Geoffrey Thomas Leslie Ashe (29 March 1923 – 30 January 2022) was a British cultural historian and lecturer, known for his focus on

King Arthur King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a ...

Early life

Born in London, Ashe was an only child who excelled all his classmates in academics. Periods of poor health meant that he had ample opportunity to read broadly, or be read to. Through his parents, he developed a life-long enjoyment of Gilbert & Sullivan's operas and Conan Doyles' Sherlock Holmes canon. His mother read some of Conan Doyle's stories to him from the ''Strand'' when they were first published; his father took him to see Gilbert & Sullivan performances by some of the cast who had worked with Gilbert himself. Ashe's father was general manager of Poly Tours, later Lunn-Poly, and travelled to Europe and the British Isles frequently with his parents to the hotels used by the agency, sometimes to correct problems, sometimes to establish business contacts. His favourite childhood memories were of summers spent in the West Highlands of Scotland, at the Highland Hotel in Fort William. When he was 16, his parents emigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia. He graduated from the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

before continuing at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

Work

Many of his historical books are centred on factual analysis of the

Arthurian legend The Matter of Britain is the body of medieval literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and Brittany and the legendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularly King Arthur. It was one of the three great Wester ...

, and the

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

past of

, beginning with his ''King Arthur's Avalon: The Story of Glastonbury,'' in 1957. The book was inspired by what Ashe had read in G. K. Chesterton's ''Short History of England''. He is a major proponent of the theory that the historical King Arthur was

Riothamus Riothamus (also spelled Riutimus or Riotimus) was a Romano-British military leader, who was active circa AD 470. He fought against the Goths in alliance with the declining Western Roman Empire. He is called " King of the Britons" by the 6th-century ...

, presented in an article in '' Speculum'', April 1981, and expanded in ''The Discovery of King Arthur'' (1985) and in various further articles. His fresh idea was to scrutinise Arthur's foreign campaigns in

Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey of Monmouth ( la, Galfridus Monemutensis, Galfridus Arturus, cy, Gruffudd ap Arthur, Sieffre o Fynwy; 1095 – 1155) was a British cleric from Monmouth, Wales and one of the major figures in the development of British historiograph ...

's account and take the material seriously, concluding that, though the legendary Arthur is a composite figure, the career of Riothamus seems to underlie at least a major portion of Geoffrey's account, for which Ashe adduces passages in a

Breton Breton most often refers to: *anything associated with Brittany, and generally ** Breton people ** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany ** Breton (horse), a breed **Ga ...

text and several chronicles. Ashe, co-founder (with C. A. Ralegh Radford) and Secretary of the Camelot Research Committee has also helped demonstrate, through a dig directed by

Leslie Alcock Leslie Alcock (24 April 1925 – 6 June 2006) was Professor of Archaeology at the University of Glasgow, and one of the leading archaeologists of Early Medieval Britain. His major excavations included Dinas Powys hill fort in Wales, Cadbury Ca ...

in 1966–70, that Cadbury Castle, identified as

Camelot Camelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and, since the Lancelot-Grail cycle, eventually came to be described as the ...

by the 16th-century

antiquary An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...

John Leland, was actually refortified in the latter part of the fifth century, in works as yet unparalleled elsewhere in Britain at the time. Ashe's point is that when Leland picked out this hill as Camelot, he picked what seems to be the most plausible candidate; yet even an archaeologist could not have guessed that the fifth-century fortification was embedded in the earthworks, just by looking without digging. "I would say there must have been a tradition about the hill and its powerful overlord, handed down from the Dark Ages", Ashe has said, and added "In the film of the musical

, you have a brief glimpse of a map of Britain, and Camelot is in Somerset. It's there because I told

Warner Brothers Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American Film studio, film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, Califo ...

to put it there. That is my one contribution to Hollywood."

Honours

Anya Seton Anya Seton (January 23, 1904 – November 8, 1990), born Ann Seton, was an American author of historical fiction, or as she preferred they be called, "biographical novels". Career Seton published her first novel, '' My Theodosia'', in 1941. Seto ...

put his name forward in 1963 as a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...

after publication of ''Land to the West: St Brendan's Voyage to America.'' Declining a nomination for honours for most of his career, nevertheless he was delighted to accept an MBE (

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

) from the Queen in the

2012 New Year Honours 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

for Services to Heritage. In 2015, Ashe was unanimously named an Honorary Freeman of Glastonbury by the

Glastonbury Glastonbury (, ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbury ...

Town Council "in recognition of his eminent services to the place as an author and cultural historian." He commented that his honour was most important to him because it symbolised the respect of his own community. Of deep professional and personal gratification to him was the title Eminent Arthurian, bestowed by The International Arthurian Society in the year of his 90th birthday, 2013.

Personal life

He died in

on 30 January 2022, at the age of 98.

Publications

* ''King Arthur's Avalon: The Story of Glastonbury'' (1957) * ''From Caesar to Arthur'' (1960) * ''Land to the West: St Brendan's Voyage to America'' (1962) * ''The Land and the Book: Israel – The Perennial Nation'' (1965) * ''The Quest For Arthur's Britain'' (1968) * ''Gandhi: A Study in Revolution'' (1968) * ''All About King Arthur'' (1969) * ''Camelot and the Vision of Albion'' (1971) * ''King Arthur in Fact and Legend'' (1971) * ''The Art of Writing Made Simple (1972) * ''The Finger and the Moon'' (1973) * ''Do What You Will: A History of Anti-Morality'' (1974) * ''The Virgin'' (1976) * ''The Ancient Wisdom'' (1977) * ''Miracles'' (1978) * ''Gandhi: A Biography'' (1980) * ''A Guidebook to Arthurian Britain'' (1980) * ''The Glastonbury Tor Maze'' (1982) * ''Kings and Queens of Early Britain'' (1982) * ''Avalonian Quest'' (1982) * ''The Discovery of King Arthur'' (1985) * ''The Landscape of King Arthur'' (1987) * ''The Arthurian Handbook'' (1988) (with

Norris J. Lacy Norris J. Lacy (born March 8, 1940 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky) is an American scholar focusing on French medieval literature. He was the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor Emeritus of French and Medieval Studies at the Pennsylvania State University until ...

) * ''King Arthur: The Dream of a Golden Age'' (1990) * ''Mythology of the British Isles'' (1990) * ''Dawn Behind the Dawn: A Search for the Earthly Paradise'' (1991) * ''Atlantis: Lost Lands, Ancient Wisdom'' (1992) * ''Discovering the Goddess: A Personal Testimony'' (1994) * ''The Book of Prophecy: From Ancient Greece to the Millennium'' (1999) * ''The Hell-Fire Clubs: A History of Anti-Morality'' (2000) * ''Encyclopedia of Prophecy'' (2001) * ''Merlin'' (2001) * ''Labyrinths and Mazes'' (2003) * ''The Offbeat Radicals: The British Tradition of Alternative Dissent'' (2007) * ''Eden in the Altai: The Prehistoric Golden Age and the Mythic Origins of Humanity'' (2018)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ashe, Geoffrey 1923 births 2022 deaths English male non-fiction writers Academics from London Arthurian scholars English historians People from Glastonbury Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Historians of the British Isles Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge University of British Columbia alumni Members of the Order of the British Empire British expatriates in Canada