From Ritual to RomanceWeston, Jessie L. (Jessie Laidlay)
Religion
From Ritual to Romance
Weston, Jessie L. (Jessie Laidlay)
Grail -- Legends -- History and criticism; Romances -- History and criticism
As first told the story preserved its primal character of a composite
between Christianity and the Nature Ritual, as witnessed by the
ceremony over the bier of the Dead Knight, the procession with Cross
and incense, and the solemn Vespers for the Dead. This, I suspect,
correctly represents the final stage of the process by which
Attis-Adonis was identified with Christ. Thus, in its first form the
story was the product of conscious intention.
But when the tale was once fairly launched as a romantic tale, and came
into the hands of those unfamiliar with its Ritual origin (though the
fact that it had such an origin was probably well understood), the
influence of the period came into play. The Crusades, and the
consequent traffic in relics, especially in relics of the Passion,
caused the identification of the sex Symbols, Lance and Cup, with the
Weapon of the Crucifixion, and the Cup of the Last Supper; but the
Christianization was merely external, the tale, as a whole, retaining
its pre-Christian character.
The conversion into a definitely Christian romance seems to have been
due to two causes. First, the rivalry between the two great monastic
houses of Glastonbury and Fescamp, the latter of which was already in
possession of a genuine _Saint-Sang_ relic, and fully developed
tradition. There is reason to suppose that the initial combination of
the Grail and _Saint-Sang_ traditions took place at Fescamp, and was
the work of some member of the minstrel Guild attached to that Abbey.
But the Grail tradition was originally British; Glastonbury was from
time immemorial a British sanctuary; it was the reputed burial place of
Arthur, of whose court the Grail Quest was the crowning adventure; the
story must be identified with British soil. Consequently a version was
composed, now represented by our _Perlesvaus_ text, in which the union
of Nicodemus of Fescamp, and Joseph of Glastonbury, fame, as ancestors
of the Grail hero, offers a significant hint of the _provenance_ of the
version.
Secondly, a no less important element in the process was due to the
conscious action of Robert de Borron, who well understood the character
of his material, and radically remodelled the whole on the basis of the
triple Mystery tradition translated into terms of high Christian
Mysticism. A notable feature of Borron’s version is his utilization of
the tradition of the final Messianic Feast, in combination with his
Eucharistic symbolism, a combination thoroughly familiar to early
Christian Mystics.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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