<P> A henge at Eamont Bridge near Penrith, Cumbria is known as "King Arthur's Round Table". The still - visible Roman amphitheatre at Caerleon has been associated with the Round Table, and it has been suggested as a possible source for the legend . Following archaeological discoveries at the Roman ruins in Chester, some writers suggested that the Chester Roman Amphitheatre was the true prototype of the Round Table . But the English Heritage Commission, acting as consultants to a History Channel documentary in which the claim was made, stated that there was no archaeological basis to the story . </P> <P> The Round Table first appeared in Wace's Roman de Brut, a Norman language adaptation of Geoffrey's Historia finished in 1155 . Wace says Arthur created the Round Table to prevent quarrels among his barons, none of whom would accept a lower place than the others . 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 . In response a Cornish carpenter built an enormous but easily transportable Round Table to prevent further dispute . Wace claims he was not the source of the Round Table; both he and Layamon credited it instead to the Bretons . Some scholars have doubted this claim, while others believe it may be true . There is some similarity between the chroniclers' description of the Round Table and a custom recorded in Celtic stories, in which warriors sit in a circle around the king or lead warrior, in some cases feuding over the order of precedence as in Layamon . There is a possibility that Wace, contrary to his own claims, derived Arthur's round table not from any Breton source, but rather from medieval biographies of Charlemagne--notably Einhard's Vita Caroli and Notker the Stammerer's De Carolo Magno--in which the king is said to have possessed a round table decorated with a map of Rome . </P> <P> 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 . In Robert de Boron's Merlin, written around the 1190s, the wizard Merlin creates the Round Table in imitation of the table of the Last Supper and of Joseph of Arimathea's Holy Grail table . This table, here made for Arthur's father Uther Pendragon rather than Arthur himself, has twelve seats and one empty place to mark the betrayal of Judas . This seat must remain empty until the coming of the knight who will achieve the Grail . The Didot Perceval, a prose continuation of Robert's work, takes up the story, and the knight Percival sits in the seat and initiates the Grail quest . </P> <P> The prose cycles of the 13th century, the Lancelot - Grail cycle and the Post-Vulgate Cycle, further adapt the chivalric attributes of the Round Table . Here it is the perfect knight Galahad, rather than Percival, who assumes the empty seat, now called the Siege Perilous . Galahad's arrival marks the start of the Grail quest as well as the end of the Arthurian era . In these works the Round Table is kept by King Leodegrance of Cameliard after Uther's death; Arthur inherits it when he marries Leodegrance's daughter Guinevere . Other versions treat the Round Table differently, for instance Arthurian works from Italy often distinguish between the "Old Table" of Uther's time and Arthur's "New Table ." </P>

King arthur and the king of the round table