We have
shown
in our
grail
study that
Chrétien de Troyes invented grail romance in the 1180's
and coined graal as a hidden, etymological key to his
source. According to
Coromines, du Cange, the Oxford, et al. the word is derived
from gradalis, a simple bowl or service dish, not a
chalice, and the earliest documented use as gradal was at
Urgell (Pyrenees), in testaments (1010-1030 CE) of descendants
of the first count of Barcelona. Their genealogy
opens with Guifré el Pelós (ca. 850-898 CE) who is
celebrated as
the founding father of Catalonia. His adventurous youth in Flanders,
where he is sent by the French king, and first deeds in
Barcelona identify him
as the historical model of
Perceval, confirming the count of Flanders as
Chrétien's informant (article).
Consequently,
Chrétien wrote a roman a clef and the "grail region"
is not a
fictitious realm in England, as widely held, but a historical reality in Catalonia (Spain). It is where bishop Felix of
Urgell revived Adoptionism
in the late 8th century, which connects to the Arianism
of the Visigoths and
may have facilitated the Manichaeism
of the Cathar
heresy. This localization is
fully supported by independent evidence:
Nine Romanesque
churches with paintings of fiery grails have been discovered
in the diocese of Urgell, which
according to Chandler R. Post, Otto Demus and
Joseph
Goering
are tied to the grail mystery.
Because they were painted half a century
before Chrétien coined the word, the poet
appears to have known the region and its history, which
should be confirmed by his
other symbols and allegories.
The
Greek Connection
According to
Chrétien, the blade of the
Magic Sword is covered by a scabbard of fancy Venetian gold
brocade, and its hilt is decorated with Greek or Arabian
ornaments. The "or" is an interesting ambiguity because Perceval
receives the sword at the grail castle just before the virgin
enters with the grail that shines so brightly, the light of the
candles "fades like the stars when Sun
or
Moon are rising". Although the symbolism confirms the fiery
grails of Urgell, the ambiguity is important because
Chrétien
does nothing without a reason! For example, we followed the Arabesques
to a monastery in the Pyrenees with Coran-Cuixà and found the gesta comitum Barcinonensium,
a Latin chronicle with
false information about
Guifré el Pelós,
which the poet corrected with the help of the count of Flanders. The magic of
the sword worked so far, but didn't reveal anything about the
mysterious object itself.
Are the Greek ornaments on the hilt a clue to actually find
the Holy Grail? Could we be that close to a major discovery? Yes, indeed, we
are! Of course, it helps that the poet shows us where to
look for the second Latin chronicle, and that your gatekeeper lived there for many years. It's a
region in the Eastern Pyrenees where ancient Greek settlements mass
like the virgins of Urgell, or like the planets we pursue
with Kepler! The map (below) shows part of the Alt Empordà
during the era of count Hugo I, 991-1040 CE, exactly when gradal was
first recorded in Urgell.
The
Caput Crucis (Cape of Crosses) on the map is about a hundred miles
from Urgell and the most Eastern extension of the Iberian peninsula.
It is the North of Catalonia, and near the French border where the
Pyrenees meet the Mediterranean. Some of you may ask how Latin names
could help us with a "Greek connection"? It's quite kosher,
really, because an Arabian key led us to the first Latin chronicle.
We're in a pluralistic environment! During the Moorish invasions
from the South and attacks by the Franks from the North, the
Catalans gave refuge to the persecuted! But that's inside
information for later when we deal with Bara the Traitor and
Guillem de Gellone.
For now, the Latin names are an important resource, because their
Greek origins are still recognizable. (Click on the map for a larger
size!) There is even an ancient
Phoenician harbor with ruins of the Greek city Impurias
(Empúries) a few miles down the coast, at the bottom left of our
map. We owe it to Catalan ingenuity that you can take a
virtual ride on a
Paraglider
and visit the places on the map from the air! It's a great exercise
to prepare you for a ride on the phoenix, which will follow
on a higher level of our quest!
Master Chrétien taught us with
graal how important etymologies are, and here is a refresher
with names like Roses, Rodas, Rotas, and Rodes that
all derive from the Greek Rhodes:
At
the bottom of the cape is Rotas, facing South. It is "Roses"
today, and by far the largest town on the map. The fleet of
large and noisy fishing boats that leave the harbor every morning is most
impressive! Facing North on the map is
Armi Rodas, which is "Port de la Selva" today, once a natural harbor
and now a marina and popular tourist destination, much like nearby Lanciano
(Llanca). Facing South is Villa Judaica, now "Vilajuïga" -- but only the
facade of the synagogue at the village church remains. 
The
road leads from there into the mountains, and at about 600 meters (ca. 2000 feet) is Sancti Petri
Rotas or "Sant Pere de Rodes", an abandoned Benedictine
monastery, which is partially restored. A little higher, on the
crest of the mountain, are the ruins of the fortress Castrum
Virdaria, of Latin roots, called "San Salvador" today. The
narrow trail from the monastery to the top is worth the effort, because the 360
degree views are truly breathtaking and match Wolfram's description! Far below it, on the coast, is
Stagnum Castilioni,
which turned into an enclosed lake (at left) over time to which the
monastery had the fishing rights! It slowly turned into a swamp and
is now dried up. The hinterland
has mostly agriculture, olive groves, and vineyards.
Several villages, camping grounds, and tourist centers are spread
along the sandy beaches of the Golf of Roses. Most noteworthy
is "Sant Pere Pescador", and the largest is "Empuriabrava" with a
private airport, a fancy marina, high-rise buildings, hotels,
villas, businesses and restaurants.
Informed gourmets
rate El Bulli as the best and most innovative restaurant in the
world. It is interesting, in view of the grail as a feeding dish --
even if it's food for thought -- that the region is
celebrated for its high culinary culture! It offers good cuisine
everywhere, as long as one avoids the tourist centers and visits
small towns like Llado or Mollet de Peralada. World
famous El Bulli is in a small group of white
buildings on the rocks of Cala Montjoi, a picturesque cove to
the left of
Caput
Onofreu. The buildings are low key, which is typical Catalan and
quite
different from what the average tourist might expect. The Cala
Montjoi is reached by an adventurous drive from Roses
through the mountains, and easily by boat. If you fail to get
your yearly reservations in January, try the affordable
Paella restaurant on the beach!
Outdoors,
very rustic, and not bad at all. There is also a small, run-down
tourist center on the beach, and a few villas in the pine-covered hills, but the
cove is otherwise pristine and fairly deserted. Most noteworthy
is nearby Kadaquers, in the middle of the cape, known today
as "Cadaques" and
"Port Lligat". (At left a sketch from 1980 by your gatekeeper). This
former fishing village is packed by tourists in the summer and used
to be the magic kingdom of Salvador Dali. 
He
held court on the patio of the "Hostal", with locals dancing
Sadanas
outside, and Thursdays, on market day, at the "Astoria" on top of the
Rambles in Figueres, close to the Dali Museum. Although few Catalans seem to know the origins of
the Sadanas,
their national circular dance, any fool can see the "Greek
connection", especially if they remember "Zorba". Everyone on the painted tiles at right is wearing the
traditional
barretina
and often, these happy dancers are joined by dozens of others. When large groups of Catalans perform this ritual dance,
they are so solemn that it looks like an ancient ceremony. In the
early 1970's, when your gatekeeper lived in Dali's enchanted realm,
the
Alt Empordà
was
still known by its Spanish name "Alto Ampurdan", because
the Catalan culture was prohibited during the Franco era. What makes
the region so unique
for our quest is that many names and places remind of Wolfram's
esoteric symbols and word constructions. That's why your gatekeeper
spent a good part of his life there!
Most of the
Alt Empordà
is flat like a
tableau, and under the spell of the
Tramuntana, a fierce windstorm from the northwestern Pyrenees
that is related to the French Mistral when it thunders down the
Rhone valley. The locals say that if it lasts longer than five days,
it will continue for five weeks, and its force carved the bizarre
and surreal rock formations at the cape that inspired Dali's works.
Especially in the winter, when it howls night and day through every
crack of your house and makes it a very medieval experience! The
Tramuntana
is also the cause of spectacular cloud formations at sunset near
the pyramid-shaped Canigo mountain that we know from Dali's
works, and the locals say that
it drives many people "mad like Dali". Under the influence, some
crazy Frenchmen actually opened a Club Med at the cape that didn't last long and is now deserted. (Your gatekeeper
hopes it wasn't
Monsieur Blitz, whom he remembers well from Antibes). The
Tramuntana is why few houses in the Eastern
Pyrenees have windows to the North, except of a small one to dry
hams,
butifaras and lomos in the winter, when the traditional Christmas
pig is slaughtered. Your gatekeeper had to hold one of the rear legs
while it expired kosher style,
which is
another bloody medieval experience he'll never forget! This
fierce windstorm does not only open the Chymical Wedding of Christian
Rosenkreutz, it is also featured in a romantic love letter of 30
lines in Wolfram's
Parzival
(P.715), which tells us how well the German poet knew the region:
|
ich mac wol dîner güete jehn
staete âne wenker sus
alz pôlus antarticus
gein dem
tremuntâne stêt
der neweder von der stete gêt:
unser minne sol in triwen stên
und niht von ein ander gên. |
I can see that your warm feelings
are
always without wavering
like the Antarctic pole
stands against the
Tramuntana
and
never leaves its place:
Our love shall stay in such faith
and
never move apart.
|
Our
literal translation destroys the poetic beauty of
lines 14-20, but the meaning is at least preserved. The adaptation of Hatto
(3) misses the point with as the Antarctic Pole stands
opposite the North Star. It weakens Wolfram's dynamic
opposition and the hot-cold symbolism. Not to be confused with the
Ultramontane, the Tramuntana comes
from the North "trans" the mountains, attacking fiercely the
warm South, and is only known at the Mediterranean. That it is
featured in a love letter to symbolize the force of love
localizes the grail castle, because of
Venus-Aphrodite, as we will show below.
Furthermore, it confirms that Wolfram supports Chrétien's etymological concept by
identifying Catalonia: He names the grail
castle: Munsalvaesche (also Monsalvasch, Montsalwatsche),
located in Terre de Salvaesche. These neutral zones were
known as Salvaterre, and a part of the Alt Empordà
was one of the most ancient. Locations like Selva de Mar, Port de la
Selva
and San Salvador are derived from Latin like the Old French
"Salvage", "Salvatje" in Catalan, meaning sauvage (wild) or
salvation. Mount Verdera (Viridarium) is green
mountain, and may explain why Wolfram's virgin carries the grail on
a green pillow. "Mun" is Catalan vernacular for mountain, and
"Munsalvatje" is pronounced "Munsalvatsch" in German, synonymous
with "Wildenberg". Although some of these etymological
examples need to be verified, probably with Springer, it is a quick
exercise to google words like Montsalvage-Monsalvatge-Monsalvatje,
which are quite common in Catalonia -- yet fully independent
of Wolfram
and grail romance!
Wolfram's change to Munsalvaesche (ms D used by
Lachmann) may contain a higher symbolism: The umlaut ae
cleanses "salvatsch" with the German "wäsche" (washing,
purification), another leitmotiv to the final rites when the
black & white Feirefiss (son of fire) is baptized before the
grail (P.817). In view of our findings, this connects to the
macrocosm, the watery and fiery triangles in the sky. Perfect timing
to get help from the 2nd. century CE, from a Greek or Arab,
confirming the Magic Sword
again: Claudius Ptolemy was a Greek from Egypt and author of the
famous astronomical work Almagest, which is Latin for the
Arabic
الكتاب المجسطي,
al-kitabu-l-mijisti, ( i.e. "The Great Book"). It was discovered
in Toledo at the time of Chrétien, and translated from Arabic into
Latin by Gerard of Cremona (c.
1114 –
1187).
A better translation was done later under the patronage of Frederick
II, -- when Michael Scot was his astrologer!!!
Although it served the Vatican to oppose the
heliocentric concept of Copernicus, it could be the "discarded manuscript" Wolfram's
Kyot
found in Dolet -- or Toledo. For us, it is Chrétien's second invitation to
"grasp" the hilt of the Magic Sword, because
Ptolemy
is also known as a celebrated cartographer.
As we pursue
the "Greek connection" at
the above cape,
this erudite Greek from Egypt rewards us with sensational news: Right where the Pyrenees meet
the Med, there was once upon a time a famous Temple of Venus,
consecrated to
Aphrodite in Greek times.
The
Bologna 1477 edition includes the temple on the world map, but the
Roma 1478 has the largest illustration of
VENERIS TEMPLVM, as
shown in this detail from
TABVLA SECVNDA
EVROPE. This offers a new explanation for Wolfram's
description of the grails keepers as
templeisen.
Most scholars interpret it as a reference to the "Templars",
forgetting that they were
under holy orders within
the Church, and the accusations of heresy only a later
fabrication.
We don't know if Ptolemy visited the temple himself, but it is
mentioned by celebrated scholars before him: Strabo refers to it in
Geographica, Pomponius Mela in
Chorographia, and Pliny the Elder in Naturalia Historia,
which confirms its importance.
With
such as full confirmation of the "Greek connection",
Chrétien's key implies that it should be
a simple step to
the grail itself. And it is: Our informant is the Catalan
historian Dr. Jeroni Pujades. His Chronicle, based on "forty
years of research", disappeared under mysterious
circumstances for 200 years after the first part was published in
1609 -- which would explain why his findings were overlooked by other
historians. Another reason is, quite unfortunately, that many of our
contemporaries are not eager to rewrite a part of medieval history
that the Catholic Church (Bollandists and Maurists) has pretty much
nailed down. If you are interested in the details of this Baroque
intrigue, check Pujades Affair! It's the
kind of drama Alexandre Dumas could have written,
with characters like Richelieu, Louis XIV -- and a bit of Cervantes to make the tragedy more
entertaining.
If you can read the "Coronica" (1609) in Catalan, or the "Cronica"
(1831) in Spanish, you are about to witness a most amazing tale:
In the early
1600's, Pujades visited
Sant Pere de Rodes, high above the cape,
where his son Dalmau happened to be one of the monks. He checked through a
pile of Latin chronicles in the main chapel (4), opened the one
numbered 223, and read a tale on parchment that was
probably as much of a shock for him as it is a joy for us. Not
because we are lacking compassion, but because he
discovered the solution of an age-old mystery.
Click
here for the original Catalan account from 1609, or check the
Spanish quote from the complete works (below) that were rediscovered
and published between 1829-1831 (5):
Año
603
I.
Paraque no pase
tiempo sin decir alguna cosa de Cataluña en donde corresponden
los sucesos : es de este lugar el referir que en aquel libro de
S. Pedro de Rodas, que he dicho en el capítulo 16 del libro 4.°
que es del órden
del P. San Benito, se halla escrito: Que en el tiempo que Focas
imperaba en el Oriente, y tenia la Sede Apostólica en Roma el
papa Bonifacio cuarto, el Almirante de Babilonia viniendo de las
partes ultramarinas con un poderoso ejército suyo, junto con
otro de lo Persas, deliberó venir, y amenazó pasar contra Roma.
Entendiendo el Romano Pontífice
que
los Caldéos desde an
país querian venir á
Roma para sujetarla y devastarla, y apoderarse de
los cuerpos de los spóstoles San Pedro y San Pablo, y de otros
Santos: convocó un concilio particular de los Pontífices que en
aquella ocasion se hallaban en Roma, juntamente
con los Príncipes y
señores que en ella residian: y allí propuso el temor que tenia
por el peligro en que estaba, pidiéndoles consejo sobre to que
convendria hacer en aquella urgencia. Y que los Príncipes y
patricios Romanos le respondieron acordes: que pues sabia que el
enemigo comun queria venir á
Roma para llevarse aquellos santos cuerpos, era
conveniente, para no padecer
tal oprobio, sacar
de allí alguna parte del cuerpo del bienaventurado San Pedro
apóstol: es a saber,
la cabeza y el brazo derecho...,
, y una ampolla de la sangre de la santa imágen
de Cristo: y que el Papa con todo el clero las llevaron en
procesion hasta ponerlas en una nave...
Entire text
Anyone familiar with the style of Pujades will note the first
throw-away line. By opening with "Time should not go by without
saying something about Catalonia" he signals that something
very important is about to follow. If you understand Spanish,
you'll also note that Pujades makes a subtle, esoteric reference to
Chrétien. He
mentions that the views from the mountain top reach all the way to
Olot in the West. Only experts and "locals", like your gatekeeper, would know
that the coastal town below is Llanca. Hence, the view leads from
Llanca to Olot in the distant mountains, and if we know what Llanca means, from
Lance to Olot
-- and we have Lancelot! An etymological coincidence? Sure, Chrétien
would have loved it! But let's not forget what we learned at
St. Michel de Cuixà, that Latin chronicles can't be trusted, even when they are written by
pious monks. We must remain very skeptical about what is
about to be claimed here:
In the
year 603, the pope and the Romans fear an attack by the
Babylonians and Persians, and after a private council decide
to take some of their holiest relics to a hiding place in
the west. Pujades quotes other historians to show that this
decision made sense, except that they could not foresee that
Rome would be spared and Jerusalem attacked instead -- and
many holy relics "profaned", including the cross.
The Romans load a ship with relics and sail it down the
Tiber to the Mediterranean. As it heads westward, as far
away as possible from Italy, the glory of God and a good
wind from the South allows it to cross the Golf de Lyon to
Armen Roda, a natural harbor at the Pyrenees. Under
the guidance of the clerics Feliu, Pons and
Epicino, the pious sailors climb the high mountains,
enjoy the breathtaking views, and after a lot of praying
discover a hidden cave with an artesian spring nearby. It
even has a small stone altar inside, because St. Paul of
Narbonne had used it as a retreat in the first
century. Impressed by the holiness of the place, the clerics
decide to hide their treasure there, and transfer it
secretly to the cave. When this is done, they conceal the
opening and sail away.
They
return after the calamity has passed, and face another: New
growth of wild plants has changed everything and they loose
all sense of direction. They remain and continue the search
for the cave until their death. The desperate efforts
of these men during their lifelong search is understandable
if we consider the importance of certain relics they had
lost as well:
The skull and right
arm of St. Peter,
and an
"ampolla" with the blood of Christ.
Surprisingly,
this naive tale about a "Ship of Fools" contains every basic
ingredient of grail romance. There is the
Holy Grail, a vessel with holy blood, which is in the “company” of St. Peter, the
most venerated of fishermen. We have an hermit's cave near an
artesian spring, which Wolfram features as a key location near the
grail castle! And, above all, we meet some real fools with an
elaborate quest on their hands!
We have obviously
found the second Latin chronicle, as suggested
by Wolfram's Kyot and Chrétien's magic sword. Although Pujades
refers to it in Spanish, he quotes the original passage about St. Paul's altar
in the
cave, which confirms that is in Latin:
Et
descendentes ab ipso monte, invenerunt fontem valde perspicuum, et
ante ipsum montem
invenerunt unam pulchriorem speluncam: et super ipsam unum parvum
altare, quod beatus Paulus Narbonensis aedificaverat.
In view of "Lancelot", the Latin quote is probably
another hint by the historian that he is fully aware of the grail
connection!
That the men searched "until their death" states
clearly
that they were unsuccessful.
Hence, the search continued with
the next generation -- and who knows for how many more?
According to Pujades, the men lived first in cells, or hermitages, a pious lifestyle
Boniface IV had promoted. As the centuries passed, the cells
grew to a large monastery, isolated and high in the mountains and
overlooking the Mediterranean. This picture was taken in 2007, after
most of the exterior had been restored. (For scale, just compare the
automobile at the lower left!)
However, we must remain skeptical for several reasons: We know that Latin chronicles
can't be trusted. We also face the problem that Chrétien's grail is a platter or bowl, and
Wolfram's a lapsit exillis, some kind of stone! To find the truth, we need to get deeper
into the unfolding story and look at it from an entirely new
perspective, and view it as an entertaining Monty Python
sketch: If some Italian clerics climb up and down these mountains
for decades, or centuries, intensely searching for something they
cannot find, some locals had to witness their odd behavior. Some
passing shepherds, hunters, or knights would ask questions and the
poor Italians had to respond somehow. Pure and naive, as many early Christians
were, they could neither be dishonest nor reveal the truth, which
didn't leave them many options! They would say that they were looking
for a box with old bones and a vessel, a gradalis, nothing
of value. Instead of revealing Peter's name, they would refer to him
as a simple fisherman, and when pressed, as a special and very
important fisherman. Those who asked the right question, one of
compassion, were welcomed and invited to join the quest. After all,
the Italians needed new blood, pun intended, young disciples who
would work for them and continue after their death. Some of this
lore was probably embellished in nearby villages, where the monks
had to beg or trade for food, and because some novices talked too
much. Soon, there were some rumors about a "rich fisher" and
even of a "Fisherking". Which makes total sense.
During decades, or centuries, the mystery of
Sant Pere de Rodes
and San Salvador
became great stuff for passing minstrels, and some of them wrote it
down. And, who knows, they even named the
cape "Caput Crucis" after the lost skull and crossbones? The seekers
in the region between
Roses and the Cape of the Crosses
were probably called for short Rosicrucians. A tiny village
next to the monastery, a group of ancient houses where some
masons lived, is named Holy Cross of Roses (Santa Creu de
Roses), which is hard to dismiss as a coincidence in view of the
esoteric subject matter.
With all famous grail symbols finally identified, you may
wonder why this page doesn't end here -- writers like Dan Brown and
his filmmaker friends could wrap this up here and now. We have
obviously found the legend that started grail romance! Why should it
matter that the
chronicle was falsified by pious monks? That's because we have
barely scratched the surface -- the grail myth goes much deeper if
we are committed to the truth!
According to Pujades, the monastery was
built right over the cave, with the altar of the church hiding the
entry. He writes that he entered the cave, but doesn't say
verbatim, only rhetorically, that the relics were in the cave
because they are listed in a later part of the chronicle. Here's the
quote:
"Pasa mas adelante el dicho libro, y refiere que en aquel
tiempo del papa Bonifacio cuarto, y del emperador Focas,
fue construido aquel rnonasterio de San Pedro de
Rodas: y que alli (debajo del altar mayor, como dije en el
capitulo 16 del libro cuarto) reposan los cuerpos de San
Pedro exorcista, hijo de San Pedro apóstol, de Santa
Concordia, de San Lucidino y de San Moderando. De modo que
la cueva que hoy está debajo del dicho altar, en la cual yo
he entrado, seria la misma en que fueron puestas aquellas
santas reliquias, por manos de Feliu, Pons y Epicino, que
las trajeron de Roma. Y diciendose en aquel libro que cuando
las trajeron estaban tambien con ellas las del apóstol San
Pedro; el no decir que estan ahora, arguye que debió
permitir nuestro Senor que en algun tiempo que se volviese
a
descubrir la cueva, y hallarse en ella las reliquias,
dejarian alli las demas, y la cabeza y brazo de San Pedro lo
volverian a Roma. Entendiendolo asi, no hallamos
contrariedad en lo que sobre este particular dejamos aqui
escrito, y lo que universalmente profeaa la santa Iglesia
catolica romana, diciendo que la cabeza del ap6stol San
Pedro realmente esta en Roma, y alli se muestra junto con la
de su socio y coapostol San Pablo. Y es muy posible
que todo haya sucedido asi en diferentes tiempos"
Because Peter's relics are no longer mentioned in this
entry, Pujades "argues" that our Lord permitted the recovery of the
cave at some later time. He "concludes" by conjecture that the
above-mentioned relics were left behind and Peter's returned to Rome, because "The Holy Roman Catholic Church proclaims
universally that the apostolic skull is really in Rome..." Hidden by
his usual religious exaltation, which is always a signal, Pujades
takes this rhetorical concept even further: He ignores that the
later entry omits the blood-relic of Jesus, as if it were
meaningless. As if it did not occur to him, a most cultured and
educated man, that it is celebrated in Medieval literature as the
Holy Grail. Pujades goes on to give us two other important clues: First, he
says in the above last sentence: "It is very possible that
everything happened like this in different times." (i.e.
underlining added!) If someone would attack this statement, which
we'll explore with Robert's poem, he could say that he dated these
events in 603 CE, although most historian favor 608 (See footnote
5). And a few chapters later, Pujades says en passant
that there are no records that Peter's relics were ever
returned to Rome -- which he finds surprising because such an event
would have been celebrated in all of Christendom.
The discovery at Sant Pere de Rodes may have
inspired Pujades to look for grail symbols at other monasteries in
Catalonia,
especially at Cuixà and Montserrat, where he is our
key informant as well.
Here's a interesting exercise with Google Earth:
Put a marker on Taüll, Cuixà and Monserrat and
you'll get an equilateral triangle, because they are almost 80 miles
from each other!
This makes our monastery and its legends the
grailgate to the higher levels of the mystery! Perhaps,
we'll find an esoteric Latin tract by Pujades about
Sant Pere, which inspired the
Rosicrucian manifestos of the Germans, because the striking
similarities are difficult to ignore? It was an era when scholars
had no language barriers because they communicated in Latin, like
Kepler and Galileo, for example. Although highly speculative, we
can't exclude the possibility that Pujades was regarded by some
initiates as the founder of their order. We'll have to spend
some serious time with A.E. Waite and his "Real History of the
Rosicrucians", which may be the only factual work on the
subject. It would help us understand why Pujades was neither censured
nor punished when his polemic debate of Peter's relics was published
in 1609! Unless, of course, it took his foes 16 years to decode his
esoteric concept!
Your
gatekeeper checked the cave under the altar of
Sant Pere in
the 1970's, when the monastery was still in ruins, and noticed that
the entry looks like natural rock, but that some fine masonry cuts
betray the scam: It is
man-made!
Later excavations and restorations opened to a small crypt
with no signs of a cave, and which any visiting tourist can enter
now. Strong evidence that the cave was never found, which exposes
the inconvenient truth that this spectacular monastery was either
built on lies, or the cover-up invented later. In a new twist, the
entry of the cave is now suspected under the main tower. But
according to a local legend, it leads all the way down to the Med,
which further discredits the story of the lost relics. We'll have to
wait and see why the archeologists are holding back and what they
will be coming up next. Let's keep Chrétien's clues in mind: The
truth may be hidden under a Venetian sheath or scabbard. Did
Alexander III use the "Peace of Venice" to have his monks rewrite
history?
Another unsolved riddle is the exact location of the temple, which the
Greeks had built to worship Aphrodite. There are some theories that
it was at the site of the monastery,
but it could have been on the mountain top. Until now,
the archeologists at Sant Pere de Rodes
remain silent about the location, probably because of their own agenda. But the guide book of 2002 has some
news that fully debunks the Latin chronicle: The most important of
the areas awaiting exploration is the extreme east...
The
discontinued exploration of the area showed the perimeter of a
large, rectangular building raised on large granite blocks.
As explained, the only study carried out has shown that it's origin
is previous to the 7th century." If relics were lost in a cave, which
the poor fools had to search for until they died, it was obviously
not next to
a ruin and an Artesian spring! Obviously, the location was used as a shelter and headquarters to conduct the search. An
ideal location, because it is hidden high in mountains that used to
be covered by a dense forest. According to Lorés et al (5a), the structure
is 25 x 7 m, in a North-South orientation, and from "Roman times".
If you measure the monastery on
Google Earth, you'll note that each of the four sides of the
cloister is similar to these dimensions. The Eastern part may have
been build over, or right next to the ancient structure. This picture
was taken in 2007 from the North, with a side view of the
castle on the mountain top. Click
here for more on the subject.
According to Pierre de Marca, the green mountain with San
Salvador was "Podium Veneris" in Antiquity, Venus
Mountain.
We know he studied
Mela's
Chorographia, and Pliny's Naturalia Historia at a
monastery in Lleida,
but we need to postpone this
debate until we've had a chance to review these sources.
Catalan
historians describe the castle today as either Castell de Verdera
or Sant Salvador. It is on the crest of Mount Verdera, at 670
meters (ca. 2200 ft), and inspired the name of Salvador Dali.
The walls we see on the right are from the 13th century, but there
are older foundations as well. The castle is mentioned in 904 CE as
"castrum quod dicunt Verdaria", a corruption from "Viridaria",
although Pujades mentions "verdad" (truth) as well. It was donated to the
monastery in 973 by count Guifré of Roussilon and Empuries, but
"...Hugo I of Empuries took possession again, and pope Benedict VIII
threatened excommunication... and by 1283 the ancient castle was
abandoned...." (6)
The impressive ruins of
San Salvador
are only
visible since the 1990's. They were hidden by trees, massive growth
and bushes -- until a couple of major fires opened this
perspective. Locals know that they are usually set by shepherds to
keep open spaces for their herds. In the 1970's, your gatekeeper
lived for years in a house
with
a clear view of this mountain top, and kept searching for the grail
castle elsewhere, like a total fool. He never saw the walls, didn't
even know San Salvador existed! Until he read in a
German tourist guide (Grieben), that according to a legend, the
Holy Grail was once guarded at the monastery. Currently, a
another travel writer is ahead again, as you can read in this sample
from "DK Eyewitness Travel: Barcelona & Catalonia", revised in 2008!
Too bad we don't know their secret sources! In the case of Wolfram,
who describes the region in great detail, it is quite obvious that
he stayed at the site
and saw remains of the temple, or
heard about them. This would explain why he called the grail knights
"templeisen" whose
coat of arms depicts a "turtle-dove". That's not just another
"flying allegory" to oppose the dragon, it also establishes the love
theme of the temple. Plutarch, who is our informant on "flying
allegories" like the phoenix, helps out again. In
De Isis et Osiris
(7),
he says:
The Egyptians
venerated
the animals themselves,
while the
Greeks
use the correct expressions in
these matters
and regard
the dove as the sacred animal
of Aphrodite.
We are reminded of the above love letter, where Wolfram mentions the
Tramuntana, which also supports our claim that he had visited
this location. Some sculptures of the love temple were allegedly
used for the construction of Sant Pere de Rhodes (8).
There
is "Peter in the Ship", a relief with ancient classical carvings on
the back (to be added), and two windows in the main
tower with sculptures of a bearded head and a woman with a
fishtail. Aphroditeus and Aphrodite? 
That's probably why Ishtar-Aphrodite-Venus is a major theme in
latter-day grail romance, from vegetation cults to the Venusberg
variations, incl. Rosicrucian esoterica. As said above, the
Tramuntana
opens
the
Chymical Wedding, and we have the "Three Temples" on the
mountain top forming the triangle that is mentioned. They are San
Salvador and Sant Pere, plus
Santa Helena shown below at left, and all three are high
above the sea! (True heretics would probably exchange the monastery
for San Onofre!) In addition to Wolfram and latter-day
Rosicrucians, other seekers have probably visited the site as
well and
came
up with imaginative ideas. Even the Celtic symbolism seems to
have originated here, including Chrétien's. Few outsiders know that
the region is packed with "dolmens" and "taulas" of pre-historic
times. When you check Google Earth for the dimensions
of the cloisters, use the "Geo view" and click on the pictures near
St. Pere de Rodes with dolmens. You might also enjoy the last
minute on the
paraglider!
This gutsy Catalan made some hairy passes of the monastery that are
fun to experience! There is another great video on
YouTube
that combines some areal shots with nice interiors of the monastery!
Undoubtedly, these daring young men will eventually find the lost
cave! All they need is ask us where to look -- and an extra tank of
gasoline!
We'll
turn to Robert de Boron at a later time to explore the significance
of walls that existed before the 7th century at the East of
the monastery. For now, we have positive proof that the second
Latin chronicle is not telling the truth either. There is no
cave with relics under the altar, but a large structure existed
nearby, and an artesian well. Clear evidence that the poor fools
used the location as their headquarters, and dwellings were added
over the centuries, as well as a church, until the site became a
monastery. But why were the pious monks told by their superiors to
record something false? And what? We exposed the false vita of
Guifré el Pelós in the Gesta with the generous help of
Chrétien and
Pujades as something that should have been known four hundred years
ago. Yet it took modern scholars that long to confirm it! Pujades
would be ahead of our time again if he helps us debunk
the second chronicle as easily!
Let's consider what needed to be covered up at Sant Pere de
Rodes: This was an era when the relics cult was at its peak, when
churches and cathedrals were built upon fragments of bones or the
cross, and when blood relics showed up everywhere. But this is a
legend about Peter's entire skull and right arm, and it is paired
with the blood relic of Christ. These are undoubtedly the most
treasured relics of Christianity and far too holy for a monks to
simply invent! The hermit's cave is probably real as well, because
it returns as a major theme in grail romance. Then there is the long
search, or quest, which is the leitmotiv
of grail romance. If we think about it, the monks could have easily
changed the time and omitted some details, that some other treasure
was lost as well -- which would change
everything! Then, for example, Italians came to the Pyrenees
to search for the treasure cave -- because
someone else had lost it. That this may have happened at a
different time is an important key
of Pujades, because nothing changes in our basic scenario -- and our
silly
Monty Python sketch gets even funnier:
It would mean
that generations of Italian clergymen came from Rome
to search for the cave -- because they
really didn't know where it was!
Doesn't this make a lot more sense? It would explain why the search
lasted for centuries, and why funds
were available to build such a huge monastery in the
mountains. It's the missing link in a way, because no one is as
stupid as claimed in the Latin chronicle! Pujades adds another clue
by mentioning a Vatican council where the monastery is discussed in
the context of a mysterious "Matter of Britain", and which gives it
special privileges in the "patrimony" of St. Peter. One modern
source identifies pope Urban II, who launched the Crusades, but
Chrétien's symbolism implies Pietro Orseoli and Alexander III.
Pujades shows that the "ampolla" and Peter's skull and bones were
never recovered, and if "everything happened like this in
different times" it would connect directly to Robert's
riddle, where three successive parties travel to the farthest
West. The first party has obviously hidden the treasure, and not
in Avalon, England, but in the valleys of Avaron,
Catalonia. We must go per-ce-val to find it, which is why
Chrétien calls Perceval a Valois and Wolfram uses
Waleise -- because he went through a certain "valley"! This has confused
most scholars, but seems to identify the Val d'Aran,
which means "valley of valleys" and happens to lead to the Val de
Boi with the fiery grail. Robert addresses the
lost relics of Petrus in his riddle: "What became of him, where he would be found again, and that he
can only be rediscovered with great hardship!"
By having identified the origin of grail symbolism,
regardless whether it is fact or fiction, we have arrived at
important crossroads, pun intended! What is the connection between
the Val de Boi and Cape of Crosses? You have the option to continue
the search for Petrus in the appendix, or either check the
riddle of Robert de Boron with
Wolfram's second opinion, or start from scratch with Kepler's ten
chicks in the farmyard. The choice is yours!
Please send your questions and comments to:
info@grailgate.com
BACK
GRAILGATE
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Notes
(under construction)
1. Gesta comitum Barcinonensium:
Stefano Maria Cingolani,
Gestes dels Comtes de Barcelona i Reis d'Aragó,
Universitat de València, pp.34-35,
(Cingolani starts with 1137, then estimates the
period of 977-1067, which is narrowed down to circa 1058 CE.)
2.
Joseph Goering, The Virgin and the Grail, Yale University Press, New
Haven & London, 2005, p.88
3.
Wolfram
von Eschenbach, Parzival, translated by A.T. Hatto, Viking Penguin
Inc., New York, 1980, p.356
4.
Geronimo Pujades, Crònica Universal del Principado de Cataluña,
Imprenta de Jose Torner, Barcelona, 1829, p. V
5.
Pujades, op. cit. Tome III, book IV, chap. LXXXII, pp.186-190
Note: Is
Año 603
a mistake or not?.
In 603CE, pope was
Gregory I, the Great, who is not only remembered for Gregorian
chants, but also for promoting the relics cult. Phocas murdered
Emperor Maurice in 602, and the Persian Chosroes II began war with
Rome to allegedly avenge his death. Boniface IV was installed in 608
and Heraclius succeeded Phocas in 610. Which means that the relics
were hidden in that cave between AD 608 and 610. Chosroes II did not
attack the city of Rome, but stayed in the East. He moved toward
Chalcedon in 608,
took Damascus (613) and Jerusalem (614).
Pujades writes Año
603, which looks like a rhetorical "error". When he said that all
could have happened at a different time, he really meant a
different era. When challenged by an Inquisitor, he could say that
603 is wrong, because that was the era of Gregory I the Great. Here
an excerpt from Pujades that confirms that he knew 608 is correct:
"Porque si leemos a Marco Antonio Sabelico , y a Platina en la vida
de Bonifacio cuarto, hallaremos que
a los ultimos dias del imperio de
Focas , en el pontificado de Bonifacio cuarto, en el ano
6o8 de Cristo, segun Mateo Palmerin y Baronio, o en el de
611,
segun Mariano Scoto y Pedro Mejia ; Cosroas Rey de Persia
tomo toda la Mesopotamia, parte de Siria , Armenia, y Capadocia , y
la santa ciudad de Jerusalen : robando la santisima cruz de Cristo
nuestro Senor, y otras reliquias, y profanando las cosas sagradas
con tanta velocidad y prontitud...
Cadaques: Your gatekeeper witnessed a
few searches in the 1970's, especially by two "photographers" who
climed every mountain and valley. There was also a suspicious group
of young, muscular Italians that searched the coast for weeks with
Zodiac inflatables. It was around 1973, in the summer when the sea
is often flat. They rented a villa near Cadaques through the agent
Cristina. Although these activities may not have been related to the
Vatican -- if the Italians were stealing corral -- but it might be a
subject for a Catalan historian to follow up? As paid summer
vacation!
5a. Immaculada Lorés, El Monestir De Sant
Pere De Rodes, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, 2002, p.19
6.
Anna Peresi i Mir, Catalunya romanica, 11., l'Alt Empordà, Barcelona
Portic, 2000, pp.738-39
7.
Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, J. Gwyn Griffith, University of Wales
Press, 1970, p.231
8. Alexandre Deulofeu, El Ampurdan Cuna del
Arte Romanico, Inst. de Estudios Ampurdaneses, Casa del Libro,
Barcelona, 1962, pp.68-73
APPENDIX:
From the Holy Grail to the
Holy City
There is but one way to make sure that we are not on a wild goose
chase, which means that we must leave the enchanting Pyrenees
behind and visit the
Lion's Den,
the Vatican, to find out if anything is missing from Peter's tomb. A
difficult task, it would seem, because
most
scholars agree that that there are neither historical records of
Peter's martyrdom in Rome nor any evidence that he is buried there.
Only a fool would search for facts in matters of faith! But
for fools like us, it's quite irrelevant if they really are Peter's
bones, in the cave and at the Vatican, because we are after grail
secrets! Our foreign visitors need to be told that it is
common knowledge in the West that the
St. Peter Basilica
was built over his remains. It is the religious reason
why the Vatican is in Rome -- and not in Jerusalem. Here's an update
of the official position (1), as stated in 2003:
You are Peter and on this rock I will build
my community" (Mt 16:18). Peter is the rock on which Christ
established his Church... In the Vatican
Grottoes, on a perfect axis with the papal altar of the basilica
above,
lies the tomb of Peter. The tomb is
itself a symbol of the Rock on which the Church is built, a Church
symbolized by the basilica that rises above
the Tomb of the Apostle and encloses it like a precious casket..
Anyone familiar with the subject
matter will notice that this version ignores Peter's relics and
inspires with a new symbolism about the tomb itself --
the entire basilica has finally become his "precious casket"! Is
this the first clue that we are on the right track? Our foreign
visitors may think that it is difficult to
question the
raison d'être
of the Vatican -- but it is
surprisingly easy! By starting with Michael Winter's St. Peter
and the Popes in the 1980's, it took a few hours at the library
to get results, and today any of you can
yahoo or google
this in a matter of
minutes! Yes, we are free to do what used to guarantee the ultimate
penalty! Take the enlightened
Giordano Bruno,
for
example, who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and had to
suffer a fiery death at the stake in Rome on February 17, 1600.
Kepler's private letters express his
shock -- and Pujades got even more motivated!
Today, the information is freely
available that major excavations at St. Peter's Basilica were
conducted under pope Pius XII in the 1940's -- which he
probably cherished as a nice distraction from the Holocaust and
the nasty business of war. But the results must have caused him at
least some chagrin, because according to Toynbee
and Perkins (2):
Peter's tomb is
empty!
But some
"reburied bones" were found nearby, "of a person of
advanced age and a
powerful physique; the skull is missing ".
The skull is missing? It looks like Pujades is right again! But it
is quoted from a quote, and before we get too excited we better
check the source: The German scholar Engelbert Kirschbaum S.J. (3)
was one of the leading archeologists at the site, and one of the
four responsible for the
official report. In his book Die Gräber der Apostelfürsten,
he depicts the triangular
niche where those "reburied bones" were found.
The picture (below) is deceiving, because some bones are exposed.
They were originally about 30cm under the ground, deep enough to
remain concealed for centuries. Due to the sensational nature of
this discovery, and because the Vatican will fully deny it later, we
need to study carefully what this scholar recorded over half a
century ago:
"The empty chamber, as
it now is, is the setting of a grave, the material
remains of which have disappeared. This bare burial
place is all that is left to us of the grave of the
apostle Peter...
A heap of bones was
found, as if expressly concealed in the earth, beneath
the Red Wall, at the spot where its foundations show a
triangular break. They lay in a heap, and to a depth
roughly, of 30 centimeters. These bones are not remains
from different graves gathered together but, in the
judgment of experts, they form the skeleton of a single
man, and more precisely of an elderly but powerful man.
(p.91)
...we know the situation of the grave
more fully. A small heap of bones was discovered beneath
the lowest niche of the Red Wall. They were therefore in
the area of the ancient central grave, which we have
identified as that of the apostle; only this position ,
which presupposes some human intervention, is somewhat
higher than the grave itself must have been. In the
entire area beneath the Pallia Niche there are no
remains of human skeletons.
It might be surmised that scattered
remains had at one time been collected and placed
beneath the Red Wall. In that case, an anatomical
investigation would have showed that they belonged to
different skeletons. Medical examination,
however, gave the contrary verdict, i.e., that all
bones belonged to one and the same person. That
person was further described as an elderly and
vigorous man. The skull is missing.
...All we can say is that the bones were
removed from a grave now recognized to have been that
of St. Peter, and that they are in fact the bones of
an elderly man. At the time of his death, Peter was
elderly."(p.195)
The English translation is by John Murray, another Jesuit, and if
you understand German, you might prefer
Kirschbaum's
original from 1957, which is more candid. We can easily image that
the empty tomb was a shocking discovery, and widely discussed in the
"inner sanctum" of the Vatican and the upper hierarchy of Roman
Catholic circles around the world. Such news would have shaken the
foundations of the Church in the early Middle Ages, when it worked
so hard to establish the supremacy of the bishops of Rome as
almighty popes. No doubt, Charlemagne would have torn off the crown
that made him emperor and which empowered the Vatican. Quite
probably, it would have also prevented the bloody Crusades, even the
Albigensian ones against so-called "heretic" Christians and, of
course, the fiery death of Giordano Bruno. No wonder Nietsche said
Wissen ist Macht!
In the 20th
century, the loss of Peter's "reliquiae
insignes"
had no longer the force of a major earthquake, especially if some
brilliant minds are put to work for debriefing and damage control.
They could easily diffuse the matter to a minor aftershock! By that
time the Vatican had become rich and powerful, and its "community"
obedient and faithful, and the diffusion was easily accomplished:
A true and faithful Catholic seeks salvation in the word of God, the
pope is mediator and without fault, and the exact number of bones in
or near the tomb is no longer relevant. It's the tomb itself, empty
or not, that matters now!
On the other hand, if we were to excavate our cave in the Pyrenees
and retrieve Peter's skull and bones, the news would hit the Vatican
like a bombshell, and the celebrations last for years. A good idea
to pursue that trail a bit longer. How did the Vatican achieve this
diplomatic U-turn? Here's a good example: Lured by the advertised
"recreation of St. Peter's tomb" by the Vatican in 2003, your
gatekeeper checked out "Saint Peter and the Vatican, The Legacy of
the Popes" in San Diego, California. Unfortunately, the
"recreation" revealed nothing bout Peter's remains. The show created
the illusion that all was
comme il faut, as it
has always
been, without mention of an empty tomb. A large, illustrated book of
521 pages about the exhibit in splendid colors was for sale --
including pictures of the magnificent cap and cape of Pope Pius XII
-- but only the last sentence on p. 187 mentions the relics:
"Within the graffiti wall was a cavity where, according to
Margherita Guarducci,
the
relics of Peter were kept after they had been removed from
the grave below."
It's no longer the mysterious Red Wall of the official
report,
but downgraded to a "graffiti wall" that implies lots of traffic.
Use of the simple Peter minimizes even further. Then there is the
casual mention that his relics were kept there "after they had been
removed", nothing else. Very interesting! They really were in
the grave, but removed by whom to the cavity? The Vatican quotes a distinguished scholar, an
employee, and is not taking an
official
position
to make sure it is
her opinion. No Chauvinism here! Because the quote confirms
in 2003 that the Peter's relics were "removed", your gatekeeper had
no other option but to visit the "Holy City" himself -- to find out
what really happened to the missing skull & crossbones. He had a nice chat with a Swiss
colleague at the entry to the tomb, near Nero's circus
and the left column, where the obelisk used to be before it was
moved to the center of Peter's square. Small, elect groups of 12
(maximum) assemble there for a guided tour of the
necropolis
and
tomb.
But only if you have perfect timing, and make it past both Swiss guards,
will you get a chance to witness how experts of the "ufficio scavi"
debrief the faithful before they are led underground -- underplaying
their lines like New York method actors! Half a century after
the excavations, the "empty tomb" is no longer mentioned, as if it
never existed. The whole basilica is now his precious casket! But if
you act like a dumb tourist, and mention those "reburied bones",
you'll get a delayed reaction, an Italian shrug and a dismissive
hand gesture, and casual comments like: "The pope had the relics for
a while -- in his private chapel -- some were taken home by a
workman in a paper bag -- the German Kaas handled them daily -- they
included animal bones, of pigs -- even of a women."
Isn't that incredible? We would expect this kind of "debriefing" in
a Hollywood movie -- but in the Holy City, at the
Vatican!?
Bones of pigs and a woman!? Are we at the right place? Isn't this
the
Holiest of Holies
of the Vatican, the venerated Shrine of Saint Peter, the
Apostle
upon whom the succession of every pope is based? The "rock" upon
Jesus built his Church? What happened to Kirschbaum's official
report of half
a century ago? Doesn't
anyone remember that a "medical examination" confirmed that "all
bones belonged to the one and same person"?
You can google
Margherita Guarducci
and visit this modern Inferno
of fact and fiction yourself. You'll have to face some tough
questions though, many of which you can only ask yourself. The
Jesuits are soldiers of Christ who exchanged
the sword for a pen, a noble idea, basically, that was born at
Montserrat! But it also means that they will write with a
poisoned pen to protect their Lord and God! (We had a good
example with Burke-Gaffney's attacks on Kepler). This means that
Kirschbaum either "cleaned up" the report with the best of
intentions, and plainly lied about everything -- or that he was the
last to tell the truth. We know since O.J. Simpson how easily the
evidence at a crime scene is "tainted"! In the case of Peter's
bones, every bit of information that became available after
the "official report" taints the excavations of the tomb: Several
people removed bones and stored them in different places, even with
other bones. Pope Pius was personally involved, Msgr. Kaas on a
daily basis. Then there is the issue of a confused worker who
remembers white bones, like in our picture -- yet all current bones
are allegedly quite dark Is this the "Kaaba effect" or were the
Italian workers chain-smoking while handling Peter's bones? Not to
speak of too many male bones for one person, making him an
"octopus", with bones of a female, and all those animal bones that
suddenly surfaced! Any reputable archeologist would throw his arms
up and run away.
Interesting
stuff,
actually! It's like a magic show in Las Vegas, with a bit of mind
control. Cirque du Soleil
performed by pious padres, with lots of bone juggling, flying pigs,
and a boney girl thrown in. So many bones are conjured up that we
forget the skull. Yes, the skull! They could have added a few, but
didn't! Which tells us that an organization, which is known to be
extremely secretive and absolutely brilliant in covering anything
up, decided to leak all that scandalous trivia to diffuse the
issue, to make us forget the skull! For serious scholars,
they even have a nice "detour" to throw them off: They
have "proof"
that Paul's and Peter's skulls were at one time separated from their
other bones, but then lost track of them. Quite a switch by a
church that used to venerate single hairs, or a foreskin, and build
majestic cathedrals over such items. If you read German, check the
Lutheran take in
Petrusgrab to see
how neatly it
all fits together now, even they accepted the diffusion! But we
must be realistic and consider that
this is the 21st century! Only scholars are interested in this sort
of stuff, educated Catholics don't really care anymore about bones.
They are unaffected!
We are still interested
because of our
different agenda: We have information that Peter's skull is still in
the Pyrenees, regardless if it is authentic or not. According to the
evidence, we also know exactly where it is. But if we follow the
rules of our quest and always remain skeptical, and never
believe anyone, the Latin chronicle of Pujades
becomes quite a problem, yet difficult to dismiss as a total fraud.
Difficult, because the skull is indeed missing at the Vatican,
difficult because we are led by Chrétien and Wolfram, and because
the "Greek connection" is confirmed. Thus, part of our case rests
entirely on the shoulders of our only witness, the Catalan
scholar Jeroni Pujades. If we assume for argument's sake that our
historian made everything up, had lied like a Jesuit to put us on a
false trail -- how could he foresee what took the
Vatican another 350 years to find out? Had Pius XII known what
Pujades knew, that Peter's skull and right arm are still in the
Pyrenees, he would have never authorized official excavations!
Only a secret dig, perhaps?
This
scenario is supported by Chrétien's link to pope Alexander III after
the "Peace of Venice" (1177), indicating that the loss of the relics
and centuries of searching in vain were dismissed to the realm of
legends. But when Pius XII discovered that the legends are true, the
Vatican had no other choice, but to leak false information and
diffuse the matter. (See footnote 5, Cadaques) It feared that
the truth could, like a Pandora's box, force the Church to deal with
heresies on a much larger scale. Can you imagine Ratzinger's
dilemma, a Bavarian like Wolfram and currently revered as Pope
Benedict XVI? He would have to deal with Wolfram, Chrétien, and the
"estoire" of Robert, where the grail (a blood relic of Jesus) is
taken to the farthest west, and guarded by a Rich Fisher (Peter's
skull and bones). Somewhere near a monastery in the Pyrenees, which
was originally built in "opus espicatum", a style where the stones
are placed in the pattern of fishbone. According to Deulofeu (4)
this practice was abandoned during the Iconoclasm of the
"Adoptionists" and reappeared in full force after the Albigensian
Crusades. The Vatican would have to admit that Peter's lost
remains are linked to the heresies it exterminated so brutally. In
any event, we'll have to dig up that cave very soon! As you can well
imagine, the early Church did not wrap those relics in linen.
According to Robert's riddle, there should be a lot of other
treasure there. Even booty from the Sack of Rome and
Solomon's Temple.
Chrétien's choice of the simple word "graal" indicates that the
desperate monks realized eventually that their loss was actually
their gain. That's because decades or even centuries of searching in
vain could not stop them from thinking.
They
began to wonder why material things should be so important?
Eventually, they rejected matter in favor of higher, spiritual
values and abandoned the search to become
Iconoclasts. (This
theory is based on A. Deulofeu, and requires additional research. It
seems that Adoptionism and Iconoclasm has recently
been "divided" between Felix and Claudius of Turin, and needs some
adjustments). According to the three originators of grail romance,
this is the moment in time when the higher quest, the real "quest
for the grail" began. By the 9th century they celebrated communion
with a simple "grala" -- a bowl of wood, perhaps -- and the treasure
cave was long forgotten. (Which means that it is still there!)
That
the simple grala evolved from the lost relic, an "ampolla"
according to Pujades, is mirrored by another fresco that's older
than the bowl from
Taüll.
At the nearby church Sant Pere de Burgal, about forty
kilometers northwest of Urgell, the flaming grail is still enclosed
like an ampolla with the blood of Christ. The frescoes remind
of the lost cave with the relics of many other saints, because they
depict the "grail virgin" in the company of other saints, and here
with St. Peter. We intend to investigate on a higher level of our
quest why they depict Mary as a "prima inter pares", and not as the
"Mother of God". (Dan Brown, if you read this, please refrain
from another plagiarism!) Leitmotiv of these paintings is Pentecost
and the "Second Coming" of Christ, which is a major theme of our
researches. We will also show that the metamorphoses from this
flaming container (a ciborium) to an open bowl was only the
beginning, and that the seekers became so enlightened in their
pursuit of spiritual goals that they sought the wisdom of all
cultures, incl.
Egyptian mysteries, Greek philosophy,
Zoroastrianism, and Manichaeism. The
cultural part of this spiritual evolution spread even temporarily to
the Church, probably with Gerbert de Aurillac
from the grail region. He
was a celebrated scholar
and alchemist, a protégé of Guifré's grandson, count Borrell,
and later became pope Sylvester II in AD 999. Part of this
spirit survived briefly at Cluny, Chartres, and other abbeys,
until it ended with the Peace of Venice and only survived in
a few "heresies".
If we are right with our conjectures, some of our finest scholars
would have wasted their talents by identifying the sources of grail
romance in the symbolism of the poems. It would be sad, and funny in
a way, if they misread Wolfram's advice that the
grail provides any
food (for thought) we reach for, hot and cold, old and new, of
domesticated animals and game. Many may have failed to
understand the allegory and assumed that the Holy Grail is
merely a magic feeding dish that provides anything we ask for. They
overlook that the poet swore this in our oath, not his, and praised
Plato and the Sibyl for recommending this in their time, and
Pythagoras for having been the wisest man since Adam.
Consequently, our scholars continue to analyze early grail
romance and fail to digest all kinds of "food for thought", from
Celtic mythology to
Persian Zoroastrianism. If Wolfram is right, and our findings of
any value, these themes were added by the poets to illuminate the
diversity of the quest,
not its origins. This would include the Gnostic element that
later formed the Manichaeism of the Cathars and Albigenses.
Chrétien's dualistic structure of the
Contes du Graal attests to it,
but because his poem
remains unfinished, Wolfram's second opinion offers a stronger
emphasis: He changed the name of Perceval to Parzival,
which changes per-ce-val to the "value of Parsi", with the "s"
replaced by a "z" for Zoroaster. But both remain characters from a
"valley", the "vaus d'avaron" according to Robert, and certainly not
from Wales (or Avalon) as so many scholars contend. Zoroaster is the
only name that is spelled out in the 54 symbolic names and 54
battles of Parzival and
Feirefis, which relates directly to the hidden, numerical
structure (108) of Wolfram that was discovered by Otto Springer,
and which will become our major focus when we reach the higher
levels of our quest.
Other traces of the grail
events survived in the Pyrenees as well, especially at Sant Pere
de Rodes
and St. Michel de Cuixà. Their cloisters were framed in the
late 12th century by magnificent capitols of rose-colored marble,
with ornaments of faces, animals and vegetation that suggest
Greek, Arabic, Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian and Celtic themes.
While they were carved in the Pyrenees, other initiates like
Chrétien, Robert and Wolfram were inspired to document this period
of enlightenment in writing. Many of their manuscripts are lost,
unfortunately, and the same must be said of the rose-colored
columns. Some are still in place, others in museums and private
collections, and a major portion of
Cuixà was
shipped to the New World and rebuilt at
The Cloisters
in New York,
above the Hudson River. When your gatekeeper checked this out
in 2001, he found the massing of female sculptures without arms or
hands a weird "happening" at best. Touching the medieval columns
from Cuixà
felt even stranger --
like a visit to the Twilight Zone.
The real
Cuixà in a Northern valley of the Pyrenees is quite different
and inspirational! It's probably the valley where Guifre/Perceval
was raised. If you talk to one of the Cistercian brothers, librarian
Joan for example, he will admit that they themselves took up
arms in the later Middle Ages, but reformed and are now in spiritual
relations with Tibet -- like Montserrat. But he follows d'Abadal
without hesitation, that Guifré descends from the line of
Bello of Carcassonne, and not from Guifré of Arrias as
proposed in the Gesta. If you understand French or
Catalan, you might even hear an enlightened tour guide lament the
loss to New York, and reveal that Iconoclasts
had build the monastery and that crosses were never displayed. If you look around, you'll notice the
Moorish arches, and that some locals wear small silver
crosses on chains around their neck, but it's Jesus with extended
arms -- minus the cross.
Once we reach the higher themes of this adventure, we'll also check
out how the
Cape of Crosses
got its name: There was a time when an iron cross was imbedded in
the rock, according to Pujades, and a young and future king of the
Visigoths established his fame by removing it. But who would confuse
a cross with a sword, aside from a Cistercian monk? Or is this another cover-up
of Peter's skull (caput) and cross-bones (crucis)?
We'll soon find out...
Tentative conclusions:
Chrétien's etymological key of the word
graal
led us to Catalonia, the medieval "Spanish March", located on both
sides of the Eastern Pyrenees. Once we understood his "heretic"
concept, the etymological keys identified the Gesta,
the first Latin chronicle about the Counts of
Barcelona, and we compared the striking similarities between the
vita of their founding father Guifré el Pelós with Chrétien's
Perceval. We saw that the vita falsified historical fact and
understood why the poet was forced to correct this cover-up with a
“meillor conte”. This is supported by Wolfram, who says that Kyot
searched for Latin chronicles in many lands until he found one about
a family worthy of the grail. When we examined the symbolism
of the “magic sword”, we learned that its hilt is made of Arabian
and Greek gold, and that the blade is covered by a sheath
(scabbard) of fancy Venetian gold brocade.
Chrétien opened his poem with the
parable of the seed, the microcosm, and led to a golden platter with
the most precious stones, symbolizing the sun and planets, the
macrocosm. This depicts the spiritual development of the seekers.
Because the French master died
before he could fully develop this symbolic concept, Wolfram picked
it up with the stone from paradise, and shows us that Arabian
science (Flegetanis) is needed to recognize the grail in the stars,
and that it gives the Greek phoenix the power to be reborn
from ashes. Your gatekeeper, maybe because he is "baptized like
Master Kyot", was able to find the Latin chronicles that mirror the
macrocosm in the microcosm below. Like the three drops of blood
that reflect the planetary triangles. But we took Wolfram's warning
into account and were cautious, because some mirrors reflect
illusions like "blind men's dreams".
With this warning in mind, we did not trust the "arabesques" from
Cuixà, the first chronicle with the false vita. The Greek gold
took us to the second Latin chronicle of
Sant Pere de Rodes,
where Peter’s relics and an ampulla with blood of Christ were lost.
Hard evidence that the basic ingredients of grail lore are found.
But again, we were cautious and noticed another cover-up. The
lost cave was never found, and again the chronicle of a monastery is
debunked. We found evidence that the relics were
lost before the 7th century, and not by Italian clerics as
claimed. We also learned that the real quest for the grail began as
soon as the search for the treasure cave was abandoned. At this
moment in time, the blood relic became irrelevant and was
"transmuted" by Chrétien and Wolfram to a higher symbol, with the
microcosm and macrocosm as the "grailgate" to new discoveries.
We learned that the early Counts of Barcelona descended from
Arian Visigoths who rejected the divinity of Christ, and
followed bishop Felix of Urgell to become Adoptionists
and Iconoclasts, which are heresies according to Rome. In
their realm is the Greek temple, consecrated to Venus/Aphrodite,
which we take as evidence that the “grail” was guarded by heretic
Templers,
and not by the famous Templar order. We understand with
compassion why the poor "Fisherking" is suffering: His bones are
still rotting in some damp cave in the Pyrenees with other saints
and the holy blood -- keeping the pope "castrated" because
these relics are not at the Vatican, and because the so-called
"Second Coming" had been missed. Wolfram supports these claims with
the name "Anfortas", which might identify Peter at the gates of
heaven. But before we can initiate a healing, we must explore
Wolfram's dark mirror world with the magician
Klingsohr, who suffers from a similar wound between his
legs. Didn't Wolfram say amor war sein cri? Are Anfortas and
Klingsohr the two natures of St. Peter? Chrétien may have tried
to set this
up with St. Paul, Alexander, and Perceval's father, who had the same wound before he died.
In Wolfram's "triple symbolism", Anfortas and Klingsohr
could also be the two natures of Bernard of Septimania, and Titurel
his father, which would throw new light on Parzival's father, who
was also loved by the queen of France. But where does that leave
Charles the Bald, in view of the d'Odo Ariberti?
Before we jump to conclusions like Wolfram's
"startled hare", we should probably consider that nothing
is what it
seems. The bleeding lance at the grail castle could be the one that
struck the Red Knight
in the face, and/or killed Guifre el Pilos! Or did it hit Perceval's
father between his legs and Jesus in the chest? Is this a heretic
pun on the Holy Trinity, where Father and Son are one? But before we explore such higher meanings, we must
do a bit more
digging
on the
ground. There is a bloody mess at Montserrat that needs some
attention: This time, another "virgin" gets raped, but
this time she is murdered by an
evil cutthroat, literally, a ghastly tale was documented by
pious monks as well! Then there is still the treasure story, for
which the “Estoire” of Robert de Boron is needed -- whose "history
of the grail" is partially confirmed. But what did the treasure
cave really contain -- and who reburied those bones near Peter’s
tomb at the Vatican before the 7th century? There are the usual
suspects, but the culprit should be found in the riddle. Robert
stipulates that the riddles can only be solved if we first know the
story of the grail, which we take as an encouragement that we are
almost ready for a first try.
Until that page is posted, which will be after Montserrat, you could
spend some serious time with the
riddles.
Enough clues are sprinkled across this site that you are ready to
"grasp" it with what we just learned about Petrus. Test
Robert's names against historical figures and places, and give
special attention to his spelling of Avaron – which it is not
the mystical Avalon of later tales, as you must have gathered
by now. Forget the French town of Avallon as well, and only
after Robert's riddles are solved can the changes of Chrétien
and Wolfram be addressed -- and how the blood relic became a Solar
disk and stone from Paradise. This should happen after the sexy
third Latin chronicle is deciphered, the one about the bloody
rape and murder, and another pope's "castration". The Jesuits are
involved again, but this time the one and only Ignatius of Loyola.
After that, we'll be ready to fuse the broken pieces of the sword to
start from “scratch” once more – and pull the blade from its fancy
scabbard to read the secret inscription. And, as you have surely
imagined, the scabbard turned into stone in later poems, and it is not a blade of steel, but something even sharper,
and more dangerous and powerful -- as only information can be! We'll
fuse the three Latin chronicles where the source lies in darkness,
so that all the lies and cover-ups are washed away in those bloody
waters.
Unfortunately, we are many centuries too late -- because we had to wait
for the "Information Age"!
Please send your
questions and comments to:
info@grailgate.com
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1.
Allen Duston, O.P., and Roberto Zagnoli, Saint Peter and the
Vatican, Art Services International, Alexandria, Virginia, 2003, p.
9
2.
Michael M. Winter, Saint Peter and the Popes, Helicon Press,
Baltimore, 1960, p.104 (quoting Toynbee and Perkins)
3.
Engelbert Kirschbaum S.J., The Tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul,
translated by John Murray S.J. London, Secker & Warbug, 1959
4. A. Deulofeu, El
Ampurdan, cuna del arte romanico, Casa Del Libro, Barcelona, 1962,
pp. (?)
Your gatekeeper dedicates this article to his enlightened teachers
at the unterbarmer
Rudolf-Steiner-Schule of 50 years ago
Copyright (C) 1983-2010 by
Grailgate
