Talk:Camelot

Regarding the connection between Camelot and Camulodunum. The writer asserts that it would be very unlikely for Camelot to refer to Camulodunum but accepts that the names may be derrived one from the other. Considering the royal geneaologies of the East Saxon kings do not start until the very end of the 6th Century there is quite possibly the chance that between 410AD when the Romans left and c.570AD when London probably fell to the Saxons, Camulodunum could have been a ceremonial royal British capital. It could well have been under periods of seige and could have been supplied from Calchwynedd to the north west. Don't discount it as a possibility! James Frankcom

The problem with Camulodunum is, it was abandoned after Boadicia sacked the town. There were plenty of Roman fortresses that would have been a better choice, strategically speaking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.81.135.46 (talk) 01:35, 4 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Geoffrey of Monmouth (the first writer who connected Arthur with Camelot) could certainly have known of the pre-Roman ruins of Cadbury Castle in Somerset, a site often identified with Arthur's castle.

Geoffrey would also have known of the nearby town of Cameley (2 km SE of the ruins at Sutton Hill) and its Church of Saint James (which dates to Geoffrey's lifetime).

IIRC, Cameley was also mentioned in the Domesday book, and the name itself may be a variant spelling of "Camelot" or "Camelet", assuming a Gallic pronunciation as may have been common shortly after the Norman conquest.

If Geoffrey believed Cadbury was Arthur's Castle, it would not have been unreasonable to connect it with the town of Cameley. Tadchem 22:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

Geoffrey never mentioned Camelot. The first one to do so was Chretien de Troyes.--Cúchullain ^t/c 00:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

Tided this up added some detail pn major developments and added link to the list of sites. --Machenphile 18:45, 19 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

11 июля 2010 The Daily Telegraph mentioned the success in locating Camelot near Chester. Camelot historian Chris Gidlow bases his supposition on two written up facts: the discovery of an amphitheatre with an execution stone and wooden memorial to Christian martyrs. And, by the way, Round Table alludes the big round hall like a huge discussion auditory (which certainly would not come amiss with any tribe society). -- Igor — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.233.16.115 (talk) 17:53, 4 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

The Round Table is first mentioned by the author Wace and, despite his claims that the Britons of his day told many stories of it (none of which have now survived), there is reason to believe that Wace was taking a bit of creative licence here. There is no reason to believe that it was based on fact. Camelot comes to us from Chretien de Troyes, a medieval fiction writer; the name itself is surely corrupt and we do not know its precise origin, but once again, there is no reason to believe that Chretien was privy to any actual historical information about Arthur - he was mostly drawing from the Arthurian section of Wace's Roman de Brut and blending in some characters and themes that he had picked up from Classical literature (Ovid, Virgil, etc). I hope nine hundred years for now people are not wasting as much time looking for the real Hogwarts as people do now looking for the real Camelot. Cagwinn (talk) 04:19, 6 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Of course they won't. Any search of their data chips will tell them it's Alnwick plus a model. — LlywelynII 23:17, 6 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

...a picture! Totnesmartin 17:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, but it's only a model. Powers ^T 14:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

Shhh! Totnesmartin 18:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

I really don't think that historians believe it has existed.--Arigato1 21:07, 2 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Then explain: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/23/29783790_6f7820f724.jpg —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.192.94.145 (talk) 02:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

"Photo not available"? You're not really helping your case here. — LlywelynII 23:12, 6 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

I don't think that's true at all. I think historians realize there was someone originally responsible for the Welsh Arthwr traditions but the ones who've looked into it don't seem hopefully about pinning it down definitively. Moreover, any 'real Arthur' would have just been a local British or Breton warlord with some (to our minds) half-assed hill-forts to claim. When they say it didn't exist, they're just using it as short-hand for "what you're looking for certainly isn't even close to what was really going on". — LlywelynII 23:12, 6 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

I'm removing several sentences that are obvious cases of especially unfunny vandalism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.237.195.219 (talk) 05:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC).Reply

With regards to the sentance "The romancers' versions of Camelot draw on earlier traditions of Arthur's fabulous court. The tale Culhwch and Olwen, associated with the Mabinogion and perhaps written in the 11th century, places this in Celliwig, an unknown locale in Cornwall," Celliwig isn't an unknow locale in Cornwall, as Kelliwik is the Cornish name for Callington. Celliwig is simply the Welsh translation of Kelliwik.--drewjc 16:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

"There were two towns in Roman Britain named sultana..." Really! I suspect this isn't what the line originally said, but as I don't know what it did say, I'm going to leave it to someone else to change (if it's wrong).PiCo 14:19, 17 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

I performed a light edit, removing what I regarded as undue certainty in the language equating Kennedy's presidency with the legend of Camelot. The resulting wording might be regarded as weasel wording but is, I think, more representative of actual opinion regarding the Kennedy period, which is generally but not universally admiring. While I admire Kennedy, I tried to achieve wording that is neutral and that does not imply that Wikipedia either supports or opposes Kennedy and his policies. 24.12.195.186 (talk) 08:42, 29 June 2008 (UTC)Larry SiegelReply

Two months later this entire paragraph was removed without explanation. I am restoring a slimmed-down version of it. Reference to the Kennedy presidency as "Camelot" after his death is well-known here in the States. I'm trying to trim it a little more, to be less overtly admiring. While Caroline Kennedy certainly perpetuated the Camelot label, it's true that not everyone agrees or is comfortable with it. --Bridgecross (talk) 14:52, 6 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

It was still too overtly admiring for an unqualified and unsourced passage. The reference is common but it's not something in the American popular imagination: it's a trope used by writers and historians and best dealt with at his articles. The treatment here should just establish the connection with Camelot, mostly having to do with JO's quoting it in that Life article. Anything more and you have to go on for pages discussing fallen heroes, management of Kennedy's public image, Johnson and Nixon subsequently making him look better by comparison, Bobbie, &c. &c. &c... — LlywelynII 23:44, 6 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

"In a docu-drama by Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, John Cleese and Micheal Palin, Terry Gilliam in the character of Patsy claims that Camelot is in fact "only a model." This is symbolic of the fact that there is no true castle of Camelot but represents a romantic ideal in English history-- a model of chivarlreic behaviour."

I can't believe the article is using Monty Python as a source, or that whoever added the sentence considered it a docu-drama. 130.217.76.77 (talk) 20:27, 31 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

Just some routine joking vandalism. I've removed it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:29, 31 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

I actually think that assessment is bang-on what they were pointing out. (This is the same movie that performed a Foucault-style deconstruction of the legends regarding Arthur's legitimacy, after all.) That said, good luck finding a WP:RS explicitly stating that. — LlywelynII 23:51, 6 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Why nobody suggested that maybe the name camelot is derived from the Arabic word (كاملة) which means the perfect and/or whole or flawless or completed as if not having any decrease..?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.10.53.191 (talk) 21:29, 9 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

The so-called "etymology" section fails to provide any etymologies and largely reproduces information found in the identification section. These sections should be merged. 24.21.175.70 (talk) 03:36, 23 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

It seems OK to me. Since it is very likely that the name Camelot is a corruption, we can't be certain about its original form, so any etymology would be quite speculative. Cagwinn (talk) 13:38, 23 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

The sentence "It is unclear, however, where Chrétien would have encountered the name Camulodunum, or why he would render it as Camaalot." seems obtuse - French place names were routinely derived by discarding Latin grammatical endings. French-speakers would also avoid a terminal vowel+d. Hence 'Camelot' or similar would be a predictable derivation of Camulodunum by Chrétien. Michael GF (talk) 19:25, 18 May 2013

This has nothing to do with the natural linguistic process that occurred when Latin final syllables were lost over time during the transition from the Vulgar Latin spoken in Gaul to Old French, but rather some sort of hypothetical (and improbable) antiquarianism on the part of Chretien. Camulodunum was an ancient British place name that was no longer in use in Chretien's time (or even in Arthur's time!), so you have to postulate 1) he found the name in some ancient text, 2) decided that it was somehow connected with King Arthur (even though no known sources connect him with this place), 3) he decided to modernize the name in an unnatural manner (Camaalot would have been a rather bizarre rendering of Camulodunum, seeing that France was dotted with tons of old Gaulish -dunum place names that were rendered as -dun, -don, -[t]hon, -[t]hun, or -zon in French, any of which would have provided Chretien with an analogical model). Of course, Chretien didn't really engage in such modifications of foreign names, so this is all academic. Cagwinn (talk) 16:49, 18 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

This referenced sentence, mentioning "Chrétien", is completely mysterious as to why "Chrétien" is being discussed, as "Chrétien" is not mentioned elsewhere in the section. Needs an edit. Ramseyman (talk) 15:38, 26 June 2016 (UTC)Reply

Read the article from the beginning. No edit is necessary. Cagwinn (talk) 18:45, 26 June 2016 (UTC)Reply

Given that occupation from c. 470 to 580 covers "Arthur"'s supposed timeframe very, very well (Camlann, e.g., is traditionally dated to the 530s) and a fort twice the size of anything else in its time seems a likely candidate for overdone future legends, this article and Cadbury Castle, Somerset, could both use a fleshing out of Alcock's reasons for thinking it was "too late". Right now there's only an offline source given for that point, with next to no discussion of its arguments. — LlywelynII 23:25, 6 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

In the 1987 update of Arthur's Britain he addresses his critics and reiterates his belief that Arthur was a historical figure, although he calls him 'politically unimportant' given the Saxons resumed expanding in the 550s, and that Cadbury was the base for his cavalry-based force. So what is the source for him eventually rejecting Cadbury and becoming embarrassed? (also for my own speculation I would suggest that given that the early sources describe him only as a military commander and the modern hypothesis is he led a cavalry force I would suggest that the reason there is a confused variety of different locations attributed is because he regularly stopped at them as part of a border patrol) LamontCranston (talk) 07:59, 9 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Currently the article lends way too much weight - and space - to the utterly spurious theory that Chretien de Troyes derived his Camaalot (which might not even be the true form of the name! It is spelled variously in the different manuscripts of his Lancelot and, in one manuscript, it doesn't even appear as a place name, but as an Old French phrase "con lui plot" ["as he pleased"] - perhaps the original reading). Never does Chretien derive his British place names from ancient Geographies, but rather from contemporary (or near contemporary) sources, such as Wace's Brut. Also note that the names of both Calmuloduna did not survive into the middle ages and, even if they had, would look nothing like Chretien's Camaalot in the Old Welsh/Cornish/Breton of Chretien's day. Chretien only mentions the court of Camaalot in passing - it is only later authors who pick up on it and amplify its importance. It is laughable from a historical standpoint to suggest that Arthur - who was not even a king, but a general, in the earliest datable Welsh source mentioning him - "ruled" at Camaalot, no less to identify this fictional court with ancient Roman forts or towns. I realize that some well known scholars have uncritically accepted this Camulodunum nonsense as a possibility, but I propose that none of them have taken a serious look at the phonological problems with the identification, no less closely examined Chretien's use of sources for his Arthurian tales. Cagwinn (talk) 00:03, 20 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

I turned it into 4 paragraphs of prose, it would be nice if it was kept like that without random bullet-point additions. --94.246.150.68 (talk) 13:34, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

I hink it would be also interesting to list some other castles used as Camelot in other movies. --94.246.150.68 (talk) 13:37, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Reply