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TheMatter of Britain (French:matière de Bretagne;Welsh:Mater Prydain;Cornish:Mater Brythain;Breton:Afer Breizh-Veur) is the body ofmedieval literature andlegendary material associated withGreat Britain andBrittany and thelegendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularlyKing Arthur. The 12th-century writerGeoffrey of Monmouth'sHistoria Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain) is a central component of the Matter of Britain.
It was one of the three great Westernstory cycles recalled repeatedly in medieval literature, together with theMatter of France, which concerned the legends ofCharlemagne and hiscompanions, as well as theMatter of Rome, which included material derived from or inspired byclassical mythology andclassical history.[1] Its pseudo-chronicle andchivalric romance works, written both in prose and verse, flourished from the 12th to the 16th century.
The three "matters" were first described in the 12th century by French poetJean Bodel, whose epicChanson des Saisnes [fr] ("Song of the Saxons") contains the lines:
Ne sont que III matières à nul homme atandant:
De France et de Bretaigne et de Rome la grant
There are only three subject matters for any discerning man:
That of France, that of Britain, and that of great Rome.[2]
The name distinguishes and relates the Matter of Britain from the mythological themes taken fromclassical antiquity, the "Matter of Rome", and from the tales of thePaladins ofCharlemagne and their wars with theMoors andSaracens, which constitute the "Matter of France".
King Arthur is the chief subject of the Matter of Britain. The others are stories related to thelegendary kings of Britain, as well as lesser-known topics related to the history ofGreat Britain andBrittany, such as the stories ofBrutus of Troy,Coel Hen,Leir of Britain (King Lear), andGogmagog.
Geoffrey of Monmouth'sHistoria Regum Britanniae is a central component of the Matter of Britain. Geoffrey drew on a number of ancient British texts, including the 9th-centuryHistoria Brittonum, the earliest known source of the story ofBrutus of Troy. Traditionally attributed toNennius, its actual compiler is unknown; it exists in several recensions. This tale went on to achieve greater currency because its inventor linked Brutus to the diaspora of heroes that followed theTrojan War.[3] As such, this material could be used for patriotic myth-making just asVirgil linked thefounding of Rome to the Trojan War inThe Æneid. Geoffrey lists Coel Hen as aKing of the Britons,[4] whose daughter, Helena, marriesConstantius Chlorus and gives birth to a son who becomes the EmperorConstantine the Great, thus tracing the Roman imperial line to British ancestors. It prominently included the King Arthur material, in which thepost-Roman Britons led by Arthur briefly conquer much of Europe, including Rome itself, in the style of great world conquerors of antiquity.[5]
According to John J. Davenport, the question of Britain's identity and significance in the world "was a theme of special importance for writers trying to find unity in the mixture of their land's Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Roman and Norse inheritance."[3] Geoffrey's pseudo-history succeeded in providing a body ofnational myth for the newNorman England, portraying theNorman Conquest as a restoration of Britain of theCeltic Britons, delivered from the rule of Arthur's ancient enemies, theAnglo-Saxons.[6][7] Geoffrey's work, especially the Arthur material, was further expanded on and reworked by later medieval chroniclers in his wake.[5]
Others also drew from the early Arthurian and pseudo-historical sources of the Matter of Britain. TheScots, for instance, formulated a mythical history in thePictish and theDál Riata royal lines. While they do eventually become factual lines, unlike those of Geoffrey, their origins are vague and often incorporate both aspects of mythical British history andmythical Irish history.William Shakespeare was interested in the legendary history of Britain. His plays contain several tales relating to these legendary kings, such asKing Lear andCymbeline. These tales also figure inRaphael Holinshed'sThe Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which too appears in Shakespeare's sources forMacbeth.
The Arthurian legend (Frenchlégende arthurienne), also known as the Arthurian myth or Arthuriana, is the best-known part of the Matter of Britain. The "historical" (but already containing fantasy elements) Arthurian content of Geoffrey and his successors (notablyWace), along with Welsh and Breton tales (notably theMabinogion), many of them now-lost oral traditions and unrecordedtroubadour works,[8] became the foundation for writers of Arthurianchivalric romances. Many, more or less fantastical, stories in verse and prose came out from France and later England (due to its close ties with France), as well as various other European countries, in the sub-genre known as Arthurian romance that first emerged in Northern France during the second half of the 12th century.[9][10][11] Besides the creation of original works of Arthurian romance in France and other countries (notably in Germany since the late 12th century), in particular the works of the Francophone poetry such as the works ofChrétien de Troyes and prose such as theVulgate Cycle circulated widely across cultures, having been translated (and often altered) in many countries throughout Europe.[9]
The Arthurian tales have been changed throughout time, and other characters have been added to add backstory and expand on various members of Arthur's chivalric order, theKnights of the Round Table. The medieval legend of Arthur and his knights is full of Christian themes, notably the quest for an important Christian relic, theHoly Grail. Another major element involves relationships in the tradition ofcourtly love, such as these betweenLancelot andGuinevere orTristan and Iseult.[5][8] Arthurian romance's English-language quasi-canon, based on French prose cycles and some other works, was eventually established byThomas Malory in his 15th-century compilationLe Morte d'Arthur, which continues to be highly influential today.[12]
The advanced manifestation of Arthurian romance in its cyclical prose forms, beginning in the 13th century (i.e.Lancelot-Grail,Post-Vulgate, Malory's compilation), contains two interlocking threads. One concerns Arthur's kingdom ofLogres and his court ofCamelot, usually envisioned as a doomed utopia ofchivalric virtue, undone by the fatal flaws of the heroes like Arthur,Gawain, and Lancelot, and their moral and spiritual failures. The other concerns the history of the Grail, or at very least (Malory) of the grand quests of the various knights to achieve it: some succeed (Galahad,Perceval) while others fail.[5][8] Many of these and other key or iconic motifs and elements (e.g. the Grail, Camelot,Excalibur,Merlin, or the romance of Lancelot and Guinevere) have been first either introduced or modified and popularised by French poets Chrétien de Troyes (often drawing on Celtic sources) andRobert de Boron.[5]
Once an enormously popular subject, the interest in the Arthurian legend largely waned by the end of the Middle Ages, albeit continuing in England and through theItalian Renaissance and theFrench Renaissance.[13][14] By the 17th century it would be still considerably holding out only in England and to some degree in France, before fading away there too.[5][14] The 19th-centuryRomanticist revival brought it back to the modern era, first in theVictorian Britain and then around the world.[5]
In modern times, since both theCeltic Revival and the renewed interest in Arthuriana in the 19th century,[15] there have been attempts by the Celticist scholars and folklorists (e.g.Albert Pauphilet,Alfred Nutt,Arthur Charles Lewis Brown,Emmanuel Cosquin,Gaston Paris,George Lyman Kittredge,John Rhŷs, et al) to link the tales of King Arthur and the Grail withCeltic mythology, usually in highly romanticized, reconstructed versions.[16][17][18][19] The trend arguably peaked by the middle 20th century withRoger Sherman Loomis and Jean Marx.[16] Various Arthurian characters have been identified withCeltic deities: for exampleMorgan le Fay as originating from the Welsh goddessModron or IrishThe Morrígan.[20] Similarly, Geoffrey's Leir of Britain, who later became the Shakespearean King Lear, has been connected to the Welsh sea-godLlŷr, related to the IrishLer.[21] Much of Arthurian content without a doubt does have roots in ancient Celtic British material, but which had been already Christianised and otherwise transformed (if not just forgotten) by the 12th century.[8]
Another school of Arthurian scholarship, the mythologists, concerned themselves rather with researching the nature of myth.[16] One theme explored by mythologistJoseph Campbell amongst others is to read the Arthurian literature, particularly the Grail tradition, as an allegory of human development and spiritual growth.[22] Yet another school became known as the ritualists (e.g.Jessie L. Weston, William A. Nitze),[17] their identifications coming from the speculativecomparative religion.[23] Weston's 1920From Ritual to Romance traced Arthurian imagery through Christianity to roots in early nature worship and vegetation rites, though this interpretation is no longer fashionable.[24] More recent unconventional schools of Arthurian scholarship include the anthropologist proponents of theScythian/Sarmatian origins theory (notablyC. Scott Littleton),[18] and the classicists and others looking back to the works ofclassical antiquity (e.g. Graham Anderson,Carolyne Larrington).[18][25] There is also a long-going debate regardingthe possible existence of Arthur as a historical figure, with many candidates for such a hypothetical historical Arthur having been brought forth by various authors.
