The Holy Grail might be the most coveted — and controversial — artifact in the history of Christianity. So... just where the heck is it?
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00:00The Holy Grail might be the most coveted and controversial artifact in the history of Christianity.
00:06So just where the heck is it?
00:08The Holy Grail probably makes you think of the legend of King Arthur, which hopefully
00:12makes you think of Monty Python.
00:14I seek the Grail!
00:16What is your favorite color?
00:19Blue!
00:20No!
00:21Yes!
00:22But why?
00:23Well, we've got a guy called Robert de Baron to thank for that.
00:27Before he came along, the Grail was a powerful but ambiguous artifact that showed up in the
00:31Arthurian canon.
00:32But it was de Baron who actually established the idea that the Grail was the cup that Christ
00:37used at the Last Supper.
00:38He also indirectly inspired a popular candidate for the Holy Grail's final resting place.
00:43In his first poem, entitled Joseph de Aramathie, Baron wrote that Joseph — of Aramathia,
00:48in case your old French didn't kick in and translate that title — anyway, it was Joseph
00:53himself that gifted the Holy Grail to his brother Bronn, who took it from Israel to
00:57the Isle of Avalon.
00:59There is some evidence linking stories of Avalon to the real town of Glastonbury.
01:03And in the 12th century, the monks of Glastonbury Abbey claimed that they had found the tombs
01:07of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere there, although modern historians tend to believe
01:11this was more a publicity stunt than a true discovery.
01:14Nevertheless, Glastonbury's ties to the legend of Arthur inspired later writers to suggest
01:19that the Holy Grail might also be found there.
01:22Several tales hold that Joseph himself brought it to the area and set it down.
01:26That spot, they say, is now marked by the spring-fed chalice well.
01:30King Arthur's knights aren't the only ones who've become associated with the Holy Grail.
01:34Some real-life flesh-wound inflictors were all about the Grail.
01:38Originally founded to protect pilgrims journeying to Jerusalem, the Knights Templar became legendary
01:42for their military prowess during the Crusades — which is a nice way of saying they slaughtered
01:47everybody.
01:48But they're probably better known for their eventual persecution and destruction of the
01:51Order — and the model they provided other chivalric organizations.
01:55Mythology is also connected, then, to quests for the Holy Grail — perhaps as early as
01:59a 13th-century poem entitled Percival, which features a Templar-like Order who helped the
02:03Fisher King guard the mythical relic.
02:05"'He chose poorly.'"
02:11Poem imitated life, to an extent.
02:12You see, people assumed that the Grail was the real reason the Knights Templar invaded
02:16Jerusalem.
02:17In this scenario, the Order was in Jerusalem to guard the Cup of Christ, and they were
02:21destroyed because of their involvement with such divine mysteries.
02:24This assumption has driven a number of stories about the final fate of the Holy Grail.
02:29One such story holds that before their destruction, the Knights Templar brought the Holy Grail
02:33to Poland in the 13th century.
02:35Facing exile, they placed the Grail and some gold into a wooden box and sunk it into a
02:39lake in northwest Poland.
02:40The good news is that the lake has since dried out.
02:43The bad news is that nothing's been found.
02:46In the Treasure Museum of Genoa's Cathedral of San Lorenzo, you'll find a six-sided dish
02:51made of green glass.
02:52Taken from Caesarea in 1101, it's been in the cathedral's hands ever since.
02:57It was long believed that the bowl was made of solid emeralds, but that assumption was
03:00literally shattered when Napoleon asked to borrow it and returned it broken.
03:05"'O sacre bleu!"
03:08This is the Sacro Cantino, or Holy Basin, and many believe it to be a dish used by Jesus
03:13at the Last Supper.
03:15So is it possible that it isn't just any dish that was used by Jesus, but the dish, the
03:20Holy Grail?
03:21The Sacro Cantino has indeed been a popular candidate for the famous relic.
03:25Such claims go back to the 16th century, and some Arthurian romances depict the Holy Grail
03:30as being made of emerald.
03:32But there's three problems here.
03:33The Sacro Cantino isn't really made from precious stone.
03:37Research has concluded that it isn't old enough to be from the time of Jesus.
03:40It seems like it's more from around 900 A.D., and most modern research has it as Islamic
03:46in origin.
03:47Still, it hasn't stopped people from continuing to call the Sacro Cantino the Genoese Holy
03:51Grail.
03:53Some legend suggests that St. Peter carried the Holy Grail with him from Jerusalem to
03:57Rome.
03:58This tradition holds that the artifact was used by the popes during the Eucharist until
04:01258 A.D., when it was taken away to avoid the wraths of the Roman emperors.
04:06It eventually fell into the hands of the kings of Aragon, who had to part with it in 1437
04:10to clear their debts with the church in Valencia.
04:13The Grail became a treasured relic of the cathedral there, where it remains on display
04:17to this day.
04:18The Santo Caliz certainly is a real object, an agate cup set in an elaborate and bejeweled
04:23handle and base.
04:25Studies have also dated the relic to anywhere from the second century B.C. to the first
04:29century A.D., giving it a plausible age for the cup of Christ.
04:33It's also probable that the artifact originated in the Middle East, though the handle and
04:37base were added much later.
04:39Sadly, though, there's not much hard evidence to support the story of the Santo Caliz traveling
04:43from Israel to Spain by way of Rome.
04:46There is one intriguing matchup between the Santo Caliz and Grail lore.
04:50Remember that poem we mentioned earlier?
04:53Percival says that an inscription around the Holy Grail will appear and disappear, and
04:57sure enough, on the base of the Santo Caliz, there's an inscription that disappears when
05:01viewed at a certain angle.
05:03Since the legend of the Holy Grail is so closely bound with legends of King Arthur, it can
05:07feel like a quintessentially English story, despite the object itself being a Middle Eastern
05:12relic.
05:13On second thoughts, let's not go to Camelot.
05:15It is a silly place.
05:16But Spain has a rich Grail tradition of its own.
05:19Besides the Santo Caliz, the chalice of Doña Urraca has also been suggested as a Holy Grail.
05:24As you can see there, the chalice is an onyx cup encased in jewel-encrusted gold kept at
05:29St. Isidore's Basilica in León.
05:33In 2014, two Spanish historians claimed that the chalice of Doña Urraca was not just an
05:38artifact of local history, but the Holy Grail itself.
05:42They were initially investigating other relics in the Basilica when they found documents
05:45tracking the chalice's journey from Jerusalem to Cairo to Spain, where it eventually passed
05:50from Muslim to Christian hands.
05:52Dating on the chalice's onyx puts it between the second century B.C. and the first century
05:56A.D., just like the Santo Caliz.
05:59They stop short of claiming that the chalice was literally the cup used by Jesus at the
06:02Last Supper, however, as there's no scientific way to prove that.
06:06If you're thinking about the line from the Last Crusade, that's the cup of a carpenter.
06:10Don't get too caught up in the weeds there.
06:13The room in which the Last Supper was held was a space the disciples found, so think
06:17of it more like renting a room for a banquet, per se.
06:20It's not like they were carrying drinking cups with them as they traveled around all
06:23of Galilee.
06:24In other words, no one has any idea what it looked like or where rests the Holy Grail
06:28today.