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THE SAN GREAL
Edinburgh. Printed by Thomas Constable,
FOR
EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS.
LONDON . . . . . . . . HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.
CAMBRIDGE . . . . . . . MACMILLAN AND CO.
GLASGOW . . . . . . . JAMES MACLEHOSE.
THE SAN GREAL
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AN, INQUIRY INTO
THE ORIGIN A WD SIGNIFICATION OF THE
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL

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By DR. Fºg"BERGMANN/
DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF LETTERS AT STRASBURG, AND MEMBER OF
THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES, COPENHAGEN.
.
EDINBURGH →
EID M O N S T ON AND D O U G L A S
1870. -
All Rights reserved. . . •
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THE SAN GREAL.
OF all the literary productions of the
* middle ages, the epic poems, or rather
the romances of chivalry which compose
what has been called the epic cycle of the
San Gréal, are those which initiate us
most intimately into the individual spirit
of those times, and most clearly reveal the
beauty, grandeur, and truth, as well as the
insufficiency and incompleteness of their
conceptions. Composed at an epoch when
the middle ages, in proportion as they drew
near their zenith, were emerging out of
their instinctive state and commencing to
account for their ideas and tendencies, those
romances bear in matter and form the seal
of thoughtful invention, and reasoning art.
A.
2 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
It is also principally in this respect that
they differ from most of the ancient epic –
poems in which fiction is subordinated to
tradition, and on that account they deserve
the name of romances rather than that of
epic poems, properly so called. In order to
comprehend the meaning and details of
these romances, we must be acquainted
with the ideas which constitute their mat-
ter and the poetical elements which com-
pose their form.
The romances of the San Gréal owe
their origin principally to five authors,
two of whom, Master Guyot, surnamed
the Provençal, and M. Chrétien de Troyes,
are French “trouvères; ” two are Ger-
man poets, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and
Albrecht von Scharfenberg; the fifth
is an English ecclesiastic, Walter Mapes,
chaplain of King Henry II. and archdeacon
of Oxford. We shall first show in this
memoir how Guyot was the first who con-
ceived the idea of the San Gréal, and
what poetical elements, either traditional
or of his own invention, he admitted into
this composition. We shall then examine
how that original conception has been
worked out and modified more or less by
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 3
the poets who treated the same subject
after the example of Guyot.
The glory of having invented the fable
of the San Gréal belongs by right to
Guyot le Provençal. All, however, that we
know of this poet and his works rests upon
a few data furnished by his German imi-
tator, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and even
these obscure data are in a great measure
fictitious or erroneous. The real name of
the French poet was Guyot, and not Kyot,
as it is spelt in Wolfram. The origin of
this latter disfigured name may easily be
explained by the pronunciation of the Ger-
man poet, who, knowing neither how to
read nor write, dictated this name to his
secretary, also a German, who wrote it as
he heard it pronounced by his master.
Guyot was born in the early part of the
twelfth century, and flourished between
1160 and 1180.
By connecting all the details relating to
this poet, it may be established with suffi-
cient certainty that he was a native of the
Duchy of Anjou, and this induction, contra-
dicted by no circumstance, alone enables us
to account for certain peculiarities which
are to be remarked in his poem.
4 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
Guyot belonged neither to the nobility
nor to the clergy; he was simply a lay com-
moner, which is clearly indicated and suffi-
ciently proved by the title of master (Meister),
which Wolfram von Eschenbach commonly
gives him."
Guyot seems to have completed his
literary and philosophical education in that
part of the south of France which in his
time was known by the name of the Pro-
vince of Saint-Giles (Provincia S. AEgidii),
and which maintained literary and political
relations with northern Spain. He also
studied for some time in Spain, at Toledo,
under the direction of the learned Arabian
doctors.
His taste for the literature of the south,
his travels and Sojourn in that country,
then the most civilized and enlightened in
the world, and perhaps, more than anything
else, the religious and philosophical ten-
dencies which he had there contracted,
were probably the causes which induced
his countrymen to give him the surname
or sobriquet of Provençal. *
1 If Guyot had been a priest, Wolfram would not have
failed to give him this title; if he had been noble, the
German poet would have given him the title of “ Herr.”
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 5
Guyot, a native, as we think must be
allowed, of the Duchy of Anjou, wrote in a
dialect more akin to the language of the
north than to that of the south of France.
Consequently Wolfram von Eschenbach calls
it a French dialect (franzoys); and, indeed,
the words which the German poet borrowed
from the poem of his precursor belong to a
dialect of the langue d'oil, with the excep-
tion, however, of certain Provençal names,
the southern form of which the poet natur-
ally preserved. Unfortunately, the romance
in verse of the Angevine poet no longer ex-
ists, and we can only judge of it from the
imitation by Wolfram von Eschenbach. As
regards the original of this romance, the
German poet tells us that Meister Guyot, le
Provençal, found at Toledo an Arabian book,
written by an astrologer named Flegetamis,
and containing the story of the marvellous
vase called Gréal, which at first hovered in
the air, and afterwards, having been deposited
on earth by angels, was guarded by faithful
Christians. He adds, that Guyot made re-
searches in the Latin chronicles of Brittany,
Ireland, and France, and at last found the
story of the Gréal related in a chronicle of
Anjou. This information, furnished by the
6 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
German poet, does not seem to us to contain
much truth. It is true that Guyot, like
almost all poets of his time, may, to make a
show of his erudition, have spoken of Flege-
tanis and an Arabian book as the source .
from which he drew some details of his poem.
But Flegetanis can by no means be an Ara-
bian proper name, and consequently all that
Wolfram relates of this pretended personage
is of his own or Guyot's invention. The
name of Flegetanis might be the Latin tran-
scription of Feleke-Dôméh, a Persian com-
pound word, which signifies astrologer or
astronomer, and in this case it would be the
title of an astrological work translated into
Latin, and which Guyot had the opportunity
of studying while at Toledo. However this
may be, it is beyond doubt that the history
of the fable of the Gréal neither existed in
Arabian nor Spanish books, nor in the Latin
chronicles of France or Brittany, but owes
its origin to Guyot, who invented and com-
posed it with poetical elements, most of
which, it is true, were traditional, but which
he combined in a novel manner by connect-
ing them with a philosophical idea which
was his own, at the same time that it was
the expression and the natural result of the
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 7

tendencies and the spirit of his age. Indeed,
in the time of Guyot, the two prevailing
ideas of the middle ages, religion and feudal-
ism, had just been realized in the clergy and
knighthood. These two institutions were soon
to attain, on one side the Supreme authority
of the papacy, on the other the monarchical
power of kings. These two rival powers,
which both tended to become absolute, could
not long exist together without jostling each
other on many occasions. To avoid the
struggle, both authorities should have been
united by an equal and peaceable fusion,
but unfortunately the struggle between the
priestly and secular power became the fatal
destiny of the middle ages, whilst the fusion
simply remained an aspiration of the epoch,
the ideal of the poet and the philosopher.
On seeing the respect and authority enjoyed
by the knight and the priest, one was natur-
ally led to think that the highest human
destiny would be to unite both qualities
either in the knight-priest or the priest-
knight. The Church herself, temporarily
allured by this beautiful ideal, once attempt-
ed to realize it. She founded the order of
the Templars, in which, however, she in-
tended the ecclesiastical element to prepon-
8 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
derate over the secular; but she soon had
cause to repent the creation of an institution
which daily showed more decided tendencies
gradually to extinguish the Sacerdotal spirit
in the worldly splendour of chivalry. These
tendencies were, moreover, favoured and sus-
tained by the anti-clerical spirit of the Albi-
genses, who were very numerous in the south
of France, where a great number of the richest
establishments of the Templars existed.
It was probably also under the influence of
this spirit that our poet, during his sojourn
in Provence, conceived the idea of a sacer-
dotal chivalry and royalty, which, in his
idea, were to be the guardians of the tem-
poral and spiritual welfare of humanity, in
the same manner as the Pope and the Catho-
lic clergy represented the kingly power and
the soldiery which watched over the safety of
the Church. Unable to give historic reality
to this idea, which appeared so beautiful
to him, he desired at least to represent it
through art, through poetry—the only vehicle
at the entire disposal of the man of genius.
He undertook to show in his poem how the
true knight, by his actions and virtues,
renders himself worthy of the highest des-
tiny which man can attain, that priestly
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 9
kingship, namely, to which it was necessary
to be called both by birth and the grace of
God. Temporal and spiritual welfare, the
guardianship of which was to be confided to
a priestly knighthood, the poet represented
under the symbol of a sacred vase, the
limpid and transparent element, water, and
by extension, the vase or basin which con-
tained it being, according to the symbols of
the East and of the middle ages, images of
purity and truth, and consequently the
symbols of wisdom and salvation. We
should lose sight of the principal aim of
this memoir, if we at this place entered into
details regarding the origin of this symbol,
and its frequent use in the religions, mytho-
logies, and popular traditions of Asia and
Europe. We shall simply notice the myths
founded on this symbol, as for instance the
Scandinavian myths on the fountain of
Urd and the well of Mimir, which are the
sources of the wisdom of Odin and of the
Trolls." We should remember that the fairies
so renowned for their wisdom, lived in lakes,
in rivers; let us recall the personification of
Wisdom herself, who, according to tradition,
1 See F. G. Bergmann, Poèmes Islandais, p. 229.
10 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
dwelt in a well. It is with a goblet or
cup containing pure water, that the future
was foretold in the East and in some coun-
tries of Europe. Poetry, which may justly
be called the wisdom of nations, was repre-
sented by the Scalds of the North and the
Breton bards under the symbolic form of a
cup filled with a precious liquid; thence the
Scandinavian myth on the vase of Quasir ;
thence also, among the Bretons, the mysteries
of the magic, caldron of Cyridwen, the god-
dess of poetry; and, lastly, let us mention the
celebrated goblet of Djemschid, which was
nothing but the symbol of the safety, the
happiness, and the abundance which the
people enjoyed under the reign of this illus-
trious king of Persia. It is perhaps the
latter myth, explained in some Arabian work,
or that of the basin of Cyridwen, contained
in some Breton book, which determined our
poet to choose the vase as a symbol of tem-
poral and spiritual welfare, the guardian-
ship of which he intrusted to his priestly
knighthood.
In mediaeval Latinity the masculinegradalis
or neuter gradale means vase, goblet, or basin."
! See Ducange.
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 11
The dialects of the south of France having
preserved the form of Latin words almost
intact, only changed the mean dental d into
the hissing dental s or 2, so that to this day,
in some parts of the south, a grasal (masc.) or
a grazale (fem), signifies a basin.” In the
dialects of Southern France, the final conson-
ants of the syllables of Latin words have
been cut off or modified; and, consequently,
grad-alis and grad-ale were changed into
gra-alz and gra-al.” Such, indeed, was the
form of these words in the Burgundian
dialects, which formed the transition from
the langue d'oil to the langue d'oc. The
dialects of Picardy and Normandy, which
tended to sharpen the pronunciation of
vowels, instead of Graal adopted the form
of Gréal, which the Normans also introduced
into England.
Guyot the Provençal, a native, as we
have said, of the Duchy of Anjou, and con-
sequently writing in a French dialect very
much akin to that of Burgundy, found in
his country the expression Graal to desig-
nate a vase; and what proves that he really
1 See Borel, Trésor des Antiquités Françaises.
2 See Tissier, Bibl. Patr. Cisterc. chap. vii. p. 92.
12 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
employed it to designate a sacred vase, is
the use which his immediate imitators, Chré-
tien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach,
made of the same word.
The sacred vase, or the San Gréal, the
symbol of grace and Salvation, was placed,
according to the fiction of Guyot, in a
temple guarded by Knights Templeis or Tem-
plois. This name reminds us of that of the
Templars, whom the poet imitated and ideal-
ized in his poem. Af
The temple of the Gréal was placed upon
a mountain in the midst of a thick wood,
which is a symbolic representation of the
moral elevation and the sanctity of this
place, which no one can approach except by
divine favour. And even as Mount Meru
of the Hindoos and Olympus of the Greeks
are placed in the mythological poetry in a
mysterious distance, so has our poet placed
the mountain of the Gréal far from his
country, beyond the Pyrenees, in Spain.
For that reason he gave it the Catalonian
name of Mont Salvagge (wild or inaccessible
mountain). The Gréal, according to Guyot,
was made of a wonderful stone called Eaſillis,
which had once been the most brilliant in
the crown of the archangel Lucifer. This
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 13
cup was brought from heaven by angels,
and left to the care of Titurel, the first king
of the Gréal, who transmitted it to Amfor-
tas, the second king, whose sister, Herzeloíde,
was the mother of Parzival, the third king
of the San Gréal. This genealogy of the
kings of the Saint Gréal commences in the
east, and is connected with Sennabor, an
imaginary king of Armenia; it comprises
fictitious names of kings of France and
princes of Spain, and ends in the house of
Anjou. As this genealogy comprises nearly
eleven centuries, and descends to the epoch
when Guyot lived, it cannot have existed
previously to this poet, and it is more than
probable that he invented it. If, neverthe-
less, Wolfram von Eschenbach mentions that
Guyot found it in a chronicle of Anjou, this
indication, which doubtless was furnished
to him by the romance of the Angevine poet,
only proves to us that the latter wanted to
exalt his native country, the Duchy of Anjou,
in certain details of his poem.
Though the story of the San Gréal was
sufficiently interesting by itself, and above
all by the idea on which it was based, Guyot,
whose chief aim was not to instruct, but
to amuse the reader, wished to enrich his
14 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
romance with an additional poetical element
in order to make it more attractive. The
favourite reading of those times consisted of
knightly histories and adventures; and, pre-
cisely at that epoch, the tales of King Arthur's
adventures and those of the Knights of the
Round Table were spreading all over France,
and fully satisfied the taste of the century
for all that was adventurous, marvellous, and
fantastical. Exactly as at the same epoch in
Germany the poets rejected the national epic
subjects for foreign ones, so were the Breton
tales preferred in France to the national
traditions regarding Charlemagne and the
twelve peers of France, and that the more
willingly that Breton poesy actually did
surpass all others by its marvellous and
highly imaginative fictions. It is therefore
principally on that account that Guyot con-
nected the story of the San Gréal, not with
the epic cycle of Charlemagne, as he might
have done, but with that of Arthur and the
Rnights of the Round Table. As these
Breton traditions form the greater part of
Guyot's romance, it is necessary to know
the transformations they underwent from
their origin to the epoch when our poet
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 15
amalgamated with them his story of the San
Gréal. In order better to comprehend the
progress of these transformations, it will be
necessary to examine them from a general
point of view.
16 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
*.
II.
HEN we glance at the history of the
epic poetry of the middle ages, we see
that the epic traditions underwent three
principal transformations, or that they as-
Sumed three different forms, which present
themselves at three successive periods.
The first period, extending from the great
migration of nations to the introduction of
Christianity into the different countries,
bears an essentially heroic character. In-
trepidity, bravery, physical strength have a
value by themselves, and are exalted as such
by poetry, which, called forth without effort
by the enthusiasm inspired by heroism, was
at once lyric and epic, rather instinctive
and without art than methodical and arti-
ficial. The subjects, too, were not fictitious
but historical, and poetry was indeed nothing
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 17
but history narrated with enthusiasm, but
with an enthusiasm of such a kind that the
recital simply consisted in allusions, under-
stood, nevertheless, by the auditors who had
witnessed the event or been informed of it
by popular tradition.
And naturally these poems were only
intelligible in the country itself, and as they
were essentially national, they spread but
little abroad. Most frequently also they
were not written, but transmitted from mouth
to mouth, which is also the reason why only
a very small number of those primitive
poetical compositions have come down to us.
These general observations on the first
period may all be applied to the ancient
Welsh poems which celebrate the heroism
of Arthur and his companions in arms.
These poems are at Once lyric and epic :
they require, in order to be perfectly under-
stood, historical comments, such as we re-
quire in order to understand the songs of
the Scalds and the Arabian poems of the
Hamāsa.
The second period of the epic poetry of
the middle ages extends from the time
when Christianity was firmly established in
different countries to the beginning of the
B
18 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
Crusades; it bears an essentially mythic or
legendary character. This arises from the
lapse of ages having left the ancient heroes
of the nation in a nebulous distance, which
did not allow of their primitive features
being clearly distinguished. The Christian
writers, for the most part ecclesiastics, seized
upon those ancient figures of heroes, and
modified them according to the Christian
idea. Then it was no longer physical
strength alone, or valour, that was admired
for itself: valour placed at the service of
Christianity was alone admired. The hero,
therefore, was no longer simply a hero; he
was, besides, the defender of the faith, he
was a holy personage, and, as such, protected
by Heaven, and surrounded withmiracles. The
writers of that period, connecting their works
with those of preceding ages, collected the
ancient national poems; but as the popular
traditions by which they were understood
had gradually been lost, they elaborated
them in their way, and composed with
these materials chronicles in which fiction
had a greater share than historical truth.
Moreover, Christian ideas and truths ought,
according to these writers, to have a much
greater importance than historical truth. It
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 19
is likely, therefore, that they would, with-
out any scruple, shape the facts to suit their
ideas, and unhesitatingly put the fable or
legend which favoured their views in the
place of historical truths, which in most cases
were opposed to and contradicted them.
Such is indeed the origin and character of
chronicles composed during that period. As
they were mostly written in Latin, they had
the advantage of rendering accessible to
foreigners the contents of national poems or
traditions, which, during the first period,
could not extend beyond the limits of the
country. Arthur, the Breton chief, who
in the primitive Welsh poems figured only
as a hero, is represented in the chronicles of
this second period as the defender of the
faith, a holy man who is visibly protected
and favoured by Heaven. With him are
connected a crowd of fables, which William
of Malmesbury, Alanus de Insulis (1109),
and Giraldus Cambrensis (1188), already
appreciate at their just value. On their
part, the Welsh bards of the second period
hide King Arthur under a mysterious veil,
and awakening the memory of the ancient
mysticism of the Druids, they make him
almost a mythical personage.
20 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
The third period of the epic poetry of
the middle ages extends from the establish-
ment of the feudal system and the begin-
ning of the Crusades to the time of the
apogee of the middle ages. It may be called
the romantic and chivalric period. If the
primitive national poems have become the
sources of the Latin chronicles, these chroni-
cles now become in their turn the sources of
a great number of romances of chivalry,
principally in France and Great Britain.
The character of this new kind of epic or nar-
rative poetry is, that in these romances the
chief interest does not lie in the personal
character, or the qualities of the hero, but in
the adventures through which the poet con-
ducts him, and which he endeavours to
render as marvellous, romantic, fantastical,
and frequently as singular as possible. It
may even be said that theseheroes of romances
have no individual character, that they most
often resemble one another, and that there is
no other difference between them except that
of the adventures of which they are the
sport, or which they bring to a successful
issue. They are not individuals, but abs-
tract beings, uniformly representing the
general spirit of chivalry, belonging to no
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 21
time, to no nation, or, what comes to the
same, belonging to all times, to all nations,
in consequence of the general character
which the feudal system and the Crusades
had, in all countries, impressed upon the
institutions of chivalry. What still further
contributed to obliterate in these romances
the national character, is that, in consequence
of the decided taste for all that was foreign,
it happened that most epic traditions were
not transformedinto romances in that country
in which they had arisen, but abroad, where
a more lively interest was taken in them.
Thus, Armorica composed tales after the tra-
ditions of Wales; the French took the sub-
jects of their chivalric romances from , the
Breton tales of Armorica; Italy composed
epic poems with the French traditions on
Charlemagne and Roland; Scandinavia wrote
the German traditions on Siegfrid and Diet-
rich of Verona; Northern France composed
the primitive romance of Reynard, after tra-
ditions that had originated in Germany, etc.
The short account which we have just
given of the general history of epic poetry
in the middle ages, offers us an insight
into the character and nature of the
Breton traditions into which Guyot has
22 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
merged his history of the San Gréal. Ar-
thur was no longer represented in it as a
hero, nor as a defender of the faith, but as a
feudal king surrounded by a great many
knights, who thought it an honour to be
his vassals. In his quality of feudal king,
Arthur no longer goes in search of adven-
tures; he remains in a majestic inaction,
like Charlemagne in the French romances,
or Attila in the Nibelungen. Arthur only
presides at the Round Table, which now
assumes an entirely fresh importance. Origi-
nally it only signified the court feasts, the
jousts and tournaments given by the Breton
chiefs. Now it designates an association of
the bravest knights in the world, invested
with a dignity almost similar to that of the
twelve Peers of France. Amongst these
Breton knights, who broke lances with all
comers, and boldly fought with dragons,
giants, and against the most insurmountable
obstacles, we chiefly distinguish three :
Gwain, Geraint, and Peredur. It is princi-
pally from the traditions regarding the last
of the three that Guyot borrowed a great
many of the incidents with which he com-
posed the history of Parzival, the principal
hero of his romance. It is sufficient, in
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GRäAL. 23
order to convince the reader of this, to point
out a few striking analogies which exist
between the history of Parzival and the
Breton tale of Peredur. It is true that the
Breton tale which is found among the
Mabinogion or traditional tales' contained
in the Redbook of Hergest, was not written
till the fourteenth century; but the founda-
tion of it is older, and was probably known
to Guyot through the traditions spread in
Armorica, a province adjoining the Duchy of
Anjou. The proof that they were not un-
known to him, is that the history of the
youth of Parzival is composed of the same
incidents as the history of the youth of
Peredur. The details about the castle of the
sick old man, and the two uncles of Peredur,
were reproduced more or less faithfully in
the romance of Parzival. Lastly, the castle
of the king of the Gréal which figures in
the poems of Guyot corresponds to the
marvellous castle of the Breton tale. One
might even be tempted to think our poet
had borrowed from the Breton traditions
the very history of the San Gréal, since,
* See Contes populaires des anciens Bretons, par Th.
de la Villemarqué, 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1842.
24 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
in the tale of Peredur, a basin or a Graal is
made mention of, and even the name of
Peredur might be explained as meaning
Seeker of the cup, or searcher after the graal.
But this illusion disappears when we consider
that the cup mentioned has not the slightest
relation with the idea of the San Gréal,
and plays in the tale but an accessory or ac-
cidental part. If, therefore, the name of
Pèredur really signifies seeker of the basin, it
is equally a fortuitous circumstance since
it is caused neither by the sense nor the
details of the tale. This name was pro-
bably very common among the Bretons,
and if it had the signification which is
given to it, doubtless related and alluded
to the vase or basin of the goddess Cyridwen.
Peredur was the name of the chief of the
Guenedocians, who distinguished himself at
the battle of Ardderyd, and who, at a later
period, transformed by tradition into a
knight of the Round Table, became the hero
whose adventures and great feats are cele-
brated in the Breton text referred to. It is
therefore evident that the history of the
San Gréal did not exist among the Bretons,
and is, we repeat it, entirely of Guyot's
invention, who borrowed nothing from Bre-
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 25
ton traditions save, perhaps, the idea of
representing the Salvation of mankind by
the symbol of a cup—an idea which may
have been suggested to him by the myth on
the vase of Cyridwen. Far from borrowing
the matter of his poem from foreign coun-
tries, our poet only connected the story,
which he had invented, with the Breton tra-
ditions of the cycles of Arthur, so that the
fiction of the Gréal forms indeed the accessory,
but nevertheless the most important, part of
his romance. Guyot skilfully managed to
unite these two elements of different origin
without however confounding them. Thus
the Templois, who bear the dignified charac-
ter of a priestly knighthood, are clearly dis-
tinct in his poem from the Knights of the
Round Table, who only represent the worldly
or common chivalry. More than that, our
poet did not simply imitate the Breton tra-
ditions, he embellished them and gave them
more interest, endowing them with a meaning
at once more poetical and more philosophical.
Thus, to quote a few instances, the silence
which Peredur, according to the Breton tale,
keeps in presence of the marvels he sees in
the palace of the sick old man, is simply
caused by the vow he had made, to remain
26 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
dumb until he should have obtained the
hand of Angarad. In Guyot's romance, on
the contrary, Parzival's silence arises from
deeper causes, and forms, as it were, the
knot of the whole fiction of the Gréal.
The Breton tale speaks of a bleeding lance
which was presented to Peredur, and was
probably intended to remind him to avenge
the murder of his uncle and nephews, who
had been treacherously assassinated. And
in reality the lance is the symbol of pro-
tection, and a bleeding body that of an
appeal for revenge. The bleeding lance was
therefore likely to indicate that the instru-
ment of protection had been violated, and will
consequently bleed until revenge shall have
been taken. Guyot, giving a more moral and
deeper meaning to the bleeding lance, con-
nects with it one of his chief poetical fictions.
By a play upon words, which was only pos-
sible in French, the old sick king, who in the
Breton tradition is surnamed the fisherman
(pêcheur) because he whiled away his troubles
in fishing with a line, is transformed into
a king sinner (pécheur). His sin, according
to Guyot, consists in his having fought for
a sensual love against a paynim prince by
whose lance he was wounded as a punish-
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 27
ment for his fault. This lance will bleed
until the king shall have been cured of his
wound, or until his sins shall have been
expiated. The Breton tale also mentions
a magic sword, which the kingly fisher
gave to Peredur as a symbol of sovereignty
and strength. This sword broke in the
hands of the knight, which signified that
he had not yet the strength required to be
worthy of sovereignty. But, according to
Guyot's fiction, Parzival only receives this
sword when already broken, and as it is
only with this sword that he can conquer
the kingdom of the Gréal, the poet repre-
sents this circumstance as almost an insur-
mountable obstacle, which the hero never-
theless succeeds in overcoming. It is thus
that Guyot managed to give to certain de-
tails, void of meaning in the Breton tradi-
tion, a moral and philosophical signification.
On the whole, the romance of the Ange-
vine poet, though destined, like all romances
of chivalry, to amuse noble lords and ladies,
bore a character somewhat philosophical,
and on that account we must not be
astonished if certain of Guyot's ideas are
not in agreement with the Orthodoxy of his
century. - This poet did not share in the
28 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
hatred against the Mohammedans so ener-
getically manifested throughout Christen-
dom during the Crusades. The Templois
do not turn their arms against the infidels;
on the contrary, their intercourse with them
is that of friends, companions of arms,
allies and relations. This tolerance, which
in the eyes of orthodoxy probably seemed
criminal, appears to have been the fruit of
the sojourn which Guyot had made at
Toledo, in the midst of the Mohammedan
Arabs. We must also remark that the
Templois, though Christians, rather re-
semble an association formed without the
pale of the Church than a Catholic com-
munity. Moreover, the apostles, Saints,
angels, and ceremonies of the Church,
which always occupy the first rank in the
religious poems of the middle ages, do not
occupy so important a place in Guyot's
poem. These heterodox and somewhat
anticlerical tendencies were contracted by
the poet in the south of France, where he
must frequently have come into contact
with Albigenses and Templars; and, we re-
peat it, it is very probably on account of
this conformity of views with the sectarians
of the south that he received from his con-
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 29
temporaries the surname or nickname of
Provençal. Lastly, we must attribute to
the heterodoxy of Guyot the loss or the
destruction of his romance, which was
likely to have the same fate as the books
of the Albigenses and the works of the
Templars. r
Guyot's romance, however, spread rapidly,
and attracted the attention of a large num-
ber of readers in France, England, and Ger-
many. What proves this is, that it was
imitated in those countries shortly after
its publication, and that the history of the
Gréal soon formed a kind of epic tradition,
which, as such, was modified and developed
by several French and foreign poets. . The
first who treated this subject after Guyot
was Chrétien de Troyes, who flourished
from 1150 to 1170. At that period a
large number of chivalric poems came
out in France, and they increased in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The
subjects of the most popular romances were
almost all borrowed from Breton or Armori-
can traditions, and related to Arthur and to
the Knights of the Round Table. Almost
every one of these knights became the hero
of a separate romance. Chrétien, finding in: ...,
a • * * *
a v R, e.
30 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
i
• * s
* @
© a
Guyot's poem the history of Parzival, who,
without being a knight of the Round Table,
was nevertheless in relation with it, took
this episode and treated it separately, con-
Sulting, besides, as for his other romances,
the original Armorican traditions. This
Champenois trouvère died before he had
finished his romance of Perceval-le-Gallois,
which, however, is extant even now with
the continuations composed by different
poets. What proves that Chrétien imitated
the romance of Guyot is, first, the name
of Perceval which he kept for his hero,
and which is nothing else than the Cham-
penois pronunciation of the name of Par-
zival, which he found in Guyot's poem.
This name, invented by Guyot, is doubt-
less, derived from förisi fil, a compound
Persian word signifying ignorant knight, and
alludes to the ignorance of young Parzival,
who, in consequence of the extreme solici-
tude of his mother to shelter him from
every danger, had been deprived of all
knightly education. Chrétien de Troyes, un-
acquainted with the foreign origin of this
word, explains it as signifying one who pierces
or wanders through vales to seek adventures.
... : What is a yet more incontrovertible proof
wº &
• &
---
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 31
that Chrétien imitated Guyot, is that we find
in his poem the name and history of the
Gréal, which both are of the Angevine poet's
invention. Lastly, the history of the King-
Fisher, which, as we have seen, was invent-
ed by the same poet, is also met with in the
romance of Perceval-le-Gallois. But though
Chrétien de Troyes has freely borrowed from
Guyot, his romance bears, nevertheless, a
different character from that of his precursor.
The history of the San Gréal occupies but a
very secondary place in it, nor did it receive
in it any development or any new element.
Nor do the Templois figure in the romance
of Perceval, perhaps because Chrétien did
not take so much interest as Guyot did in
the Templars, who were at that period
already beginning to be suspected of heresy
and contumacy. The anti-clerical tendencies
noticeable in Guyot entirely disappeared in
Chrétien, whose sole aim was to narrate in an
amusing manner knightly adventures. The
talent of the Champenois trouvère is chiefly
seen in a pleasant, graceful, and fluent narra-
tive; and this poet would even sometimes
give a trifling but amusing turn to details to
which his precursor had given a philosophi-
cal sense, and on that account Wolfram von
32 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
Eschenbach, the admirer of Guyot, cannot
help charging Chrétien with carelessness,
frivolity, and ignorance. This German poet,
who is much more distinguished by the
depth of his feelings, and the elevation of
his ideas, than by simplicity, elegance, and
fluency of his narrative, followed the Ange-
vine poet's plan throughout, and we have
hence been enabled to judge from his poem
of the character and composition of the
original romance of Guyot.
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 33
III.
WOLFRAM, lord of Eschenbach, in Bavaria,
lived at the beginning of the thirteenth cen-
tury, at the time when the French language
spread at the courts of the German princes,
and when the literary productions of the
north and south of France were very popu-
lar in Germany. The German poets ne-
glected their national epic traditions, and
preferred the subjects treated by the trou-
vères and troubadours. Wolfram was ac-
quainted not only with the poem of Guyot,
but also with the romances of Chrétien
de Troyes, such as the romances of Perceval-
le-Gallois, Guillaume d'Orange, Alexandre-le-
Grand, and Lancelot du Lac. He knew
French himself, and was so vain of his know-
ledge as to introduce a great many French
expressions into his German verse.
C
34 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
Wolfram was surnamed the learned (der
wise), though he could neither read nor write.
To understand how he could compose his
romance, we must suppose that he had
Guyot's poem read or recited to him by a
wandering French trouvère, and that, after
having translated freely and from memory
the French pieces recited to him, he dictated
the free translation to his German secretary.
Wolfram, like Chrétien, only took from
Guyot's romance the most interesting epi-
sode, the history of Parzival, and treated
this subject in his first poem, which he be-
gan towards 1204. As this remarkable
poem is but little known, and since it can
give us a perfect idea of a great part of
Guyot's romance, it will not be out of place
to point out in a few words its principal
features. The following is the plot of Wolf.
ram's romance:—
Gamuret, the son of Gandin, Duke of
Anjou, marries, during his wanderings in the
East, the Moorish queen Belacane, by whom
he has a son called Feirifiz. Impelled by
his desire of returning to the west, Gamuret
leaves the queen and his son; he returns
to France, where, being elected Duke of
Anjou, he takes for his second wife Her-
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 35
Zeloide; but shortly afterwards he dies, and
his second wife gives birth to a post-
humous son, called Parzival. Herzeloide,
anxious to guard her son against all danger,
above all against those incidental to the ad-
venturous life of knights, retires with him
to a solitude in Soltane. Parzival is des-
tined, however, to become a model of knight-
hood. Notwithstanding the ignorance in
which he is kept by his mother, the knightly
inclination of the youth and his curiosity
irresistibly manifest themselves, and having
one day met with some knights of the court
of Arthur, he follows them, arrives at Nantes,
where Arthur was residing, and begs to be
first instructed, and afterwards received, as a
knight. But Parzival must instruct him-
self, and gain his spurs in the midst of ad-
ventures. He sets out, arrives at the court
of Cundwiramour of Pelrapeire, with whom
he falls in love, and who is eventually to be
his wife ; he comes afterwards to the court
of Amfortas, king of the Gréal, who is ill on
account of a sin he committed, and whose
cure will only be effected when his successor
Parzival, seated with him at the banquet
of the Gréal, shall ask an explanation
of the wonderful things he beholds. Par-
36 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
zival, ignorant of this condition imposed on
him by his destiny, and restrained by too
much discretion, keeps silence at the banquet,
and leaves the castle of Amfortas without
inquiring into what he has seen. Thus
frustrated, unknown to himself and partly
by his own fault, of the brilliant destiny
which awaited him, he begins anew to seek
adventures, until, after many a fight, he
meets with his friend Gawain, who takes
him back to the court of Arthur. There
Cundrie the witch, the messenger of the
San Gréal, informs him of the great wrong
of his silence, not only to himself, but also
to the king Amfortas, who is his uncle.
Parzival, full of grief and regret, at once
sets out to find again, if possible, the castle
of Amfortas, and repair his fault. At the
same time his friend Gawain also leaves the
court of Arthur, and, after having fought in
many an adventure, succeeds in freeing
ladies imprisoned in the Chastel Merveil by
the fierce necromancer Klingschor, the
nephew of the celebrated magician Virgil of
Naples. As for Parzival, after protracted
wanderings, he arrives at a hermitage at some
distance from the castle and the temple of
San Gréal; the hermit's name is Trevri-
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 37
Zent, who eventually makes himself known
to him as his maternal uncle. Knowing
Parzival to be destined to become king of
the Gréal, but not yet worthy of this dignity,
he makes known to him that the Gréal is
only accessible to him who is called to it by
heavenly grace. He recommends him, before
approaching it, to purify his soul from all
sin, and seeing the good dispositions of
the neophyte, he initiates him into its
mysteries. The Gréal, he tells him, is
made of the lapis eſcillis, gives its servants
bodily and spiritual nourishment, and com-
municates fresh forces for a week to those
who see it. Every Good Friday a dove
from heaven comes and places upon the
stone a white wafer, which communicates to
it mysterious virtues. A writing, which
suddenly appears on the vase, always indi-
cates who is destined to its service and
guard. Parzival, thus initiated into the
mysteries of the Gréal, departs to prepare
himself for his high destiny. He returns to
the Knights of the Round Table, and strives
to acquire the knightly virtues necessary to
become a Templar, and king of the Gréal.
At last, when he is worthy to reign, Cundrie,
the witch, again appears at the court ºf.
•º
:
;
:
;
38 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
:
&
i
:
King Arthur, and announces to him that the
writing of the Gréal has pointed him out to
be king at Montsalvagge. Before going to
the temple of the Gréal, Parzival visits his
wife Cundwiramour, who has borne him two
promising sons, Loherangrin and Cardeiz.
After this he directs his steps towards
Montsalvagge; the Templois come out to
meet him, the banquet of the San Gréal is
celebrated, and the conditions imposed by
destiny being fulfilled, Amfortas is cured of
his disease, and transmits the royal dignity
to his nephew Parzival. The new king
again meets with his brother on his father's
side, Feirifiz, king of India, who, wandering
about in search of adventures, has chanced
to come to Montsalvagge. But, being a
heathen, he was ignorant of the sanctity of
the place and the mystery of the San Gréal.
Feirifiz, seeing at Montsalvagge Parzival's
aunt, Urepanse-de-Joie, falls in love with her,
and, after receiving baptism, marries her,
though the decease of his first wife, Secon-
dille, whom he had left in the East, is as yet
unknown to him. The newly married pair
set out for their kingdom in India. On
their way they hear of Secondille's death.
£repanse-de-Joie gives birth to a son, who
• *
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 39
receives the name of Jean-le-prétré, Prester
John. As for Parzival, he destines his son
Loherangrin to succeed him one day in the
kingship of the Gréal. This young man early
distinguishes himself in an adventurous ex-
pedition which he undertakes into the Duchy
of Brabant. Wolfram von Eschenbach ends
his romance as Guyot had ended his, without
telling us what becomes of the San Gréal.
He only seems to hint that Prester John
will succeed his cousin Loherangrin, and the
kingship of the Gréal continue in the mar-
vellous country of India.
In the romance we have just analysed, the
German poet follows exactly the same course
as Guyot in the corresponding episode of
his poem; he only adds a few details of his
own invention, such as, for instance, the
details regarding Klingschor the necro-
mancer, the history of Prester John, and
perhaps also the history of Loherangrin.
Klingschor has become the type of the
necromancer in the German poetry of the
middle ages, like Merlin with the Bretons,
and Virgil of Naples with the Italians and
the Spaniards. But the Germans modified
this type in their way, after having received
it from south Italy or Sicily, which was the
40 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
country of Klingschor. For there is no
doubt that Klingschor originally was an his-
torical personage, like Merdhin le Gallois in
Brittany, Virgil of Mantua in Italy, and
Doctor Faust in Germany.
As regards the tradition about Prester
John, it is scarcely probable that it was
known to Guyot. In the twelfth century there
was in China a great Mongol tribe professing
Buddhism such as it had developed itself in
Tibet. This religion bore in its sacerdotal
hierarchy and in some religious rites and cere-
monies so striking a resemblance to Catholi-
cism, that not only the Nestorian Christians
dwelling among the Mongols, but also the
strangers who visited Mongolia, mistook
the Buddha religion of Tibet for an Oriental
Christian religion. The temporal and spiri-
tual prince of this supposed Christian tribe
took the half-Chinese half-Mongol title of
Ouanh-kohan, literally prince-chief. The Nes-
torian Christians, who spoke the Syriac
language, rendered this by the homonyms
Iouchnan-kohan, meaning, in their language,
John the Priest. Such is the origin of the
tradition that there was in the centre of
Asia a Christian Church, whose popes bore
the title of Prester John. This tradition
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 41
spread in Europe towards the end of the
twelfth century; it was perhaps known to
Guyot and Chrétien de Troyes, but neither
of them connected it with the history of the
San Gréal. Wolfram von Eschenbach, on
the contrary, availed himself of it in his
romance. He looked upon the supposed
Christian Church of Asia as a continuation
of the priesthood of the Gréal, which priest-
hood was, after the death of Loherangrin,
transmitted to his cousin, Prester John. This
ingenious fiction, which, on the whole, Wol-
fram von Eschenbach only indicated in his
romance, was afterwards developed by Al-
brecht von Scharfenberg in his poem entitled
Titurel.
The wonderful history of Loherinc Garin,
or of Lohengrin, seems likewise to have been
unknown to Guyot and Chrétien. It is Wol-
fram at least who seems first to have conceived
the idea of borrowing it from the Lorrain
epic cycle, and connecting it with the fable
of the San Gréal, in the same way as it
was at a later period connected with the epic
cycle of the Knights of the Round Table.
Besides the romance of Parzival, of which
we have just given an analysis, Wolfram
took from Guyot's romance another episode
42 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
to make of it a separate poem, the history
of Titurel, first king of the Gréal. Unfor-
tunately this latter romance remained un-
finished; for the author was removed by
death when he had only composed a few
parts of it. But the same subject was taken
up again, and treated in its completeness by
Albrecht von Scharfenberg.
Before examining this latter romance, it
will be necessary to show what great modi-
fications, both as regards the matter and the
form, the fable of the San Gréal, when it
had passed to the state of tradition, under-
went after Guyot, Chrétien de Troyes, and
Wolfram von Eschenbach. The romance of
Guyot, or at least the traditional fable of the
San Gréal, spread over France, Germany,
and England; it principally attracted the
attention of the clergy, who doubtless were
struck with the fundamental idea of the
poem, and the philosophical and sometimes
not very orthodox signification which Guyot
had given to the San Gréal. Their ex-
pectation on reading this romance was
disappointed, and all the more because
the title seemed to promise a history ana-
logous to the traditions of the Church.
Not that at that period the relation was
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 43
likely to be already conceived, which in our
day would be at once so natural and so
poetical between the San Gréal, the sym-
bol of salvation, and the chalice, the symbol
of redemption. For, in the twelfth century,
the dogma of transubstantiation not being yet
defined by the Church, the chalice had not
the deep mystic meaning which it received
in the following century. But as the word
graal signified a vase, the idea must naturally
have presented itself, particularly to an eccle-
siastic, of designating by this name the vase
or vessel in which Christ had partaken of
the Supper with his apostles on the eve of
his death. One might, besides, by consider-
ing this vase as a holy relic, easily connect
with it traditions partly historical, partly
legendary. Lastly, by modifying the funda-
mental idea of the San Gréal, the history
which Guyot had given it must also have
been modified. And this actually took place.
Contemporary with Guyot, Chrétien de
Troyes, and Wolfram von Eschenbach, was
Walter Mapes, chaplain of King Henry II.,
and archdeacon of Oxford. This ecclesiastic,
who must not be confounded with his col-
league, Walter Calenius, was known by his
writings against the popes, the Court of
44 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
Rome, and the order of the Cistercians. The
King of England, his master, was at the
same time Duke of Normandy, Count of
Anjou, Tourraine, and Maine, and his wife
had moreover brought to him as her dower
Guyenne, Poitou, and Saintonge, so that the
principal provinces of the north and south
of France stood in political relation with
England. As this young prince had, under
the guidance of Robert of Gloucester, im-
bibed a great taste for literature, and muni-
ficently rewarded the Breton bards, the
minstrels, trouvères, and troubadours, he
thereby encouraged the literary movement in
France and England, and the exchange of
poetical productions between the two coun-
tries. As Walter Mapes lived in close rela-
tions with a prince who was particularly
fond of romances, he had occasion to become
acquainted with Guyot's poem, and conceived
the idea of composing one on the same subject,
but differing from it both in matter and form.
He identified the San Gréal with the
vessel in which Jesus celebrated the Holy
Supper, and which also was used to receive
His blood flowing from the wound inflicted
upon Him by the centurion Longinus. The
kingship of the Gréal, imagined by Guyot,
disappeared to make room for a more ecclesi-
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 45
astical setting. These new guardians of
the sacred vase were partly fictitious, partly
historical. There existed in the Church an
old tradition, according to which Nicode-
mus, and Joseph of Arimathea, especially
the latter, were represented as the apostles of
Christ. This tradition was to be found in
the pseudo-Gospel of Nicodemus, already so
widely circulated in the East in the first half
of the second century. Another work of
this kind, the Acts of Pilate, based on the
Gospel of Nicodemus, contributed some new
fictions to the legend of Joseph of Arima-
thea, and it is probably on this autho-
rity, of small historical value, that Gregory
of Tours (ºf 595) narrates the imprison-
ment of Joseph, his voyage and his arrival
in Britain, where he is supposed to have
preached the gospel. The tradition regarding
the apostleship of Joseph was, however, un-
known in England, at least until the middle
of the twelfth century. The chronicle of Gal-
frid ap Arthur, better known as Geoffrey of
Monmouth, who became Bishop of Saint
Asaph towards 1152, makes no mention of
Joseph of Arimathea.
According to William of Malmesbury,
towards 1143, St. Philip is the apostle of
the Britons; Joseph is only mentioned as
46 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
one of his helpers, one of his missionaries
in Britain." Besides, if this legend had
been known in England, the chronicles of
the country would not have failed to seize
upon it, all the more because it encouraged
the obvious tendencies of the Church of
England to attribute its foundation, not to the
Church of Rome, its true origin, but imme-
diately to the Church of the East. It is,
therefore, at the earliest, in the second half
of the twelfth century that the tradition of
Joseph as the apostle of England would be
known in that country, and it was probably
the ecclesiastic Walter Mapes who intro-
duced it by making Joseph one of the
coryphaei of his history of the San Gréal.
To show the great difference which existed
between this history and the one imagined by
Guyot, it will be sufficient to point out, the
principal features of this romance of Walter
Mapes. Jesus Christ having just expired
on the cross, his disciple, the Knight, Joseph
of Arimathea, requests of Pilate the favour
of burying the mortal remains of the Saviour
of the world. On the third day, the Lord
having vanquished death by rising again,
1 See Gale, Histor. Anglicae Saaconicos Anglo-Danicae
Scriptores, xv. t. 1. p. 292. Oxon. 1691.
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 47
the Jews accused Joseph of having stolen
the body of Christ, and they cast him into a
prison, with the intention of starving him
to death. But the Lord appears to him,
comforts him, and gives him the sacred
vessel with his blood, which has the marvel-
lous virtue of nourishing the prisoner phy-
sically and spiritually. After forty-two
years of captivity, Joseph is at last set at
liberty by the Emperor Wespasian. In pos-
session of the sacred vessel, and a few more
relics, and accompanied by his relations
and disciples, Hebron and Alain the Fisher-
man, he travels over a part of Asia, where
he converts Enelach, king of Sarras. He
then goes to Rome, and thence to Britain,
where he preaches the gospel, and performs
thirty-four miracles. He settles in the
island of Yniswitrin (isle of glass) or Glaston-
bury, where he founds an abbey, and insti-
tutes the Round Table, in imitation of the
Holy Supper. Lastly, the apostle of the
Britons builds a palace, in which he preserves
his precious relics, the sacred cup which
takes the name of San Gréal, the bloody
spear with which the centurion Longinus
pierced the side of the Lord, and lastly, the
sword of the Maccabees, which he brought
48 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
from the East, with the Gréal and the lance.
He establishes in this palace, as the king of
the Gréal, or rather as chief of the Round
Table, his faithful disciple Alain the Fisher-
man, who in allusion to the words of Jesus
Christ (Matt. iv. 19), takes the title of
the rich fisherman, which he transmits to his
successors. Joseph, the apostle of the Britons,
having fulfilled his mission upon earth, dies
a holy man, and is buried in the chapel of
the abbey which he founded at Glastonbury.
His principal successors as chiefs of the
Round Table, are—Alain, Nascian, Celido-
nius, Galahad, Arthur, Boort, and Lancelot.
Such are the principal features of Walter
Mapes's history of the Gréal. The sacred
cup is identified with the vessel of the Holy
Supper; the Templois are replaced by the
Knights of the Round Table; and the Round
Table itself is confounded with the table of
the Holy Supper.
To give more authority to his history of
the San Gréal, Walter Mapes ascribed to it a
supernatural origin. He gave out that God
was its real author, and had revealed it in a
celestial vision to a holy hermit of Britain
towards the year A.D. 720. These circum-
stances are told as true by Helinand, a monk
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 49
of the abbey of Froidmont, in the diocese of
Beauvais.” This Cistercian monk did not
suspect that this history of the Gréal,
which he eagerly sought for everywhere,
and nevertheless could not procure, had been
written by the ecclesiastic Walter Mapes,
the same who, in his writings, had shown
himself so hostile to the Order of Citeaux.
The history was composed in the Latin
tongue-a proof that its author did not des-
tine it for general perusal. The book was
thus but little known in France in the time
of Helinand, who died in 1227. There
existed, however, already a French transla-
tion, a small number of copies of which were
circulated in the castles of the noble lords.
This was very probably the translation made
by the knight Luces du Gast, in the Calva-
dos, but habitually residing near Salisbury,
in England, the same who is also known as
the author of the romance of Tristan-le-Léon-
nais.” Another translation was made later,
towards 1231, by Robert de Boron, a knight
of the court of Henry II. of England, and
this formed the basis of a new edition pub-
1 See Tissier, Bibliotheca Cistercens. t. vii. p. 92.
* See Catalogue de la Vallière, t. ii. pp. 614, 4015.
D
50 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
lished by his relation, Helis de Boron. To-
wards the end of the thirteenth century the
prose of Robert de Boron was turned into
verse; and this poem, which still exists,'
though defective, may give us some idea of
the primitive work of Walter Mapes, which
has not yet been found. This history of the
Gréal, once spread abroad, was diversely
modified, and gave birth to a great number
of prose romances in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. One of the most remark-
able editions of these romances is that of
Paris, in folio, published in 1516, in which
the history of the Gréal is divided into two
branches. The first includes the history of
the search for the Gréal, the history of
Joseph of Arimathea and his son Joseph,
the conversion of Enelach, and the history
of the descendants of Joseph, Nascian, Celi-
donius, Galahad, Boort, and Lancelot. The
second branch narrates the adventures of
Gawain, Lancelot, and Perlevaux (Perceval);
and it is said in this book that the history
is taken from a work of Joseph himself,
translated from the Latin into French.
1 Wide Roman de Saint Graal, published by M. F.
Michel.
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 51
IV.
LL these romances, modified or dis-
figured, but all more or less directly
derived from the history of the Gréal, writ-
ten in Latin by Walter Mapes, were circu-
lated in Europe, and may explain why, as
early as the middle of the thirteenth cen-
tury, the notion prevailed that the Gréal
was the vessel in which Jesus and His
apostles had partaken of the Supper. From
that time, public attention being roused on
this subject, a great many towns pretended
to possess this holy relic. In 1247 the patri-
arch of Jerusalem sent the San Gréal to King
Henry III. of England, as having belonged
to Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea.
About the same time the inhabitants of
Constantinople also fancied that a vessel,
which they had long esteemed as a sacred
52 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
relic, was the San Gréal. The Genoese
also felt certain that their Santo catino was
nothing else but the San Gréal. This ves-
Sel, of plasma or molten glass of hexagonal
shape, and greenish colour, was taken at
Caesarea by the Crusaders in 1101, and in
the division of the spoil fell to the lot of
the Genoese, who thought it was made of an
enormous emerald, and valued it merely on
account of its material worth, and presented
it to the Church of St. Laurence at Genoa.
But as early as the second half of the thir-
teenth century, Jacobo de Voragine having
read in some English books the history of
the Gréal after Walter Mapes, at once ex-
pressed his opinion in his Chronicle of Genoa,
chap. xviii., that the emerald vessel might
very well be the cup which the English
called Sangréal. From that time the idea
expressed by the chronicler took root and
changed into real belief, so that, to this day,
the vase called Santo catino is an object of
great veneration to the faithful.
The history of the San Gréal of Walter
Mapes and the numerous compilations derived
from it not only called attention to the sacred
cups which might pass for the vessel of the
Holy Supper ; their influence extended to
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 53
the past, and greatly modified even the
primitive traditions of the Gréal. All the
poets who, since the publication of the
romance of Mapes, treated this subject,
though in a great measure following the
traditions of Guyot, Chrétien de Troyes,
and Wolfram von Eschenbach, neverthe-
less thought fit, in several particulars, to
remodel the primitive traditions after the
new history. Thus Gautier de Denet, Cau-
chier de Dordan, Gerbert de Montreuil, and
Manessier, the continuators of Chrétien de
Troyes, already speak of Joseph of Ari-
mathea, who had not been mentioned in the
romance of Guyot. In the history of these
continuators the Sacerdotal spirit preponder-
ates over the chivalric spirit; the Gréal no
longer has a symbolic and philosophical, but
a religious and half legendary, signification.
The bleeding lance and the marvellous sword
of the romance of Guyot lose their poetical
signification : they are relics having a merely
historical importance as being the spear of
Longinus or the sword of the Maccabees.
The same modifications are to be noticed
in a romance in prose, entitled Perceval-le-
Gallois. Not only is the Round Table con-
sidered in it as an imitation of the Holy
54 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
Supper, but the author goes so far as to give it
the name of San Gréalitself. In the Romance
of Merlin, written towards the end of the
thirteenth century, it is said that the Round
Table, instituted by Joseph in imitation of
the Holy Supper, was called Graal, and that
Joseph induced Arthur's father to create a
third Round Table in honour of the Holy
Trinity.
In Germany the influence of the new
traditions of the Gréal upon the old is prin-
cipally remarkable in the poem of Titurel,
written about the end of the thirteenth cen-
tury, by Albrecht von Scharfenberg.
This romance, one of the most popular of
the middle ages, admired by the author him-
self as a masterpiece of poetry and piety,
contains several pieces from two or three
different poets. The most remarkable of
these pieces are the fragments composed
by Wolfram von Eschenbach for his poem
Titurel, left unfinished. As regards the de-
tails of the history of the Gréal, Albrecht
generally followed the fable invented by
Guyot, and reproduced by Wolfram; but
other details of his romance show that he
was also acquainted with the version of
Walter Mapes. Thus, in Albrecht's Titurel,
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 55
the San Gréal has not, as in Guyot, a purely
symbolic signification, but is identified with
the vessel of the Holy Supper. The sacer-
dotal, and not the chivalric spirit, prepon-
derates in it. Orthodoxy, asceticism, and in-
tolerance towards the infidels are in striking
contrast with the philosophic and concilia-
tory spirit prevailing in the romance of the
Angevine poet. Albrecht, above all, delights
in developing the history of Prester John, and
adorning it with all the prestige of his poetry.
This history, for which Wolfram had but
few data, and which, for this reason, he had
only indicated in his Parzival, could now be
considerably amplified by means of the new
information furnished to the poet by the re-
ports of the pope's legate and the French
ambassadors who had returned from the
East. Jean du Plan de Carpin, of the order
of the Minorites, had been sent by Pope
Innocent IV. to Mongol Tartary, where he
had stayed from 1245 to 1247. A new
embassy, headed by the Franciscan friar,
William de Rubruquis, had been sent to
Mongolia by Saint Louis in 1253. Lastly,
the reports of the celebrated travellers Nicolo
Polo and Marco Polo perhaps also furnished
Albrecht with some new and interesting de-
56 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
tails. This poet exerts his utmost talent to
trace in the history of Prester John the bril-
liant picture of a true sacerdotal government,
and we may say that, if Guyot depicted in his
romance his ideal of chivalry, Albrecht von
Scharfenberg endeavoured to express his
ideal, or perhaps the ideal which his age had
conceived, of priesthood and ecclesiastical
hierarchy. Moreover, this important sub-
ject, which transported the reader into the
land of wonders, to the centre of Asia, at
the same time presented to the poet a
favourable opportunity to exhibit his know-
ledge of geography, history, and natural
sciences, a kind of knowledge which he
indeed possessed extensively, and of which,
like most poets of the middle ages, he did
not fail to be somewhat vain.
The romance of Albrecht von Scharfen-
berg embraces a more extensive area than
that of Wolfram von Eschenbach, without
however being superior to the latter in con-
ception or poetical execution. The following
are the principal features that compose the
romance of Titurel:—
Parille, the son of Sennabor of Cappa-
docia, having embraced the Christian faith
with his brothers and sisters, assists the Em-
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 57
peror Vespasian at the siege and taking of
Jerusalem. As a reward for his services, the
emperor gives him his daughter Argusilla
in marriage; and moreover, gives him the
kingdom of France in fief. Parille has a
son, Titurisone, who marries Eligabel of
Arragon. The son of Titurisone and Eli-
gabel is called Titurel, a name composed and
contracted from those of his father and
mother. An angel from heaven announces
that God has chosen Titurel to be the defen-
der of the faith and the guardian of the
San Gréal. The youth receives an educa-
tion at once pious and knightly, and after
having fought with his father against the
infidels in Spain, is conducted by angels to
Montsalvagge. There he builds the magni-
ficent chapel in which the San Gréal, on
descending from heaven, has placed itself of
its own accord. Titurel marries the Prin-
cess Richoude of Spain; he watches over
the San Gréal, and propagates the Christian
faith among the infidels. When old, his son
Frimutel is designated as the King of the
Gréal by an inscription which appears on
the sacred vase. Frimutel marries Clarissa
of Grenada, and has five children by her.
These are Amfortas, who succeeds his father
58 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
in the kingship of the Gréal; Trevrizont, the
wise hermit ; Tchoysiane, who becomes the
mother of Sigune, and who dies on giving
birth to this child; Herzeloïde, the mother of
Parzival; and lastly, Urepanse de Joie, who
marries Feirifiz, and becomes the mother of
John the Priest. The beautiful Sigune is
brought up at the court of her aunt Herze-
loide, and betrothed to Tchionaiulander. This
young knight distinguishes himself in the
East by his bravery, and stands in friendly
relationship with the Knights of the Round
Table. He delivers, conjointly with King
Arthur, the kingdom of Canvoleis, invaded
by the Duke Orilus, but is killed by this
enemy in single combat. Sigune is incon-
solable for the death of her betrothed; she
has his body embalmed, places it among the
branches of a lime-tree, and sits by it a prey
to the most poignant grief. There her cousin
Parzival finds her, and she informs him of
the fault he committed by his too great dis-
cretion at the banquet of the San Gréal.
Full of regret, Parzival desires to repair his
fault; after many efforts and many an adven-
ture, he at last obtains the kingship of the
Gréal at Montsalvagge. In the meantime,
the West, more and more given up to sin, is
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 59
no longer worthy of possessing the sacred
vase. Parzival thinks of transporting it to
the East. He takes the San Gréal, em-
barks at Marseilles with the Templois, and
arrives at the court of his brother Feirifiz,
in India. The latter draws an enchanting
picture of the riches and sanctity of Prester
John, who is the spiritual and temporal chief
of a neighbouring country in India. Parzival
consents to intrust this personage with the
Gréal; but the sacred cup manifests the de-
sire that Parzival should remain king, and
only change his name into that of Prester
John. Consequently, Parzival and the Tem-
plois settle in India; they implore the San
Gréal that the palace and chapel of Montsal-
vagge be also transported to India. Their
prayer is granted; on the following day both
palace and chapel, miraculously transported
through the air during the night, are placed
more beautiful and brilliant in India, and
the chapel again holds the sacred cup of the
Gréal. After the death of Parzival, the son
of Feirifiz and Urepanse de Joie becomes
Priest John. After the disappearance of the
Gréal in the West, King Arthur and the
Knights of the Round Table go in search of
it : they travel over the world, but in vain,
60 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
they cannot find it ; it is for ever hidden in
the far East.
Such are the principal features of the
romance of Titurel. Albrecht von Scharfen-
berg is the last German poet who has treated
the history of the San Gréal as a whole,
and added new details to it. After him
the poets only relate with more or less ex-
actness the different traditions spread abroad
in France, England, and Germany. They
modify them to their liking, without, how-
ever, giving them an original character.
Among the German poems written during
the fourteenth century, and in which the
Gréal is still spoken of, we shall only men-
tion the romance of Loherangrin and the
romance of Parzival and the Round Table.
In the romance of Loherangrin, written
about 1300, the San Gréal is several
times spoken of; in this romance it is
Arthur and his knights who accompany it
to India, and guard it as the Templois did
in the primitive romances. The Gréal
itself is considered as a kind of oracle,
which is consulted in all sorts of difficulties,
and is, so to speak, at the orders of the
mother of God to execute all her com-
mands.
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 61
The romance entitled Parzival and the
Round Table, of which a manuscript still
exists in the library of the Vatican," was
composed by Nicolas Wisse and Philip
Colin, goldsmith of Strasburg. They dedi-
cated it in 1336 to Ulric, lord of Rappolt-
stein, in Alsace. These meistersänger chiefly
followed the romance of the French poet
Manessier, the continuator of Perceval-le-
Gallois, by Chrétien de Troyes. They were
also acquainted with the romances of Wolf.
ram and of Albrecht von Scharfenberg, and
placed their ambition more in being com-
plete, and relating all kinds of amusing
anecdotes, than in composing a poem faultless
in conception and poetical execution.
As we are unwilling to dwell on a few
more romances of the same kind written in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and
presenting nothing new, nothing original,
we may consider our task finished, and
nothing remains but to sum up in a few
words the principal results of this memoir.
We have explained the formation and signi-
fication of the romances of the San Gréal.
These romances, we have seen, all spring
1 See Wonder Hagen, Briefe in die Heimath, ii. p. 305.
62 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
from two principal sources, the first of
which is found in the French romance of
Guyot, and is connected with the great
cycle of Arthur and the Knights of the
Round Table; the other is found in the
history of the Gréal, written in the Latin
tongue by Walter Mapes, and is connected
with the legendary literature of the middle
ages. These two original romances repre-
sent the two principal tendencies of that
period, the one the knightly, the other the
sacerdotal. The romances derived from
these two primitive sources are afterwards
confounded, mixed, and at last disappear
in the sixteenth century, when the middle
ages had exhausted all that was true and
beautiful in their ideas and tendencies, and
the modern times were commencing with
their new tendencies and more complete
ideas.
These romances remained buried in lib-
raries until the present time, when curio-
sity and erudition drew them out of the
dust to study and appreciate them at their
real value. What will be the final judg-
ment on these literary productions? Let
us speak frankly: the literary taste of our
period differs so much from that of the
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 63
middle ages, that these poems, which were
the admiration and delight of their time, can
no longer claim the same degree of interest.
We do not mean to deny the great poetical
beauties existing in these romances, nor the
great gifts of the principal poets of the
middle ages. But their productions are gene-
rally deficient in that finished perfection in
literature which alone can secure a complete
and universal success. In the middle ages,
idea preponderates too much over form
to allow of an harmonious union of both,
and of the beauty and artistical perfec-
tion arising from that union. If you love
great and fruitful ideas, warmth, passion,
you will indeed find them in the poetry of
the middle ages, and perhaps more frequently
than in the somewhat cold and measured
poetry of antiquity. But you will not find
in it that harmony of form, that wisdom
which moderates warmth, that calm in the
midst of passions, which are the distinctive
characteristic of ancient classic poetry, and
in which consists its peculiar merit. The
results of this want of harmony, so common
a feature in the poems of the middle ages,
are exuberance of form, absence of symme-
try between the parts, and defective ar-
64 ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
rangement of the whole. Most markedly
in narrative poetry, an idea, after giving
birth to facts, seems to let them wander at
random. Numberless adventures, therefore,
connected with each other, were the essen-
tial part of the romances of chivalry, and a
poetical fiction of those times, the personi-
fication of Lady Adventure, invoked by the
romancers as the poets, of antiquity invoked
the muses, sufficiently proves, in our judg-
ment, that the greatest merit of narrative
poems was held to be the adventurous
character of the actions and events.
Still further : from this absence of har-
mony between the idea and the form arises
a perhaps still more serious defect, which is
the want of truth and local colour; and,
indeed, in proportion as the middle ages
draw nearer their zenith, we see what may
be called the individual physiognomy of the
times, places, and persons disappearing more
and more from their poetry. Those rude
and manly individualities of the heroic ages,
the character, full of assurance, of the Chris-
tian heroes, defenders of the faith, is found
no longer in the heroes of the romances of
chivalry. Everything takes a general char-
acter, an abstract physiognomy, which is
ROMANCES OF THE SAN GREAL. 65
contrary to the real nature of poetry, which,
like all arts, and in imitation of nature,
should only produce special, individual, and
concrete forms. It is true that it is pre-
cisely in this diversity of character, in this
mixture of nationalities, in this absence of
individuality and local colour, that the
Tomantic poetry, properly so called, consists.
But this poetry, admissible on certain con-
ditions, cannot in all respects satisfy a taste
in the least degree severe. The defects
which we have pointed out in the romances
of knighthood will not make us overlook the
numerous beauties of the poetry of the
middle ages, nor prevent us from appreciat-
ing all its qualities. We venture, therefore,
to say, that the perfection of art consists,
according to our notions, in uniting, by a
happy synthesis, the abundance of ideas,
the movement and passion of the poetry of
the middle ages, with the regular and
finished forms of the classic poetry of anti-
quity.
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