INTRODUCTION.

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to the proclamations made on that occasion, and which are

shown by the date of those Writs, to have referred to the Feast

of the Round Table. Had any other Writs of that nature been

*

issued, they would also have been recorded : hence it is evidentthat the only Jousts held at Windsor between January andApril in 1344, were those at the revival of the Round Table, atwhich time the Symbol of the Order does not appear to havebeen devised, and it certainly was not worn by the King.

The detection of other discrepancies in Froissart’s narrative,together with some facts not hitherto applied to the purpose,will throw new light on the true origin of the noble Fraternity.

The public muniments, and early, if not contemporary,Chronicles, prove that in January 1344, King Edward the Thirdheld the “ Feast of the Round Table” at Windsor Castle, inimitation of, and apparently with the design of reviving, thefamous Society of King Arthur, to which Knights and Esquiresof all Countries were invited. 7 8 There is every reason to believethat Edward intended that this Feast should be celebratedannually; and as King Arthur’s Round Table consisted of manyKnights, 9 and as the ancient Society was the prototype of thenew, it may reasonably be presumed that a certain number ofKnights were selected in 1344 to form it; and if that numberwer e forty, Froissart’s mistake in saying that the Order of theGarter consisted of forty Companions, probably arose from his

7 This Writ will be found in p. 6, postea, note 7.

8 All the authorities are collected in pp. 6 and 9 postea; and see the WardrobeAccounts of 1344 and 1345, ut supra.

9 See some remarks on the number of the Knights of King Arthur’s Round Table in theAdditional Notes.

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