Grail, Holy

exnihilo · 427415. Wed Oct 22, 2008 5:20 am

Well, I see from this morning's news that the British Academy is having an exhibition of Byzantine art (which should be wonderful) but that almost all press coverage of it is focussing on the Antioch Chalice and whether or not it might be the Holy Grail.

A search through the G thread turned up nothing on the Grail and there doesn't seem to be much on it anywhere else on the QI site, so here we go. I dread to think what can, or chalice, of worms I'm about to open! For now, and until I (again) am back among my books, the for and against arguments on the Antioch Chalice as they appeared in The Independent.

Is the Antioch Chalice the most plausible Holy Grail?

Yes...

* It was found in Antioch, one of early Christendom's holiest cities and relatively close to Nazareth

* The inner lining of the cup is sufficiently old to fit the facts, unlike some of the other contenders

* The highly decorative and more recent exterior could have been made to encase a genuine relic

No...

* The vast majority of the vessel was constructed in the sixth century, long after Christ

* It's impossible to say for sure whether Christ really used a chalice at the Last Supper – or if it survived

* Even New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art describes claims that it is the grail as "ambitious"

The Antioch Chalice was not discovered until 1911 but, during the Middle Ages, there were three contenders that were popularly believed to be the holy grail. The so-called Jerusalem Chalice was never found but was described by a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon pilgrim as a two-handled silver cup and was thought to be hidden somewhere inside the holy city. A second chalice in Genoa was thought to have been carved out of emerald but was actually a glass Egyptian bowl, whilst a third contender, made out of red agate, still rests in Valencia's cathedral. For grail fans, the Valencia Chalice is perhaps the most significant vessel of the three, primarily because the upper section of the cup fits a description of the Holy Chalice by Saint Jerome. An inspection of the cup by archaeologists in 1960 placed it chronologically closest to the events of the Last Supper.

From The Independent, 22/10/08.

Ion Zone · 427430. Wed Oct 22, 2008 6:00 am

I personally think it was just a cup belonging to the owner of the place they stayed. As far as I know the grail is a legend entirely separate from the Bible. I think it was, as a certain film surmised, probably made of wood, though I would guess at it being a wide bowl or large cup.

Izzardesque · 427435. Wed Oct 22, 2008 6:13 am

exnihilo · 427443. Wed Oct 22, 2008 6:23 am

Long before Dan Brown and his ilk there has been serious academic consideration of Grail legend. He's not the be all and end all of the topic.

Ion Zone · 427446. Wed Oct 22, 2008 6:26 am

And he's a dreadful storyteller.

Izzardesque · 427449. Wed Oct 22, 2008 6:29 am

I know there has - I've even read a fair bit of it (I used to be an Arthur obsessive when I was younger), I just couldn't resist.

Ion Zone · 427488. Wed Oct 22, 2008 7:27 am

Knights are one of those things that stay cool ;)

gerontius grumpus · 429222. Sat Oct 25, 2008 1:00 pm

What manner of knights are these in their pale, shiny robes?

Oh they'll be the knights in white satin.

3cheeseshigh · 429392. Sun Oct 26, 2008 8:43 am

Not the Knights Who Say "Ni"?

QiScorpion · 431215. Wed Oct 29, 2008 4:58 pm

but would they be Knights of the Round Table?

"We dance where'er we're able...
We eat ham and jam and Spam a looooot!"
sorry.

The Grail legend is quite intriguing, not only because there are several different versions.
ONe i know is of Sir Galahad coming across a barren land, and entering the Chapel Perilous. Inside he sees a procession led by a woman carrying the Grail. Also, there are people carrying the injured Fisher King on a litter. He doesn't know what questions to ask and so the procession vanishes and so he has to spend the rest of his life searching.
Had he asked the right question he would have got the Grail and everyone would have been happy.

exnihilo · 431489. Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:54 am

I think you may be thinking of Chrétien de Troyes account of the grail story. In that version it's Perceval who sees the procession and the grail being borne in it contains a single mass wafer which is all the Fisher King needs to sustain his life. In later versions of the story both Galahad and Bors join Perceval, among the many knights who come to restore the wounded king, which will in turn restore the wounded kingdom.

Certainly in Chrétien's version it's less the 'grail' and more the wafer within it which is the focus of the story, but in later versions the vessel containing the wafer has become the important part, possibly due to later associations with it as the cup of Christ, many of which sprang from tales of the Knights Templar and the treasures they kept in Jerusalem.

Interestingly, it's suggested that the Fisher King is representative of Christ (fish symbolism etc) and that the restoring of his health and the restoring of his kingdom are allegorical representations of the second coming. Other ideas are that he should be identified with the Celtic character of Bran who, if memory serves, had a magic cauldron which had similar properties to those alleged for the grail

Nigelblt · 431553. Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:33 am

As "The Holy Grail" was invented by Robert de Boron for his tale, Joseph of Arimathea, the original would have been French, and from the 12th Century. No mention of such a piece of tableware with connections to the Last Supper was made before this.

Dan Brown's story or Kate Mosse's Labyrinth are just the latest works of fiction in a long line of Grail myths.

exnihilo · 431721. Thu Oct 30, 2008 1:42 pm

That's certainly open to debate. Chrétien de Troyes, also writing in the twelfth century makes reference to earlier documents in the possession of his patron, the Count of Flanders. There are earlier accounts that Chrétien's, but you are right to say that de Boron's is the first one to link Joseph of Arimathea to the legend.

Celebaelin · 431930. Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:45 pm

The Grail is not mentioned in the Bible, there is a very good reason for this IMO and that is that the Grail Legend is an appropriation of Welsh (Brythonic) myth regarding the Cauldron of Annwn. The Normans were very threatened by the tales of Arthur and so went out of their way to make Arthurian legend more Norman (and more Christian), adding new characters eg Lancelot and Norman themes like courtly love to the existing legend to undermine its Britishness and thus reduce its power as a symbol of defiance.

The Grail, if you believe it ever existed as an object rather than a metaphor for the womb and/or the entrance to the 'otherworld', would be something like the Gundestrup Cauldron rather than a chalice or cup. There are also parallels with the Cornucopia, the classical horn of plenty, but it seems to me that the concept of a horn is more masculine - in keeping with the more patriarchal ancient mediterranean cultures*.

http://www.thornr.demon.co.uk/bran/cauldron.html
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Annwn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preiddeu_Annwfn
http://www.gotquestions.org/holy-grail.html

The above 'Bible questions' site suggests that the rise of Grail legends was associated with the Celtic Christian church's quest for parity with Rome as discovery of the Grail would grant identifiable apostolic succession and whilst there probably is something to this thought I don't think it's the whole story. The fact that they also describe the 12th and 13th centuries as the darkest of the Dark Ages suggests to me a fair portion of ignorance on the matter on their part.

* <E> Wiki states that

Nigelblt · 432159. Fri Oct 31, 2008 9:06 am

Yes, but it is the Jospeh of Arimathea tale that first connects the life preserving vessel with one used at the Last Supper and subsequently used to collect the last drops of blood at the Crucifixion.

Hence my contention that this is the first mention of a Holy Grail.

In Perceval, I believe it is the communion wafer in the vessel that is preserving the King's life, not some magical power of the vessel itself.