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The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief

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Richard Barber begins this magisterial study of the Holy Grail archetype with these words: "The Grail is a mysterious and haunting image, which crosses the borders of fiction and literature and which, for eight centuries, has been a recurrent ideal in Western literature"--and, as he makes clear in the book, in Western art, religion, spirituality, and psychology as well. Almost all of us have heard about the Grail (especially recently in all the hype over Dan Brown's thriller "The Da Vinci Code"), but almost none of us really know much about it. This is too bad, because the Grail legend is replete with meaning that gestures at the very core of who we are as humans.

The merits of Barber's book are many, but two in particular stand out. In the first place, he provides an exhaustive and entertaining discussion of the origins of the Grail legend, the various authors (such as Chretien de Troyes, Robert de Boron, and Wolfram von Eschenbach) who popularized the legend in the Middle Ages, and the symbolism behind the legends--how it ties in, for example, with the Eucharist. Secondly, he reflects in insightful and sometimes profound ways on just what the Grail legend means to us today, tracing the modern Grail expressions that abound in art, cinema (yes, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" is discussed!), and literature. Barber is especially good at discussing the human longing for perfection and wholeness that the Grail quest symbolizes, and in speculating on why the Grail archetype holds such strong attraction. Part of the key to understanding its appeal lies in the fact that it is a product of the interplay between two essential human characteristics: belief and imagination (hence the book's subtitle). The proper hiding place of the Grail, in other words, is in the liminal space between imagination and belief. In focusing on archetypes such as the Grail, humans explore depths of themselves that otherwise might go unnoticed

The book is wonderfully illustrated--as well it should be, since the Grail has been such a common motif in art--with intertextual black and white reproductions and a center section of color photographs which are really quite breathtaking in their beauty. If you're a long-devoted Grail enthusiast, or if you're just beginning the pilgrimage and want a resource that can help you understand, for example, just who the heck the Fisher King is, this is the book for you.

We all know what it is to seek the Holy Grail. Richard Barber has done a survey of newspapers and other timely publications and found that people are seeking Holy Grails all the time, but may have no idea about the historic origin of the name for that quest. A unified theory is the Holy Grail of physics, Marmite's range of vitamins make it the Holy Grail of foodstuffs, and fashion designers somewhere are seeking the Holy Grail of "nude" tights. These seekers may not know the Grail by name, but the idea of a quest for something perfect, something elusive, something that really is never going to be found is a universal one. In _The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief_ (Harvard University Press), Barber, a British authority on medieval history, has made an exhaustive study of the origins of the Grail legend and how, over 800 years, the legend has been changed, used, misused, parodied, and revered. This is a big, academic reference book, but the appeal of the subject and Barber's erudition and sense of fun make it enticing reading.

There may have been a Grail tradition in stories and in pictures, but no one wrote them down until Chrétien de Troyes, who wrote, among other things, an unfinished romance about Perceval around 1180. Chrétien never finished his story, and didn't say much about the Grail in it, but the idea of this holy relic was so strong that in the succeeding fifty years, several poets from various countries not only completed the tale but added their own material and themes. Barber, going through the conflicting Grail stories, argues that there is little evidence that there is any "true source" for the Grail except Chrétien's stories and their descendents. Their context is the orthodox Christianity of the period, but the Church itself officially and studiously ignored the stories. The stories, however, emphasized the importance of the Eucharist, the spiritual aspirations of knightly questing, and the value of veneration of relics. Barber's book takes Grail lore up to the current times (yes, including Monty Python), including the vessels that people have sufficient faith (or gall) to insist are the real McCoy. Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee had some fun with the Grail: "The boys all took a flier at the Holy Grail now and then. It was a several-years' cruise. Every year expeditions went out holy Grailing and next year relief expeditions went to hunt for them. There was worlds of reputation in it, but no money."

Twain's remarks are happier than the other modern manifestations of the legend. The crowd that sees international, centuries-long conspiracies at the heart of all history all value the Grail. Alchemists, Nazis, New Agers, Rosicrucians, and the like have all made some sort of claim to it, and if having religious faith in the item is not sufficient, they have backed up their connections to it using astrology, Tarot cards, ley-lines, and other such evidence. As Barber says, "We are not far... from the world of the flying saucer enthusiasts and alien visitors." In fact, one author has identified the Grail as a flying saucer. The lore of the Holy Grail fits all because there is so little to work on, and imaginations can make of it what they will. Barber knows that the force that has shaped the Grail is not history, not fact, but imagination "... the creative thought that subtly built on an unfinished story." Aspiration to acquisition of the unattainable has produced art and silliness, all well documented in an authoritative book.

The Holy Grail, the Cup of Christ, it's been called many names. The Grail has been the stuff of legends for centuries. Almost always associated in some way with King Arthur, the Grail has made its way through time to the modern day through stories, epic poems, and other forms of media. Where did it come from? Was there some original legend that this was all based on? Or was it all a figment of some writer's imagination that caught fire and lasted throughout the ages? Richard Barber's new book, The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief, sets out to answer some of these questions. Unlike some books, Barber does not try to prove the Grail is real, or where it can be found. Instead, Barber's intent is to examine the legend of the Grail, to trace its history through all of the Arthurian romances of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, all the way up to the modern day. When a book like this mentions both Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you know it's complete!

Barber begins at the beginning, probably the best place to start. The first Arthurian tale about the Grail is thought to have been written by Chretien de Troyes, a French writer probably from the town of the same name. Chretien was a writer of medieval romances, and he called this particular selection "The Story of the Grail." There is no indication that he was adapting any other story, either verbal or long-lost written, so it is widely believed that he invented the thing. Unfortunately, he did not live to finish the story, and a number of men tried to continue it. Barber examines the original in great detail, reprinting a great many passages from it. He quotes it for four pages and then says:

"I have quoted this at length, because it is the original of all subsequent descriptions of the Grail and its surroundings, and we shall see how the least detail becomes critical to our investigation." Pg 19

He does this with many of the tracts that he analyzes, from the continuations of Chretien's poem after he died, to Robert de Boron, and numerous others. Then he expertly analyzes the text to demonstrate just what part of the legend has changed or has been reused by each subsequent author. He goes into great detail about all of the variations of the Grail story that appeared in the late 12th century to around 1240. It's fascinating watching the history of the Grail, one of the most intriguing objects in literature, virtually change before your eyes as you get a different author's imagination applied to it. These first few chapters seem kind of long at first, with great blocks of text, much of it in smaller font because it's a quote. However, I quickly lost myself in these stories and Barber's dissection of them. It's very important to establish this base for when he moves on to the later centuries.

In these early tales, the Grail was variously representative of either the Eucharist or other specific rituals from the Christian mythos. Each story always contained some sort of procession of young virgins carrying the Grail through the castle of the Keeper of the Grail as Percival or Galahad looked on. There was always some kind of religious meaning to the whole story. As the Church clamped down on heretical ideas in literature and other writing, the Grail stories died off, but were quickly unearthed when things lightened up a little bit in the 16th century and beyond, during the Enlightenment. Since that time, other variations of the Grail story have been told, usually leaving out some part of it or adapting it to current political times. Barber points out that, as time has gone on, the story of the Grail has become more secularized, making commentary on either society or on current politics. He ends the book with a discussion of the Grail in modern times, where it has lost virtually all of its religious significance, instead becoming defined as the unreachable goal, such as a Unified Theory being "the holy grail of science."

Throughout the book, Barber has undoubtedly left out some stories, but it's hard to imagine how little they must have to do with the Grail to deserve being left out. His research is very thorough and his commentary on each piece is fascinating to read. He's not afraid to call something nonsense when it clearly is, especially the attempts to tie the Grail into occult practices in the late 1800s. He viciously tears apart Holy Blood, Holy Grail, calling it not real history, but a "conspiracy theory of history." He even examines the Grail as portrayed in movies, with an especially adept analysis of The Fisher King with Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges. As more evidence of its completeness, there are over 300 endnotes (a lot of them for quotes from the various stories) and the bibliography contains close to 600 books and stories. If you have any interest in the Grail or medieval history, this book holds your attention from beginning to end.

The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief is about exactly that: the contrast between the imagining of the Grail, all those years ago, to the belief in the ideal of the Grail. Barber never goes down the path of "is the Grail real?" Instead, he tells us about how the idea of the Grail has affected western literature and, at times, history throughout the ages. From religious icon to chivalric symbol to secular goal, the Grail has stayed with us since its beginning, buried at times, but never truly forgotten. It's been the spark of some very imaginative stories and some strange conspiracy theories. This book takes you all along that winding path, on a journey of discovery that won't let you go.

David Roy

My initial review (this has been an ongoing project as I digest the book in its entirety): I just want to say that I love this book because I studied a lot of this twenty years ago and of course have forgotten most of it, but have always wished that I could have continued and studied the primary texts in the original languages, especially the medieval French -- this is the next best thing: It is a review course with extensive notes and bibliography. Very handy. Thank you, Richard Barber!
...
And more: I have been a Grail hobbyist since the late 1970s, and I skipped reading Da Vinci Code because I had already read Baigent & Leigh and the subject had grown so *yawn* passe. I've read shelves of Grail literature, and tossed aside countless books on the subject that turned out to be, well, ridiculous, or ravings, or poorly written either in terms of sloppy thinking or overmuch obfuscating. Not that there aren't good books on the subject, just that the ratio of good to unhelpful is depressingly poor. Barber's book is beyond helpful, it is straightforward, encyclopedic, and non-derogatory (and I totally didn't catch anything "cutesy", despite what another reviewer is grumping about).

It is of course helpful to have read a few Grail stories first! I would recommend Malory's Morte D'Arthur (there is a lovely new edition out by Barnes & Noble if you want to treat yourself) and a nice version of Chretien de Troyes, but probably any would do, although I'd recommend a minimum of two, and from at least two separate languages or centuries (and Disney doesn't count). It is also helpful to have a basic knowledge of the Christian Eucharist (Mass, Communion), wherein the Body and Blood of Christ are present in the Bread and Wine. Less common but (I think) also interesting treatments also include the poetic cycles Taliessin Through Logres and The Region of the Summer Stars, by Charles Williams (AKA his Arthuriad) as well as the novels of Stephen R. Lawhead. Grail works are typically eccentric, so one must find the works that best suit one.

One of the many very useful things that Barber pointed out, for me, was the interweaving of the various forms of Christ's Blood (blood from his body vs. "blood" of Communion wine), and which he does, in my opinion, objectively, leaving the reader to decide what he or she may or may not believe. Barber just traces what was written by whom and when... along with just enough about settings and such, not too much, but with a novella's worth of bibliography, one can read on as one desires.

When it comes to the later works, however, Barber really hits his stride in terms of critical commentary. He agrees or disagrees with various scholars and movements, and provides names and dates so that you may, again, follow up as you like. He seems to have been particularly moved by Wagner's Parsifal. As Barber moves into the modern works, his tone becomes more critical. At first I found this a little disturbing, as I had enjoyed his neutral stance regarding the early scholarship, but then I thought that it was only right, because now he is evaluating and judging writers who are his peers, whose context in culture is known to him -- those of whom, it may be said, he has "walked a mile in their moccasins." While I very much enjoyed the Baigent & Leigh book (Holy Blood, Holy Grail), it is in a way the modern incarnation of Erich von Daniken's _Chariots of the Gods_, which I had enjoyed as a child, and I am more than comfortable with Barber's critical dismissal of it. Also, and perhaps this is a significant point, I am in agreement with Barber's summation of the tradition as an intergrowth of "imagination and belief," and in fact I think I have been of that mind for some years and just unable to distill it as he has.

I've been to a number of Grail-related locations, such as the Chalice Well in Glastonbury, and that little church, I forget where, with the lamprey carved in the wall over the piscina. Garway, maybe? This book introduces a few more places for my list of future Grail sites to visit. All in all, an unprecedented work, and a much welcome sanity break in a typically subjective genre.

My review hardly does justice to this amazing work. If you or someone you know is a Grail hobbyist, please at least have a look at this book. For my part, I cannot wait to read his works on Chivalry and King Arthur, and if I am very lucky, I may someday have a chance to attend a convention and see his mind at work live at the podium. (I feel this way also about Tom Shippey, as regards Tolkien and language scholarship.)

How could one not love a book that deals with the Holy Grail by looking both at the Arthurian legends and the Monty Python films? I finished this book last night, as 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade', a film mentioned in the book, was playing in the background. Actually, I bought this book as a gift for a friend (who loaned it back to me) as her family has its own Grail legend, with the lore of her family from Wales holding that the cup was (or may even yet be) in the possession of her kin. As she returns to Britain in the winter to do some exploring, I thought this text would be a good primer to various issues surrounding the Grail, and Barber's text does not disappoint.

Particularly in an age where popular literature has a re-visioning of the Grail being not the cup of Christ, but rather a blood-line, to look at the way the Grail has been portrayed over time is fascinating. The first section of the book examines some of the earliest literature about the Grail - it was not in fact part of the earliest of Arthurian legends, but later grafted on. The French author Chretien de Troyes is credited with the first Grail story, who used romantic imagery and ecclesial symbols freely in this tale. It seems to be an original tale, so far as Barber is concerned - he finds no evidence that this was part of a legend oral or written that was handed down. Chretien de Troyes was author of many medieval romantic tales, and unfortunately did not live long enough to finish the one about the Grail.

The story was picked up by later authors, most notably Robert de Boron and Wolfram von Eschenbach. The tale became increasingly developed and embellished, continuing to draw in more and more characters - Perceval, Galahad, Lancelot, and more. Not all of the authors agree with each other (just as modern interpretations in novels, films, and 'historical' works also differ with each other), and Barber does a good, ecumenical job at laying out the different issues. But through the confusion, Barber draws forth these questions: 'Why should the new genre of romance aspire to take on the great problems of theology and the highest moments of mystical experience? But they remain in the background while we turn first to ask our own version of Perceval's Grail question: "What is the Grail?" '

Barber's second section is the most informative section, looking at issues of relics, legends, histories true and false, theological questions, and mystical images. The Grail remained an ever-present image in the medieval world because of the natural association with the Eucharistic cup, present at church services throughout Christendom on a regular basis, all being believed in this pre-Reformation society to be the bearer of the actual blood of Christ. The Eucharist is a piece of medieval drama and choreography as well as the centre of artistic expression (many churches and cathedrals also served as the local 'art galleries' of a sort, and also the place where music was performed on a regular basis). The Eucharist was a source of nourishment, reminiscent of a day when the communal feast was a real meal, and symbolically linking to the kind of spiritual nourishment envisioned in many of the Grail tales.

While stories of the Grail would fade in popularity as the church became worried about heresy and division (and thus tried to define a more narrow focus on acceptable kinds of interpretation and expression), the Grail idea was resurrected in the post-Reformation era, and again in the modern era. If the second section of Barber's text was the most informative, the third section was the most fun. It looks at different ways that the Grail has been presented in the modern world, both secular and academic-sacred, and asks anew the question, what is the Grail? Perhaps there is no Grail, such as in the Monty Python film; perhaps it is a piece of knowledge or understanding, as in the film 'Excalibur' by John Boorman. The revival of interest in the Grail coincided with interest in medieval, mystical and Celtic subjects; the cross-currents of influences in areas such as art and music extend to the idea that many find the opening musical sequence of a post-modern Celtic/British film like 'Excalibur' to be very fitting, not realising that it is Romantic German music from a Wagner opera, tied to a different kind of ancient legend (although Wagner would become a fan of the Grail retellings, adding his own with the opera 'Parsifal', which would explicitly link the Grail with sexuality and femininity).

Barber himself confesses to this being a different kind of book from the one he envisioned writing. 'I believed that I would be engaged with pagan myth and the marvellous Celtic stories on which much of Arthurian romance is founded, and that the first shape of the Grail would be dimly discernible in the remote past.' Instead, he found a treasure trove of theology, art, literature, even popular culture in the mix.

There are indexes and appendices that make this book useful for the scholar, as well as generous notes. There are colour plates which show paintings, tapestries and other works of art that are Grail-related, and many more grayscale graphics and prints throughout the text. The bibliography itself is thirty pages of small print.

This is a fascinating and fun text.

I have read the previous reviews of Barber's Holy Grail, and for the most part, agree fully with the positive comments about it.

However, there were several things about the book which irritated the heck out of me. First (and this may, or may not, be the fault of the author), the notes were downright impossible. The short form of author last name, date of publication, page number was used, meaning that if one wanted to see the full citation, it was necessary to go from the notes to the bibliography. Page numbers for the text were not given at the top of the page in the notes to indicate where the text citation could be found, so that one had to leaf through to find the chapter title and number. Altogether, Harvard UP ought to know better. Secondly, and personally, I do not enjoy cute. The periodic and a-historic settings of a person in a room as a chapter introduction simply fell flat, were distracting, and were certainly out of place; this was was not, after all, a novel. Finally, while respecting the author's evident enjoyment of his texts and their authors, the constant shift from the latter's last names to their first and then back again, was at the least disorienting. So too, were the dizzying proliferation of in-text references to the various romances, many of whose names were similar. Since Barber in one instance I noted did alter the name to clarify identification, it would have been helpful and would have lessened possible confusion if he had simply attached, for example, a simple Roman numeral to indicate the chronological order of the multivarious texts.

Having said that, and despite these reservations, the book is well worth buying and reading.

A study of the Holy Grail, its history and significance in literature and faith, from its first appearance in the last, unfinished romance of Chrétien de Troyes to its contemporary, completely secular usage as "sought-after unattainable ideal." Barber (famous authority on medieval history and the culture of chivalry) says that when he started the project he expected to be exploring Celtic myth and legend; somewhat to his surprise, he instead found himself digging deeper into medieval Christian theology and spirituality than he ever thought possible.

The book falls into three parts: a review in some depth of the first "generation" of Grail romances (approx. 1180-1250); an analysis of what the Grail "meant" in those early, formative years; and a higher-level overview of modern (that is, post-medieval) Grail literature. I found the first part useful, the second part very interesting, and the third part draggy -- but that might vary depending on whether the reader starts out more familiar with the medieval or the modern literature. There's mention of Monty Python, a couple pages on the Holy Blood, Holy Grail / Da Vinci Code conspiracy theory, and one allusion to "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

Barber's book on the Holy Grail comes at a good time, a time when a little sober research about the history of the Grail, the myths and legends around it, are sorely needed. There has been a staggering amount of twaddle written in the last 20 years on this subject; Barber does an excellent job of gently (sometimes not so gently) debunking it, and setting the actual facts before one.

The book covers in detail the texts of the various Grail romances, who wrote them, for whom, how they were altered or amended or changed or added to, and discusses each romance in thorough detail. One is surprised upon examining these texts to learn how different in focus and message some of them were. Barber then moves on to works covering the Grail after the (very compressed) time of the original romances, and shows the spreading of the story into popular works, including art, literature, legend and fairy tale. Multiple excellent illustrations and plates accompany the text. And finally we read of the Grail in modern culture, from Indiana Jones to Monty Python to the fantasies of the Holy Blood Holy Grail variety.

Barber approaches the subject as a historian, warm to the subject but objective, wanting only to understand and explain. He is understanding of the religious implications of the Grail mythos, explicating it fairly, though he himself is not religious. His writing is clear and fluid throughout, and exhibits something of a very dry and sly humor as well. The book is long, but each subject is truly exhaustively explored; the more modern material is all addressed, and there is a lot of it, some of it pretty out there. The most excessive stuff is discussed and made short work of.

Throughout, the work concentrates on the historical development of the Grail legends, the question of what the Grail actually itself might be, and the spread and popularization of the Grail in culture. This is a very welcome book on a fascinating subject.

What is the most famous piece of dinnerware ever? The Holy Grail, a legendary item that is constantly being sought and rarely being found. With the popularity of The DaVinci Code, the Holy Grail is more discussed now even more than ever. In The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief, Richard Barber sorts through the myths but the reader may end up finding the Grail as cryptic as ever.

Although vaguely referred to previously, the Grail came into popular awareness around 1200 with several stories involving with the Arthurian legends. In particular, authors such as Chretien de Troyes, Robert de Boron and Wolfram von Eschenbach told tales involving the quests of characters such as Percival, Lancelot, Gawain and Galahad. While these quests often involved the Grail, they were often rather evasive about the Grail's nature. Was it a plate, a cup, a stone or something else? Personally, since I was first exposed to the Grail concept in the movie Excalibur, I've always pictured it as a cup (other movies, such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Monty Python and the Holy Grail also use a cup).

Barber's study of the literature of the Grail is exhaustive and at times exhausting. While this is a fascinating subject, this was not a very easy read. For this reason, I am only rating this book four stars. For those interested in this subject, this is a good book but at times it is laborsome.

Among all of the many studies on the subject, this is a truely refeshing book. The first part is the strongest, where Richard basically summarizes the first grail novels, and puts them in historical order.
I like his point of view, that the grail is nothing else but what Chretien was imagening.
I would have expected a more thorough study of the people for whom Chretien was writing, in particular Philip of Flanders, Marie de Champagne and her mother, Queen Eleanor of Aquitanie.
I recommend this book to every true searcher of the grail!