Holy Grail

Nationality/Culture

Romano-British/Celtic, Christian

Pronunciation

hoh-lee GRAYL

Alternate Names

Sangreal

Appears In

Medieval Christian myths, tales of King Arthur and his knights

Myth Overview

According to medieval legend, the Holy Grail was the vessel from which Jesus Christ drank at the Last Supper, his final meal with his followers before he was crucified. Many works of literature describe the search for the Grail, which was believed to have sacred and mysterious powers.

According to legend, after the Last Supper, the Grail came into the possession of Joseph of Arimathea (pronounced ar-uh-muh-THEE-uh), who caught Christ's blood in it at the crucifixion. Joseph went to prison, but the Grail kept him alive by supplying daily nourishment. Released from prison, Joseph traveled to France and then to Glastonbury, England, carrying the Holy Grail. Soon, however, the Grail disappeared from the world because people were sinful. Hidden away in a mysterious castle, it was guarded by the descendants of Joseph's sister.

One of the best-known versions of the Grail's later history is connected with Arthur, the legendary king of Britain. This account says that the Grail was held somewhere in a wild and lonely part of Britain in the castle of the Fisher King, a wounded king who lay between life and death. Only if the purest of knights found his way to the castle and caught a glimpse of the Grail would the Fisher King's torment end and life be restored to his ruined domain.

To the knights who sat around King Arthur's Round Table, seeing the Holy Grail was the highest and most noble goal. They roamed the nation in search of it. Lancelot nearly achieved the quest, but the sin of his love for Guinevere (pronounced GWEN-uh-veer), Arthur's queen, kept him from seeing the Grail. A knight named Perceval (pronounced PUR-suh-vuhl) saw the Grail but did not understand what it was. Only Galahad (pronounced GAL-uh-had), Lancelot's son, was pure enough to see it with full understanding of its meaning. He had to travel to a distant land called Sarras to do so, for the Grail had left Britain at some point. The vision of the Grail brought such profound joy that Galahad died moments later.

The Holy Grail in Context

The Holy Grail legend fuses Christian elements with much older Celtic mythology and appears to be the product of storytelling over hundreds of years. The Grail itself is related to various vessels in Celtic lore, such as the drinking horn of the god Bran, which produced any food or drink the user desired. It was also associated with a magic cauldron or kettle that could restore life to any dead body placed in it.

Key Themes and Symbols

For Christian followers, the Holy Grail symbolized Jesus Christ and his final betrayal. Because the cup was believed to have been used by Christ at his last meal, and also to have caught his blood while he was crucified, it was considered to contain some of the only known earthly remnants of Christ. For Christians, the idea of a concrete object that was used by Christ enabled them to draw an immediate connection with the stories of the Holy Bible. The different depictions of the Grail, from a jeweled chalice to a simple clay cup, reflect the different ways in which people glorified Jesus. In a more general sense, the myth of the Holy Grail represents a search for spiritual fulfillment. Those who search for the Grail are attempting to satisfy their own needs to feel a connection to God or to find meaning in their own existence.

The Holy Grail in Art, Literature, and Everyday Life

The earliest known work to give a Christian significance to the magical vessel was Perceval, a romance of the late 1100s by the French poet Chretien de Troyes. A few decades later, Robert de Borron wrote Joseph of Arimathea, which established the connection between the Grail of Perceval and the cup used by Christ and later owned by Joseph. Parzival, by Wolfram von Eschenbach, expanded on the mystical story of the innocent knight and the Fisher King and also introduced an order of knights charged with guarding the Grail. This version of the story became the basis for the opera Parsifal by the modern German composer Richard Wagner.

Over time, versions of the Grail story began to link the Holy Grail with the popular legend of King Arthur. One account made Sir Galahad the virtuous hero and the Grail a symbol of a rare and mystical union with the divine. Late in the 1400s, Sir Thomas Malory wrote Le Morte D Arthur (The Death of Arthur), the version of the Arthurian legend that was to become the best known. With it he established the story of the Grail quest by the knights of Arthur's Round Table and of Galahad's ultimate success.

In modern times, several films have been made that focus on a quest to find the Holy Grail. Among the most famous are the comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1979) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). The best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code (2003) by Dan Brown centers on the Holy Grail myth, and was made into a film starring Tom Hanks in 2006. The 2005 Tony Award—winning musical Spamalot was based on the Monty Python version of the legend.

Read, Write, Think, Discuss

Parzival: The Quest of the Grail Knightby Katherine Paterson is a 1998 novel adaptation of Wolfram von Eschenbach's thirteenth-century German poem by the same name. Paterson, best known as the author of Bridge to Terabithia (1977), recreates the myth of Perceval (also called Parzival) in modern language, and provides background information to assist readers unfamiliar with the legend.

SEE ALSO Arthur, King; Arthurian Legends; Galahad; Lancelot