Hundreds and hundreds of books have been written about King Arthur by eminent historians, there must be thousands and thousands of web sites; dozens of movies and a great many archeologists make a comfortable living by trying to find out who the guy exactly was, if he ever was.

You will find:

The anachronistic element in Arthurian tales
A short introduction into the legend
The historical and political meaning of the legend
A summary of the historical facts

Link to the official King Arthur : http://www.tintagelweb.com/
You will find everything and even more than that as well as a large number of other links. If all you'd like is a general idea, this page will be more than enough.

The anachronism
Geoffrey of Monmouth may not have known what an anachronism (*) is but he introduced a huge one into the story. He wrote about a character who would or might have lived in the 5th or 6th century, at the time when the Anglo-Saxons were beginning to invade Britain, a historical period called the Dark Ages (**) . . . but he described him like a medieval king surrounded by knights and ladies representative or the 12th century society. In other words, Geoffrey wrote about a bloke who would have lived 600 years earlier but described him and his society exactly as if they were his contemporaries. However, he certainly knew that 600 years earlier there weren't yet knights in bright armours ora structured medieval society and all that. He probably deliberytely decided to describe his hero like an elegant lord of his time rather than like a rough warrior of the dark ages

Who started the legend ? When and Why ?

 

 

The Legend of King Arthur
or the Myth ?

A legend is a real story which gets improved and embellished as time or centuries pass. A myth is something or somebody ideal which is born out of popular or collective imagination.
King Arthur might be altogether myth, legend and reality.
There are strong hints that he might have been somebody historical. A kind of British Vercingetorix who tried to make a confederation of all Celtic tribes of England to fight the Anglo-Saxons who were beginning to invade the country.
He might be a myth. The popular dream of an ideal and perfect king, who really ruled only for the good of his people, who really protected the poor and weak, who punished the wicked.

The most popular version of the legend is that once upon a time the knights of Britain had to appoint a king. They found a huge stone with a sword in it and it said on the stone that "he who could pull the sword out of the stone would be king". They all tried but didn't succeed. A young boy called Arthur pulled it out very easily. It was the sword Excalibur. The knights were not very happy and did not accept Arthur right away, but ultimately they gave in.

The Castle of Camelot . . . well at least the way Hollywood producers imagined it in the latest film with Sean Connery : First Knight. This was the official place where King Arthur lived most of the time but not always.

In the Arthurian tales the King often moved around and held his court in different places. Some historians think that this could be related to the fact that the real individual called Arthur was a warrior who moved around a lot