CHAPTER IV.
SKETCH OF THE LITERATURE CONNECTED WITH THE GRAIL CYCLE.
Villemarqué—Halliwell—San Marte (A. Schulz)—Simrock—Rochat—Furnivall’s reprint of the Grand St. Graal and of Borron—J. F. Campbell—Furnivall’s Queste—Paulin Paris—Potvin’s Conte du Graal—Bergmann—Skeat’s Joseph of Arimathea—Hucher: Grail Celtic, date of Borron—Zarncke, Zur Geschichte der Gralsage; Grail belongs to Christian legend—Birch-Hirschfeld develops Zarncke’s views: Grand St. Graal younger than Queste, both presuppose Chrestien and an earlier Queste, the Didot-Perceval, which forms integral part of Borron’s trilogy; Mabinogi later than Chrestien; various members of the cycle dated—Martin combats Birch-Hirschfeld: Borron later than Chrestien, whose poem represents oldest stage of the romance, which has its roots in Celtic tradition—Hertz—Criticism of Birch-Hirschfeld.
Monsieur Th. de la Villemarqué’s researches form a convenient starting point, both on account of the influence they exercised upon later investigation, and because he was the first to state with fulness and method the arguments for the Celtic origin of the legend. They appeared originally in the volume entitled “Contes populaires des anciens Bretons précédés d’un essai sur l’origine des épopées chevaleresques de la Table Ronde” (Paris, 1842), and comprising a French translation of the Mabinogion of Geraint and Peredur, with introductory essays and detailed explanatory notes. The translation of Peredur is preceded by a study of Chrestien’s poem, in which the following conclusions are stated: The Grail is Celtic in origin, the French term being equivalent to the Welsh per, and having a like meaning, basin. It is the Druidic basin alluded to by Taliessin, the same which figures in the Mabinogi of Branwen, which appears in the oldest folk-tales of Brittany, and which is sought for in the twelfth century Mabinogi by Peredur, i.e., the Basin-Seeker. The original occult character of the Druidic basin, and of the lance, the bardic symbol of undying hatred to the Saxon, disappears in the Mabinogi, the tone and character of which are purely romantic. Composed among a people comparatively unused to the chivalrous ideal, it breathes, however, a rude and harsh spirit. But such as it is, it forms the groundwork of Chrestien’s poem. Comparison between the two demonstrates the simple character of the Welsh romance, and shows how the French poet sought to transform it by an infusion of feudal courtliness and religious mysticism. In its last stage of development the story reverts to its pristine, occult, and mystic character.
Much of what M. de la Villemarqué says is sound and telling; but, unfortunately, although well aware that the French poem is the work of three men and not of one, he yet treats it as an organic whole, and thus deprives the larger part of his comparison of all value. Moreover, he supports his thesis by arguments based upon a Breton poem (the story of which is similar to that of Perceval’s youth), ascribed without the shadow of evidence to the end of the tenth century.
In 1861 M. de la Villemarqué reprinted his work with extensive additions, under the title of “Les Romans de la Table Ronde et les Contes des Anciens Bretons.” The section summarised above remained substantially unaltered, but considerable extension was given to the author’s views concerning the mode of development of the romances. The points chiefly insisted upon are: the similarity of metre between the Welsh poem and the French metrical romances; the delight of the Plantagenet kings in the Welsh traditions and the favour showed them; and the early popularity of the Welsh and Breton singers. Villemarqué’s last word upon the subject is that the Welsh storytellers received from the ancient bards a pagan tradition, which, changed in character and confounded with the Mystery of the Sacrament, they handed on to the romance writers of Northern France and Germany, who gave it a fresh and undying life.
Villemarqué’s views were worked up by Mr. Baring Gould in his essay on the Sangreal (“Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,” 1867) and in this form or in their original presentment won wide acceptance as the authoritative exposition of the Celtic origin of the cycle.
In England, Mr. Halliwell, when editing, in 1844, the Thornton Sir Perceval, derived it from Chrestien and his continuators, in spite of the omission of Lance and Grail, on account of the sequence of incidents being the same. The Mabinogi is alluded to as an adaptation of Chrestien. The supposition that Perceval’s nick-name, “le Gallois,” implies the Welsh origin of the story is rejected as absurd.
In Germany the Grail-cycle formed the subject of careful investigation on the part of San Marte (A. Schulz) for some years prior to 1840. From 1836 to 1842 he brought out a modern German translation of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, accompanied by an elaborate essay on the genesis of the legend, and in 1841, “Die Arthur-Sage und die Mährchen des rothen Buchs von Hergest.” In the latter work a careful analysis of the Mabinogi leads to the following conclusions:—Locale and persons are purely Welsh; tone and character are older than the age of the Crusades and Knighthood; it may be looked upon with confidence as the oldest known source of the Perceval sage. In comparing the Mabinogi with Kiot’s (i.e., Wolfram’s) version, stress is laid upon the task imposed upon Peredur, which is held to be different in character and independent in origin from the Grail Quest in Kiot. The Thornton Sir Perceval is claimed as the representative of an early Breton jongleur poem which knew nothing of the Grail story. In the former work Wolfram von Eschenbach’s poem is accepted, so far as its framework is concerned, as a faithful echo of Kiot’s, the Provencal origin of which is proved by its Oriental and Southern allusions. The Provencals may have obtained the Peredur sage direct from Brittany, they at any rate fused it with the Grail legend. Their version is an artistic whole, whereas the North French one is a confused string of adventures. Chrestien’s share in the latter is rightly distinguished from that of his continuators, and these are dated with fair accuracy. Robert de Borron is mentioned, but as a thirteenth century adapter of earlier prose versions; the Grand St. Graal is placed towards the middle of the thirteenth century. In analysing the Joseph of Arimathea form of the legend, the silence of the earlier British historians concerning Joseph’s evangelisation of Britain is noted, and 1140 is given as the earliest date of this part of the legend. The captivity of Joseph arises probably from a confusion between him and Josephus. There is no real connection between the Joseph legend and that of the Grail. Wolfram’s Templeisen agree closely with the Templars, one of the main charges against whom was their alleged worship of a head from which they expected riches and victuals, and to which they ascribed the power of making trees and flowers to bloom.[59]
San Marte’s translation of Wolfram was immediately (1842) followed by Simrock’s, whose notes are mainly directed against his predecessor’s views on the origin and development of the Grail legend. The existence of Kiot is contested; the differentia between Wolfram and Chrestien are unknown to Provençal, but familiar to German, poetry. The Grail myth in its oldest form is connected with John the Baptist. Thus in the Mabinogi the Grail is represented by a head in a platter; the head the Templars were accused of worshipping has probably the same origin; the Genoese preserved the Sacro Catino, identified by them with the Grail, in the chapel of St. John the Baptist; Chrestien mentions with especial significance, St. John’s Eve (Midsummer Eve). The head of St. John the Baptist, found, according to the legend, in the fourth century, was carried later to Constantinople, where in the eleventh century it is apparently used to keep an emperor from dying (even as of the Grail, it is told, no one could die the day he saw it). If Wolfram cuts out the references to the Baptist, en revanche he brings Prester John into the story. The essential element in the Grail is the blood in the bowl, symbol of creative power as is the Baptist’s head, both being referable to the summer equinox. Associated with John the Baptist is Herodias, who takes the place of an old Germanic goddess, Abundia, as John does of Odin or Baldur.[60] The essence of the myth is the reproductive power of the blood of the slain god (Odin-Hackelberend, Baldur, Adonis, Osiris). As the Grail may only be seen by those to whom God’s grace is granted, so in the German folk-tale the entrance to the hollow mounds wherein lies treasure or live elves is only visible to Sunday children or pure youths. Thus, too, no man may find the grave of Hackelberg (Odin). Such caves, when entered, close upon the outgoing mortal as the Grail Castle portcullis closes upon Parzival. Many of Gauvain’s adventures appear in German folk-tradition. As to Parzival’s youth “it cannot be doubted that we have here a variation of the Great Fool folk-tale (Dummling’s Märchen) found among all people. It is hard to say what people possessing this tale brought it into contact, either by tradition or in writing, with the Grail story, but that people would have the first claim among whom it is found in an independent form.” The Mabinogi explanation of the Grail incident is unacceptable, and the Mabinogi itself is later than Chrestien, as is shown by its foolish invention of the witches of Gloucester, and by its misrendering the incident of the dwarves greeting Peredur. In the original folk-tale the ungainly hero was laughed at, not greeted. The Thornton Sir Perceval may possibly contain an older version of Perceval’s youth than any found elsewhere. Wolfram’s poem represents, however, the oldest and purest form of the Grail myth, which, originally pagan, only became fully Christianised in the hands of the later North French poets.