Ambrosius Aurelianus [Arthus]

An illustration depicting the battle of Mt. Badon in which the historic Arthur (if there actually was one) was said to have won a major victory over the encroaching Saxons. If Arthur was a real person, I think this depiction is a lot closer to what he may have looked like. He would likely have been a Romanized Briton with Celtic heritage but Roman training.

One name that emerges from the history of this time is
Ambrosius Aurelianus, also called Arthus. Little is known of this man and his
history has become irrecoverably entwined with medieval legend and romance so
that it is difficult to untangle fact from fiction. As King Arthur, he was
immortalized by Sir Thomas Malory in the fifteenth century in his work Le Morte
d’Arthur, with an elaborate account of Arthur and the Knights of the Round
Table, thus intermingling fact and fiction. The historical Ambrosius was a
warrior, probably trained in Roman military tactics, who led mounted bands of
Britons against the Saxons. The Historia Brittonium called Arthus Dux Bellorum,
reminiscent of a Roman military title. He was associated with twelve battles
and probably led mounted horsemen, well trained, who could easily rout a force
of foot soldiers. Eight of these battles took place at fords where foot
soldiers would be at a disadvantage. These victories culminated in a last great
battle, about AD 500, at Mount Badon (Mons Badonicus), an unidentified site but
probably somewhere in the south-west. Gildas said that ‘after this there was
peace’ and about AD 540 spoke of ‘our present security’.

When the Romans left Britain, they didn’t just take their
belongings with them; they took their entire way of life. Over the centuries,
Roman rule had civilized Britain. The abrupt departure of the Romans left a
vacuum the Anglo-Saxons were happy to fill, but the two invaders could not have
been more different. The Romans had introduced government to Britain, central
political and economic structures that had created an orderly and prosperous
life for most. They had also established long-distance trade, money, taxes,
roads, sanitation, pottery, and glass. When the Romans left, they took all of
these innovations with them and under the illiterate, “barbaric” Anglo-Saxons
the British were reduced to a barter economy and lived in a more primitive
state than their ancestors before.

Those who were able to escape fled to Armorica in Gaul
(modern-day France) where they settled by the sea in a land that closely
resembled that which they had left behind. To this day, inhabitants of the part
of France now known as Brittany speak in an unusual Welsh-sounding dialect that
is an ancient British tongue. For those who remained behind in Britain, the
only option was to run and hide from the fearful barbaric warriors who would
kill them on sight.

It is at this desperate juncture in British history that
Ambrosius Aurelianus appears and the legend of King Arthur is born. Little can
be fact-checked on the life of Ambrosius Aurelianus, but it is thought that he
was a Roman general of impeccable lineage who had remained behind in Britain
when the Empire fell. Aurelianus may have had a son who was Romano-Celtic and
given the same name, and as a result, the British army of resistance against
the Anglo-Saxons may have been active under a leader named Aurelianus for two
generations.

Under the second Aurelianus, who has been described as a
Welsh prince, the first effective resistance to Anglo-Saxon forces was
established. Saxons were pushing further and further west, forcing
Romano-British deeper into Wales. Aurelianus gathered the surviving
Roman-British and organized them into a military force, capable of standing up
to the Anglo-Saxons. In a series of battles, the British resistance managed to
reclaim important territory, forcing West Saxons out of Dorset and as far as
Wiltshire.

These skirmishes reached their climax in the Battle of Mons
Badonicus, or the Battle of Mount Badon, which is thought to have taken place
around the year 500 AD. We cannot be sure exactly where Mount Badon is. Most of
the assumptions historians are able to make about this period of ancient
history come from archeological findings. Evidence of a hillfort manned by
Romano-British people was found at Little Solsbury Hill in southern England,
close to Bath, leading some historians to believe that this is Mount Badon.
Others think it more likely that Aurelianus was defending the north of England
and that Mount Badon is probably located in Cumbria, known as Camboglanna in
Roman times.

What little information we have about Ambrosius Aurelianus
and the Battle of Mount Badon comes from just one scant source: the sermon of a
sixth-century British priest or monk named Gildas. Gildas, who was known as
Gildas the Wise, wrote the sermon De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (On the
Ruin and Conquest of Britain) as a religious re-telling of the Anglo-Saxon
invasion of Britain and the aftermath. It is thought that Gildas’ text was
written sometime between 510 and 540 AD, meaning Gildas was writing about
events as they were happening or at the very least had happened within living
memory. As such, Gildas’ text is incredibly valuable to historians studying
this particular period of British history. Gildas, for example, offers one of
the very first descriptions of Hadrian’s Wall.

On Ambrosius Aurelianus, Gildas says only, “A gentleman who,
perhaps alone of the Romans, had survived the shock of this notable storm.
Certainly his parents, who had worn the purple, were slain in it. His
descendants in our day have become greatly inferior to their grandfather’s
excellence. Under him, our people regained their strength and challenged the
victors to battle. The Lord assented, and the battle went their way.”

Gildas account of Aurelianus and his followers’ Christian
piety and bravery in this first section of his sermon contrasts with the next
two parts in which he condemns contemporary leaders for their sinful ways. Was
Aurelianus a real man? And if so, was his life the foundation of the legend of
King Arthur? One theory suggests that Arthur was a nickname given to Aurelianus
by his men. In early Anglo-Saxon times, Arthur meant “bear man” and alluded
either to Aurelianus being a particularly powerful and hairy man or to his
habit of wearing a bear skin cloak.

The next mention of the British leader who led his men to
victory at Mount Badon comes from the Welsh cleric Nennius, who wrote Historia
Brittonum (History of Britain) around 830 AD. Nennius lists twelve battles
between the British and the Anglo-Saxons, but unlike Gildas, he names the
leader of the battles Arthur. Arthur is briefly mentioned again in the slightly
later Annales Cambriae, compiled during the seventh or eighth century. This
weighty chronicle was written anonymously and includes references to the Battle
of Badon during “year 72” with the detail, “Arthur bore the Cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ on his shoulders for three days and three nights and the Britons
were the victors.” Arthur’s death is also listed as having occurred during a
battle at Camlann in 539 AD. It’s not much to go on, but it was enough to spark
the imagination of subsequent generations who looked to these ancient texts as
proof of the origin of the legend of King Arthur.

The Battle of Mount Badon became legendary as it was the
first military victory the Romano-British had achieved over the Anglo-Saxons
and secured relative peace for 50 years. Peace was disrupted again in 550 AD
when a massive and devastating new wave of Saxons descended on Britain and took
almost complete control of the land. By the seventh century, there was no such
thing as Britain; four distinct cultures were sharing the cluster of islands we
now refer to as the United Kingdom.

What remained of the Romano-British stayed in Wales and the
southwest, but by now they had taken on the language of the Celts. A culture
known as the Gaels lived in Ireland and the northwestern region of Scotland.
The Pictish kingdoms kept control of the land north of the Roman Wall. And the
Anglo-Saxons and Jutes controlled the vast majority of England, territories
they named Mercia, Northumbria, East Anglia, Kent, Wessex, Sussex, and Essex.
The very term Welsh is an Anglo-Saxon one, derived from Wielisc or Wyliscand
meaning foreign or slave. Even today, the Welsh term used to describe England
translates roughly as “the lost lands.”

It’s impossible to say how much of Aurelianus or King
Arthur’s life happened, and focusing too much on historical evidence is beside
the point. The time period in which King Arthur was supposed to have lived was
a real period in British history that later became known as the Dark Ages.
Looking back at the Anglo-Saxon invasion their ancestors lived through,
subsequent generations needed a hero whose bravery and Christian virtues were
something to look up to, and this brings us nicely to the legend of King Arthur
in the twelfth century.