At the heart of King Arthur’s court at Camelot stood the Round Table, where the finest knights in the world sat together as equals. Because it had no head, no knight could claim a higher place than any other. The table became the name of the fellowship itself: to be “of the Round Table” was the highest honour a knight could achieve.
The Round Table is one of the great symbols of the Arthurian legend — an image of an ideal society, bound by loyalty, courtesy, and a shared code of honour. Yet it is also a symbol of fragility. The same fellowship that seemed so perfect was torn apart from within.
Wace and the Origin of the Table
The Round Table first appears in the Roman de Brut (1155), a French verse adaptation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain by the Norman poet Wace. Wace says that Arthur made the Round Table because his barons each thought themselves better than the others, and none would accept a lower seat. At the Round Table, all sat equally, and none could boast that he sat higher than his fellow.
Wace added that the Bretons told many tales about the Round Table — suggesting that he drew on a tradition already current in oral storytelling.
Layamon’s Quarrel at the Feast
The English poet Layamon, in his Brut (c. 1200), gives a more violent origin story. At a Christmas feast, Arthur’s knights quarrelled over precedence in the seating. The quarrel became a brawl: bread, cups, and fists flew, and many men were killed. Arthur punished the instigators severely. Then a craftsman from Cornwall offered to make the king a table at which 1,600 men could sit, all equally, so that no such fight could ever happen again. The table could be carried with the king wherever he rode.
Merlin and Uther Pendragon
In the French romance Merlin by Robert de Boron (c. 1200) and the prose cycles that followed, the Round Table was made by Merlin for Uther Pendragon, Arthur’s father. It was the third of three great tables:
- The table of the Last Supper, at which Christ sat with his disciples.
- The Grail Table of Joseph of Arimathea, made in memory of the Last Supper, at which Joseph’s followers sat in the presence of the Grail.
- The Round Table, made by Merlin in imitation of the other two.
This gave the Round Table a sacred meaning. It was not merely a piece of furniture but a symbol of the Christian community and a link to the Holy Grail.
After Uther’s death, the table passed to King Leodegrance of Cameliard, and came to Arthur as part of the dowry of his bride Guinevere.
The Siege Perilous
At the Round Table, one seat was always left empty: the Siege Perilous, the “Dangerous Seat.” It was reserved for the one knight who would achieve the Quest of the Holy Grail. Anyone else who sat in it would be destroyed. In some stories, knights who tried were swallowed by the earth or consumed by fire.
It mirrored the empty seat at Joseph of Arimathea’s Grail Table, left for Judas.
At Pentecost, when the young Sir Galahad arrived at Camelot, the seat was found to bear his name in letters of gold: “This is the siege of Galahad, the haut prince.” Galahad sat in it unharmed, and the Grail Quest began. See The Holy Grail.
Names on the Seats
In Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, each knight’s name miraculously appeared in gold letters on his seat when he was chosen. When a knight died, his name disappeared, and the seat awaited a worthy successor.
How Many Knights?
The number of knights at the Round Table varies enormously: 12 in some traditions (imitating the apostles), 13 including the Siege Perilous, 50, 150, 250, or even 1,600 in Layamon’s account. Malory gives 150.
The Pentecostal Oath
In Malory’s version, when Arthur established the Round Table, the knights swore an oath each year at the feast of Pentecost. Malory summarizes it: never to do outrage nor murder, always to flee treason, to give mercy to those who asked for it, always to help ladies, damsels, and gentlewomen, and never to fight in a wrongful quarrel for love or for worldly goods.
This Pentecostal Oath became a summary of the chivalric ideal.
The Knights
Among the most famous knights of the Round Table are:
- Sir Lancelot du Lac, the greatest knight in the world, whose love for Guinevere led to the fall of Camelot (see Lancelot).
- Sir Gawain, Arthur’s nephew, the model of courtesy (see Gawain: The Knight of Courtesy).
- Sir Galahad, the purest knight, who achieved the Grail.
- Sir Percival, the innocent fool who became a Grail knight (see Percival: The Grail Knight).
- Sir Bors, the third Grail knight, the only one to return to Camelot.
- Sir Kay, Arthur’s foster-brother and seneschal, often sharp-tongued.
- Sir Bedivere, Arthur’s loyal companion, who returned Excalibur to the lake.
- Sir Tristan, the tragic lover of Isolde (see Tristan and Isolde).
- Sir Gareth, Gawain’s gentle younger brother.
- Sir Lamorak, Sir Palamedes, Sir Ector de Maris, Sir Lionel, and many more.
- Sir Mordred, the traitor (see Mordred).
The Fall of the Fellowship
The Round Table’s end came through its own members. The Grail Quest scattered the knights, and many died on it. The love of Lancelot and Guinevere divided the court, as Gawain and his brothers turned against Lancelot and his kin. The table broke into two factions, and civil war followed.
Arthur, in Malory, grieves more for the loss of the fellowship than for his queen: “Much more I am sorrier for my good knights’ loss than for the loss of my fair queen; for queens I might have enow, but such a fellowship of good knights shall never be together in no company.”
The Winchester Round Table
In the Great Hall of Winchester Castle hangs a huge wooden round table, 5.5 metres across, weighing over a tonne, painted with the names of twenty-four knights around a Tudor rose, with King Arthur enthroned at the top. For centuries it was believed to be the original. Tree-ring dating and carbon dating have shown that it was made around 1290, probably for a tournament held by King Edward I, a great admirer of the Arthurian legend. It was repainted in its present form for King Henry VIII around 1522, and the face of Arthur resembles the young Henry.
Round Table Tournaments
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, kings and nobles across Europe held Round Tables — festivals of jousting and feasting in which participants took on the roles of Arthurian knights. Edward III planned to establish a Round Table order at Windsor in 1344, and began building a round house for it; the project was abandoned, and he founded the Order of the Garter instead.
The Round Table as an Idea
The Round Table has become a universal symbol of equal discussion. The term “round table” is used for conferences in which all participants have equal status — from the Round Table Conferences on India in London (1930–32) to countless business meetings and panel discussions today. The ideal that Wace described in 1155 — a place where none may claim to sit higher than another — remains a powerful image of a just community.
Last reviewed: September 2026.