King Arthur 'Dux Bellorum': Welsh Penteulu 'Chief of the Royal Host'

Abstract

Although the North British hero Arthur (d. 537) is described in medieval romance as a king, he is not so termed in the earliest documents relating to him. The ninth-century 'Historia Brittonum' states merely that he fought 'cum regibus Brittonum' ('alongside kings of the Britons'), but was himself merely 'dux bellorum'. What this means has been long disputed. It has been taken to represent a senior rank in the Roman army, with Arthur as a commander of cavalry forces fighting up and down Britain. Closer analysis shows this as a fantasy. Comparison with medieval Welsh texts indicates that 'dux bellorum' instead corresponds to the Welsh 'penteulu' ('captain of the bodyguard, chief of the royal host'). As commander of the king's bodyguard, the 'penteulu' was the most important of the 24 officers of the court. He had a position of supreme trust, invariably being the ruler's own son or nephew or another man of rank. Setting out his income and status (which included the right to praise by the official poet of the bodyguard), medieval Welsh legal and other sources are thus the most reliable sources of information on what the Arthur of history was and was not.