For centuries the site of the Roman amphitheatre in Caerleon
was known as 'King Arthur's Round Table'.
Back
in the 1587 Thomas Churchyard wrote of Caerleon:
In
Arthur's tyme, a table round,
Was whereat he sate:
As yet a plot of goodly ground,
Sets forth that rare estate...
It
would surely have been an excellent place for a leader to address
his followers.
Our
theory is that somewhere in time the meaning shifted from 'a
round meeting place' to a 'round table'.
Read
the full text of Churchyard's
poem
