The Holy Grail

History and Legend

Juliette M Wood

• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780708325247
• eBook ISBN: 9780708326268
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: Literature

The Holy Grail is one of the most fascinating themes in medieval literature. It was described as the vessel used by Jesus to celebrate the first Eucharist and it became the object of the greatest quest undertaken by King Arthur s knight. This book examines the traditions attached to the Holy Grail from its first appearance in medieval romance through its transformation into an object of mystical significance in modern literature and film. It is a journey filled with knightly quests, mystics and holy relics, poets and novelists, outlandish speculation and serious thought.

1

THE SOURCES OF THE GRAIL ROMANCES

THE QUEST FOR THE GRAIL in Arthurian romance begins when the young knight, Perceval is invited by a lame nobleman to visit his castle. He witnesses a mysterious procession during dinner in which a squire enters bearing a bleeding lance followed by a beautiful girl who carries a mysterious jewelled object called un graal. They in turn are accompanied by candle bearers, a woman carrying an elaborate dish (called un tailleor) and by courtiers dressed in mourning. Perceval is too polite to enquire about this strange procession and the next day he awakes to find the castle empty. As he travels onwards, he meets a young woman who berates him for failing to ask whom the grail serves. Dispirited and confused, he begins a quest that will lead him back to the mysterious castle and to an understanding of the grail itself.

The search for the Holy Grail is one among many adventures of the knights and ladies of Arthurian tradition. These narratives, retold in the pages of medieval romance, reflect the aspirations of an aristocratic elite, the men and women who dominated the medieval world. The story of the grail and of the knights who seek it occurs in a relatively small number of romances composed during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The earliest account appears in a French verse-romance written about 1180 by Chrétien de Troyes. All subsequent treatments of the theme are based to some extent on this. The authors of these romances offered different explanations for the events in Chrétien’s original story and introduced new themes, but the romances that followed Chrétien do not form an orderly cycle, and no consistent ‘grail story’ ever emerges. The idea that there was a coherent romance narrative about an object called the grail only emerged once scholars had access to modern editions of the romances.

Chrétien de Troyes composed five Arthurian romances. We know little of the author’s personal history, but there are some intriguing possibilities.¹ The town of Troyes in the Champagne region of France was probably his birthplace, and some medieval scholars have detected traces of local dialect in his French. Chrétien tells us that one of his patrons gave him a book containing the story of the grail and that he based his romance on this. There is no way to know whether such a book existed. It may be the author’s elegant way of acknowledging the support of a generous patron, Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders who went on crusade in 1191 and to whom the Story of the Grail was dedicated. Chrétien never finished the tale. Either Philip’s death on crusade or Chrétien’s own death might account for why it is incomplete. What we can glean of Chrétien’s life locates him in the courtly world of north-east France and Flanders in the twelfth century, but he might well have moved in similar aristocratic circles in the court of the Angevin king, Henry II of England and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Her daughter, Marie of Champagne was also Chrétien’s patron, and Marie’s uncle by marriage, Henry of Blois, the Anglo-Norman Abbot of Glastonbury (1101–71) was a contemporary of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Gerald of Wales and William of Malmesbury, writers who helped popularise the Arthurian legend. King Henry II had a political and personal interest in the legend of Arthur that prompted the search for Arthur’s grave in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey.

Chrétien called his poem The Story of the Grail (Le conte du graal), and it was probably composed some time between 1180 and 1190.² Early copyists however, often used the name of the hero, Perceval who first appears as an immature youth living in the wilds of Wales with his mother who sought refuge there after the death of her husband and other sons. His mother reluctantly watches Perceval depart to fulfil his true vocation after the boy sees knights riding through the forest and aspires to become like them. At Arthur’s court a girl predicts future greatness for the lad despite taunts from the churlish Sir Kay. Perceval wins a suit of armour from a knight who has stolen Queen Guinevere’s cup and becomes squire to a nobleman who advises him on the modest behaviour expected of a knight. Eventually he sets out again to visit his mother.

After many adventures and his first love affair with the beautiful Blancheflor, he accepts hospitality from a man whom he observes fishing in a river. Thus Perceval finds himself at the grail castle, home of the Fisher King. Before dinner his crippled host presents him with a sword, which, he says, was destined for him. During the meal Perceval witnesses a strange procession in which magnificent objects are carried through the dining hall. A young man bearing a bleeding lance crosses the room followed by two more boys carrying candlesticks. A maiden carrying a jewelled object so bright that it dims the candles follows them, and mourners in turn follow her. Mindful of his mentor’s advice about modest behaviour, Perceval does not ask his host about these wonders despite the fact that this procession is repeated several times during the meal. The next morning he rides away from a seemingly deserted castle, but almost immediately sees a maiden under a tree who bemoans the fact that he did not enquire about the lance or the grail. Perceval returns to Arthur’s court where a loathly maiden also denounces him for failing to ask the proper question during the banquet. As a result, she tells him, the Fisher King remains in misery and his land prey to marauders. Perceval and Gawain, another important Arthurian knight, leave the security of Arthur’s court to search for the grail, and they wander for a long time. On Good Friday, Perceval meets a hermit who is also his uncle. This hermit uncle explains that the Fisher King is Perceval’s cousin, and that a masswafer from the grail miraculously sustains another king in the castle, the Fisher King’s wounded father, Perceval’s maternal uncle.

The grail, called un graal in Chrétien’s romance, is not a sacred relic or even a chalice-like cup, but a large jewelled dish used for serving food, and it does not dominate the romance plot. The sword, which Perceval is given before the feast, symbolizes his development as a knight just as much as the grail, while Gawain’s quest focuses on another element of the procession, the bleeding lance. The Fisher King’s illness is the result of a battle wound and his land is jeopardized because the ruler is unable to defend it, not because of any magic curse. The girl sitting under the tree, whom Perceval meets when he leaves the Fisher King’s castle, warns him that his sword will break at the hour of his greatest need. This and many other incidents are left unexplained in the unfinished romance. Fortunately, four subsequent romances, called Continuations, took up the story of Chrétien’s grail. These very different attempts to complete the work transformed the grail into the sacramental object we know today.³

The First Continuation, completed before 1200 by an unknown author, concentrated on the adventures of Gawain who visits the grail castle twice. A weeping girl holds aloft ‘the Holy Grail’, and the bleeding lance in the procession is identified with the Lance of Longinus, the Roman centurion who pierced Christ’s side at the Crucifixion. The grail procession also includes the body of a dead knight on a bier with a broken sword laid beside him, and Gawain is given an added task to mend it. On his second visit Gawain sees the grail, which provides food for everyone, floating about the hall, but he falls asleep and fails to ask the question. This romance was written only a decade after Chrétien’s original, but already another writer, Robert de Boron, had transformed the object from a mysterious jewelled dish into ‘The Holy Grail’ and added yet another source for writers to draw on.

The author of the Second Continuation (1200–10), Wauchier de Danaing, shifted the focus back to Perceval. He sees candles burning in a forest and learns the next day that they are a sign of the presence of ‘the rich king fisherman’ and the grail. Eventually Perceval sees the lights again and enters the Fisher King’s castle. Here, maidens carry both the grail and the lance and a young boy brings in the broken sword, although Perceval cannot mend it completely. New adventures that do not relate directly to the grail but reflect Perceval’s growing appreciation of the ideals of knighthood were introduced into the Continuation texts. These include the Chapel Perilous adventures which involve battles in a mysterious cemetery and a visit to a sinister chapel whose candles are extinguished by a mysterious black hand. There is also a magic chessboard and a hunting dog and white stag which belong to Perceval’s lady love and which he must retrieve before he can continue his search for the grail.

It was left to Manessier, the author of the Third Continuation (c.1210–1220) to complete the stories of Perceval and Gawain. Although the grail appears several times in this romance, the broken sword is equally important. This sword wounds the Fisher King and his brother, but after Perceval repairs it, the sword becomes the means for him to avenge his family. An angel carrying the grail heals Perceval’s wounds, but only after he avenges his family does he witness the grail procession again. In this romance, the procession includes a covering for the grail, reinforcing the image of a chalice covered by its protective paten, as it would be during a Christian Mass. The Fisher King explains that the lance belonged to Longinus and the cup was used by Joseph of Arimathea to collect Christ’s blood at the Crucifixion. Perceval accepts his rightful inheritance as grail king, and after ruling for seven years, he becomes a hermit. When he dies, the grail, lance, paten, and by implication the sword, go with him. The Fourth Continuation by Gerbert de Montreuil (c.1230) offers an alternative resolution to the grail romance. It takes up the story after Perceval’s first failure to mend the sword. After many adventures, the knight returns to the grail castle to complete his quest. Although the attempts to finish Chrétien’s narrative underline the story’s popularity, they did not produce a coherent explanation for the grail.

Two thirteenth-century prologues, written in the manner of modern prequels, give additional background to the grail story. The Bliocadran Prologue (1200–10) narrates the history of Perceval’s family. ⁴ His father, Bliocadran, was the last of twelve brothers. After his death in a tournament, his wife hid the infant Perceval in a forest in an effort to shield him from the dangers of knighthood’s fighting code. In the Elucidation Prologue (1200–10) golden cups are stolen from a group of female well attendants. This is a common folktale theme about women whose lives are bound up with water sources, and the episode is linked to the loss of the Fisher King’s castle. Eventually Arthur’s knights avenge the maidens, Perceval and Gawain restore the grail castle and the grail floats mysteriously around the hall during a feast bringing sustenance to all.⁵

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, a Burgundian poet named Robert de Boron introduced a critical innovation to the story by identifying the grail with the cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. Like Chrétien, Robert had a crusader-patron, Gautier de Montbéliard, and he too never completed his ambitious project. Robert planned a trilogy of romances, Joseph of Arimathea, Merlin and Perceval that would trace the history of the grail through the wanderings of St Joseph into the world of Arthur and to its conclusion in the quest undertaken by the grail knights. Only Joseph of Arimathea and a fragment of Merlin survive, but fortunately a later prose redaction, the Roman du Graal gives the story as Robert intended it.⁶ In de Boron’s version of the grail story, Pontius Pilate presented the cup that was used during the Last Supper to Joseph of Arimathea who, in turn, collected Christ’s blood in it. This grail sustained Joseph in prison, and later, Joseph and his companions became the protectors of the sacred vessel. His brother-in-law, Hebron (Bron) caught a fish for a sacred feast, and at this point the Holy Grail is named specifically. It brings joy, but it also distinguishes true followers from false ones. In Robert de Boron’s romance, the grail meal parallels the Last Supper story creating new links with biblical history. Eventually Joseph returns to Arimathea, while Bron becomes the Rich Fisher who journeys with the grail to Britain. Alain, one of Bron’s twelve sons, also goes to Britain to await Perceval who will be keeper of the grail. In the Merlin romance, Arthur’s magician constructs the Round Table in imitation of Joseph’s grail table, which in its turn commemorated the Last Supper. Merlin also creates the Siege Perilous for the knight most worthy of the grail. All of Arthur’s knights undertake the quest for the Holy Grail, and the events follow a pattern similar to Chrétien’s original. Perceval fails to ask the question during his first visit to the castle of Bron, the Fisher King, and must undertake more adventures until he meets the hermit. The second time Perceval does ask the question, at which point the grail king is cured and Perceval takes his place. Eventually Merlin retires to the woods to dictate the story for posterity.⁷

The Joseph of Arimathea material derives from an Apocrypha text, a section of the Gospel of Nicodemus known as the Acts of Pilate. Although never incorporated into the Bible, the Apocrypha provided additional background to biblical events. There is no mention of a grail in the Apocrypha, only that Joseph’s faith miraculously sustained him in prison, but in Robert de Boron’s version, the grail is interpolated into the biblical account to create a kind of parallel Apocrypha within the romance. Even after the grail had become identified with the Last Supper and Perceval’s quest completed, there remained many incidents in the story which could be further developed and elaborated, and the medieval romance genre was one in which elaboration and complex symbolism were highly regarded.

In the Didot-Perceval romance, composed in the second decade of the twelfth century, Perceval attempts to sit in the forbidden Siege Perilous. The grail appears, but the stone seat splits, and a voice declares a quest to lift the enchantments which Perceval’s ill-advised action has caused. Although all the knights undertake this quest, only Perceval learns the secret of the Holy Grail. He asks the proper question, which cures the Fisher King and repairs the Siege Perilous, and he remains to rule the grail castle. The grail theme in this romance is set within the wider Arthurian saga, and after Perceval becomes grail king, the tale continues with Arthur’s further adventures.⁸

Perlesvaus or The High Book of the Grail is a French prose romance written at the beginning of the thirteenth century.⁹ The author’s patron was the crusader lord, Jean de Nesle, and he too was associated with Flanders. The Perlesvaus romance imbued the chivalric elements drawn from Chrétien and Robert de Boron with religious and spiritual intensity. This, we are told, is the story of ‘the holy vessel called the grail’. The romance opens with a lethargic Arthur uninterested in the great deeds he once performed, until Guinevere reproaches him. A maiden from the court of the Fisher King arrives during a feast, bearing the heads of knights who have died because they failed to ask the right question. Gawain makes the first, unsuccessful, attempt to accomplish the quest. He sees two maidens; one carrying the Holy Grail, the other a bleeding lance, and the grail appears as a chalice, then as a child, and finally as a crucified king. Gawain, however, is a silent witness to these events. Worse follows when Lancelot comes to the castle, as his adulterous love for the queen means that he sees nothing. In a vision, Perlesvaus’s sister witnesses a spirit battle in a mysterious cemetery. She hears a voice declare that...

Table of contents

• Cover
• HALF TITLE PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• LIST OF ILLUSTRATONS
• INTRODUCTION
• 1: THE SOURCES OF THE GRAIL ROMANCES
• 2: THE CHARACTERS IN THE GRAIL QUEST
• 3: VISIONS OF THE GRAIL
• 4: FROM WALES TO GLASTONBURY
• 5: SECRET GRAILS AND HIDDEN MESSAGES
• 6: CHAPELS, MONUMENTS AND RELICS
• CONCLUSION
• NOTES
• SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
• PICTURE SECTION