Question

Explain what the Round Table represents in Arthurian (King Arthur) legend. Your explanation must include:
Who gifted the table to King Arthur.

Answer 1

The Round Table in Arthurian legend is both a literal piece of furniture and a powerful symbol. Literally it is the large round banquet table at Arthur’s court in Camelot where Arthur and his knights met. Symbolically it stands for equality among the knights (no head of the table to indicate rank), unity and fellowship, the ideals of chivalry and courtly conduct, and the communal pursuit of justice and noble quests (most famously the Quest for the Holy Grail). It also helps define the institution of the Knights of the Round Table as an elite, quasi-sacral brotherhood whose ideals (and later failings) shape the saga.

Who gifted the table to Arthur
- In the best-known medieval tradition (echoed by Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur), the Round Table was given to Arthur by King Leodegrance of Cameliard as part of the dowry when Arthur married Leodegrance’s daughter, Guinevere. That account explains how Arthur acquired an established fellowship of knights and a specially large, symbolically round table for his court.

Notes on other versions and details
- The Round Table first appears in 12th‑century romances (Wace’s Roman de Brut) as Arthur’s institutional innovation; later writers elaborated its origin and added elements such as the “Siege Perilous” (the perilous seat reserved for the pure knight who would achieve the Grail—later identified with Galahad). Some romances link the table to religious/Grail traditions or to Merlin’s involvement in founding Arthur’s court; traditions vary across authors and periods.

In short: the Round Table embodies the ideal of equal, united, chivalric service around Arthur’s kingship, and in the standard medieval story it was given to him by Guinevere’s father, King Leodegrance.