"The Quest for the Holy Grail Leads to... Spain?" Topic

Two historians claim the Cup of Christ is indeed in a church in Spain:
link

And I loved this bit:

"In Europe alone there are 200 supposed Holy Grails, the Spanish researchers admitted."

So, they're saying they've already got one?

Hmm…. I'm not sure but isn't that johns old mug?

Just kidding…

Nobody expects the Spanish… quest for the Holy Grail!

"I told zem we arlready got wurn…."

Yes, it's very nice.

Yes, it's very nice.

Indeed, being a carpenter apparently paid quite well ;-)

It does look more like a contractors cup, not a subcontractor

The last supper wasn't held at Jesus' place. So it wasn't His plates and cups that would have been used. It would almost certainly have been the hosts. Unfortunately, I don't think there is much to go on as to how wealthy the host was.

I have two in the attic.

Indeed, being a carpenter apparently paid quite well ;-)

Have you ever hired a carpenter? They don't come cheap!

Makes sense, Atlantis is in Spain s well.

As to the 'bling,' one presumes that whatever the actual provenance, that the original cup has been 'product improved.'

A not uncommon practice in days of yore.

Interesting to see what the Church makes of this.

The holy grail is a literary invention by Chretien de Troyes. These bozos found something that never existed. Jesus's cup held zero interest for the early Church. And as for the modern obsession with it thank you Steven Spielberg and Dan Brown.

It looks Medieval-fashion to me, not 2,000 years old…
or perhaps it was modified in the Middle Ages? Um. :)

It reminds me of the "pilot episode" of "Kaamelott" a TV serie which was very popular in France some years ago :)

vimeo.com/7869798

If you don't understand French, go directly to 8:00.
King Arthur asks the Round Table knights if they found the Holy Grail;
Bohort takes something from a bag… everyone marvels looking at it… and…
"it has been done by a young smith, he can change the colour if we want"
"what? is it the Grail?"
"it's a prototype!"
"…but where is the Grail?"
um, nobody knows, (who?) Joseph of (what?) Arimathea was a drunkard;
is it in Gaul, or Judea, or Avallon?
no, the Grail, "we can cross it off"…
then King Arthur loses his temper :)

In Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival the Grail's nature is not entirely clear, but it is not the Cup of the Last Supper. The history of the Grail suggests that it might have been derived from the Celtic myth of a serving platter that could produce whatever food was desired. Later this became a platter that contained the Host (the wafer that is the Body of Christ in Catholic communion)— perhaps the first Host? (I merely muse the latter myself). The concept of the Chalice as the Holy Grail is a later notion, and was actually preceded by a notion that the Grail was not Jesus' drinking cup, but a bowl used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch the blood of Christ as it dripped from his body during the Crucifixion. Later the two ideas became one, asserting that the the bowl and the drinking cup were (conveniently) the same vessel, and thus the idea of the Chalice was born. (There is a certain bit of logic in this, as the cup of the Last Supper would, in Catholic teaching, have indeed held the transubstantiated blood of Christ, as the Last Supper is the First Communion.)

But all of that doesn't change the fact that today the "Holy Grail" is assumed to refer solely to the Chalice, the wine cup of Christ, because that in fact became the medieval tradition regarding both ideas. So, regardless of what it might originally have been imagined as, today the Holy Grail is the Cup of Christ, and that is the argument the researchers in the article have put forth.

By the way, I don't credit their argument much. It's possible that the chalice in question (apparently built around a simpler, cut agate bowl) may have been believed at the time to be the Cup of Christ, and may even have been brought from the Holy Land by those who believed it to be that very object, but the likelihood that it actually is, or that anyone kept Christ's cup at the Last Supper or placed enough significance upon it at that chaotic time to preserve it, I think is ludicrous. Revering objects or idols was not the way of the Jews, much less the early Church. So I don't think this Grail is the cup of Christ, no matter who once believed it was, if they did.

@Patrice: =D It was funny and I don't even speak French. Did Arthur have his knights sorting through lentils? What was up with that? Much clanking around, all that ridiculous armor….

@Patrice: =D It was funny and I don't even speak French. Did Arthur have his knights sorting through lentils? What was up with that? Much clanking around, all that ridiculous armor…

Arthur finds the list of shopping in the priest's papers, the knights hear that they'll have 5 roe deers for meal, they protest that each time they meet they eat two deer legs each and French fries :) and it's not healthy, so the cook is summoned and is ordered to cook French green beans but the knights must help to prepare them.

When the first episodes of this series appeared on the French TV, many re-enactors and wargamers (including myself, I'm both) thought it was completely stupid…
…then after some time we realised it is very good fun. Armour and most costumes are totally ridiculous and they speak in modern French (often in modern French slang) but when you get used to it, it sounds natural. It includes some fantasy hints etc, and at the same time it tries rather seriously to follow the myth. There even is a long part about the youth of Arthur that starts in Rome etc.

Look for "Kaamelott" on Wiki and/or Google images if you want more :)