| Belief in the Grail and interest in its potential
whereabouts has never ceased. Ownership has been
attributed to various groups (including the Knights
Templar, probably because they were at the peak of their
influence around the time that Grail stories started
circulating in the 12th and 13th centuries).
One of the supposed
Holy Grails in Valencia, Spain
There are cups claimed to be the Grail in several
churches, for instance the Saint Mary of Valencia
Cathedral, which contains an artifact, the Holy Chalice,
supposedly taken by Saint Peter to Rome in the first
century, and then to Huesca in Spain by Saint Lawrence
in the 3rd century. According to legend the monastery of
San Juan de la Peña, located at the south-west of Jaca,
in the province of Huesca, Spain, protected the chalice
of the Last Supper from the Islamic invaders of the
Iberian Peninsula. Archaeologists say the artifact is a
1st century Middle Eastern stone vessel, possibly from
Antioch, Syria (now Turkey); its history can be traced
to the 11th century, and it presently rests atop an
ornate stem and base, made in the Medieval era of
alabaster, gold, and gemstones. It was the official
papal chalice for many popes, and has been used by many
others, most recently by Pope Benedict XVI, on July 9,
2006.[5] The emerald chalice at Genoa, which was
obtained during the Crusades at Caesarea Maritima at
great cost, has been less championed as the Holy Grail
since an accident on the road, while it was being
returned from Paris after the fall of Napoleon, revealed
that the emerald was green glass.
In Wolfram von Eschenbach's telling, the Grail was
kept safe at the castle of Munsalvaesche (mons
salvationis), entrusted to Titurel, the first Grail
King. Some, not least the monks of Montserrat, have
identified the castle with the real sanctuary of
Montserrat in Catalonia, Spain. Other stories claim that
the Grail is buried beneath Rosslyn Chapel or lies deep
in the spring at Glastonbury Tor. Still other stories
claim that a secret line of hereditary protectors keep
the Grail, or that it was hidden by the Templars in Oak
Island, Nova Scotia's famous "Money Pit", while local
folklore in Accokeek, Maryland says that it was brought
to the town by a closeted priest aboard Captain John
Smith's ship. Turn of the century accounts state that
Irish partisans of the Clan Dhuir (O'Dwyer, Dwyer)
transported the Grail to the United States during the
19th Century and the Grail was kept by their descendents
in secrecy in a small abbey in the upper-Northwest (now
believed to be Southern Minnesota). |
