Battle of Badon The Battle of Badon ( , ) , also known as the Battle of Badon Hill or Mount Badon ( ; Modern ) , is a battle thought to have occurred between a force of Britons and an Anglo - Saxon war band in the late 5th or early 6th century . Chiefly known today for the supposed involvement of King Arthur , it is credited in medieval British and Welsh sources as a major political and military event but seems to have passed unremarked in the Anglo - Saxon histories . Because of the limited number of sources , there is no certainty about the date , location , or details of the fighting . Historical accounts . Siege of Mount Badon . The earliest mention of the Battle of Badon is Gildas ' " De Excidio Britanniae " ( " The Ruin of Britain " ) , written in the early - mid 6th century AD . In it , the Saxons are said to have " dipped [ their ] red and savage tongue in the western ocean " before Ambrosius Aurelianus organized a British resistance with the survivors of the initial Saxon onslaught . Gildas describes the period that followed Ambrosius ' initial success : . . . From that time , the citizens were sometimes victorious , sometimes the enemy , in order that the Lord , according to His wont , might try in this nation the Israel of to - day , whether it loves Him or not . This continued up to the year of the siege of Badon Hill ( " obsessionis Badonici montis " ) , and of almost the last great slaughter inflicted upon the rascally crew . And this commences , a fact I know , as the forty - fourth year , with one month now elapsed ; it is also the year of my birth . " The Ruin of Britain " is unclear as to whether Ambrosius is still leading the Britons at this point , but describes the battle as such an " unexpected recovery of the [ island ] " that it caused kings , nobles , priests , and commoners to " live orderly according to their several vocations " before the long peace degenerated into civil wars and the iniquity of Maelgwn Gwynedd . Passages of " The Ruin of Britain " that address Maelgwn directly are sometimes employed to date the work from accounts of the king ' s death by plague in the 540s , but such arguments ignore the obvious apostrophe employed in the passages and the possible years of composition involved in the final collected sermon . The battle is next mentioned in an 8th - century text of the Venerable Bede ' s " Ecclesiastical History of the English People " . It describes the " siege of Mount Badon , when they made no small slaughter of those invaders , " as occurring 44 years after the arrival of the Saxons . Since Bede places that arrival during or just after the joint reign of Marcian and Valentinian in AD 449456 , he must have considered Badon to have taken place between 493 and 500 . Bede then puts off discussion of the battle " But more of this hereafter " only to seemingly never return to it . Bede does later include an extended account of Saint Germanus ' s victory over the Saxons and Picts in a mountain valley , which he credits with curbing the threat of invasion for a generation . However , as the victory is described as having been accomplished bloodlessly , it was presumably a different occasion from Badon . ( Accepted at face value , St . Germanus ' s involvement would also place the battle around 430 , although Bede ' s chronology shows no knowledge of this . ) Battle of Badon . The earliest surviving text mentioning Arthur at the battle is the early 9th century " Historia Brittonum " , by in which the " soldier " ( Latin " miles " ) Arthur is identified as the leader of the victorious British force at Badon : " The twelfth battle was on Mount Badon in which there fell in one day 960 men from one charge by Arthur ; and no one struck them down except Arthur himself " . The Battle of Badon is next mentioned in the " Annales Cambriae " ( " Annals of Wales " ) , assumed to have been written during the mid - to late - 10th century . The entry states : " The Battle of Badon , in which Arthur carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights upon his shoulders [ or shield ] and the Britons were the victors " . That Arthur had gone unmentioned in the source closest to his own time , Gildas , was noticed at least as early as the 12th - century " vita " , which claims that Gildas had praised Arthur extensively but then excised him completely after Arthur killed the saint ' s brother , Huail . Modern writers have suggested the details of the battle were so well known that Gildas could have expected his audience to be familiar with them . Geoffrey of Monmouth ' s c . 1136 " History of the Kings of Britain " was massively popular and survives in many copies from soon after its composition . Going into ( and fabricating ) much greater detail , Geoffrey closely identifies Badon with Bath , including having Merlin foretell that Badon ' s baths would lose their hot water and turn poisonous . He employs aspects of other accounts , mixing them : the battle begins as a Saxon siege and then becomes a normal engagement once Arthur ' s men arrive ; Arthur bears the image of the Virgin both on his shield and shoulder . Arthur charges , but kills a mere 470 , ten more than the number of Britons ambushed by Hengist near Salisbury . Elements of the Welsh legends are also added : in addition to the shield ( named " Pridwen " ) , Arthur gains his sword " Caliburnus " and his spear " Ron " . Geoffrey also makes the defense of the city from the Saxon sneak attack a holy cause , having St . Dubricius offer absolution of all sins for those who fall in battle . Scholarship . Separate sources dating the concession of Thanet to Hengist to AD 447 would place " The Ruin of Britain " and Bede ' s account of the battle around the year 491 . The " Anglo - Saxon Chronicle " is completely silent about this battle but does seem to document a gap of almost 70 years between two major Anglo - Saxon leaders ( " bretwalda s " ) in the 5th and 6th centuries . If Rhygyfarch ' s celebrated " Life of David " is credited , its account of St . David ' s ten years of education under St . Pol suggests David could not have been born later than 514 . Since the same account has Gildas preaching to Ste . Non while she was pregnant with David , it is improbable that Gildas ' s birth and therefore the battle could have occurred later than 498 . McCarthy and O ' Croinin propose Gildas ' s 44 years and one month is not a reference to the simple chronology but a position within the 84 - year Easter cycle used for computus at the time by the Celtic Church . The tables in question in January of 438 , which would place their revised date of the battle in February of 482 . Hirst and Ashe argue for the site of Liddington Castle on the hill above Badbury ( Old English : " Baddan byrig " ) in Wiltshire . This site commands The Ridgeway track connecting the Thames valley with the Avon and Severn beyond . Aftermath . The early sources ' account that the Saxons were thrown back around this time seems to be borne out by archaeological evidence . Studies of cemeteries ( at this point , the Anglo - Saxons remained pagan while the Britons were Christianized ) suggest the border shifted some time around 500 . Afterwards , the pagans held the present areas of Kent , Sussex , Norfolk and Suffolk , and the area around the Humber . The Britons seem to have controlled salients to the north and west of London and south of Verulamium in addition to everything west of a line running from Christchurch at the mouth of the Wiltshire Avon north to the Trent , then along the Trent to the Humber , then north along the Derwent to the North Sea . The salients could then be supplied along Watling Street , dividing the invaders into pockets south of the Weald in east Kent and around the Wash . Second Badon . The A Text of the " Annales Cambriae " includes the entry : " The first celebration of Easter among the Saxons . The second battle of Badon . Morgan dies . " The date for this action is given by Phillimore as 665 , but the Saxons ' first Easter is placed by the B Text in its entry 634 years after the birth of Christ and neither Second Badon nor Morcant are mentioned . Local lore . Apart from the professional scholarship , various communities around Wales and England carry on local traditions that their area was the site of the battle : these include Bathampton Down ; Badbury Hillfort at the Kingston Lacy House in Dorset ; and Bowden Hill in Linlithgow .