Another continuation by Gerbert, interpolated between those of Wauchier and Manessier, relates how the Grail was brought to Britain by Perceval’s mother in the companionship of Joseph.
It will be seen that with the exception of the Grand Saint Graal, which has now been practically converted into an introduction to the Quête, no two versions agree with each other; indeed, with the exception of the oldest Gawain-Grail visit, that due to Bleheris, they do not agree with themselves, but all show, more or less, the influence of different and discordant versions. Why should the vessel of the Last Supper, jealously guarded at Castle Corbenic, visit Arthur’s court independently? Why does a sacred relic provide purely material food? What connexion can there be between a precious stone, a baetylus, as Dr Hagen has convincingly shown, and Good Friday? These, and such questions as these, suggest themselves at every turn.
Numerous attempts have been made to solve these problems, and to construct a theory of the origin of the Grail story, but so far the difficulty has been to find an hypothesis which would admit of the practically simultaneous existence of apparently contradictory features. At one time considered as an introduction from the East, the theory of the Grail as an Oriental talisman has now been discarded, and the expert opinion of the day may be said to fall into two groups: (1) those who hold the Grail to have been from the first a purely Christian vessel which has accidentally, and in a manner never clearly explained, acquired certain folk-lore characteristics; and (2) those who hold, on the contrary, that the Grail is aborigine folk-lore and Celtic, and that the Christian development is a later and accidental rather than an essential feature of the story. The first view is set forth in the work of Professor Birch-Hirschfeld, the second in that of Mr Alfred Nutt, the two constituting the only travaux d’ensemble which have yet appeared on the subject. It now seems probable that both are in a measure correct, and that the ultimate solution will be recognized to lie in a blending of two originally independent streams of tradition. The researches of Professor Mannhardt in Germany and of J. G. Frazer in England have amply demonstrated the enduring influence exercised on popular thought and custom by certain primitive forms of vegetation worship, of which the most noteworthy example is the so-called mysteries of Adonis. Here the ordinary processes of nature and progression of the seasons were symbolized under the figure of the death and resuscitation of the god. These rites are found all over the world, and in his monumental work, The Golden Bough, Dr Frazer has traced a host of extant beliefs and practices to this source. The earliest form of the Grail story, the Gawain-Bleheris version, exhibits a marked affinity with the characteristic features of the Adonis or Tammuz worship; we have a castle on the sea-shore, a dead body on a bier, the identity of which is never revealed, mourned over with solemn rites; a wasted country, whose desolation is mysteriously connected with the dead man, and which is restored to fruitfulness when the quester asks the meaning of the marvels he beholds (the two features of the weeping women and the wasted land being retained in versions where they have no significance); finally the mysterious food-providing, self-acting talisman of a common feast—one and all of these features may be explained as survivals of the Adonis ritual. Professor Martin long since suggested that a key to the problems of the Arthurian cycle was to be found in a nature myth: Professor Rhys regards Arthur as an agricultural hero; Dr Lewis Mott has pointed out the correspondence between the so-called Round Table sites and the ritual of nature worship; but it is only with the discovery of the existence of Bleheris as reputed authority for Arthurian tradition, and the consequent recognition that the Grail story connected with his name is the earliest form of the legend, that we have secured a solid basis for such theories.
With regard to the religious form of the story, recent research has again aided us—we know now that a legend similar in all respects to the Joseph of Arimathea Grail story was widely current at least a century before our earliest Grail texts. The story with Nicodemus as protagonist is told of the Saint-Sang relic at Fécamp; and, as stated already, a similar origin is ascribed to the Volto Santo at Lucca. In this latter case the legend professes to date from the 8th century, and scholars who have examined the texts in their present form consider that there may be solid ground for this attribution. It is thus demonstrable that the material for our Grail legend, in its present form, existed long anterior to any extant text, and there is no improbability in holding that a confused tradition of pagan mysteries which had assumed the form of a popular folk-tale, became finally Christianized by combination with an equally popular ecclesiastical legend, the point of contact being the vessel of the common ritual feast. Nor can there be much doubt that in this process of combination the Fécamp legend played an important rôle. The best and fullest of the Perceval MSS. refer to a book written at Fécamp as source for certain Perceval adventures. What this book was we do not know, but in face of the fact that certain special Fécamp relics, silver knives, appear in the Grail procession of the Parzival, it seems most probable that it was a Perceval-Grail story. The relations between the famous Benedictine abbey and the English court both before and after the Conquest were of an intimate character. Legends of the part played by Joseph of Arimathea in the conversion of Britain are closely connected with Glastonbury, the monks of which foundation showed, in the 12th century, considerable literary activity, and it seems a by no means improbable hypothesis that the present form of the Grail legend may be due to a monk of Glastonbury elaborating ideas borrowed from Fécamp. This much is certain, that between the Saint-Sang of Fécamp, the Volto Santo of Lucca, and the Grail tradition, there exists a connecting link, the precise nature of which has yet to be determined. The two former were popular objects of pilgrimage; was the third originally intended to serve the same purpose by attracting attention to the reputed burial-place of the apostle of the Grail, Joseph of Arimathea?
Bibliography.—For the Gawain Grail visits see the Potvin edition of the Perceval, which, however, only gives the Bleheris version; the second visit is found in the best and most complete MSS., such as 12,576 and 12,577 (Fonds français) of the Paris library. Diu Crône, edited by Scholl (Stuttgart, 1852), vol. vi. of Arthurian Romances (Nutt), gives a translation of the Bleheris, Diu Crône and Prose Lancelot visits.
The Conte del Graal, or Perceval, is only accessible in the edition of M. Potvin (6 vols., 1866–1871). The Mons MS., from which this has been printed, has proved to be an exceedingly poor and untrustworthy text. Parzival, by Wolfram von Eschenbach, has been frequently and well edited; the edition by Bartsch (1875–1877), in Deutsche Classiker des Mittelalters, contains full notes and a glossary. Suitable for the more advanced student are those by K. Lachmann (1891), Leitzmann (1902–1903) and E. Martin (1903). There are modern German translations by Simrock (very close to the original) and Hertz (excellent notes). English translation with notes and appendices by J. L. Weston. “Didot” Perceval, ed. Hucher, Le Saint Graal (1875–1878), vol. i. Perlesvaus was printed by Potvin, under the title of Perceval le Gallois, in vol. i. of the edition above referred to; a Welsh version from the Hengwert MS. was published with translation by Canon R. Williams (2 vols., 1876–1892). Under the title of The High History of the Holy Grail a fine version was published by Dr Sebastian Evans in the Temple Classics (2 vols., 1898). The Grand Saint Graal was published by Hucher as given above; this edition includes the Joseph of Arimathea. A 15th century metrical English adaptation by one Henry Lovelich, was printed by Dr Furnivall for the Roxburghe Club 1861–1863; a new edition was undertaken for the Early English Text Society. Quête du Saint Graal can best be studied in Malory’s somewhat abridged translation, books xiii.-xviii. of the Morte Arthur. It has also been printed by Dr Furnivall for the Roxburghe Club, from a MS. in the British Museum. Neither of these texts is, however, very good, and the student who can decipher old Dutch would do well to read it in the metrical translation published by Joenckbloet, Roman van Lanceloet, as the original here was considerably fuller.
For general treatment of the subject see Legend of Sir Perceval, by J. L. Weston, Grimm Library, vol. xvii. (1906); Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail, by A. Nutt (1888), and a more concise treatment of the subject by the same writer in No. 14 of Popular Studies (1902); Professor Birch-Hirschfeld’s Die Sage vom Gral (1877). The late Professor Heinzel’s Die alt-französischen Gral-Romane contains a mass of valuable matter, but is very confused and ill-arranged. For the Fécamp legend see Leroux de Lincey’s Essai sur l’abbaye de Fescamp (1840); for the Volto Santo and kindred legends, Ernest von Dobschütz, Christus-Bilder (Leipzig, 1899). (J. L. W.)
