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{{Short description|Staff dining table at some universities}}
{{distinguish|Bar table}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
[[File:The Hall, Merton College, Oxford-geograph-3159217.jpg|thumb|View towards the High Table in the dining hall of [[Merton College, Oxford]].  The lower tables have a mixture of chair and bench seating.]]

The origin of "High Table" goes back to the physical layout of the dining halls of English colleges at Oxford and Cambridge Universities.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.princeton.edu/~gradcol/perm/hightable.htm | title=GC History: High Table }}</ref>

The '''high table''' is a table for the use of [[fellow]]s (members of the [[Senior Common Room]]) and their guests in university dining halls, where the students eat in the main space of the hall at the same time. They remain the norm at [[Oxford University|Oxford]] and [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]], followed by [[Trinity College Dublin|Dublin]] and [[Durham University|Durham]] universities, which are all organized into colleges. Other academic institutions (such as [[University of London]]; [[University of St Andrews]];<ref>[https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/accommodation/ug/residences/stsalvators/ St Salvator's Hall]</ref> [[University of Manchester]]; [[University of Bristol]] and St. David's University College in the UK; [[Queen's University at Kingston|Queen's University]]; the [[University of Notre Dame]] in the United States; [[Trinity College, Toronto|Trinity College]] and [[Massey College, Toronto|Massey College]] at the [[University of Toronto]], [[St Paul's College, University of Sydney]]; and [[University of Hong Kong]]) also have high tables. 
   
The table is normally at the end of the dining hall on a raised platform, although this is not always the case. Typically, the high table is set across the breadth of the hall, and is thus at right angles to the tables in use by the main body of diners, which stretch along the hall's length. On more formal evening occasions, [[dinner jacket]]s are worn. It is also still common to wear [[academic dress|academic gowns]], at least for dinner.

The high table preserves what was the normal style of eating in large houses in the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, when the whole household ate together in one hall, but in segregated and sharply differentiated styles. Traditionally the high table had chairs and the other tables benches, but today many halls have all-chair seating.  The food is generally different, often completely so.<ref>[[Roy Strong|Strong, Roy]], ''Feast: A History of Grand Eating'', pp. 102-105, 2002, Jonathan Cape, {{ISBN|0224061380}}</ref>

Other bastions of this dining layout include some boarding schools (including the fictional [[Hogwarts]]) and the [[Inns of Court]] in London.

"High table" is sometimes used figuratively in a variety of ways to suggest things thought to be characteristic of [[Oxbridge]] fellows. 
[[File:S95HighTableFitzwilliam.jpg|250px|thumb|High Table in dining hall, [[Fitzwilliam College]], [[University of Cambridge]]]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{commons category|Halls of Colleges of Oxford University}}
{{commons category|Halls of Colleges of Cambridge University}}

* [http://scr.chu.cam.ac.uk/hightables.php High Table] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080528130706/http://scr.chu.cam.ac.uk/hightables.php |date=28 May 2008 }} at [[Churchill College, Cambridge]]
* [http://www.princeton.edu/~gradcol/perm/hightable.htm High Table] at [[Princeton University]]

[[Category:Tables (furniture)]]
[[Category:Terminology of the University of Cambridge]]
[[Category:Terminology of the University of Oxford]]
[[Category:Traditions]]
[[Category:Dining]]


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