Land of troubadours and grails
land of troubadours and grails
A Catalan author calls "country of the troubadours"
to the network of French/Spanish
alliances across the pyrinees diring Mid Age.
Such "country", covered the Mediterranean Sea
from Valencia to Marseilles, and entered deeply
into France following the expansion of the house
of Foix.
My sister has just finished the scanning of an
atlas of the aragonese crown, you are invited to
see the relevant maps, for instance in
http://
They can be used (combined to basque and french
atlas, of course) to check the political status
of Garonne, Haut-Lot, Rhone etc. at the time of
composition of french poems.
Apart from this, it is interesting to remark that
one of the versions of the Grail was custodiated in
such country. It is reported to be hidden in San
Pedro de Siresa, a carolingian foundation in
Spanish central Pirinees, and moved to
San Juan de la Pena time after, but the oldest
document kept about the vase is dated 1399. This is
a document of king Martin El Humano asking for
the vase to be brought to his chapel.
Archeologist Antonio Beltran made a very detailed
report about the cup, reference is:
BELTRAN, ANTONIO, "Estudio sobre el Santo Caliz de
la Catedral de Valencia", 4th ed., Zaragoza, Octavio
y Felez, 1984
(funny enough, a son of Beltran working in Petra
casually meet with Spielberg team. Small world!)
It seems to be a paleochristian vase, 9.5 cm of
diameter, 7cm tall, 5cm diam. bottom, mounted in a
double handled basis, then making a cup about 17 cm
tall. There is an arabic inscription in the the
basis, perhaps a clue of the Cordobese origin of
this addition.
Hans Wilhelm Shaefer ("Kelch und Stein", Frankfurt
and Bern 1983), transcribes the inscription as
ALBST SLJS and then reads "Al-labsit As-Silis",
linking this with the name of the Graal as it appears
in Eschembach' Parzival (1210).
Today the piece is kept in Valencia. (you
can check the valencian webpage for pictures:
http://
including one of Pope J Paulus II kissing the Graal,
as He did a mass using the cup just the year
after the shooting, he he he). Valencianish reports date
the relic references as far as 14 December 1134,
but the quoted documents have not been found. Some
work of the order studies the different versions
of the Saint Grail around the world, but no effort
is done to link them to arthuric literature.
Spanish novels have recently become used
again to refer to this relic, the most
patent example could be Pedro Jesus Fernandez
"Peon de Rey", where Alfonso I "el batallador"
is identified with the Fisherking.
The valencian link is also very good
for plots, as Valencia was conquered by Jaime I,
who grew (of course :-) inside the Temple order.
As for the "trobadours" kingdoom, well, it become
a failed project when Castilla and Aragon joined
three centuries later. Still today the regional
symbols are the red and yellow bars of the papacy
and the red cross over white background (and yep,
our holiday is april 23th). You could perhaps
enjoy to navigate back in the previously named
atlas, to see the carolingian foundation of the
kingdooms, first "counts" (earls?) being in fact
french lords... For centuries, french chevalieurs
took this opportunity of fighting the moor
near home, and aragonese lords, yellow and red
bars flags as signal, and St. George Draco
in the helmet, were a popular image for epic
poems.
Yours,
Alejandro
1180 Troyes, 1190 Perlesvaus, 1215 vulgate
119ad templars in dome
1165 p juan letter. Etiopia or India (Wolfram)?