GRAIL, grab TILE HOLY (from OF. graal, great, from ML. cratella, bowl). The spelling varies greatly in the old manuscripts, but in mod ern usage the most common English forms are grail and grata. The Grail had a history, which in the fully developed romance ran somewhat in this wise: It was the dish from which Christ ate at the Last Supper. Joseph of Arimathea, wish ing to preserve something which belonged to Christ, took it from the table, and afterwards col lected in it the blood from the body of Christ, either while the body was on the cross or after it had been taken down. The vessel was brought to England by Josephes, a son of Joseph, or by Bros, Joseph's brother-in-law. It was handed down from generation to generation. It possessed many mystic properties—feeding those that were, like Joseph, without sin; multiplying a few loaves of bread, so that they sufficed for five hun dred people; blinding from its effulgence all, ex cept the pure, who looked upon it, or striking dumb those who came into its presence. It was also identified with the cup of the Last Supper, and more or less vaguely with Christ Himself. The Grail first appeared in romance united with the story of Perceval. Living with his mother in seclusion far from the Court, the boy Perceval is kept in ignorance of chivalry. One day he meets by chance several knights, and is fascinat ed by the splendor of their armor, taking them for angels. Setting out as knight-errant, he comes to the castle of the Fisher King, who lies speechless. Before the King passes a bleeding spear and a sacred vessel, concerning which Perce val fails to ask questions. Had he, a pure man, spoken, the King would have been healed. After many wanderings, Perceval returns to the Grail castle, welds together a broken sword, and be comes King. The story is worked out with many details, which often differ from those here given. Later the legend assumed a very different form. It was connected with the Arthurian cycle, and Galahad was given the lending role in the quest. Many knights from Arthur's Court go on the adventure; but the Grail is seen only by Gala had, Perceval, and Bors, who follow it to the far East. • Galahad's soul is borne up to heaven by a great multitude of angels, Perceval dies in a hermitage, and Bors returns to Britain.
Though there are many unsolved problems connected with the growth of the Grail legend, its development seems to have been somewhat as follows: Chrestien de Troyes, a French trouvere (died about 1195), left incomplete a poem known as "Perceval," or "Le Conte del Graal," which was continued by other hands. On this ro
mance, Wolfram von Eschenbach, a poet of South Germany, founded his Par:ival (about 1210), the finest poem on the legend. According to this version, the Grail is a precious stone which came from heaven after the fall of the angels. It is guarded by a chaste order of knights whom it chooses. Other early Grail romances are a triloRv by the French poet Robert de Borron,•known as "Joseph d'Arimathie;" "Merlin ;" "Pereeval" (early in the thirteenth century), in which the Grail legend is attached to the Arthurian cycle; Queste dcl Saint groat (about 1210). a prose romance, in which Perceval is displaced by Galahad, who is thought to be a son of Lancelot; Grand Saint Graal (about 1230), also in prose; the prose Perceval le Gallois (about 1225) ; the Mabinogi of Peredur (i.e. Perceval), a Welsh prose romance (in the fourteenth century) ; and "Sir Perceval of Galles," an English poem (about 1440). Of the second poem, by Borron, only fragments are extant; and the third, in its orig inal form, is lost, though its matter may be in ferred from the prose romance known as the Didot Perceval (second quarter of the thirteenth century). Sir Thomas Malory embodied the Quest, of which Galahad is the hero, in his Morte d'Arthur; printed by Caxton in 1485. From this brief summary the Grail legend is seen to be the work mostly of French poets in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. On what did they build? It is generally held that much of the matter— for example, the hero and the magic vessel— was originally Celtic. Of this there is no reason able doubt. And yet the precise nature of this Celtic contribution to the legend has not yet been determined. The romance of the Grail, so popular in the Middle Ages, was revived by the poets of the nineteenth century. Best known is Tennyson's poem in the Idylls of the King. Tennyson, following Malory, gives the Galahad version, and of course infuses into the legend modern ideas. On the other version Wagner founded the great music drama of Parsifal. Con sult: Paris, La littemture frangaise au moyen dye (2d ed., Paris, 1890) ; Hucher, Le Saint Graal (Paris, 1875-79) ; Birch-Hirschfeld, Die Sage von Gral (Leipzig, 1877), Hagen, Der Gral (Strassburg, 1900) ; Nutt, Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail (London, 1888) ; RhS?s, Studies in the Arthurian Legend (London, 1891) ; Hein zel, Ueber die franzosischen Gral-romane (Vien na, 1891) ; Newell, King Arthur and the Table Round (Boston, 1897). See GALAHAD and PER CEVAL.