The Age of Arthur: A History of the British Isles from 350 to 650

by John Robert Morris

Book Overview

It's a past hitherto hidden in myth and mystery, and one so exciting to lovers of literature and history. Yet Arthur himself, both the last Roman emperor and the first medieval king, represented a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 068413313X
• ISBN13: 9780684133133
• Release Date: January 1973
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 665 Pages
• Weight: 2.51 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Very Interesting Book!

Bought as a gift, but I read it first and enjoyed it very much! Thanks

The historical Arthur...

John Morris's The Age of Arthur is an excellent reference guide for anyone interested in the historical Arthur, or the Dark Ages in general. It's as old as I am and I found it in a used book shop. At more than six-hundred pages, it is incredibly detailed and a bit hard to read cover-to-cover, but you can get the gist of it with some judicious skipping.Some historians may have trouble with the conclusions that Morris draws. He relies heavily on folklore as his source. His thinking is, if there's smoke there's fire - if all these chroniclers write about a King Arthur who lived during the time of their fathers, then there's probably some truth to it.As far as I can tell, the majority of historians (including Simon Schama) believe that there was a warlord named Arthur - he was the last Brit to fight off the Saxon hoards. The details of his life and the character of the man are unknowable. Morris would agree with that - he doesn't give us details of Arthur's life. There are snippets provided from historical writings - some of which portray Arthur as a tyrant. There is a Vortigern in this book, but no Merlin. Who knows how true Morris's assertions are, but in all fairness, like Herodotus, he does provide his source materials so you can make up your own mind.

Excellent and scholarly synthesis.....

If John Morris never wrote another book, his AGE OF ARTHUR would have to be described as a lifetime achievement. I bought this book because I've been fascinated with King Arthur for some time, and this book is THE history of the period before, during and after Arthur. Only about one-fifth of the pages in the book are about Arthur's life, but Morris convincingly describes Arthur's time and his lasting effect on the cultures and governments of the British Islands. He also makes a convincing case that history is not predestined. THE AGE OF ARTHUR covers a period that has been condescendingly labeled the "dark ages" by some. Morris suggests this age is not so much obscure as it has been overlooked. (Or was at the time he published his book. Many new "early Medieval studies" were published in the 1990s). Morris demonstrates that scholarship about this era can be carried out by using annals; lives of the saints; law codes; land grants and religious charters; "histories" such as those written by Gildas and Bede; graffiti and tomb inscriptions; poetry; chronicles; wills; genealogical records; archeological evidence from cemeteries, burial mounds, and barrows, houses, villages, encampments, battle fields and other sites; and linguistics analysis. He has done a magnificent job of identifying and synthesizing much of the extant material. His book is loaded with suggestions for scholars who want to continue investigating this era. I doubt you will find a better book for an overview of this period or for research leads. Among other topics, I was intrigued with the various ways the Welsh (Angle for foreigner), Irish, Scots (Latin for Irish), and German peoples including the Angles of Arthur's age dealt with everyday issues. Their social and legal problems were not so very different, but the Irish and the Welsh (Roman Britains) appear to have been somewhat more practical and humane. They were much more concerned with compensation than revenge or punishment and more than once Morris refers to them as early humanists. For example, an (adulterous wife) was expected to compensate her offended husband by paying him "face money." Some of the old laws from this age are still "on the books." For example, the notion that seven years cohabitation by persons of opposite sex creates a "common-law marriage" is at least 1500 years old and is the law in places such as the Commonwealth of Virginia which follows English Common Law.

Glorious Conjecture

I, for one, am happy to see this work back in print. As others have noted, Morris weaves a grand tapestry from a few threads; but what a tapestry! He guesses, he extrapolates, he leaps, over evidentiary chasms at which more cautious historians blanche, to conclusions. Bully for him. Read it together with more cautious historians such as Salway and Wachter, and have fun.

The best sourcebook to "Arthurian" Britain I've ever seen

John Morris's "The Age of Arthur" is over 600 pages long - and worth every sheet. In this one book, one can find not only one of the best scholarly evaluations of Dark Age British history ever written, but the publication which, perhaps more than any other,began the quest for the "historical Arthur." Anyone with an interest in this fascinating epoch should own this book, for use at the very least as a reference book!