The Figure of Arthur
by Richard Barber.
Longman, 1972.
Arthur of Albion, published in 1961 when the author was 20, was Richard Barber’s first book on Arthur. The present one is a reaction against the current vision,¹ among others, of a Cadbury-based Arthur:
“[T]he orthodox view of Arthur is in danger of becoming accepted as fact by default of a challenger. […] If it seems that all that has been achieved [in this book] is to offer a different but equally insubstantial shadow we can expect no more.”
This “historical Arthur” postulated by current opinion [1973] is an attractive theory but it has its difficulties, he says.
- Documentary evidence in itself is insufficient: the authority of the evidence has to be considered since the writing of history was formerly regarded as a literary activity and not as the objective recording of facts.
- Archaeology rarely supplements historical detail but instead “provides the forest which the historian cannot see for trees.”
- Psychological traps abound for the unwary; since history abhors a vacuum a shape-shifting figure must be created by each era to fulfil its aspirational requirements.
Calmgrove 