Cached Feb. 16, 2007, from
http://www.csuohio.edu/english/malRT3.html
Circular shape of the table: Medieval tables usually were
rectangular, sometimes square, but rarely round. This unusual feature
of the Round Table invites symbolic interpretation. Some or all of the
symbolic interpretations of the table's circularity can be viewed
either in bono (pointing to a positive value) or in malo (pointing to a negative value).
Round Table as symbol of the equality of Arthur's knights.
Rectangular tables were used at feasts, and the seating assignments
normally reflected the feudal hierarchy. In a royal court, the king and
queen and a select group of nobles were seated at a "high table" on a
dais, while the other participants were seated at one or more
rectangular tables in the hall. Those of higher rank were seated closer
to the dais; those of lower rank would be seated further away. The
Christmas feast at the beginning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
uses this conventional seating arrangement. The Round Table, in
contrast, seems to subvert the feudal hierarchy with its claims of
equality among the knights.
In bono we can imagine a fellowship of knights bonded as equals
under the code of chivalry. But the explicit statements of this theme
present in in malo, as a negative detail. Wace, in his Brut,
writes that Arthur ordered the Round Table to be built in order to
resolve a conflict among his knights concerning who should have
precedence. This theme is elaborated by Layamon in his Brut: he
writes that during a Christmas feast at Carduel in Wales, a quarrel
broke out among the knights as to who had precedence, and Arthur
ordered Merlin to fashion the Round Table in order to resolve the
conflict. The Round Table thus becomes a symbol of pride and
contentiousness rather than of equality.
Round Table as a symbol of the world: In the 13th-century Queste del Saint Graal,
Malory's source for his "Sankgreall," another interpretation of the
symbolism is given. An anchoress tells Perceval: "You are well aware
that the world has seen three great tables. The first was the Table of
Jesus Christ, where the apostles often ate. . . . After that table
there was another built like it and in remembrance of it. That was the
table of the Holy Grail. . . After that table there was the Round Table
build by Merlin, which was not established without a high spiritual
meaning. That it is called 'the Round Table' suggests the roundness of
the earth, the spheres of the planets, and the elements of the
firmament. . . so that one can justly say that the Round Table means
the world. (La Queste del Saint Graal, ed. Albert Pauphilet (Paris, 1975), pp. 74-76.
The Round Table's symbolic association with the table of the Last Supper.
The table used by Jesus and his disciples for the Last Supper usually is depicted as rectangular in Renaissance art, as in Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper." Most medieval pictures of the Last Supper also depict a rectangular table, but sometimes the table is depicted as circular.
Wace's Brut: Wace, in his account of the Round Table,
says that Arthur ordered a round table to resolve a contention among
his knights over precedence. This implies a link with the circumstances
of the Last Supper, when the disciples were in contention about "which
of them should be accounted the greatest" in heaven (Luke 22:24).
Robert de Boron forges a link between the table of the Last Supper and the Grail Table in the second poem in his Grail trilogy, Perceval, also called the Estoire dou Graal (a lost poem whose contents survive in a prose redaction called the "Didot Perceval").
There, Joseph of Arimathea is given divine guidance to search for a
table that resembles the table of the Last Supper. Once he finds this
table, he places the Holy Grail on it (the Grail was the cup that
Christ used at the Last Supper), and he sets Bron, the Fisher King,
next to him at the table. The Grail Table has thirteen seats, one of
which is kept vacant in memory of Judas Iscariot who betrayed Christ.
Having established this link between the table of the Last Supper and
the Grail Table, Robert de Boron forges a link between the Grail Table
and Arthur's Round Table in the third poem in his Grail trilogy, Merlin:
near the beginning of that poem, Merlin creates the Round Table with 52
places, one of which is a vacant seat called the "Judas seat."
The Round Table's symbolic association with Fortune's Wheel
An explicit link between the Round Table and
Fortune's Wheel is found in the Round Table hanging in the Great Hall of Winchester Castle,
a 13th-century table that was painted for King Henry VIII, probably in
1522 in preparation for a visit from Emperor Charles V of Germany. The
illustration includes a portrait of King Arthur under a canopy, seated on rather than at the Round Table. This is structurally identical to pictures of Fortune's Wheel.
Illustration of
Fortuna, in John Lydgate's Hystorye sege and dystruccyon of Troy, London, 1513
Lady Fortune illustrated in Petrarch's Remedies
for Either Kind of Fortune
