The Moral and Spiritual import of the Grail-Legend universally recognised--Popularity of the Arthurian Romance-- Reasons for that Popularity--Affinities of the Mediæval Romances with early Celtic Literature; Importance of the Individual Hero; Knighthood; the _rôle_ of Woman; the Celtic Fairy and the Mediæval Lady; the Supernatural--M. Renan's views--The Quest in English Literature, Malory--The earliest form of the Legend, Chrestien, his continuators--The Queste and its Ideal--The Sex-Relations in the Middle Ages-- Criticism of Mr. Furnivall's estimate of the moral import of the Queste--The Merits of the Queste--The Chastity Ideal in the later versions--Modern English Treatments: Tennyson, Hawker--Possible Source of the Chastity Ideal in Popular Tradition--The Perceval Quest in Wolfram; his Moral Conception; the Question; Parzival and Conduiramur--The Parzival Quest and Faust--Wagner's Parsifal--The Christian element in the Legend--Ethical Ideas in the folk-tale originals of the Grail Romances: the Great Fool; the Sleeping Beauty--Conclusion page 228 APPENDIX A.: The Relationship of Wolfram to Chrestien page 261 APPENDIX B.: The Grand St. Graal Prologue and the Brandan Legend page 264 INDEX I. The Dramatis Personæ of the Legend page 266 INDEX II. page 275 INTRODUCTION. The present work is, as its title states, a collection of "Studies." It does not profess to give an exhaustive or orderly account of the Grail romance cycle; it deals with particular aspects of the legend, and makes no pretence of exhausting even these.