Martin Biddle

The whole of this book is devoted to describing a series of detailed investigations into King Arthur’s Round Table when it was taken down from the wall of the Great Hall in Winchester in 1976. The table itself is made of oak and is 18 feet in diameter. Today it hangs on the wall but, when first made was, indeed, a table with twelve legs.
The construction techniques used in its making are analysed. There are layers of construction which reflect the table’s history. Using tree-ring dating (dendrochronology) it is possible to identify the number of trees used in making the table and roughly when they were felled and then left for seasoning before being used for the table. Radio-carbon dating is applied independently to the timbers and the differences between the two sets of dates reconciled. The whole table was X-rayed and it was found that there was no underpainting of the picture which is visible today and which was applied in 1789. The X-rays reveal that at one point the table probably had leather stretched across the surface and pinned down at the edges. This might well have carried the first illustration which has never been described. All we are left with is the picture that first appeared in the early 16th century in the relatively early years of the reign of Henry VIII. It was painted over areas of rotten wood, which suggests that the table had already been hanging on the wall for some time and had suffered from rain coming in through the windows. The 16th century painting was carefully repainted exactly in 1789. The actual painting and X-rays are used for that as well as detailed descriptions and drawings that have survived since the 16th century. And one of the contributors explores in minute detail descriptions of the table and early examples of chivalrous organisations in England (such as the Order of the Garter) in order to see if the table can be dated that way.
In the end, after minutely, fascinating accounts of a whole series of investigations into the table approximate answers are provided for dating its construction, it’s conversion to a wall hanging and then its final decoration.
Contrary to first impressions, this is an easily read, easily followed, clearly written book about an important artefact in England’s cultural and historical heritage.… (meer)