Read during Advent 2021. Penguin Classics edition, translated from Old French by Pauline M. Matarasso.

I found this website useful, with some general information about the Quest: https://laquestedelsaintgraal.weebly.com/

La Queste del Saint Graal is the fourth section (out of five) of a larger early-13th century work called the Prose Lancelot or the Vulgate Cycle or the Lancelot Grail Cycle.

The Genealogy of Galahad

           King David
               |
Nascien        .
(Seraph before .
conversion),   .
brother-in-law .
of King        .
Mordrain (King .            Joseph of Arimathea
Evalach of     .                  |
Sarras before  .          Josephus (of the shield)
conversion)    .                  |
    |          .                  .
p. 152 for     .                  .
Descendents    .                  .
of Nascien     .                  |
    |          |               King Pellés,
King Ban-----Elaine          the Fisher King*
          |                       |
       Lancelot----------the Fisher King’s daughter
                    |
                 Galahad

*The Fisher King is the same as the Maimed King in other
Arthurian legends, but here he has a different name, King Parlan.

Introduction

• A spiritual guide thinly veiled as a chivalric romance
• Britain is called Logres
• Wales is called Hosselice
• In this telling, the Grail, the dish from which Christ ate the Paschal lamb, was brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea, along with the Lance of Longinus
• The keepers of the Grail were the descendents of Joseph of Arimathea, known as the Fisher Kings, who kept it in the Castle of Corbenic, enshrouded in mystery hidden from the sight of those who seek it
• Étienne Gilson’s article on the strong influence of Cistercian spirituality in the Quest, says it is about grace and attaining mystical union with God (reprinted in his Les Idées et les lettres)
  • Mme. Myrrha Lot-Borodine sees in the Quest less the influence of St. Bernard, and more of his contemporary Guillaume de St. Thierry
  • According to Gilson, referring to Cistercian (pre-Thomistic/Aristotelian) terminology in the Grail: “Voir, connaître, autant de mots qui ne veulent dire autre chose qu’aimer.”
  • Strong ascetical element
    • Lust not pride is the root of all evil
    • The practice that makes perfect: confession, communion, fasting, abstinence, prayer
• Sir Galahad was a knight invented for the Quest
  • son of Lancelot and the Fisher King’s daughter, thus he is descended both from King David and from the Grail Keepers
  • previous works use Perceval as the hero
  • Lancelot is a lot like his ancestor King David, a mighty but flawed knight and adulterer
  • Galahad is a Christ-like figure
  • Name comes from Gilead, from the Song of Songs (a very Cistercian text), a mystical designation of Christ
• The text is replete with Biblical references, especially to describe the knights’ experience of the Grail, especially, Song of Songs, St. Paul’s description of mystical union, but many others

Chapter 1 - Departure

• Red and white are colours frequently used together, symbolic of Christ
• The court and Queen Guenever Are thrown into turmoil by the news that the knights will depart on the quest, when Nascien the Hermit appears, telling them that they can take no ladies with them on the quest
  • “For this is no search for earthly things but a seeking out of the mysteries and hidden sweets of Our Lord, and the divine secrets which the most high Master will disclose to that blessed knight whom He has chosen for His servant from among the ranks of chivalry: he to whom He will show the marvels of the Holy Grail, and reveal that which the heart of man could not conceive nor tongue relate.”
  • sarjant, a (perhaps deliberately) ambiguous French word that could mean soldier or servant is used frequently
  • Scriptural leitmotif, the purpose of the quest
    • 1 Cor. 2, “That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.”
    • Isaias 64, “The eye hath not seen, O God, besides thee, what things thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee.”
  • The Fisher King’s name might be related to the fact that Chrétien de Troyes says the Grail is a large platter such as might contain a salmon or lamprey

Chapter 2 - The Shield

• Galahad, having taken the Shield of Josephus and learned about it from the the knight in white armour, rides back to the monastery, and there ensues an adventure where he must open up a tomb in their grounds that is haunted by a shrieking voice
  • This adventure for some reason reminds me of the Legend of Zelda, perhaps it’s the exorcizing hero and the symbolic nature of the quests

Chapter 5 - Lancelot’s Conviction and Repentance

• Lancelot and Perceval do not recognize Galahad because his arms (argent a cross gules) are the arms of Christ
• Lancelot’s bitter adventure at the stone cross at the parting of two ways on a lonely heath near an abandoned chapel
  • He lies down by the cross but can’t sleep
  • He sees the Holy Grail come out of the chapel and heal a wounded knight, but he himself doesn’t stir or give any sign or response to the presence of the Grail, due to the weight of his sins
  • The knight then leaves with Lancelot’s sword, armour, and horse
• The next day Lancelot comes to a knoll crowned by a hermitage and seeks counsel there
  • Hermit: “For as Scripture says: ‘He who is not aflame cannot burn,’ which is to say: ‘If the fire of the Holy Ghost burn not in him who spreads the word of the Gospel, it will never ignite nor burn bright in the hearer.’”
  • Lancelot, due to his sins, is not aflame with the Holy Ghost and cannot spread the Gospel
  • Reference not quite clear but could be Luke 12:48–49, “And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more. I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?”
• Like for Judas Iscariot, Lancelot’s excuse for sin is “charity”
  • “It is [Queen Guinevere] who gave me abundance of gold and silver and such rich gifts as I have distributed from time to time among poor knights.”
  • “For her love alone I accomplished the exploits with which the whole world rings.”
  • Lancelot’s sin also brought him fame, to which he is addicted
• Hermit: “You were no better than the mercenary who, his wages taken, deserts his lord and goes to aid his foe.”

Chapter 6 - The Peregrinations of Perceval

• Perceval makes a prayer while looking out to sea on the rock, after helping the lion fight the serpent
  • Again reflects on mercenary vs. knight
  • “Sweet saviour, who didst say of Thyself in the Gospels: ‘I am the Good Shepherd: the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. But not so the hireling, for he leaves the sheep unguarded, and directly the wolf comes it seizes them by the throat and devours them.’”
• The lion is friendly with Perceval and lies down at his feet, as with a lamb
• Perceval has the strange dream of the two women, one young and beautiful riding a lion and one old riding a serpent
  • After awakening, a man vested as a priest comes to him aboard a ship with white sails
  • He interprets the younger women on a lion’s exhortation to Perceval to prepare himself for combat with the most dreaded champion in the world
  • “This champion is he on whose account those stalwart men of God, Enoch and Elijah, were caught up from earth to heaven and there await the Judgement Day, when they shall come again to battle with the one whom all men fear.”
  • I.e. Antichrist
  • Translation of Enoch (Genesis 5:24, Hebrews 11:5) and the Translation of Elijah (4 Kings 2:1–11); the Gospel of Nicodemus also tells that these two will return to Jerusalem in the last days to fight Antichrist, who would make martyrs of them
    • This death might be required to make them share the common lot of all men and make the Ascension of Our Lord and Assumption of Our Lady more unique
• This ship is the first of several that appear in the Quest
  • Highly significant symbol
  • Symbol of the Church itself
  • The Celtic myth of the rudderless ship to which the hero entrusts himself
  • The ship as passage to the Other World
  • In the Quest they ferry messengers of either Heaven or Hell
• After the old man’s ship leaves, Perceval goes back to his rock where the lion is, and soon another ship arrives in a whirlwind with black sails
  • A dazzlingly beautiful maiden is aboard who tempts him and nearly succeeds
  • Tells him that the old man has stranded him here to die
  • “It will be a great pity and a great misfortune if you die; for you are yet young and skilled enough in arms to do great service to both me and others if you escaped from here.”
  • She tells Perceval she was once the greatest lady in the land, but has been driven into exile by her lord, the mightiest king of all
  • Now she wages war on him seeking to reclaim her place, and has one over many of his former vassals
  • Chilling! “So it is that I wage war night and day on him who dispossessed me; and I have gathered together knights and soldiers and all conditions of men.”
  • She lures Perceval into a tent to sleep, but first divests of Helm (of Salvation), Hauberk (of Justice) and Sword (of the Spirit), cf. Ephesians 6
    • Knights in the Quest typically rest their heads on their Shield (of Faith) or Hauberk when they sleep, or sometimes green grass (Humility and Patience); contrast Gawain and Hector in Ch. 8 in the abandoned chapel, saying a modicum of prayers and then lying down to sleep “where best they could”
  • Perceval first sleeps (gives in to Sloth) and then eats and drinks (gives into Gluttony) and this leads to Lust
  • Is Perceval’s escape here “rigged”? Is it too convenient that he happens to catch sight of his sword at the right moment?
    • The author frequently draws attention to the working of Divine Providence, “by chance”, “he happened to”
    • “Yet this is not an example of God loading the dice in the hero’s favour. The episode is perfectly prepared and motivated on the spiritual plane. Perceval has not left himself completely unguarded. He has kept his sword by him.”
    • Divine intervention is the counterweight to Perceval’s innocence and simplicity
    • He has put his whole his whole trust in God who saves him from his imperfections
• After his ordeal the man on the white ship returns
  • Perceval’s innocence: although he is always slow to recognize evil in disguise he quickly recognizes this man as Christ
  • Cf. John 10:14, “I am the good shepherd; and I know mine, and mine know me.”
  • This chapter is full of imagery from St. John’s Gospel, being a kind of “hymn to the Son’s knowledge of the Father, to the Father’s love for the Son”
  • Cistercian equation of knowledge and love

Chapter 7 - Lancelot: The Slow Ascent

• A hermit tells Lancelot of the virtues God had given him as a knight and of his downfall into sin through Guinevere
  • He retells the parable of the wedding feast and the man who had no wedding garment (Matt. 22 and Luke 14)
  • The wedding feast is the table of the Holy Grail
  • The wedding garments are the virtues that the knights round the table are endowed with
  • Those who lack the “raiment of confession and good deeds” he shall cast out
• In an earlier book in the series we are told that Lancelot was baptized Lancelot-Galahad
  • Lancelot has through sin lost his right to his second baptismal name
  • Lancelot-Adam is father of Galahad-Christ
  • “Both were perfectly endowed by nature, but only in the second was that perfection sustained and brought to its final flowering by grace.”
• Towards the end of the chapter after receiving counsel and alms from an anchoress at her chapel Lancelot sets off again and there is a descriptive passage that I just liked:
  • “He spent that night on a wild and towering crag, with no other company save that of God, dividing the hours of darkness between prayer and sleep. When he saw dawn break on the morrow he made the sign of the cross on his forehead and, facing east, prostrated himself on knees and elbows and prayed as was now his wont. Then he went to his horse which he saddled and mounted, and set out anew on his journeyings.”

Chapter 8 - Sir Gawain and Hector Warned in Vision

• Gawain et. al. don’t meet with adventure due to their spiritual blindness or dullness, which is rather like the blindness of modernity, unable to perceive a spiritual dimension to anything
  • The word aventure appears on almost every page
  • Has a much wider connotation than modern English
  • Represents the random, the gratuitous, the unpredictable element in life
  • A challenge causing a man to measure himself up against standards more than human, to risk one’s life for honour or love
  • In the Quest there is a further dimension: adventure is God manifesting himself in the physical world
  • To accept adventure, to rise to the challenge, is to go to encounter something supernatural, which is highly perilous for the sinner or man of little faith
  • To the faithful it is to submit to God’s providence
  • The translator has frequently translated “adventure”, sometimes lacking any better alternative, but elsewhere “chance”, “fortune”, “phenomenon”
  • Beneath these different terms there is a golden thread running though, that of providential guidance which a man can accept, refuse, or, like Gawain, fail to see

Chapter 9 - Trials and Temptations of Bors

• Bors speaks to an aged monk riding an ass about the Quest
  • He emphasizes confession for those who would seek the Grail
  • There is a great emphasis on the Sacrament of Penance throughout the Quest
  • It is the first step in both the Christian life and the mystical experience

Chapter 10 - The Miraculous Ship

• Galahad’s frequent disappearances and reappearances reminiscent of those of the risen Christ
  • Also reminds me of Gandalf a bit
• King Parlan, the Maimed King, was known for his Christian virtue
  • One day he got lost while hunting and came to the coast that faces Ireland where he found the Miraculous Ship
  • Believing himself to be virtuous enough he was not frightened off by the warning inscriptions
  • He boarded and attempted to draw the sword but was at that instant pierced through his thighs by a flying lance on account of his presumption
  • His wound would not heal until the coming of Galahad
  • This and other “fatal blow” stories contained in this chapter seem to be derived from earlier Celtic legends
  • “Thighs” might be euphemistic for genitals
  • The lance might be the bleeding lance of Longinus

Chapter 11 - The Legend of the Tree of Life

• This chapter is a good retelling of the stories of Adam & Eve, and of Cain & Abel; plus there is a story about how King Solomon, ancestor of Lancelot and Galahad, came to build the Miraculous Ship
• When Eve plucks the fruit from the tree, a twig comes off with it, and she keeps this branch in her hand even after being expelled from the garden
  • She planted it outside and God caused it to grow
  • She said, “Be not dismayed if we are banished from our inheritance: it is not lost to us eternally; see here a sign of our return hereafter.”
  • Why was it the woman and not the man who bore the branch out of Paradise? Because through a woman life was lost, and through a woman life would be regained.
• King Solomon had a cunning wife who often outwitted him
  • The wife stands midway between Eve and Mary; her feminine guile looks back to Eve; her prophetic role, preparing prophesies for their fulfilment looks forward to the Blessed Virgin
    • She represents the Old Testament in her greatness and limitations; a storehouse of wisdom yet imperfectly understood
    • Cf. Chapter 12 where Perceval’s sister represents the New Testament
  • As Solomon is wondering why women delight so in annoying men he hears a voice prophesying that from his lineage shall come the Blessed Virgin
  • And not only that, the scion of his lineage, a man of great virtue, Galahad, is prophesied
  • He wishes to devise a way to let the future Galahad know of his knowledge of him
  • His clever wife tells him to build the Miraculous Ship
  • On it shall go the sword of David, but with a new pommel devised by Solomon
    • Is this the sword of Goliath?
    • Called the Sword of the Strange Belt
    • 1 Kings 21, David is escaping from King Saul; Achimelech the priest gives David and his men the Bread of the Proposition to eat
    • V. 8–9: “And David said to Achimelech: Hast thou here at hand a spear, or a sword? for I brought not my own sword, nor my own weapons with me, for the king’s business required haste. And the priest said: Lo, here is the sword of Goliath the Philistine whom thou slewest in the valley of Terebinth, wrapped up in a cloth behind the ephod: if thou wilt take this, take it, for here is no other but this. And David said: There is none like that, give it me.”
  • On the boat goes a bed, and the king’s crown
  • The lady adds a simple belt of hemp to the sword, saying that she actually has no belt that is truly worthy; she prophesizes that a maiden (Perceval’s sister) will provide a better one in time
  • Something is still missing so the lady has carpenters cut down the Tree planted by Eve, under which Cain slew Abel; she had its red, white and green timbers fashioned into the frame that stood over the bed
    • White for purity, green for piety, red for sacrifice, the three essential facets of Christ’s life on earth
  • The symbolism of the bed made clear in Ch. 15

Chapter 12 - Adventures of the Three Companions

• Perceval’s sister, unnamed like Solomon’s wife, completes what Solomon’s wife left unfinished, as the New Testament gives the Old its meaning
• At Castle Carcelois in the Scottish Marches a similar scene is enacted to that which occurred earlier at the Castle of the Maidens, cf. Ch. 3
  • The earlier episode demonstrates God’s mercy towards sinners: Galahad routs the wicked brothers but does not kill them, and re-established right rule at the castle
  • In this episode, the crimes are of the same kind but greater in severity: rape → incest, injustice → sacrilege, murder and sin is the community’s way of life
  • At Castle Carcelois, God’s justice is shown as a contrast to the mercy episode, and the sinners are all slain by Galahad, Perceval and Bors

Chapter 15 - The Holy Grail

• Josephus acts as a priest saying Mass with the Holy Grail up to the Consecration after which he disappears
  • A Man then appears from the Holy Grail, bleeding from his hands and feet and side
  • This Man communicates the knights with the Grail
  • He asks Galahad if he knows what the Vessel is: “No, unless thou tell me.”
  • “It is the platter in which Jesus Christ partook of the paschal lamb with His disciples.”
  • He tells Galahad that he will see it even plainer one day “in the city of Sarras, in the spiritual palace”
  • The Grail will leave Britain due to its corruption and dissoluteness and travel to Sarras (where King Mordrain was from)
    • Is Sarras both an earthly city and the Heavenly Jerusalem? Or just a prefigurement of the latter by virtue of its “spiritual palace”?
• Galahad, Bors and Perceval return to the Miraculous Ship where the Grail is waiting for them on board
  • After they have been long at sea Perceval and Bors suggest Galahad sleep in the bed, which was prepared for him
  • Galahad does so and awakes to see the city of Sarras
  • One point of view on the bed’s symbolism: symbolizes the repose of Christ’s death on the Cross, therefore the bed is the altar on which that sacrifice is re-enacted
  • But perhaps Song of Songs 3 brings us closer to the author’s true meaning, since Galahad awakes to see Sarras as the Heavenly Jerusalem: “Who is she that goeth up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh, and frankincense, and of all the powders of the perfumer? Behold threescore valiant ones of the most valiant of Israel, surrounded the bed of Solomon . All holding swords, and most expert in war: every man’s sword upon his thigh, because of fears in the night. King Solomon hath made him a litter of the wood of Libanus: The pillars thereof he made of silver, the seat of gold, the going up of purple: the midst he covered with charity for the daughters of Jerusalem.”
• The three manifestations of the Grail follow an ascending curve:
  • Lancelot seems to see the Blessed Trinity at the elevation of the Host at Castle Corbenic (looking into the room he cannot enter) → a visionary experience
  • After re-enacting the Last Supper, Christ emerges from the Vessel and communicates His new apostles
  • Galahad rules Sarras for a year, then meets Josephus again who tells him to look on the Grail again; he does so, and experiences something ineffable, and prays that God would allow him to pass into eternal life; this he then does
    • Galahad is granted the Beatific Vision, sees God face to face
    • Cf. Exodus 33:20, “Thou canst not see my face: for man shall not see me and live.”