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It was the Middle Ages that gave the world magnificent legends about the legendary king Arthur and his knights. The king himself and the knights represented people of the new epoch. They were brave, courageous, strong and at the same time courteous, virtuous and with good manners. The myth about King Arthur is unique to some extent, as having originated in VI – VII centuries on the British Isles, which were ultima thule (the end of the world) at those times, this legend has won the hearts of million people and does not fail to stir imagination even after fourteen centuries.
One of the first people to write about King Arthur was Geoffrey of Monmouth. The evidence given by him is considered to be the first mentioning of the king. After him there were Marie de France and some other French writes. The works made about the king and his knights were of a slightly different character. They did not pay the major attention to the events, but emphasized the spirit of chivalry and virtue.
The greatest work about King Arthur and his knights is considered to be “La Morte Darthur” that was written by Thomas Malory in 1469; however it was published after fifteen years since the author’s death. The book was supplied with the commentaries of its editor – William Caxton. His commentaries changed the book written by Malory to a great extent, however the content of the book did not worsen at all – so magnificent and successive these commentaries were. The importance of the book by Thomas Malory is really great, as after it the fantastic and fairy-tale world of the King Arthur and his knights became the integral part of the modern literature and moreover culture. The novel contains all the legends of the British cycle. Tomas Malory made a great work, as for him the legends he wrote about were part of his life. There were not mere legends, but almost real stories.
All the works about King Arthur and his knights, the history of Camelot are thoroughly studied nowadays. The Longman Anthology of British Literature gives a very good presentation of Thomas Malory’s “Morte Darthur”. It provides four excerpts: “Caxton’s Prologue”, “The Miracle of Galahad”, “The Poisoned Apple”, and “The Day of Destiny”. The last two parts are especially effective. They tell about the last days of Camelot; they tell about relations between the king and his beautiful queen; they describe what went wrong between them. “The Day of Destiny” is even more effective as it contains a very vivid description of the king’s death. He had a dream in which he was on a Wheel of Fortune and could change many things: “And the kynge thought there was undir hym, farre from hym, an hydeous depe blak watir, and therein was all maner of serpentis and wormes and wylde bestis fowle and orryble. And suddeynly the kyrige thought that the whyle turned upso-downe, and he felle anionge the serpentis, and every beste toke hym by it lynnue.” However it was already the end of Camelot (Archibald et al. 165).
The Kingdom of King Arthur declined after his death. Camelot fell. King Arthur loses his biography; his kingdom already does not have its boundaries. Everything is already “the remenaunte”. The legends about the King and his bold knights live mainly on the pages of the books and in the minds of people. The realm of King Arthur is not Camelot, not the legendary Britain, but the ideal chivalrous world with its own laws and traditions, with the ideal society, beautiful women and courteous knights. Still the old legend says that in the times of need King Arthur will raise form dead and come to help either his native Britain or other place. No matter how legendary and poetic it may sound, the importance and the influence of the novels about King Arthur and his brave knights can be hardly overestimated.

Works cited
Archibald, Elizabeth et al. A companion to Malory. Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2000