The golden legend of the Grail

Perceval: The Story of the Grail by Chretien de Troyes, translated by Nigel Bryant (Arthurian Studies V), (D. S. Brewer, £19.50).
THE excellent press of Boyden and Brewer has once again performed an invaluable service to medievalists by publishing what is, amazingly, the first romance Perceval. This neglect is difficult to understand.
Chretien left the poem incomplete on his death in the 1180's; and, just as writers have attempted to complete novels such as .Sanditon and Edwin Drood, so did this unfinished work attract the attentions of no fewer than four continuators.
These introduced changes of emphasis and narrative digressions, and none of them, not even Gerbert de Montreuil, could quite match Chretien's imagination. Nevertheless, despite its disjointed form, Perceval is far more readable than Wolfram von Eschenbach's cumbrous and involved Purzival, of which several translations, both prose and verse, have been made.
Nigel Bryant has contributed to that readability by summarising those parts of the continuations which stray too far from the purpose of the tale. He has also wisely decided against imitating the I rhyming couplets of the original, although his prose retains the spirit of the poetry.
Chretien's romance occupies an important place in Arthurian studies, since it is the earliest surviving work to deal with the theme of the Grail. The very uncertainty as to the form, origin and function of this object (a Christianisation of the all-providing cauldrons of celtic mythology) seems to have fired the imagination of writers.
Chretien's Perceval sees a gradalis, a broad, somewhat deep dish, of Jewel-studded gold, born by a fair maiden, who is followed by another girl holding a silver trencher. Later, in one of the continuations, the Fisher King explains that the Grail is the vessel which Joseph
of Arimathea used to catch Christ's blood at the Crucifixion, and that the silver trencher was used to cover it. Chretien himself indicates a Eucharistic connection when he narrates that the Fisher King's father is sustained by a single host brought to him in the Grail In one of the manuscripts of Perceval the Grail is depicted as a ciborium. The early 13th century poet Robert de Boron further emphasized this aspect by also identifying it as the chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper. Later authors did not always adhere to Chretien's description of the Grail In the romance Perlesvaus Gawain and Perceval see it undergo mystical transformations reminiscent of certain eucharistic miracles. Wolfram von Eschenhach envisaged it as a stone of great virtue. In the late medieval Glastonbury tradition the Grail became two vessels, cruets filled with Christ's blood and sweat, which were buried with Joseph of Arimathea. The greatest mystery of the Grail is how Chretien came to deal with the subject. In the introduction he reveals that the work was commissioned by Philip, count of Flanders, who had given him a hook containing the story. It is impossible to determine the nature of that source. However, it may be worth noting that an earlier count of Flanders had given a relic of the Holy Blood to Bruges. The presence of this Passion relic may well have stimulated an interest in legends which could bear a eucharistic interpretation.
But there is more to Perceval than the quest of the Grail. As Nigel Bryant observes, the true subject of the poem is the martial, moral and spiritual development of a knight. Perceval, the simple, blundering youth who ultimately succeeds the Fisher King as guardian of the Grail, perfectly illustrates this process of education. Intermingled with his adventures are those of Gawain. These are not an unnecessary digression but a means of demonstrating the difference between the semblance and the substance of a worthy knight.
Perceval is not just a text to be studied, but a book to be enjoyed in the evening by a good fire. Its strange, often inexplicable incidents and motifs have a fascination which none of the modern, synthetic Arthurians can match.
The very beginning transcends the commonplaces of which it is composed to captivate the reader: "It was in the time when trees burst into leaf, and fields and woods and meadows are green, and the birds in their Latin sing so sweetly in the morning, and every soul is aflame with joy, that the son of the widowed lady of the wild and lonely forest rose, and with all eagerness he set his saddle on his hunting-horse and took three javelins, and set out from his mother's house".
Not wishing to deprive the publisher of well-deserved custom, I shall not reveal whom Perceval sees, nor what comes of the meeting.
Nicholas Rogers