Did medieval people really believe that King Arthur conquered Greenland, Iceland, and lands stretching as far as Russia? Christopher Berard examines how a remarkable legal tradition transformed Arthur into the ruler of a vast northern empire.
By Christopher Berard
One of the most far-fetched tales of King Arthur is ironically the one that, for a time, had the most purchase as a historical, legal, and literary precedent. In the era of Magna Carta (1215), an anonymous legal compiler working for the London Guildhall assembled a collection of English laws and customs in chronological order from Anglo-Saxon England through to the Angevin era. His aim was to protect the political and commercial interests of the barons of London during the unpopular and oppressive reign of King John (r. 1199–1216). To further his objectives, this anonymous London Collector seemingly invented precedents that served his purpose, and he attributed them to some ancient and legendary kings of Britain. One of his apparent inventions is a narrative of King Arthur’s conquest of the North Atlantic, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea regions—stretching from Greenland in the west, to the Arctic Circle in the north, and to Russia in the east.
In a newly published, open-access article in the journal Encomia, I examine the sources, causes, and impact of this narrative of Arthur’s Northern Empire. I conclude that the London Collector most likely invented the narrative himself, combining bookish knowledge of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1136) with oral knowledge of the north coming from Hanseatic traders and Northern crusaders. His principal aims appear to have been to promote London as the cosmopolitan head of a massive empire and to facilitate profitable trading relationships with Scandinavian partners.
The opening folio of The Crown of Britain Interpolation – Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Lat. 155, fols. 70v
The impact of the narrative is the most fascinating element. In the later Middle Ages, the narrative may have inspired merchants in Baltic trading towns, such as Gdańsk, to adopt King Arthur as the founding father of their associations (Latin: Curia aut Societas Arturi; German: Artushof; Polish: Dwór Artusa). In the Age of Exploration (c. 1418–1620), the narrative was wholeheartedly embraced and cited by the Tudor polymath John Dee (1527–1609) in support of the English crown’s claim to the Northwest Passage. And, throughout the Age of English Constitutionalism (c. 1603–88), the narrative informed the understanding of King Arthur by prominent English historians and poets. For example, Michael Drayton (1563–1631) penned these lines in the nineteenth song of the second part of his Poly-Olbion (1622):
In Severn’s late tun’d lay, that Empress of the West, In which great Arthur’s actes are to the life exprest: His Conquests to the North, who Norway did invade, Who Groneland, Iseland next, then Lapland lastly made His awfull Empires bounds, the Britan’s acts among, This God-like Heroes deeds exactly have beene sung: His valiant people then, who to those Countries brought, Which many an age since that, our great’st discoveries thought. This worthiest then of ours, our Argonauts shall lead (19.163–71).
Arthur the Argonaut, that is Arthur the pioneer of Britain’s celebrated maritime tradition, is quite a striking metaphor. Additionally, and perhaps most curiously, John Milton (1608–74) writes incredulously about the narrative in his History of Britain (1670):
Notwithstanding all these unlikelyhoods of Artur’s Reign and great acheivments, in a narration crept in I know not how, among the Laws of Edward the Confessor, Artur the famous King of Britans, is said not only to have expell’d hence the Saracens, who were not then known in Europe, but to have conquer’d Freesland, and all the North East Iles as far as Russia, to have made Lapland the Eastern bound of his Empire, and Norway the Chamber of Britain. When should this be done? from the Saxons, till after twelve Battells, he had no rest at home; after those, the Britans contented with the quiet they had from their Saxon Enemies, were so far from seeking Conquests abroad, that, by report of Gildas above cited, they fell to civil Wars at home. Surely Artur much better to have made War in old Saxony, to repress their flowing hither, then to have won Kingdoms as far as Russia, scarce able heer to defend his own.
Thus, both in terms of geography and of influence, the Crown of Britain Interpolation was far-reaching. Indeed, the version of King Arthur most consequential to late medieval and early modern English lawyers, statesmen, and explorers might not have been the Arthur of the vast romance tradition but rather the Arthur of this specific—and now obscure—legal tradition.
The north polar regions as portrayed in Mercantor’s 1595 atlas – Wikimedia Commons
Christopher Berard is an Adjunct Professor at Providence College. You can read more of his research on King Arthur’s Northern Empire, in “The Crown of the Kingdom of Britain: King Arthur’s Northern Empire in the London Collection of the Laws of England” published in Encomia 47 (2025). Click here to read it.
Top Image: Painting by Charles Ernest Butler (1874–1933)
Did medieval people really believe that King Arthur conquered Greenland, Iceland, and lands stretching as far as Russia? Christopher Berard examines how a remarkable legal tradition transformed Arthur into the ruler of a vast northern empire.
By Christopher Berard
One of the most far-fetched tales of King Arthur is ironically the one that, for a time, had the most purchase as a historical, legal, and literary precedent. In the era of Magna Carta (1215), an anonymous legal compiler working for the London Guildhall assembled a collection of English laws and customs in chronological order from Anglo-Saxon England through to the Angevin era. His aim was to protect the political and commercial interests of the barons of London during the unpopular and oppressive reign of King John (r. 1199–1216). To further his objectives, this anonymous London Collector seemingly invented precedents that served his purpose, and he attributed them to some ancient and legendary kings of Britain. One of his apparent inventions is a narrative of King Arthur’s conquest of the North Atlantic, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea regions—stretching from Greenland in the west, to the Arctic Circle in the north, and to Russia in the east.
In a newly published, open-access article in the journal Encomia, I examine the sources, causes, and impact of this narrative of Arthur’s Northern Empire. I conclude that the London Collector most likely invented the narrative himself, combining bookish knowledge of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1136) with oral knowledge of the north coming from Hanseatic traders and Northern crusaders. His principal aims appear to have been to promote London as the cosmopolitan head of a massive empire and to facilitate profitable trading relationships with Scandinavian partners.
The impact of the narrative is the most fascinating element. In the later Middle Ages, the narrative may have inspired merchants in Baltic trading towns, such as Gdańsk, to adopt King Arthur as the founding father of their associations (Latin: Curia aut Societas Arturi; German: Artushof; Polish: Dwór Artusa). In the Age of Exploration (c. 1418–1620), the narrative was wholeheartedly embraced and cited by the Tudor polymath John Dee (1527–1609) in support of the English crown’s claim to the Northwest Passage. And, throughout the Age of English Constitutionalism (c. 1603–88), the narrative informed the understanding of King Arthur by prominent English historians and poets. For example, Michael Drayton (1563–1631) penned these lines in the nineteenth song of the second part of his Poly-Olbion (1622):
In Severn’s late tun’d lay, that Empress of the West,
In which great Arthur’s actes are to the life exprest:
His Conquests to the North, who Norway did invade,
Who Groneland, Iseland next, then Lapland lastly made
His awfull Empires bounds, the Britan’s acts among,
This God-like Heroes deeds exactly have beene sung:
His valiant people then, who to those Countries brought,
Which many an age since that, our great’st discoveries thought.
This worthiest then of ours, our Argonauts shall lead (19.163–71).
Arthur the Argonaut, that is Arthur the pioneer of Britain’s celebrated maritime tradition, is quite a striking metaphor. Additionally, and perhaps most curiously, John Milton (1608–74) writes incredulously about the narrative in his History of Britain (1670):
Notwithstanding all these unlikelyhoods of Artur’s Reign and great acheivments, in a narration crept in I know not how, among the Laws of Edward the Confessor, Artur the famous King of Britans, is said not only to have expell’d hence the Saracens, who were not then known in Europe, but to have conquer’d Freesland, and all the North East Iles as far as Russia, to have made Lapland the Eastern bound of his Empire, and Norway the Chamber of Britain. When should this be done? from the Saxons, till after twelve Battells, he had no rest at home; after those, the Britans contented with the quiet they had from their Saxon Enemies, were so far from seeking Conquests abroad, that, by report of Gildas above cited, they fell to civil Wars at home. Surely Artur much better to have made War in old Saxony, to repress their flowing hither, then to have won Kingdoms as far as Russia, scarce able heer to defend his own.
Thus, both in terms of geography and of influence, the Crown of Britain Interpolation was far-reaching. Indeed, the version of King Arthur most consequential to late medieval and early modern English lawyers, statesmen, and explorers might not have been the Arthur of the vast romance tradition but rather the Arthur of this specific—and now obscure—legal tradition.
Christopher Berard is an Adjunct Professor at Providence College. You can read more of his research on King Arthur’s Northern Empire, in “The Crown of the Kingdom of Britain: King Arthur’s Northern Empire in the London Collection of the Laws of England” published in Encomia 47 (2025). Click here to read it.
Top Image: Painting by Charles Ernest Butler (1874–1933)
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