Simon Mattacks
speaker
2,981 appearances
17 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 13 Sep
Simon Mattacks’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 14 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 3.
Appearances
However, rather than a cup, he featured a stone, which he called lapis exilis.
According to Grail author Justin Griffin, the most important feature of von Eschenbach's story about the stone was that he swapped out the Fisher King for the Knights Templar.
a religious military order of knighthood from the era of the Crusades.
Anyone who has seen the Indiana Jones movie will immediately understand how important that new plot point would become.
The idea that the Grail was guarded by such an organization or secret society became central to its stories going forward.
The other intriguing effect of von Eschenbach's story was to represent the grail as a stone.
But why is that?
Because the term lapis exalis can be interpreted as referring to the philosopher's stone, which people had sought for centuries in the hope of finding the secret to wealth and eternal life.
Even though the idea of the grail as a stone was not a very persistent one, lore about its supernatural powers lived on, and this story probably contributed to that.
Meanwhile, other people in the early 13th century were creating additional Holy Grail stories, sticking much closer to the simpler definition of the grail as a cup.
We don't know their names now, but a group of writers authored a series of stories that expanded the adventures of King Arthur, his knights, and the quest for the Holy Grail.
Especially important to this group of tales is the knight called Lancelot, and eventually his son, Galahad.
That group of highly influential stories is often referred to as the Lancelot Grail series or the Vulgate series.
Despite the fact that we don't know the authors, the Lancelot Grail cycle is really the source of much of the most common storytelling we have about Camelot and the Grail nowadays.
In these tales, it's notable that many knights pursue the Grail.
including Lancelot.
But they are not holy enough or pure enough to attain it.
In the end, the only knight worthy of the grail is the Virgin Galahad, who is so pure that he finally lays hands on the holy relic and ascends to heaven.
It's possible that this highly religious version of events was so enduring because it was later perpetuated by one of the most famous writers in the Arthur mythology, Sir Thomas Malory.
Hundreds of years after the Vulgate series was written, Malory revived it in the 15th century in his famous work called Le Morte d'Arthur, or The Death of Arthur.
Showing 2401–2420 of 2,981 · page 121 of 150
← Previous
Next →