Book XVI · LOHENGRIN, part 10 of 14
¶But if the Angevin counts had many foes they had also many adherents, not only in Europe but in the East, their connection with which dated back to the reign of Fulk Nerra, or Fulk the Palmer. It was not to a member of an unknown house that Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, in 1129 sent an invitation to become his son-in-law and successor; nor did Fulk, when he left Anjou for Jerusalem, go alone--we are expressly told that he took a large army with him. Fulk himself died in 1142, but he left sons who succeeded him, so that the Angevin rule in the East did not end with his death.
¶Is it then impossible, or even improbable, that this 'Kiot the Provençal' of whom Wolfram speaks was an adherent of the House of Anjou, who had followed their fortunes in the East, and who, coming under the spell of the Grail myth in its connection with the Perceval legend, remodelled the story, probably then still in a rough and transitional form, in accordance with his own personal experiences and prepossessions? Do not all the indications afforded by the poem favour this theory? Such a man would have been thoroughly familiar with the legends that had gathered round the early Angevin princes, as well as with the historical facts connected with their successors; he would have come into contact with the Order of the Knights Templars in a land where they were in deed, and not merely in name, guardians of the Faith; he would be familiar with many a legend of precious stones, the favourite talisman of the East, and would know the special virtue ascribed to each; above all, he would have seen before him in a concrete form the contest between faith and unbelief, darkness and light, Christianity and Heathendom, a black race and a white, which forms at least one of the leading ideas in the interpretation of the poem.
¶In fact, if we will allow the existence of such a writer as a travelled Angevin might well have been, we shall find all the principal problems of the Parzival admit of a rational explanation. Even the central puzzle, Wolfram's representation of the Grail, is explicable on such an hypothesis. We know how very vague Chrêtien's account of the Grail is; how much in the dark he leaves us as to Its outward form, Its influence, and Its origin. A writer before Chrêtien is scarcely likely to have been more explicit; what more likely than that a man long resident in the East, and familiar, as has been said above, with Eastern jewel talismans and the legends connected with them, when confronted with this mysterious Grail, of which no definite account was given, yet which apparently exercised a magical life-sustaining influence, should have jumped to the conclusion of Its, at least partial, identity with the precious stones of the power of which he had heard so much?
¶And in connection with this it is worthy of note that Wolfram represents the Grail as lying on a green Achmardi; in other versions of the Grail romances it is red, or white, samite that we find mentioned as veiling the relic. Throughout the poem we find green constantly mentioned, e.g. Gamuret's equipment, the robes of the Grail maidens and of Gramoflanz, the cross over Gamuret's grave, Trevrezent's shrine or reliquary; all these allusions seem to point to the writer's familiarity with green as a royal and sacred colour, a knowledge which could only have been gained in the East. Nor, as mentioned in note to Book IX., is the description of the Grail the only instance of a mystical influence being attributed to a precious stone, but throughout the whole poem the constant mention of gems, and, in special instances, of the virtue they possess, is one of the marked peculiarities of the poem, and one of the features which differentiate it from Chrêtien's version.
¶That Wolfram had a model for these earlier books, and one that he was following closely, appears from the description he gives in two places of Kailet's armour; in Book I. we find 'do rekande ich abr wol dinen strûs, ame schilde ein sarapandra test,' and in Book II. 'stit dîn strûs noch sunder nest? Du solt din sarapandra test gein sinem halben grîfen tragen,' where in both instances it is distinctly implied that Kailet had two badges, an ostrich on his helmet and a snake's head on his shield, which is, to say the least, extremely unlikely. What seems to be really meant is that Kailet carried the figure of the entire bird on his helmet, and a representation of its head on his shield; the likeness in the shape of the latter to a snake's head has often been commented upon, and the ostrich, from its curious head and neck, has been known as 'the serpent bird.' It seems clear that here at least Wolfram was following another description, and one which he did not altogether understand.
¶As to the conclusion to be drawn from the proper names which occur in such profusion throughout the poem, this question has been so fully treated by Bartsch (cf. vol. i. Appendix B) that it would be superfluous to discuss it here; and the correspondence between the Titurel poems and the Parzival, which argues a common source for both, has also been adequately discussed, but the addition of the arguments to be derived from the correspondence existing between Wolfram's Angevin allusions and the facts of Angevin history, seems to put it beyond doubt that there is a strong body of evidence in support of Wolfram's own statement that he had a French source other than Chrêtien de Troyes; and, if we admit that he spoke the truth so far, it seems only logical to believe that he was also speaking the truth when he gave the name of the author of his source as 'Kiot the Provençal.'
¶EXCURSUS B
¶RELATION OF WOLFRAM TO CHRÊTIEN
¶In explanation of the striking agreement which exists between the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and that part of Li Conte del Graal which we owe to Chrêtien de Troyes, three solutions may be suggested: (a) That Chrêtien was the source of Wolfram; (b) That Chrêtien and Wolfram both drew from a common source, that source, if Wolfram is to be believed, being Kiot; (c) That Chrêtien, who wrote before Wolfram, drew from a source anterior to Wolfram, which source was also used by Kiot.
¶For reasons already stated we may dismiss (a) without further argument, and accept Wolfram's statement as to the existence of a French poem other than Chrêtien's; but the question as to the relationship existing between these two poems, whether the one was directly the source of the other (as Wolfram seems to have supposed), or whether both represent a common source, requires to be carefully examined.