ABSTRACT
The texts in this chapter include most of the early Welsh Arthurian poems that precede or are independent of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. While they are too often obscure or fragmentary, these Welsh materials—many considerably earlier than the twelfth century—demonstrate clearly the deepest roots of Arthurian narrative in Welsh tradition. In the poems and allusions below, two differing aspects of Arthur are revealed. He appears in the earliest source as an ideal warrior against whom others are measured, and this is perhaps the basic Arthurian assumption at the core of all later developments. From this legendary beginning, possibly stemming from an historical figure, Arthur had developed by the ninth century into a hero of folk tales and tales of wonder, contending with monsters, witches, and giants. Other heroes were gradually drawn into his sphere of influence, thus establishing Llys Arthur, Arthur’s Court, which from the twelfth century on became the arena in which, throughout Europe, the tenets of chivalry were refined and where questions of courtly conduct predominate.
