A Remarkable Approach to the Matter of Britain: Howard Wiseman’s Then Arthur Fought
It’s unique. But what is it? Then Arthur Fought (the book takes its title from a phrase in Nennius’s ninth century Historia Britonum: ‘tunc Arthur pugnabat’) is subtitled “The Matter of Britain,” and, yes, that’s what it is. Its author, Howard Wiseman, calls it a “quasi-history,” which seems as good an expression as one could come up with for this remarkable book. Readers of Arthuriana will recognize “The Matter of Britain,” an expression that, broadly, encompasses the history and legends of dark age Britain as recounted or recast either as history or romance. So, Gildas, Bede, Nennius, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, Mallory, and much more: history, folk-tales, chivalric romance. Something for everyone, and what a congeries of material, as anyone will agree who’s read even a bit of it. Of course, Uther Pendragon and Arthur appear, as well as other characters you’d expect. And other figures that only readers quite familiar with late antique history or the Matter might know about, such as Magnus Maximus or Riothamus. There are no supernatural elements, however, and the fantastically high troop numbers common to the legends have been rationally reduced. Such reductions are interestingly justified in footnotes. The book reads like a medieval history and is cast in a style that is convincingly archaic and yet not distracting.
Wiseman has done a remarkable thing: he has taken the disparate materials of the Matter, the product of centuries— and of who knows how many hands (though Wiseman probably does)— and recast it into a coherent whole. By that, I mean that he has strung together information from historical documents, for example, those of Ammianus Marcellinus and Procopius, to account for the transition of Britain from a set of Roman provinces into an island of contending post-Roman kingdoms. This quasi-history continues with later sources of varying reliability or, arguably, no reliability, such as Geoffrey of Monmouth. (I expect some would argue that it’s an overstatement to say that Geoffrey is utter fiction, though this is beside the point.) All of these sources— and many, many more— are woven together into a coherent whole. Say what you will about the historicity of any part, it all hangs together.
The coherence of Then Arthur Fought depends not only on the organization of the material, but on Wiseman’s conjectures to fill gaps where material is lacking, but here’s the thing: when Wiseman fills in a blank, he indicates this and justifies it in a footnote. In fact, the book is so heavily supported by citation— much like a scientific paper (Wiseman is a physicist)— that everything in the book can be traced to its source. Think about that; it’s remarkable, particularly when you consider the stunning number of sources. This support makes the book more than just interesting to read in its own right— it could be used as a compendium or source book for the Matter of Britain. Thus, readers can make sense of the Matter (by seeing it arranged in a coherent whole) more easily than they might if they read even a great number of the disparate texts which make up part of the Matter.
Of importance, too, are other materials in the book. There are genealogies, helpful maps, lists of sources divided by type, for example annals, poems, and so on, and a bibliography of modern works, both historical and fictional. Readers who think themselves familiar with the Matter are likely to be surprised at sources they hadn’t known about. The list of sources of all kinds is stunning in its number; the book is worth having for that alone.
