Holy Grail

"Grail" redirects here. For other uses, see Grail (disambiguation)

Origins of the Grail

The Grail

The Grail plays a different role virtually everywhere it appears, but in most versions of the legend the hero must prove himself worthy to be in its presence. In the early tales, Percival's immaturity prevents him from fulfilling his destiny when he first encounters the Grail, and he must grow spiritually and mentally before he can locate it again. In later tellings the Grail is a symbol of God's grace, available to all but only fully realized by those who prepare themselves spiritually, like the saintly Galahad.

Related Topics:
Percival - Galahad

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Early forms of the Grail

There are two schools of thought concerning the Grail's origin. The first, championed by Roger Sherman Loomis, Alfred Nutt, and Jessie Weston, holds that it derived from early Celtic myth and folklore. Loomis traced a number of parallels between Welsh 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. Other legends featured magical platters or dishes that symbolize otherworldly power or test the hero's worth. Sometimes the items generate a never-ending supply of food, sometimes they can raise the dead. Sometimes they decide who the next king should be, as only the true sovereign could hold them.

Related Topics:
Roger Sherman Loomis - Alfred Nutt - Jessie Weston - Celtic - Welsh - Irish - Mabinogion - Bran the Blessed - Fisher King

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On the other hand, some scholars believe the Grail began as a purely Christian symbol. For example, Joseph Goering of University of Toronto (Goering 2005) has identified sources for Grail imagery in 12th-century wall paintings from churches in the Catalan Pyrenees (now mostly removed to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona) that 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 the original inspiration for the grail legend.

Related Topics:
Catalan - Virgin Mary - Chrétien de Troyes

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As strong cases can be made for both origins, most scholars today accept that both Christian and Celtic lore had a hand in the legend's development.

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A more recent theory related to the origins of the Holy Grail holds that the earliest stories that cast the grail in a Christian light were meant to promote the Roman Catholic sacrament of the Holy Communion. Although the practice of Holy Communion was first alluded to in the Christian bible and defined by theologians in the first centuries A.D., around the time of the appearance of the first Christianized grail literature, the Roman church was beginning to add more ceremony and mysticism around this particular sacrament. Thus, the first grail stories may have been celebrations of a renewal in this traditional sacrament (Barber, 2004).

Related Topics:
Roman Catholic - Sacrament - Holy Communion - Bible - Theologians - Mysticism

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This theory has some backing by the fact that grail legends are almost entirely a phenomenon of the Western church (see below).

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Etymology of graal

The word graal, as it is earliest spelled, appears to be an Old French adaption of the Latin gradalis, meaning a dish brought to the table in different stages of a meal. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, after the cycle of Grail romances was well established, late medieval writers came up with a false etymology for sangreal an alternate name for "Holy Grail". In Old French, san grial means "Holy Grail" and sang rial means "royal blood"; later writers played on this pun. Since then, Sangreal is sometimes employed to lend a medievalizing air in referring to the Holy Grail. This connection with royal blood bore fruit in a modern best-seller linking many historical conspiracies (see below).

Related Topics:
Old French - Latin - Catholic Encyclopedia - Romances - Medieval - False etymology - See below

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