who preferred a Welsh location.
3)

Etymology

The name's derivation is also unknown. Some have suggested it is similar enough to other Iron Age and Romano-British place names such as Camulodunum to suggest some historicity, while that particular locale was the first capital of Roman Britain and would have significance in Romano-British culture. Indeed Dr. John Morris (1913 - June 1977) the English historian who specialised in the study of the institutions of the Roman Empire and the history of Sub-Roman Britain, suggested in his book "The Age of Arthur" (1973) that as the descendents of Romanised Britons looked back to a golden age of peace and prosperity under Rome the name "Camelot" of Arturian legend was probably a reference to the capital of Britannia (Camulodunum) in Roman times. If historical the first part of it, Cam, could also reflect the Celtic word meaning "crooked" which is commonly used in place names as seen in Camlann. Given Chrétien's known tendency to create new stories and characters, being the first to mention the hero Lancelot and his love afffair with Queen Guinevere for example, the name might also be entirely invented.

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