INTRODUCTION
For nearly a thousand Years the peoples of
Europe were intensely absorbed and emotionally
agitated by a series of strange legends about a sacred
object of magical power called the Holy Grail.
…
A. U. Pope, Persia and the Holy Grail
The story of the Grail has long revolved around two essential questions: Does it—or did it—exist, and if so, where is it? A third question—What is its purpose?—though often asked, has always been perceived as a personal thing. If you look for the Grail, you may never find it…but then again, perhaps you will. It is a slippery thing, this wondrous relic, and all questions concerning it are suspended in time.
The first question may be addressed by asking another: What is it? If we are looking for a physical object, the choices are multitudinous, the most popular being a cup or chalice, a shallow dish, a book, a stone, or a bloodline. There are almost as many claimants around the world for the actual Grail as any would-be seeker could wish for: the Valencia Chalice in Spain, the Nanteos Cup in Wales, the Antioch Chalice in New York. All are well attested and have their own followers. All are, in some sense, Grails. Not the Grail, perhaps—if such a thing really exists—but sacred objects made holy by the beliefs of countless pilgrims.
Yet, whilst all of these are the Grail—none of them are the Grail. We might, perhaps, call them “impressions”—shadows or extensions that each, in its own way, embody the mystical aspects of the object that has been called by this name for at least two thousand years. The very idea of the Grail is the foundation for an outpouring of texts in both verse and prose that dominated the literature of the Western world from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries—the period referenced in the quotation heading this introduction.
So much for the first question; what about the second: Where is it? Again, this has been the subject of a multitude of studies, books, films, and theories, some utterly mad and unlikely, others plausible, and still more persuasive. Again, to generalize, it could be said that the Grail is everywhere and nowhere, and that to seek a physical home for it is as unnecessary as it is to seek an actual cup, stone, book, or bloodline.
However, the medieval storytellers who first recorded the continuing journey of the Grail (its origins remained as mysterious to them as it is to us) believed in the physical existence of both the relic and its hiding place. For most of them, it was the cup from which Jesus drank when he celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples and which later caught some of his holy blood, but because it was seen as a physical thing, it required a physical home.
Where else, then, should one put a relic as sacred as this but in a chapel, or even a temple, probably contained within the sheltering walls of a castle? Such a place must be extraordinary, beautiful, and as grand as it possibly could be. Maybe it was not even made by human hands, but with the assistance of angelic powers. Whatever form it was to take, it must be splendid, mysterious, and—most important of all—hard to find, because it was widely known that any and all spiritual and transformative experiences must involve a search, a journey, and a set of challenging circumstances: a statement that perfectly describes the quest for the Grail.
When Sir Lancelot, in Thomas Malory’s fifteenth-century novel Le Morte d’Arthur, comes after many adventures to the Chapel of the Grail, an unearthly voice warns him not to enter. Hesitating outside the door, he nontheless looks within and sees
a table of silver, and the Holy Vessel, covered with red samite, and many angels about it … and before the Holy Vessel … a good man clothed as a priest. And it seemed he was at the sacring of the mass.1
Watching the events that follow, Lancelot sees the celebrant holding aloft the image of a wounded man, as though he would make with it an offering at the altar. And, when it seems as though the priest would fall from the effort, Lancelot enters the chamber, motivated purely by a desire to help. But he is struck down by a breath of angelic fire and blinded by the light of the Grail.
This demonstrates that the way is a hard one, for it consists of entering the temple of the Grail, which is designed to serve as a test for all who wish to share in the mysteries. Lancelot’s experience is echoed by many who set out unprepared and who end up being blinded by what they cannot understand. However, the way towards the home of the Grail can offer a means of knowing, of understanding the light. Many temples have fallen in ruins, but it is said that the true temple can never be destroyed. We would do well to keep this in mind as we examine some of the images assumed by that imperishable temple throughout its long history, hoping that we may thus learn something of our own part in the continuing mysteries of the Grail.
In a recent book, the writer John Michael Greer suggested that the mystery of the Grail could be seen as a simple metaphor for the churches raised in such proliferation during the Middle Ages. Citing the presence of a mystical spear and chalice, the glorious light which surrounds them, and the often fatal consequences of approaching the sacred vessel without first repenting one’s sins, he says:
The tall central steeple rising from the body of the church west of the sanctuary is the spear standing upright before the chalice of the Mass; stained glass windows and myriads of lamps make it a container glowing with light; the Masses celebrated in it are forbidden to those who are guilty of mortal sins but provide the virtuous with spiritual food; the nave of the church … gets its name from the typological metaphor of a ship …2
Greer is correct in the importance of the symbolic references to be found within the buildings. To go further, however, the descriptions of the sacred edifices designed to hold the Grail require a deeper analysis, taking into account the detailed symbolism at every point, both of the buildings and the rituals that took place there. As we shall see later in this book, these buildings, which have been called “stone books,” could indeed be read by those with the knowledge to do so, and the answers thus produced will be seen to throw a new and crucial light on the history of the Grail.
The Grail story is immensely complex, each aspect leading to others, like side roads, and they in turn to still more. Here we are concentrating on a particular aspect as it relates to the whole. The story of the Grail Temples and their guardians anchors the myth in the world while at the same time admitting the mystical and the otherworldly. Thus we pick our way, by routes seeming trackless, from one part of the forest to another, up mountains, through valleys, and into cities, castles, and temples—always remembering that the Grail is at the center, and that if we follow the signs left by earlier seekers, we shall reach our goal.
In this book we are not setting out to prove that the Grail exists or what or where it is, although inevitably these questions will be discussed in the context of our exploration. What we shall do is look at two intimately connected themes: the place where the Grail was believed to lie and why this was deemed so important; and what happened to the knights and pilgrims who found their way to this mystical centre.
This last is part of the most fundamental aspect of the Grail, and it brings us to the third question: What does it do? The effect of standing before the Grail—whether in a medieval past or a magical present—was clearly powerful and lives at the heart of the mystery. An examination of the places where the Grail was believed to be hidden and the transformation it wrought upon those who found their way there opens the door to a deeper realization of what the Grail is beyond the theories and physical objects that represented it.
For some of the answers, we shall be looking at two medieval texts, neither of which have been translated into English before (except in the form of brief quotations) and which give us important new clues to the location of the Grail’s possible homes and the physical building on which they were based.
These two important but neglected romances are the anonymous French thirteenth-century epic Sone de Nansay3 and the German Der Jüngere Titurel (“The Later Titurel”) attributed to Albrecht of Scharfenburg and dating from the same era.4 Both these works give detailed accounts of the home of the Grail. A third text and its associated documents, the Letter of Prester John, will be seen to add yet more extraordinary details pointing to an actual location of the Grail’s resting places.5
The figure of Prester John himself—as mysterious in his own way as the Grail itself, and whose protector he is said to be—is a semi-mythical priest and king whose kingdom was sought throughout the Middle Ages. By following clues within a letter supposedly written by Prester John himself and sent to several of the crowned heads of medieval Europe, we shall see that the Grail Temple was widely believed to exist, and that its location was known by many, though understood by almost none.
This brings into question a further important aspect of the Grail myth: its effect on the history of humankind and the way in which it has been perceived, openly and in secret, by various groups of people, from the Templars to the Mormons. One of the principal aspects of this is the existence of certain families who are deemed guardians of the sacred relic and whose connection with the Grail extends back for many generations. This is not some mysterious bloodline but an actual historically known family and its connection with a figure known as the Swan Knight. Their importance will be explored here as a further doorway into the work of the Grail (see Appendix 1).
From these conundrums, among many we shall encounter in our exploration of the temples of the Grail, we intend to offer a fresh set of clues to one of the greatest mysteries of all time and an essential part of our continued spiritual evolution.
John Matthews and Gareth Knight
Oxford and Braintree, 2018