Love is the Holy Grail

Have you ever heard stories about the Holy Grail? If not, let me catch you up. The Holy Grail is a chalice or bowl that, depending on the story, is sacred, magical or priceless, but regardless of the story it is always lost, hidden, or stolen. The search for the Holy Grail is a quintessential trope in Medieval romance, but it is a quest that is usually unsuccessful—at least if you assume that finding the grail is the point. Almost no one ever finds it, and some of the most famous questing stories don’t even have a true ending—they go on and on, episode after episode, until they finally stop and that is all there is. Some scholars have theorized that this is the case because the grail can’t be found. It is a plot device rather than an object, a reason to start a journey rather than a specific destination.

But why, you ask, am I bringing this up on a blog about medieval love? Because the Holy Grail is an excellent metaphor for love in the Middle Ages. Like the grail, love is not a destination or something to hold onto; it is not a happily ever after or a space where two people can contentedly live together. Rather, love is a goal or motivation—something that drives the action but disappears as soon as there is no striving or external threat. In this way, love is unlivable and incompatible with normal life. The story of Equitan by Marie de France illustrates this point. King Equitan loves love and becomes smitten with his seneschal’s wife. She agrees to be his lover, but only after extracting promises from him that she will have the upper hand in the relationship and will not be discarded if he gets bored. Eventually the seneschal’s wife becomes concerned that the king will leave her because the court is pressuring him to marry. So, the pair decides to kill the seneschal and marry each other.

Up to this point in the story, the language surrounding love gives a good indication of just how unlivable it is by highlighting the sorrow it entails. When the king is deciding whether or not to make the woman his lover, he states that his heart “has been assailed by anguish” because of love and that he is on the brink of going mad with desire (Gallagher 17). Later, when the woman is distressed that the king might need to marry someone else, she says, “[b]ecause of you, I must die; for I know no other consolation” (19). In the end, both the king and the woman die because of their love. The condition that loving placed them in (i.e., a state of unreasonable and illogical desire) led directly to the circumstances of their death and attests to the fact that love is not something that can be lived with.

Chretien de Troyes’ romance Yvain: The Knight with the Lion follows a similar theme. Yvain meets his love Laudine early in the story, after killing her husband in a duel. Although Laudine is grief stricken, Yvain falls instantly in love with her while she is mourning. Her handmaiden Lunete quickly convinces her that Yvain is the best candidate to replace her husband because he can protect her kingdom. During this period Yvain’s love is called a “wound, from which he will never recover” (Staines 273). However, when Arthur’s court comes to visit Yvain is persuaded by Gawain to leave his new wife to compete in tournaments in order to avoid growing “soft” from her love (287). Laudine agrees to let Yvain leave on the condition that he returns in no later than one year’s time. This promise is a test of their love, which Yvain ultimately fails. He forgets to return to his lover because he is no longer questing after love. There is no exterior threat to motivate him and in marrying her he already achieved his goal. Love cannot persist in such ideal circumstances, so Yvain does not keep his promise. It is only when Laudine’s messenger comes to berate him that Yvain experiences enough anguish to rekindle his love. In this way, love is able to reenter the story because it once again becomes aspirational rather than a state of existence.

Like the Holy Grail, love in the Middle Ages is an unattainable ideal that motivates action and adventure but does not exist without exterior pressure and is always accompanied by sorrow. As the troubadour poet Raimbaut de Vaqueiras put it: "Now you bring joy, and now dolour."

Works Cited:

Gallagher, Edward J., and Marie de Marie de France. The Lays of Marie de France. Hackett Publishing Company, 2010.

Kline, A. S. (translator). From Dawn to Dawn: Troubadour Poetry. 2009.

Staines, David (translator). The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes. Indiana University Press, 1991.