Britain around AD 500, the time of the historical King Arthur, showing a possible location for the battle of Badon.

In the Middle Ages many tales were written about King Arthur and his knights. Although many themes within these so-called Arthurian romances are clearly invention, a much older manuscript - written three centuries before the earliest of these tales was composed - records that Arthur was an historical figure.  According to the work of the ninth-century Welsh monk Nennius, Arthur was one of the last native British leaders to make a successful stand against the Anglo-Saxons who invaded the country from their homeland in Denmark and northern Germany in the fifth and sixth centuries AD.  This was during the Dark Ages: an era of tribal feuding that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Nennius does not say where Arthur originated but he does list his battles and the last of them, the battle of Badon, is datable from a separate historical source: the work of the British monk Gildas who wrote within living memory of the event.  In his On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain, dating from the mid-6th century, he makes reference to the event occurring around AD 500.

If Arthur lived in the late fifth century, as Nennius records, he would not have been a medieval king in shining armor, but a Celtic warlord struggling against invasion by the Anglo-Saxons.  The reason that Arthur is now portrayed as a medieval-style king of many centuries later is that writers of the Middle Ages tended to set ancient stories, such as the legends of Greece and Rome, in their own historical context - a context of knighthood and chivalry.  If Nennius’ Arthur really existed, he and his warriors would have been very different from the Knights of the Round Table.  The warlords of the fifth century wore Roman-style armor, and their fortifications were not huge, Gothic castles, but wooden stockades.

In the popular Arthurian stories the Knights of the Round Table are depicted as medieval warriors of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as shown in these traditional paintings.  The black and white drawing prepared by military expert Dan Shadrake show the real armor and weapons of Arthur’s time.

In the Arthurian romances Arthur is Britain’s one true king. According to Nennius, however, he is the leader of an alliance of British kings.  Either way, if he existed, Arthur must presumably have ruled from the country’s mightiest stronghold.  Historically, around AD 500 Britain had fragmented into a number of smaller kingdoms - the largest and strongest of which was the kingdom of Powys.  Now merely a Welsh county, in the late fifth and early sixth centuries Powys covered much of what is now the center of England and Wales.  If Arthur existed, he must surely have come from Powys, the heart of which was in what is now the country of Shropshire.

So who did rule the kingdom of Powys around 500 AD?  A tenth-century manuscript detailing the family trees of important Dark Age chieftains, catalogued as Harleian MS 3859 in the British Library, provides us with the answer.  He is one Owain Ddantgwyn - Owain White Tooth - the son of a warlord named Enniaun Girt.

At first it seems that the most powerful British leader when Arthur is said to have lived was not called Arthur after all.  However, closer examination reveals that the name "Arthur" was not a personal name but a battle-name - a title.  Many Dark Age kings were given honorary battle names; often the name of a real or mythical beast which was thought to typify their qualities.  Owain’s father Enniaun was known as the Dragon, and after him many British warlords used this name.  It eventually became the crest of the kings of Wales and its image can still be seen on the Welsh flag.  Owain’s battle name was the Bear, and his descendants that later became the earls of the English county of Warwickshire adopted the animal for their heraldic crest.

The Welsh flag with the dragon of Enniaun Girt and the Warwick crest showing the bear emblem adopted by the descendants of Owain Ddantgwyn. 

It is surely too much of a coincidence that in legend Arthur’s father was called Uther Pendragon, which in Brythonic – the old British language - meant “the terrible head dragon”, while Owain’s father was called the Dragon.  Moreover, the name Arthur comes from the old Brythonic word meaning “the Bear”.  In fact, in modern Welsh, which derived directly from Brythonic, Arth is still the word for a bear.   Owain Ddantgwyn would, therefore, have been known as Arthur.

In AD 500, Britain’s most powerful ruler was Owain Ddantgwyn of Powys.    Like Owain, Arthur is said to have lived around AD 500 and was the most powerful ruler in Britain.  The fact that Owain was known by the title Arthur must mean that he was one and the same as the famous legendary king. 

The Legendary Arthur

A 19th-century painting by Frank Dicksee depicts a medieval monarch in golden armor.  This is the traditional image we have come to associate with King Arthur.

The Historical Arthur

Illustration by military expert Dan Shadrake showing Arthur in genuine Roman-style armor of the fifth century.  If Arthur was an historical figure then this is how he would have looked.