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Regarding Arthurian England, Bede wrote his history of England less than 200 years after Arthur supposedly ruled, and before Arthur appears in written stories.
by gregjor 6y ago
Regarding Arthurian England, Bede wrote his history of England less than 200 years after Arthur supposedly ruled, and before Arthur appears in written stories. We know about Athelstan and Cnut, because people did write things down. Britain still had Roman cities at the supposed time of Arthur. There may be something to the Arthur story but it’s not accepted as history. We do know a lot about the period just before from Roman documents, and have documentation of other rulers from the period.
Written and printed records do not guarantee historical accuracy. The Lord of the Rings is just as long as the Arthur stories, and just as vivid, but not real.
- WalterBright 6y ago> Written and printed records do not guarantee historical accuracy. Jeez, I never said they did. They're better than a vacuum, though. Many suspicious historical accounts have been verified by later archaeological discoveries. For example, some accounts of Jamestown have turned out to be correct, and the descriptions of Richard III's curved spine turned out to be correct, and not just propaganda by his detractors. I also know that the history of England entered the "Dark Ages" after the Romans left, not because they were literally dark, but because little is known about it. 200 years is a long time. The paucity of records: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur#Historicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur#Historicity is where the legends come from.