Arras Culture: The Search for the Holy Grail

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been reading Francis Pryor's Britain AD which has given me much to think about.  He mentions that the famous archaeologist J Mortimer noted that Ssaxon and British barrows very often occur in the same place and concludes that it is as if the later sites have been deliberately positioned in the landscape adding that this is not what you would expect from a recently arrived group of settlers.  In the previous blog I put forward my theories as to why these sites were chosen.

Pryor also mentions the 'Arras culture'of the late Iron Age with its distinctive square barrows surrounded by a ditch believed to date from the 4th - 1st century BC.  Similar barrows have been found in northern France in the Marne valley, the presumed origin of this 'invasion'.  However Pryor challenges the theory that there was an invasion at all and suggests that these changes are down to the native population rather than an influx of foreigners.

A note of caution - the Arras after which this culture is named is not the town in northern France but a small town in the East Riding of Yorkshire although the importance of enduring place names should never be discounted.  Nevertheless this 'Arras culture' is a useful clue when dating the book of the sword in the stone and the holy grail (see my book The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone).  True, Arras in northern France is on the Somme and not in the Marne Valley but it is in the sane geo-political region.

In that book the writers claim that the cult of Lud comes to Britain from northern France at the same time as Christianity (40AD) just a little before the 1st century date  BC proposed for the Arras culture.  It was of course convenient for the Christian Druids of the early Celtic Church to suggest that this later form of Druidism and Christianity arrived at the sane time.  Place names in Britain containing Lud or Lydd in the name are scattered all across the country indicating that this cult was widespread and enthusiastically embraced. 

At the end of the story two of the leading characters  Percival and Galahad return the Sword of Truth, the Spear of Justice and the Holy Grail to the Gods in the city of Arras - this time the one on the Somme, which is described as being in Austrasia, the name of the Frankish kingdom in north-eastern France throughout the early mediaeval period which had its capitals at Metz and Reims. (Although Frankish kingdoms are a bit tricky - see my book Columbanus: Poet, Preacher, Statesman, Saint on how they worked.)

This detail is an important clue in dating the Sword book to the late fifth century.  The writers knew that the pre-Roman cult of Lud came to Britain before the Empire via north-eastern France and although the story itself is legendary it indicates that they had a fairly accurate historical memory from oral history of this time.  Although Arras continued to be an important cathedral city throughout the mediaeval period (and still is) it did not attain the religious status it clearly had for the Druids and the sacred character it is given in the book.  It seems unlikely that a late mediaeval author, Thomas Malory or anyone else, would have had either the knowledge of pre-historic Iron Age Britain or any reason to give particular distinction to this part of France but it was very dominant in the period when the book was writte - the late fifth/sixth centuries AD.