The Grail Legend

Galahad is  a word from the Old Testament that means Mountain of Testimony; [Sir  Galahad] is a mountain of testimony to Christ. The whole tradition of  the virgin knight as the Grail knight belongs to a Cistercian monastic  line. Whereas the line of Wolfram is the secular line of a secular  knight [Parcival] who is married. And as we’re going to see it’s because  of his loyalty to his marriage under all circumstances and his courage  and resolution in combat, fearlessness and also integrity in love that  he becomes finally the Grail King. —Joseph Campbell Joseph Campbell explores the historical roots of the Grail legend. He  discusses the development of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dark  Ages, and shows how new conceptions of love, marriage, and worship gave  rise to a secular “religion,” that of courtly romance. He then examines  the quest for the Holy Grail, both as an expression of these new ideas  of love and as a reaction against the dogmatic practices of the medieval  Church. Finally, in his own inimitable style, he recounts the Grail  Legend.