Christmas Entertainments of King Arthur

Christmas Entertainments of King Arthur and the Knights of his Round Table.

Sir Galahad is brought to the court of King Arthur (Illustration: Walter Crane/King Arthur’s Knights by Henry Gilbert)

We know that some people are inclined to discredit the accounts which have come down to us of this famous British King and Christian hero, but for our own part we are inclined to trust the old chroniclers, at all events so far as to believe that they give us true pictures of the manners and customs of the times of which they write; and in this prosaic age it may surely be permitted to us at Christmastide to linger over the doings of those romantic days,

“When every morning brought a noble chance,

And every chance brought out a noble knight.”[1]

Sir John Froissart tells us of the princely pageants which King Arthur held at Windsor in the sixth century, and of the sumptuous Christmas banqueting at his Round Table — the very Round Table (so we are to believe, on the authority of Dr. Milner)[2] which has been preserved in the old chapel, now termed the county hall, at Winchester. It consists of stout oak plank, perforated with many bullets, supposed to have been shot by Cromwell’s soldiers. It is painted with a figure to represent King Arthur, and with the names of his twenty-four knights as they are stated in the romances of the old chroniclers.

This famous Prince, who instituted the military order of the Knights of the Round Table, is also credited with the reintroduction of Christianity at York after the Saxon invaders had destroyed the first churches built there. He was unwearying in his warfare against enemies of the religion of Christ. His first great enterprise was the siege of a Saxon army at York, and, having afterwards won brilliant victories in Somersetshire and other parts of southern England, he again marched northward and penetrated Scotland to attack the Picts and Scots, who had long harassed the border. On returning from Scotland, Arthur rested his wearied army at York and kept Christmas with great bountifulness.

Geoffrey of Monmouth says he was a prince of “unparalleled courage and generosity,” and his Christmas at York was kept with the greatest joy and festivity. Then was the round table filled with jocund guests, and the minstrels, gleemen, harpers, pipe-players, jugglers, and dancers were as happy round about their log-fires as if they had shone in the blaze of a thousand gas-lights.

King Arthur and his Knights also indulged in out-door amusements, as hunting, hawking, running, leaping, wrestling, jousts, and tourneys. “So,” says Sir Thomas Malory,[3] “passed forth all the winter with all manner of hunting and hawking, and jousts and tourneys were many between many great lords. And ever, in all manner of places, Sir Lavaine got great worship, that he was nobly renowned among many of the knights of the Round Table. Thus it passed on until Christmas, and every day there were jousts made for a diamond, that whosoever joust best should have a diamond. But Sir Launcelot would not joust, but if it were a great joust cried; but Sir Lavaine jousted there all the Christmas passing well, and most was praised; for there were few that did so well as he; wherefore all manner of knights deemed that Sir Lavaine should be made a Knight of the Round Table, at the next high feast of Pentecost.”

Christmas Entertainments of King Arthur extracted from: Christmas: Its Origin and Associations – Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries. Dawson, William Francis. (1902)

[1] Tennyson.
[2] “History of Winchester.”
[3] “History of King Arthur and His Noble Knights.”

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