The Encyclopedia of Arda - Great Hall of Feasts (original) (raw)
The feasting-hall of Minas Tirith
The Great Hall of Feasts within the High City of Minas Tirith1
The Great Hall of Feasts within the High City of Minas Tirith1
A hall in the Citadel of Gondor on the topmost tier of Minas Tirith, where the Steward or the King would provide feasts for his guests. The hall stood to the north, apart from the White Tower that dominated the Citadel (that is, to one entering the Citadel through the Seventh Gate, the Great Hall of Feasts lay to the right of the White Tower).1
We have no detailed history of the Great Hall of Feasts (also called Merethrond in Elvish), but given the history of the Citadel it must have been standing for centuries at the time of the War of the Ring, and indeed the hall might have dated back to the time of the former Kings of Gondor. The White Tower beside it had originally been raised by King Calimehtar in III 1900, and this seems a reasonable (if speculative) date for the building of the Great Hall that formed part of the same complex of buildings.
Throughout its long history, the Great Hall must have seen numerous feasts held by many Rulers of Gondor, but only one of these feasts is recorded in any detail. This was on 18 July III 3019, and saw a feast held by the new King Aragorn Elessar to welcome the return of King Éomer of Rohan before they set out for Rohan with the funeral procession of Théoden.
Notes
| 1 | The brief mention of the Great Hall of Feasts in the text of The Lord of the Rings gives no clues to its location, other than the fact that it clearly stood within Minas Tirith. In volume IX of The History of Middle-earth, however, Christopher Tolkien describes a sketch-map of the Citadel made by his father that explains its layout in some detail, including the location of the Great Hall of Feasts relative to the Citadel's other buildings. |
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- Updated 19 July 2024
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