Arthur and the Round Table (or Celtics, Germans and others)

[erudito]

One of our presenters, Piers, has suggested that the reason feudalism (i.e. the system of service-for-protection) grew out of areas conquered by Germanic peoples, but did not evolve (or really "take") in Celtic areas, was because, in Germanic culture, a warrior could sell his loyalty but Celtic culture not so: it was much more rigidly kin-based.

Comments

[marycatelli]

The earlier Arthurian tales, prior to Chrétien de Troyes, are very different from the ones we are all familiar with. One notes that Gawain was his greatest knight in those days -- and Gawain was his sister's son.

But Chretien and others pounced on tales of ladies being rescued as the ideal subject matter to be bludgeoned into tales of courtly love. And bludgeon them they did.

Overlays

[erudito]

That could be the simplest explanation: that all the sworn warrior band bits are part of later overlays coming out of ultimately Germanic influences. But I am not familiar enough with the history of the lore to know when the sworn warrior band beyond kin connections first pops up in the tales and references.

Re: Celtic warbands

[erudito]

The problem with impressions is that one takes one's cultural presumptions to them. If the Celtic presumption was the one operating in kin groups (consider the Scottish clans, for example) then the tales would not actually say that, because the audience would just presume it