JOSEPH D'ARIMATHIE

PREFACE

In the closing years of the twelfth century or early in the thirteenth a
certain Robert de Boron, a writer from the Franche-Comté (presesnt-day
Territory of Belfort), composed, presumably at the behest of his patron
Gautier de Montbéliard, what is believed by many to be a trilogy of
romances in octosyllabic couplets.

Despite its many narrative imperfections
and infelicities of style, Robert's work remains one of the boldest attempts
to achieve a broad synthesis of sacred history and secular literary narrative
to survive from the French Middle Ages. What is more, the author inter
wove into this vast canvas of Scriptural events and apocryphal lore a wide
range of spiritual and theological topics much debated in his day. Taken
as a whole the work amounts to a narrative of universal history that
recounts the creation, fall and redemption of man and projects the account
of events forward to the dissolution of the Arthurian world. At the center
of this ambitious undertaking Robert placed the mysterious and splendid
Grail.

Whether or not he knew the Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes, and
whatever interpretation we choose to give to Chrétien's vessel, one thing
is firmly established-the grail has now been transformed into the Holy
Grail. "It acquired," in the words of William Roach, "religious, symbolical,
and allegorical overtones, which deepened its meaning and enhanced its
appeal to the readers of later centuries" (Transformations... " p. 164). Within
this wide panorama of sacred history and secular story, the twice-hallowed
relic of the Precious Blood-for the Grail has become so in the hands of
Robert-occupies a prominent place, first as the vessel of the Last Supper
that Joseph of Arimathea subsequently used to collect the blood as it
flowed from the wounds of the crucified Christ on Golgotha, then as the
symbol of the real presence and prototype of the chalice in the eucharistic
sacrifice. In the declining verses of the Joseph d'Arimathie this sacred relic
of the passion was transported by the Grail fellowship to Britain where it
became in later romance a symbol of spiritual perfection and the object of
a quest on the part of the knights of the Round Table

Of this trilogy consisting of the Joseph d'Arimathie, the Merlin, and the
Perceval (presumed to be the prosification of a verse text by Robert and...