What do we know about the historical King Arthur?

by stevie_janowskii

Who was he? Did he even exist? What language did he speak? Was he Welsh, or was he a Briton? Was there a real round table, did Merlin exist? And why has his legend grown so much?

MI13

There are several previous threads answering this question of a "historical" Arthur, like this very comprehensive one from /u/Whoosier addressing the available historical sources that mention Arthur. I think /u/bitparity summed it up best when he said:

As Guy Halsall pointed out in his recent book on the subject, Arthur may have actually existed, but the almost complete lack of documentary evidence means there is nothing we can usefully say about him historically.