As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that everyone who sits there has equal status, unlike conventional rectangular tables where participants order themselves according to rank.

Though the Round Table is not mentioned in the earliest accounts, tales of King Arthur having a marvellous court made up of many prominent warriors are ancient.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his Historia Regum Britanniae (composed c. 1136) says that, after establishing peace throughout Britain, Arthur "increased his personal entourage by inviting very distinguished men from far-distant kingdoms to join it.

[3] Though the code of chivalry crucial to later continental romances dealing with the Round Table is mostly absent from the Welsh material, some passages of Culhwch and Olwen seem to reference it.

In the story Arthur has found the altar and tries unsuccessfully to use it as a table; he returns it to Carannog in exchange for the saint ridding the land of a meddlesome dragon.

[12] Layamon added to the story when he adapted Wace's work into the Middle English Brut in the early 13th century, saying that the quarrel between Arthur's vassals led to violence at a Yuletide feast.

[13] The Round Table takes on new dimensions in the romances of the late 12th and early 13th century, where it becomes a symbol of the famed order of chivalry which flourishes under Arthur.

Made of silver, the Grail Table was used by the followers of Arimathea after he created it as directed by a vision of Christ,[14] and was taken by him to Avalon (later identified with Glastonbury Tor, but this connection was not mentioned by Robert[15]).

[16] In the Post-Vulgate, the Table is eventually destroyed by King Mark during his invasion of Logres after the deaths of Arthur and almost all of the Knights, many of whom in fact had killed each other, especially in internal conflicts at the end of the cycle.

It has been argued that the total warfare tactics employed by the English at Crécy in 1346 were contrary to Arthurian chivalric ideals and made Arthur a problematic paradigm for Edward, especially at the time of the institution of the Garter.