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THE MYSTIC VISION IN THE
GRAIL LEGEND AND IN
THE DIVINE COMBD V
UC-NRLF
B ^ oae 775
LIZETTE ANDREWS FISHER
Submitted in Partial Fulfilment op the Requirements
FOR THE Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the
Faculty ov Philosophy, Columbia U;^IIVERSITY
if
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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
1917
i
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH
AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
THE MYSTIC VISION IN THE GRAIL
LEGEND AND IN THE
DIVINE COMEDY
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Frontispiece of the Rosarium Celenlis carue et patrice triumphalis, Jacob
Locher, Nuremburg, 1517. From licnaissance uri'l Humanismii^ , Ltidwig
(leiger, 1882.
THE MYSTIC VISION IN THE
GRAIL LEGEND AND IN
THE DIVINE COMEDY
BY
LIZETTE ANDREWS FISHER
Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements
FOR the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the
Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University
If3eto gork
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
1917
Copyright, 1917
By Columbia University Press
Printed from type, March, 1917
This Monograph has been approved by the Department of
English and Comparative Literature in Columbia University
as a contribution to knowledge worthy of publication.
A. H. Thorndike,
Executive Officer
PREFACE
The addition of even a single page to the voluminous
criticism of the Grail Legend and the Divine Comedy can be
justified only by the hope of suggesting a fresh interpreta-
tion in the light of hitherto unnoticed facts. But they
have been examined from so many different points of view
that it would seem impossible to find any line of thought
explanatory of questions in either, much less one which clears
up problems in both.
Nevertheless such a line of thought is, I believe, to be
found in the history of the doctrine of transubstantiation,
which from the controversies of the ninth century to its
culmination in the Lateran Council of 1215 seems, strangely
enough, to have received little attention from the standpoint
of its literary influence, though it needs but a moment's
reflection to perceive that a dogma so closely coimected with
the life and thought of the later Middle Ages must have
affected contemporary literature. Emphasis on the sacra-
mental system of the church as its great agent of salvation,
and the special glorification of the eucharist as chief among
sacraments, received authoritative recognition in the decree
of this council, which declared transubstantiation an article
of faith, and placed it at the beginning of its confession in
immediate connection with the fundamental doctrines of the
Trinity and the Incarnation. WhUe the religious fervor thus
evidenced found outward expression in elaboration of eucha-
ristic ritual and in the feast of Corpus Christi, its spiritual
influence is no less marked in the mysticism of the day.
358454
Vlll PREFACE
The eucharist was one means, and not the least important,
by which man might achieve union with God. Through it
the soul entered into union with God Incarnate, His splendor
being sacramentally veiled in mercy to finite powers, and
the intuitive knowledge of transubstantiation, conceived as
the miracle whereby the special presence of God was invoked,
was claimed as a part, at least, of the mystic vision.
Though it is manifestly impossible that so stupendous a
belief could have been without its effect on contemporary
literature, it was not from the doctrinal point of view that
this study had its beginning, but rather from a desire to ,
understand certain unexplained features of the closing '^
cantos of the Purgatory. The point of departure was the cry
of greeting to Beatrice as she appears in the Earthly Paradise,
Benedictus qui venis, words which not only hailed the entry
of Christ into Jerusalem but which day by day in the mass
herald the expected coming of Christ to the altar at the
moment of consecration. Dante, fully aware of the eucha-
ristic association with the words, must have been conscious
that by their use at this point he was suggesting an alle-
gorical connection between the coming of Beatrice and the
sacramental coming of Christ. Such an allegory, with all
its ceremonial detail, is not only entirely consistent with the
belief and worship familiar to Dante, but leads also to a
genuinely organic interpretation of the whole episode.
Just as the eucharistic presence of Christ vouchsafed to the
church is foretaste and pledge of the final vision of God, so
the revelation of Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise is the
foreshadowing of the revelation of God with which the
Divine Comedy closes.
The application of the theory to the Grail legend came
about, almost accidentally, through the questions which arise
in regard to those glimpses of the Earthly Paradise which j
appear now and again in its background. That the influence
of the dogma of transubstantiation might offer an explana-
PREFACE IX
tion of the knottiest point of the whole Grail problem, that
of the fusion of the Celtic story of the Quest and the Christ-
ian legend of Joseph of Arimathea, was at the outset far
from the thought of the writer, who can honestly deny
having fitted facts into a previously conceived theory. On
the contrary, the tendency of all the facts as they were col-
lected and compared to point to one conclusion and to
answer many and diverse questions was viewed at first with
the suspicion always aroused by extraordinarily detailed and
minute correspondence. So many good theories have
snapped when stretched to cover too many points!
This study is offered for the consideration of those who
are interested in the question of the meaning of literature
to those for whom it was created, in this case a medieval
audience unconscious of "sources" but greatly liking an
implied moral. Though the present work is an investiga-
tion into the influence of eucharistic teaching and practice
in a circumscribed field, there are undoubtedly other literary
questions which may find an answer in the same influence
and which may therefore repay study from the same point
of view.
In the matter of acknowledgment and thanks my credi-
tors are many and words a most inadequate repayment.
To Professor J. B. Fletcher, in whose seminar I learned to
value Dante's background of religion and philosophy, my
obligation is not to be measured, and extends beyond public
teaching to private advice and encouragement. To Professor
W. W. Lawrence I owe the enrichment of my own meagre
acquaintance with medieval romance from his ample store.
Both have given endless patient consideration to the work
of criticism and suggestion. To other members of the
department of English and Comparative Literature of Co-
lumbia University, notably to Professor A. H. Thorndike,
I am grateful for immediate attention to the first presen-
tation of my theory, and for generous and unflagging interest
X PREFACE
in its development. This interest has also been shared by-
many fellow-students, some of whom have given valuable
assistance in the correction of proof.
For the books required I am indebted not only to the
authorities and staff of the Library of Columbia University,
of the New York Public Library, and of the Peabody Library,
Baltimore, but also to those of the General and Union
Theological Seminaries, New York, for without their special
collections such a study could not have been made at all.
I should like also to make special mention of the monu-
mental work of MM. Rohault de Fleury from whose
study of the archeology of the mass all the illustrations,
except the frontispiece, have been taken.
L. A. F.
Columbia University,
December, 1916.
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Transxjbstantiation in History, Theology and Devotion . 7
The Mystic Vision in the Legend of the Grail .... 29
The Mystic Vision in the Divine Comedy 85
Appendices 117
Bibliography 139
Index 145
INTRODUCTION
The modern student of history is admittedly more inter-
ested in the thoughts than in the deeds of the past. Looking
to the former for the explanation of the latter, he grudges
no time spent in understanding the mental attitude of a
period, in reconstructing it with all possible sympathy for
its peculiarities and without any trace of condescension to
its limitations. Students of letters have been somewhat
slower to realize that literature no less than history must
involuntarily reflect contemporary thinking and feeling,
but they are now very generally agreed that the background
of ideas and sentiment must be reconstructed before we can
hope to know what any literature meant to the audience
for which it was produced.
In the work of such reconstruction the method employed
has been, for the most part, based on the theory of evolu-
tion. Ever conscious of the idea of development, students
have sought to find the key to all things in their origins
rather than in their contemporary associations; in other
words, in their heredity rather than in their environment.
Scholarly energy has largely been devoted to the study of
sources in literature and history as well as in language. In
the field of folk lore and popular story scholars have zeal-
ously followed every clew and preserved every tale lingering
anywhere on the lips of the people, and when we read the
carefully arranged results of their labors we are startled to
find therein the germs of every story that has ever been
told. Investigation of primitive worship, custom, and art
has thrown light into many a dark corner of history and
letters, and has afforded a clew to more than one tangle.
2 INTRODUCTION
But, after all, while the antecedents o*" every vital thing,
idea, or person are niwa-^s interesting and to be reckoned
with in acquiring knowledge of it, the great force which
moulds it is its own living present. It is a part of all that
it has met even more than it is a consequence of its
origins.
In the study of Uterature, the literature of the Middle
Ages especially, the importance of the immediate environ-
ment has been recognized, and a good deal of recent research
has been devoted to geographical and historical setting, to
contemporary manners, customs, and superstitions. Much
less of zeal and interest has been expended on the study of
contemporary theology. The religion of the Middle Ages
has too often been dismissed rather curtly with casual men-
tion of "medieval theology" or "monkish notions," and
treated as a static, undisputed body of behef, fixed and
immutable from the sixth century to the sixteenth. One
reason for this is probably that while the average modern
man has drifted too far from dogmatic theology to recognize
its mfluence instinctively it is still too close to him to arouse
attention and stimulate interest. It would, however, be ad-
mitted that no department of human activity remains
unchanged throughout the centuries, and that for the
thousand years of the Middle Ages the best intellectual
capacity and attainment were devoted to questions of God
and the soul, and the relation between them. On the answers
to these questions and on the dutiful acceptance of them
depended man's salvation; that is, his rescue from literal
damnation and his ultimate attainment of heaven. By
religion alone could he hope to be saved, and religion was
entrusted to the church. So all life was viewed through the
glass of theology, the church's dogmatic expression of reli-
gion, and it is impossible to conceive of anything more closely
related to conduct or more hkely to be reflected in all forms
of literature.
INTRODUCTION 6
In the religion of the Middle Ages, as indeed in all religion
whatsoever, there is the element of mysticism. To use the
words "mystic vision" in a title is to involve oneself in
an apology at the outset. The word "mystic" has as wide
a mantle as charity and covers a multitude of follies if not
of sins. Mysticism is only too often a loose term for any
spiritual manifestation difficult of explanation, and in con-
sequence is dismissed by many people as synonymous with
moonshine. It is applied to everything outside the plainest
matter of fact, from Piers Ploughman's vision to the latest
fashion in eastern cults. But, as has been well said, a man
is not a visionary when he has" a vision, but only when he
has nothing else, and the genuine mystic is usually a sur-
prisingly direct person, his mysticism, to himself, really a
very simple (one wants to say practical) matter. Accepting
the proposition that to know God is the chief end and aim of
existence, he finds that such knowledge comes to him by
other faculties than the rational. It is by intuition that
he attains the mystic vision in which he claims to realize
absolute truth and to taste absolute blessedness.
This spiritual attitude is peculiar to no age, nationality,
nor form of religion. There have always been those who
did not even try "by searching to find out God." To them,
when ripe for the experience, there came direct, intuitive
knowledge of Him. There are, of course, degrees of illumina-
tion; souls vary in their capacity to receive light, and an
inferior capacity may be increased by means of contempla-
tion and spiritual exercises; but in each degree the mystic
vision is the nearest approach to the final vision of God
attainable by man while still in the flesh. It is an endow-
ment akin to the artistic gift — that intuitive, uninstructed,
unexplainable choice of the true color, the right line, the
harmonizing note, the inevitable word:
God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear:
The rest may reason and welcome.
4 INTRODUCTION
Neo-Platonic ecstasy was such an experience, as was also
the gnosis of Alexandria. Such, too, is the top rung of the
ladder of contemplation and the "inner light" of the fol-
lowers of George Fox. But always and everywhere it is the
foretaste of the fruition of God.
Though the mystic approach to the divine is a spiritual
experience, widespread and persistent, its manifestations
are as varied as those of every other human experience.
Broadly speaking, the mystic is a soul apart; his revelation
is direct; a way is opened before him. Those who attempt
to follow in his footsteps, lacking the direct light, are misled
by wandering fires. There are, however, exceptions to this
state of isolation, and one of the best defined is the mystic
school of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
The school, often called by historians of medieval phi-
losophy that of the scholastic mystics,^ is remarkable not
only because it may be called a school at all, but because
its representatives united fervent mystical devotion not
only to orthodoxy, but to one of the most rigid of all ex-
pressions of it, the scholastic theology consummated in the
work of Aquinas. The manifestations of this particular form
of mysticism must later be discussed at some length, but
at this point we may say that it found one way of attaining
its goal, the knowledge of God, in the means of grace afforded
by the church, especially in its sacramental system. These
scholastic mystics lived at the time when the sacraments of
the church were attaining a position of very great impor-
tance in theological discussion.
Chief among sacraments is the eucharist, for in it sign
and thing signified are one, even Christ, and so by its means
man attains on earth to communion with God. Controver-
sies as to the exact nature of Christ's presence in the sacra-
ment of the altar took the place of the controversies over
1 Cf. W. R. Inge, Christian Mysticism, p. 140; M, de Wulf, History
oj Medieval Philosophy, tr. Coffey, p. 215.
INTRODUCTION 5
the Trinity and the Incarnation which engrossed the early
church, and, as a result of these controversies, the eucharist
became for the later Middle Ages the focus of all worship as
well as the supreme means of grace and of participation in
the divine life. Eucharistic devotion colored all ritual and
influenced all forms of art. The daily mass was the daily
miracle of the presence of God, and was so accepted, in
some sense or other, by every christened man, — peasant,
priest, or knight. Around it gathered much gross super-
stition, it is true, but also much artistic expression and
poetic fervor.
Mysticism is an attitude of the human spirit, ubiquitous
and perpetual, and by the thirteenth century it had adjusted
itself to the sacramental system of the church. It was a
vital part of human experience, and as such must be reflected
in contemporary literature; its omission would require far
more explanation than its inclusion. But before we can dis-
cuss intelligently specific instances of literary influence we
must examine the evidence for the conspicuous importance
of eucharistic devotion in the rehgious life of the time, and
trace the development of the doctrine concerning the eu-
charist chiefly responsible for such importance; the doctrine,
namely, of transubstantiation.
TRANSUBSTANTIATION IN HISTORY,
THEOLOGY, AND DEVOTION
Se nascens dedit socium,
Convescens in edulium,
Se moriens in pretium,
Se regnans dat in praemium.
O salutaris hostia,
Quae coeli pandis ostium,
Bella premunt hostilia,
Da robur, fer auxilium.
— Thomas Aqxjinas
TRANSUBSTANTIATION IN HISTORY,
THEOLOGY, AND DEVOTION
In the month of November, 1215, there assembled in
Rome the twelfth ecumenical council, historically known as
the Fourth Lateran, but commonly cited in canon law as
"the general Council of the Lateran" without further quali-
fication, or again, as " the Great Council." ^ It came together
at the call of Innocent III, who had long dreamed of pre-
siding over such a gathering, and it was at once the climax
and conclusion of his career — he died a few months later
— and the supreme moment of the papacy as an unques-
tioned authority in European affairs.
Innocent HI (Lotario de'Conti di Segni, c. 1160-1216)
was of noble birth and educated in the most approved
manner of the Middle Ages. After his early training in
Rome he went to the university of Paris, where, under Peter
of Corbeil, he laid the foundations of his profound knowledge
of scholastic philosophy; later, at Bologna, he acquired as
thoroughly canon and civil law. He seemed preeminently a
scholar, and, though he attained some eminence in church
affairs, he did not advance beyond the diaconate, having
been created cardinal-deacon by his uncle Clement HI.
His uncle was succeeded by Celestine HI, who belonged to
the rival family of the Orsini, so Lotario withdrew from
active affairs and devoted himself to study. In his retire-
ment he produced, among other works, six books under the
title, Mysterium evangelicae legis ac sacramenti eucharistiae,
interesting in view of his subsequent official pronouncement
* Cf. H. Leclercq, Cath. Enc., Art. Lateran.
10 TRANSUBSTANTIATION IN HISTORY
in regard to eucharistic doctrine. After the death of the
Orsini pope he was unanimously elected to the papacy, and,
in order to qualify for it, passed through the stages of priest
and bishop on successive days. Thus, when less than
forty, he found himself qualified by birth, training, and
position to assert afresh the papal supremacy claimed by
Hildebrand, and by force of character and personality to
make the claim a reality.
After most imposing ceremonies of accession, which in-
cluded a great procession. Innocent turned his attention to
the affairs of Rome. He reduced the warring factions to
order and induced the populace to forego in his favor its
ancient claim to elect the senate. He vested the executive
powers of the senate in a single senator, directly or indirectly
selected by himself. He found Italy restless and sullen under
the imperial rule of Henry VI, and, taking advantage of the
strife between rival factions after the early death of that
emperor, he cleared the great Italian fiefs of German feu-
datories, deposed the imperial prefect in Rome itself, and
saw to it that his own redores governed the patrimony of
St. Peter.^ So within one year of his election to the papacy
he succeeded in putting pope above emperor in Italy, in
token whereof he managed to be appointed guardian of the
infant son of Henry VI, the future Frederick II.
From this secure standing point he proceeded to make his
authority felt all over Europe. His quarrel with England
is the best known instance of this assertion of papal rights.
There he used interdict and excommunication to support
his claim to bestow preferment, enforcing his contention
with a high and heavy hand, the weight of which was never
forgotten. The English episode is, however, only one among
many. He excommunicated Alfonso I of Leon for marry-
ing within the forbidden degrees, and for similar reasons
^ Cf. Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages,
Bk. IX.
THEOLOGY, AND DEVOTION 11
annulled the marriage of the crown prmce Alfonso of Portu-
gal. Pedro II of Aragon submitted as the pope's vassal
and received coronation at his hand. He was arbiter between
two rival claimants to the throne of Norway, and acted in
the same capacity in Sweden. He prepared a crusade against
the Moors in Spain, and undertook the Fourth Crusade while
doing his utmost for the Latinization of the Eastern Empire.
As champion of orthodoxy he instituted the crusade of
obliteration against the Albigenses. If not the originator of
the famous comparison of the spiritual power to the sun and
the temporal to the moon, so bitterly discussed by Dante,^
he was its undaunted champion. His profound knowledge
of both civil and canon law furnished him the machinery
for his purpose: the driving power came from his sincere
belief in theocracy "^ and his own indomitable will and per-
sonality. Says Gregorovius, "The spectacle of a man who,
if only for the moment, ruled the world according to his
will in tranquil majesty is sublime and marvellous." ^
No greater opportunity to display this majesty can be
conceived than that afforded by a General Council, which
was for a pope of the Middle Ages what a great feudal gath-
ering was for king or emperor.* The pope's imperious sum-
mons to Christendom was issued more than two years before
the actual assembling, and excuses were not well received.
Prelates were to come to Rome if possible; but if age
or infirmity could be pleaded they were commanded to
^ De Monorchia, III: iv.
^ To the ambassadors of Philip Augustus he said: "To princes
power is given on earth, but to priests it is attributed also in heaven;
the former only over bodies, but the latter also over souls. Whence it
follows that by so much as the soul is superior to the body, the priest-
hood is superior to the kingship." — Cit. W. A. Phillips, Enc. Brit.,
Art. Innocent III.
3 Op. cit. Bk. IX: III: i.
* Cf. A. Luchaire, Innocent III et le quatrieme concile de Latran,
Rev. historique, XCVII: 225-263.
12 TRANSUBSTANTIATION IN HISTORY
send responsible representatives under threat of canonical
discipline.
The urgency of the summons and the length of time
allowed in which to obey it account in part for the vast size
of the gathering, perhaps the greatest ecclesiastical assembly
the world has ever seen. Over four hundred bishops were in
attendance, and many others were represented by high
ecclesiastics. Eight hundred abbots and the Latin patri-
archs, established in the East by Innocent, appeared. There
were also representatives of the Emperor Frederick II, the
Latin emperor of Constantinople, the kings of England,
France, Aragon, Hungary and Jerusalem. The scene of
the council, the Lateran, to Dante "supreme above all
mortal things," ^ was a fitting background for the pomp of
the gathering.
The three great sessions, about a fortnight apart, were
held in the basilica of St. John Lateran. ^ In it a raised throne
had been erected for the sovereign pontiff, who, says Rich-
ard, "showed himself coming forth as a bridegroom from
his chamber, and ascending, took his seat on the tribunal
to which centurions and tribunes advanced." ^ A fanfare
of trumpets proclaimed silence when the ruler of rulers
would speak, a necessary measure, probably, in view of the
size of the audience. The crowd at the opening service was
^ "quando Laterano
Alle cose mortali ando di sopra."
Paradiso, XXXI: 35, 36.
* For details of this council I am indebted to the article by Lu-
chaire to which I have ab-eady referred, p. 11. He gives as his chief
authority on the council Richard de St. Germano, notary to Frederick
II. "II assista au concile et I'a decrit en t6moin qui sait voir et en-
tendre." p. 236.
* "Se manifestavit . . . egrediens tamquam sponsus de thalamo
suo et ascendens sedit pro tribunali, cui centviriones suberant et tri-
buni." On this Luchaire comments (p. 240): "Expressions classiques
par lesqueUes le notaire de Frederic II, qui a fait ses humanit^s, d^signe
sans doute les gardes pontificaux."
THEOLOGY, AND DEVOTION 13
SO great that it is said one ecclesiastic, the bishop of Araalfi,
fell in the press and was trampled to death, and that on
another occasion one or more delegates were smothered.
It was, however, at the third session, November 30, that
the Pope read the seventy canons which he had prepared.
It is generally admitted that there was no discussion and
that the council, without more ado, promulgated the canons
as matters of faith.^ In the very first of them the orthodox
faith was proclaimed, and for the first time the doctrine
of the eucharist was brought into the proceedings of a Gen-
eral Council.^ After the statement of the great Christian
mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation, the canon pro-
ceeded to the assertion that outside the universal church of
the faithful none can be saved. In it priest as well as sacri-
fice is Christ Himself, whose body and blood are contained
in that sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and
wine, transubstantiated, the bread into the body and the
wine into the blood, by divine power, in order that for the
completion of the mystery of unity we may ourselves receive
of His what He received of ours.^
"What is important here," says Harnack, "is that the
doctrine of the eucharist is immediately attached to the
confession of the Trinity and Incarnation. In this way it
is represented even in the symbol as having a most intimate
relation to these doctrines, as, indeed, forming with them a
^ "The fathers of the council did little more than approve the
seventy decrees presented to them; this approbation, nevertheless,
sufficed to impart to the acts thus formulated and promulgated the
value of ecumenical decrees." Cath. Enc, Art. Lateran.
* Cf. Hastings' Enc., Art. Councils and Synods.
^ "Una vero est fideUum universalis ecclesia, extra quam nullua
omnino salvatur. In qua idem ipse sacerdos, et sacrificium Jesus
Christus; cujus corpus et sanguis in sacramento altaris sub speciebus
panis et vini veraciter continentur; transubstantiatis, pane in corpus,
et vino in sanguinem, potestate Divina, ut ad perficiendum mysterium
unitatis accipiamus ipsi de suo quod accepit ipse de nostro." — Mansi,
XXII: 982.
14 TRANSUBSTANTIATION IN HISTORY
unity . . . the real presence obtained the same value as
the Trinity and the two-nature doctrine, so that every one
was regarded as an ecclesiastical anarchist who called it in
question." Harnack goes on to say that "the n^l^lty in
the symbol — the direct attachment of the eucharist dogma
to the Trinity and Christology — is the most distinctive and
boldest act of the Middle Ages. Compared with this
immense inno\Kation the addition of the 'filioque' weighs
very lightly." ^
The doctrine of transubstantiation was thus explicitly
and finally estabhshed as the orthodox belief of all Christian
men, and to deny it was to read oneself out of the church
militant and triumphant. Innocent had not only demon-
strated the authority he had asserted, but had secured an
immense backing for the points of doctrine and discipline
which he wished to emphasize. ^ Richard says it was in
honor of the Trinity that the pope completed the council
on the third day,' but whatever the motive, the great pope,
using as a mouthpiece the greatest ecclesiastical assembly
the world has ever seen, took three days to end the con-
troversies of three centuries, and to declare definitely and
authoritatively the consecrated host identical with Christ,
and so the cornerstone of the church.^
^ A. Harnack, History of Dogma, VI: 53 ff.
2 Cf. Luchaire, op. cit. 227. " L'assemblee europ^enne de 1215 a
6t6 le signe visible, ^clatant, de la suprematie spirituelle et temporelle
conquise sur le monde par la monarchie romaine, telle que I'avait
faite Innocent III. Mais il y a autre chose. Le programme de concile
comportait des resolutions a prendre d'une telle importance qu'il fallait
que l'universalit6 des fideles Mt la pour donner les sanctions n6cessaires."
3 "Sicque propter causam Trinitatis pontifex sanctam synodum
trina sezione complevit." — Cit. Luchaire, page 241.
* "If there was one doctrine upon which the supremacy of the
medieval church rested, it was the doctrine of transubstantiation. It
was by his exclusive right to the performance of the miracle which was
wrought in the mass that the lowliest priest was raised high above
princes." — J. R. Green, History of the English People, Bk. IV: iv.
THEOLOGY, AND DEVOTION 15
II
Considering that the "breaking of bread" with "prayers" ^
was from the beginning the central act of Christian wor-
ship and privilege of initiation, it is not surprising that dis-
cussion as to the nature of Christ's presence in the eucharist
and the means whereby it is effected should give rise to con-
troversy, and if the records of the controversies themselves
are voluminous, comment on the controversies is literally
interminable. We are here concerned chiefly with the dis-
putes arising in the middle of the ninth century, which
continued, with more or less intermittent fervor, until their
official and triumphant settlement at the Great Council.
Any outline of them must condense scores of years and
volumes of argument into sentences, but it is worth while
to make the attempt to gain an idea of the clash of opinion
which was effectively ended in 1215, only to be renewed by
the teaching of Wyclif .
In the ninth century Paschasius, a monk of Corbey,
maintained that in the eucharist the bread is converted into
the very body of Christ. Ratramnus of the same abbey
defended the opinion that there is no conversion of the bread
and that though the body of Christ is present, it is in a
spiritual way. "Scotus Erigena had supported the view that
the sacraments of the altar are figures of the body of Christ;
that they are a memorial of the true body and blood of
Christ." 2 But it was only in the eleventh century that the
whole matter attained a very fury of controversy as a con-
sequence of the teaching of Berengarius, director of the
Cathedral School at Tours.. He adopted the spiritualized
theory of Ratramnus and Scotus, holding that the whole
body of Christ is received by the heart, not by the mouth.^
1 Ads, II: 42.
^ G. M. Sauvage, Cath. Enc, Art. Berengarius.
^ "Christi corpus totum constat accipi ab interiore homine, fide-
lium corde, non ore."
16 TRANBUBSTANTIATION IN HISTORY
Berengarius more than once signed retractions only to
attack them, and it is difficult to make a clear statement of
his teaching. A summary from the Roman Catholic point
of view is, therefore, of special value.
"In order to understand his opinion, we must observe
that, in philosophy, Berengarius had rationalistic tendencies
and was a nominalist. Even in the study of questions of
faith, he held that reason is the best guide. Reason, how-
ever, is dependent upon and is limited by sense perception.
Authority, therefore, is not conclusive; we must reason
according to the data of our senses. There is no doubt that
Berengarius denied transubstantiation (we mean the sub-
stantive conversion expressed by the word; the word was
used for the first time by Hildebert of Lavardin) ; it is not
absolutely certain that he denied the real presence, though
he certainly held false views concerning it. Is the body of
Christ present in the eucharist, and in what manner? On
this question the authorities appealed to by Berengarius are,
besides Scotus Erigena, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St.
Augustine. These fathers taught that the sacrament of the
altar is the figure, the sign, the token of the body and blood
of the Lord. These terms, in their mind, apply to what is
external and sensible in the holy eucharist, and do not, in
any way, imply the negation of the real presence of the true
body of Christ. (St. Aug. Serm. 143, n. 3: Gerbert, Lihellus
de Corp. e Sang. Domini, n. 4. Migne, CLXXXIX: 177.)
For Berengarius the body and blood of Christ are really
present in the holy eucharist; but the presence is an in-
tellectual or spiritual presence. The substance of the bread
and the substance of the wine remain unchanged in their
nature, but by consecration they become spiritually the very
body and blood of Christ. This spiritual body of Christ is
the res sacramenti; the bread and the wine are the figure,,
the sign, the token, sacr amentum." ^
^ Sauvage, op. cit.
1^
THEOLOGY, AND DEVOTION 17
Berengarius made final retraction and died in union with
the church in 1088, but the influence of his principles was
widespread, for pupils had come to him from all parts of
France, and his teaching was attacked by leading theolo-
gians, among them Lanfranc, Durandus, and the Benedic-
tines. "The transmutation theory of Paschasius . . . was
further developed by the opponents of Berengar,^ First,
the mystery was conceived of still more sensuously, at least
by some (manducatio infidelium) ; secondly, there was a
beginning, though with caution, to apply to dogma the
'science' that was discredited in the opponent. The crude
conceptions (which embraced the total conversion) were put
aside and an attempt was made to unite the older deliver-
ances of tradition with the new transmutation doctrine, as
also to adopt the Augustinian terminology, by means of
dialectic distinctions, to the still coarsely reaUstic view of
the subject." ^
The Roman Catholic view of this development is as follows:
"The error of Berengarius, as is the case with other
heresies, was the occasion which favored and even necessi-
tated, a more explicit presentation and a more precise for-
mulation of Catholic doctrine about the holy eucharist. . . .
The Council of Rome, in 1079, in its condemnation of
Berengarius, expresses more clearly than any document
before it the nature of this substantial change. . . . Though
the feast of Corpus Christi was officially established only in
the thirteenth century, its institution was probably occa-
sioned by these eucharistic controversies. The same may be
said of the ceremony of the elevation of the host after the
consecration of the holy sacrifice of the mass." ^ And again:
^ "Yet everything acquired settled form only in the thirteenth
century; the questions resulting from the new doctrine are innu-
merable." Harnack, op. dt., VI: 51n.
^ Harnack, op. cit., VI: 51.
* Sauvage, op. dt.
18 TRANSUBSTANTIATION IN HISTORY
"After the Berengarian controversy the blessed sacra-
ment was in the eleventh and twelfth centuries elevated for
the express purpose of repairing by its adoration the blas-
phemies of heretics and strengthening the imperilled faith
of Catholics. In the thirteenth century were introduced
for the greater glorification of the Most Holy, the theophoric
processions . . . and also the feast of Corpus Christi." ^
Whether this shift of emphasis and consequent supreme
exaltation of the eucharist be viewed as innovation or repa-
ration, there can be no question that in the later Middle
Ages the eucharist was viewed not only as the continual
extension of the Incarnation and the centre of Christian
worship, but was also the supreme expression of all spiritual
life and the focus of devotional expression, poetry, and
drama.2
III
We come now to the relation of this preeminent impor-
tance of the eucharist to that mysticism which, ut semper,
^ J. Pohle, Cath. Enc, Art. Eucharist.
* "Worship and adoration found a striking and noble expression in
the medieval mass, and in the prayers contained in some of the popu-
lar books of instruction. To the men of the Middle Ages the mass
was the mystery par excellence of the church. Around it there gathered
all the splendor which art and music could provide. . . . The medieval
mass kept the memory of the passion of Christ vividly before the
minds of the worshippers. The popular books of devotion and the
mystical commentators on the mass ahke emphasize the conception
of the mass as a sacred drama exhibiting and rehearsing again and
again the story of the Lord's passion 'until He come.'" — J. H.
Shrawley, Hastings' Enc. of Religion and Ethics, Art. Eucharist to
End of Middle Ages.
"In the sacrament of the Supper and the doctrine regarding it,
the church gave expression to everything that it highly prized — its
dogma, its mystical relation to Christ, the fellowship of believers, the
priest, the sacrifice, the miraculous power which God had given to
His church, the satisfaction of the sensuous impulse in piety, and so
forth." — Harnack, op. cit. VI: 233 f.
THEOLOGY, AND DEVOTION 19
uhique et ah omnibus, concerns itself with the immediate
contact of the soul with the divine. Varying in its expres-
sion with various religions, with various conceptions of the
soul and God, it is always somewhere in the life of man.
Always there are some to whom it is given to experience while
still in the flesh some of the freedom of the released soul, to
realize the love of God and to become one with Him. The
ecstasy of Platonic love takes the soul back to the divine
from which it came; and Philo, Hellenized Jew, found in
contemplation the means of putting the soul into that way
of return, the path of direct, intuitive knowledge of God.
Plotinus, though he developed this contact with God into
coalescence with Him, found material existence an estrange-
ment, and was forced to admit that even for the most expert
these times of union must be brief and occasional. To the
Christian Platonists of Alexandria this direct knowledge, or
gnosis, was above faith, which they regarded as the cut and
dried expression of truth, sufficient for those who, for lack
of direct knowledge, must needs take it at second hand.
It is not specially difficult to see that while in the higher
type of men such theories produce characters of the loftiest
virtue, there are likely to be also exceedingly unlovely
results. The notion of one's own private enlightenment
and law entirely demoralizes the wilful soul, who finds in it
justification for breaking all bounds of ethics and morals,
and so spiritual freedom rapidly degenerates into carnal
license. It is, therefore, not surprising to find the law-
abiding Roman mind distrusting mystic philosophy and
laying stress on the reality of sin and the need of forgiveness:
only by process of repentance and amendment of life is one
entitled to expect union with God. For Augustine the love
of God is not only the means of knowing Him, but the motive
of obedience to His laws. The rare moments in which man,
losing himself, finds God, whose fruition is the essence of
eternal life, must needs have the effect of convincing the
20 TRAN SUBSTANTIATION IN HISTORY
favored soul that sin will automatically cut him off from
such fulfilment here and hereafter.
The speculative mysticism of Neo-Platonism found expres-
sion in terms acceptable to practical western Christianity
in the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius, which were of course
believed to date back to the age immediately following that
of the apostles. Chief of these is the Celestial and Ecclesi-
astical Hierarchy, of which the first part treats of the way
to God, leading from the lower creation up through the
angels in all their ranks. These favored beings attain the
end of all created things, the knowledge of God, by means
of direct intuition; they perceive the divme essence accord-
ing to the laws of their existence as pure intelligences.
Dionysius explains that the second part of his work is
called the Ecclesiastical rather than the Earthly Hierarchy
because it, no less than the Celestial, has for its goal the
knowledge of God, but of God as revealed in Christ incar-
nate. As man is by nature incapable of the direct intuition
of God vouchsafed to the heavenly orders, he is entirely
dependent on material symbols, by means of which he may
attain such contemplation of God as his capacity allows.
These material symbols are the sacraments intrusted to the
hierarchy of the church, and so by sacerdotal functions he
is led to the knowledge of God. Dionysius emphasizes
three symbolic sacraments: baptism, representing purifica-
tion; the eucharist, illumination; the holy chrism, perfec-
tion. Through the translation of Erigena (c. 800-c. 877),
the theories of Dionysius had an important place in the
religious thinking of the western church, and through them
the entirely independent and individual ecstasy of the
Neo-Platonist was brought within the bounds of ecclesias-
tical discipline.^
In the eleventh century, which saw Hildebrand develop-
ing the claim of the church to rule in matters temporal; and
1 For citations from Dionysius, vide. App. p. 119.
THEOLOGY, AND DEVOTION 21
adapting all the methods of statecraft and politics to the
support of that claim, and which heard religious discourse
reduced for the most part to the dialectic of the schools,
Bernard of Clairvaux fanned into glowing life the undying
embers of mystic contemplation and knowledge of God.
His mysticism was of his age. As a schoolman he admitted
certain externally imposed truths on which reason may act
even if they may not be rationally understood, but within
their limits man may, by the grace of God, know God and
be united to Him. He too based "the ascent of the soul
towards perfection on supernatural grace, the communi-
cation of which begins in the present life," ^ and he never
doubted that this communication of grace comes through
the church and its ordinances. Vindicator of orthodoxy
against the great Abelard, he escaped the suspicion with
which ecclesiastical authority is wont to regard those who
claim direct — and undirected — vision, and so came nearer
founding a school than any other of the great mystics.^
The Victorines made use of all the logical apparatus of the
day to systematize the mystic emotion of Bernard and so
developed a complete code of the laws which govern the
ascent of the soul to God. Bonaventura, continuing and
developing that which the Victorines had laid down, carried
to its highest pitch the union of great dogmatic theologian
and fervent contemplative mystic. But even Aquinas, who
stands as the embodiment of the scholastic system, reveals
glowing mystic devotion in his hymns and prayers.
It would be expected that in this school of orthodox
mysticism the special emphasis of the day on sacramental
grace in general and particularly on that bestowed by the
eucharist would have its effect, and, as a matter of fact, the
names which are associated with the opposition to Beren-
1 de Wulf, op. cit., p. 215.
* For discussions of scholastic mysticism, vide. Inge, Christian MyS'
ticism, p. 140, and de Wulf, op. cit., pp. 212-218.
22 TRANSUBSTANTIATION IN HISTORY
garius, and which are noted as authorities on eucharistic
doctrine and worship, are those of the forerunners of the
school, — Anselm of Canterbury, Hildebert of Lavardin,
and, especially, Honorius of Autun. But it is to Hugh of
St. Victor that we must look for the fullest and most impor-
tant expression of the relation of sacramental grace to mys-
tical experience, — a relation which, as we have seen, is found
in germ in the work of Dionysius. The final blessedness of
man is the visio Dei, but to this he may not attain without
the grace of God received through the sacraments. Of these
the eucharist is the supreme means of attaining the end, for
in it figure and essence are one and the same, even Christ,
Who is on the altar, though hidden beneath the veil, and
Who is sacramentally received into the soul.^
It is very much easier to make a general statement of this
devotion and its expression than to convey any real con-
ception of its fervor and enthusiasm. But even a slight
^ "Since mystics have, as a rule, the extreme susceptibihty to sug-
gestions and impressions which is characteristic of all artistic and
creative types, it is not surprising to find that their ecstasies are often
evoked, abruptly, by the exhibition of, or concentration upon, some
loved and special symbol of the divine. Such symbols form the rally-
ing points about which are gathered a whole group of ideas and intui-
tions. Their presence — sometimes the sudden thought of them — will
be enough, in psychological language, to provoke a discharge of energy
along some particular path. . . For the Christian mystics, the sacra-
ments and mysteries of faith have always provided such a point d'
appui; and these symbols often play a large part in the production of
their ecstasies." — Underbill, Mysticism, p. 434, 5.
"God enkindles in the souls of contemplatives the light of contem-
plation which represents the manner and design by which the body of
Christ exists under the sacramental species, as a king on his throne
with a curtain or veU intervening, as a glorious sun shaded by the
passing clouds, as a fountain of Paradise hidden by the leaves of the
sacramental species, from which issue forth fom* rivers of grace, of
mercy, of charity and piety, to irrigate, delight, and fructify the church
and the hearts of the faithful who drink of the waters." — Godinez, cit.
A. Devine, A Manual of Mystical Theology, p, 72,
THEOLOGY, AND DEVOTION
23
acquaintance with the thought of these men is worth acquir-
ing, for it helps in placing our minds, as far as may be, in a
line with theirs.
Hildebert of Lavardin found in the eucharist the food of
the pilgrim on his way to the fatherland, the banquet of
man with angels, perpetual strength, and the union of the
creature with the Creator. Through it is the soul worthy
to be found among the sheep, chosen with the good fish,
gathered into the garner of the Lord.^ At the supreme
point of his great work, De Sacramentis, Hugh of St. Victor
thus summarizes the position of the eucharist:
" The sacrament of the body and blood of Christ is that in which
salvation is chiefly to be found, and it is singular among them all
because from it is all sanctification. For this is the victim per-
petually offered for the world's salvation; this gives efficacy to
all sacraments before and after it."^
The same mystic in one of his sermons ' declares the eucharist
to be the mystery which mitigates the inner sorrow of the
living, heals wounds, drives out the enemy, deHvers from
evil, strengthens righteousness. It lessens the guilt of the
dead, remits their punishment, opens heaven, and assures
eternal life.
The whole emotional nature of Aquinas, "venerabilis
sacramenti laudator Thomas summus," was poured out in
eucharistic devotion. Not only was he the composer of the
office for Corpus Christi day, with its series of unsurpassed
eucharistic hymns, but his prayer before communion glows
with mystical fervor.
" O most merciful Lord, grant that I may so receive the body of
Thy only begotten son, our Lord Jesus Christ, which He took of
the Virgin Mary, that I may be worthy to be incorporated into His
1 Sermo, Migne, CLXXI: 604.
2 II: viii. Migne, CLXXVI: 461.
» Sermo XCIY, Sermones Centum, Migne, CLXXVII: 1195.
24 TRANSUBSTANTIATION IN HISTORY
mystical body and reckoned among its members. O most loving
Father, grant me that Him Whom I, on my pilgrimage, now pur-
pose receiving beneath a veil, I may behold with unveiled face
throughout eternity." ^
The same note of the eucharist as a pledge of ultimate bliss
is struck in the prayer after communion:
"I pray thee that this holy communion may not be to me an oc-
casion of guilt but may plead for my salvation: that it may be
my armor of faith and shield of good will . . . my firm defence
against the evil of all enemies, \'isible and invisible . . . my un-
shakable cleaving to Thee, the true and only God, and at the last
my happy consummation. And I pray Thee, that Thou wilt hold
me worthy to attain to that ineffable festival where Thou with
Thy Son and the Holy Spirit, art the true light of the saints, fuU
satisfaction, joy fulfilled, and everlasting felicity.*
The eucharistic prayer of Bonaventura is even more im-
passioned. To him the eucharist is bread of angels, refresh-
ment of holy souls, our daily bread as well as bread of
heaven, having all savor. By means of it the soul shares in
the source of life, of wisdom and knowledge, the fountain
of eternal life, the torrent of joy, the riches of the house of
God.^ The eucharistic prayer incorporated in the Ancren
Riwle expresses the same idea, adopting the very words of
St. Paul as to the enigmatic earthly vision which is the
pledge of that which shall be face to face:
"Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that Him Whom we
see darkly and under a different form, and on Whom we feed sacra-
mentally on earth, we may see face to face, and may be thought
worthy to enjoy Him truly and really as He is in heaven."^
^ Bremarium Romanum. * lb, ' lb.
* Tr. Morton. "Concede, quesumus, omnipotens Deus, ut quern
enigmatice et sub aliena specie cernimus, quo saeramentaliter cibamur
in terris, facie ad faciem eum videamus, eo sicuti est veraciter et
realiter frui mereamur in ccElis."
THEOLOGY, AND DEVOTION 25
Eucharistic rapture is met with very frequently in records
of mystic experience at this period. The Blessed John of
Ruysbroeck, swooning at mass, explained, "Even today
Jesus Christ appeared to me, filling my soul with delicious-
ness all divine; He said to my heart 'Thou art Mine and
I am thine.'" ^ Catherine of Siena claimed knowledge of
the Trinity in eucharistic transport,^ and the Blessed Angela
of Foligno, speaking of her mystic states, said, "One of the
works which God Himself wrought in my soul is a power
of comprehending, with great capacity and delight, how it
is that God comes into the sacrament of the altar with that
great and noble union." ^ Hildebert of Lavardin preached
that the mystery of the conversion of the bread and wine,
and of the grace conferred by it, could be contemplated by
intuition, could be heard without sound of voice. *
While the inexplicable and unspeakable vision of God
belongs to the higher type of mystic contemplatives, those
on a lower plane always require a sign, and such signs are
common in the religious experience of some mystics.^ The
crucified Christ of St. Gregory ^ is one of these, as is also
the vision of a child or a lamb on the altar. Veronica of
Binasco saw a marvellous light hovering over the chalice,
Catherine of Siena saw Christ at different ages on the
altar, Marie of Oignys saw at times a lamb, at others a
dove, and visions like that of St. Gregory were vouchsafed
to many people at Douay.''
^ Dom Vincent Scully, C. R. L., A Medieval Mystic, pp. 40, 41.
2 Dialogue, Ch. CXI. tr. Thorold.
^ Cf. Algar Thorold, Catholic Mysticism, p. 159.
* "Solus hsec intuitu quodam contemplatur: audit sine etrepitu
vocis: de longe odorans, leniter tangens, avide gustans." Sermo,
Migne, CLXXI: 604.
6 Infra, p. 82.
6 Infra, p. 78.
' Cf. Gorres, Die Christliche Mystik, II: 107. Also Csesarius of
Heisterbach, Dialogus Miraculorum, Bk. IX.
26 TRANSUBSTANTIATION IN HISTORY
Thus the mystics of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies found the foretaste of the vision of God, the union
with Him, within the bounds of holy church, consummated
in the eucharist, in which banquet they knew both the joys
of redemption and those of the heavenly country.^
IV
There remains the question as to how this matter of the
development of a religious dogma with its bearing on worship
and conduct concerns the student of literature. Why go
into a mass of controversy which interests very few people
today, and into devotional expression the undying part of
which is incorporated into the general body of religious lit-
erature? So much of it seems to the modern reader exotic
and exaggerated in feelmg. But, surely, any literature
worth studying must have been closely related to the life of
the age which made it: nothing human is alien to it. As
well conceive the literary production of the early nineteenth
century uninfluenced by the theories of the rights of man as
to consider the literature of the later Middle Ages apart from
the sacramental system which received each man in infancy,
which had a place for all the events of his life, and without
which no man in Christendom willingly faced death. The
climax of the system, the elevation of the host, was the heart
of his Sunday and festival worship, and its hold on the popu-
lar mind is shown by the prayers and hymns for the elevation
in various vernaculars.^
1 Cf. a sermon ascribed to Hugh of St. Victor {Migne, CLXXVII:
956 ff ) . In festivitate Paschali et corporis Christi, in which the Passover
supper is allegorized in detail. The eating of the passover in haste is
thus considered with a play on words: "Comedamus festinanter ut
mandata Dei, mysteria redemptionis, gaudia patrice coelestis cum fes-
tinatione cognoscamus. . . . Festinanter ergo comedamus, id est ad
solemnitatem patriae coelestis anhelemus."
2 Vide Mone, Hymni Latini Medii jEvi, I: 286, 293,
THEOLOGY, AND DEVOTION 27
For the very reason that eucharistic doctrine and worship
were so pervasive and enveloping, the literary records of them
are seldom dogmatic explanations. It is not to poets and
story-tellers that one looks for detailed theology, though one
may safely assume for them a working knowledge of the
church's teaching and an implicit faith in it. Just as in the
illuminated missal the recurrent and familiar parts are indi-
cated by two or three words, quite sufficient for the priest [/^
who knew it all by heart, so a very slight hint, the mere
mention of a custom associated with eucharistic worship, a
phrase indissolubly associated with the mass, a bit of the
liturgy which could have but one meaning, an allusion to a
popular belief or superstition — any one of these would
suffice to show an audience of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries in which direction edification was to be sought.
One of the many examples of this is the passage in the
Perlesvaus describmg the taking of the Grail Castle.
"The virtue of Our Lord, and the dignity of the banner, and the
goodness of the white mule and the holiness of the good hermits
that made their orisons to Our Lord so struck the knights that
they lost all power over themselves."^
This sounds like hopeless confusion and conveys no idea
at all, unless we know that in popular speech, whatever
subtleties the theologians might premise, the consecrated
host is literally and locally Christ, that it was often carried
in processions of intercession, and that a white mule was
the animal preferred for such ceremonies.- Then our eyes
too may see the picture which the romancer meant to call
up to his audience, — the soberly clad group of hermits,
probably singing their "orisons to Our Lord" as they moved
slowly forward, the banner in the hands of Joseus the hermit,
which indicated the coming of a King, a "vexillum regis,"
1 Tr. Sebastian Evans, High History of the Holy Grail, XVIII: xxxii.
2 Cf. Catalani, Pont. Rom. II: 313.
28 TRANSUBSTANTIATION IN HISTORY
Perceval, knight of the Grail, bearer it would seem of the
host, which at that date would be contained in a ciborium,
or covered cup,^ centre of the whole proceeding, the mean-
ing and power of it so well known that even the foul knights
of the King of the Castle Mortal quailed before it. No
treatise on transubstantiation could show more clearly the
place and force of the doctrine in medieval life. Explicit
mention of the theology concerned is not needed: we do
not ask that writers after 1859 mention the Origin of Species
before we admit that they are more or less influenced by the
theory of evolution. The burden of proof would rest on
those who denied such influence.
The two following chapters are the result of an attempt
to trace the bearing and influence of this most important
feature of the daily life of the later Middle Ages, secular as
well as spiritual, in two literary monuments. Both are
concerned with religion, but, without any undue desire
for classification, they may be taken to represent respec-
tively the faith and devotion of the people and of the theo-
logians — the Legend of the Holy Grail and the Divine
Comedy.
* Vide infra, p. 59.
THE MYSTIC VISION IN THE LEGEND
OF THE GRAIL
Li preudons " commencha la messe. Et quant il ot faite sa beneichon
si prest corpus domini et fait eigne a bohort quil viegne auant. Et il
si fait sagenoille deuant lui. Et quant il i est venus li preudons li dist
— bohort vois tu ce que ie tieng. Sire fait il oi bien. Je voi que vous
tenes mon salueor et ma redemption en samblance de pain. . . . Mais
mi oeU sont si terrien qml ne peuent veoir les espirituels choses . . .
lors commencha a plorer trop durement." — Queste del St. Graal.
THE MYSTIC VISION IN THE LEGEND
OF THE GRAIL
The Grail quest is with us yet, as alluring and as illusory
as at first, and the modern fellowship of the Grail, though
composed not of knights but of scholars, is a large one.
Perhaps the very fact that the questers are so numerous
attracts new devotees. A problem which has so long in-
terested so many must be worth solving, and as one after
another the outer knots of the tangled skein are unravelled
the chance of finding the master clew improves. It is not
surprising that such a possibility brings newcomers to the
task.
It would probably be admitted by all workers in the field
that any theory of the Grail story, its origin and meaning,
will have to reckon with numerous features which not only
do not fit in with the theory but are in real or apparent
contradiction to it. But it may also be admitted that the
professional entertainers, empty singers of an idle day, who
gave to the story the literary form which we know, were
neither theologians nor literary historians. Their verse was
perhaps at the disposal of monastic patrons and so adapted
to a special propaganda, but their minds were stocked with
the common properties of story-telling, and their task was
to incorporate a certain amount of edification with a narra-
tive sufficiently varied to command attention from an au-
dience which asked only the beguiling of long hours. It is
not hard to understand that any familiar phrase would
bring up a host of images, the ''sources" of which are prob-
ably much better known to the modern scholar than to the
32 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
medieval poet. Knights-errant might not arrive at their
goal without toil and test; so into the story of their adven-
tures the narrator put any telling point, any emotional
interest, any decorative touch which the stored memory
happened to bring up.^ In short, details of the Grail story
may have pedigrees of their own, respectable, even inter-
esting, which are however merely hung on the family tree,
not really organically part of it. Because, for instance, some
elements can be shown to have close afiinities with eastern
legend the origin of the whole matter need not be sought in
crusading influences. Or because a substructure of fertility
rites may be discerned beneath the Christian ritual we are
not thereby justified in inferring that the element of primi-
tive worship is conscious or vital.
Though this study is chiefly concerned with the influence
of Christian doctrine and ritual on the Grail legend, it is no
brief for a Christian origin of the quest story. It would be
a difficult matter to shake the strong case made out by the
supporters of a Celtic origin of the story of a quest and a
fated question, associated with a magic vessel producing
food and a lance dripping blood. But this story was un-
doubtedly combined with another of an entirely different
origin, — that of Joseph of Arimathea, his care for Christ's
body, his guardianship of the holy vessel containing Christ's
blood, and his mission to Britain. The motive for the com-
bination of two such elements, as far from each other in
character as in origin, has never been adequately explained.
It is this problem of the fusion of two stories that will be
^ This ia naively admitted in Perlesvaus (XX: xii), where we are
told that the very character of the country changed from time to
time so that knights might not weary of their quest. "Car, quant il
avoient entr6 en une forest ou en une ille oH il avoient trouv4 aucune
aventure, se il i venoient autre foiz, se trouvoient il recez et chastiax et
aventure, d'autre maniere, que la poigne et U travaua ne lor ennuiast."
One suspects that variety was as important to the audience as to the
knights.
^
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 331
discussed in the present study, and the thesi^o be main-
tained is that Robert de Borron, or a writer in Latin prose
whose work was adapted to romantic purposes by de Borron,
desiring to set forth the doctrine of transubstantiation and
to estabhsh certain local claims, combined the Celtic story ,
of the quest with that of Joseph of Arimathea, derived from
Christian legend. It required but a slight addition to the
latter to identify the vessel in which Joseph received the
sacred blood with the one used by Christ at the Last Supper,
and such an addition may well have been suggested by the
food-producing power of the magic talisman.^ The change
from a magic to a holy vessel would thus be pivotal.
An attempt to survey the whole Grail literature, even in
the most summary fashion, would leave both author and
reader with as little time as inclination for further pursuit
of the subject. But as the texts are voluminous, and have,
moreover, received various names at the hands of successive
editors, it is absolutely essential to clear argument that the
field involved be defined and that, for the purpose of this
essay, one title for each version be fixed. A descriptive list
of the various versions of the Grail legend with the name
(in italics) under which they will hereafter be mentioned
seems unavoidable.
II
Nutt's twofold division of the Grail romances is gen-
erally accepted.
"In the first, the chief stress is laid upon the adventures con-
nected with the quest for certain talismans, of which the Grail is
^ This trait which Miss Weston considers a hopelessly pagan feature
persisting into the highly Christianized forms of the story (Quest of
the H. G., p. 64) seems to me the very feature to attract those seeking
a romantic story as a vehicle for eucharistic teaching. Vide infra.
p. 121.
34 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
only one, ancAipon the personality of the hero who achieves the
quest; in the second, upon the nature and history of these tahs-
mans. The first may be styled the Quest, the second the Early
History versions; but these designations must not be taken as
implying that either class is solely concerned with one aspect of
the legend." ^
QUEST VERSIONS
Conte del Graal. A vast poetic compilation in Old French.
It was begun by Crestien de Troies and
continued by other hands. The parts are
usually designated by the names of their
authors. Crestien's work c. 1180.
Crestien de Troies (Crestien)
Wauchier de Denain (Wauchier)
Pseudo-Wauchier (Ps-Wauch)
Interpolation Ps-Wauchier {Inter. Ps-Wauch)
Manessier (Manessier)
Gerbert (Gerhert)
Peredur, son of Evrawc (Peredur)
A Welsh romance preserved in a MS. of the thirteenth .
century. It was translated by Lady Charlotte Guest
and included in her volume of the Mahinogion. Nutt
estimates Peredur as in the main the oldest form of the
Perceval story, but thinks that the form in which we*^
have it is comparatively late (say 1230-1250), and that
it has been influenced by the writings of Crestien .^
Syr Percjrvelle (Syr Percyvelle)
An English metrical romance preserved in a MS. of
the fifteenth century. No mention is made in it of the
Grail nor of any other taUsman. Gaston Paris believed
that this poem represents the most authentic form of
the original Celtic tale. Of its present form he said,
1 Legends of the H. G., p. 5.
* Celtic Myth and Saga, Folk Lore, Sept. 1892.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 35
"Le Syr Percyvelle s'appuie certainement sur un poeme
anglo-normand perdu, et nous offre un specimen des
romans biographiques qui forment la plus ancienne
couche des romans frangais du cycle breton." ^
Parzival (Parzival)
Written by Wolfram von Eschenbach in Middle High
German verse, (early thirteenth century). WoKram
claims as source a Provengal poet, Kiot.
Of these four Quest versions Nutt says:
"One French version (Crestien) speaks of the sword, a bleeding
lance and a Grail (a vessel); another (if Wolfram's poem be re-
garded as representing a lost French original), of sword and lance ,^
and Grail (a stone) ; the Welsh tale mentions a bleeding lance and
a head in a salver; the English romance is silent concerning any
tahsman." ^
Diu Crone (Diu Crone)
In Middle High German verse, and written by
Heinrich von dem Tiirlin. It is largely devoted to
praise of Gawain, and includes fragments of very early
traditions concerning him. In it the Grail is in one /
place a stone, in another a vessel containing the host.
EARLY HISTORY VERSIONS
Joseph d'Arimathie (Metr. Jos.)
(Called also Metrical Joseph
and Petit St. Graal).
Merlin (Merlin)
These two French metrical romances are generally
ascribed to Robert de Borron. His work has been
dated from 1170-1212: taking political and religious
1 Sodete historique et cercle Saint Simon, Bulletin 2: 99, 1883. Cit.
Miss Weston, Sir Perceval, I: xviii.
"^ Legends of the H. G., p. 18.
36 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
conditions into consideration, I should be inclined to
place it in the last decade of the twelfth century.
Joseph (Prose Jos.)
Merlin (Prose Merlin)
Prose versions of de Borron's poems with interpola-
tions which Nutt believes were "designed to bring the
text into conformity with later developments of the
legend." '
Perceval (Prose Perceval)
This version appears in two forms, known as Didot
Perceval and Modena Perceval. The first copy known
is in a MS., which belonged to A. F. Didot, where it fol-
lows Prose Jos. and Prose Merlin. Another MS. in the
Biblioteca Estense, Modena, is generally considered a su-
perior text. Opinions differ as to whether this is a prose
version of a lost poem by de Borron, intended to com-
plete the trilogy, or whether it is merely an addition at
the hand of one of the prose redactors of de Borron,
carrying out a supposed intention of his. In any case it
seems a logical and much needed conclusion to de Bor-
ron's work. For if the Joseph gives the early history of
the Grail, the Merlin brings it into connection with
Arthur's court. But this is only the prologue to the real
romance. It is without meaning except as it provides
the "great fool" of the Celtic story with a Christian
object for his quest and makes the quest itself an ad-
venture of the Round Table.
Grand St. Graal (Gr. St. Graal)
A very long French prose romance, so rambling and
discursive that it never arrives at the accomplishment
of the quest. It probably belongs late in the cycle.
Queste del St. Graal (Queste)
This French prose romance is the most theological and
ascetic of the cycle. "It was embodied almost entire,
1 Op. cit., p. 25.
/
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 37
by Malory in the Morte Darthur." (Nutt.) ^ As a
matter of fact, the omissions indicated by "ahnost"
cover most of the spiritual and edifying matter of the
Queste.
Perlesvaus or Pellesvaus (Perlesvaus)
(Called also Perceval le Gallois)
The time of greatest interest in the Grail, which is also
the time during which the chief versions of the romance
developed, may be set roughly as the last quarter of ^
the twelfth century and the first of the thirteenth.
This French prose romance has been translated by Hf-^f
Evans under the title of the High History of the Holy
Grail. Evans, as also Potvin, its first editor, considers
it the original version of the Grail romance, but many
features, noticeably the change in the character of Per-
ceval from lover and husband to cehbate, seem to give
the romance a very late place in the cycle. Its relation
to the Queste is debatable. Is the celibacy of Per-
ceval an imitation of that of Galahad? Or is the Per-
lesvaus "the transitional bridge between the knightly
hero of Crestien-Guiot and the ascetic hero of the later
legend," as Nutt believed? ^
It is extremely important to note the marked difference
between the two groups into which the texts fall — that
which deals primarily with the Quest of the Grail and that
which is most concerned with its Early History. Nutt felt
that the diversity in tone and sentiment between the two
is so marked *'as to make the reader of the Early History
versions feel as though transported into another world."
"The chivalric is here subordinated to the Christian/
ascetic element. True, the hero's prowess is insisted upon
in set conventional terms, but the centre of interest is shifted
from his personality and from the feats and ventures by
1 Op. cit., p. 30.
* Op. cit., p. 75.
38 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
which it is manifested to the symboHc machinery of the
precious vessel and its accompaniments. . . .
" These differences in tone and feeling, not to be appre-
ciated save by those who read the original text, would alone
suflEice to negative the hypothesis that the two sets of ro-
mances are the dissevered halves of a homogeneous whole,
or variant versions of a common original theme. The dis-
tinction between them is far more deeply seated."^
Ill
Critical opinion as to the origin of the story falls inevit-
ably into two classes as sharply divided one from the other
as the Quest from the Early History versions. In one are
those who hold that the Celtic vessel of increase and the
adventures connected with it were gradually and almost
accidentally affected by Christian teaching introduced in
successive redactions of the story by Christian narrators.
In the other class are the exponents of a purely Christian
origin of the vessel. They hold that it was from the begin-
ning the vessel of the holy blood, and that its story, in some
quite unexplained way, was contaminated by elements
which are traceable to Celtic story-telling. Nutt's studies
are the most important contributions to the first theory,
while Birch-Hirschfeld is the most conspicuous defender J
of that of the Christian origin.
Quite recently a third theory has made its appearance,
— the so-called "ritual theory." ^ This view "sees in the
Grail tradition as preserved to us the confused and frag-
mentary record of a special form of nature-worship, which,
^ Nutt, op. dt., pp. 36, 37.
2 It is confusing to narrow the word "ritual" to any special form
of worship, primitive or otherwise. Golther's contention that the
Grail worship is that of the Byzantine mass is also a "ritual" theory.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 39
having been elevated to the dignity of a mystery, survived
in the form of a tradition." This theory is earnestly up-
held by Miss J. L. Weston, in whose words the statement
above is given,^ and has also a supporter in Dr. Nitze.
Miss Weston, however, thinks the fertility rites connected
with the worship of Adonis answer most closely to the details
of the Grail story, while Dr. Nitze believes those associated
with the Eleusinian Mysteries to be most closely affiliated .^
Details of the Grail story have been analyzed intermin-
ably. Innumerable studies of the dates of the various
texts and their sequence exist. There are vehement con-
troversies as to whether Bleheris and Kiot, mentioned in
certain texts as sources, are to be regarded as real persons
or literary fictions. Some critics are inclined to believe that
Walter Map really had something to do with the later
forms of the story, but Sommer in his edition of the Grand
St. Graal and the Queste has stated his opinion that the as-
criptions to Map are without foundation in fact. Many
pages have been devoted to establishing the identity of
Robert de Borron, without convincing results.
To such Celtic scholars as Alfred Nutt and A. C. L.
Brown we owe careful study of features which can be par-
alleled in Celtic story. The elaborate work of Hagen is one
of the latest efforts to determine the significance and value
of the traces of the Earthly Paradise legend and other
eastern .material, and its possible connection with the Cru-
sades. There are many valuable studies of the relation of
the Grail ritual to the ritual of the Christian church, espe-
cially to that of the eastern branch. Among them may be
mentioned those of Heinzel, Newell, Golther, and Miss
Peebles. Wolfram's Parzival, with its marked differences
from any other version, has called forth much scholarly
1 Quest of the H. G., p. 98.
^ For discussion of this theory and of the relation of fertility rites
to eucharistic worship, vide. App., p. 121.
40 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
work. The discussions of San Marte, Sterzenbach, and
Hertz should be particularly noticed.
In all this outpouring of critical scholarship, the fusion
of two distinct stories — that of the quest of a magic,
food-producing vessel, and that of the vessel of Christ's
blood, treasured by Joseph of Arimathea — is almost in-
variably regarded as the most important and significant
point in the finished narrative, but there have been few
attempts to find a credible motive for the combination.
Paulin Paris considered that it resulted, directly or indirectly,
from the desire of the Glastonbury monks to stand well
with Henry II, but he viewed the Grail itself as nothing
more than a specially holy relic and so a desirable possession.^
Potvin, who put the beghinings of the whole cycle much
earlier than would any critic of the present day, saw in the
Perlesvaus an "epic of theocracy," an Iliad of the genius
of Hildebrand, whose claim to universal rule was thus
upheld by the institutions of chivalry. He believed that
Perceval typified civil war on behalf of theocratic govern-
ment .^ The supporters of the theory of an origin in fertil-
ity rites believe that a magic vessel was connected with
these rites in pre-Christian Britain, and that a confused
memory of this worship was carried over into the rites of
the Christian church.
IV
To offer a theory with the avowed object of twisting many
of these threads into a dependable clew to the maze is to
display audacity far removed indeed from angeUc hesita-
tion. Such a theory must make use of all these lines of
research. It may freely admit the Celtic origin and yet
have a place for reminiscences of fertility rites and for the
1 Romania, I: 482.
2 Introdiiction to the Conte del Graal.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 41
eastern elements. It must account for the varying form of
the Grail, and have an answer for the question of the fusion
of the two stories. Yet one ever-present idea, the desire to
express one intense conviction, would serve to unite many
loose ends, and like a scarlet thread might be followed
through all the intricacies of the coil. And such a scarlet
thread may well be the glorification of transubstantiation,
for by the last quarter of the twelfth century that doctrine,
after the long controversy just outlined,^ had become a
favorite subject for sermon and exposition, found expression
in art, in ritual and in sacred poetry, and lent strength to
the power of the keys.^ It was emphasized in England by
Lanfranc and his followers, and the Benedictines were par-
ticularly active in promulgating it. And during these twenty-
five years we find the story of a miraculous vessel called the
Grail becoming popular with the romance writers. Com-
bined with the Christian legend of Joseph of Arimathea,
which for some unknown reason was familiar in England /
at an early date, the story acquired in successive retellings
an increasingly doctrinal and didactic character.
It may fairly be presumed that this steady growth of
emphasis on Christian teaching reflects contemporary
religious emphasis; and such a presumption leads to the
suggestion that the Celtic story, with its symbols, was used
as a foundation for the later Grail romances because it was,
particularly well suited to the double purpose for which it
was intended — the glorification of the dogma of transub- \
stantiation, of very special contemporary importance, and
the establishment of the claim of England in general and
1 Vide ut sup., Ch. I.
2 The withdrawal of the eucharist was one of the chief terrors of an
interdict. Cf. Dante's accusation of the popes:
They take away, now here, now there, the bread
The pitying father would lock up from none.
Paradiso, XVIII: 128, 129, tr. Johnson.
42 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
Glastonbury in particular to early and independent con-
nection with the dogma. On this hypothesis the Grail, at
least in de Borron's version of its story and in those modelled
on him, is the symbol of transubstantiation, the perpetual
miracle of the church by which man attains to the closest
approximation possible to one still on earth to that final
union with God which is the ultimate blessedness of man.
In accordance with this theory the quest of the Grail is the
aspiration for mystic intuition of the miracle, a direct
knowledge which, as we have seen,^ is not faith, though
faith is an indispensable condition of its attainment. A
chosen few have achieved this sacramental mystic vision;
they " know how God comes into the sacrament." - Others,
even among the faithful, must be content with faith, and
believe in the sacramental presence of Christ.
As a symbol of transubstantiation the Grail need not be
one definite object: its form may vary. For the romancer's 9
purpose any ritual accessory to the consecration of the '
elements, — chalice, paten, ciborium, tabernacle, or altar
stone, — may represent the miracle of transubstantiation.
Each story teller may select that which appeals most to his
imagination, or which has special interest for him or for his
audience. For the actual material object is but a symbol, a \
figure of the thing signified. The true Grail is indeed "chose
esperitel," "of wood was it not, nor of any kind of metal
nor of stone was it wrought, neither of horn nor of bone." '
This interpretation, it will be seen, offers an explanation
of the long discussed question as to why Wolfram described ^.
the Grail as a stone, while in other versions it appears as ^
a dish or chalice.
This theory as to the significance of the Grail requires
support from without as well as from within. External
1 Ut sup. p. 19.
2 Angela of Foligno, vide Thorold, Catholic Mysticism, pp. 158, 159.
^ Prose Lancelot.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 43
evidence is to be sought in the emphasis on the doctrine
of transubstantiation at the time of the development of the
Grail romances, and the ambition of the Glastonbury monks
to identify themselves as heirs of primitive British tra-
dition, so that they might offer to Henry II in his struggle'
with the papacy such prestige as would accrue from direct
knowledge of important doctrinal teaching and from a
usage and ritual which claimed entire independence of thel
authority of Rome. Study of the texts themselves shows a
constant association of the Grail with eucharistic ceremo-
nial. It seems to be identified with one and another of the
accessories of the mass, and there are striking resemblances
between its effects and those of the eucharist. For example,
the miracles which were related as evidences of transub-
stantiation appear in connection with the manifestations
of the Grail. The great charge connected with the possession
of the Grail is called its ''secret," and the term suggested
to contemporaries the words of consecration of the mass,
words which effect transubstantiation, at that period called
secreta. The later Grail romancers introduce the require-
ment of celibate chastity on the part of the Grail hero:
this is done in Perlesvaus by transforming Perceval; in the
Queste by the introduction of Galahad. The glorification
of celibacy finds a parallel in the purity required of those
who are connected with the ministry of the altar and the
offering of the mass, a purity on which increasing stress
was laid at the time those romances developed.
The conspicuous importance of the doctrine of transub-
stantiation at the time of the flowering of the Grail romances
has been discussed in the previous chapter. When we take
up the question of the connection of Glastonbury with the
Early History versions, we are at once confronted with the
44 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
problem of Robert de Borron and the trilogy of Joseph of
Arimathea, Merlin, and Perceval generally attributed to
him. Who was he? Hucher was sure he was "homme
d'^p^e," in spite of his marked talent for theological expo-
sition. Miss Weston claims him as an "initiate." Was he
perhaps a jongleur turned monk, like Helinandus, or a
jongleur officially attached to the monastery of Glaston-\/
bury, as B^dier would probably prefer to think him? Or
was he a knightly singer, familiar with the ambitious claims
of Glastonbury as well as with the weak points of the court?
Whoever he was, it is hardly disputed that he is responsible
for combining the Celtic quest story with the legend of
Joseph of Arimathea, and for adding to the latter the iden-
tification of the vessel in which Joseph caught the blood of
Christ with the dish of the Last Supper.
The Metrical Joseph begins with a theological exposition
of the fall of man, death as the penalty of his sin, and the
Incarnation as the remedy for it. The secret devotion of / i^'^
Joseph, who is represented as an officer of Pilate, is related.
The narrative then proceeds to an account of the Last
Supper. After it Judas leads the Jews into the house of
Simon, where it had taken place, and there betrays his
Master. In the confusion the disciples leave behind them
the fair vessel with which Christ had instituted His sacra-
ment. A Jew, however, picks it up and takes it to Pilate.
When Joseph hears of the death of Christ he demands the
body from Pilate. Pilate grants the boon and gives Joseph
the vessel of the sacrament in which the blood from Christ's
wounds is received. The story takes up the persecution of
Joseph for alleged resuscitation of Christ, His imprisonment,
the vision in prison of Christ bearing the holy vessel, from
which a brightness streams. This He entrusts to Joseph
after another long review of the fall of man and its remedy
in the Incarnation. He also recalls the Last Supper, when
the bread and wine were declared His body and blood, and
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 45
promises Joseph that for his tender care of the sacred body
the sacrament will never be celebrated without remembrance
of him. It is explained that at these celebrations the altar ^
will represent the sepulchre; the vessel in which His body
will be consecrated in the form of the host is to be called a
chalice, and will represent that in which the sacred blood
was received; the paten over the chalice is the symbol of
the stone before the sepulchre; the cloth over both will
represent the winding-sheet which Joseph used. Christ
then teaches Joseph the great, " secret," which is called by^^
the name of the Grail.
The next appearance of the Grail is in far distant lands,
where it exhibits the power of separating the good from the
bad, and we are told that the Grail is so called because it is
agreeable to all who see it. There is much confusion as to
the conversion of England and the guardianship of the Grail.
De Borron's narrative at this point is ambiguous and obscure.
At first long passages are devoted to Alain, descendant
of Joseph's sister, and he is designated as the Grail-
keeper. Yet he disappears from the story without explana-
tion, and the chief role is assigned to Brons, husband of
Joseph's sister. He is known as the Rich Fisher, is given
charge of the Grail, and learns the holy words which the
Lord spoke to Joseph in prison. In the metrical version
no mention of Joseph as apostle to Britain occurs, though he
^ W. W. Newell, The Legend of the Holy Grail, p. 25, calls attention
to a passage in the Gemma Animce of Honorius of Autun, first half of
the twelfth century. "When are said the words per omnia scecula
sceculorum the deacon comes, raises the cup before him (the priest),
puts on the cover, replaces it on the altar, and covers it with the cor-
poral, representing Joseph of Arimathea, who deposited the body of
Jesus Christ, covered his face with the sweat-cloth, laid it in the tomb,
sealed with the stone. Here the oblate and chalice are covered with
the corporal, which signifies the pure winding-sheet in which Joseph
wrapped the body of Christ. The chalice designates the sepulchre*
the plate, the stone which closed the sepulchre."
46 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
seems to send missionaries in that direction. But in the
prose (Cang6 MS.) Joseph is said to have preached in the
land of Great Britain.^ If the Prose Perceval is by de Bor-
ron 2 we find that in the Metr. Jos. de Borron has prepared
the way for the close association of the Christian vessel
with Merlin and the romantic adventure of the quest. The
Merlin is fragmentary, but it serves to bring in the court of
Arthur and the Round Table. In the Didot-Perceval Merlin,
almost at the outset, repeats the story of Joseph and his
guardianship of the Grail. The character of the Grail is
assumed as already well known, and the only feature spe-
cially mentioned is its power of separating the good from the
bad. Merlin says "Our Lord made the first table, Joseph
the second, and I, at the command of Uther Pendragon, the
^ Joseph's mission to England is conspicuous in a Welsh version
of the Queste. Perceval's aunt relates how when Joseph of Arimathea
came to Great Britain, and his son Joseph with him, there came with
them about four thousand people, all of whom were fed by ten loaves,
placed on the table at the head of which was the Grail. In the Gr.
St. Graal Joseph brings his company to "angleterre" by means of his
miraculous shirt, and the Grail feeds the travellers.
^ Nutt thought the Didot-Perceval an "incongruous jumble of
hints from de Borron's work and a confused version of the Conte del
Graal," intended to be a sequel to de Borron's poems. {Legends of
the Holy Grail, p. 34.) Sommer is also convinced that the author of the
Didot-Perceval is not de Borron, but an unknown compiler, and that the
quest of the GraU must have been carried into the prose versions from
some other source, i.e. a Perceval-Quest, other than the Perlesvaus,
but closely related to it, to Crestien, and to the Queste. (Introduction
to the Vulgate Cycle, p. xii.) If I understand Sommer, he assumes that
some one made a prose version of de Borron's two poems, Joseph of
Arimathea and Merlin, and added an adaptation of this lost Perceval-
Quest, carrying into it the Joseph-Grail-conversion of Britain machin-
ery prepared by de Borron. But why may not de Borron have made
this concluding combination himself in a lost poem of which the con-
tents survive only in the prose transcription? Certainly the two met-
rical stories which we possess escaped the same fate by the narrow
margin of one MS.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 47
third." He also says the Grail is now in Britain, under,
guard of the Fisher-king, that he is sick, and will never be
healed except by the intervention of a knight of the Round
Table. Here is certainly a most ingenious combination.
The holiest object in Christendom, the symbolic present-
ment of the chief glory of the church, the sacrament which
was the focus of contemporary doctrinal discussion, is
brought to Britain and connected with Arthur, the national
figure in whom the reigning house was greatly interested.
It needs for completion only the story of Perceval and his
quest that the Grail may become the end and object of
knightly achievement.
VI
A blend of Celtic folktale, Arthurian romance and the
story of Joseph of Arimathea in the interest of theology and
politics could originate nowhere in England so well as in
Glastonbury, the oldest ecclesiastical foundation on the
\/ island. King Ine and St. Aldhelm laid the foundations of
the Saxon monastery on a site which was already hallowed
ground to their British predecessors. "Glastonbury became
the channel through which there ran into the new and vigo-
rous fields of English monasticism all the treasured legends
and beliefs of earlier Celtic monasticism." ^ There, says
Freeman :
"In the isle of Avalon, the isle of Glastonbury, the great Abbey
still lived on, rich and favored by the conquerors as by the con-
quered, the one great institution which bore up untouched through
the storm of the English Conquest, the one great tie which binds
our race to the race which went before us, and which binds the
church of the last thirteen hundred years to the earUer days of
Christianity in Britain." ^
^ T. S. Holmes, Wells and Glastonbury, Ch. X.
2 Cathedral Church of Wells, pp. 18, 19.
48 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
The monks may have enjoyed some favor from the con-
querors, but in spite of it they had difficulty in maintaining
their independence and prestige. In 1077 the last Saxon
abbot was deposed by the Conqueror, and Thurstan, a
Norman monk of Caen, was installed as abbot. He at once •
undertook to replace the local use in liturgy and chant by
that of Fecamp, an ill-judged attempt which provokedv
riotous resistance, as may be imagined. Glastonbury later
found a champion in Henry II, who was jealous of inter-
ference in English church affairs and grateful for any link
with the past of Britian which might be helpful in his disputes
with the papal see on questions of jurisdiction, — disputes
which are too familiar to need more than mention.^ In
1171, on his way to Ireland, he is said to have been a guest
of the Abbey, where Irish harpers sang him the story of
Arthur. In 1178 he took the ruling of the monastery into
his own hands, and when the church with most of its orna-
1 ments and relics was burned in 1184, he undertook the task
^of rebuilding it.
The question of the alleged connection of Joseph of Ari-
mathea with Glastonbury must now be considered. William
of Malmesbury in his Antiquities of Glastonbury ^ recounts,
with the usual vague mention of a more ancient chronicle,
that St. Philip, bishop of Jerusalem, chose a band of new
converts and despatched them, under conduct of Joseph of
Arimathea, to the western world. They landed in Britain
and converted part of the inhabitants. The king, Arviragus,
ceded them a large tract of land where they built a church,
Glastonbury Abbey. The implication is that once in Eng-
land and at Glastonbury Joseph must have left his bones
^ "Religion grew more and more identified with patriotism under
the eyes of a king who whispered, and scribbled, and looked at picture
books during mass." — J. R. Green, Short History of the English People,
II: VIII.
2 Migne, CLXXIX: 1683.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 49
there. But from the time of Charlemagne the rehcs of
Joseph of Arimathea had been the pride of the monks of
Moienmoutier in the Vosges, until at an unguarded moment
they were reft from them by "stranger monks," whom
Paulin Paris shrewdly suspected to hail from Glastonbury.^
Certainly in a charter inserted in the same book of the
Antiquities of Glastonbury Henry II recognized the apostolic
origin of the Abbey Church after an examination of the
alleged title deeds which supported such a claim. So, with-
out the sUghtest support from Gildas, said by Welsh tradi-
tion to have ended his days at Glastonbury, or from Bede,
and without authorization from Rome, the monks of Glas-
tonbury asserted that Joseph of Arimathea had come to
England about the year 63 of the Christian era, that he had
converted the inhabitants, founded Glastonbury, and, pre-
sumably, chosen that abbey for a burial place. Doubters
could be referred to the venerable relics.
The monks, grateful for the king's belief in their long
descent, requited his favor by an important discovery,
nothing less than that the grave of Arthur was on their
premises. According to the monk Alberic des Trois Fontaines
the discovery was effected by an abbot who had the entire
cemetery of the abbey excavated in the search, having been
incited thereto by words which a monk had heard from the
mouth of Henry II himself.^ This certainly sounds sus-
piciously like a "command performance." But Henry died
in 1189 and Alberic says this happened in 1193. If he is
right the monks may have thought to interest Richard I
in a discovery which would have made a strong appeal
to his father. They certainly needed the new king's assist-
^ Cf . Romania, 1 : 457 ff . In this article P. Paris cites the chronicle
concerning the theft which left Moienmoutier desolate. Vide. App.,
p. 125.
^ The citation from Alberic is given by San Marte, Essay, p. 17.
For the full quotation, vide. App. 125.
60 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
ance in their fight against encroachment. Sometime during
the decade of this discovery, one Savaric proposed to annex
Glastonbury to Bath, and to be known as bishop of Bath
and Glastonbury. This plan would of course have deprived
Glastonbury of its unique position. The monks took their
grievance to Richard, who sided with them and encouraged
a fresh and successful appeal to the pope. They then
ousted Savaric and continued to enjoy their indepen-
dence.
At all events, Glastonbury not only appropriated Joseph,
bones and all, as patron saint, but Arthur, grave and all,
as benefactor,^ a combination which made both for the
glory of the abbey and for the claims of the church in
Britain to continuity and catholicity independent of
Rome.
It also tended to encourage the memory and practice of
every scrap of liturgy, ritual, or traditional custom which
belonged to the ancient church of Britain. Its ceremonial
differed markedly from that of Rome, but the exact nature
of its peculiarities is unknown, for the chroniclers content
themselves with the general statement that British customs
^ It is interesting to note how gravely this assumption was accepted.
Giraldus Cambrensis {Spec. Ec. II: 8-10; De Principis Instr. I: xx.),
speaks of the ceremonies which marked the. removal of Arthm-'s bones
to their new resting place within the Abbey Church. He further
observes that this discovery puts an end to the fabled disappearance
of Arthur into fairyland, a story for which he accounts on rationalistic
grounds. Glastonbury, he notes, was once known as the Isle of Avalon,
and it was to this island that Arthur's sister took him to be healed of
his wounds. Evidently, his wounds not healing, he died and was
buried there, as the discovery of his remains proves. By the next cen-
tury the ceremonies at the removal of these remains had been trans-
ferred to the original interment, and we hear of the burial of the bold
king at Glastonbury by all the baronage of Britain
" With all wirchipe and welthe l)at any wy scholde."
— Morte Arthure (ed Banks), 4328 f.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 51
were hostile to those of Rome.^ Aside from differences in
ecclesiastical usage there seem to have been customs of
doubtful morality. Attention has been called by Miss
Peebles to the agapetce, women who followed the Irish
missionaries and scandalized the Galilean bishops ;2 and in
Scotland barbarous usages connected with the mass existed
until they were indignantly abolished by St. Margaret.'
That these peculiarities, at least in the matter of ritual,
show sympathy with the Eastern churches seems to be indi-
cated by scanty traces in art, architecture, and liturgy, as
well as by the claims of British bishops to consecration at
Jerusalem and by frequent references to the fathers of the
Eastern church, though it is very difficult to tell just how
much of this came through direct contact with the East
and how much through Galilean channels.^ At any rate
^ "Britones toti mundo contrarii, moribus Romanis inimici, non
solum in missa sed in tonsura etiam." — Gildas, Ep. II. cit. Warren.
"Qualis fuerit apud Britones et Hibernos sacrificandi ritus, non plane
compertum est. Modum tamen ilium a Romano divisum exstitisse in-
telligitur ex Bernardo in libro de vita Malachiae cc. Ill, VIII. ubi
Malachias barbaras consuetudines Romanis mutasse, et canonicum
divinse laudis officium in Lllas ecclesias invexisse memoratur."
— Mabillon, De Lit. Gall. I: ii: 14.
^ Legend of Longinus, p. 209,f.
' "Praeterea in aliquibus locis Scottorum quidam fuerunt, qui contra
totius Ecclesiae consuetudinem, nescio quo ritu barbaro, missas celebrare
consueverant." — Theodoric, Vita S. Margaretce, 8 f, cit. Warren.
* Cf. Warren, F. E., The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church,
p. 57 ff. "There must have been originally some connection between
the Celtic and Oriental Churches. But this connection need not have
been direct. The most probable hypothesis is that Christianity reached
the British Isles through Gaul, and that whatever traces of Eastern in-
fluence may be found in the earliest Liturgy and Ritual of Great Britain
and Ireland are not due to the direct introduction of Christianity from
the East, but to the Eastern character and origin of that Church
through which Christianity first reached these shores. There is strong
circumstantial evidence in favor of the immediately Galilean origin of
the British Church." Among these evidences are adduced the adop-
52 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
these features, Eastern, primitive, or both, did not by any
means come to an end with the Norman conquest. Giraldus
Cambrensis was greatly concerned about them, though he
was, unfortunately, too good a pedagogue to dwell on
blunders.^
To Glastonbury there remained the task of presenting
to the world its splendid combination of saintly founder
and kingly benefactor, and its consequent claim to apostolic
origin and historical importance, and of making the story
acceptable to the reigning house. No better means of pres-
entation than romance could have been found. Not only
were nobles and gentles accustomed to receive information
through the medium of romance, but there is strong prob-
ability that there were minstrels at Glastonbury, singers
and story-tellers, both monks and laymen, from the days of
St. Aldhelm, himself a singer, onward. According to San
Marte "King Edward prohibited monks from being rim-
ers or raconteurs, a sufficient proof that they frequently
appeared as such." ^ Warton has a good deal to say of the
connection between minstrels and monasteries. Sometimes
the monkish singers celebrated local heroes and Warton
says that the Welsh monasteries were the chief repositories
of the poetry of the British bards .^ Jongleurs, not neces-
tion by the British Church of the Gallican psalter, of GaUican usage
in liturgy and ritual, the dedication of Celtic churches to GalHcan
saints, the accounts which connect missions such as those of St. Ninian
of Scotland and St. Patrick to Ireland with St. Martin of Tours.
1 "The maxims of the Roman canonists, introduced by the Normans
into England, had, as yet, found no favor among a poor, rude, and
iUiterate clergy. It would have been of service to modern historians
had Giraldus thought it worth while to have entered into more specific
details of some of these peculiar usages. We might then have been
able to discover how much of old Celtic practice and belief still existed
side by side with a half-informed Christianity." — J. S. Brewer, Int. to
Gemma Ecclesiastica, p. xviii.
2 Op. cit., p. 30 n.
» I: 89-92.
^
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 53
sarily under vows, seem to have been attached to some
monasteries. The charter of the confraternity of jongleurs
at the Benedictine abbey of Fecamp still exists/ and the
customs of Fecamp were very well known at Glastonbury .^
Glastonbury singers had every opportunity for knowing
the material of Celtic legend and custom. What more
worthy of their skill than a narrative which should not only
add to the prestige of Glastonbury but gratify royal patrons
who were interested in showing that the church in England
was not in any way indebted to Rome for her existence nor
for knowledge of proper eucharistic doctrine and worship?
Some such purpose seems to be indicated by de Borron, for
the instruction given by Christ in prison is in full accord-
ance with contemporary teaching/ and it should also be
noted that emphasis is always placed on Joseph's original
care of Christ's body. It is as a reward for that care that he
is taught the "secret" words and is promised remembrance
wherever the mass renews the sacrifice of the sacred body.
No other saint than Joseph and no other relic than his
sacred vessel could possibly have been so well adapted to
the purpose of glorifying transubstantiation.* It makes
1 Bedier, Les legendes epiques, IV: 15-18.
2 Vide, ut sup., p. 48.
» Metr. Jos. 11. 893 ff.
* That one element of the forces which made for the combination of
all this material may have been a desire to rival the famous Saint Sang
relic of Fecamp seems very Ukely, as there must have been at Glas-
tonbury a more or less fat and ancient grudge borne towards Fecamp
and its intrusions, a grudge which was probably not strong enough to
interfere with judicious borrowings from its legend. This may be
admitted without accepting in full Miss Weston's theory that "we have
here in all respects, save the name, a complete Grail legend, and that
going back to a very much earlier date than any of our extant Grail
romances." {Legend of Sir Perceval, I: 161.) Fecamp claimed a*'
miracle of a bleeding host, which is said in the legend to have occurred
about the year 1000. But such miracles for the most part are of later
date, and are part of the propaganda of transubstantiation. It is notice-
54 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
little difference whether this material was put together by
de Borron, or whether he founded his romance on a Latin
book emanating from Glastonbury.
The idea that story-telling was used to proclaim the
glories of certain monasteries and that local scenes and
characters were woven into the narrative is of course familiar
as a theory of the origins of French epic poetry.^ This the-
ory places the birth of the chansons de geste in the eleventh
century. To assert that in the next century a monastery
utilized the later fashion of romance for the extension of
its fame is to claim only a moderate amomit of literary
ingenuity for its scribes.
VII
The student of the Grail story finds no one of its difficul-
ties more puzzling than that of the changing form of the
Grail vessel itself, though it is noticeable that the romancers
able that the legend admits that the Saint Sang relic and the vessel of
the bleeding host were concealed and not brought to Hght untU 1171,
when they were displayed in a blaze of illumination. It does not seem
likely that this legend had other than local importance before the time
of this great glorification, and the transubstantiation miracle certainly
looks like a twelfth-century improvement designed to give special
eucharistic significance to the relic of the holy blood. Glastonbury may
have had a natural as well as an acquired desire to outdo Fecamp, but
the motive behind both stories is very hkely to have been to proclaim
transubstantiation and to claim local precedence.
1 Cf. J. B^dier, Les Ugendes epiques, IV: 475, 476. The author thus
summarizes his purpose. "R^tablir la liaison entre le monde des clercs
et r autre, montrer que I'eglise fut le berceau des chansons de geste
aussi bien que des mystSres, revendiquier pour elles leur vieux nom
d^laiss^, de roman de chevalerie, et marquer par 1^ que leur histoire
est inseparable de I'histou-e des id^es chevaleresques a I'epoque cap6-
tienne, rappeler les faits psychologiques g^n^raux qui provoquerent
en meme temps qu'elles les croisades d'Espagne et les croisades de
Terre sainte, en im mot les rattacher a la vie, c'est k quoi je me suis
efforc6."
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 55
are apparently quite unconcerned about it.-._„Th.& word
"grail,"^ which Hehnandus^ translates gradalis, is said by
him to mean a platter^_w Mg and soni gwirat"ifeep^ on ydiich
gDgtly"~m:uats''arg^^rY£d:iL--He also speaks of_Jlie_GraiI as
the vesselortHe~^_st._Supper. ^^rty-wfit^-of-the.Grail as_
the^sh whereon the paschal lamb la]^__Crestien_ conceived.^
it as a holy_objectj more or less vague, from which light
streams. Out of it the Fisher king receives the Jiost jyhiclL-^
'^sustains his life. The host is the consecrated wafer, and yet
-"fche'^raitTs said by many ^ to be the cup of the Last Supper,
used by Joseph of Arimathea to hold the blood of the Re-
deemer, which must imply a vessel intended for liquid
contents. At the very end of the Queste the host is taken
from the Grail and administered to the company, which
can hardly mean anything but that the Grail is here the
ciborium in which the host was reserved for the communion
of the people.
Wolfram von Eschenbach seems to attach a wholly dif-
ferent meaning to the GraO, for he calls it a noble stone
adorned with jewels. In Diu Crdne it is mentioned once as
the tabernacle and once as a crystal monstrance. Always
it has marvellous qualities, always it may come and go
mysteriously, always it is associated with a miraculous
supply of food and drink.
This study has already ^ proposed the theory that the
Celtic vessel of increase and plenty, adapted to Christian
purposes, became the symbol of the miracle of transubstan-
tiation and that any accessory of the mass, intimately
connected with the miracle, might be described as that sym-
bol, in other words might be the Grail. ^ Chrestien was
1 Vide W. A. Nitze, Mod. Phil, XIII: 11.
N 2 Migne, CCXII: 815.
^ Metr. Jos., Wauchier, Gr. St. Graal, Queste, Perlesvaus.
' Vide, p. 42.
^ In the Queste (ed. Sommer) the phrase "devant le saint vaissel"
is in one MS. rendered "deuant lautel."
56 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
apparently unconcerned with dogmatic theology, or, per-
haps, had the story-teller's instinct for the denouement he
never reached, but in his continuators, in de Borron, and in
the versions dependent on his narrative, the connection of
the Grail with the consecration of the eucharist seems clear
enough. Let us examine some of the forms of the Grail in
the light of this interpretation.
The identification of the Grail with the dish of the paschal
Iamb is taken by some critics as marking a distinct division
in the romances. They consider that such an identification
must exclude the conception of the Grail as the vessel of
the Last Supper and of the holy blood. Helinandus says the
grail is cantinus or paropsis, words which in the Vulgate
are used indifferently ^ for the dish in which Judas dipped
with Christ. The critics apparently assume that the dish
of the sop indicates a vessel used for the Passover meal,
with its roasted lamb, herbs, unleavened bread and wine,
and not for the eucharist which followed it and which was
instituted with bread and wine only. But paropsis, at least,
certainly acquired a eucharistic meaning,- and it is not quite
fair to expect absolute archaeological accuracy from men in
whose mmds the type had been completely lost in the
fulfilment.
Christ, "the Lamb that was slain," ^ is from the begin-
ning absolutely identified with the paschal lamb, — Christ
our Passover is sacrificed for us.* Thus logically Christ in
the eucharist is the paschal lamb of the New Dispensation.
This is reflected in ritual and in liturgies. In arranging
for the preparation of the bread for the eucharist Algerus
says that it is to be of the cleanest and purest, since it is to
^ Cantinus, St. Matthew; paropsis, St. Mark.
- "Paropsis. Vas ecclesiae ministeriis dicatum, idem quod Patena."
Du Cange.
3 Rev. v: 12.
* 1. Cor. v: 7.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 57
be transformed into the most glorious body of the immacu-
late Lamb.^ In the Eastern liturgy of St. John Chrysostom
at the preparation of the elements for the mass the bread is
called "Holy Bread," or "Holy Lamb," and the deacon, after
laying the "Lamb" down in the paten, says to the priest,
"Sir, sacrifice." The priest then, cutting it crosswise,
answers, "The Lamb of God is sacrificed, etc." ^ When the
host is offered in the Roman mass it is called "this immacu-
late victim" {hanc immaculatam hostiam), and the hymn
Agnus Dei was at one time ordered to be sung in connection
with the ceremonial fraction of the host. The host was
sometimes stamped with the figure of a lamb, lying down or
standing, and the vision of a lamb on the altar was one
of the eucharistic miracles.
The proper preface for Easter and the Easter sequence,
or festal chant between the Epistle and Gospel, contain the
same figure, as do also many pious treatises. In the Mitrale
of Sicardus of Cremona the paschal lamb is identified with
Christ and His presence in the eucharist.^ This identifica-
tion is found also in eucharistic hymns, Latin and vernacular^
and even in popular literature.^ A letter of St. Catherine
of Siena to Messer Ristoro Cangiani ^ carries out the parallel
between the paschal lamb and the sacrament of the altar in
great detail: "Thus sweetly it befits us to receive this
^ De sacram. corp. et sang, dom., II: ix., Migne, CLXXX: 827.
^ Cf. Cath. Enc, Art. Agnus Dei.
^ "Panis iste sacramentalis in carnem, et vinum in sanguinem tran-
sit: quia paschalis Agnus pro nobis occisus, carnem nostram a morte
redemit, et sanguinem fundens, pro nobis animam suam posuit, et
animam nostram quae in sanguine habitat a criminibus expiavit."
Mitrale, III: vi, Migne, CCXIII: 117, 118.
* "ich meyne daz onschuldige lam,
gotes froner lichnam."
— Fronleichnam, Altdeulsche Schauspiele, ed. Mone.
p. 163.
* Tr. Scudder, Letters of St. Catherine of Siena, p. 204.
58 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
Lamb, prepared in the fire of charity upon the wood of the
cross."
But it may be objected that although to the men of the
twelfth century the paschal lamb was more closely asso-
ciated with the host on the altar than with the firstling of the
flock slain for the Passover feast, there is still confusion as
to which eucharistic vessel is to be identified with this dish
of the paschal lamb. Is it the paten, or small flat dish cov-
ering the chalice, is it the chalice itself, is it the ciborium or
monstrance? The answer is: any one of them, according
to the immediate purpose of the writer or the local usage
with which he was familiar. Innocent III, the pope of the
Lateran Council, identifies the paten with the dish contain-
ing the slain victim,^ and the figure of Agnus Dei is frequently
used as a decoration for the centre of the paten.^ In the
eleventh century the host was broken on the paten, but in
the twelfth century Durandus directs that it be broken
over the chalice. This is explained by ritualists as intended
to indicate that the blood in the chalice proceeds from the
broken and mangled body of Christ. A portion of the host
is then dropped into the chalice, to show that the body of
Christ was not without blood, nor the blood apart from the
body.' This sustains the pomt referred to below,'* that
both species contain the whole Christ. Therefore the chalice
might also be considered the dish of the paschal lamb,^
especially as the blood of the slain lamb figured prominently
^ "Patena, quae dicitur a patendo, cor latum et amplum signal; super
banc patenam, i.e. super latitudinem caritatis, sacrificium justitise
debet offerri, ut holocaustum animse pingue fiat." Migne, CCXVII:
834.
2 Rohault de Fleury, La Messe, PI. CCCXII, CCCXIII, CCCXVIII.
Vide illustration opposite.
' Durandus, De fractione hostie, Rationale divinorum officiorum, IV.
" p. 62.
5 Cf. Rohault de Fleury, op. ciL, IV: 119. Here the words "Ecce
Agnus Dei" are on a chahce.
PAJzn or inoLA-scoTi/RY?
PATEH or 5t bin Id -rM zmvjir
ymm roim or m caalice
ANTIQlZJTr
BIBLL or CflAl^LIS TflE BALP.
cn/iLieE or AFPAQA-LinEEieK.
X-OR-Xr CETiTURY.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 59
in the Passover ceremonies. Moreover "chalice" was
loosely used for the ciborium or cup-shaped vessel in which
the host was placed for reservation in the tabernacle and
from which the people were communicated. The catalogue
of the Stuart Exhibition (1889), listed a ciborium ''known
as the ^Cwp of Malcolm Canmore.' " ^ Giraldus Cambrensis,
relating a miracle whereby the host was three times snatched
from an impure priest, says the restored hosts were later
found "in fundo calicis." ^ As late as the eighteenth cen-
tury Martene speaks of the priest as carrjdng "calicem cum
corpore Christi." ^
The word "ciborium" has a curious history of its own, a
history which can show transformations singularly like those
of the word "grail " in the romances. Beguming as the Greek
for the pod of the lotus, used, like the gourd, for a drinking
cup, it came to mean the canopy over the altar. Later its
original meaning of a cup became confused with the Latin
dhus, food, and so ciborium comes to mean a dish (vas) for
food."* Then it takes the meaning of the receptacle for the
eucharist, either the cup with an arched cover, or the tab-
ernacle in which this cup was placed.^ Glass, mosaic, and
illuminations show the host administered to the laity from
vessels which are in no way different from chalices,^ and
there is, moreover, no uniformity whatever as to the shape
of the chalice. Those made while they were still used to
administer the wine to the laity are really loving-cups with
two handles, and one of the tenth or eleventh century,
^ A"". E. D. (Ciborium), italics mine.
2 Spec. Ec. IV: xxvii.
^ Eg. Rit. IV: xxi: 8.
■* "Ciborium vas ad ferendos cibos." — Ugutio of Pisa, cit. Du Cange.
^ "Ciborium, pro Area, ubi reponitur pyxis, in qua sacra eucharistia
asservatur." — Du Cange. Cf. Rohault de Fleury, V: 89.
6 Rohault de Fleury, op. cit., PL CCLXIV, CCLXV. Vide iUustra-
tion opposite.
60 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
from Ardagh, Limerick, is a two-handled bowl on a low
foot much like the dish known to the trade as a "compote."^
Last of all these transferences is a local use of the word
in Bavaria where it meant a portable altar, or altar stone.^
This use inevitably brings up the form of the Grail as de-
scribed by Wolfram von Eschenbach, the Bavarian.^ A
portable altar, tabula altaris or altare portatile, is a slab of
natural stone large enough to accommodate all the vessels
of the mass. Given a consecrated altar stone, mass might
be celebrated in an unconsecrated building or out of doors.
Such an arrangement was demanded in times of war and in
unsettled parts of the country.'* As might be expected, the
number of portable altars increased notably during the
crusades. The slabs were made of the more precious marbles,
serpentine or porphyry, and in one example, at least, of rock
crystal covering a picture of Christ on parchment. These
were mounted in settings decorated with gold, precious
stones, and plaques of goldsmith's work or enamel.^ Ger-
1 lb. CCXCIX.
* Ciborium. "Parvum altare mobile, ut explicat Mabillonius in
Itin. Germ. Quod Arnulfus imperator in castris gestari curabat, aureis
laminis opertimi, quadratse figurse, uno pede latum, altum duobus,
praeter turriculam, quae in crucem desinit, quod etiamnvmi in thesauro
Emmerammensis asservatur." Mirac. S. Emmer. torn. 6: 499. Du
Cange.
' Theodor Sterzenbach, in his Ursprung u. Entwicklung der Sage v.
heiligen Gral, 1908, declared his belief that Wolfram's grail was a "trag-
altar." I reached my conclusion without knowing of his, and as my
approach, evidence, and inference are quite different from his it is
hardly necessary to say anything here of his views.
* "In itinere vero positis, si ecclesia defuerit, sub divo, seu in ten-
toriis, si tabula altaris consecrata, cseteraque ministeria sacra ad id
officium pertinentia adsunt, Missarum solennia celebrari permittimus."
Concihum Moguntiacense, ann. 888, cap. 9. Mansi, XVIII: 67.
* These altar stones are surprisingly small. That of Tongres,
{Vide, illustration, p. 62), is said by de Fleury to be about 4x5
inches. Others are larger, but often not more than twelve inches
long.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 61
many inclined specially to these portable altars, and they
were very numerous in Bavaria. The shrine of St. Emeran,
apostle of Bavaria, at Ratisbon, possessed several, one set
in a gold frame. After the time of St. Louis this type of
altar stone ceased to be made. Abuses crept in and the per-
mission to celebrate mass anywhere with such an altar was
carefully restricted.^
Wolfram's poem is admittedly more closely related to the
Crusades than any other of the Grail romances. To crusaders
the portable altar, the altar stone with its splendid setting,
meant the miracle of transubstantiation, the pilgrim's
bread which was foreshadowed by the manna of the desert.
It is not hard to understand its appeal to Wolfram as the
most apt symbol for sacramental union with God, for the
Grail.2
One or two further points of controversy as to the Grail
itself, due to apparent contradictions in the legend, may be
cleared up if the language of eucharistic liturgy and doctrine
be considered and due allowance made for the passing of
the ideas involved through the unecclesiastical medium of
romance.
Heinzel thought that the sense of the Grail as a blood
relic is lost in the sense of it as host, and that the paten, or
flat vessel, is confused with the cup or chalice. In the
Queste Galahad seems to receive corpus domini from the
Grail itself. This difficulty is phrased by Miss Weston:
^ Vide Rohault de Fleury, op. dt., V: 1-47.
2 Nutt says, "Be the reason what it may, Wolfram certainly never
thought of associating the Grail with the Last Supper. But its religious
character is, at times, as marked with him as with Robert de Borron or
the author of the Queste." {Studies on the Legend of the H. G., p. 251.)
One may agree that Wolfram did not have the actual Last Supper in
Jerusalem in mind, for he does not seem to have been concerned as to
the early history of the Grail, but that is not to say that he had no
eucharistic association with it.
62 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
"It cannot escape the notice of any careful student of the stories
that between the version of Robert de Borron . . . and that of the
Queste, a change has taken place : the point of interest has shifted
from conlenu to container; it is no longer the holy blood which is
the object of adoration, but rather the Grail, the vessel in which
the blood was preserved." ^
If the Grail is the symbol of transubstantiation, it makes
little difference which part of the sacrament is illustrated
by it, for the whole Christ is present under the form of either
bread or wine.^ The numerous miracles of the bleeding host
show the belief that the holy blood was contained in the
host, and as a fragment of the host is always dropped into
the chalice, it is easy to see how the symbol of the Grail
may shift from chalice to paten, or even to monstrance and
tabernacle, and still represent Christ under the sacramental
veil. Moreover, though the host was consecrated on the
paten or over the chalice, yet for the communion of the
people it was, as we have seen, placed in the ciborium (a
chalice-shaped vessel, but somewhat wider in the bowl), a
1 Legend of Sir Perceval, I: 333. It strikes one as a little unreason-
able of Miss Weston to refuse to the romancers the use of a metonjony
freely employed by contemporary theologians, e.g. "Hie calix. Con-
tinens pro contento, calix pro sanguine, quia in calice sanguis. Calix
in Scriptura pluribus modis accipitur. Aliquando per calicem sanguis
Christi designatur, sicut hie, et in psalmo: 'Calix mens inebrians
quam prseclarus est.' (Psal. XXII.)" Baldwin of Canterbury, Liber
de Sacramento altaris, Migne, CCIV: 772.
2 "Christus est verus Deus et verus homo, ideo consequenter est ibi
Deus gloriosus in majestate sua. Haec omnia quatuor simul, et singula
tota simul, sub speciebus panis et vini perfecte continentur, non minus
in calice, quam in hostia; nee minus in hostia, quam in calice; nee in
uno defectus suppletur alterius, cum nuUus sit; sed in ambobus in
tegrum continentur propter mysterium." — St. Bonaventura, Trac. de
Prep, ad Missam, I: 1.
In Gr. St. Graal Joseph takes from the paten "piece en samblance
de pain" and finds that it is "uns cors entiers." In Metr. Jos. Joseph
told that the host is to be placed in a chalice.
AMniATVKE XV ^rniui^Y
BlBUOTrtfOyE NATIONAIX-.
eATAconBopS^ prTWv5 Err mieriiini/^.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 63
practice which would account for Galahad's receiving the
host from the Grail without any confusion between paten
and chalice. Here the Grail is the ciborium, as it is also in
any incident where it is seen on the altar, but not in connec-
tion with the actual celebration of mass, for the ciborium
was used to contain the host reserved in the tabernacle.
VIII
Another point of discussion immediately connected with
the Grail is that of the "secret" concerning it confided by
Christ to Joseph in prison. About this de Borron is ret-
icent, saying (in Metr. Jos.) he dares not go into detail
about it as he has not the great book written by great clerks
concerning it. In the prose version of the Joseph (Cange MS.)
the sacramental emphasis is stronger. The words are to be
spoken only by one who has read the great book, and the
secret is said to belong to the great sacrament made over
the Grail, that is chalice.^ The secrets appear also in the
Prose Perceval. Alain is told by the voice of the Holy Spirit
that he shall learn the secret words that Joseph knew. In
the Queste, where the eucharist is administered by Christ,
He assures the knights that He can no longer hold any part
of His secrets from them.^ He then feeds all from the Grail.
According to Durandus, the great expositor of ritual, the
silent recital of the canon of the mass, the prayer of conse-
cration, is called the secreta.^ The reason commonly assigned
1 "Ce est li secrez que I'en tient au grant sacrement que I'an feit
sor lou Graal c'est-a-dire sor lou caalice."
2 "Si conuient que vous vees par tie de me reposatilles et de mes
secres." ed. Sommer, p. 190.
^ Op. cit., lY. In modern Roman use, though the canon is still re-
cited secretly, the word secreta is confined to the prayer said in a low
voice by the celebrant at the end of the offertory. This restriction is
reaUy the earlier usage, the extension of the term to include the canon
being medieval.
64 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
for this secret rendering is that the consecration is an ex-
clusively priestly function.^
This contemporary meaning of "secret," which is cer-
tainly indicated in Prose Jos., seems to make it fairly clear
that the words whereby the miracle of the eucharist is to
be performed are intrusted to Joseph, but it is not difficult
to conceive that the word "secret" might come to be applied
to the miracle itself. As a matter of fact, in a contempo-
rary treatise, the Mitrale of Sicardus of Cremona, who was
flourishing at the tune of the Lateran Council, it is so used.
"A mystery of faith, since one thing is seen and another is
known, the species of bread and of wine is perceived, the body of
Christ and His blood believed. In Greek a mystery, in Latin a
secret." ^
A mystery, technically speakuig, "is a supernatural truth,
one that of its very nature lies above the finite intelligence." '
The doctrines of the Trinity and of the Incarnation are two
of the chief mysteries of faith, and transubstantiation is here
declared by Sicardus to be another, thus according with
the symbol of the Lateran Council. So the "secret of the
Grail" may very well be not only the words of consecration
but also the miracle of transubstantiation performed by
^ "Secreta idee nominatur, quia secrete dicitur, et solius est sacer-
dotis soli Deo offerre sacrificium." — Hildebert of Lavardin, Lib. de
expositione 7niss<x, Migne, CLXXI: 1159.
2 " Mysterium fidei, quoniam aliud videtur et aliud
intelligitur, species panis et vini cernitur, corpus Christi
et sanguis creditor. Mysterium Grsece, Latine secretum."
— Migne, CCXIII: 130.
» Cf. Cath. Enc, Art. Mystery. Also Mone, Hymni Latini, I: 270-
273. Gawain's vision {Perlesvaus, VI: iii), and the hermit's interpre-
tation of it {Ih., VI: xii), seem an allegorical rendering of the mystery
that after consecration the substance of bread and wine are replaced
by the substance of the body and blood of Christ. This miracle is said
to be the secret of the Savior, to be revealed only to those selected
for such honor.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 65
them. Certainly, when one considers the vast bulk of lit-
erature, didactic and devotional, on the subject it is not
surprising that de Borron shrank from entering more ex-
plicitly into controversy about it.^
1 On this matter of the "secret of the Grail" I take issue squarely
with Miss Weston. (Legend of Sir Perceval, II: 232, 233.) She first
speaks of the secret as confided by Joseph to Brons and by Brons to
Perceval, ignoring the fact that it was first of all confided to Joseph by
Christ in immediate connection with sacramental directions. {Metr.
Jos.) So there is a eucharistic association with the secret from the
beginning. She then draws attention to the "awkward fact that the
formula of consecration is not, and never has been, secret." This
dodges a still more awkward fact, for whether the words of consecration
are or are not secret they are so called in medieval usage. Durandus,
the great rituahst, so calls them, and there is no difficulty in finding
numerous examples. The word is extended by Du Cange to the tabella,
or tablet on which the canon of the mass alone was written and which
was placed on the altar for the convenience of the priest. Miss Weston
apparently confines the meaning of "secret" to that which is not known.
But the word also bears the meaning of that which is not understood,
the mysterious, in classical and Low Latin and in Old French as well as
in modern French and English. Du Cange cites Hugh of St. Victor,
^'Sacramentum quomodo altera notione intelligi dixit quasi scihcet
sacrum secretum, velut Sacramentum Incarnationis." Sacramentum,
mysterium, secretum all convey the idea of that which is not compre-
hended by human reason.
Miss Weston's main contention is that if the Grail writers meant by
"secret" the words of consecration they meant to discredit the au-
thority of the church at large to receive and transmit the formula. But
to recount the special eucharistic instruction and explanation given
by Christ to Joseph is not to declare that this was the only orthodox
explanation ever vouchsafed on the subject. St. Paul claimed for him-
self first-hand revelation as to the eucharist and its ceremonies, or, at
least, such is the ordinary interpretation of /. Cor. xi: 23 ff., but he
did not mean that this invalidated the teaching and practice of the
apostles who were present at the Last Supper, nor did any one so under-
stand him. The romancers claim only equal, not exclusive revelation
for the church in Britain.
Elsewhere (76., II: 300) Miss Weston opposes the identification of
the mystery of the Grail with that of the eucharist, arguing that in
such case Perceval would have achieved the quest when he made his
66 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
IX
A minor question in Grail criticism is that of the occa-
sional glimpses of the legend of the Earthly Paradise which
are found here and there in the Grail romances.^ The
country side restored to fertility by the achievement of the
Grail is usually compared to the Earthly Paradise. In
Parzival the hero partakes of its fruits on his first visit to
the Grail castle, and in Gerbert the sword of the Grail castle
is broken in the attempt to force an entrance to Paradise.
One of Bohort's adventures in the Queste is concerned with
the bird on the dead tree, which pierced its own breast that
its young might be sustained with the blood, and the her-
mit explains: "There was the token and likeness of the
Sangreal appeared afore you." - This instance of the dead
tree and the birds is found in one of the Paradise stories,
the journey of Seth to the Earthly Paradise.^
In Perlesvaus,^ the Grail castle is called Edain and it is
watered by the rivers of Paradise. Any souls dying therein
are sure of the heavenly Paradise. This transformation of
communion on Easter day. I do not contend that the Grail is the
eucharist, but that it is the symbol of transubstantiation which gives
the eucharist its validity and which is accepted by the ordinary com-
municant by faith. Perceval, who has been excommunicate for seven
years, must regain the privilege of sacramental communion by means
of penitence and faith before he can hope to go on to the quest of mystic
knowledge of the miracle.
I cannot, therefore, feel that Miss Weston has stated the position in
plain terms nor refuted it. She is too obviously preparing the ground
for her theory of de Borron as an initiate of a survival of fertility mys-
teries, and has ignored very important points both in her statement
and in her refutation.
1 Cf . Sir Gawain at the Grail Castle, ed. J. L. Weston, p. 81 n.
^ Morte Darthur, XVI: xiii.
^ Cf. Graf, Arturo, II mito del Paradiso terrestre, in Mitt, leggende e
superstitioni del medio evo, 1 : 76 fif.
* XXII: iff.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 67
the garden into a city or castle is not by any means unique,
and Graf connects it with the apocalyptic description of
the heavenly city, the Paradise of God.^ For though the
literal Earthly Paradise was viewed as a spot having geo-
graphical location to the eastward, which might some day
be found by a lucky traveler, it had also its symbolic mean-
ing which was at least as important as the literal. The
Earthly Paradise symbolized the church, with baptism its
river, Christ its tree of life, the fruit thereof the eucharist.^
So the Grail castle may well be called Edain for a better
reason than is suggested by Iselin, who considers the name
only a poetic figure of speech indicating a condition of joy
and peace.^ It is allegorically the church, and when the
Grail is restored to it, when the true value is placed on the
eucharist and its spiritual gifts, then the barren wastes
shall blossom as the garden of Eden.
Another indication that the Grail castle is a figure of the
church is that its innermost gate is described as a rood
screen, the usual division between the nave and the choir,
beyond which is the altar. Gawain, looking at the gate,
sees Our Lord stretched as it were upon the cross, with His
Mother on one the side, and St. John on the other, and the
figures were all of gold with rich stones which glowed like
flames.'* The figures on a chancel screen are almost inva-
riably arranged in this way.
1 Op. cit. I: 19.
2 Vide infra, p. 92.
' Der morgenldndische Ursprtmg der Grallegende.
* Perlesvaus, VI: xv. Gawain "esgarde la porte contremont et
voit Nostre Seignor escrit si comme il fu mis an la croiz, et sa m^re
d'une part et seint Jehanz d'autre."
68 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
X
One of the most striking points in the development of
the Grail romances is the change in the status of the hero of
the quest. Perceval comes to us out of the Celtic past as
lover and husband, but goes from us in the Perlesvaus con-
sciously and aggressively chaste, with a chastity which is
uncompromisingly identified with celibacy.^ This condition
is said to be absolutely essential; without it Perceval must
fail as did Lancelot.^ De Borron apparently had the same
idea in Metr. Jos. when he made Alain deliberately choose
not to marry. The celibate chastity of the hero is a funda-
mental part of the Queste, and one which the reader is never
allowed to forget. Here it is embodied — if that is not too
material a word — in the blameless and bloodless Galahad,
who takes the centre of the stage, and thanks to Malory and
Tennyson, has succeeded in keeping it as far as English
readers are concerned. This matter is either casually put
aside by scholars as a mere consequence of monkish ideas of
chastity, or is carried very far afield. Rhys thinks it origi-
nated in the "shyness of Cuchulainn, " and Miss Weston
finds in it a parallel to a feature in the Hindoo cosmogony. 3
1 XXXII: xxi. (Perceval) "quar il ne perdi onques sa virginite pour
fame, ce dist Josephus; ainz morut vierge et chastes et nez de son
cors."
XI: iii. "Perceval, ce dit I'estoire, fu mout honor6 el chastel la
r6ine des Puceles, qui mout estoit de grant beaute. La r6ine I'amoit
de mout tres grant amor, mes ele savoit bien qu'ele n'an aroit ja son
d^sirrier, ne dame ne damoisele qui s'antente i meist; car il estoit chaste
et en chaste^ vouloit morir."
- Cf. PerlesvaiLS, X: xv. "Li rois hermites li demande se il avoit
v6u le Graal, et il li dist que nanil. Je sais bien, fet il rois, por quoi
ce fu. Le vos fuissiez en autre tel d&irrier de v^oir le saint Graal conme
vos estes de v^oir le reine, vos I'eussiez v6u."
' Legend of Sir Perceval, II: 280. Her argument is that in spite of
Alain's refusal to marry he appears, without any explanation, as father
of the Grail winner, and that the same is true of Narada, son of Brahma.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 69
Is it not, however, conceivable that both these analogies
go back to a primitive custom which reached the Land of
the Grail by the highroad of Jerusalem and Rome? A recent
writer says:^ "During the actual performance of sacred
rites, chastity is almost everywhere exacted." It should
be noted that in this there is something quite different from
the hermit's seclusion; the sacrificing priest, and even the
attendants at a sacrifice, bring their own gift of renunciation
to join with the offering. This universal idea found its
place in Jewish worship. Temporary chastity as a qualifica-
tion even for laymen engaged in special religious exercises
is indicated.^ Moreover, though the Jewish priesthood was
hereditary, the priest was ceremonially purified before his
term of actual service and lived in cloistral seclusion in the
sacred precincts while it lasted. Both ideas were familiar
in the early days of Christianity. Says Mrs. Parsons:
"In imitation of the Jews, ceremonial continence during
his actual ministration was probably required of the priest
from the beginning."^ St. Jerome preached the superiority
of the ascetic life in general, but exhorted the priests in
particular, that as the Christian priest is always on duty, it
therefore behooves him to be always chaste.^
The history of the struggle between ecclesiastical ideas
and human nature is to be read in the proceedings of almost
every council, but by the tenth century clerical morality
was at a pretty low ebb.^ Authorities differ as to the extent
of marriage, more or less explicit, among the clergy, but
certainly it was to be found in the regions remote from the
^ 'John Main," pseud. Elsie Clews Parsons, Religious Chastity,
p. 215.
2 Cf. Exodus, xix: 15; 1 Samuel, xxi: 4.
» lb., p. 258.
^ Adversus Jovianum, I: 34.
^ Cf. Lea, Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy, XIII, XIV:
Herbert Thurston, Cath. Erie. Art. Celibacy. Ch. Oulmont, Les debats
du clerc et du chevalier, pp. 24flf.
70 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
centres. It was to Gregory VII (Hildebrand), that his im-
mediate successors gave the honor of introducing, or of re-
enforcing, the absolute chastity of the ministers of the
altar. ^ This determination of Gregory is generally attrib-
uted to his desire to solidify the power of the Holy See
by assuring it a body of ministrants who had no interests
apart from it. While there can be little doubt that the
political motive was strong, it is worth noticing how often
the service of the altar is connected with the pleas for celi-
bacy. Innocent III scored those who would serve both
Venus and Virgin. ^ After the same fashion Hildebert of
Lavardin exhorted the clergy to maintain their purity as
befitting those who were entrusted to pronounce the words
which effect transubstantiation.^ And this is generally
agreed to be the first use of the term " transubstantiation,"
though not, of course, the first expression of the doctrine.
This feeling is reflected also in popular satire.^
In spite of Gregory's determination to discipline the
clergy in all parts of the world, reform lagged in outlying
^ "Sed nee illi, qui in crimine fornicationis jacent, missas celebrare,
aut secundum inferiores ordines ministrari altari debeant." — Council
of Rome, 1074. Mansi, Con. Col, XX: 404.
2 "Quidam nocte filium Veneris agitant in cubili, mane filium Vir-
ginis offerunt in altari. Nocte Venerem amplexantur, mane Virginem
venerantur." Migne, CCXVII: 368.
» Sermon, Migne, CLXXI: 772 ff. For text vide App.
* Tu sacerdos hue responde
cuius manus sunt immunde,
qui frequenter et jocunde
cum uxore, dormis unde
surgens mane missam dicis
Corpus Christi benedicis
scire velim causam, quare
sacrosanctum ad altare
statim venis immolare
virgis dignus vapulare.
— Carmina Burana, ed. 1847, p. 36.
Cf. also poems by Walter Map, Camden Society, 49, 50.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 71
parts of Britain, especially in Wales and the Marches there-
of. "Romish discipline and ecclesiastical system had never
fully prevailed in Wales. . . . Marriage prevailed generally
among the clergy, allowed, but not named. Every clergy-
man appears to have followed the custom of having a female
attendant to take care of his house, whom Giraldus, in the
language of the canonists, calls a focaria; to all intents and
purposes a wife. Of course no marriage rites could be cele-
brated between the parties in the face of the church." ^
Giraldus himself gives a vivid glimpse of the canons of St.
David's and their excessively domestic preoccupations.^
In the Gemma Ecclesiastical Giraldus devotes the greater
part of Distinction II to clerical chastity, which he perfectly
well knew to be a thorny question. Indeed he is somewhat
inclined to consider the prohibition of clerical marriage a
device of the devil. Nevertheless, in the unsavory state of
things he can do no less than exhort the clergy to a rigid
keeping of the ecclesiastical law, and the heart of his exhor-
tation is the unfitness of the impure priest to consecrate
the eucharist. In the Speculum Ecclesim,'^ Giraldus is quite as
emphatic. Starting with the Jewish requirement of cere-
monial chastity, he asks if as much is not required of those
who consecrate at the altar, not the flesh of bulls and of
kids, but the Lord Himself and true lamb, not in shadow and
figure, but in truth.^
The requirement of chastity was extended from the sac-
rificing priest to those in minor orders and others who
assisted him. Giraldus relates a story of sacrilege rebuked
by a miracle where the offender is an acolyte who during
^ Brewer, J. S., Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, II: xli, xlii.
2 De jure statu Menevensis Ecclesioe, Dist. I. lb. III.
3 lb. II.
* Dist. IV: xxiii. 76. II.
' "Sed Dominum ipsum agnumque Paschalem verum, non um-
bratilem ilium et figuralem, sed realem."
72 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
mass let his glance stray to a woman. ^ Caesarius of Heis-
terbach tells of the detection of a nun who continued to
wash the altar linen after she had broken her vow of chastity .^
So the celibacy required of the Grail keeper and of the
knight who would achieve the quest is seen to have close
affinities with the ceremonial purity of the officiant at a
sacrifice, a requirement which was the subject of much
contemporary exhortation. Local conditions may have
sharpened the point, for the Glastonbury monks, whose
monastic vows of course included chastity, were in perpet-
ual and scornful disaccord with their neighbors, the secular
canons of Wells, whose cherished privilege of separate dwel-
lings favored the presence oi focaria as described above; ^
a condition of affairs tending to arouse suspicion and
recrimination.
In the prose romances there is no doubt whatever as to
the motive of the chastity. In Gr. St. Graal Joseph is told
by the voice of Christ that he is to have charge of the flesh
and blood of the Saviour, because he is proved and known
to be more free from natural sin than any mortal flesh can
conceive.* In the same romance Joseph delegates his office
to Alain, twelfth son of Brons, because of his virginity.^
The coming of Galahad is also foreshadowed — the ninth
descendant of Nascien will be perfectly chaste, will possess
all virtue and behold the wonders of the Grail. ^
^ Gemma, II: xvi. ^ Dialogus miraculorum, IX: Ixvi. ' p. 71.
* "Car iou tai proue et conneu por le plus net de tous natureus peciea
que nule morteus char ne poroit penser." ed. Sommer. p. 31.
* " Je vous otroi boinement a estre ministres del saint graal et encore
pour ce que vous aues uoe si haute et si fort (e) chose a uostre oes
comme uirginite vous otri ie que vous aies la signourie del sant uaisel
que vuos maues demande si que vous en soies sires apres ma mort."
ed. Sommer, p. 249.
* "II sera uierges tous les jours de sa uie et en la fin de lui si sera si
meruielleuse que de cheualier mortel qui a son tamps soit ni aura nul
qui a lui soit samblables." ed. Sommer, p. 207.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 73
Here we have chastity as a requirement not only for the
keeper of the Grail but also for those who would achieve a
sight of it. This appears in Perlesvaus when Perceval laments
the failure of Gawain and Lancelot and the hermit answers:
"Fair nephew, had they been chaste as are you, well might
they have entered on account of their good knighthood." ^
Lancelot's unworthiness is sternly dealt with by late ro-
mancers. In the Perlesvaus he learns that unrepented sin in
his heart, his love for the queen, will always come between
him and the Grail. ^ In the Queste he is told that even if the
Grail were before him, he would as little see it as a blind man
would a sword,^ because in spite of his many virtues he has
lost chastity.
As has been said, the chastity of Galahad becomes almost
the motif of the Queste, and through Malory's use of it the
central point of Tennyson's conception of the Grail story.
From a ceremonial requirement, symbolical of the purity of
heart required of those who would see God, it gradually be-
comes a condition of knightly prowess, the reason why a
tough lance thrusteth sure. But the medieval romance
never so confuses the physical and the spiritual. Lancelot's
sword arm is not weakened by his sin. But at Galahad's
supreme moment we are again told that it is because of
his virginity that he is permitted to know the marvels of
1 XVIII: xviii.
* X: X. "Mes itant vos veil-je bien dire, se vos gisiez en I'ostel
li roi Pescheor, que du Graal ne verroiz-vos mie por le mortel pechie
qui vos gist el cuer."
X: xii. "Mes li contes tesmoigne que li Graaus ne s'aparut mie k
celui mangier. II ne demora mie por ce que Lanceloz ne fust un des
III chevaliers del monde de plus grant renon et de greignor force; mes
per le grant p4chi4 de la r6ine qu'il enmoit sanz repantir, quar il ne
panssoit tant k nule riens conme a lui, ne n'an povoit son cuer oster."
^ " Se li saint graaus venoit deuant vous ie ne quit pas que vos le
peussies veoir noiant plus que vns auugles feroit vne espee qui deuant
see iex seroit." ed. Sommer, p. 88.
74 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
the Grail. Not physical prowess but spiritual enlighten-
ment is dependent on purity.
In view of this ceremonial tradition and theory, persist-
ent and true to type in spite of the encroachments of human
frailty, it seems hardly necessary to wait for a possible Celtic
precedent with Nutt,^ or with Miss Weston to suppose de
Borron to be an "initiate" of anything more remote than'
ecclesiastical rule and ideal. In the early days of British
Christianity there must have been many instances of the
sons of the clergy taking their father's office, even though a
ceremonial continence had been exacted. A later writer
puts in rigid virginity, the requirement of his day, and
neither knows nor cares for the resulting discrepancy. It
may be observed, in cormection with Miss Weston's theory
of Eastern influence, that Eastern asceticism generally sup-
poses a preceding married state.^
XI
There are so many miracles of one kind or another in
medieval romance that one ceases to pay much attention to
their details. It should, however, be noted how close is the
correspondence between the miracles ascribed to the Grail
and those which were brought to the support of transub-
stantiation. St. Augustine defined a sacrament or mystery
as that in which one thing is seen, another known (aliud
videtur, aliud intelligitur), and it would be hard to better
the definition. But when controversy is raging, human
1 "No Celtic tale I have examined with a view to throwing light
upon the Grail romances insists upon this idea, but some version,
now lost, may possibly have done so. Celtic tradition gave the
romance writers of the Middle Ages material and form for the pic-
ture of human love; it may also have given them a hint for the opposing
idea of chastity." — Studies on the Legend of the H. G., p. 247.
'^ Cf. Hastings Enc, Art. Celibacy.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 75
nature loses patience and asks for a sign. There is always a
desire to finish up the opposition. Therefore we find that
after the Berengarian controversy accounts of eucharistic
miracles multiplied.^
These miracles fall into distinct groups. The most com-
mon is that of bleeding host, or the manifestation of real
flesh on the altar. A doubter, priest or layman, a sacrile-
gious Jew, a devout man craving a special favor of God, finds
the host bleeding. Fecamp has such a story, Brussels cele-
brated the Feast of the Bleeding Host (in this case a Jewish
sacrilege is involved), and the miracle of Bolsena is unfor-
gotten because of Raphael's treatment of it in the Vatican
stanze. Other cases are recounted by Csesarius of Heister-
bach.2 Giraldus Cambrensis tells of flesh made visible.'
This particular miracle is continually implied in the Grail
stories by the presence of the lance which wounded the side
of Christ and from which the blood drips into the chalice.
In the Queste an angel acolyte holds the lance over the cup,
then Joseph takes the lance, covers the Grail with a cloth,
and begins "as it were the sacrament of the mass."* In
the Perlesvaus Gawain, before the Grail, sees three drops of
blood fall on the altar.
^ Cf. Dom Leclercq, Cath. Enc, Art. Host. V
2 Dialogus Miraculorum, Bk. IX.
' Gemma Ecclesiastica, I: xi.
* The piercing of the host with a small lance has a place in Greek
ritual; cf. Peebles, Legend of Longinus, pp. 62 ff. The same symbolic
bleeding of the host into the chalice is impUed in this verse of Hilde-
bert of Lavardin:
Ista sacramenta modio vario ponxmtur in ara;
Oblati panis dextra tenet calicem,
In cruce pendentis quoniam latus Omnipotentis
Dextrum sanguineam vulnere fudit aquam.
Sic super altare litat hoc memorando sacerdos
Hostia sicque jugis scelera nostra lavat.
— Vers\is de Mysterio Missoe, Migne, CLXXI: 1180.
76 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
Of course miracles of this type tend to become confused
with the special cult of the holy blood {Saint Sang), which is
thereby brought directly into association with the conse-
cration of the mass and the literal transformation of the
wme into blood. Fecamp claimed not only a miracle of the
bleeding host type but also the possession of a portion of
the dried and clotted blood from the wounds of Christ,
concealed by Nicodemus in his glove.^ But it must be
said that early pictures illustrating the Saint Sang cult
depict the blood of Christ flowing as a fountain opened for
sin and for uncleanness rather than as the source of a life-
giving drink.2 The sensitive soul of Hugh of St. Victor
shrank from these crude aids to faith though he did not
deny them.^
To another class of these miracles belongs the appearance
of a lamb or of a child on the altar, or of the Virgin holding
the Christ child. Paschasius Radbertus (d. 860), already
mentioned ^ as an early champion of substantial transfor-
mation of the host, records the experience of one Plecgils,
who longing to be shown the exact nature of the sacramental
presence of Christ, not from lack of faith, but from piety
of soul, found his prayer granted. At the mass the venerable
priest lifted his face and saw the Son of the Father as the
infant whom Simeon was permitted to hold in his arms.
Plecgils took the child into his own arms, which were trem-
bling, and pressed his breast against the breast of Christ.
He gave a kiss to God and pressed his lips against those of
^ Some reminiscence of this relic occurs in the Perlesvaus (XVIII: iv),
for we are told that Joseph of Arimathea had caused some of the blood
of Christ to be sealed in the boss of Perceval's shield.
* Cf. Mile, L'art religieux de la fin du moyen dge en France, II: pt. v.V
^ "In specie carnis et sanguinis non sumitur, ne humanus animus
abhorreret, et sensus sibi insohta expavescerat, ut quando, orante beato
Gregorio, digitus auricularis cruentatus sanguine in cahce inventus
ac ostensus." — Speculum Ecclesioe, Migne, CLXXVII: 362.
* p. 15.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 77
Christ. These things done, he restored the glorious members
of the Son of God to the altar and filled the holy table with
the heavenly food of Christ.^ Similar instances are recorded
by Durandus ^ and in the life of St. Hugh of Lincoln.^ Giral-
dus Cambrensis speaks of a lamb or of a child in the hands
of the officiating priest.* A chronicler of Glastonbury
gravely states that Arthur was present at one such miracle.^
This particular kind of miracle is frequently mentioned
in the Grail romances. It occurs in coimection with the
appearance of the Grail itself and also at the elevation of
the host where no special mention of the Grail is made.®
It is the manifestation which particularly impressed Ten-
nyson :
the fiery face as of a child
That smote itself into the bread and went.
In the Gr. St. Graal at the communion administered by
angels the host seemed to enter each mouth as a child com-
plete in form. In the Queste Galahad sees a host put into
the Grail and at the elevation the figure of a child descends
from heaven, and all saw that the bread had the form of
"dome carnel." In Perlesvaus it is Gawain who is favored,
and it seems to him that in the midst of the Grail he sees
the figure of a child.''
A far less significant marvel, but one worth noting in
^ De cor pore et sanguine Domini, Migne, CXX: 1319, 1320.
2 Liber de corpore et sanguine Christi, VIII: xxviii. Migne, CXLIX:
1418.
3 Migne, CLIII: 1036.
* Gemma Ecclesiastica, I: xi. A figure in a MS. in the Bibliotheque
Nationale shows the miracle. Vide Rohault de Fleury, op. dt., plate
XXII. Illustration, p. 63.
5 John of Glastonbury, ed. Hearne, I: 79. Vide App., p. 126.
^ In Perlesvaus (I: vi) Arthur attends mass in St. Augustine's chapel,
where he sees the Virgin offer her chUd to the priest who places Him
on the altar and goes on with the mass.
7 VI: xix.
78 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
connection with all the rest, is the luminosity sometimes
attributed to the host. Csesarius of Heisterbach ^ tells of a
holy virgin who, standing behind the priest at the elevation,
saw the host in gleaming light as it were of crystal pene-
trated with the rays of the sun. Giraldus Cambrensis tells
of a woman who by accident caught a fragment of the host
in the hood of her cloak. Waking in the night she saw a
luminous spot in the garment, a phenomenon also visible to
her husband. This happened for three nights, when inves-
tigation revealed the host which left a spot of blood on the
place it had occupied.^ It will be remembered that in
Crestien the Grail shines and puts out the light of the candles
as the sun does that of the stars, and that de Borron ' speaks
of the great light which streams from the holy vessel car-
ried by Christ. In Wauchier Perceval sees the great light
in the forest made by the passing of the Grail, and in Per-
lesvaus "* the flame of the Holy Spirit descends each day on
the Grail.
One of the most interesting of the eucharistic miracles
is that called by Male the Christ of St. Gregory.^ This
concerns a vision said to have been vouchsafed to St.
Gregory as he celebrated mass in a chapel of the church
of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome. The story is
a shaky one, not found, according to Male, even in the
Legenda Aurea. The pictures of it show St. Gregory before
the altar and above it a figure of Christ either halfway
in His tomb, or upright with a cross behind Him. He
is thorn-crowned, and sometimes blood flows from His
wounds into the chalice. This figure of Christ, alone, or
with supporting angels, was later immensely popular, be-
cause an indulgence was supposed to have been granted to
St. Gregory to be bestowed on those who would contemplate
^ Op. cit., IX: xxxiii, xxxiv. * VI: xiv.
2 Gemma, I: xi. * Op. cit., II, pt. iv.
» Metr. Jos., U. 718 flf.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 79
the suffering Christ of his vision. This indulgence accounts
for the numerous instances of this Christ of St. Gregory in
art; it is an especial favorite as the central figure of a pre-
della. But earlier than any date given by Male for a pic-
ture of the figure we find it coimected with the Grail. In
Gr. St. Graal Josephe, looking into the ark of the Grail, saw
a man crucified on the cross which was held by angels, while
the nails which another angel had held were in his feet and
hands. The lance which had been carried by three angels
was in the side of the crucified man and from it flowed a
stream which was neither of blood nor of water but of the
two mingled.^ In the Queste a figure rises from the Grail
after mass, a man who had blood-stained hands and feet
and body.' In Perlesvaus^ Gawain looks up and "it
seemeth him to be the Greal all in flesh, and he seeth above,
as him thinketh, a King crowned, nailed upon the Rood and
the spear was still fast in His side." ^
An entirely different group of miracles involves the rev-
erence due the holy mysteries. The doctrine of transub-
stantiation and the consequent emphasis on the need of
celibate purity on the part of the celebrating priest were
illustrated by miracles in which the unworthy priest, pre-
suming to say mass, finds a blast of wind overturning a
chaUce or the host snatched from his hands. Such a miracle
is recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis. A priest took advan-
tage of the festivities of Christmas to complete an intrigue,
going straight from it to celebrate the three masses of Christ-
mas. To his dismay he found that at the first one the host
vanished at the elevation. He pretended to complete the
mass, but when the same thing happened at his other two
masses he confessed his sin. After a long penance he was
1 Vide App. 127 2 Vide App. 127
' VI: XX. Fide App. 127
* Tr. Evans. Cf. Gorres, Die Christliche Mystik, II: 107 f. for an
account of this vision as seen by several persons at Douay.
80 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
allowed to resume his priestly functions, and lo, at his first
consecration he found he had four hosts instead of one.*
Another story with a similar moral is related by Giraldus.^
These miracles have their parallels in the Grail legends.
In Gr. St. Graal Nasciens is blinded for daring to lift the cover
of the Grail and see what no mortal eyes ought to behold.
In the Queste Lancelot, at mass where the Grail is, sees that
at the elevation the priest is overcome by the weight of the
host. Lancelot rashly proffers aid and is struck dumb by
a fiery wind.^
The beneficent effects of the Grail may be classed with
the miracles. The Grail was agreeable to all who saw it,
and the devil may not lead any man astray on the day he
sees it.* It separates the good from the bad. It supports
^ Spec. Eg., IV: xxvii.
2 Gemma Ec, II: xvi. This is short and deserves to be quoted in
the original. "Item magnus BasiUus quotiens corpus dominicum
consecrabat, columba sacramentum dominici corporis continens, quae
super altare perpendit, ipsa conversionis hora se ter in circuitu movere
solebat. Quadam autem die, ipso consecrante, eamque non moveri
ut solet intuente secum admirari et contristari. Statim autem in spiritu
vidit diaconum, ei ad altare ministrantem, in mulierem quandam in
ipso presbyterio petulanter oculos injecisse. Quo remoto, officioque
suspenso, mulieribus quoque abinde remotis, Sancti Spiritus adventum
per columbse motum, ut solet, vir sanctus advertit." Vide illustration,
p. 62.
' These, of course, recall incidents from the Old Testament, and it
is interesting to find Giraldus {Gemma Ec, I: li) using the latter to
illustrate the reverence due corpus domini. "Item, si Oza, quia mamma
extenderat ad archam figuralem ne declineret bobus recalcitrantibus
a Domino ad mortem percussus est, quanto magis percuti timeat a
Domino qui indigne veram archam, scilicet corpus Domini, conficit
vel consumit. lUe tamen ex debito officio, quia de Levi erat et sacerdos,
ad sublevandum archam, sed indigne; tradunt enim Hebraei, quia
nocte prsecedente concuberant cum uxore. Quanto magis autem puni-
entur accidentes ad corpus Christi concubinarium vel meretricum ne
enormioris immunditise mentio fiat, concubitores."
* Wauchier.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 81
Joseph in prison and feeds his starving followers. At a
banquet it serves the company with such food as each
V prefers.
^ Some commentators have considered this property of
producing food a hopelessly heathen survival, totally in-
consistent with any feature of the eucharist. But so far
from this being the case it is quite possible that this prop-
erty of the magic vessel is precisely the one which recom-
mended the story to those who combined it with that of
Joseph of Arimathea. There is no more common figure of
the eucharist than the miraculously produced manna.
First used in the discourse of Christ Himself, ^ it is found in
all Christian literature, and in Perlesvaus we are told that
the manna fed each man with that which he most desired.^
The catacomb representations of the eucharist are also
connected with the miraculous increase of food and drink
— the miracle of the loaves and fishes and the miracle of
Cana.' Moreover, the miracle of sustaining life on the host
alone is recorded in the life of many saints.^
These beneficent effects of the Grail are allegorical expres-
sions of the numerous gifts and graces of the eucharist,
which not only preserved body and soul to everlasting life,
but was a medicine in sickness and a defence against all
wiles of enemies, visible and invisible.
1 St. John., VI: 49, 50.
^ XVIII: XV. "n les mist XL anz el desert ou onques dras ne lor
porri, et il lor enveoit la mainne del ciel qui lor servoit quanqu'il voulo-
ient boivre ne mangier." Cf. Algerus, De Sacramento, I: xv, Migne,
CLXXX: 786.
* Vide illustration, p. 63.
* Cf. Caesarius of Heisterbach, op. cit., IX: xlvi.
82 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
XII
Is this marked resemblance between the characteristics
of the Grail and its miracles and those of transubstan-
tiation accidental? Or is it rather that the point to be
demonstrated is one and the same, namely the literal and
miraculous presence of God on the altar? All these
miracles are connected with the vision of God in the eucha-
rist, and their object is to give aid and comfort to those
who need sight to sustain their faith. They are visions, it
is true, and signs of the favorable mercy of God. But more
blessed than even the witnesses of a transubstantiation
miracle are those who like Catherine of Siena taste and see
the whole mystery of the Trinity in their eucharistic
rapture.
As we should expect, it is in the Queste that this spirit-
ualized vision is most clearly expressed. We find there both
the agony of the knight who fails to attain it, and the rap-
ture of him to whom it is granted. Bohort, whose quest of
the Grail is hindered by his one sin against purity, seeks
consolation from a hermit who hears his confession, absolves
him, and prepares to administer the eucharist to him.
After the consecration he takes corpus domini and signs
Bohort to come forward. And when he had kneeled before
him, the good man said, "Bohort, do you see what I hold?"
"Sir," said he, "I see that you hold my Saviour and my
redemption in form of bread, and in such fashion have I
ever seen it. But my eyes are so earthly that they cannot
discern spiritual things, nor do they let me see otherwise
than to deprive me of the sight of the true form. For I
have never doubted that it is truly flesh and truly man and
God." And he commenced to weep bitterly. There is no
flaw in his faith, the hermit does not refuse him the com-
munion, but the mystic vision of God in the eucharist is
withheld from him.
THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL 83
Very different is the experience of Galahad. He has been
vouchsafed the eucharistic miracles, has seen the child on
the altar and the Christ of St. Gregory, but a greater thing
is in store for him, the full revelation of the Grail. Joseph
of Arimathea appears and celebrates a mass. At the con-
secration (el secre de la messe) he lifts the paten from the
holy vessel and bids Galahad look within. Galahad comes
forward, just as Bohort had done, but looking within he
trembles as does mortal flesh when it beholds spiritual
things — "esperitels choses," the very words used by Bohort
to describe that which was hidden from him. Then Galahad
stretched his hands to heaven and said: "Lord, I thank
Thee that Thou hast granted my wish. For now I see
plainly that which tongue cannot speak nor heart think.
Thou hast granted me to see what I have so long desired."
After this he, like Bohort, meekly and gladly receives the
Lord's body. But where Bohort had rested on faith alone,
to Galahad has come mystic certainty of the eucharistic
presence of Christ wrought by the miracle of transubstan-
tiation. He sees the marvels of the Grail; the quest is
achieved.^
1 For the full text of these two passages in the Queste see App., p. 127.
This conception of the Grail as the symbol of the miracle of transub-
stantiation, consummate gift of divine love, is found in a German
poem published in Meisterlieder der Kolmarer handschrift, ed. Bartsch,
p. 592. It is addressed to four who know the true meaning of love, —
lady, knight, poet, and priest. The last is told of his high privilege in
being permitted to hold in his own hands the Grail of the love of the
King of kings.
Ach priester, wer moht tiberkomen
die zale diner hohen wirde gar:
al zifferie kraft moht ez niht halp besinnen zwAr.
Du hast vil schone an dich genomen
ein sidin kleit, dar in bris ich dich eben,
sit dirz der hoechste fiirst von himel ze 6ren hdt gegeben.
Wart daz duz iht beselwest durch daz wunder,
84 THE MYSTIC VISION IN THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL
sit got <lf dich geworfen h&t besunder
reines lobes z under,
Id brinnen schiezen dich der minnen gr&l
des hcehsten kiings der sich Idt schowen in dtner hende sal.
For this and other references to the use of the word "grail" in
German poetry I am indebted to Hertz, Parzival, p. 459. The infer-
ences I have drawn from them are entirely my own.
Since this chapter went to press, the following statement, most
interesting in this connection, came to my notice. According to
Peter Calo, his earUest biographer, Aquinas, before receiving the
viaticum, made this declaration:
" Si major scientia, quam fides de hoc sacramento in hac vita
haberi potest, in ilia respondeo, quod vere credo et pro certo scio,
hunc deum verum esse et hominem, dei patris et virginis matris
fihum et sic credo animo et confiteor verbo."
For this citation from Calo's Vita, (put forth c. 1300 and included
in Pontes Vitce S. ThomoB Aquinatis, ed. Priimmer), I am indebted to
the painstaking courtesy of the Rev. D. J. Kennedy, O. P., Domini-
can House of Studies, Washington, D. C.
THE MYSTIC VISION IN THE DIVINE COMEDY
Jesu, quern velatum nunc aspicio,
Oro, fiat illud quod tarn sitio
Ut, te revelata cernens facie,
Visa sim beatus tuae gloriae.
— Thomas Aquinas
THE MYSTIC VISION IN THE DIVINE COMEDY
When we come to the consideration of the eucharistic
injBuence in the Divine Comedy we are conscious of a very
different atmosphere from that of the Grail romances, and
the difference is not merely a matter of literary expression,
but also of devotional mood. The romantic treatment is
not only chronologically much nearer the first emphatically
material statements of transubstantiation, but it represents
the secular reaction to them; it records popular piety with
its crudely literal acceptance of the miracle and its occa-
sional glimpse of the spiritual thing. The romance writers,
though they might possess a saving acquaintance with the
teaching of the church, cannot be supposed to have either
known or cared much about the arguments which supported
any article of faith. If we find theological propositions here
and there we are likely to consider them traces of a monkish
original, or to suspect that they were inserted at the request
of an ecclesiastical patron.
But Dante is not only a conscious literary artist, accept-
ing or rejecting material as it is or is not adapted to his
highly organized and carefully balanced structure, but an
expert theologian as well, incapable of treating casually or
crudely any part of the divine science. Moreover, theolog-
ical discourse itself had undergone changes in the course of
a century, and the schoolmen, by formulating and empha-
sizing the distinction between substance and accidents, had
done much to modify the startling materialism of the earlier
statements of transubstantiation, explaining that though the
"substance," or reality, of the consecrated bread and wine
was that of the body and blood of Christ, yet their "acci-
THE MYSTIC VISION IN
dents," or characteristic properties — taste, smell, color,
and the like — remained. From Dante, as their pupil, we
should therefore expect a more spiritual as well as a more
carefully organized handling of eucharistic teaching than
any of which the romancers were capable.
II
It is, indeed, difficult to conceive how Dante in his great
epic of the soul in its relation to God could have ignored the
eucharistic doctrine and devotion so intimately connected
with Christian living, albeit we should expect to find so
spiritual a theme veiled under one of the "mystic senses"
of the allegory. Though the subject of the Divine Comedy
may be "the state of souls after death," the end of it is
"to remove those living in this life from the state of misery
and lead them to the state of felicity," ^ and with this end
in view it would be hardly possible for him to omit all ref-
erence to the sacramental means afforded by the church for
reaching the goal.
In its ultimate form this state of felicity is neither more
nor less than the visio Dei, the complete illumination of
the soul:
Then shall be seen that which we hold by faith,
Not demonstrated, but known of itself,
Like to the primal truth that man believes.'^
This immediate knowledge of God, which in its fulness
comes to man only as his final reward, is always enjoyed by
the angels:
1 Ep. to Can Grande.
^ "Li si vedr^ cid che tenem per fede,
Non dimostrato, ma fia per s& noto,
A guisa del ver prime che Tuom crede."
Par. II: 43-45.
THE DIVINE COMEDY 89
Every essence and virtue proceeds from the primal one and the
lower intelligences receive it as from a radiating source, and throw
the rays of their superior upon these inferior, after the fashion of
But though in this life man may hope only for partial attain-
ment of knowledge, though his mirrors may give but shadowy
reflection,^ some foretaste of the state of felicity is always
possible. Whence, then, is such partial knowledge, where
are mirrors to be found? The answer is given at length in
the work of Dionysius, from which Dante derived his ideas
of angelic illumination.^ As has been said, Dionysius fol-
lows his treatise on the angelic ranks by one on the church
and its orders, showing that in the church are to be found
the means whereby man attains to some share in this illu-
mination and that these means are identical with the sacra-
ments. In other words, the sacraments are the clouded
mirrors which so modify the intensity of the divine splendor
that man may look thereon and still live.
Ill
But just because they are at best but clouded mirrors,
means adapted to powers as yet imperfect, sacraments
belong to this life, they are part of the equipment of the
church on earth,^ and Dante could treat of them only in
^ Ej). to Can Grande.
2 "Videmus nunc per speculum in enigmate: tunc autem facie ad
faciem: nunc cognosco ex parte: tunc autem cognoscam sicut et
cognitus sum." 1. Cor. xiii: 12.
^ Ej). to Can Grande.
* "Quia ergo hoc Sacramento non est in aeternum mors Christi
annuntianda, sed tantum donee veniat, qui postea nullis mysteriis
egebimus, constat illud transitorium esse signum et temporale, quo
tantum egemus nunc, dum videmus per speculum et in enigmate." —
Algerus, De Sacramento 1: VIII, Migne, CLXXX: 764.
90 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
that part of the Divine Comedy wherein the church mihtant,
so to speak, has jurisdiction — the Purgatory. The souls
in Hell are permanently excommunicate, and those in Para-
dise are already included in the church triumphant; but
those who are in process of purification share in the benefits
of the ordinances of religion. Every reader must have expe-
rienced the sensation of breathing more freely in the Purga-
tory, of moving within the limits of mortal experience and
aspiration. It has a far more intimate application to the
spiritual life of the average human being, conscious of the
closeness of grandeur to the dust, than either the dreary
hoplessness of Hell or the enraptured bliss of Heaven. The
souls there, like ourselves, are still striving to leave the lower
and mount upward, still burdened with shortcomings, still
needing to join in the universal human cry, "Miserere mei,
Domine!" The essential difference between their state and
ours is, of course, their certainty of ultimate salvation, a
certainty never attained until death has ended man's pro-
bation; but this difference is only borne in on us now and
again, notably in the eleventh canto where the souls explain
that though they still say, "Lead us not into temptation,"
the prayer is for the living, they themselves need it no
longer.^ But though free from temptation, the souls in
Purgatory have but partial knowledge of God; they must
still content themselves with seeing in a glass darkly, still
avail themselves of the means of grace. It is noticeable that
Dante introduces all through the Purgatory allusions more
or less definite to the scriptural phrases, the hymns, the
liturgy and sacraments which are the outward expression
of the spiritual life.^
1 XI: 22-24.
^ In the Purgatory these vary in character, sounding the whole
gamut of Christian experience: those in the Paradise (as in III: 121,
122; VII: 1-3, XXIII: 128, XXIV: 113, XXV: 98) express faith,
trust, and, above all, praise.
THE DIVINE COMEDY 91
The psalm of Israel's deliverance is the song of those
crossing the sea to begin the work of making themselves
fair/ and in accordance with the religious experience of
the ages it is also in the words of the psalms that abasement/
holy joy/ and trust find expression.^ Hymns from the
Breviary sound in the flowery valley ^ and in the last circle.^
The successful passage through the gate of Purgatory is
marked, as are earthly conquests, by Te Deum laudamus^
and the triumph of Purgatory in the release of a soul to its
full attainment of the benefits of the Incarnation can find
no more fitting utterance than that which hailed the first
tidings of the Word made flesh, Gloria in excelsis Deo.^
Nor is the sacramental system unnoticed. Though em-
braced by the arms of infinite love, Manfred must pay the
penalty of dying without the last sacraments and spend
thirty times the period of his contumacy in Antepurgatory
before his ascent to purification may begin.^ At the gate of
Purgatory itself there is an angel, guardian of the entrance
as far as the narrative goes, but standmg also for the eccle-
siastical hierarchy whose representative may, by the power
of the keys, bind and loose. Next come the three steps
signifying the contrition, confession, and satisfaction with-
out which no one can attain the purity of heart necessary
for either sacramental union here or for the ultimate oneness
with God. The seven P's marked by the angel on Dante's
forehead, which must be erased one by one at the end of
each toilsome climb, stand not only for the seven mortal
sins but also for the penance imposed, which must be accom-
plished before further sacramental grace may be received.^"
But it is in that part of the Purgatory which Dante has
1 Purg. II: 46. " lb. XXV: 121.
2 lb. XIX: 73. ^ lb. IX: 140.
3 76. XXVIII: 80. » 76. XX: 136.
* 76. XXX: 83, 84. » 76. Ill: 136-141.
^ 76. VIII: 13. 1" 76. IX: 76 ff.
92 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
set in the Earthly Paradise that we should expect the most
complete figuiing of the system, for sacraments are weapons
of the church militant, and the Earthly Paradise, the lit-
eral Eden, which was supposed to exist somewhere in the
far East, is ver\^ commonly considered as a symbol of the
church. The river issuing from it is taken by Isidor of
Se\'ille to symbolize baptism ^ and the fruit of its tree of
life, according to Hugh of St. Victor, is a type of the
eucharist.'- And it is there, in fact, that he witnesses a
procession, the features and implications of which bear
marked resemblance to the procession of Corpus Christi
day, which at the time the Purgatory was written, had but
lately been advanced from a matter of tradition and cus-
tom to one of official authorization. There, too, he is sub-
merged in a flowing river that his purification may be
effected.
IV
Marked developments in eucharistic worship took place
between the Lateran Council of 1215 and the early four-
teenth centuiy, and these developments undoubtedly had
their effect on certain details in Dante's treatment of the
matter. The council's final and authoritative statement of
eucharistic doctrine had the effect of stimulating the elab-
oration of eucharistic ritual which had been growing up
during the preceding century, especially that which centred
in the actual moment of consecration and the elevation of
the host announced by the sacring bell. But one honor to
the eucharist was lacking — a day of festal celebration
^ Mysticorum Expositiones Sacramentorum, seu Qucestiones in tetus
Testamentum. In Genesin, Cap. Ill: 2, Migne, LXXXIIl: 216. For
text ride App. p. 136. Cf. the source of the waters of the Earthly
Paradise, Purg. XXVIII: 124 ff., and the use made of these waters,
lb. XXXI: 91-102.
* Vide ut inf., p. 114.
THE DIVINE COMEDY 93
specially devoted to it. Maunday Thursday, the day of its
institution, though called both Ccena Domini and Natalis
Calicis, was too deeply shadowed by Christ's passion to be
a fitting occasion for rejoicing.
It was in the Low Countries that the first attempt to
meet this need was made. Julianna, prioress of Mont-
Corneillon near Li^ge, had a vision in which she saw the full
moon disfigured by a black spot. This she interpreted as
meaning that the black spot on the church calendar was the
want of a day devoted to the honor of the sacrament of the
altar. The idea became popular in Liege, and the bishop,
Robert de Tarote, authorized the local celebration of the
festival. In 1261 the archdeacon of Liege, Jacob Pantaleon,
became Pope under the title of Urban IV. He wished to
give full sanction to the new feast, but hesitated about the
final step, it is said, until his decision was quickened by a
miracle of the bleeding host, known as the miracle of Bol-
sena. In 1264 he issued the bull Transiturus, establishing
the festival of Corpus Christi, to be held on the Thursday
succeeding Trinity Sunday. The bull declared the object
of the celebration to be the strengthening and exaltation of
the Catholic faith, and its keynote was festivity. Devout
throngs of the faithful were to betake themselves to the
churches, and the clergy as well as the rejoicing laity were
to raise the song of praise. With heart and mouth all were
to hymn the joy of salvation. Faith was bidden to sing
psalms, hope to dance joyfully, and charity to exult. Devo-
tion was to add its plaudits, the choir to hold jubilee, purity
to rejoice. Fulfilling their devout purpose worthily, all
should unite in celebrating the solemnity of the day.^
' "Nos itaque ad corroborationem et exaltationem catholicas fidei,
digne ac rationabiliter duximus statuendum, ut de tanto Sacramento
praeter quotidianam memoriam, quam de ipso facit Ecclesia, solemnior
et specialior annuatim memoria celebretur, certum ad hoc designantes
et describentes diem, videlicet feriam quintam proximam post octavam
94 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
It is told that Urban requested both Thomas Aquinas and
Bonaventura to draw up an ofl&ce for the day. When the
time came for reading them, each wished the other to begin.
St. Thomas consented to be first, but when it came Bona-
ventura's turn he smiHngly shook from the loose sleeve of
his habit a shower of bits of paper. He had realized as the
reading proceeded that there could be no question of choice
and so had spared the Pope the onus of decision. ^ And
indeed it would be hard to conceive of an improvement on
the work of Aquinas with its skilful use of type and antitype,
its aptness of scriptural adaptation, and its superb eucharistic
hymns: Pange lingua, Sacris solemniis junda sunt gaudia,
Lauda Sion, Verhum supernum prodiens. Part of this last,
salutaris hostia, is perhaps best known of all eucharistic
hymns.
Neither in this office nor in the bull of Urban is there any
mention of the procession which became the most striking
feature of the celebration, and there has been much dispute
and uncertainty as to just when it was instituted. It seems
to have been officially authorized only at the council of
Vienne, 1311, but Roman Catholic writers generally agree
Pentecostes, ut in ipsa quinta feria devotse turbse fidelium propter hoc
ad Ecclesias affectuosae concurrant, et tam clerici, quam populi gau-
dentes, in cantica laudum surgant. Tunc enim omnium corda et vota,
ora et labia, hymnos persolvant Isetitise salutaris; tunc psallat fides;
spes tripudiet; exultet charitas; devotio plaudat; jubilet chorus;
puritas jucundetur. Tvmc singuli, alacri animo, pronaque voluntate
conveniant sua studia laudabQiter exequendo, tanti festi solemnitatem
celebrantes. Et utinam ad Christi servitium sic eius fideles ardor in-
flammet, ut per hsec et alia proficientibus ipsis meritorum cumulis
apud eum, qui sese dedit pro eis in pretium, tribuitque se ipsis in pabu-
lum, tandem post huius vitse decursum eis se in prsemium largiatur." —
Bullarum Romanum, ed.Taurinensis, III: 707.
' Cf . Eugene Cortet, Essai sur les fetes religieuses, 1867.
THE DIVINE COMEDY 95
that this authorization was rather the sanction of a custom
already estabUshed than the inauguration of a new one.
According to Martene contemporary books of ritual show
that the procession followed very closely on the institution
of the festival.^ Catalani goes further and declares the
consensus of opinion is that Urban was the "author" of
the procession as well as of the bull. His first argument for
this opinion is the intrinsic one, namely, that the bull
requires a measure of rejoicing, "tripudatio, exultatio et
jubilatio," which being entirely out of keeping with the
celebration of mass in church, necessarily implies an out-
door procession, and he contends, moreover, that only by
the transportation of the most holy sacrament through the
highways could be illustrated that triumph of Christ over
the perfidy and madness of heretics which Urban declared
to be one object of the festival. In the second place he con-
siders the conclusions of writers who have made a special
study of the period and who believe almost unanimously
that the procession coincided, nearly if not precisely, with
the first observation of the day. His third point is that the
procession of Corpus Christi day was an elaboration rather
than an innovation.^ There is plenty of evidence for this.
The mediaeval popes were accustomed to have the host
carried before them on journeys and state occasions,^ and
the viaticum was carried to the sick in a procession with
lights and bells.* That the host was a central figure in
processions of intercession appears in Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth's account of the Scottish prelates who with all their
clergy in attendance came out to beg mercy from King
1 Ec. rit. IV: xxix.
2 Pont. Rom: II: 311 ff. For text see App. p. 128.
' Cf. Catalani, op. cit. II: 313; Picart, Ceremonies et coutumes
religieuses, Art. Corpus Christi.
* Cf. Wilkins, Consilia Magnae BritanniccB et HibernioB, I: 623.
Stone, op. cit. I: 352 ff.
96 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
Arthur, bearing the rehcs of the saints and the sacraments
of the church.^ This practice also obtained in Provence.'^
A similar instance in the romance of Perlesvaus has already
been noted .^ To judge from their records the custom must
have been favored by the Normans, and Lanfranc, as be-
came an opponent of Berengar, took care to provide for so
edifying and instructive a ceremony in England. In his
Decreti pro ordine S. Benedidi * he gives elaborate directions
for the procession on Palm Sunday. The green things were
to be blessed and distributed, the palms to ecclesiastics and
persons of importance; flowers and leaves to the rest. The
procession included not only the officiating clergy but the
monks, the boys with their master, and the friars. They
advanced, two by two, accompanied by banners, crucifixes,
lighted candles, censers, and two subdeacons carrying texts
of the gospels. Singing as they went, they left the church
and took up a station outside. Two priests then left the
procession and went back into the church for the feretrum, ^
which had been prepared by the same priests at earliest
dawn and in which the body of Christ was hidden. When
they returned to the station they took up their stand on
either side of the feretrum, around which all stood in reverent
ranks, the children, as befitted the day, being placed in front.
At the antiphon, Hosanna, filio David, benedidus qui venit
in nomine Domini, Hosanna in excelsis, all bowed the knee.
^ "Convenerunt omnes Episcopi miserandae patriae, cum omni
clero sibi subdito, reliquias sanctorum et ecclesiastica sacramenta
nudis fsrentes pedibus." Historia regum Britannice ed. San Marte,
IX: vi.
^ "His gestis, episcopus Tolosse qui erat in exercitu, mandavit
prseposito ecclesiae aliisque clericis ut de civitate Tolosana egreder-
entur; qui statim jussa complentes, nudibus Pedibus cum corpore
Christi egressi sunt Tolosa."
Petrus Sarnensis, Historia Albigensium, LV. Migne, CCXIII: 611.
' Vide ut sup., p. 29.
^ Migne, CL: 455 ff. For text vide. App. p. 129.
* "Pyx in qua ccena Eucharistia conditur." Du Cange.
THE DIVINE COMEDY 97
Then to another antiphon, Ave, rex nosier, the bearers of the
Jeretrum took up their burden, and the procession went on
through the city, the people bending the knee as the host
passed in front of them. This custom was not confined to
the Normans.^ Also in various places on Good Friday the
host, instead of a crucifix, was interred in the Easter Sep-
ulchre, from which it was carried with much pomp and
ceremony on Easter morning.^
Processions centering around the host were, then, already
established by the middle of the thirteenth century, and,
very naturally, were early adapted to the Corpus Christi
celebration. As this feature gradually became the charac-
teristic part of the ceremonies of the day, other eucharistic
processions seem to have been largely discontinued in its
favor. Civil and ecclesiastical authorities united in the
celebration, and the route of the procession was often a
long one. The bells of all churches in front of which it
passed were rung as well as that of the chief church of the
city from which it started. The streets were carefully cleaned
in preparation and tapestries were hung from the windows.^
As in the earlier processions there were always lights, either
candles, in huge candlesticks, or lanterns. Whether directly
from the association with Palm Sunday, or indirectly from
the very ancient custom of strewing flowers and boughs before
a conqueror, flowers became, and have remained, a marked
feature of the procession. The houses along the route were
1 Cf. Migne, LXXXV: 39 In.
^ On Easter morning the two oldest priests went to the sepulchre
"out of the which . . they tooke a marvelous beautiful Image of our
Saviour, representing the resurrection, with a crosse in his hand, in
the breast whereof was enclosed in bright christall the holy Sacrament
of the altar through which christall the blessed host was conspicuous
to the behoulders." — Ancient Monuments, Rites and Customs of Durham,
Surtees Society Publications, XV: 10, 11. Cf. also Stone, op. cit. I:
385 for such processions at Salisbury, Hereford, York and Canterbury.
^ Cf. Picart, op. cit.
98 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
decorated with green boughs, and sometimes, as at Genzano
in the Alban hills, the flowers were woven into an elaborate
carpet for the main street.
In the midst of the procession a baldachino was carried;
sometimes the bearers were priests, sometimes laymen, but
always crowned with flowers.^ Underneath this, one or more
of the officiating ecclesiastics bore the host, while before it
boys with garlands on their heads scattered rose leaves, and
members of guilds and the populace followed all carrying
tapers. Sometimes the little St. John Baptist was the im-
mediate predecessor of the canopy, and the patron saints
of the city and its trades were represented by persons dressed
in appropriate costumes.
It is easy to understand that under the influence of the
guilds these figures increased in number and became per-
formers in the miracle cycles. ^ The celebration of the day
tended to become more formal and elaborate, and culmi-
nated in the Spanish autos sacramentales, which found their
greatest exponent in Calderon. Still, religious customs
change very slowly; there is not much difference between
the ordinary Corpus Christi processions of the nineteenth
century and those described in Reformation satire, and the
latter probably included much that came unchanged from
the beginnings three centuries earlier. It may, therefore,
be worth while to refer to Kirchmaier's scornful enumeration
1 Martene speaks of a miniature which shows clergy and laity
crowned with flowers. "Idemeruiter ex missale Melodunensi, in quo
feria 5, post festum SS. Trinitatis habetur missa de SS. Sacramento,
cui appicta est imago sacerdotis sacram eucharistiam manu gestantis,
sub baldachino a quatuor viris delato, qui perinde ac sacerdos ipse
reliquique clerici nudum caput florum coronis ornatum habent." — op.
cit. IV: xxix, 5 (ed. 1764).
^ Lydgate, in the Procession of Corpus Christi, (early fifteenth cen-
tury), first summons patriarchs and prophets to the festival, giving a
stanza to the teaching of each viewed in connection with the euchar-
ist. Next he takes up the New Testament characters, in the same
way; then the fathers, ending with Thomas Aquinas.
THE DIVINE COMEDY 99
of the details of one, with its flowers, lights, and allegorical
figures.^
^ "Then doth ensue the solemne feast of Corpus Christi day.
Who then can shewe their wicked vse, and fonde and foolish play?
The hallowed bread with worship great, in siluer Pix they bears
About the Church, or in the Citie passing here and theare.
His armes that beares the same, two of the welthiest men do holde,
And over him a Canopey of silke and cloth of golde.
Christes passion here derided is, with sundrie maskes and playes.
Fair Ursley with hir maydens all, doth passe amid the wayes:
And vaUant George, with speare thou killest the dreadfull dragon
here:
The deuils house is drawne about, wherein there doth appere
A wondrous sort of damned sprites, with foule and fearefull looke;
Great Christopher doth wade and passe with Christ amid the
brooke;
Sebastian full of feathred shaftes, the dint of dart doth feele.
There walketh Kathren with her sworde in hande, and cruell
wheele:
The Challis and the singing Cake, with Barbara is led.
And simdrie other Pageants playde in worship of this bred,
That please the foolish people well: what shoulde I stand vpon,
Their Banners, Crosses, Candlestickes, and reliques many on.
Their Cuppes and earned Images, that priestes with countnance hie,
Or rude and common people beare about full solemlie?
Saint John before the bread doth go, and poynting towardes him,
Doth shew the same to be the Lambe that takes away our sinne:
On whome two clad in Angels shape do simdrie flowres fhng,
A number great of sacring Belles, with pleasant sounde doering.
The common wayes with bowes are strawde, and every streete
beside.
An to the walles and windowes all, are boughes and braunches tide.
The Monkes in every place do roams, the Nonnes abrode are sent,
The Priestes and schoolemen lowde do rore, some vse the instru-
ment.
The straunger passing through the streete, vpon his knees doe fall :
And earnestly upon this bread, as on his God doth call."
Fourth Book of the Popish Kingdojn, or r eigne of Antichrist written in
Latine verse by Thomas Naogeorgus (or Kirchmaier) and englyshed by
Barnabe Googe. Anno 1570.
100 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
VI
A comparison of the Corpus Christi procession with that
at the close of Dante's Purgatory cannot fail to bring out
striking resemblances between them. These resemblances,
as will be seen on close examination, involve general trend
and purpose as well as detail, and it is hard to believe them
purely accidental. They may therefore be considered care-
fully in the hope of finding in them the clew to a really con-
vincing interpretation of the last six cantos of the Purgatory.
While certain features of the allegory in these cantos have
been studied minutely and at great length their whole bear-
ing has been rather casually dismissed by criticism. So
Vossler, in his aesthetic interpretation of the Divine Comedy,^
considers Dante's whole treatment of the Earthly Paradise
a blunder with disastrous consequences, a blunder which the
ideas of his age forced even upon the greatest genius.^
Symonds thought that "to a modern taste this pageant is
artistically a failure. The difficulty of identifying all the
personages who play parts in it, and the dryness of the ab-
stract imagery, overtax the attention of readers accustomed
to greater freedom and directness of poetical presentation." '
The best that is said of it is a tempered praise of its value
as an example of allegory carried to its highest pitch and
therefore deserving close study .^ There has been little
attempt to account for the character of the procession or
for its place at the very gates of heaven. Nor has any in-
terpretation placed the episode of the Earthly Paradise in
balanced relation to the entire poem; it has been credited
with no structural value.
1 Karl Vossler, Die GottUche Komodie, II: ii, pp. 238-245.
2 "Kurz, dieser Irrtum ist der Zins, den auch das grosste Genie
seinem Zeitalter zu entrichten gehalten ist." lb. p. 245.
' Introduction to the Study of Dante, ch. iv.
* Moore, Studies in Dante, III: 178 ff.
THE DIVINE COMEDY 101
On one point, however, the critics are in very general
agreement, and that is that in the mystical procession Dante
meant to show forth the triumph of the church universal,
represented by the chariot, drawn by the two-natured
griffin, symbol of Christ. There is no reason to dispute this
explanation as far as it goes, even if one insists upon the
eucharistic association, for one object of the feast of Corpus
Christi was to show forth the triumph of the church which
centred in the glorification of the eucharist. But, though
the peculiarly joyous character of the episode, with it
accessories of flowers, lights, and symbohc figures, might be
traced directly to the ancient triumph, and need not be
derived from the new festival, the explanation is inade-
quate, offering no solution for many obvious questions.
Why, for example, is Beatrice the central figure? It has
been said that she here personifies revelation, or the author-
ity of the church, or the ideal papacy. It is never safe, of
course, to claim a single, exclusive meaning for any part of
Dante's allegory, and Beatrice may figure all of these, but
not one of them accounts for her sudden descent into the
midst of such a procession. In any of these characters her
fitting place would be within the chariot at its first appear-
ance, but Dante becomes aware of her presence only after
certain ceremonies of ritual significance.
Again, to whom are the various salutations addressed?
Does "Blessed art thou among women" ^ refer to Beatrice,
or is it literally a hymn to the Virgin. When the figure
representing the book of Canticles chants, "Come forth from
Lebanon, spouse," ^ is the welcomed one the church, or is
it Beatrice? Who is called blessed as coming in the name of
the Lord? ^ Commentators differ and no unifying suggestion
is made.
It is, therefore, worth while to make a study of the pro-
cession in the Earthly Paradise, deliberately taking as a
1 Purg. XXIX: 85-87. ^ lb. XXX: 11. => lb. XXX: 19.
102 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
key its eucharistic implications, shown not only in its
undeniable resemblance to that of Corpus Christi but in
other ways.
VII
Dante conceives the Earthly Paradise as a plain on the
"top of the mount of purification and in it he places the scene
of the end of the Purgatory. It is a place of primeval love-
■ liness, eool shade, und gleaming water, made bright by many
fiowers. As he enters it, Dante, fresh from purifying pain,
sees Matilda gathering the flowers as she sings the joy
of the forgiven. Fearing to lose sight of her, the first soul
he has encountered who has entered into the inheritance of
bliss, he keeps pace with her as she moves along the far
side of Lethe. At a turn of the stream they find themselves
looking eastward, and, in front of them, a sudden flash of
light through the forest announces a great pageant. Seven
golden candlesticks, the lamps of the Spirit, move forward
over the flower-strewn ground, their streaming lights typi-
fying its sevenfold gifts. ^ Before and behind the central
group, the car and the griffin, move symbolic figures which
represent the books of the Bible. In the vanguard are four
and twenty elders, white-robed and crowned with lilies.
These represent the books of the Old Testament, and in so
doing may indicate as well the introit, a part of the eucha-
ristic liturgy.
The words of the introit are chanted as the clergy and
assistants enter the choir at the beginning of mass. These
words are taken almost exclusively from the Old Testament,
* There is, of course, much dispute as to the symbolism of the
"sette liste" {Purg. XXIX: 77), and, no doubt, Dante may have had
more than one significance in mind. But the seven lamps of the Spirit
in the Apocalypse {Rev. IV: 5) are so frequently associated with the
seven gifts of the Spirit (based on Isaiah XI: 2; cf. Conv. IV: xxi),
that he could hardly have failed to provide a symbol for the latter.
THE DIVINE COMEDY 103
because, according to the complicated sjTiibolism which was
worked into every part of the mass, the opening procession
represented the participation of the whole church in the
coming of Christ, and the words chosen to accompany it
were those of the patriarchs and prophets in order that the
prophetic share of the saints of the Old Dispensation in the
acceptance of Christ might be commemorated.^ So it is
most fitting that the figures of those who rejoiced aforetime
in the promise of Christ should hail the renewal of His com-
ing with the supreme Salutation and promise of salvation,
— "Blessed art thou among the daughters of Adam," ^
ending with the praise of the mother of Christ. For the
Salutation, first uttered, greeted the coming of Christ in
the flesh, a coming perpetually renewed in the miracle of
the mass.^
After the books of the Old Testament come the four beasts
figuring the gospels, which are the records of the incarnate
life of Christ, of the consummation of man's redemption,
and of the eucharistic commemoration thereof. After them
the two-natured griffirty figure of Christ, draws the Chariot
of the church.'' This, significantly, comes between the books
1 Vide. App. p. 133.
2 Purg. XXIX: 85-87.
' The mother of Christ is frequently addressed as a vessel of the
sacrament:
"Vale urna, manna, merum,
panem cceU portans verum."
— Hymni Latini, Mone, II: 270.
"Gaude virgo setherea,
uvam mitem parturiens,
urna decens et aurea,
verum manna suscipiens."
— 76.11: 186.
* Dante's acknowledged reminiscence of Ezekiel {Purg. XXIX:
100) is interesting not only on account of the four beasts but in rela-
tion to the chariot. Jewish mysticism found much of its expression in
104 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
concerned with the coming of Christ and those which record
the estabhshment of His kingdom on earth — the church.
These last, representatives of the new law, are also crowned
with flowers, but blood red, like fire above their brows, for
the new law is that of love, and for Dante its color is there-
fore that of living flame. ^ In keeping with the general Corpus
Christi associations the attendant angels scatter flowers
above and around, and the figures of the virtues rejoice in
a festal dance.
Turning to the chariot "as to their peace," the ministers
and messengers of life eternal unite in singing ''Benedictus
the Ma'aseh Merkabah, "work of the chariot," which dealt with the
visible manifestations of God. There was in some quarters a belief
that certain mystic expositions of Ezekiel 1, or even of subjects connected
with it, would cause God to appear. The initiated believed themselves
to enter into the heavenly chariot and in it ascend to the heavens where
they saw God. Philo adopted the idea of the chariot and its charioteer,
Metatron, and applied it to the Logos. Cf. Abelson, Jeivish Mysticism;
Jewish EncyclopcEdia, Art. Chariot. This is tempting, but so far I
have found nothing else to show that Dante ever heard of this particu-
lar conception of the visio Dei.
^ That the relation of the prophets of the Old Testament and the
saints of the New to the first coming of Christ is continued in their
relation to His eucharistic presence is shown in a Corpus Christi ludus.
(AUdeutsche Schauspiele, ed. Mone). It is headed "Incipit ludus utilis
pro devotione simplicium intimandus et peragendus die corporis Christi
vel infra octaves, de fide kathoUca." Beginning with Adam and Eve
the Old Testament characters repeat their foretellings of Christ, and
alternately the New Testament characters, John the Baptist, apostles
and magi, give their experience. At the end the Pope sums it all up in
the eucharist: —
"daz wir njamn^r muessen ersterben,
wir mussen gotes hulde erwerben,
da^uns sin heylger lychnam werde gegeben
czii eynem geleyte in daz ewige leben.
daz uns daz alien musse gesehen,
dar um so sprecht amen."
It will be noticed that this arrangement is much the same as that in
Lydgate's poem referred to on p. 98.
THE DIVINE COMEDY 105
qui venis" as they, too, scatter flowers.^ Now these words,
slightly modified, as is also the angelic salutation,^ are the
very last sung by the assistants before the canon of the mass.
The Sanctus, which embodies the heavenly worship of the
Lamb that was slain, is joined to the Benedidus, the worship
offered on Palna Sunday to the Lamb about to be led to
the slaughter.^ The significance of the words in the liturgy
is undoubtedly, that as they were first sung to welcome
Christ into His city of Jerusalem, so now they greet Christ
Whom the faithful expect on the altar at the words of
consecration.^ In this chant the eucharistic meaning,
implicit in the character of procession, is fully unfolded.
VIII
But the heart of the Corpus Christi pageant is the host
under its canopy, while here the festival centres in the veiled
1 Purg. XXX: 18-20.
2 76. XXIX: 85-87.
^ "Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt
cceU et terra gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis. Benedictus qui venit in
nomine Domini. Hosanna in excelsis."
"Post finitum hymnum: Sanctus, Sanclus, Sanctus, inclinant se crr-
cumstantes, venerando divinam majestatem cum angelis, et Domini
incamationem cum turbis." Hildebert of Lavardin, Liber de expositione
misscE, Migne, CLXXI: 1161.
^ "To the praise of the triune God follows the jubilant salutation
of the Redeemer, who wiU soon appear mystically on the altar 'in
fulness of mercy.' The hymn concludes with the triumphal chant with
which the Savior was welcomed by the multitudes as Prince of Peace
and conqueror of death at His solemn entrance into Jerusalem, and
with which He is now again saluted at His coming on the altar. . . .
How profoundly significant is this formula of worship, this grateful
and joyous praise of the Savior inserted here, at this part of the Mass,
when He is on the point of re-appearing in our midst as a victim, as
formerly He entered into Jerusalem to accomplish on the Cross the
bloody sacrifice." Nicholas Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass., tr.
St. Louis, 1902, pp. 565-567.
106 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
figure of Beatrice. She appears in its midst as suddenly and
as silently as the sacramental presence of Christ comes to
the altar at the words of consecration. It is for her that the
lights blaze, the flowers are strewn, and the great cry of
greeting and welcome goes up. She is the burden of the
chariot beside which Faith, Hope, and Charity circle in a
dance even as the bull of Pope Urban had required.^ One
naturally asks why Dante's lost love should return to him
as the main figure of this triumph of Christian worship,
enthroned within the church, hailed as is the miracle of
transubstantiation, honored, as is the host, in solemn proces-
sion? Why, indeed, if not to show at the outset of her visible
return that she is now and hereafter not the lost love but
the mystic Beatrice, divinely appointed agent of Dante's
salvation and enlightenment?
It is quite true that, even in his most earthly mood,
Dante never failed to find spiritual significance in his rela-
tion to Beatrice. At his first meeting with Bice Portinari,
the neighbor's little daughter, his eyes were opened and he
knew something of the function and power of love. When
he came to write of the experiences of his childhood and
first youth in the New Ldfe, discerning more clearly her
meaning for him, he spoke of her as blessedness, as salvation,
for her name is blessedness, and in her salutation is his
salvation. But the great purpose of his life was to pay her
the supreme tribute, to write of her what had never before
been written of any lady, and so throughout the Divine
Comedy he treats of her as the mirror which reflects into his
soul the light of God, an illumination whereby he may find
the way which leads to his true native comitry. The figure
is plastic ; God speaks at sundry times and in divers manners,
and Beatrice in the Divine Comedy has been variously inter-
preted as a symbol of spiritual wisdom, of theology, the
^ Vide, ut sup., p. 93.
THE DIVINE COMEDY 107
divine science, of the revelation of God in Scripture, of the
authority of the church. She is by turns all of these, for
she stands for religion in the sense of the tie which binds man
to God, for union and communion with Him. As in the
record of his young life, the New Life, so also in that of
his mature experience, the Divine Comedy, Dante's end and
object are the same, her salutation, his salvation; though
his conception of the scope of these develops steadily. So
it is by no new allegory, but rather by a logical continua-
tion of the original that Beatrice, heart and reason of the
pageant in the Earthly Paradise, is the symbol of the sacra-
ment of the altar, crown and centre of all Christian worship
as well as the chief means of grace and salvation; at once
the burden of the church and its glory; last legacy of Christ,
made possible by His twofold nature which carries earth
to heaven and brings down heaven to earth.
No doubt this whole conception of the mystic procession,
and especially that of the place of Beatrice in it, is disturb-
ing, almost shocking, at first presentation. It is difficult
to believe that so complex a meaning underlies the decora-
tive details, or that Dante could have intended so to exalt
Beatrice as to make her the figure of the eucharistic Christ.
But modern readers have entirely lost the habit of allegory,
they resent being puzzled, and so they are apt to declare
not only that the color and texture of the veil are quite
worth while for themselves, but to go further and say that
the meaning it is said to conceal may exist only in the over-
subtle mind of the inquirer. But, whatever may be the artis-
tic value of an allegory of the Middle Ages, it is hardly fair
to the men who created it to take beauty of form and color
as the aim and end of their work. To them the value of it
lay in the adjustment of means to end, in the vividness and
accuracy with which the spiritual might be set forth through
the material. At first a means of reaching the infinite
through the finite, allegory came to be an obsession com-
108 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
pelliBg men to reverse the process and scrutinize the whole
of creation, not for its own sake but for its hidden meaning.
The most highly trained intellects of the Middle Ages
devoted themselves to this sort of interpretation and found
no created thing too humble or commonplace to illustrate
the things of the spirit. Thus finding the great mirrored in
the small, they saw themselves as close followers of their
Master who took a grain of mustard seed as the symbol of
His kingdom. Moreover, while one thing is susceptible of
half a dozen spiritual interpretations, many figures may be
required to present as many different aspects of one reality,
until at last the intricate results of this way of thinking and
writing seem to us little more than masterpieces of inge-
nuity.* But, whether we scornfully dismiss this trait as
"childish," or sentimentalize about it as "childlike," it is
always to be reckoned with in the study of medieval
literature.
This method of illustrating great truths and conveying
instruction concerning them was, of course, used in regard
to the sacraments. To Hugh of St. Victor the whole universe,
seen and unseen, from the beginning of the world to the last
judgment, was a vast and many-sided symbol of God, and
in it might be found, by him who would search humbly,
patiently, and thoroughly, the figures of that sacramental
plan of salvation, in itself a symbol of the grace and goodness
of God. Sacraments are symbolized in creation, but they
^ Numerous examples of this are to be found in the AUegorioe in Uni-
versam sacram Scripturam of Rabanus Maurus, Migne, (CXII: 849 ff).
There is no fixed connection between any one thing and its allegorical
meaning, all is fluid. For instance, butter may signify the humanity of
Christ, the teaching of the patriarchs, the contemplative life, the lust
of the flesh, the fruitfulness of a good act, the anointing with spiritual
virtues, the oil of penitence. But the humanity of Christ may be
figured by a diadem as well as by butter, while His divinity is signified
by the head, and His office as light of the world by a candlestick.
And so on indefinitely.
THE DIVINE COMEDY 109
are at the same time symbols of hidden virtue.^ And so
Hugo leads up to the exposition of the great climax of all
sacramental imagery, the eucharist.
Moreover, it was not only an age of allegory but one of
dramatic interpretation as well. The mass itself is a great
drama, but in the interest of even greater vividness all
manner of more or less dramatic material was introduced
into the celebration of it.
"From the tenth century people took all manner of Uberties
with the text of the Missal. It was the time of farced Kyries and
Glorias, of dramatic and even theatrical ritual, of endlessly vary-
ing and lengthy prefaces, into which interminable accounts from
Bible history and lives of saints were introduced. This tendency
did not even spare the Canon, although the specially sacred char-
acter of this part tended to prevent people from tampering with
it as recklessly as they did with other parts of the Missal." *
Dante is always dramatic in his presentation and he
avowedly intended the use of the most complicated allegory.
Moreover, he felt no irreverence whatever in identifying
Beatrice as a figure of Christ, commenting on the name of
her companion, Giovanna, as being the same as that of
Giovanni, the Baptist, who was the forerunner of the true
light of the world,^ and putting into her mouth on the eve of
her departure for Paradise the reassuring words of Christ
Himself:
" Modicum, et non videbitis me,
Et iterum, beloved sisters mine,
Modicum, et vos videbitis me." *
There is surely no reason to suppose that he need have
felt the slightest hesitation about taking his glorified lady
1 Cf. H. O. Taylor, The Medieval Mind, II: 67-104.
^ Adrian Fortescue, Cath. Enc, Art. Canon.
3 Vita Nuova, XXIV.
* Purg. XXXIII: 10-12. Also St. John, XVI: 16.
110 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
in the Earthly Paradise as a symbol of the sacrament in
which Christ continues His presence in the church.
Nor is Dante quite alone in this conception of his lady.
It has its analogies in those poems to the Virgin which in
their language have so close a connection with lady worship
and in which Madonna is compared to the pot of manna,
to Bethlehem, the house of bread, to the ark of the covenant
which contained the manna from heaven, and to the taber-
nacle within which was the glory of God. In several instances
in the German vernacular she is addressed as the Grail, and
the comparison is also carried over to the praise of the lady;
the beloved one is the heart's Grail, her lover will not be
alone, for she is to be to him the highest Grail which pro-
tects from every woe.^
X
Details of the episode tend to strengthen such an inter-
pretation of the significance of Beatrice. She is that lady
who appears veiled in white in the midst of the angelic
festival,^ In eucharistic devotion Christ is over and over
again spoken of as hidden beneath the veils of bread and
wine. They conceal Christ as things are concealed from us
by a physical veil.^ St. Bernard, interpreting the pillar of
cloud in the wilderness, says it foretold most truly the holy
sacrament in which the majesty of God, the splendor of
which mortal infirmity could not bear, is veiled to our eyes.*
^ For the references to these poems, but not for the inferences drawn
from them, I am indebted, as 1 have said (p. 84), to Hertz. The text
of them will be found in the Appendix, p. 134.
2 Purg. XXX: 31, 65-69.
^ "Per modvun tegimaenti, sicut impedimur videre id quod est vela-
tum quocumque corporal! velamine." Summa, Pt. Ill, Qu. LXXVI,
Art. 7.
'' "Quae est autem nubes quae praecedit vero IsraeUtas, nisi veris-
Btmum et sanctissimum corpus tuum quod in altari sumimus? in quo
velatur nobis altitudo dei, immensitas majestatis tuse, cujus et calorem
THE DIVINE COMEDY 111
In the Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, Christ says to the
soul: "In that place thou didst see and taste the abyss of
the Trinity, whole God and whole man, concealed and
veiled in that whiteness that thou sawedst in the bread." ^
The same figure is later elaborated in one of Calderon's
autos, the Divine Philothea, in which the wandering prince
wears a veil. This veil is lifted by Faith. When the divine
Philothea mourns the departure of the prince she is assured
that Faith will raise another veil so that he can still be seen
by the eyes of believers. Thereupon an altar is shown with
the host and chalice. This is a dramatic presentation of
St. Bernard's "Glorious and beloved bride, on earth thou
hast the bridegroom in the sacrament, in heaven without the
veil." 2
Seen across the stream, veiled beneath the angelic festival,
Beatrice is even more beautiful than Dante's memory of
her. He trembles with amazement, and it is only when the
griffin's twofold image is reflected in her eyes that he can
understand its meaning,^ — that is the eucharist is the ex-
tension of the Incarnation, and only by its means can man
comprehend the significance of God made man for man's
salvation. This double symbolizing of Christ, as God in-
carnate by the griffin and as the host in Beatrice, is in har-
mony with the conception very often expressed in religious
literature, — that Christ is both giver and gift, priest and
victim.
The flowing tears, which the angels' song of hope and
forgiveness brings to Dante's eyes frozen with awe of the
et splendorem mortalis infinnitas sustinere non posset, nisi mediatrix
nubes interposita et ardorem desuper temperaret, et tutam subtus viam
praemonstraret." — Meditatio in passionem, XII, Migne, CLXXXIV: 761.
1 Ch. CXI, tr. Thorold.
* "Gloriosa et amabilis sponsa, in terra sponsum habes in sacra-
mento, in coelis habitura es sine velamento." — Sermo de excellentia SS.
Sacramenti, Migne, CLXXXIV: 985.
3 Purg. XXXI: 115 ff.
112 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
presence of Beatrice, have their counterpart in many Hves
of the saints, for tears were regarded as a gift of grace. St.
Cuthbert, says Bede, felt compunction so deeply that he
never finished mass without a profusion of tears. ^ Thomas
Cantelupe (d. 1282) always wept profusely at mass,^ and
Robert Winchelsy, archbishop of Canterbury, wept so in
saying mass that the corporal and altar cloth were wet.*
In perfect correspondence also with religious experience is
Dante's abject humility under the reproof of Beatrice which
seems to put him in jarring contrast with the crowned and
mitred lord of himself whom Virgil had brought to the
borders of the Earthly Paradise. But it is fitting that even
at the summit of human wisdom he should know the sense
of utter unworthiness which is the almost universal experi-
ence of those who approach sacramental mysteries, a feeling
which finds expression in the mass when the oflSciant strikes
thrice upon his breast and when he says, "Domine, non sum
dignus ut intres sub tectum meum." He also experiences
the swoon which occurs frequently among mystics, especially
when overcome with reverential awe of the sacraments.
Again, as Eve lost Paradise because she was impatient of
the veil and would fain know as God,^ so Dante is reproved
for the steadfastness of his gaze at the veiled Beatrice; ^
he must not seek to know more than is revealed lest he lose
the blessedness of the second Paradise — the vision of God
in its sacramental form. The subsequent commination of
the church by Beatrice has an interesting parallel in the
Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, in which eucharistic
enthusiasm is followed by severe condemnation of the sins
of the priesthood, doubly black in view of the fact that it
is by its agency alone that the sacramental presence of Christ
may be vouchsafed to the church. In the Dialogue Christ
1 Vita S. Cuth. XVI. Migne, XCIV: 756.
2 Acta SS., Oct. 1: 603. * Purg. XXIX: 27.
» Wilkins, op. cit. II: 489. » lb. XXXII: 9.
THE DIVINE COMEDY 113
says : " Even as these ministers require cleanness in the chaHce
in which this Sacrifice is made, even so do I require the purity
and cleanness of their heart and soul and mind." ^
XI
All these are details, each throwing some weight on the
side of eucharistic interpretation, and so worth consideration.
But, after all, the most important point is the need of such
an interpretation of the pageant to account for its occurrence
in the Divine Comedy on the threshold of Paradise. So taken,
it ceases to be a mere decorative intrusion, as so many
readers have felt it, and assumes structural importance.
Dante, in accord with medieval theology, conceived the
goal of man to be the blessedness of eternal life, and this
consists in the fruition of the divine aspect, the vision of
God in the celestial Paradise. There man like the angels
will see God face to face. In this world he must be content
to see as in a glass darkly, he needs means adapted to his
present limitations. The whole mount of Purgatory as
Dante climbs it shows the service of the church in providing
such means. He hears at every terrace the prayers and
hynms of the liturgy, passes through the sacrament of
penance as a gate, and is constantly reminded of the Chris-
tian classification of sins and virtues. Using the means of
grace thus offered, he passes into the Earthly Paradise, the
goal of the ascent of Purgatory even as the Empyrean is the
goal of the ascent through the spheres. This Earthly Para-
dise signifies to him the blessedness of this life, and the
fathers very generally considered it to represent the church.
The blessedness of the heavenly Paradise is the full vision
of God. In what vision is the blessedness of the Earthly
Paradise, the church?
• Ch. CXI, tr. Thorold. Cf. the discussion on sacerdotal purity,
p. 69.
114 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
A\Tiat, indeed, but the vision in the eucharist, the supreme
means by which the faithful, purified in heart, may see God
even in this Ufe? ^ This view appears in a passage from
Hugh of St. Victor, great scholastic mystic, honored by
Dante in Paradise.^ He says there are three paradises : the
first is that of man's innocence, and in it was the material
tree of life; the second is the church, and of it the tree of
life is Christ Who gave His life on the cross and gives it
daily in the eucharist; the third is the paradise of God,
whereof the tree is the divine wisdom, fountain of life and
origin of all good;^ in other words, knowledge of God, life
eternal.
That the allegorical presentation of the sacramental
visio Dei should centre in Beatrice is as logical as inevitable.'*
Dante was churchman and theologian, finding his salvation
in the means of grace provided in the church; but he was
^ Cf. the vision attributed to Thomas Aquinas by Lydgate in A
Procession of Corpus Christi :
"Pis hoolly Thomas, called of Algwyne,
By hie myracle J^at sawghe persones three,
An ooste ful rounde, a sunne about it shyne,
Joyned in oon by parfyte vnytee,
A gloryous likenesse of l^e Trynitee,
Gracyous and digne for to beo comended,
With feyth, with hope, with parfyte charitee,
Al oure byleeve is Jjere Inne comprehended."
Minor Poems of Lydgate, ed. McCracken, p. 42. Cf. also frontis-
piece in which the centre shows the rose crown of Paradise enclosing
the Trinity. Above are three visions of God on earth — St. Francis
receiving the stigmata; the holy face of St. Veronica and the mass of
St. Gregory — a transubstantiation miracle. Vide pp. 78, 79.
2 Par. XII: 133.
' De Area Noe Morali, III: XVII., Migne, CLXXVI: 646. For
text vide. App. p. 136.
* The conception of Dante's love for Beatrice as a religious experi-
ence is developed by Professor J. B. Fletcher, Religion of Beauty in
Women, pp. 30 ff. I have done little more than work out this experience
in terms of sacramental devotion.
THE DIVINE COMEDY 115
no less of the school of the dolce stil nuovo, which adding to
the lady worship of Provence a spiritual quality, found in
the beauty of the beloved a path leading to the essence of
beauty, goodness reflecting God. At his first glimpse of her
he knew that his beatification had come to him.^ She is
called Beatrice by many who knew not wherefore. Her
salutation is to him salvation, and its withdrawal leaves
him utterly desolate, excommunicate. Only when he has
learned to ask nothing for himself and to devote himseK to
her praise can he find the way to true union:
"Ladies, the end and aim of my Love was but the salutation of
that lady of whom I conceive that ye are speaking; wherein alone
I found that beatitude which is the goal of desire. And now that it
hath pleased her to deny me this, Love, my Master, of his great
goodness, hath placed all my beatitude where my hope will not fail
me." 2
Losing his young life and love he kept it "unto life eter-
nal." In the New Life he had found the love of God in
loving her; in the Divine Comedy he comes to the knowledge
of God through knowing her. He had hoped to write con-
cerning his lady what had not before been written of any
woman; and so, when he came to celebrate the praise of
the eucharist — glory of the Earthly Paradise, the church
— the sacrament which is the foretaste of the beatific vision,
he could personify it under no other form than that of the
lady who had led him to blessedness in his youth and by
whose hand he hoped still to be led to gaze continually on
His countenance "Qui est per omnia saecula benedictus."
^ Vita Nuova, I.
^ Tr. Rossetti. "Madonne, lo fin3 del mio amore fu gi^ il salute di
questa donna, forse di cui vol intendete, ed in quelle dimorava la beati-
tudine, ch'6 11 fine di tutti li miei desiri. Ma pel che le piacque di
negarle a me, lo mio signore, Amore, la sua mercede, ha posta tutta la
mia beatitudine in quelle, che non mi puete venir meno." — Vita Nuova,
XVIII.
116 THE MYSTIC VISION IN
XII
To recapitulate briefly this special study of the closing
cantos of the Purgatory: we have a scene set in the Earthly
Paradise, to reach which Dante has climbed the weary heights
of purification. In it he sees a great pageant, strikingly
like those processions of the blessed sacrament of which the
greatest is that of Corpus Christi day. The chariot of the
church, drawn by Christ, serves to bring into the picture
the veiled figure of Beatrice, who occupies the central posi-
tion accorded the host in such processions and who is hailed
in the very words used daily in the mass to greet the coming
of Christ to the altar at the moment of consecration. If
Beatrice is here what these words imply, namely the symbol
of transubstantiation, by which God continues to dwell with
men, which affords the highest degree of illumination possi-
ble to the human soul this side of the beatific vision, then in-
deed is the Earthly Paradise type and pledge of the heavenly.
The glory of both is the same; in the one, as runs the lan-
guage of the mass, the "Lamb of God who taketh away the
sins of the world;" in the other, as the Apocalypse declares,^
"the Lamb is the light thereof." The reward of both is the
vision of God; here below in the sacramental mirror, in the
glass darkly; there, face to face. The eucharistic vision
must share the imperfection of all our vision here, but it is
still the foretaste and earnest of that visio Dei to be fulfilled
in Paradise, the complete illumination of the soul, salvation,
beatitude, the goal of man,
" Qui nobis das tam dulcia
prsegustando prseludia,
te frui des in patria
beata nobis gaudia." ^
* Rev. xxi: 23. ^ Hymn, Jesu, nostra refectio, Daniel, IV; 271.
APPENDICES
APPENDICES
I. THE EUCHARIST AS A MEANS TO
THE VISION OF GOD '
Dionysius calls the second part of his work the ecclesiastical
rather than the earthly hierarchy, because the second has the same
heavenly scope and end as the first, — the union with God. But
as man is incapable of the direct knowledge of God vouchsafed to
the heavenly orders he is mercifully provided with symbols whereby
he may be brought to such degree of knowledge as is possible for
him. To these sjonbols he is led by the divinely appointed eccle-
siastical hierarchy, the custodian of them.
Like the Celestial Hierarchy the Ecclesiastical is composed of
Triads.
I. The three great symbolic sacraments: (a) Baptism, which
is purification; (6) The Eucharist (synaxis) which is illumination;
(c) Unction, which is perfecting.
II. Bishops, Priests, Deacons.
III. (a) Illuminated monks, who are perfected. (6) Initiated
laymen, who are illuminated, (c) Catecumens, who are purified.
He works out the first two sacraments very carefully, but does
very little with the third. The process by which the neophyte is
taken by the ecclesiastical authority and led to the waters of puri-
fication is elaborated with a symbolic interpretation of every step
in the liturgy, and the eucharist is treated in the same way.
The first passage mentioned in the text treats of the sacraments
as the mirrors by means of which God is revealed to man, and runs
as follows:
Cseterum sublimiores istae naturae ordinesque, quarum veneran-
dam supra feci mentionem, et incorporeae sunt, et spiritaUs ac
supermundiaUs sacer illarum magistratus existit; nostrum vero
1 Vide p. 20.
120 APPENDICES
cernimus, diversa ab ipsis ratione, sensibilium varietate signorum
multiplicari, quibus sacrosancte ad uniforraem deiformitatem pro
captu nostro, et ad Deum divinamquc virtutcm promovemur. Istae
quidem, utpote mentes, prout illis fas est intelligunt; nos vero a
sensu perccptis imaginibus ad divinas, quantum possumus, con-
templationes sublevamur. Et ut vere dicam, unum quidem est,
quod omnes qui deiformes sunt appetunt, ejus tamen, quod omnino
unum atque idem est, non unimode participes existunt, sed prout
cuilibet pro merito sortem divina trutina distribuit. I:ii.
Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, Migne P. G. lll:370ff.
The next closes with a prayer for true knowledge of the eucharist:
Cseterum his, quae aditorum vestibulis eleganter adpicta rudiorum
contemplationi satis sunt, relictis, ab effectis ad causas progre-
diemur, deinde sacram nostram synaxin, atque consentaneam
rerum spiritalium, Jesu praelucente, contemplationem conspicabi-
mur, beatam primitivorum pulchritudinem prseclare prorsus evi-
brantem. Sed tu, o divinissimum ac sacrosanctum sacramentum,
circumposita tibi, symbolice senigmatum operimenta revelans,
liquido nobis manifesteris, mentalesque nostros obtutus singular!
et aperta luce adimpleto. ni:ii.
And the last connects sacramental union with the fruition of
God:
Est autem hsec deificatio, Dei quaedam, quoad fieri potest, assi-
milatio unioque. Omni porro ordini sacro communis scopus est,
erga Deum et res divinas continua delectio, quae divinitus seritur,
et per ejus unionem consummatur, quaeque hac prior est, iUi
adversantium omnimoda et irrevertibilis fuga, cognitio rerum
qua res sunt, sacrae veritatis visio scientiaque, simplicis perfec-
tionis ejus qui summe simplex est, divina participatio, fruitio
intuitionis, quae omnem sui contemplatorem spiritali modo reficit
deificatque. I:iii.
APPENDICES 121
II. THE "RITUAL" THEORY ^
The theories advanced by Dr. Nitze^ and Miss Weston' are
important contributions to recent Grail criticism, and seem at first
sight to present a radically new departure. Both critics beheve the
Grail legends are based on agrarian cults, but Professor Nitze holds
that the clew to the origin of the story is to be found in the Eleu-
sinian mysteries, and Miss Weston thus expresses herself: "While
admitting the value of much of Dr. Nitze 's work, and the light it
has thrown on certain features of the legend, I cannot admit that
the Eleusinian cult provides us with as satisfactory an explanation
of the peculiar features and incidents of the Grail story as may
be found in the more widely diffused Adonis ritual." *
All workers in the Grail material may well be grateful for the
hght the research connected with these theories has thrown on it.
It is particularly helpful that so many apparently irrelevant de-
tails in the narratives are explained by it. But one may wilhngly
grant that there are many elements of fertility rites preserved in
the Grail story and still believe that these elements came into it
through the medium of Christian worship, and that the story-
tellers were absolutely without consciousness as to their origin. I
had done some work on this hypothesis before becoming aware of
that of Miss Peebles. ^ She has carefully considered many of the
points in which I am interested, especially the analogies between
the Grail ritual and the early liturgies of the Christian church.
I should, however, like to call attention to additional material
which seems to me to strengthen her arguments and may, per-
haps, bring in elements untouched by her.
It should be noted, in the first place, that many modern historians
of the eucharist not only admit its connection with earlier rites,
but even rejoice that the Christian sacrament was at once the
beginning of a new dispensation and the fulfilment, not only of
the law and the prophets of the Old Testament, but also of the
1 Vide p. 39.
- Proceedings of the Modern Language Association, XXIV.
' Legend of Sir Perceval and the Qiiest of the H. G.
* Quest of the H. G., pp. 131 f.
^ Legend of Longinus, pp. 195-221.
122 APPENDICES
world-wide ceremonies which expressed the aspiration of primi-
tive man to share in the perpetual miracle of life.^
Coming from primitive sacrifice to the more organized rites of
the Eleusinian mysteries we find them also recognized as fore-
runners of Christian rites and ceremonies:
"The influence of the mysteries, and of the rehgiou^ cults which
were analogous to the mysteries, was not simply general; they
modified in some important respects the Christian sacraments of
baptism and the eucharist."^
"It seems fair to infer that, since there were great changes in the
ritual of the sacraments, and since the new elements of these
changes were identical with elements that already existed in cog-
nate and largely diffused forms of worship, the one should be
due to the other." ^
Religious ceremony inherited from the remote past of the race
has, as a rule, a double history. The symbolism by which man
* "When the eucharist was instituted the idea of communion with
God by means of a sacred meal had long been familiar. Among the
Greeks this idea underlay the mystic food and drink in the mysteries
of Eleusis. All over the world this has furnished the highest point of
savage rites." — Darwell Stone, History of the Doctrine of the Holy
Eucharist, I: 2.
The question is also considered by a conservative contemporary
writer. Bishop Brent: "In order that we may arrive at the simple
meaning which contains all other meanings, let us consider the origin
of sacrificial feasts of which the Holy Communion is the final develop-
ment. We shall not think solely of what can be learned from a study
of Jewish sacrifices, but shall include what has been revealed by a study
of comparative reUgions." After discussing the reUgious use of meat
as food he says: "Jesus Christ gathers up the primitive thoughts of
our savage untutored ancestors and explains them. He lays hold of
their gropings in the dark and illumines them." — The Revelation of
Discovery, pp. 100-102. Vide also H. C. Trumbull, The Blood Cove-
nant, especially pp. 271-293; A. C. L. Brown, From Cauldron of
Plenty to Grail, Modern Philology, XIV: 7.
^ Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian
Church, p. 294. Cf. also A. E. J. Rawlinson, in Foundations, pp. 181-198.
» lb., p. 305.
APPENDICES 123
has once expressed either his experience or his aspirations is never
lost, but in varying forms and modifications still answers his need.
But while on the one hand it amounts with him to the highest
flights of worship, on the other it descends into the pit from which
it was digged and becomes the magic rite, the charm, the taboo.
The ritual of the eucharist is no exception to this. From the barest
Lord's Supper to the Pontifical High Mass it is the great cere-
monial expression of man's aspiration to God. At the same time
it has been reduced to the service of sheer superstition.^
That features derived from primitive worship were conspicuous
in the eucharistic rites of the early British church is more than
probable.^ That the Celtic story of the quest for a vessel of in-
crease, very likely itself a feature of early agrarian rites, was
colored by the rites of a more or less corrupted Christianity may
very well be true. Moreover, there is no doubt whatever, as has
just been said, of the value of the study of these primitive rites in
accounting for many apparently irrelevant details of the narra-
tive. But such admissions by no means aUow the claim that there
was a conscious survival of fertihty rites of which the Grail legend
is a record; that de Borron was an "initiate" of such rites, treat-
ing his subject from the "inside," as Miss Weston maintains;'
nor that knowledge of any such illicit ritual accounts for the
admitted coldness of the ecclesiastical authorities to the legend.
^ For example, the custom in some parts of Germany where the
priest, with the host suspended from his neck in a bag, rode around the
fields on Whitsunday prajang for the fertility of the fields. This finds
a literary expression:
"In villages the husbandmen about their corne doe ride.
With many Crosses, Banners, and Sir John their Priest beside;
— Who in a bag about his necke doth beare the blessed breade."
Fourth Booke of the Popish Kingdom or reigne of Antichrist written
in Latine verse by Thomas Naogeorgus (or Kirschmeier) and englyshed
by Barnabe Googe, Anno 1570. Caesarius of Heisterbach (op. cit. IX:
ix,) gives instances of the use of the host as a charm. He tells of a
woman who, desiring to improve her garden, abstracted a host at the
time of communion and buried it among the cabbages.
* Vid. ut. sup., p. 51. Cf. also Miss Peebles, op. cit., pp. 203-216.
' Legend of Sir Perceval, II : 279.
124 APPENDICES
As to this last point it may be said that it is not at all surprising
that Norman ecclesiastics were not enthusiastic about the Grail
story. They were heart and soul in favor of Roman supremacy
and not likely to approve of the audacious claim that Joseph of
Arimathea brought to Britain special instructions as to the eu-
charist. Nor would they at all care for the implication that the
special usage of the Celtic church, which they steadily strove to
extirpate with such success that we cannot be at all sure of its
exact nature, had any such divine authorization. Neither polit-
ically nor religiously could they welcome a narrative embodying
any such claims.
I have already said something as to Miss Weston's points con-
cerning the ceUbacy of Alain ^ and the "secret" of the Grail.^ I
should like, in conclusion, to add a rejoinder to her assertion that
"no Catholic writer of the twelfth or twentieth century would
dare to transport the 'Mystery of the Mass' to a banqueting hall
and make it the centre of a roman d'aventure: there are things
qui ne sefont pas, and this is one of them." ^
It is well known that the church has always been obhged to
restrict very carefully the privilege of celebrating mass in private
chapels as well as that of having the host reserved in great houses.
The use of portable altars was limited because of abuse in this very
direction. Giraldus Cambrensis is so very expUcit as to where mass
may be said as to make it evident that usage in this respect was
very loose in the Welsh marches. * But there is incidental evi-
dence that, from the romancer's point of view, there was nothing
surprising or shocking in the idea of having the reserved host in
close proximity to, if not actually within the banqueting hall.
In Perlesvaus (XXXV: iv), the hermits march into the royal hall
in white garments with a red cross on the breast. As soon as they
enter "il annorerent Deu nostre Seingnor et batirent lor coupes."
They beat their breasts, "mea culpa, mea maxima culpa," the
gesture of utter humility and unworthiness before the host, made
also by Arthur when he was privileged to see the child on the altar
at mass (ib., I:vi), and "comman^a Dieu a proier et k battre sa
coupe." It was God our Lord in the host Who was thus honored,
1 Ut sup., p. 74. » Op ciL, p. 300 n.
^ Ut sup., p. 65. * Gemma EccL, I : vii.
APPENDICES 125
but the romancer evidently had no feeling of irreverence in intro-
ducing this custom into his narrative; nor is there good reason to
suppose there would have been any more hesitation in utilizing for
literary purposes a more elaborate ceremonial centring in eucharis-
tic devotion.
III. THE RELICS OF JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA
REMOVED FROM MOIENMOUTIERS ^
Tempore KaroU Magni, vir quidam venerabilis, Fortunatus
nomine, patriarcha Hierosolymitanus, corpus S. Josephi decuri-
onis, sepultoris domini, paganos qui tunc terram sanctam vasta-
bunt fugiens, apportavit et ad Medianum monasterium deveniens,
ibidem cum ipsis reliquiis se coUocavit. Sed postmodum, ipsum
sancti corpus, per insolentiam canonicorum qui ilium locum possi-
derunt, a quibusdam monachis peregrinis noctu furatum, asporta-
tum est, Et ita illud monasterium taU est thesauro viduatum.
Richer, Senon. mon. chronicon. II: 6; cit., P. Paris, Romania, I: 457.
IV. THE DISCOVERY OF ARTHUR'S TOMB AT
GLASTONBURY 2
Ad ann. 1193, de corpore Arthur! magni dicitur quod circa hunc
annum sit inventum in Anglia in insula Avalonis ubi est Abbatia
sancti Dunstani Glastonia vulgariter dicta ad sanctum Petrum
de Glastemberin, Batoniensis diocesis, et hoc factum est per indus-
triam cujusdam monachi ejusdem ecclesise novi Abbatis qui totum
cimiterium loci diUgenter excavando fecit investigari, animatus
verbis, quae ohm (adhuc) monachus audiverat ab ore Henrici
patris Richardi, et inventa est tumba lapidea in profundo terrae
defossa, super quam lamina plumbea quibusdam versibus erat
insignata
Hie jacet Arturus, flos Regum gloria Regni,
Quern probitas morum commendat laude perenni;
Hie jacet Arturus Britonum rex ultor inultus.
Alberic des Trois Fontaines, cit. San Marte, Essay, p. 17.
» Vide p. 49. * Vide p. 49.
126 APPENDICES
V. THE EARLIEST KNOWN USE OF THE WORD
" TRANSUBSTANTIATION " '
The text is Hosea XII: 10. In vianihus prophetarum assimila-
tus sum. The following passage occurs towards the end: "Cum
intro ad altare Dei, spectaculum f actus sum Deo, et angeUs, et
hominibus; si poUutus sto carne et spiritu, quam abominabilis
sum! Attendamus. Antiochus Epiphanes idolum posuit in templo
Domini, obquam abominationem non licuit sacrificare in templo
donee initiatum fuerit. In hunc modum, si fuero vas incontinen-
tiae et libidinis, in altari juxta fiUum Virginis statuo filium Veneris.
Cum profero verba Canonis, et verbum transubstationis, et os
meum plenum est contradictione, et amaritudine, et dolo, quamvis
eum honorem labiis, tamen spuo in faciem Salvatoris. Cum
prsesumo sumere Dominum meum, et panem in os meum sic
poUutum, levius est in projicerem eum in lutum platearum. Ita-
que mundamini, qui fertis vasa Domini; mundamini qui refertis
verba Domini; qui offertis hostiam Domini; mundamini, qui defertis
aliis corpus Domini, ut mundati quod nunc simiUtudine geritis, quan-
doque rerum veritate capiatis.
Hildebert of Lavardin, Sermones de diver sis, VI.
Migm, CLXXI: 772.
VI. ARTHUR SEES A CHILD ON THE ALTAR
AT MASS 2
At ubi incepit dictus senex Missam, et venit usque ad ofifer-
torium, statim benigna Domina filium sacerdoti obtulit. Sacerdos
vero eum collocavit super corporale, juxta calicem. Cum autem
prevenisset ad immolationem hostiae, id est, ad verba Dominica,
Hoc est enim corpus meum, elevavit eundem puerum in manibus
suis. Rex vero Arthurus stans ad sacramentum illud Dominicum,
immo vere ipsum Dominum, suppUciter adorabat.
Johannis Glastoniensis, Chronica sive Historia de Rebus
Glastoniensibus, ed. The. Hearnius. Oxonii, 1716. 1:79.
1 Vide p. 70. ^ yi^ p. 77.
APPENDICES 127
VI. THE CHRIST OF ST. GREGORY ^
II uit celui homme crucefije en la crois que li angeles tenoit et
les cleus quil auoit ueu tenir al autre angele li estoient es pies et
es mains et la che[i]nture quil auoit entor lui si sambloit bien a
icele eure home qui fust en angoisse de mort. Apres regarda
ioseph[e] que la lance quil auoit ueue tenir al tiers angele estoifc
fichie parmi le cors al homme crucefie si en degoutoit contreual la
hanste vns ruissiaus qui nestoit ne tout sane ne tout aigue ne
porquant si sambloit ce a estre sane et aigue. Et desous ses pies
au crucefijet iut icele escuele que iosephses peires auoit eportee en
larche si U estoit auis que li sans des pies al crucefije degoutoit en
cele escuele.
Grand St. Graal, ed. Sommer, pp. 32, 33.
Lors regardant li compaignon et voQ]ent issir del vaissel .j.
home qui auoit les mains sanglentes et les pies et le cors si lor dist.
Mi cheualier et mi seriant et mi fil loial qui en ceste mortel vie estes
deuenu esperitel vous maues tant quis que iou ne me puis plus
vers vous celer si conuient que vous vees partie de mes repostailles
et de mes secres.
Queste, ed. Sommer, p. 190.
Atant ez-vous les deus damoiseles qui reviennent devent la
table et senble a monseignor Gauvain qu'il an avoit III et es-
garde contremont et li sanble estre U Graaus touz an char, et
voit par deseure, ce li est avis, un roi couronne, clofichi^ an une
croiz, et U estoit li glaives fichiez el cost6.
Perlesvaus, VI: xx
VIII. THE MYSTIC VISION IN THE GRAIL ^
Li preudons . . . commencha la messe. Et quant il ot faite sa
beneichon si prent corpus domini et fait signe a bohort quil viegne
auant. Et il si fait sagenoille deuant lui. Et quant il i est venus
li preudons U dist . bohort vols tu ce que ie tieng . Sire fait il oi bien.
Je voi que vous tones mon salueor et ma redemption en samblance
1 Vide p. 79. ^ vide p. 82.
128 APPENDICES
de pain. Et en tel maniere nel viesse ie mie. Mais mi oeil sont
si terrien quil ne peuent veoir les espirituels choses (ne il) nel me
laissent (autrement) veoir ains me tolent la vraie samblance.
Car de ce ne dout ie mie (que ce ne soit) \Taie chars et vrais homs
et enterriene deites. lors commencha a plorer trop durement.
Queste, ed. Sommer,^p. 119, 120.
Et quant il ot este grant piece a ienols si se leua et commencha
la messe de la glorieuse meire dieu . et quant il vint el secre de la
mes(s)e . et il ot ostee la platine de desus Ie saint veissel si apela
galaad et li dist . vien auant serians ihesu crist . si verras ce que
tu as tant desire a veoir. Et il se traist auant et regarde deuant
(dedens) Ie saint vaissel et si tost comme il ot . j. foi regarde si
commencha a trambler moult durement si tost comme la mortels
char commencha a regarder les esperitels choses. Lors tent galaad
ses mains vers Ie ciel si dist . Sire toi crie iou merci quant tu mas
acompli mon voloir. Car or voi iou tout apertement ce que langue
ne poroit dire ne cuers penser. Ici voi iou locoison de proeces et
les merueilles de toutes les autres . et puis quil est ensi bials dous
sires que vos maues acompli mes voloirs de veoir ce que iai tos
lors desire.
lb., p. 197.
IX. DATE OF THE CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION
ACCORDING TO CATALANS
viii. De eo tandem quod Grancolas scribit, delatam in Gallia
primum post annum MCCC Eucharistiam in solemn! processione
fuisse, videri potest eruditissimus Lupus, Tomo XI, Operum edi-
tionis Venetae in Dissertatione De scicris Processionibus, Cap. Ill,
ubi fuse ostendit Urbanum IV. Processionem licet non praeceperat,
omnino tamen probasse, ac in ItaUa inchoasse.
ix. Sed ut hanc rem uberius nos prosequamur, tametsi nonnuUi
addubitent, an ab Urbano simul cum ipso Festo sanctissimi Sacra-
menti instituta fuerit processio, quia scihcet de ilia ab Urbano in
sua Constitutione nulla fiat mentio, probabilius est, quod Clarissimi
Auctores docent, utrique solemnitatis auctorem fuisse, quippe cum
publica processio ex communi Ecclesiae usu ad Festi solemnitatem
^ Vide p. 95.
APPENDICES 129
pertineat, ut docet Jacobus Eveillon in Libro, De processionibus
Ecclesiasticis, Capite XVIII. Urbano quidem in ipsa institutione
ea mens fuit, ut omni genere solemnitatis, et plene, ut loquitur,
hoc festum celebraretur. Et certe plausus ille populorum, et
publica omnium ordinum tripudatio, exultatio, et jubilatio, quae
in celebratione hujus festi commemorantur a laudato Pontifice,
non seque videntur posse convenire divinis Officiis, quae statarie,
ut ajunt, in Choro a solis Clericis canuntur, ac pompae ipsi proces-
sionis; et in sola evectione Sanctissimi Sacramenti, quae fit pro-
cedendo per vias, et loca publica, cernitur imago triumphi illius
Christi, cujus causa ipsemet Institutor Urbanus, et Tridentini
Concilii Patres Sessione XIII Cap. v. dicunt institutum fuisse
hoc festum ad confundendam speciaUter haereticorum perfidiam,
atque insaniam.
X. Sunt quidem in hac sententia, non modo memoratus Lupus,
et Jacobus Eveillon in laudato Libro, Cap. XXV. verum etiam
Joannes Luziardus in Epitome Historice universalis, Cap.
CCXXXIII, Hermanus Scheder in Chronicis in VI aetate mundi,
Philippus Bergomas in supplemento Chronicorum, Onuphrius Pan-
vinius in Additionibus ad Platinam in Vita Urhani IV, Fredericus
Nausea in Catechismo Catholico Lib. VI, Capit XXXVIII. Joannes
Molanus in Natalibus Sanctorum Belgii die v Aprilis, Alphonsus
Ciaconius in Vitis Pontificum, ubi agit de Urbano IV. Henricus
Spondanus in continuatione Annalium Cardinalis Baronii anno
Christi MCCLXIV et alii, qui docent, Urbanum IV Romanum
Pontificem Maximum instituisse solemnitatem Corporis Christi
cum Processionibus, et Octavis a cunctis fidelibus celebrari.
Catalan!, Pontificale Romxinum, Vol. II:31L
X. EUCHARISTIC PROCESSIONS ^
(a) Palm Sunday
Cantata tertia legatur Evangelium Turba multa. Postea acce-
dens abbas, aut sacerdos, benedicat palmas, et flores et frondes
ante majus altare supra tapetum posita, acqua benedicta aspergat,
et incenset. Accedentes secretarii distribuant ea, palmas abbati,
et prioribus, et personis honestioribus, flores et frondes caeteris.
^ Vide p. 96.
130 APPENDICES
Interim cantore incipiente, cantatur antiphona Pueri Hebroeorum
et alia, Pueri Hebroeorum. His ita expletis profiscatur processio,
cantore incipiente quae ad banc processionem cantari oportet.
Qua de choro exeunte, pulsentur omnia signa. Praecedant famuli
cum vexillis, sequatur conversus (j. novitius), ferens situlam cum
acqua benedicta, alii duo portantes duas cruces; item duo cum
duobus candelabris accensis desuper cereis, alii duo ferentes duo
thuribula igne et thure referta. . . . Ipse enim distribuit quae
portanda sunt, et processionem ordinat. Hos sequantur duo
subdiaconi portantes duos textus EvangeUorum. Post quos laici
monachi, deinde infantes cum magistris. Post quos caeteri fratres
prsecedentes abbatem qui ultimos procedit, duo et duo, sicut sunt
priores.
Hsec sunt quae ad banc processionem cantanda sunt, vel omnia,
vel quantum permiserit spatium loci quo ituri sunt; Ante sex dies:
Cum appropinquaret, Prima autem azymorum, Dominus Jesus,
Cogitaverunt, Cum audisset populus, omnes collaudent. Cum
autem preventum fuerit ad ipsum locum, fiat statio a toto con-
ventu. Cantore autem incipiente antiphonam Occurrunt turbce,
exeant duo sacerdotes albis induti, qui portent feretrum, quod
parum ante diem ab eisdem sacerdotibus illuc debet esse delatum,
in quo et corpus Christi esse debet reconditum. Ad quod fere-
tnun praecedant statim qui vexilla portant et cruces et caetera quae
superius dicta sunt. Et stantibus iis qui feretrum portant,
stabunt et ipsi a dextra et a sinistra ipsius feretri, ordinate
sicut venerunt. Pueri vero accedentes stabunt, versis vultibus
ad ipso reliquos, cum magistris suis et quibusdam cantoribus qui
auxilio eis esse possunt. Majores vero versi erunt ad invicem, eo
modo quo in choro stare solent. Sic autem ordinetur haec statio,
ut modicum intervaUium sit inter pueros et majorem conventum.
Finita antiphona occurrunt turbae, incipiant pueri et qui cum eis
sunt antiphonam Hosanna filio David flectentes genua et in prin-
cipio, et in fine antiphonse, quia in utroque Hosanna dicitur. Quam
antiphonam chorus repetat, et similiter genua flectat. Deinde a
pueris cantetur antiphona cum angelis, in fine tantum antiphonae
genua flectentibus. Quae antiphona a conventu repetatur et
simiUter venia accipiatur.
TaUter his peractis, abbate vel cantore incipiente antiphonam
APPENDICES 131
Ave, rex noster, transeant portitores feretri per medium stationis,
praecedentibus his qui vexilla portant, et caeteris superius dictis
portitoribus, servato ab omnibus ordine in redeundo quem habue-
runt in eundo. Quibus transeuntibus flectent genua, non simul
omnes, sed singuli hinc et inde, sicut feretrum transibit ante eos.
Percantata hac antiphona, cantent et alia, si spatium loci plura
poposcerit. Cum venerint ad portas civitatis stationem faciant,
separatis ab invicem, prout locus patietur, utrisque lateribus,
feretrum vero ante introitum portarum sic ponatur super mensam
pallio coopertam ut prsedicti portitores, ex utroque latere stantes,
habeant ad feretrum in medio eorum positum versas facies suas.
Locus vero super introitum portarum honeste debet este paratus,
et cortinis (aulseis seu tapetibus) et dorsalibus.
Taliter ordinata statione, canant pueri de loco apto, et qui
praecepto cantoris cum eis erunt Gloria laus, et similiter chorus
respondeat. Pueri, Israel es tu Rex et chorus, Cui 'puerile decus;
item pueri, Plebs Hebrcea tibi, et chorus, Cui puerile, item pueri,
Coetus in excelsis, et chorus Gloria laus. His dictis inchoet
cantor responsorium Ingrediente Domine; et, ingrediente civita-
tem processione, duo majora signa pulsentur, donee caetera
signa, processione intrante in chorum, pulsentur ad missam. Sic
ordinata processio, veniens usque ante portas monasterii, faciat
stationem, servantibus pueris ordinem suum inter utrumque
chorum, Deponatur iterum feretrum super mensam paUio co-
opertam. Cantor vero sic antea incoeptum habeat responsorium
Collegerunt pontificies ut tunc prope cantum sit; quo cantato
tres aut quattuor fratres, induti cappis quas secretarius ibi paratas
habeat, canant versum Unus autem ex ipsis, stantes inter chorum
et rehquias. Quo finito, cum regressu intrent ecclesiam, cantore
inchoante antiphonam Principeo, et aUam Appropinquabat. Et
ingressi Ecclesiam faciant stationem per omnia similem ante Cru-
cifixum prius detectum. Atque ibi a tribus vel quatuor fratribus
cantetur in cappis responsorium Circumdederunt. Quo cantato
incipiat abbas responsorium Synagogce, et intrent chorum sonan-
tibus ad missam signis, missam celebrent, palmas et frondes in
manibus habeant, easque post oblationem panis et vini, ineipiente
diacono, cuncti per ordinem offerant.
Lanfranc, Decreti pro ordine S. Benedicti, Migne, CL, 455 ff.
132 APPENDICES
(6) In Connection with the Easter Sepvlchre
Processio cum eucharistia ante, vel post nocturnas Paschalis
vigilias.
viii. Ab hoc ritu baud multum absimilis est processio SS. Sacra-
menti quam ita descriptam exhibet Ordinarium insignis Ecclesise
Laudunensis: (In die Paschae ad matutiniun duae magnae campanae
de miraculis insimul pulsantur. Processio vadit ad sepulchrum
ordinata in modura qui sequitur. Primo praecedit clericulus
aquam benedictam deferens, hunc sequuntur duo clericuli ferentes
cereos: duo alii clericuli cappis sericis induti ferentes duas
cruces aureas, hos sequuntur clericuli. Deinde cantor et suc-
centor cappis sericis induti, portantes baculos deargentatos in
manibus. Deinde duo diaconi similiter cappis sericis induti,
pallium supra brachium tenentes. Hos sequuntur alii combinati:
unusquisque cereum accensum deferens. Praedicti vero diaconi
ad ostium sepulcri venientes incipiunt ardens est. Clericulus
stans in sepulcro respondet Qvem quoeritis? Diaconi Jesum
Nazdrenuni. Clericulus Nan est hie. Postea cantor et succentor
incipiunt Surrexit Dominus vere alleluja. Deinde psal. Victimm
Paschali laudes. Et sic cantando procedunt ante crucifixum in
medio Ecclesiae, sacerdos alba casula vestitus, portans calicem cum
Corpore Christi, egrediens de sepulcro reperit ante ostium quatuor
subdiaconos, albis tunicis indutos, pallium super baculum tollentes,
et illo protectus incedit in fine processionis, prsecedentibus duobus
clericulis cum cereis, et aliis duobus juxta ipsum cum thuribulis.
Dum autem processio pervenerit in medio Ecclesiae, cantor et
succentor incipiunt ^ Christus resurgens. Duo diaconi cantant v
Dicant nunc. Quo cantato, processio intrat chorum cantando
Quod enim vivit. Sacerdos calicem super altare deponit. Interim
campanae simul pulsantur, Episcopus stans in cathedra mitra et
cappa prseparatus incipit Domine labia mea aperies.)
ix. Hie ritus Corporis Christi cum solemni pompa hac die in
processione deferendi non uni fuit Laudunentis Ecclesiae singularis,
sed multis etiam aliis communis, ut Suessionensi et Remensi,
apud quam tam in cathedrali B. Mariae, quam in monachorum
S. Remigii basilica adhuc hodie viget. Viget etiam nunc in Ecclesia
Aurelianensi et apud Armoricos in Rotonensi monasterio. Illiua
APPENDICES 133
praxim videre est in Vita S. Udalrici Augustensis Episcopi, in
cujus capite 4, hsec lego: (Desiderantissimo atque sanctissimo Pas-
chali die adveniente, post Primam intravit Ecclesiam S. Ambrosi,
ubi die Parasceve Corpus Christi superposito, lapide collocavit,
ibique cum paucis clericis missam de Sancta Trinitate explevit.
Expleta autem missa, clerum interim congregatum, in scena
juxta eamdem Ecclesiam sitam solemnissimis vestibus indutum
antecisset, secum portato Corpore Christi, et evangelic, et cereis,
et incenso, et cum congrua salutatione versum a pueris decantata,
per atrium perrexit ad Ecclesiam S. Joannis Baptistse.) In per-
vetusto etiam libro rituali Parthenonsis Pictaviensis S. Crucis haec
reperio: (In prima vigilia noctis Paschse duo presbyteri revestiti
cmn cappis pergunt ad sepulchrum. . . . Inde elevatur et defer-
tur Corpus Dominicum ad majus altare, prsecedentibus cereis et
thuribulis, et pulsantibus signis.)
Martene, Ec. RiL, Lib. IV; Cap. XXV.
XI. THE INTROIT AND ITS RITUAL
SIGNIFICANCE ^
At high (or sung) mass till quite lately the rule had obtained
that the choir did not begin the Introit till the celebrant began
the first prayers at the foot of the altar. Now the new Vatican
"Gradual" (1908) has restored the old principle, that it is to be
sung while the procession moves from the sacristy to the altar.
A. Fortescue, Cath. Enc, Art. Introit.
De introitu et processione ministrorum
Sacerdote ad altare ingressuro debet tota praesens Ecclesia dila-
tare an imam suam, et amplioris fidei sinu memoriam incarnationis
tenere, et sanctorum qui eum ab initio mundi exspectaverunt,
et ejus adventum suspiriis, laudibus atque precibus expetierunt
memor esse, et eorum contemplatione in voces erumpere praeci-
nendo Antiphonam quse dicitur Ad introitum. Nam sicut In-
troitus sacerdotis, ingressum Fihi Dei in mundum hunc, sic
1 Vide p. 102.
134 APPENDICES
Antiphona quse dicitur Ad inlroitum, voces et exspectationem
prajfert patriarcharum et prophetarum. In Proccssione quse
significatae rei aptissime congruit, praecedunt flammantes cerei,
in signum et memoriara quod per adventum Christi sedentifrus
in regione umbrce mortis lux orta est eis. (Isa. II.) Praeveniunt
sacerdotes ministri duo, non pariter neque a latere incessum cose-
quantes, sed ante subdiaconus. Significant hi duo Vetus et Novum
Testamentum, sive utriusque praedicatores, quorum lex prior est
tempore, dignitate vero posterior.
Hugo of St. Victor, De ojficiis ecclesiasticiis, II : xiv,
Migne, CLXXVII:419.
Turba prophetarum venturi nuntia Christi,
Mysterium fertur praecinuisse crucis.
Hunc desideriis, hunc laudibus, hunc prece multa
Praesuspiravit, extuUt, expetiit,
Haec tria commemorat, similique sub ordine ponit
Introitus missae, quem chorus ante canit.
Hildebert of Lavardin, De mysterio, missce Migne, CLXXI: 1177.
XII. GERMAN VERNACULAR VERSE i
(a) The Virgin compared to a vessel of the eucharist.
ich bin diu arche in alter e,
lustic geziert: nu merkent me,
dar inne ein guldin eimer hienc
kostpaere und himmelbrot dar inne :
dar zuo der bischof selber gienc
viirz vole in guotem sinne,
da Arones gerte lac,
die taveln, der gebote bejac:
daz bin ich unde gotes zent.
beslozzen in mir din sacrament
sint glich und ouch vil schone verborgen.
Meisterlieder, ed. Bartsch, VI. U. 200 f. (p. 210).
1 Vide p. 110.
APPENDICES 135
(6) The Virgin compared to the Grail,
Ich bin der siuberliche Gral,
da mite der edel Parcival
niect sin vinde hin zetal,
sin wunne lane breit, sorge smal,
sin fride an ende st^te.
76., VI, 11. 241 ff. (p. 211).
Wer ledt mich in der liljen tal
da min amis kurtois sich tougen in verstal?
ich binz der sal
A
dar in man daz gesprseche nam lunbe Even val.
schdne ich daz hal.
seht, Ueben seht:
min morgenrcete hdt erwecket hohen sane und richen schal,
den niuwen tac der alten naht,
ich binz der gral
da mit der eren kiinc den leiden iibervaht.
Frauenlob, Marienleich, ed. PfannmiiUer, XI, U. 20 ff. (p. 59).
Du warer godis stamme mtiter dochter vnd aname,
du bist der hcest gral!
dort in dem hemelriche wonstu junffrau lobeliche,
din wesen ist in got!
Lieder Mxiskatblut's, ed. von Groote, p. 62.
(c) The lady love compared to the Grail.
Diu (geUebte) was sines herzen gral.
Ulrich V. Tiirheim, Willehalm, 197. Cit. Lexers,
Mittelhochd. Hanworter, art. gral.
Traut sehg weib
selden sehen liberal
tort mir der synne zal,
seyd mich ztimal
deines leibes sal,
gral
werffen wil ziital.
Oswald V. Wolkenstein, Die Gedichte, ed. Weber,
LXXVI:2, U. 1-7. (p. 192).
136 APPENDICES
Ich hor vil suesser voglein don
in meinem haubt erklingen schon
von oben abher gar zti tal,
das sich mein hertz erwecket.
Gen dir, vil auserbeltes ain,
ich hoff, dii Idst mich nit allain,
se5rt dii n<i pist mein hochster gr^l,
der alios laid verdecket.
lb., XXXIV: 2, U. 1-8 (p. 128).
XIII. THE EARTHLY PARADISE, A TYPE OF
THE CHURCH!
Plantaverat autem Dominus Deus paradisum vvlwptatis a prin-
cipio. Paradisus Ecclesia est; sic enim de ilia legitur in Canticis
canticorum: Hortus conclusus soror mea. (Cant. IV: 12.) A
principio autem paradisus plantatur, quia Ecclesia catholica a
Christo, qui est principium omnium, condita esse cognoscitur.
Fluvius de paradiso exiens imaginem portat Christi, de paterno
fonte fluentis, qui irrigat Ecclesiam suam verbo predicationis, et
dono baptismi.
Isidore of Seville, In Genesin, III: 2. Migne, LXXXIII: 216.
De tribus paradisis, et comparatione trium lignorum
qvjce sunt in eis
Tres sunt paradisi. Unum terrestris, cujus incola fuit primus
Adam terrenus. Secundus fideUs, quod est Ecclesia sanctorum,
quam fundavit et inhabitat secundus Adam coelestis, id est Christus.
Tertius ccslestis, qui est regnum Dei, et vita seterna, et terra viven-
tium, vel potius terra vivens in qua habitat Deus. In primo para-
diso lignum vitae est arbor materialis. In secundo lignum
vitse est humanitas Salvatoris. In tertio hgnum vitse est sapientia
Dei, verbum Patris, fons vitse, et origo boni et hsec est vera
vita seterna. Nunc veniamus ad comparationem. Certe lignum
vitse, quod erat in paradiso terrestri, corporalem solummodo
vitam sine defectu vegetare potuit. Lignum autem vitse fidelis
1 Vide p. 114.
APPENDICES 137
paradisi, id est Jesus Christus manducantibus carnem suam, et
bibentibus sanguinem suum vitam aeternam repromittit, et tamen
idem ipse exprimere volens quantum distaret sacramentum a vir-
tute, ait: Corpus nihil prodest, spiritus est qui vivificat. (Joan VI.)
Quasi diceretur: Si me corporaliter in Sacramento sumitis, non hoc
vobis sufficere credatis, nisi etiam me quemadmodum verbum
vitse sum illuminans animas, justificans peccatores, et mortuos
vivificans spiritualiter edere dediceritis.
Hugh of St, Victor, De area Noe Morali, III : xvii.
Migne, CLXXVI:646.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
This bibliography is necessarily far from exhaustive. It is merely a
list of the books which have been most useful in the preparation
of this study.
GENERAL
Du Cange: Glossarium Mediae et Infimce Latinitatis.
The Catholic Encydopcedia. (New York, 1907-1914)
Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, Vacant et Mangenot. (Paris,
1909-1913)
The Encydopcedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. James Hastings,
(New York, 1908-1916)
The Jewish Encyclopedia. (New York, 1901-1905)
Patrologice Grcecoe (Paris, 1854-1866); Patrologice Latinoe (Paris,
1844-1880), ed. J. B. Migne.
Sacrorum Conciliorum Collectio, ed. J. D. Mansi. (Florence,
1759-1913)
Chapter I
Ancren Riwle: tr. and ed. J. Morton. {Camden Society Pub-
lications, 1853)
Breviarium Romanum.
C^SARius OF Heisterbach: Dialogus Miraculorum. (Koln, 1851)
Giuseppe Catalani: Pontificale Romanum. (Roma, 1738, 1739)
Catherine of Siena: Dialogue. (Tr. and ed. Algar Thorold, with
an introductory essay. London, 1896)
H. A. Daniel: Thesaurus Hymnologicu^. 3 vols. (Leipsic, 1855-
1862)
GuLiELMus DuRANDus: Rationale divinorum officiorum. (Venetia,
1494)
Nicholas Gihr: The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. (Tr. St. Louis,
1902)
GiRALDUs Cambrensis: Opera, ed. J. S. Brewer (Rolls Series, XXI).
J. Gorres: Die christliche Mystik. 4 vols, in 5. (Regensburg,
1836-1842)
140 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ferdinand Gregorovius: History of the City of Rome in the
Middle Ages. 8 vols. (Tr. Annie Hamilton, London, 1907)
Adolph Harnack: History of Dogma. 7 vols. (Tr. Neil Bu-
chanan, Boston, 1898-1902)
Edwin Hatch: The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the
Christian Church, Hibbert Lectures, 1888. (London, 1891)
W. R. Inge: Christian Mysticism. (Bampton Lectures, 1889)
Lay Folks' Mass Book. (Ed. T. F. Simmons. Early English
Text Society, 1879)
AcHiLLE Luchaire: Innocent III et le quatrieme concile de Latran.
{Revue historiqu£, 97 : 225-263)
£mile Male: L'art religieux de la fin du moyen dge en France.
(Paris, 1908)
Edmundo Mart{:ne: De antiquiis ecclesice ritibus. (Antwerp,
1763-1764)
F. J. MoNE : Hymni Latini Medii ^vi. 3 vols. (Freiburg, 1853-
1855)
Elsie Clews Parsons (John Main): Religious Chastity. (New
York, 1913)
Bernard Picart: The ceremonies and religious customs of the
various nations of the known world. 7 vols. (English trans.
1733-1739)
Daniel Rock: The Church of our Fathers. 4 vols. (New edition,
London, 1905)
Charles Rohault de Fleury: La Messe; etudes archeologiqu^s
sur ses monuments continuees far son fits G. Rohault de Fleury.
8 vols. (Paris, 1883-1889)
Darwell Stone: A History of the Holy Eucharist. 2 vols. (Lon-
don, 1909)
H. 0. Taylor: The Medieval Mind. 2 vols. (New York, 1914)
Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologice. {Opera omnia, IV-XII.
Leonine ed.)
Algar Thorold: An essay in aid of the better understanding of
Catholic mysticism, illustrated from the writings of blessed Angela
of Foligno. (London, 1900)
Evelyn Underbill : The Mystic Way. (London, 1913)
Maurice de Wulf: History of Medieval Philosophy. (Tr. P.
Coffey, London, 1909)
BIBLIOGRAPHY 141
Chapter II — GRAIL LEGEND
TEXTS
Perceval le Gallois ou le Conte du Graal, publi^e d'apr^s les manu-
scrits originaux par Ch. Potvin. (Mons, 1865) This is in
six volumes of which the first contains Perlesvaus. The others
contain the work of Chrestien and his followers.
Peredur the Son of Evrawc. (Mabinogion, tr. Lady Charlotte
Guest, ed. A. Nutt, London, 1910)
Syr PercyveUe. (Ed. Campion und Holthausen, Heidelberg, 1913)
Parzival: Wolfram von Eschenbach (Ed. Bartsch, 1875); Trans,
modern German, W. Hertz (Stuttgart, 1898); Trans. Eng-
Ush, Parzival, A Knightly Epic: J. L. Weston. 2 vols.
(London, 1904)
Diu Crone, ed. SchoU. (1852)
Joseph d' Arimathie ; Merlin: Robert de Borron. (Verse, Le
Saint Graal, ed. F. Michel, 1841)
Joseph, Merlin, Didot-Perceval : Robert de Borron. (Prose, Le
Saint Graal, ed. E. Hucher, 3 vols., Le Mans, 1874)
Modena-Perceval. (Prose, The Legend of Sir Perceval, vol. II,
J. L. Weston, London, 1906-1909)
Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances. 7 vols. (Ed.
H. O. Sommer, Washington, 1908-1913) Vol. I. Lestoire
del Saint Graal (Grand St. Graal). Vol. II. Prose Lancelot.
Vol. VI. Les Aventures ou la Queste del Saint Graal (Queste).
CRITICISM
Joseph B^dier: Les legendes epiques. 4 vols. (Paris, 1908-1913)
A. BiRCH-HiRSCHFELD : Die Sage vom Gral. (Leipsic, 1877)
E. A. Freeman: The Cathedral Church of Wells. (London, 1870)
Wolfgang Golther: Parzival und der Gral, in deutscher Sage des
Mittelalters und der Neuzeit. (Leipsic, 1913)
Paul Hagen: Der Gral. (Qusllen und Forschungen, LXXXV.
1900)
Richard Heinzel. jjher die franzosischen Gralromane. (Denk-
schriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 40: 3,
Strassburg, 1892)
142 BIBLIOGRAPHY
W. Hertz: Parzivcd neu bearbeitet. Essay appended. (Stuttgart,
Vienna, 1898)
T. S. Holmes: Wells and Glastonbury. (London, 1908)
L. E. Iselin: Der morgenldndische Ursprung der (haUegende.
(HaUe, 1909)
W. W. Newell: The Legend of the Holy Grail. (Cambridge and
Leipsic, 1902)
W. A. Nitze: The Old French Grail Romance Perlesvaus. (Balti-
more, 1902)
Alfred Nutt: Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail. {Folk
Lore Society Publications, XXIII, London, 1888)
Legends of the Holy Grail. {Popular Studies in Mythology,
Romance and Folklore, No. 14. London, 1902)
Celtic Myth and Saga. {Folk Lore, September, 1902)
Recent Grail Literature. {Academy, London, May 7, 1910)
Paulin Paris: Le Saint Graal. {Romania, 1 : 457 £f.)
Rose J. Peebles: The Legend of Longinus. (Baltimore, 1911)
San-Marte (Albert Schulz) : An essay on the influence of Welsh
tradition upon the literature of Germany, France, and Scandi-
navia. (English trans. Llandovery, 1841)
Willy Staerk: Uber den Ursprung der Grallegende, ein Beitrag
zur christlichen Mythologie. (Tubingen, 1903).
TheodorSterzenbach: Ursprung und Entwicklung der Sage vom
heiligen Gral. (Mtinster, 1908)
F. E. Warren: Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church. (Oxford,
1881)
Eduard Wechssler: Die Sage vom heiligen Gral. (Halle, 1908)
Jessie L. Weston: The Legend of Sir Perceval. 2 vols. (London,
1906-1909)
The Quest of the Holy Grail. (London, 1913)
Chapter III — DIVINE COMEDY
texts
Dante Alighieri: Tutte le opere nuovamente rivedute nel teste
da Dr. E. Moore. (Oxford, 1904)
La Divina Commedia, riveduta nel testo e commentata da
Scartazzini. (Fourth Edition, Milano, 1903)
BIBLIOGRAPHY 143
- The Divine Comedy, tr. Henry Johnson. (Yale University
Press, 1915.) Passages from the Divine Comedy quoted in
the text are taken from this translation,
- The New Life, tr. D. G. Rossetti. (1861)
- The Banquet, tr. P. H. Wicksteed. (London, 1909)
CRITICISM
Calderon de la Barca: Autos sacramentales. (Bibl. de autores
espafioles, Madrid, 1848-1896)
E. G. Gardner: Dante and the Mystics. (London, 1913)
Arturo Graf: Miti, leggende e superstitioni del medio evo. 2 vols.
(Torino, 1892-1893)
'EovfABSiMoom:.: Studies in Dante. 3 vols. (Oxford, 1896-1903)
J. A. Symonds: The Study of Dante. (London, 1906)
Thomas Aquinas: Officium de festo Corporis Christi. {Opera
omnia, XXIX: 335 ff. Paris, 1876)
Karl Vossler: Die gottliche komodie. 2 vols. (Heidelberg, 1907-
1910)
INDEX
Abelson, J., 104
Agnus Dei, 57, 58
Alberic des Trois Fontaines, 49,
125
St. Aldhelm, 47, 52
Algerus, 56, 81, 89
AUegory, 88, 107-110
Altar stone, 42, 60, 61
St. Ambrose, 16
Ancren Riwle, 24
Angela of Foligno, 25, 42
Anselm of Canterbury, 22
St. Augustine, 16, 19, 74
Baldwin of Canterbury, 62
Banks, M., 50
Bartsch, Karl, 83, 134
Beatrice, 101, 106, 107, 109, 110,
111, 112, 114, 115, 116
Bede, 49, 112
B^dier, J., 44, 53, 54
Berengarius, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 75
Bernard of Clair vaux, 21, 110, 111
Birch-Hirschfeld, A., 38
Bleheris, 39
Bohort, 29, 82, 83
Bonaventura, 21, 24, 62, 94
de Borron, Robert, 33, 35, 36, 39,
42-46, 53-56, 61, 62, 65, 66, 68,
74, 78, 123
Brent, C. H., 122
Breviarium Romanum, 24, 91
Brewer, J. S., 52, 71
British church, 47, 50-53, 65, 74,
t} 123, 124
Brown, A. C. L., 39, 122
Caesarius of Heisterbach, 25, 72,
75, 78, 81, 123
Calderon de la Barca, 98, 111
Calo, Peter, 84
Cantelupe, Thomas, 112
Carmina Burana, 70
Catalan!, G., 95, 128, 129
Catherine of Siena, 25, 57, 82, 111.
112
Chalice, 42, 45, 58, 59, 61, 62
Chansons de geste, 54
Chariot, 103, 104
Chastity, 43, 68-74, 79, 113
Ciborium, 28, 55, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63
Conte del Graal, 34, 46
Corpus Christi Day, 17, 18, 93,
101, 102, 104, 105; office for,
23, 94; procession, 94-101, 104,
116, 128 ff.
Cortet, Eugdne, 94
Crestien de Troies, 34, 35, 55, 78
Crusades, 39, 61
Daniel, H. A., 116
Dante Alighieri, 11, 12, 41, 87 flf.
Devine, A., 22
Didot, A. F., 36
Didot Perdval, 36, 63
Dionysius, 20, 22, 89, 119
Diu Crdne, 35, 55
Divine Comedy, 12, 28, 41, 85 ff.
Durandus, 58, 63, 65, 77
Earthly Paradise, 39, 66, 67, 92,
100, 101, 102, 107, 110, 113, 115,
116, 136
146
INDEX
Eaater sepulchre, 97, 132
Eastern Church, 39 —
Empyrean, 113
Evans, Sebastian, 27, 37, 79
Fecamp, 48, 53, 54, 75
Fertility rites, 32, 40, 66
Fletcher, J. B., 114
Fortescue, Adrian, 109, 133
St. Francis, 114
Frauenlob, 135
Freeman, E. A., 47
Gawain, 64, 67, 73, 77, 79
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 95, 96
Gerbert, 34, 66
Gihr, Nicholas, 105
GUdas, 49, 51
Giraldus Cambrensis, 50, 52, 53,
59, 71, 72, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80,
124
Glastonbury, 40, 42, 43, 44, 48,
49, 50, 52, 53, 72, 77, 125
Gnosis, 4, 19
Godinez, 22
Golther, W., 38, 39
Gorres, J., 25, 79
Graf, Arturo, 66, 67
Grail, castle, 27, 66, 67; early his-
tory of, 34, 35, 37, 38, 43; food-
producing powers of, 32, 33, 55,
81, 123; legend, 28, 29, 31, 33,
41, 44; miracles, 74-82; quest,
31, 32, 37, 38, 42, 44, 83; ro-
mances, 33-38; "secret," 43,
53, 63-66; a symbol of tran-
substantiation, 42, 47, 55; ves-
sel, 41, 54-63
Grand St. Graal, 36, 39, 46, 55, 62,
72, 77, 80, 127
Green, J. R., 14, 48
Gregorovius, Ferdinand, 10, 11
St. Gregory, the Christ of, 25, 78,
79, 114, 127
von Groote, E., 135
Guest, Lady Charlotte, 34
Hagen, Paul, 39
Harnack, Adolf, 13, 14, 17, 18
Hatch, Edwin, 122
Hearn, Thomas, 126
Heinrich von dem Tiirlin, 35
Heinzel, Richard, 39, 61
Helinandus, 45, 55, 56
Henry II, 40, 43, 48, 49
Hertz, W., 40, 84, 110
High History of the Holy Grail,
37
Hildebert of Lavardin, 16, 22, 23,
25, 64, 70, 75, 105, 126, 134
Hildebrand, 10, 20, 40, 70
Holmes, T. S., 47
Honorius of Autun, 22, 45
St. Hugh of Lincoln, 77
Hugh of St. Victor, 22, 23, 26, 65,
76, 92, 108, 114, 134, 137
Inge, W. R., 4, 21
Innocent III, 9 ff., 58, 70
Introit, 102, 133
Iselin, L. E., 67
Isidor of Seville, 92, 136
St. Jerome, 16, 69
St. John Chrysostom, Liturgy of,
57
John of Glastonbury, 77, 126
John of Ruysbroeck, 25
Joseph of Arimathea, 32, 33, 41, 44,
45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 53, 55, 63, 65,
72, 76, 81, 124, 125
Joseph d'Arimathie, 35, 44, 63,
64
JuUana of Lidge, 93
INDEX
147
Kennedy, D. J., 84
King Arthur, 47-50, 77, 96, 125,
126
Kiot, 35, 39
Lancelot, 68, 73, 80
Lanfrane, 17, 41, 96, 131
Lateran Council, 9 ff., 58, 64, 92
Lea, Henry, 69
Leclercq, H., 9, 75
Luchaire, Achille, 11, 12, 14
Lydgate, John, 98, 104, 114
Mabillon, 51
Mabinogion, 34
Male, Emile, 76, 78, 79
Malory, Sir Thomas, 37, 68, 73
Manessier, 34
Map, Walter, 39, 70
Marie of Oignys, 25
Martene, Edmondo, 95, 98, 133
Merlin, 35, 44, 46
Merlin, Prose, 36
Metrical, Joseph, 35, 44, 53, 55,
62, 63
Modena Perceval, 36
Mone, F. J., 26, 57, 64, 104
Moore, E., 100
Morte Darthur, 37, 66
Morton, J., 24
Muskatblut, 135
Mystic Vision, 3, 22, 25, 42, 66, 83,
85, 88, 89, 104, 106, 112, 113,
114, 115, 116, 127
Mysticism, 3, 4, 5; Scholastic, 4,
21; Neo-Platonic, 4; in eucha-
ristic devotion, 18, 20-28, 42
Naogeorgus (or Kirchmaier),
Thomas, 98, 99, 123
Neo-Platonism, 4, 19, 20
Newell, W, W., 39, 45
Nitze, W. A., 39, 121
Nutt, Alfred, 33-35, 36, 37, 39,
61,74
Origin of Species, 28
Oswald V. Wolkenstein, 135
Oulmont, Charles, 69
Paris, Gaston, 34
Paris, Paulin, 40, 49, 125
Parsons, Elsie Clews ("John
Main"), 69
Parzival, 35, 39, 66
Paschasius Radbertus, 15, 17, 76
Paten, 42, 45, 58, 61, 62
Peebles, Rose J., 39, 51, 75, 121,
123
Perceval, 28, 43, 47, 65, 66, 68, 73
Perceval, 36, 44
Peredur, son of Evrawc, 34
Perlesvaus, 27, 32, 37, 40, 43, 55,
64, 66, 67, 68, 73, 75, 77, 78, 79,
81, 96, 124, 127
Petrus Sarnensis, 96
Pfanmiiller, Ludwig, 135
Phillips, W. A., 11
Philo, 19
Picart, B., 95, 97
Plecgils, 76
Plotinus, 19
Pohle, J., 18
Potvin, Charles, 37, 40
Prose Lancelot, 42
Queste del St. Graal, 28, 29, 36, 39,
43, 46, 55, 61, 62, 63, 66, 73, 75,
77, 79, 80, 82, 127
Rabanus Maurus, 108
Raphael, 75
Ratramnus, 15
Rawlinson, A. E. J., 122
148
INDEX
Rhys, Sir John, 68
Richard de St. Germano, 12, 14
Richer, 125
Ritual theory, 38, 39, 121-125
Rohault de Fleury, Charles, 58,
59, 60, 61, 77
Rossetti, D. G., 115
Sacramental System, 4, 5, 20, 21,
22, 26, 89
San Marte (Albert Schulz), 40, 49,
52, 96, 125
Sauvage, G. M., 15, 16, 17
Scotus, Erigena, 15, 16, 20
Scudder, Vida D., 57
Scully, Vincent, 25
Secreta, 63-65
Shrawley, J. H., 18
Sicardus of Cremona, 57, 64
Sommer, H. O., 39, 46, 72, 73,
127
Sterzenbach, Theodor, 60
Stone, Darwell, 97, 122
Syr Percyvelle, 34
Symonds, J. A., 100
Tabernacle, 55, 62, 63
Taylor, H. O., 109
Tennyson, Alfred, 68, 73, 76
Theodoric, 51
St. Thomas Aquinas, 4, 7, 21, 23,
84, 85, 94, 98, 110, 114
Thorold, Algar, 25, 42, 111, 113
Thurston, Herbert, 69
Transubstantiation, 5, 7, 41, 42,
43, 53, 61, 64, 87; the term,
16, 70; controversy concerning,
15 ff., 65; declared an article of
faith, 13, 14; miracles, 43, 75,
83; mystic knowledge of, 21 ff.,
42, 66, 82, 83, 87, 88
Trumbull, H. C, 122
Uh-ich V. Turheim, 135
Underhill, Evelyn, 22
Urban IV, 93, 94, 95, 106
St. Veronica, 114
Veronica of Binasco, 25
Victorines, 21
Vienne, Council of, 94
Vossler, Karl, 100
Warren, F. E., 51
Warton, Thomas, 52
Wauchier de Denain, 34, 55, 78,
80
Weber, Beda, 135
Weston, Jessie L., 33, 35, 39, 53,
61, 62, 65, 66, 68, 74, 121, 123,
124
WUkins, 95, 96
William of Malmesbury, 48
Winchelsy, Robert, 112
Wolfram von Eschenbach, 35, 39,
42, 55, 60
de Wulf, Maurice, 4, 21
Wyclif, 15
VITA
LiZETTE Andrews Fisher was born in San Francisco,
California, December 19, 1868.
She came east in childhood, and had her primary and
secondary education at Miss Sanford's school, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
Her studies after that were carried on privately at home
and abroad. At various times she has been engaged in the
work of literary secretary and assistant in research.
In 1910 she was admitted to the graduate school of Co-
lumbia University in the Department of English and Com-
parative Literature on the basis of work held to be the
equivalent to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and later
was matriculated for the degree of Master of Arts which
was conferred in June, 1912. Her further study at Columbia
covered a period of three years, and was under the direction
of Professors Fletcher, Thorndike, and Lawrence.
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