The Holy Grail first appears in the last Arthurian and unfinished poem by Chrétien de Troyes. Crétien write this poem, Perceval ou le Conte du Graal between 1181-1190. He was a professional poet, having a group of several poets, and he usually got the main theme of the poem from his present patron. In the case of Perceval the theme is from Philippe d’Alcase, who died in 1191 while being on the third crusade in the Holy Land. The Grail appears as one of the items in a procession: Perceval is in the Grail Castle. While dining he watches a procession where boys and girls first carry a bleeding lance, then a candelabra, then the grail and finally a silver plate. In the poem he is twice admonished for not asking the question of the grail: the question would have healed the lord of the castle, the Fisher King. Later a hermit explains to Perceval that the grail contains a single mass-wafer that sustains the Fisher King’s wounded father alive. The father is even worse wounded than the Fisher King and has a would in the groin, or in medical terms, in sexual organs.
While this is clear enough for decoding what the Grail means, we have further explanations in later versions of the legend. In Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival the Grail is a stone and in Robert de Boron’s Joseph d’Arimathie the grail is the cup where Joseph of Arimathie collected the blood of Jesus and the lance is the lance of Longinus, the spear that pierced Jesus on the cross.
Clearly all characterizations point to the same object: medieval poets seem to have all understood the hints given by Chrétien. I do not know if people have got more stupid after those times, but in Bulfinch’s Mythodology the story Sangrael does not show any understanding of what the grail is and the always as infallable Wikipedia seriously proposes that the story is based on a Celtic tale with a magic caudron.
The absurdity of the last suggestion appears if we consider if Phillippe I of d’Alcase, when leaving to the third crusade, would have proposed an irrelevant pagan tale of a magic caudron. Naturally the theme had to be Christian and relevant to the crusades. The theme of another of Crétien’s poems, Lancelot, le Chevalier de la Charrette was proposed by Marie of France. This poem tells the love affair between Arthur’s wife queen Guinevere and his knight Lancelot and it is the prototype of courtly love. Far from being an adulterous tale, the real meaning of this poem is love of Sophia, the female aspect of God. Maria of France was a supporter of Cathars, a medieval herecy of distinctly Gnostic character. As the theme of Lancelot was so Christian, yet of the forbidden type, we can expect nothing less from Perceval. The theme was important, but the idea could not be spelled out clearly for some reason or another. By repeating twice that Perceval should have asked of the grail Crétien clearly asks the reader to pose the question. Thus, let us ask the question: what is the grail?
It is simple, especially as we have the later versions by Wolfram von Eschenbach and Robert de Boron. The grail must be the same in all. It is clear already in Crétien: the hermit tells it. The mass-wafer is the body of Christ. In Wolfram the grail is a stone and Jesus is the cornerstone as the gospels imply. The cornerstone is Christianity is especially resurrected Jesus. In Robert we have to remember that much from gospels to know that Joseph of Arimathie did not collect Jesus’ blood to a cup: he donated the shroud on which Jesus’ blood dropped. Naturally the grail is the shroud of Jesus with the image of Jesus on it, i.e., the Turin Shroud. This fact was noticed by Ian Wilson long ago. The two important items in the procession seen by Percival are the lance of Longinus and the Shroud of Jesus, known at that time as the Edessa image, Mandylion. Both were preserved in Constantinople in 1204. Christian knights, largely from France, sacked Constantinople in 1204 and the Mandylion disappeared. Baldwin II of Constantinople, the last of the Latin Emperors of Constantinople that the crusaders established after the sack, sold one part of the lance to Luis IX of France in 1241 while the other finally ended up in Turkish hands and was later given to Rome.
It is easy to understand that crusaders of the third crusade, the one where Frederic Barbarossa died and Richard the Lionheart fought Saladin unsuccessfully, may have desired Christianity’s most powerful relicts on their side for better war luck. The Fisher King symbolizes the Church, and the father of the Fisher King may be Jesus: he does hold hands in front of genitals in the Shroud, as if wounded in genitals. The Church was powerless against Saladin at that time and the Holy Land was wasteland. Planning the sack of Constantinople was naturally a delicate matter. Never before had Christians fought each other. The idea could not be told directly, but it had to be hinted as the only way to win the crusades. It did not work, but that Philippe could not know.
On do you seem any other answer to the critical question that Chrétien wants you to ask: what is the grail?
Ian Wilson in his 1998 book The Blood and the Shroud does good work in tracking the Turin Shroud to the Mandylion. Geoffreya de Charny’s coat of arms (in metal) has the shroud with both sides, from c. 1355 (fig. 31a in Wilson), Hungarian manuscript form 1192-95 has an image of the Shroud (fig. 35a in Wilson), and the Edessa image (fig. 37a in Wilson) are quite convincing, but the final evidence is the text found by Professor Gino Zaniotti from the Vatican Library quoting an 8th century pilgrim to Edessa and telling of a cloth with the image of Christ’s whole body. It can be considered fully proven that the Turin Shroud was Mandylion and it was in Edessa in the 8th century. The history of the Mandylion is known from the 6th century. The image helped to defend Edessa against Persians in 544 AD, explaining why this relict might have interested the crusaders. It was a relict working military miracles. The Mandylion was taken to Constantinople in 944 AD (according to Wilson, and we can accept this as the special year is of no importance. It did come to Constantinople.) In Edessa it appeared around 600 AD. Evagricus Scholasticus mentions the image around 593 AD. Before that time the image was hidden somewhere. Wilson explains that it was in a wall and when the wall was repaired, the shroud was found.
Wilson has his theory of the whereabouts of the shroud before it was found from the wall and this is where we differ. I have another theory and try to argue it. The shroud appeared in Edessa around 600 AD and was hidden in some earlier time. In 653 AD emerged a new Christian heresy, Paulicians, in very much the same place. There are two theories of the name Paulicians. One derives it from Paul of Samosata and the other from Apostle Paul. Considering the doctrine of Paulicians, it is fairly clear that the second theory is correct: the founder of the sect is said to have been given the letters of Paul and the four gospels by a traveler. This story sounds strange since such ma manuscripts must have been expensive at that time and no traveler would have simply donated them had he purchased them. For me it seems more likely that the traveler had found hidden manuscripts. This is likely to be so because the Paulician teachings had very clear Gnostic elements, more clear than can be found from Paul’s letters or the four gospels. There had to be other writings. The teachings most closely resemble Marcionism. They do not mention Mani and in fact reject Manicheaism. Thus, Paulicianism is not neo-Manicheanism. It is more correctly neo-Marcionism. A group of Paulicians were later moved to Bulgaria and they inspired the heresy of Bogomils, which developed in Catharism in France. I suggest that these Marcionian texts were found at the same time as the Edessa image. This would make sense since finding such an important relict would give a sufficient reason to accept an old heresy that was long ago condemned by the Church. There was a community of Marcionians and Manicheans in Khorasan, Persia, but the sect of Paulicians did not have known connections to Khorasan. Restarting an old heresy must have required something more than a traveler giving a few heretic manuscripts.
If this hypothesis is accepted for a trial, we get a probable time when the Edessa image, the shroud, was hidden: Marcion of Sinope appeared soon after the Bar Kochba revolt of 132-135 AD and was excommunicated in 144 AD. He considered Paul as the only real apostle and had the principle that in arguments there should not be used more than is written, like Paul says in his letter to Romans. I reread the seven authentic letters of Paul and concluded that they do support most of the Gnostic-sounding ideas of Marcion. But it is getting late and I will continue this post in another day. It will be seen that Paul had an insider group of Perfects, just like Cathars had Perfects. This insider group spoke secret teachings. The secret teachings included heavenly governments and powers. As nothing is more than is written, we can identify these heavenly governments and powers from the Book of Daniel: every nation has there its angel. Thus, Rome had an angel and a heavenly government, so did Israel. The main secret that Paul gives: that Jesus is the savior of also Gentiles, not only Jews, means simply that Jesus will rule all these heavenly governments and powers. It does not sound so bad, but on the earth it means that the Jewish Messiah of the Davidic dynasty (i.e., Hasmonean) will rule the world and judge (meaning kill or enslave) all other people but the chosen few. The First Jewish-Roman war started when the comet of 66 AD appeared as the heavenly sign of Jesus. The plan was to rule the world. Nero was forced to suicide by a trick. Galba was fooled. Ohto was the intended weak emperor, who was in great debts to money lenders. But as the last willing Hasmonean, Flavius Josephus, the intended Messiah, lost and become a captive of Vespasian, Josephus promised that Vespasian will be the Messiah in order to save his life, as Vespasian wanted to send him to Nero. This is why Ohto lost the battle against Vitellius, the troops of Vitellius were not bribed to change side as was originally agreed. Vespasian become the emperor, but he was always suspicious of Jewish Messianism.
I will explain this all later in a better way, but now it is late. I will also identify the group of perfects with Mary Magdalena (Mariamne II Boethus), Jesus ben Gamla and Martha Boethus, Josephus Flavius, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathie and so on. You think it is not possible? That it is only speculation? You will see. This is not simply speculation.