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 he legends of the Holy Grail are woven of three strands: a Celtic tradition of otherworld vessels and
supernaturally powerful weapons; an Arabic or Byzantine tradition of a mysterious
stone that had fallen from the heavens; and a Christian tradition, perhaps of
Gnostic or heretical origin, of a mysterious
talisman.
 essie Weston held the view that there lay at the
root of the Grail tradition, the rites of a secret mystery
cult. The Grail might have been a sacramental dish
of the kind used in the Orphic tradition and apparently taken over by the Christian
Church; this possibility is explored in the fourth volume of Joseph Campbell's The Masks of God. Miss Weston also suggested that the
Bleeding Lance, carried by a squire, and the Grail, carried
by a maiden, must have been originally symbolic elements of
a classical mystery rite.
 oomis held the alternative view that the origin
of the Grail legends was Celtic. The Celtic gods of the
Underworld or of the Land Beneath the Waves (Nodens or Nuadua, Gwynn ap Nudd,
Manannnan Mac Lir, Bran the Blessed) possessed magic
vessels of inexhaustible ambrosia and were to be found in mysterious castles hidden in mist, surrounded by water or by impenetrable
forest.
Right: this carving from Jaén Cathedral shows an oriental or Moorish philosopher
and an occidental knight with a stone that fell from Heaven.
 olfram's Parzival contains passages that
reveal a knowledge of events in the Levant, as might have been told by returning
crusaders. Indeed, Wolfram claims to have taken his subject
matter from a book given to him by Philip, Duke of Flanders, who had been in those
lands in 1177. He also cites as a source a certain mysterious Kyot, who provided him with further material
from the south of France or perhaps Moorish Spain (and the Kabbalah of the
Spanish Jews). So there are Arabic and other exotic elements in Wolfram's story that
do not appear in his primary source, Chrétien's unfinished
poem.
 n
Wolfram's account, the Grail is a stone that fell from the
heavens. It is by the power of this stone that the phoenix rises from the ashes.
Hence Wagner's reference to the meteoric
stone in the mosque at Mecca.
Arthur, the Once and Future King
ith
the appearance in 1136 of The History of the Kings of Britain, an
extraordinary book written by Geoffrey of Monmouth, the names of the mythical hero
Arthur and the mythical wizard Merlin became inseparably linked. The book became the
medieval equivalent of a best seller, with an enormous number of copies being made
(in an age before the printing press) and circulated throughout western Europe. Many
adaptations and paraphrases were made in Latin prose and verse, and then vernacular
versions appeared in Old English, Old French or Welsh. The characters and ideas of
Geoffrey's book were developed by French writers, such as Marie de France and
Chrétien de Troyes. Other tales were related to the court
of Arthur: these included the love story of Tristam and Yseult or
Tristan and Isolde (of which the earliest version appeared around 1150) and
the story of the Grail and its guardian, the Fisher
King. 
Grail Romances
he
medieval romances that tell of the Holy Grail divide into two groups. In the first
group are the different versions of the story of the quester who visits the Grail Castle, where he witnesses miracles but fails to ask the
vital Question. In the earlier versions of this story, the
quester is either Gawain or Perceval. In the second and smaller group are
the romances dealing with the early history of the Grail. These describe the history
of a sacred vessel in which the blood of Christ had been captured. Joseph Campbell divided the literature of Arthur, Merlin and the
Holy Grail into four overlapping phases:
- Anglo-Norman patriotic epics: 1137- 1205
- French courtly romances: 1160- 1230
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- Religious legends of the Grail: 1180- 1230
- German biographical epics: 1200- 1215
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Copyright J. Horner, by permission.
he
first of these phases was concentrated on Arthur and Merlin. In the second, the focus
moved to the knights of Arthur's court, including Perceval and Gawain,
whose adventures were described in Chrétien's Perceval ou Le Conte du Graal. Loomis and other scholars have argued that, in view of the
differences and similarities between the story of Peredur
in the Mabinogion and the French works,
both Perceval and Peredur son of Evrawc must have derived from a common
predecessor, probably written in French, which has been lost without trace.
he
third phase was motivated by an attempt by the Church to take over the popular
figures and events of the courtly romances and to utilise them in the promotion of
Christian doctrines. There were two major components in this movement:
- the writings of Robert de Boron, in particular his Joseph d'Arimathie (1180-1199) in which the Grail
became, for the first time, a chalice;
- the Vulgate Cycle (1215-1230), including L'Estoire del Saint Graal and
La Queste del Saint Graal, in which the
Grail is a dish.
n
the final phase, the literature of the Holy Grail reached its apogee in the work of
the poet-knight Wolfram. As Oswald Spengler pointed out, it
was with Wolfram that western civilisation arrived at a
mythology of inwardly motivated quest, directed from within: the tragic line of
the individual life develops from within outward, dynamically, functionally .
n
the last of the Continuations to Chrétien, probably
written about 1230, the Fisher King reveals that
the bleeding spear is the lance
that pierced the side of Christ and that the Grail is the cup in which Joseph of
Arimathea caught the blood of Christ. This
interpretation is also described in Robert de Boron's Joseph d'Arimathie, finished about 1199. There is one
element of Robert de Boron's story that found its way into Wagner's story although it
does not appear either in Chrétien or the Continuations:
the Grail ceremony induces pain in any sinner present. None of this is found in
Wolfram and it may be supposed that Wagner had read a text
that referred to, or summarised, Joseph
d'Arimathie.
Left: Parsifal Act 3, Washington Opera 2000. Production and designs by Roberto
Oswald. ©Washington Opera.
 esearch has not yet fully identified the immediate sources for Wagner's
summary of the Grail literature but it can be assumed that he read both secondary
and primary material. His claim to have invented the interpretation of the Grail as a
chalice is disingenuous, as he must have known about Christian interpretations of the
Grail, even before he read Perceval. There is evidence that Wagner had read Chrétien de
Troyes and the Continuations in the edition by Ch.
Potvin, published in seven volumes between 1866 and 1871, of which there are
copies in his Wahnfried library. The first of Potvin's volumes contains a work that has no direct
connection with Chrétien: the Perlesvaus, a prose romance that scholars believe was
written in northern France, a few years after the death of Chrétien and perhaps as late as 1225. The first sentence in the
book is the following: The history of the holy vessel which is called Grail, in
which the precious blood of the Saviour was
received on the day He was crucified in order to redeem His people from hell
...
Left: The Grail is uncovered at the end of the opera, in the recent Met
production.
agner was familiar with the work of contemporary scholars on the sources of
Wolfram's epic but dismissed his interpretation of the
Grail as a stone brought to earth by angels. Wagner adopted the Christianised version of the Grail but discarded the
Question entirely, made the recovery of the spear the focus of the story and changed some of the names from those
found in Wolfram's poem. Many other elements he used,
however: such as the election of those who might find their way to the Grail, the
life-preserving power of the Grail and the descending dove.
Intelligent guesses can be made about Wagner's familiarity with the writings of
Chrétien de Troyes, Robert de Boron and others, at first
probably through secondary sources, such as German authors of the early 19th century,
including the commentary on Parzival by San-Marte.
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