Part IV
In this part . . .
The Knights Templar, both in myth and reality, are tied fast to the core myth of knighthood — the Holy Grail. This part explores the Grail myths of the West, the tales of knights and their ladies fair, and their connection to the Templars. Chapter 10 looks at the origins of the Grail tales and the myths of King Arthur, and how the Templars became intertwined with them. From there Chapter 11 leaps back to the 21st century, into the brand-new saga of the Templars that has taken the world by storm, in the wake of the feverish Grail-mania brought on by The Da Vinci Code. It lays out the evidence for this new Grail legend in a bloodline of Christ, beginning in the 1st century B.D.B. (Before Dan Brown) with the brave few who carefully and cautiously put forward the notion that Jesus might have been married. From there, we hit the open road for the South of France, to the mysterious hill town of Rennes-le-Chateau, in order to blow away a little of the pixie dust and examine the possible truths behind the many mysteries of the land that the Templars called home.
Chapter 10
In This Chapter
● Defining the many versions of the Grail
● Exploring the origins of the Grail legends
● Connecting the Templars to the Grail tales
Ask anyone on the street today what the Holy Grail is, and most will tell you it was the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper. Readers of The Da Vinci Code may have a different answer for you, but most people would agree that the Last Supper reference is probably the right one.
The many Grail legends over the centuries have always told the story of a quest by a hero who must prove his worthiness before he can possess the Grail’s powers or secrets. But, curiously, the Grail hasn’t always been seen as a cup — or even as holy, for that matter.
The Grail legend first appeared in the 12th century as part of a larger collection of heroic tales about a young, inexperienced knight named Percival, one of the knights of King Arthur’s mythical kingdom of Camelot. Although they came from French sources, the stories were set in Wales or Britain. Though the fables of King Arthur and the Holy Grail are well known today, they took a long, circuitous route throughout history, and the Grail itself has represented many things other than the cup used at the Last Supper.
This chapter is a whirlwind exploration of the different theories and metaphors that have made up the many myths of the quest for the Holy Grail.
The Holy Grail: A Ten-Century Quest
It is in Luke 22:14-20, at the Last Supper with Jesus and his apostles, that the cup is first mentioned. It appears not only in the Gospel of Luke, but in Matthew and Mark as well. In these three gospels lie the only biblical references to what became the legendary Grail — either the cup that held the wine or, perhaps, the dish that held the Passover lamb.
No further reference to either of these famous pieces of dinnerware appears anywhere outside of the biblical record until an eighth-century hermit had a vision and wrote it down in a book called Gradale in A.D. 717. Even that book has not survived the centuries, and we only know about it because it was described by a Cistercian monk named Helinandus in the 13th century.
The medieval Latin term gradale meant “shallow dish,” and it was translated into medieval French as greal, graal, or greel (spelling and pronunciation was a more fleeting, transitive, and mushy concept in those days). Authors Michael Bagient, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln played a word game with the medieval French terms San Greal (Holy Grail) and Sang Real (Royal Blood) in their book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and the same ball was picked up and run with by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code (see Chapter 11).
The Grail itself took on a variety of guises over the centuries, and not all of them were necessarily Christian in nature. In fact, not all of them have been a physical object. Here are some of the different versions of the Grail itself:
● The cup or serving dish used by Jesus at the Last Supper prior to his arrest.
● A bowl or dish — possibly the same one from the Last Supper — used by Joseph of Arimathea to collect the blood of Jesus as he hung on the cross (or afterward in Jesus’s tomb). This Grail was said to have been taken by Joseph to Britain, where the Christian conversion of England began.
● The lapsit exillis. Wolfram von Eschenbach’s popular epic, Parzival, describes the Grail as a stone or crystal that heals the sick, provides limitless food, and confers immortality. The Latin term is translated as “the stone from the heavens.” Some have described it as a legendary jewel that fell from the crown of Satan while he battled the angels of heaven. Others have suggested that it was part of the stone that covered Jesus’s tomb after the crucifixion.
● The Philospher’s Stone. Since the lapsit exillis was a stone, some believe the Grail may be the “Philosopher’s Stone,” the illusive secret ingredient of alchemy during the Middle Ages. The Philosopher’s Stone, if it were ever found, was supposed to allow the alchemist to transmute base metal into gold and allow the body to retard aging and prevent death.
● The alabaster jar of ointment used by Mary of Bethany to anoint Jesus in the house of Simon the Leper in Matthew 26, Mark 14, and John 12.
● A different alabaster jar (or box) of scented oil that an unnamed women uses to anoint Jesus in the house of the Pharisee in Luke 7.
● The Virgin Mary. For some, the Grail may not have been an object at all. Because the Virgin Mary, Jesus’s mother, was the sacred “vessel” that had contained Christ before his birth, some hypothesize that the Grail was a metaphor for Mary.
● Mary Magdalene. The theory that Jesus may have been married to Mary Magdalene, that she came to France after the resurrection, and that she bore Christ’s daughter has led some to speculate that the Grail refers to both Mary Magdalene and the long line of descendants from that marriage. Again, this is the concept of Jesus’s alleged wife as a sacred vessel, or simply their bloodline, as the Grail. This is the central thesis to The Da Vinci Code, and we discuss it in detail in Chapter 13.
● Secret knowledge. In some versions of the story, the Grail becomes a metaphor for hidden, esoteric knowledge, and the knights who search for it are initiates who must purify themselves and become worthy enough to receive these secrets.
The Quest Begins
Most histories of the Grail myths begin with Chretien de Troyes, a French troubadour in the 12th century. He was a storyteller who entertained courts in France and Flanders, and although his tales of the Grail are widely considered to have come from Celtic and other sources, Chretien was the first to get them down in writing.
At the time of Chretien de Troyes, some parallel concepts developed. The Crusades had started nearly a century before, so stories of crusading knights on a quest had become pretty common currency in the storytelling business. An important influence on him was his benefactress, Marie, Countess of Champagne, the daughter of French King Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor’s grandfather William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, was France’s first troubadour. She is often credited with almost single-handedly creating the notion of “courtly love” and carrying it to France and then to England with her second marriage to King Henry II (see the “Courtly love” sidebar in this chapter).
Chretien de Troyes
Chretien de Troyes’s story, LeConte du Graal (Story of the Grail), or Perceval, is where the first tales of a knight in search of the Grail appear. He wrote, or dictated it, between 1181 and 1190, but he died before it was completed.
Courtly love
Courtly love (and we're not talking about the widow of Kurt Cobain and lead singer of Hole) was a concept that appeared in Europe in the 11th century. It was at the French court of the powerful Eleanor of Aquitaine that the concept of courtly love was born and reached its full flower, a tradition enthusiastically continued by her daughter, Marie. Romance in French means "song" or "ballad," and roman means "novel." Chretian de Troyes may have been writing poetry, but in writing it down instead of singing or speaking it, he was really writing the first novel.
It is the stuff that fairy tales and epic poems were filled with. "Courtly love" generally occurred between a queen, princess, or other noble lady, and an admiring knight or troubadour. In its loftiest form, it was a chaste love affair from afar that was almost never consummated by a proper knight — although that wasn't always true, as in the tale of Sir Lancelot and King Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere, a love that started as the courtly variety but ended in the bedroom and the destruction of a kingdom. But in the perfect situation, the knight gifted his lady with adoration, even if he knew he could never have her sexually. She was the symbol of all that was pure and noble in femininity. He performed heroic deeds, engaged in tournaments, and embarked on quests in the hope of being found worthy by her. Whether she was married was immaterial, because the goal was rarely adultery.
The arranged marriages of the period were often loveless couplings, and everybody needs a little romance in their lives. Interestingly, others have speculated that courtly love was actually a Cathar-like concept — adoring women for a spiritual purpose, while shunning sexual gratification.
Courtliness became a synonym for etiquette. The point of all of this was that a knight attempted to improve himself morally, physically, and even spiritually, by suffering for this love unfulfilled. So in a sense, courtly love was a civilizing force on rough, boorish, and decidedly unsophisticated fighting men.
Unfortunately, the Church didn't much care for the idea. Faith was supposed to be the civilizing force in the world, and certainly not the unhealthy, hot-blooded hedonism of moping around over a married woman. Church fathers didn't see anything spiritually uplifting about it at all, and by the 13th century, they began to spread the word that courtly love was heretical. Killjoys.
Perceval and the Graal
Perceval is the son of a widow, raised by his mother in the forests of Wales, cut off from civilization. He is a complete innocent when the tale begins. Over the years, knights pass through the forest, and Perceval longs to be one of them. At last, he decides to leave home and join the court of King Arthur, over the protests of his mother. There, he is knighted and a young girl at the court foresees that he will achieve great deeds. He is mentored by Gornemant, and the young knight is a quick learner in combat skills. Unfortunately, he is not so quick at learning the other things required of a knight. Because Perceval was raised alone and isolated from the world, he is naive and a little dimwitted. Gornemant suggests that he not ask so many questions, in an effort to keep him from looking foolish.
Perceval sets out one day and discovers a wide, impassable stream, and a fisherman in a boat, who is known as the Fisher King. He invites Perceval to rest at a nearby castle that seems to appear out of nowhere. There, Perceval sees a curious ceremony. An old, crippled man is brought into the Great Hall in a bed. After speaking with Perceval for a while, a young woman enters with a sword in a lavishly decorated scabbard, which the old man presents as a gift to the young knight. A procession begins, and a servant enters the hall with a spear that drips blood from its tip. He is followed by a young girl with beautiful golden cup — a graal. In the cup is a single Eucharist. Perceval wants to ask about what he sees, but he recalls Gornemant’s warnings to not make a fool of himself and decides to keep his mouth shut.
Perceval awakens the next morning to discover the castle deserted. As he rides away, a little miffed that he’s been abandoned, the drawbridge slams shut behind him, and the castle disappears. Meanwhile, King Arthur has become concerned over his absence, and all the knights go in search of the young knight. When they find him, Arthur tells Perceval that his mother has died, stricken with grief over his departure. Perceval decides that he’ll spend the rest of his life in search of battle and never stay more than one night in any place, until he can find the mysterious castle again. He vows to find out the secret of the bleeding lance and who it was that the Grail served.
Five years later, Perceval is a broken man who has lost his faith. He is confronted by a creepy old hag, who tells him that the old man in the castle was none other than his own uncle, and that he died. The reason he died and the castle disappeared is because he failed to ask his question, “Whom does the Grail serve?” If he had asked, he would have discovered that the old man was the father of the Fisher King, the castle’s lord, and that the Grail served the Eucharist to him to sustain both him and the land around it.
From here, the story takes a “meanwhile back at the ranch” approach and follows the tale of Sir Gawain, Arthur’s nephew. It briefly returns to Perceval, but Chretien de Troyes died before it was completed, having created just 9,000 lines of his tale.
The Continuations
During this period, the overwhelming majority of people were illiterate. Chretien de Troyes’s story was probably dictated by him (there’s a question as to whether he could read himself) and it was intended to be read aloud. Finished or not, his Story of the Grail, along with an earlier work, Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, became incredibly popular.
Almost immediately after his death, four different authors came forward and added to the tale of Perceval, extending the storyline of Arthur’s knights, the mysterious Fisher King, and, of course, Perceval himself. Known as the Continuations, these additions fleshed out the background of the Grail. One of these, Manessier’s Continuation, has Perceval at last returning to the castle of the Fisher King, where he asks his questions and becomes the new king himself, who possesses both the Grail and the Bleeding Lance. After seven years as king, Perceval wanders into the woods one day with the Grail and dies, taking it up to heaven.
Robert de Boron: The Grail becomes holy
In Chretien de Troyes’s version and its Continuations, the Grail isn’t fully explained, and it isn’t yet connected with the Last Supper or Jesus in any way. All that changed with a new author, Robert de Boron. His version is called The History of the Grail, and the holy relic really is the centerpiece of the story.
De Boron had previously written a tale of Joseph of Arimathea who has possession of the serving bowl or chalice from the Last Supper. Remember: It was Joseph who provided his own private tomb for the burial of Jesus after the crucifixion. In de Boron’s story, Joseph helps prepare Jesus’s body for interment by wiping the blood from his body and collecting it in the Grail. De Boron’s inspiration came from an Apocryphal gospel, the Acts of Pilate, also known during the medieval period as the Gospel of Nicodemus.
In the Gospel of Nicodemus, Joseph is locked up for 40 days after Christ’s ascension, and Jesus appears to him. In de Boron’s version of the Grail tale, Joseph is thrown into prison, where Jesus appears to him and explains the powers and mystery of the Grail. He transports both Joseph and the jail cell itself out of the prison, and Joseph escapes with his followers to France. The Grail is passed by Joseph of Arimathea to the first Grail king, and eventually Perceval receives it.
Perlesvaus
Also in the 13th century, an anonymous version of the Grail legend called Perlesvaus appeared. This tale is unusual because it departs radically from what came before, and the Grail takes on different qualities.
Percival arrives at the mysterious castle, but there is no Grail there. Instead, it is a place inhabited by a knightly order. Two teachers meet the young knight and bring in 33 men, dressed in white with red crosses on their tunics — very Knights Templar-esque. The castle is not a Grail castle, but the teachers there know of the Grail’s powers.
What makes this version so different from the others is that the Grail seems to represent secret knowledge. At different times it appears as a king with a crown; a child; an image of Jesus with a crown of thorns and blood flowing from his forehead, hands, breast, and feet; and finally, a wine glass. In this decidedly esoteric telling, the Grail is more of an experience or an idea than a thing. As a result, many people have attached Cathar or Gnostic interpretations to this version.
Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival
In the early part of the 1200s, a German poet named Wolfram von Eschenbach took up Cretian de Troyes’s Perceval and decided it needed an overhaul. The result was Parzival, a complete retelling of the legend, in which he takes a swipe at his French predecessors as not knowing the real story. The basic storyline of Perceval is intact, but von Eschenbach adds the soap-opera touches of long-lost relatives and unknown identities. The work is considered the greatest of early German epic poems, and it became the basis for Richard Wagner’s 1882 opera, Parsifal (why can’t anyone agree on how to spell this kid’s name?).
In this version, the Grail was kept at the Castle Monsalvaesche (or Monsalvat), and more than one 20th-century Grail-seeker has believed that this was actually the Cathar village of Montsegur in France or the monastery at Montserrat in Spain (see Chapter 11).
A big difference in von Eschenbach’s version is that the Grail is not a dish or bowl, as in Chretien de Troyes’s version or the Continuations. This time, it is a clear stone or crystal. It heals the sick or injured, and it provides an endless food supply when it gets trotted out for dinner.
The rest of the story
The myths that took shape in the 1100s with Chretien de Troyes caught fire in the imagination of Europe, and the Grail legend mixed with the tales of King Arthur, Merlin, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table. Celtic influences from Wales, England, and elsewhere crept into the legends. Different versions of the stories filled out the canon over the centuries, even though many contradicted each other. These are the most important:
Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (The Death of Arthur) appeared in 1470, and it seemed to set the storyline and characters on a more linear path. Malory combined the previous French versions of the story with English variations. It has become the basis for most of the Arthurian legends told ever since. Malory introduced the Seige Perilous to the legend — a chair that is to remain vacant at the Round Table by the order of Merlin the magician. Only the purest and most worthy knight may sit in it, and he will be the one to seek the Grail. It is fatal to all others. Sir Galahad is the only knight who can sit in it and survive.
● Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idyls of the King (1856-1885) are a series of 12 poems, revolving around King Arthur. The Grail appears in a tale told as a flashback by Sir Percivale, who is now a monk.
● T. H. White’s Once and Future King leaned heavily on Malory’s version and is perhaps the most easily accessible of the bunch. Written between 1938 and 1950, it progresses from a lighthearted, almost childlike book in the beginning, to a dark, pessimistic parable about World War II. It was the basis of the 1960s musical Camelot.
The Templars and the Grail
The legends of the Holy Grail just so happened to start taking shape at the same time in history that the Knights Templar were getting organized, and the Templars themselves were the inspiration for many legendary stories spun by the troubadours, poets, bards, and jesters of the 12th and 13th centuries. In early versions of the stories, Sir Gawain was identified as having a shield of white with a red cross, much like the shields wielded by the Templars.
There is a modern allegation that the anonymous 13th-century Perlesvaus was written by a Templar, but no serious researcher believes it. Likewise, modern attempts to claim that the Grail was part of the secret treasure excavated from under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem are not credible. The Grail legends were nonexistent until the late 1100s, so even if the order had discovered a chalice, there would have been little to connect it to the legend of the Holy Grail at that point in history.
As we discuss in Chapter 11 and throughout Part IV of this book, the version of the Grail legend told in the novel The Da Vinci Code is based on the suggestion that the Grail is not a cup used by Christ at the Last Supper. Instead, it is the notion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, and that she is the sacred vessel that contained the holy bloodline of Christ, in the form of their child, a baby girl named Sarah.
The Templars enter this theory by way of the suggestion made in Dan Brown’s source material, the pseudo-historical book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. It introduced a shadowy, heretofore unknown, secret society called the Priory of Sion, and it further speculated that the Templars were formed as their military arm. And, so this version of the story goes, the priory’s mission was — and is — to protect the surviving descendants of Jesus and Mary. (We examine this part of the story in detail in Chapter 11.)
The other alleged connection between the Templars and the Grail concerns — what else? — Rosslyn Chapel! Some speculative authors believe that the Holy Grail is hidden in the hollow Apprentice Pillar of Rosslyn. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that the Templars had the Grail, that they took it to Scotland, that they buried it in Rosslyn Chapel, or that the Apprentice Pillar is hollow, but that doesn’t seem to matter where legends are concerned. (We talk more about Rosslyn Chapel all over this book, but especially in Chapter 7.)
The Real Grail?
It is curious that an obscure item from Jesus’s dinner table is never mentioned for ten centuries, then suddenly becomes the subject of so many authors and captures the imagination of so many people. It goes hand in hand with the fascination in the Middle Ages with the trade in holy relics. Pieces of the True Cross were scattered from one end of Christendom to the other. By the time of the Templars, there were at least four claimants to the Holy Lance, the Roman lance that was thrust into Jesus’s side by the soldier Longinus, who was mentioned in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (Acts of Pilate). Likewise, by 1300, there were no less than 20 “Holy Grails” claimed around the Christian world. Several survive today (see Chapter 15).