Book VIII

. Nevertheless, the connection of the Grail race with the House of Anjou, save through Herzeleide's marriage with Gamuret, is nowhere stated, nor how Titurel was descended from Mazadan, the ancestor alike of Arthur and of Gamuret.

Page 265, line 465--'_The altar and shrine_.' Wolfram appears to be absolutely correct here; during the Middle Ages, a shrine, or reliquary, was generally placed on the altar, the use of a cross was of comparatively late date. It is curious that Chrêtien, otherwise more ecclesiastical in his details than Wolfram, has missed the characteristic feature of the stripped altar; on the other hand, he notes that Perceval spends _Easter_ with the Hermit, and receives the Sacrament, while Wolfram passes Easter over without mention. (It is rather odd to find Chrêtien's Hermit saying _Mass_ on Good Friday!)

Page 267, line 531--'_Ashtaroth_.' Bartsch says that these names are derived from Talmudic tradition; Belcimon being Baal-Schemen, a god of the Syrians; Belat, the Baal of the Chaldeans. Rhadamant is, of course, the Greek ruler of the under-world.

Page 267, line 533, and _seq._--'_When Lucifer and his angels_.' The belief that the creation of man was directly connected with the fall of the rebel angels was very widespread, though the relation of the two as cause and effect was sometimes the reverse of that stated here. None of the editions of the Parzival give a direct reference to the source of the curious 'riddling' passage which follows, but the theory of the maidenhood of the earth was a favourite one with Mediæval writers.

Page 268, line 572--'_Plato and the Sibyls_.' A curious proof of the belief of the Mediæval Church in the Christian nature of the Sibylline prophecies is found in the first line of the _Dies Iræ_:

'Dies Iræ, Dies Illa, Solvet sæclum in favilla Teste David cum Sibylla.'

Page 270, line 615, and _seq._--'_The Grail_.' The account of the Grail given by Wolfram is most startling, differing as it does from every other account which has come down to us. Wolfram evidently knows nothing whatever of the traditional 'vessel of the Last Supper,' though the fact that the virtue of the stone is renewed every _Good Friday_ by a _Host_ brought from Heaven seems to indicate that he had some idea of a connection between the Grail and the Passion of our Lord. Various theories have been suggested to account for the choice of a precious stone as the sacred talisman; Birch Hirschfeld maintains that it arose entirely from a misunderstanding of Chrêtien's text, the French poet describing the Grail as follows:

'De fin or esmeree estoit; Pieres pressieuses avoit El graal, de maintes manieres, Des plus rices et des plus cieres Qui el mont u en tiere soient.'

But how Wolfram, who, in other instances appears to have understood his French source correctly, here came to represent an object of gold, adorned with _many_ precious stones, as _a_ precious stone, does not appear. And it must be noted that this importance assigned to a jewel is not out of keeping with the rest of the poem. From the jewel of Anflisé, the ruby crown of Belakané, and the diamond helmet of Eisenhart in the first book, to the long list of precious stones adorning the couch of Anfortas in the last, the constant mention of jewels is a distinct feature of Wolfram's version, and cannot be paralleled by anything in Chrêtien. Moreover, in two other instances, viz. the armour of Feirefis in