Cistercian Mysticism and the Holy Grail: From Galahad to Wolfram von Eschenbach

all in Cistercian mysticism and Saint Bernard. It is the most declaredly allegorical book and in a certain sense the most didactic. Every encounter, every action has a commentary and exegesis inserted directly into the text, often interpreted in a moral sense and sometimes mystical.

• LITURGY OF THE GRAIL:

The "Holy Grail" is placed above a table toward which descends, carried by four angels, Josephés, first bishop of Christianity: the angels also bear other objects including the bleeding Lance, whose drops fall into the sacred Vessel. Josephés thus celebrates a true liturgy. At first he extracts a host from the Grail: from heaven then descends "a figure like a child, with a face red and blazing like fire," which enters the bread and transforms it into human form. Then Josephés disappears, and from the Vessel emerges "a man completely naked, with hands, feet and body bleeding," who after addressing some words to Galahad and the other knights present personally distributes communion to all.

• GALAHAD NEW MESSIAH:

Galahad is called in some way to complete the mission of Jesus Christ on earth. "Just as error and folly dissipated with His coming," another hermit explains to Galahad himself, "and truth manifested itself clearly, in the same way Our Lord has chosen you among all knights to send you to foreign lands with the task of putting an end to the burdensome adventures and explaining why they occurred."

• GALAHAD'S BLOODLINE:

The events of the Grail are substantially linked to the vicissitudes of the two lineages of Galahad's parents: the patrilineal one from which Lancelot descends, royal stock that converted to Christianity at the time of Joseph of Arimathea and which spread the New Law in the West, and that of the Grail guardian kings, whose progenitor is Joseph of Arimathea and from whom descends the mother of the Good Knight, daughter of King Pellés. In Galahad moreover, thanks to his paternal grandmother, flows the blood of the Davidic lineage, the same as Christ's.

• TERRESTRIAL AND CELESTIAL CHIVALRY:

(De Laude Novae militiae) "Now I will tell you the meaning of the tournament. A short time ago, on Pentecost day, the earthly knights and the celestial knights together began a tournament, that is to say that together they undertook the Quest. The knights stained by mortal sin are the earthly knights, while the celestial ones are the true knights, the virtuous men who never defiled themselves in sin: together therefore they began the Quest of the Holy Grail, that is the tournament. The earthly knights, with earth in their eyes and heart, donned black armor, a color appropriate to people covered with black and horrible sins. The others donned white armor, sign of virginity and chastity, without shadows or stains."

• FINAL VISION OF THE GRAAL:

final vision of the secrets of the Grail in the holy city of Sarraz. In the $\textit{palés esperitel}$ – that is in the temple – where the sacred Vessel is kept he finally contemplates "distinctly what tongue cannot describe nor heart imagine": he has the direct vision of God and annihilates himself in Him, in the terms of the mystical theology of Bernard himself and the other great Cistercian master, William of Saint-Thierry.

• WITHDRAWAL OF THE GRAIL:

No one after Boort "dared say they had seen the Grail." At the moment of Galahad's death a hand from above takes the Holy Vessel and carries it to heaven. The appearances of the Grail in the kingdom of Logres indicate within the symbolic and figural structure described above, the salvific path of Arthurian chivalry. To the celestial concealment of the Holy Vessel corresponds at the end of the "Death of King Arthur" the abyssal concealment of King Arthur's sword, Excalibur which, thrown into a lake is mysteriously seized in flight by a hand that emerges from the water, makes it spin in the air three or four times and then sinks with it. A double, polar disappearance seals the Arthurian world and its chivalries. The first a disappearance of the spiritual principle of celestial chivalry that inevitably brings with it the collapse and self-destruction of the terrestrial one.

WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH (CA. 1200-1225)

• MORE OPEN TO THE ORIENT:

It suffices to recall that Parzival is son of a knight in service of the Islamic Baruc and that he has a brother (Feirefiz) black and white son of Belakane, a pagan. Feirefiz will marry the damsel of the Grail and give rise in India to a son and a mysterious character: Prester John.

• DEFINITIVELY ASSOCIATES THE GRAIL WITH THE TEMPLARS:

I know well that at Munsalvaesche, near the Grail, dwell many seasoned men; always on horseback, in expeditions of adventure, the Templars, whether they win sufferings or glory, bear everything to expiate sins: there resides, in fact, a warlike host. I want to tell you what their nourishment is: they live thanks to a stone of the purest kind! If you know nothing of it, I will tell you its name: it is called $\textit{lapsit exillis}$.

• THE GRAIL IS A STONE ASSOCIATED WITH REGENERATION AND RESURRECTION:

The reference to the Stone is a very important element in Wolfram von Eschenbach. The Templars are nourished by the Grail and the Grail is a stone. Saint Paul's reference to the letter to the Corinthians is evident "all drank the same spiritual drink: for they drank from a spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that Stone was the Christ" (1 Corinthians 10.4). "$\textit{Lapsit exillis}$" can derive from "$\textit{Stillae ex lapide}$". Stone from heaven, originating from the fall of angels, by virtue of which the phoenix rises from the ashes and on which every Good Friday a dove brings a host. By virtue of this stone, the phoenix burns and is reduced to ashes, but the ash carries within it new life: thus the phoenix changes its feathers and then returns to shine sparkling, beautiful as it was before. And there is no man so sick as to be able to die within the following week, if ever one day he saw...