Arthurian Legends

King Arthur, possibly a figure in the British (Welsh) resistance against invading Saxons, Angles and Picts

victory over the Saxons at Battle of Mount Badon (Mons Badonicus) (c. 500-518)

death of Arthur, Battle of Camlann (c. 537-538), near Glastonbury

Sources:

• Battle of Mount Badon mentioned in Gildas's De Excidio Britanniae (The Fall of Britain) (c. A.D. 540)
  
  
• ealiest references to Arthur in Welsh historian Nennius's Historia Brittonum (History of the Britons) (c. 796-830), Arthur is called dux bellorum ("leader of battles") 12 battles mentioned
  
  
• Annales Cambriae (late 10th century), mention of battles of Mount Badon and Camlann
  
  
• Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain) (1136-1139), source of many Arthurian legends

Literary treatment:

Kulhwch and Olwen (c. 1100), Welsh prose romance (part of the Mabinogion), one of the earliest Arthurian romances

Wace, Roman de Brut (Romance of Brutus) (1155), first mention of the Round Table

Chrétien de Troyes (fl. 1165-1180), Arthurian romances, Lancelot, Yvain, Perceval, major influence on subsequent Arthurian literature

Robert de Boron (early 13th century), French poet, trilogy of poems (Joseph d'Arimathe, Merlin, Perceval), story of the Grail

Layamon's Brut (c. 1189-1205), based on Wace's and Geoffrey of Monmouth's work; first account in English of Arthurian stories

Vulgate Cycle (completed before 1240), French prose renditions of earlier, poetic versions of the Arthurian legends; the cycle includes a prose Lancelot, Merlin, and other stories

Alliterative Morte Arthure (Death of Arthur)(c. 1370-1380), alliterative verse romance, part of movement known as Alliterative Revival

Sir Thomas Malory (c. 1405-1471), Morte D'Arthur (Death of Arthur) (c. 1469-70) (printed by William Caxton in 1485), English prose