Sir Galahad and the Holy Grail

Author: Traditional

Time Period: 1001 CE–1500 CE

Country or Culture: England

Genre: Legend

PLOT SUMMARY

With roots in Celtic legend, the Holy Grail has been variously represented as a stone, dish, cup, caldron, and platter. During the Middle Ages, however, the vessel was understood to be the chalice associated with the Last Supper, brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea. In the Vulgate cycle of Arthurian romances, the Holy Grail is the object of a sacred quest undertaken by Arthur’s knights, the foremost of whom is Lancelot’s illegitimate son, Galahad.

During the dangerous journey, Galahad and his fellow knights Perceval (Percival) and Bors encounter a ship waiting by the shore. When they board the boat, they discover the Holy Grail, covered in red samite and sitting on a silver table. Galahad is so overcome by the sacred object’s presence that he prays that God will take him to heaven at that moment. A voice promises to honor the young knight’s request in due time.

The ship transports the seekers to the island of Sarras. As they attempt to remove the silver table from the ship, Galahad calls on a lame man to help them. The crippled man protests that he has been using crutches for ten years. Nevertheless, Galahad bids him rise, and the man discovers that he can walk unaided. The old man’s recovery causes a stir in the city, which displeases the king. Instead of honoring Galahad and his fellow knights, he imprisons them. After a year elapses, the king, near death, frees the three knights and asks for their forgiveness.

Galahad replaces the dead ruler as king and orders that a shrine be created for the Grail. A year after his coronation, Galahad enters the room where the Grail is displayed and has a vision of a bishop, surrounded by angels, kneeling before the silver table. The bishop tells Galahad that his request to see the unveiled Grail is about to be granted and that he will be taken to heaven soon afterward. Rejoicing, Galahad bids farewell to Perceval and Bors and asks Bors to remind Lancelot of his vow to live a virtuous life. As Galahad kneels before the Grail, he dies, and the sacred vessel, gripped by a disembodied hand, vanishes.

Mourning Galahad, Perceval adopts the habit of a hermit, while Bors continues to a secular life. After Perceval’s death, Bors returns to Camelot. He tells the story of the Holy Grail to Arthur and his court, and also gives Galahad’s message to Lancelot. Grief stricken, Lancelot agrees to keep his promise to his son but continues to live a sinful life. Galahad’s adventure brings the search for the Holy Grail to a close, and the decline of Arthur’s kingdom begins.

SIGNIFICANCE

While the quest for the Holy Grail is one of the most enduring legacies of medieval Arthurian literature, the story’s origin is found in Celtic myth. One example is the Welsh tale of Bran the Blessed’s horn of plenty, a magic receptacle that provides physical and spiritual nourishment to those deemed worthy. By the late twelfth century, Christianity’s influence became evident in French poet Chrétien de Troyes’s version of the Grail adventure, which focuses on Perceval. The Prose Lancelot, or Vulgate cycle, a collection of early thirteenth-century stories penned by unknown authors, portrays Galahad as the only knight to achieve the Grail quest.

Galahad’s prominence in the Vulgate cycle’s Grail narrative is connected to the rise of the Knights Templar, highly skilled warrior monks who fought during the thirteenth-century Crusades. Bernard of Clairvaux, reformer of the Cistercian monastic order, outlined the Rule of the Knights Templar in 1129. The rule defined the ideal Christian knight as a man who was brave, wise, virtuous, and committed to God. The Vulgate cycle’s portrayal of Galahad as a man of strength, courage, and purity embodies traits prized by the Templars. In addition, Galahad is sometimes seen in art carrying a white shield painted with a red cross, which is the traditional symbol of the Templars. Galahad exhibits messianic qualities as well. The tale of his healing of the elderly man echoes Jesus’s healing of the paralytic in John 5:1–15. Within this context, the figure of Galahad is analogous to the son of God.

The Christianization of the Grail legend not only elevates Galahad as the most Christlike of Arthur’s knights but also highlights the Grail’s association with the Eucharist (or Holy Communion). During the mass celebrated by the mysterious bishop, Galahad is granted his request to view what the Grail holds. Instead of the host (bread or wafer) commonly used during Eucharist, the contents of the vessel are indescribable. Galahad reacts with uncontrolled trembling as he beholds the vision. His behavior is similar to that of a mystic who is so engulfed by the transcendent that he can no longer live on earth.

Over the centuries, Galahad’s search for the Holy Grail has continued to capture the public imagination. Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur (1485), Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (1859–85), T. H. White’s The Once and Future King (1958), and the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) all reference the Vulgate cycle version of the Galahad narrative, but each reinterprets the story to reflect the times in which they were written or produced.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barber, Richard. The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2004. Print.

Day, David. The Search for King Arthur. New York: Facts On File, 1998. Print.

Jung, Emma, and Marie-Louise von Franz. The Grail Legend. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2005. Print.

Loomis, Roger Sherman. The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991. Print.

White, Richard, ed. King Arthur in Legend and History. New York: Routledge, 1997. Print.