King Arthur – The knights of the Round Table, Grail Legend

The Round Table of Knights

In the days of King Arthur, the round table was used to keep Arthur’s knights from fighting with each other over who had the higher status. Where the round table comes from is not known. It isn’t talked about by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the first recorded mention is from Wace, where his translator, Layamon, describes a fight, on a particular Yuletide day, among the knights for the highest status with Arthur, and describes the massacre that happened that day. Arthur sought revenge for the massacre by killing the family of the knight who began the conflict, and then cut off all of his women’s noses. To keep this from happening any more, a very clever workman of Cornwall told Arthur that he could design a table that 1600 knight could sit at and all be equal. This offer was accepted, and the man made the round table, which resulted in peace among the knights.

A lot fictional stories credit Arthur with the making of the round table, but it is different with the narratives. In some narratives, Merlin crafted the table for Arthur, and in some, the table was Leodegrance’s, Guenevere’s father and the kind of Cornwall, and it was a wedding present to Arthur when he married Guenevere. When Merlin is credited for the making of the round table, it usually has something to do with the legend of the holy grail.

The legend of how many knights can sit at the round table differs from twelve to one hundred and fifty. In some fictional stories, the table was made for all the knights so there would be peace among them, but in romance narratives, sitting at the round table is a mark of status, and only the greatest of the knight were allowed to sit at the round table. In order to prevent fighting among themselves, the knights establish a kind of brotherhood made strong by an oath to each other to help each knight whenever he may need help.

To join this brotherhood, a person would not have to be special member of Arthur’s court, any knight could have the opportunity to become a knight of the round table. In a couple of different romances, a silk cloth is put on the ground for the knights to sit on when they have to take the round table with them on a journey. In stories that have to do with the grail, the seats are labeled with each knight’s name, with one seat, called the Siege Perilous, left empty so that the person who wins the grail can sit there.