Why did King Arthur have such a great influence in Brittany?
Upvote:1
This depends on when you think King Arthur existed. The Bretons moved to France at some time between the fifth and tenth centuries from southern Britain. This is why Britain and Brittany are similar words (identical in French, distinguished only by calling Britain "Great Britain"). They took their language, social structure, folklore, placenames (e.g. there is a Cornwall in Brittany) etc. etc. with them and King Arthur would be part of that, the stories being told in a language that was the same both sides of the Channel, only slowly diverging over time.
They would have identified places with the stories. Depending on dates it is also possible that King Arthur did cross the Channel and that events really did take place in France (as it is now called) but in the same culture and language.
Upvote:12
This question should probably be in the Myth & Folklore SE but let's answer it anyway.
King Arthur is such a major figure in Brittany because Brittany was largely settled by Britons towards the end of the 4th Century and into the 6th Century.
The reasons for this vary by time period, in the earlier wave sources state that Britons were sent to the Amorican peninsula by the Roman usurper Magnus Maximus to enforce his claim in Gaul under Conan Meriadoc (this of course is presented in later documents and should be taken with a grain of salt), later migration is largely considered to be due to the Anglo & Saxon spread westwards (1).
These migrants took their culture with them, hence the similar place names (compare Kernow/Cornwall to Gernow/Cornouaille in the map below) and the Breton language which is in the Brythonic language family with Welsh and Cornish. The later waves migrated at a time when a famous (mythical) warrior named Arthur was popular in Western Britain and of course, took his stories with them. (2)
Sources
(1) Léon Fleuriot, Les origines de la Bretagne: l’émigration, Paris, Payot, 1980.
(2) Concepts of Arthur, Chapter 2.
More post
- 📝 Is there a historical example or a manuscript about troop formation or fighting stance on a boat?
- 📝 What is a knight of the windmill?
- 📝 Has there been talk of a post-work economy before?
- 📝 What was life expectancy in early medieval Britain?
- 📝 Was Roman expansion & casus belli as just as they claimed?
- 📝 Was Pawiak prison in Warsaw originally for political or general prisoners?
- 📝 Disappearance and reappearance of helmets in European armies circa 1600 to 1900
- 📝 Why are there distinct Orthodox and Catholic Christian communities in Bosnia and Hercegovina?
- 📝 What route would 1st century BCE travellers have taken from Alexandria to Jerusalem?
- 📝 When was the change from kalends, ides and nones to numbers
- 📝 Is there evidence to suggest the "war on drugs" was a cover for class warfare?
- 📝 Where are Genghis Khan's Mongols?
- 📝 What portion of tariffs was paid by Southern states before American Civil War?
- 📝 When did the terms, 1-point, 2,-point, 3-point, etc... perspective come into use?
- 📝 Was the French philosopher Pierre Bayle a Calvinist believer or an atheist?
- 📝 What happened to the compass platform on the Titanic?
- 📝 When did people first recognize the estimate sizes/scales and nature of celestial bodies?
- 📝 What was the religion of the Arabic people before conversion to Islam?
- 📝 After the Mongol Empire fell, did China really turn away from math and physics?
- 📝 What can we deduce about the expected career of a US Navy "lifer" in 1972?
- 📝 Why did World War I victors let Germany pay reparations in German Marks and gave it the option to default via inflation?
- 📝 How did Richard I sail through the strait of Gibraltar?
- 📝 Why is Musselburgh considered the first golf course, when St. Andrews was where golf was first played?
- 📝 What was the first "fashion trend"?
- 📝 Why were harvest times in Cyrenaica earlier than in Greece in antiquity?
- 📝 To what extent did Gandhi affect the factors that led to the partition of India?
- 📝 Why did the price of eggs in Britain increase much more than for other basic foods during WWI?
- 📝 Why were the Normans such good builders?
- 📝 Were there US troops on the WW1 eastern front?
- 📝 Was there a precursor to the Bolshevik Party?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why did King Arthur have such a great influence in Brittany?
- 📝 Why did Empress Elizabeth and Catherine the Great of Russia have such different policies toward Frederick the Great?
- 📝 Why did the Monitor and Merrimac (aka Virginia) have such radically different designs?
- 📝 Italian History from 1870-1913: Why did Italy have such a hard time becoming a "Great Power" like Germany?
- 📝 Why is King Henry V regarded as such a great King?
- 📝 Why did Lincoln's Cooper Union Address have such an impact?
- 📝 Why did the introduction of European firearms have such an impact on warfare in Africa and the Americas?
- 📝 Why exactly did telegraphs have to use "STOP" instead of a period and "QUOTE" instead of a quotation mark? (Or special codes.)
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union have multiple airplane manufacturers?
- 📝 Why did people have so many children in Victorian times?
- 📝 Why does the Great Wall of China follow such a bendy route?
- 📝 Why did Stalin and the Soviet leadership have Leon Trotsky assassinated?
- 📝 Why did Great Britain switch its alliance to France?
- 📝 Why did Roman women have no praenomen?
- 📝 Why did Peter the Great name Saint Petersburg, Russia with a foreign styled name?
- 📝 Why did really old paintings use such bizarre, unnatural perspective/proportions?
- 📝 What effect did the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir have on Great Britain's international relations during WW2?
- 📝 Why did Stalin push for the Great Purge against the Red Army in 1936?
- 📝 Why did the film "The Longest Day" have the "cricket" training scene if the Allies received no intelligence about the hedgerows in Normandy?
- 📝 Why was gold so popular and valuable back when it did not have many real world uses?
- 📝 Why did the USSR have two sources of currency?
- 📝 Why did Stephen Ambrose believe that the election of Aaron Burr would have led to the end of the USA?
- 📝 Why did Peter the Great change his daughters' title to Tsesarevna?
- 📝 Why did the British have so few destroyers going into World War II?
- 📝 Why did Ancient Greek religious monument (herms) have genitalia?
- 📝 Why did helmets have this metal thing between the eyes?
- 📝 Why did Russians have guns towards the end of the Mongol Yoke, but not the Mongols?
- 📝 Why did the Roberts Treaty of 1833 have a Portuguese translation annexed to it?
- 📝 Why did Mettius Fufetius not join the Veiites in directly attacking the Roman King Tullus Hostilius?
- 📝 Did Bismarck have any influence on Hitler?