Power Play: The Literature and Politics of Chess in the Late Middle Ages Book

Having read a few other books analyzing the historical problems of Arthur, it is finally starting to make sense. This author hammers the idea that "history" must be read in the context of which it was written which in the case of early medieval Britain, was to shore up the immediate political and religious regimes. Sure, there may have been a Roman "Artorius" somehow attached to miraculous stones placed in the landscape and connected to some hunter legends ( Welsh "arth" being "bear") and this author leaves that very vague while still reminding us of Lucius Artorius Castorus leading cavalry on the border with the Picts and very specific landmarks in the upper Wye Valley of Wales. It's weird that those two would be connected for a writer in the 9th Century to come up with a warrior hero to shore up the kings of Gwynedd, but there we are.

The book is well-written in an academic style with his references in parentheses in the text as you go along. And, yes, I do recognize a good number of them as my Arthurian collection is growing. I'm glad to have visited the landscape of Britain, even the upper Wye Valley and the remnants of Roman walls in the North to have even more understanding of these tantalizing threads.

The book concludes with a concise historiography to bring us through the disturbing Anglo-Saxon racism of the Victorian era and early 2oth Century. Defeating German Nazism did that in, one would hope. But there is still no explanation for Boris Johnson which obviously is beyond the writing of this book. Pandemic and politics have left me somewhat discouraged in the present. If only there had been a Golden Age or the promise of a Once and Future King....
from the Upper Wye Valley or the Scottish Borders of my ancestors would be nice.