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Primary Sources: Le Morte DArthur, Book III Chapter II — 6 Comments

  1. While we are on the math subject, if the Round Table seats 150 and we allow 2.5 feet per seat, the Round Table would be about 120 feet in dameter, minimum. Now you may recall Henry VII’s Grand Ballroom at Hampton Court Palace. It is 106 ft x 60 ft and one would think it was close to the largest Great Hall when it was added by Henry to Cardinal Wolsey’s Palace after he stole it. So this Round Table would not fit in the one of the grandest halls in existance 500 years or do after Camelot. Not to mention getting it in the door. Hmmm. Ok, let’s try assuming it is not a solidly round table, but a sectionalsuch that people could enter it and sit on either side of a hollow ring of a table. Being sectional might also allow it to fit in a door. Now we could sit two people for every 2.5 feet or so of circumference. Now the table would only need to be about 60 feet in diameter to fit 150 seats. That is within the realm of possibility for a Tudor style Great Hall. Of course, it it only needs to sit 50, it would readily fit in most Great Halls as a solid table, only needing to be 40 feet in diameter. Getting in the door might require removing and replacing a wall, but so what?

    -the even more nerdy Wikstrom

    • The whole thing would make a lot more sense if we assumed it wasn’t a literal table, like there isn’t a particular garter that the members of the Order of the Garter are obliged to take turns wearing (I assume). But no, it’s explicitly Uther’s old table that he presented Guenever’s father years ago, plus an indeterminate number of knights.

  2. I’m commenting here in response to a comment Emily left on your FB, because you said you wanted comments here and I know how to listen. ANYWAY, I love that Emily thinks the table is “just now” getting revealed. Girl, we haven’t even gotten the story ROLLING yet–hell, Arthur hasn’t even freed England from the tyrannical yoke of the Roman Empire yet!

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