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This article traces the development of the legend of Arthur's return from Avalon from Geoffrey of Monmouth's inception of the motif to its early reception history, exploring its relationship to Welsh and Breton prophetic traditions and the impact of Avalon on subsequent English and French understandings of a constructed genre of pan-British political prophecy. (VF)
The myth of Arthur's return from the otherworldly island of Avalon has proved long-enduring, inspiring writers from the Middle Ages through to the modern day. One of the most pervasive cultural associations of the legend is its connection to a Welsh prophetic tradition in which Arthur occupied a central position as a hero returning to right national wrongs. This status is attributed to Arthur in legends recorded in Wales during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (although this is a role he also shares with Owain).1 However, the critical commonplace that the roots of this material are medieval is now increasingly subject to challenge.2 As modern scholars of the Welsh Arthurian legend have observed, although Arthur is an important figure in Welsh history and poetry, his name is notably absent from extant Welsh political prophecy.3 This is with the exceptions of late medieval translations from, and re-workings of, English prophecies4 and the Arthurian associations of Henry Tudor in Welsh panegyrics of the late fifteenth century, particularly in the years following the birth of his heir, Arthur.5 As a rule, these texts are concerned with the affairs of English kings rather than Welsh princes. When medieval Welsh political figures were invoked in prophetic terms, they were generally Cynans, Cadwaladrs, and Owains, not Arthurs.
Although the idea of Arthur's return from Avalon as an endemically Welsh medieval prophetic theme is without foundation, the development of this perception has a medieval history in which Welsh prophetic influences played an important part, beginning with the legend as it was first written by the twelfth-century Oxford cleric, Geoffrey of Monmouth. Although Arthur was absent from Geoffrey's Welsh prophetic source models, Geoffrey integrated the hero into political prophetic structures and borrowed elements from diverse Welsh traditions, as he is understood to have done across his writings.6 Alongside this, Geoffrey appears to have drawn on Breton legends of Arthur's return that were in broad clerical circulation during...