The earliest recorded tradition concerning Arthur represents him as a leader of the Britons against the Anglo-Saxon invaders. He is supposed to have won the battle of Badon Hill in the sixth century. The battle itself is historical, and since the name Arthur derives from the common Roman name Artorius, it seems likely that the Arthur legend may have begun in the heroism of it real man, one of the Romans who shared the plight of the Celts when the Anglo-Saxons struck. The British historian Gildas, who finished his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae around 540, tells of the battle but says nothing of Arthur. The hero himself first appears in a ninth-century history, The Historia Brittonunt, allegedly drawn from earlier histories. The Historia Brittonunt, begun by a man called Nennius and expanded by later writers, reports that Arthur, though not a British king himself, commanded the British forces and won twelve great victories, one of them the battle of Badon Hill, where Arthur alone killed 960 men. Later in this history the writers speak of a stone bearing the footprint of Arthur's dog, Cabal, and of the tomb of Arthur's son. A still later history, The Annales Cambriae, is the first to tell of Arthur's final battle, in 537, against "Medraut" — Mordred.
Though histories give little space to Arthur until the twelfth century, he was apparently a firmly established folk hero. He is the central figure in numerous ancient Welsh and Irish legends (impossible to date), and by the early twelfth century, some scholars think, he may have been known in northern Italy and France, where names possibly derived from Arthurian folklore occur.
