Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Holy Grail

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

For centuries the Holy Grail has been a metaphor for ultimate achievement. The quest for the Holy Grail is likewise considered a metaphor for an unobtainable goal. However, the Holy Grail might be more than a metaphor. It might really exist and you can go see it yourself. Learn more about the Holy Grail, what it is, and what it isn’t, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For centuries, the Holy Grail has been a metaphor for the ultimate achievement. The quest for the Holy Grail is likewise considered a metaphor for an unobtainable goal. However, the Holy Grail might be more than just a metaphor. It might really exist, and you can go see it yourself. Learn more about the Holy Grail, what it is and what it isn't, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by the Tourist Office of Spain. I've spoken in the past about the amazing places you can visit in Spain

and many of its incredible festivals. But they also have amazing churches and museums with some of the world's greatest art and historical objects. The Prado Museum in Madrid is one of the world's finest, with art from El Greco and Rubens. Nearby in Madrid, you'll find the Renia Sophia, which is one of the world's greatest museums of modern art, and home to Picasso's masterpiece, Gerneka.

In Bilbao, you can find the Guggenheim Museum, which is the European home to the great Guggenheim Collection of Art. In Merida, you can find one of the world's greatest museums of Roman artifacts, the National Museum of Roman Art. You can start researching your dream trip to Spain today by visiting spain. Info, where you can get everything you need to know to plan your Spanish experience. I'm going to start by asking you to throw out everything you think you know about the Holy Grail. This includes anything written by Dan Brown.

Actually, just delete anything you've ever seen or read by Dan Brown. You'll be better off for it. Also, anything which deals with King Arthur or the Knights of the Roundtable. Now, with that out of the way, there was no reference to anything called a grail in the first 1,000 years of Christianity. The Bible does reference a cup used at the last supper, but it's only a passing reference. There was a cup because you drink wine out of a cup, but there really wasn't any significance beyond that. There were a few mentions in history of a holy chalice, however. In the late 16th century, a pilgrim to Jerusalem called Antoninus of Piacenza claimed to have

seen a cup made of onyx, which was at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And please see my previous episode about that building. There is another legend that St. Peter took the chalice with him to Rome, where it was used on special occasions by the Christian community there for several centuries. More on this story later. The use of the word grail, however, doesn't appear until the Middle Ages. French author, Cretchen de Trois, mentions it in the 12th century work, Percival Le Cant de Grail. This was an Arthurian tale about Sir Percival and his quest for the grail. However, it never says what the grail is, or even what a grail is. There were other mentions of a grail during this period where it was believed to be a stone,

the platter used during the Last Supper, and of course the chalice used during the Last Supper. The 12th century French poet Robert de Boron wrote a story of Joseph Averimathia, who used the cup from the Last Supper to collect the blood of Christ while he was on the cross. Eventually, the association with the Holy Chalice stuck, and the word Grail became associated with a chalice. The origins of the word grail are disputed. There are theories that link it to an old French word for cup, and others that link it to a Latin word for a serving tray, and still others that link into a Greek word for a vessel to mix wine in. For our purposes from here on out, I'm going to use the Holy Grail as a synonym for the Holy Chalice. Those things might have been different at one time, and the original meaning of

Grail might not have meant chalice, but over time that's what it became, and that's what everyone assumes it is now. So with that, could the Holy Grail be an actual thing? The various stories and poems of King Arthur and his knights were fiction, but the mentions of a chalice from before the Middle Ages were not intended to be fiction. There are several chalice-type objects which have claimed to be the Holy Grail. One is a shallow glass bowl which is located in the Cathedral of Genoa, known as the Genoa Chalice. It's an interesting object, but one look at it, and it doesn't look like something you'd drink a beverage out of, and moreover, it wasn't until after many Arthurian stories were written that there was any association with the object and the Holy Grail.

There is the chalice of Danya Urica in Leon Spain. Here, too, no one ever claimed this object to be the Holy Grail until 2014, when the association was made in a book. Pretty much every historian and has rejected this thesis, especially because the chalice has all the hallmarks of something designed in the 11th century. The place that has the strongest and oldest claim to having the Holy Grail is the Cathedral of Valencia, Spain. The Holy Chalice, as it's known, is made out of Agate, which is a type of stone. Agate is very close to Onyx, which, if you remember from the report of a pilgrim to Jerusalem that I mentioned before, is what he claimed to have seen. So, that's one thing in its favor.

Experts have also analyzed it and concluded that it is consistent with something made from the 4th century BC to the 1st century AD in Egypt or Palestine. If you see the chalice in the cathedral, it doesn't look like a simple stone cup. It seems very elaborate with giant gold handles. However, the handles and all the ornaments are just a setting for the egg at cup, which is held on the top. If this object is legitimate, or at least old, then how in the same? the world did it wind up in Spain? The legend goes back to the story that I mentioned before about St. Peter taking the chalice to Rome. The legend holds that the cup was held by the Christian

community in Rome for several centuries. Then, under the Roman Emperor Valens, there was a persecution of the Christian community in Rome in the year 257, and one of the things that Valen wanted to do was destroy many of the Christian relics which the small community in Rome cherished. To protect these objects, they took inventory and sent them away to other cities. around the empire. St. Lawrence, who was born in Spain, was a deacon in Rome and took the Grail back to Spain where he knew it could be kept safe. In particular, he took it to the town of Huasca, which was his birthplace. It was kept at various churches in northern Spain for the next millennium, keeping it away from the moors who controlled the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula.

The earliest physical documentation of the Grail dates back to an inventory of the treasury of the Monas de la Pena, taken on December 14th, 11, 5th. The item is described in the inventory as, quote, In an ivory chest is the chalice in which Christ our Lord consecrated his blood, which St. Lorenzo sent to his homeland, Quesca, unquote. This is interesting because it predates any mention of a grail which came from Arthurian lore, including the Cretchen de Tuat work. Moreover, it isn't on a document that was meant for public consumption.

It was basically done for accounting purposes. The Cathedral of Valencia obtained control over it, when it was given to them in exchange for canceling debts owed to the Spanish monarchy in the 15th century. In addition to the cup, the cathedral also has a piece of vellum, which dates back to the year 262, which was again part of the original inventory list when it supposedly came from Rome. Both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVIth have said mass with the chalice when they visited Valencia. If you want, you can check out the grail for yourself. It is on public display at La Capia de Santo Calais, or the chapel of the chalice,

in the Valencia Cathedral. So the question remains, is this really the Holy Grail? Did Indiana Jones waste his time? Could Sir Galahad, the chaste, have avoided the grail-shaped beacon at the Catholic anthrax and the eight-score young blondes and brunettes all between 16 and 19 and a half who live there? The truth is, there's never any way to verify any relic. There's no tests that can be performed to see if it was actually used at the last supper. The Catholic Church never takes a stance on the validity of any relics, including the shroud of Turin or pieces of the true cross.

However, the case for the chalice in Valencia is better than it is for any other. The documentation chain of evidence shows that the Valencia Cup is at least an ancient artifact probably dating back to the Roman Empire. Furthermore, several archaeologists have dated the object to at least the right place and the right time. So it just might be that Valencia's Holy Grail is in fact the Holy Grail. of Holy Grails. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Macalah. The associate producer is Thor Thompson. Remember to leave a five-star review to get your review read on the show.

They can be left at Apple Podcasts, Podcasts, Podcast Republic, or wherever you listen to the show. Also, you can help support the show over at patreon.com. Patrons can get merchandise like t-shirts and hoodies, as well as having direct access to provide suggestions for future episodes.