The Legends of King Arthur (2001–…): Season 1, Episode 3 - Camelot - full transcript
[music playing]
BOB WHELAN: Camelot and Arthur--
one would be unthinkable
without the other.
It is a familiar
part of the legend
that Arthur set up his
court to rule from Camelot.
According to one version
of the Arthurian story,
King Arthur loved Camelot all
his life above all other cities
that he owned.
Now, in that far off country
where history and legend
are just branches
of the same tree,
they will never be separated.
[winds howling]
But is it just the
link with Arthur
that draws us to Camelot.
It is true that Arthur is at
the very center of Camelot,
but the city itself is a
worthwhile destination,
whether Arthur is at home or
out and about righting wrongs.
As the medieval work "The
Death of King Arthur" puts it,
"when Bors arrived at court
in the city of Camelot
from the faraway lands of
Jerusalem, he was overjoyed."
[crowd cheers]
[music playing]
[birds chirping]
There is a problem
that must be faced
at the outset of any
exploration of Camelot,
and it is insurmountable.
Quite simply and brutally,
there is no such place.
Any attempt to identify
the Camelot of King Arthur
is pointless.
DON SHADRAKE:
Camelot didn't exist.
It seems simply didn't exist.
It was first mentioned as
a name by the French writer
in the 12th century
called Chretien de Troyes.
And he mentions Camelot--
it's a very throwaway reference,
a very passing reference,
in a title about Sir Lancelot.
He was certainly mentioned--
well, the power base of Arthur
was mentioned before then.
Geoffrey of Monmouth
refers to Caerleon,
and he also refers to London
and Winchester as well.
But we keep coming back
to this Camelot question
again and again and again.
And I think when Chretien de
Troyes first penned the name,
I think it did something.
It sparked a public imagination.
And it sparked something
that hasn't really left us.
[music playing]
Chretien de Troyes probably
got the name of Camelot
from a corruption
of the Roman name
for Colchester, Camelodunum
Why he would choose that name
is still a mystery today.
The classical Roman
writer Pliny mentioned it
in his "Natural History."
It is entirely
possible that Chretien
just liked the sound of it
and gave it a French twist.
There's less
mystery about Camelot
than practically any other
part of the Arthurian legend.
Camelot is Colchester, which
in the central Middle Ages
is this big, spectacular
ruined Roman town.
It's still got its
gigantic Roman walls,
with a big ceremonial gateway.
You can't go to Colchester on
a high wind now [inaudible]
a bit of ancient Rome
hitting you on the head.
And by the 12th century,
when troubadours in France
were looking at
Britain, Colchester
was the big, spectacular
Roman town that many of them
would know about.
And its Roman name
was Camelodunum
And that transforms into
Camelot for a medieval tongue.
And so it's simply
a way of localizing
the Arthurian capital
in a place which
is high profile, which
people on the continent
know about, and
seems to make sense.
[music playing]
BOB WHELAN: There is
also another Camelodunum,
a small Roman fort at Slack,
in Yorkshire, which merely goes
to show that it was not
an uncommon place name,
deriving from the name of
the Celtic war god, Camulos.
Neither Colchester nor slack
has any known link to Arthur.
[thunder]
[music playing]
Whatever the origin of the
name, it is clear that from then
on, as other medieval
writers added their own ideas
about Camelot, word on
word, like stones in a wall,
the city grew until
the magnificent seat
of Arthur's power had
been raised literally
from a foundation of thin air.
But not one of
those writers ever
supplied his exact
geographical location.
This is what makes the quest
for Camelot so daunting--
and yet so seductive.
Camelot symbolizes the
other world, the place--
a sort of heavenly city,
like Jerusalem, the Jerusalem
of the Celts, if you like.
And like everything to do
with the Arthurian story,
it seems to be
happening on two planes.
It's happening in
historical time,
and yet it's also immortal.
DON SHADRAKE: Camelot
is the ideal city.
It's the power base of
King Arthur, the King
Arthur of legend as well.
The two go very,
very close together.
It is impossible to
extract one from the other.
To the medieval reader, Camelot
represented order, justice.
It represented a wonderful ideal
of what society should be like.
And I think those
particular ideals have come
down to us at the present day.
And I think that's
why it's captured
our imaginations so much.
[birds chirping]
BOB WHELAN: Camelot has
had a powerful appeal
down the centuries.
But even though it has never
existed, except on paper
and in the imaginations
of its readers,
there is the unspoken hope
that it is out there somewhere,
waiting to be discovered.
That alone is enough to
guarantee its immortality.
[crowd noise]
This program will show
how a city that can never
be located on any map
is still attracting
pilgrims, even today.
We will look at the evidence
for the real Camelot
and explore its
relationship to the Camelot
we have come to know.
Finally, we will examine
its enduring attraction
as a potent symbol of
kingship at the dawn
of the second millennium.
[dramatic music playing]
The search for Camelot has been
going on for many centuries.
But what is it that
people are looking for?
As with most things, it depends
on what we mean by Camelot.
[horses neighing]
The popular view is that it was
the realm of King Arthur, where
justice and fairness were
enforced by his Knights
of the Round Table.
Camelot was at once a
high-turreted castle,
a many-towered city, and the
kingdom where Arthur reigned.
No archaeologist can ever hope
to find the physical remains
of that site.
It is a vain quest,
because that Camelot
was custom built
around an Arthur
who existed only in legend.
[battle sounds]
Originally an obscure
Dark Age figure,
perhaps a general
or warlord, his fame
grew as the centuries passed.
And that was the process
which turned him into a King.
At that point, a
castle and a kingdom
became necessities duly
supplied by writers and poets
like Geoffrey of Monmouth,
Chretien the Troyes,
and later, of course,
Sir Thomas Malory.
Malory, like Chretien
de Troyes and a number
of other writers, you've
got to realize were A,
writing after the
event, and B, they
were putting it into contextual
and contemporary feel.
Therefore, you
arrive at visions,
Hollywood visions almost,
of Camelot with plate armor.
RONALD HUTTON: Camelot's
the absolutely ideal
fairy tale castle.
Royal courts have
always been glamorous.
And the great
thing about Camelot
is it's a royal court which is
the seat of the greatest King
that the British Isles and
Northwest Europe have ever
known in legend and with
the most glittering array
of personal followers, the
Knights of the Round Table,
but also this constant
relationship, the supernatural,
with the wizard Merlin,
with the Lady of the Lake
in the background, and the
way that every time Arthur is
celebrating a big
feast, something weird
happens, enters the hall
and starts a new quest.
And so Camelot is is
in one way the greatest
royal court of the Middle Ages,
the legendary Middle Ages.
In another way, it's in
the borders of fairy land.
And as such, it covers
the base of practically
every bit of red medieval
romance you'd hope to look for.
BOB WHELAN: To a people torn
by chaos and destruction,
Camelot stood for order
and the rule of law
in a barbaric world
of brutal warfare.
It was a haven, a
sanctuary from evil doers,
giants, and monsters.
In Arthur's Camelot
stood the Round Table,
that ultimate
symbol of chivalry,
based on the twin codes of
honor and Christian virtue.
[chatter]
Beyond its walls, the wilderness
threatened to overwhelm
the poor and helpless.
Any defenseless
or wronged person
had only to appeal to the
Round Table at Camelot
in order to receive
protection or restitution.
Our longing for justice
and a fair society
make us hunger for the
discovery of that Camelot.
DON SHADRAKE: Camelot
appeals to, I think,
this longing that we have
for an ideal society,
a good government, a government
that is without corruption,
a government that basically
makes sure that the trash is
emptied every day, a government
that makes sure that you are
protected, a government
that looks after you,
a government that make sure
the drains always run free.
And you really are encapsulated
in a society of trust.
RONALD HUTTON:
Camelot's got everything
you need to make a nation work.
It's got a charismatic leader.
It's got devoted followers.
It's got magic on its side.
It's got goodness,
truth, and beauty.
And yet it's fatally flawed.
There are at least two
serpents in this Eden.
And they are the figures
you'd most admire--
that's Lancelot and Guinevere.
And then when a really big one
arrives in the form of Mordred,
the whole lot goes to pieces.
So it's a story of
how absolute good
could be absolutely corrupted.
It's a very Christian tale.
DON SHADRAKE: Camelot
certainly has inspired people.
It's inspired poets.
It's inspired artists.
The whole thing has become a
fantastic propaganda machine.
And really I think it
really is something
that just can't be ignored.
[music playing]
BOB WHELAN: Of all cities,
Camelot was the most beautiful.
No wonder then that,
to the medieval reader,
it rivaled Jerusalem, Rome,
and the heavenly city itself
as an idyllic city-state
of golden perfection.
For writers and
poets, Camelot was
an opportunity to test
their powers of description
as never before.
Here are the words of
Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
bringing alive his vision
of Arthur's capital
to a Victorian audience.
"On the latest limits of the
west in the land of Lyonnesse,
where, save the rocky Isles of
Scilly, all is now wild sea,
rose the sacred
Mount of Camelot.
It rose from the deeps
with gardens and bowers
and palaces, and at
the top of the Mount
was King Arthur's Hall
and the holy minster
with the Cross of Gold.
Here dwelt the King in glory
apart, while the Saxons
he had overthrown in 12
battles ravaged the land
and ever came
nearer and nearer."
[chatter]
These were Tennyson's earliest
words on the subject of Arthur.
And his stirring
picture of Camelot
is one we all
recognize and love,
with its echoes of Tintagel,
Arthur's fabled birthplace.
It stays in the memory.
It feels true.
Yet we must remember it is not.
Searching for
many-towered Camelot
will lead us down a blind alley.
It is time to look for
Arthur's real home.
[birds calling]
[dramatic music playing]
[chatter]
The earliest stories
of Arthur, as preserved
in the Welsh "Mabinogion" and
the "Black Book of Carmarthen,"
give no clue as to the
whereabouts of Arthur's court.
But then, why should they?
They celebrate an actual heroic
figure remembered as a warlord,
not a king.
Arthur is described as
Arth Llu, meaning bear
of the host, head of the
battalions of Cornwall,
and most strong in valor.
[battle sounds]
In old Welsh, the
word "arth," or bear,
was frequently used
to denote a warrior.
We must have lost many of
the Welsh Arthurian poems
and stories.
But it is clear that
the ones that survive
owe nothing to Geoffrey's
rewriting of history.
Many were clearly composed
long before Geoffrey
transformed the bear of
the host into King Arthur.
Their authors would
not have been concerned
with courts and castles.
These poems had their
roots in the dark ages,
long before the arrival
of the medieval world
of chivalry and monarchy.
Their Arthur is a gritty,
seasoned campaigner,
a commander of cavalry, a
slayer of monsters, above all,
a man of great courage.
We know practically nothing
of the Arthur of history--
just a few tantalizing
references in early histories,
lives of saints,
and epic poetry are
all the evidence we have for his
genuine historical existence.
But historians who have made an
in-depth study of the Britain
of the fifth and sixth centuries
are confident that Arthur
is no myth.
It is that Arthur, the great
soldier who fought and won
battles all over Britain, whose
Camelot we must seek if we are
to have any hope of success.
From the 16th century onwards,
students of antiquities
were especially keen
on anything to do
with the location of Camelot.
Malory's "Morte d'Arthur"
in the 1fifth century
had stirred up fresh interest,
identifying it with Winchester
because of the
Round Table hanging
on the wall of the great
hall of Winchester castle.
DON SHADRAKE: Winchester,
essentially, is very,
very heavily associated with
the Saxon kings, particularly
Alfred.
I mean, it was a
Roman town initially.
But the Saxon kings,
obviously, it was quite
an important center for them.
But why it's so heavy
involved, why the Arthur story,
why Camelot is so heavily
involved with Winchester
is because the vast
round table that
actually is still there now.
I think it was redecorated
in the times of Henry VIII.
But recent tests show
that that round table is
way out for any particular
engagement that would've
happened in the fifth
and sixth centuries,
because the round table
is actually, I think,
dated to the time of
Edward I. But obviously
it was important
enough to capture
medieval writers' imagination.
And I think that's why,
really, it has become so
heavily associated with Arthur.
[chatter]
BOB WHELAN: There is
another interesting aspect
to Malory's choice of Winchester
as the location of Camelot.
By a strange coincidence,
it was at Winchester
that the only so far discovered
manuscript copy of Malory's
original text was found.
But when Caxton came to
print the "Morte d'Arthur,"
he mentioned in his preface
that many living people had seen
the town of Camelot in
Wales, with its great stones
and marvelous works of
iron lying under the ground
and royal vaults.
[music playing]
It is assumed he was referring
to the visible remains
of the Roman town of
Caerleon, or perhaps Caerwent.
Geoffrey of Monmouth
had designated
Caerleon as Arthur's capital.
Caxton decided to transfer
the name of Camelot
to it, though Malory insisted
it was at Winchester.
Already, a profusion of
Camelots were springing up.
[birds chirping]
Geoffrey had already identified
the Roman Theater at Caerleon
as Arthur's Round
Table, adding yet more
spurious evidence
to the mounting pile
of historical red herrings.
[music playing]
Winchester, Caerleon, and
Caerwent, Camelodunum,
and London have all been
unsuccessful candidates
for Camelot.
If they fail, it is
because they appear
to have only medieval
connections linking them
to the Arthur of
legend rather than
actual links to the
historical figure of Arthur.
In fact, archaeologists have
been emphatic that there is
no archaeological
site whatsoever
where the presence of the
real person who is Arthur
can even be detected,
let alone proven.
Archeology has been able to
show us the world of Arthur,
but not his house.
[waves crashing]
That situation could
change tomorrow.
It would only take one
fragment of writing
to be pulled from the
Earth, and Camelot
and Arthur could be revealed.
This was the hope
when a piece of slate
with words scratched on it
was found at Tintagel in 1998.
It was being used
as a drain cover.
The words on it were
in a form of Latin
with earlier British elements.
And the way the
letters were formed
led experts to date
it at around 500 AD.
One word on it caused
a lot of interest.
It was "Artognou."
DON SHADRAKE: The
inscription says something
like pater [speaking latin]
Artognou, which roughly
translates as the father of
the descendant of Col arto,
or Artognou, the father
of the descendant of Col
had this built. It's showing
that the Latin culture,
the Latin language, persisted
outside the experience
of the clergy the fringes
of the Western Roman Empire
as late as the late
sixth century AD.
And it really displays that
somebody of power and influence
was hanging on to the Romanized
culture, the way of life.
Now, whether that was in the
military sense, whether it
was in the civil sense,
it's still there,
and it's undeniable.
BOB WHELAN: The British
name represented by Artognou
is Arthnou.
The first part of
the word, Arth,
uses the Celtic
root word for bear.
Many old Welsh names have it--
Arthmael and Arthien,
to name but two.
Experts are being careful
to play down any association
between the name on the
stone found at Tintagel
and the legendary figure of
Arthur, whose earliest recorded
link with that site was
made more than 600 years
later by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
[birds calling]
But it is only
human to wonder what
Arthnou this might have been and
what he was doing at Tintagel.
The official view is
that all the stone
proves is the use of the Celtic
element in a name of that time.
No one has ever claimed
that Tintagel was Camelot,
but evidence is such a rare
occurrence that even supposed
coincidences must be
borne in mind in the event
of future discoveries.
[waves crashing]
DON SHADRAKE: There were
definitely activity there
in the fifth and
sixth centuries AD.
A defensive ditch was built
across the bank that connected
the mainland to the actual
headland at Tintagel--
definitely quite
a large building
program going on in there
in the fifth century AD.
For me, one of most
fascinating-- not just
the actual [inaudible],,
the actual ditch that
was constructed, but
also the incredibly large
amounts of finds of
fine glass and pottery
not made in this country.
They're actually being imported
from the east, the eastern half
of the Roman Empire.
So somebody in the Celtic west
was trading with the Roman
east outside the experience
of the Saxon kingdoms.
And that, for me,
is fascinating.
In fact, for a lot of
people that really does
fire the imagination.
Who there was important
enough to have
a direct trade with the eastern
half of the Roman Empire?
[music playing]
BOB WHELAN: For the time being,
Tintagel lacks even the most
tenuous link with Arthur.
The excitement was misplaced
but understandable.
Yet, this Arthnou
had a warrior's name.
What was he doing on
the site of a monastery?
Unless the earth
gives up another clue,
we may never know.
[waves crashing]
[dramatic music playing]
[thunder]
[music playing]
[wind howling]
Almost every region of
Britain can boast at least one
or two would-be Camelots
Carlisle in Cumbria, Chester
in the Midlands,
Camelon in Scotland.
A particularly good
argument has been
made for the lost city of
Roxburgh in southern Scotland.
In most cases, the connection
depends on a similarity of name
or a reference to location in
the Arthurian poems, stories,
and histories.
In sum, it is tied to the
archaeological finds confirming
the specific type of
military and cavalry activity
we now associate with
Arthur's exploits.
[battle sounds]
Some base their claims
on local traditions
going back hundreds of years.
Of course, it can be a
combination of all these.
And to avoid
confusion, it is best
to leave aside the scores
of sites with Arthur names
all over Britain.
These tend to be
natural features or very
ancient monuments
predating Arthur,
to which the name of
Arthur has been applied,
such as Arthur Stone, Arthur's
Oven, and Arthur's Seat.
Just occasionally, some of them
may indeed be genuine sites
of true Arthurian date.
Arthur's seat in Edinburgh
falls within an area
where the real Arthur
may have been active.
But no definite
connection has been made.
[music playing]
[horses galloping]
[horse neighs]
One point often made about
the historical Arthur
is that he was, in
all probability,
a cavalry commander,
leading highly mobile troops
on very fast Roman roads.
So perhaps it is not surprising
that towns and cities, villages
and settlements, the length
and breadth of Britain
all claim the honor of
association with him.
Perhaps it is a modern
desire to enthrone
the ruler in one capital
city that influences
our quest for Camelot.
In any case, why should
there be just one Camelot?
Arthur may well have had several
operational headquarters,
depending on his
military priorities.
[battle sounds]
ARTHUR UTHER PENDRAGON: When
you talk about the Knights
of the Round Table,
in essence you're
looking at a light cavalry
unit of Dark Age warriors
who were riding
around the country
repelling raiders, Irish
raiders, down in Cornwall,
repelling Saxons, trying to push
the borders closer and closer
into the Celtic lands.
And as they traveled
around the nation,
they would indeed use local
forces, local chieftains.
And when Arthur would turn
up, he'd say, come on,
we need a hill fort
there, because one
thing the Arthur figure
was was a pendragon
and a battle chieftain.
So when he suggested we
have a hill fought there,
they'd build the defenses up.
And later, when people maybe
three, four generations down
the line would say, well,
you know, whose fort is this,
for instance.
They'd say, well, it's Arthur's,
because of course Arthur
instigated it.
DON SHADRAKE: If someone were
conducting a sort of campaign,
they would have certainly
several different stations
they'd probably
be using as a base
to sort of strike
against the Saxons.
And it probably might
account for the fact
that there are so many
references to Arthur
spread across such a
wide area and the fact
that he can't be pinned down
to any one specific location.
[birds chirping]
BOB WHELAN: From the
poetic point of view,
operational HQ sounds
very unromantic.
But the medieval
castle is no different.
It is just that
we have forgotten
its original function.
So maybe Arthur had
several Camelots
dotted about the country, each
with their own special place
in his military strategy.
Another consideration is that
if his forces were substantial,
he could not have maintained
them in any one place for very
long, since they would drain
the resources of an area
quite quickly.
He would have had to move them
from one center to another,
reinforcing his need for
several strongholds at least.
DON SHADRAKE: If one
subscribes to the fact
that Romano-British
factions were preserving
the manners and customs not only
of the culture of Rome that had
actually seceded, but also the
military practices of Rome,
then they would
probably try to ape
the Romans, in that they would
take a marching camp with them.
ARTHUR UTHER PENDRAGON: I see
Camelot as a nomadic court,
basically, because at
the head of Camelot
we have a pendragon and
battle chieftain called Arthur
with a light cavalry unit
flying around fighting
in many different places
throughout the Isles.
And obviously, in
order to do that,
he would have to put up his
court from place to place,
and it would be a
very transitory.
Not only that, he would spend
times fortifying the Isles
and putting up hill
forts, or advising
that hill forts be built here.
And they, in later years,
would be called Arthur's forts
and, later still, Camelot.
So we have a whole
medieval courtly image
of Camelot, a very Hollywood
image, which, in my opinion,
never was.
[horse neighs]
[music playing]
BOB WHELAN: One place
often overlooked
as a possible Camelot is the
Roman city of Viroconium,
now Wroxeter, near Shrews bury.
In the uncertain times
of the fifth century,
it occupied a site of
vital strategic importance,
where the great Roman
artery of Watling Street
met the river Severn.
Coupled with this,
archaeologists excavating
the farmlands
surrounding the city
found them to have been
very productive and rich.
They also found something quite
incredible in the city itself.
During the last years of
the Roman administration,
Viroconium's importance
waned, and many
of its public buildings
fell into disuse.
Until finally, the area of
the basilica was demolished.
Yet the excavators
found evidence showing
that, within a few
years, that same area
had been leveled and rebuilt,
but this time in timber,
not stone.
Large numbers of
imposing timber buildings
with classical facades
were constructed
on the leveled remains
of the old city basilca.
A new city center complex
sprang up from the old one.
A massive wooden hall,
possibly with two stories.
125 feet long and 52 feet wide,
with an extension 80 feet long,
and porticoed facade, steps,
and wings formed the centerpiece
of this lavish project.
All of the buildings had the
hallmarks of Roman engineering
and public works, conforming
to Roman measurements
and construction methods.
It was a drastic reorganization
with a sophisticated plan.
Whoever ordered the
work was very wealthy.
There is no way we can discover
the identity of the man
behind this incredible
injection of energy
into a withering Roman city.
[battle sounds]
It is thought that the work was
carried out within a few years
of the Battle of Badon,
which may have been
fought in nearby Wiltshire.
Could Arthur, fresh from his
crowning victory at Badon,
have established a
base at Viroconium,
adding another Camelot to
his defended territories?
One thing is sure--
whatever happened at
Viroconium to bring
such a massive injection of
capital spending, manpower,
and determination, there must
have been a man of great power
and influence driving it
forward, a man with the will
to maintain Roman standards
and the means to do it.
DON SHADRAKE: For a fifth
to sixth century warlord,
the archaeological evidence
suggests that Wroxeter was
a very, very busy town and
a very, very interesting one
as well, because that
particular town itself,
where most of Britain
at that particular time,
with the exceptions of
a few hill forts here
and there, most of Britain
at that time, the larger
urban centers were in decay.
And yet Wroxeter,
someone some time
in the fifth and
sixth centuries was
carrying out a huge rebuilding
program in Wroxeter.
There was nothing to do with
the Saxon settlements at all.
And this is someone that--
someone had an incredible
amount of prosperity.
Someone had an incredible
amount of clout at that time
to be able to do that.
One recent writer sort of puts--
I think ties Wroxeter very
heavily in with Vortigern,
one with Ambrosius as well.
But it is quite interesting.
And it is one particular
area, one particular town,
that just cannot be
denied as being very
critical for the political
theater in the fifth
to sixth century AD.
[chatter]
BOB WHELAN: There is plenty
of documentary evidence
that, after Badon,
the Britain's enjoyed
a time of great prosperity.
Could this late
blooming of Viroconium,
unmatched by any
other at the time,
be a sign of that prosperity?
[chatter]
Such a city, with its
awe-inspiring structure
surrounded by the pleasant
abundance of its farms,
would inevitably have
attracted admiration.
To simple country
folk, it would have
seemed splendidly impressive.
In this way, the legend
of a great and beautiful
city ruled by a heroic
and powerful leader
might have been born.
Was this yet another
Camelot in the making?
Wroxeter really does
provide us with some very
interesting questions.
Who at that time
was powerful enough?
Who at that time had
that particular name,
had that particular ability
to motivate those people
to restrengthen
what was essentially
the fourth largest town in
the province of Britannia?
Who at that time had that
particular ability to do that?
And that raises some
very, very interesting
questions about Arthur, if
indeed an Arthur existed.
[music playing]
BOB WHELAN: And
then there is South
Cadbury, sometimes
called Cadbury
Castle or Cadbury Camelot.
South Cadbury, in Somerset,
has long been suspected
of being the site of Camelot.
It is an isolated hill about
500 feet high near the border
between Somerset and Dorset.
Massive earth ramparts,
now thickly wooded,
encircle the hill.
At its foot nestles the little
village of South Cadbury.
The villages of Queen Camel,
West Camel, and the River Cam
are within walking distance.
[battle sounds]
It is said that the river
is the scene of Arthur's
last battle at Camlann.
Certainly farm workers
once dug up many skeletons
of men and boys at the
western side of the hill,
as if from a mass grave.
[battle sounds]
But there never was a castle
here in the medieval sense.
The 18-acre enclosure
at the summit
was first a Neolithic
settlement, then
an important Iron Age Hill fort.
The fort continued
in and out of use
throughout the Roman period.
It was reoccupied with
major re-fortifications
in the late fifth
or sixth century.
[music playing]
John Leland, a respected
Tudor historian
with an interest in
the historical Arthur,
first visited the area in 1532.
He wrote, "At the very south end
of the Church of South Cadbury
standeth Camelot,
sometime a famous town
or castle upon a very tall or
hill, wonderfully [inaudible]
of nature.
The people can
tell nothing there
but that they have
heard say that Arture
much resorted to Camelot."
So if Leland can be
trusted, it is plain
that local Arthurian
tradition already existed.
He heard many
strange tales there.
He told of a silver
horseshoe found at the hill
Fort of dusky blue stones
taken by the villagers
and Roman coins turned up by
the plow, both on the summit
and in fields nearby.
In 1724, another
visiting historian
found sling stones,
Roman utensils,
and the ruins of arches,
hypocausts, and pavements.
NIKOLAI TOLSTOY: There clearly
was a local tradition that this
was the fort of Arthur.
There are other indications
that it could well have been.
It was built much earlier
than the fifth century AD.
It's an Iron Age hill
fort, so perhaps built,
I don't know, 200 or 300 BC.
But a lot of these
hill forts were
refortified during the
wars against the English.
And they were ideal for it.
Anyone who's been up
into one would see that.
And interestingly, in
the English Civil War,
on occasion, round
heads or cavaliers
would occupy them and use them.
So they were ideal for that.
The tradition connecting
Arthur with Cadbury
and identifying it as Camelot
is not recorded in early times.
But folk tales can be
extraordinarily ancient.
And the date when they
happened to be recorded really
is hardly neither
here nor there.
BOB WHELAN: Because
the low-lying land here
was so marshy, a causeway
led from the hill fort
towards Glastonbury, joining
up with that famous Roman road
the Fosse Way about
four miles away.
The fort also had easy access
to the ancient trackways
in the area.
In this way, it controlled
the eastern gateway
into Somerset and the main
route into the West Country.
In a test, beacons lit on
Cadbury's highest point could
be seen on Glastonbury Tor.
And a signal from the Tor could
be passed on to Brent Knoll,
near the coast.
It is believed that these
three West Country hills may
have formed part of
a chain of beacons
stretching into South Wales.
Cadbury's lines of
communication were
ideal for a military
commander wanting
to control the southwest.
[dramatic music playing]
Folklore and legends of Arthur
are strong around Cadbury.
The causeway is known as
Arthur's hunting causeway.
At full moon, it is
said that the wild hunt
can be heard in full
cry following this path.
[hunters yelling]
As the supposed
site of a battle,
the sounds of combat and men's
cries have also been heard.
[battle sounds]
The hill is thought to be
hollow Arthur and his men
sleep within and
will awake to defend
Britain in its darkest hour.
But Arthur does
not always sleep.
On midsummer eve
or Christmas Eve,
horses' hoofbeats can
be heard as the king
and his knights ride them down
through the southwest gate
to drink from a spring
at the church nearby.
Experts have confirmed
there is an element of truth
in the hollow hill belief,
as there are almost certainly
caves within the hill.
The plateau on the summit is
known as King Arthur's Palace.
At Cadbury, Arthur's
name is everywhere.
And local traditions about
him have not died out.
In 1902, when an early
archaeologists was researching
at Cadbury an old
man of the village
anxiously approached
him and asked,
are you coming to
take the king away?
[dramatic music playing]
It was clear to historians
that the sheer number of Arthur
connections in the
vicinity of Cadbury
must have been triggered by
something out of the ordinary.
When the Camelot
Research Committee
began to dig at the
hill fort in 1966,
it became obvious that this
really was a very special site.
Over the next few years,
the discoveries they made
caused a sensation.
For a start, the fort had
evidence of habitation
over four millennia.
But the most
exciting excavations
concerned the fifth
and sixth century
reoccupation of the hill fort.
The 18-acre enclosure
on top of the fort
had been refortified
with a dry stone wall,
reusing some Roman stone.
In fact, some elements
of the new defenses
strongly resembled Roman
military building work.
Sherds of fine imported
pottery from the Mediterranean
hinted at the luxurious
lifestyle of an aristocrat
and enabled the
archaeologists to date
the occupation of the
buildings to the last quarter
of the fifth century,
exactly when Arthur is
supposed to have been active.
Traces of many large
timber buildings
were found, including a
magnificent feasting hall
fit for a person of
very high status.
DON SHADRAKE: The 1966
excavation showed us
that there were a quite
heavy re-fortification
of the outer rampart area
of South Canterbury a lot
of extensive building work
going inside in South Cadbury.
And some wonderful
gatehouses were actually
erected in timber at time.
And again, this is
someone that actually
carried a lot of clout.
This is somebody that
had a lot of power
and influence to
be able to do that.
I mean, South Cadbury itself,
if you go there today,
it's quite a large
sort of plateau.
And to shift that
amount of materials
up there-- we're talking quite
a large rebuilding program.
So obviously somebody had
the motivation to rebuild,
to restrengthen, a long
dormant Celtic hill fort.
And again, we'd
like to know who.
And it is wonderful to
speculate that an Arthur
character might be behind that.
But it is just
impossible to say.
BOB WHELAN: Nothing
was found to connect
Cadbury specifically to Arthur.
Yet the dig had shown that,
in the late fifth century,
at exactly the time
of Arthur's successes,
someone had been powerful
and important enough
to put up new defenses,
buildings, and gateways--
someone who ordered the
construction of a great hall
60 feet long, someone of mixed
Roman and British culture.
[chatter]
RONALD HUTTON: The
excavation revealed
South Cadbury had been occupied
at just the right time,
Arthur's period.
But it's not the richest site in
terms of finds in that period.
It's not the most
heavily fortified.
It's certainly one
of the biggest,
but the evidence
for actual buildings
inside is heavily disputed.
And in fact, if it weren't
for a certain scholar talking
to the right person
in the 16th century,
we'd never associate
it with Camelot.
So we could be looking at the
site of Arthur's fortress,
or we could be
looking at the most
amazing load of
baloney, which blew
up in the mid 20th century.
And there's lots of archeology
publicly funded going on,
and which has now been
discredited as a site that
could be definitely
linked with Arthur
among most of the
archaeologists of the period.
NIKOLAI TOLSTOY: Well, in
one sense, that's true.
There is no direct association
with Arthur before Leland.
But on the other, I
think where more likely
a place would you find Arthur?
Here's this huge fortress,
more powerful than most others
in Britain at that
time, refortified
right at the
strategic point facing
the oncoming Saxon barbarians.
And I don't see, myself,
why that tradition
shouldn't be an accurate one.
[chatter]
BOB WHELAN: It was undoubtedly
the fortress of a great leader,
a military man of
rank and wealth
who lived at the time of Arthur.
Experts in the
logistics of warfare
have estimated that the fortress
could sustain 1000 people
for a realistic length of time.
A man who could command that
number of troops would be rare.
In a sense, the name of
this man is not important.
The differences between him
and the historical Arthur
are so slight as
to be negligible.
And the similarities
are compelling.
For all the world, he
might as well be Arthur.
And only at Cadbury has
Britain's archaeological record
supplied the evidence
of a person who
could fit Arthur's description.
[music playing]
Archaeologists have since found
many other refurbished hill
forts of about that time,
also on a large scale.
They are naturally cautious
about attaching too
much significance to Cadbury.
DON SHADRAKE: The
quest for Camelot
has hindered excavations--
I'm sure of it.
It has hindered the
investigation into that time.
In fact, probably in some areas
it's actually shut it down,
because unfortunately, anything
to do with Arthur or Camelot
does attract a huge fringe
element which deflects
a lot of serious questions that
could be asked and, I think,
a lot of serious excavations.
However, on the flip side,
on the positive side,
it has captured the general
public's imagination to such
a degree that when there
is a find, however obscure,
such as the find in
Tintagel, the drain
cover with the
inscription, that in itself
can probably attract
the necessary funding
for some projects.
But you walk a
very, very fine line
if you say that you're
researching Arthur's Britain,
half of the academic world will
sort of scoff or snigger, which
is understandable, because there
isn't a great deal of evidence
to suggest that Camelot, or
indeed Arthur, ever existed.
However, many
people want to know.
BOB WHELAN: For those
who seek Camelot,
the search could be
halted for a while.
In the torch-lit
hall, a great leader,
whose name might be Arthur, is
celebrating a shining victory
won by the heroic
deeds of his men,
who might be called his knights.
And for now, Cad
bury is Camelot,
because it is anywhere bravery
and nobility are celebrated.
[winds howling]
Camelot is as much
an idea as a place.
The time and the location
are of secondary importance.
What comes first is
to fight for the good.
That simple idea captivated
the medieval world.
Their code of
chivalry incorporated
the Arthurian world
that, in its turn,
held up a mirror to their own.
We are the inheritors
of that code,
however faint its message has
become over the centuries.
The towers of
Camelot are distant,
but we can still see
they are beautiful.
[music playing]
Camelot represents
good government.
It represents an
incorruptible system.
It represents something that
I think every politician,
every king has as aspired to.
And I don't think we'll ever
have it, to be honest with you.
Someone once referred
to Camelot as being
a representation of Utopia.
And when you actually
look at what that means,
it means nowhere at all.
[music playing]
BOB WHELAN: Camelot and Arthur--
one would be unthinkable
without the other.
It is a familiar
part of the legend
that Arthur set up his
court to rule from Camelot.
According to one version
of the Arthurian story,
King Arthur loved Camelot all
his life above all other cities
that he owned.
Now, in that far off country
where history and legend
are just branches
of the same tree,
they will never be separated.
[winds howling]
But is it just the
link with Arthur
that draws us to Camelot.
It is true that Arthur is at
the very center of Camelot,
but the city itself is a
worthwhile destination,
whether Arthur is at home or
out and about righting wrongs.
As the medieval work "The
Death of King Arthur" puts it,
"when Bors arrived at court
in the city of Camelot
from the faraway lands of
Jerusalem, he was overjoyed."
[crowd cheers]
[music playing]
[birds chirping]
There is a problem
that must be faced
at the outset of any
exploration of Camelot,
and it is insurmountable.
Quite simply and brutally,
there is no such place.
Any attempt to identify
the Camelot of King Arthur
is pointless.
DON SHADRAKE:
Camelot didn't exist.
It seems simply didn't exist.
It was first mentioned as
a name by the French writer
in the 12th century
called Chretien de Troyes.
And he mentions Camelot--
it's a very throwaway reference,
a very passing reference,
in a title about Sir Lancelot.
He was certainly mentioned--
well, the power base of Arthur
was mentioned before then.
Geoffrey of Monmouth
refers to Caerleon,
and he also refers to London
and Winchester as well.
But we keep coming back
to this Camelot question
again and again and again.
And I think when Chretien de
Troyes first penned the name,
I think it did something.
It sparked a public imagination.
And it sparked something
that hasn't really left us.
[music playing]
Chretien de Troyes probably
got the name of Camelot
from a corruption
of the Roman name
for Colchester, Camelodunum
Why he would choose that name
is still a mystery today.
The classical Roman
writer Pliny mentioned it
in his "Natural History."
It is entirely
possible that Chretien
just liked the sound of it
and gave it a French twist.
There's less
mystery about Camelot
than practically any other
part of the Arthurian legend.
Camelot is Colchester, which
in the central Middle Ages
is this big, spectacular
ruined Roman town.
It's still got its
gigantic Roman walls,
with a big ceremonial gateway.
You can't go to Colchester on
a high wind now [inaudible]
a bit of ancient Rome
hitting you on the head.
And by the 12th century,
when troubadours in France
were looking at
Britain, Colchester
was the big, spectacular
Roman town that many of them
would know about.
And its Roman name
was Camelodunum
And that transforms into
Camelot for a medieval tongue.
And so it's simply
a way of localizing
the Arthurian capital
in a place which
is high profile, which
people on the continent
know about, and
seems to make sense.
[music playing]
BOB WHELAN: There is
also another Camelodunum,
a small Roman fort at Slack,
in Yorkshire, which merely goes
to show that it was not
an uncommon place name,
deriving from the name of
the Celtic war god, Camulos.
Neither Colchester nor slack
has any known link to Arthur.
[thunder]
[music playing]
Whatever the origin of the
name, it is clear that from then
on, as other medieval
writers added their own ideas
about Camelot, word on
word, like stones in a wall,
the city grew until
the magnificent seat
of Arthur's power had
been raised literally
from a foundation of thin air.
But not one of
those writers ever
supplied his exact
geographical location.
This is what makes the quest
for Camelot so daunting--
and yet so seductive.
Camelot symbolizes the
other world, the place--
a sort of heavenly city,
like Jerusalem, the Jerusalem
of the Celts, if you like.
And like everything to do
with the Arthurian story,
it seems to be
happening on two planes.
It's happening in
historical time,
and yet it's also immortal.
DON SHADRAKE: Camelot
is the ideal city.
It's the power base of
King Arthur, the King
Arthur of legend as well.
The two go very,
very close together.
It is impossible to
extract one from the other.
To the medieval reader, Camelot
represented order, justice.
It represented a wonderful ideal
of what society should be like.
And I think those
particular ideals have come
down to us at the present day.
And I think that's
why it's captured
our imaginations so much.
[birds chirping]
BOB WHELAN: Camelot has
had a powerful appeal
down the centuries.
But even though it has never
existed, except on paper
and in the imaginations
of its readers,
there is the unspoken hope
that it is out there somewhere,
waiting to be discovered.
That alone is enough to
guarantee its immortality.
[crowd noise]
This program will show
how a city that can never
be located on any map
is still attracting
pilgrims, even today.
We will look at the evidence
for the real Camelot
and explore its
relationship to the Camelot
we have come to know.
Finally, we will examine
its enduring attraction
as a potent symbol of
kingship at the dawn
of the second millennium.
[dramatic music playing]
The search for Camelot has been
going on for many centuries.
But what is it that
people are looking for?
As with most things, it depends
on what we mean by Camelot.
[horses neighing]
The popular view is that it was
the realm of King Arthur, where
justice and fairness were
enforced by his Knights
of the Round Table.
Camelot was at once a
high-turreted castle,
a many-towered city, and the
kingdom where Arthur reigned.
No archaeologist can ever hope
to find the physical remains
of that site.
It is a vain quest,
because that Camelot
was custom built
around an Arthur
who existed only in legend.
[battle sounds]
Originally an obscure
Dark Age figure,
perhaps a general
or warlord, his fame
grew as the centuries passed.
And that was the process
which turned him into a King.
At that point, a
castle and a kingdom
became necessities duly
supplied by writers and poets
like Geoffrey of Monmouth,
Chretien the Troyes,
and later, of course,
Sir Thomas Malory.
Malory, like Chretien
de Troyes and a number
of other writers, you've
got to realize were A,
writing after the
event, and B, they
were putting it into contextual
and contemporary feel.
Therefore, you
arrive at visions,
Hollywood visions almost,
of Camelot with plate armor.
RONALD HUTTON: Camelot's
the absolutely ideal
fairy tale castle.
Royal courts have
always been glamorous.
And the great
thing about Camelot
is it's a royal court which is
the seat of the greatest King
that the British Isles and
Northwest Europe have ever
known in legend and with
the most glittering array
of personal followers, the
Knights of the Round Table,
but also this constant
relationship, the supernatural,
with the wizard Merlin,
with the Lady of the Lake
in the background, and the
way that every time Arthur is
celebrating a big
feast, something weird
happens, enters the hall
and starts a new quest.
And so Camelot is is
in one way the greatest
royal court of the Middle Ages,
the legendary Middle Ages.
In another way, it's in
the borders of fairy land.
And as such, it covers
the base of practically
every bit of red medieval
romance you'd hope to look for.
BOB WHELAN: To a people torn
by chaos and destruction,
Camelot stood for order
and the rule of law
in a barbaric world
of brutal warfare.
It was a haven, a
sanctuary from evil doers,
giants, and monsters.
In Arthur's Camelot
stood the Round Table,
that ultimate
symbol of chivalry,
based on the twin codes of
honor and Christian virtue.
[chatter]
Beyond its walls, the wilderness
threatened to overwhelm
the poor and helpless.
Any defenseless
or wronged person
had only to appeal to the
Round Table at Camelot
in order to receive
protection or restitution.
Our longing for justice
and a fair society
make us hunger for the
discovery of that Camelot.
DON SHADRAKE: Camelot
appeals to, I think,
this longing that we have
for an ideal society,
a good government, a government
that is without corruption,
a government that basically
makes sure that the trash is
emptied every day, a government
that makes sure that you are
protected, a government
that looks after you,
a government that make sure
the drains always run free.
And you really are encapsulated
in a society of trust.
RONALD HUTTON:
Camelot's got everything
you need to make a nation work.
It's got a charismatic leader.
It's got devoted followers.
It's got magic on its side.
It's got goodness,
truth, and beauty.
And yet it's fatally flawed.
There are at least two
serpents in this Eden.
And they are the figures
you'd most admire--
that's Lancelot and Guinevere.
And then when a really big one
arrives in the form of Mordred,
the whole lot goes to pieces.
So it's a story of
how absolute good
could be absolutely corrupted.
It's a very Christian tale.
DON SHADRAKE: Camelot
certainly has inspired people.
It's inspired poets.
It's inspired artists.
The whole thing has become a
fantastic propaganda machine.
And really I think it
really is something
that just can't be ignored.
[music playing]
BOB WHELAN: Of all cities,
Camelot was the most beautiful.
No wonder then that,
to the medieval reader,
it rivaled Jerusalem, Rome,
and the heavenly city itself
as an idyllic city-state
of golden perfection.
For writers and
poets, Camelot was
an opportunity to test
their powers of description
as never before.
Here are the words of
Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
bringing alive his vision
of Arthur's capital
to a Victorian audience.
"On the latest limits of the
west in the land of Lyonnesse,
where, save the rocky Isles of
Scilly, all is now wild sea,
rose the sacred
Mount of Camelot.
It rose from the deeps
with gardens and bowers
and palaces, and at
the top of the Mount
was King Arthur's Hall
and the holy minster
with the Cross of Gold.
Here dwelt the King in glory
apart, while the Saxons
he had overthrown in 12
battles ravaged the land
and ever came
nearer and nearer."
[chatter]
These were Tennyson's earliest
words on the subject of Arthur.
And his stirring
picture of Camelot
is one we all
recognize and love,
with its echoes of Tintagel,
Arthur's fabled birthplace.
It stays in the memory.
It feels true.
Yet we must remember it is not.
Searching for
many-towered Camelot
will lead us down a blind alley.
It is time to look for
Arthur's real home.
[birds calling]
[dramatic music playing]
[chatter]
The earliest stories
of Arthur, as preserved
in the Welsh "Mabinogion" and
the "Black Book of Carmarthen,"
give no clue as to the
whereabouts of Arthur's court.
But then, why should they?
They celebrate an actual heroic
figure remembered as a warlord,
not a king.
Arthur is described as
Arth Llu, meaning bear
of the host, head of the
battalions of Cornwall,
and most strong in valor.
[battle sounds]
In old Welsh, the
word "arth," or bear,
was frequently used
to denote a warrior.
We must have lost many of
the Welsh Arthurian poems
and stories.
But it is clear that
the ones that survive
owe nothing to Geoffrey's
rewriting of history.
Many were clearly composed
long before Geoffrey
transformed the bear of
the host into King Arthur.
Their authors would
not have been concerned
with courts and castles.
These poems had their
roots in the dark ages,
long before the arrival
of the medieval world
of chivalry and monarchy.
Their Arthur is a gritty,
seasoned campaigner,
a commander of cavalry, a
slayer of monsters, above all,
a man of great courage.
We know practically nothing
of the Arthur of history--
just a few tantalizing
references in early histories,
lives of saints,
and epic poetry are
all the evidence we have for his
genuine historical existence.
But historians who have made an
in-depth study of the Britain
of the fifth and sixth centuries
are confident that Arthur
is no myth.
It is that Arthur, the great
soldier who fought and won
battles all over Britain, whose
Camelot we must seek if we are
to have any hope of success.
From the 16th century onwards,
students of antiquities
were especially keen
on anything to do
with the location of Camelot.
Malory's "Morte d'Arthur"
in the 1fifth century
had stirred up fresh interest,
identifying it with Winchester
because of the
Round Table hanging
on the wall of the great
hall of Winchester castle.
DON SHADRAKE: Winchester,
essentially, is very,
very heavily associated with
the Saxon kings, particularly
Alfred.
I mean, it was a
Roman town initially.
But the Saxon kings,
obviously, it was quite
an important center for them.
But why it's so heavy
involved, why the Arthur story,
why Camelot is so heavily
involved with Winchester
is because the vast
round table that
actually is still there now.
I think it was redecorated
in the times of Henry VIII.
But recent tests show
that that round table is
way out for any particular
engagement that would've
happened in the fifth
and sixth centuries,
because the round table
is actually, I think,
dated to the time of
Edward I. But obviously
it was important
enough to capture
medieval writers' imagination.
And I think that's why,
really, it has become so
heavily associated with Arthur.
[chatter]
BOB WHELAN: There is
another interesting aspect
to Malory's choice of Winchester
as the location of Camelot.
By a strange coincidence,
it was at Winchester
that the only so far discovered
manuscript copy of Malory's
original text was found.
But when Caxton came to
print the "Morte d'Arthur,"
he mentioned in his preface
that many living people had seen
the town of Camelot in
Wales, with its great stones
and marvelous works of
iron lying under the ground
and royal vaults.
[music playing]
It is assumed he was referring
to the visible remains
of the Roman town of
Caerleon, or perhaps Caerwent.
Geoffrey of Monmouth
had designated
Caerleon as Arthur's capital.
Caxton decided to transfer
the name of Camelot
to it, though Malory insisted
it was at Winchester.
Already, a profusion of
Camelots were springing up.
[birds chirping]
Geoffrey had already identified
the Roman Theater at Caerleon
as Arthur's Round
Table, adding yet more
spurious evidence
to the mounting pile
of historical red herrings.
[music playing]
Winchester, Caerleon, and
Caerwent, Camelodunum,
and London have all been
unsuccessful candidates
for Camelot.
If they fail, it is
because they appear
to have only medieval
connections linking them
to the Arthur of
legend rather than
actual links to the
historical figure of Arthur.
In fact, archaeologists have
been emphatic that there is
no archaeological
site whatsoever
where the presence of the
real person who is Arthur
can even be detected,
let alone proven.
Archeology has been able to
show us the world of Arthur,
but not his house.
[waves crashing]
That situation could
change tomorrow.
It would only take one
fragment of writing
to be pulled from the
Earth, and Camelot
and Arthur could be revealed.
This was the hope
when a piece of slate
with words scratched on it
was found at Tintagel in 1998.
It was being used
as a drain cover.
The words on it were
in a form of Latin
with earlier British elements.
And the way the
letters were formed
led experts to date
it at around 500 AD.
One word on it caused
a lot of interest.
It was "Artognou."
DON SHADRAKE: The
inscription says something
like pater [speaking latin]
Artognou, which roughly
translates as the father of
the descendant of Col arto,
or Artognou, the father
of the descendant of Col
had this built. It's showing
that the Latin culture,
the Latin language, persisted
outside the experience
of the clergy the fringes
of the Western Roman Empire
as late as the late
sixth century AD.
And it really displays that
somebody of power and influence
was hanging on to the Romanized
culture, the way of life.
Now, whether that was in the
military sense, whether it
was in the civil sense,
it's still there,
and it's undeniable.
BOB WHELAN: The British
name represented by Artognou
is Arthnou.
The first part of
the word, Arth,
uses the Celtic
root word for bear.
Many old Welsh names have it--
Arthmael and Arthien,
to name but two.
Experts are being careful
to play down any association
between the name on the
stone found at Tintagel
and the legendary figure of
Arthur, whose earliest recorded
link with that site was
made more than 600 years
later by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
[birds calling]
But it is only
human to wonder what
Arthnou this might have been and
what he was doing at Tintagel.
The official view is
that all the stone
proves is the use of the Celtic
element in a name of that time.
No one has ever claimed
that Tintagel was Camelot,
but evidence is such a rare
occurrence that even supposed
coincidences must be
borne in mind in the event
of future discoveries.
[waves crashing]
DON SHADRAKE: There were
definitely activity there
in the fifth and
sixth centuries AD.
A defensive ditch was built
across the bank that connected
the mainland to the actual
headland at Tintagel--
definitely quite
a large building
program going on in there
in the fifth century AD.
For me, one of most
fascinating-- not just
the actual [inaudible],,
the actual ditch that
was constructed, but
also the incredibly large
amounts of finds of
fine glass and pottery
not made in this country.
They're actually being imported
from the east, the eastern half
of the Roman Empire.
So somebody in the Celtic west
was trading with the Roman
east outside the experience
of the Saxon kingdoms.
And that, for me,
is fascinating.
In fact, for a lot of
people that really does
fire the imagination.
Who there was important
enough to have
a direct trade with the eastern
half of the Roman Empire?
[music playing]
BOB WHELAN: For the time being,
Tintagel lacks even the most
tenuous link with Arthur.
The excitement was misplaced
but understandable.
Yet, this Arthnou
had a warrior's name.
What was he doing on
the site of a monastery?
Unless the earth
gives up another clue,
we may never know.
[waves crashing]
[dramatic music playing]
[thunder]
[music playing]
[wind howling]
Almost every region of
Britain can boast at least one
or two would-be Camelots
Carlisle in Cumbria, Chester
in the Midlands,
Camelon in Scotland.
A particularly good
argument has been
made for the lost city of
Roxburgh in southern Scotland.
In most cases, the connection
depends on a similarity of name
or a reference to location in
the Arthurian poems, stories,
and histories.
In sum, it is tied to the
archaeological finds confirming
the specific type of
military and cavalry activity
we now associate with
Arthur's exploits.
[battle sounds]
Some base their claims
on local traditions
going back hundreds of years.
Of course, it can be a
combination of all these.
And to avoid
confusion, it is best
to leave aside the scores
of sites with Arthur names
all over Britain.
These tend to be
natural features or very
ancient monuments
predating Arthur,
to which the name of
Arthur has been applied,
such as Arthur Stone, Arthur's
Oven, and Arthur's Seat.
Just occasionally, some of them
may indeed be genuine sites
of true Arthurian date.
Arthur's seat in Edinburgh
falls within an area
where the real Arthur
may have been active.
But no definite
connection has been made.
[music playing]
[horses galloping]
[horse neighs]
One point often made about
the historical Arthur
is that he was, in
all probability,
a cavalry commander,
leading highly mobile troops
on very fast Roman roads.
So perhaps it is not surprising
that towns and cities, villages
and settlements, the length
and breadth of Britain
all claim the honor of
association with him.
Perhaps it is a modern
desire to enthrone
the ruler in one capital
city that influences
our quest for Camelot.
In any case, why should
there be just one Camelot?
Arthur may well have had several
operational headquarters,
depending on his
military priorities.
[battle sounds]
ARTHUR UTHER PENDRAGON: When
you talk about the Knights
of the Round Table,
in essence you're
looking at a light cavalry
unit of Dark Age warriors
who were riding
around the country
repelling raiders, Irish
raiders, down in Cornwall,
repelling Saxons, trying to push
the borders closer and closer
into the Celtic lands.
And as they traveled
around the nation,
they would indeed use local
forces, local chieftains.
And when Arthur would turn
up, he'd say, come on,
we need a hill fort
there, because one
thing the Arthur figure
was was a pendragon
and a battle chieftain.
So when he suggested we
have a hill fought there,
they'd build the defenses up.
And later, when people maybe
three, four generations down
the line would say, well,
you know, whose fort is this,
for instance.
They'd say, well, it's Arthur's,
because of course Arthur
instigated it.
DON SHADRAKE: If someone were
conducting a sort of campaign,
they would have certainly
several different stations
they'd probably
be using as a base
to sort of strike
against the Saxons.
And it probably might
account for the fact
that there are so many
references to Arthur
spread across such a
wide area and the fact
that he can't be pinned down
to any one specific location.
[birds chirping]
BOB WHELAN: From the
poetic point of view,
operational HQ sounds
very unromantic.
But the medieval
castle is no different.
It is just that
we have forgotten
its original function.
So maybe Arthur had
several Camelots
dotted about the country, each
with their own special place
in his military strategy.
Another consideration is that
if his forces were substantial,
he could not have maintained
them in any one place for very
long, since they would drain
the resources of an area
quite quickly.
He would have had to move them
from one center to another,
reinforcing his need for
several strongholds at least.
DON SHADRAKE: If one
subscribes to the fact
that Romano-British
factions were preserving
the manners and customs not only
of the culture of Rome that had
actually seceded, but also the
military practices of Rome,
then they would
probably try to ape
the Romans, in that they would
take a marching camp with them.
ARTHUR UTHER PENDRAGON: I see
Camelot as a nomadic court,
basically, because at
the head of Camelot
we have a pendragon and
battle chieftain called Arthur
with a light cavalry unit
flying around fighting
in many different places
throughout the Isles.
And obviously, in
order to do that,
he would have to put up his
court from place to place,
and it would be a
very transitory.
Not only that, he would spend
times fortifying the Isles
and putting up hill
forts, or advising
that hill forts be built here.
And they, in later years,
would be called Arthur's forts
and, later still, Camelot.
So we have a whole
medieval courtly image
of Camelot, a very Hollywood
image, which, in my opinion,
never was.
[horse neighs]
[music playing]
BOB WHELAN: One place
often overlooked
as a possible Camelot is the
Roman city of Viroconium,
now Wroxeter, near Shrews bury.
In the uncertain times
of the fifth century,
it occupied a site of
vital strategic importance,
where the great Roman
artery of Watling Street
met the river Severn.
Coupled with this,
archaeologists excavating
the farmlands
surrounding the city
found them to have been
very productive and rich.
They also found something quite
incredible in the city itself.
During the last years of
the Roman administration,
Viroconium's importance
waned, and many
of its public buildings
fell into disuse.
Until finally, the area of
the basilica was demolished.
Yet the excavators
found evidence showing
that, within a few
years, that same area
had been leveled and rebuilt,
but this time in timber,
not stone.
Large numbers of
imposing timber buildings
with classical facades
were constructed
on the leveled remains
of the old city basilca.
A new city center complex
sprang up from the old one.
A massive wooden hall,
possibly with two stories.
125 feet long and 52 feet wide,
with an extension 80 feet long,
and porticoed facade, steps,
and wings formed the centerpiece
of this lavish project.
All of the buildings had the
hallmarks of Roman engineering
and public works, conforming
to Roman measurements
and construction methods.
It was a drastic reorganization
with a sophisticated plan.
Whoever ordered the
work was very wealthy.
There is no way we can discover
the identity of the man
behind this incredible
injection of energy
into a withering Roman city.
[battle sounds]
It is thought that the work was
carried out within a few years
of the Battle of Badon,
which may have been
fought in nearby Wiltshire.
Could Arthur, fresh from his
crowning victory at Badon,
have established a
base at Viroconium,
adding another Camelot to
his defended territories?
One thing is sure--
whatever happened at
Viroconium to bring
such a massive injection of
capital spending, manpower,
and determination, there must
have been a man of great power
and influence driving it
forward, a man with the will
to maintain Roman standards
and the means to do it.
DON SHADRAKE: For a fifth
to sixth century warlord,
the archaeological evidence
suggests that Wroxeter was
a very, very busy town and
a very, very interesting one
as well, because that
particular town itself,
where most of Britain
at that particular time,
with the exceptions of
a few hill forts here
and there, most of Britain
at that time, the larger
urban centers were in decay.
And yet Wroxeter,
someone some time
in the fifth and
sixth centuries was
carrying out a huge rebuilding
program in Wroxeter.
There was nothing to do with
the Saxon settlements at all.
And this is someone that--
someone had an incredible
amount of prosperity.
Someone had an incredible
amount of clout at that time
to be able to do that.
One recent writer sort of puts--
I think ties Wroxeter very
heavily in with Vortigern,
one with Ambrosius as well.
But it is quite interesting.
And it is one particular
area, one particular town,
that just cannot be
denied as being very
critical for the political
theater in the fifth
to sixth century AD.
[chatter]
BOB WHELAN: There is plenty
of documentary evidence
that, after Badon,
the Britain's enjoyed
a time of great prosperity.
Could this late
blooming of Viroconium,
unmatched by any
other at the time,
be a sign of that prosperity?
[chatter]
Such a city, with its
awe-inspiring structure
surrounded by the pleasant
abundance of its farms,
would inevitably have
attracted admiration.
To simple country
folk, it would have
seemed splendidly impressive.
In this way, the legend
of a great and beautiful
city ruled by a heroic
and powerful leader
might have been born.
Was this yet another
Camelot in the making?
Wroxeter really does
provide us with some very
interesting questions.
Who at that time
was powerful enough?
Who at that time had
that particular name,
had that particular ability
to motivate those people
to restrengthen
what was essentially
the fourth largest town in
the province of Britannia?
Who at that time had that
particular ability to do that?
And that raises some
very, very interesting
questions about Arthur, if
indeed an Arthur existed.
[music playing]
BOB WHELAN: And
then there is South
Cadbury, sometimes
called Cadbury
Castle or Cadbury Camelot.
South Cadbury, in Somerset,
has long been suspected
of being the site of Camelot.
It is an isolated hill about
500 feet high near the border
between Somerset and Dorset.
Massive earth ramparts,
now thickly wooded,
encircle the hill.
At its foot nestles the little
village of South Cadbury.
The villages of Queen Camel,
West Camel, and the River Cam
are within walking distance.
[battle sounds]
It is said that the river
is the scene of Arthur's
last battle at Camlann.
Certainly farm workers
once dug up many skeletons
of men and boys at the
western side of the hill,
as if from a mass grave.
[battle sounds]
But there never was a castle
here in the medieval sense.
The 18-acre enclosure
at the summit
was first a Neolithic
settlement, then
an important Iron Age Hill fort.
The fort continued
in and out of use
throughout the Roman period.
It was reoccupied with
major re-fortifications
in the late fifth
or sixth century.
[music playing]
John Leland, a respected
Tudor historian
with an interest in
the historical Arthur,
first visited the area in 1532.
He wrote, "At the very south end
of the Church of South Cadbury
standeth Camelot,
sometime a famous town
or castle upon a very tall or
hill, wonderfully [inaudible]
of nature.
The people can
tell nothing there
but that they have
heard say that Arture
much resorted to Camelot."
So if Leland can be
trusted, it is plain
that local Arthurian
tradition already existed.
He heard many
strange tales there.
He told of a silver
horseshoe found at the hill
Fort of dusky blue stones
taken by the villagers
and Roman coins turned up by
the plow, both on the summit
and in fields nearby.
In 1724, another
visiting historian
found sling stones,
Roman utensils,
and the ruins of arches,
hypocausts, and pavements.
NIKOLAI TOLSTOY: There clearly
was a local tradition that this
was the fort of Arthur.
There are other indications
that it could well have been.
It was built much earlier
than the fifth century AD.
It's an Iron Age hill
fort, so perhaps built,
I don't know, 200 or 300 BC.
But a lot of these
hill forts were
refortified during the
wars against the English.
And they were ideal for it.
Anyone who's been up
into one would see that.
And interestingly, in
the English Civil War,
on occasion, round
heads or cavaliers
would occupy them and use them.
So they were ideal for that.
The tradition connecting
Arthur with Cadbury
and identifying it as Camelot
is not recorded in early times.
But folk tales can be
extraordinarily ancient.
And the date when they
happened to be recorded really
is hardly neither
here nor there.
BOB WHELAN: Because
the low-lying land here
was so marshy, a causeway
led from the hill fort
towards Glastonbury, joining
up with that famous Roman road
the Fosse Way about
four miles away.
The fort also had easy access
to the ancient trackways
in the area.
In this way, it controlled
the eastern gateway
into Somerset and the main
route into the West Country.
In a test, beacons lit on
Cadbury's highest point could
be seen on Glastonbury Tor.
And a signal from the Tor could
be passed on to Brent Knoll,
near the coast.
It is believed that these
three West Country hills may
have formed part of
a chain of beacons
stretching into South Wales.
Cadbury's lines of
communication were
ideal for a military
commander wanting
to control the southwest.
[dramatic music playing]
Folklore and legends of Arthur
are strong around Cadbury.
The causeway is known as
Arthur's hunting causeway.
At full moon, it is
said that the wild hunt
can be heard in full
cry following this path.
[hunters yelling]
As the supposed
site of a battle,
the sounds of combat and men's
cries have also been heard.
[battle sounds]
The hill is thought to be
hollow Arthur and his men
sleep within and
will awake to defend
Britain in its darkest hour.
But Arthur does
not always sleep.
On midsummer eve
or Christmas Eve,
horses' hoofbeats can
be heard as the king
and his knights ride them down
through the southwest gate
to drink from a spring
at the church nearby.
Experts have confirmed
there is an element of truth
in the hollow hill belief,
as there are almost certainly
caves within the hill.
The plateau on the summit is
known as King Arthur's Palace.
At Cadbury, Arthur's
name is everywhere.
And local traditions about
him have not died out.
In 1902, when an early
archaeologists was researching
at Cadbury an old
man of the village
anxiously approached
him and asked,
are you coming to
take the king away?
[dramatic music playing]
It was clear to historians
that the sheer number of Arthur
connections in the
vicinity of Cadbury
must have been triggered by
something out of the ordinary.
When the Camelot
Research Committee
began to dig at the
hill fort in 1966,
it became obvious that this
really was a very special site.
Over the next few years,
the discoveries they made
caused a sensation.
For a start, the fort had
evidence of habitation
over four millennia.
But the most
exciting excavations
concerned the fifth
and sixth century
reoccupation of the hill fort.
The 18-acre enclosure
on top of the fort
had been refortified
with a dry stone wall,
reusing some Roman stone.
In fact, some elements
of the new defenses
strongly resembled Roman
military building work.
Sherds of fine imported
pottery from the Mediterranean
hinted at the luxurious
lifestyle of an aristocrat
and enabled the
archaeologists to date
the occupation of the
buildings to the last quarter
of the fifth century,
exactly when Arthur is
supposed to have been active.
Traces of many large
timber buildings
were found, including a
magnificent feasting hall
fit for a person of
very high status.
DON SHADRAKE: The 1966
excavation showed us
that there were a quite
heavy re-fortification
of the outer rampart area
of South Canterbury a lot
of extensive building work
going inside in South Cadbury.
And some wonderful
gatehouses were actually
erected in timber at time.
And again, this is
someone that actually
carried a lot of clout.
This is somebody that
had a lot of power
and influence to
be able to do that.
I mean, South Cadbury itself,
if you go there today,
it's quite a large
sort of plateau.
And to shift that
amount of materials
up there-- we're talking quite
a large rebuilding program.
So obviously somebody had
the motivation to rebuild,
to restrengthen, a long
dormant Celtic hill fort.
And again, we'd
like to know who.
And it is wonderful to
speculate that an Arthur
character might be behind that.
But it is just
impossible to say.
BOB WHELAN: Nothing
was found to connect
Cadbury specifically to Arthur.
Yet the dig had shown that,
in the late fifth century,
at exactly the time
of Arthur's successes,
someone had been powerful
and important enough
to put up new defenses,
buildings, and gateways--
someone who ordered the
construction of a great hall
60 feet long, someone of mixed
Roman and British culture.
[chatter]
RONALD HUTTON: The
excavation revealed
South Cadbury had been occupied
at just the right time,
Arthur's period.
But it's not the richest site in
terms of finds in that period.
It's not the most
heavily fortified.
It's certainly one
of the biggest,
but the evidence
for actual buildings
inside is heavily disputed.
And in fact, if it weren't
for a certain scholar talking
to the right person
in the 16th century,
we'd never associate
it with Camelot.
So we could be looking at the
site of Arthur's fortress,
or we could be
looking at the most
amazing load of
baloney, which blew
up in the mid 20th century.
And there's lots of archeology
publicly funded going on,
and which has now been
discredited as a site that
could be definitely
linked with Arthur
among most of the
archaeologists of the period.
NIKOLAI TOLSTOY: Well, in
one sense, that's true.
There is no direct association
with Arthur before Leland.
But on the other, I
think where more likely
a place would you find Arthur?
Here's this huge fortress,
more powerful than most others
in Britain at that
time, refortified
right at the
strategic point facing
the oncoming Saxon barbarians.
And I don't see, myself,
why that tradition
shouldn't be an accurate one.
[chatter]
BOB WHELAN: It was undoubtedly
the fortress of a great leader,
a military man of
rank and wealth
who lived at the time of Arthur.
Experts in the
logistics of warfare
have estimated that the fortress
could sustain 1000 people
for a realistic length of time.
A man who could command that
number of troops would be rare.
In a sense, the name of
this man is not important.
The differences between him
and the historical Arthur
are so slight as
to be negligible.
And the similarities
are compelling.
For all the world, he
might as well be Arthur.
And only at Cadbury has
Britain's archaeological record
supplied the evidence
of a person who
could fit Arthur's description.
[music playing]
Archaeologists have since found
many other refurbished hill
forts of about that time,
also on a large scale.
They are naturally cautious
about attaching too
much significance to Cadbury.
DON SHADRAKE: The
quest for Camelot
has hindered excavations--
I'm sure of it.
It has hindered the
investigation into that time.
In fact, probably in some areas
it's actually shut it down,
because unfortunately, anything
to do with Arthur or Camelot
does attract a huge fringe
element which deflects
a lot of serious questions that
could be asked and, I think,
a lot of serious excavations.
However, on the flip side,
on the positive side,
it has captured the general
public's imagination to such
a degree that when there
is a find, however obscure,
such as the find in
Tintagel, the drain
cover with the
inscription, that in itself
can probably attract
the necessary funding
for some projects.
But you walk a
very, very fine line
if you say that you're
researching Arthur's Britain,
half of the academic world will
sort of scoff or snigger, which
is understandable, because there
isn't a great deal of evidence
to suggest that Camelot, or
indeed Arthur, ever existed.
However, many
people want to know.
BOB WHELAN: For those
who seek Camelot,
the search could be
halted for a while.
In the torch-lit
hall, a great leader,
whose name might be Arthur, is
celebrating a shining victory
won by the heroic
deeds of his men,
who might be called his knights.
And for now, Cad
bury is Camelot,
because it is anywhere bravery
and nobility are celebrated.
[winds howling]
Camelot is as much
an idea as a place.
The time and the location
are of secondary importance.
What comes first is
to fight for the good.
That simple idea captivated
the medieval world.
Their code of
chivalry incorporated
the Arthurian world
that, in its turn,
held up a mirror to their own.
We are the inheritors
of that code,
however faint its message has
become over the centuries.
The towers of
Camelot are distant,
but we can still see
they are beautiful.
[music playing]
Camelot represents
good government.
It represents an
incorruptible system.
It represents something that
I think every politician,
every king has as aspired to.
And I don't think we'll ever
have it, to be honest with you.
Someone once referred
to Camelot as being
a representation of Utopia.
And when you actually
look at what that means,
it means nowhere at all.
[music playing]