King Arthur's Death

King Arthur’s Death – the Alliterative Morte Arthure – survives due to the work of one man, Sir Robert Thornton.  A Yorkshire gentleman with the passion of an enthusiastic amateur, he was responsible for copying down many mediaeval poems and stories which, but for his efforts, would long since have disappeared.

The Lincoln Manuscript (MS 91)

His efforts have left of us with two significant…

Dear Subscriber,

The day has arrived! I'm sending a brief update to say that as of today,  30th June 2020, King Arthur's Death enters its final stage ready for publication in February next year. My understanding from Unbound is that you, as a pledger and patron of the book, will receive your copies much earlier than this so hopefully the wait will be shorter. 

As previously explained, the coronavirus…

One of the undercurrent themes of the alliterative poetry of the fourteenth century is the notion of "surquedry", a word which is frequently used and is a Middle English equivalent of the French surcuiderie, an overweening arrogance or pride. The poets were critical of this in contemporary mediaeval English government and it has a particular relevance to politics in Britain today.

Historical…

Dear supporter,

After almost a year of suffering from a frozen shoulder, I have at last been able to return to printmaking - just as COVID-19 has forced everything into lockdown. So in the last few days, I have turned Gringolet's garage into a makeshift printmaking studio to produce my first linocut for some time: a four colour print of the Dunstable Swan Jewel in the British Museum.

…

Dear supporter,

Yesterday the postman arrived with the page proofs for King Arthur's Death - the Alliterative Morte Arthure; this means that (once I have proof-read them), the manuscript enters its final stage: to become a book itself.

The team at Unbound has done a magnificent job in bringing this together. With the cover design, illuminated letters, linocut illustrations - not to mention…

Key to an understanding of mediaeval stories such as King Arthur is the concept of the “Familia Regis” or royal household – a close-knit group of supporters and servants loyal to their monarch. At the same time, the monarch is loyal to his or her followers. It is a symbiotic relationship which, when upset, can have dramatic consequences.

In King Arthur’s Death – the Alliterative Morte Arthure…

Dear supporter,

I had a wonderful surprise from Imogen, my editor at Unbound, who yesterday sent me the proposed artwork for King Arthur's Death - the Alliterative Morte Arthure. I simply had to share it with you. I am absolutely thrilled with the design, capturing what I see as the core essence of this magnificent fourteenth century work.

I think the designer himself (who worked on my last…

Most writing, whether wilfully or otherwise, often paints a picture of its own time that, as the years go by, begins to lose its context and therefore its original meaning. Thus, with King Arthur's Death (the Alliterative Morte Arthure), it is the duty of the translator not only to tell the story as originally written but also to reveal the context behind the story which confronts us today.

This week my illustrated translation of the Alliterative Morte Arthure (King Arthur's Death), reached a new milestone as I received the first copyedit from the editorial team. I'm so pleased to have the same team working on the book as on my translation of Gawain: the questions are probing and compel me onwards to be sure of accuracy!

It's a daunting task to go through this, but a worthwhile…

When I am translating - and writing about - the fourteenth century poets who inspire my work, I am also inspired by the world in which these poets lived. Theirs was an environment in which people's lives could be cut short in an instant, when food supplies could collapse, when plague, pestilence and war were never far way. A terrible time but also a time of beauty and great cultural richness.

In our minds, the knights of King Arthur probably resemble a Hollywood melange of extravagant "Techincolor", inordinately-sized and bedecked battle helmets, and hand-to-hand combat on horseback. While there is nothing wrong in this, it is important to remember that an Arthurian romance is set in the time in which it was written. What King Arthur does the poet-writer of the Alliterative Morte Arthure…

As anyone in a position of leadership knows, being the person at the top is a lonely business. In mediaeval times, to be king or emperor brought with it great power and responsibility but also periods of great doubt. King Arthur's Death, the Alliterative Morte Arthure, addresses this theme in the two dream sequences of King Arthur when, disturbed by his visions, he asks for the opinion of his "philosphers…

Dear supporter,

Today a new milestone was reached in my translation of the Alliterative Morte Arthure (King Arthur's Death) - the manuscript and all the illustrations has now been sent to Unbound. The book now begins the next part of its journey - becoming the book which you helped to make happen!

Labour of love

This has been an all-absorbing project over the last eighteen months…

As many of you will know from my translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, I like to illustrate my works with linocut prints. So I have produced a brief film showing how I produce the letters which will appear in the book - from the cutting through to the printing and finally the publication of the work in the finished book! 

Art is very important to my approach. I make these linocuts to…

Dear Supporter,

As you know, last week my translation of the Alliterative Morte Arthure (King Arthur's Death) hit 100% funding and now takes its last steps before being handed over to the team at Unbound to turn it into a book. I thought I would just send a quick update to let you known what is happening next with the book.

1. Firstly, as of today, I have completed all the linocut illustrations…

When I first began work on the King Arthur's Death, I was aware that deep within it lay a message for today's leaders too: beware the folly of your own pride. Never did I think, as the year has progressed during my translation and illustration of this work, that its message would become ever more relevant and pertinent.

In today's tumultuous and febrile political environment, King Arthur's…

The Alliterative Morte Arthure (King Arthur's Death) is a fabulous poem - not just for its poetic magnificence, but also because of its wealth of contemporary detail. With this in mind, I wanted to embellish an earlier post about its coverage of King Arthur's siege of Metz. So I have produced a small film detailing how and why mediaeval sieges were fought and what the poet might have had in mind in…

It is important to see the Alliterative Morte Arthure - the fourteenth century poem we now know as King Arthur's Death - as not so much an Arthurian romance but as a reflection on kingship. This is why it was written: a statement of the conflict between religious or spiritual duty and martial or "chivalric" state politics. It is a mirror on the dichotomy of kingship in the late fourteenth century…

In my work translating and illustrating King Arthur's Death, I have become transfixed by the mastery of the anonymous Arthur-poet. In this brief update, I want to share with you the fabulous way in which he weaves the mystery and magic of nature into his work and how he uses its power to add suspense and mystery to his work. I have also produced a brief film about this which I'd like to share with…

In this brief update, I wanted to share with you a short video I have made giving some context to my forthcoming translation of the Alliterative Morte Arthure (King Arthur's Death). In this small section, I am reading some of the opening lines of the original manuscript; the sub-titles below each page give a flavour of the translation. I hope this conveys some of the flavour of what you can expect…

Dear supporter,

Last night I was delighted to see that the funding for my translation of the Alliterative Morte Arthure (King Arthur's Death) reached 80% of its final target. This is a wonderful achievement and I wanted to thank you for your support with this project to date. I could not have reached this point without your help.

With now just 20% left to go we're so close to making this…

Whether during the holy days, or in celebration of weddings or victories, or as part of welcoming a monarch during their travels, feasting for mediaeval royalty and the nobility was often a magnificent display of wealth and a demonstration of the social order. In King Arthur's Death we are treated to a description of mediaeval culinary magnificence so grand that we can hardly imagine it today…

It's been nearly a year since I began work on translating King Arthur's Death so I wanted to send you a brief update on how the book is progressing and give you an idea of what you can look forward to when it is finally published. Unlike my translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, I did not begin the crowdfunding with the manuscript ready - I started completely from scratch. No words, no…

It has taken me a while but I have at last managed to produce a four colour linocut print of King Arthur wielding Excalibur, which I wanted to offer as a pledge option for supporters of my translation of King Arthur's Death. This article takes you through the process, which in total took between 7 and 10 solid days of hard work...

The basis of my research.

King Arthur's Death, or the…

Towards the end of the Alliterative Morte Arthure, the fourteenth century poem I am translating and illustrating for Unbound, we finally arrive at the moment where Arthur fights with, and defeats, the odious traitor Mordred. Here, seriously wounded and on the verge of death, King Arthur makes a speech so powerful and haunting it is spine-tingling to hear it even now, 600 years after it was first written…

I've recently taken a short break from my printmaking work for King Arthur and have been producing a small range of prints featuring animals and birds from mediaeval bestiaries. I'm so pleased with them I thought I would offer a small selection of them as pledge options for supporters of my King Arthur translation. Let me tell you more about them and how they were made...

Bestiaries in the…

Britain is a land of myth and legend, at the centre of which the stories of King Arthur are amongst the most renowned. At Dinas Emrys in the mountains of North Wales, history and myth combine in a potent mixture to deliver one of the most important sites in the Arthurian canon.

Here, in this lonely, rain-sodden place, the British king Vortigern was told by the boy Merlin of two fighting dragons…

In the English literary tradition of the Middle Ages, Christmas is a time of huge significance and symbolism. With King Arthur’s Death, as with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the warmth of the holiday period is beautifully conveyed; a time when lordly households drew in on themselves in the midst of winter, and maybe hear of strange tales and magical stories…

Following an introduction to the…

As well as being an historian, I am also a printmaker. The combination of both these areas comes to play in my forthcoming translation of King Arthur's Death (as indeed it did in my translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, also via Unbound, published July 2018), for which I am producing at least 32 linocut prints. In this brief update, I provide a short film showing how I print the linocut…

As Remembrance Day beckons on 11th November, 100 years after the end of the WW1, the war to end all wars, I am reminded of a trip I made a few years back in search of the graves of two of my great-uncles. Like all such quests, there is a sense of loss, futility and deep sorrow for those who sacrificed their lives in a manner so depraved and cruel that even now it beggars belief that leaders could…

The Alliterative Morte Arthure is a masterpiece of fourteenth century regional English poetry. It has pace, it has vim, it has detail, it has message. Above all it has a poetic delivery which makes it stand high as one of the finest works of literature from those dark days of the Hundred Years War. Its delivery is exemplified by its chosen form: the steady percussion of its alliteration.

The…

Historians of military tactics in the Hundred Years War have long dwelled on the use of the longbow in battles such as Agincourt, Crecy and Poitiers and how archers were organised to best effect on the battlefield. The use of the term herce by the chronicler Froissart to describe the configuration of blocks of archers in relation to individual "battles" of knights in the English armies has been…

In King Arthur's Death, when the king besieges the city of Metz, we are given a detailed insight into the ways in which sieges were fought in this period. What this reveals, as do other elements of the poem, is that its anonymous fourteenth century writer had detailed knowledge of military matters. We are left tantalised as to who the poet really was, and to whom he was connected.

The options…

One of the fascinating features in the Alliterative Morte Arthure (King Arthur's Death) is its detailed reflection of fourteenth century English politics, culture and, of course, warfare. This is particularly the case when it comes to the poem's accurate descriptions of the heraldry of Arthur's knights and his foes. But does the heraldry reveal coded secrets of its own - about the people for whom…

King Arthur's Death is an alliterative poem which at once celebrates the triumphs of King Arthur while also demanding of the reader they address their views of war, ethics and morality. If the first half celebrates the former, the second half is when we are left questioning our own moral compass. At what point does Arthur the King become Arthur the flawed man?

This magnificent poem of 4000…

King Arthur's Death - the Alliterative Morte Arthure (the AMA) - is a 14th Century poem unlike any other. Its contrast between the banal and the heroic, the violent and the natural, gives this anonymous poet the style of a mediaeval Quentin Tarantino. His work is truly groundbreaking and utterly astonishing...

For me, the appeal of King Arthur's Death is that it is hugely divorced from the…

As part of my journey in translating the 14th Century epic, King Arthur's Death (the Alliterative Morte Arthure), a key issue for me has been trying to convey the "gut feel" of this magnficent poem. I have been pulled in a number of directions but now I have arrived at a style which suits my own methodology and fully supports the intended message of this literary masterpiece. Let me tell you a…

To the untrained eye, the 14th century alliterative poem, King Arthur’s Death might be seen as a simple Arthurian romance. Nothing could be further from the truth. This vibrant, action-packed poem possesses a deep irony - possibly based on the poet’s personal exposure to the brutality of mediaeval warfare - and a detailed knowledge of other poems and sources in the Arthurian canon which he uses…

Recently, I appeared in a discussion at the Bradford Literature Festival with Daniel Hahn discussing my new translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (also published by Unbound). In just one afternoon, I realised that the work I had been involved with for the last five years had suddenly become something - a serious translation. My next project, King Arthur's Death, has taken on a new responsibility…

As part of the crowdfunding campaign for my new translation of King Arthur's Death (the fourteenth century Alliterative Morte Arthure written during the reign of either Richard II or Henry IV), I'm pleased to announce a special prize for one lucky pledger for the book!

Once the number of backers goes above 250 (Hardback pledge level or above), I will make this print available as a pledger's…

Being written in England around 1400, King Arthur’s Death sheds a fascinating light on the tactics, techniques and sheer plain talking of the English soldiering class around the time of Agincourt. Whoever wrote this astonishing poem was well-versed in how armies were organised and paid for, and, in so being, he highlights a side of warfare which still haunts us today: financiers don’t like fighters…

Battle plays a major part in the vivid writing of the fourteenth century masterpiece which is King Arthur’s Death (the Alliterative Morte Arthure; one of the key sources for Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur). Yet its anonymous poet chooses to tell us a tale not so much of chivalric romance but of the brutal horror of war. This is particularly true when we consider Sir Gawain, a leading character in…

Above: The Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset -  the basis of, or a model for, the predatory rapine giant in King Arthur's Death?

Giants and ogres are a common feature in mediaeval literature and in King Arthur’s Death (the Alliterative Morte Arthure) we are shown one who is surely one of the most gruesome to have been created. How did the poet manage to create such a vile beast, and one who remains…

When kings in the past were faced with aggression from abroad, how did they react – and why? In the Alliterative Morte Arthure (King Arthur’s Death) we are given significant insights into the diplomacy and thinking of mediaeval kings. It makes for gripping reading, far beyond what we might expect from such a poem.

Mediaeval life was dominated by religion, war and the whim of God. If calamity…

My new translation of the Alliterative Morte Arthure (King Arthur’s Death) begins a new journey for me: translating a vibrant poem of the late fourteenth century (which, incidentally, has a number of hidden meanings) and illustrating it in pen-and-ink. For this post, I want to show you the process I use in my illustrative work, focusing on an illustration of King Arthur himself.

RESEARCH