Bromwich also explains38 that Arthur's prestige was already fully established in the Celtic districts of Britain long before Normans and Bretons began to circulate and popularize the Welsh and Cornish Arthurian traditions. Indeed, the Normans from Scandinavia (via France) may themselves have started to do so — but only after borrowing ancient materials from the French Bretons. The latter were themselves drawn upon by the mediaeval historian Geoffrey Arthur of Monmouth, who himself blended both classical and Biblical themes with native Celtic elements.
In the book Roman Britain and Early England, Professor Peter Blair states39 that the British victory at Mount Badon in A.D. 516 argues that Dorset was still securely in British hands around A.D. 500. In consequence of that victory, there was a time during the sixth century when the Britons exercised control of parts of southern Britain which lay well to the east of Dorset. Indeed, according to a persistent tradition, the kings of Wessex were descended from two chieftains called Cerdic and Cynric. Significantly, the name 'Cerdic' is commonly thought to be Welsh in origin -not Anglo-Saxon.
