Knights of the Round Table

The Knights of the Round Table (French: Chevaliers de la Table Ronde) are the legendary knights of the fellowship of King Arthur that first appeared in the French-language Matter of Britain literature in the mid-12th century. The Knights are a chivalric order dedicated to ensuring the peace of Arthur's kingdom following an early warring period, entrusted in later years to undergo a mystical quest for the Holy Grail. The Round Table at which they meet is a symbol of the equality of its members, who range from sovereign royals to minor nobles.

The various Round Table stories present an assortment of knights from all over Great Britain and abroad, some of whom are even from outside of Europe. Their ranks often include Arthur's close and distant relatives, such as Agravain, Gaheris and Yvain, as well as his reconciled former enemies, like Galehaut, Pellinore and Lot. Several of the most notable Knights of the Round Table, among them Bedivere, Gawain and Kay, are based on older characters from a host of great warriors associated with Arthur in the early Welsh tales. Some, such as Lancelot, Perceval and Tristan, feature in the roles of a protagonist or eponymous hero in various works of chivalric romance. Other well-known members of the Round Table include the holy knight Galahad, replacing Perceval as the main Grail Knight in the later stories, and Arthur's traitorous son and nemesis Mordred.

The first written record of the Knights of the Round Table is found in the Roman de Brut, written by the Norman author Wace in 1155. At the end of the 12th century, works of chivalric romance by Chrétien de Troyes had a major influence on the spread of the Arthurian legend while introducing many of the later popular Round Table heroes to French and international audiences. In the 13th-century Arthurian prose cycles, including their seminal compilation Le Morte d'Arthur, the Round Table eventually splits up into groups of warring factions following the revelation of Lancelot's adultery with King Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere. In the same tradition, Guinevere is featured with her own personal order of young knights, known as the Queen's Knights. Some texts also tell of one or two other minor tables, intended for the lesser knights of Arthur, and of the precedent Knights of the Old Table, once led by Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon. A story introduced by Robert de Boron around 1200 focuses on the much earlier members of the 'Grail Table'—followers of ancient Christian Joseph of Arimathea, who centuries later would serve as the template for Uther's and Arthur's orders following Merlin's creation of the Round Table.

The number of the Knights of the Round Table (including King Arthur) and their names vary greatly between the versions published by different writers. The figure may range from a dozen to as many as potentially 1,600 (the number of seats at the table), the latter claimed by Layamon in his Brut. Most commonly, however, there are between about 100 and 300 seats at the table, often with one seat permanently empty. The number of three hundred was also chosen by King Edward III of England when he decided to create his own real-life Order of the Round Table at Windsor Castle in 1344.

In many chivalric romances there are over 100 members of Arthur's Round Table, as with either 140 or 150 according to Thomas Malory's popular Le Morte d'Arthur, and about 140 according to Erec by Hartmann von Aue. Some sources offer much smaller numbers, such as 13 in the Didot Perceval and 60 in the count by Jean d'Outremeuse in his Ly Myreur des Histors. Others yet give higher numbers, as with 250 in the Prose Merlin, and 366 in both Li Chevaliers as Deus Espees and Perlesvaus (where this is their peak number that nevertheless had dwindled to only about 25 at the time when the story begins).

Chrétien de Troyes suggested around 500 knights in his early romance Erec and Enide. In the same work, Chrétien catalogued many of Arthur's top knights in a series of long hierarchical lists of names. These rankings are different in each of the surviving manuscripts, none of which is believed to be the author's original version.

While not mentioning the Round Table as such, one of the late Welsh Triads lists 24 extraordinary knights permanently living in Arthur's court, mixing romance characters with several Arthur's warriors from a largely lost Welsh tradition considered to originate in old Celtic folklore. Companions of Arthur numbering 24 also appear in the Welsh tale of Peredur son of Efrawg.

Some of the more notable knights include the following: