Classen, 'Auf den Spuren des Heiligen Gral.  Die gemeinsame Vorlage im pyrenaeischen Geheimcode von Chretien de Troyes und Wolfram von Eschenbach.  Neue Version', Bryn Mawr Medieval Review 9508
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmmr/bmmr-9508-classen-auf

@@@@95.8.4, de Mandach, Auf den Spuren des Heiligen Gral

Andre de Mandach, <i>Auf den Spuren des Heiligen Gral.  Die
gemeinsame Vorlage im pyrenaeischen Geheimcode von Chretien de
Troyes und Wolfram von Eschenbach.  Neue Version</i>.  Goeppinger
Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 596.  Goeppingen: Kuemmerle, 1995.  Pp.
109.  15 Illustrations.  ISBN 3-87452-838-3.
     Reviewed by: Albrecht Classen, University of Arizona

This brief study might be well known among some specialists on the history
of the Grail because an earlier version appeared in 1992 with the same
publishing house under the title <i>Le Roman du Graal Originaire, I, Sur
les traces du modele commun en code transpyreneen de Chretien de Troyes et
Wolfram von Eschenbach</i>. The author felt the need, however, to revise
it and to rewrite some complete sections.  Moreover, the present version
is a German translation which incorporates more recent research to
buttress the author's argument. 

The question raised by de Mandach is an old one which has exerted
considerable fascination and curiosity over the last two hundred
years.  The author claims to have found the answer to this
question which is, to say the least, a bold move on his part.
Whether his theses can be upheld is another issue.  De Mandach
believes that he has found the origin of the grail romances by
Chretien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach, and locates it in
the world of the Pyrenees and Castile where all the ruling family
clans in Aragon, Navarra, Catalonia, Occitania, and Castile were
interrelated and built a mythical legend for themselves to
legitimize and sanctify their origins.  De Mandach quickly
discards the older conviction that the narratives of King Arthur
have a Celtic or Welsh background.  His criticism of previous
scholarship in this respect might be justified, but he does not
fully create a solid counter argument.  Instead he turns his
attention to the world of the Provence and Northeastern Spain in
the time between 1120 until 1137 where the main actors of the
Grail story can be identified according to the author's opinion.

Similar as in the case of the Arabs the Spanish nobility faced
the dilemma of how to differentiate themselves from each other
when too many shared the same name.  The common solution was to
find a nickname, and here lies the key to de Mandach's amazing
theory.  King Alfonso I of Aragon and Navarra was called
"Anfortas," Rotrou II de Perche was called "Percheval," Ramon
Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona, was called "Kyot of
Katelangen," and Alfonso VII, King of Spain (?), was called
"Kailet." These are all familiar names in the Grail tradition--
which came later, though, and could not have influenced the
family members to copy the romance.  Peroniella, daughter of
Ramiros II, married to Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona, is
called "Petronilla" in the Latin sources, whereas Wolfram called
her "Schoysiane."  Here, however, we need to ask whether it is
really possible to make this jump, or whether it is a leap of
faith which is required from us?

Alfonso I was an ardent supporter of the Order of the Templars
(see Alan Forey, <i>The Military Orders</i>, 1992), bequeathed
large portions of his lands to them and died in San Juan de la
Pena.  This monastic fortress might have been, as de Mandach sees
it, the model for "Munsalvaesche," although the geographical
descriptions of its location in Chretien's and Wolfram's texts
are not precise enough to equate them so easily.  The church is
called San Salvador, and above the monastery rises the Mont Sant
Salvatge (in Occitan).  There are even more names of localities
in that area which bear strong similarities with those used by
Wolfram, one of them being the reference to "Katelangen," which
can now, according to de Mandach, be identified with "Cataluna"
which was ruled by Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona from
1137 onwards as the Prince of Aragon.  In that role he appears in
Wolfram's text as Kyot of Katelangen.  In previous times a lake
existed near the Baroque church of San Juan de la Pena which
might have been the lake on which King Anfortas went fishing
(21).

De Mandach also identifies Rotrou II de Perche, the Count of Val
de Perche or Conde de Valperche, with the figures Perceval and
Parzival because similarities in the biographies exist, even
though the direct connection is not quite certain.  The argument
becomes, however, even more fantastic (not in the negative sense
of the word) because Routrou married Matilda, daughter of King
Henry I of England and thus became the brother-in-law of Robert,
Count of Gloucester who had commissioned copies of the
<i>Historia Regum Brittaniae</i> by Geoffrey of Monmouth.  In him
the author believes to have found the crucial middleman who
connected the Aragonese/Catalonian family clan with the Arthurian
legend.  This is possible, though not fully demonstrable,
nevertheless highly fascinating and worthy of further
investigation.

On the premise that the previous conclusions are tenable, then
the next chapter promises even more excitement.  The author
argues that the Holy Chalice which was kept in San Juan de la
Pena from 1076 until 1399 (since 1437 in the cathedral of
Valencia) represents the Grail itself.  According to legend, the
chalice came from Jerusalem, was brought to Rome by St. Peter,
and was sent to Huesca/Spain in 259 by St. Lawrence.  When the
Arabs besieged Huesca in 716, the chalice was taken into a safe
chapel in the Sierra del Gratal from which it later got its name-
-Gral/Grail.  De Mandach observes a number of features of this
actual chalice which allows its identification with the grail in
Chretien's and Wolfram's texts, such as the appearance of words
on the bottom or at the edge of the grail.  Possibly de Mandach
is right, but a number of uncertainties remain, the least of
which would be that an object mentioned in a fictional text does
not necessarily find its reflection in reality.  Nevertheless, de
Mandach's corollaries are not too far fetched, though not always
fully convincing either.

The third chapter takes the new route of considering Wolfram's
allusion to his sources Kyot and Flegetanis as very serious.
Actually, de Mandach assumes that an "Ur-Parzival" had existed
which the French and the German authors adapted. First he
demonstrates that the name of Kyot derives from Guiot, then
explains the connection between Dolet, Kyot's residence, and
Toledo, and claims that a major "translatio studii" took place
transferring scholars and texts from the translation center
Tudela (near Zaragoza) to Toledo (42f.).  It is not really clear
in the argument what this has to do with Kyot's residence, for
all allusions in the text unequivocally point to Toledo, not to
Tudela (40). 

De Mandach believes that the "Ur-Parzival" was then somehow
transferred to Eschenbach in Franconia where Wolfram studied it
closely and composed his own text.  This assumption is, however,
not really necessary, if we want to accept de Mandach's other
claims, because Wolfram could easily have travelled to Toledo and
been familiarized with this source there, if that was the case in
the first place.  Moreover, he believes that the original author
lived in the Iberian Peninsula, but wrote in Occitan language.
His candidate is Guillen de Narbona, the royal scribe, who was a
"chanteur" (singer) but not an "enchanteur" (magician).  Other
linguistic and historical evidences might support this thesis,
although many open questions remain, particulalry because some of
the connections are not really firm and require the same strong
conviction which leads the author in his investigations.

In several appendices de Mandach examines further links between
names used by Wolfram and their relatives in French literary
sources and comes up with interesting and partly new
explanations.  For instance, he suggests that the name of
Feirefiz, the black and white colored son of Gahmuret and
Belakana, derives from "faerie fils" or "faerie fiz," meaning
'son of a sourceress.  Tampunteira emerges as the name for
Ampurias at the Costa Brava, and Duke Clinschor as modeled after
Diepold I of Schweinspeunt and his opponent Guillelmo III, king
of Sicily who also was castrated (66).  Some of these
combinations are highly intriguing and convincing, others sound
like speculations, but the author is, after all, trying to enter
Wolfram's mind and thus forced to consider any possibility which
the poet might have used. 

De Mandach demonstrates how easily one can fall prey to
philological errors, when he shows that Wolfram did not
misunderstand Chretien's phrase "tailleoir d'argant," making the
silver plate to silver knives.  On the contrary, in Chretien's
text we have to read the whole verse 3282 "Atot le tailleoir
d'argant" as "cutting it with a silver knive."  In a similar vein
the knives which follow the grail are not the product of
Wolfram's misunderstanding, but are the result of his close
reading of the French text!

This is a densely written book and often hard to follow because
de Mandach displays such a wide range of lexicological,
historical, and literary knowledge and assumes the same of his
readers.  Some of his observations are well grounded and
convincingly presented; others seem to be more the product of a
hypothesis.  At the end we can be certain that the author is
possibly on the trail of very important, hitherto hardly ever
discussed conclusions.  The evidence he presents forces us to
reopen the whole question of whether the reference to Kyot is
fiction or, as de Mandach has it, grounded in facts.  What we
have here, at least, is a very refreshing, exciting new starting
point in the research on the grail.