Round Table - History

History

The Round Table first appears in Wace's Roman de Brut, a Norman language adaptation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae finished in 1155. Wace says Arthur created the Round Table to prevent quarrels among his barons, none of whom would accept a lower place than the others. Layamon added to the story when he adapted Wace's work into the Middle English Brut in the early 13th century, saying that the quarrel between Arthur's vassals led to violence at a Yuletide feast. In response a Cornish carpenter built an enormous but easily transportable Round Table to prevent further dispute. Wace claims he was not the source of the Round Table; both he and Layamon credit it instead to the Bretons. Some scholars have doubted this claim, while others believe it may be true. There is some similarity between the chroniclers' description of the Round Table and a custom recorded in Celtic stories, in which warriors sit in a circle around the king or lead warrior, in some cases feuding over the order of precedence as in Layamon. There is a possibility that Wace, contrary to his own claims, derived Arthur's round table not from any Breton source, but rather from medieval biographies of Charlemagne—notably Einhard's Vita Caroli and Notker the Stammerer's De Carolo Magno—in which the king is said to have possessed a round table decorated with a map of Rome.

Though the Round Table itself is not mentioned until Wace, the concept of Arthur having a marvellous court made up of many prominent warriors is much older. Geoffrey of Monmouth says that after establishing peace throughout Britain, Arthur "increased his personal entourage by inviting very distinguished men from far-distant kingdoms to join it." The code of chivalry so important in later romance figures in as well, as Geoffrey says Arthur established "such a code of courtliness in his household that he inspired peoples living far away to imitate him." Long before Geoffrey, Arthur's court was well known to Welsh storytellers; in the romance Culhwch and Olwen, written around 1100, the protagonist Culhwch invokes the names of 225 individuals affiliated with Arthur. In fact, the fame of Arthur's entourage became so prominent in Welsh tradition that in the later additions to the Welsh Triads, the formula "Arthur's Court" in the titles of the triads began to supersede the older "Island of Britain" formula. Though the code of chivalry crucial to later continental romances dealing with the Round Table is mostly absent from the earlier Welsh material, some passages of Culhwch and Olwen seem to prefigure it, for instance when Arthur explains the ethos of his court, saying "e are nobles as long as we are sought out: the greater the bounty we may give, the greater our nobility, fame and honour."

Though no Round Table appears in the early Welsh texts, Arthur is associated with various items of household furniture. The earliest of these is Saint Carannog's mystical floating altar in that saint's 12th century Vita; in the story Arthur has found the altar and attempts unsuccessfully to use it for a table, and returns it to Carannog in exchange for the saint ridding the land of a meddlesome dragon. Arthur's household furniture figures into local topographical folklore throughout Britain as early as the early 12th century, with various landmarks being named "Arthur's Seat", "Arthur's Oven," and "Arthur's Bed-chamber." A henge at Eamont Bridge near Penrith, Cumbria is known as "King Arthur's Round Table". The still-visible Roman amphitheatre at Caerleon has been associated with the Round Table and has been suggested as a possible source for the legend.

In 2010, following archaeological discoveries at the Roman ruins in Chester, some writers suggested that the Chester Roman Amphitheatre was the true prototype of the Round Table but the English Heritage Commission, acting as consultants to a History Channel documentary in which the claim was made, declared that there was no archaeological basis to the story.