346. The Mystery of the Holy Grail

[@notsocrates9529]

It would be really cool if there was a show or two comparing the Iliad to Aeneid for historicity and differences of perspective. The newer podcasts detailing the French Revolution have been a real treat.

[@kindnesslove5482]

Can you guys please do Marius and Sulla series ❤🤩 Would also love

[@JonathanRossRogers]

49:10 I agree that the Ark of the Covenant is more significant than the Holy Grail. I notice that Dom doesn't try to defend the significance of the "Sankara Stones," which Lucas now feels are "too esoteric." To me, Last Crusade is clearly the best of the series with Raiders a close second, though all *three* movies in the series are greatly enjoyable.

[@tedtimmis8135]

As a fairly well read Catholic Christian, I agree. The holy grail is pure mythology. The ark is a historical object which held the 10 commandments. These laws shaped Western civilization.

[@flowermeerkat6827]

Incredibly enjoyable presentation

[@brianvanderspuy4514]

My own contribution to grail lore: When "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" was released, I went to see it in the local theatre. A lady had brought along a very small boy, maybe no older than five or so, age restrictions or not. But he was unfazed by all the horrors. He did lose track of the story a bit though. In the end, bad guy chooses the wrong cup, promptly dies and shrivels up. Indie chooses the right cup and survives. And the little boy, who apparently did not realize they had drunk from two different cups, pipes up, loud enough to be heard through the entire theater: "But why did the other one turn into a ninja then?" Whole theatre breaks into giggles, the spell of the movie at least temporarily broken. The little boy must be in his thirties now, and I am well on my way to turning into a ninja, but I still remember how the little incident made my whole day. :-)

[@kevinmcinerney1959]

Fascinating episode, concerning a topic I had known little about. Another subject I always expect to come up in Tom Holland's accounts is Scholasticism. There seems to be concurrency between the Christian Revolution and Scholasticism, and I always expect that dimension to come into focus.

[@neilgadsby3924]

Thoroughly enjoyed this. Thanks.

[@ojtaylor91]

Your newest biggest fan here. Thanks to your interview with Dan Calin.

[@SaudadeCB]

Could you do an episode about thr shroud of Turin?

[@carveraugustus3840]

Ohhh that’d be great

[@grahamdraper8207]

Yeerrrrssss, that would be great!

[@TimLeandro]

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is hilarious.

[@tedtimmis8135]

Tom, your explanation of the holy Eucharist was moving and beautiful. You might make a good Catholic Christian.

[@kevinmcinerney1959]

I was brought up a Catholic, but happily lapsed. I have to say that Mr Holland's account of the Albigensian Crusade has made me glad I never reconsidered that choice.

[@tedtimmis8135]

@ More likely that you never lapsed as you never knew the faith.

[@greghill7759]

@@tedtimmis8135 Or most likely he reviewed religion from a logical perspective and reached the inevitable conclusion that we are spinning through space utterly alone and reliant on just our feeble brains.

[@FrederickCopleston-c7x]

No. Tom has failed as a historian here, because he claims that the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist was something that slowly evolved over the centuries, which is false. And then says that those who didn't believe in the Transubstantiation were "orthodox", which is also false.

[@FrederickCopleston-c7x]

​@@greghill7759From a logical point of view there is not beauty and there are not moral values. All the propositions and rational arguments about beauty and values are logically inconsistent and absurd, as Wittgenstein showed. If you are a weak person, then you may have compassionate emotions, but the logical thing to do is to live beyond good and evil, without any compassion for weak people, being an utter egoist and sleeping remorselessly and peacefully at night. Have you had pleasure today? Because the subjective feeling of pleasure is the only thing that matters. A day without pleasure is such a waste...

[@launiesoult3248]

I like to imagine that his father and brothers were all wounded protecting the Grail

[@CL-we8tn]

Nice episode, i love the conspiracy theories around the holy grail.

[@carveraugustus3840]

Fantastic love it

[@tomorrowtv]

The legend of the grail is linked to the 3rd crusade which saw increased participation by France and England jointly. The additional lore was meant to inspire fending the holy lands from the infidel, just as the original Arthurian lore concerned fending Briton from the saxon pagans. The third crusade, led by Richard (Lionheart) began at the same 1180 AD period discussed here in the podcast.

[@carbonekentertainment]

The Fisher Kings castle was called Carbonek / Corbonic castle ; )

[@JonathanRossRogers]

I like how Tom and Dom only acknowledge the first three movies.

[@examplelife1567]

I'm pretty sure the latter part of your tale was added to the original!

[@GrubStLodger]

Naomi Mitchison writes a novel in which every grail is real and every grailfinder finds one.

[@daijones5558]

Guess theres no need to read it now

[@GrubStLodger]

@@daijones5558 Oh yeah, for the comic, mythical and interesting implications of that.

[@phaethon3124]

maybe to do with the constellation Crater .in the same way that people think the star of bethlehem was a conjuction of planets in Leo

[@phaethon3124]

but also a stone.i think meteorites were revered as gods coming down to earth.and such an event became myths like phaethon joyriding in the quadriga of apollo

[@JohnLandau-h5g]

In Wolfram von Eschenbach's version of the myth, (c.1200), The grail is not a cup but a stone, and it is not directly related to Christ, although it has sacred qualities. Parsifal is half black, his mother being a North African Christian princess. His eventual wife is Kundry, a Jewess who had been forced by the evil magician Klingsor, also Jewish, into becoming a high-class call girl who seduces and corrupts noble. Klingsor hasd hoped to be accepted into a Christian monastic order by castrating himself, but the order condemns his action and rejects his membership application. Hence he uses Kundry, whom he has inslaved into prostitution, to get revenge on Christiandom. Parsifal is lured into Klingsor and Kundry's magic realm, where Kundry attempts to seduce him. Parsifal professes love for Kundry, but explains that as a sincere Christian, he believes in waiting until marriage. So he proposes to Kundry. Kundry is moved to tears, and desperately wants to accept so she can become a respectable woman and maybe even have children. Klingsor has made her sterile. But Parsifal defeats Klingsor, catching the spear he (Klingsor ) throws at him in midair. Klingsor and his enchanted realm disappears, as he is descends to hell. But Kundrey is set free and accompanies Parsifal to the home of the monastic order that guards the sacred stone. There Kundry accepts religious instruction and convrts to Christianity. The couplle are then married and experience supreme bliss. They then join the monks as the latter return to their sacred magical kingdom of Monsalvat, which is the permanent home of the grail. I can't remember how it ends. I never read the ending when I was assigned to read it ifor a course in medieval literature. Wagner made use of a heavy bowdlerized version of Wilfram's romance for his opera Parsifal.

[@yensid4294]

interesting. ty for sharing this ❤

[@yensid4294]

Sooooo, the original grail mythology/iconography was just a little too Catholic to survive The Reformation. Makes sense.

[@JonathanRossRogers]

16:19 A Grrraaaiiill?

[@allensacharov5424]

I experienced the Holy Grail. It was while on the Camino de Santiago I reached the top of a mountain where a small chapel existed. Local legend believed the Grail had appeared there. I sat in a rough-hewn pew, wet and tired from a day walking in rain and stared at the single candle burning on the altar. I arose to go to the hostal when a force pushed me down, pinning me by my chest. I experienced a burning similiar to the paintings of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I literally could not move. Finally the force subsided and I felt what could only be described as a state of grace. This happened 25 years ago and I remember it as if it were yesterday

[@richardsmith579]

Probably cramp and exhaustion. I’m glad you recovered.

[@allensacharov5424]

@@richardsmith579 On the Camino, the divine and commonplace are the same

[@JonathanRossRogers]

49:08 I have to disagree with Tom. The holy grail is a very medieval Catholic symbol, but not one important to Christianity in general. It doesn't appear in the New Testament and it is not relevant to Christians receiving the blood and body of Christ. In direct contradiction to what Tom said, Christians do not need purely human priests to mediate for us because Christ is the priest for all of us.

[@josephromance3908]

Dominic saying that Tom debunked the mystery suggests he really doesn't understand the Christian tradition (the non-Protestant one, at least) at all.

[@allancarey2604]

I went to Jordan becouse of Indiana Jones :)

[@elerike]

We all did 😊

[@Ammeeeeeeer]

The Holy Grail is still more believable than any of the nonsense from the fourth Indiana Jones movie 😇

[@piushalg5041]

Tom is not right when he says the idea that in the eucharistic you literally eat the flesh of Christ etc. is a medieval invention of the Latin church. It literally goes back the early church vathers. Only the doctrine of transsubstantion is a later development. And Luther did not deny the real presence in the eucharistic. He only rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation. It was the more radical reformers like Zwingly and Calvin who reduced the whole thing to a purely symbolic remembrance feast. That iw Voltaire mockingly wrote that Catholics eat Christ, Lutherans eat bread with Christ and the Reformed eat bread.

[@austinmiller9064]

I say ni

[@CL-we8tn]

At last!

[@launiesoult3248]

It does seem like his whole family is involved in this in one way or another

[@michaelbedford8017]

Try telling that lot to the police.

[@davidevans3227]

Indiana Jones again

[@michaellear6904]

Yeah, pretty much.

[@dartharpy9404]

Shroud not Grail !

[@ktom5262]

"You can only blaspheme something you believe in."... What? Rubbish, not true at all.

[@mikehimes7944]

In the same way you can only cheat if you're in a relationship. You can be a womanizing cad, but it isn't infidelity.

[@ginaza9767]

I really like both presenters. But when tom narrates i tend to zone out.

[@LeoneNut]

Yeah he's a great sleep aid

[@Dabhach1]

Understandable. You need an attention span of at least three seconds.

[@dannydore8038]

Holy Grail comes from the middle french "Sang Real" meaning "Blood of Royalty" which is the Blood of Christ.

[@Verita1975]

The word graal, as it is spelled in its earliest appearances, comes from Old French graal or greal, cognate with Old Occitan grazal and Old Catalan gresal, meaning "a cup or bowl of earth, wood, or metal"

[@dannydore8038]

@Verita1975 Thanks, Wikipedia

[@Verita1975]

@@dannydore8038 Precisely.. if someone cannot even look up something on Wikipedia… than how can you expect them to pontificate on the meaning of a word 800 years old .. just easier to believe in a Conspiracy Theory.

[@dannydore8038]

@@Verita1975 No one asked you

[@Verita1975]

@@dannydore8038 No one “asked you” either … Ad Hominem attacks of which you have done 2 …are merely indicative of a person who cannot substantiate a argument and try to attack the “opposing side” because they cannot construct and defend a coherent argument and/or their tender thin skinned ego has been hurt. Either which way there is no point arguing such a person… have a nice life