Local Places and the Arthurian Tradition, 1400-1700

Places have the power to suspend our disbelief, even about unbelievable subjects. This is especially true when it comes to the subject of King Arthur: R. D. Blackmore wrote that, aside from the devil, there is no other legendary figure with more local associations than Arthur. How and why did Arthur come to proliferate so much across the English and Welsh landscape? What role did the medieval custodians of Arthurian spaces and places – abbeys, churches, cathedrals, and castles – have to play in “placing” Arthur? How did visitors like William Worcester and John Leland experience Arthur in situ, and how did their experiences permeate into wider Arthurian tradition? And why, in history and today, have particular places proven so powerful in defending the impression of Arthur’s reality?

This book provides the first in-depth study of Arthurian places in the late medieval and early modern periods. Beginning with on-site experiences of Arthur at locations such as Glastonbury, York, Dover, and Cirencester, I trace the impact that these places had: directly, on visitors such as John Hardyng and William Camden; and indirectly, filtered through the medium of text. The local Arthur can be followed in and out of chronicles, stained glass windows, earthworks, display tablets, itinerant notebooks, published defences, and antiquarian works. By piecing together the material and textual evidence, a new history of Arthur begins to emerge: a local history.