(5) Before 1204 Grand St. Graal written, mainly resting upon (4) but with use also of first part of (1).
(6) Between 1214 and 1220. Manessier’s continuation of the Conte du Graal. For the Early History (5) made use of.
(7) Before 1225 Gerbert of Montreuil’s additions to Manessier. Both (4) and (5) used.
(8) About 1225 Perceval li Gallois; compiled from all the previous versions.[68]
That part of Birch-Hirschfeld’s theory which excited the most attention in Germany bore upon the relationship of Wolfram to Chrestien (see infra, [Appendix A]). In other respects his theory won very general acceptance. The commendatory notices were, however, of a slight character, and no new facts were adduced in support of his thesis. One opponent, however, he found who did more than rest his opposition upon the view of Wolfram’s relationship to Chrestien. This was E. Martin, who (“Zeitschrift für d. Alterthumskunde,” 1878, pp. 84 etc.) traversed most of Birch-Hirschfeld’s conclusions. Whilst accepting the priority of Queste over Grand St. Graal he did not see the necessity of fixing 1204 as a terminus ad quem for the latter work as we now have it, as Helinandus’ statement might have referred to an older version; if the Grand St. Graal could not be dated neither could the Queste. As for the Didot-Perceval there was nothing to prove that it was either Borron’s work or the source of Chrestien and Gautier. Birch-Hirschfeld’s arguments to show the interpolation of the lance passages were unsound; it was highly improbable either that Chrestien should have used the Perceval as alleged, or that Borron, the purely religious writer of the Joseph, should have changed his style so entirely in the Perceval. Moreover, Birch-Hirschfeld made Borron dedicate a work to Gautier of Montbeliard before 1183 when the latter must have been quite a young man, nor was there any reason to discredit Hélie de Borron’s testimony that he and Robert had been companions in arms, a fact incredible had the one written forty years before the other. The work of Chrestien and his continuators must be looked upon as the oldest we had of the Grail cycle. It was likely that older versions had been lost. A Latin version might well have existed, forms such as Joseph de Barimaschie (i.e., ab Arimathea) pointed to it. Martin followed up this attack in his “Zur Gralsage, Untersuchungen,” Strasburg, 1880. A first section is devoted to showing that Wolfram must have had other sources than Chrestien, and that in consequence such portions of his presentment as differ from Chrestien’s must be taken into account in reconstructing the original form of the romance. The second and third sections deal with Heinrich von dem Türlin’s “Die Crone,” and with the earliest form of the tradition. Gawain’s second visit to the Grail Castle, as told of by Heinrich (supra, [p. 26]) has features in common with the widely-spread traditions of aged men slumbering in caves or ruined castles, unable to die until the right word is uttered which breaks their spell. This conception differs from the one found in all the other versions inasmuch as in them the wonder-working question releases, not from unnaturally prolonged life, but from sore disease. Can a parallel be found in Celtic tradition to this sufferer awaiting deliverance? Does not Arthur, wounded well nigh to death by his nephew Modred, pass a charmed life in Avalon, whither Morgan la Fay carried him for his healing, and shall he not return thence to free his folk? The original conception is mythic—the summer god banished by the winter powers, but destined to come back again. The sage of Arthur’s waiting, often in some subterranean castle, is widely spread, two of the earliest notices (those of Gervasius of Tilbury, in the “Otia Imperialia,” p. 12 of Liebrecht’s edition, and of Caesarius of Heisterbach) connect it with Etna—the tradition had followed the Norman Conquerors of Sicily thither—and from Sicily it would seem to have penetrated to Germany, being first found in German tradition as told of Frederick II. Again Gerald (A.D. 1188) in the “Itinerarium Cambriae” (Frankfort, 1603, p. 827, L. 48) tells of a mountain chain in the South-East of Wales: “quorum principalis Cadair Arthur dicitur i. Cathedra Arthuri, propter gemina promontorii cacumina in cathedrae modum se praeferentia. Et quoniam in alto cathedra et in ardua sita est, summo et maximo Britonum Regi Arthuro vulgari nuncupatione est assignata.” The Eildon Hills may be noted in the same connection, “in which all the Arthurian chivalry await, in an enchanted sleep, the bugle blast of the adventurer who will call them at length to a new life” (Stuart Glennie, “Arthurian Localities,” p. 60). If the Grail King is Arthur, the bleeding lance is evidently the weapon wherewith he was so sorely wounded. And the Grail? this is originally a symbol of plenty, of a joyous and bountiful life, hence of Avalon, that land of everlasting summer beyond the waves, wherein, as the Vita Merlini has it, they that visit Arthur find “planitiem omnibus deliciis plenam.” Of those versions of the romance in which the Christian conception of the Grail is predominant, Robert de Borron’s poem (composed about 1200) is the earliest, and in it, maugre the Christianising of the story, the Celtic basis is apparent: the Grail host go a questing Avalonwards; the first keepers are Brons and Alain, purely Celtic names, the former of which may be compared with Bran; the empty seat calls to mind the Eren stein in Ulrich von Zatzikhoven’s Lanzelot, whereof (verse 5,178) ist gesaget daz er den man niht vertruoc an dem was valsch oder haz. Admitting the purely Christian origin of the Grail leads to this difficulty: the vessel in which Christ’s blood was received was a bowl, not an open or flat dish like that used in commemoration of the Last Supper. Evidently the identification of the Grail with the Last Supper cup is the latest of a series of transformations. Nor can the Christian origin of the legend be held proved by the surname of Fisher given to the Grail-keeper. True, neither Chrestien nor Wolfram explains this surname, whilst in Borron’s poem there is at least a fish caught. But if the fish had really the symbolic meaning ascribed to it would not a far greater stress be laid upon it? In any case this one point is insufficient to prove the priority of Borron, and it is simpler to believe that the surname of Fisher had in the original Celtic tradition a significance now lost. Birch-Hirschfeld’s theory supposes, too, a development contrary to that observed elsewhere in mediæval tradition. The invariable course is from the racial-heathen to the Christian legendary stage. Is it likely that in the twelfth century, a period of such highly developed mystic fancy, an originally Christian legend should lose its mystic character and become a subject for minstrels to exercise their fancy upon? In the earlier form of the romance there is an obvious contrast between the task laid upon the Grail quester and that laid upon Gawain at Castle Marvellous. The first has suffered change by its association with Christian legend; but the second, even in those versions influenced by the legend, has retained its primitive Celtic character. The trials which Gawain has to undergo may be compared with those imposed on him who seeks to penetrate into the underworld, as pictured in the Purgatorium S. Patricii, in the Visio Tnugdali, etc. This agrees well with the presentment of Castle Marvellous, an underworld realm where dwell four queens long since vanished from Arthur’s court, and which, according to Chrestien (verse 9,388), Gawain, having once found, may no longer leave. One of these queens is Arthur’s mother, whom a magician had carried off, a variant it would seem of the tradition which makes Arthur’s father, Uther, win Igerne from her husband by Merlin’s magic aid. Many other reminiscences of Celtic tradition may be found in the romances—Orgeleuse, whom Gawain finds sitting under a tree by a spring, is just such a water fairy as may be met with throughout the whole range of Celtic folk-lore, and differs profoundly from the Germanic conception of such beings.
W. Hertz, in his “Sage vom Parzival und dem Gral” (Breslau, 1882) following, in the main, Birch-Hirschfeld, lays stress upon the two elements, “legend” and “sage” out of which the romance cycle has sprung. He does not overlook many of the weak points in Birch-Hirschfeld’s theory, e.g., whilst fully accepting the fish caught by Bron as the symbol of Christ, he notices that the incident as found in Robert de Borron, whom he accepts as the first in date of the cycle writers, is not of such importance as to justify the stress laid upon the nickname “rich fisher,” by all the ex hypothesi later writers. The word “rich” must, he thinks, have originally referred to the abundant power of conversion of heathen vouchsafed to the Grail-keeper, but even Robert failed to grasp the full force of the allusion. Against Birch-Hirschfeld he maintains that the connection of Joseph with the conversion of Britain in all the versions shows that the legend must have assumed definite shape first on British soil, and he looks upon the separatist and anti-papal tendencies of the British Church as supplying the original impulse to such a legend. The Grail belongs originally wholly to the “Legend;” only in the later versions and in Wolfram, owing to the latter’s ignorance of its real nature, does it assume a magic and popular character. The lance, on the other hand, is partly derived from the Celtic sage. The boyhood of Perceval is a genuine folk-story, a great-fool tale, and had originally nothing to do with the Grail, as may plainly be seen by reference to the Thornton Sir Perceval, the most primitive form of the story remaining, the Mabinogi, and the modern Breton tale of Peronnik, deriving directly or indirectly from Chrestien. As for the question, although it presented much that seemed to refer it to folk-tradition, as for instance in Heinrich von dem Türlin’s version, where Gawain’s putting the question releases the lord of the castle and his retainers from the enchantment of life-in-death, yet the form of the question, “Je vos prie que vous me diez que l’en sert de cest vessel,” shows its original connection with the Grail cultus, and necessitates its reference to the “Legend.” Existing versions fail, however, to give any satisfactory account of the question. It is a matter of conjecture whether in the earliest form of the legend (which Hertz assumes to have been lost) it was found in the same shape as in the Didot-Perceval.
Birch-Hirschfeld’s theory has already been implicitly criticised in [Chapter III]. The considerations adduced therein, as well as Martin’s criticisms and Hertz’s admissions, preclude the necessity of examining it in further detail. Formally speaking, the theory rests upon the assumption that we have Borron’s work substantially as he wrote it, an assumption which, as shown by the difference in motif between the Metrical Joseph and the Didot-Perceval, is inaccurate. Again, the theory does not account for the silence of all the other versions respecting Brons and that special conception of the Grail found in Borron’s poem. Nor does it offer any satisfactory explanation of the mysterious question which Birch-Hirschfeld can only conjecture to have been a meaningless invention, eine harmlose Erfindung, of Borron’s. In fact, only such, portions of the cycle are exhaustively examined as admit of reference to the alleged originating idea, and a show of rigorous deduction is thus made, the emptiness of which becomes apparent when the entire legend, and not one portion only, is taken into account. Despite the learning and acuteness with which it is urged, Birch-Hirschfeld’s theory must be rejected, if it were only because, as Martin points out, it postulates a development of the legend which is the very opposite of the normal one. We cannot admit that this vast body of romance sprang from a simple but lofty spiritual conception, the full significance of which, unperceived even by its author, was totally ignored, not only, were that possible, by Chrestien and his continuators, but by the theologising mystics who wrote the Grand St. Graal and the Queste—aye, and even by the latest and in some respects the most theologically minded of all the writers of the cycle, the author of the Prose Perceval le Gallois and Gerbert. We must say, with Otto Küpp (Zacher’s Zeitschrift, XVII, 1, p. 68), “die jetzt versuchte christliche Motivierung ist ganz unglücklich geraten und kann in keiner Weise befriedigen.”
The field is thus clear for an examination of the Quest with a view to determining whether the Grail really belongs to it or not. The first step is to see what relationship exists between the oldest form of the Quest and what have been called the non-Grail members of the cycle—i.e., the Mabinogi of Peredur ab Evrawc and the Thornton MS. Sir Perceval. As preliminary to this inquiry, an attempt must be made to determine more closely the relationship of the Didot-Perceval to the Conte du Graal—whether it be wholly derived from the latter, or whether it may have preserved through other sources traces of a different form of the story than that found in Chrestien.[69]