6
As to those who are appointed to the Gral, hear how they are made known. Under the top edge of the Stone an inscription announces the name and lineage of the one summoned to make the glad journey.
…
Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival
If the Grail had a home, where it was preserved for those who would come in search of it, that home needed guardians. This seems to have been a given from the very earliest Grail stories, and when we look at the work of Chrétien de Troyes and Robert de Boron, Wolfram von Eschenbach or the author of Sone, we can see that all are very clear on this matter. Though Chrétien failed to make this specific, the implication is that the Grail is associated not only with a place, but a family. Robert expanded this in his Joseph and Wolfram opened the way still further in his Parzifal by making it clear that the family was extensive and that a larger group of guardians were involved. That he chose to call this group Templiesen (Templars) has caused an association that may or may not have existed between the Grail and the Knights Templar. This is not the place to argue the rights and wrongs of the theory one way or the other; what is clear, from Wolfram’s text onwards, is the growing circle of Grail guardians, families whose lineage are linked to the sacred relic. In both Sone and The Later Titurel a lineage is established whose members and their decedents become kings, emperors, and popes ruling over much of Europe. We have also seen how, in Titurel, the Grail itself is proactive in arranging a marriage between the previously celibate Titurel and the Spanish princess Richaud, and how one of the latest guardians to be mentioned, the priest-king John, was written out of the story by the increasing emphasis given by the Grail writers to Joseph of Arimathea.
Before we can proceed further with our account of the temples of the Grail, we need to look at the evolving story of these guardians, beginning with Robert de Boron.
The earliest sources for the Grail family are the Joseph d’Arimathie and the Didot Perceval, the first definitely by Robert and the second attributed to him. As we have seen, it is to Robert that we owe the first melding of the Grail story with apocryphal Christian sources in the shape of the Gospel of Nicodemus and the Acts of Pilate, both documents omitted from the final canon of the New Testament.
In Robert’s poem, Joseph of Arimathea is the first guardian (not yet a king) of the sacred vessel, followed by his son Josephus. Robert names Alain le Gros, twelfth son of Bron, Joseph of Arimathea’s brother-in-law, as the third keeper of the Grail. Alain’s son is identified as Perceval in the Didot Perceval—making him the fourth keeper—though elsewhere his father is either named Gamuret or Bliocadran.168
One of the four continuations of Chrétien’s Conte del Graal, attributed to Gerbert de Montreuil, tells us more of the history of the Grail family. At the Castle of Maidens, the wounded Perceval is given a fuller account than that offered by Chrétien. After treating Perceval’s wounds, Ysabel, the mistress of the castle, tells how her cousin, Philosofine, who is here named as Perceval’s mother, came with the Grail from across the sea and, because the land was waste and full of sinful people, angels bore the sacred vessel away to the house of the Fisher King. The implication here is that it was intended to be lodged in the Castle of Maidens but was taken, for safekeeping, to the Grail castle.169 The name of Perceval’s mother as Philosofine suggests a connection with a long lineage of female Grail bearers stretching back to Wisdom, the Shekinah, who dwelled with exiled humanity in the Holy of Holies within the first temple of Solomon.
From this we may see a possible reference to a convent of nuns, perhaps a more appropriate home for the Grail, though in Gerbert it has more of an otherworldly feel. In several Arthurian romances nuns are regarded as practitioners of magic, as in Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, where the king’s half sister Morgan le Fay is “put to school in a nunnery, where she became a great clerk of necromancy.” 170
From Chrétien we learn that the Fisher King is over three hundred years old and that his name is Mordrain. While staying at an abbey, Perceval is told how, forty years after Christ’s death, the lands of a heathen king named Evalac of Sarras had been ravaged by a king of Syria. Joseph of Arimathea tells Evalac that he could vanquish his adversary if he became a Christian. This fell out as Joseph had predicted and Evalac, taking the name Mordrain, became a devout Christian. When Joseph later came to Britain, Philosofine accompanied him. She brought with her “a trencher brighter than the moon and a lance that bled constantly,” while Joseph brought “the most beautiful vessel ever seen.” This offers a slightly different lineup to the usual Grail hallows and tells us more about the burgeoning family.
A wicked king named Crudel now imprisons Joseph and his followers, and when Mordrain hears of this, he sails to ravage Crudel’s lands. However, in the process, Mordrain is badly wounded; when Joseph shows him the Grail, in the hope of healing him, Mordrain tried to peer into it, at which an angel with a fiery sword appeared and told him he had done wrong, his wounds would never heal, and he would not die until a true knight without sin relieved him of this burden.
The collapsing of the time-scale in this retelling, and the family relationships implied by it, give us pause. According to this account, Joseph of Arimathea and Perceval’s mother are contemporaries, while the connection between the apocryphal accounts of the aftermath of Christ’s Passion and the time of Arthur is made even stronger.
Robert’s Joseph was created out of a blending of the canonical Passion narratives and the non-canonical fourth-century accounts found in the Acts of Pilate and the Gospel of Nicodemus. It retells the story of the vessel as both the cup in which Christ celebrated the Last Supper and the vessel in which his blood is caught after the Crucifixion. The cup passes into the hands of Pilate and is given by him to Joseph, who, as a soldier in the Roman army, comes to ask for a gift in return for his long service. Pilate also permits Joseph and Nicodemus to take the body of Jesus, and Joseph catches some blood in the vessel as the body is prepared for burial.
However, while Christ is descending into hell to free Adam and Eve and their faithful descendants, the tomb is broken open by the Jews, who, fearful of the retribution that might fall on them for not guarding the now-vanished body, arrest Joseph and put him in prison, sealing it up. Here the story deviates in detail from the account given by the Abbot of Gwales in Sone. Joseph survives his long incarceration and is visited by Christ, who brings the light-filled vessel of the most precious blood to him. Joseph is bidden to keep the vessel, which he is told has three powers that he may call upon for help when in need. Robert dares not tell us about these: “I couldn’t even if I wanted to, if I did not have the high book in which they are written, and that is the creed of the great mystery of the Grail.”
Once released by Vespasian, Joseph goes to the household of his sister Enigeus and her husband, Bron. They and their people are suffering from severe famine, and so Joseph prays before the vessel and asks for guidance. He is instructed to set a table, like that of the Last Supper, with an empty place between Bron and himself to signify the seat of Judas. This place, he is told, cannot be filled until a son of Bron sits in it. Bron is then told to go fishing and to bring the first of his catch, while Joseph lays the table, putting the vessel on it and covering it with the edge of the tablecloth. When everyone is seated, the company senses “a sweetness and fulfilment of their hearts.” Those who feel nothing are sent away, for it is their sins that have brought the famine upon all. Everyone asks about the vessel and what it should be called; they are told:
Those who wish to name it rightly will call it the Grail, which gives such joy and delight to those who can stay in its presence that they feel as elated as a fish escaping from a man’s hands into the wide water.171
All those who have eaten, including a man named Petrus, remain a long while in a state of grace. Bron and Enigeus have twelve children and ask Joseph’s advice about them. They are told that they should all be married off but that if one does not wish to do so, he should be sent to Joseph. The twelfth son, Alain li Gros, elects to remain celibate and is taught about the Grail’s history. Another of Bron’s company, the same Petrus who had been so deeply affected by the Grail, is sent ahead into the West to await Alain’s coming. He will not be able to pass from life into death until this happened, but instead he will go to the vales of Avaron (Avalon). Joseph is instructed to prepare Bron as the keeper and guardian of the vessel after him. He then adds, “All who hear tell of him will call him the rich Fisher King because of the fish he caught.”172
At this point Robert breaks off, taking up the story in his next work, Merlin, where we hear of the birth of the great enchanter, the coming of the Pendragon dynasty (including Arthur), and the establishment of a third table, the Round Table. (The first two are the table of the Last Supper and the table of Joseph.) Uther Pendragon wonders greatly about the empty place at the Round Table and is told that it will not be filled in his time, but that someone will come during his son’s lifetime. When Arthur comes of age, Merlin tells him how Alain and Bron came to the isles of Ireland, but that Bron (now called the Fisher King) is woefully ill. When a renowned knight comes and asks the question about the Grail’s service, the Fisher King will be healed and impart the secret words of Christ, told to Joseph of Arimathea, to the new keeper of the vessel. With that the enchantments of the land of Britain will vanish, and the prophecy will be fulfilled. The implication is also that the Grail family will continue its guardianship of the sacred vessel, which will remain in the world for the time being.
The next stage of the story is found in the text known as the Didot Perceval, after its first editor and owner, which it has been suggested is a prose version of a poem by Robert, now lost. In this version of the story we learn that Alain le Gros’s son, Perceval, wishes to come to Arthur’s court. The story of the young knight’s adventure is then told, substantially as we know it from Chrétien, only now, following the account found in Joseph and Merlin, we are aware that he is of the lineage of a family associated with the Grail. We hear about his seven-year quest and are told that
Chrétien de Troyes says nothing of this—nor do the other trouvères who have turned these stories into jolly rhymes … Merlin saw and knew exactly what befell Perceval each day.173
Perceval comes to the Grail castle following a path shown to him by Merlin, entering into his grandfather’s presence and finally asking the purpose of the Grail procession. As soon as he asks this question, Bron, the Fisher King, is healed. Knowing that he will now die within three days, Bron tells Perceval about his ancestors and places the sacred vessel into his hands. From it arises a melody and perfume so sweet that all present feel as if they were in paradise. At the same time the enchantments upon the world are broken. Merlin comes to the house of the new Fisher King, Perceval, and the rest of the Arthurian story speeds to its end with the breaking of the Round Table through the treachery of Mordred and the death of Arthur.
Robert de Boron’s skill in seamlessly attaching the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus to the Arthurian legends by means of the Grail is unsurpassed. It has a shapeliness and symmetry that only a good storyteller can bring to it. By making the story of Christ’s Passion and its major relic into a vessel that “delights the heart of all worthy men,” Robert makes it a means of healing for all ills. By making Perceval the great-nephew of Joseph of Arimathea, he ensured that the knight would forever be seen as one of a lineage of Grail guardians.
The Secret Families
From the first romances concerning the Grail, the lineage of guardians began to be consciously woven into a pattern of secrecy. In Parzival we are told that those born into the Grail lineage are subject to an extraordinary dynastic regulation. The children of noble families, who are called to the Grail when they are small, attain paradise when they live and die chastely, with only the Grail king marrying. But there are exceptions; if a particular country needs a ruler, girls may be sent openly and boys in secret to become wives or husbands as required. They are, however, forbidden to tell anyone from whence they come.
Apart from the covert secrecy and chastity, this is not much different from the usual arrangement of dynastic marriage in medieval times. In Parzival Wolfram also binds together the Grail legends and the Crusader ethic of his time by making the soldiers of the Grail templeisen who defend the Grail and its places. These are men who do not marry but who are wholly in the service of the Grail.
The Grail family and its interconnections provide the legends with a means of ancestral destiny. The Fisher King, who starts out as an almost otherworldly figure in his undying, unageing court, soon becomes an ancient king ruling over a wasted land, but with the promise of healing from the hands of a descendent.
The lineage of the Grail kings varies according to different storytellers, each of whom seeks to establish a different family, giving the Fisher King a host of relatives, forebears, and descendants, and giving the Grail legends a sense of consistency through time.
In the Lancelot-Grail cycle, the Estoire del Saint Graal lists the following lineage: Josue (the first Grail king), Aminadap, Carcelois, Manaal, Lambor, Pellehan, and Pelles/Pellam, who rules over the Grail lands in Arthur’s time and whose daughter Elaine is the mother of Galahad (fathered upon her by Lancelot). Thus the Christian and Arthurian stories become forever linked.174
Wolfram, writing less than twelve years after Robert, named Titurel as the first of the Grail kings, followed by Frimutel, Anfortas (his name for the Wounded King), and Perceval and his son Lohengrin, the Swan Knight whose story we shall explore further in chapter 7. As we have seen, this was a lead followed by Albrecht in The Later Titurel. Here the Grail lineage is extended vastly, including many generations of Titurel’s family, so that when his time comes to die, aged 500, his descendants are already set up to continue the family connection with the Grail—though it is Prester John, who stands apart from the family, who eventually assumes this mantle.
Another German writer, Heinrich von dem Türlin, writing in his epic Diü Crône (“The Crown”) around the time of Wolfram’s death in 1220, emphasizes the curse laid upon the Grail family and has his hero, the great Arthurian knight Gawain, save them from a living death. In the process Heinrich gives us one of the most detailed versions of the Grail procession. But it is to Gawain alone that the Grail king himself explains its true meaning, and thus the story changes direction by making Gawain a successful Grail winner.
Sir Gawain, this marvel which is of God may not be known unto all, but shall be held secret, yet since ye have asked thereof, sweet kinsman and dear guest, I may not withhold the truth … Of the Grail may I say no more save that ye have seen it, and that great gladness hath come of this your question. For now are many set free from the sorrow they long have borne, and small hope had they of deliverance. Great confidence and trust had we all in Perceval, that he would learn the secret things of the Grail, yet hence did he depart even as a coward who ventured naught, and asked naught. Thus did his quest miscarry, and he learned not that which of surety he should have learned, [and thus] freed many a mother’s son from sore travail, who live, and yet are dead. Through the strife of kinsmen did this woe befall, when one brother smote the other for his land: and for that treason was the wrath of God shown on him and on all his kin, that all were alike lost.
That was a woeful chance, for the living they were driven out, but the dead must abide in the semblance of life, and suffer bitter woe withal. That must you know—yet had they hope and comfort in God and His grace, that they should come even to the goal of their grief in such fashion, as I shall tell you.
Should there be a man of their race who should end this their sorrow, in that he should demand the truth of these marvels, that were the goal of their desire; so would their penance be fulfilled, and they should again enter into joy: alike they who lay dead and they who live, and now give thanks to God and to ye, for by ye are they now released. This spear and this food, they nourish me and none other, for in that I was guiltless of the deed God condemned me not. Dead I am, though I bear not the semblance of death, and this my folk is dead with me. However this may be, yet though all knowledge be not yours, yet have we riches in plenty, and know no lack … And know of a truth that the adventures ye have seen came of the Grail, and now is the penance perfected, and forever done away, and your quest hath found its ending.175
Already we are informed that a knight of the linage is the one who should bring healing. In this instance, Gawain, who is nowhere else connected to the Grail family, does so.
As the day begins to dawn, the company slowly fade from sight, except for Gawain’s two companions and the maidens who carried the Grail and the other wondrous objects.
And Sir Gawain was somewhat sorry, when he saw his host no more, yet was he glad when the maiden spake, saying that his labour was now at an end, and he had in sooth done all that pertained unto the Quest of the Grail, for never else in any land, save in that Burg alone, 164might the Grail have been beheld. Yet had that land been waste, but God had hearkened to their prayer, and by his coming had folk and land alike been delivered, and for that were they joyful.” 176
Here not only the Grail king, but also his entire family, along with their followers, appears to suffer. Instead of the Grail king alone being kept alive by the Grail, the whole community has been dead for a very long while, and only Gawain’s asking of the fateful question sets them free. We cannot help remembering the pit from which issues the sound of lamenting in Perlesvaus and the sorrowful people on the Island of Gwales in Sone. In the Crown Gawain is the one who relieves the great lamentation that afflicts all at the Grail castle and beyond, just as Sone, Perceval, and Galahad, amongst others, are destined to do in the later romances.
The Coming of Joseph of Arimathea
Before the long lineage of Grail knights and maidens, one figure stood out as the first and most important guardian of the Grail. Though Albrecht is alone in making Joseph of Arimathea the first wounded Grail king, the fact that he does so points to the importance of Joseph as central to the history of the sacred vessel. As the one responsible for obtaining the Cup of the Last Supper and some of Christ’s blood, and later of receiving the secret teachings of the saviour, it was inevitable that he should take centre stage. In tracing the story of Joseph back from the medieval period, the story of the Grail is also shifted back in time to several hundred years before Chrétien and Robert de Boron created their own visions.
It is a general assumption among Arthurian scholars that Chrétien invented the story of the Grail as we know it today, and that Robert de Boron was the first to connect the story with the Passion of Christ. There are, however, a number of problems with this, based as it is on standard assumptions dating back to the earlier studies of the Grail in the nineteenth century. While the word grail or its variants had apparently not been used in this context at the time, the basic constituents of the stories had been written about by early theologians and even possibly sung by jongleurs and told by storytellers as early as AD 500. The evidence also suggests that the story was not a simple romance, written for entertainment, but a far more serious polemical text that sought to explain the deeper significance of the Eucharist as something more than a spiritual reality, but also as a means of transmitting a far older theological tradition, dating back to an even earlier period. It is only when we begin to look at these early sources, including those we have been exploring, that we begin to see both why and how Joseph’s role became so crucial and how this connected to the place where the Grail was kept.
The question has frequently been asked, with a variety of answers, where Chrétien found his story. Various suggestions have been advanced, including Hermetic texts,177 Hebrew traditions, and medieval folklore.178 But a particular set of sources, which have been largely ignored, include the writings of a number of early theological exegetes who sought to explore the mysteries of the Eucharist in symbolic terms; this at a time long before these topics were finally ratified at the Lateran Council of 1215. In the history of Eucharistic devotion, the Real Presence of Christ in the species of blood and wine was first defined in AD 1079 by Pope Gregory VII, while the Corpus Christi (Body of God) was not instituted until AD 1264 by Pope Urban IV. But from this we can see that the liturgical and devotional impulse, where the host was first processed publically in the streets, neatly frames the major period of the Grail romances.
Everything points to the probability that these writings contain the origin of the Grail myth in a form that both Chrétien and Robert would have recognized, and with which they were clearly familiar. It is also a firm basis for considering that the texts of Sone de Nansay and The Later Titurel preserved an older Grail tradition, despite being written chronologically after the works of Chrétien and Robert de Boron.
It is more than likely that both the earlier poets (who were well-educated men) were familiar with the continuing traditions that associated Joseph of Arimathea with certain objects of the Passion and understood by the word grail (in its many forms, as greal, graal, gradalis) something specific and far from the somewhat “vague” assumptions usually attributed to Chrétien.179
One of the most often-quoted early accounts of the Grail material comes from the writings of the early thirteenth-century poet and chronicler Hélinand of Froidmont (circa 1150–1229 to 1237). Hélinand proffers an etymology of sorts:
A marvelous vision was revealed at that time to a certain hermit in Britain. It was about St. Joseph the counselor who took the Lord’s body down from the cross and about that bowl or dish in which the Lord ate with his disciples. A story entitled “Concerning the Grail” was related about it by the same hermit. Gradalis, or in French gradale, is said to be a dish somewhat deep, in which costly delicacies in their proper succession are usually served step by step [gradatim] by rich people, one morsel after another in different orders. In the vernacular 166language it is called graalz because it is pleasing [grata] and delightful to the one eating from it. This may be either because of the container, since it was perhaps of silver or some other precious metal; or because of its contents, that is, the manifold order of costly delicacies …” 180
It is easy to see here the suggestion of ritual process invoking the word gradus, “steps.” The Grail quest is itself a kind of initiatic road, and we will not be far wrong in considering that the ways into and through the various Grail Temples (as in the case of the one created by Arnoul the Elder, which we explored in chapter 1) as similarly offering a ritual passage.
Neither Chrétien nor Robert invented the word graal. According to Professor Bogdanow, it appears in a Venetian manuscript of the Roman d’Alexandre composed some ten years before Chrétien wrote the first part of his Conte du Graal. In line 618 is a reference to a dish or platter: Ersoir mangai o toi a ton graal (“this night eat from your grail”).181 Nor is this the only such reference.
One of the most important of these early references is found in the Libre de Gamaliel (“Book of Gamaliel”)182 written by Pere Pasqual, bishop of Jaen, sometime before his death in 1300. This is a late version of the fragmentary Coptic Gospel of Gamaliel (dating from the fifth century or earlier), which brought together parts of the Acts of Pilate and the Gospel of Nicodemus.183 These last named, as we saw earlier, were a central platform for Robert de Boron when composing his Joseph. The Libre de Gamaliel, composed in Catalan at the end of the thirteenth century, derived from an earlier—now lost—text in Occitan, which claimed to have been written by Joseph of Arimathea himself, helped by Nicodemus, with the addition of a narrative by the less familiar Gamaliel. Later, in the fifteenth century, Gamaliel was identified with a Rabbi Gamaliel the Elder, mentioned in Acts 5:34 and 22:3 and in the Jewish Mishna.184 This text, written within five hundred years of Christ’s lifetime, brought together the narrative of the Passion and the life of Joseph of Arimathea in a form that was to be repeated, with variants, throughout the Middle Ages, particularly within the sphere of the Grail romances. It is certainly possible that Robert had seen one of the earlier copies of the original Gospel.
The single most significant aspect of Pasqual’s translation is the use of the word gresal, which can clearly be seen to share its origins with gredale. Having described the events of the Crucifixion and the healing of Longinus by the blood running down the lance, Pasqual adds:
Then Joseph of Arimathea took a gresal in which he put the blood of Jesus Christ, and he kept the lance; and they all returned to the city, save for the relatives of the mother of Jesus Christ and the others who were with her, St. John the Evangelist and Joseph of Arimathea. 185
This is the only known instance so far discovered of a word which clearly shares its origin and meaning with the word grail being used by an ecclesiastical writer, nor can we be certain that the anonymous author of the original Gospel of Gamaliel used it; however, we can see that in using this word, Pasqual demonstrated an understanding of the connection between the vessel used to collect the blood of Christ and the story of the Grail.186 It bears witness to the fact that, as noted by the medievalist Alan Cabaniss, Grail literature was in its turn beginning to affect the interpretation of the liturgy.187
Cabaniss also noted that “the words translated above as bowl (catinus) and dish (paropsis) are the words employed respectively in the Vulgate Mark 14:20 and Matthew 26:23 to render the Greek trublion (bowl or dish).” 188 He believes that the reference here is to “the Passover dish of charoseth (crushed fruits and bitter herbs), as appears by the mention of delicacies in it, not to the content of the matzoth or the one with the Paschal lamb.” 189
As noted previously, Chrétien may well have been a convert from Judaism, in which case he would have been familiar with the Passover celebrations and rituals, but even if this is not the case, he could still have encountered Hebraic rituals amongst the educated Jews who attended the rabbinical and Kabalistic schools in Troyes.
Meanwhile, if we look again at Robert de Boron’s writing, we find there much to suggest that the symbolic representation of the Grail and the mysteries of the Passion became connected through a number of theological tracts written between the sixth and eleventh centuries.190
Both Chrétien and Robert would have been familiar with these writings, most of which copied each other and all of which seem to have followed the important text Ecclesiastical History and Mystical Contemplation written by St. Germanus of Constantinople in the eighth century, some 400 years before Chrétien began his final work.191 Here we find two distinct themes that show how both Chrétien and Robert came to make the connection between the vessel of the Last Supper and the more elaborate symbolism of the Grail. That this work was itself based on a possibly earlier text, known as the Book of Joseph of Arimathea, we shall demonstrate shortly.
The Mysterious Vessel
It has been often noted that the Grail as presented in Chrétien’s Conte del Graal is not specifically Christian, because he does not use the word “Holy” to describe the vessel; however, most commentators look no further than the procession observed by Perceval at the castle of the Fisher King. Those who do so, in particular at the description offered by Chrétien in which the Wounded King is described as being kept alive for twelve years by a single host, received daily from the Grail, must surely notice that this is an exact identification of the symbolic actions of the Eucharist. Though it has been suggested that the later passage in Chrétien was added later,192 there is no reason to suppose this simply on the evidence of its content. Certainly, Chrétien must have been aware of what he was describing, and it is likely that he had access to a number of theological texts, both contemporary and older, since the shadowy presences of these are present throughout his work as they are, even more prominently, in that of Robert de Boron.
Amongst Robert’s works, the Joseph in particular has been claimed to contain a variety of heretical beliefs, including Bogomil, Cathar, Gnostic, and Johanite connections. While some of these may well be true—Robert was an extremely well-read man—he is also properly described as “a clerical author imbued with perfectly correct theological precepts in an age of foment and debate on all fronts.” 193 The truth may well be somewhere in between, but for the moment we will concentrate on Robert and Chrétien’s knowledge of theological writings, most of which they would only have known in later copies.
Two of the most controversial modern interpreters of the Grail story, Henry and Renee Kahane,194 describe Robert’s work as “re-creating the esoteric climate of Christian speculation.” Elsewhere, in their essay “On the Sources of Chrétien’s Grail Story,” 195 they suggest that the vessel known as the Krater, in which the gods mixed the elements of creation and which is mentioned at length in the collection of early pre-Christian writings known under the general title of the Hermetica, could be a possible source for Chrétien’s work. In particular they note that the treatise On the Krater, translated from Greek into Syriac in the ninth century, has a number of parallels to the way in which the Grail is described in the medieval texts. It is possible that Count Philip d’Alcase (Chrétien’s patron) may have brought back a copy from the Holy Land, where he was between AD 1177 and 1178, perhaps in a Latin translation that either Chrétien or Robert could have used in their accounts of the Grail.
As the Kahanes rightly observed,196 secrecy is the watchword of Robert de Boron’s narrative: Joseph’s secret love for Christ; the secret safekeeping of the vessel; the concealment of the Grail community; Veronica’s hiding of the cloth bearing the face of Jesus; the concealment of Christ’s body; Joseph’s imprisonment and the nature of the Grail secrets provided to him while incarcerated—all share this notion. Yet the secret was actually there in plain sight in the daily celebration of the Eucharist within every church in Christendom. That the romance writers, and to a certain degree the exegetes, were aware of this becomes increasingly tenable once we begin to examine the earliest documents relating to the symbolism of early Christianity.
One text in particular has been identified as the source for much of the symbolism of the Grail.197 This is the influential work known as the Gemma Animae of Honorius Augustodunesis (Honorius of Autun) who was born circa 1080 and was still active in 1154.198 It is quoted almost verbatim in Robert’s poem of Joseph. In his exposition of the various symbolic elements of church architectures and the Mass, Honorius writes:
170While the priest is saying “Per omnia saecula saeculorum,” the deacon comes, lifts up the chalice before him, and covers it with a napkin, replaces it on the altar, and covers it with the corporal, representing Joseph of Arimathea, who took Christ’s body down, covered his face with a napkin, placed it in a tomb, covered it with a stone. Here the sacrifice and the chalice are covered with the corporal, which signifies the clean shroud with which Joseph wrapped the body of Christ. The chalice signifies the sepulchre; the paten, the stone which closed the sepulchre. 199
This almost exactly reflects Robert’s Joseph text, where he describes Christ coming to Joseph of Arimathea, who has been shut up in the windowless room and left to die, and explaining the mystery of the sacred relics:
When you took me down from the cross
And put me into the sepulchre
It became the altar on which will put
Those who will sacrifice me.
The cloth in which I was wrapped
Will be called the corporal.
This vessel into which you put my blood
When you gathered it from my body
Will be called the chalice.
The paten which will lie on top of it
Will signify the stone
Which was sealed over me
When you had put me into the sepulchre.200
Following this, Christ speaks the sacred words that Robert says he may not reveal and refers to the Trinity as “the three powers that are one being.” This aspect of the symbolism of the Mass is central to Robert’s retelling of the story of Joseph. The Kahanes describe Robert’s “obsession” with the symbology of the trinity 201 as discussed in the Gemma Animae, harking back to a number of still older texts, thus demonstrating the durability of the tradition that was beginning to shape the matter of the Grail. The argument over the nature of the trinity—whether Christ shared absolutely in the divine nature of God—was to rage for many ages after and was one of the primary causes of the split between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant reformers.
We do not know the exact dates at which Robert composed his poem about Joseph. It has been suggested that the poems were not written in chronological order,202 but this seems unlikely given that Robert declares at the end of the Joseph that having unwoven the strands of the story, he will “tie all [the] strands together again.” 203 The prose version of Joseph dates to circa 1200, so the verse text must be earlier, perhaps as early as the 1170s, when Chrétien was still composing his own Grail story. Since Honorius is known to have been active in 1154, his work predates that of both poets. But there are other writers, in whose steps Honorius himself trod, which take the story back even further, possibly as far as the second century AD, when early Christian authors wrote their own accounts of what would eventually become enshrined in the medieval Grail romances.
All of this leads back to a specific aspect of the Grail story, first introduced by Robert and thereafter forming a central part of the narrative, and very much to the fore in the version given by the abbot of the Grail Island in Sone. We refer to the central role given to the figure of Joseph of Arimathea, who becomes the first guardian of the Grail and whose descendants retain this task up to and including the time of Arthur and the quest for the sacred vessel carried out by his knights.
The Friend of Jesus
The question—why Joseph of Arimathea?—has been asked before,204 though few seem to understand why he should be chosen from amongst the apostles and disciples of Jesus. However, once one explores the story more deeply, it becomes clear that the growing emphasis on the importance of Joseph played a hugely important part in the dissemination of the Grail material.
In the Canonical Scriptures Joseph is simply described as a wealthy Arimathean councilor, a secret believer in Christ who requests permission of Pilate to take and bury the body of Jesus in his own tomb, aided by Nicodemus.205 In an apocryphal Gospel of Peter he is described as “the friend of Pilate and of the Lord” 206 (a detail repeated in the Book of Joseph which we shall examine below), while several hundred years later in his important Vita Christi, written in 1350, Ludolph of Saxony describes Joseph as closely acquainted with Pilate, proving his prominence by risking all in asking for the body of the renegade messiah.207
But the most familiar non-canonical text to reference the events following the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and the first to expand the brief mentions of Joseph of Arimathea found in the Gospels into something like a biography, is the Evangelium Nicodemi (“Gospel of Nicodemus”), which also includes a further apocryphal document, the Acta Pilati, or “Acts of Pilate.” It is presented as a Hebrew gospel written by Nicodemus, who is mentioned in the Gospel of St. John as an associate of Jesus.
The title is medieval and the dating of the texts remains problematic. Most scholars agree in assigning it to the fourth century AD, though the section purporting to be based on an official report of the events of the Passion written by Pilate himself is slightly older and is found originally in the Greek Acts of Peter and Paul.208 A note by the early theologian Justin Martyr (AD 100–165), in his First Apology,209 referring to the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus, mentions that “these things did happen, you can ascertain from the Acts of Pontius Pilate.”
Though the editor of the Apocryphal New Testament, Montague Rhodes James, believes this to be no more than a reference to the existence of some kind of archival report, it is possible to infer from this that the text, or a version of it, had been in circulation for some time. Possibly the Syriac text of the Book of Joseph of Arimathea, which we will examine in further detail shortly, may have influenced the Acts of Pilate, rather than the other way around, but until a definitive edition of the text is available, we cannot be certain.
The main body of the Evangelium falls into two parts, describing the trial of Jesus (based upon Luke 23) and the Resurrection, while an appendix claims to be based on a written report made by Pilate himself, commissioned by the emperor Tiberius and containing a description of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The text exists in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Aramaic, and Coptic versions, bearing witness to its widespread dissemination. Some four hundred manuscripts dating from the Middle Ages have been traced; there were probably many more that have since vanished.
Another text, known as the Transitus Mariae, which dealt with the Ascension of the Virgin Mary, surfaced in the fifth century. It exists in a number of versions, dating from this time to the end of the Middle Ages in Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Armenian, and emphasizes the growing importance of Joseph of Arimathea by relating how, amongst other disciples and apostles, the dying Virgin calls for him to witness her death and assumption. A colophon, possibly dating from the ninth or tenth centuries, adds the following, attributed to Joseph’s own hand:
I am that Joseph who laid the body of the Lord in my tomb and saw him rise again, and always watched over his most holy temple, even the blessed Mary, ever virgin, before the ascension of the Lord and after it: and upon this page I have written the things that came out of the mouth of God, and how the aforesaid matters came to pass, and I have made known to all the Jews and Gentiles what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my ears, and as long as I live I shall not cease to proclaim them.210
This is only one of several accounts attributed directly to Joseph. As we shall see, one at least of these may well have had a profound effect on the work of the Grail writers.
Following on from the Evangelium, the Acta Pilati, and the Transitus Mariae, we have to look to the eighth century before we find significant reference both to Joseph of Arimathea and his guardianship of the sacred vessel. The text in question was written by St. Germanus, patriarch of Constantinople from 715–730, and became the most important commentary on the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church until the fourteenth century. The Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Contemplatio (“Ecclesiastical History and Mystical Contemplation”) 211 included the following, in a passage which some have suggested could have been interpolated in the thirteenth century:
The altar represents the sepulchre in which Joseph buried Christ … The veil covering chalice and paten is compared to the stone with which Joseph closed the tomb; the paten is compared to the hands of Joseph and Nicodemus burying Christ, and in another passage to the bed in which the body of the Lord is laid out by the priest and the deacon, who are Joseph and Nicodemus. 212
Germanus is possibly the first to make the connection between the symbolic reference to the tomb and chalice, and the part played by Joseph of Arimathea in the events following the Resurrection. He describes the procession of the deacons and the celebration of the mysteries as an
… imitation of the burial of Christ, when Joseph took down the body from the Cross, wrapped it in clean linen, anointed it with spices and ointment, carried it with Nicodemus, and placed it in a new tomb hewn out of a rock. The altar is an image of the holy tomb, and the divine table is the sepulchre in which, of course the undefiled and all-holy body was placed.
He then adds, in even greater detail, how
the discos represents the hands of Joseph and Nicodemus, who buried Christ. The discos on which Christ is carried is also interpreted as the sphere of Heaven, manifesting to us in miniature the spiritual sun, Christ, and containing Him visibly in the bread.
The chalice corresponds to the vessel, which received a mixture, poured out from the bloodied, undefiled side and from the hands and feet of Christ. Or again, the chalice corresponds to the bowl which the Lord depicts, that is, Wisdom; because the Son of God has made his blood for drinking instead of that wine and set it forth on his holy table …213
This seems to be a very close reference to the sacred vessel as container of Wisdom, the divine presence of God, in the Temple of Solomon.
The Contemplatio also refers to a metrical hymn sung at the end of the second antiphon in both the Byzantine and Syriac Eucharistic rites and known as a troparion.214 Its authorship has been attributed to the Roman emperor Justinian (483–565), who may have written it in AD 535–6 when seeking rapprochement with a sect known as the Monosophysites.215 In Syriac tradition it was attributed to Severus, the Monosophysite patriarch of Antioch, who was a radical opponent of Justinian. The text is simple but carries a burden of meaning regarding the godhead of Christ and his place within the Trinity.
Only-Begotten Son and Word of God, immortal, who didst vouchsafe for our salvation to take flesh of the Holy Mother of God, and Ever-Virgin Mary, and didst without mutation become man, and was crucified, Christ, our God, and by death didst overcome death, being one of the Holy Trinity, and glorified together with the Father and the Holy Ghost, save us. 216
Here we learn that
the Only Begotten Son of the Word of God”… is a work by Joseph and Nicodemus. For in carrying the body of the Lord in order to bury Him, they were initiated into the mysteries by the venerable and life-giving body of the Lord and the Divinity inseparable from it. 217
This suggests a number of things. First, that Joseph and Nicodemus are initiated into the mysteries of Christ through the mere presence of the dead body, just as Joseph received the secret teachings in the Acts of Pilate and in the later Grail texts such as Robert’s Joseph and the anonymous Estoire de Saint Graal directly from Christ. In addition, with the emphasis on the indwelling divinity of the body, this prefigures the central focus of Robert’s fascination with the tripartite mystery of Christ and the essential belief that the physical body could not be separated from the divine presence that dwelled within it. Robert 218 specifically has Christ refer to the vessel as l’enseigne de ma mort (“the symbol (sign) of my death”), a reference, surely, to the scene in Gethsemane in which Christ asks, “Let this cup pass from me.” The Kahanes are determined in their assertion that “the text [of the troparion] must have constituted the base and essence of Robert’s Roman du Graal … and that the hymn “transmitted the doctrines which he annunciated.” 219 This is, of course, as we saw in chapter 5, the exact doctrinal point upon which the Nestorians, with whom the apostle Thomas became linked, divided from the established Roman Church.
Some hundred years after this, in the thirteenth century, William Durand, the bishop of Mende (1230–1296), extended the account of Joseph’s actions in his Rationale Divinorum Officiorum: 220
It is fitting [that] while these words are being said that the body and blood should be lifted up and put down, representing the lifting of Christ’s body from the earth and its being placed in the sepulchre, because Joseph (who took it down from the cross, lifted it up from the earth, and placed it in the sepulchre) had been “admonished” and taught by Christ’s “salutary commands,” as his faithful disciples had been. It is therefore said of him in Mark [15–43]: “he too was looking for the kingdom of God.” The consecrated body and blood are lifted up at the same time, because Joseph himself (as certain ones say) placed the body with the blood together in the sepulchre …221
Alan Cabaniss, who examined many of these documents, makes an important point when he notes that the phrase “as certain ones say” (ut quidam ferunt) suggests that by the time of William Durand, the Grail literature was in its turn affecting the interpretation of the liturgy. If we are correct in supposing that both Chrétien and Robert drew heavily upon the writings of the older liturgists, then it would not be surprising if the latter knew of—and to some degree endorsed—the writings of the poets.
Joseph Speaks
There remains one other significant text, which has been largely overlooked in more recent commentaries on the Grail after it was first noted by A. N. Wesselofsky in 1901.222 It survives only in a Russian copy dated with caution to the seventh or eighth centuries and currently is in the Monastery of Mt. Athos.223 Usually referred to as the I, Joseph … from its opening words, or sometimes The Book of Joseph, 224 its full title is A Book, written by Joseph of Arimathea, the disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ. The story of the building of the church of our Holy Queen Mary, the Mother of God, in the City of Lydda.225
The text has been tentatively dated based on internal references to ecumenical debates over the doctrine of transubstantiation at the time.226 Indeed, all of the texts examined here were written before 1215, when the Lateran Council finally agreed on the definition of transubstantiation, and we should not forget that Chrétien and Robert wrote before this date, making it even more likely that they derived their approach to the Grail via the theologians discussed above. If the earliest date for the Book of Joseph is correct, this would make it one of the earliest texts to deal with the growing importance of Joseph of Arimathea and, ultimately, his connection with the sacred vessel of the Last Supper and the guardians of the Grail.
The text begins with an account of the events following the Crucifixion closely following the Evangelium Nicodemi, but adds details that are unique to this document.
We hear almost immediately from Joseph, who tells how
after the death of Jesus Christ and His resurrection, He appeared to me, Joseph, while I was imprisoned, because the high priests of the people and the scribes put me in prison because I had gone to the house of Pilate the governor and asked to the body of Jesus. The group of disciples, after the saviour had been resurrected, were hidden for several days, but I was the friend of Pilate, and I was able to go and ask for what I had previously requested, and I obtained the thing that I desired, and I took with me Nicodemus who was also, like me, a disciple of Christ. And we took Him down from the cross with our own hands …
We prepared Him without fear and embalmed Him with unguents and new garments, and we just disposed Him in the new tomb which was cut into the rock, and in which no one else had been laid. And He, having the power of resurrection … crushed death and broke the gates of Hell. And he broke the iron chains and was resurrected, and he also brought out with him those that were dead.227
This is followed by the startling claim that
I, Joseph, have met them and I have spoken with them, and many others, and they told us of the gates and the chains and the belly of Hell, which devours all the world.228
Following this, when the risen Christ appears to the imprisoned Joseph, we hear
Rejoice, Joseph, for you are stronger in faith than Peter; for Peter denied me three times in one night for fear of the Jews, but you disdained fear … and boldly went to Pilate, asking him from my body, and laid it in your new grave. Believe me, my beloved Joseph, all the choirs of angels and all heavenly powers look down from on high on your firm faith. 229
The implication here is that Joseph may actually have encountered the risen Christ before either the women or the first amongst the apostles, and his importance is emphasised still further as Christ appears to Joseph and his companions and transports them all, first to the Holy Sepulchre and then to Arimathea. The Lord then infuses them with the power of the Holy Spirit by breathing on them and instructs Joseph and St. Phillip to go to Lydda and build a church in honour of his mother.
When Joseph and Philip arrive at Lydda, they choose a site and begin to build. Once the church is complete, it is consecrated by Joseph and Nicodemus, accompanied by the apostles Peter, Paul, John, Andrew, and Thomas. Philip then commends his disciples to Joseph and departs. The story that follows is remarkable, connecting this early text with the later medieval accounts and with the myth of the Grail.
It is now revealed that Joseph, whose own village of Arimathea is nearby and who is therefore known to the people of Lydda, had promised to restore their synagogue and supply its liturgical furnishings. Instead he has built a Christian church. The local people are angered by this and appeal to the Roman governor of Caesarea to adjudicate. The new building is closed up for forty days, at which point the governor appears and opens it up. Despite the fact that no one has been inside the building in all this time, an image has miraculously appeared on one of the walls. It depicts the Virgin as Theotokos (God Bearer), and under it is an inscription that reads: “Mary, Mother of the Nazarene, King Christ.” The church will thereafter be known as “second after the church of Jerusalem.” 230
Joseph is thus shown as both a priest and the leader of a Christian community in Palestine. He is also specifically called a “Keeper of the Holy Blood,” thus connecting him closely to the later accounts of his family’s connection with the Grail. Perhaps here we may even see the first sign of the later elision of Joseph into that of the shadowy figure of Prester John.
The mention of St. Philip in this context is also interesting. It was he who converted the Galatians, a Celtic tribe living in Asia Minor. The Kahanes 231 suggest that it was through this “Celtic” connection that Joseph became associated with Britain. Certainly, if we look for a moment at William of Malmsbury’s history of Glastonbury, written in 1247, we can see the scribes, who made a copy for the abbey, already reshaping the text to further their desire to possess Joseph. In a new introduction to the text, we learn that “Philip was in Gaul … He sent twelve disciples to preach in Britain, and as it is said [ut ferunt] he placed at their head his favourite disciple, Joseph of Arimathea.”232
Dr. D. D. R. Owen, in an important essay “From Grail to Holy Grail,” 233 suggests that the long section in the First Continuation to Chrétien dealing with Joseph’s part in the Grail story was drawing upon “some legend he had heard.” In fact, the legend in question was probably the Book of Joseph, which almost certainly existed in a Latin version.
Along with Germanus’s On the Divine Liturgy, the Book of Joseph points to a Byzantine link with the story of the Grail, and it is likely that the manuscript made its way to Georgia via the Byzantine Empire. If we are correct in accepting the dating of the text to between the fifth and eighth centuries AD, then both Germanus and his followers could have been influenced by it. Considering the references to the so-called Edessa Icon, supposedly a portrait of Christ taken from life, the presence of the “copy” of the Grail sent to Constantinople, as described in The Later Titurel, cannot help but point to a link between the Byzantine Empire and the evolving mystery of the Grail.
Considering the references to Joseph in these early theological works, John O’Gorman makes a stunningly simple statement: that the reason why Joseph of Arimathea became associated with the Grail is because all of these tracts identified the tomb of Jesus Christ with the cup. Therefore, since Joseph owned the tomb, he also, by extension, owned the Grail! 234
This idea would lead, in time, via the writings of Chrétien and Robert, to the most complete restatement of the Joseph tradition, now welded firmly to the story of the Grail in the Estoire de Saint Graal, part of the vast compilation of the Lancelot-Grail.235
Here Joseph is a mercenary officer employed by Pontius Pilate, who asks for Christ’s body as a reward for his past military service. Pilate not only grants this request, but also gives Joseph the Cup of the Last Supper, which Joseph subsequently uses to collect Christ’s blood after the depositions from the Cross. When Joseph is imprisoned by the Jews for having buried Jesus, the resurrected Saviour brings the holy vessel to him and says that the Holy Spirit will sustain him until his deliverance. After forty-two years he is freed by the emperor Vespasian during the destruction of Jerusalem and is baptized by St. Philip. At Christ’s command, Joseph, carrying the Grail, leads a band of Christians on a missionary journey to the lands in the West.
The Grail company finally arrives at Sarras, a pagan stronghold ruled by King Evalac, who is at war with King Tholomer (Ptolemy?) of Egypt. Joseph and his son Josephe preach the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation to Evalac and his mages, but their apostolic efforts are unsuccessful. Praying for divine guidance before the Ark, Joseph and Josephe are both initiated into the mysteries of the Grail, and Josephe is consecrated as the first Bishop of Christendom by Christ himself. Divine intervention secures a victory for Evalac and his brother-in-law Seraphe against their enemies, and the rulers and people of Sarras and its environs are converted to Christianity.
After establishing the church at Sarras, Joseph and his followers depart for their divinely ordained mission to Britain, where they preach the gospel throughout Britain, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales until their death. The guardianship of the Grail is given to Joseph’s nephews, whose descendants fulfil their sacred trust until the days of King Arthur 400 years later.
The establishment of the church at Sarras may surely be seen as an echo, if not a direct reference, to that established by Joseph and the apostle Philip at Lydda in the Book of Joseph. Much of the story can be seen to draw directly on the works of the apologists we have examined here.
It is safe to assume the more erudite of these theologians were aware of each other’s work and frequently copied it. Indeed, as Joseph Duggan236 has pointed out, the vast literature containing the lives of the saints was often retold over and again in the same way as the fantastic tales of romance literature, with the same errors and images carried over in a variety of versions, demonstrating a continuity of transmission over a lengthy period. The same must be seen to be true of the use of the earlier texts that gave rise to the myth of the Grail long before it was assumed into the Arthurian cycle.
As Valerie Logorio wisely commented, “The monastic authors who wrote these (i.e., the Grail texts) in Northern France during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries were undoubtedly conscious medieval hagiographers.” 237 They were indeed seeking to make of the Grail story an essential part of the Christian mythos.
Thus, while the writings cited here are sometimes separated by several centuries, the evidence for a direct lineage from one to another is persuasive. In addition, there may well be other texts that have yet to be discovered. Chrétien and Robert were truly the inheritors of a long-standing tradition. Their originality stems not from their imaginations, but from the language they used, which was that of the romance writers, and in their linking the story of Joseph with the Arthurian matter, drawing upon the extended writings of the early Christian exegetes.
In the Byzantine imagery of the Joseph story and the Syriac liturgical patterns, they found a rich heritage of symbolism that they shaped into the story of the Grail. These influences, carried by the theologians of the early medieval church, contained, as we have seen, the basic elements of the story embroidered by Chrétien and Robert into a composite whole that took the very essence of Christian belief (particularly on the divinity of Jesus) and wove it into the fabric of the Arthurian legends, where it has remained ever since.
168. Bryant, The Complete Story of the Grail.
169. Ibid.
170. Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur.
171. Bryant, Merlin and the Grail, 36.
172. Ibid., 42.
173. Ibid., 147.
174. The Lancelot-Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in Translation.
175. Weston, Gawain at the Grail Castle, 42–45.
176. Weston, Gawain at the Grail Castle, 45–46.
177. Henry Kahane and Renee Kahane, The Krater and the Grail: Hermetic Sources of the Parzival (Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, University of Illinois Press, 1965).
178. Barber, The Holy Grail, Imagination and Belief, and Wood, Eternal Chalice.
179. See particularly Neitze, Perceval and the Holy Grail, and Bruce, The Evolution of Arthurian Romance.
180. Cabaniss, “Joseph of Arimathea and a Chalice,” 61–67.
181. Bogdanow, “Robert de Boron’s Vision of Arthurian History,” 19–52.
182. Izquerdo, “The Gospel of Nicodemus in Medieval Catalan and Occitan Literature.”
183. The Apocryphal New Testament, translated by M.R. James (The Clarendon Press, 1975), 96–145. Mingana, Woodbrook Studies.
184. Scavone, “Gospel of Gamaliel.”
185. Izquerdo, 68–9. Our italics.
186. Barber, The Holy Grail, Imagination and Belief, 170–1.
187. Cabaniss, “Joseph of Arimathea and a Chalice.”
188. Ibid., 67.
189. Ibid., 67.
190. O’Gorman, “Ecclesiastical Tradition and the Holy Grail.”
191. St. Germanus of Constantinople, On the Divine Liturgy.
192. O’Gorman, “Ecclesiastical Tradition and the Holy Grail.”
193. O’Gorman, “Robert de Boron’s Angelology and Elements of Heretical Doctrine.”
194. Kahane, “The Secrets of the Grail,” 108.
195. Kahane, “On the Sources of Chrétien’s Grail Story,” 230.
196. Kahane, “The Secrets of the Grail,” 108–114.
197. O’Gorman, “Ecclesiastical Tradition and the Holy Grail,” 3–8; Kahane, “The Secrets of the Grail”; Adolf, “Oriental Sources for Grail Romances”; Cabaniss, “Joseph of Arimathea.”
198. Honorius may also have been implemental in another aspect of the Grail story. In a work dated between 1154 and 1159, De Imagine Mundi, he includes a detailed account of Sheba’s prophecy to Solomon, which later became part of the Estoire del Saint Graal (see Quinn, The Quest of Seth for the Oil of Life, 73).
199. Ibid., trans. Cabaniss, “Joseph of Arimathea.”
200. Lines 901–913, trans. Kahane in “Robert de Boron’s Joseph of Arimathea,” 329.
201. Kahane, “Robert de Boron’s Joseph of Arimathea,” 334.
202. Bryant, Nigel, trans., Merlin and the Grail: Joseph of Arimathea, Merlin, Perceval: The Trilogy of Arthurian Romances Attributed to Robert de Boron (D. S. Brewer, 2001); O’Gorman, “Robert de Boron’s Angelology and Elements of Heretical Doctrine.”
203. Bryant, Merlin and the Grail, 44.
204. Ashe, King Arthur’s Avalon.
205. Matthew 27:57–61, Mark 15:42–46, Luke 23:50–55, John 19:38–42.
206. Edgar Hennecke and W. Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, trans R. M. Wilson (Philadelphia, 1962), 183.
207. Logorio, “Joseph of Arimathea,” 56.
208. The Apocryphal New Testament, translated by M. R. James (Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1975).
209. Martyr, The First and Second Apologies, ch. 35.
210. Logorio, “Joseph of Arimathea,” 59.
211. Patrologia Graeca 98 (Paris, 1865), 384–453; St. Germanus of Constantinople, On the Divine Liturgy.
212. Kahane, “Robert de Boron’s Joseph of Arimathea,” 111.
213. St. Germanus of Constantinople, On the Divine Liturgy, 88–89.
214. Kahane, “The Secrets of the Grail,” 111.
215. Ibid., 112.
216. Neale and Littledale, “The Divine Liturgy of St. Mark.”
217. Kahane, “Secrets of the Grail,” 111–112.
218. “Joseph” in Bryant, Merlin and the Grail, lines 847–8.
219. Kahane, “Secrets of the Grail,” 112.
220. Durand, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, IV 22, 23 ed.cit.,287f.
221. Cabaniss, “Joseph of Arimathea and a Chalice.” Our italics.
222. Wesselofsky, “Zur Frage uber die Heimath der Legende von heilegen Gral,” 321–385.
223. Athos MS no. 69, 154b–164a.
224. Kahane, “Secrets of the Grail,” 112.
225. Logorio, “Joseph of Arimathea,” 60.
226. Von Dobschütz, “Joseph von Arimathea,” especially 4–17, and van Esbroeck, “L’Histoire de L’eglise de Lydia dans deux Textes Georgiens,” 109–31.
227. Translated by Caitlín Matthews.
228. Ibid.
229. Ibid.
230. Ibid.
231. Kahane, “Secrets of the Grail,” 110.
232. Scavone, “Joseph of Arimathea,” 3–31.
233. Owen, “From Grail to Holy Grail,” 31–53.
234. O’Gorman, “Ecclesiastical Tradition and the Holy Grail,” 3–8.
235. Estoire de Saint Graal in Lancelot-Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in Translation.
236. Duggan, “Performance and Transmission.”
237. Logorio, “Joseph of Arimathea,” 54.