The earliest known work to give a Christian significance to the magical vessel was Perceval, a romance of the late 1100s by the French poet Chretien de Troyes. A few decades later, Robert de Borron wrote Joseph of Arimathea, which established the connection between the Grail of Perceval and the cup used by Christ and later owned by Joseph. Parzival, by Wolfram von Eschenbach, expanded on the mystical story of the innocent knight and the Fisher King and also introduced an order of knights charged with guarding the Grail. This version of the story became the basis for the opera Parsifal by the modern German composer Richard Wagner.
Over time, versions of the Grail story began to link the Holy Grail with the popular legend of King Arthur. One account made Sir Galahad the virtuous hero and the Grail a symbol of a rare and mystical union with the divine. Late in the 1400s, Sir Thomas Malory wrote Le Morte D’Arthur (The Death of Arthur), the version of the Arthurian legend that was to become the best known. With it he established the story of the Grail quest by the knights of Arthur’s Round Table and of Galahad’s ultimate success.
In modern times, several films have been made that focus on a quest to find the Holy Grail. Among the most famous are the comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1979) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). The best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code (2003) by Dan Brown centers on the Holy Grail myth, and was made into a film starring Tom Hanks in 2006. The 2005 Tony Award-winning musical Spamalot was based on the Monty Python version of the legend.
World History
