3 Jun 2026 | 7.30pm | Rausing Building
Special Event – £20 to include a drink. HIGH DEMAND – BOOK EARLY!
Tickets available in Museum & online shortly
King Arthur is probably the best-known royal hero in Western tradition, and he has enjoyed this popularity for eight hundred years. Was there, however, a genuine leader behind the legend? This talk looks at the evidence for one in the historical texts and archaeological material, and also at the way in which a general disposition among experts to believe in a historical Arthur in the years around 1970 turned into a general tendency not to believe in one by the 1980s. It will suggest that, despite this, the issue is not closed down yet.
Ronald Hutton is Professor of History in the University of Bristol, the Gresham Professor of Divinity at London, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries, the Learned Society of Wales, and the British Academy. He has held a number of public posts and is currently the chair of the first national Blue Plaques Panel. He has published nineteen books and ninety-six essays on a wide range of subjects including British history between 1400 and 1700, ancient and modern paganism in Britain, the British ritual year, and Siberian shamanism.