Gildas, away on Christian mission in Ireland at the time, was grieved by the news and bore Arthur an eternal grudge. A pirate/raider, he was captured and executed by Arthur in North Wales. Llancarfan states that Huail was an opponent of Arthur, refusing to acknowledge his leadership. One explanation may be a personal animus borne by Gildas against Arthur.ДЄccording to GildasвЂ™ biographer, Caradoc of Llancarfan, GildasвЂ™ brother was one Huail/Hueil ap Caw a northern British or Pictish warlord from the area near Dumbarton Rock in Strathclyde (though alternate theories place Caw and his warlike sonвЂ™s stronghold to the east, near modern Glasgow). In any case, if it was indeed Arthur who led the Britons to victory over the Saxons at Badon, why would GildasвЂ™ fail to name him as the hero of that day?

In fact, it has been argued that GildasвЂ™ wording could be construed as crediting the victory at Badon to Ambrosius Aurelianus. Yet in mentioning Badon Gildas omits to give credit to Arthur (or Artos). The Battle of Badon is named by later writers as ArthurвЂ™s crowning victory. Though he writes primarily of the events following the life (of a possible) Arthur, Gildas also mentions such events as the Battle of Badon ( Mons Badonicus, or, Mount Badon) an event before his time but fresh in the minds of himself and his contemporaries. Unhelpfully, GildasвЂ™ references to вЂњthe BearвЂќ are, at best, oblique. Gildas the Monk (the nearest contemporary chronicler of this period in Britain) refers to вЂњthe BearвЂќ, or Artos possibly in reference to Arthur. Statue of Gildas near the village named for him, Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys, France The name may have lived on in Britain after his departure, in a family he may have sired. Another possible source of the name may have its roots not in the Celtic languages, but in Etruscan: a Roman officer stationed in Britain in the 2 nd or 3 rd century bore the name Lucius Artorius Castus whose familyвЂ™s origin may have come from Etruria, in Italy. One theory is that the name вЂњArthurвЂќ derives from this root. The Brythonic/Celtic word for bear is arth, or вЂњArtosвЂќ. John Morris argues that the name Arthur, appearing as it does suddenly among Scottish, Welsh and Pennine princesВ after this time, and taken with the absence of the name in usage at any time earlier, suggests that in the early 6th century the name became popular amongst the indigenous British due to the celebrity of some great warrior-hero who bore that name: the historical/legendary Arthur. It doesnвЂ™t appear in usage among the Britons (or any other Celts) till after the mid-6 th century. The name вЂњArthurвЂќ, itself, is the subject of some debate. He occupies a place as leader of the British resistance against the Anglo-Saxon invaders following Ambrosius Aurelianus (mid-to-late 5 th century) and before GildasвЂ™ De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (вЂњOn the Ruin and Conquest of BritainвЂќ), in the 540s. He is roughly contemporaneous with Fergus MГіr, the first Scot-King of Scotland, and with the Scandinavian heroes Beowulf and Hrolf Kraki (whose saga enjoys many points of similarity with the Arthurian legends). If King Arthur was indeed a historical character (and that is the underlying hypothesis of this series) then we must place his life somewhere between the last decades of the 5 th century and the first decades of the 6 th. (Read Part Eight here or start from the beginning here!)

It was the sunset of Celtic-Roman culture in Britain it was the Age of Arthur!Д«efore we answer that question, it is necessary we understand the world in which he lived. It is a fascinating period, with the Classical civilization of Greece and Rome giving way to the Germanic вЂњDark AgesвЂќ. This is the ninth-part of our discussion of Britain in the so-called Age of Arthur: the 5th though the mid-6th Century A.D. This was an age of heroesвЂ¦ It was the Age of Arthur! Unique among the territories of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, Britain succeeded in holding back and even reversing the tide of Germanic conquest for nearly two centuries.

The age of arthur