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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr. Strangemonkey" data-source="post: 1325452" data-attributes="member: 6533">I would also point out that the grail doesn't show up as anything anybody is concerned with until fairly late in the middle ages.Chretien de Troye, someone can get me on spelling, mentions something that might concievably be a grail like thing and thats the first mention of it.Personally I would guess that the grail is a fairly persistent instance of misinterpretation of visual art working itself into literary truth.There are plenty of images of cups catching the blood of Christ which makes perfect sense as a way to visualize the significance of communion if you are an early medieval artist with a pretty iconographic view of art.  If you are a later medieval viewer of such art it becomes more difficult to imagine people creating non-literal images.  So you create a story to go with it.  Since it has little correlation it becomes a good story to build literary stories with a religious intent around.This happened frequently with saints and is also a part of many theories on the development of some of the odder Greek myths from earlier traditions.The misinterpretation goes on as people seek to explain the fact that this story has very little good antecedent in the Christian tradition and is totally unassociated with anything other than itself.  This rarely happens with crazy saint misinterpretations since the church can compare with historical records and provide good explanations.But since the grail isn't associated with anyone but a resurrected God, there isn't a lot that can be done.  That and the stories the Grail gets wrapped up into are superfantastic.  People take two tacts on this problem:A.) It has no association and therefore comes from someplace else, thus the Celtic origin.  Which is not to say that vessels weren't big Celtic things.B.) It has no association and therefore must be associated with something else that has been largely rejected thus the link with Christ's bloodline stories and Templars, who were only really into bad banking protocols.It's not romantic, but, hey, it has good precedent and the best romances are all fictions.BTW, there are theories that the cup Christ drank from at the last supper, which certainly should have been a cult object at some point, is located in a very early, and truly magnificent, reliquary that now resides in one of the major New York art museums.  I'm not certain which one, it's always in storage, there were... ...controversies.Thomas B. Costain wrote a novel based on that theory called the Silver Chalice.They made a movie out of it starring Paul Newman.  He hates his performance in it and works tirelessly to make certain it sees as little of the light of day as is possible.If you really want to play up the conspiracy point:1.) Indiana Jones like guy rescues grail gives it to secular US gov for protection.2.) Government seeks to insure its protection by indulging in a too much accurate information disinformation campaign.3.) Paul Newman, a secret agent of the Vatican, makes a movie out of the most accurate portrayal of the truth.  Then squashes the theory utterly in the public eye by acting horribly and talking loudly about how horrible his acting was.4.) The final step in the campaign is to remove everything but the initial bad, but accurate, writing from the public eye.  Then enter Dan Brown, and many many others, who complete the disinformation campaign by contributing equally poorly written, but horrifically inaccurate and terribly exciting, theories to the public discourse.5.) The public looks at the accurate theories, cannot see what they are talking about, literally, and looks at the inaccurate theories, which are way cooler and talk about things they don't like and can see in ways they do like, and makes its choice.6.) The grail is 'safe' in fedgov hands alongside the ark of the covenant, various reincarnated messaihs, the remaining legitimate emperors of Rome and Byzantium, gasless motors, and the perpetual motion machine.7.) Until the PCs show up...   ...Hurrah!</blockquote>

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