| Glastonbury Arthur's Avalon (Ian Topham) Page6 |
The new inscription was slightly different in Latin. So was the grave an elaborate hoax to raise funds for the Abbey, which at its height became the largest and wealthiest in the country after Westminster, or was it as the monks had claimed, a fortuitous find? Unfortunately it doesn't look good for the monk's credibility. The only written account of the find dating from 1190, was written down by a Welsh man called Giraldus Cambrensis. But he wrote down the accounts of witnesses as he passed through several days after the exhumation, and he did not witness the actual dig.
In 1962 the archaeologist Dr Ralegh Radford excavated the site of the alleged burial, and believes that someone had previously dug in the same position and found an early grave. He found that the stone lining was still there, and he considers it to be part of a graveyard that would have been reserved for honoured tombs. This does not mean that it was Arthur's tomb, especially because the Arthur they claim to have found (who married Guinevere and was taken to Avalon) was a fictional character created by the more imaginary literary exponents of the time.
James Hudson, an Oxford linguist considers the Latin on the cross to differ from a sixth century inscription, as much as modern English prose differs from a Shakespearean text. Ashe (1968) says that the letters on the cross were crude and not twelfth century at all, therefore if the monks carved it they did a better job than most medieval forgers. It would seem that the cross has become the pivot of the whole argument, so where is it? The cross is lost; the last known possessor of the cross is said to be a Mr Hughes, who lived in nearby Wells in the eighteenth century. We only know what the cross is supposed to look like now because it was drawn by William Camden in 1607.
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The original grave is not marked for the tourist to see. What is marked is the position where a large black marble tomb in which they encased his bones, in front of the high altar. This in itself shows the popularity of the Arthurian legend, what other fictional character could end up in such an esteemed position.
Strangely enough, while excavating the grounds after the 1184 fire, the monks found a whole host of medieval celebrities, these included St Patrick, St Gildas and strangest of all Archbishop Dunstan, who had spent the last two hundred years entombed at Canterbury. It would seem that the monks weren't entirely hedging their bets on Arthur to ensure that the pilgrims would come. But once Glastonbury was supposed to be Avalon, the monks had to keep people believing, this even if it meant re-writing their history.
In 1130AD, Malmesbury had written De Antiquitate Glastontensis Ecclesiae (On the Antiquities of the church of Glastonbury) and didn't mention any connection between Arthur and Glastonbury at all. By 1247 the monks had rewritten the book, by then the works of Robert De Boran and an English priest called Laymon were in circulation. They wrote of the Holy Grail, and how Joseph of Arimethea brought the cup of Christ to the vale of Avalon. By then the tradition of Arthur being a Christian monarch who dispatched his knights on a quest to find the Holy Grail to heal the land, was well established. In the monks revised edition of De Antiquitate Glastontensis Ecclesiae it is claimed that the first church in Glastonbury was actually established by a foreign merchant called Joseph of Arimethea, which is still regarded by many as fact. Needless to say it completely disagrees with the Malmesbury original. This maintained the façade that Glastonbury was Avalon, Arthur's resting place, and the home of the Holy Grail. Pretty soon it became accepted as being so, and has remained that way ever since.
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Arthurs Avalon