Le Roman de Merlin l'enchanteur. Remis en bon Francais et dans un meilleur ordre, par S. Boulard. Merlin l'enchanteur [modern rifacimento] by E. Quinet. 2 tom. Paris, 1860. Merlin, or the early history of King Arthur, a prose romance. With an essay on Arthurian localities, by J. S. S. Stuart Glennie. Published by the Early English Text Society. 1869. Surtees, S. F. Merlin and Arthur, an essay, 1871, etc. Die Sagen von Merlin . . . by San Marte (A. Schulz). 1853, 8°. A critical study. Halle, A. Vesselovsky, Slavianskia Skazania o Solomene i Kitovrase i zapadnya legendy o Morolfe i Mereine, St. Petersburg, 1872. THE GRAAL (p. 159, etc.). 66 When the Crusaders captured Cæsarea in 1101, Guglielmo Embriaco, at the head of the Genoese contingent, first scaled the wall and penetrated into the city, where (Guliel. Tyrius, 1. x. c. 16; Bracelleus, De Claris Genuensibus, fol. xlvi. 661, b. 6, and other historians), he took from a temple which had been dedicated by Herod to Augustus Cæsar, a most precious vase, which was retained by the Genoese as their share of the booty (Paulus Æmilius, De reb. gest. Francor., 1. v., p. 140, ed. Basle, 1601). It was believed to be a single emerald, and in this circumstance consisted the value and wondrousness of the object, for its upper diameter is 326 millimètres, its height being 90, as measured by M. C. Rohault de Fleury, who describes it as a flat, saucer-like, hexagonal dish of emerald-coloured glass. . . . It is easy to see,' he adds, "that having been cast entire, it was finished with the wheel." See C. Rohault de Fleury's "Instruments de la Passion, etc.," Paris, 1870, where a representation of the vessel is given. This sketch, which may very likely have been made partly from memory, or under inconvenient circumstances, conveys to me (I examined the vase in the spring of 1886) the idea of a vessel somewhat shallower and more depressed than the sacro catino, as it is called. On the other hand the engraving in Fra Gaetano's history of the vase errs, I think, in an opposite direction. In a private letter, M. Georges Rohault de Fleury, the son of the above, writes to me, "Il est assez difficile de dire quel degré d'authenticité s'attache à cette relique, je ne fais pas, quant à moi, de doute que ce ne soit un plat antique; on peut s'en convaincre en le comparant au catin us antique dont il reste quelques specimens." See also Revue Archéologique, Paris, 1845, p. 149; also Millin, in the Magas. Encyc. Janvier, 1807, tom. i. p. 137, etc. It should be remembered that, as far as can be gleaned from Isidore, Mandeville, and other writers, as well as from inventories of treasures, it is very doubtful whether, until quite recent times, the difference between the true emerald and the peridot and other green translucent stones, was understood or recognized. Mandeville speaks of cups and dishes of emeralds, sapphires, topazes, and other precious stones, used in the palace of Prester John. The work of Fra Gaetano above referred to is an extensive monograph, published in 1726 at Genoa, and compiled in the conscientious and industrious, but uncritical spirit of an earlier age. Much of the work, however, relating to the preservation of the vase is reliable, and is, indeed, its history since 1101. It can scarcely be doubted that already, before the capture of Cæsarea, it was known and famous, either on account of its supposed material, or some other reason. Possibly the Genoese, well aware of the prevalent relic-hunger of the age, and believing in the tradition which subsequently became publicly attached to the vase, may have given out, with a view to avoid rival claims, that the value of the vase consisted merely in the material. Certainly it was only at a later period that the tradition became established that the catino had been used at the Last Supper by Our Lord, its substance having been miraculously changed into emerald (with the intent, according to one tradition, to impress Judas, and save him from perfidy). J. de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa (1292-98, born circ. 1230), whose compilation, the Golden Legend, has procured him a reputation for credulity, expresses himself in his Chronicon Januense, which extends to A.D. 1277, with some reserve (cap. viii.) on this subject:-"That this vessel is really of emerald, all experts (Gemmarii) who have seen it bear witness. . . and this must be so, since it was considered at Cæsarea to be worth as much as the whole city, or the whole treasury. . . the Genoese would not have taken it as their share of the spoil, had they not been convinced that it was a most rare emerald. Now this vessel is fashioned like a catinus, and hence it is commonly said that it was the catinus wherefrom Christ ate with his disciples at the, Last Supper, and whereof he said: 'He that dippeth his hand with me into the catinus, he shall betray me.' Whether this is true, however, we do not know and he who should refuse to believe is not to be blamed for temerity. "Moreover, it should not be overlooked that in certain books of the English (Anglorum) is found the statement that when Nicodemus took down Christ's body from the cross, he also collected the sacred gore which was still moist, and which had been ignominiously spilled about, in a certain vessel of emerald (vase emeraldino)." When this august association was first attached to the Genuan sacro catino I cannot tell. It is perhaps worth noting, especially in view of an expression of Voragine's, however trivial such a link may be, that catinus and paropsis, the terms most frequently employed by the Latin writers to designate this vessel, are also those used in the Vulgate in describing the Last Supper. There is scarcely an ecclesiastical historian of the twelfth century but mentions the catino, but on account only of its precious substance, and not the sacred tradition. See Ersch and Gruber, Encycl. s.v. Graal, p. 151. Fra Gaetano gives a long list of writers who have mentioned the catino. It is worth notice that the cup of the romances is borne upon a cloth, verdoiant com esmeraude. (See p. 479.) In the miniatures of one manuscript it is usually painted as a gold chalice-shaped vase with cover, resembling a ciborium, the modern name for the vessel in which, in the Latin Church, the eucharist is conserved. In one instance at least, however, it is represented as an escuele, and placed on the table together with the ciborium-like vase. As for the word graal, several etymologies, none of them completely satisfactory, have been proposed. The one generally preferred is cratella (crater) gradale, South French grasal, or, with the middle consonant elided, graal. Besides the most celebrated Genuan Catino, several other traditions of Graal-Cups were current in the middle ages, e.g., the large silver cup "calix Domini," containing a sponge said to have been the one placed to the lips of the crucified Redeemer (Adamnan apud Bedam, De locis Sanctis, ii. cap. 2 par.). The two silver vessels containing blood from Christ's wounds brought, according to a tradition, by St. Joseph of Arimathea to Glastonbury, and there, by his precept, buried with the body of that Saint, whose feast was, it is said, observed there in August instead of, as usual elsewhere, in March, and in reference whereto the escutcheon of Glastonbury was a cross with drops and two viols. Spelman, Capgrave, W. Good, etc., apud H. P. Cressy, The Church History of Brittany, etc., Rouen, 1668, fol. book ii. p. 19, etc. The relic of Christ's Blood, received in pomp by Henry III., at Westminster, from the East, and contained "in quodam vase cristallino venustissimo," Oct. 13, 1247. Matt. Paris, sub anno, 1247. The vessel containing some of the sacred gore from Christ's wounds, with a knife which had been used to collect the same, committed by Joseph of Arimathea to his nephew Isaac, and borne miraculously over sea to Normandy, and there long preserved in the celebrated Monastery of Fécamp, where there is record of its presence in 1120. Leroux de Lincy, Essai historique et littéraire sur l'abbaye de Fecamp; Rouen, 1840, 8o. The agate chalice-shaped cup preserved at Valencia, in Spain, and sometimes seen in Spanish paintings, and associated with St. Laurence. J. Briz Martinez, Historia y antiguedades de San Juan de la Peña y de los Reyes de Sobrarve, Aragon y Navarra, Saragoça, 1620, p. 213, and Nota de las Reliquias existentes in esta santa iglesia metropolitana de Valencia, 1829, p. 8. The "Sciphus lapidis Smaragdi," stated to have been preserved at the Monastery of Ile Ste Barbe, near Lyons, the foundation of which was piously attributed to Longinus (from λóyxn), the soldier who had pierced the side of Christ with a lance, and was afterwards converted. C. de Laboureur, Les Masures de l'Abbaye royale de l'Ile Barbe de Lyon. Lyon, 1665, p. 6, etc. In the romance, see extract appendix 2, the vessel is of gold and borne upon a cloth "verdoiant com esmeraude.” The mention of the bleeding lance, and especially of the human head (see extract) borne by one of the angels, which seems an incongruous interpolation, has been thought to be some obscured reminiscence of a pagan Celtic tradition, perhaps of human sacrifice (see the story of Peredur ap Evrawc (i.e. Eboracum or York), published in Lady C. Guest's “Mabinogion," and notes), others again have referred it to St. John the Baptist. I note that G. Banchero (Il Duomo di Genova, illustrato e descritto, 1855, p. 208), records the gift in 1485, by Innocent VIII., a Genoese, of an agate saucer having in the centre a representation in white enamel of the head of the Saint, and which was intended to be exposed upon the Altar of St. John Baptist in that Cathedral on solemn feasts. and "There were not wanting authors who assert that this was the platter, or discus as it is termed by the Evangelist, in which the dancing girl presented the Saint's head to the wicked daughter of Herod." This donation is of too late a date to have influenced the romance, but it may refer to some previous custom observed at Genoa. Various mythological or Christian and mystical meanings and associations have been connected with the bleeding spear (and nails). See G. Malmesb., De gest. reg. Anglor., lib. ii.; apud Savile, Rer. Angl. Scrip., p. 51; Fr. Michel, Chanson de Roland, p. 193; Chronique de P. de Mouskes, ed. Reiffenb., ii. cx.; Nash, Taliesin, p. 327; Rohault de Fleury, Instruments de la Passion, pp. 274-5; J. H. von Seelen, Memorabilium Bremensium Specimen seu de Festo Lanceæ et Clavorum, etc., Flensb., 1715, 4to. ; Greg. Tur. Gloria Martyrum, cap. 72; Riant, Exuvia Constantinopolitanæ, ii. p. 254; Tobler, p. 143; Sir G. W. Cox, Introduction to Mythology and Folklore, pp. 332, etc., ed. 1881. It has already been seen what an important element early Eastern Writings and Traditions, not perhaps exclusively Christian, form in the graal story, and it is impossible to ignore the striking resemblance which an essential part of it bears to the following Eastern legend: "But the more wonders Christ performed before the eyes of the people, the greater was their unbelief; for all that they were not able to comprehend they believed to be sorcery and delusion, instead of perceiving therein a proof of his divine mission. Even the twelve Apostles whom he had chosen to propagate the new doctrine, were not stedfast in the faith, and asked of him one day that he might cause a table covered with viands to descend from heaven! "A table shall be given you," said a voice from heaven, "but whosoever shall thereafter continue in unbelief shall suffer severe punishment." Thereupon there descended two clouds, with a golden table, on which there stood a covered dish of silver. 66 Many of the Israelites who were present exclaimed, “Behold the Sorcerer! What new delusion has he wrought?" But these scoffers were instantly changed into swine. And on seeing it, Christ prayed: Oh, Lord, let this table lead us to salvation, and not to ruin!" Then said he to the Apostles, "Let him who is the greatest among you rise and uncover this dish." But Simon, the oldest Apostle, said, "Lord, thou art the most worthy to |