Perlesvaus

Perlesvaus, also called Li Hauz Livres du Graal (The High History of the Holy Grail), is an Old French Arthurian romance dating to the first decade of the 13th century. It purports to be a continuation of Chrétien de Troyes unfinished Perceval, the Story of the Grail, but it has been called the least canonical Arthurian tale because of its striking differences from other versions. It survives in three manuscripts, two fragments, and two 16th-century printings.

Plot

Perlesvaus begins by explaining that its main character, Percival, did not fulfill his destiny of achieving the Holy Grail because he failed to ask the Fisher King the question that would heal him, events related in Chrétien's work. The author soon digresses into the adventures of knights like Lancelot and Gawain, many of which have no analogue in other Arthurian literature. Often events and depictions of characters are thoroughly at odds with other versions of the story. For instance, while later literature depicts Loholt as a good knight and illegitimate son of King Arthur, in Perlesvaus he is apparently the legitimate son of Arthur and Guinevere, and he is slain treacherously by Arthur's seneschal Kay, who is elsewhere portrayed as a boor and a braggart but always as Arthur's loyal servant (and often, foster brother). Kay is jealous when Loholt kills a giant, so he murders him to take the credit. This backfires when Loholt's head is sent to Arthur's court in a box that can only be opened by his murderer. Kay is banished, and joins with Arthur's enemies, Brian of the Isles and Meliant. Guinevere expires upon seeing her son dead, which alters Arthur and Lancelot's actions substantially from what is found in later works.

Influence

Though its plot is frequently at variance with the standard Arthurian outline, Perlesvaus did have an effect on subsequent literature. Arthur's traditional enemies Claudas, Brian and Meliant appear for the first time in its pages, as does the Questing Beast (though in a radically different guise than it would take). The story of Kay murdering Loholt is mentioned in the Lancelot-Grail cycle as the one evil deed Kay ever committed, but the details and retribution are left out. Perlesvaus was adapted into Middle Welsh as part of Y Seint Greal, and one episode was rewritten in verse and included in Fouke Fitz Warin.

Authorship

The author is not proven but Hank Harrison was the first, in 1992, to suggest the author was Bishop Henri de Blois, the brother of King Stephen and the Abbot of Glastonbury.The strangeness of the text and some personal comments led Roger Sherman Loomis to call him "deranged"; similarly the editor of a French Arthurian anthology including extracts from the work notes an obsession with decapitation. Loomis also notes an antisemitic air absent from most Arthurian literature of the period, as there are several scenes in which the author symbolically contrasts the people of the "Old Law" with the followers of Christ, usually predicting violent damnation for the unsaved.

References

• Bryant, Nigel (2007). The High Book of the Grail: A translation of the thirteenth century romance of Perlesvaus. Rochester, New York: Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1-84384-121-0.
• Lacy, Norris J. (Ed.) (1991). The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-4377-4.
• Lacy, Norris J.; Ashe, Geoffrey; and Mancoff, Debra N. (1997). The Arthurian Handbook. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8153-2081-7.
• Loomis, Roger Sherman (1991). The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol. Princeton. ISBN 0-691-02075-2

External links

• The High History of the Holy Grail from the Online Medieval and Classical Library. Sebastian Evans translation (1898).
• The High History of the Holy Grail in a freely-distributable PDF document.