Arthuriana Chronology

This is a timeline of persons, events, and works associated with the Arthurian legends.  It includes historical background for such Arthuriana.  This is an evolving project, sponsored by the journal Arthuriana .  If you would like to contribute information for the Chronology, please contact  csnyder@marymount.edu .  Contributors are credited at the end of the Chronology.

	HISTORY	LITERATURE	THE ARTS
AD 175	Lucius Artorius Castus serves as praefectus of the Legio VI Victrix in Britain.
401 or 402	Stilicho withdraws troops from Britain for the defense of Italy.
31 Dec. 406	Alans, Vandals, and Sueves cross the frozen Rhine, invading the Gallic provinces of the Roman Empire.
406-7	The army in Britain elects a series of usurpers: Marcus, Gratian, and Constantine III.
407	Constantine III crosses to Gaul with troops from Britain.
408 or 410	Britain is devastated by Saxon incursions.
409	The Britons revolt from the Empire and set up independent rule.  The Romans can no longer hold on to Britain, which is henceforth ruled by "tyrants."
410	Alaric’s Visigoths sack Rome.  The western emperor Honorius sends a rescript to the cities of Britain urging them to see to their own defense.
429	St. Germanus visits Britain to combat the Pelagian heresy.
c.430-54	Some Britons send a letter to Agitius (Aëtius) asking for aid against the barbarians.
431	Palladius named first bishop of Ireland; succeeded some time  afterwards by Patrick.
c.441	Witnesses in Gaul observed that some portion of Britain had fallen into the hands of the Saxons.
c.443-c.450	Plague infects Britain and much of Europe.
c.445	St. Germanus makes a second visit to Britain.
c.452		The first of the two anonymous Gallic Chronicles is compiled.
c.455-c.485	Britons convene a council and decide to hire Saxon mercenaries.  The superbus tyrannus settles the Saxons in northeastern Britain, from whence they rebel.  The British survivors turn to Ambrosius Aurelianus, who leads them to a series of victories over the Saxons.
c.468	Riothamus, king of the Britons, fights the Visigoths in Gaul.
c.485	The Battle of Mount Badon and slaughter of the Saxons.  The birth of Gildas.
c.511		The second Gallic Chronicle is compiled.
518		Entry for the Battle of Badon in the Annales Cambriae.
521	The birth of St. Columba.
c.529		Gildas writes the De Excidio Britanniae.
539		Entry for the Battle of Camlann in the Annales Cambriae.
542-49	Bubonic plague devastates Constantinople, eventually reaching to Britain and Ireland.
563-65	St. Columba establishes a monastery on Iona, and begins his mission among the Picts.
573		According to the Annales Cambriae, the Battle of Arfderydd in which Gwenddolau fell and Myrddin went mad.
577	The Battle of Dyrham.  The British towns of Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath fall to the Saxons.
c.590	The Battle of Catraeth.  British warband from Din Eidyn wiped out by the Saxons.
597	Papal missionaries led by St. Augustine arrive at Canterbury.  The death of St. Columba at Iona.
c.600	St. Kentigern (Mungo) a British  missionary in Strathclyde, founds the first church in Glasgow.	Aneirin composes Y Gododdin.  St. Columbanus writes his first letter to Pope Gregory I.  The Irish epic Táin Bó Cuailnge is in circulation.
638	The kingdom of the Gododdin is destroyed.
688	Glastonbury Abbey is founded by the King of Wessex.	St. Adomnán, abbot of Iona, begins his Life of St. Columba.
731		Bede completes his  Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
c.786	First Viking raids on Britain.
800	Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome	English poet Cynewulf active.
c.830		Composition of the Historia Brittonum.
843-50	Kenneth mac Alpin unites the Scottish and Pictish thrones, becoming the first king of Scotland.
1019		Th early date argued for the Life of Saint Goueznou.
c.1050		The four branches of the Mabinogi are collected.
1066	Norman invasion of England and the battle of Hastings.
c.1090		Lifric of Llancarfan, Life of St. Cadoc .
c.1100		The date of the manuscript in BM Harley 3859 which contains the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae.  The final version of Culhwch ac Olwen appears in writing.	The Perros Relief, in  Brittany, illustrating a  scene from the legend  of Arthur and St. Efflam.
Early 12^th cent.		Caradoc of Llancarfan's Life of St. Gildas.
12^th cent.		The Life of St. Carannog and The Life of St. Iltud
c.1120-40			The Modena Archivolt, in northern Italy, depicting the rescue of Guinevere.
c.1120		The Life of St. Padarn
c.1125		William of Malmesbury, The Early History of Glastonbury and The Deeds of the English Kings.
c.1136-38		Geoffrey of Monmouth  completes his History of the Kings of Britain, incorporating  an earlier work, The Prophecies  of Merlin.
c.1150		Geoffrey publishes his Life of Merlin.
1151	Geoffrey is elected Bishop of St. Asaph.
1153	The Treaty of Westminster, witnessed by Geoffrey of Monmouth, recognizing Henry  Plantagenet, son of Matilda, as the heir of King Stephen.
1155		Wace publishes his Roman de Brut.
1165			Arthur is depicted in a  mosaic on the floor of  the Norman cathedral in Otranto, Italy.
c.1167-83		Alanus de Insulus, English Prophecies of Merlin Ambrosius.
c.1170		Marie de France writes her Arthurian lays.
c.1170-91		Chrétien de Troyes writes his five Arthurian romances.
1175		The poet Thomas writes his Tristan.
1180		Eilhart von Oberge writes his Tristrant .
c.1190	Glastonbury monks excavate the grave of Arthur and Guinevere.	Layamon publishes his Brut.
1191	Richard I gives "Excalibur" to King Tancred of Sicily on crusade.	Béroul writes his Tristan; Gerald of Wales writes The Journey through Wales and The Description of Wales.
c.1193-99		Gerald of Wales writes The Instruction of a Prince.
13^th cent.		Oldest manuscripts containing the Welsh Triads; the Welsh romances Owain, Ystoria Peredur ab Efrawg, and Geraint ab Erbin are written.
c.1200		Robert de Boron composes Merlin and Joseph d'Arimathea.
c.1200-25		Raoul de Houdenc composes Meraugis de Portlesguez and La Vengeance Raguidel.
1202	King John captures and executes his nephew, Arthur of Brittany.
1210		Wolfram von Eschenbach writes Parzifal.  Gottfried von  Strassburg writes his Tristan.
1210-25		The Perlesvaus is written.
1215-35		The French Vulgate cycle is written.
c.1216		Gerald of Wales writes Speculum Ecclesiae .
1220s			The first Arthurian  illluminated MSS.
1250		The Prose Tristan is completed.
c.1250		The Black Book of Carmarthen, which contains the poems The Stanzas of the Graves, Pa Gur, and Geraint son of Erbin . The anonymous French romance L'Atre Périlleux.
1270			The Tristan story is  illustrated on tiles at  Chertsey Abbey,  England.
1278	Edward I visits Glastonbury Abbey for the reinterment of Arthur's bones.
Late 13^th cent.		The Book of Aneirin, which contains the Gododdin .
Early 14^th cent.		The Book of Taliesin, which contains The Spoils of Annwfn, The Battle of the Trees, The Prince's Chair, The Poem of the Horses, and Uther Pendragon's Elegy.
1310		First mention of Arthur as one of the Nine Worthies.
1344	Edward III promises to establish a new Order of the Round Table.
c.1350		The stanzaic Le Morte Arthur is written; the date of the White Book of Rhydderch.	Original construction of the Winchester Round  Table.
c.1400		The alliterative Morte Arthure is written; the date of the Red Book of Hergest, which contains the poem The Dream of Rhonabwy.
1400		An anonymous English poet completes Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
1470		Sir Thomas Malory completes Le Morte D’Arthur , while in  prison.
1485	Henry Tudor defeats Richard III at Bosworth Field, fighting under the banner of the Red Dragon.	William Caxton publishes Malory's Le Morte D’Arthur.
1486	Henry VII's first son is christened Arthur at Winchester.
1502	The death of Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales.
1511	Catherine of Aragon gives Henry VIII a son named Arthur.
1522			Henry VIII shows the visiting emperor Charles V the Winchester Round Table, then bearing a painted figure of Arthur with Henry's visage.
1542	Leland identifies South Cadbury as Camelot.
1587			Queen Elizabeth gives her royal commendation to an Arthurian pageant.
1590 and 1596		Publication of Spenser's The  Faerie Queene.
1607			In his Britannia, William Camden includes an engraving of the Glastonbury Cross.
1691			King Arthur, or the  British Worthy, a masque by John Dryden and Henry Purcell.
1829		Thomas Love Peacock’s satirical romance, The Misfortunes of Elphin
1834-85		Tennyson composes and publishes various versions of his Idylls of the King.
1848			Formation of the Pre-  Raphaelite Brotherhood  in London.
1852		Matthew Arnold writes the poem Tristram and Iseult.
1858		William Morris publishes The  Defence of Guenevere, and Other Poems.
1865			The first presentation of Wagner's Tristan und  Isolde.
1880		Sidney Lanier's A Boy's King Arthur, a retelling of Malory.
1882		Algernon Charles Swinburne writes the poem Tristram of  Lyonesse.	Wagner produces his final opera, Parsifal , a year before his death.
1888			J.W. Waterhouse's most famous painted version of The Lady of Shalott.
1889		Mark  Twain writes A  Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
1903-10		Howard Pyle writes and illustrates his famous retellings of Malory.
1917-27		Edwin Arlington Robinson's three Arthurian poems are  published.
1922		T.S. Eliot composes the poem The Waste Land , with its Arthurian and Grail imagery.
1932		John Cowper Powys writes A Glastonbury Romance .
1938		T.H. White writes his first  Arthurian novel, The Sword in the Stone.
1938 and 1944		Charles Williams publishes Taliessin through Logres and The Region of the Summer Stars.
1943			Jean Cocteau's film,  L'Eternel Retour.
1949			Bing Crosby stars in the film musical A Connecticut  Yankee in King Arthur's  Court.
1951		John Cowper Powys' novel, Porius: A Romance of the Dark Ages
1958		Four of T.H. White's Arthurian  novels are published together as The Once and Future King.
1963		Rosemary Sutcliff's novel, Sword at Sunset .	Walt Disney's animated film The Sword in the  Stone.
1967			The film version of the  musical Camelot.
1970		Mary Stewart begins her Merlin trilogy with The Crystal Cave.
1973		Susan Cooper’s novel The Dark is Rising .
1974			Robert Bresson's film  Lancelot du Lac.
1975			The comic film Monty  Python and the Holy Grail.
1976		Publication of John Steinbeck's  unfinished novel, The Acts of King Arthur.
1978		Thomas Berger's satiric novel, Arthur Rex .	Eric Rohmer's film  Perceval le Gallois.
1980		Parke Godwin's novel, Firelord.
1981			John Boorman's film  Excalibur.
1982		Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel, The Mists of Avalon; Phyllis Ann Karr's novel, The Idylls of the Queen.
1984		Parke Godwin's novel, Beloved Exile.
1987-97		Stephen R. Lawhead's "The Pendragon Cycle" (novels): Taliesin (1987), Merlin (1988), Arthur (1989), Pendragon (1994), and Grail (1997).
1988		Diana L. Paxson's Tristan novel, The White Raven.
1991			Terry Gilliam's film The  Fisher King.
1995			Jerry Zucker's film First Knight.
1995-97		Bernard Cornwell's "The Warlord Chronicles" (novels): The Winter King (1995), Enemy of God (1996), and Excalibur (1997).
1998			The NBC-TV miniseries Merlin.
1999
2000
2001		Jack Whyte’s novel Uther (in the Camulod Chronicle series).	The TNT miniseries Mists of Avalon.

Designed and maintained by Dr. Christopher A. Snyder , Associate Professor of History, Marymount University.

Contributors

P.J.C. Field, Michelle Ziegler, Guillermo Rubio, Linda Gowan, Tony Grand, Richard W.H. Bray, Jacqueline Peltier.

Sources

Lacy, Norris J., Geoffrey Ashe, and Debra N. Mancoff.  The Arthurian Handbook.  Second edition.  New York: Garland, 1997.

Lacy, Norris J., ed.  The New Arthurian Encyclopedia.  New York: Garland, 1991.

Snyder, Christopher A. An Age of Tyrants: Britain and the Britons, AD 400-600.  University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1998.

---. The World of King Arthur.  New York and London: Thames and Hudson, 2000.

Last updated: November 2003