Notes & Queries: The Round Table

King Arthur's famous Round Table is first mentioned in 1155 in the Roman de Brut of Wace:

Pur les nobles baruns qu'il out,
Dunt chescuns mieldre estre quidout,
Chescuns se teneit al meillur,
Ne nuls n'en saveit le peiur,
Fist Arthur la Roünde Table
Dunt Bretun dient mainte fable.
Illuec seeient li vassal
Tuit chevalment e tuit egal;
A la table egalment seeient
E egalment servi esteient;
Nul d'els ne se poeit vanter
Qu'il seïst plus halt de sun per. (lns. 9747-58)

Because of the noble lords that he had around him, each of whom considered himself the best and of whom none could have said who was the least good, Arthur created the Round Table, about which the Britons/Bretons tell many stories. The noblemen used to sit at it, all at favoured places, and all equal. They were seated at the table as equals, and were served their food as equals; none of them could boast that he had a seat of higher dignity than his companion. (Le Saux, 1999a, pp.19-20)

Wace was probably born c.1100 in Jersey and was taken to Caen as a child. He completed his education in the Ile de France and then returned to Caen where he wrote the Roman de Brut amongst other works. The Roman de Brut is a translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (completed by 1139), though his source for much of his project appears to have been a Varient version of Geoffrey's text, of unknown authorship, which condensed and rephrased Geoffrey's narrative. Wace himself seems to have been well-travelled -- he had visited Brittany and was acquainted with south-western England -- and kept exhalted company, his Roman de Brut being dedicated, according to his English translator Layamon, to the Queen of England, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Le Saux notes that, as the Roman de Brut progressed, Wace becomes more daring in his presentation of Geoffrey's material, omitting some elements, abridging others, and -- particularly in his description of the reign of Arthur -- weaving non-Galfridian fictional elements into his narrative, including oral tales. It is in this light that his reference to the Round Table must be understood and there is no cogent reason to doubt his attribution of this element of the Arthurian legend to pre-Galfridian British/Breton oral tradition (Le Saux, 1999a, p.19; Williams, 1991, p.263; Kibler, 1996, p.391).

Layamon expands, in his Brut (c.1185x1225), on Wace's account of the Round Table. Layamon was an English poet from the region of Worcester and his Brut is a Middle English translation of Wace's work. He relates that, hearing of a brawl that broke out at Arthur's court during a meal, a Cornish craftsman offered to make a round table at which 1600 could be seated and which Arthur could take with him on his travels. Again the notion of Arthur's Round Table is attributed to Briton/Breton stories (Le Saux, 1999b, p.26; Kibler, 1996, p.391).

Where this apparently pre-Galfridian notion emerged from is difficult to say -- whilst the ‘Knights of the Round Table' in post-Galfridian literature obviously derive from Arthur's pre-Galfridian war-band, as found in the Culhwch ac Olwen and the early poem Pa gur yv y porthaur?, and should be compared with the Irish fíanna (see Padel, 1994), the origins of the Round Table itself is less clear. It has been suggested that it might be related to an ancient Celtic custom which had warriors sitting in circles around their king/bravest warrior, with some of the details in Wace and Layamon such as the number of warriors and quarrel over precedence found also in these stories (Kibler, 1996, p.391). It may also be in some way associated with the alter that Arthur tries to use as a table in the non-Galfridian Welsh Vita Carantoci ( 'Life of St Carannog').

In later literature the origin of the Round Table is ascribed to Merlin (see Robert de Boron's Merlin of c.1200), those who sit at it are seen as members of a chivalric group, and one seat is said to remain empty until it is filled by a knight who will achieve the grail quest. As a direct result of its fame in literature festive events known as Round Tables -- involving jousting and dancing in imitation of Arthur and his knights -- developed, the first being held in 1223 in Cyprus, and they were popular throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. In England they are recorded as taking place in Britain 8 times between 1242 and 1345, the latter one being a result of Edward III's pledge to re-establish the fellowship of the Round Table -- the famous Round Table in the Great Hall of Winchester Castle is now dated 1275+/-15 and was probably created for one of these tournaments (Vale, 1999, pp.186-7; Lacy, 1996; Westwood, 1985, pp.385-7).

In popular tradition there are a found a significant number of Bwrdd Arthur, ‘Arthur's Table', and Round Tables. The most interesting of these include the hillfort known as Bwrdd Arthur in Anglesey (SH588816); the earthwork ‘Round Table' first mentioned in the 15th-century in the gardens of Stirling Castle (NS789936); the Bwrdd Arthur in Denbighshire (SH961672), which is a circle of indentations in a rocky hillside recorded by Leland in the first half of the 16th-century; the old Roman amphithetre at Caerleon that was known as the ‘Round Table' (ST339906); and the prehistoric earthwork south of Penrith (NY523284) recorded as the ‘Round Table' by Leland. In Cornish folklore Arthur is said to have dined with his allies at Table-mên, large flat stones resembling tables, such as that near Sennen church (a block of granite eight feet long and three feet high) and that found at the point where the parishes of Zennor, Morvah, Gulval, and Madron meet, after his defeat of the Vikings at Vellan-Drucher. It should be remembered that at least some of these Arthurian tables should be related to the appearance in topographic folklore of giant items of Arthur's furniture, such as his Seat and his Oven (see Padel, 1994, particularly p.25), rather than the Round Table itself.

Bibliography

Kibler, W.W. 1996, ‘The Round Table' in N.J. Lacy (ed.) The New Arthurian Encyclopedia (New York, 1996), p.391

Lacy, N.J. 1996, ‘Round Tables' in N.J. Lacy (ed.) The New Arthurian Encyclopedia (New York, 1996), p.391

Le Saux, F. 1999a, ‘Wace's Roman de Brut ' in W.R.J. Barron (ed.) The Arthur of the English. The Arthurian Legend in Medieval English Life and Literature (Cardiff), pp.18-22

Le Saux, F. 1999b, ‘Layamon's Brut ' in W.R.J. Barron (ed.) The Arthur of the English. The Arthurian Legend in Medieval English Life and Literature (Cardiff), pp.22-32

Padel, O.J. 1994, ‘The Nature of Arthur' in Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 27 (Summer), pp.1-31

Vale, J. 1999, ‘Arthur in English Society' in W.R.J. Barron (ed.) The Arthur of the English. The Arthurian Legend in Medieval English Life and Literature (Cardiff), pp.185-196

Westwood, J. 1985, Albion. A Guide to Legendary Britain (London)

Williams, J.E. Caerwyn 1991, ‘Britanny and the Arthurian Legend' in R. Bromwich et al (edd.) The Arthur of the Welsh. The Arthurian Legend in Medieval Welsh Literature (Cardiff, 1991), pp.249-72

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