In Search of ... The Holy Grail

The Holy Grail is big business, in fact the Holy Grail has been big business for centuries. It has inspired poets, novelists, painters, musicians and film makers, it has thrilled and captivated audiences it has launched thousands of quests both modern and ancient, it is probably the main contender for most written about object in Western literature. But what is the Holy Grail? Where did it come from and where is it now? Perhaps the most important question of all is where do we begin looking for it?

Most people seem to agree the Holy Grail is connected with Jesus so the obvious place to begin is the Bible, more specifically the New Testament and the accounts of Jesus' life, the last supper and crucifixion. The accounts of the crucifixion tell us nothing at all, even though there is an account in the Gospel of John of a Roman soldier piercing Christ's side with a spear, from which blood and water issued, there is no mention of any 'cup' used to collect the fluids. There is no point in looking for the words 'Holy Grail' or 'Grail' in the Bible as these are English translations of an old French word (Greal) that is believed to be rooted in the Latin 'gradalis' which means flat dish or shallow vessel. A search of the Latin vulgate Bible turns up no entries for 'gradalis' at all. Curiously the old French word 'Greal' may ultimately (working back from 'gradalis') have its roots in the Latin word 'crater' and a search of the Latin Vulgate Bible turns up one entry for this word in the Old Testament, Song of Songs: chapter 7 verse 2 (also known as Song of Solomen).

"umbilicus tuus crater tornatilis numquam indigens poculis venter tuus sicut acervus tritici vallatus liliis"

which translates as;

"Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine. Your waist [sometimes translated as 'belly'] is a mound of wheat encircled by lilies."

The single instance of the word 'crater' in the Latin Vulgate Bible is a description of a woman's navel that seems to 'never lack blended wine', could this be a metaphor for a fertile womb? This is, of course, nothing more than a little semantic trickery, not only is the quote taken completely out of its Biblical context, I am applying my own pre-determined contemporary interpretation to the speculative etymology of an old French word found in a Latin translation of a Hebrew text. It is a good example of how it is possible to interpolate modern meaning into an old text to provide evidence for any theory one wishes to establish. It is not good history, although it does make for sensational story telling. I am not here to tell stories but get to the historical reality of the Holy Grail.

When dealing with Biblical texts we need to be aware of the kind of misinterpretation I have shown above. With this in mind I went back to the original language texts to look for the Holy Grail. To get to the root of the meaning of the use of the word 'cup' in the New Testament I looked it up in Thayer's Lexicon, a trusted Theological reference book that has been in use for nearly a thousand years. This is what it had to say;

"1) a cup, a drinking vessel

2) metaph. one's lot or experience, whether joyous or adverse, divine appointments, whether favourable or unfavourable, are likened to a cup which God presents one to drink: so of prosperity and adversity"

As we can see, a cup or drinking vessel used in a metaphorical sense meant something different to Biblical scholars a thousand years ago than it does to writers today. There is no reference to it being a metaphor for the human body, it was understood to be a metaphor for ones fortune as determined by God. This interpretation will become significant later.

It is obvious that there can be no use of the word 'grail' in the New Testament as the word didn't exist when the NT was written, only 'cup'. The Bible lends no significance to the cup used at the Last Supper, it is simply meant to be the vessel that held the wine. This only leaves the Old Testament use of the word crater (goblet) in Song of Songs. For that I will turn to A R Fausset, a well known semantic Theologian;

"navel

What this is telling us is when put back into context the passage from Song of Songs is a description of a 'girdle-clasp' found on a bridal gown.

The Bible gives us little to go on except possibly an ornate fastener from a wedding dress and confirmation a cup was used to hold the wine at the last supper. For the next thousand years the cup of the last supper attracts as much attention as one might expect from an item of crockery, that is, none at all.

The historical vacuum was not to be filled until the late 12^th century when the Grail appears in the works of a French writer called Chretien de Troyes. Between 1170-1190 French writer Chretien de Troyes published a series of Arthurian Romances, stories featuring characters he associated with King Arthur. One of these stories is called Perceval: The Story of the Grail. The story is centered around a young, inexperienced Knight with a precocious talent for arms. During his stay at the castle of a wounded King the young Perceval witnesses a strange procession. Fist he sees a young man carrying a bloody lance followed by two men each carrying a golden candlestick inlaid with black enamel. Behind the two men is a woman carrying the most splendid plate he has ever seen, this is how Chretien describes the first sight of the Grail;

"... so great a radiance appeared that the candles lost their brilliance just as the stars do at the rising of the sun or moon ... this grail was set with many kinds of precious stones, the richest and most costly in the sea or earth ..."

But there is one more item to come, following the Grail is a woman carrying a silver carving-dish. Perceval remains silent during the procession as he has been told it is not becoming of a Knight to ask foolish questions, so he never asks about the Grail. This turns out to be his undoing and if he had asked he would have healed the wounded King and reaped the rewards. It seems Chretien is telling us that despite his fighting prowess Perceval must grow as a person before he can discover the secrets of the Grail, and so Perceval and King Arthur set out to discover those secrets. Chretien's works were extremely popular in their day and rather like a modern soap opera his readers would have been keen to find out about the Grail but sadly Chretien died before he could complete his story and reveal the answers. The effect this had was, in medieval terms, an explosion of literature that attempted to finish the story.

In subsequent literature the Grail appeared as a Holy rock (or stone), a platter or dish, a crystal vase, and with the publication of Robert De Boron's Perceval a cup or chalice. While Chretien makes no direct reference to his Grail being present at the last supper many historians believe, from clues in the text, that this is what he wanted his readers to believe. It is not until Boron's publication that an explicit connection is made.

All Grail literature can draw a direct line back to Chretien's Romances so the question we must ask is where did Chretien get his idea for the Grail in the first place? Before we look for answers to this question we need to understand something about the literary world in which Chretien was writing. Today we tend to judge an author by their originality, the more original they are the better. In the Middle Ages things could not have been more different. A medieval author would be expected to appear traditional, to look like they had taken a body of work which existed before and retold the story in an original way. Consequently many medieval writers claimed they had taken their stories from earlier sources when in fact they were complete fabrications This is nowhere clearer than in the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth who was the first to write at any length about King Arthur. Despite his claims, his story was fiction, it may well have come from odds and ends of folklore and myth but in essence it was fiction. The readers knew this and the authors knew their readers knew it, it was the conceit of medieval literature.

Given what we now know about the literary origins of the Grail we can address the question of Chretien's source for his fictional account. It is possible that the Welsh myths that form the basis of a collection of stories called the Mabinogion pre-date Chretien's work. Although the existing copies of the Mabinogion themselves post-date the French Romances the language used in them strongly suggests they were written before possibly as early as 1060, which would make them the earliest versions of Arthurian legend. In the stories Arthur goes into the 'otherworld' to steal a magic cauldron, a cauldron that will not cook food for cowards but will nourish the worth. This magic cauldron is believed to come from earlier Celtic myth Cauldron of Dagda. It certainly seems possible that the idea of a magic vessel that has healing powers gave Chretien the idea for the Grail but, of course, there is no evidence for this. It is also interesting to note that the Welsh myth never tells us if Arthur is successful in his quest, another unfinished story.

What we know for certain is that the Grail appears for the first time, in any form of writing, at the end of the 12^th century in the fictional work of Chretien de Troyes. Following Chretien's publication there is an explosion of Grail literature most of which described the Grail as a cup or vessel that was linked in some way to Jesus Christ. These sparked centuries of stories and even quests for a 'real' Grail. That is until 1982 when a book was published that turned the world of Grail hunting on its head.

In 1982 a book called the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was published in which its authors, Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, made an extraordinary claim, that the Holy Grail was in fact a royal bloodline directly descended from Jesus Christ himself. This is the first appearance of the Holy Grail-Royal Blood connection but it has spawned a new generation of Grail literature both factual and fictional although in the case of the Holy Grail-Royal Bloodline this line is rather blurred.

Many of the claims made in the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail are not supported by hard evidence and the book has given rise to many misconceptions about the Grail. With this in mind it is worth taking a deeper look at some of the ideas presented in the book as they form the basis of modern Grail legend.

The central theme of the book is that there is a secret bloodline, descended from Jesus Christ, that has been kept hidden by a complex web of secret societies, heretical religious orders and medieval church repression for nearly two thousand years until their research into a curious story about a French priest called Bérenger Saunière uncovered it. The principle organizations responsible for keeping the secret are the Priory of Sion, The Cathars and the Knights Templar so let's begin by looking at what we know about these organizations.

The Priory of Sion is not a genuine medieval organization founded in 1099, it was created in 1956 by Pierre Plantard and his associates as a pseudo secret 'Masonic' style organization, similar to P2, and was named after a geographical feature near Plantard's home village, Mont Sion. Sometime between 1961 and 1984 Plantard concocted the idea that the Priory of Sion was related to the genuine Masonic order housed in the Abbey of Sion, which was founded in Jerusalem during the first crusade. This history was fabricated by Plantard and there is no link between the two organizations. To assist in the fabrication of the Priory's history Plantard enlisted the help of Philippe de Cherisey, together they deposited a series of forged documents in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, in Paris. At the same time Plantard forged two medieval manuscripts and linked his Priory to the story of the French priest Bérenger Saunière. The text in one of the manuscripts was later proved to have been taken from an 1889 version of the Latin Vulgate Bible, a little late for a medieval manuscript. Due to a foolish mistake by Plantard in 1993 he was obliged under French Law to admit under oath that he had fabricated everything. The Priory is nothing more than a hoax that formed part of an old man's fantasies.

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail also claims the Cathars had the Holy Grail in their possession. There is no historical evidence to support this claim at all. The Cathars were a medieval heresy, they openly believed that Satan created the word and that all physical form was inherently evil. There is no big secret about their beliefs. We have already seen from Chretien's description of his Grail that wealth was not seen as an evil and lavish ornaments were seen as an acceptable way to worship God, a visit to any medieval cathedral will adequately demonstrate this fact. The Cathars were at odds with established doctrine, this is the reason the Inquisition hunted them down and killed them. In 1244 there was a siege at Montsegur in southern France. For six months the Cathars held out until finally they were given an ultimatum, surrender or be killed. For 14 days the Cathars held fast, the celebrated Easter then opened the gates and surrendered. From two of the interrogation reports obtained by the Inquisition we know that something was removed from the castle the night before the Cathars surrendered. It is clear from these reports that the people who gave them had no idea what was removed and so we will never know. The suggestion it was the Holy Grail is not supported by any historical evidence.

The Knights Templar were founded around 1119 by Hugues de Payens and his relative Godfrey de Saint-Omer, both veterans of the First Crusade. The two men proposed the creation of a monastic order for the protection of pilgrims who wanted to make the dangerous journey to the Holy Land. In the early years the Templars (shortened from Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon) were impoverished and spent many years relying on donations to survive. This changed, not because some incredible treasure came into their possession but because in 1129 at the Council of Troyes, the Order was officially endorsed by the church. As a result of this formal blessing, the Templars became a favored charity across Europe, receiving money, land, businesses, and noble-born sons from families who were eager to help with the fight in the Holy Land. Later on Templars were further to secure traveler's safety by offering a service by which a traveler could deposit his wealth with the Templars in exchange for a promissory note and a small donation, which could then be exchanged back into wealth at their destination. The Templars were the world's first international bankers.

There is some evidence to suggest among the Templars' possessions were several holy relics, including the Shroud of Turin, a piece of the True Cross and the Head of Saint Euphemia of Chalcedon, the latter was believed to have led to accusations of the order worshiping a severed head made during its destruction. And so it was, heavily in debt to the Templars because of the War with England, on 13^th October 1307 Phillip IV of France had scores of French Templars arrested and charged with heresies. Those who were arrested were tortured forcing them into false confessions. Despite the fact these confessions were produced under torture there was a scandal in Paris and under pressure Pope Clement then issued the bull which instructed all Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their assets. With Philip threatening military action unless the Pope agreed to comply with his wishes, Clement finally agreed to disband the Order in 1312. The Knights Templar were no more. There is no historical evidence linking the Knights Templar to the Holy Grail and the confessions that were given under torture were later retracted and today the Catholic Church's position on the Templars is that their persecution was unjust.

The Holy Grail-Holy Bloodline theory is 0 from 3, but what of Bérenger Saunière? This Priest from a small village nestled in the French Pyrenees managed to amass a small fortunein the space of a few years leading to speculation that he had discovered a lost treasure. The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail claims this was not a physical treasure but evidence that the bloodline of Jesus was running through southern France. Little is known about the man's personal habits but we know from his personal records he sold thousands of masses in a village with a population of about 200. His money came from his connections, he would sell peace of mind to those who had the money to pay, a scandal, for sure, but no treasure.

The final comment on the Holy Grail-Royal Bloodline theory is the typo theory. It is claims in the book that the words 'Holy Grail' are an error and that the original words were 'Royal Blood'. This comes from translating the words holy Grail into old French, SAN GREAL. The claim is that a medieval scribe made a mistake the 'G' was misplaced and that the original words were SANG REAL, or Royal Blood. This is something of a distortion of the facts. In the 15th century a scribe called Jon Harding did indeed make this error but this was after the words had been in use for nearly 200 years. There are many examples of the correct spelling in literature and only one of this error, an error that was not repeated by anyone else. It seems a very thin arguement to suggest this one scribe made a Freudian slip and revealed a fifteen hundred year old secret, in fact it is preposterous. We can safely argue that the Royal Bloodline theory is based on absence of fact and supposition. When history leaves us a vacuum the only thing we can say for certain is we do not know, there is no excuse for filling up the empty space with wild guesses.

The Holy Grail is not to be found in the pages of history, in fact, it's not to be found at all. It's a creation from the imagination of a 12^th Century writer who possibly got the idea from a Celtic myth. It only ever existed in the fertile minds of writers or the fevered minds of conspiracy theorists and yet both will sell books by the tens of thousands.

There is one last curiosity that I have no explanation for. According to Dan Brown's The da Vinci Code the Grail can be found in Leonardo da Vinci's painting The Last Supper. The Grail in Brown fictional story is the mother of Jesus' child, following the same lines as the Royal Bloodline theory. The symbol for female is a 'v' shape and this shape can be found at the heart of the famous painting. There is indeed a V shape formed between the two figures at the center of Leonardo's painting, there is also an M, and an L and a N ... it's alphabet soup if you want to look for it. But next time you are looking for the Grail in da Vinci's great work of art forget looking for hidden shapes and symbols, just look directly above the head of the figure standing on the extreme left of the painting as you look at it. If you are looking at a picture of the restored painting, there on the wall above St Bartholomew's head, as clear as day, is a Grail. Sometimes the best way to hide something is in plain view.

Next Article, In Search of ... The Secret Gospels--rather, "girdle-clasp," called from the part of the person underneath. The "shoes" ( Sgs 7:1 ) prove that dress is throughout presupposed on all parts where it is usually worn. She is "a bride adorned for her husband"; the "uncomely parts," being most adorned ( 1Cr 12:23 ). The girdle-clasp was adorned with red rubies resembling the "round goblet" (crater or mixer) of spice--mixed wine (not "liquor," Sgs 8:2 Isa 5:22)."