From this relation we learn that the knights, fully armed, contended with lances on horseback, and that it was an especial rule of the combat that the lance-heads should be blunt or "rebated."
In 1280, the eighth of Edward I., earl Roger de Mortimer held a Round Table at his Castle of Kenilworth. "It was," says Dugdale, "a great and famous concourse of noble persons called the _Round Table_, consisting of an hundred Knights and as many Ladies, whereunto divers repaired from foreign parts for the exercise of Arms, viz., Tilting and martial Tournaments: the reason of the _Round Table_ being to avoyd contention touching precedency; a Custome of great antiquity, and used by the antient _Gauls_, as Mr. _Cambden_ in _Hantsh._ from _Athenæus_ (an approved Author) observes." The original authorities for this description of the Kenilworth Round-Table festival are Trivet and Walsingham, and the passages may be seen either in their histories, _ad an._ 1280, or in Ducange, _sub voce_ Tabula Rotunda. Dugdale seems to have had the notion that, to avoid disputes about precedency, all the jousters dined together at the Round Table; but it must have been a large table to have accommodated "an hundred Knights,"--to say nothing of the hundred Ladies. It seems more probable, comparing this institution with others of an analogous character, that a certain number of knights, representing (and perhaps assuming the names of) King Arthur and his far-famed band of warriors, held the field "against all comers." This view receives some support from the well-known relic at Winchester, "the rownde table of Kyng Arthur and hys Knyghtes," which is painted in compartments, each bearing the name of one of the fraternity. The table in question is not, indeed, more ancient than about the beginning of the sixteenth century; but, as the Hall at Winchester in which it is preserved is of the thirteenth century (the very period in which the sport of the _Tabula Rotunda_ came into vogue), it seems likely that this table represents some more ancient one which time has destroyed. The existing "King Arthur's Round Table" is figured in the Winchester volume of the Archæological Institute; and in the notice of it in that volume is cited a curious passage from Leroux de Lincy (himself quoting Diego de Vera, who was present at the marriage of Philip and Mary), by which it appears that tradition had assigned to a particular compartment the name of "the place of Judas or the perilous seat:" "Lors du mariage de Philippe II. avec la reine Marie, on montroit encore à Hunscrit[445] la table ronde fabriquée par Merlin: elle se composoit de 25 compartimens en blanc et en vert: dans chaque division étoient écrits le nom du cavalier et celui du roi. L'un de ces compartimens, appelé _Place de Judas_ ou _Siége périlleux_, restoit toujours vide." Judas appears to have been interpolated from one of the Mystery Plays of the Middle-Ages, and it must be confessed that a table "made by Merlin" and surrounded by King Arthur and his knights, with Judas for a boon-companion, has in it a certain boldness of concatenation which might well strike with awe the solemn mind of Don Diego de Vera, on the occasion of his visit to Hunscrit. A passage in the _Faits de Bouciquaut_ seems to imply that holding a Round Table meant a hastilude in which the challengers kept open house: "Ainsi fit là son appareil moult grandement et très honnorablement Messire Bouciquaut, et fit faire provisions de très bons vins, et de tous vivres largement et' à plain, et de tout ce qu'il convient, si plantureusement _comme pour tenir table ronde à tous venans_ tout le dict temps durant, et tout aux propres despens de Bouciquaut[446]."