Grail

Jesus Christ during the Last Supper with Grialby Juan de Juanes (1570). The cup represented corresponds to the chalice of the Cathedral of Valencia.

The Holy Grail or simply Grail is the container or cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. The relationship between the Grail, the Chalice and Joseph of Arimathea comes from Robert de Boron's work Joseph d'Arimathie, published in the 12th century. According to this story, Jesus, already resurrected, appears to Joseph to give him the Grail and order him to take it to the island of Britain. Following this tradition, later authors say that Joseph himself used the chalice to collect the blood and water emanating from the wound opened by the Holy Lance of the centurion Longinos in the side of Christ and that, later, in Britain, he established a dynasty of guardians to keep it safe and hidden. The search for the Holy Grail is an important element in the stories related to King Arthur (the Arthurian Cycle or Matter of Britain) where Christian tradition is combined with ancient Celtic myths. referring to a divine cauldron.

Other legends about the Grail intersect with those related to the different ancient cups that are considered the Holy Chalice.

Etymology

The word grail—pronounced graal in Old French, Galician-Portuguese, and Middle English, grazal in Provençal texts and greasal in Catalan — seems to be an adaptation of the Latin term gradalis which implies the idea of a plate, bowl or tray with food that is brought to the table at different moments (gradus) of a meal. In this regard, Helinand de Froidmont says in his Chronicon (13th century): “Gradalis or gradale in French, is a wide and deep plate, in which food is ceremoniously presented, one at a time, before a rich man during the course of the meal. In the vernacular it is called greal, which both satisfies and welcomes a meal; it is of silver or some similar precious metal, while its contents are an overwhelming array of costly delicacies."

History

Chrétien de Troyes

The first author to mention the Grail is, between 1181 and 1191, the poet Chrétien de Troyes in his narrative Perceval, also called Le Conte du Graal. The work, presented as if taken from an ancient book, tells of Perceval's visit —who aspires to be King Arthur's knight— to the Fisher King's castle, where he is shown a grail. Inside it there is a kind of wafer that, miraculously, feeds the wounded father of the King. Perceval does not ask about the meaning of this object, for which he is later reproached. Although it has a clear Christian symbolism, in which twelve kings reenact the Last Supper, Chrétien does not explain what the grail consists of, and the work is abruptly interrupts. The author does not call it «saint», nor designates it as «the grail», but simply as «a grail» and considers more important its content —the consecrated host of Catholicism— than the recipient.

Robert de Boron

The work of Chrétien de Troyes would mark the beginning of the legend, but it would be Robert de Boron and Wolfram von Eschenbach who would develop it in the way that medieval Europe knew it. Robert de Boron, in Joseph d'Arimathie and Estoire del San Graal, is responsible for transforming Chrétien's «grail» into «The Holy Grail». This English author spiritualizes the simple dish mentioned by the Frenchman and turns it into the cup of the Last Supper, the same one that, according to the legends, Joseph of Arimathea later used to collect the blood from the wounds during the crucifixion of Christ. De Boron is also the first to claim that Joseph and his family took the Grail to unspecified parts of Britain.

Legends of the Grail

The Grial appears in the shield of Galicia.

From this point on, the texts focus on two different stories. On the one hand, those related to the search for the Holy Grail, undertaken by King Arthur's knights, and, on the other, those that tell the story of the Grail itself from the times of Joseph of Arimathea.

Among the first we can mention:

• Parzival, work of the German knight and poet Wolfram von Eschenbach, in which the concept of De Boron on the holiness of the Grail is united to the account of Chrétien de Troyes.
• The four continuations of Chrétien's unfinished work by Troyes. Written by different authors in the fifty years after the original history, they follow the story until the death of Perceval, now guardian of the Grail, who eventually takes it with him to Heaven.
• The call Percival de Didot (name of the owner of the manuscript) which is probably a prose version of the I'm sorry. Robert Boron.
• The Welsh Poem Peredur, usually included in Mabinogioninspired by the work of Chrétien but which incorporates elements of pre-Christian traditions, such as the Celtic cult of Caldero.
• The Perlesvausor Li Hauz Livres du Graal, considered the one that most departs from the arturian traditions giving different versions to those accepted on the characters of history.
• The Diu Crône (The Crown), German poem by Heinrich von dem Türlin, in which is Gawain, before Perceval, who gets the Grail.
• The episode of Lancelot in the call Vulgate arturianawhere Galahad is introduced as the hero of history.
• La Queste del Saint Graalalso part of the Vulgate, which describes the adventures of Galahad to get the Grial.

Of the latter, the following are mentioned:

• Robert de Boron's own work.
• La Estoire del Saint Graal, first part of the Vulgate, written before the episode of Lancelot, that expands the text of Robert de Boron with new details.
• Joseph de Arimathie, an eliter poem written in English about 1310, which describes Joseph's activities after the Resurrection of Christ and portrays him as an apostle preacher and guardian of the Grail.
• La Chronica sive Antiquitates Glastoniensis Ecclesiae (Chronicles or Antiquities of the Church of Glastonbury), of John Seen, a local monk, in which it is said that the Grial and the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea had been in that church.
• From Sancto Joseph ab Arimathea written about 1430 by Fray John Capgrave of Norfolk.
• History of the Holy Grail by Herry Lovelich, written about 1450, the first English translation of the story Vulgate French Estaire del San Graal. Here, Josephes, the son of Joseph, is the protagonist and the emphasis is placed on José de Arimatea and his conversion activities in Britania, while his connection with the Grail is minimized.
• La Chronicle by John Hardyng, completed in 1465, links Arturo with José de Arimatea to whom he credits the construction of the original Round Table.
• The poem Jerusalemin the prologue to Milton by William Blake, written in 1808, evokes ancient traditions that made Joseph the uncle of Jesus and related the coming of this, in his childhood, to Britannia.

Chrétien's Perceval

This unfinished French work gave way to numerous endings in many cases incongruous between them. The elements of this novel in relation to the legend are, on the one hand, the characterization of Perceval as a knight, who finds himself unknowingly involved in the demand for the grail, and the "castle of the grail" guarded by by knights who serve the «king of the grail» or «fisherman king».

Eschenbach's Parsifal

This book reflects the German tradition that would later inspire Richard Wagner's opera. The story has strong parallels with the French tradition, although it has elements specific to it: the most important of which is the identification of the Grail with a precious stone "of the purest origin". According to some scholars, Wolfram von Eschenbach was inspired for this description by the passage of the Apocalypse (2, 17) in which he speaks of "a white stone" delivered by the Lord to his chosen one. The abbess and mystic Hildegard von Bingen, in the XII century, associates it with the lapis exillis, stone detached from Lucifer's crown at the time of his rebellion against God.

Vulgate Cycle

This source, strongly influenced by the writings of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, presents the «demand for the Holy Grail» imbricated within the Arthurian universe, enriching the tradition with other elements such as a description of the origin and Grail meaning. According to this source, the chalice would have belonged to the table service of José de Arimathea, a rich Jewish merchant, who according to tradition organized the Last Supper.

Joseph of Arimathea would have asked Pontius Pilate to give him the body of Jesus (whom he had buried in a tomb he owned) and the spear with which he was wounded (which remained in his possession, along with the cup). As Joseph was a prosperous merchant, on a business trip he would have reached Albion (old name for Great Britain) and established his residence there, raising a chapel at Glastonbury.

When José died, the poems state that precautions were taken to guard the relics, appointing a knight for that purpose. Being Sir Pelles the guardian of the Grail, another knight, Sir Balin the Wild, wanted to steal it along with the other relics; the two jousted but, losing his sword, Sir Balin seized the holy spear and struck Pelles down; immediately the castle collapsed due to desecration.

The Grail, then, disappeared from the sight of men until a pure-hearted knight found it. Finally Sir Galahad, the holiest of the Knights of the Round Table, found the chalice. Upon death, according to the stories of the cycle, the Grail was taken along with the knight to the Celestial Kingdom.

Neopagan variant

Some scholars linked to esotericism, such as Malcolm Godwin, want to identify the loss of the Grail with real events that occurred at the end of the Neolithic, when various settled and peaceful matriarchal tribes supposedly existed in Europe, whose way of life was violently altered by waves of warlike and violent tribes from Asia. These events, which do not have historical or archaeological testimonies, would have remained in a possible collective memory and acquired a symbolic dimension in Celtic mythology until, finally, they were Christianized by authors such as Chrétien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach and others. In this highly speculative interpretation, the Grail would evoke the feminine (as a symbol of the maternal womb and the vulva) and Mother Earth.

Supposed Grails

Several authors consider various ancient relics and cups to be the Holy Grail:

Chapel of the Holy Chalice of Valencia

• The Santo Cáliz de la Catedral de Valencia: in the old capitular room, today Chapel of the Cathedral of Valenciaa chalice is preserved that the Aragonese tradition identifies with the Holy Grail, brought from Rome to Spain thanks to San Lorenzo martyr, a deacon from Hispania, there for the third century. After the passage through various temples of the Upper Aragon, such as the Monastery of San Pedro de Siresa or the Cathedral of Jaca, the chalice remained from 1071 to 1399 in the Monastery of San Juan de la Peña. The similarities found in the structure of this monastery and the descriptions of the surroundings, of the poems of Chrétien de Troyes and Wolfran von Essembach, would support the hypothesis that this was the place where the medieval legend was generated, being the Castle of the Grail quoted in the poem, a reference to Mount San Salvador at whose feet is San Juan de la Peña. The chalice, after a short stay in Barcelona, was transferred to the Cathedral of Valencia. It is composed of a 7 cm high agate cup and 9.5 cm in diameter and a foot with a handle added later. Archaeologist Antonio Beltrán has dated the top cup around the change of era (I century). In this study there was an inscription in cubic characters recorded on the piece of calcedony that serves as the basis of the cup; the same, although not safe, could refer to Medina Azahara. In the Parzival a calyx is also mentioned, but miraculous, because it is deleted as soon as it is read. The two Popes who have visited the city of Valencia (John Paul II and Benedict XVI), have used this chalice in the Massive Eucharists of their visits. Some therefore consider that the Church is favorable to the authenticity of this relic, in this sense, the Vatican has approved the Holy Jubilee Year for the “Santo Grial de Valencia”, as well as Cardinal Cañizares announced his intention to declare the first Holy Jubilee Year in Valencia by the Holy Chalice in October 2015. Around the Calice of the Cathedral of Valencia stand out the Confraternity of the Holy Chalicefounded by Benjamin Civera Miralles, Celer of the Cult of the Holy Chalice, and erected canonically in the Cathedral, with approved statutes 'ad experimentum' on March 25, 1952, and definitively, by the Prelate, on November 25, 1955 as well as the Royal Brotherhood of the Holy Chalice, corlegiate body of the nobility titled Valencian and created by Archbishop José María Salvador and Barrera in February 1918.

• The Chalice of Doña Urraca: according to Margarita Torres and José Miguel Ortega del Río, this object, which dates back to the eleventh century in its present form, would be the authentic Grial, donated by a Fatimid caliph in 1054 to the emir of the Taifa of Denia, who gave it to Fernando I the Magno, king of León after the death of Vermudo III in the battle of Tamarón. Doña Urraca’s chalice is made up of two cups or bowls of an onyx of Roman origin and, according to a journalistic note, the researchers always drew the attention that Urraca gave the goldsmiths something that materially had no great value and was also an object of pagan use. The authors of the hypothesis presented it in their book "The Kings of the Grail", where they recount that: "the cup that the Christian community of Jerusalem in the eleventh century considered to be the chalice of Christ", is located in the Basilica of St.Isidoro of Leon". This research has been criticized for its low academic value and errors in the interpretation of texts.
• The Sacro Catino from Genoa, who was taken after the First Crusade to Italy. It is a green hexagonal dish that was believed to be emerald, although it is an Egyptian green crystal. Genoese, in fact, have never held that it is the Holy Grail, but a piece of the dishes used during the Holy Supper.

• El Santo Grial de O ́Cebreiro (Lugo): El Cebrero is a village of Galicia on the Camino de Santiago. In it there is a chalice, which has a great religious importance, located in the Monastery of Santa Maria do Cebreiro, which has existed since the middle of the 9th century, linked to a hospital that assisted travelers. The Chalice in question appears to date from the 12th century and presents the inscriptions: "Hoc sacratur quo cuntis vita parabatur"I"n nomine nostri christi et beate Marie Virgine". A legend mentioned by various historical sources relates that on the altar of the side chapel of the church was celebrating the Eucharist a monk. The religious thought that that crude winter day, when the snow was piled up and the wind was unbearable, no one would come to Mass, but a certain Juan Santin, a devout neighbor of the village of Barxamaior came. The monk despised the effort of the peasant “to see some bread and wine”, but at the time of the consecration the Host became sensitive flesh in sight, and the content of the chalice in blood, which drove even to dye the body. The legend, according to some, would come to the north of Europe, carried by the French and German pilgrims, being the inspiration of certain accounts linked to the Grail.^{[chuckles]required]} In 1486 the Catholic Kings, of pilgrimage to Santiago, stopped at the monastery and donated the fans where the relics of the miracle are kept. This chalice is supposed to be the one in the coat of arms of Galicia ^{[chuckles]required]}, but the truth is that the chalice was an emblem of Galicia for reasons of paronomasia. Medievalist Mathew Kuefler came to the conclusion that, in reality, the belief that the Chalice of O Cebreiro was assimilated to the Holy Grail is the product of a simple linguistic confusion, since the lodging of O Cebreiro was dedicated to San Geraldo de Aurillac, whose name was pronounced Guiral in the West, giving rise to such confusion: hence the association between the Miraculous in the San Guipedral.
• The Antioch chalice of the Cloisters Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of New York, discovered in Syria in the early twentieth century. Research at the end of the centuryXX. They argue, however, that the cup of Antioch would be a contemporary forgery to its find.
• The Vaso de Nanteos It is a medieval bowl of wood, from Mansion Nanteos, in Wales. According to the tradition of the Powell family, the owner of the relic, comes from the abbey of Glastonbury. However, those who examined it concluded that it was an object of the 14th century. In addition, Jewish tradition avoids porous objects (such as wood) for wine tasting.
• The Chalice de Ardagh found in Ireland; it is at the national museum in Dublin. This is an Irish goldsmith's piece dated in the centuryVIII and was never identified with the Grial of legend.
• La Hawkstone Park CupVictoria Palmer's property. The claim of this piece has been made by Graham Phillips, who maintains that the piece was taken to England after being plundered Rome by the Visigoths. The cup does not measure more than six centimeters, it is made of a semi-precious stone—onice green—and, according to Philips himself, it is very possible to date from the Roman era.
• Achatschale: the Cuenco de Ágata that is in the treasure of the Habsburgs in Vienna. It's a century bowl.IV from Constantinople or Treveris and which carries a supposed inscription that can be read as XRISTO, interpreted as a reference to Christ, or as ARISTOThat could be the name of the recorder. The latest research reveals that this is simply an optical illusion. The bowl is part of the imperial relics of the disappeared German Roman Empire; among which there is also the Lance of Longines, and given the inscription was associated, since the centuryXX.With the Grail.
• Santa Isabel Cup: Cup that belonged to Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, to which, after the death of the saint, miraculous healings were attributed. Isabel was educated in the court of Turingia, where she resided for a while Wolfram von Eschenbach, author of Parsifal.

Origin and interpretations of the Grail

The Grail is part of medieval Christian mythology, so it lacks specific references in biblical texts. Various elements have entered into the formation of the myth, among them the monastic legends with their allegorical content and the pre-Christian references to magical containers such as the horn of plenty or the cauldrons of the Celtic tradition.

Later authors identify the Grail with the philosopher's stone of the alchemists, the supposed relics found by the Templars or a veiled allusion to the descendants of Jesus. For the most part, these researchers are tied to conspiracy theories elaborated with little historical accuracy.

Peter Redgrove and Penelope Shuttle poetically saw in Grail imagery a symbol of the female womb and the menstrual cycle.

The French philosopher René Guénon identifies the Grail with the Sacred Heart of Jesus. For him, the loss of the Grail symbolizes man evicted from his original center through his own fault, that is, the loss of "meaning of eternity", with what is seen from now on locked in the temporal sphere.

The legend of the Grail has fascinated many historical figures. The German medievalist Otto Rahn was the best known of these for his links to the Nazi regime. Indeed, after having written a book on the subject: Kreuzzug gegen den Gral (Crusade against the Grail. Catharism tragedy) where he linked the Grail with the Cathar movement, Rahn He caught the attention of Heinrich Himmler, head of the Ahnenerbe Society, who made him enter the SS. Disgusted with this organization, Rahn resigned and was later found dead (officially ruled a suicide). This episode has given rise to the belief in a secret search for the Grail by the Nazi hierarchy, always linked to occult themes.

In some texts from the Late Middle Ages, the Holy Grail appears transcribed as "San Gréal", which has given rise to esoteric interpretations, according to which the name derives from a supposed form «Sang Réal», that is, «royal blood». According to the defenders of this idea, which is not accepted by medievalists, the mention of the blood does not refer to that of Christ collected in the cup, as the texts unanimously maintain, but to the supposed descendants of him. This hypothesis is developed in the book by Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln: The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, used as a source by Dan Brown for his novel The Da Vinci Code.

The professor of German studies at the University of Salamanca, Feliciano Pérez Varas, maintained that von Eschenbach had codified place names and anthroponyms in his Grail poem by means of complex anagrams. In his interpretation, the wise man and astronomer that the author calls Flegetanis would be the Andalusian astronomer al-Bitrūyī (known as Alpetragio) and his translator, Kyot, the poet Miguel Escoto who resided in Dolet (ie Toledo). He therefore concludes that the original source of the Grail legend would be an Arabic astronomy text from the Toledo School of Translators.

Journalist Fernández Pousada recently postulated the identification of the characters in Parzival with various objects from the celestial sphere, the Grail being a reference to the Crater constellation.

Some authors linked to esotericism have elaborated the theory of a Templar presence in Argentina, transporting the Holy Grail. They justify this pseudohistorical interpretation with some supposed verses from Eschenbach's poem. However, they do not exist in the poem; they are a modern interpolation due to law professor Guillermo Alfredo Terrera.

The occult researcher José Ignacio Carmona Sánchez, in his historical study Toledo and the Table of Solomon; between Scylla and Charybdis, relates the Grail to the Castle of Montalbán and the Church of Santa María de Melque in Toledo. Speculations that he links, without historical evidence, with the legend of Solomon's Table and with cabalistic traditions.

From the XX century, and especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, the expression "grail&# 3. 4; or "holy grail" to designate any topic that is the subject of intense research.

Literature, cinema and music

The legend of the Holy Grail has been a source of inspiration for literary works, operas, films and television series:

• Perceval or the Grial StoryChrétien de Troyes
• The Death of ArthurThomas Malory
• Parsifal, opera by Richard Wagner
• The Knights of King ArthurRichard Thorpe's film
• ExcaliburJohn Boorman's film
• Indiana Jones and the last crusadeSteven Spielberg film
• Foucault pendulum, novel by Umberto Eco
• The code Da VinciDan Brown's novel
• The silver chaliceThomas B's novel. Costain
• The Templar CodeFlorian Baxmeyer
• Na noite stalkedof Ramon Cabanillas
• Fate/stay night, visual novel produced by Type-Moon, as well as in its prequel Fate/Zero
• The children of the GrailPeter Berling pentalogy
• «The Holy Grail», song by the Spanish rock group Mägo de Oz
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail, comedy of the humorous group Monty Python
• The Magic CircleKatherine Neville's book
• AD – Blood, album of the English band Mandalaband, by historian David Rohl.
• In the last two seasons of the science-fiction series Stargate SG-1 the Sangraal appears as a weapon created by Merlin to destroy the Ori, beings ascended like gods.
• In the game WarhammerIn the Bretonia army, there are the Knights of the Grail. They are those who, after a long search full of dangers and trials, have drunk the Grail and have been blessed by their power.
• Holy Grail, Japanese Symphony Metal Band album Versailles ~Philharmonic Quintet~
• "Holy Grail", song played by Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake.
• Sailor Moon S, third season: This season’s villains look for the Santo Grial, with which they intend to dominate the world.
• The Great Adventure of Mortadelo and Philemon: The Super commands Philemon to bring him the Holy Grail, an object possessing the Tyrant.
• Transformers: the era of extinction: Joshua calls the transformium the Holy Grail.
• The invisible fireJavier Sierra.
• Knightfall (TV)