Merlin

Geoffrey of Monmouth on the Dates of Arthur

Geoffrey Ashe, an historian and co-founder and secretary of the Camelot Research Committee, wrote about Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Arthurian legend. Ashe says Geoffrey of Monmouth (lived in the 12h century) connects Arthur with the tail end of the Roman Empire, in the late fifth century A.D.:

"Arthur went over to Gaul, the country now called France, which was still in the grip of the Western Roman Empire, if rather shakily."

"This is one of the clues, of course, to when Geoffrey [of Monmouth] thinks all this is happening, because the Western Roman Empire ended in 476, so, presumably, he's somewhere in the 5th Century. Arthur conquered the Romans, or defeated them at least, and took over a goodly part of Gaul...."
- from (www.britannia.com/history/arthur2.html) Basic Arthur, by Geoffrey Ashe

The 1st Use of the Name Artorius (Arthur)

"184 - Lucius Artorius Castus, commander of a detachment of Sarmatian conscripts stationed in Britain, led his troops to Gaul to quell a rebellion. This is the first appearance of the name, Artorius, in history and some believe that this Roman military man is the original, or basis, for the Arthurian legend. The theory says that Castus' exploits in Gaul, at the head of a contingent of mounted troops, are the basis for later, similar traditions about King Arthur, and, further, that the name Artorius became a title, or honorific, which was ascribed to a famous warrior in the fifth century."
- from (/www.britannia.com/history/timearth.html) Britannia's Timeline

Does King Arthur Belong to the Middle Ages?

In the shadows between Classical Antiquity and the Dark Ages lived prophets and warlords, druids and Christians, Roman Christians and the outlawed Pelagians, in an area sometimes referred to as Sub-Roman Britain, a pejorative label suggesting that the native British elements were less advanced than their Roman counterparts.

It was a time of civil war and plague -- which helps explain the lack of contemporary information. Geoffrey Ashe says:

"In dark age Britain we have to recognize various adverse factor, such as the loss and destruction of manuscripts by invading armies; the character of the early material, oral rather than written; the decline of learning and even literacy among the Welsh monks who might have kept reliable records. The whole period is plunged in obscurity from the same causes. People who were certainly real and important are no better attested."

Since we don't have the necessary fifth and sixth century records, it's impossible to say absolutely that Merlin did or did not exist.

- From Tennyson's "Idylls"

The pale blood of the wizard at her touch
Took gayer colours, like an opal warmed.
She blamed herself for telling hearsay tales:
She shook from fear, and for her fault she wept [950]
Of petulancy; she called him lord and liege,
Her seer, her bard, her silver star of eve,
Her God, her Merlin, the one passionate love
Of her whole life; and ever overhead
Bellowed the tempest, and the rotten branch [955]
Snapt in the rushing of the river-rain
Above them; and in change of glare and gloom
Her eyes and neck glittering went and came;
Till now the storm, its burst of passion spent,
Moaning and calling out of other lands, [960]
Had left the ravaged woodland yet once more
To peace; and what should not have been had been,
For Merlin, overtalked and overworn,
Had yielded, told her all the charm, and slept.