raal, the Book of the Holy Vessel" to which the
biographer of Fulke refers. The use, moreover, of the definite article
shows that the writer held this book to be conclusive authority on the
subject. By the time he retold the story of Fulke, a whole library of
Romances about Perceval and the Holy Graal had been written, with some
of which it is hard to believe that any historian of the time was
unacquainted. He nevertheless distinguishes this particular story as
"The Graal", a way of speaking he would scarce have adopted had he
known of any other "Graals" of equal or nearly equal authority.

Several years later, about 1280, the trouveur Sarrazin also cites "The
Graal" ("li Graaus") in the same manner, in superfluous verification of
the then-accepted truism that King Arthur was at one time Lord of Great
Britain. This appeal to "The Graal" as the authority for a general
belief shows that it was at that time recognised as a well-spring of
authentic knowledge; while the fact that the trouveur was not
confounding "The Graal" with the later version of the story is further
shown by his going on presently to speak of "the Romance that Chrestien
telleth so fairly of Perceval the adventures of the Graal." (8)

Perhaps, however, the most striking testimony to the fact that this
work is none other than the original "Book of the Graal" is to be found
in the "Chronicle of Helinand", well known at the time the Romance was
written not only as a historian but as a troubadour at one time in high
favour at the court of Philip Augustus, and in later years as one of
the most ardent preachers of the Albigensian Crusade. The passage, a
part of which has been often quoted, is inserted in the Chronicle under
the year 720, and runs in English thus:

"At this time a certain marvellous vision was revealed by an
angel to a certain hermit in Britain concerning S. Joseph,
the decurion who deposed from the cross the Body of Our
Lord, as well as concerning the paten or dish in the which
Our Lord supped with His disciples, whereof the history was
written out by the said hermit and is called "Of the Graal"
(de Gradali). Now, a platter, broad and somewhat deep, is
called in French "gradalis" or "gradale", wherein costly
meats with their sauce are wont to be set before rich folk
by degrees ("gradatim") one morsel after another in divers
orders, and in the vulgar speech it is called "graalz", for