The Round Table

“I will build a Round Table, and around it a Hall, and about the Hall a Castle.” - King Arthur Pendragon in John Boorman's Excalibur

The hall is quiet save for the low crackle of the hearth. Torches cast their light on banners and the polished steel of shields and helms set aside. In the center of the high-ceilinged space stands a vast circle of ancient oak, divided into twelve, with neither head nor foot. Those who come here must set aside their pride and vainglory, for there is no place to claim above another. Around it gather knights from every corner of the realm - equal in station though unequal in destiny - bound by oaths to their sovereign, people, and land, and also to a higher vision. This is the Round Table of King Arthur: the hub of the wheel of Camelot, a microcosm of the heavens, a mirror of the world, and an altar in the temple of the Holy Grail.

 Origins & Historical Sources

The Round Table does not appear in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s earliest accounts, though his Arthur’s court is already a place whose fame draws warriors from afar. It is in 1155 that Wace first tells of Arthur establishing the Table to end quarrels of precedence among his barons:

“This Round Table was ordained of Arthur that when his fair fellowship sat to meat their chairs should be high alike, their service equal, and none before or after his comrade. Thus no man could boast that he was exalted above his fellow, for all alike were gathered round the board, and none was alien at the breaking of Arthur’s bread.” - Wace’s Roman de Brut (1155)

A generation later, Layamon’s Brut makes the scene larger, stranger—a hundred knights side by side, and the table itself portable as a holy relic, traveling with the court like a tabernacle in the wilderness:

“Now a table I’d make you, exceeding fair, that would easily seat a good hundred or more. Side by side, so no knight seemed the highest. When you journey, it might then go with you, to be set where you wish, as you might decide. Ne’er would you fear, to the world’s end, ever, that some fierce knight might engender a fight, for the high and the low shall there be equals.”  - Layamon’s Brut (c. 1200)

The Table as Cosmic & Sacred Symbol

By the thirteenth century, the Grail prose cycles lift the Round Table into the realm of the sacred mysteries. Robert de Boron’s Merlin tells that it was patterned after the Grail Table of Joseph of Arimathea, which seated thirteen, with one seat—the Siege Perilous—left vacant for Judas the betrayer’s opposite: the knight destined to achieve the Grail. (But then perhaps Judas was not a betrayer, but rather the disciple that made the ultimate sacrifice, a sacrifice that ultimately allowed the whole Passion drama to unfold and for the Grail to manifest…)

In The Queste del Saint Graal (c. 1220), its purpose is unveiled: the Round Table is both the wheel of heaven mirrored in wood and the altar table of the inner zodiacal temple of the adept.

“After this table the Round Table was constructed, not without great significance, upon the advice of Merlin. By its name the Round Table is meant to signify the round world and the round canopy of the planets and the elements in the firmament, where are to be seen the stars and many other things. Wherefore one may say that in the Round Table the world is accurately symbolised. For you can see that from all countries where chivalry is established, whether Christian or pagan, the knights come to the Round Table. And when God gives them grace to become companions, they esteem themselves more fortunate than if they had gained the whole world, and we can see how for it they leave their fathers and mothers and wives and children. You have seen this happen in your own case. For since you left your mother and became a companion of the Round Table. you have had no desire to return, but rather you were at once possessed by the gentleness and brotherhood which are bound to exist between those who are companions.”

The number of seats varies by tale—Layamon’s hundred, Malory’s one hundred and fifty. In Malory’s telling, the great board itself comes to Arthur as a wedding gift from Guinevere’s father, Leodegrance, along with a company of knights. Malory also preserves Merlin’s cosmological teaching:

“Merlin made the Round Table in tokening of roundness of the world, for by the Round Table is the world signified by right, for all the world, Christian and heathen, repair unto the Round Table; and when they are chosen to be of the fellowship of the Round Table they think them more blessed and more in worship than if they had gotten half the world; and yet have seen that they have lost their fathers and their mothers, and all their kin, and their wives and their children, for to be of your fellowship.” - Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (1485)

Jung might say the Round Table is an archetype of the Self, circling back to wholeness. Composed of many knights, yet all united towards a common purpose, it teaches the importance of forging unity amid division, of bringing the many different drives and desires into harmony and shared mission. This is necessary within the psyche of the individual and within the community

The Table as Home, Hearth & Altar

Beyond its historic and mythical dimensions, the Table itself is a deeply archetypal symbol in the human experience.

The table is the center of the home. It is the nexus of all activity in the community. It is where one eats, drinks, and makes merry with family and friends. In the King’s chamber it is where the high counsel meets to make plans, strategize and see to the affairs of ruling the Kingdom. Around it, disputes are settled, strategies laid, alliances forged. In times of war, it becomes the war room, where the pieces of battle are arrayed on the board and the path to victory is found. All these happen around the Wheel and the circle of the central table.

In its highest form, the table becomes more than board and beam. It becomes an altar. Bread and wine, laid in simple vessels, are transformed into the mystery of divine presence. A Master at its head elevates the meal into communion between creation and Creator, Father and Son. Every gathering of Arthur’s knights becomes a reenactment of Christ and the Apostles in the Upper Room.

“Give us this day, our daily bread.”

The Grail itself is the Cup of the Last Supper, and placing it at the Table’s center mirrors the chalice at the center of the Christic altar. When Christ says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20), the knights’ own oaths become a covenant, binding them to a cause greater than themselves. When He commands, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19), the Table becomes a place where Arthur’s presence persists even when he is far away, and where the Grail is awaited even in its absence.

“And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.’” - Mark 14:22–25

Though Jesus is the teacher, He kneels to wash the feet of the Apostles, breaking hierarchical expectation, much like the equal seating at the Round Table. He embodies the deep teaching of the first being last and the last being first. Of the Christed one being the servant of all.

“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” - John 13:3–5

Jesus underwent the crucifixion and resurrection mysteries precisely because he was powerful enough to reverently bow down and kiss the feet of even his own disciples.

So too does the Grail romance transform the king’s board into a liturgical space, an echo of that first humble table in a home in Jerusalem. The straight lines of Da Vinci’s long table dissolve into the eternal curve of a perfect sphere, the company now seated within a circle without beginning or end. At Pentecost, as the knights feast, the Grail manifests in vision before their eyes. The Holy Spirit descends like a wind through the hall, and hearts are set aflame with higher purpose. The Round Table becomes the still point in the turning hall, the axis upon which the Quest begins—and the foundation upon which the sacred Chalice rests in quiet majesty.

Esoteric Dimensions

Esoteric and occult traditions add deeper layers of symbolism and mythic power: some say Merlin designed it after antediluvian wisdom and Atlantean temples. Others whisper that its pattern descended from Sirius—Sopdet, the “Tear of Isis,” whose heliacal rising once heralded the Nile’s flood and the New Year.

Rather than hundreds of knights around a massive table, the mystery-school reading ascribes twelve seats, the disk divided into twelve stations, each marked with a sign of the zodiac. Arthur stands at the invisible center as the Solar Christ-King, as the Sun; and a single place is reserved for the Grail’s descent. Thus the wooden wheel becomes a zodiacal temple, where the starry realms above and the earthly embodiments of the knights meet at the axis mundi of the sacred board.

This same current threads the iconography of the Tarot: the belt of The Fool carries the zodiac’s round, as if the traveler of the soul bears the stellar girdle within him throughout his journey, and that his journey is a journey through that zodiacal wheel.

The Siege Perilous

The Siege Perilous is the mystical 13th seat, the empty place no one dares claim until the appointed knight comes. Empty it sits as a symbol and a reminder of the true knight who exists within as a holy ideal. It is perilous because it burns away the false self; it is blessed because it crowns the true being. The Perilous Siege is the unclaimed throne within you — the seat only the Grail, and your devotion to it, can summon you to ascend to.

Dissolution & Eternal Round Table

After the Grail vision, the knights swear the Oath of the Quest and rise from the Table. To go forth is to leave hearth and hall, to exchange the warm fellowship of Camelot for the wilderness of trial. The quest strips away comfort, safety, and the familiar walls of Arthur’s court.

Some find the Grail; most do not. Many are lost—to battle, to desire, to despair, to dangers of the path, to madness. The Grail Quest halves the fellowship; the rest are scattered by treachery and war. Mordred’s rebellion shatters what remains.

“Jesu mercy, how may this be? said the king… Alas, me sore repenteth that ever Sir Launcelot should be against me. Now I am sure the noble fellowship of the Round Table is broken for ever…” - Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (1485)

The traveler returns to the royal court to find the table is dusty and broken. Arthur’s hall is silent and no chivalrous Knights can be found. For on this world of form, nothing lasts and all kingdoms shall pass away…

Yet though the hall lies in ruin in this world, in Avalon’s eternal light Tradition never dies. For the dedicated and honorable hero, the Round Table has been constructed within. Therefore it is taken with you, for you have established a solid foundation within your consciousness, and you remain always in communication with the sacred brotherhood who originally consecrated it.

Beyond the mists of Avalon, The Round Table exists eternally in the kingdom of Camelot. The hall stands whole again, its beams scented with fresh oak, its banners bright as the dawn. The great Round Table gleams as if cut from a single disk of living light, twelve stations crowned with the sigils of the stars, and in the center rests the Grail chalice, continually overflowing with the deep red wine of loveAround it gather the Company of the True and Holy—some in mail and surcoat, others clothed in the raiment of spirit. Arthur’s place is filled by the True King, once again whole without a trace of injury or sickness. The 13th seat is no longer a Siege Perilous, but now a Siege of Glory upon which the Champion of the Grail sits in a simple white robe, having set aside the sword and mail forever. Above the hall the constellations wheel, and it’s reflection appears in the shining of the surface of the wooden table. Here the wells were never defiled and the kingdom never fell, the fellowship was never broken and the table never splintered, the knight never fell and the grail was never lost. May you find that hall, and take thy seat at the table.