Holy Blood, Holy Grail (45 page)

In addition to Der Junge Titurel, Wolfram left another work unfinished at his death the poem known as Willehalm, whose protagonist is Guillem de

Gellone, Merovingian ruler of the ninth-century principality straddling the

Pyrenees. Guillem is said to be associated with the Grail family.z9 He would thus seem to be the only figure in Wolfram’s works whose historical identity can actually be determined. Yet even in his treatment of the unidentifiable figures, Wolfram’s meticulous precision is astonishing. The more one studies him, the more likely it seems that he is referring to an actual group of people not a mythic or fictionalised family, but one that did exist historically, and may well have included Guillem de Gellone. This conclusion becomes all the more plausible when Wolfram admits he is hiding something that Parzival and his other works are not merely romances, but also initiation documents,

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depositories of secrets. The Grail and Cabalism

As the Perlesvaus suggests, the Grail, at least in part, would seem to be an experience of some kind. In his excursus on the Grail’s curative properties and its power to ensure longevity, Wolfram would also seem to be implying something experiential as well as symbolic a state of mind or a state of being. There seems little question that on one level the Grail is an initiatory experience which in modern terminology would be described as a

‘transformation’ or “altered state of consciousness’. Alternatively it might be described as a “Gnostic experience’, a ‘mystical experience’, ‘illumination’ or “union with God’. It is possible to be even more precise and place the experiential aspect of the Grail in a very specific context.

That context is the Cabala and Cabalistic thought. Certainly such thought was much ‘in the air’ at the time the Grail romances were composed. There was a famous Cabalistic school at Toledo, for instance, where Kyot is said to have learned of the Grail. There were other schools at Gerona,

Montpellier and elsewhere in the south of France. And it would hardly seem coincidental that there was also such a school at Troyes. It dated from 1070 - Godfroi de Bouillon’s time and was conducted by one Rashi, perhaps the most famous of medieval Cabalists.

It is impossible here, of course, to do justice to the Cabala or Cabalistic thought.

Nevertheless certain points must be made in order to establish the connection between Cabalism and the Grail romances.

Very briefly then,

Cabalism might be described as “esoteric Judaism’ - a practical psychological methodology of uniquely Judaic origin designed to induce a dramatic transformation of consciousness. In this respect it may be viewed as a Judaic equivalent of similar methodologies or disciplines in Hindu,

Buddhist and Taoist tradition certain forms of yoga for example, or of

Zen.

Like its Eastern equivalents, Cabalistic training entails a series of rituals a structured sequence of successive initiatory experiences leading the practitioner to ever more radical modifications of consciousness and cognition. And though the meaning and significance of such modifications is subject to interpretation, their reality, as

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psychological phenomena, is beyond dispute. Of the “stages’ of Cabalistic initiation, one of the most important is the stage known as Tiferet. In the Tiferet experience the individual is said to pass beyond the world of form into the formless or, in contemporary terms, to ‘transcend his ego’. Symbolically speaking this consists of a kind of sacrificial “death’ the “death’ of the ego, of one’s sense of individuality and the isolation such individuality entails; and, of course, a rebirth, or resurrection, into another dimension, of all-encompassing unity and harmony. In Christian adaptations of Cabalism Tiferet was therefore associated with Jesus.

For medieval Cabalists the initiation into Tiferet was associated with certain specific symbols. These included a hermit or guide or wise old man, a majestic king, a child, a sacrificed god.3 In time other symbols were added as well a truncated pyramid, for example, a cube and a rose cross.

The relation of these symbols to the Grail romances is sufficiently apparent. In every Grail narrative there is a wise old hermit Perceval’s or Parzival’s uncle frequently who acts as a spiritual guide. In

Wolfram’s poem the Grail as “stone’ may possibly correspond to the cube.

And in the Perlesvaus the various manifestations of the Grail correspond almost precisely to the symbols of Tiferet. Indeed, the Perlesvaus in itself establishes a crucial link between the Tiferet experience and the

Grail.3’

The Play on Words

We could thus identify the experiential aspect of the Grail and connect it quite precisely with Cabalism. This imparted another seemingly incongruous

Judaic element to the Grail’s supposedly Christian character. But whatever the Grail’s experiential aspects, there were other aspects as well aspects which we could not ignore and which were of paramount importance-to our story. These aspects were historical and genealogical.

Again and again, the Grail romances had confronted us with a pattern of a distinctly mundane and un mystical nature. Again and again, there was a callow knight who, by dint of certain tests that proved him

‘worthy’, was initiated into some monumental secret. Again and again,

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this secret was closely guarded by an order of some sort, apparently chivalric in composition. Again and again, the secret was in some way associated with a specific family. Again and again, the protagonist by intermarriage with this family, by his own lineage or by both became lord of the Grail and everything connected with it. On this level, at least, we seemed to be dealing with something of a concrete historical character.

One can become lord of a castle or a group of people. One can become heir to certain lands or even a certain heritage. But one cannot become lord or heir to an experience.

Was it relevant, we wondered, that the Grail romances, when subjected to close scrutiny, rested sb crucially on matters of lineage and genealogy, pedigree, heritage and inheritance? Was it relevant that the lineage and genealogy in question should overlap at certain key points those which had figured so saliently in our inquiry the house of Anjou, for instance,

Guillem de Gellone and Godfroi de Bouillon? Could the mystery attached to

Rennes-leChateau and the Prieure de Sion relate, in some as yet obscure way, to that mysterious object called the Holy Grail? Had we, in fact, been following in Parzival’s footsteps and conducting our own modern Grail quest?

The evidence suggested that this was a very real possibility. And indeed there was one more crucial piece of evidence which tilted the balance decisively in favour of such a conclusion. In many of the earlier manuscripts, the Grail is called the “Sangraal’; and even in the later version by Malory, it is called the “Sangreal’. It is likely that some such form “Sangraal’ or “Sangreal’ was in fact the original one. It is also likely that that one word was subsequently broken in the wrong place. In other words “Sangraal’ or

“Sangreal’ may not have been intended to divide into “San Graal’ or “San Greal’ but into

“Sang Raal’ or “Sang Real’. Or, to employ the modern spelling, Sang Royal. Royal blood.

In itself, such wordplay might be provocative but hardly conclusive.

Taken in conjunction with the emphasis on genealogy and lineage, however, there is not much room for doubt. And, for that matter, the traditional associations the cup which caught Jesus’s blood, for instance would seem to reinforce this supposition. Quite clearly, the

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Grail would appear to pertain in some way to blood and a bloodline.This raises, of course, certain obvious questions. Whose blood? And whose bloodline?

The Lost Kings and the Grail

The Grail romances were not the only poems of their kind to find a receptive audience in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

There were many others Tristan and Isolde, for instance, and Eric and Enide composed in some cases by Chretien himself, in some cases by contemporaries and countrymen of Wolfram, such as Hartmann von Aue and Gottfried von

Strassburg. These romances make no mention whatever of the Grail. But they are clearly set in the same mythico-historical period as the Grail romances, because they depend more or less heavily on Arthur. As far as he can be dated, Arthur seems to have lived in the late fifth and/or early sixth centuries. In other words, Arthur lived at the peak of Merovingian ascendancy in Gaul, and was, in fact, closely contemporary with Clovis. If the term “Ursus’ - bear’ was applied to the Merovingian royal line, the name “Arthur’, which also means ‘bear’ may have been an attempt to confer a comparable dignity on a British chieftain.

For the writers at the time of the Crusades, the Merovingian era seems to have been of some crucial importance so much so, in fact, that it provided the backdrop for romances which had nothing to do with either

Arthur or the Grail. One such is the national epic of Germany, the Nibelungenlied or Song of the Nibelungen, on which, in the nineteenth century, Wagner drew so heavily for his monumental operatic sequence, The

Ring. This musical opus, and the poem from which it derives, are generally dismissed as pure fantasy. Yet the Nibelungs were a real people, a Germanic tribe who lived in late Merovingian times.

Moreover, many of the names in the Nibelungenlied Siegmund, for instance, Siegfried, Sieglinde,

Brunhilde and Kriemhild are patently Merovingian names. Many episodes in the poem closely parallel, and may even refer to, specific events of Merovingian times.

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Although it has nothing to do with either Arthur or the Grail, the Nibelungenlied is further evidence that the Merovingian epoch exercised a powerful hold on the imaginations of twelfth- and thirteenth-century poets as if they knew something crucial about that epoch which later writers and historians did not. In any case, modern scholars concur that the Grail romances, like the Nibelungenlied, refer to the Merovingian age. In part, of course, this conclusion would appear self-evident, given the prominence of Arthur. But it also rests on specific indications provided by the Grail romances themselves. The (Zueste del Saint

Graal, for example, composed between 1215 and 1230, declares explicitly that the events of the Grail story occurred precisely 454 years after the resurrection of Jesus.3z Assuming Jesus died in A.D. 33, the Grail saga would thus have enacted itself in A.D. 487 during the first flush of

Merovingian power, and a mere nine years before the baptism of Clovis.

There was nothing revolutionary or controversial, therefore, in connecting the Grail romances with the Merovingian age. None the less question of emphasis which, because of Arthur, has been placed primarily on Britain. As a result of this distinctly British emphasis, we had not automatically associated the Grail with the Merovingian dynasty. And yet Wolfram insists that

Arthur’s court is at Nantes and that his poem is set in France. The same assertion is made by other Grail romances the Queste del Saint Graal, for instance. And there are medieval traditions which maintain the Grail was not brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea, but to France by the

Magdalene.

We now began to wonder whether the pre-eminence assigned to Britain by commentators on the Grail romances had not perhaps been misplaced,33

and whether the romances in fact referred primarily to events on the continent more particularly to events in France. And we began to suspect that the

Grail itself, the “blood royal’, actually referred to the blood royal of the Merovingian dynasty a blood which was deemed to be sacred and invested with-magical or miraculous properties.

Perhaps the Grail romances constituted, at least in part, a symbolic or allegorical account of certain events of the Merovingian epoch. And

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perhaps we had already encountered some of those events in the course of our investigation. A marriage with some special family, for example, which, shrouded by time, engendered the legends attending the dual paternity of Merovee. Or perhaps, in the

Grail family, a representation of the clandestine perpetuation of the Merovingian bloodline les rois perdus or “lost kings’ in the mountains and caves of the Razes. Or perhaps that bloodline’s exile in England during the late ninth and early tenth centuries. And the secret but august dynastic alliances whereby the Merovingian vine, like that of the Grail family, eventually bore fruit in Godfroi de Bouillon and the house of Lorraine.

Perhaps Arthur himself the “bear’ was only incidentally related to the

Celtic or Gallo-Roman chieftain. Perhaps the Arthur in the Grail romances was really

“Ursus’ another name for “bear’. Perhaps the legendary Arthur in the chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth had been appropriated by writers on the Grail and deliberately transformed into the vehicle for a quite different, and secret, tradition. If so, this would explain why the Templars -established by the Prieure de Sion as guardians of the Merovingian bloodline were declared to be guardians of the Grail and the Grail family.

If the Grail family and the Merovingian bloodline were one and the same, the

Templars would indeed have been the guardians of the Grail at the time, more or less, that the Grail romances were composed. Their presence in the

Grail romances would not, therefore, have been anachronistic.

The hypothesis was intriguing, but it raised one extremely crucial question. The romances may have been set in Merovingian times, but they linked the Grail quite explicitly to the origins of Christianity to

Jesus, to Joseph of Arimathea, to the Magdalene. Some of them, in fact, go even further. In Robert de Boron’s poem, Galahad is said to be Joseph of

Arimathea’s son although the identity of the knight’s mother is unclear.

And the (Zueste del Saint Graal calls Galahad, like Jesus, a scion of the house of David, and identifies Galahad with Jesus himself. Indeed, the very name Galahad, according to modern scholars, derives from the name Gilead, which was deemed a mystical designation for Jesus .34