Round Table, The
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
The, in British legend, a beautiful table--some say of marble--large enough to seat one hundred fifty knights. It was made by the magician Merlin for Uther Pendragon, and given by Uther to Leodegraunce, King of Cameliard. When King Arthur married Guinevere, daughter of Leodegraunce, the latter gave Arthur this table with one hundred knights as a wedding gift. Merlin filled twenty-eight seats with worthy knights, Arthur elected two more. Twenty seats were left to be filled as knights should prove themselves worthy. Other accounts of the Round Table state that it would seat only fifty knights. Still others describe it as a small table at which the king and twelve chosen knights might sit. In any case the name of each knight is inscribed upon the table at his own place, and one place is left for the Holy Grail. This is called the "siege perilous," since it was believed that no knight other than he who should discover the Holy Grail might sit there and live--siege meaning seat. The Round Table is mentioned in more than one medieval legend and ballad, showing that it was not peculiar to the reign of Arthur. The expression, "round table," is not unusual to designate a tournament, so called from the fact that a tournament was held usually in a circular court, level like a table, and surrounded by a strong wall. The Order of the Round Table was an institution founded by King Arthur. Only a knight who had proven his valor and fidelity might hope to be made a member of this order.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
As a summary of the legend, Aiton's 1910 account still reads well: the marble table, the varying counts of knights, the empty "siege perilous." What has moved is the scholarship around it. The Round Table is now firmly traced as a literary invention, appearing first in Wace's Roman de Brut of about 1155 and absent from earlier Arthurian material; the great painted table hanging in Winchester's Great Hall, once shown to visitors as Arthur's own, was dated by tree-ring and radiocarbon work in the 1970s to roughly 1250-1280, probably made for an Edwardian "Round Table" tournament and repainted with the Tudor rose under Henry VIII. The text of the legend itself changed too: in 1934 Walter Oakeshott found a manuscript of Malory at Winchester College, and Eugene Vinaver's 1947 edition of it replaced Caxton's 1485 print as the scholarly standard, so modern readers meet a somewhat different Morte Darthur than Aiton's contributor did.
Written for this edition, 2026.