Grail Legend

This is a reference article from the World History Encyclopedia, formerly the Ancient History Encyclopedia, a nonprofit online reference reviewed by an editorial team of history specialists and widely used as an accessible entry point into ancient and medieval history topics. Its article on the Grail legend covers the literary origin of the Grail in Chretien de Troyes's unfinished twelfth century romance and its subsequent Christianization by Robert de Boron, a standard account of the legend's literary development. Its strength is editorial review and clear sourcing for a broad readership; its limit is that it is a general encyclopedia rather than a specialist medieval literature monograph, so it is well suited to establishing the outline of the Grail's literary origin but a claim about a specific manuscript variant or a contested scholarly reading of Chretien's own intent should be checked against the specialist literature it draws from.