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KING ARTHUR
To the English, King Arthur is a national hero. Brave and chivalrous, he rids the country of deadly foes with his band of followers, the Knights of the Round Table. But did he really exist?
It’s thought that a Briton called Arthur did lead a legion of warriors against invaders sometime in
the 5th or 6th centuries. No-one wrote about him
at the time, but a few hundred years later he started appearing in the history books. Then, in the 12th century Arthur’s legend really took off.
POPE JOAN
The head of the Roman Catholic Church, the largest church in the world,
is the Bishop of Rome, also known as the pope. The very first pope, almost 2,000 years ago, was St Peter, and every one of the 250 popes since, has been a man. Except . . . hundreds of years ago, people whispered stories of Pope Joan – a female pope! She was born sometime in the ninth century and was desperate to be educated. Back then, the best place to learn was through the church so she pretended to be a monk, dressed in flowing robes, and rose through the church’s ranks until, in 855 she was made pope.
For two years, her disguise remained a great success until, with dreadful timing, during a procession around Rome, she doubled up in pain. What could the matter be? To the crowd’s horror, Pope Joan gave birth on the street . . . which rather gave the game away.
Could this story really be true? A thousand years ago women had almost no freedom and pretending to be a man might have been the only way to get an education. The problem is, Joan is only ever mentioned in the records hundreds of years after she lived, which makes historians suspicious. But why would someone make such a story up? Most likely we will never know . . .
Historian Geoffrey of Monmouth added characters to the story, like Arthur’s magician friend, Merlin, and mythical elements such as the sword in the stone. Other writers developed the story further – Arthur’s followers became the Knights of the Round Table, their
base was Camelot, and they fought dragons, giants and other foul fiends. Before long it became a fantastical story.
So, although it’s likely a warrior named Arthur did exist, how much of the story we know today is true, remains to be seen.
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