Как пишется святой грааль

This article is about the object of Arthurian legend. For the cup from the Last Supper, see Holy Chalice.

Grail
Matter of Britain element
The Damsel of the Sanct Grael by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1874)
First appearance	Perceval, le Conte du Graal
Created by	Chrétien de Troyes
Genre	Chivalric romance
In-universe information
Type	Religious relic
Owners	Perceval and his sister, Grail Family (Fisher King, Grail Maiden), Joseph of Arimathea, Knights of the Round Table (Galahad, Bors), Morgan
Function	Quest subject
Traits and abilities	Healing, restoring the Wasteland, providing nourishment, granting ascension or eternal life

The Holy Grail (French: Saint Graal, Breton: Graal Santel, Welsh: Greal Sanctaidd, Cornish: Gral) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often guarded in the custody of the Fisher King and located in the hidden Grail castle. By analogy, any elusive object or goal of great significance may be perceived as a «holy grail» by those seeking such.^[1]

A «grail» (Old French: graal or greal), wondrous but not unequivocally holy, first appears in Perceval, the Story of the Grail, an unfinished chivalric romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. Chrétien’s story inspired many continuations, translators and interpreters in the later-12th and early-13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, who perceived the Grail as a stone. The Christian, Celtic or possibly other origins of the Arthurian grail trope are uncertain and have been debated amongst literary scholars and historians.

In the late-12th century, Robert de Boron in Joseph d’Arimathie portrayed the Grail as Jesus’s vessel from the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch Christ’s blood at the crucifixion. Thereafter, the Holy Grail became interwoven with the legend of the Holy Chalice, the Last Supper cup, an idea continued in works such as the Lancelot-Grail cycle and consequently the 15th-century Le Morte d’Arthur.^[2] In this form, it is now a popular theme in modern culture and has become the subject of pseudohistorical writings and of conspiracy theories.

Etymology[edit]

The word graal, as it is earliest spelled, comes from Old French graal or greal, cognate with Old Occitan grazal and Old Catalan gresal, meaning «a cup or bowl of earth, wood, or metal» (or other various types of vessels in different Occitan dialects).^[3] The most commonly accepted etymology derives it from Latin gradalis or gradale via an earlier form, cratalis, a derivative of crater or cratus, which was, in turn, borrowed from Ancient Greek krater (κρᾱτήρ, a large wine-mixing vessel).^{[3][4][5][6][7]} Alternative suggestions include a derivative of cratis, a name for a type of woven basket that came to refer to a dish,^[8] or a derivative of Latin gradus meaning «‘by degree’, ‘by stages’, applied to a dish brought to the table in different stages or services during a meal».^[9]

In the 15th century, English writer John Hardyng invented a fanciful new etymology for Old French san-graal (or san-gréal), meaning «Holy Grail», by parsing it as sang réal, meaning «royal blood».^[10][11] This etymology was used by some later medieval British writers such as Thomas Malory, and became prominent in the conspiracy theory developed in the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, in which sang real refers to the Jesus bloodline.^[12]

Medieval literature[edit]

The literature surrounding the Grail can be divided into two groups. 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 works from the first group are:

• Perceval, the Story of the Grail by Chrétien de Troyes.
• The Four Continuations of Chrétien’s unfinished poem, by authors of differing vision and talent, designed to bring the story to a close.
• Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, which adapted at least the holiness of Robert’s Grail into the framework of Chrétien’s story. In Wolfram’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 Benedictine monks, have identified the castle with their real sanctuary of Montserrat in Catalonia.
• The Didot Perceval, named after the manuscript’s former owner, and purportedly a prosification of Robert de Boron’s sequel to Joseph d’Arimathie and Merlin.
• Welsh romance Peredur son of Efrawg, a loose translation of Chrétien’s poem and the Continuations, with some influence from native Welsh literature.
• Perlesvaus, called the «least canonical» Grail romance because of its very different character.
• German poem Diu Crône (The Crown), in which Gawain, rather than Perceval, achieves the Grail.
• The Lancelot section of the vast Vulgate Cycle introduced the new Grail hero, Galahad. The Queste del Saint Graal, a follow-up part of the cycle, concerns Galahad’s eventual achievement of the Grail.

Of the second group 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.
• Verses by Rigaut de Barbezieux, a late 12th or early 13th-century^[13] Provençal troubador, where mention is made of Perceval, the lance, and the Grail («Like Perceval when he lived, who stood amazed in contemplation, so that he was quite unable to ask what purpose the lance and grail served» – «Attressi con Persavaus el temps que vivia, que s’esbait d’esgarder tant qu’anc non saup demandar de que servia la lansa ni-l grazaus«^[14]).

The Grail was considered a bowl or dish when first described by Chrétien de Troyes. There, it is a processional salver, a tray, used to serve at a feast.^[15] Hélinand of Froidmont described a grail as a «wide and deep saucer» (scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda); other authors had their own ideas. Robert de Boron portrayed it as the vessel of the Last Supper. Peredur son of Efrawg had no Grail as such, presenting the hero instead with a platter containing his kinsman’s bloody, severed head.^[16]

Chrétien de Troyes[edit]

The Grail is first featured in Perceval, le Conte du Graal (The Story of the Grail) by Chrétien de Troyes,^[17] who claims he was working from a source book given to him by his patron, Count Philip of Flanders.^[18] 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».^[19]

Chrétien refers to this object not as «The Grail» but as «a grail» (un graal), showing the word was used, in its earliest literary context, as a common noun. For Chrétien, a 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 Communion 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 honour. The story of the Wounded King’s mystical fasting is not unique; several saints were said to have lived without food besides communion, for instance Saint Catherine of Genoa. This may imply that Chrétien intended the Communion wafer to be the significant part of the ritual, and the Grail to be a mere prop.^[20]

Robert de Boron[edit]

Though Chrétien’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 its Christian context.^[21] 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. He founds a dynasty of Grail keepers that eventually includes Perceval.

Wolfram von Eschenbach[edit]

In Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach, citing the authority of a certain (probably fictional) Kyot the Provençal, claimed the Grail was a Stone, the sanctuary of the neutral angels who took neither side during Lucifer’s rebellion. It is called Lapis exillis, which in alchemy is the name of the Philosopher’s stone.^[22]

Lancelot-Grail[edit]

The authors of the Vulgate Cycle used the Grail as a symbol of divine grace; the virgin Galahad, illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine, the world’s greatest knight and the Grail Bearer at the castle of Corbenic, is destined to achieve the Grail, his spiritual purity making him a greater warrior than even his illustrious father.^[23] The Queste del Saint Graal (The Quest of The Holy Grail) tells also of the adventures of various Knights of the Round Table in their eponymous quest. Some of them, including Percival and Bors the Younger, eventually join Galahad as his companions near the successful end of the Grail Quest and are witnesses of his ascension to Heaven.

Galahad and the interpretation of the Grail involving him were picked up in the 15th century by Thomas Malory in Le Morte d’Arthur and remain popular today.^[24] While it is not explicit that the Holy Grail is never to be seen again on Earth, it is stated by Malory that there has since then been no knight capable of obtaining it.

Scholarly hypotheses[edit]

Scholars have long speculated on the origins of the Holy Grail before Chrétien, suggesting that it may contain elements of the trope of magical cauldrons from Celtic mythology and later Welsh mythology combined with Christian legend surrounding the Eucharist,^[25] the latter found in Eastern Christian sources, conceivably in that of the Byzantine Mass, or even Persian sources.^[26] The view that the «origin» of the Grail legend should be seen as deriving from Celtic mythology was championed by Roger Sherman Loomis, Alfred Nutt and Jessie Weston. 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.

The opposing view dismissed the «Celtic» connections as spurious and interpreted the legend as essentially Christian in origin. Joseph Goering 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), 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 Chrétien de Troyes. Goering argues that they were the original inspiration for the Grail legend.^[27][28]

Psychologists Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz used analytical psychology to interpret the Grail as a series of symbols in their book The Grail Legend.^[29] This expanded on interpretations by Carl Jung, which were later invoked by Joseph Campbell.^[29]

Richard Barber (2004) argued that the Grail legend is connected to the introduction of «more ceremony and mysticism» surrounding the sacrament of the Eucharist in the high medieval period, proposing that the first Grail stories may have been connected to the «renewal in this traditional sacrament».^[30] Daniel Scavone (1999, 2003) has argued that the «Grail» in origin referred to the Image of Edessa.^[31] Goulven Peron (2016) suggested that the Holy Grail may reflect the horn of the river-god Achelous as described by Ovid in the Metamorphoses.^[32]

Later traditions[edit]

Relics[edit]

In the wake of the Arthurian romances, several artifacts came to be identified as the Holy Grail in medieval relic veneration. These artifacts are said to have been the vessel used at the Last Supper, but other details vary. Despite the prominence of the Grail literature, traditions about a Last Supper relic remained rare in contrast to other items associated with Jesus’ last days, such as the True Cross and Holy Lance.^[33]

One tradition predates the Grail romances: in the 7th century, the pilgrim Arculf reported that the Last Supper chalice was displayed near Jerusalem.^[33][34] In the wake of Robert de Boron’s Grail works, several other items came to be claimed as the true Last Supper vessel. In the late 12th century, one was said to be in Byzantium; Albrecht von Scharfenberg’s Grail romance Der Jüngere Titurel associated it explicitly with the Arthurian Grail, but claimed it was only a copy.^[8] This item was said to have been looted in the Fourth Crusade and brought to Troyes in France, but it was lost during the French Revolution.^[35][36]

Two relics associated with the Grail survive today. The Sacro Catino (Sacred Basin, also known as the Genoa Chalice) is a green glass dish held at the Genoa Cathedral said to have been used at the Last Supper. Its provenance is unknown, and there are two divergent accounts of how it was brought to Genoa by Crusaders in the 12th century. It was not associated with the Last Supper until later, in the wake of the Grail romances; the first known association is in Jacobus de Voragine’s chronicle of Genoa in the late 13th century, which draws on the Grail literary tradition. The Catino was moved and broken during Napoleon’s conquest in the early 19th century, revealing that it is glass rather than emerald.^[8][37]

The Holy Chalice of Valencia is an agate dish with a mounting for use as a chalice. The bowl may date to Greco-Roman times, but its dating is unclear, and its provenance is unknown before 1399, when it was gifted to Martin I of Aragon. By the 14th century an elaborate tradition had developed that this object was the Last Supper chalice. This tradition mirrors aspects of the Grail material, with several major differences, suggesting a separate tradition entirely. It is not associated with Joseph of Arimathea or Jesus’ blood; it is said to have been taken to Rome by Saint Peter and later entrusted to Saint Lawrence.^[38][39] Early references do not call the object the «Grail»; the first evidence connecting it to the Grail tradition is from the 15th century.^[40] The monarchy sold the cup in the 15th century to Valencia Cathedral, where it remains a significant local icon.^[41]

Several objects were identified with the Holy Grail in the 17th century.^[35] In the 20th century, a series of new items became associated with it. These include the Nanteos Cup, a medieval wooden bowl found near Rhydyfelin, Wales; a glass dish found near Glastonbury, England; the Antioch chalice, a 6th-century silver-gilt object that became attached to the Grail legend in the 1930s,^[42] and the Chalice of Doña Urraca, a cup made between 200 BC and 100 AD, kept in León’s basilica of Saint Isidore.^[43]

Locations associated with the Holy Grail[edit]

In the modern era, a number of places have become associated with the Holy Grail. One of the most prominent is Glastonbury in Somerset, England. Glastonbury was associated with King Arthur and his resting place of Avalon by the 12th century.^[44] In the 13th century, a legend arose that Joseph of Arimathea was the founder of Glastonbury Abbey. Early accounts of Joseph at Glastonbury focus on his role as the evangelist of Britain rather than as the custodian of the Holy Grail, but from the 15th century, the Grail became a more prominent part of the legends surrounding Glastonbury.^[45] Interest in Glastonbury resurged in the late 19th century, inspired by renewed interest in the Arthurian legend and contemporary spiritual movements centered on ancient sacred sites.^[46] In the late 19th century, John Goodchild hid a glass bowl near Glastonbury; a group of his friends, including Wellesley Tudor Pole, retrieved the cup in 1906 and promoted it as the original Holy Grail.^[47] Glastonbury and its Holy Grail legend have since become a point of focus for various New Age and Neopagan groups.^[48]

In the early 20th century, esoteric writers identified Montségur, a stronghold of the heretical Cathar sect in the 13th century, as the Grail castle. Similarly, the 14th-century Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian, Scotland, became attached to the Grail legend in the mid-20th century when a succession of conspiracy books identified it as a secret hiding place of the Grail.^[49]

Modern interpretations[edit]

Pseudohistory and conspiracy theories[edit]

Since the 19th century, the Holy Grail has been linked to various conspiracy theories. In 1818, Austrian pseudohistorical writer Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall connected the Grail to contemporary myths surrounding the Knights Templar that cast the order as a secret society dedicated to mystical knowledge and relics. In Hammer-Purgstall’s work, the Grail is not a physical relic but a symbol of the secret knowledge that the Templars sought. There is no historical evidence linking the Templars to a search for the Grail, but subsequent writers have elaborated on the Templar theories.^[50]

Starting in the early 20th century, writers, particularly in France, further connected the Templars and Grail to the Cathars. In 1906, French esoteric writer Joséphin Péladan identified the Cathar castle of Montségur with Munsalväsche or Montsalvat, the Grail castle in Wolfram’s Parzival. This identification has inspired a wider legend asserting that the Cathars possessed the Holy Grail.^[51] According to these stories, the Cathars guarded the Grail at Montségur, and smuggled it out when the castle fell in 1244.^[52]

Beginning in 1933, German writer Otto Rahn published a series of books tying the Grail, Templars, and Cathars to modern German nationalist mythology. According to Rahn, the Grail was a symbol of a pure Germanic religion repressed by Christianity. Rahn’s books inspired interest in the Grail within the Nazi occultist circles and led to the SS chief Heinrich Himmler’s abortive sponsorship of Rahn’s search for the Grail, as well as many subsequent conspiracy theories and fictional works about the Nazis searching for the Grail.^[53]

In the late 20th century, writers Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln created one of the most widely known conspiracy theories about the Holy Grail. The theory first appeared in the BBC documentary series Chronicle in the 1970s, and was elaborated upon in the bestselling 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail.^[12] The theory combines myths about the Templars and Cathars with various other legends and a prominent hoax about a secret order called the Priory of Sion. According to this theory, the Holy Grail is not a physical object, but a symbol of the bloodline of Jesus. The blood connection is based on the etymological reading of san greal (holy grail) as sang real (royal blood), which dates to the 15th century.^[12] The narrative developed here is that Jesus was not divine, and had children with Mary Magdalene, who took the family to France where their descendants became the Merovingians dynasty. While the Catholic Church worked to destroy the dynasty, they were protected by the Priory of Sion and their associates, including the Templars, Cathars, and other secret societies.^[54] The book, its arguments, and its evidence have been widely dismissed by scholars as pseudohistorical, but it has had a vast influence on conspiracy and alternate history books. It has also inspired fiction, most notably Dan Brown’s 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code and its 2006 film adaptation.^[55]

Music and painting[edit]

The combination of hushed reverence, chromatic harmonies and sexualized imagery in Richard Wagner’s final music drama Parsifal, premiered in 1882, developed this theme, associating the Grail – now periodically producing blood – directly with female fertility.^[56] The high seriousness of the subject was also epitomized in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting in which a woman modeled by Alexa Wilding holds the Grail with one hand, while adopting a gesture of blessing with the other.^[57]

A major mural series depicting the Quest for the Holy Grail was done by the artist Edwin Austin Abbey during the first decade of the 20th century for the Boston Public Library. Other artists, including George Frederic Watts^[58] and William Dyce, also portrayed grail subjects.^[59]

Literature[edit]

The story of the Grail and of the quest to find it became increasingly popular in the 19th century, referred to in literature such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Arthurian cycle Idylls of the King. A sexualised interpretation of the grail, now identified with female genitalia, appeared in 1870 in Hargrave Jennings’ book The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries.^[60]

• T. S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land (1922) loosely follows the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King combined with vignettes of contemporary British society. In his first note to the poem Eliot attributes the title to Jessie Weston’s book on the Grail legend, From Ritual to Romance. The allusion is to the wounding of the Fisher King and the subsequent sterility of his lands. A poem of the same title, though otherwise dissimilar, written by Madison Cawein, was published in 1913 in Poetry.^[61]
• In John Cowper Powys’s A Glastonbury Romance (1932) the «heroine is the Grail,»^[62] and its central concern is with the various myths and legends along with history associated with Glastonbury. It is also possible to see most of the main characters as undertaking a Grail quest.^[63]
• The Grail is central in Charles Williams’ novel War in Heaven (1930) and his two collections of poems about Taliessin, Taliessin Through Logres and Region of the Summer Stars (1938).
• The Silver Chalice (1952) is a non-Arthurian historical Grail novel by Thomas B. Costain.
• A quest for the Grail appears in Nelson DeMille’s adventure novel The Quest (1975), set during the 1970s.
• Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Arthurian revisionist fantasy novel The Mists of Avalon (1983) presented the Grail as a symbol of water, part of a set of objects representing the four classical elements.
• The main theme of Rosalind Miles’ Child of the Holy Grail (2000) in her Guenevere series is the story of the Grail quest by the 14-year-old Galahad.
• The Grail motif features heavily in Umberto Eco’s 2000 novel Baudolino, set in the 12th century.
• It is the subject of Bernard Cornwell’s historical fiction series of books The Grail Quest (2000–2012), set during the Hundred Years War. In his series the Warlord Chronicles, an adaptation of the Arthurian legend, Cornwell also reimagines the Grail quest as a quest for a cauldron which is one of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain from Celtic mythology.
• Influenced by the 1982 publication of the ostensibly non-fiction The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (2003) has the «grail» taken to refer to Mary Magdalene as the «receptacle» of Jesus’ bloodline (playing on the sang real etymology). In Brown’s novel, it is hinted that this Grail was long buried beneath Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, but that in recent decades its guardians had it moved to a secret chamber embedded in the floor beneath the Inverted Pyramid in the entrance of the Louvre museum.
• Michael Moorcock’s fantasy novel The War Hound and the World’s Pain (1981) depicts a supernatural Grail quest set in the era of the Thirty Years’ War.
• German history and fantasy novel author Rainer M. Schröder wrote the trilogy Die Bruderschaft vom Heiligen Gral (The Brotherhood of the Holy Grail) about a group of four Knights Templar who save the Grail from the Fall of Acco 1291 and go through an Odyssey to bring it to the Temple in Paris in the first two books, Der Fall von Akkon (2006) and Das Amulett der Wüstenkrieger (2006), while defending the holy relic from the attempts of a satanic sect called Iscarians to steal it. In the third book, Das Labyrinth der schwarzen Abtei (2007), the four heroes must reunite to smuggle the Holy Grail out of the Temple in Paris after the fall of the Knights Templar 1307, again pursued by the Iscarians (who in the novel used the King’s animosity against the Templars to their advantage). Interestingly, Schröder also indirectly addresses the Cathar Theory by letting the four heroes encounter Cathars – among them old friends from their flight from Acco – on their way to Portugal to seek refuge with the King of Portugal and travel further west.
• The 15th novel in The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher, Skin Game (2014), features Harry Dresden being recruited by Denarian and longtime enemy Nicodemus into a heist team seeking to retrieve the Holy Grail from the vault of Hades, the lord of the Underworld. The properties of the item are not explicit, but the relic itself makes an appearance and is in the hands of Nicodemus by the end of the novel’s events.
• The Holy Grail features prominently in Jack Vance’s Lyonesse Trilogy, where it is the subject of an earlier quest, several generations before the birth of King Arthur. However, in contrast to the Arthurian canon, Vance’s Grail is a common object lacking any magical or spiritual qualities, and the characters finding it derive little benefit.
• Grails: Quests of the Dawn (1994), edited by Richard Gilliam, Martin H. Greenberg, and Edward E. Kramer is a collection of 25 short stories about the grail by various science fiction and fantasy writers.

Film and other media[edit]

In the cinema, the Holy Grail debuted in the 1904 silent film Parsifal, an adaptation of Wagner’s opera by Edwin S. Porter. More recent cinematic adaptations include Costain’s The Silver Chalice made into a 1954 film by Victor Saville and Brown’s The Da Vinci Code turned into a 2006 film by Ron Howard.

• The silent drama film The Light in the Dark (1922) involves discovery of the Grail in modern times.
• Robert Bresson’s fantasy film Lancelot du Lac (1974) includes a more realistic version of the Grail quest from Arthurian romances.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) is a comedic take on the Arthurian Grail quest, adapted in 2004 as the stage production Spamalot.
• John Boorman, in his fantasy film Excalibur (1981), attempted to restore a more traditional heroic representation of an Arthurian tale, in which the Grail is revealed as a mystical means to revitalise Arthur and the barren land to which his depressive sickness is connected.
• Steven Spielberg’s adventure film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) features Indiana Jones and his father in a race for the Grail against the Nazis.
• In a pair of fifth-season episodes (September 1989), entitled «Legend of the Holy Rose,» MacGyver undertakes a quest for the Grail.
• Terry Gilliam’s comedy-drama film The Fisher King (1991) features the Grail quest in the modern New York City.
• In the season one episode «Grail» (1994) of the television series Babylon 5, a man named Aldous Gajic visits Babylon 5 in his continuing quest to find the Holy Grail. His quest is primarily a plot device, as the episode’s action revolves not around the quest but rather around his presence and impact on the life of a station resident.
• The video game Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned (1999) features an alternate version of the Grail, interwoven with the mythology of the Knights Templar. The Holy Grail is revealed in the story to be the blood of Jesus Christ that contains his power, only accessible to those descended from him, with the vessel of the Grail being defined as his body itself which the Templars uncovered in the Holy Lands.
• In Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, the Holy Grail (Sehai in the anime, or Rainbow Moon Chalice) is the magical object with which Sailor Moon transforms in her Super form.
• A science fiction version of the Grail Quest is central theme in the Stargate SG-1 season 10 episode «The Quest» (2006).
• The song «Holy Grail» by Jay-Z featuring Justin Timberlake was released in 2013.
• In the video game Persona 5 (2016), the Holy Grail is the Treasure of the game’s final Palace, representing the combined desires of all of humanity for a higher power to take control of their lives and make a world that has no sense of individuality.
• In the television series Knightfall (2017), the search for the Holy Grail by the Knights Templar is a major theme of the series’ first season. The Grail, which appears as a simple earthenware cup, is coveted by various factions including the Pope, who thinks that possession of it will enable him to ignite another Crusade.
• In the Fate franchise, the Holy Grail serves as the prize of the Holy Grail War, granting a single wish to the victor of the battle royale. However, it is hinted at throughout the series that this Grail is not the real chalice of Christ, but is actually an item of uncertain nature created by mages some generations ago.
• In the Assassin’s Creed video game franchise the Holy Grail is mentioned. In the original game, one Templar refers to the main relic of the game as the Holy Grail, although it was later discovered to be one of many Apples of Eden. The Holy Grail was mentioned again in Templar Legends, either ending up in Scotland or Spain by different accounts. The Holy Grail appears again in Assassin’s Creed: Altaïr’s Chronicles, by the name of the Chalice, however this time not as an object but as a woman named Adha, similar to the sang rael, or royal blood, interpretation.
• In the fourth series of The Grand Tour, the trio goes to Nosy Boraha where they accidentally find the Holy Grail while searching for La Buse’s buried treasure.
• In the 17th episode of Little Witch Academia, «Amanda O’Neill and the Holy Grail», the Holy Grail is used as a plot device in which witches Amanda O’Neill and Akko Kagari set out to find the item itself at Appleton School.
• In the 12th episode of season 9 of the American show The Office, Jim Halpert sends Dwight Schrute on a wild goose chase to find the Holy Grail. After Dwight completing all the clues to find it, but coming up empty handed, the camera cuts to Glenn drinking out of it in his office. ^[64]
• In the 2022 Christmas special episode of the British TV Series Detectorists, «Special», Lance finds a crockery cup, eyes only, in a field that turns out to be where a historic battle took place and a reliquary containing the Holy Grail was lost. A montage shows how the same crockery cup went from the hands of Jesus at the Last Supper (implied) to being lost in the field.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Barber, Richard (2004). The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief. Harvard University Press.
• Campbell, Joseph (1990). Transformations of Myth Through Time. Harper & Row Publishers, New York.
• Loomis, Roger Sherman (1991). The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol. Princeton. ISBN 0-691-02075-2
• Weston, Jessie L. (1993; originally published 1920). From Ritual To Romance. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
• Wood, Juliette (2012). The Holy Grail: History and Legend. University of Wales Press. ISBN 9780708325247.

External links[edit]

• Holy Grail on In Our Time at the BBC
• The Holy Grail at the Camelot Project
• The Holy Grail at the Catholic Encyclopedia
• The Holy Grail today in Valencia Cathedral
• (in French) XVth-century Old French Estoire del saint Graal manuscript BNF fr. 113 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, selection of illuminated folios, Modern French Translation, Commentaries.
• The full text of Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail at Wikisource

This article is about the object of Arthurian legend. For the cup from the Last Supper, see Holy Chalice.

Grail
Matter of Britain element
The Damsel of the Sanct Grael by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1874)
First appearance	Perceval, le Conte du Graal
Created by	Chrétien de Troyes
Genre	Chivalric romance
In-universe information
Type	Religious relic
Owners	Perceval and his sister, Grail Family (Fisher King, Grail Maiden), Joseph of Arimathea, Knights of the Round Table (Galahad, Bors), Morgan
Function	Quest subject
Traits and abilities	Healing, restoring the Wasteland, providing nourishment, granting ascension or eternal life

The Holy Grail (French: Saint Graal, Breton: Graal Santel, Welsh: Greal Sanctaidd, Cornish: Gral) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often guarded in the custody of the Fisher King and located in the hidden Grail castle. By analogy, any elusive object or goal of great significance may be perceived as a «holy grail» by those seeking such.^[1]

A «grail» (Old French: graal or greal), wondrous but not unequivocally holy, first appears in Perceval, the Story of the Grail, an unfinished chivalric romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. Chrétien’s story inspired many continuations, translators and interpreters in the later-12th and early-13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, who perceived the Grail as a stone. The Christian, Celtic or possibly other origins of the Arthurian grail trope are uncertain and have been debated amongst literary scholars and historians.

In the late-12th century, Robert de Boron in Joseph d’Arimathie portrayed the Grail as Jesus’s vessel from the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch Christ’s blood at the crucifixion. Thereafter, the Holy Grail became interwoven with the legend of the Holy Chalice, the Last Supper cup, an idea continued in works such as the Lancelot-Grail cycle and consequently the 15th-century Le Morte d’Arthur.^[2] In this form, it is now a popular theme in modern culture and has become the subject of pseudohistorical writings and of conspiracy theories.

Etymology[edit]

The word graal, as it is earliest spelled, comes from Old French graal or greal, cognate with Old Occitan grazal and Old Catalan gresal, meaning «a cup or bowl of earth, wood, or metal» (or other various types of vessels in different Occitan dialects).^[3] The most commonly accepted etymology derives it from Latin gradalis or gradale via an earlier form, cratalis, a derivative of crater or cratus, which was, in turn, borrowed from Ancient Greek krater (κρᾱτήρ, a large wine-mixing vessel).^{[3][4][5][6][7]} Alternative suggestions include a derivative of cratis, a name for a type of woven basket that came to refer to a dish,^[8] or a derivative of Latin gradus meaning «‘by degree’, ‘by stages’, applied to a dish brought to the table in different stages or services during a meal».^[9]

In the 15th century, English writer John Hardyng invented a fanciful new etymology for Old French san-graal (or san-gréal), meaning «Holy Grail», by parsing it as sang réal, meaning «royal blood».^[10][11] This etymology was used by some later medieval British writers such as Thomas Malory, and became prominent in the conspiracy theory developed in the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, in which sang real refers to the Jesus bloodline.^[12]

Medieval literature[edit]

The literature surrounding the Grail can be divided into two groups. 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 works from the first group are:

• Perceval, the Story of the Grail by Chrétien de Troyes.
• The Four Continuations of Chrétien’s unfinished poem, by authors of differing vision and talent, designed to bring the story to a close.
• Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, which adapted at least the holiness of Robert’s Grail into the framework of Chrétien’s story. In Wolfram’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 Benedictine monks, have identified the castle with their real sanctuary of Montserrat in Catalonia.
• The Didot Perceval, named after the manuscript’s former owner, and purportedly a prosification of Robert de Boron’s sequel to Joseph d’Arimathie and Merlin.
• Welsh romance Peredur son of Efrawg, a loose translation of Chrétien’s poem and the Continuations, with some influence from native Welsh literature.
• Perlesvaus, called the «least canonical» Grail romance because of its very different character.
• German poem Diu Crône (The Crown), in which Gawain, rather than Perceval, achieves the Grail.
• The Lancelot section of the vast Vulgate Cycle introduced the new Grail hero, Galahad. The Queste del Saint Graal, a follow-up part of the cycle, concerns Galahad’s eventual achievement of the Grail.

Of the second group 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.
• Verses by Rigaut de Barbezieux, a late 12th or early 13th-century^[13] Provençal troubador, where mention is made of Perceval, the lance, and the Grail («Like Perceval when he lived, who stood amazed in contemplation, so that he was quite unable to ask what purpose the lance and grail served» – «Attressi con Persavaus el temps que vivia, que s’esbait d’esgarder tant qu’anc non saup demandar de que servia la lansa ni-l grazaus«^[14]).

The Grail was considered a bowl or dish when first described by Chrétien de Troyes. There, it is a processional salver, a tray, used to serve at a feast.^[15] Hélinand of Froidmont described a grail as a «wide and deep saucer» (scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda); other authors had their own ideas. Robert de Boron portrayed it as the vessel of the Last Supper. Peredur son of Efrawg had no Grail as such, presenting the hero instead with a platter containing his kinsman’s bloody, severed head.^[16]

Chrétien de Troyes[edit]

The Grail is first featured in Perceval, le Conte du Graal (The Story of the Grail) by Chrétien de Troyes,^[17] who claims he was working from a source book given to him by his patron, Count Philip of Flanders.^[18] 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».^[19]

Chrétien refers to this object not as «The Grail» but as «a grail» (un graal), showing the word was used, in its earliest literary context, as a common noun. For Chrétien, a 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 Communion 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 honour. The story of the Wounded King’s mystical fasting is not unique; several saints were said to have lived without food besides communion, for instance Saint Catherine of Genoa. This may imply that Chrétien intended the Communion wafer to be the significant part of the ritual, and the Grail to be a mere prop.^[20]

Robert de Boron[edit]

Though Chrétien’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 its Christian context.^[21] 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. He founds a dynasty of Grail keepers that eventually includes Perceval.

Wolfram von Eschenbach[edit]

In Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach, citing the authority of a certain (probably fictional) Kyot the Provençal, claimed the Grail was a Stone, the sanctuary of the neutral angels who took neither side during Lucifer’s rebellion. It is called Lapis exillis, which in alchemy is the name of the Philosopher’s stone.^[22]

Lancelot-Grail[edit]

The authors of the Vulgate Cycle used the Grail as a symbol of divine grace; the virgin Galahad, illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine, the world’s greatest knight and the Grail Bearer at the castle of Corbenic, is destined to achieve the Grail, his spiritual purity making him a greater warrior than even his illustrious father.^[23] The Queste del Saint Graal (The Quest of The Holy Grail) tells also of the adventures of various Knights of the Round Table in their eponymous quest. Some of them, including Percival and Bors the Younger, eventually join Galahad as his companions near the successful end of the Grail Quest and are witnesses of his ascension to Heaven.

Galahad and the interpretation of the Grail involving him were picked up in the 15th century by Thomas Malory in Le Morte d’Arthur and remain popular today.^[24] While it is not explicit that the Holy Grail is never to be seen again on Earth, it is stated by Malory that there has since then been no knight capable of obtaining it.

Scholarly hypotheses[edit]

Scholars have long speculated on the origins of the Holy Grail before Chrétien, suggesting that it may contain elements of the trope of magical cauldrons from Celtic mythology and later Welsh mythology combined with Christian legend surrounding the Eucharist,^[25] the latter found in Eastern Christian sources, conceivably in that of the Byzantine Mass, or even Persian sources.^[26] The view that the «origin» of the Grail legend should be seen as deriving from Celtic mythology was championed by Roger Sherman Loomis, Alfred Nutt and Jessie Weston. 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.

The opposing view dismissed the «Celtic» connections as spurious and interpreted the legend as essentially Christian in origin. Joseph Goering 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), 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 Chrétien de Troyes. Goering argues that they were the original inspiration for the Grail legend.^[27][28]

Psychologists Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz used analytical psychology to interpret the Grail as a series of symbols in their book The Grail Legend.^[29] This expanded on interpretations by Carl Jung, which were later invoked by Joseph Campbell.^[29]

Richard Barber (2004) argued that the Grail legend is connected to the introduction of «more ceremony and mysticism» surrounding the sacrament of the Eucharist in the high medieval period, proposing that the first Grail stories may have been connected to the «renewal in this traditional sacrament».^[30] Daniel Scavone (1999, 2003) has argued that the «Grail» in origin referred to the Image of Edessa.^[31] Goulven Peron (2016) suggested that the Holy Grail may reflect the horn of the river-god Achelous as described by Ovid in the Metamorphoses.^[32]

Later traditions[edit]

Relics[edit]

In the wake of the Arthurian romances, several artifacts came to be identified as the Holy Grail in medieval relic veneration. These artifacts are said to have been the vessel used at the Last Supper, but other details vary. Despite the prominence of the Grail literature, traditions about a Last Supper relic remained rare in contrast to other items associated with Jesus’ last days, such as the True Cross and Holy Lance.^[33]

One tradition predates the Grail romances: in the 7th century, the pilgrim Arculf reported that the Last Supper chalice was displayed near Jerusalem.^[33][34] In the wake of Robert de Boron’s Grail works, several other items came to be claimed as the true Last Supper vessel. In the late 12th century, one was said to be in Byzantium; Albrecht von Scharfenberg’s Grail romance Der Jüngere Titurel associated it explicitly with the Arthurian Grail, but claimed it was only a copy.^[8] This item was said to have been looted in the Fourth Crusade and brought to Troyes in France, but it was lost during the French Revolution.^[35][36]

Two relics associated with the Grail survive today. The Sacro Catino (Sacred Basin, also known as the Genoa Chalice) is a green glass dish held at the Genoa Cathedral said to have been used at the Last Supper. Its provenance is unknown, and there are two divergent accounts of how it was brought to Genoa by Crusaders in the 12th century. It was not associated with the Last Supper until later, in the wake of the Grail romances; the first known association is in Jacobus de Voragine’s chronicle of Genoa in the late 13th century, which draws on the Grail literary tradition. The Catino was moved and broken during Napoleon’s conquest in the early 19th century, revealing that it is glass rather than emerald.^[8][37]

The Holy Chalice of Valencia is an agate dish with a mounting for use as a chalice. The bowl may date to Greco-Roman times, but its dating is unclear, and its provenance is unknown before 1399, when it was gifted to Martin I of Aragon. By the 14th century an elaborate tradition had developed that this object was the Last Supper chalice. This tradition mirrors aspects of the Grail material, with several major differences, suggesting a separate tradition entirely. It is not associated with Joseph of Arimathea or Jesus’ blood; it is said to have been taken to Rome by Saint Peter and later entrusted to Saint Lawrence.^[38][39] Early references do not call the object the «Grail»; the first evidence connecting it to the Grail tradition is from the 15th century.^[40] The monarchy sold the cup in the 15th century to Valencia Cathedral, where it remains a significant local icon.^[41]

Several objects were identified with the Holy Grail in the 17th century.^[35] In the 20th century, a series of new items became associated with it. These include the Nanteos Cup, a medieval wooden bowl found near Rhydyfelin, Wales; a glass dish found near Glastonbury, England; the Antioch chalice, a 6th-century silver-gilt object that became attached to the Grail legend in the 1930s,^[42] and the Chalice of Doña Urraca, a cup made between 200 BC and 100 AD, kept in León’s basilica of Saint Isidore.^[43]

Locations associated with the Holy Grail[edit]

In the modern era, a number of places have become associated with the Holy Grail. One of the most prominent is Glastonbury in Somerset, England. Glastonbury was associated with King Arthur and his resting place of Avalon by the 12th century.^[44] In the 13th century, a legend arose that Joseph of Arimathea was the founder of Glastonbury Abbey. Early accounts of Joseph at Glastonbury focus on his role as the evangelist of Britain rather than as the custodian of the Holy Grail, but from the 15th century, the Grail became a more prominent part of the legends surrounding Glastonbury.^[45] Interest in Glastonbury resurged in the late 19th century, inspired by renewed interest in the Arthurian legend and contemporary spiritual movements centered on ancient sacred sites.^[46] In the late 19th century, John Goodchild hid a glass bowl near Glastonbury; a group of his friends, including Wellesley Tudor Pole, retrieved the cup in 1906 and promoted it as the original Holy Grail.^[47] Glastonbury and its Holy Grail legend have since become a point of focus for various New Age and Neopagan groups.^[48]

In the early 20th century, esoteric writers identified Montségur, a stronghold of the heretical Cathar sect in the 13th century, as the Grail castle. Similarly, the 14th-century Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian, Scotland, became attached to the Grail legend in the mid-20th century when a succession of conspiracy books identified it as a secret hiding place of the Grail.^[49]

Modern interpretations[edit]

Pseudohistory and conspiracy theories[edit]

Since the 19th century, the Holy Grail has been linked to various conspiracy theories. In 1818, Austrian pseudohistorical writer Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall connected the Grail to contemporary myths surrounding the Knights Templar that cast the order as a secret society dedicated to mystical knowledge and relics. In Hammer-Purgstall’s work, the Grail is not a physical relic but a symbol of the secret knowledge that the Templars sought. There is no historical evidence linking the Templars to a search for the Grail, but subsequent writers have elaborated on the Templar theories.^[50]

Starting in the early 20th century, writers, particularly in France, further connected the Templars and Grail to the Cathars. In 1906, French esoteric writer Joséphin Péladan identified the Cathar castle of Montségur with Munsalväsche or Montsalvat, the Grail castle in Wolfram’s Parzival. This identification has inspired a wider legend asserting that the Cathars possessed the Holy Grail.^[51] According to these stories, the Cathars guarded the Grail at Montségur, and smuggled it out when the castle fell in 1244.^[52]

Beginning in 1933, German writer Otto Rahn published a series of books tying the Grail, Templars, and Cathars to modern German nationalist mythology. According to Rahn, the Grail was a symbol of a pure Germanic religion repressed by Christianity. Rahn’s books inspired interest in the Grail within the Nazi occultist circles and led to the SS chief Heinrich Himmler’s abortive sponsorship of Rahn’s search for the Grail, as well as many subsequent conspiracy theories and fictional works about the Nazis searching for the Grail.^[53]

In the late 20th century, writers Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln created one of the most widely known conspiracy theories about the Holy Grail. The theory first appeared in the BBC documentary series Chronicle in the 1970s, and was elaborated upon in the bestselling 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail.^[12] The theory combines myths about the Templars and Cathars with various other legends and a prominent hoax about a secret order called the Priory of Sion. According to this theory, the Holy Grail is not a physical object, but a symbol of the bloodline of Jesus. The blood connection is based on the etymological reading of san greal (holy grail) as sang real (royal blood), which dates to the 15th century.^[12] The narrative developed here is that Jesus was not divine, and had children with Mary Magdalene, who took the family to France where their descendants became the Merovingians dynasty. While the Catholic Church worked to destroy the dynasty, they were protected by the Priory of Sion and their associates, including the Templars, Cathars, and other secret societies.^[54] The book, its arguments, and its evidence have been widely dismissed by scholars as pseudohistorical, but it has had a vast influence on conspiracy and alternate history books. It has also inspired fiction, most notably Dan Brown’s 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code and its 2006 film adaptation.^[55]

Music and painting[edit]

The combination of hushed reverence, chromatic harmonies and sexualized imagery in Richard Wagner’s final music drama Parsifal, premiered in 1882, developed this theme, associating the Grail – now periodically producing blood – directly with female fertility.^[56] The high seriousness of the subject was also epitomized in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting in which a woman modeled by Alexa Wilding holds the Grail with one hand, while adopting a gesture of blessing with the other.^[57]

A major mural series depicting the Quest for the Holy Grail was done by the artist Edwin Austin Abbey during the first decade of the 20th century for the Boston Public Library. Other artists, including George Frederic Watts^[58] and William Dyce, also portrayed grail subjects.^[59]

Literature[edit]

The story of the Grail and of the quest to find it became increasingly popular in the 19th century, referred to in literature such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Arthurian cycle Idylls of the King. A sexualised interpretation of the grail, now identified with female genitalia, appeared in 1870 in Hargrave Jennings’ book The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries.^[60]

• T. S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land (1922) loosely follows the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King combined with vignettes of contemporary British society. In his first note to the poem Eliot attributes the title to Jessie Weston’s book on the Grail legend, From Ritual to Romance. The allusion is to the wounding of the Fisher King and the subsequent sterility of his lands. A poem of the same title, though otherwise dissimilar, written by Madison Cawein, was published in 1913 in Poetry.^[61]
• In John Cowper Powys’s A Glastonbury Romance (1932) the «heroine is the Grail,»^[62] and its central concern is with the various myths and legends along with history associated with Glastonbury. It is also possible to see most of the main characters as undertaking a Grail quest.^[63]
• The Grail is central in Charles Williams’ novel War in Heaven (1930) and his two collections of poems about Taliessin, Taliessin Through Logres and Region of the Summer Stars (1938).
• The Silver Chalice (1952) is a non-Arthurian historical Grail novel by Thomas B. Costain.
• A quest for the Grail appears in Nelson DeMille’s adventure novel The Quest (1975), set during the 1970s.
• Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Arthurian revisionist fantasy novel The Mists of Avalon (1983) presented the Grail as a symbol of water, part of a set of objects representing the four classical elements.
• The main theme of Rosalind Miles’ Child of the Holy Grail (2000) in her Guenevere series is the story of the Grail quest by the 14-year-old Galahad.
• The Grail motif features heavily in Umberto Eco’s 2000 novel Baudolino, set in the 12th century.
• It is the subject of Bernard Cornwell’s historical fiction series of books The Grail Quest (2000–2012), set during the Hundred Years War. In his series the Warlord Chronicles, an adaptation of the Arthurian legend, Cornwell also reimagines the Grail quest as a quest for a cauldron which is one of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain from Celtic mythology.
• Influenced by the 1982 publication of the ostensibly non-fiction The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (2003) has the «grail» taken to refer to Mary Magdalene as the «receptacle» of Jesus’ bloodline (playing on the sang real etymology). In Brown’s novel, it is hinted that this Grail was long buried beneath Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, but that in recent decades its guardians had it moved to a secret chamber embedded in the floor beneath the Inverted Pyramid in the entrance of the Louvre museum.
• Michael Moorcock’s fantasy novel The War Hound and the World’s Pain (1981) depicts a supernatural Grail quest set in the era of the Thirty Years’ War.
• German history and fantasy novel author Rainer M. Schröder wrote the trilogy Die Bruderschaft vom Heiligen Gral (The Brotherhood of the Holy Grail) about a group of four Knights Templar who save the Grail from the Fall of Acco 1291 and go through an Odyssey to bring it to the Temple in Paris in the first two books, Der Fall von Akkon (2006) and Das Amulett der Wüstenkrieger (2006), while defending the holy relic from the attempts of a satanic sect called Iscarians to steal it. In the third book, Das Labyrinth der schwarzen Abtei (2007), the four heroes must reunite to smuggle the Holy Grail out of the Temple in Paris after the fall of the Knights Templar 1307, again pursued by the Iscarians (who in the novel used the King’s animosity against the Templars to their advantage). Interestingly, Schröder also indirectly addresses the Cathar Theory by letting the four heroes encounter Cathars – among them old friends from their flight from Acco – on their way to Portugal to seek refuge with the King of Portugal and travel further west.
• The 15th novel in The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher, Skin Game (2014), features Harry Dresden being recruited by Denarian and longtime enemy Nicodemus into a heist team seeking to retrieve the Holy Grail from the vault of Hades, the lord of the Underworld. The properties of the item are not explicit, but the relic itself makes an appearance and is in the hands of Nicodemus by the end of the novel’s events.
• The Holy Grail features prominently in Jack Vance’s Lyonesse Trilogy, where it is the subject of an earlier quest, several generations before the birth of King Arthur. However, in contrast to the Arthurian canon, Vance’s Grail is a common object lacking any magical or spiritual qualities, and the characters finding it derive little benefit.
• Grails: Quests of the Dawn (1994), edited by Richard Gilliam, Martin H. Greenberg, and Edward E. Kramer is a collection of 25 short stories about the grail by various science fiction and fantasy writers.

Film and other media[edit]

In the cinema, the Holy Grail debuted in the 1904 silent film Parsifal, an adaptation of Wagner’s opera by Edwin S. Porter. More recent cinematic adaptations include Costain’s The Silver Chalice made into a 1954 film by Victor Saville and Brown’s The Da Vinci Code turned into a 2006 film by Ron Howard.

• The silent drama film The Light in the Dark (1922) involves discovery of the Grail in modern times.
• Robert Bresson’s fantasy film Lancelot du Lac (1974) includes a more realistic version of the Grail quest from Arthurian romances.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) is a comedic take on the Arthurian Grail quest, adapted in 2004 as the stage production Spamalot.
• John Boorman, in his fantasy film Excalibur (1981), attempted to restore a more traditional heroic representation of an Arthurian tale, in which the Grail is revealed as a mystical means to revitalise Arthur and the barren land to which his depressive sickness is connected.
• Steven Spielberg’s adventure film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) features Indiana Jones and his father in a race for the Grail against the Nazis.
• In a pair of fifth-season episodes (September 1989), entitled «Legend of the Holy Rose,» MacGyver undertakes a quest for the Grail.
• Terry Gilliam’s comedy-drama film The Fisher King (1991) features the Grail quest in the modern New York City.
• In the season one episode «Grail» (1994) of the television series Babylon 5, a man named Aldous Gajic visits Babylon 5 in his continuing quest to find the Holy Grail. His quest is primarily a plot device, as the episode’s action revolves not around the quest but rather around his presence and impact on the life of a station resident.
• The video game Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned (1999) features an alternate version of the Grail, interwoven with the mythology of the Knights Templar. The Holy Grail is revealed in the story to be the blood of Jesus Christ that contains his power, only accessible to those descended from him, with the vessel of the Grail being defined as his body itself which the Templars uncovered in the Holy Lands.
• In Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, the Holy Grail (Sehai in the anime, or Rainbow Moon Chalice) is the magical object with which Sailor Moon transforms in her Super form.
• A science fiction version of the Grail Quest is central theme in the Stargate SG-1 season 10 episode «The Quest» (2006).
• The song «Holy Grail» by Jay-Z featuring Justin Timberlake was released in 2013.
• In the video game Persona 5 (2016), the Holy Grail is the Treasure of the game’s final Palace, representing the combined desires of all of humanity for a higher power to take control of their lives and make a world that has no sense of individuality.
• In the television series Knightfall (2017), the search for the Holy Grail by the Knights Templar is a major theme of the series’ first season. The Grail, which appears as a simple earthenware cup, is coveted by various factions including the Pope, who thinks that possession of it will enable him to ignite another Crusade.
• In the Fate franchise, the Holy Grail serves as the prize of the Holy Grail War, granting a single wish to the victor of the battle royale. However, it is hinted at throughout the series that this Grail is not the real chalice of Christ, but is actually an item of uncertain nature created by mages some generations ago.
• In the Assassin’s Creed video game franchise the Holy Grail is mentioned. In the original game, one Templar refers to the main relic of the game as the Holy Grail, although it was later discovered to be one of many Apples of Eden. The Holy Grail was mentioned again in Templar Legends, either ending up in Scotland or Spain by different accounts. The Holy Grail appears again in Assassin’s Creed: Altaïr’s Chronicles, by the name of the Chalice, however this time not as an object but as a woman named Adha, similar to the sang rael, or royal blood, interpretation.
• In the fourth series of The Grand Tour, the trio goes to Nosy Boraha where they accidentally find the Holy Grail while searching for La Buse’s buried treasure.
• In the 17th episode of Little Witch Academia, «Amanda O’Neill and the Holy Grail», the Holy Grail is used as a plot device in which witches Amanda O’Neill and Akko Kagari set out to find the item itself at Appleton School.
• In the 12th episode of season 9 of the American show The Office, Jim Halpert sends Dwight Schrute on a wild goose chase to find the Holy Grail. After Dwight completing all the clues to find it, but coming up empty handed, the camera cuts to Glenn drinking out of it in his office. ^[64]
• In the 2022 Christmas special episode of the British TV Series Detectorists, «Special», Lance finds a crockery cup, eyes only, in a field that turns out to be where a historic battle took place and a reliquary containing the Holy Grail was lost. A montage shows how the same crockery cup went from the hands of Jesus at the Last Supper (implied) to being lost in the field.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Barber, Richard (2004). The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief. Harvard University Press.
• Campbell, Joseph (1990). Transformations of Myth Through Time. Harper & Row Publishers, New York.
• Loomis, Roger Sherman (1991). The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol. Princeton. ISBN 0-691-02075-2
• Weston, Jessie L. (1993; originally published 1920). From Ritual To Romance. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
• Wood, Juliette (2012). The Holy Grail: History and Legend. University of Wales Press. ISBN 9780708325247.

External links[edit]

• Holy Grail on In Our Time at the BBC
• The Holy Grail at the Camelot Project
• The Holy Grail at the Catholic Encyclopedia
• The Holy Grail today in Valencia Cathedral
• (in French) XVth-century Old French Estoire del saint Graal manuscript BNF fr. 113 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, selection of illuminated folios, Modern French Translation, Commentaries.
• The full text of Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail at Wikisource

Свято́й Граа́ль (старофр. Graal, Grâl, Sangreal, Sankgreal, лат. Gradalis) — в средневековых кельтских и нормандских легендах одно из орудий Страстей — чаша, из которой Иисус Христос вкушал на Тайной вечере и в которую Иосиф Аримафейский собрал кровь из ран распятого на кресте Спасителя.

Легендарные рыцари Круглого стола проводили свою жизнь в бесплодных поисках Святого Грааля, который (вместе с копьём, пронзившим тело Христа), якобы сохранил и привёз в Британию Иосиф Аримафейский. В наиболее ранних текстах Грааль трактуется не как чаша, а как камень или некая драгоценная реликвия^[1].

Испивший из чаши Грааля получает прощение грехов, вечную жизнь и т. д. В некоторых версиях даже близкое созерцание даёт бессмертие, а также различные блага в виде еды, питья и т. п. Слова «Святой Грааль» часто используются в переносном смысле как обозначение какой-либо заветной цели, часто недостижимой или труднодостижимой.

Поиски Грааля

В IX веке благочестивая Европа начала «охотиться» за реликвиями, связанными с земной жизнью Христа. Своего апогея этот процесс достиг в XIII веке, когда Людовик Святой привёз в Париж из Константинополя и поместил в построенной для этой цели Святой Капелле ряд орудий Страстей, чья подлинность мало у кого вызывала сомнение.

Однако среди орудий Страстей, которые выставлялись в различных храмах Европы, отсутствовала чаша, из которой вкушал Иисус на тайной вечере. Это обстоятельство подстегнуло толки и предания об её местонахождении. В противовес Парижу, который «монополизировал» многие святыни христианства, часть современной Франции, принадлежавшая английской короне, выдвинула легенду о чаше, которая скрыта где-то на просторах Британии.

В средневековых романах о Персифале главный герой ищет и находит волшебный замок Мунсальвеш, в котором под охраной тамплиеров хранится Грааль. В некоторых описаниях Грааль весьма напоминает неиссякаемый сосуд из более древних кельтских легенд, который по своей функции сходен с аналогичными предметами в мифологии других индоевропейских народов, в частности, с рогом изобилия (см. ниже).

Начиная с Робера де Борона пребывание Иосифа Аримафейского в Британии стали связывать с Гластонберийским холмом. В 1190 г. монахи Гластонберийского аббатства объявили об обнаружении саркофагов короля Артура и его супруги Гвиневры. В 1278 г. прошла торжественная церемония их перезахоронения, на которой присутствовали король Эдуард I с супругой. С тех пор Грааль в воображении позднейших поколений был неразрывно связан с Гластонбери.

В средневековой литературе

• 1181—1191 гг. — «Персеваль, или Легенда о Граале», Кретьен де Труа
• 1190—1198 гг. — трилогия «История Святого Грааля»: «Роман об Иосифе Аримафейском», «Мерлин» (частично сохр.) и «Персеваль» (не сохр.), Робер де Борон (Бургундия)
• 1215—1236 гг. — «Цикл Вульгаты»: «История Святого Грааля», «История Мерлина», «Книга Ланселота», «Поиски Святого Грааля» и «Смерть Артура».

В романе Вольфрама Фон Эшенбаха «Парсиваль» Грааль — это камень:

Святого Мунсальвеша стены

Катары и ночью и днем стерегут.

Святой Грааль хранится в нем,

Грааль — это камень особой породы.

На наш язык пока что нет перевода,

Он излучает волшебный свет!

Но как попасть в Граалево братство?

Надпись на камне сумей прочитать!

Она появляется время от времени,

С указанием имени, рода, племени,

А также пола того лица,

Что призван Граалю служить до конца.

Чудесная надпись ничем не стирается,

А по прочтении, за словом слово,

Гаснет, чтобы появиться снова

Дальнейший список в урочный час,

И так же, прочтенный, погас…

В другом месте Эшенбах упоминает один из катарских обрядов:

«В тот же день к Граалю приходит известие, в котором заложена огромнейшая сила. Сегодная Святая Пятница, и все ждут, когда с небес спустится голубка. Она приносит маленькую облатку и оставляет её на камне. Затем, сверкая белизной, голубка вновь взмывает в небеса. Всегда в Святую Пятницу она приносит к Граалю то, от чего Грааль обретает нежное благоухание…»

Томас Мэлори, писавший о рыцарях Круглого стола, тоже упоминает чашу Грааль:

«Но вот очутилась в зале Священная чаша Грааль под белым парчовым покровом, однако никому не дано было видеть её и ту, что её внесла. Только наполнилась зала сладостными ароматами, и перед каждым рыцарем оказались яства и напитки, какие были ему более всего по вкусу».

Артуровский цикл

В артуровском цикле Грааль появляется во французском куртуазном романе — впервые у Кретьена де Труа в книге «Персеваль, или Легенда о Граале».

С Граалем связаны имена двух рыцарей Круглого стола — Персифаля и Галахада. Персифаль лицезрел Грааль, когда посещал своего родственника, Короля-Рыбака. Этот король на глазах рыцаря исцелился, испив святой воды из чаши Грааля.

Галахад считается святым рыцарем, единственным человеком, которому удалось добыть Грааль. С детства воспитанный монахами в целомудрии и праведной жизни, Галахад заслужил право прикоснуться к святыне. После этого он был вознесен на небо как святой.

Чаши, выдаваемые за Грааль

В XIX веке несколько (порядка шести-семи) городов объявили о том, что они обладают Граалем:

• Кафедральный собор Валенсии демонстрирует в зале капитула экземпляр чаши, якобы признанный в качестве подлинного самим Ватиканом^[2].
• В 1933 году на Всемирной выставке в Чикаго как Святой Грааль была продемонстрирована чаша из антиохийского клада, которая позднее была датирована VI веком.^[3]

Многие путеводители по Турину утверждают, что чаша Грааля находится именно в этом городе. Перед храмом Великой Богоматери расположены 2 статуи — Веры и Религии. Статуя Веры держит в левой руке чашу, в которой местные жители видят изображение чаши Грааля. В путеводителях сказано, что взгляд статуи указывает то направление, в котором следует её искать.

Грааль и кельтская мифология

Если обратиться к кельтским мифам, то волшебная чаша присутствует и в них и, предположительно, их образ мог повлиять на сложение идеи Грааля. В них есть ведьмин расколотый волшебный котел Керидвен. Хранится он в некоем замке, куда попасть могут только совершенные люди с чистыми помыслами. А прочим он не виден. Место это именуется Аннун:
«Аннун — это одновременно и изначальная мировая Бездна, место, где смерть сильнее жизни и где всё существующее порождено смертью, но где рождается всё живое, и Иной Мир, где обретаются боги и где проходит Дорога на чудесный остров западных морей — Авалон…»

В тех же кельтских преданиях есть и другой миф, связанный с камнем Граалем. Это был особый камень, который умел кричать. Криком он признавал истинного короля и был установлен в древнеирландской столице Таре.

Грааль и конспирология

Поиски настоящего значения слова «Грааль» породили множество конспирологических построений. Наибольшую известность получили варианты, озвученные в романе «Код да Винчи» и восходящие к оккультным изысканиям Отто Рана:

• Грааль — это кровь потомков Иисуса, «sang raal», «sang real», или «sang royal» — «королевская кровь», верными хранителями которой были тамплиеры, прямо происходившие от Сионской Общины.
• в широком смысле — это грудь Магдалины, затем сама Мария Магдалина, культ которой, зародившийся в начале Средних Веков, по мнению конспирологов, со временем смешался с культом Девы Марии.

Святой Грааль в современной культуре

Святой Грааль фигурирует в многочисленных литературных произведениях, кинофильмах и компьютерных играх. К числу самых известных относятся фильмы «Монти Пайтон и Священный Грааль» (1975), «Индиана Джонс и последний крестовый поход» (1989), «Король-рыбак» (1991), а также снятый по одноимённому роману «Код да Винчи» (2006), где грааль представлен не как чаша, а как женщина, потомок Иисуса Христа и Марии Магдалины. Подробнее см. Святой Грааль в современной культуре.

См. также

• Христианские реликвии

Примечания

Литература

• Дашкевич Н. П. Сказание о Святом Грале // Из истории средневекового романтизма. — Киев, 1877.
• Дашкевич Н. П. Романтика Круглого Стола в литературе и жизни Запада. — Киев, 1890.
• Веселовский А. Н. Где сложилась легенда о Святом Грале? — СПб., 1900.
• Аверинцев А. Грааль // Мифы народов мира. — М.: Сов. энцикл., 1991. — Т. 1. — С. 317.
• Андреева В., Ровнер А. Грааль, святой // // Энциклопедия символов, знаков, эмблем / Авт.-сост. В. Андреева и др. — М.: ООО «Изд-во Астрель»: МИФ: ООО «Изд-во АСТ», 2001. — С. 134—135.
• Брат Д:., Д:.Л. Поиски Грааля // Феникс. — 2002. — № 16.
• Дашкевич Н. П. Сказание о Святом Граале // Дашкевич Н. П. Из истории средневекового романтизма. — К.: Наукова думка, 1877.
• Дугин А. Крестовый поход Солнца // Конец света. — М.: Арктогея, 1997. — С. 234—235.
• Еремин Г. Загадка пятиугольного замка// Техника молодежи. — 1969. — № 1.
• Майер Р. В пространстве – время здесь… История Грааля. — М.: Энигма, 1997. — 352 с. — ISBN 5-7808-0018-9
• Мэттьюз Д. Традиция Грааля. — М.: Изд-во Трансперсонального Института, 1997. — 160 с. — ISBN 5-88389-020-2
• Непомнящий Н. Н. Чаша Грааля // Непомнящий Н. Н. Сто великих загадок истории. — М.: «Вече», 2002. — С.176-181.
• Романчук Л. Феномен средневековья и Святой Грааль // Порог. — Кировоград, 2004. — № 6. — С. 22-27.
• Рудзитис Р. Братство Грааля. — Рига: Угунс. — 320 с. — ISBN 5-88484-022-5
• М.Байджент, Р.Лей, Г.Линкольн. Священная загадка / Пер. с англ. — М., 1992.

• Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln Holy Blood, Holy Grail. — Corgi, 1982. — ISBN ISBN 0-552-12138-X
• Ран, Отто. Крестовый поход против Грааля. — АСТ, 2004.
• Аппий Клавдий // Орден российских тамплиеров. Том III. Документы 1922—1930 гг. — Москва: «Минувшее», 2003.

Ссылки

	Чаша Грааля на Викискладе?

• Святой Грааль в Византийской империи на сайте «Общества Святого Феодора Гавраса».
• Подборка статей и фрагментов из книг о Граале
• Александр Ладик. Грааль. Происхождение понятия. Полный вариант статьи для «Энциклопедии Современной Украины». Том 7. 2008.
• Абд-ру-шин. «В Свете Истины. Послание Грааля» («Im Lichte der Wahrheit. Gralsbotschaft»), доклад «Святой Грааль».
• Сайт посвященный Отто Рану и его разысканиям

Фильмография

• «Загадки истории. Тайны святого Грааля» («Mysteries of History. Mysteries of the Holy Grail») — научно-популярный фильм, снятый в 2010 г.

Арест, суд и казнь Иисуса Христа → Иисус Христос с момента смерти до Воскресения
События	Страсти Христовы: Моление о чаше • Арест Иисуса Христа • Поцелуй Иуды • Отречение апостола Петра • Суд Пилата • Бичевание Христа • Крестный путь • Распятие Христово • Слова Иисуса на Кресте
Места	Гефсиманский сад • Синедрион • Голгофа
Иисус и ученики	Иисус Христос • Дева Мария • Мария Магдалина • Мария Клеопова • Иоанн Богослов • Апостол Пётр • Апостол Марк • Иуда Искариот • Жены-мироносицы
Иудеи	Ирод Антипа • Каиафа • Анна • Малх • Раба придверница • Варавва • Симон Киринеянин • Агасфер • Благоразумный и безумный разбойники
Римляне	Понтий Пилат • Клавдия Прокула • Сотник Лонгин
Предметы	Орудия Страстей: Терновый венец • Риза Господня/Бесшовный хитон • Животворящий Крест • Титло INRI • Копьё Лонгина • Святой Грааль • 30 сребренников
Иконография	Ecce Homo • Форма орудия казни Иисуса • Распятие (декоративно-прикладное искусство)

Герои Артурианы
Главные персонажи	Король Артур • Королева Гвиневра • Мордред
Рыцари Круглого стола	Гавейн • Ланселот • Галахад • Гарет • Парцифаль • Борс • Кей • Тристан
Маги и феи	Мерлин • Блез • Фея Моргана • Владычица Озера
Второстепенные персонажи	Утер Пендрагон • Игрэйна • Моргауза • Король-Рыбак • Лот Оркнейский
Географические пункты	Камелот • Авалон • Тинтагель • Броселианд
Легендарные предметы	Грааль • Круглый стол • Экскалибур

Мария Магдалина
Основные события	Помазание Иисуса миром • Воскрешение Лазаря • Распятие Христово • Погребение Христа • Жены-мироносицы • Не прикасайся ко Мне
Смежные персонажи	Марфа и Мария • Лазарь из Вифании • Мария Египетская
Прочее	Евангелие от Марии • Святой Грааль
В массовой культуре	«Код да Винчи» • «Последнее искушение Христа» • «Иисус Христос — суперзвезда»

Всего найдено: 43

Как правильно писать: День святого Валентина или День Святого Валентина? (слово «святой» с прописной или строчной буквы?) В прессе встречаются оба варианта

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Верно: _День святого Валентина_.

Проверьте, пожалуйста. Особенно орфографию последних двух слов.
Ещё вчера такой субъект, как Вы, мог рассчитывать только на костер Святой инквизиции.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Правильно: _Ещё вчера такой субъект, как Вы, мог рассчитывать только на костер святой инквизиции._

И(и)нквизиция?
В(в)ерховный понтифик?
С(с)вятой (П)престол?
Как пишется название специальности — в кавычках и с большой буквы?
На первый взгляд — вводная конструкция?
Спасибо за ответ.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

1. Корректно: _инквизиция, верховный понтифик, Святой престол._. 2. Правильно со строчной (маленькой) буквы и с кавычками. 3. _На первый взгляд_ может быть вводным словом.

Как пишется слово «святой» в выражении святой Грааль?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Правильно: святой Грааль, чаша Грааля.

Добрый день.
Лучше ответте как № 211991, только не оставляйте без внимаия.
Укажите случаи тавтологии и плеоназма (выпишите тавтологические и плеонастические выражения и укажите тип ошибки):
1) Главный герой, Павел Иванович Чичиков, приезжает в типичный губернский городишко, где занимается странным делом: скупает мертвые души крестьян.
2) В романе «Отцы и дети» Тургенев с большим мастерством реалиста впервые в русской литературе запечатлел вступление в жизнь разночинцев-демократов.
3) Перед нами новый человек, не подсудимый, а грозный судья самодержавия и буржуазного строя.
4) Его творчество посвящено поколению 30-х годов, которое он описывал в своих произведениях и стихотворениях.
5) Тема стихотворения — тема свободы, «вольности святой«.
Бровкина Юлия.
с надеждой на возможность сказать «Спасибо»

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Справочная служба не выполняет домашние задания.

Митрополит Петр благословил Ивану Калите построить ( или Ивана Калиту на строительство) каменный храм Успения Пресвятой Богородицы. Или есть ещё какой-то вариант?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Вариант в скобках предпочтителен.

Ответьте, пожалуйста, срочно Посвященное празднику Покрову(ам) Пресвятой Богородицы?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Правильно: _…празднику Покрову_.

1)На вопрос 170358 вы отвечаете: «В названиях храмов, соборов, церквей слово Святой и сокращение Св. пишутся с большой буквы: собор Св. Петра и Павла». А в словаре православной церковной лексики «Строчная — прописная» на вашем портале в разделе «Названия храмов и монастырей» (пункт 1) написано: «Если храм освящен во имя святого, то в его названии все слова, кроме имен собственных, пишутся со строчной буквы: храм во имя святителя Тримифунтского Спиридона». Нет ли здесь противоречия? Как правильно пишется название: собор святой Екатерины?
2)Правильно ли оформлена сноска (знаки препинания): Подпись на открытке: «Софийский собор» — ошибочна.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

1. Есть противоречия, ответ «Справки» в данном случае точнее — он основывается на рекомендациях орфографических словарей. 2. Да, верно.

И действительно, по его молитве, окропленная святой водой, супруга хана исцелилась. Правильно расставлены знаки?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

если есть значение «так как была окроплена святой водой», то пунктуация верна.

И действительно, по его молитве, окропленная святой водой, супруга хана исцелилась. Правильно расставлены знаки?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Такая пунктуация возможна.

Добрый день. По правилам слова церковь и икона пишутся со строчной буквы, а их названия и собственные имена — с прописной. А как правильно написать слово мученица в названии храма и иконы: церковь Святой м(М)ученицы Татианы и икона Святой м(М)ученицы Татьаны?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

В названиях храмов и икон пишутся с прописной буквы все слова, кроме родовых терминов (_храм, церковь, икона, собор_), поэтому корректно: _церковь Святой Мученицы Татьяны, икона Святой Мученицы Татьяны_.

«Вот только у сестрицы моей Дуси Святой дух имел плоть. Да и то, Господи, прости ея, матушка наша не упоминала, как его звали».

Не могу никак расставить запятые! Помогите!

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Пунктуация корректна.

Помогите, пожалуйста, разобраться, это очень срочно:
1. Именно это должен был отобразить иконописец в образе Святой Троицы, посвященном (или посвященной) памяти Преподобного Сергия.
2. В его (ангела) одежду (или одежде) внесены зеленые тона, свойственные только русской иконописи и символизирующие надежду.
Спасибо.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

1. _Именно это должен был отобразить иконописец в образе Святой Троицы, посвященном памяти Преподобного Сергия_.
2. _В его одежду внесены зеленые тона, свойственные только русской иконописи и символизирующие надежду._

The Holy Grail is a dish, plate, stone, or cup around which an important theme of Arthurian literature revolves. A grail, wondrous but not explicitly «holy», first appears in Perceval le Gallois, an unfinished romance by Chrétien de Troyes; it is a processional salver used to serve at a feast. Chretien’s story attracted many continuators, translators and interpreters in the later 12th and early 13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, who makes the grail a great precious stone that fell from the sky. The Grail legend became interwoven with legends of the Holy Chalice. The connection with Joseph of Arimathea and with vessels associated with the Last Supper and crucifixion of Jesus, dates from Robert de Boron’s Joseph d’Arimathie (late 12th century) in which Joseph receives the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sends it with his followers to Great Britain. Building upon this theme, later writers recounted how Joseph used the Grail to catch Christ’s blood while interring him and how he founded a line of guardians to keep it safe in Britain. The legend may combine Christian lore with a Celtic myth of a cauldron endowed with special powers.

Origin

The word graal, as it is earliest spelled, comes from Old French graal or greal, cognate with Old Provençal grazal and Old Catalan gresal, meaning «a cup or bowl of earth, wood, or metal» (or other various types of vessels in Southern French dialects). The most commonly accepted etymology derives it from Latin gradalis or gradale via an earlier form, cratalis, a derivative of crater or cratus which was, in turn, borrowed from Greek krater (a two-handed shallow cup). Alternate suggestions include a derivative of cratis, a name for a type of woven basket that came to refer to a dish, or a derivative of Latin gradus meaning «‘by degree’, ‘by stages’, applied to a dish brought to the table in different stages or services during a meal».

The Grail was considered a bowl or dish when first described by Chrétien de Troyes. Hélinand of Froidmont described a grail as a «wide and deep saucer» (scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda). 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 Provençal, claimed the Grail was a stone (called lapis exillis) 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, illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine, the world’s greatest knight and the Grail Bearer at the castle of Corbenic, is destined to achieve the Grail, his spiritual purity making him a greater 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 in Le Morte d’Arthur, and remain popular today.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, after the cycle of Grail romances was well established, late medieval writers came up with a false etymology for sangréal, an alternative name for «Holy Grail.» In Old French, san graal or san gréal means «Holy Grail» and sang réal means «royal blood»; later writers played on this pun. Since then, «Sang real» is sometimes employed to lend a medievalising air in referring to the Holy Grail. This connection with royal blood bore fruit in a modern bestseller linking many historical conspiracy theories (see below).

Legends and Location

Belief in the Grail and interest in its potential whereabouts has never ceased. Ownership has been attributed to various groups (including the Knights Templar, probably because they were at the peak of their influence around the time that Grail stories started circulating in the 12th and 13th centuries).

There are cups claimed to be the Grail in several churches, for instance the Saint Mary of Valencia Cathedral, which contains an artifact, the Holy Chalice, supposedly taken by Saint Peter to Rome in the 1st century, and then to Huesca in Spain by Saint Lawrence in the 3rd century. According to legend, the monastery of San Juan de la Peña, located at the south-west of Jaca, in the province of Huesca, Spain, protected the chalice of the Last Supper from the Islamic invaders of the Iberian Peninsula. Archaeologists say the artifact is a 1st century Middle Eastern stone vessel, possibly from Antioch, Syria (now Turkey); its history can be traced to the 11th century, and it now rests atop an ornate stem and base, made in the Medieval era of alabaster, gold, and gemstones. It was the official papal chalice for many popes, and has been used by many others, most recently by Pope Benedict XVI, on July 9, 2006. The emerald chalice at Genoa, which was obtained during the Crusades at Caesarea Maritima 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 Benedictine 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 lies deep in the spring at Glastonbury Tor. Still other stories claim that a secret line of hereditary protectors keep the Grail, or that it was hidden by the Templars in Oak Island, Nova Scotia’s famous «Money Pit», while local folklore in Accokeek, Maryland says that it was brought to the town by a closeted priest aboard Captain John Smith’s ship.

Claimed Grails

The Jerusalem Chalice

The earliest record of a chalice from the Last Supper is the account of Arculf a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon pilgrim who described it in De locis sanctis as being located in a reliquary in a chapel near Jerusalem, between the basilica of Golgotha and the Martyrium. He described it as a two-handled silver chalice with the measure of a Gaulish pint. Arculf kissed his hand and reached through an opening of the perforated lid of the reliquary to touch the chalice. He said that the people of the city flocked to it with great veneration. (Arculf also saw the Holy Lance in the porch of the basilica of Constantine.) This is the only mention of the Holy Chalice being situated in the Holy Land.

The Genoa Chalice

Of two vessels that survive today, one is at Genoa, in the cathedral. The hexagonal 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 fourteen inches (35 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 Almería from the Moors in 1147 with Genoese help, un vaso 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 Almería. The identification of the sacro catino with the Holy Chalice is not made until later, however, by Jacobus de Voragine in his chronicle of Genoa, written at the close of the 13th century.

The Valencia Chalice

The other surviving Holy Chalice vessel is the santo cáliz, an agate cup in the Cathedral of Valencia. It is preserved in a chapel consecrated to it, where it still attracts the faithful on pilgrimage.

The piece is a hemispherical cup made of dark red agate which is mounted by means of a knobbed stem and two curved handles onto a base made from an inverted cup of chalcedony. The agate cup is about 9 centimeters/ 3.5 inches in diameter and the total height, including base, is about 17 centimeters/ 7 inches high. The agate cup, without the base, fits a description by Saint Jerome. The lower part has Arabic inscriptions.

After an inspection in 1960, the Spanish archaeologist Antonio Beltrán asserted that the cup was produced in a Palestinian or Egyptian workshop between the 4th century BC and the 1st century AD. The surface has not been dated by microscopic scanning to assess recrystallization.

The Chalice of Valencia comes complete with a certificate of authenticity, an inventory list on vellum, said to date from AD 262, that accompanied a lost letter of which details state-sponsored Roman persecution of Christians that forces the church to split up its treasury and hide it with members, specifically the deacon Saint Lawrence. It goes on to enumerate all precious items. The physical properties of the Holy Chalice are described and it is stated the vessel had been used to celebrate Mass by the early Popes succeeding Saint Peter.

The first explicit inventory reference to the present Chalice of Valencia dates from 1134, an inventory of the treasury of the monastery of San Juan de la Peña drawn up by Don Carreras Ramírez, Canon of Zaragoza, December 14, 1134: «En un arca de marfil está el Cáliz en que Cristo N. Señor consagró su sangre, el cual envió S. Lorenzo a su patria, Huesca». According to the wording of this document, the Chalice is described as the vessel in which «Christ Our Lord consecrated his blood».

Reference to the chalice is made in 1399, when it was given by the monastery of San Juan de la Peña to king Martin I of Aragon in exchange for a gold cup. By the end of the century a provenance for the chalice can be detected, by which Saint Peter had brought it to Rome.

Pope John Paul II himself celebrated mass with the Holy Chalice in Valencia in November 1982, causing some uproar both in skeptic circles and in the circles that hoped he would say accipiens et hunc praeclarum Calicem («this most famous chalice») in lieu of the ordinary words of the Mass taken from Matthew 26:27). For some people, the authenticity of the Chalice of Valencia failed to receive papal blessing.

In July 2006, at the closing Mass of the 5th World Meeting of Families in Valencia, Pope Benedict XVI also celebrated with the Holy Chalice, on this occasion saying «this most famous chalice», words in the Roman Canon said to have been used for the first popes until 4th century in Rome, and supporting in this way the tradition of the Holy Chalice of Valencia. This artifact has seemingly never been accredited with any supernatural powers, which legend apparently confines to other relics such as the Holy Grail, the Holy Lance and the True Cross.

In Saint Laurence and the Holy Grail, Janice Bennett gives an account of the chalice’s history, carried on Saint Peter’s journey to Rome, entrusted by Pope Sixtus II to Saint Lawrence in the third century, sent to Huesca in Spain when the Hispanic saint was martyred on a gridiron during the Valerian persecution in Rome in AD 258, sent to the Pyrenees for safekeeping, where it passed from monastery to monastery, in accordance with all the claims to former possession of the Chalice, and venerated by the monks of the Monastery of San Juan de la Peña. Emerging there into the light of history, the monastery’s agate cup was acquired by King Martin I of Aragon in 1399 who kept it at Zaragoza. After his death, King Alfonso V of Aragón brought it to Valencia, where it has remained.

Bennett presents as historical evidence a 6th-century manuscript Latin Vita written by Donato, an Augustinian monk who founded a monastery in the area of Valencia, which contains circumstantial details of the life of Saint Laurence and details surrounding the transfer of the Chalice to Spain. The original manuscript does not exist, but a 17th-century Spanish translation entitled «Life and Martyrdom of the Glorious Spaniard St. Laurence» is in a monastery in Valencia. The main source for the life of St. Laurence, the poem Peristephanon by the 5th-century poet Prudentius, does not mention the Chalice that was later said to have passed through his hands.

In 1960 the Spanish archeologist Antonio Beltrán studied the Chalice and concluded: «Archeology supports and definitively confirms the historical authenticity». «Everyone in Spain believes it is the cup,» Bennett said to a reporter from the Denver Catholic Register. «You can see it every day that the chapel is open.»

The Antioch Chalice

The silver-gilt object originally identified as an early Christian chalice is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, It was apparently made at Antioch in the early 6th century and is of double-cup construction, with an outer shell of cast-metal open work enclosing a plain silver inner cup. When it was first recovered in Antioch just before World War I, it was touted as the Holy Chalice, an identification the Metropolitan Museum characterizes as «ambitious». It is no longer identified as a chalice, having been identified by experts at Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, believed to be a standing lamp, of a style of the 6th century.

Bureau File

The only such object that is known to have any power, holy or otherwise was lost in the Levant in 1938. It is known only from the report by Dr. Henry Jones Jr. It is reported to be a gilded clay cup that he witnessed performing miracles, including saving his Father’s life.

A second cup made of wood and badly worn from the veneration it has received is in the collection of Dr. James Smythe. Smythe claims this is the Glastonbury grail. A cup protected by the Knights Templer. A cup that was their downfall. He reports it has power, but does not explain the power or offer to demonstrate it, other than to say that everyone that has used the cup, and lost it has suffered devastating loss and destruction. And everyone that has used it, has lost it. He has not used it and will not.

«There is a price to every magic and woe betide he that calls on magic before he knows the price.» — Dr. James Smythe.

The Holy Grail is a dish, plate, stone, or cup around which an important theme of Arthurian literature revolves. A grail, wondrous but not explicitly «holy», first appears in Perceval le Gallois, an unfinished romance by Chrétien de Troyes; it is a processional salver used to serve at a feast. Chretien’s story attracted many continuators, translators and interpreters in the later 12th and early 13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, who makes the grail a great precious stone that fell from the sky. The Grail legend became interwoven with legends of the Holy Chalice. The connection with Joseph of Arimathea and with vessels associated with the Last Supper and crucifixion of Jesus, dates from Robert de Boron’s Joseph d’Arimathie (late 12th century) in which Joseph receives the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sends it with his followers to Great Britain. Building upon this theme, later writers recounted how Joseph used the Grail to catch Christ’s blood while interring him and how he founded a line of guardians to keep it safe in Britain. The legend may combine Christian lore with a Celtic myth of a cauldron endowed with special powers.

Origin

The word graal, as it is earliest spelled, comes from Old French graal or greal, cognate with Old Provençal grazal and Old Catalan gresal, meaning «a cup or bowl of earth, wood, or metal» (or other various types of vessels in Southern French dialects). The most commonly accepted etymology derives it from Latin gradalis or gradale via an earlier form, cratalis, a derivative of crater or cratus which was, in turn, borrowed from Greek krater (a two-handed shallow cup). Alternate suggestions include a derivative of cratis, a name for a type of woven basket that came to refer to a dish, or a derivative of Latin gradus meaning «‘by degree’, ‘by stages’, applied to a dish brought to the table in different stages or services during a meal».

The Grail was considered a bowl or dish when first described by Chrétien de Troyes. Hélinand of Froidmont described a grail as a «wide and deep saucer» (scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda). 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 Provençal, claimed the Grail was a stone (called lapis exillis) 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, illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine, the world’s greatest knight and the Grail Bearer at the castle of Corbenic, is destined to achieve the Grail, his spiritual purity making him a greater 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 in Le Morte d’Arthur, and remain popular today.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, after the cycle of Grail romances was well established, late medieval writers came up with a false etymology for sangréal, an alternative name for «Holy Grail.» In Old French, san graal or san gréal means «Holy Grail» and sang réal means «royal blood»; later writers played on this pun. Since then, «Sang real» is sometimes employed to lend a medievalising air in referring to the Holy Grail. This connection with royal blood bore fruit in a modern bestseller linking many historical conspiracy theories (see below).

Legends and Location

Belief in the Grail and interest in its potential whereabouts has never ceased. Ownership has been attributed to various groups (including the Knights Templar, probably because they were at the peak of their influence around the time that Grail stories started circulating in the 12th and 13th centuries).

There are cups claimed to be the Grail in several churches, for instance the Saint Mary of Valencia Cathedral, which contains an artifact, the Holy Chalice, supposedly taken by Saint Peter to Rome in the 1st century, and then to Huesca in Spain by Saint Lawrence in the 3rd century. According to legend, the monastery of San Juan de la Peña, located at the south-west of Jaca, in the province of Huesca, Spain, protected the chalice of the Last Supper from the Islamic invaders of the Iberian Peninsula. Archaeologists say the artifact is a 1st century Middle Eastern stone vessel, possibly from Antioch, Syria (now Turkey); its history can be traced to the 11th century, and it now rests atop an ornate stem and base, made in the Medieval era of alabaster, gold, and gemstones. It was the official papal chalice for many popes, and has been used by many others, most recently by Pope Benedict XVI, on July 9, 2006. The emerald chalice at Genoa, which was obtained during the Crusades at Caesarea Maritima 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 Benedictine 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 lies deep in the spring at Glastonbury Tor. Still other stories claim that a secret line of hereditary protectors keep the Grail, or that it was hidden by the Templars in Oak Island, Nova Scotia’s famous «Money Pit», while local folklore in Accokeek, Maryland says that it was brought to the town by a closeted priest aboard Captain John Smith’s ship.

Claimed Grails

The Jerusalem Chalice

The earliest record of a chalice from the Last Supper is the account of Arculf a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon pilgrim who described it in De locis sanctis as being located in a reliquary in a chapel near Jerusalem, between the basilica of Golgotha and the Martyrium. He described it as a two-handled silver chalice with the measure of a Gaulish pint. Arculf kissed his hand and reached through an opening of the perforated lid of the reliquary to touch the chalice. He said that the people of the city flocked to it with great veneration. (Arculf also saw the Holy Lance in the porch of the basilica of Constantine.) This is the only mention of the Holy Chalice being situated in the Holy Land.

The Genoa Chalice

Of two vessels that survive today, one is at Genoa, in the cathedral. The hexagonal 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 fourteen inches (35 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 Almería from the Moors in 1147 with Genoese help, un vaso 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 Almería. The identification of the sacro catino with the Holy Chalice is not made until later, however, by Jacobus de Voragine in his chronicle of Genoa, written at the close of the 13th century.

The Valencia Chalice

The other surviving Holy Chalice vessel is the santo cáliz, an agate cup in the Cathedral of Valencia. It is preserved in a chapel consecrated to it, where it still attracts the faithful on pilgrimage.

The piece is a hemispherical cup made of dark red agate which is mounted by means of a knobbed stem and two curved handles onto a base made from an inverted cup of chalcedony. The agate cup is about 9 centimeters/ 3.5 inches in diameter and the total height, including base, is about 17 centimeters/ 7 inches high. The agate cup, without the base, fits a description by Saint Jerome. The lower part has Arabic inscriptions.

After an inspection in 1960, the Spanish archaeologist Antonio Beltrán asserted that the cup was produced in a Palestinian or Egyptian workshop between the 4th century BC and the 1st century AD. The surface has not been dated by microscopic scanning to assess recrystallization.

The Chalice of Valencia comes complete with a certificate of authenticity, an inventory list on vellum, said to date from AD 262, that accompanied a lost letter of which details state-sponsored Roman persecution of Christians that forces the church to split up its treasury and hide it with members, specifically the deacon Saint Lawrence. It goes on to enumerate all precious items. The physical properties of the Holy Chalice are described and it is stated the vessel had been used to celebrate Mass by the early Popes succeeding Saint Peter.

The first explicit inventory reference to the present Chalice of Valencia dates from 1134, an inventory of the treasury of the monastery of San Juan de la Peña drawn up by Don Carreras Ramírez, Canon of Zaragoza, December 14, 1134: «En un arca de marfil está el Cáliz en que Cristo N. Señor consagró su sangre, el cual envió S. Lorenzo a su patria, Huesca». According to the wording of this document, the Chalice is described as the vessel in which «Christ Our Lord consecrated his blood».

Reference to the chalice is made in 1399, when it was given by the monastery of San Juan de la Peña to king Martin I of Aragon in exchange for a gold cup. By the end of the century a provenance for the chalice can be detected, by which Saint Peter had brought it to Rome.

Pope John Paul II himself celebrated mass with the Holy Chalice in Valencia in November 1982, causing some uproar both in skeptic circles and in the circles that hoped he would say accipiens et hunc praeclarum Calicem («this most famous chalice») in lieu of the ordinary words of the Mass taken from Matthew 26:27). For some people, the authenticity of the Chalice of Valencia failed to receive papal blessing.

In July 2006, at the closing Mass of the 5th World Meeting of Families in Valencia, Pope Benedict XVI also celebrated with the Holy Chalice, on this occasion saying «this most famous chalice», words in the Roman Canon said to have been used for the first popes until 4th century in Rome, and supporting in this way the tradition of the Holy Chalice of Valencia. This artifact has seemingly never been accredited with any supernatural powers, which legend apparently confines to other relics such as the Holy Grail, the Holy Lance and the True Cross.

In Saint Laurence and the Holy Grail, Janice Bennett gives an account of the chalice’s history, carried on Saint Peter’s journey to Rome, entrusted by Pope Sixtus II to Saint Lawrence in the third century, sent to Huesca in Spain when the Hispanic saint was martyred on a gridiron during the Valerian persecution in Rome in AD 258, sent to the Pyrenees for safekeeping, where it passed from monastery to monastery, in accordance with all the claims to former possession of the Chalice, and venerated by the monks of the Monastery of San Juan de la Peña. Emerging there into the light of history, the monastery’s agate cup was acquired by King Martin I of Aragon in 1399 who kept it at Zaragoza. After his death, King Alfonso V of Aragón brought it to Valencia, where it has remained.

Bennett presents as historical evidence a 6th-century manuscript Latin Vita written by Donato, an Augustinian monk who founded a monastery in the area of Valencia, which contains circumstantial details of the life of Saint Laurence and details surrounding the transfer of the Chalice to Spain. The original manuscript does not exist, but a 17th-century Spanish translation entitled «Life and Martyrdom of the Glorious Spaniard St. Laurence» is in a monastery in Valencia. The main source for the life of St. Laurence, the poem Peristephanon by the 5th-century poet Prudentius, does not mention the Chalice that was later said to have passed through his hands.

In 1960 the Spanish archeologist Antonio Beltrán studied the Chalice and concluded: «Archeology supports and definitively confirms the historical authenticity». «Everyone in Spain believes it is the cup,» Bennett said to a reporter from the Denver Catholic Register. «You can see it every day that the chapel is open.»

The Antioch Chalice

The silver-gilt object originally identified as an early Christian chalice is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, It was apparently made at Antioch in the early 6th century and is of double-cup construction, with an outer shell of cast-metal open work enclosing a plain silver inner cup. When it was first recovered in Antioch just before World War I, it was touted as the Holy Chalice, an identification the Metropolitan Museum characterizes as «ambitious». It is no longer identified as a chalice, having been identified by experts at Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, believed to be a standing lamp, of a style of the 6th century.

Bureau File

The only such object that is known to have any power, holy or otherwise was lost in the Levant in 1938. It is known only from the report by Dr. Henry Jones Jr. It is reported to be a gilded clay cup that he witnessed performing miracles, including saving his Father’s life.

A second cup made of wood and badly worn from the veneration it has received is in the collection of Dr. James Smythe. Smythe claims this is the Glastonbury grail. A cup protected by the Knights Templer. A cup that was their downfall. He reports it has power, but does not explain the power or offer to demonstrate it, other than to say that everyone that has used the cup, and lost it has suffered devastating loss and destruction. And everyone that has used it, has lost it. He has not used it and will not.

«There is a price to every magic and woe betide he that calls on magic before he knows the price.» — Dr. James Smythe.