Is king arthur a legendary or a history?why?

Question

Is king arthur a legendary or a history?why?

Answer 1

He was the legendary King Arthur...

Alas, that's exactly what King Arthur is: legendary. Over the centuries, an extraordinary corpus of art and literature has grown up around this mythic figure--hundreds of books, poems, films and comics have told his story. It might be reasonable to assume that these tales are based on at least a kernel of fact. But the truth is that, as yet, no one has been able to offer any conclusive proof that a real, historical, human King Arthur ever existed in any incarnation or by any name.

The idea that Arthur was not a historical king has not always been prevalent. For several hundred years, particularly among late medieval British leaders, King Arthur enjoyed a respected, even exalted place in history. But that place rested on the shaky foundation of The History of the Kings of Britain, an ambitious chronicle by a monk of Welsh origins, Geoffrey of Monmouth. Although not the earliest existing source that mentions Arthur, it is the first to identify him as a high king from Britain's past.

In his History, Geoffrey sets forth Arthur's heritage, birth, childhood, ascension to the throne, military conquests, international relations, and death. He places Arthur's life in a span of time ranging from the late fifth century to 542, when the king was mortally wounded in his last, tragic battle. He names Arthur's family and associates and relates their deeds and backgrounds. It is the story set forth in this work that became the basis of the Arthurian legend as expounded upon by such literary greats as Chrétien de Troyes and Thomas Malory.

Geoffrey completed his History sometime in the 1130's, using earlier sources such as Gildas, Nennius, The Annales Cambriae and Bede. Only the work of Gildas, who did not mention Arthur by name, dates as far back as the sixth century, when Arthur supposedly lived; and none of these chronicles provides the extensive details concerning Arthur's life that Geoffrey gives us. So where did he get his facts? Geoffrey claimed to have had in his possession a "certain very ancient book written in the British language." Unfortunately, this book has never been found, and as the centuries progressed its very existence was called into question. But would Geoffrey make any of his History up? And if so, why?

Answer 2

Mostly, the story of King Arthur is legend.  All the stuff about Excalibur, fighting monsters, wizards and spells etc.  is fiction.  Now, there are a lot of historians and archeologists who study the Dark Ages who say that there might be some kernal of truth to the legends.  There usually is some truth to the legends that last as long as Arthur's has.  Some say that the character of Arthur might be based on either one man or many men combined.  After the Roman Empire abandoned Britania (as England was then known), it left a vacuum of power.  Talented warlords quickly filled that vacuum and set up their own fiefdoms.  Some historians say that Arthur was probably one of those warlords who managed to conquer several other warlords and create something of a kingdom under which his followers experinced a degree of peace and prosperity in a very turbulent and violent time.  He may well have been a Roman officer who was stationed in Brittania and didn't leave with the rest.  Some say the stories about his fantastic armour and sword might come from having very finely made Roman armor and weapons as they were superior to what most native islanders would have had.  

Historians and chroniclers prior to the 1700's had a tendancy to exagerate and inflate the facts of a story and to even make stuff up to impress and please their audience, so when you look at the really old histories, it's hard to separate fact from fiction.

There's an excellent book called the Crimson Chalice by Victor Canning that tells a realistic tale about Arthur that you might want to read.  In his Foreword, he himself says "I have made no attempt to conform strictly to the lines of the accepted Arthurian legend, largely because I don not think it bears much relation to truth.  What truth there was, nobody knows.  That there was a truth - although there are no incontrovertible facts recorded in history about Arthur - is beyond dispute; otherwise, his legend would not have survived to be come known worldwide and to be recognized as an imperishable part of Britian's heritage."

The stories about Arthur were passed down in orally told tales for hundreds of years before people like Sir Thomas Mallory wrote them down, so who knows for sure how the very first telling of the tale went, but Canning's version is probably closer to the truth about Arthur if there ever was one.  Check it out.