The story of King Arthur was not created by a single author. It developed over many centuries, beginning with fragmentary references in early British and Welsh sources and growing into the elaborate medieval world of Merlin, Guinevere, Lancelot, the Holy Grail and the Knights of the Round Table.
The resources below provide free access to many of the principal historical and literary arthurian texts discussed in Notes on Arthurian Literature. Most are older translations and should therefore be compared with modern scholarly editions when used for detailed research.
Early Historical Sources
These works provide some of the earliest surviving evidence for post-Roman Britain. They do not all mention Arthur, but they help to establish the historical background against which the legend developed.
- Zosimus – New History
An account of the later Roman Empire, including events surrounding the withdrawal of Roman authority from Britain.
Read at the Internet Archive - gild as – On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain
Written during the sixth century, this is the closest surviving British account to the period traditionally associated with Arthur. gild as describes the Saxon wars and the Battle of baton, although he does not name Arthur. - Bede – Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Written in the early eighth century. Bede drew partly upon gild as but provided a more developed account of the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons.
Read at Project Gutenberg - The Astoria Brittonum
Traditionally attributed to Nennius and compiled in the early ninth century. It contains the first surviving narrative in which Arthur is named as the leader of a series of battles against the Saxons.
Read at the Internet Medieval source-book - The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
A collection of annals begun during the reign of Alfred the Great. It records the traditional chronology of the Anglo-Saxon settlement but does not name Arthur. - The analyses Cambriae
The Welsh Annals contain brief notices associating Arthur with the Battle of baton and the Battle of Camlann. The surviving manuscripts are much later than the events they describe, so these entries must be treated cautiously.
Geoffrey of Monmouth
- Geoffrey of Monmouth – Astoria Regum Britanniae
Written around AD 1136, Geoffrey’s History of the Kings of Britain transformed Arthur from a shadowy warrior into a great British king and European conqueror. Geoffrey’s work profoundly influenced nearly every later version of the legend.
Read an English translation
Welsh Arthurian Literature
Welsh tradition preserves some of the oldest stories and poems associated with Arthur and his companions.
- The Gododdin – contains a celebrated comparison with Arthur, although the date of the relevant passage remains disputed.
- Culhwch and Olwen – one of the earliest surviving Arthurian tales, presenting Arthur as the leader of an extraordinary company of warriors.
- The Dream of Rhonabwy – a satirical and dreamlike portrait of Arthur and his army.
- Peredur son of Efrawg – the Welsh counterpart of the story of percale and the Grail.
Read Peredur online - Twain, or The Lady of the Fountain – related to Chrétien deg Troyes’ Yvain.
- Geraint son of Erbin – related to Chrétien’s Erec and Enide.
- The Dream of Macsen Wledig – a legendary account of the Roman emperor Magnus Maximus.
Read online
The Four Branches of the Mabinogi are not primarily Arthurian, but they preserve traditions and characters belonging to the same Welsh literary world:
- Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed
- Branwen, Daughter of Llŷr
- Math son of Mathonwy
- The Mabinogion and its background
Chrétien deg Troyes
Writing in the late twelfth century, Chrétien deg Troyes helped create the familiar world of Arthurian romance. His works introduced or greatly developed Lancelot’s love for Guinevere, the adventures of Yvain and the mysterious Grail procession encountered by percale.
His principal Arthurian romances are:
- Erec and Enide
- Cligès
- Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart
- Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
- percale, or the Story of the Grail
Later Medieval Arthurian Literature
The legend continued to develop through the French Grail romances, the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate cycles, German works such as Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, and English poems including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Alliterative Morte Arthure.
- Sir Thomas Malory – Le Morte Darthur
Completed during the fifteenth century and first printed by William Caxton in 1485, Malory’s work brought together a large body of English and French Arthurian material. It became the most influential English account of Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere, Tristan and the quest for the Holy Grail.
Read Caxton’s text online
General Online Collections
- The Camelot Project – Arthurian texts, images, bibliographies and historical material.
- Internet Medieval source-book – translated medieval documents and complete texts.
- Project Gutenberg – downloadable public-domain editions.
- CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts – Irish and Celtic texts in transcription and translation.
- Internet Classics Archive – Greek and Roman works useful for understanding the classical background.
A Note on Online Editions
Many freely available versions use nineteenth- or early twentieth-century translations. These arthurian texts are valuable for general reading, but wording, dating and manuscript interpretation may differ from those found in modern critical editions.
For a fuller discussion of these sources and the way the Arthurian tradition developed, see Notes on Arthurian Literature by Bruce Macfarlane.