Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/137

which see supra, p. 4). It must be noted that whilst in their account of the Grail Chrestien's continuators are in substantial accord with the Queste versions, and yet do not contradict Chrestien himself, they add considerably to his account of the lance. This is readily explained by the fact that as Chrestien gave no information respecting the origin of either of the relics, they, the continuators, had to seek such information elsewhere; they found all they could wish respecting the Grail, but nothing as to the lance, the latter having been first introduced by Chrestien, and the Queste versions knowing nothing respecting it beyond what he told. Thus, thrown upon their own resources, they hit upon the device of identifying the lance with the spear with which Jesus was pierced as He hung on the Cross. This idea, a most natural one, may possibly have been in Chrestien's intent, and may have been suggested to him by the story of the discovery of the Holy Lance in Antioch half a century before. It must, however, be admitted that the connection of the lance with the Grail legend in its earliest form is very doubtful, and that Celtic legends may possibly have furnished it to Chrestien, and indicated the use to which he intended putting it. The analysis, so far, of the romances has resulted in the presupposition of an earlier form; this earlier form, the source or basis of all the later versions of the legend, exists in the so-called Petit St. Graal of Robert de Borron. Of this work, found in two forms, a prose and a poetic one, the poetic form, pace Hucher, is obviously the older, Hucher's proofs of lateness going merely to show that the sole existing MS. is a recent one, and has admitted new speech-forms;^[1] moreover the prose versions derive evidently from one original. The greater simplicity of the poem as compared with the Grand St. Graal proves its anteriority in that case; Paulin Paris' hypothesis that the poem in its present state is a second draft, composed after the author had made acquaintance with the Grand St. Graal, is untenable, the poem's reference (v. 929 etc.) to the "grant livre" and to the "grant estoire dou Graal," written by "nul home qui fust

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1. Hucher's argument from v. 2817 (supra p. 106) that the poem knew of the Grand St. Graal is, however, not met.