English Heritage's new £4m bridge linking the 13th Century Tintagel castle to the headland was due to open on Friday 9th August but has been delayed to Sunday 11th August due to storms forecast for the weekend.
Good idea, or bad idea?
* * *
Showing posts with label Tintagel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tintagel. Show all posts
Thursday, 8 August 2019
Tintagel: New Bridge Opens
English Heritage's new £4m bridge linking the 13th Century Tintagel castle to the headland was due to open on Friday 9th August but has been delayed to Sunday 11th August due to storms forecast for the weekend.
Monday, 15 January 2018
Tintagel: Arthur's Castle?
Top Ten Arthurian Locations: No 2
"Now feast and festival in Arthur's hall:
Hark! stern Dundagel softens into song!
They meet for solemn severance, knight and king,
Where gate and bulwark darken o'er the sea."
- R S Hawker (1864)
Where History meets Legend
A ruined medieval castle on the Cornish coast, surrounded on three sides by azure blue sea, white sea-water spray crashing against the rocks, the birthplace of King Arthur: with such a dramatic setting how can one fail to be impressed with Tintagel?
No, English Heritage have not ruined the island – yet! Under immense financial pressure to become self sufficient as government (tax payers) money is withdrawn English Heritage must increase revenue from top draw attractions such as Tintagel. The so-called guardians of this rare piece of Cornish heritage have been accused of 'Disneyfication' of the site with the so-called Merlin carving on the rocks by the entrance to Merlin's Cave in The Haven and the bronze sculpture named Gallos, inspired by the Arthurian legend.
The face of Merlin causes the biggest concern, as a rock carving, at once it became a permanent feature. But it is unobtrusive and can't be found unless one gets down to Merlin's Cave. Whereas Gallos is clearly a modern sculpture and surprisingly does not feel out of place. Indeed, tourists queue up here to get their photograph taken by the bronze warlord. Only time will tell how this rare piece of Cornish heritage fares in the hands of its trusted guardians.
But next year (2019), English Heritage intend to build a bridge from the mainland to the island. This could be just too much; yes there are many steps to climb to the island but the effort is worthwhile and gives the feeling of remoteness. On achieving the climb you have left behind the mainland and the modern world and enter through a doorway into another realm; you have arrived at Arthur's Castle.
Arthur's Castle?
Geoffrey of Monmouth introduces Tintagel to the Arthurian legend in in his History of the Kings of Britain, c.1136, as the place of Arthur's conception after his father Uther Pendragon takes the form of Gorlois Duke of Cornwall by taking Merlin's potion. That night Uther enters Tintagel Castle and spends the night with Ugraine. In the 15th century William of Worcester toured Cornwall and recorded that King Arthur was born at Tintagel.
The myth of King Arthur and his Tintagel castle has been firmly embedded in the public’s consciousness by successive generations of writers since Geoffrey, including Sir Thomas Malory, Lord Tennyson, and R S Hawker.
The eccentric clergyman, poet and antiquarian, Robert Stephen Hawker (1803 – 1875), known as the vicar of Morwenstow, was inspired to write The Quest of the Sangraal after spending his honeymoon at Tintagel in 1823. Twenty five years later in 1848 Alfred Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, visited Hawker at Morwenstow, and sharing a deep fascination with Arthurian legend, the two travelled to the ruined castle at Tintagel. On completion of The Quest for the Sangraal, Tennyson is said to have declared that “Hawker has beaten me on my own ground.”
Geoffrey Ashe (1997) mentions another legend of Tintagel, possibly no older than Tennyson, that recounts that when Arthur was mortally wounded at Slaughter Bridge (a contender for the site of the battle of Camlann), he was taken to Tintagel and died there. Ashe writes of strange wind-sighings and sea moanings that were said to have been heard around the headland immediately after and continued while Arthur's body was conveyed to Glastonbury for burial. Not until his body was laid in the grave did the eerie noises cease.
The birth of modern tourism in the Victorian period arrived in north Cornwall with the railway in Camelford and construction of the hotel overlooking the ruins of the medieval castle; Tintagel met the visitors' criteria of romantic wild landscape and fashionable coastal resort. The guide Florence Nightingale Richards, Keeper of the Castle Keys, would take visitors around the island pointing out such features as King Arthur's Seat, King Arthur's Cup and Saucers, King Arthur's Footprint. Tennyson's epic poem 'Idylls Of The King' (1859) inspired the Pre-Raphaelites leading to a re-discovery in the arts and crafts movement of the period and the Arthurian Revival.
The Arthurian association with Tintagel was accepted dogma until the 1920's when Henry Jenner the Grand Bard of Cornwall presented a paper in which he dismissed the Arthurian connections to Tintagel as a fraud. Jenner demolished the Arthurian connection and concluded that “historically and romantically, Tintagel Castle is rather a fraud” and argued for a religious function on the island. Jenner, who was responsible for the revival of the Cornish language, suggested that the name of the promontory was Norman-French, highlighting the similarity to a rock on the island of Sark which was known to the locals as “Tente d'Ageu”.
Tintagel was originally just the name of the headland promontory connected to the mainland by a thin isthmus now greatly eroded by the sea. The village was known, until comparatively recently, as Trevena, meaning 'farm on the hill'. Oliver Padel of the Institute of Cornish Studies has argued that the name may originate from the older Cornish language: 'Din', meaning a fort, and 'tagell', meaning a place where two currents of water meet.
Jenner argued that Geoffrey introduced Tintagel Castle into the Arthurian canon because of its dramatic setting high upon the cliffs of the north Cornish coast. Jenner asserted that the medieval castle was not built until about 1230, nearly a hundred years after Geoffrey wrote his story and therefore could not possibly be an Arthurian site and therefore all subsequent accounts relating to Tintagel as Arthur's birthplace were derived from Geoffrey. He considered the Arthurian association was pure invention by Geoffrey as his own research found no such connection. Jenner's theory that Tintagel was a religious establishment, rather than secular, influenced archaeological interpretations of the site for the next 50 years.
In 1930, C. A. Raleigh Radford was commissioned by the British Ministry of Works to investigate the Arthurian history of the Tintagel site. He carried out excavations at the site, on and off, for thirty years. Yet, Radford's interpretation of the site concurred with Jenner's earlier suggestion that Tintagel was indeed the site of a Celtic monastery.
A small group of Irish Saints 'Lives' make reference to a place called “Rosnat” (or “Rostat”), a place of religious learning outside Ireland where early saints received an education. Radford envisaged Tintagel as Rosnat, created by the holy man St. Julitta, who arrived in the south west of England shortly before the year 500 with a group of disciples. Radford believed that Julitta equated with St. Juliana, one of the 'children of Brychan', a large family of siblings who became Celtic saints and have left their names in church dedications all over Cornwall. Today the low walls of a 12th century chapel, identified by Ralegh Radford as St Julitta's chapel, still stand on the highest part of the island.
Henry VIII's antiquary John Leland visited Tintagel twice, in the late 1530's and early 1540's, following an itinerary similar to that of William of Worcester. Leland records that the chapel of “Ulette or Ulaine still stands within the dungeon”, while the remainder of the castle is in ruins. But Arthur is notably absent from Leland's record of his two visits to Tintagel.
If we can believe Arthurian Romance as being based on fact then a chapel was standing here at least thirty years before Richard Earl of Cornwall constructed his castle in the 13th century. "Perlesvaus or The High History Of The Holy Graal" was originally written in Old French in the first decade of the 13th Century A.D., as a continuation of Chretien DeTroyes' unfinished work "Perceval, or the Story of the Grail". The unknown author is rumoured to have been a monk of Glastonbury and may have possessed first hand knowledge of the site. The account of Tintagel therein would appear to be adhering to Geoffrey's account in which Uther is transformed into the shape of Gorlois by Merlin:
“[Lancelot and Gawain] ….. rode right busily on their journeys until they came into a very different land, scarce inhabited of any folk, and found a little castle in a combe. They came thitherward and saw that the enclosure of the castle was fallen down into an abysm, so that none might approach it on that side, but it had a right fair gateway and a door tall and wide whereby one entered. They beheld a chapel that was right fair and rich, and below was a great ancient hall. They saw a priest appear in the midst of the castle, bald and old, that had come forth of the chapel. They are come thither and alighted, and asked the priest what the castle was, and he told them that it was the great Tintagel.
"And how is this ground all caved in about the castle?"
"Sir," saith the priest, "I will tell you. Sir," saith he, "King Uther Pendragon, that was father of King Arthur, held a great court and summoned all his barons. The King of this castle that then was here was named Gorlois. He went to the court and took his wife with him, that was named Ygerne, and she was the fairest dame in any kingdom. King Uther sought acquaintance of her for her great beauty, and regarded her and honoured her more than all the others of his court. King Gorlois departed thence and made the Queen come back to this castle for the dread that he had of King Uther Pendragon. King Uther was very wroth with him, and commanded him to send back the Queen his wife. King Gorlois said that he would not. Thereupon King Uther Pendragon defied him, and then laid siege about this castle where the Queen was. King Gorlois was gone to seek for succour. King Uther Pendragon had Merlin with him of whom you have heard tell, that was so crafty. He made him be changed into the semblance of King Gorlois, so that he entered there within by Merlin's art and lay that night with the Queen, and so begat King Arthur in a great hall that was next to the enclosure there where this abysm is. And for this sin hath the ground sunken in on this wise."
He cometh with them toward the chapel that was right fair, and had a right rich sepulchre therein.
"Lords, in this sepulchre was placed the body of Merlin, but never mought it be set inside the chapel, wherefore perforce it remained outside. And know of a very truth that the body lieth not within the sepulchre, for, so soon as it was set therein, it was taken out and snatched away, either on God's behalf or the Enemy's, but which we know not." [Trans. Sebastian Evans, 1898]
The account of Tintagel in The High History diverges from Geoffrey in recording a chapel standing in the ruins of a castle in much the same as that of Leland. Yet, The High History was written down at least three hundred years before Leland's account and thirty years before the medieval castle of Richard Earl of Cornwall was constructed; does The High History contain evidence of an Early Medieval stronghold on the island of which the remains were present in Geoffrey's day?
A Royal Palace
A grass fire swept across the island in 1983 revealing many small dwellings which lead to the questioning of Radford's monastic interpretation. Subsequently, more recent interpretations of the Tintagel site have come to a very different conclusion and favour a secular trading post.
A re-evaluation of the site was carried out by the Cornish archaeologist Charles Thomas who closely studied the pottery sherds uncovered by Radford. Thomas noted that the pottery, mainly amphorae used to transport wine and oil, represented material evidence of imported luxury goods and concluded that the site had been used by high status or royal individuals and dismissed the monastic interpretation.
In medieval literature Tintagel was always referred to as a 'royal palace' and a dwelling of the rulers of Cornwall, notably the palace of King Mark in the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the earliest Arthurian tales (such as Culhwch and Olwen) Arthur's camp, Celliwig, is always in Cornwall. However, this does not qualify as providing any sort of evidence for proof of Geoffrey of Monmouth's account of the conception of King Arthur at Tintagel Castle.
The history of Tintagel, as with much of Britain, starts in the Roman period. Two Roman honorific markers from the area, one now in Tintagel church and one at Trethevy, a mile and a half to the east, suggest an Imperial presence in the area in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Small amounts of pottery and some Roman coins found on the island appear to confirm limited Roman activity.
In 1998 English Heritage announced the discovery of an inscribed slate which swung the pendulum firmly back in Arthur's favour. Known as The Artognou Stone, the slate found at Site C on the Eastern terrace, bears the inscription:
The name “Artognou” was proposed as a variant of Arthur and immediately led to speculation that it was confirmation of King Arthur's presence at Tintagel. English Heritage's chief archaeologist at the time, Dr Geoffrey Wainwright, seemingly carried away in the euphoria, described the discovery as "the find of a lifetime".
Charles Thomas translated this as "Artognou, father of a descendant of Coll, has had this built". This inscription has been dated to a 6th century hand, found in a sealed layer containing fragments of 6th century Mediterranean pottery. However, it is often ignored that the slate bears two inscriptions in different hands from different periods. The letters 'AXE' appears to be the tailend of a Classical Roman inscription from the Late 4th century, which Thomas suggests may be an inscription to the Emperor Honorius, Augustus from 393 to 423 AD. The slate appears to have been re-used later for some 6th century graffiti, such as a practise inscription. Thomas speculated that the slate may originally have hung on the wall of a public building, perhaps a tax office, in the late 4th century before being used as a drain cover in the 6th century at the post-Roman buildings at Site C. The Romans could have used Tintagel as a trading post, exchanging Mediterranean goods for Cornish tin.
Further archaeological investigations, sponsored by English Heritage, confirmed Tintagel was indeed a post-Roman palace, possibly the seasonal seat of the kings of ancient Dumnonia (modern Cornwall and Devon). Sceptics may argue that archaeologists always seem to find what they want to find, especially when English Heritage are hoping to raise the Arthurian profile of Tintagel and visitor numbers.
A new program of archaeological investigations at Tintagel has already declared the discovery of a 'Dark Age' high status building on the Headland in July 2016. The media circus that followed declared it as the discovery of King Arthur's palace. However, as with the inscribed 'Artognou' slate, this is not evidence for Arthur. The excavations go on.
Copyright © 2018 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/
Sources:
Geoffrey Ashe, The Traveller's Guide to Arthurian Britain, Gothic Image, 1997.
Robert Stephen Hawker, The Quest of the Sangraal, 1864.
The High History Of The Holy Graal - Branch XX, Translation by Sebastian Evans, 1898.
Charles Thomas, Tintagel - Arthur and Archaeology, Batsford, 1993.
Rachel C. Barrowman and Colleen E. Batey, Excavations at Tintagel Castle, Cornwall, 1990-1999 (Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London), Society of Antiquaries of London, 2007.
C A Ralegh Radford, Tintagel Castle, Cornwall : Official Guide, HMSO, Reprint edition, 1969.
Ronald Youlton, King Arthur. Tintagel Castle and Celtic Monastery, Tintagel Parish Council, 13th Edition edition, 1976.
Henry Jenner & J.Hambley Rowe, Tintagel Castle: Its History and Romance (1926), Oakmagic Publications edition 1999.
Photographs copyright © Edward Watson
"Now feast and festival in Arthur's hall:
Hark! stern Dundagel softens into song!
They meet for solemn severance, knight and king,
Where gate and bulwark darken o'er the sea."
- R S Hawker (1864)
Where History meets Legend
A ruined medieval castle on the Cornish coast, surrounded on three sides by azure blue sea, white sea-water spray crashing against the rocks, the birthplace of King Arthur: with such a dramatic setting how can one fail to be impressed with Tintagel?
 |
| Gallos |
No, English Heritage have not ruined the island – yet! Under immense financial pressure to become self sufficient as government (tax payers) money is withdrawn English Heritage must increase revenue from top draw attractions such as Tintagel. The so-called guardians of this rare piece of Cornish heritage have been accused of 'Disneyfication' of the site with the so-called Merlin carving on the rocks by the entrance to Merlin's Cave in The Haven and the bronze sculpture named Gallos, inspired by the Arthurian legend.
The face of Merlin causes the biggest concern, as a rock carving, at once it became a permanent feature. But it is unobtrusive and can't be found unless one gets down to Merlin's Cave. Whereas Gallos is clearly a modern sculpture and surprisingly does not feel out of place. Indeed, tourists queue up here to get their photograph taken by the bronze warlord. Only time will tell how this rare piece of Cornish heritage fares in the hands of its trusted guardians.
But next year (2019), English Heritage intend to build a bridge from the mainland to the island. This could be just too much; yes there are many steps to climb to the island but the effort is worthwhile and gives the feeling of remoteness. On achieving the climb you have left behind the mainland and the modern world and enter through a doorway into another realm; you have arrived at Arthur's Castle.
Geoffrey of Monmouth introduces Tintagel to the Arthurian legend in in his History of the Kings of Britain, c.1136, as the place of Arthur's conception after his father Uther Pendragon takes the form of Gorlois Duke of Cornwall by taking Merlin's potion. That night Uther enters Tintagel Castle and spends the night with Ugraine. In the 15th century William of Worcester toured Cornwall and recorded that King Arthur was born at Tintagel.
 |
| The ascent on to the island |
The eccentric clergyman, poet and antiquarian, Robert Stephen Hawker (1803 – 1875), known as the vicar of Morwenstow, was inspired to write The Quest of the Sangraal after spending his honeymoon at Tintagel in 1823. Twenty five years later in 1848 Alfred Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, visited Hawker at Morwenstow, and sharing a deep fascination with Arthurian legend, the two travelled to the ruined castle at Tintagel. On completion of The Quest for the Sangraal, Tennyson is said to have declared that “Hawker has beaten me on my own ground.”
 |
| The curtain wall of the 13th century Castle |
The birth of modern tourism in the Victorian period arrived in north Cornwall with the railway in Camelford and construction of the hotel overlooking the ruins of the medieval castle; Tintagel met the visitors' criteria of romantic wild landscape and fashionable coastal resort. The guide Florence Nightingale Richards, Keeper of the Castle Keys, would take visitors around the island pointing out such features as King Arthur's Seat, King Arthur's Cup and Saucers, King Arthur's Footprint. Tennyson's epic poem 'Idylls Of The King' (1859) inspired the Pre-Raphaelites leading to a re-discovery in the arts and crafts movement of the period and the Arthurian Revival.
The Arthurian association with Tintagel was accepted dogma until the 1920's when Henry Jenner the Grand Bard of Cornwall presented a paper in which he dismissed the Arthurian connections to Tintagel as a fraud. Jenner demolished the Arthurian connection and concluded that “historically and romantically, Tintagel Castle is rather a fraud” and argued for a religious function on the island. Jenner, who was responsible for the revival of the Cornish language, suggested that the name of the promontory was Norman-French, highlighting the similarity to a rock on the island of Sark which was known to the locals as “Tente d'Ageu”.
Tintagel was originally just the name of the headland promontory connected to the mainland by a thin isthmus now greatly eroded by the sea. The village was known, until comparatively recently, as Trevena, meaning 'farm on the hill'. Oliver Padel of the Institute of Cornish Studies has argued that the name may originate from the older Cornish language: 'Din', meaning a fort, and 'tagell', meaning a place where two currents of water meet.
Jenner argued that Geoffrey introduced Tintagel Castle into the Arthurian canon because of its dramatic setting high upon the cliffs of the north Cornish coast. Jenner asserted that the medieval castle was not built until about 1230, nearly a hundred years after Geoffrey wrote his story and therefore could not possibly be an Arthurian site and therefore all subsequent accounts relating to Tintagel as Arthur's birthplace were derived from Geoffrey. He considered the Arthurian association was pure invention by Geoffrey as his own research found no such connection. Jenner's theory that Tintagel was a religious establishment, rather than secular, influenced archaeological interpretations of the site for the next 50 years.
In 1930, C. A. Raleigh Radford was commissioned by the British Ministry of Works to investigate the Arthurian history of the Tintagel site. He carried out excavations at the site, on and off, for thirty years. Yet, Radford's interpretation of the site concurred with Jenner's earlier suggestion that Tintagel was indeed the site of a Celtic monastery.
A small group of Irish Saints 'Lives' make reference to a place called “Rosnat” (or “Rostat”), a place of religious learning outside Ireland where early saints received an education. Radford envisaged Tintagel as Rosnat, created by the holy man St. Julitta, who arrived in the south west of England shortly before the year 500 with a group of disciples. Radford believed that Julitta equated with St. Juliana, one of the 'children of Brychan', a large family of siblings who became Celtic saints and have left their names in church dedications all over Cornwall. Today the low walls of a 12th century chapel, identified by Ralegh Radford as St Julitta's chapel, still stand on the highest part of the island.
Henry VIII's antiquary John Leland visited Tintagel twice, in the late 1530's and early 1540's, following an itinerary similar to that of William of Worcester. Leland records that the chapel of “Ulette or Ulaine still stands within the dungeon”, while the remainder of the castle is in ruins. But Arthur is notably absent from Leland's record of his two visits to Tintagel.
 |
| The Chapel |
“[Lancelot and Gawain] ….. rode right busily on their journeys until they came into a very different land, scarce inhabited of any folk, and found a little castle in a combe. They came thitherward and saw that the enclosure of the castle was fallen down into an abysm, so that none might approach it on that side, but it had a right fair gateway and a door tall and wide whereby one entered. They beheld a chapel that was right fair and rich, and below was a great ancient hall. They saw a priest appear in the midst of the castle, bald and old, that had come forth of the chapel. They are come thither and alighted, and asked the priest what the castle was, and he told them that it was the great Tintagel.
"And how is this ground all caved in about the castle?"
"Sir," saith the priest, "I will tell you. Sir," saith he, "King Uther Pendragon, that was father of King Arthur, held a great court and summoned all his barons. The King of this castle that then was here was named Gorlois. He went to the court and took his wife with him, that was named Ygerne, and she was the fairest dame in any kingdom. King Uther sought acquaintance of her for her great beauty, and regarded her and honoured her more than all the others of his court. King Gorlois departed thence and made the Queen come back to this castle for the dread that he had of King Uther Pendragon. King Uther was very wroth with him, and commanded him to send back the Queen his wife. King Gorlois said that he would not. Thereupon King Uther Pendragon defied him, and then laid siege about this castle where the Queen was. King Gorlois was gone to seek for succour. King Uther Pendragon had Merlin with him of whom you have heard tell, that was so crafty. He made him be changed into the semblance of King Gorlois, so that he entered there within by Merlin's art and lay that night with the Queen, and so begat King Arthur in a great hall that was next to the enclosure there where this abysm is. And for this sin hath the ground sunken in on this wise."
He cometh with them toward the chapel that was right fair, and had a right rich sepulchre therein.
"Lords, in this sepulchre was placed the body of Merlin, but never mought it be set inside the chapel, wherefore perforce it remained outside. And know of a very truth that the body lieth not within the sepulchre, for, so soon as it was set therein, it was taken out and snatched away, either on God's behalf or the Enemy's, but which we know not." [Trans. Sebastian Evans, 1898]
The account of Tintagel in The High History diverges from Geoffrey in recording a chapel standing in the ruins of a castle in much the same as that of Leland. Yet, The High History was written down at least three hundred years before Leland's account and thirty years before the medieval castle of Richard Earl of Cornwall was constructed; does The High History contain evidence of an Early Medieval stronghold on the island of which the remains were present in Geoffrey's day?
 |
| The island courtyard |
A grass fire swept across the island in 1983 revealing many small dwellings which lead to the questioning of Radford's monastic interpretation. Subsequently, more recent interpretations of the Tintagel site have come to a very different conclusion and favour a secular trading post.
A re-evaluation of the site was carried out by the Cornish archaeologist Charles Thomas who closely studied the pottery sherds uncovered by Radford. Thomas noted that the pottery, mainly amphorae used to transport wine and oil, represented material evidence of imported luxury goods and concluded that the site had been used by high status or royal individuals and dismissed the monastic interpretation.
In medieval literature Tintagel was always referred to as a 'royal palace' and a dwelling of the rulers of Cornwall, notably the palace of King Mark in the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the earliest Arthurian tales (such as Culhwch and Olwen) Arthur's camp, Celliwig, is always in Cornwall. However, this does not qualify as providing any sort of evidence for proof of Geoffrey of Monmouth's account of the conception of King Arthur at Tintagel Castle.
The history of Tintagel, as with much of Britain, starts in the Roman period. Two Roman honorific markers from the area, one now in Tintagel church and one at Trethevy, a mile and a half to the east, suggest an Imperial presence in the area in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Small amounts of pottery and some Roman coins found on the island appear to confirm limited Roman activity.
In 1998 English Heritage announced the discovery of an inscribed slate which swung the pendulum firmly back in Arthur's favour. Known as The Artognou Stone, the slate found at Site C on the Eastern terrace, bears the inscription:
PATER COLIAVIFICIT / ARTOGNOV / COLI FICIT
The name “Artognou” was proposed as a variant of Arthur and immediately led to speculation that it was confirmation of King Arthur's presence at Tintagel. English Heritage's chief archaeologist at the time, Dr Geoffrey Wainwright, seemingly carried away in the euphoria, described the discovery as "the find of a lifetime".
 |
| A display replica of the Artognou Slate |
Further archaeological investigations, sponsored by English Heritage, confirmed Tintagel was indeed a post-Roman palace, possibly the seasonal seat of the kings of ancient Dumnonia (modern Cornwall and Devon). Sceptics may argue that archaeologists always seem to find what they want to find, especially when English Heritage are hoping to raise the Arthurian profile of Tintagel and visitor numbers.
 |
| 2017 excavations on the island |
"I yearn that men I know not, men unborn,
Should find, amid these fields, King Arthur's fame!
Here let them say, by proud Dundagel's walls--
'They brought the Sangraal back by his command,
They touched these rugged rocks with hues of God:'
So shall my name have worship, and my land."
- R S Hawker (1864)
Copyright © 2018 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/
Sources:
Geoffrey Ashe, The Traveller's Guide to Arthurian Britain, Gothic Image, 1997.
Robert Stephen Hawker, The Quest of the Sangraal, 1864.
The High History Of The Holy Graal - Branch XX, Translation by Sebastian Evans, 1898.
Charles Thomas, Tintagel - Arthur and Archaeology, Batsford, 1993.
Rachel C. Barrowman and Colleen E. Batey, Excavations at Tintagel Castle, Cornwall, 1990-1999 (Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London), Society of Antiquaries of London, 2007.
C A Ralegh Radford, Tintagel Castle, Cornwall : Official Guide, HMSO, Reprint edition, 1969.
Ronald Youlton, King Arthur. Tintagel Castle and Celtic Monastery, Tintagel Parish Council, 13th Edition edition, 1976.
Henry Jenner & J.Hambley Rowe, Tintagel Castle: Its History and Romance (1926), Oakmagic Publications edition 1999.
Photographs copyright © Edward Watson
* * *
Sunday, 26 February 2017
The Artognou Stone
“No evidence whatever has been found to support the legendary connection of the castle with King Arthur. The earliest reference to this connection is in the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote when the first Norman castle was being built. Probably the then existing ruins of the Celtic monastery suggested to him that there was an earlier settlement on the site, and the rest was supplied by his vivid imagination”. - CA Ralegh Radford, Tintagel Castle, (1935).
The Cell by the Sea
Geoffrey of Monmouth tells the tale of how Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall, on realising that Utherpendragon had fallen in love with his wife Ygerna, had her locked up in his strongest castle at Tintagel. He then shut himself up in another castle within sight of Tintagel, known as Damelioc. With the aid of Merlin's magic Utherpendragon entered the castle at Tintagel and seduced Ygerna. That night Arthur was conceived.
Arthur has been associated with Tintagel since Geoffrey wrote his “History of the Kings of Britain” c.1136; there is a complete absence of an earlier Cornish tradition from which Geoffrey could have based his account on, leaving many to conclude that the Arthurian events at Tintagel in his work were purely his own invention. After Geoffrey, Arthur's association with Tintagel quickly fades from the Romances and the connection is limited to the tales of 'Tristan and Iseult' as the seat of King Mark of Cornwall.
The Cornish historian Henry Jenner believed that Geoffrey introduced Tintagel Castle into the story because of its dramatic setting upon the high cliffs of the north Cornish coast. At the time Geoffrey wrote there is no evidence of the medieval castle which was not built until 1230, nearly a hundred years later. Jenner maintained that the original version of the story refers to Castle-An-Dinas, near St Columb Major, and that the only Damelioc in Cornwall is in St Dennis in sight of Castle-An-Dinas.
The Iron Age hill-fort of Castle-an-Dinas is situated some 700 feet above sea-level, consisting of three concentric rings of 850 feet diameter, with a single entrance on the south-western side. Two Bronze Age barrows are situated in the interior. Since the 15th century the earthwork has been associated with the Arthurian legend; William of Worcester claimed that the hill-fort was the place where Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, died. The hill-fort is also known as 'Arthur’s Hunting Lodge’ (or Hunting Seat) from which Arthur rode out across Goss Moor. A stone in St Columb was said to bear the footprint that Arthur's horse made whilst he was out hunting.
Three miles south of Castle-An-Dinas, is a conical hill crowned by a small circular fort enclosing the Church of St Dennis, the old name of which was 'Dimelihoc' (clearly Geoffrey's Damelioc), now known as Domellick. Castle-an-Dinas is clearly visible from here whereas Tintagel is not, being some twenty miles distant. It would seem Jenner was correct.
Following Jenner, excavations at Tintagel by Courtenay Arthur Ralegh Radford in the 1930s and 1950s interpreted the Headland as an early Christian monastic settlement with no Arthurian associations, a view that endured for nearly fifty years before historians began to seriously question Ralegh Radford's interpretation.
He referenced the excavation Sites on the Headland as A, B, C, etc, with the first being the site of the earliest buildings of the Celtic monastery. Site A consists of a medieval chapel built across Post Roman buildings. These earlier buildings Ralegh Radford considered to be the site of the nucleus of the cult of the Celtic Saint Juliot, the medieval chapel being built across the Saint's cell. To the south-west of the chapel is the base of a tomb-shrine, a type well-known in Ireland used to contain sacred relics. North of the chapel Ralegh Radford identified four shallow, rock-cut graves that he considered to be evidence of the monastic cemetery.
The absence of a substantial communal hall, such as that unearthed at Cadbury Castle hillfort in Somerset, precludes the possibility that the site represented the seat of a Dark Age chieftain claimed Ralegh Radford. The modest dwellings on such an exposed and desolate location, together with an oratory dedicated to a 5th century missionary Saint wholly conforms to what was known of a typical early British settlement (monasteria) he argued. Ralegh Radford saw 'The Great Ditch' as defining the landward boundary of the monastery, forming the vallum monasterium and seems to have disregarded it in the context of a typical promontory hillfort.
The 'Lives' of several Irish saints refer to a site, known as 'Rosnat' where they would go to study theology and sacred scripture, that was clearly across the sea in Britain. The location of Rosnat has continued to elude historians but Galloway in Scotland and St Davids in Wales were favoured possibilities. In the early 1970's Cornish historian Charles Thomas speculated that if a Cornish monastery, perhaps associated with Mawgan, did indeed exist at Tintagel it could have been Rosnat which is always described as south-east from Ireland.
The ecclesiastical interpretation offered by Ralegh Radford, himself an Arthurian since his father (Arthur Lock Radford) took him to visit Bligh Bond's excavations at Glastonbury in 1910, was a considerable shift from the then current thought that saw Tintagel as an Arthurian site since it was popularised as such by poets such as Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Stephen Hawker, the eccentric parson poet from Morwenstow, during the Arthurian Revival of the Victorian Age.
Ralegh Radford never completed a full report of his Tintagel excavations; his lack of documentation and his monastic interpretation of the site were viewed with some suspicion; an enormous amount of 5th and 6th-century pot-shards, originating from the Mediterranean and Byzantine world, have been uncovered at Tintagel; more than almost all other sites in Britain combined. It seems highly unlikely that a monastery would be that involved in trade on such a scale. Indeed, the pottery evidence suggests a high status site.
The Song of the Western Men
In 1983 a grass fire on the island plateau exposed a much larger number of building foundations, casting further doubt on Ralegh Radford's monastic reading of the island.
English Heritage employed Professor Chris Morris to re-evaluate Ralegh Radford's excavations. Morris led a team of archaeologists from Glasgow University, embarking on an excavation program from 1990-99. The site of the east terrace, known as Ralegh Radford's Site C where the low remains of stone walls identified a building consisting of three connected rooms, was included in Morris's program for excavation.
On 4th July 1998 the archaeologists discovered a broken slate 35cm by 20cm bearing an inscription. The stone (designated RF3486) was found used as a cover for a drain running around the south-western corner of a building on Site C in an undisturbed 6th century layer on the east terrace of the Headland. The inscription bears the letters: PATER COLI AVI FICIT ARTOGNOU COL[I] FICIT which Charles Thomas translated as “Artognou, father of a descendant of Coll, has had this made”. It is claimed that the name “Artognou” would have been pronounced as “Arthnou” hence the tenuously claimed link to the legendary King Arthur. The little-known name “Arthnou” is recorded in Brittany in the 9th century and may have been a Brittonic name in use in south-west Britain as well as across the Channel. The graffito may be evidence of a scribe simply practising on a small redundant slate prior to making the full inscription, if he ever completed one.
At the time of the discovery of the inscribed slate Geoffrey Wainwright, speaking for English Heritage, declared that while the King Arthur of medieval Romance did not exist, Arthur the Dark Age warlord who fought battles in the 6th century was a historical reality. Wainwright described the discovery at the find of a lifetime and saw it as evidence for the historical Arthur, “close enough to Arthur to refer to the legendary warrior king”.
A media frenzy ensued with newspaper headlines declaring that evidence of King Arthur had been found at Tintagel. A later newspaper article soon declared the find a hoax citing a Plymouth man who claimed to have inscribed the slate with a pair of compasses during a school trip to Tintagel in 1980. The hoax has since been disproven as the slate was discovered in undisturbed layers of earth deposited in the 6th century by the project officer and supervisor Kevin Brady. Further, surely a hoaxer would have inscribed the name “Arthur” not something obscure but similar sounding.
Above the “Artognou” inscription is part of an earlier inscription, given little publicity at the time of discovery, but initially interpreted as the deeply incised letters “VAXE”, possibly the tail-end of an inscription in classical form. Microscopic examination has revealed that the `ARTOGNOU' inscription post-dates this inscription.
The upper text consisting of four larger letters is typical late Roman period. Letter 1 cannot be 'V' as it has two descenders and is therefore said be either 'II' or 'H'. Letter 2 has been identified as 'A' and letter 3 as 'V' with an unusual downward prolongation. It is suggested that Letter 4 posses a downward hook on its lower terminal making it a letter 'G' of the type known as a 'sickle-G'. It should be read as Roman capitals, either 'II A V G' or 'H A V G'.
Accepting that letters 2 to 4 read as 'AVG' this would give the conventional abbreviation of the Imperial title 'Augustus' as found on Roman-British milestones of the late 3rd and early 4th centuries.
With letter 1 = 'II' this suggests the upper inscription should be read as [LEGIO] II AVG [VSTA], the Second Legion Augusta.
In the 1st century AD Legio II Augusta participated in the Roman invasion of Britain under the command of Vespasian. From 55 AD the Legion was stationed at Isca Dumnoniorum, Roman Exeter, presumably patrolling the lands of Dumnonia (Devon and Cornwall). About Twenty years later the Legion moved to Glevum (Gloucester) before being transferred to Isca Silurum (modern day Caerleon) in south Wales shortly after. Under Septimius Severus much of the II Augusta moved to Scotland in 208 AD. The last record of II Augusta is in the Notitia Dignitatum which lists the Legion at Rutupiae (Richborough, Kent) under the command of the Count of the Saxon Shore; Isca Silurum by then abandoned.
The evidence for a Roman presence at Tintagel in the 1st century AD therefore is slight, calling into question the validity of the interpretation of the upper text as a reference to Legio II Augusta. However, later Roman period activity at Tintagel cannot be ruled out.
In 1981 re-examination of ceramics found on the Tintagel Headland pre-1938 among Ralegh Radford's collection identified Oxford Red Colour Coated ware, widely distributed across Roman Britain during the 3rd and 4th centuries AD that had been incorrectly identified as post-Roman imports (Phocaen Red slipped ware). Furthermore, during Ralegh Radford's 1955 re-excavation of landward side of the Great Ditch a small coin hoard was discovered in a rock cleft. Ten Roman coins were found in a shrivelled leather drawstring purse dating from Tretricus (270-74 AD) to Constantius II as Augustus (337-61 AD).
In consideration of the above, the first letter of the upper text of slate RF3486 is more likely to be 'H' which would give 'HAVG' and possibly an Imperial inscription 'H[onorius] AVG[ustus]'. The emperor Honorius was Augustus from 393 to 423 AD. This may indicate the slate was used as an notice or label on an official structure on the Headland around 400 AD which was still regarded as being within Imperial administration, perhaps related to the trade of Cornish tin.
Once the building went out of use with the termination of the Roman governance of Britain the slate would have become redundant, later inscribed with the second text relating to Artognou, Paternus and Coliauus, demonstrating the continued use of Latin in the southwest of Britain after the Romans, before finally being trimmed to fit as a drain cover in the 6th century.
The absence of any convincing archaeological evidence has led to the collapse of the ecclesiastical interpretation of post-Roman Tintagel. The Headland is now referred to as a “high status secular site” seasonally occupied by the kings of Dumnonia. A series of earth mounds around the parish church, dedicated to Saint Materiana, six hundred yards along the north Cornish cliffs on the mainland, may be the Royal burial site.
A new program of archaeological investigations at Tintagel has already declared the discovery of a 'Dark Age' high status building on the Headland in July 2016. The media circus that followed declared it as the discovery of King Arthur's palace. However, as with the inscribed 'Artognou' slate, this is not evidence for Arthur.
Ralegh Radford may have been wrong about the Celtic Monastery, but he was right about Arthur.
Copyright © 2017 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk
Sources:
R C Barrowman, C Batey, C D Morris et al, Excavations at Tintagel Castle, Cornwall, 1990-1999, The Society of Antiquities of London, 2007.
O J Padel, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Cornwall, CMCS 8, 1984, pp.1-27.
O J Padel, Some South-Western Sites with Arthurian Associations, pp.229-234, in R Bromwich et al, The Arthur of the Welsh, University of Wales Press, 1991.
CA Ralegh Radford, Tintagel Castle, HMSO (1935), Second edition 1939.
CA Ralegh Radford and Michael J Swanton, Arthurian Sites in the West, University of Exeter Press, (1975), Revised edition 2002, pp.26-37.
Charles Thomas, Rosnat, Rostat, and the Early Irish Church, Ériu 22 (1971), pp.100–106.
The Cell by the Sea
Geoffrey of Monmouth tells the tale of how Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall, on realising that Utherpendragon had fallen in love with his wife Ygerna, had her locked up in his strongest castle at Tintagel. He then shut himself up in another castle within sight of Tintagel, known as Damelioc. With the aid of Merlin's magic Utherpendragon entered the castle at Tintagel and seduced Ygerna. That night Arthur was conceived.
Arthur has been associated with Tintagel since Geoffrey wrote his “History of the Kings of Britain” c.1136; there is a complete absence of an earlier Cornish tradition from which Geoffrey could have based his account on, leaving many to conclude that the Arthurian events at Tintagel in his work were purely his own invention. After Geoffrey, Arthur's association with Tintagel quickly fades from the Romances and the connection is limited to the tales of 'Tristan and Iseult' as the seat of King Mark of Cornwall.
 |
| Tintagel Castle |
The Iron Age hill-fort of Castle-an-Dinas is situated some 700 feet above sea-level, consisting of three concentric rings of 850 feet diameter, with a single entrance on the south-western side. Two Bronze Age barrows are situated in the interior. Since the 15th century the earthwork has been associated with the Arthurian legend; William of Worcester claimed that the hill-fort was the place where Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, died. The hill-fort is also known as 'Arthur’s Hunting Lodge’ (or Hunting Seat) from which Arthur rode out across Goss Moor. A stone in St Columb was said to bear the footprint that Arthur's horse made whilst he was out hunting.
Three miles south of Castle-An-Dinas, is a conical hill crowned by a small circular fort enclosing the Church of St Dennis, the old name of which was 'Dimelihoc' (clearly Geoffrey's Damelioc), now known as Domellick. Castle-an-Dinas is clearly visible from here whereas Tintagel is not, being some twenty miles distant. It would seem Jenner was correct.
Following Jenner, excavations at Tintagel by Courtenay Arthur Ralegh Radford in the 1930s and 1950s interpreted the Headland as an early Christian monastic settlement with no Arthurian associations, a view that endured for nearly fifty years before historians began to seriously question Ralegh Radford's interpretation.
He referenced the excavation Sites on the Headland as A, B, C, etc, with the first being the site of the earliest buildings of the Celtic monastery. Site A consists of a medieval chapel built across Post Roman buildings. These earlier buildings Ralegh Radford considered to be the site of the nucleus of the cult of the Celtic Saint Juliot, the medieval chapel being built across the Saint's cell. To the south-west of the chapel is the base of a tomb-shrine, a type well-known in Ireland used to contain sacred relics. North of the chapel Ralegh Radford identified four shallow, rock-cut graves that he considered to be evidence of the monastic cemetery.
 |
| St Juliot's chapel |
The 'Lives' of several Irish saints refer to a site, known as 'Rosnat' where they would go to study theology and sacred scripture, that was clearly across the sea in Britain. The location of Rosnat has continued to elude historians but Galloway in Scotland and St Davids in Wales were favoured possibilities. In the early 1970's Cornish historian Charles Thomas speculated that if a Cornish monastery, perhaps associated with Mawgan, did indeed exist at Tintagel it could have been Rosnat which is always described as south-east from Ireland.
The ecclesiastical interpretation offered by Ralegh Radford, himself an Arthurian since his father (Arthur Lock Radford) took him to visit Bligh Bond's excavations at Glastonbury in 1910, was a considerable shift from the then current thought that saw Tintagel as an Arthurian site since it was popularised as such by poets such as Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Stephen Hawker, the eccentric parson poet from Morwenstow, during the Arthurian Revival of the Victorian Age.
Ralegh Radford never completed a full report of his Tintagel excavations; his lack of documentation and his monastic interpretation of the site were viewed with some suspicion; an enormous amount of 5th and 6th-century pot-shards, originating from the Mediterranean and Byzantine world, have been uncovered at Tintagel; more than almost all other sites in Britain combined. It seems highly unlikely that a monastery would be that involved in trade on such a scale. Indeed, the pottery evidence suggests a high status site.
The Song of the Western Men
In 1983 a grass fire on the island plateau exposed a much larger number of building foundations, casting further doubt on Ralegh Radford's monastic reading of the island.
 |
| Tintagel, the Headland (copyright English Heritage) |
At the time of the discovery of the inscribed slate Geoffrey Wainwright, speaking for English Heritage, declared that while the King Arthur of medieval Romance did not exist, Arthur the Dark Age warlord who fought battles in the 6th century was a historical reality. Wainwright described the discovery at the find of a lifetime and saw it as evidence for the historical Arthur, “close enough to Arthur to refer to the legendary warrior king”.
A media frenzy ensued with newspaper headlines declaring that evidence of King Arthur had been found at Tintagel. A later newspaper article soon declared the find a hoax citing a Plymouth man who claimed to have inscribed the slate with a pair of compasses during a school trip to Tintagel in 1980. The hoax has since been disproven as the slate was discovered in undisturbed layers of earth deposited in the 6th century by the project officer and supervisor Kevin Brady. Further, surely a hoaxer would have inscribed the name “Arthur” not something obscure but similar sounding.
Above the “Artognou” inscription is part of an earlier inscription, given little publicity at the time of discovery, but initially interpreted as the deeply incised letters “VAXE”, possibly the tail-end of an inscription in classical form. Microscopic examination has revealed that the `ARTOGNOU' inscription post-dates this inscription.
The upper text consisting of four larger letters is typical late Roman period. Letter 1 cannot be 'V' as it has two descenders and is therefore said be either 'II' or 'H'. Letter 2 has been identified as 'A' and letter 3 as 'V' with an unusual downward prolongation. It is suggested that Letter 4 posses a downward hook on its lower terminal making it a letter 'G' of the type known as a 'sickle-G'. It should be read as Roman capitals, either 'II A V G' or 'H A V G'.
Accepting that letters 2 to 4 read as 'AVG' this would give the conventional abbreviation of the Imperial title 'Augustus' as found on Roman-British milestones of the late 3rd and early 4th centuries.
With letter 1 = 'II' this suggests the upper inscription should be read as [LEGIO] II AVG [VSTA], the Second Legion Augusta.
In the 1st century AD Legio II Augusta participated in the Roman invasion of Britain under the command of Vespasian. From 55 AD the Legion was stationed at Isca Dumnoniorum, Roman Exeter, presumably patrolling the lands of Dumnonia (Devon and Cornwall). About Twenty years later the Legion moved to Glevum (Gloucester) before being transferred to Isca Silurum (modern day Caerleon) in south Wales shortly after. Under Septimius Severus much of the II Augusta moved to Scotland in 208 AD. The last record of II Augusta is in the Notitia Dignitatum which lists the Legion at Rutupiae (Richborough, Kent) under the command of the Count of the Saxon Shore; Isca Silurum by then abandoned.
The evidence for a Roman presence at Tintagel in the 1st century AD therefore is slight, calling into question the validity of the interpretation of the upper text as a reference to Legio II Augusta. However, later Roman period activity at Tintagel cannot be ruled out.
In 1981 re-examination of ceramics found on the Tintagel Headland pre-1938 among Ralegh Radford's collection identified Oxford Red Colour Coated ware, widely distributed across Roman Britain during the 3rd and 4th centuries AD that had been incorrectly identified as post-Roman imports (Phocaen Red slipped ware). Furthermore, during Ralegh Radford's 1955 re-excavation of landward side of the Great Ditch a small coin hoard was discovered in a rock cleft. Ten Roman coins were found in a shrivelled leather drawstring purse dating from Tretricus (270-74 AD) to Constantius II as Augustus (337-61 AD).
 |
| The Artognou Stone |
Once the building went out of use with the termination of the Roman governance of Britain the slate would have become redundant, later inscribed with the second text relating to Artognou, Paternus and Coliauus, demonstrating the continued use of Latin in the southwest of Britain after the Romans, before finally being trimmed to fit as a drain cover in the 6th century.
The absence of any convincing archaeological evidence has led to the collapse of the ecclesiastical interpretation of post-Roman Tintagel. The Headland is now referred to as a “high status secular site” seasonally occupied by the kings of Dumnonia. A series of earth mounds around the parish church, dedicated to Saint Materiana, six hundred yards along the north Cornish cliffs on the mainland, may be the Royal burial site.
A new program of archaeological investigations at Tintagel has already declared the discovery of a 'Dark Age' high status building on the Headland in July 2016. The media circus that followed declared it as the discovery of King Arthur's palace. However, as with the inscribed 'Artognou' slate, this is not evidence for Arthur.
Ralegh Radford may have been wrong about the Celtic Monastery, but he was right about Arthur.
Copyright © 2017 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk
Sources:
R C Barrowman, C Batey, C D Morris et al, Excavations at Tintagel Castle, Cornwall, 1990-1999, The Society of Antiquities of London, 2007.
O J Padel, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Cornwall, CMCS 8, 1984, pp.1-27.
O J Padel, Some South-Western Sites with Arthurian Associations, pp.229-234, in R Bromwich et al, The Arthur of the Welsh, University of Wales Press, 1991.
CA Ralegh Radford, Tintagel Castle, HMSO (1935), Second edition 1939.
CA Ralegh Radford and Michael J Swanton, Arthurian Sites in the West, University of Exeter Press, (1975), Revised edition 2002, pp.26-37.
Charles Thomas, Rosnat, Rostat, and the Early Irish Church, Ériu 22 (1971), pp.100–106.
* * *
Saturday, 31 December 2016
Tintagel: Creating Camelot - Part 2
>> Continued from Tintagel: Creating Camelot - Part 1
Archaeological excavations at Tintagel this year led to what has been hailed as the discovery of 2016 generating a media frenzy with headlines such as 'King Arthur's Tintagel 'birthplace' dig finds royal seat' 13 claiming the discovery will ignite debate in Arthurian research circles because, in medieval tradition, Arthur was said to have been conceived at Tintagel.14
Tintagel and Arthur
After Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniæ, c.1136AD), Tintagel plays very little part in the Arthurian cycle and does not figure strongly in Arthurian Romance. Significantly, the tales of Tristan and Iseult are situated in the south-west of England and cite Tintagel as the seat of King Mark, ruler of Cornwall.
However, The High History of the Grail (Li Hauz Livres du Graal, or Perlesvaus) dated c.1200-10, Lancelot and Gawain visit a little castle in a combe in which the enclosure of the castle was fallen down into an abysm. A priest emerged from a chapel situated above an ancient hall and told them that it was the great Tintagel. When the knights enquired as to why the ground was all caved in about the castle, the priest replied that after King Utherpendragon had slept with Ygerna, after Merlin had changed him into the semblance of Gorlois, and conceived Arthur in a great hall that was next to the enclosure there where this abysm is. And for this sin the ground has sunken.15 As the Perlesvaus is claimed to have been written at Glastonbury in Somerset we should not be surprised if it contains first hand knowledge of south-west England. The anonymous author of the Perlesvaus, like Geoffrey, must have visited the site before Richard, Earl of Cornwall, built his castle in the 13th century.
By 1233 Arthur’s legendary connection with the site, no doubt, inspired Richard, Earl of Cornwall, to build a castle on the mainland at Tintagel and the island courtyard, the ruins of which remains today. A century later the castle had begun to decay and fall into neglect. Although Richard's medieval castle was little used, imaginative legends continued to flourish and the site attracted antiquarians over the course of time.
Around 1480 the antiquary William Worcestre claimed Tintagel as the place of Arthur’s birth in addition to his conception there as stated by Geoffrey. John Leland visited the castle in the 16th century and by 1650 the name 'King Arthur’s Castle' appears for the first time, which by now had become a tangled concoction of literary accounts entwined with local lore.
By the 19th century writers such as Charles Dickens, Alfred Tennyson, Algernon Swinburne, Thomas Hardy and the local Cornish antiquarian and poet Robert Stephen Hawker drew inspiration from visiting the dramatic cliff-top setting of Tintagel, and coupled with the legends, prompted the Arthurian Revival in the Victorian Age.
Local people like Florence Nightingale Richards, were by now acting as guides and escorting wealthy Victorian tourists through the ruins pointing out features linking the site to Arthur, such as Arthur's Footprint, which is reputed to have been imprinted in the solid rock when Arthur ‘stepped at one stride across the sea' to Tintagel Church (1889). The Parish church dedicated to St Materiana is one third of a mile distant - is this another reference to Arthur as a giant? Below the King's Seat on the highest point of the headland are a series of depression in the rockface known as Arthur's Cup and Saucers.16
Near the site of the chapel on the Headland is would appear to be a rock-cut grave of the medieval period. This was recorded by Leland in the 16th century and so has lain open since at least this point. John Norden wrote of this feature around 1600:
“Ther is in this Castle a hole hewed out of a rocke, made in manner of a graue, which is sayde to haue bene done by a Hermite for his buriall; and the gravue will fitt euerye stature, as it is effabuled; but experience doth not so assure me.”
In more recent times this rock-cut depression has acquired its own identity and is now variously known as King Arthur’s Bed, Elbow Chair or Hip-Bath. However, there is no record of any of these 'Arthurian' features before the 19th century. Indeed, in 1863 when the scientist and antiquarian Robert Hunt visited Tintagel to obtain folklore he was told by the man in charge of the castle that he had no Arthur stories to tell. Charles Thomas notes that “nearly all overt Arthurian details first appear in print about 1870”.17
By the 20th century Arthur-mania had developed a firm grip on the Cornish village. The wealthy businessman Frederick Thomas Glasscock moved to Somerset from London and founded the Order of the Fellowship of the Knights of the Round Table converting Trevena Hall into King Arthur's Great Halls of Chivalry, famous for its stained glass windows featuring the Arthurian legend. Since the 1950s, the Great Halls has been used as a Masonic meeting place and home to the King Arthur Lodge.
Tintagel through the Ages
Archaeology has failed to find Geoffrey's fortress at Tintagel, or indeed any fortress that preceded it. Thomas Charles lists five main periods of activity at Tintagel.
Nothing Prehistoric (Period 0) can be assigned to either the church or the headland, save a few flint chips, some worked, picked up from paths on the headland. Evidence for Period I, Roman, comes from two inscribed milestones from the area, one now in Tintagel church and one at Trethevy 1½ miles east, from the 3rd and 4th centuries, and some Roman coins of the same period, sherds of 4th century Roman wheel-made pottery (Oxford Red slipped ware) and locally made jars and bowls from the same date suggest a presence but limited activity.18
Period II at Tintagel has been referred to as 'Arthurian' or 'Dark Age', this term is now unfashionable as it was certainly not a 'Dark' period as such on the headland with vast amounts of pottery and structures found from excavations carried out in the 1930s and again in the 1950s by C. A. Ralegh Radford, who claimed that the site, due to the relative isolation and harsh environment, was an early Christian monastery from the 5th through to the 8th century. When the first official HMSO guidebook was published in 1935 author Ralegh Radford was at pains to stress that there was no evidence whatsoever to support the legendary connection of the Castle with King Arthur. The legendary tales of Tristan and Iseult place King Mark at Tintagel in this Period.19
Period III starts at the end of Period II, around 600, to 1230 when Richard, Earl of Cornwall built the medieval castle. The chapel, standing among the ruins of 5th - 7th buildings (perhaps that witnessed by Lancelot and Gawain in the Perlesvaus), dates from this Period, probably around 1150. The Domesday Book survey of 1086 fails to mention Tintagel, but the first allusions to the headland as a stronghold of Cornish kings falls within this period.20
The construction of the Castle in 1230-40 marks the commencement of Period IV. The structural sequence of the Castle has yet to be determined as much of its remains are now missing. The Post Medieval period to present, Period V, commences from the 16th century; by now the castle is in ruins after hundreds of years of neglect.21
Excavating Camelot
Ralegh Radford's monastic interpretation has now been shown to be incorrect. Several works have since re-evaluated Radford's findings, although there are very little records surviving from his excavations, the ceramic assemblage from his excavations, and analysis of the Medieval literature and historical documents, led to general dissatisfaction among archaeologists of his early monastic interpretation.
Further archaeological excavations in the 1960s and again in 1976–81 recovered a remarkable quantity of imported pottery datable to the final Roman and mostly the early Post-Roman period through to the early 7th century. In the mid-1980s a fire on the Tintagel headland led to considerable erosion of the topsoil, and over 100 more building foundations than were recorded by Radford could be seen. Ceramic analysis suggests that Tintagel was the leading centre in south-west England for trade with southern Gaul, the eastern Mediterranean, and North Africa.
In the 1990s a project sponsored by English Heritage and Glasgow University was set up to re-evaluate and validate Radford's work by specialists such as Charles Thomas. The Cornwall Archaeology Unit carried out excavations on previously unearthed buildings. The findings indicated that the site was almost certainly a high status site with far reaching contacts, possibly functioning as a citadel of the Dumnonian rulers.
A radiocarbon dating sequence for the phases of building on the Lower Terrace suggests that the final phase of occupation dates to 560 - 670. However, this is just one site and cannot as this time be accepted as representative of the abandonment whole headland.
Evidence of Arthur?
In 1998 a broken inscribed stone, known as the Tintagel Slate or Artognou Stone was found within a sealed 6th century layer on the eastern terrace of the site. The stone, which was broken and re-used as part of a drain, has two inscriptions. Charles Thomas later dated the slate to the 6th Century, which initially caused a frenzy of claims in the press as evidence of King Arthur at Tintagel.
Dr Geoffrey Wainwright, at the time chief archaeologist at English Heritage, is reporting as saying that “Tintagel has presented us with evidence of a Prince of Cornwall, in the Dark Ages, living in a high-status domestic settlement at the time Arthur lived. It has given us the name of a person, Arthnou. Arthnou was here, that is his name on a piece of stone. It is a massive coincidence at the very least. This is where myth meets history. It's the find of a lifetime.” He added the inscribed name was “close enough to Arthur to refer to the legendary warrior king”.
Charles Thomas has suggested that Tintagel was the *Durocornovio (‘Fort of the Cornovii’), as listed in the Ravenna Cosmography, which the Roman coins may support, and both commercial and locally made pottery of the 3rd and 4th centuries. After the Romans, the site's role in the kingdom of Domnonia seems to have provided an important link to the world far beyond the British Isles with imported artefacts found at Tintagel alone demonstrating that from about AD 450 until about AD 650 Tintagel was a prosperous and highly significant site, closely involved in trade with the Mediterranean world.
The headland was found to be covered with many small rectangular buildings, some visible today. However, the exact nature of Post-Roman Tintagel remains elusive with the main focus of activity for this site in the centuries immediately following the Roman withdrawal. The best interpretation on current evidence appears to be a seasonally occupied fortress or royal seat of the post-Roman kings of Dumnonia, which would agree with the tales of Tristan and Iseult which cite Tintagel as the seat of King Mark. After the mid-7th century there is little evidence of activity on the island for the next 500 years.
To date, no evidence of any catastrophic destruction has been found. However, the latter half of the 6th century and the 7th century were notorious for a plague pandemic which, having killed millions throughout the Mediterranean world, almost certainly devastated parts of Britain arriving through a key trading centre such as Tintagel.
Where History Meets Legend
Evidence for a real King Arthur has evaded identification for over a thousand years. Archaeology has failed to positively uncover any firm trace of his existence; at best we can only be certain of his existence as a character of literature and legend.
Significantly, there is no evidence of Arthur's existence at Tintagel prior to Geoffrey of Monmouth or from modern day excavations. But the legend lives on, stronger than ever, and since the Arthurian Revival in the Victorian Age tourists have created the demand to seek him out, coinciding with the first records of 'Arthuriana' at Tintagel in the 19th century.
I last visited Tintagel in 2013 feeling somewhat disappointed with the place. Since that visit English Heritage (EH) has made many changes to enhance the visitor experience (their words, not mine). EH certainly makes the most of Tintagel as its top Arthurian draw and fifth ranking visitor attraction. It has to now it is a Trust since the government separated it off from Historic England. The Government claims "The new charitable status will give English Heritage freedom to raise funds – with a target of finding a further £83 million from third parties.... ....so that, within ten years, it will be self-financing and no longer depend upon support from the taxpayer."22
With a huge financial burden placed on EH one can understand the pressure to increase visitor numbers. EH are currently presenting a fresh interpretation of history and legend at Tintagel, ever hopeful of increasing visitor numbers and revenue. In their mission statement on their website EH claims to “seek to be true to the story of the places and artefacts that we look after and present. We don't exaggerate or make things up for entertainment's sake. Instead, through careful research, we separate fact from fiction and bring fascinating truth to light.”23
As part of EH's plans to improve the “visitor experience” at Tintagel Castle, the Beach Cafe has been refurbished and a new exhibition constructed exploring the history of Tintagel Castle and the Arthurian legends. Ongoing plans for Tintagel, EH claim, will include an “imaginative new outdoor interpretation” that will feature interactive exhibits and informative panels in addition to a range of artworks crafted in bronze and stone bringing history and legend to life. A new bridge linking the medieval castle to the headland is planned for 2019. A series of panels will reveal 1,500 years of Tintagel's past which will create a journey of discovery where the visitor can explore the history of the castle and the role that legends have played in shaping the site - from a royal stronghold to thriving trading port, to a castle of romantic stories.
Yet, the new EH interpretation has led to claims of “Disneyfication” of the site and questioned the organisation's responsibility as Guardians of Heritage.
A stone compass points to places connected with the tales of King Arthur. Merlin's face has been carved in the rocks on the beach and on the island and a bronze sculpture, named Gallos, inspired by the legend of King Arthur and the historic royal figures associated with Tintagel, has been mounted on the Headland. This dramatic site in its cliff-top setting, rich in history, really does not need this fusion of history and legend.
Creating Camelot
In August 2016 another press frenzy ensued when English Heritage-funded archaeologists from of the Cornwall Archaeological Unit on a 5 year program announced they have discovered the impressive remains of a probable Dark Age royal palace at Tintagel that immediately became linked with King Arthur. The one-metre thick walls have been interpreted as those of the main residence of the 6th century rulers of an ancient south-west British kingdom, known as Dumnonia.
“The probable palace which the archaeologists have found appears to date from the 5th and 6th centuries AD – which would theoretically fit well with the traditional legends of King Arthur which placed him in precisely those centuries. Whether coincidence or not, the way in which the new evidence resonates with Britain’s most enduring and popular medieval legend is sure to generate renewed popular and scholarly interest in the site.”24
However, English Heritage cannot be held accountable for the reaction of the Press, yet a 5 year excavation plan is bound to produce ample Arthurian publicity for the site, increasing visitor numbers and we will almost certainly see further press releases like the "Artognou Stone'" debacle in 1998.
Is this Camelot? Certainly not. According to a retired professor the true location of Camelot is a small Roman fort at Slack, situated on the Roman road from Chester to York, outside Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, known as Camulodunum.25
Copyright © 2016 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk
Notes & References
13. King Arthur's Tintagel 'birthplace' dig finds royal seat - BBC News Cornwall - 3 August 2016
14. Dark Ages royal palace discovered in Cornwall – in area closely linked to the legend of King Arthur - David Keys Archaeology Correspondent, The Independent - 2 August 2016
15. The High History Of The Holy Graal, Translation by Sebastian Evans, 1898, text based on that published by J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1910.
16. Paul Broadhurst, Tintagel and the Arthurian Mythos, Pendragon Press, 1992.
17. Charles Thomas, English Heritage Book of Tintagel: Arthur and Archaeology, Batsford, 1993.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Press Release 6 December 2013.
23. English Heritage Mission Statement
24. Dark Ages royal palace discovered in Cornwall – in area closely linked to the legend of King Arthur by David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent, The Independent, 2nd August 2016.
25. Ex-Bangor University Professor reveals 'true Camelot' - BBC Norh West Wales 18 December 2016.
Further Reading:
Authority, authenticity and interpretation at Tintagel by Dr. Tehmina Goskar
Archaeological excavations at Tintagel this year led to what has been hailed as the discovery of 2016 generating a media frenzy with headlines such as 'King Arthur's Tintagel 'birthplace' dig finds royal seat' 13 claiming the discovery will ignite debate in Arthurian research circles because, in medieval tradition, Arthur was said to have been conceived at Tintagel.14
Tintagel and Arthur
After Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniæ, c.1136AD), Tintagel plays very little part in the Arthurian cycle and does not figure strongly in Arthurian Romance. Significantly, the tales of Tristan and Iseult are situated in the south-west of England and cite Tintagel as the seat of King Mark, ruler of Cornwall.
However, The High History of the Grail (Li Hauz Livres du Graal, or Perlesvaus) dated c.1200-10, Lancelot and Gawain visit a little castle in a combe in which the enclosure of the castle was fallen down into an abysm. A priest emerged from a chapel situated above an ancient hall and told them that it was the great Tintagel. When the knights enquired as to why the ground was all caved in about the castle, the priest replied that after King Utherpendragon had slept with Ygerna, after Merlin had changed him into the semblance of Gorlois, and conceived Arthur in a great hall that was next to the enclosure there where this abysm is. And for this sin the ground has sunken.15 As the Perlesvaus is claimed to have been written at Glastonbury in Somerset we should not be surprised if it contains first hand knowledge of south-west England. The anonymous author of the Perlesvaus, like Geoffrey, must have visited the site before Richard, Earl of Cornwall, built his castle in the 13th century.
 |
| The Medieval Gateway on the Headland |
Around 1480 the antiquary William Worcestre claimed Tintagel as the place of Arthur’s birth in addition to his conception there as stated by Geoffrey. John Leland visited the castle in the 16th century and by 1650 the name 'King Arthur’s Castle' appears for the first time, which by now had become a tangled concoction of literary accounts entwined with local lore.
By the 19th century writers such as Charles Dickens, Alfred Tennyson, Algernon Swinburne, Thomas Hardy and the local Cornish antiquarian and poet Robert Stephen Hawker drew inspiration from visiting the dramatic cliff-top setting of Tintagel, and coupled with the legends, prompted the Arthurian Revival in the Victorian Age.
Local people like Florence Nightingale Richards, were by now acting as guides and escorting wealthy Victorian tourists through the ruins pointing out features linking the site to Arthur, such as Arthur's Footprint, which is reputed to have been imprinted in the solid rock when Arthur ‘stepped at one stride across the sea' to Tintagel Church (1889). The Parish church dedicated to St Materiana is one third of a mile distant - is this another reference to Arthur as a giant? Below the King's Seat on the highest point of the headland are a series of depression in the rockface known as Arthur's Cup and Saucers.16
 |
| St Materiana's Church from the Headland |
“Ther is in this Castle a hole hewed out of a rocke, made in manner of a graue, which is sayde to haue bene done by a Hermite for his buriall; and the gravue will fitt euerye stature, as it is effabuled; but experience doth not so assure me.”
In more recent times this rock-cut depression has acquired its own identity and is now variously known as King Arthur’s Bed, Elbow Chair or Hip-Bath. However, there is no record of any of these 'Arthurian' features before the 19th century. Indeed, in 1863 when the scientist and antiquarian Robert Hunt visited Tintagel to obtain folklore he was told by the man in charge of the castle that he had no Arthur stories to tell. Charles Thomas notes that “nearly all overt Arthurian details first appear in print about 1870”.17
By the 20th century Arthur-mania had developed a firm grip on the Cornish village. The wealthy businessman Frederick Thomas Glasscock moved to Somerset from London and founded the Order of the Fellowship of the Knights of the Round Table converting Trevena Hall into King Arthur's Great Halls of Chivalry, famous for its stained glass windows featuring the Arthurian legend. Since the 1950s, the Great Halls has been used as a Masonic meeting place and home to the King Arthur Lodge.
Tintagel through the Ages
Archaeology has failed to find Geoffrey's fortress at Tintagel, or indeed any fortress that preceded it. Thomas Charles lists five main periods of activity at Tintagel.
 |
| Period II remains near the Headland summit |
Period III starts at the end of Period II, around 600, to 1230 when Richard, Earl of Cornwall built the medieval castle. The chapel, standing among the ruins of 5th - 7th buildings (perhaps that witnessed by Lancelot and Gawain in the Perlesvaus), dates from this Period, probably around 1150. The Domesday Book survey of 1086 fails to mention Tintagel, but the first allusions to the headland as a stronghold of Cornish kings falls within this period.20
The construction of the Castle in 1230-40 marks the commencement of Period IV. The structural sequence of the Castle has yet to be determined as much of its remains are now missing. The Post Medieval period to present, Period V, commences from the 16th century; by now the castle is in ruins after hundreds of years of neglect.21
Excavating Camelot
Ralegh Radford's monastic interpretation has now been shown to be incorrect. Several works have since re-evaluated Radford's findings, although there are very little records surviving from his excavations, the ceramic assemblage from his excavations, and analysis of the Medieval literature and historical documents, led to general dissatisfaction among archaeologists of his early monastic interpretation.
Further archaeological excavations in the 1960s and again in 1976–81 recovered a remarkable quantity of imported pottery datable to the final Roman and mostly the early Post-Roman period through to the early 7th century. In the mid-1980s a fire on the Tintagel headland led to considerable erosion of the topsoil, and over 100 more building foundations than were recorded by Radford could be seen. Ceramic analysis suggests that Tintagel was the leading centre in south-west England for trade with southern Gaul, the eastern Mediterranean, and North Africa.
 |
| Living on the Edge: building remains on the terrace |
A radiocarbon dating sequence for the phases of building on the Lower Terrace suggests that the final phase of occupation dates to 560 - 670. However, this is just one site and cannot as this time be accepted as representative of the abandonment whole headland.
Evidence of Arthur?
In 1998 a broken inscribed stone, known as the Tintagel Slate or Artognou Stone was found within a sealed 6th century layer on the eastern terrace of the site. The stone, which was broken and re-used as part of a drain, has two inscriptions. Charles Thomas later dated the slate to the 6th Century, which initially caused a frenzy of claims in the press as evidence of King Arthur at Tintagel.
Dr Geoffrey Wainwright, at the time chief archaeologist at English Heritage, is reporting as saying that “Tintagel has presented us with evidence of a Prince of Cornwall, in the Dark Ages, living in a high-status domestic settlement at the time Arthur lived. It has given us the name of a person, Arthnou. Arthnou was here, that is his name on a piece of stone. It is a massive coincidence at the very least. This is where myth meets history. It's the find of a lifetime.” He added the inscribed name was “close enough to Arthur to refer to the legendary warrior king”.
Charles Thomas has suggested that Tintagel was the *Durocornovio (‘Fort of the Cornovii’), as listed in the Ravenna Cosmography, which the Roman coins may support, and both commercial and locally made pottery of the 3rd and 4th centuries. After the Romans, the site's role in the kingdom of Domnonia seems to have provided an important link to the world far beyond the British Isles with imported artefacts found at Tintagel alone demonstrating that from about AD 450 until about AD 650 Tintagel was a prosperous and highly significant site, closely involved in trade with the Mediterranean world.
The headland was found to be covered with many small rectangular buildings, some visible today. However, the exact nature of Post-Roman Tintagel remains elusive with the main focus of activity for this site in the centuries immediately following the Roman withdrawal. The best interpretation on current evidence appears to be a seasonally occupied fortress or royal seat of the post-Roman kings of Dumnonia, which would agree with the tales of Tristan and Iseult which cite Tintagel as the seat of King Mark. After the mid-7th century there is little evidence of activity on the island for the next 500 years.
To date, no evidence of any catastrophic destruction has been found. However, the latter half of the 6th century and the 7th century were notorious for a plague pandemic which, having killed millions throughout the Mediterranean world, almost certainly devastated parts of Britain arriving through a key trading centre such as Tintagel.
Where History Meets Legend
Evidence for a real King Arthur has evaded identification for over a thousand years. Archaeology has failed to positively uncover any firm trace of his existence; at best we can only be certain of his existence as a character of literature and legend.
 |
| The Medieval Courtyard on the Headland, overlooked by the Camelot Castle Hotel |
I last visited Tintagel in 2013 feeling somewhat disappointed with the place. Since that visit English Heritage (EH) has made many changes to enhance the visitor experience (their words, not mine). EH certainly makes the most of Tintagel as its top Arthurian draw and fifth ranking visitor attraction. It has to now it is a Trust since the government separated it off from Historic England. The Government claims "The new charitable status will give English Heritage freedom to raise funds – with a target of finding a further £83 million from third parties.... ....so that, within ten years, it will be self-financing and no longer depend upon support from the taxpayer."22
With a huge financial burden placed on EH one can understand the pressure to increase visitor numbers. EH are currently presenting a fresh interpretation of history and legend at Tintagel, ever hopeful of increasing visitor numbers and revenue. In their mission statement on their website EH claims to “seek to be true to the story of the places and artefacts that we look after and present. We don't exaggerate or make things up for entertainment's sake. Instead, through careful research, we separate fact from fiction and bring fascinating truth to light.”23
As part of EH's plans to improve the “visitor experience” at Tintagel Castle, the Beach Cafe has been refurbished and a new exhibition constructed exploring the history of Tintagel Castle and the Arthurian legends. Ongoing plans for Tintagel, EH claim, will include an “imaginative new outdoor interpretation” that will feature interactive exhibits and informative panels in addition to a range of artworks crafted in bronze and stone bringing history and legend to life. A new bridge linking the medieval castle to the headland is planned for 2019. A series of panels will reveal 1,500 years of Tintagel's past which will create a journey of discovery where the visitor can explore the history of the castle and the role that legends have played in shaping the site - from a royal stronghold to thriving trading port, to a castle of romantic stories.
Yet, the new EH interpretation has led to claims of “Disneyfication” of the site and questioned the organisation's responsibility as Guardians of Heritage.
A stone compass points to places connected with the tales of King Arthur. Merlin's face has been carved in the rocks on the beach and on the island and a bronze sculpture, named Gallos, inspired by the legend of King Arthur and the historic royal figures associated with Tintagel, has been mounted on the Headland. This dramatic site in its cliff-top setting, rich in history, really does not need this fusion of history and legend.
Creating Camelot
In August 2016 another press frenzy ensued when English Heritage-funded archaeologists from of the Cornwall Archaeological Unit on a 5 year program announced they have discovered the impressive remains of a probable Dark Age royal palace at Tintagel that immediately became linked with King Arthur. The one-metre thick walls have been interpreted as those of the main residence of the 6th century rulers of an ancient south-west British kingdom, known as Dumnonia.
“The probable palace which the archaeologists have found appears to date from the 5th and 6th centuries AD – which would theoretically fit well with the traditional legends of King Arthur which placed him in precisely those centuries. Whether coincidence or not, the way in which the new evidence resonates with Britain’s most enduring and popular medieval legend is sure to generate renewed popular and scholarly interest in the site.”24
However, English Heritage cannot be held accountable for the reaction of the Press, yet a 5 year excavation plan is bound to produce ample Arthurian publicity for the site, increasing visitor numbers and we will almost certainly see further press releases like the "Artognou Stone'" debacle in 1998.
Is this Camelot? Certainly not. According to a retired professor the true location of Camelot is a small Roman fort at Slack, situated on the Roman road from Chester to York, outside Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, known as Camulodunum.25
Copyright © 2016 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk
Notes & References
13. King Arthur's Tintagel 'birthplace' dig finds royal seat - BBC News Cornwall - 3 August 2016
14. Dark Ages royal palace discovered in Cornwall – in area closely linked to the legend of King Arthur - David Keys Archaeology Correspondent, The Independent - 2 August 2016
15. The High History Of The Holy Graal, Translation by Sebastian Evans, 1898, text based on that published by J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1910.
16. Paul Broadhurst, Tintagel and the Arthurian Mythos, Pendragon Press, 1992.
17. Charles Thomas, English Heritage Book of Tintagel: Arthur and Archaeology, Batsford, 1993.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Press Release 6 December 2013.
23. English Heritage Mission Statement
24. Dark Ages royal palace discovered in Cornwall – in area closely linked to the legend of King Arthur by David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent, The Independent, 2nd August 2016.
25. Ex-Bangor University Professor reveals 'true Camelot' - BBC Norh West Wales 18 December 2016.
Further Reading:
Authority, authenticity and interpretation at Tintagel by Dr. Tehmina Goskar
* * *
Friday, 30 December 2016
Tintagel: Creating Camelot - Part 1
“Answered Ulfin, when no power on earth can enable us to come to her where she is inside the fortress of Tintagel? The castle is built high above the sea, which surrounds it on all sides, and there is no other way in except that offered by a narrow isthmus of rock. Three armed soldiers could hold it against you, even if you stood there with the whole kingdom of Britain at your side.” - Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, (VIII.19)1
Geoffrey and Cornwall
In response to Utherpendragon's threat to lay waste his lands Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, retreated to the fortified camp at Dimilioc and placed his wife Ygerna in the security of castle at Tintagel on the coast. Uther then took counsel with Ulfin of Ridcaradoch, one of his soldiers and a familiar friend, telling him of his desire for Ygerna and that if he cannot have her he feared he would suffer a physical breakdown. Ulfin said they would find it impossible to breach the castle and suggested the king approach Merlin the Prophet. By magic, Merlin gave Uther the appearance of Gorlois, and he then entered the castle at Tintagel and slept with Ygerna, who that night conceived Arthur, the Boar of Cornwall.
Most modern commentators accept that Geoffrey must have had first-hand knowledge of Tintagel to provide his accurate description of the site on the north Cornish coast in his History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniæ, c.1136AD). However, it is often quoted that there is no record of the name before Geoffrey's work and therefore he must have invented it.
Oliver Padel cites several locations in Cornwall from Geoffrey's work suggesting that he very likely visited the area prior to writing his Historia. Gorlois is beseiged at Dimilioc.2 Lewis Thorpe identifies this as the Iron Age earthwork of three concentric ramparts and ditches bearing the name of Tregeare Rounds, known locally as Castle Dameliock, near the village of Pendoggett, five and a half miles south-west of Tintagel.3 Ditmas argues for the Iron age hill fort known as Dimilioc at St Dennis, 20 miles south of Tintagel.4
According to Geoffrey, Arthur's final battle is fought against Mordred at the bank of the Camblam, identified as the river Camel, barely four miles south-east from Tintagel. Just off the B 3314 between Camelford and Tintagel, by a stream at Slaughterbridge lies a 6th century inscribed stone, locally referred to as 'King Arthur's Stone', said to mark the spot where King Arthur met Mordred. And of course the name 'Mordred' is the Cornish version of the name 'Medraut' that appears in the 10th century Welsh Annals.5
Yet for all his apparent affection for Cornwall, Geoffrey places Arthur's court at the City of the Legions in south-east Wales, identified as Caerleon on the river Usk on the northern edge of the modern city of Newport. Geoffrey has Caerleon as one of the most important cities in Britain, so it seems an obvious choice for the seat of its King. However, he was probably influenced by the ruins of the Roman legionary fortress, Isca Augusta. If his abode was Monmouth, at least at one time as his name suggests, he probably had first hand knowledge of the ruins, just 20 miles south. In his preface to Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur William Caxton describes the ruins of a city sounding very like Caerleon,“in Camelot, the great stones and the marvellous works of iron lying underground, and the royal vaults which many now living have seen.” However Malory himself locates Camelot at Winchester.6
Merlin and Cornwall
Prior to his Historia, Geoffrey circulated, certainly by 1135, the Prophetiæ Merlini, a short Latin work containing a number of prophecies attributed to Merlin. Geoffrey later included the Prophecy in his main work at Book VII, thereby introducing Geoffrey's wizard to the Arthurian legend.
Shortly after Geoffrey, John of Cornwall produced his own version of the Prophetiae Merlini, sometimes called The Prophecy of Ambrosius Merlin concerning the Seven Kings,7 which he claimed was revived from a lost manuscript in the Cornish language, which he translated sometime between 1141 and 1155 at the request of Robert, Bishop of Exeter.8
John has been accused of imitating Geoffrey of Monmouth's Prophetiae Merlini, but less than a third of the verse prophecies are mirrored in Geoffrey's work, the remainder would appear to be direct translations from a Cornish source and it is today argued that John based at least part of his Prophecy upon a genuine contemporary Cornish prophecy dating from about the early 12th century, correcting much of Geoffrey’s Merlinic prophetic material in the process.9
John includes a substantial amount of explanatory detail in the way of glosses, providing much detail deficient from Geoffrey's Prophecy. John includes a gloss at line 91 which refers to the entry of an old man into Cornwall, who then laid siege to the castle by the Periron, that is, Dindaiol. The Periron is identified as the stream that outflows at Tintagel (Dindaiol).
John’s original manuscript spelling of 'Dindaiol' has been seen as providing a genuine Cornishness that he may have perceived as lacking in the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth making it necessary for John to reproduce the Prophetiae Merlini in its correct, original form. Michael Faletra suggests that the second element of Dindaiol (from *tagell) allows identification of the form as uniquely Cornish rather than Welsh or Breton, thus demonstrating that a body of Old Cornish prophetic material, independent of Geoffrey, was in existence by at least the early 12th century.10
Significantly, then, in consideration of John of Cornwall's Prophetiae Merlini, it can be argued that the name Tintagel was known prior to Geoffrey of Monmouth, indeed, the modern-day village of Tintagel was known as Trevena until the 19th century. The name is consistent with a Celtic etymology; Padel suggests that the name is from Cornish *dyn = fort and *tagell = neck, throat, constriction narrow, i.e. Tintagel = fort of the constriction, which is a very apt description of its setting linked only to the Cornish coast by a narrow isthmus. It would appear that originally the name Tintagel referred to the headland only.11
If Geoffrey did not invent the fortress at Tintagel, and the medieval castle was not built until around 1230, a hundred years later, from the above, it suggests some form of promontory-fortress was situated on the headland for which memories, at least, survived in to the 12th century. However, prior to his Historia there is no record of any link to the site with King Arthur. Yet, Cornwall is known to have possessed a rich body of Arthurian folklore, not attached to Tintagel, before Geoffrey wrote his magnum opus.
Terra Arturi
Around 1142 Herman of Tournai’s wrote 'Miracula Sancte Marie Laudunensis' (The Miracles of St. Mary of Laon) which included an account of a local Cornish belief in Arthur’s survival. Herman's work recounts miracles witnessed by nine canons from Laon cathedral on a fundraising relic tour through England in 1113.
Whilst travelling between Exeter and Bodmin, the canons were told that they were entering the “Lands of Arthur” and were shown various local sites that were associated with him, such as the Seat and Oven of King Arthur. The Seat has not been identified but the Oven was probably the ‘King’s Oven’ (furnus regis) recorded on Dartmoor a century later.
At Bodmin a man with a withered arm came to the canons of Laon seeking to be healed of his affliction. In conversation with the canons the man claimed that Arthur still lived. Members of the French party apparently made mock of him for talking such a nonsense. The Cornish crowd supported the man's claims in King Arthur's survival and a brawl broke out.
King Arthur’s existence in the form of a raven or chough is still extant in Cornish folklore and there are a number of sites which claim to be associated with Arthur in the Cornish wilderness. For example, there are numerous megalithic structures, Portal Dolmens, known as Coetan Arthur, or ‘Arthur’s Quoits’; on the lane to Trewethett Farm, near Bossiney, is a large rock slab, claimed to be the capstone of a collapsed Dolmen that was thrown there from Tintagel by King Arthur; in St Columb, Goss Moor, ‘Arthur’s Stone’ is said to bear the impression of the footprints of Arthur’s horse; 'Arthur's Hall' and 'Arthur's Troughs' on Bodmin Moor; ‘Arthur’s Hunting Lodge’ (or Hunting Seat) in Castle-an-Dinas; ‘Arthur’s (or Giant’s) Grave’ at Warbstowe; 'Arthur’s Chair’ at Tintagel.12
This shortlist is not exhaustive but sufficient to demonstrate Arthur was very much in existence in the Cornish landscape prior to Geoffrey's writings as witnessed by the Canons of Laon. Yet, it must be conceded, that there is absolutely nothing to connect Arthur to Tintagel before Geoffrey.
>> Continued in Tintagel; Creating Camelot - Part 2
Copyright © 2016 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk
Notes & References:
1. Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, Lewis Thorpe, translator, Penguin, 1966.
2. Oliver Padel, Geoffrey and Cornwall, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies (CMCS 8), 1984.
3. Thorpe, op.cit.
4. E. M. R. Ditmas, A Reappraisal of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Allusions to Cornwall, Speculum, Vol. 48, No. 3, 1973, pp. 510-524.
5. John Morris, Ed. & Trans., British History And The Welsh Annals, Phillimore, 1980.
6. Caxton's Preface, p.xiii in Malory Works, Eugène Vinaver, Ed., Oxford University Press; 2nd Edition, 1977,
11. Oliver Padel, Cornish Place-Name Elements, English Place-Name Society, 1985.
12. Thomas Green, Arthuriana, The Lindes Press, 2009.
Geoffrey and Cornwall
In response to Utherpendragon's threat to lay waste his lands Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, retreated to the fortified camp at Dimilioc and placed his wife Ygerna in the security of castle at Tintagel on the coast. Uther then took counsel with Ulfin of Ridcaradoch, one of his soldiers and a familiar friend, telling him of his desire for Ygerna and that if he cannot have her he feared he would suffer a physical breakdown. Ulfin said they would find it impossible to breach the castle and suggested the king approach Merlin the Prophet. By magic, Merlin gave Uther the appearance of Gorlois, and he then entered the castle at Tintagel and slept with Ygerna, who that night conceived Arthur, the Boar of Cornwall.
 |
| Tintagel |
Oliver Padel cites several locations in Cornwall from Geoffrey's work suggesting that he very likely visited the area prior to writing his Historia. Gorlois is beseiged at Dimilioc.2 Lewis Thorpe identifies this as the Iron Age earthwork of three concentric ramparts and ditches bearing the name of Tregeare Rounds, known locally as Castle Dameliock, near the village of Pendoggett, five and a half miles south-west of Tintagel.3 Ditmas argues for the Iron age hill fort known as Dimilioc at St Dennis, 20 miles south of Tintagel.4
According to Geoffrey, Arthur's final battle is fought against Mordred at the bank of the Camblam, identified as the river Camel, barely four miles south-east from Tintagel. Just off the B 3314 between Camelford and Tintagel, by a stream at Slaughterbridge lies a 6th century inscribed stone, locally referred to as 'King Arthur's Stone', said to mark the spot where King Arthur met Mordred. And of course the name 'Mordred' is the Cornish version of the name 'Medraut' that appears in the 10th century Welsh Annals.5
Yet for all his apparent affection for Cornwall, Geoffrey places Arthur's court at the City of the Legions in south-east Wales, identified as Caerleon on the river Usk on the northern edge of the modern city of Newport. Geoffrey has Caerleon as one of the most important cities in Britain, so it seems an obvious choice for the seat of its King. However, he was probably influenced by the ruins of the Roman legionary fortress, Isca Augusta. If his abode was Monmouth, at least at one time as his name suggests, he probably had first hand knowledge of the ruins, just 20 miles south. In his preface to Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur William Caxton describes the ruins of a city sounding very like Caerleon,“in Camelot, the great stones and the marvellous works of iron lying underground, and the royal vaults which many now living have seen.” However Malory himself locates Camelot at Winchester.6
Merlin and Cornwall
Prior to his Historia, Geoffrey circulated, certainly by 1135, the Prophetiæ Merlini, a short Latin work containing a number of prophecies attributed to Merlin. Geoffrey later included the Prophecy in his main work at Book VII, thereby introducing Geoffrey's wizard to the Arthurian legend.
Shortly after Geoffrey, John of Cornwall produced his own version of the Prophetiae Merlini, sometimes called The Prophecy of Ambrosius Merlin concerning the Seven Kings,7 which he claimed was revived from a lost manuscript in the Cornish language, which he translated sometime between 1141 and 1155 at the request of Robert, Bishop of Exeter.8
John has been accused of imitating Geoffrey of Monmouth's Prophetiae Merlini, but less than a third of the verse prophecies are mirrored in Geoffrey's work, the remainder would appear to be direct translations from a Cornish source and it is today argued that John based at least part of his Prophecy upon a genuine contemporary Cornish prophecy dating from about the early 12th century, correcting much of Geoffrey’s Merlinic prophetic material in the process.9
John includes a substantial amount of explanatory detail in the way of glosses, providing much detail deficient from Geoffrey's Prophecy. John includes a gloss at line 91 which refers to the entry of an old man into Cornwall, who then laid siege to the castle by the Periron, that is, Dindaiol. The Periron is identified as the stream that outflows at Tintagel (Dindaiol).
John’s original manuscript spelling of 'Dindaiol' has been seen as providing a genuine Cornishness that he may have perceived as lacking in the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth making it necessary for John to reproduce the Prophetiae Merlini in its correct, original form. Michael Faletra suggests that the second element of Dindaiol (from *tagell) allows identification of the form as uniquely Cornish rather than Welsh or Breton, thus demonstrating that a body of Old Cornish prophetic material, independent of Geoffrey, was in existence by at least the early 12th century.10
Significantly, then, in consideration of John of Cornwall's Prophetiae Merlini, it can be argued that the name Tintagel was known prior to Geoffrey of Monmouth, indeed, the modern-day village of Tintagel was known as Trevena until the 19th century. The name is consistent with a Celtic etymology; Padel suggests that the name is from Cornish *dyn = fort and *tagell = neck, throat, constriction narrow, i.e. Tintagel = fort of the constriction, which is a very apt description of its setting linked only to the Cornish coast by a narrow isthmus. It would appear that originally the name Tintagel referred to the headland only.11
 |
| The ruins of the medieval castle on the mainland |
Terra Arturi
Around 1142 Herman of Tournai’s wrote 'Miracula Sancte Marie Laudunensis' (The Miracles of St. Mary of Laon) which included an account of a local Cornish belief in Arthur’s survival. Herman's work recounts miracles witnessed by nine canons from Laon cathedral on a fundraising relic tour through England in 1113.
Whilst travelling between Exeter and Bodmin, the canons were told that they were entering the “Lands of Arthur” and were shown various local sites that were associated with him, such as the Seat and Oven of King Arthur. The Seat has not been identified but the Oven was probably the ‘King’s Oven’ (furnus regis) recorded on Dartmoor a century later.
At Bodmin a man with a withered arm came to the canons of Laon seeking to be healed of his affliction. In conversation with the canons the man claimed that Arthur still lived. Members of the French party apparently made mock of him for talking such a nonsense. The Cornish crowd supported the man's claims in King Arthur's survival and a brawl broke out.
 |
| View from Tintagel |
This shortlist is not exhaustive but sufficient to demonstrate Arthur was very much in existence in the Cornish landscape prior to Geoffrey's writings as witnessed by the Canons of Laon. Yet, it must be conceded, that there is absolutely nothing to connect Arthur to Tintagel before Geoffrey.
>> Continued in Tintagel; Creating Camelot - Part 2
Copyright © 2016 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk
Notes & References:
1. Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, Lewis Thorpe, translator, Penguin, 1966.
2. Oliver Padel, Geoffrey and Cornwall, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies (CMCS 8), 1984.
3. Thorpe, op.cit.
4. E. M. R. Ditmas, A Reappraisal of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Allusions to Cornwall, Speculum, Vol. 48, No. 3, 1973, pp. 510-524.
5. John Morris, Ed. & Trans., British History And The Welsh Annals, Phillimore, 1980.
6. Caxton's Preface, p.xiii in Malory Works, Eugène Vinaver, Ed., Oxford University Press; 2nd Edition, 1977,
7. Julyan Homes, An Dhargan a Verdhin: The Prophecy of Merlin by John of Cornwall, Cornish Language Board, 2nd Edition, 2001.
8. Ibid. Holmes claims that John's original source must date from 950 AD.
9. Michael J. Curley, A New Edition of John of Cornwall's Prophetia Merlini, Speculum 57, 1982, pp.217-249.
10. Michael A. Faletra, Merlin in Cornwall: The Source and Contexts of John of Cornwall’s Prophetia Merlini, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Volume 111, 2012, pp. 304-338.8. Ibid. Holmes claims that John's original source must date from 950 AD.
9. Michael J. Curley, A New Edition of John of Cornwall's Prophetia Merlini, Speculum 57, 1982, pp.217-249.
11. Oliver Padel, Cornish Place-Name Elements, English Place-Name Society, 1985.
12. Thomas Green, Arthuriana, The Lindes Press, 2009.
* * *
Saturday, 2 April 2016
Tintagel Bridge: A Step into the Past
'Stepped at one stride across the sea.....'
On 23 March 2016 English Heritage (EH) announced the winner of the Tintagel Castle: Bridge Design Competition to design a new structure linking the mainland to the island of Tintagel.
Tintagel is the place were King Arthur was conceived (and some say born) according to the legends. Archaeological investigations have revealed large amounts of 5th and 6th century Mediterranean pottery indicating that Tintagel was an important trading post from late Roman times until the end of the 7th century, long before the construction of the Norman castle in the early 13th century. However, it is the Arthurian link that draws many visitors each year to the site.
As part of EH's plans to improve the "visitor experience" at Tintagel Castle, they have refurbished the Beach Cafe and constructed a new exhibition exploring the history of Tintagel Castle and the Arthurian legends. Ongoing plans for 2016, EH claim, will include an “imaginative new outdoor interpretation” that will feature interactive exhibits and informative panels in addition to a range of artworks crafted in bronze and stone bringing history and legend to life. The first of these imaginative displays has seen the face of Arthur's legendary wizard Merlin carved into the rocks on the beach by the entrance to Merlin's Cave. This first sculpture, on display from February, has received a mixed reception.
As part of the improvements planned for Tintagel, EH intends to build a new footbridge at Tintagel Castle which will follow the path of the original crossing between the mainland and the headland, to improve access to the island and conserve the landscape.
A new bridge sounds welcome as one memory that visitors to Tintagel are guaranteed to take away with them is the many steep steps one has to climb to get to the ruins. There are currently over 100 steps leading up to the Island Courtyard. After leaving the island you have to climb up a set of even steeper steps to the Mainland Courtyard.
EH launched a competition in 2015 to find the best architectural and engineering team to design the new footbridge. Six were shortlisted. Following a period of consultation on the concept designs the winner was announced in March 2016.
An expert jury came to a majority decision on the winning team of Ney & Partners and William Matthews Associates, beating 136 others to secure the commission for the £4m English Heritage project in Cornwall.
A Step into the Past
Ney & Partners concept for the Tintagel Castle footbridge is to restore the link that once existed between the mainland and island void by using two independent cantilevers that reach out from each side but don't quite touch in the middle, leaving a 4 inch gap. The design team claim the narrow gap between the two sides will represent the “transition between the mainland and the island, here and there, the present and the past, the known and the unknown, reality and legend”.
The designers concept of a journey into the past which will start through the historic inner gate of the lower ward with dramatic views of the castle ruins and the Island of Tintagel. At this point the bridge will first come into view, without imposing its presence, but drawing visitors to it. The bridge entrance will be located between two slate walls clearly distinguishing the bridge from the mainland. The highlight of the crossing will be the rite of passage; in traversing the narrow gap passing from mainland to an island, from the Norman 13th century to the Celtic Dark Age; from one world to another.
In presenting their winning design Ney & Partners said, “The narrow gap between the cantilevers represents the transition between the mainland and the island, here and there, the present and the past, the known and the unknown, reality and legend; all the things that make Tintagel so special and fascinating.”
The team’s inspiration is said to have come from their study of Celtic history and the original drawbridge arrangement of Tintagel Castle. Clearly it is the concept of the transition through worlds and time that the innovative bridge will symbolise that appealed to the jury.
Kate Mavor, chief executive of English Heritage, said, “The winning team’s concept is daring and very exciting. It is not the final design but instead a brilliant indication of the team’s talent and imagination. with them on a design that will both complement the spectacular landscape and unlock for the visitor the history of the site.
“In our new role as a charity, we are looking for new, imaginative ways to interpret the sites in our care and inspire our visitors – this bridge forms part of that approach.”
Yet, this has not prevented the accusation in the newspapers of English Heritage's “Disney-fication of the legendary Cornish castle” just as some saw the Merlin sculpture as vandalism.
The project is due to be completed in 2019.
Edited 20/07/19
Sources:
A New Bridge For Tintagel Castle – Competition Winner Announced – English Heritage website
King Arthur's Tintagel castle to get death defying new bridge with gap in middle - Daily Mirror 23 March 2016
UPDATE JULY 2019
Work on Tintagel Castle's Bridge starts - English Heritage News 18/06/19
On 23 March 2016 English Heritage (EH) announced the winner of the Tintagel Castle: Bridge Design Competition to design a new structure linking the mainland to the island of Tintagel.
Tintagel is the place were King Arthur was conceived (and some say born) according to the legends. Archaeological investigations have revealed large amounts of 5th and 6th century Mediterranean pottery indicating that Tintagel was an important trading post from late Roman times until the end of the 7th century, long before the construction of the Norman castle in the early 13th century. However, it is the Arthurian link that draws many visitors each year to the site.
As part of EH's plans to improve the "visitor experience" at Tintagel Castle, they have refurbished the Beach Cafe and constructed a new exhibition exploring the history of Tintagel Castle and the Arthurian legends. Ongoing plans for 2016, EH claim, will include an “imaginative new outdoor interpretation” that will feature interactive exhibits and informative panels in addition to a range of artworks crafted in bronze and stone bringing history and legend to life. The first of these imaginative displays has seen the face of Arthur's legendary wizard Merlin carved into the rocks on the beach by the entrance to Merlin's Cave. This first sculpture, on display from February, has received a mixed reception.
As part of the improvements planned for Tintagel, EH intends to build a new footbridge at Tintagel Castle which will follow the path of the original crossing between the mainland and the headland, to improve access to the island and conserve the landscape.
A new bridge sounds welcome as one memory that visitors to Tintagel are guaranteed to take away with them is the many steep steps one has to climb to get to the ruins. There are currently over 100 steps leading up to the Island Courtyard. After leaving the island you have to climb up a set of even steeper steps to the Mainland Courtyard.
EH launched a competition in 2015 to find the best architectural and engineering team to design the new footbridge. Six were shortlisted. Following a period of consultation on the concept designs the winner was announced in March 2016.
An expert jury came to a majority decision on the winning team of Ney & Partners and William Matthews Associates, beating 136 others to secure the commission for the £4m English Heritage project in Cornwall.
A Step into the Past
Ney & Partners concept for the Tintagel Castle footbridge is to restore the link that once existed between the mainland and island void by using two independent cantilevers that reach out from each side but don't quite touch in the middle, leaving a 4 inch gap. The design team claim the narrow gap between the two sides will represent the “transition between the mainland and the island, here and there, the present and the past, the known and the unknown, reality and legend”.
 |
The winning team's concept design for the new bridge at Tintagel Castle
© MRC/Emily Whitfield-Wicks and Ney & Partners
|
In presenting their winning design Ney & Partners said, “The narrow gap between the cantilevers represents the transition between the mainland and the island, here and there, the present and the past, the known and the unknown, reality and legend; all the things that make Tintagel so special and fascinating.”
The team’s inspiration is said to have come from their study of Celtic history and the original drawbridge arrangement of Tintagel Castle. Clearly it is the concept of the transition through worlds and time that the innovative bridge will symbolise that appealed to the jury.
Kate Mavor, chief executive of English Heritage, said, “The winning team’s concept is daring and very exciting. It is not the final design but instead a brilliant indication of the team’s talent and imagination. with them on a design that will both complement the spectacular landscape and unlock for the visitor the history of the site.
“In our new role as a charity, we are looking for new, imaginative ways to interpret the sites in our care and inspire our visitors – this bridge forms part of that approach.”
Yet, this has not prevented the accusation in the newspapers of English Heritage's “Disney-fication of the legendary Cornish castle” just as some saw the Merlin sculpture as vandalism.
The project is due to be completed in 2019.
Edited 20/07/19
Sources:
A New Bridge For Tintagel Castle – Competition Winner Announced – English Heritage website
King Arthur's Tintagel castle to get death defying new bridge with gap in middle - Daily Mirror 23 March 2016
UPDATE JULY 2019
Work on Tintagel Castle's Bridge starts - English Heritage News 18/06/19
* * *
Tuesday, 16 February 2016
Merlin reappears at Tintagel
As part of English Heritage's plan to improve the visitor experience at Tintagel Castle they have designed a new exhibition exploring the history surrounding Tintagel Castle and the legendary King Arthur.
EH have also refurbished the Beach Cafe and from late spring a new trail packed with exploration games and activities planned to help families and children discover the many stories at the castle. In addition a new link bridge will provide better access to the cafe from the shop and visitor centre.
For 2016, a highly imaginative new outdoor interpretation will extend right across the site bringing its history and legends to life telling the story of the Dark Age rulers of Cornwall and how the legends of King Arthur inspired Earl Richard to build his castle on this site.
EH have also refurbished the Beach Cafe and from late spring a new trail packed with exploration games and activities planned to help families and children discover the many stories at the castle. In addition a new link bridge will provide better access to the cafe from the shop and visitor centre.
For 2016, a highly imaginative new outdoor interpretation will extend right across the site bringing its history and legends to life telling the story of the Dark Age rulers of Cornwall and how the legends of King Arthur inspired Earl Richard to build his castle on this site.
It will feature interactive exhibits and informative panels as well as a range of striking artworks crafted in bronze and stone as the first part of a project by English Heritage to re-imagine Tintagel's history and legends across the island site. Further works will be revealed later this spring.
Vandalism or a work of art? - Cornish Guardian 16 Feb 2016
From February visitors can see the sleeping face of Merlin carved into the rocks on the beach:
 |
| Copyright English Heritage |
Merlin's Face revealed at Tintagel Castle - English Heritage 11 February 2016
Vandalism or a work of art? - Cornish Guardian 16 Feb 2016
* * *
Thursday, 5 February 2015
King Arthur's Great Hall Tintagel
After being disappointed at Tintagel Castle I wandered down Tintagel high street into King Arthur's Great Hall of Chivalry thinking it was an Arthurian bookshop. Books it did have and plenty of them but nothing particularly rare or difficult to find elsewhere. A doorway off the shop leads into a long corridor adjoining a massive hall, an Arthurian work of art, a shrine to the King, funded and created by people who evidently loved the legend.
The Hall was formerly known as Trevena House, after the name of the village before it changed to Tintagel after the castle on the nearby peninsula, until it was purchased by Frederick Thomas Glasscock in 1928. The house was originally built on the site of the former Town Hall and Market Hall in Fore Street by J D Cook, born at Camelford and one time editor of the 'Morning Chronicle' and founder of the popular 'Saturday Review'. He visited Tintagel rich with its Arthurian memories and bold headland and ruined walls every summer during the 1860s and befriended the Vicar and Honorary Constable of the Castle, the Reverend Kinsman, who had taken a great interest in the island making it safer and more accessible to visitors, constructing a new path to the headland. It was largely due to Kinsman's interest that the island became a tourist attraction in the Victorian period. Cook died in 1868 and was buried under an immense white monument in the churchyard on the hill above Tintagel, as near the edge of the cliff as possible.
Glasscock was a wealthy business man who spent a small fortune adapting the Hall as a worthy monument to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in the spirit of true romance. And it is a fitting monument indeed. It is said Glasscock employed local and Cornish workmen for the construction as far as possible, because of their love for the great King who once ruled over their land.
It became the headquarters for Glasscock's Order called the Fellowship of the Round Table which he founded in 1927 where brother knights were initiated into a chivalric system of medieval romanticism. The Fellowship was so successful that Glasscock had to increase the size of the Hall which opened in 1933 pretty much as we see it today.
It is claimed that over 50 types of Cornish stone were used in the Hall's construction, including slate, granite, greenstone, tourmaline, onyx, elvan and serpentine, brought here from places such as Rough Tor and Castle-an-Dinas on Bodmin Moor and others from the nearer Tintagel Castle.
Everything in the Hall is based on Arthurian Romance. There are 125 shields of granite, set along the full length of the Hall, said to represent the passage from darkness into light. The banners of the Knights are hung around the Hall
There are thrones carved of solid oak carved with the emblems of insignia of King Arthur and his Queen Guenevere. Granite is also used in the huge six ton canopy over the throne, supported by nine massive granite pillars. There is also a granite Round Table, along with two wooden ones.
Ten paintings by William Hatherell R.I. on the walls depict the principal events in the story of King Arthur. It is suspected that Hatherell died in 1928 before he completed his Arthurian commission for Glasscock. Hatherell depicted scenes from Malory's Morte D'Arthur such as the choosing of Arthur to be King; the gift to him of the great Sword Excalibur; the presentation of the Round Table; the achievement of the Sangreal; and of course, the passing of King Arthur.
Veronica Whall, the daughter of Christopher Whall leader of the Arts and Crafts Movement 1880-1910, designed the 73 stained-glass windows in the Hall considered to be the largest collection of stained glass panels of King Arthur made in the 20th century. The large windows either end of the hall are reminiscent of the Pre –Raphaelite era and worthy of a great cathedral, referred to as the best post Pre – Raphaelite windows anywhere.
‘The Windows of the Knights’ show each Knight of the Round Table illustrated by his unique shield at each window where the Knight’s story is also told in words. The Hall has eighteen windows known as the 'Windows of Virtue', which portray the principal virtues which the Knights of the Round Table agreed to observe. The virtues are graded in quality, starting with the less spiritual ones such as Strength, Perseverance and Obedience, through to the more spiritual such as Purity, Faith and Love.
However, there appears to have been some discord between Glasscock and Whall when he apparently refused to pay the agreed price. This ended up in a court case, the strain of which affected the artist's health.
Glasscock extended his Fellowship to America but he died in 1934 on board the Queen Mary on a voyage to further promote his organisation. Glasscock had been a Freemason and bequeathed the Hall to his local lodge who still use it for meetings.
Stumbling upon this impressive Great Hall by accident made the visit to Tintagel worth it.
Copyright © 2015 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/
Sources:
Paul Broadhurst, Tintagel and the Arthurian Mythos, Pendragon Press, 1992.
King Arthur's Great Halls of Chivalry, The Sword in the Stone Ltd. (undated pamphlet)
 |
| King Arthur's Great Hall of Chivalry |
Glasscock was a wealthy business man who spent a small fortune adapting the Hall as a worthy monument to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in the spirit of true romance. And it is a fitting monument indeed. It is said Glasscock employed local and Cornish workmen for the construction as far as possible, because of their love for the great King who once ruled over their land.
 |
| Corridor leading to the Great Hall |
It is claimed that over 50 types of Cornish stone were used in the Hall's construction, including slate, granite, greenstone, tourmaline, onyx, elvan and serpentine, brought here from places such as Rough Tor and Castle-an-Dinas on Bodmin Moor and others from the nearer Tintagel Castle.
Everything in the Hall is based on Arthurian Romance. There are 125 shields of granite, set along the full length of the Hall, said to represent the passage from darkness into light. The banners of the Knights are hung around the Hall
 |
| The Throne |
Ten paintings by William Hatherell R.I. on the walls depict the principal events in the story of King Arthur. It is suspected that Hatherell died in 1928 before he completed his Arthurian commission for Glasscock. Hatherell depicted scenes from Malory's Morte D'Arthur such as the choosing of Arthur to be King; the gift to him of the great Sword Excalibur; the presentation of the Round Table; the achievement of the Sangreal; and of course, the passing of King Arthur.
 |
| The Great Hall |
‘The Windows of the Knights’ show each Knight of the Round Table illustrated by his unique shield at each window where the Knight’s story is also told in words. The Hall has eighteen windows known as the 'Windows of Virtue', which portray the principal virtues which the Knights of the Round Table agreed to observe. The virtues are graded in quality, starting with the less spiritual ones such as Strength, Perseverance and Obedience, through to the more spiritual such as Purity, Faith and Love.
However, there appears to have been some discord between Glasscock and Whall when he apparently refused to pay the agreed price. This ended up in a court case, the strain of which affected the artist's health.
Glasscock extended his Fellowship to America but he died in 1934 on board the Queen Mary on a voyage to further promote his organisation. Glasscock had been a Freemason and bequeathed the Hall to his local lodge who still use it for meetings.
Stumbling upon this impressive Great Hall by accident made the visit to Tintagel worth it.
Copyright © 2015 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/
Sources:
Paul Broadhurst, Tintagel and the Arthurian Mythos, Pendragon Press, 1992.
King Arthur's Great Halls of Chivalry, The Sword in the Stone Ltd. (undated pamphlet)
* * *
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)