This all looks excellent, although about Merlin and King Arthur... I think magi in the 13th Century who had been alive for a few decades would know that it was virtually all pseudo-history concocted by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th Century.
Or those writings are Mythic and true.
But yeah, there should be a difference between facts and true-myth in the timeline.
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In any saga I run magi snigger derisively at anyone who thinks they're mythic or true. Arthur is a figure in early Welsh poetry, but older magi who had been living in the 12th Century would only start to see these other characters and stories appearing after Geoffrey of Monmouth started writing about them. Crucially, Merlin appears to have been a composite character, made up by the same Geoffrey of Monmouth, and none of the things everyone knows about him date back any further than the 12th Century. Magi living before then wouldn't have a clue who he was.
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And then they meet a cognizant faerie who adopted Geoffrey ...
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No, they don't. Not if I'm the SG. I'm more interested in what might actually really have been going on; all we know is that there were Romano-British kingdoms that fought the Saxons and lost, and that someone called Arthur was possibly involved. It's more of a blank canvas to work with.
So myths aren't real in your Mythic Europe?
That's an interesting take.
I'm sure someone's (grand-)pater has told stories of when he met Arthur, in at least one saga.
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The Arthurian stories are not myths. They're medieval fiction. No one's grand-pater would be telling stories about meeting Arthur unless it was the person mentioned in pre-12th Century Welsh poetry. I wouldn't have any characters made up by Geoffrey of Monmouth turn up in my Mythic Europe any more than I would have Sauron, Gandalf or Harry Potter.
The Arthurian stories and legends are about as true as a great many of stories and legends told about various saints - and a whole lot of those are true in Mythic Europe despite not being true in the real world.
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For the reasons people have said I'd prefer to keep King Arthur out of any canon Ars Magica timeline. On the other hand we play fast and loose with Roman cults of Mercury and the like that are also not real and don't even exist in a fictional form (as far as I know) in the real 13th century.
Given free reign in a saga I'd say that Geoffrey of Monmouth was on to something. As far as most people know, even the mages, he was writing fiction but he was inspired by knowledge of something; hidden druidic traditions, a mystery cult that is more secretive because they think they have found the real grail, a magical being called Merlin who really has been messing around for hundreds of years, or something else.
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Hey guys, loving the engagement and debate here. In some part I can agree with both viewpoints to a certain degree.
However, the fact is that Merlin is definitely part of the Ars Magica canon and referenced in at least a dozen 5e modules (A&A, HOH:M, HOH:S, Apprentices, RM, ROP:F, Church, CI, L&L, TTT, TME and more). AND the existence of the Heirs to Merlin Mystery Cult.
King Arthur himself is less anchored, but he's certainly there in canon references too, at least in F&F, L&L, LoM (where he's called "a prominent historical figure") and a couple of others, while also being often referenced as in mythology and stories. Overall a bit less clear than Merlin (which can ofc be said to be based on him just being a myth if you like).
The beauty of sharing the timeline in an editable format is that if you really want to remove arthuriana, or change ANYTHING else from the timeline - you can do that quite easily yourself. Enjoy!
Unless we can dig out some other fact why those few entries should not be there (or they are wrong vs ars canon), they'll stay for now.
Thanks for good discussion and sharing your viewpoints.
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Bonus point (and as stated in the chronology), the narrator himself is not always reliable - and other narrators have over the years made changes, and there are many comments (some who are inconsistent with each other - by choice). Also Ars Magica canon has many many inconsistencies, as do real history - it's the nature of things. I'd just run with it and have "reality" in my own saga be quite different as I saw fit.
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They couldn't be "true" in any sense before Geoffrey of Monmouth came along, because how could anyone believe something he hadn't made up yet. Therefore Merlin, Excalibur, the Lady of the Lake etc etc wouldn't exist in early 12th Century Mythic Europe.
I'd be interested to look over those Merlin references, but I would still ignore them unless they left his actual status very ambiguous.
Geoffrey claimed he didn't make things up, but got them from old texts.
In Mythic Europe he migh have been telling the truth.
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Yes, "claimed." I understand he did get ideas from old books but then cobbled together his own stories from them. Even in his own time he was seen as a bit of a fraud:
"it is quite clear that everything this man wrote about Arthur and his successors, or indeed about his predecessors from [Vortigern] onwards, was made up, partly by himself and partly by others."
William of Newburgh, c.1190
As stated above, one of the 'factions' within House Merinita is called Heirs of Merlin. HoH:MC p. 99-100.
Whether Merlin inspired this, or it's just a made up name, is left vague, but still enough to know that even back at the early 9th century, the Order of Hermes knew stories about Merlin.
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That's a bit unlikely as "Merlin" was a 12th Century invention. He seems to have been a composite of two characters called Myrddin Wylt and Ambrosius Aurelianus, with a bit of extra fiction added by Geoffrey of Monmouth. So that's one thing I won't be using from that book.
Funnily enough, since you clearly haven't read that section, is that the mage that started it is called Ambrosius.
Actually I have so I know the faction is named thus because it was claimed that Ambrosius's father descended from "the great wizard of old."
I find this to be interesting but practically unimportant. We accept the premise that Bonisagus found old books that allowed him to come up with an entire theory of magic. We accept the idea of the Seekers (and others who aren't as organized and open about it) finding ancient magic and mysteries that were hidden or lost. We accept the idea that multiple Houses have hidden magic that they keep from the rest of the Order, or in the case of Diedne, kept from the Order. Why is it a leap to propose that Geoffrey of Monmouth was right when he claimed he had pieced things together from old books?
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