11 The Holy Grail
What might we have been overlooking? Or, alternatively, what might we have been seeking in the wrong place? Was there perhaps some fragment that had been before our eyes all along which, for one reason or another, we had failed to notice? As far as we could determine, we had overlooked no item, no data of accepted historical scholarship. But might there be something else -something that lay "beyond the pale' of documented history, the concrete facts to which we had endeavoured to confine ourselves?
Certainly there was one motif, admittedly fabulous, which had threaded itself through our investigation, recurring repeatedly, with insistent and intriguing consistency. This as the mysterious object known as the Holy Grail. By their contemporaries, for-example, the Cathars were believed to have been in possession of the Grail. The Templars, too, were often regarded as the Grail's custodians; and the Grail romances had originally issued from the court of the count of Champagne, who was intimately associated with the foundation of the Knights Templar. When the Templars were suppressed, moreover, the bizarre heads they supposedly worshipped enjoyed, according to the official Inquisition reports, many of the attributes traditionally ascribed to the Grail -providing sustenance, for example, and imbuing the land with fertility.
In the course of our investigation we had run across the Grail in numerous other contexts as well. Some had been relatively recent, such as the occult circles of Josephin Peladan and Claude Debussy at the end of the nineteenth century. Others were considerably older. Godfroi de Bouillon, for instance, was descended according to medieval legend and folklore from Lohengrin, the Knight of the Swan; and Lohengrin, in the romances, was the son of Perceval or Parzival, protagonist of all the early Grail stories. Guillem de Gellone, moreover, ruler of the medieval principality in southern France during the reign of Charlemagne, was the hero of a poem by Wolfram von Eschenbach, most important of the Grail chroniclers. Indeed, the Guillem in Wolfram's poem was said to have been associated in some way with the mysterious "Grail family'.
Were these intrusions of the Grail into our inquiry, and others like them, merely random and coincidental? Or was there a continuity underlying and connecting them a continuity which, in some unimaginable way, did link our inquiry to the Grail, whatever the Grail might really be? At this point, we were confronted by a staggering question. Could the Grail be something more than pure fantasy? Could it actually have existed in some sense? Could there really have been such a thing as the Holy Grail? Or something concrete, at any rate, for which the Holy Grail was employed as a symbol?
The question was certainly exciting and provocative -to say the least. At the same time it threatened to take us too far afield, into spheres of spurious speculation. It did, however, serve to direct our attention to the Grail romances themselves. And in themselves the Grail romances posed a number of perplexing and distinctly relevant conundrums.
It is generally assumed that the Holy Grail relates in some way to Jesus. According to some traditions, it was the cup from which Jesus and his disciples drank at the Last Supper. According to other traditions, it was the cup in which Joseph of Arimathea caught Jesus's blood as he hung on the cross. According to other traditions still, the Grail was both of these.
But if the Grail was so intimately associated with Jesus, or if it did indeed exist, why was there no reference to it whatever for more than a thousand years? Where was it during all that time? Why did it not figure in earlier literature, folklore or tradition? Why should something of such intense relevance and immediacy to Christendom remain buried for as long as it apparently did?
More provocatively still, why should the Grail finally surface precisely when it did at the very peak of the Crusades? Was it coincidence that this enigmatic object, ostensibly non-existent for ten centuries, should assume the status it did at the very time it did when the Frankish kingdom of Jerusalem was in its full glory, when the Templars were at the apex of their power, when the Cathar heresy was gaining a momentum which actually threatened to displace the creed of Rome? Was this convergence of circumstances truly coincidental? Or was there some link between them?
Inundated and somewhat daunted by questions of this kind, we turned our attention to the Grail romances. Only by examining these "fantasies' closely could we hope to determine whether their recurrence in our inquiry was indeed coincidental, or the manifestation of a pattern a pattern which might, in some way, prove significant.
The Legend of the Holy Grail
Most twentieth-century scholarship concurs in the belief that the Grail romances rest ultimately on a pagan foundation a ritual connected with the cycle of the seasons, the death and rebirth of the year. In its most primordial origins it would appear to involve a vegetation cult, closely related in form to, if not directly derived from those of Tammuz, Attis, Adonis and Osiris in the Middle East. Thus, in both Irish and Welsh mythology, there are repeated references to death, rebirth and renewal, as well as to a similar regenerative process in the land sterility and fertility. The theme is central to the anonymous fourteenth-century English poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. And in the Mabinogion, a compilation of Welsh legends roughly contemporary with the Grail romances though obviously drawing on much earlier material, there is a mysterious "cauldron of rebirth' in which dead warriors, thrown at nightfall, are resurrected the following morning. This cauldron is often associated with a giant hero named Bran. Bran also possessed a platter and 'whatever food one wished thereon was instantly obtained' -a property also sometimes ascribed to the Grail. At the end of his life, moreover, Bran was supposedly decapitated and his head placed, as a sort of talisman, in London. Here it was said to perform a number of magical functions not only ensuring fertility of the land but also, by some occult power, repelling invaders.
Many of these motifs were subsequently incorporated into the Grail romances. There is no question that Bran, with his cauldron and platter, contributed something to later conceptions of the Grail. And Bran's head shares attributes not only with the Grail, but also with the heads allegedly worshipped by the Knights Templar.
The pagan foundation for the Grail romances has been exhaustively explored by scholars, from Sir James Frazer in The Golden Bough up to the present. But during the mid to late twelfth century the originally pagan foundation for the Grail romances underwent a curious and extremely important transformation. In some obscure way that has eluded the investigation of researchers, the Grail became very uniquely and specifically associated with Christianity and with a rather unorthodox form of Christianity at that. On the basis of some elusive amalgamation, the Grail became inextricably linked with Jesus. And there seems to have been something more involved than a facile grafting of pagan and Christian traditions.
As a relic linked mystically with Jesus, the Grail engendered a voluminous quantity of romances, or lengthy narrative poems, which, even today, tease the imagination. Despite clerical disapprobation, these romances flourished for nearly a century, becoming a fully fledged cult of their own a cult whose lifespan, interestingly enough, closely paralleled that of the Order of the Temple after its separation from the Prieure de Sion in 1188. With the fall of the Holy Land in 1291, and the dissolution of the Templars between 1307 and 1314, the Grail romances also vanished from the stage of history, for another two centuries or so, at any rate. Then, in 1470, the theme was taken up again by Sir Thomas Malory in his famous Le Morte d'Arthur; and it has remained more or less prominent in Western culture ever since. Nor has its context always been wholly literary. There seems to be abundant documentary evidence that certain members of the National Socialist hierarchy in Germany actually believed in the Grail's physical existence, and excavations for it were actually undertaken during the war in the south of France.
By Malory's time the mysterious object known as the Grail had assumed the more or less distinct identity ascribed to it today. It was alleged to be the cup of the Last Supper, in which Joseph of Arimathea later caught Jesus's blood. According to certain accounts, the Grail was brought by Joseph of Arimathea to England more specifically, to Glastonbury. According to other accounts, it was brought by the Magdalene to France. As early as the fourth century legends describe the Magdalene fleeing the Holy Land and being set ashore near Marseilles where, for that matter, her purported relics are still venerated. According to medieval legends, she carried with her to Marseilles the Holy Grail. By the fifteenth century this tradition had clearly assumed immense importance for such individuals as King Rene d'Anjou, who collected "Grail cups".
But the early legends say that the Magdalene brought the Grail into France, not a cup. In other words, the simple association of Grail and cup was a relatively late development. Malory perpetuated -this facile association, and it has been a truism ever since. But Malory, in fact, took considerable liberties with his original sources. In these original sources, the Grail is something much more than a cup. And the mystical aspects of the Grail are far more important than the chivalric, which Malory extols.
In the opinion of most scholars the first genuine Grail romance dates from the late twelfth century, from around 1188 that crucial year which witnessed the fall of Jerusalem and the alleged rupture between the Order of the Temple and the Prieur6 de Sion. The romance in question is entitled Le Roman de Perceval or Le Conte del Graal. It was composed by one Chretien de Troyes, who seems to have been attached, in some indeterminate capacity, to the court of the count of Champagne.
Little is known of Chretien's biography. His association with the court of Champagne is apparent from numerous works composed before his Grail romance works dedicated to Marie, Countess of Champagne. Through this corpus of courtly romances including one dealing with Lancelot, which makes no mention of anything resembling a Grail Chretien by the 1180s had established an imposing reputation for himself. And, given his earlier work, one might have expected him to continue in a similar vein. Towards the end of his life, however, Chretien turned his attention to a new, hitherto unarticulated theme; and the Holy Grail, as it has come down to us today, made its official debut in Western culture and consciousness.
Chretien's Grail romance was dedicated not to Marie de Champagne, but to Philippe d'Alsace, Count of Flanders.2 At the beginning of his poem Chretien declares that his work has been composed specifically at Philippe's request, and that it was from Philippe that he heard the story in the first place. The work itself furnishes a general pattern, and constitutes a prototype, for subsequent Grail narratives. Its protagonist is named Perceval, who is described as the Son of the Widow Lady'. This appellation is, in itself, both significant and intriguing. It had long been employed by certain of the dualist and Gnostic heresies -sometimes for their own prophets, sometimes for Jesus himself. Subsequently it became a cherished designation in Freemasonry.
Leaving his widowed mother, Perceval sallies forth to win his knighthood. During his travels, he comes upon an enigmatic fisherman the famous "Fisher King' in whose castle he is offered refuge for the night. That evening the Grail appears. Neither at this point nor at any other in the poem is it linked in any way whatever with Jesus. In fact the reader learns very little about it. He is not even told what it is.
But whatever it is, it is carried by a damsel, is golden and studded with gems. Perceval does not know that he is expected to ask a question of this mysterious object he is expected to ask "whom one serves with it'. The question is obviously ambiguous. If the Grail is a vessel or a dish of some kind, the question may mean "who is intended to eat from it'. Alternatively the question might be rephrased: "Whom does one serve (in a chivalric sense) by virtue of serving the Grail?" Whatever the meaning of the question, Perceval neglects to ask it; and the next morning when he wakes, the castle is empty. His omission, he learns subsequently, causes a disastrous blight on the land.
Later still he learns that he himself is of the "Grail family', and that the mysterious "Fisher King', who was "sustained' by the Grail, was in fact his own uncle. At this point Perceval makes a curious confession. Since his unhappy experience with the Grail, he declares, he has ceased to love or believe in God.
Chretien's poem is rendered all the more perplexing by the fact that it is unfinished. Chretien himself died around 1188, quite possibly before he could complete the work; and even if he did complete it no copy has survived. If such a copy ever existed, it may well have been destroyed in a fire at Troyes in 1188. The point need not be laboured, but certain scholars have found this fire, coinciding as it did with the poet's death, vaguely suspicious.
In any case Chretien's version of the Grail story is less important in itself than in its role as precursor. During the next half century the motif he had introduced at the court of Troyes was to spread through Western Europe like a brush-fire. At the same time, however, modern experts on the subject agree that the later Grail romances do not seem to have derived wholly from Chretien, but seem to have drawn on at least one other source as well a source which, in all probability, pre-dated Chretien. And during its proliferation the Grail story became much more closely linked with King Arthur who was only a peripheral figure in Chretien's version. And it also became linked with Jesus.
Of the numerous Grail romances which followed Chretien's version, there were three that proved of special interest and relevance to us. One of these, the Roman de I'Estoire dou Saint Graal, was composed by Robert de Boron, sometime between 1190 and 1199. Justifiably or no, Robert is often credited with making the Grail a specifically Christian symbol. Robert himself states that he is drawing on an earlier source and one quite different from Chretien. In speaking of his poem, and particularly of the Grail's Christian character, he alludes to a "great book', the secrets of which have been revealed to him.3
It is thus uncertain whether Robert himself Christianised the Grail, or whether someone else did so before him. Most authorities today incline towards the second of these possibilities. However, there is no question that Robert de Boron's account is the first to furnish a history of the Grail. The Grail, he explains, was the cup of the Last Supper. It then passed into the hands of Joseph of Arimathea, who, when Jesus was removed from the cross, filled it with the Saviour's blood and it is this sacred blood which confers on the Grail a magical quality. After the Crucifixion, Robert continues, Joseph's family became the keepers of the Grail. And for Robert the Grail romances involve the adventures and vicissitudes of this particular family. Thus Galahad is said to be Joseph of Arimathea's son. And the Grail itself passes to Joseph's brother-in-law, Brons, who carries it to England and becomes the Fisher King. As in Chretien's poem, Perceval is the "Son of the Widow Lady', but he is also the grandson of the Fisher King: Robert's version of the Grail story thus deviates in a number of important respects from Chretien's. In both versions Perceval is a "Son of the Widow Lady', but in Robert's version he is the grandson, not the nephew, of the Fisher King and thus even more directly related to the Grail family. And while Chretien's narrative is vague in its chronology, set sometime during the Arthurian age, Robert's is quite precise. For Robert, the Grail story is set in England, and is not contemporary with Arthur but with Joseph of Arimathea.
There is another Grail romance which has much in common with Robert's. Indeed it would seem to draw upon the same sources, but its utilisation of these sources is very different and decidedly more interesting. The romance in question is known as the Perlesvaus. It was composed around the same time as Robert's poem, between 1190 and 1212, by an author who, contrary to the conventions of the time, chose to remain anonymous. It is odd that he should have done so, given the exalted status accorded poets, unless he was involved in some calling a monastic or military order, for example which would have rendered composition of such romances unseemly or inappropriate. And, in fact, the weight of textual evidence concerning the Perlesvaus suggests this to be the case. According to at least one modern expert, the Perlesvaus may actually have been written by a Templar. And there is certainly evidence to support such a conjecture. It is known, for instance, that the Teutonic Knights encouraged and sponsored anonymous poets in their ranks, and such a precedent could well have been established by the Templars. What is more, the author of the Perlesvaus reveals, in the course of the poem, an almost extraordinarily detailed knowledge of the realities of fighting of armour and equipment, strategy and tactics, and weaponry and its effects on human flesh. The graphic description of wounds, for example, would seem to attest to a first-hand experience of the battlefield a realistic, unromanticised experience uncharacteristic of any other Grail romance.
If the Perlesvaus was not actually composed by a Templar, it nevertheless provides a solid basis for linking the Templars with the Grail. Although the Order is not mentioned by name, its appearance in the poem would seem to be unmistakable. Thus Perceval, in his wanderings, happens upon a castle. This castle does not house the Grail, but it does house a conclave of "initiates' who are obviously familiar with the Grail. Perceval is received here by two "masters' who clap their hands and are joined by thirty-three other men. "They were clad in white garments, and not one of them but had a red cross in the midst of his breast, and they seemed to be all of an age. "One of these mysterious "masters' states that he has personally seen the Grail an experience vouchsafed only to an elect few. And he also states that he is familiar with Perceval's lineage.
Like Chretien's and Robert's poems, the Perlesvaus lays an enormous stress on lineage. At numerous points Perceval's is described as "most holy'. Elsewhere it is stated explicitly that Perceval "was of the lineage of Joseph of Arimathea', and that "this Joseph was his [Perceval's] mother's uncle, that had been a soldier of Pilate seven years'." Nevertheless the Perlesvaus is not set in Joseph's lifetime. On the contrary it takes place, like Chretien's version, during the age of Arthur. Chronology is further scrambled by the fact that the Holy Land is already in the hands of the "infidel' which it wasn't until nearly two centuries after Arthur. And by the fact that the Holy Land is apparently to be identified with Camelot.
To a greater degree than either Chretien's or Robert's poems, the Perlesvaus is magical in nature. In addition to his knowledge of the battlefield, the anonymous author displays a knowledge, quite surprising for the time, of conjuration and invocation. There are also numerous alchemical references to two men, for instance, "made of copper by art of nigromancy'." And some of the magical and alchemical references resonate with echoes of the mystery surrounding the Templars. Thus, one of the "masters' of the White-clad Templar-like company says to Perceval, "There are the heads sealed in silver, and the heads sealed in lead, and the bodies whereunto these heads belonged; I tell you that you must make come thither the head both of the King and of the Queen."
If the Perlesvaus abounds in magical allusions, it also abounds in other allusions that are both heretical and/or pagan. Again Perceval is designated by the dualist appellation, "Son of the Widow Lady'. There are references to a sanctioned ritual of king-sacrifice, most incongruous in a purportedly Christian poem. There are references to the roasting and devouring of children a crime of which the Templars were popularly accused. And at one point there is a singular rite, which again evokes memories of the Templar trials. At a red cross erected in a forest, a beautiful white beast of indeterminate nature is torn apart by hounds.
While Perceval watches, a knight and a damsel appear with golden vessels, collect the fragments of mutilated flesh and, having kissed the cross, disappear into the trees. Perceval himself then kneels before the cross and kisses it: and there came to him a smell so sweet of the cross and of the place, such as no sweetness can be compared therewith. He looketh and see'th coming from the forest two priests all afoot; and the first shouteth to him: "Sir Knight, withdraw yourself away from the cross, for no right have you to come nigh it': Perceval draweth him back, and the priest kneeleth before the cross and adore th it and boweth down and kisseth it more than a score times, and manifeste th the most joy in the world. And the other priest cometh after, and bringeth a great rod, and set teth the first priest aside by force, and bea teth the cross with the rod in every part, and weepeth right passing sore.
Perceval beholdeth him with right great wonderment and saith unto him, "Sir, herein seem you to be no priest! wherefore do you so great shame? "Sir," with the priest, "It nought concerneth you of whatsoever we may do, nor nought shall you know thereof for us!" Had he not been a priest, Perceval would have been right wroth with him, but he had no will to do him any hurt.9
Such abuse of the cross evokes distinct echoes of the accusations levelled against the Templars. But not of the Templars alone. It might also reflect a skein of dualist or Gnostic thought the thought of the Cathars, for instance, who also repudiated the cross.
In the Perlesvaus this skein of dualist or Gnostic thought extends, in some sense, to the Grail itself. For Chretien the Grail was something unspecified, made of gold and encrusted with gems. For Robert de Boron it was identified as the cup used at the Last Supper and subsequently to collect Jesus's blood. In the Perlesvaus, however, the Grail assumes a most curious and significant dimension. At one point, Sir Gawain is warned by a priest, "for behoveth not discover the secrets of the Saviour, and them also to whom they are committed behoveth keep them covertly'." The Grail, then, involves a secret in some way related to Jesus; and the nature of this secret is entrusted to a select company.
When Gawain eventually does see the Grail, it "seemeth him that in the midst of the Graal he see th the figure of a child ...he looketh up and it seemeth him to be the Graal all in flesh, and he see'th above, as he thinketh, a King crowned, nailed upon a rood." And some time later, the Grail appeared at the sac ring of the mass, in five several manners that none ought not to tell, for the secret things of the sacrament ought none tell openly, but he unto whom God hath given it. King Arthur beheld all the changes, the last whereof was the change into a chalice."
In short the Grail, in the Perlesvaus, consists of a changing sequence of images or visions. The first of these is a crowned king, crucified. The second is a child. The third is a man wearing a crown of thorns, bleeding from his forehead, his feet, his palms and his side.11 The fourth manifestation is not specified. The fifth is a chalice. On each occasion the manifestation is attended by a fragrance and a great light.
From this account the Grail, in the Perlesvaus, would seem to be several things simultaneously or something that can be interpreted on several different levels. On the mundane level, it might well be an object of some kind -like a cup, bowl or chalice. It would also, in some metaphorical sense, appear to be a lineage or perhaps certain individuals who comprise this lineage. And quite obviously the Grail would also seem to be an experience of some sort quite likely a Gnostic illumination such as that extolled by the Cathars and other dualist sects of the period.
The Story of Wolfram von Eschenbach
Of all the Grail romances the most famous, and the most artistically significant, is Parzival, composed sometime between 1195 and 1216. Its author was Wolfram von Eschenbach, a knight of Bavarian origin. At first we thought that this might distance him from his subject, rendering his account less reliable than various others. Before long, however, we concluded that if anyone could speak authoritatively of the Grail, it was Wolfram.
At the beginning of Parzival, Wolfram boldly asserts that Chretien's version of the Grail story is wrong, while his own is accurate because based on privileged information. This information, he later explains, he obtained from one Kyot de Provence who received it in turn supposedly from one Flegetanis. It is worth quoting Wolfram's words in full:
Anyone who asked me before about the Grail and took me to task for not telling him was very much in the wrong. Kyot asked me not to reveal this, for Adventure commanded him to give it no thought until she herself, Adventure, should invite the telling, and then one must speak of it, of course.
Kyot, the well-known master, found in Toledo, discarded, set down in heathen writing, the first source of this adventure. He first had to learn the abc's, but without the art of black magic...
A heathen, Flegetanis, had achieved high renown for his learning. This scholar of nature was descended from Solomon and born of a family which had long been Israelite until baptism became our shield against the fire of Hell. He wrote the adventure of the Grail. On his father's side, Flegetanis was a heathen, who worshipped a calf... The heathen Flegetanis could tell us how all the stars set and rise again . To the circling course of the stars man's affairs and destiny aye linked. Flegetanis the heathen saw with his own eyes in the constellations things he was shy to talk about, hidden mysteries. He said there was a thing called the Grail, whose name he had read clearly in the constellations. A host of angels left it on the earth.
Since then, baptised men have had the task of guarding it, and with such chaste discipline that those who are called to the service of the Grail are always noble men. Thus wrote Flegetanis of these things.
Kyot, the wise master, set about to trace this tale in Latin books, to see where there ever had been a people, dedicated to purity and worthy of caring for the Grail. He read the chronicles of the lands, in Britain and elsewhere, in France and in Ireland, and in Anjou lie found the tale.
There he read the true story of Mazadan, and the exact record of all his family was written there."4 Of the numerous items that beg for comment in this passage, it is important to note at least four. One is that the Grail story apparently involves the family of an individual named Mazadan. A second is that the house of Anjou is in some way of paramount consequence. A third is that the original version of the story seems to have filtered into Western Europe over the Pyrenees, from Muslim Spain a perfectly plausible assertion, given the status Toledo enjoyed as a centre for esoteric studies, both Judaic and Muslim. But the most striking element in the passage quoted is that the Grail story, as Wolfram explains its derivation, would seem ultimately to be of Judaic origin. If the Grail is so awesome a Christian mystery, why should its secret be transmitted by Judaic initiates? For that matter, why should Judaic writers have had access to specifically Christian material of which Christendom itself was unaware?
Scholars have wasted considerble time and energy debating whether Kyot and Flegetanis are real or fictitious. In fact the identity of Kyot, as we had learned from our study of the Templars, can be fairly solidly established.
Kyot de Provence would seem, almost certainly, to have been Guiot de Provins - a troubadour, monk and spokesman for the Templars who did live in Provence and who wrote love songs, attacks on the Church, paeans in praise of the Temple and satirical verses. Guiot is known to have visited Mayence, in Germany, in 1184. The occasion was the chivalric festival of Pentecost, at which the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, conferred knighthood on his sons. As a matter of course the ceremony was attended by poets and troubadours from all over Christendom. As a knight of the Holy Roman Empire, Wolfram would almost certainly have been present; and it is certainly reasonable to suppose that he and Guiot met. Learned men were not so very common at the time.
Inevitably they would have clustered together, sought each other out, made each other's acquaintance; and Guiot may well have found in Wolfram a kindred spirit to whom he perhaps confided certain information, even if only in symbolic form. And if Guiot permits Kyot to be accepted as genuine, it is at least plausible to assume that Flegetanis was genuine as well. If he was not, Wolfram and/or Guiot must have had some special purpose in creating him. And in giving him the distinctive background and pedigree he is said to have had.
In addition to the Grail story, Wolfram may have obtained from Guiot a consuming interest in the Templars. In any case it is known that Wolfram possessed such an interest. Like Guiot he even made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he could observe the Templars in action, at first hand.
And in Parzival he emphasises that the guardians of the Grail and the Grail family are Templars. This might, of course, be the sloppy chronology and cavalier anachronism of poetic licence such as can be discerned in some of the other Grail romances. But Wolfram is much more careful about such things than other writers of his time. Moreover there are the patent allusions to the Temple in the Perlesvaus. Would both Wolfram and the author of the Perlesvaus be guilty of the same glaring anachronism?
Possibly. But it is also possible that something is being implied by these ostentatious connections of the Templars with the Grail. For if the Templars are indeed guardians of the Grail, there is one flagrant implication that the Grail existed not only in Arthurian times, but also during the Crusades, when the romances about it were composed. By introducing the Templars, both Wolfram and the author of the Perlesvaus may be suggesting that the Grail was not just something of the past, but also something which, for them, possessed contemporary relevance.
The background to Wolfram's poem is thus as important, in some obscure way, as the text of the poem itself. Indeed the role of the Templars, like the identity of both Kyot and Flegetanis, would seem to be crucial; and these factors may well hold a key to the whole mystery surrounding the Grail. Unfortunately, the text of Parzival does little to resolve these questions, while posing a good many others.
In the first place Wolfram not only maintains that his version of the Grail story, in contrast to Chretien's, is the correct one. He also maintains that Chretien's account is merely fantastic fable, whereas his is in fact a species of "initiation document'. In other words, as Wolfram states quite unequivocally, there is more to the Grail mystery than meets the eye. And he makes it clear, with numerous references throughout his poem, that the Grail is not merely an object of gratuitous mystification and fantasy, but a means of concealing something of immense consequence. Again and again, he hints to his audience to read between the lines, dropping here and there suggestive hints. At the same time, he constantly reiterates the urgency of secrecy, "For no man can ever win the Grail unless he is known in Heaven and he be called by name to the Grail. And the Grail is unknown save to those who have been called by name... to the Grail's company."6
Wolfram is both precise and elusive in identifying the Grail. When it first appears, on Parzival's sojourn in the Fisher King's castle, there is no real indication of what it is. It would seem, however, to have something in common with Chretien's vague description of it:
She [the Queen of the Grail family] was clothed in a dress of Arabian silk. Upon a deep green achmardi she bore the Perfection of Paradise, both root and branch.
That was a thing called the Grail, which surpasses all earthly perfection. Repanse de Schoye was the name of her whom the Grail permitted to be its bearer. Such was the nature of the Grail that she who watched over it had to preserve her purity and renounce all falsity."
Among other things, the Grail, at this point, would seem to be a kind of magical cornucopia or horn of plenty:
A hundred squires, so ordered, reverently took bread in white napkins from before the Grail, stepped back in a group and, separating, passed the bread to all the tables. I was told, and I tell you too, but on your oath, not mine hence if I deceive you, we are liars all of us that whatsoever one reached out his hand for, he found it ready, in front of the Grail, food warm or food cold, dishes new or old, meat tame or game. "There never was anything like that," many will say. But they will be wrong in their angry protest, for the Grail was the fruit of blessedness, such abundance of the sweetness of the world that its delights were very like what we are told of the kingdom of heaven."8
All of this is rather mundane in its way, even pedestrian, and the Grail would appear to be an innocuous enough affair. But later, when Parzival's hermit-uncle expounds on the Grail, it becomes decidedly more powerful.
After a lengthy disquisition, which includes strands of flagrantly Gnostic thought, the hermit describes the Grail thus:
Well I know that many brave knights dwell with the Grail at Munsalvaesche. Always when they ride out, as they often do, it is to seek adventure. They do so for their sins, these templars, whether their reward be defeat or victory. A valiant host lives there, and I will tell you how they are sustained. They live from a stone of purest kind. If you do not know it, it shall here be named to you. It is called Iapsit exillis. By the power of that stone the phoenix burns to ashes, but the ashes give him life again.
Thus does the phoenix molt and change its plumage, which afterwards is bright and shining and as lovely as before. There never was a human so ill but that, if he one day sees that stone, he cannot die within the week that follows. And in looks he will not fade. His appearance will stay the same, be it maid or man, as on the day he saw the stone, the same as when the best years of his life began, and though he should see the stone for two hundred years, it will never change, save that his hair might perhaps turn grey. Such power does the stone give a man that flesh and bones are at once made young again. The stone is also called the Grail."
