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59-724: In the Prose Tristan , it is the kingdom of King Pellinore ; in Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur , it is the kingdom of Pellam , the Maimed King . In the story of Sir Balin , the Dolorous Stroke turns Listeneise into the Wasteland . Some writers (notably Phyllis Ann Karr ) identify Listeneise with the Lake District in north-west England . This article relating to

118-555: A European folklore is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Prose Tristan The Prose Tristan ( Tristan en prose) is an adaptation of the Tristan and Iseult story into a long prose romance , and the first to tie the subject entirely into the arc of the Arthurian legend . It was also the first major Arthurian prose cycle commenced after the widely popular Lancelot-Grail (Vulgate Cycle), which influenced especially

177-578: A "holy grail" by those seeking such. A mysterious "grail" (Old French: graal or greal ), wondrous but not unequivocally holy, first appears in Perceval, the Story of the Grail , an unfinished chivalric romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. Chrétien's story inspired many continuations, translators and interpreters in the later-12th and early-13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach , who portrayed

236-432: A derivative of crater or cratus , which was, in turn, borrowed from Ancient Greek krater ( κρᾱτήρ , a large wine-mixing vessel). Alternative suggestions include a derivative of cratis , a name for a type of woven basket that came to refer to a dish, or a derivative of Latin gradus meaning " 'by degree', 'by stages', applied to a dish brought to the table in different stages or services during

295-416: A glass bowl near Glastonbury; a group of his friends, including Wellesley Tudor Pole , retrieved the cup in 1906 and promoted it as the original Holy Grail. Glastonbury and its Holy Grail legend have since become a point of focus for various New Age and Neopagan groups. In the early 20th century, esoteric writers identified Montségur , a stronghold of the heretical Cathar sect in the 13th century, as

354-404: A meal". In the 15th century, English writer John Hardyng invented a fanciful new etymology for Old French san-graal (or san-gréal ), meaning "Holy Grail", by parsing it as sang réal , meaning "royal blood". This etymology was used by some later medieval British writers such as Thomas Malory , and became prominent in the conspiracy theory developed in the book The Holy Blood and

413-477: A mounting for use as a chalice. The bowl may date to Greco-Roman times, but its dating is unclear, and its provenance is unknown before 1399, when it was gifted to Martin I of Aragon . By the 14th century, an elaborate tradition had developed that this object was the Last Supper chalice. This tradition mirrors aspects of the Grail material, with several major differences, suggesting a separate tradition entirely. It

472-452: A tragic affair that ends with Tristan being banished to the court of Hoel of Brittany . He eventually marries Hoel's daughter, also named Iseult. Especially after this point, however, the traditional narrative is continually interrupted for side adventures by the various characters and episodes serving to "Arthurianize" the story. Notably, Tristan's rivalry with the Saracen knight Palamedes

531-533: A vast influence on conspiracy and alternate history books. It has also inspired fiction, most notably Dan Brown 's 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code and its 2006 film adaptation . The combination of hushed reverence, chromatic harmonies and sexualized imagery in Richard Wagner 's final music drama Parsifal , premiered in 1882, developed this theme, associating the Grail – now periodically producing blood – directly with female fertility. The high seriousness of

590-524: Is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature . Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often guarded in the custody of the Fisher King and located in the hidden Grail castle. By analogy, any elusive object or goal of great significance may be perceived as

649-682: Is appropriate considering Tristan's traditional link to poetry. The Grail Quest has been a source of controversy regarding the Tristan en prose . Instead of writing new material, the author chose to insert (or interpolate) the entire Queste del Saint Graal from the Vulgate Cycle into the Tristan story, thus undermining the sanctity of the Vulgate Queste itself. Holy Grail The Holy Grail ( French : Saint Graal , Breton : Graal Santel , Welsh : Greal Sanctaidd , Cornish : Gral )

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708-481: Is given substantial attention. Additionally, in the long version, Tristan leaves Brittany and returns to his first love, and never sees his wife again, though her brother Kahedin remains his close companion. Tristan is compared frequently to his friend Lancelot in both arms and love, and at times even unknowingly engages him in battles. He becomes a Knight of the Round Table (taking Morholt's old seat) and embarks on

767-447: Is not associated with Joseph of Arimathea or Jesus' blood; it is said to have been taken to Rome by Saint Peter and later entrusted to Saint Lawrence . Early references do not call the object the "Grail"; the first evidence connecting it to the Grail tradition is from the 15th century. The monarchy sold the cup in the 15th century to Valencia Cathedral , where it remains a significant local icon. Several objects were identified with

826-405: Is spelled in its earliest appearances, comes from Old French graal or greal , cognate with Old Occitan grazal and Old Catalan gresal , meaning "a cup or bowl of earth, wood, or metal" (or other various types of vessels in different Occitan dialects). The most commonly accepted etymology derives it from Latin gradalis or gradale via an earlier form, cratalis ,

885-523: Is the nephew of the first author of the Arthurian Grail cycles, poet Robert de Boron . Hélie de Boron claims, like the so-called authors of the Roman de la Rose , to have picked up the story where Luce left off. Neither the biographies of the two authors, nor the claim that they had been translating the work from a Latin original are taken seriously by scholars. The first part of the work stays closer to

944-570: The Post-Vulgate Cycle , the next major prose treatment of the Arthurian mythos, and served as the main source for the Tristan section of Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur . Before any modern editions of the Prose Tristan were attempted, scholars were dependent on an extended summary and analysis of all the manuscripts by Eilert Löseth in 1890 (republished in 1974). Of the modern editions,

1003-502: The "Grail" originally referred to the Image of Edessa . Goulven Peron (2016) suggested that the Holy Grail may reflect the horn of the river-god Achelous , as described by Ovid in the Metamorphoses . In the wake of the Arthurian romances, several artifacts came to be identified as the Holy Grail in medieval relic veneration. These artifacts are said to have been the vessel used at

1062-725: The 15th century. The narrative developed is that Jesus was not divine, and had children with Mary Magdalene , who took the family to France where their descendants became the Merovingian dynasty. Supposedly, while the Catholic Church worked to destroy the dynasty, they were protected by the Priory of Sion and their associates, including the Templars, Cathars, and other secret societies. The book, its arguments, and its evidence have been widely dismissed by scholars as pseudohistorical, but it has had

1121-538: The 1970s, and was elaborated upon in the bestselling 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail . The theory combines myths about the Templars and Cathars with various other legends, and a prominent hoax about a secret order called the Priory of Sion . According to this theory, the Holy Grail is not a physical object, but a symbol of the bloodline of Jesus . The blood connection is based on the etymological reading of san greal (holy grail) as sang real (royal blood), which dates to

1180-557: The Arthurian legend. Characters like Palamedes, Dinadan , and Lamorak , all of whom first appear in the Tristan , achieved popularity in later works. The pagan knight Palamedes even lent his name to the Romance of Palamedes , a later work that expands on episodes from the Tristan . This material is also preserved in the Compilation of Rustichello da Pisa and numerous later redactions in several languages. The Prose Tristan also influenced

1239-529: The Cathars guarded the Grail at Montségur, and smuggled it out when the castle fell in 1244. Beginning in 1933, German writer Otto Rahn published a series of books tying the Grail, Templars, and Cathars to modern German nationalist mythology. According to Rahn, the Grail was a symbol of a pure Germanic religion repressed by Christianity. Rahn's books inspired interest in the Grail within Nazi occultist circles, and led to

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1298-509: The Grail and of the quest to find it became increasingly popular in the 19th century, referred to in literature such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson 's Arthurian cycle Idylls of the King . A sexualised interpretation of the grail, now identified with female genitalia, appeared in 1870 in Hargrave Jennings ' book The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries . In the cinema, the Holy Grail debuted in

1357-551: The Grail as a stone in Parzival . The Christian, Celtic or possibly other origins of the Arthurian grail trope are uncertain and have been debated among literary scholars and historians. In the 1190s, Robert de Boron in Joseph d'Arimathie  [ fr ] portrayed the Grail as Jesus 's vessel from the Last Supper , which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch Christ's blood at

1416-464: The Grail castle. Similarly, the 14th-century Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian , Scotland, became attached to the Grail legend in the mid-20th century when a succession of conspiracy books identified it as a secret hiding place of the Grail. Since the 19th century, the Holy Grail has been linked to various conspiracy theories. In 1818, Austrian pseudohistorical writer Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall connected

1475-541: The Grail to contemporary myths surrounding the Knights Templar that cast the order as a secret society dedicated to mystical knowledge and relics. In Hammer-Purgstall's work, the Grail is not a physical relic, but a symbol of the secret knowledge that the Templars sought. There is no historical evidence linking the Templars to a search for the Grail, but subsequent writers have elaborated on the Templar theories. Starting in

1534-466: The Holy Grail , in which sang real refers to the Jesus bloodline . The literature surrounding the Grail can be divided into two groups. The first concerns King Arthur's knights visiting the Grail castle or questing after the object. The second concerns the Grail's earlier history in the time of Joseph of Arimathea . The nine works from the first group are: Of the second group there are: The Grail

1593-677: The Holy Grail in the 17th century. In the 20th century, a series of new items became associated with it. These include the Nanteos Cup , a medieval wooden bowl found near Rhydyfelin , Wales; a glass dish found near Glastonbury , England; the Antioch chalice , a 6th-century silver-gilt object that became attached to the Grail legend in the 1930s; and the Chalice of Doña Urraca , a cup made between 200 BC and 100 AD, kept in León ’s Basilica of Saint Isidore . In

1652-455: The Last Supper until later, in the wake of the Grail romances; the first known association is in Jacobus de Voragine 's chronicle of Genoa in the late 13th century, which draws on the Grail literary tradition. The Catino was moved and broken during Napoleon 's conquest in the early 19th century, revealing that it is glass rather than emerald. The Holy Chalice of Valencia is an agate dish with

1711-455: The Last Supper, but other details vary. Despite the prominence of the Grail literature, traditions about a Last Supper relic remained rare in contrast to other items associated with Jesus' last days, such as the True Cross and Holy Lance . One tradition predates the Grail romances: in the 7th century, the pilgrim Arculf reported that the Last Supper chalice was displayed near Jerusalem. In

1770-526: The Quest for the Holy Grail before abandoning the idea to stay with Iseult at Lancelot's castle . Manuscripts which do not include the Grail material preserve the earlier version of the lovers' deaths, while the longer versions have Mark kill Tristan while he plays the harp for Iseult, only to see her die immediately afterwards. The Prose Tristan had a huge effect on subsequent medieval literature and treatments of

1829-579: The SS chief Heinrich Himmler 's abortive sponsorship of Rahn's search for the Grail, as well as many subsequent conspiracy theories and fictional works about the Nazis searching for the Grail. In the late 20th century, writers Michael Baigent , Richard Leigh , and Henry Lincoln created one of the most widely known conspiracy theories about the Holy Grail. The theory first appeared on the BBC documentary series Chronicle in

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1888-596: The authority of a certain (probably fictional) Kyot the Provençal , claimed the Grail was a Stone, the sanctuary of the neutral angels who took neither side during Lucifer's rebellion . It is called Lapis exillis , which in alchemy is the name of the philosopher's stone . The authors of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle used the Grail as a symbol of divine grace ; the virgin Galahad, illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine ,

1947-400: The chalice of the Last Supper to collect Christ's blood upon his removal from the cross. Joseph is thrown in prison, where Christ visits him and explains the mysteries of the blessed cup. Upon his release, Joseph gathers his in-laws and other followers and travels to the west. He founds a dynasty of Grail keepers that eventually includes Perceval. In Parzival , Wolfram von Eschenbach, citing

2006-510: The court of his uncle Mark , King of Cornwall , and defends his country against the Irish warrior Morholt . Wounded in the fight, he travels to Ireland where he is healed by Iseult , a renowned doctor and Morholt's niece, but he must flee when the Irish discover he has killed their champion. He later returns, in disguise, to seek Iseult as a bride for his uncle. When they accidentally drink the love potion prepared for Iseult and Mark, they engage in

2065-566: The crucifixion . Thereafter, the Holy Grail became interwoven with the legend of the Holy Chalice , the Last Supper cup, an idea continued in works such as the Lancelot-Grail cycle, and subsequently the 15th-century Le Morte d'Arthur . In this form, it is now a popular theme in modern culture, and has become the subject of folklore studies , pseudohistorical writings, works of fiction, and conspiracy theories . The word graal , as it

2124-472: The early 13th century, the originality of the Tristan en prose is found in the author's use of lyrical poems to express characters' hopes, despair or anger. Various books and articles have studied the lyrical content of the Prose Tristan whether expressed as riddles in verse, letters in verse, songs of mockery or love songs. In this way, the Prose Tristan functions like a musical. Characters placed in extreme situations actually "break into song." All of this

2183-611: The early 20th century, writers, particularly in France, further connected the Templars and Grail to the Cathars. In 1906, French esoteric writer Joséphin Péladan identified the Cathar castle of Montségur with Munsalväsche or Montsalvat, the Grail castle in Wolfram's Parzival . This identification has inspired a wider legend asserting that the Cathars possessed the Holy Grail. According to these stories,

2242-560: The esoteric significance of the grail, relating it to the Iranian Islamic symbols that he studied. Richard Barber (2004) argued that the Grail legend is connected to the introduction of "more ceremony and mysticism" surrounding the sacrament of the Eucharist in the high medieval period, proposing that the first Grail stories may have been connected to the "renewal in this traditional sacrament". Daniel Scavone (1999, 2003) has argued that

2301-465: The evangelist of Britain rather than as the custodian of the Holy Grail, but from the 15th century, the Grail became a more prominent part of the legends surrounding Glastonbury. Interest in Glastonbury resurged in the late 19th century, inspired by renewed interest in the Arthurian legend and contemporary spiritual movements centered on ancient sacred sites. In the late 19th century, John Goodchild hid

2360-515: The hero instead with a platter containing his kinsman's bloody, severed head. The Grail is first featured in Perceval, le Conte du Graal ( The Story of the Grail ) by Chrétien de Troyes, who claims he was working from a source book given to him by his patron, Count Philip of Flanders . In this incomplete poem, dated sometime between 1180 and 1191, the object has not yet acquired the implications of holiness it would have in later works. While dining in

2419-400: The infamous Vienna 2542 manuscript. His edition follows from Curtis', includes Tristan's participation in the Quest for the Holy Grail and ends with Tristan and Iseult's death and the first signs of Arthur's fall. The shorter version, which contains no Grail Quest, was published by Joël Blanchard in five volumes. Though part of the larger prose cycles, which dominated all things Arthurian after

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2478-481: The later portions of the Prose Tristan . According to the prologue, the first part of the book (i.e. everything before the Grail material) is attributed to the otherwise unknown Luce de Gat, and was probably begun between 1230 and 1235. The work was expanded and reworked sometime after 1240 to create the more popular version known as V2. In the epilogue of V2, its author names himself as "Hélie de Boron", asserting that he

2537-602: The legend as essentially Christian in origin. Joseph Goering identified sources for Grail imagery in 12th-century wall paintings from churches in the Catalan Pyrenees (now mostly moved to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya ), which present unique iconic images of the Virgin Mary holding a bowl that radiates tongues of fire, images that predate the first literary account by Chrétien de Troyes. Goering argues that they were

2596-439: The long version is made up of two editions: one edited by Renée L. Curtis and the other by Philippe Ménard. Curtis' edition of a simple manuscript (Carpentras 404) covers Tristan's ancestry and the traditional legend up to Tristan's madness. However, the massive amount of manuscripts in existence dissuaded other scholars from attempting what Curtis had done until Ménard hit upon the idea of using multiple teams of scholars to tackle

2655-471: The magical abode of the Fisher King , Perceval witnesses a wondrous procession in which youths carry magnificent objects from one chamber to another, passing before him at each course of the meal. First comes a young man carrying a bleeding lance, then two boys carrying candelabras. Finally, a beautiful young girl emerges bearing an elaborately decorated graal , or "grail". Chrétien refers to this object not as "The Grail" but as "a grail" ( un graal ), showing

2714-457: The modern era, a number of places have become associated with the Holy Grail. One of the most prominent is Glastonbury in Somerset , England. Glastonbury was associated with King Arthur and his resting place of Avalon by the 12th century. In the 13th century, a legend arose that Joseph of Arimathea was the founder of Glastonbury Abbey . Early accounts of Joseph at Glastonbury focus on his role as

2773-512: The next morning alone. He later learns that if he had asked the appropriate questions about what he saw, he would have healed his maimed host, much to his honour. The story of the Wounded King's mystical fasting is not unique; several saints were said to have lived without food besides communion, for instance Saint Catherine of Genoa . This may imply that Chrétien intended the Communion wafer to be

2832-464: The original inspiration for the Grail legend. Psychologists Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz used analytical psychology to interpret the Grail as a series of symbols in their book The Grail Legend . They directly expanded on interpretations by Carl Jung , which were later invoked by Joseph Campbell . Philosopher Henry Corbin , a member of the Eranos circle founded by Jung, also commented on

2891-618: The origins of the Holy Grail before Chrétien, suggesting that it may contain elements of the trope of magical cauldrons from Celtic mythology and later Welsh mythology , combined with Christian legend surrounding the Eucharist , the latter found in Eastern Christian sources, conceivably in that of the Byzantine Mass , or even Persian sources. The view that the "origin" of the Grail legend should be seen as deriving from Celtic mythology

2950-439: The significant part of the ritual, and the Grail to be a mere prop. Though Chrétien's account is the earliest and most influential of all Grail texts, it was in the work of Robert that the Grail truly became the "Holy Grail" and assumed the form most familiar to modern readers in its Christian context. In his verse romance Joseph d'Arimathie , composed between 1191 and 1202, Robert tells the story of Joseph of Arimathea acquiring

3009-681: The subject was also epitomized in Dante Gabriel Rossetti 's painting in which a woman modeled by Alexa Wilding holds the Grail with one hand, while adopting a gesture of blessing with the other. A major mural series depicting the Quest for the Holy Grail was done by the artist Edwin Austin Abbey during the first decade of the 20th century for the Boston Public Library . Other artists, including George Frederic Watts and William Dyce , also portrayed grail subjects. The story of

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3068-557: The successful end of the Grail Quest and are witnesses of his ascension to Heaven . Galahad and the interpretation of the Grail involving him were picked up in the 15th century by Thomas Malory in Le Morte d'Arthur and remain popular today. While it is not explicit that the Holy Grail is never to be seen again on Earth, it is stated by Malory that there has since then been no knight capable of obtaining it. Scholars have long speculated on

3127-442: The traditional story as told by verse writers like Béroul and Thomas of Britain , but many episodes are reworked or altered entirely. Tristan 's parents are given new names and backstories, and the overall tone has been called "more realistic" than the verse material though there are moments where characters sing. Tristan's guardian Governal takes him to France, where he grows up at the court of King Pharamond . He later arrives at

3186-538: The wake of Robert de Boron's Grail works, several other items came to be claimed as the true Last Supper vessel. In the late 12th century, one was said to be in Byzantium ; Albrecht von Scharfenberg 's Grail romance Der Jüngere Titurel associated it explicitly with the Arthurian Grail, but claimed it was only a copy. This item was said to have been looted in the Fourth Crusade and brought to Troyes in France, but it

3245-508: The word was used, in its earliest literary context, as a common noun. For Chrétien, a grail was a wide, somewhat deep, dish or bowl, interesting because it contained not a pike, salmon, or lamprey, as the audience may have expected for such a container, but a single Communion wafer which provided sustenance for the Fisher King's crippled father. Perceval, who had been warned against talking too much, remains silent through all of this and wakes up

3304-561: The world's greatest knight and the Grail Bearer at the castle of Corbenic , is destined to achieve the Grail, his spiritual purity making him a greater warrior than even his illustrious father. The Queste del Saint Graal ( The Quest of The Holy Grail ) tells also of the adventures of various Knights of the Round Table in their eponymous quest. Some of them, including Percival and Bors the Younger , eventually join Galahad as his companions near

3363-606: Was championed by Roger Sherman Loomis , Alfred Nutt , and Jessie Weston . Loomis traced a number of parallels between medieval Welsh literature and Irish material, and the Grail romances, including similarities between the Mabinogion ' s Bran the Blessed and the Arthurian Fisher King, and between Bran's life-restoring cauldron and the Grail. The opposing view dismissed the "Celtic" connections as spurious, and interpreted

3422-417: Was considered a bowl or dish when first described by Chrétien de Troyes. There, it is a processional salver , a tray, used to serve at a feast. Hélinand of Froidmont described a grail as a "wide and deep saucer" ( scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda ); other authors had their own ideas. Robert de Boron portrayed it as the vessel of the Last Supper . Peredur son of Efrawg had no Grail as such, presenting

3481-590: Was lost during the French Revolution . Two relics associated with the Grail survive today. The Sacro Catino (Sacred Basin, also known as the Genoa Chalice) is a green glass dish held at the Genoa Cathedral said to have been used at the Last Supper. Its provenance is unknown, and there are two divergent accounts of how it was brought to Genoa by Crusaders in the 12th century. It was not associated with

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