The Holy Grail, Graal and Gradalis, Perceval and Emeralds ( Sir Thomas Malory and Chrétien de Troyes)...

In Christian mythology, the Holy Grail was the dish, plate, cup or vessel that caught Jesus' blood during his crucifixion. It was said to have the power to heal all wounds. A theme joined to the Christianised Arthurian mythos relates to the quest for the Holy Grail.
The legend may be a combination of genuine Christian lore with a Celtic myth of a cauldron endowed with special powers. Whether graal is Celtic or Old French, it never refers to any cup or bowl but this. ..According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, it was only after the cycle of Grail romances was well established, identifying the cup of the Last Supper with the Grail that late medieval writers came up with a false etymology from the fact that in Old French, sang

rial means "Holy Grail" and sang rial means "royal blood". Since then, Sangreal is sometimes employed to lend a medievalizing air in referring to the Holy Grail. This connection with royal blood bore fruit in a modern best-seller linking many historical conspiracies.
The development of the Grail legend has been traced in detail by cultural historians: it is a Gothic legend, which first came together in the form of written romances, deriving perhaps from some pre-Christian folkloric hints, in the later 12th and early 13th centuries. The early Grail romances centered on Percival and were then woven into the more general Arthurian fabric. The Grail romances were French; though they were translated into other European vernaculars, no new essential elements were added. Various notions of the Holy Grail are currently very widespread in Western Society...about King Arthur and his knights. The stories of the Grail are totally absent from Eastern Orthodox teachings and are not a part of the culture and mythos of those countries that were and are Orthodox (Orthodox Arabs, Orthodox Slavs, Orthodox Romanians, Orthodox Greeks). This is even more true of the Arthurian myths...should always be regarded as, a set of ideas that are essentially local and particular, being linked with Catholic or formerly Catholic locales, Celtic mythology, and Anglo-French medieval storytelling. .

There are two schools of thought concerning the Grail's origin. The first, championed by Roger Sherman Loomis, Alfred Nutt, and Jessie Weston, holds that it derived from early Celtic myth and folklore. Loomis traced a number of parallels between Medieval Welsh literature and Irish material and the Grail romances, including similarities between the Mabinogion's Bran the Blessed and the Arthurian Fisher King, and between Bran's life-restoring cauldron and the Grail.
Other legends featured magical platters or dishes that symbolize otherworldly power or test the hero's worth. On the other hand, some scholars believe the Grail began as a purely Christian symbol. For example, Joseph Goering of University of Toronto (Goering 2005) has identified sources for Grail imagery in 12th-century wall paintings from churches in the Catalan Pyrenees (now mostly removed to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona), which present unique iconic images of the Virgin Mary holding a bowl that radiates tongues of fire, images that predate the first literary account by Chretien de Troyes. Goering argues that they were the original inspiration for the grail legend. Thus, the first Grail stories may have been celebrations of a renewal in this traditional sacrament. The word graal, as it is earliest spelled, appears to be an Old French adaption of the Latin gradalis, meaning a dish brought to the table in different stages of a meal.

 

The Beginnings of the Grail in Literature

Chretien de Troyes
The Grail is first featured in Perceval, le Conte du Graal (The Story of the Grail) by Chretien de Troyes, who claims he was working from a source book given to him by his patron, Count Philip of Flanders. In this incomplete poem, dated sometime between 1180 and 1191, the object has not yet acquired the implications of holiness it would have in later works. While dining in the magical abode of the Fisher King, Perceval witnesses a wondrous procession in which youths carry magnificent objects from one chamber to another, passing before him at each course of the meal. First comes a young man carrying a bleeding lance, then two boys carrying candelabras. Finally, a beautiful young girl emerges bearing an elaborately decorated graal, or grail.
Chretien refers to his object not as The Grail but as un graal, showing the word was used, in its earliest literary context, as a common noun. For Chretien the grail was a wide, somewhat deep dish or bowl, interesting because it contained not a pike, salmon or lamprey, as the audience may have expected for such a container, but a single Mass wafer which provided sustenance for the Fisher King's crippled father.
Perceval, who had been warned against talking too much, remains silent through all of this, and wakes up the next morning alone. He later learns that if he had asked the appropriate questions about what he saw, he would have healed his maimed host, much to his honor.
Though Chretien's account is the earliest and most influential of all Grail texts, it was in the work of Robert de Boron that the Grail truly became the Holy Grail and assumed the form most familiar to modern readers. In his verse romance Joseph d'Arimathie, composed between 1191 and 1202, Robert tells the story of Joseph of Arimathea acquiring the chalice of the Last Supper to collect Christ's blood upon His removal from the cross. Joseph is thrown in prison where Christ visits him and explains the mysteries of the blessed cup. Upon his release Joseph gathers his in-laws and other followers and travels to the west, and founds a dynasty of Grail keepers that eventually includes Perceval.

After this point, Grail literature divides into two classes. The first concerns King Arthur's knights visiting the Grail castle or questing after the object; the second concerns the Grail's history in the time of Joseph of Arimathea.
The nine most important works from the first group are:
The Perceval of Chretien de Troyes.
Four continuations of Chretien's poem, by authors of differing vision and talent, designed to bring the story to a close.
The German Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, which adapted at least the holiness of Robert's Grail into the framework of Chretien's story.
The Didot Perceval, named after the manuscript's former owner, and purportedly a prosification of Robert de Boron's sequel to Joseph d'Arimathie.
The Welsh romance Peredur (generally included in the Mabinogion), based on Chretien's poem but including very striking differences from it.
Perlesvaus, called the "least canonical" Grail romance because of its very different character.
The German Diu Crone (The Crown), in which Gawain, rather than Perceval, achieves the Grail.
The Lancelot section of the vast Vulgate Cycle, which introduces the new Grail hero, Galahad.
The Queste del Saint Graal, another part of the Vulgate Cycle, concerning the adventures of Galahad and his achievement of the Grail.
Of the second class there are:
Robert de Boron's Joseph d'Arimathie,
The Estoire del Saint Graal, the first part of the Vulgate Cycle (but written after Lancelot and the Queste), based on Robert's tale but expanding it greatly with many new details.
Though all these works have their roots in Chretien, several contain pieces of tradition not found in Chretien which are possibly derived from earlier sources.
Ideas of the Grail
As stated above, the Grail was considered a bowl or dish when first described by Chretien de Troyes. Other authors had their own ideas; Robert de Boron portrayed it as the vessel of the Last Supper, and Peredur had no Grail per se, presenting the hero instead with a platter containing his kinsman's bloody, severed head.
In Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach, citing the authority of a certain (probably fictional) Kyot the Provencal, claimed the Grail was a stone that fell from Heaven, and had been the sanctuary of the Neutral Angels who took neither side during Lucifer's rebellion. The authors of the Vulgate Cycle used the Grail as a symbol of divine grace. Galahad, bastard son of the world's greatest knight, Lancelot, and the Grail Bearer Elaine, is destined to achieve the Grail, his spiritual purity making him a better warrior than even his illustrious father. Galahad and the interpretation of the Grail involving him were picked up in the 15th century by Sir Thomas Malory (Le Morte d'Arthur), and remain popular today.
The Later Legend
Belief in the Grail, and interest in its potential whereabouts, has never ceased. Ownership has been attributed to various groups (including the Knights Templar). There are cups claimed to be the Grail in several churches like the Valencia cathedral. The emerald chalice at Genoa, which was obtained during the crusades at Aleppo at great cost, has been less championed as the Holy Grail since an accident on the road while it was being returned from Paris after the fall of Napoleon revealed that the emerald was green glass. In Wolfram von Eschenbach's telling, the Grail was kept safe at the castle of Munsalvaesche (mons salvationis), entrusted to Titurel, the first Grail King. Some, not least the monks of Montserrat, have identified the castle with the real sanctuary of Montserrat in Catalonia, Spain. Other stories claim that the Grail is buried beneath Rosslyn Chapel or is to be found deep in the spring at Glastonbury Tor. Still other stories claim that a secret line of hereditary protectors keep the Grail, and local folklore in Nova Scotia and Accokeek, Maryland says that it was moved to these locations by a closeted priest aboard Captain John Smith's ship.
Of two Grail vessels that survive today, one is at Genoa, in the cathedral. The hexagonal Genoese vessel is known as the sacro catino, the holy basin. Traditionally said to be carved from emerald, it is in fact a green Egyptian glass dish, about eighteen inches (37 cm) across. It was sent to Paris after Napoleon's conquest of Italy, and was returned broken, which identified the emerald as glass. Its origin is uncertain; according to William of Tyre, writing in about 1170, it was found in the mosque at Caesarea in 1101: "a vase of brilliant green shaped like a bowl." The Genoese, believing that it was of emerald, accepted it in lieu of a large sum of money. An alternative story in a Spanish chronicle says that it was found when Alfonso VII of Castile captured Almeria from the Moors in 1147 with Genoese help, un uaso de piedra esmeralda que era tamanno como una escudiella, "a vase carved from emerald which was like a dish". The Genoese said that this was the only thing they wanted from the sack of Almeria. The identification of the sacro catino with the Grail is not made until later, however, by Jacobus de Voragine in his chronicle of Genoa, written at the close of the 13th century.
The Grail and the Fisher King
The tale of the Fisher King involves a king who is lame in one leg (a euphemism for impotency) which in turn causes the land to become barren (infertile). The hero (Gawain, Percival, or Galahad) encounters the Fisher King and is invited to a feast, as per the older other world tales. The Grail is again presented as a platter of plenty but is also presented as part of a series of mystical relics, which also included a spear that drips blood and a broken sword. The purpose of the relics is to incite the hero to question them and thereby, through some unknown means, break the enchantment of the infirmed king and the barren land, although the hero invariably fails to do so.

The Grail and Arthurian Legend
The story of the Fisher King and the Grail was later incorporated into the Arthurian myths. At first presented as a retelling of the older Fisher King tale - for example, one telling involved Percival encountering the Fisher King and the Grail before arriving at Camelot, it eventually evolved into an explicit "quest" for the Grail--one such quest ending with twelve knights (of undetermined origin) ascending into Heaven along with the Grail.
Some believe the grial is in the Chalice Well in Glastonbury - put there by Joseph of Arimathea. The search for the vessel became the principal quest of King Arthur and his Knights of the Roundtable - theSword in the Stone - Excalibur - and the magic of Merlin.
Fate of the Grail
While the Grail formally first appeared in the Perceval le Gallois of Chretien de Troyes and the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach -- both of whom describe it in connection with the Fisher King and how Percival failed to speak and thus cure the infirm king - it was Robert de Boron who added the detail that the Grail was brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea, when he travelled to the British Isles as the first Christian missionary to the country and established the first Christian church in the British Isles in his verse romance, Joseph d'Arimathie, by Robert de Boron, composed between 1170 and 1212.
A number of knights undertook the quest for the Grail, in tales that have become annexed to the Arthurian mythos. Some of these tales tell of knights who succeeded, like Percival or the virginal Galahad; others tell of knights who failed to achieve the grail because of their tragic flaws, like Lancelot. In Wolfram's telling, the Grail was kept safe at the castle of Munsalvaesche (mons salvationis) or Montsalvat, entrusted to Titurel, the first Grail-King. Some, not least the monks of Montserrat, have identified the castle with the real sanctuary of Montserrat in Catalonia.
The fate of the Holy Grail is unknown. Ownership has been attributed to various groups (including the Knights Templar). There are cups claimed to be the Grail in several churches like the Valencia cathedral. The emerald chalice at Genoa, which was obtained during the crusades at Aleppo at great cost, has been less championed as the Holy Grail since an accident on the road while it was being returned from Paris after the fall of Napoleon revealed that the emerald was green glass.

Quest for the Grail
The date of Grail sequences in the Welsh folktales, the Mabinogion are older than the surviving manuscripts (13th century). There is an English poem Sir Percyvelle, of the 15th century. Then the legends of King Arthur and the Holy Grail were collected in the 15th century by Thomas Malory for his Le Morte D' Arthur (Also spelled Le Morte Darthur) which gave the body of legend its classic form.
Important literary settings of Grail material include Chretien de Troyes' Conte du Graal (French, late 12th century, the first romance to mention the Grail) and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzifal (German, early 13th century). The parallels between Conte du Graal and Parzifal are striking, but Wolfram stated that his tale came from a Provencal lay of a certain Kyot (Guiot). Wolfram also states that his romance is being transcribed for him, so the inference is that his sources were not written. Kyot has never been identified, and many have suggested that he does not exist.
Richard Wagner recast Wolfram's version of the legend in his opera Parsifal (1883), opening the floodgates for the Grail in 20th century pop culture, both camp and campy.
Modern Interpretations
Casual metaphor
The legend of the Holy Grail is the basis of the use of the devalued term holy grail in modern-day culture. This or that "holy grail" is seen as the distant, all-but-unobtainable ultimate goal for a person, organization, or field to achieve. For instance, cold fusion or anti-gravity devices are sometimes characterized as the "holy grail" of applied physics.The combination of hushed reverence and overheated chromatic harmonies of Richard Wagner's late opera Parsifal fatally inflated the Holy Grail theme, while it brought the old medieval tale back into a wider public consciousness. The high seriousness of the subject was also epitomized in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting in which William Morris's soulful Titian-haired wife, at the time the painter's mistress, holds the Grail like a champagne glass that she is about to make ring with a snap of her long finger...Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code is likewise based on the idea that the real Grail is not a cup but the earthly remains of Mary

Holy Grail Wikipedia