Windsor Castle
First screened 25 February 2008

What was a round table?

The medieval kings of England were deeply involved with the stories about their legendary predecessor King Arthur. A historical poem about Arthur, Robert Wace's Brut (History of the British), was dedicated to Henry II, and Chretien de Troyes, author of the first surviving Arthurian romances, may have come to Henry's court at Windsor.

Subsequently, during the late 13th/early 14th-century, Edward I began to hold round tables in imitation of King Arthur's institution of that name. These were a kind of tournament at which the participants took an oath of good behaviour and brotherhood for the duration of the event. Edward personally arranged such events at Nefyn in Wales in 1284 and at Falkirk in 1302, and took part in a number of other such occasions.

These festivals culminated in an occasion for which he commissioned a physical round table, a great tournament at Winchester in 1290. The table can still be seen today in the great hall at Winchester castle. The event was a grand occasion to celebrate the forthcoming marriage of Edward's son and two of his daughters. His nephew was granted the enormous sum, for the time, of 1,000 marks (£666 13s 4d) to enable him to take part.

Royal re-enactors
A round table was much more than just jousting, however. There is evidence that at one of Edward's many round tables during his reign, possibly that at Winchester in 1290, an elaborate piece of play-acting was at the centre of the proceedings. The king and his knights re-enacted a scene familiar to all readers of Arthurian romance, a great feast at which the meal could not begin until some 'adventure' had taken place in the hall.

The Dutch poet Lodewijk van Velthem described the scenario, which began when a squire spattered with blood appeared, demanding that the king should take revenge on the Welshmen who had rebelled and injured him. Soon afterwards, another squire appeared, bound hand and foot to his horse, declaring that the Irish had done this to him, and that the Irish king had commanded him to issue a challenge to Lancelot to meet him in single combat. Finally, the 'loathly damsel' who appears in the story of Perceval and the Grail rode into the hall. Her message was that Leicester and Cornwall had rebelled, and that Perceval and Gawain should go to quell the disturbances.

Edward III's round table
Edward III was also an enthusiastic participant in tournaments and in 1344, when there was an uneasy truce with France, he organised a round-table event at Windsor that was probably designed to rally support for his claim to the French throne. The building – or arena – that was erected at this time is what Time Team was looking for – and found – in the Upper Ward at Windsor in the 2006 Big Royal Dig.

Only the foundation trench of this building survives, but we can deduce what it was like from the detailed building accounts in the National Archives. These list the materials and wages of the men working on it. We also have an eyewitness account of the festival, and we know from both the documentary and archaeological evidence that the building was 200 feet in diameter – bigger than the Pantheon in Rome.

From all this evidence Time Team was able to make a good shot at reconstructing the 'house of the Round Table', as the accounts refer to it.

It was an elaborately decorated stone building with a single arcade inside, rather like a cloister, perhaps 10 metres high. The 300 knights of the Order of the Round Table would have sat on a stone bench against the wall, with a stone table in front, under a roof supported on pillars. The open central area may have had a fountain in the middle, and around it the dramas of the Arthurian stories were re-enacted while the knights watched from their seats. Once the drama had been played out, the feasting would begin. The celebrations concluded with music and dancing, for which pavilions and arbours were set up in the central space.

The building and festivities were symbols of Edward's power and prestige – the message being that here was a king as chivalric and as great as Arthur himself. Edward intended to hold such festivals every year, but the ambitious building project was never finished. Instead, Edward called a halt to the building before it was roofed and spent the money on trying to conquer France.

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