¹ Especially since Eugène Vinaver's edition, The Works of Sir Thomas Malory (Oxford 1947). See Essays on Malory, ed. J. A. W. Bennett (Oxford 1963).Google Scholar

² The most recent book on the subject is Roger S. Loomis, The Grail : from Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol (Cardiff 1963).Google Scholar

³ Eugène Vinaver, Malory (Oxford 1929) 78-84; Works I xxi, xxiii, lxxv; for detailed account of changes see III 1521–71, especially 1559–60; see also Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, ed. Roger S. Loomis (Oxford 1959) 547.Google Scholar

⁴ Locke, Frederick W., The Quest for the Holy Grail (Stanford 1960).Google Scholar

⁵ Reviews of the book have not been entirely favorable; generally the reservations of the reviewers have been justified. See Harris, R., Medium Aevum 30 ³ (1961) 186–88; Witke, E. C., Speculum 36 (1961) 142-44; Davies, R. T., The Review of English Studies 12 (1961) 415-17.Google Scholar

⁶ Locke, 90.Google Scholar

⁷ Frappier, Jean, in one of the most useful brief surveys of the Queste, bases most of his interpretations on Pauphilet; Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages 295-318. Roger S. Loomis follows Pauphilet's interpretation and refers to the Étude as a ‘masterly commentary’; The Grail 166.Google Scholar

⁸ Pauphilet, Albert, Étude sur la Queste del Saint Graal (Paris 1921) 144–54.Google Scholar

⁹ Quinn, Esther C., The Quest of Seth (Chicago 1962); reviewed by Francis Lee Utley, Journal of English and Germanic Philology (October 1963) 787–91.Google Scholar

¹⁰ This summary is based on La Queste del Saint Graal ed. Albert Pauphilet (Paris 1923) 195-280; trans. William W. Comfort, The Quest of the Holy Grail (London 1926) 161-225. Cf. Vinaver, Works II 982-1035. In only one detail have I followed Malory: Perceval's sister tells of the spindles.Google Scholar

¹¹ Malory has crown of silk; Vinaver II 985.Google Scholar

¹² Pauphilet 197-210; Comfort 161-70; Vinaver II 982-90.Google Scholar

¹³ Pauphilet uses the word fuissel, which Comfort translates post or plank; Malory has spindle. It is clear in the Queste, but not in Malory, that the spindles are placed so as to form a canopy.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Pauphilet, 210-20; Comfort, 170-78; Vinaver, II 990-91.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Pauphilet, 220-26; Comfort, 178-82; Vinaver, II 991-94.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Pauphilet, 226-29; Comfort, 183-85; Vinaver, II 994-96.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Pauphilet, 241-42; Comfort, 194-95; Vinaver, II 1000-4.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Pauphilet, 266-72; Comfort, 215-19; Vinaver, II 1027-31.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Pauphilet, 273-80; Comfort, 220-25; Vinaver, II 1032-35.Google Scholar

²⁰ Meyer, Wilhelm, ‘Die Geschichte des Kreuzholzes vor Christus,’ Abh. Akad. Munich 16.2 (Munich 1882) 122; Meyer assigned the Queste version to a group of rood-tree legends which he designated IV.7. Cf. Pauphilet, Étude 145-50.Google Scholar

²¹ Loomis, The Grail 187.Google Scholar

²² Quinn, Quest of Seth 48-66.Google Scholar

²³ Pauphilet, Étude 197-203, summarized 147; see also Quinn, 103-36 for an analysis of the fully developed Seth and rood-tree legend in Latin, the Legende. Although according to Meyer the Legende, which presumably antedated the vernacular versions, is to be dated after 1254 and therefore later than the Queste, it is probable that an earlier dating is in order. See Quinn, 160-61.Google Scholar

²⁴ The versions which do not include Seth differ so markedly from the Queste that none can be seriously considered as the main source. For rood-tree legends which trace the wood of the cross to a tree in Paradise but do not include Seth, see Quinn, 69-70; 72-84.Google Scholar

²⁵ A summary provided by Maury closely resembles the Queste version; however, I have seen no text corresponding to this summary. See n. 33 infra. Google Scholar

²⁶ Pauphilet, Étude 148.Google Scholar

²⁷ Cf. a Jewish legend, according to which the fertility of plants and trees vanished when Cain murdered Abel; at the birth of Seth they began to flourish again. Raphael Patai, Man and Temple (London 1947) 152; Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia 1911–38) I 112. For the effect of sin, especially murder, on vegetation, see Quinn, in the account of the dry tree.Google Scholar

²⁸ Mary was sometimes represented as holding a branch; cf. Chambers, E. K., Mediaeval Stage (Oxford 1903) II 34.Google Scholar

²⁹ Pauphilet, Étude 149.Google Scholar

³⁰ Moses and David are also absent in the De imagine mundi version, which is, however, quite different in most other respects; see Quinn, 72-84. Cf. n. 32 infra. Google Scholar

³¹ Quinn, 48.Google Scholar

³² The De imagine mundi version contains a pattern of Solomon and the woman which resembles the one in the Queste: after the Queen of Sheba prophesies that the tree will be used for the Crucifixion, it is cut down and honored by being made into an altar and placed in the Temple. The strongly prefigurative role of Solomon especially suggests the influence of this version; Quinn, 72-73.Google Scholar

³³ A version referred to as the Légende de la Penitence d’Adam, summarized by Alfred Maury, and attributed to Andrius, resembles it in certain respects: Eve takes a branch of the tree of knowledge from Paradise, and Abel is killed under the tree which has grown from the branch. Later the wood is placed in Solomon's Temple and finally is used for the cross. There are a number of difficulties involved in considering Andrius as a possible source, the chief of which is the absence of a complete edition. There are excerpts, in addition to summaries, but they give a very different impression. For the summaries, see Alfred Maury, Croyances et légendes du moyen âge (Paris 1896) 165; Paulin Paris, Les manuscrits français de la bibliothèque du roi (Paris 1836) 120-25; excerpts in Pauphilet's ‘La vie terrestre d’Adam et d’Ève,’ Revue de Paris 5 (1912) 213-24; Aldolpho Mussafia, ‘Sulla leggenda del legno della Croce,’ Sb. Akad. Vienna 63.2 (Vienna 1870) 202-6; Wilhelm Meyer, ‘Vita Adae et Evae,’ Abh. Akad. Munich 14.3 (Munich 1879) 211, 245-50; Meyer, ‘Die Geschichte,’ 153-56; Arthur S. Napier, ed. History of the Holy Rood-Tree EETS 103 (London 1894) xii, 41-63. Maury's summary and comments are based on those of Paris who gives a fuller description of the MS (in the National Library at Paris; formerly N° 6769, now N° 95). The Andrius version is also mentioned by Ferdinand Piper, ‘Der Baum des Lebens,’ Evangelischer Kalender (1863) 61; trans. Journal of Sacred Literature 6 (1864) 43; see also Moland, Louis. ‘Le drame et la légende d’Adam au moyen-âge,’ Revue contemporaine 20 (1855) 25 and Moland, Origines littéraires de la France (Paris 1862) 72-96.Google Scholar

³⁴ Meyer, , ‘Vita Adae et Evae,’ 245–50; see also 218-19. On the Vita see also Quinn 31-32, 45-46.Google Scholar

³⁵ Quinn, 88-101.Google Scholar

³⁶ Napier, xiii. Cf. n. 34 supra. For a slightly abridged account, see Pauphilet, ‘La vie terrestre d’Adam et d’Ève,’ 213-24. Meyer gives a good account of the Andrius version, but he puts it into an entirely different group from the one in which he places the grail versions (grail IV.7; Andrius VIII.2). He apparently assumes that the grail versions represent an early form of the legend and the Andrius version represents a vernacular variant of the fully developed Latin Legende. As I suggest elsewhere, although Meyer's work represents a tremendous achievement, his classification may well need revision. Meyer, ‘Die Geschichte’ 122, 153. See also n. 33 supra. Google Scholar

³⁷ According to Napier, after Andrius translates the Vita he proceeds with an account of Moses and the three rods; Napier, xiii, xv-xvi; 41-63. See also Mussafia, 203-6.Google Scholar

³⁸ Napier, xiv-xv.Google Scholar

³⁹ Napier, xvii-xviii; 41-63. The Sebile episode was also printed by Paul Meyer, Revue critique 1 (1866) 222-23.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ In the Andrius version or his Latin source the oil of mercy was interpreted as the blood of Christ. The Queste author eliminated the awkward identification of disparate traditions by concentrating on the blood. See Meyer, ‘Die Geschichte,’ 156.Google Scholar

⁴¹ For many instances see William L. Kinter, ‘Prophetess and Fay: A Study of the Ancient and Medieval Tradition of the Sibyl,’ Ph. D. dissertation Columbia University 1958, especially 61, 73, 74, 87, 100, 101.Google Scholar

⁴² Ibid. Google Scholar

⁴³ Loomis, The Grail 185-86; Pauphilet, Étude 156 n. 1; Justice N. Carman, The Relationship of the Perlesvaus and the Queste del Saint Graal University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 5.4 (July 1936) 69; Nigel Abercrombie, Modern Language Review 30 (1935) 353; Guigemar 145-87.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Newstead, Helaine, ‘The Traditional Background of Partonopeus de Blois, ’ PMLA 61 (1946) 930.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Patch, Howard R., The Other World According to Descriptions in Medieval Literature (Cambridge, Mass. 1950) 244 n. 47; for an excellent discussion of Partonopeus see Miss Newstead's article cited above 916-46 and the bibliography given there; on the ship as the gift of the fée in Celtic literature see A. C. L. Brown, Studies and Notes 8 (1903) 29-30, 56, 79.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Newstead, PMLA 61, 932, also 946; Loomis notes that in Floriant et Florete (ed. Harry F. Williams 842-921) Morgain is said to have presented the youthful hero with a magic boat about which hung a four-sided curtain similar to the tent in Alexandre and Lanzelet 203. Floriant et Florete is interesting and perhaps significant for one other detail: the ship in which the hero embarks on his quest is adorned with pictures of Adam and Eve. Patch 256-57; Williams ed. 568.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Loomis, Roger S., Arthurian Tradition and Chrétien de Troyes (New York 1949) 294, 142-45, 205-14, 430-33.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Meyer, ‘Die Geschichte,’ 155; Mussafia 203-6; Napier 42-43.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Quinn 51-52, 57-58, 70. Cf. the conception presented by the angel to Guillaume de Deguilleville in the last canto of Le pèlerinage de l’âme: the Trinity consists of three colors: green for the Holy Ghost, red for the Son, and gold for the Father. Jung, Psychology and Religion 68-69. Green, red, and white are the colors most often used to represent the cross: as a tree, still growing, green with leaves to signify the tree of life; red to remind the viewer of the sacrificial blood which was shed; white, to suggest the dazzling light of divinity. Adolphe Didron, Christian Iconography trans. E. J. Millington (London 1886) I 412-13.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ That the bed on Solomon's ship allegorically represents the cross was pointed out by Pauphilet, who quotes the Cistercian Abbot Gilbert of Holland: ‘Dulcis lectulus illud crucis tuae lignum.’ Pauphilet, Étude 151; PL 184.21. A similar passage appears in St. Bernard. Locke, 91. Perhaps the clearest and most poignant reference is from St. Augustine: ‘Like a bridegroom Christ came to the marriage bed of the cross, and there in mounting it, he consummated his marriage.’ Sermo suppositus 120.8 quoted by Jung, Symbols of Transformation 269; PL 39.1987.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Although the Queste author refers to Solomon's wife as evil, this is not the central clue to her character, but merely a surviving trace of a traditional conception. Cf. Chrétien's Cligès, where Solomon's wife is represented as so hating Solomon that she deceived him by feigning death. Frappier observes that she was traditionally represented as ‘the incarnation of feminine guile.’ Arthurian Literature 173, 304.Google Scholar

⁵² ‘Solomon,’ Jewish Encyclopedia II 441.Google Scholar

⁵³ Loomis, Roger S. in Lanzelet trans. Webster, Kenneth (New York 1951) 202 n. 149. On the tradition of the four woods of the cross in Bede, Vincent of Beavais, and Jacobus de Voragine, see William Seymour, The Cross in Tradition, History and Art (New York 1898) 98. There is at least one instance — in a window at Bourges — of a cross made of four different colors. Émile Mâle, Religious Art in France in the Thirteenth Century trans. 3rd ed. Dora Nussey (London 1913) 223.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Lanzelet 89-92, 202-4.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Ibid. 4.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Loomis and Frappier do not accept Carman's arguments for the dependence of the Queste on Perlesvaus. Loomis, The Grail 132, 134.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Le Haut Livre du Graal, Perlesvaus ed. William A. Nitze (Chicago 1932–37); trans. of ed. by Charles Potvin, Perceval le Gallois ou le Conte du Graal (Mons 1866) I by Sebastian Evans, The High History of the Holy Grail (London 1898) I 136-37.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ See n. 50 supra. Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Loomis, Roger S., Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance (New York 1927) 158–75; Loomis traces the perilous bed to the Irish saga Bricriu's Feast where it represents a test of the storm-sun god; see also The Grail 153.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Loomis, Celtic Myth, 223.Google Scholar

⁶¹ The initial story pattern of the Queste is paralleled in The Second Battle of Moytura, a tenth-century Irish work in which Lug the sun-god is the hero. Loomis, The Grail 177-78.Google Scholar

⁶² Evans, I 104-7.Google Scholar

⁶³ Loomis, Arthurian Tradition 204-10.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Ibid. 442-44.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Trans. Webster 35-42; Loomis 171-72 n. 37.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Pauphilet, Étude 156 n. 1.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Abercrombie observes that the bed in Guigemar comes from the Song of Songs 3:9-10; Modern Language Review 30 (1935) 353; see also Loomis, The Grail 185-87.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ See n. 56 supra. Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Loomis, The Grail 100; ed. Nitze I 2788.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Quinn, 96.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Evans, I 21-23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷² Evans I 256; see also II 19-21, 26-27.Google Scholar

⁷³ Evans II 31-32; also 84, 96, 104-5.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Evans I 140-12.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Cf. Ezekiel 21:31: ‘Thus saith the Lord God: the mitre shall be removed, and the crown taken off; this shall be no more the same: that which is low shall be exalted and that which is high abased.’Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Comfort, 33-36; Pauphilet, 41-44; cf. Locke, 88-89.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Locke, 87.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Cf. Robert de Boron's Merlin where drawing the sword is a test of Arthur's fitness for kingship: his success entitles him to the crown. Loomis, The Grail 176. Here in simple form is the pattern which in the Queste is developed into a more varied and complex pattern. Although the crown appears earlier in the Queste, Galahad does not achieve it until the end.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ On the mysterious wound in grail tradition see Helaine Newstead, Bran the Blessed in Arthurian Romance (New York 1939) 15, 19, 65-66, 143-45, 168, 188-89, 196.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ See Legge, M. D., ‘Les Renges de S’Espethe,’ Romania 77 (1956) 88–93.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Loomis, , Arthurian Tradition 411–12, remarks that there is nothing corresponding to the Sword of the Strange Girdle in Irish sources. See also Carman, 49-50; Nitze, William, ‘The Fisher King in the Grail Romances,’ PMLA 24 (1909) 409; Loomis, , The Grail, 39-40, 188; Percevalroman ed. Hilka, 716-18.Google Scholar

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⁸³ Loomis, The Grail 106-7, 179.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ As Pauphilet points out, the Cistercian author's conception of the sword was influenced by the following passage from St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians 6:17: ‘Take unto you … the sword of the spirit (which is the word of God).’ Étude 152; also mentioned by Frappier in Arthurian Literature 304 and Loomis, The Grail 189.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Loomis, after noting the resemblance between the sword of the strange hangings and the sword which Gawain won in Perlesvaus, traces both to the fiery sword of Lug. Celtic Myth 246-49.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ For a parallel between the fiery spear of Lug and the bleeding lance of the grail castle see Loomis, The Grail 78-79.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ The bleeding lance of grail tradition had twice before been identified with the lance or spear which pierced Christ's side: in the First Continuation and in Perlesvaus. Loomis, The Grail 71, 79, 117. See R. J. Peebles, The Legend of Longinus in Ecclesiastical Tradition and in English Literature, and its Connection with the Grail (Baltimore 1911).Google Scholar

⁸⁸ On the Temple of Solomon as a prefiguration of the Church see Locke, 85.Google Scholar

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⁹⁰ Patch, 256-58, 272-73. On the self-propelled boat as a means of passing from this world to the other, see Lucy A. Paton, Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance 2d ed. (New York 1960) 15-17; as a trial by ordeal, E. Hull, Folk-Lore 18 (1907) 162.Google Scholar

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⁹² Nutt, Alfred, Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail (London 1888) 205.Google Scholar

⁹³ Carman 68-69.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Loomis, The Grail 20-21.Google Scholar

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⁹⁷ Cf. n. 68 infra. Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Barto, P. S., ‘The Schwanritter-Sceaf Myth in Perceval le Gallois ou le Conte du Graal,’ The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 19 (1920) 191, 195-96; Nitze, ed. Perlesvaus I 183. The last episode in which Galahad sails off on Solomon's ship also resembles, as Carman points out, the end of Perlesvaus where the hero boards the mysterious vessel and sails away forever. Carman, 77; ed. Nitze I 10146-64.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Nitze, II 93-94; I 183.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ See Newstead, Bran 121-25.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ The night journey of the sun-god is best preserved in Egyptian tradition. See Philips Barry, ‘The Magic Boat,’ The Journal of American Folk-Lore 28 (1915) 195-97; according to Barry, Egyptian myths of self-propelled boats were adapted by Christians and a continuous though somewhat altered tradition was preserved. See also W. Max Müller, ed. The Mythology of All Races 12 (Boston 1918) 25-26. In Greek tradition, William S. Fox, The Mythology of All Races 1 (Boston 1916) 243; Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (Baltimore 1955) I 154-55. In Irish, The Voyage of Bran, ed. and trans. Kuno Meyer (London 1895–97) I.Google Scholar

¹⁰² On the sword as a symbol of a solar power see Jung, Symbols of Transformation trans. Hull, R. F. C. (New York 1956) 359; Weston, Legend of Perceval I 139. Of considerable interest in this connection is a passage cited by Pauphilet (Étude 152) from the Apocalypse 1:16 which reveals the same blending of solar imagery and religious significance which is so important a part of the final meaning of the sword on Solomon's ship: ‘from his mouth came out a sharp two-edged sword: and his face was as the sun shineth in his power.’ ¹⁰³ Loomis, The Grail 273.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Among those who cite references attesting to the tradition of the Church as a ship are Pauphilet, Études 150; Locke, 82-84; Erwin Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (New York 1958) VIII 159. For ‘the Jewish original of the Christian ship which was the Church’ see Goodenough, VIII 163-64.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ I am indebted to Professor Utley for this conception of the wood as a chain of history. Cf. n. 9 supra and Mediaeval Studies 19 (1957) 67.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Cf. the disappearance of the grail, identified as the vessel used by Christ at the Last Supper.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Galaad, Song of Songs 4:1, 6:4. Loomis, The Grail 179-80.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Loomis, The Grail 194.Google Scholar