T h e Legends of

T h e Holy Grail

By

Alfred Nutt

Published by David Nutt, at the
Sign of the Phoenix, Long Acre, London
1902

PREFACE
T H E present study follows the lines of my previous work
upon the subject: " Studies on the Legend of the Holy
Grail, with special reference to the hypothesis of its
Celtic Origin, 1888," in so far as I first lay before the
reader the facts in the shape of brief summaries of the
romances, and then endeavour to interpret these facts in
the most natural and unforced manner. Limits of space
have compelled me to cite only the salient, absolutely
essential facts, to disregard many secondary points on
which I dwelt fully in my 1888 work, and to discard
absolutely all polemic against other investigators of
the G-rail literature. I may say briefly that the conclusions to which I came in 1888 have, in the main, been
strengthened by the subsequent course of research, in
especial by the work of Miss Weston, to whom are due
the most pregnant and illuminating suggestions in the
field of Arthurian study during the last ten years, and
whom I must thank for reading the proofs of the following pages and for many valuable remarks.
In the Bibliographical Appendix I have only cited such
books and articles as have appeared since 1888, with which
the serious student of the cycle needs to make himself
acquainted. For Grail literature prior to 1888 I refer, in
so far as it is not cited in the Appendix, to my previous
work.
ALFKED NUTT.

THE HOLY GRAIL
IN Number 1 of these studies I sketched the
historical and social conditions which determined
the great outburst of romantic literature in the
twelfth century. In Number 4 Miss Weston
enumerated the chief themes and incidents, the
combination of which makes up the Arthurian
cycle, the most prominent and characteristic
example of the mediaeval romantic spirit. One
section of the Arthurian cycle, that which comprises a number of stories describing the search
after, and the history of, a mysterious object known
as the Grail, or the Holy Grail, she left on one
side.
Although now inextricably bound up with
the Arthur legend as a whole, the connection is
late and secondary. In part, at least, the Grail
stories were originally independent of the Arthur
cycle, and they present a series of problems differing, in a marked degree, from those involved in
the consideration of the other Arthurian romances,
and necessitating separate investigation.
Much unnecessary mystery has accumulated
around the Grail stories, and they have become
6
3
A

4

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

the happy hunting ground of mystical enthusiasts.
There are good reasons why this should be so. In
the first place, whatever be the interpretation
placed upon a certain sequence of incidents which
recurs repeatedly and in varying forms in these
stories, it undoubtedly described from the first a
search for wonder-working talismans, the possession
of which constituted, in a measure, a surnmum
bonum ; in the second, this fact was apparent to
several mediaeval writers who have left us their
version of the Grail quest, expressed in the terms
of mediaeval Christian mysticism ; thirdly, and this
is perhaps the chief reason, several of the Grail
stories, and notably one of the oldest and most
important, have come down to us in an unfinished
or fragmentary form. W e cannot be sure how
this or that writer conceived the story as a whole,
or in what sense he figured the Grail to himself.
Thus we have the primary and essential element
of mystery inherent in every story which sets
forth a quest for that which transcends the ordinary
conditions of human life ; we have the secondary,
but also essential, element of mediaeval mystical
interpretation ; finally, we have the purely accidental element of fragmentary and enigmatic presentation. I t is not surprising if, under these
circumstances, so much nonsense has been written
about the Grail.
The chief cause which has led many able, learned ?
64

TWO CLASSES OF V E R S I O N S

5

and ingenious men to spin idle theories deserves a
moment's consideration. I n the immense and
confused mass of the Grail romances some particular fact or set of facts has been picked out,
isolated from its setting, and interpreted without
reference to the romances as a whole. The only
way to avoid this error is to survey, however briefly,
all the essential facts, and to arrange them in the
order of their development. To understand how
the?e stories came to assume their present shape is
to be near understanding what they originally
meant.
The Grail romances, of which I propose to
enumerate, succinctly but sufficiently, the leading
themes, incidents, and sequences of incident, may
be divided into two main classes. In the first, the
chief stress is laid upon the adventures connected
with the quest for certain talismans, of which the
Grail is only one, and upon the personality of the
hero who achieves the quest; in the second, upon
the nature and history of these talismans. The first
may be styled the Quest, the second the Early
History versions ; but these designations must not
be taken as implying that either class is solely
concerned with one aspect of the legend.
FIRST CLASS: QI EST VERSIONS.

Chief among these is the vast poetic compilation
known as the Conte del Graal. This mass of
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6

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

over 60,000 verses came into existence between
1180 and 1235, or 1240, but we can only date
with any accuracy the section which extends from
v. 1283 to v. 10,601, and is the work of the most
celebrated French poet of the twelfth century,
Orestien deTroies, who began to write about 1150,
has left a number of romances, mostly belonging
to the Arthur cycle, and who died about 1181. H e
himself states that he took the story from a book
given him by a Count Philip of Flanders, who
died, Crusading, in 1191, after having been Regent
of France in 1180-81.
Conte del G-raal: Crestien.—Perceval is
brought up by his mother in the forest to which
she has retired. Purposely kept in ignorance of
all that relates to chivalry and warfare, he one
day meets and questions a band of passing
knights. Neither the warnings nor the entreaties
of his mother avail to prevent his following them
to Arthur's court. Thence, after adventures which
foreshadow his future eminence in knighthood,
he rides forth in search of further adventures. H e
is welcomed and trained in all manner of knightly
exercises by Gonemans, who, amid other recommendations, bids him avoid over-readiness in
speaking and asking questions. Leaving Gonemans, he succours an oppressed damsel, Blanchefleur (Gonemans' niece), with whom he stays
66

CONTE D E L GRAAL

7

awhile. Again he roves forth, chances upon two
fishermen, and is directed for a night's lodging
to a castle hard by. Entering, he is led into a
great hall wherein is a couch and upon it an old
man. A squire enters bearing a sword upon
which is written that it will never break save in
sore peril. The host gives it to Perceval, " t o
whom it was adjudged and destined.'' Another
squire enters bearing a lance from which blood
drips. Perceval would have asked concerning
this wonder, but minds him of the counsel not to
speak or inquire too much. Two more squires
enter, each with a two-branched candlestick, and
a damsel, in her hand a " g r a a l " ; this shines
and puts out the light of the candles as the sun
does that of the stars. A second damsel follows
holding a silver plate. At supper the " graal "
is again brought, but Perceval does not venture
to ask wherefor it is used. On the morrow,
awakening, he finds the castle deserted, his horse
saddled, and the drawbridge down. He rides
forth, and the drawbridge closes so suddenly as
well-nigh to crush horse and rider.
I n the
forest he meets a damsel lamenting over a dead
knight. She tells him his last night's host was
the fisherman who had directed him to the
castle ; wounded by a spear thrust through both
thighs his only solace was in fishing, whence he
was called the Fisher King. She asks if Perceval
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T H E HOLY G R A I L ;
had seen the bleeding lance, the " graal," the
silver dish—had he asked their meaning ? No !
then what was his name ? Perceval le Gallois!
Nay, rather Perceval the Caitiff, for had he
asked concerning what he saw, the good king
would have been made whole again. She is
Perceval's cousin. After many adventures Perceval returns to Arthur's court. The following
day a damsel, more hideous than could be pictured
outside hell, appears, and curses Perceval for
omitting to ask concerning lance and grail; had
he done so the king would have been healed of
his wound and ruled his land in peace; now
maidens will be put to shame, orphans and
widows made, many knights slain. She further
tells of adventures to be achieved at the Castle
Orgellous, and of Montesclaire where a damsel
is held captive. Gauvain (Sir Gawain) will
forth to the imprisoned damsel, Gines to the
Castle Orgellous, Perceval to learn concerning
Grail and lance. Nothing is said of Gines'
adventures, but those of Gauvain are related at
great length. Of Perceval we learn that after
wandering five years without thinking of God,
he meets on Good Friday a band of penitents, is
rebuked for riding armed on such a day, and is
bidden to confess to a hermit hard by, who turns
out to be his uncle: Perceval has sinned in
leaving his mother and thereby causing her
68

OONTE D E L G R A A L

9

death, and for this reason could not ask concerning lance and grail. The story returns to
Gauvain, in the midst of whose adventures it
breaks oft'.
Crestien tells us, then, of a precious object, the
" graal/' preserved in company with other talismans, a bleeding lance, a broken sword, in a mysterious castle ; of a hero wTho visits this castle ; who
should have asked concerning its wonders ; refrains
from so doing, and thereby draws down upon his
head bitter reproaches and long wanderings. Had
he finished his poem he would, doubtless, have
told us exactly what the " graal " was, why it and
the lance were precious, and the nature of the
relation between the hero and the wounded fisher
king. As it is, we must turn for this information
elsewhere, and we cannot be sure that what we
find corresponds to Crestien's plan.
Conte del Graal: the Continuators of
Crestien.—Several continuations exist which,
from the vague indications yielded by their
authors, maybe dated between 1190 and 1240.
I t is noteworthy that Gauvain's adventures fill
nearly as much space as do those of Perceval
himself; he, too, is brought to a castle, in which
a dead knight lies on a bier ; lance and sword
and Grail appear; Gauvain asks concerning
these objects, but falls asleep in the midst of
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10

THE HOLY GRAIL;

his host's recital. On the morrow he wakes
on the sea strand, finds the country-side,
heretofore desert, bursting into blossom, and
is at once blessed and banned by the country
folk, blessed for having partly delivered the
land from its curse, banned for not having
wholly succeeded. This adventure occurs in the
first continuation, due to a certain GAUTIER, who
relates many adventures of Perceval, which seem
to have no connection with Grail and lance.
Thus he has an amour with a Water-fay, inmate
of a castle in which is a magic chess-board which
plays by itself against the hero ('tis a work of
Moryhe la Fee); she sends him in pursuit of a
stag which he slays, but is deprived of the fruit
of his success by a "maid of ill chance." H e
comes again to the Fisher King, asks the
necessary questions, and is then given the
broken sword to weld together, a task to be
accomplished by none save a lover of God and
of His spouse, Holy Church. H e succeeds save
for one little crack, is embraced by the Fisher
King, and hailed lord of his house. I n another
continuation, thatof MANESSIER, Perceval achieves
the adventure of the castle by slaying Partinaus
of the Red Tower, nephew of Espinogre, who
had treacherously slain Goon Desert, the Fisher
King's brother, in revenge for his uncle's death.
The sword with which the foul blow was struck
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WOLFRAMS PARZIVAL

11

broke, and the pieces might only be rejoined by
the destined avenger; in handling them the
Fisher King was wounded. On seeing Partinaus' head the king leaps to his feet, is straightway made whole, hails Perceval as his nephew,
and is succeeded by the latter at his death. In
yet another continuation, that of GERBERT, stress
is laid upon Perceval's forsaking Blanchefleur,
whom, after avenging her uncle Gornumant
upon a hideous witch, he rejoins and marries
(being assured in a dream that of his seed shall
be the Swan Elnight and the Deliverer of the
Holy Sepulchre), comes again to the Fisher
King's castle and pieces together the sword.
In addition to these varying statements concerning Perceval's achievement of the task laid upon
him by the hideous damsel, the continuations to
Crestien (some 50,000 lines in all) yield several
accounts concerning the nature, origin, and history of the Grail and lance. Before discussing
these we must first examine a German, a Welsh,
and an English romance, the contents of which are
closely allied to Crestien's poem, and, in part, to the
continuations.

The Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach.
-—This is a metrical romance, written certainly not
later than 1215, as Wolfram died about 1220, and
wrote his William of Orange after the Parzival.

12

THE HOLY G R A I L ;

Wolfram claims to follow a French poem by a certain Kiot (i.e,, Guiot). Crestien's poem is mentioned, but disparagingly :
The hero's father, Gahmuret, son of Gandin
of Anjou, goes to the East, wins the love of a
heathen queen, Belakane, whom, after a while,
he leaves to go back to his own country,
and who in his absence bears a son, Feirefiz.
Gahmuret meanwhile has married Herzeloyde ;
returning to the East he is slain in battle.
[Here begins the portion of the poem which
agrees with that of Crestien, the chief differences being as follows]: The more important
position assigned to Parzival's cousin; the far
greater prominence of the Grail, described as
a stone yielding all manner of food and drink;
its power sustained by a dove which every
Good Friday lays a Host upon i t ; given
after the fall of the rebel angels to Titurel and
his dynasty; preserved by them in the Grail
castle, Monsalvatch, and guarded by a sacred
order of knights, the Templeisen, whom it
chooses itself. These knights are vowed to
virginity, their king alone being allowed marriage, and his incurable wound is due to his
having taken up arms in the cause of worldly
and unlawful love. The question Parzival should
have put to him is, " What aileth thee, uncle ?"
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WOLFRAM'S P A R Z I V A L

13

When he leaves the castle after the first visit he
is mocked at by the inmates for having omitted
the question. More stress is laid upon the
broken sword, connected with which is a magic
spell, to be mastered before Parzival can become
master of the Grail castle. In the interview
with the hermit uncle Parzival is strongly urged
to return to his wife Condwiramur [Crestien's
BJan3hefleur].
Gauvain's adventures are far
more closely connected with the story of the
chief hero than is the case in Orestien, though
this may be due to the latter's poem breaking oft'
in their midst. In the concluding portion of
the work, to which nothing corresponds in
Grestien, Parzival fights, unknowing, against
his half-brother, Feirefiz, the fight being stopped
by mutual recognition. The hideous damsel reappears, and bids Parzival to the Grail castle,
where he is rejoined by wife and two sons; Feirefiz
is baptized, weds the damsel who has care of the
Grail, returns to the East, and is the father
of Prester John. Parzival rules over the Grail
kingdom, and his son, Loherangrain, is Knight
of the Swan.
In comparing Wolfram with Crestien several
points are worthy close attention. The Crusading
tone of the introductory history of the hero's father
is noticeable in connection with the fact that the
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14

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

order of Grail knights is obviously intended to
suggest the great Crusading Order of the Knights
Templar. As the whole of this part of the work
is connected with a genealogical legend of the
Angevin princes (our English Plantagenets), and
betrays Southern French affinities in the personal
and place-names, which differ greatly from those in
Crestien, it is impossible that it can be the invention of the German poet, who must, in these particulars at least, be following a French source, which,
again, must have been very different from Crestien.
Once admit the existence of this French source and
it seems simpler to refer to it the very important
difference between the presentment of the Grail in
the two works rather than to attribute it to Wolfram. With Crestien the Grail is distinctly a vessel,
with Wrolfram a stone ; the former insists little, the
latter much, upon its fonr' giving properties. In
Crestien, the Fisher Kind's wound has no moral
justification ; in Wolfram, it is the punishment of
the king's sin in breaking his vow. I n Crestien, the
question relates to the nature of the talisman and
the use to which it is p u t ; in Wolfram, primarily
to the sufferer from the effects of sin, secondarily
to the hero who can only attain full perfection by
sympathetic compassion with the suffering caused
by sin. This deepened and intensified spiritual
interpretation of the incident cannot be disassociated from the Crusading framework and the
74

PEBEDUR

15

modelling of the Grail knighthood upnr that of
the Temp] 9.
Peredur, t h e son of Evrawc.—This is a
Welsh romance, known to us from MSS. of the
thirteenth century:
The earlier portion corresponds closely in
sequence and general character of the incidents
with Crestien's poem.
But there is marked
difference in the scene at the Fisher King's
castle. What Peredur sees is first, a lance dripping blood, then a salver in which is a man's
head swimming in blood; nothing answers to
the Grail. After this adventure the Welsh tale,
whilst agreeing generally with Crestien, has
special features. Thus Peredur defends a castle
against the Sorceresses of Gloucester, one of
whom hails him as their destined overcomer,
yet from whom he learns chivalry and the use
of arms. There is also a large section (nearly
one third of the tale) to which nothing answers
either in Crestien or in any extant French work.
I n the latter part of the tale, after the appearance of the hideous damsel, the Welsh, whilst
offering to a large extent the same sequence of
incidents as in Crestien and Gautier, relates
them in a far more coherent and intelligible
manner. For the tale closes with the appearance of a youth who reveals himself as Peredur's

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THE HOLY GRAIL;
cousin—he it was had borne the bloody head in
the salver; he, in the guise of the hideous damsel, had incited Peredur to continue the quest;
he had intervened in the chess-board and staghunt adventures to aid and incite Peredur, his
object being that Peredur should avenge upon
the Sorceresses of Gloucester the death of the
cousin whose head was carried in the salver, and
the laming of the uncle.

The Welsh tale is thus in a large measure a logical
and straightforward version of a hero's vengeance
upon supernatural beings for the injuries inflicted
by them upon his kindred. As is frequently the
case, these supernatural beings know that they
must ultimately succumb, and are indeed constrained to furnish means for their own undoing:
as is again frequently the case, the hero is passive,
almost a dummy, the real protagonist being one of
the injured kinsmen. Had we the story in a purer
form we should find that the injury, so far as he is
concerned, consists in the enchantment of hideous
and unsexing disguise, an enchantment from which
the consummation of the vengeance can alone free
him. The object of the talismans is here to remind
the hero of the wrong done and to supply the
avenging weapon. Peredur, it will be seen, is like
Manessier in being a vengeance story pure and
simple, and like the Gawain visit to the Grail castle
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SIR PERCYVELLE

17

in Gautier, in so far as the head on the salver in
the one case answers to the knight on the bier in
the other.
Sir Percyvelle.—An English metrical romance
found in the Thornton MS., written shortly before
the middle of the fifteenth century; to judge by
the language the romance in its extant form
cannot be much older than the date of transcription.
The opening incidents are similar to those in
Orestien and the Welsh Peredur, but with this
difference: in all three the hero's first adventure
after reaching Arthur's court is to slay a knight
who had offered grievous insult either to Arthur
or to his queen ; in Orestien and in the Welsh
tale little stress is laid upon this incident, but
in the English romance it supplies the backbone
of the story (in Wolfram, too, the incident is
more emphasised than in Orestien). This knight,
known as the Red Knight, had slain Percyvelle's
father and been foredoomed to perish at the
hands of the avenging son; moreover, he has a
witch mother who, later, encounters the hero and
is slain by him, and he has persecuted with his
enmity Percy velle's uncle and cousins. The remainder of the story is taken up by an incident
corresponding to Perceval's deliverance of Blanchefleur in Orestien, and to Percyvelle's rejoining
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THE HOLY G R A I L ;
his mother, who, thinking he was dead, had lost
her senses. H e ultimately goes to the Holy
Land and there dies.

The English romance contains nothing corresponding to the visits to the first uncle (Gonemans) or to the Fisher King, and makes no
mention of the Grail or of any other talisman.
I t is a simple and straightforward version of a
widely-spread tale of a son's vengeance upon
his father's slayers. But for the final touch of
the hero's going to the Holy Land there is no
suggestion of religious colouring.
Before discussing the statements made by the
continuations of Crestien respecting the origin and
nature of the Grail and other talismans beheld by
the hero at the Fisher King's castle, it is advisable
to sum up the evidence on this point already laid
before the reader. One French version (Crestien)
speaks of a sword, a Weeding lance, and a Grail
(a vessel); another (if Wolfram's poem be regarded
as representing a lost French original) of sword
and lance and Grail (a stone); the Welsh tale
mentions a bleeding lance and a head in a
salver; the English romance is silent concerning
any talisman. I n three versions (Conte del Graal,
Wolfram, and Peredur), the talismans are in some
way connected with a hero's restoration to health
of a kinsman. From Crestien we can only surmise
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E V I D E N C E OF E A R L Y V E R S I O N S

19

how or why this happens, but learn from one of his
continuators (Manessier) that it is an effect of successful vengeance ; this is also the case in Peredur,
whilst in Sir Percyvelle there is also an injury
avenged. I n Wolfram, on the other hand, the idea
of vengeance is absent \ the injured kinsman,
suffering from the effects of his own sin, is relieved
when the hero rises to such a height of spiritual
insight as enables him to understand and sympathise with the sin-caused suffering. In the Welsh
story alone, is the machinery by which the vengeance
is effected (talismans and transformed kinsman),
used in a reasonable and intelligible way. We
further note that the scene of all these versions is
laid in Britain, and that the personages are almost
exclusively British, the exceptions being found in
Wolfram, where they are mostly Angevin or
Breton.
We may now turn to the accounts concerning
the nature and origin of the Grail and other talismans to be found in the Gonte del Graal. There
are several, differing in detail, but agreeing substantially, that the Grail is the dish (of the Last
Supper) in which Joseph of Arimathea caught
the blood of the Saviour as H e hung upon the
Cross, and the lance the one wherewith Christ's
body was pierced. Joseph was cast into prison,
miraculously delivered, and, exiled in company
with the sister of Nicodemus (Veronica), who had
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20

THE HOLY G K A I L ;

an image of the Lord, passed into Britain, the promised ]and, with a large following. When short of
food Joseph prayed for the Grail in which had
been gathered the holy blood; it was sent, and the
company had bread and wine and meat in plenty.
After Joseph's death the Grail passed into the
keeping of his kin, from whom both Perceval's
father and the Fisher King were descended. I n
another account Joseph is sustained whilst in captivity by the Grail; when released he has adventures with a heathen king, Evelach, and his brotherin-law, Seraphe, whom he converts and re-names
Mordrains and Nasciens. Yet another account
duplicates Joseph's captivity after his arrival in
England, and the Fisher King is duplicated by
Evelach-Mordrains, wounded for presumption in
approaching too near the Grail, and miraculously
kept alive to be healed by the best of all knights
of Joseph's kin.
These various accounts are found in what are
plainly the latest portions of the vast compilation
known as the Conte del Graal, and in several cases
their disagreement with the context stamps them
as interpolations.
I n asking ourselves if these statements faithfully represent that description of the Grail and
allied talismans, which we must assume to have
been in Orestien's source and which he would have
reproduced had he finished his poem, we cannot
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E V I D E N C E OF E A R L Y VERSIONS

21

fail to note the grave and essential discrepancies between the different portions of the
legend taken as a whole. Why, if the Grail talismans are of such surpassing sanctity, is the vise to
which they are put so apparently profane ? Did
Christ send forth Holy Vessel and lance to Britain
merely that Perceval might heal his kinsman and
succeed him in his kingship, or Gauvain restore
a waste land to fertility, or that the dwellers in the
Grail Castle might feed on the fat of the land ?
Again, is it not significant that the very portion of
the Conte del Graal (Manessier's), which dwells most
lengthily upon the sacred Christian nature of the
talismans, is also that which pictures Perceval's
conduct in as distinctly non-Christian a light as in
the Peredur or Sir Percyvelle ? And how, if the
wThole story started from the sacred nature of the
talismans, hallowed by their association with the
Passion, came the Welsh and English romances to
discard these sacred associations, to omit the most
sacred of the precious objects, and to substitute a
story of blood feud and vengeance unmarked by any
trace of spiritual, let alone specifically Christian,
feeling?
Finally, why does the one version,
Wolfram's, which is animated by deep and lofty
spiritual feeling, not represent the Grail as the
receptacle of Christ's blood ?
These questions suggest the answer that the
Christian legendary statements about the Grail
8j

22

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

talismans are really secondary, and intended to
explain the importance attached to them in the
story of their quest, But before accepting this
answer as correct we must note that Christian
symbolism of some sort is involved in all the quest
stories. Thus alike in Orestien, Wolfram, and the
Peredur is found the Good Friday incident; the
hero having wandered long and far and lost count of
days and seasons, is met on Good Friday by a knight
who rebukes him for riding armed on such a day,
and bids him to confession and absolution. I n
Wolfram, too, the machinery by which the miraculous virtue of the Grail is sustained is distinctively
Christian and connected with Good Friday.
Two elements thus seem to be present, a den
nitely Christian and a possibly non-Christian one,
and although the Christian element in one form
appears late and secondary, yet in some shape or
other it is present in the very oldest versions of the,,
story as a whole.
One thing we could safely postulate, namely, that
the distinctively Christian element traceable in the
Gonte del Graal must exist somewhere else in a
more coherent and rational form. I n effect, two
versions of such a form exist: a prose romance,
known as the Grand St. Graal, of unknown authorship, and a metrical trilogy, due to a certain Robert
de Borron, of which only the first two portions,
Joseph of Arimathea and Merlin, are extant.
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E A R L Y HISTORY OF G R A I L

28

SECOND CLASS OF VERSIONS : EARLY HISTORY OF
THE GRAIL.

Robert de Borron: Joseph of Arimathea,
Merlin.—Borron's poem is dedicated to a Walter,
Count of Montbeliard, a famous Crusader, who
became Regent of Cyprus and Constable of
Jerusalem; he died in 1212, and is not likely to
have been in a position to act as patron before
1170, so that these dates may be taken as limits
for the writing of Borron's romances.
Christ's Passion is described, and how Joseph,
having obtained the Lord's body, washes it and
collects the blood in a vessel. In their anger the
Jews cast him into a prison, where he is visited
by Christ, who gives him the precious vessel
containing His holiest blood and confides secret
words to him : Joseph is to yield the vessel to
three persons only, who are to take it in the
name of the Trinity; he is further instructed
concerning the Sacrament and how he is to
celebrate it. Years pass and Joseph remains in
prison until released by Vespasian. He then
converts many, among them his sister Enygeus
and her husband Brons (or Hebron). Sorrow
falls upon the Christian community through
indulgence in carnal sin. Joseph kneels before
the vessel, weeps, and asks wherefor his people
suffer. He is bidden prepare a table in memory
83

24

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;
of the one whereat Christ ate the Last Supper.
At that table an empty seat is to be left, which
may not be filled until a son is born to Brons
and Enygeus ; a sinner who attempts to occupy
it is swallowed by the e a r t h ; a divine voice then
tells Joseph that not Brons' son but his grandson shall fill the seat. Brons is to catch a fish
and place it on the table by the vessel; by this
means the sinners are detected, and the vessel is
called " Graal," as being agreeable to those who
behold it. I n time Brons and Enygeus have
twelve sons; Joseph, praying before the vessel?
announces that eleven will marry and one, Alain,
remain single. But almost immediately Joseph
is bidden tell Alain all about the vessel, and how
from him there shall issue an heir who is to keep
i t ; Alain is to lead his brethren westwardsThis he does. Another of the company, Petrus
is also commanded by the voice to go to the Vale
of Avaron. Joseph is further told that Brons is
to keep the vessel after his (Joseph's) death, and
is bidden instruct him in the Holy Words God
spake in the prison. Brons is to be known as
the Rich Fisher, from the fish he caught; he
is to wait for his son's son and to give him the
vessel when the meaning of the Blessed Trinity
shall be known. After seeing Brons put in
possession of Grail and headship Petrus departs, followed after three days by Brons,
84

ROBERT DE BORRON

25

Joseph remaining in the land in which he was
born.
The Merlin follows immediately, in substantial
agreement with the other Merlin romances up
to Arthur's withdrawal of the sword from the
anvil, where the author stops, with the remark
that he can no longer speak of Arthur until hp
has told of Alain, son of Brons, what manner of
man he was, of his kin, and of how the woes of
Britain were caused.
It should be noted that Borron's poem, in the
Joseph portion at least, is obviously abridged, and.
possibly, altered in parts by a maladroit editor.
W h a t gives colour to this surmise is that, in
addition to the original metrical form, there exist
several prose versions, in which occur a number of
interpolations designed to bring the text into
conformity with later developments of the legend.
Some such process may already have begun before
the poem was turned into prose, and to it may
be due discrepancies such as that Alain, vowed to
celibacy in one line is married almost in the next,
or that now Brons' son, now his grandson, is to
achieve the venture of the empty seat, and, presumably, to be the Grail-keeper, or that, apparently,
two different accounts of the Grail's arrival in
Britain, in the one case in Alain's, in the other
in Brons' guardianship, have been confused. It
85

26

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

is, however, possible that these discrepancies are
due to Borron himself, and are the result of an
unskilful contamination of two forms of the
legend.
I n spite of these discrepancies, it is noteworthy
that, with the exception of Wolfram's Parzival,
Borron's poem is the only work of the cycle which
is not only animated by a Christian symbolic conception (as are several other romances), but which
carries out that conception in an intelligible
manner by means of the incidents of the story.
This conception may be briefly summarised as
follows : Sin, the cause of want among the people ;
separation of pure and impure by means of the
fish (symbol of Christ); punishment of the selfwilled false disciple ; reward of Brons by charge of
the Grail; symbolising of the Trinity by the three
tables and the three Grail-keepers.
In view of the skill with which the conception is
worked out, it seems more reasonable to attribute
the above noted discrepancies to the existence of
an earlier form of the legend in which there were
only two Grail-keepers, father and son, or uncle
and nephew, traces of which have persisted in
Borron's version.
The Grand St. Graal.—The romance thus
entitled is one of the longest and latest of the
cycle. Allusion to an episode contained in it, and
86

G R A N D ST. G R A A L

27

it alone, is made in the chronicle of a certain
Helinandus, assigned to a date prior to the year
1204, and this has been held by some scholars to
enable the dating of the romance. But the argument is doubtful, firstly, on account of the
extremely composite nature of the Grand St. Graal
in its present form, and, secondly, because the
dating of the passage in Helinandus' Chronicle is
by no means sure.
The romance opens with a prologue in which
the authorship is boldly ascribed to Christ Himself. I t then tells of Joseph of Arimathea, who,
believing in Christ and desiring to possess somewhat belonging to Him, carries off the dish of
the Last Supper, and, having begged Christ's
body from Pilate, uses the dish to collect the
blood flowing therefrom before he places it in
the sepulchre. He is imprisoned, but comforted
by Christ and fed from the holy dish. Delivered
by Vespasian, baptized by St. Philip, he converts
seventy-five of his kin and. friends, and, at the
Lord's command, makes an ark for the dish.
The company, miraculously fed thereby in its
journey through the wilderness, reaches Sarras.
Here Joseph and his son, Josephes, aid and convert Evelach. Josephes is instructed by Christ
how to perform the Sacrament, and is made
sovran shepherd over the new sheep. When the
*7

28

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;
dish is first shown to Evelach's brother-in-law
(who receives the name Nasciens at baptism) he
says it pleases him (li gree) entirely, hence it is
called Great. Josephes, wounded by a lance,
and Nasciens blinded for approaching too near
the Grail, are both healed by an angel, the lance
head being preserved : it shall drop blood at the
beginning of the Wonders of the Holy Grail and
the Lance, and but one man should behold those
marvels of the Grail, and but one other be struck
by the lance, and he should be the last of
Josephes' kin. and his healer, the achiever of the
Grail wonders, should be the last of Nasciens'
kin. Divers adventures of Evelach (baptized
Mordrains) and Nasciens follow, and visions to
Nasciens concerning his descendants (" all these
wonders are true, as Christ Himself wrote the
book of the Holy Grail, and, save it, naught else
but the Lord's Prayer and the judgment on the
woman taken in adultery"). Nasciens finds
Solomon's sword and is wounded by it. The
story returns to Josephes, who leads a choice
company to Great Britain. Here they find
Nasciens' son, Oelidoine. Joseph and Josephes
are imprisoned by King Crudel of North Wales,
but delivered by Mordrains, to whom our Lord
appears in the likeness of one crucified, bidding
him go to Britain. Mordrains retires to a hermitage, building a monastery for white monks,
88

GKAJSTD ST. G E A A L

29

and stays there until Perceval and Galahad see
him, as is told in the tale of the Holy Grail. We
then hear of Brons, who up to now has not been
mentioned ; he brings his twelve sons to Josephes, eleven are married, and the twelfth having
chosen virginity is appointed guardian of the
Grail at Josephes' death. Alain's fishing is
described, and how, having caught a fish which
suffices to feed all the company, he is called the
Rich Fisher, a title borne after him by all the
Grail keepers. We are also told of Petrus, who
converts and marries a heathen princess, and
from whom descends Lot of Orcanie, father of
Gauvain. Also of Galahad, Joseph's son, whom
the men of Hocelice take as their king, and who
is ancestor to Ywain, son of II"rien. Joseph and
Josephes die and the latter confides the Grail to
Alain. A lordly castle bight Corbenic (" Holy
Vessel in Chaldee "), is built for it. For sleeping
in such a holy place a king is wounded through
both thighs. At Alain's death his brother
Josue becomes Grail keeper, and after him six
kings, the last of them Pelles, on whose daughter
Lancelot of the Lake begets Galahad, Lancelot
being, himself, eighth in descent from Oelidoine,
son of Nasciens.
There exist three romances which are con
cerned with the Quest of the Grail, but, neverthe89

30

THE HOLY GRAIL;

less, must be reckoned among the two Eai'ly
History versions just summarised, with which
they are closely connected. One of the three,
known as the Quete del St. Graal, was for long the
most famous work of the cycle, and is still the one
best known to Englishmen, as it was embodied,
almost entire, by Malory in the Morte Darthur.
Malory's work being generally accessible, the story
need only be given briefly.
Quete del St. G-raal.—It tells of Lancelot's
son, Galahad, coming to Arthur's court, of his
achieving the adventure of the Siege Perillous
and the sword in the block; of the appearance
of the Holy Grail, which fills each beholder
with meat such as he longs for; of Gauvain's
vow to go in quest of it for a year and a day,
which the other knights of the Round Table
join in. The adventures which befall Galahad
and the other questers are for the most part
such as are foretold in the Grand St. Graal,
and mostly exemplify the sin of carnal love,
and the ascetic virtue of Galahad. One, however, assigned to Lancelot, is not mentioned
in that romance: Lancelot finds a wounded
knight seeking solace from the Holy Vessel, the
Grail appears, but Lancelot says never a word,
for which aftertimes much mischance was
his ; when he awakes he is bitterly reproached.
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QXJETE D E L GRAAL

31

Perceval finds Mordrains kept alive, having fed
on naught but the Lord's body for 400 years, and
waiting the arrival of the good knight. Lancelot comes to Castle Corbenic, but is struck
insensible and powerless for many days for
approaching too near the Holy Vessel. Galahad,
Perceval, and Bors ultimately come to Castle
Corbenic, where they are joined by nine (or
ten) other knights; Josephes appears and
celebrates the Sacrament for the whole com
pany. Christ makes Himself visible to Galahad and bids him to Sarras whither the Grail
is to depart, Britain being unworthy of it ;
but first he is to heal the maimed king. The
three then go on Solomon's ship, are thrown
into prison and there fed by the Holy Grail;
a final revelation is followed by the death of
Galahad, followed after a year by that of Perceval, who is buried in the same grave. Bors
returns to Britain and tells the adventures of
the Holy Grail, which are written down and
kept in the Abbey of Salisbury, whence Walter
Map drew them to make his book for the love
of King Henry.
The second romance is almost the least known
work of the cycle. I t derives the name under
which it is commonly known (the Didot Perceval),
from the fact that the solitary MS, in which it is
9i

32

THE HOLY GRAIL;

found belonged to the well-known collector,
A. F. Didot.
This MS. also contains prose
versions of Borron's two poems, Joseph of Arimathea and Merlin, and it is natural, at first blush,
to take the Didot Perceval for a prose rendering of
the otherwise lost conclusion of Borron's trilogy.
But this, as we shall see, is certainly not the case,,
Didot Perceval.—The story opens with
Merlin's account of how he made the Round
Table, our Lord having made the first, Joseph
the second, he (Merlin) the third. H e also
tells of the Rich Fisher King who is old and
full of infirmities, and may not be healed until
a good knight comes to ask of what use is the
Grail. The story turns then to Perceval, son
of Alein le Gros, whom, when dying, the Ho]y
Ghost directs to send his son to Arthur's court.
He achieves, though with difficulty, the venture
of the Perillous Seat, learns about Rich Fisher
and Grail, and vows to quest for them. Many
knights make the same vow. Perceval then has
a number of adventures similar to those in
Gautier's section of the Conte del Graal, notably
those at the Chess-board castle and the Stag
Hunt. H e then comes to the Fisher King's
castle, sees lance and silver plate and a vessel in
which was our Lord's blood. He had fain asked,
but fears to displease the king, minding him of
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DIDOT P E R C E V A L

33

the injunction laid upon him not to be over
curious, for a man of idle words is displeasing to
the Lord. In the morning all the inmates of
the castle have disappeared, and on riding'forth
he is reviled. After further adventures the
Good Friday incident occurs ( " t h e songmen in
their pleasing rhymes say nothing of this,"
asserts the writer!).
Merlin then appears,
urges Perceval to go again to his grandfather;
he does so, asks the question, the king is cured,
and the enchantments of Britain cease. Perceval
is instructed concerning lance (the one wherewith
Longis pierced Christ's side) and Grail (the
vessel in which Joseph caught Christ's blood as
it flowed to the ground), so called because it is
agreeable to worthy men. The Holy Ghost bids
Brons teach the secret words our Lord on the
Cross told Joseph; he does so, but the writer
cannot, and may not, say what they were. Brons
is carried off by angels and Perceval remains.
Comparison of this romance with Borron's
undoubted work shows that they cannot be by the
same man. Borron's capacity for working out a
spiritual conception has already been noted. I t is
certain that he did not intend to represent either
Brons or Alain as subject to a mysterious curse,
from which son or grandson was to free them.
He did, on the other hand, intend the visit of the
93
c

84

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

" third man " to exemplify certain spiritual dogmas,
and that this should be worked out through certain
personages and certain incidents which are specified.
Now the Didot Perceval lays almost as much stress
as the Gonte del Graal upon the mysterious malady
of the Fisher King, but it does not exemplify the
spiritual dogmas insisted upon by Borron, and it
neglects or misunderstands the incidents to which
he intended to pay special attention. I t is, in fact,
an incongrous jumble of hints from Borron's work,
and a confused version of the Gonte del Graal.
I t s intention, which is undoubted, to be a sequel
to Borron's poems, makes it almost certain that he
never completed his trilogy.
Perceval le Gallois.—The third romance will
be known to many English readers, thanks to Dr.
Sebastian Evans' exquisite English version, styled
the High History of the Holy Grail.
I t is also
known as the Perlesvaus, but it will be convenient to designate it by the title given it by
its first editor, M. Ch. Potvin, Perceval le Gallois.
I t is in prose, and was written for a certain John,
Lord of Nesle in FJanders, who was living in the
year 1225.
Of all the Quest romances this is the most
confused and aimless. I t professes to be written
by Josephus at the bidding of an angel. I t tells
of the good knight descended by his mother
94

P E R C E V A L L E GALLOIS

35

from Joseph d'Abarimacie, who kept the lance
wherewith Christ was pierced, and the Holiest
Vessel in which His blood was gathered. On his
father's side the good knight was descended from
Nicodemus ; his mother's brother was the Fisher
King, King Pelles, and the King of Castle
Deadly. In his youth he came to the Court of
the Rich Fisher, but omitted to ask whom one
served with the Holiest Grail, whence wars ensued
and the King fell into sickness. Afterwards both
Gawain and Lancelot came to the Grail Castle.
Gawain first to the Castle of Enquiry, where the
sword is preserved wherewith John the Baptist
was beheaded. Gawain is silent in the Grail
Castle, where he beholds Grail and lance.
Lancelot may not see the Grail on account of his
sinful love to Guinevere. The Fisher King dies,
and his land is seized by his brother, King of
Castle Deadly, who is a heathen; Perceval's
struggle against him, his victory and winning of
the Grail Castle are told at great length. He is
visited by Arthur, Lancelot, and Gawain. Arthur
beholds the five mysterious transformations of
the Grail, ' about which may no man speak, for
the secrets of the sacrament shall no man disclose save God give him power thereto.' The
story does not end here, but tells of many other
adventures of Perceval, who finally sails away on
a ship with white sail on which is figured a red
95

36

THE HOLY GRAIL;

lion, ' never has man learnt what became of him,,'
This story, written in Latin (from which it was
translated into French), was found in the island
Avallon, in a holy house of God on the shores
of the Moor adventurous, where Arthur and
Guinevere are buried.
A special feature of this romance is the insistence upon Perceval's virginity. I t is as marked
a feature in his case as is that of Galahad in the
Quete.
The difference in tone and sentiment between
these romances and those of the first class is so
marked as to make the reader feel he has been transported to another world. The chivalric is here
subordinated to the Christian ascetic element. True,
the hero's prowess is insisted upon in set conventional terms, but the centre of interest is shifted
from his personality and from the feats and ventures by which it is manifested to] the symbolic
machinery of the precious vessel and its accompaniments. Contrast the two romances in which the
spiritual element avovvedly dominates: Wolfram's
Parzival and the QuSte del St. Graal. In the former
the personalty of the hero is the main^thing; we
follow the ripening, strengthening, ennobling
development of a genuine man, one who suffers
and sins, but who also loves and endures, is
staunch and true, and who, purified by the dis96

LATEH QUEST VERSIONS

37

cipline of suffering, attains at last the summit of
usefulness and happiness. This man is a knight, a
man of the world, as it was conceived of by the
author's generation, sharing in the feelings and
sentiments common to his class; his knightly
struggles and ventures have an interest for their
narrator independent of any symbolic significance.
I n the Quete, on the other hand, the hero, a
shadowy perfection at the outset, remains throughout a shadowy perfection, a bloodless and unreal
creature, as fit when he first appears upon the scene
as when he quits it to accomplish a quest, purposeless inasmuch as it only removes him from a world
in which he has neither part nor share. The
driving power of the romance is supplied by its
fierce insistence upon the supreme excellence of
celibacy and by the fervour of its sacramental symbolism. All else is indifferent or hateful to the
author.
These differences in tone and feeling, not to be
fully appreciated save by those who read the original
text, would alone suffice to negative the hypothesis
that the two sets of romances are the dissevered
halves of a homogeneous wrhole, or variant versions
of a common original theme.
The distinction
between them is far more deeply seated.
The second class of Grail romances gives, it has
been seen, a Quest of the Holy Vessel differing
markedly in part from that in the first class.
97

38

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

Now in two versions (Bidot Perceval and P. le
Gallois) belonging to this class the hero is Perceval, as in the first class, and in the Quete,
Perceval is only second to the main hero. Again,
one, the Bidot Perceval, reproduces many of the
adventures of the Conte del Graal, whilst the Quete
also has the central adventures at the Fisher
King's castle, though greatly altered and attached
to a secondary personage, Lancelot. The inference
is unmistakable; the Quest portions of the second
class of Grail romances are in part based upon and
derived from a Quest story similar to that found in
the Conte del Graal and allied versions. To understand the real significance of the Quest incidents
we must address ourselves firstly and chiefly to the
romances of the first class. How does it stand with
the other portion of the legend, the Early History
of the Grail ? The later portions of the Conte del
Graal contain, we saw, fragments of an Early History
substantially the same as that found in Grand St.
Graal and Quete. Wolfram's Parzival, on the other
hand, contains an Early History which is absolutely
and entirely different. Remembering that those
portions of the Conte del Graal which do yield this
Early History are demonstrably the latest in date
of that vast compilation, noting that they bear the
traces of being obvious and at times inconsistent interpolations, the further inference is, if not certain,
at least highly probable, that the Early History of
98

CONVERSION L E G E N D

39

the Conte del Graal is based upon and derived from
one akin to that found in the Grand St. Graal and
the Quete. I n other words, each section of tho
legend has borrowed from the other features and
incidents inconsistent with its real essence. The
fact that Crestien's contmuators had to turn for
information to works animated by such a different
spirit justifies the surmise that they found nothing
of a similar nature in his source, and that, as in the
intervening lapse of time a special Christian account
of the Grail had become the popular one, they felt
constrained to clumsily substitute this dominant
version for that of Crestien's source.
If what may be called the Joseph of Arimathea
Early History be considered closely, it will be seen
that in both its two main forms it is essentially a
legend of the Conversion of Britain. Both forms
start with Joseph, but at a later stage go widely
asunder. In Borron it is kinsmen of Joseph,
Brons, or Alain, or Petrus, who are the leaders of
the evangelising emigration, it is to them that the
Holy Vessel is confided. In the Grand St. GraalQuete version Joseph's son, Josephes, is the leading
spirit, and the fortunes of the Grail are bound up
with those of Joseph's direct descendants or with
the converted heathens Mordrains and Nasciens and
their kin. This second is the popular version, the
one which affected the later stages of the Conte
del Graal. The fact that what may be called the
99

40

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

Vulgate Early History (whether in its Brons or
Josephes form) is in reality a Conversion of Britain
legend, is important when we recollect that the
personages of the Conte del Gracd and allied versions
(the oldest form of the Quest) are British, and that
the scene of the story is Britain, as also that the
Wolfram Early History is asserted to be derived
from a chronicle of the Angevin princes, the lords
of Britain throughout the formative period of the
Grail cycle. The romances of this cycle belong, by
their origin, their purport, and their content, to
England and not to France, a fact obscured for us
by their being written almost entirely in French,
and to a large extent by French writers, and only
intelligible when we recall that throughout the
twelfth century French was almost as much the
language of what is now England as of what is now
France, and that throughout a large part of the
century the Mattere de Bretagne was the fashionable
and influential romance for all that was cultured in
"Western Christendom. I t also, I think, puts out
of court all attempts to derive this great body of
romance from the numerous Holy Vessels found
on the Continent since the First Crusade, and of
which the Sacro Gatino of Genoa was the most
famous. The legends connected with them have
none of them any connection with Britain.
But if the Early History of the Grail be thus
a conversion of Britain legend, whence does it
IOO

CONVERSION L E G E N D

41

derive its personages and incidents ? The answer
to this question decisively confirms the contention
that the Grail romances are of insular and not of
Continental origin. The account of Joseph, of his
relation to Christ, his captivity, &c, is derived, in
addition to the Gospel narrative, from a group of
apocryphal writings, of which the
Evangelium
Nicodemi is the central and dominant one. Now
it has been shown that, owing to circumstances of
which we know nothing, this group of apocrypha
was familiar to, and influential with, English
writers in the eighth to eleventh centuries, at a
time when no trace of it can be found in the other
literatures of Western Christendom. Of course,
these apocryphal writings are entirely silent
about Joseph's conversion of Britain. But we do
find an elaborate twelfth century account of the
evangelisation of Britain by Joseph in a series of
documents connected with, and undoubtedly originating from, the famous West British abbey of
Glastonbury. Ignored as it is by Geoffrey of
Monmouth, that insatiable romance-monger, the
legend can hardly be older than the second third
of the century. Whether it is as old ; whether,
in particular it is mentioned in the genuine
writings of Geoffrey's contemporary, William of
Malmesbury ; whether it be not a reflection of the
Grail romances, these are questions still debated
by scholars. As the details are different from
IOI

42

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

anything in the romances, as in its earlier and
simpler form there is no mention of the Holy
Vessel, it is hard to see how the Glastonbury
legend can be regarded as an outcome of the Grail
romances. The balance of probability strongly
inclines to the view that divers and independent
legends of Joseph's conversion of Britain originated in twelfth century England, and that their
origin and popularity was in some way connected
with the early and wide spread in England of the
apocryphal texts which had Joseph as their hero.
Glastonbury was not only a centre of ecclesiastical legend ad majorem gloriam Britannice, but
also of the long and persistent efforts of the
Angevin lord of England to utilise the Arthur
legend for his own purpose in winning over his
Celtic feudatories. Here in 1191 was found the
tomb of Arthur and Guinevere, a discovery intended
to give the coup de grace to the hopes of Arthur's
return and victorious championship of a Cymric
revolt. Glastonbury also became associated in the
twelfth century with Aval on, the old Celtic
over-sea paradise; in what manner and at how
early a date this association originated are still
matters of dispute. I t has been suggested that it
arose precisely through the Grail romances; but
when it is recollected how casual is the allusion in
Borron's poem to the vales of Avalon, the goal of
the Grail company's wanderings, the suggestion
102

GLASTONBURY

43

lacks all probability. There is yet another remote
and indirect connection between Glastonbury and
the traditional account of the Grail legend. A
persistent tradition, reaching back to the early
thirteenth century, has ascribed the authorship of
many of the Arthurian prose romances to Walter
Map, the trusted counsellor of Henry I I . , the
Angevin Lord of England whose efforts to utilise
the Arthurian romances for his own objects have
been mentioned. This traditional ascription is
especially definite as regards the Lancelot cycle, in
which the secondary versions of the Quest, those
which make Galahad, son of Lancelot, its hero,
must be reckoned. The final words of the Quite
del St. Graal, asserting that " Walter Map made
the book for the love of his lord, King Henry, who
had the story translated from Latin into French,"
have already been quoted. All these facts, at least,
hint at determined attempts made during the
second half of the twelfth century to claim for the
Church in Britain an origin well-nigh as illustrious
as that of any Church, and for the land of Britain
a special sanctity as the abiding place of the
holiest of Christian relics; these attempts are
inextricably bound up with the Arthur legend, and
are in part traditionally associated with the trusted
adviser of a king who, as we know, sought to
utilise that legend for his own ends. They originate
directly, or are associated indirectly, with a famous
103

U

THE HOLY G R A I L ;

sanctuary of British Christianity, one which has
also other associations, seemingly of a more archaic,
non-Christian character.
To realise the fact that both divisions of the Grail
legend have their source in twelfth century England
raises afresh the question whether they are really
parts of one harmonious whole, parts equal in
age and import ? Assume for one moment that
they are, and let us endeavour to realise what was
the intention of the legend-writer, and in what
way he proposed to carry out that intention. H e
sought, it is evident, to glorify his own country, a
land biassed, above all others, by the presence of
Christ's faithful disciples and of the sacred relics
of the Passion. The holiness of these relics, the
raison dJetre, of the whole legend, nlust, we would
expect, be insisted upon from the first. What,
then, could be his object in devising an account of
what happened to the relics after they had safely
reached Britain ? To explain why they were no
longer found there? To describe how the Grailkeepers fell from their high estate, and were
ultimately restored thereto ? Such an object
would be intelligible, nay more, would be the only
one which, so far as we can see, could have
occurred to a writer who planned the whole legend
with deliberate foresight. Can it be pretended
that it is carried out in the Quest portion of the
legend ? True, the Quete del St. Graal does assert, the
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45

unworthiness of Britain to be the home of the Grail,
but casually and without any attempt at explanation. True, the Parzival does give an explanation,
the only one in the entire cycle which appeals to
us as in any sense adequate, of the Grail-keeper's
suffering. But would one legend-writer have set in
motion Christ and Joseph and another have brought
down the Grail from Heaven merely to point the
moral of Anfortas' unlawful love ? And if we could
believe that such was his purpose, how are we to
account for the fact that every other version (even
the most ascetic in spirit) has utterly departed
from it ? Must we not rather recognise that the
suffering of the Grail-keeper, so far from being an
inherent element of a Conversion of Britain legend
is rather in tacit disaccord with the essential spirit
of such a legend and its purpose of exalting
Britain as the land favoured by the Holy Vessel
and its guardians ?
Assume, on the other hand, that the Quest, as
we have it in its oldest forms—the story of a hero
seeking, by means of certain talismans, to restore
a kinsman to health and prosperity, or to avenge
an injury done him—became inextricably attached
to a Christian legend with which originally it had
nothing to do. Does not such an assumption provide a more plausible explanation of all the facts ?
Would not the attempt to interpret in a specifically
Christian sense objects and incidents which in
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T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

themselves have nothing Christian, inevitably be
carried in a half-hearted and inconsistent way at
the best ? Would not the nature and intensity of
the Christian transformation process vary according to the nature and zeal of the individual writer ?
Would not such portions as lent themselves less
readily to the sanctity of association with Christ be
treated with little ceremony, and reshaped at the
narrator's fancy ? Could we expect any strong
regard for the original incidents from writers to
whom they were only of value after they had
received a Christian gloss, r or much feeling for the
pertinency of that gloss, provided its Christian
character were sufficiently decided ? Arguments of
this kind cannot be dismissed as of an a priori
nature ; they are based on the ordinary working of
the human mind. Every form of imaginative
narrative, however fantastic, however detached
from reality, has its own logic, to which it inevitably conforms so long as it develops naturally. I t
is because there is logical disaccord between the
various sections of the Grail legends, as we have
them, that we are justified in asserting they can
never have formed parts of one harmonious whole.
The logical inconsistency is even more flagrant if,
turning from the legend as a whole, the nature and
attributes of the Holy Vessel itself be considered.
I n the later stages of the cycle it is, as we have
seen, an object of the utmost sanctity : by its origin,
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47

its properties, its effect upon its devotees, it appertains to what is holiest in Christianity, and yet it
retains to the very end attributes which are purely
material, and which could not have belonged to it,
had it been from the outset the Sacramental Vessel
and nothing else. Even the most definitely and
fervently spiritual of the romances, the Parzival and
the Quete, dwell strongly upon its food-producing
qualities.
Before proceeding to examine the older versions
of the Quest on the assumption of its original nonChristian character, certain aspects of the specific
Christian portion of the developed legend claim
attention. As we saw, this has its sources in
apocryphal far more than in canonical Scripture ;
as we have assumed, it is superimposed upon a nonChristian basis. Little wonder, then, if we note
a disconcerting, unorthodox aspect to be found
nowhere else, to my knowledge, in the vast mass
of medieval legend of a distinctively Christian
character. After making every allowance, however, for these two factors they fail, I hold, to
account fully for the effect produced, an effect only
to be realised by reading the romances as a whole.
Apocryphal legend is often puerile, often tainted
by a questionable mysticism derived from Gnostic
sources ; the adaptation by unskilful hands of nonChristian incidents to a Christian scheme of interpretation must needs yield occasional results of an
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THE HOLY G R A I L ;

unorthodox character. But the sense in which the
Grail romances are unorthodox, or rather antiorthodox, is far more deep-seated and thorough.
They not only claim for the Church of Britain an
origin more illustrious than any to which it had
pretended before the twelfth century, one which, if
seriously maintained, would have been most unwelcome to the chief ecclesiastical authority of
Christendom, they also set up a kind of uncanonical
church with sacraments, unexceptionable it may
be from the purely dogmatic standpoint, but open
otherwise to the most serious objections. What
may be called the Grail Church has in either form
of the Early History an origin only less sacred than
that of the official Church of Christendom—nay,
in the Sacramental Vessel form (Borron, Grand St.
Graal-Quete) it excels that Church as possessing
the most sacred relics of the faith. The author of
the Grand St. Graal is fully conscious of this when
he tacitly claims his romance, the work of Christ
Himself, as superior to Gospel.
I n endeavouring to account for the remarkable
claims put forward for the Grail Church and its
Scriptures two points may be noted. In the
Parzival form of the Early History the Grail
Church is certainly reminiscent of, and modelled
upon, the organisation of the Knights Templar. In
the Grand St. Graal the two most prominent personages, after Josephes, are the converted heathen
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49

warriors Mordrains and Naseiens. Mordrains fills
to some extent in the Quete the same role as
Anfortas in the Parzival; Naseiens is the direct
ancestor of the successful Grail quester. Now both
are, without doubt, the outcome of crusading conditions, of the early stage of that great conflict
between West and East, between Christendom and
the Moslem world., which called the Knights Templar
into existence. We know what, at a later date, was
the attitude of the Church to the Temple, and how
the latter fell, crushed by the terrible accusations
of impiety and alliance with the Powers of Darkness brought against it. Is it too rash a conjecture that the Grail romances reveal, in part, early
attempts to claim, for the knightly priesthood a
position and sanction equal, if not superior, to those
of the regular priesthood ? If only a conjecture,
it is at least better founded than the endeavours
of earlier scholars to ascribe the essential heterodoxy of the Grail romances to the separatist tendencies of the British Church. May we not further
recall the fact that the greatest of the Angevin
kings, the politician who so persistently endeavoured to utilise the Arthurian legend for his own
purposes, the patron of Walter Map, the traditional
inspirer of the Lancelot Grail romances, was the
opponent of Becket, and waged the bitterest struggle
of his strenuous life against what, to use modern
terminology, may be styled Ultramontanism?
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That portion of the Grail romances which we
have seen reason to regard as originally nonChristian now claims an examination. And here
we must bear in mind the antecedent probability
that, as well as the Christian portion, it has been
modified by association with alien conceptions and
incidents. I n no instance, not even in the case
of the Peredur or Sir Percyvelle, can we be sure
that features and incidents have not been distorted
in order to fit them into a Christian framework.
Allowing for this possibility, and considering the
Quest versions as a whole, we detect two main
themes in the complicated mass of adventure of
which they are formed. Certain versions, as we
saw, are vengeance stories pure and simple, Sir
Pe?*cyvelle, for instance, and Manessier's conclusion
to Crestien's poem; in the Peredur the vengeance
conception predominates, but we note other and
inconsistent elements. Two of the mysterious talismans should, it would seem, be referred to this,
the vengeance theme—the bleeding lance (as a rule
the weapon with which the hero's injured kinsman
has been slain or wounded), and the broken sword
(as a rule the weapon with which the injury is to
be avenged). In such a story there would seem to
be no room for the Grail, the food-producing vessel.
But we have more than one version of Perceval's
visit to the castle of the Talismans, and, as we saw,
his comrade Gawain likewise essays and partly
no

COMPONENT E L E M E N T S OF QUEST 51
achieves the venture. As might be expected, the
Gawain version is more primitive in tone, less
affected by Christian symbolism than that in which
Perceval figures. In one form (found in a German
poem, Dm Crone, by Heinrich v. d. Tiirlin, which
reproduces a lost French original), the inmates of
the castle are in a Death in Life trance from which
the hero's visit releases them ; in another t he partial
achievement of the venture causes the heretofore
desert land to bloom and blossom afresh. To this
theme, the release from enchantment or unspelling
quest as we may call it, the mysterious vessel of
increase and plenty (the Grail) and the question
are, it would seem, referable. The Grail here plays
a t wofold p a r t ; its inexhaustible food-producing
qualities may be the means whereby the life of the
lord of the castle is prolonged until the advent of
his successor releases him from his vigil, or again,
it may be regarded as a fertility talisman from
which the land is debarred until the destined hero
appears. In either case the result is to put the
hero, directly or indirectly, in possession of a fertile
land, and the question is the chief means by which
the result is attained. ^
Thus at the back of our present Grail Quest
stories lie, as we may conjectuif, simple tales of
which Perceval and Gawain (m Welsh, Peredur
and Gwalchmai), were the heroes. In one the
hero avenged the slaying of his father and the
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52

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

harm done to his uncle (the prototype of Sir
Percyvelle); in another, by means of lance and
sword he avenged the wrong done to uncle and
cousin (prototype of the Peredur); another told
how, penetrating to a magic castle within a waste
and desert realm, he became master of a wonderworking talisman of fertility, and restored plenty
to the land ; in another, by aid of the same talisman he either restored a kinsman to health or
released him from supernaturally prolonged life,
and took his place.
A t an early stage of their development these
stories, crystallising as they did round the same
hero, would have a tendency to influence each other,
to become confused. From out the mass of varying,
but only slightly varying narratives, a few main
forms would emerge, differentiated by greater or
less insistence upon the vengeance or the unspelling theme, but betraying, as a rule, the mixture of
both. The unspelling conception, as the more
definitely mythic of the two, would suffer most
change ; the more recondite significance of the old
mythic talisman of increase and plenty would tend
to disappear; its material food-producing properties
would subsist, and this characteristic, as a matter
of fact, is found in every version in which the
Grail appears, in Orestien as in Wolfram, in the
Quete as in Perceval le Gallois. The recondite
significance of the machinery (the question) by
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53

which the talisman is transferred to the hero's
possession might likewise be expected to be lost,
and, as a matter of fact, no version offers a satisfactory explanation, nor has any modern interpreter
offered one that has won general acceptance.
Thanks to the conservatism of story-tellers, it
retained its place, but it became unintelligible.
W h a t relates to the vengeance conception, on the
other hand, was retained in comparatively unchanged form ; mythic it might be in origin and
essence, yet its simply human character commended
it as much to men of the twelfth century as to
those of an earlier age. In the Peredur and in
Manessier it has suffered little from contamination,
but. in Crestien and the remainder of the Conte del
Graal it is subordinated to the unspelling quest,
the Grail and question.
I n the older Grail quests, though none is wholly
free from the Christian element, yet that is, save
in the Parzival, secondary; the knightly adventurous element predominates. It is otherwise in
the later Grail quests (Quete, Perceval le Gallois).
Here the Christian element dominates.
The
original sequence of incidents is boldly disregarded
or radically modified; the original achiever of the
quest, Perceval,is dispossessed by the new favourite
in the Arthurian world, Lancelot, represented by
his son Galahad. Naturally, the vengeance conception and the incidents by which it is embodied
"3

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T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

disappear; naturally, all that relates to the
fertility talisman itself (now fully identified with
the sacramental vessel) is magnified; naturally,
the unintelligible question is almost entirely
dropped. But still, though caught up to very
heaven, though filled with the essence of divinity,
still the Grail retains the material characteristics of
an increase and plenty talisman.
I n assuming the existence of an original mass
of non-Christian narratives from which the existing romances have derived a considerable portion
of their subject matter, we rely, though not solely,
upon the existence of the Peredur and the Sir
Percyvelle. If these do not represent a stage in
the evolution of the Grail Quest romances older
than and independent of the Conte del Graal, they
must needs be derived from that work. How in
that case account for the loss of the fertility talisman in the one tale (Peredur) and of everything
relating to the unspelling quest in the other?
Given common sense and absence of prejudice,
the question answers itself. But even if these
two versions had disappeared the assumption I
have made would be legitimate. The Grail Quest
romances are, in their extant form, inextricably
bound up with the Arthur legend as a whole, and
the Arthur legend rests for a very large part
upon a basis of Celtic folk and hero tales, representatives of which may still be found in the older
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55

heroic romances of both branches of the Celtic
race, the Irish and the Welsh. Of these, the Irish
is by far the older and richer, and the oldest portion
of the Welsh is so closety connected with Irish
legend as to give colour to the hypothesis that it
is really due to an Irish population settled in
Wales in prehistoric times, and gradually driven
out or subjugated by the incoming Welshmen.
I t is in this old heroic and mythic romance that
the closest parallels are found to numerous incidents and sequences of incidents frequently met
with in the French Arthurian stories of the twelfth
century, and, what is even more significant than
parallelism of incident, there is parallelism of tone,
of atmosphere, of the modes of conceiving and
presenting the story as a whole. I n no section of
Arthurian romances are the minor parallelisms of
incident with the older Celtic legends more
frequent than in the Grail Quest stories, or is the
parallelism of essential conception more intimate
and striking.
Thus, old Celtic romance (Irish or Welsh) is
largely concerned with a race of supernatural
beings, the gods of the earliest Celtic Pantheon,
and the mysterious wonderland in which they
dwell. I n Ireland they have retained a semi-divine
aspect and attributes, they can shift shape at will,
they are undying; in Wales they have come down
to the level of powerful magicians. This race is in
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56

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

possession of marvellous talismans, the chief of
which is a symbol of fertility and increase in the
shape of a cauldron which yields an inexhaustible
supply of food to the taste of each partaker. In
Irish myth this talisman, the cauldron of the
Dagda—" a company used not ever to go away from
it unsatisfied,"—is definitely associated with three
other talismans, " the sword of Lug the LongHanded " (the Irish sun-god), " the spear Lug used
in battle," and the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny
(now in the Coronation seat at Westminster
Abbey) as the four precious objects which the god
race brought with them when they first came to
Ireland. A cauldron similar to that of the Dagda
(the Irish Zeus) is also part of the gear of
Manannan mac Lir (the Irish sea-god), and of
Angus, son of the Dagda, the most potent magician
of the immortal race. The dwelling places of these
mysterious and powerful beings may, like the Grail
Castle, be reached by mortals, but only chancewise
and if the inmates are willing ; like the Grail Castle
they suddenly disappear from the ken of the mortal
visitor, who finds himself lying on the bare hillside
with no trace of the splendours he has witnessedAs in the Grail Castle, the visitor is feasted royally.
I n Welsh romance the same magic cauldron
appears. I n one case it belongs to Bran, son of
Llyr (a Welsh representative of the Irish god race),
and here its healing and life-restoring powers are
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57

dwelt upon. Such may well have been its attributes in some of those early tales underlying the
existing Grail Quest which insisted rather upon
the healing of the hero's kinsman than upon the
restoration of his land to fertility. Elsewhere it
is associated with other talismans of a decidedly
mythical character, and is, like the Grail, celebrated
alike for its material and its spiritual properties—
it is a producer of food, but also of inspiration
and ecstasy.
The conception that the welfare of a land may
be so bound up with that of its ruler that his evil
conduct, or simply his misfortune, may entail
famine or desolation, and conversely that his merit
or luck may ensure prosperity, is familiar in Irish
heroic legend. So also is the conception that the
supernatural powers may curse a land with
sterility and restore it again to fertility.
In
Welsh legend magic is the agent, and the Welsh
mythic romance, The Four Branches of the Mabinogi,
tells of Pryderi, and how his land was subjected
by an enemy to an illusion, " where they were
wont to see cattle and herds, and dwellings, they
saw nothing now, neither house nor beast, nor
smoke, nor lire, nor man, nor dwelling, but the
houses of the Court empty and desolate, without
either man or beast within them." From this
illusion, as well as from imprisonment in a magic
castle which vanishes as soon as he penetrates
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T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

within it, Pryderi and his land are delivered by
Manawyddan, son of Llyr (the Welsh counterpart
of the Irish sea-god).
In a similar way the conception of a hero urged
to the accomplishment of his task by a kinsman
lying under enchantment until it is accomplished
is also familiar in early Irish romance. I t is indeed
a conception of world-wide spread, but the Celtic
presentment has distinguishing features. A lucky
accident has preserved the fragment of an Irish
folk story dating back to the tenth century at the
latest, in which the bespelled kinsman appears in
a hideous guise described in terms which strikingly
recall the hideous damsel of the Conte del Graal
(the hero's cousin, as we learn from the Peredur).
I t goes without saying that an archaic state of
society such as that of medieval Ireland and Wales
laid the utmost stress upon the duty of blood
vengeance, and that stories with this theme are
common. A famous Irish example is the tale
entitled " The Fate of the Children of Turenn,"
which recounts the tasks imposed by Lug the
Long-Handed (the Irish sun-god) upon the slayers
of his father. Among these tasks was the winning
of a poisonous irresistible spear.
Reference to these early Celtic tales supplies the
only hint of an explanation which has yet been
suggested of the mysterious question. Their heroes
are commonly subject to mysterious spells con118

CELTIC E L E M E N T S

59

straining them to do certain actions, or forbidding
them from others, under penalty of disaster or
death if they infringe the spell. With the Irish
story-teller the gets, as the spell is called, plays
much the same part as Nemesis in Greek myth ;
it is the controlling, over-mastering power.
It
may be conjectured that an injunction of this kind
was laid upon the questing hero in one of the
tales out of which the romances have grown ; that
he was constrained to use certain formalities in
the accomplishment of his task, or had imposed
upon him certain disabilities, and that this feature,
misunderstood as it inevitably would be by twelfth
century story-tellers, is reflected in the question
incident as we have it.
This series of parallels could be greatly extended
if, passing from the salient incidents of the Grail
Quest, to which alone I have here been able to call
attention, the secondary traits and episodes of the
romances were made the subject of comparison.
As might be expected, these have been less affected
by intruding Christian symbolism, and in consequence they betray their close affinity to the
archaic Irish and Welsh tales in a most marked
manner. But enough has been instanced, I trust,
to demonstrate that the texture, the colouring, the
essential conception of the older Grail Quest stories,
can be paralleled from early Celtic mythic romance,
and, I may add, from no other contemporary
. 119

60

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

European literature ; if the reference to Celtic
romance be discarded, but one alternative remains,
namely, that the French story-tellers of the twelfth
century made up this fantastic Arthurian realm of
eerie glamour out of their own heads.
W e may thus feel assured that the talismans
themselves, that the quest for them, and the use
to which they were put, existed in stories older
than and unaffected by Christianity. W e note
the significant fact that two of the talismans, vessel
of plenty and death-dealing spear, are part of the
gear of the early Celtic gods, gods who also figure
as engaged in laying under sterilising spells the
realms of their opponents, whether of their own
divine race or belonging to that of men. In so
far as these objects could, before their Christian
transformation, be charged with mysterious and
awe-inspiring potency, in so far as these tales of
magic strife could be invested with traditional
sanctity, this was the case. I t was no simple
peasant's tale that came ultimately into the hands
of the Christian story-teller, but one elaborated by
the bardic class, the jealous guardians, alike in
Ireland and in Wales, of the racial mythic and
heroic traditions.
We have now briefly surveyed the corpus of
Grail romances and have found it to consist of
Celtic pre-Christian mythic tales (involving ultimately the fates and struggles of gods and demi120

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gods), fused with tales which had as their object
the glorification of Britain in their account of the
illustrious origin and pre-eminent privileges of the
Christian Church in these islands. Before this
fusion took place the Celtic tales, originally
mythic, had been largely heroicised; hero had
supplanted demi-god. Yet they retained enough
of the primitive intent and content to lend themselves to the creative impulse of the new and
higher mythology. The Pagan vessel of increase,
plenty and ecstasy was not so far emptied of its
pristine significance, but that it could be reshaped as the holiest relic of Christendom, or
be identified, by Bobert de Borron, with the body
of the dead and risen Lord.; the Achiever of the
Quest was not so oblivious of his primitive mythic
status as to be unfitted for the approximation,
vaguely suggested by Wolfram and the Quete, of
his career to that of the Saviour.
But if, thus broadly surveyed, the general development of the stories clustering round the precious talisman may be summed up as the gradual
transformation of old Celtic mythic tales into a
legend charged with Christian symbolism and
mysticism, many stages in this process remain
obscure. W h a t suggested the fusion of stories
of a hero questing after talismans with those of
the evangelisers of Britain ? Were these latter, as
has been suggested, possessors of the holy vessel
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before that fusion took place ? If so, what was the
form which the conversion legend had assumed,
and how was it affected by, and how did it affect
the quest story after the twain had been welded
into one %
The conversion legend started, it is urged, with
Joseph. The forty years' solitary captivity is an
essential feature of the Joseph legend. The question naturally arose—how was he kept in life ? by
a wonderful food-producing vessel of the kind
familiar in the folklore of nearly every race, a
vessel naturally and progressively identified with
the receptacle of Christ's blood, with the dish, and
then with the cup of the Last Supper. To guard
such a precious relic and to exhibit alike the mysteries of the Trinity and the Sacrament, the three
Grail-keepers were imagined: Joseph, Brons, the
grandson of Brons; the three tables were instituted : that of the Last Supper with its place left
empty by Judas' betrayal; Joseph's table, on which
figures the Grail; Arthur's Table Round, with its
empty seat to be filled only by the last of the
Grail-keepers.
Such a legend would naturally tend to centre
round the precious vessel, to exalt it more and
more. When a lucky chance suggested the identification of the last Grail-keeper, the filler of the
empty seat, the final accomplished of the dramatic
action started centuries before in Palestine, with
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63

the young hero who quested forth in search, he,
too, of a precious vessel, and thereby delivered his
kinsmen and released their land from enchantment, the two vessels (in their ultimate origin the
same) were also fully identified, with the result of
strengthening such non-Christian characteristics
as still survived in the Christianised vessel of the
conversion legend. Thence onwards, the legend
developed as each individual writer was attracted
by the religious or by the knightly adventurous
element, and in accordance with his capacity to
shape these different elements so as to set forth his
conception.
Ingenious as this hypothesis is, it leaves out of
account why the conversion legend was associated
with personages of the Arthurian cycle. Rather,
I think, must the precious vessel be regarded as
foreign to the Joseph conversion legend until after
this association had taken place. What, then,
gave rise to it ? I can only point out that
Borron's form of the conversion legend betrays
not alone Celtic affinities (that inevitably followed
once the evangelisers set foot in Celtic Britain), but
specific Arthurian affinities in the mention of
Avalon as the goal of the Grail host, a mention
which Borron himself did not understand, so that
even if the Arthurian machinery of the Merlin—
the establishment of the Round Table in imitation
of that of the Grail table—be ascribed to Borron,
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yet the fusion of conversion and Arthur legends
must have begun before his time. Avalon is the
Welsh form of the old Celtic Elysium, of which
vivid and detailed descriptions have survived in
Irish literature; an Elysium closely allied to the
dwelling-places of the Celtic god-race, the owners
of the inexhaustible food cauldron of the Dagda
of the Spear and Sword of Lug, the race represented in Wales by the Children of Llyr and DonSecond only in importance to Joseph in Borron's
poem are his kinsmen, Brons and Alain, who bear
distinctively Celtic names. Brons recalls the Welsh
Bran, son of Llyr, possessor, in the Welsh tale of
Branwen, of a cauldron of healing and rejuvenation,
himself transported after his death on earth to an
Elysium, where he continued a mystic life; when
slain in battle, his comrades, at his bidding, cut off
his head, and with it retire to Gwales in Penvro,
where they pass fourscore years, " unconscious of
having spent a time more joyous and mirthful . . .
it was not more irksome to them having the head
with them than if Blessed Bran had been with
them himself." At the end of the fourscore years
infringing an injunction which Bran had laid upon
them, and becoming aware of the flight of time and
of all their past woe, they bury their lord's head
near London, and so long as it remained concealed
the isle of Britain was free from invasion. At
a date which is uncertain, but of which, at least,
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Go

no definite trace exists prior to the late thirteenth
century, Bran was made the hero in Wales of a
conversion legend, which may embody old tradition
but may, on the other hand, be a reflex of the Grail
romances, though, if so, it is the only trace in
Welsh of any knowledge of Borron's version. In
support of its embodying old tradition is the fact
that, as just cited, in the tale of Branwen, the
redaction of which goes back to the eleventh
century, Bran has the epithet Blessed.
This
originally Pagan epithet, doubtless applied to him
as possessor of the rejuvenation cauldron, may
have been the starting-point of a legend ascribing
to him a share in the introduction of Christianity
into Britain.
Taking all these indications into existence, it
seems most likely that Borron, or rather the
sources he followed, became acquainted with a
Bran conversion legend, and fused it with the
better-known Joseph one. In this way Bran's
precious vessel would become associated with
Joseph. True we only know of it from the W^elsh
tale of Branwen as a rejuvenation and healing
talisman, but this conception is closely allied to
that of a talisman of increase and plenty, and, as
a matter of fact, it is found also in the Grail
romances, though less insisted upon than the other.
Moreover, we only know of one aspect of Bran's
cauldron from our Welsh tale, because only one
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T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

form of its power is there brought into play; t h e
merest fragment of Welsh mythic romance has
come down to us, and it is folly to argue as if what
we do not find in that fragment cannot haveexisted.
The fusion of the two conversion legends would
undoubtedly be facilitated by the fact of the
localisation of the Joseph legend at Glastonbury
This ancient seat of British Christianity was at
some unknown date identified with Avalon; t h e
texts which have preserved this identification are
comparatively late, and the identification has
been ascribed to the influence of the romances.
Undoubtedly the story as we have it bears traces
of the efforts made during Henry the Second's
reign to utilise the Celtic legends for political
purposes. But the first germ of the conception
that a venerable sanctuary of the Christian faith
in Britain had succeeded, as it were, to the attributes of the wonderland of the Celtic gods must
be far older than Henry's reign—older, indeed t
than the twelfth century.
The fusion of a Brons and a Joseph conversion
legend (a fusion, be it noted, which could take place
in Britain and in Britain alone) would not only
permit the introduction of the precious vessel into
the latter, it would almost inevitably bring it into
contact with the Arthur cycle. The latter is
largely made up of heroicised versions of themes
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D E V E L O P M E N T OF L E G E N D

67

and incidents which had figured at an earlier date
in mythic romance, and it had drawn many of the
personages of the older mythic world within its
grasp. In this way the connection between the
hero legend of Arthur, defender of Britain against
heathen invaders, and the religious legend of the
evangelisers of Britain would be established
naturally, and so as to allow of, nay, to invite,
further development.
Assuming, then, that prior to Crestien's time,
the two portions of the legend had been welded
into a more or less compact whole, and that the
Quest talismans had thereby acquired Christian
attributes and properties, the question arises how
far the process of fusion had been carried, and in
what way it was affected by Crestien's work. Did
the French poet find in his source any such coherent;
account of the early history of the Grail and lance'
as is yielded either by Robert de Borron, or by
the rival version of the Grand St. Graal-Quete?
If Crestien's continuators got their information
from his source, that source must likewise have
been the fountain-head of the Grand St. GraalQuete. Crestien would in that case seem to have
deliberately left in abeyance the definite religious
element of his source, and to have devoted himself
to the elaboration of the knightly adventurous
portion. For, even if at his hero's second visit to
the Grail Castle he had given the information we
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68

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

now find in his continuators, the religious aspect of
his work would still bo pale and slight in com
parison with the adventurous. But whether the
continuators of Crestien did resort to the latter's
source is extremely doubtful in view of the marked
divergence in the conduct of the story between
both Manessier and Gerbert, and the poet whose
work they were completing. Nor can the question be decided without reference to Wolfram's
source, the lost French poem of Guiot. Two hypotheses respecting this are possible. I t may have
been, as is now more commonly assumed, composed within a few years after Crestien's death
with a view to giving a complete version of the
story he had left incomplete. If so, and if
Crestien's source had contained either form of
t h e Early History in as an advanced stage of
development as in Robert de Borron, or to Grand
fit. Graal, would, or could Guiot have discarded it ?
H e could have made it subservient to the greater
glory of the Angevin princes as easily as the
version which he offers ; he could have adapted it
as readily to the moral and spiritual conceptions
which animate his work. If, on the other hand,
Guiot's poem is older than that of Crestien, it is
probably nearer to the common source of both in
its lesser insistence upon the Christian machinery
derived from the Conversion legend, although,
thanks to the poet's personality, it is animated
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D E V E L O P M E N T OF L E G E N D

69

by a far deeper and more spiritual Christian
feeling.
Thus, although both Crestien's and Guiot's
accounts of the Grail seem to presuppose its previous identification not only with the receptacle of
Christ's blood, but also with the sacramental cup
(as evidenced in Guiot's case by the fact that the
power of the Grail is renewed by a Host), it is
unlikely that such a full and coherent form of the
Early History as we fiad. in the later romances
was accessible to them. It may rather be conjectured that the stress they laid upon the knightly
adventurous element in the story led other writers
to elaborate the Early History by way of accentuating the religious element.
The real achievement of Crestien and Guiot, the
decisive influence they exerted upon the evolution
of the cycle, lay in their conception and presentment
of the Quest. Substantially the non-Christian framework and texture, with all their fascinating charm
and variety, are retained, but the story is lifted on
to a loftier moral and intellectual plane, and thereby
enabled to hold its own against the competition of
the purely Christian portion of the legend. This
intellectualising, spiritualising process is far more
developed in Guiot than in Crestien, and it is a
matter for profound regret that, as ingeniously surmised by Dr. Wechssler, the Angevin (i.e. English)
tendencies of Gi-uiot's poem brought it into disfavour
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70

T H E HOLY G R A I L ;

in France as soon as the French royal house had
got the better of its formidable rivals. Had it been
otherwise, had Henry I I . been succeeded by a son
wise and able as himself, and England thereby
secured the hegemony of the French-speaking
world, Guiot ; instead of Crestien, might have
yielded the standard, the dominant version of
the Quest. As it is, we must at least be thankful
that his work fell into the hands of a man as well
fitted as was Wolfram to appreciate its moral and
spiritual aims.
We can measure the service rendered by these
two great poets to the story of the Grail Quest by
comparing their work with the aimless and rambling
jumble of disconnected adventures found in the
continuations of Crestien.
The after development of the cycle, though presenting numberless problems of detail, is yet fairly
clear in its main outline. Crestien and Guiot made
the Grail Quest story fashionable as much by their
skill in relating the marvellous feats and ventures of
the hero as by the moral and spiritual aim of their
work. One set of following writers simply worked
such veins of the knightly adventurous mine as
have been left unexploited by the two great poets;
others elaborated the distinctively Christian portion, the Early History; others, again, fused the
two, more or less maladroitly. But the normal
development of the cycle was profoundly modified
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D E V E L O P M E N T OF L E G E N D

71

by influences which were modifying the entire
body of Arthurian romance. To understand the
later versions of the Quest we must realise the
nature of these influences.
I n the earliest stages of the Arthurian cycle the
pre-eminent hero is Gawain, who is also second only
to Perceval as hero of the Quest story. Perceval's
rank in the latter gave him a position in the
Arthurian world, generally, inferior only to that
of Gawain. At a later stage both were superseded
by Lancelot, who became the acknowledged mirror
and exemplar of chivalry. To attain this position Gawain had to be degraded, and a sure
test of the age of any given Arthurian text
is yielded by the view it presents of Gawain's
character. Lancelot owed his pre-eminence to
the fact that he became, as the Queen's lover,
the exemplar of the ideal of courtly love. But this
very ideal provoked what may be called a Puritan
reaction among a certain section of romancewriters, who eagerly sought out whatever might
yield matter for an opposing ideal of ascetic life.
The Perceval Quest was thus rewritten by the
author of Perceval le Gallois in a spirit of militant
asceticism; the hero's virginity is insisted upon
aggressively. But the progress of Lancelot towards
the headship, after Arthur, of the Arthurian world
kept pace with the increasing favour shown towards
the Grail Quest as the most marvellous " brand 1"
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72

THE HOLY G R A I L ;

of the whole Arthurian cycle. A time must naturally come when Arthur's mightiest hero could no
longer be kept out of the chief venture of Arthur's
Court. Yet when that time came the Puritan
reaction had fixed a deep chasm between the two
sets of tendency exhibited in the cycle—the
knightly amorous and the spiritual ascetic. How
could Lancelot, the Queen's lover, be permitted
even to view, much less to become possessed of, the
holy vessel into which by this time the full
potency of sacramental mysticism had been poured ?
Yet how could he, pattern of knighthood, be excluded from its blessings ? The dilemma was
solved, the chasm was bridged by the creation of
Lancelot's son Galahad, in whom was exemplified
in a yet more uncompromising, yet more inhuman
spirit the ideal of militant asceticism imperfectly
set forth by the author of Perceval le Gallois. I n
this way arose and took shape the Galahad Quest
of the Grand St. Graal-Quete. I t is possible t h a t
the writers of these romances may have embodied:
some earlier features, possible that they may have
built up their hero round the personality of some
forgotten hero of the Arthurian cycle; but in his
very essence, as in the major part of his adventures,
Galahad is emphatically the latest comer in the
world of Arthurian romance.
Only a word need be said about Sir Percyvelle
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D E V E L O P M E N T OF L E G E N D

73

and the Peredur.
The former reproduced, with
hardly a trace of the prodigious development which
had taken place, one of the pre-Christian component
stories of the Grail Quest; the second, the Welsh
tale, reproduced another pre-Christian component
form accurately, as regards the essence of the story,
but with a considerable amount of ornamental
detail taken from Crestien and other French
sources. As a rule, this extraneous matter remains
simple ornament, but at times it obscures and distorts the march of the story.
Such, all too briefly sketched, has been the
development of the Grail cycle from the time
when legends relating the evangelisation of
Britain were brought into contact with heroicised versions, belonging to the Arthur cycle,
of older mythic tales. The composite legend
thus formed, lived and flourished because it was
composite, because it drew sustenance and spirit
from the two worlds the fusion of which constitutes Modern Europe, the world of Christian
classic culture, and the older barbaric world which
that culture was to transform, but by which it was
also to be itself transformed. The most diverse
types of spiritual and artistic intelligence could
thus find sustenance for their imaginings. The
magic talisman of the Celtic gods, the Holiest
Relic of Christian faith, gave to each " the food he
i33

74

T H E HOLY G R A I L

most desired." Its bounty is not exhausted though
countless generations have fed from it. Within
the last fifty years this marvellous legend has
proved as fertile in the mind of genius, as it was
eight hundred years ago, to set forth and typify
the longings and ideals of humanity.

134

NOTES
T H E object of the present Series of Popular Studies is as
much to assist those who are anxious to pursue a special
line of study as to give an accurate summary of any particular subject to those who do not wish for more than a
general knowledge of it. In the present instance the
second intention is almost impossible to realise in view
of the enormous mass and great complexity of the subjectmatter. All the more, therefore, do I trust that I may
be able to induce many of my readers to take up the
study of the Grail cycle. There is only one way of setting
about this, and that is to read the romances themselves
Luckily, several of the most important are easily accessible to the English reader. The PEREDUR, the most
archaic form of the Quest story, may be read in my
edition of the Mahinogion ; Wolfram's PARZIVAL, the
finest example of the Quest story as transformed by
•Christian influence, in Miss Weston's translation (2 vols.
10s. fid.) ; the PERCEVAL L E GALLOIS, the transitional

bridge between the knightly hero of Crestien-Guiot
and the ascetic hero of the later legend, in Dr. Evans'
exquisite translation (The High History of the Holy Grail,
2 vols. 4s.) ; and the QUETE DU ST. GRAAL, the final outcome of Puritan asceticism, in Malory's Morte D'Arthur
(best read in Dr. Sommer's faithful reprint of Caxton's
text, 2 vols, 7s. 6eZ., in which it occupies Books 13-18).
When these four versions have been mastered, the main
135

76

NOTES

lines of development will be clear, and attention can be
given to the remaining works of the cycle. Of these, the
GRAND ST.GRAAL and the D I D O T PERCEVAL are accessible

in Hucher's Le Saint-Graal ou le Joseph cTArimathie, 3 vols.,
1875-78 (£1 10s.). A fifteenth-century metrical English
adaptation of the GRAND S T . GRAAL has likewise been
edited by Dr. Furnivall : Seynt Graal; or, the Sank Ryal,
2 vols., 1861-63 (printed for the Roxburghe Club), but this
is only accessible to frequenters of large libraries ; moreover, the reader who has a fair knowledge of modern
French will, after a few days' work, find the thirteenthcentury prose of the French original easier to understand
than the fifteenth-century verse of the English adaptation.
Borron's poem is printed in Furnivall's Seynt Graal.
SIR PERCYVELLE is accessible in Halliwell's edition:
The Thornton Romances, 1884, printed for the Camden
Society. Unfortunately the chief work of the cycle, the
CONTE DEL GRAAL, is practically inaccessible, only 100
copies having been printed of the only edition, that of
M. Potvin, 6 vols., Mons, 1866-71. Professor Baist is
engaged upon a new edition. Readers who can consult
one of the few copies extant in England, and who have a
fair knowledge of modern French, will not find Crestien
very difficult, less so than is Chaucer to the average welleducated Englishman.
As regards the literature of the subject, there are only
two works to which the reader can be referred for full and
accurate summaries of the romances: Birch-Hirschfeld,
Die Sage vom Gral, 1877, and my own Studies on the
Legend of the Holy Grail, 1888. This latter, the only work
accessible to readers unacquainted with German, is now
out of print. The only other work dealing with the
cycle as a whole, Prof. R. Heinzel's Die franzosischen
Gralromane, a monument of erudition and ingenuity,,
is useless to all but advanced students, the " senior
wranglers" of the study. Dr. E. Wechssler has done
136

NOTES
excellent work in determining the relation to each other
of the existing prose romances, and in tracing their
development {Die verschiedenen Ilcdaktionen der GraalLancelot Cyklas,1895), and his Sage r. heil. Gral, 1898, which
contains a useful bibliography, and many acute and valu
able suggestions might be recommended if it did not
present the author's hypothetical view of the development
of the legend (a view entirely untenable in parts) in such
a way as to lead the unknowing reader to imagine that
it set forth the evidence of the texts.
Other works will be mentioned as occasion offers.
C E E S T I E N ' S DATE.

(Page 6.)

This has been best fixed by Wechssler, Sage v. h. G.,
par. 63.
WOLFEAM'S PARZIVAL,,

(Page 11.)

The most perplexing and obscure problems of the Grail
literature are connected with this poem. In addition to
Miss Weston's translation, the following should be consulted, in addition to the works cited, Studies, p. 261:
Hagen, Parzival-Studien, 1892 ; Golther, Lohengrin (Rom.
Forschungen, V. 1890) ; Lichtenstein, Zur Parzivalfrage
(Paul u. Braune, Beitr. 1897); Hertz' admirable modern
German adaptation of Wolfram's Parzival-, 1898.
T H E CONTINUATORS OF C R E S T I E N .

(Page 9.)

The following may be consulted : H. Waitz, Die
Fortsetzungen v. Crestien s P. le Gattois, 1890.
The statements on the subject in my Sttidics must be
supplemented and corrected from this work.
D A T E O F GRAND S T . GRAAL.

(Page 27.)

Up to 1898, the date of 1204, assumed to be that in
which Helinandus finished his Chronicle, was accepted as
137

78

NOTES

a terminus ad quern for the G-RAND S T . GRAAL, or for its-

source. Dr. Evans, High History, ii. p. 293, has shown
that Helinandus wrote about 1220.
PERCEVAL L E GALLOIS.

(Page^34.)

This has been recently studied by Dr. Nitze, The old
French Grail Romance of Perlesvaus. Baltimore, 1902,
T H E JOSEPH LEGEND.

(Page 41.)

The chief discussion of the Glastonbury legend is that
of Prof. G. Baist, Zeitschrift fur Rom. Philologie, xix.
Prof. Wiilcker, Has Evangelium Nicodemi in der abend'
Idndischen Literatur, 1872, has shown the early knowledge
of this apocryphal work in England.
GLASTONBURY AND AVALON.

(Page 42.)]

Gf. M. Ferd Lot : Glastonbury et Avalon, in Romania,,
vol. xxvii.
T H E G R A I L K N I G H T S AND T H E TEMPLARS.

(Page 48.)

The special modification of the Grail Quest with a view
of connecting it more closely with the Temple knighthood
found in Guiot-Wolfram is undoubtedly bound up with a
number of Oriental traits and features only met with in
the Parzival. These lend colour to the hypothesis that
Guiot had himself been in the East, and become
acquainted with many Eastern legends, and also that he
was in some way attached to the Temple order.
These Oriental traits in the Parzival have misled
certain scholars into imagining an Eastern origin for the
Grail legend. The last statement of this view is Prof. A.
Wesselovsky's : Archiv f. Slav. Philologie, 1901.
Cf. Dr. P. Hagen's valuable Her Gral, 1900.
133

70

NOTES
C E L T I C ELEMENTS I N T H E G R A I L L E G E N D .

(Pages 55-59.)
In my Studies I chiefly dwelt upon the Irish analogies
and parallels. Prof. Rhys in his Arthurian Legend, 1891,
brought into prominence the Welsh parallels, notably t h e
enchantment of Pryderi's land with t h e wasting of the
realm of the Fisher King (Perceval's uncle).
T H E B E S P E L L E D AND A I D I N G KINSMAN.

(Page 58.)

This instance, from Cormac's Glossary, an Irish compilation of the lOth-llth centuries, is cited and discussed
by me, Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition, 1890, vol. ii. r
p. 467.
T H E QUESTION.

(Page 58.)

My explanation of this as due to misunderstanding of
an original geis (pronounced gess) is strengthened by t h e
kinship between the Lohengrin (Swan Knight) and Grail
story. For in Lohengrin the supernatural hero is under
a geis not to reveal his name, and the infringement of this;
tabu ensures his withdrawal to his own land. Now t h e
oldest known instance of the theme of a supernatural
wife, or husband, who imposes injunctions the infringement of which is fatal, is found in Ireland, in the wellknown story entitled Noinden Ulad (the Feebleness of t h e
Ulstermen).
Of. Miss Hull's Cuchullin Saga, p. 96.
(Pages 62, 63.)
The two paragraphs are a summary of Dr. Wechssler's
argument, Sage v. Tieil. Gral, pp. 12-18. I agree with t h e
argument, save when I express dissent from it.
G U I O T AND C E E S T I E N .

(Page 68.)

Miss Weston is the chief advocate of Guiot's priority,
I think she is right.
139

80

NOTES
LANCELOT.

(Pages 71, 72.)

Of. Miss Weston's Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lacf 1901,
on which this paragraph is based.
(Page 74.)
I allude of course, to Richard Wagner's Parsifal.

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