The Round Table
The Round Table of King Arthur is the great council table at which, in Arthurian romance, no knight could claim a higher seat than another, ending the quarrels over precedence that divided the court. In Geoffrey of Monmouth's twelfth-century History of the Kings of Britain the table is only mentioned among Arthur's household furniture, but later romance writers made it the heart of the court and the scene of the knights' vows. In some versions, notably the prose romances, the table is devised by Merlin, and the perilous seat at it is reserved for the knight who will win the Grail, with disaste