Salisbury

1. Salisbury
   Salabieres, Salebieres, Salesbieres, Salesbires, Salesbiri, Salesbury, Salisberi, Salisbery, Salisberye

   The books of the Grail Adventures were kept in this city in presentday Wiltshire. Near here, also, the final battle between Arthur and Mordred took place. Salisbury seems to have had significance as a religious, cultural, and political center.

   Malory does not say that Arthur ever held court here, but it seems to me likely that he did.

   Geoffrey says that during Arthur’s reign, Anaraut and Galluc served as the earls of Salisbury, while Layamon gives this distinction to Arnold.

   
   

2. Salisbury Plain
   Salabieres, Salebieres, Salesbieres, Salesbires, Salisberi, Salisbery, Salisberye

   In the chronicles, Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, southern England, serves as the location of a battle between King Vortigern and Hengist’s Saxons. According to the Vulgate Merlin, King Pendragon and Uther fought a battle against the Saxons there, and Pendragon was killed.

   In the Vulgate Morte Arthure, the Post-Vulgate Cycle, the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, and Malory, Salisbury Plain is named as the site of the final battle between Arthur and Mordred, in which Mordred was killed and Arthur was mortally wounded. Arthur’s knights carried him off the field to the Ancient Chapel, from which he was taken to Avalon by Morgan le Fay. The chronicles place this battle at Camlann.

   The area is probably best known for Stonehenge, which appears in the Arthurian legends as a memorial erected by Merlin on the instructions of Vortigern.