The Battle of Badon, also known as Mons Badonicus, is believed by almost all scholars to have genuinely taken place, most likely in the late fifth or very early sixth century. The earliest source, the British cleric Gildas writing around 543 to 547, describes it not as an open pitched battle but as a siege, referring to it as the "obsessionis Badonici montis" or siege of Badon Hill. Gildas, who claimed to have been born in the same year the battle was fought, recorded it as the last great slaughter inflicted upon the Anglo-Saxon forces and credited the eventual British resistance to Ambrosius Aurelianus. The battle halted the westward advance of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms for a considerable period and was described as such an unexpected recovery of the island that it brought a measure of order to British society for a generation.
The figure later remembered as King Arthur is not mentioned by Gildas at all, though the ninth-century Historia Brittonum, attributed to the Welsh monk Nennius, names Arthur as the soldier who led the victorious British force, claiming 960 men fell in a single charge. The Annales Cambriae similarly records Arthur carrying the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ upon his shoulders or shield for three days and three nights, with the Britons emerging victorious. Bede, writing in the eighth century, placed the battle between 493 and 500 and credited Ambrosius Aurelianus as the British leader, while Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century elaborated considerably and associated the site closely with Bath. The precise location remains uncertain, with Badbury Rings being one of several proposed candidates.
Gildas, writing within living memory of the engagement and claiming to have been born in the very year it took place, described the siege of Badon Hill as bringing about an unexpected recovery of the island, causing kings, nobles, priests, and commoners to live orderly according to their several vocations, before a long peace eventually degenerated into civil wars and the iniquity of Maelgwn Gwynedd.
Historia Brittonum claims 960 men fell in a single charge; figures are legendary rather than verified
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