Page:Le Morte d'Arthur - Volume 1.djvu/14

Rh man filling it would be himself supreme, having no longer any lord, such as the Roman emperor, over him. This position seems to have been Arthur’s, and one has accordingly no difficulty in understanding how he came to fight battles at places so far apart from one another. For, though the majority of the twelve battles were fought in what we now call the North of England or the South of Scotland, some of them undoubtedly took place in the south of the Island, such as the battle of Urbs Legionis, which must have been either Chester on the Dee or Caerleon on the Usk; and still farther south must have been that of Mons Badonis. In a word, Arthur moved about in Britain just as Agricola or Severus would have done, and without necessarily being one of the kings of the Brythons, he would seem to have been over and above them. This must have been a position which would in time cause all kinds of heroic legends to be associated with the name of the man filling it. Add to this the numerous opportunities for the display of valour on behalf of a bleeding country provided by the invasions of Germanic tribes from the Continent, and by the incursions of Picts and Scots from the outlying portions of the British Isles, and we have the full explanation of no inconsiderable part of the wondrous fame of Arthur and his Men in subsequent ages.

The next references to Arthur, which deserve to be mentioned, occur in the Annales Cambriæ, the oldest existing manuscript of which was completed in 954 or 955. The first entry occurs under the year 516, and reads as follows:—

The next entry in point comes under the year 537, and runs thus —

The Bellum Badonis of the Annales Cambriæ is the same battle undoubtedly as Nennius’ bellum in Monte Badonis. But the statement as to Arthur carrying the cross of Christ on his shoulders has been surmised to be a mistranslation of Welsh words representing him carrying a figure of the cross in his shield; since the Welsh for shoulder would have been written