CHAPTER 38
Returning to Kent, it was clear to me now that the Vale of Glamorgan and most particularly its northern fringe – roughly from Coity to Llanharan– was the real ‘Vale of Avalon’. Included in this territory, which was an independent Lordship in the Middle Ages, was Llanilid, where there is a large cor or religious circle that was used by Joseph of Arimathea when he first started preaching to the local people, the Silures. Close by, near the crown of a hill called Mynydd-y-gaer , was the old church of Llanbedrfynydd (St Peter’s-on-the-hill), where my colleagues, Alan Wilson and Bram Blackett, found the memorial stone of Arthur son of Maurice and the silver votive cross with the legend ‘ pro anima Artorius ’. It seems likely that the Welsh name Bedwyr , which we translate into English as Bedivere, is actually a variant on Pedr or Peter. It seems reasonable to assume that the church was named after him rather than the Apostle Peter. In Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur , Bedwyr ends his days living as a hermit where King Arthur is buried. Curiously, Wilson and Blackett’s dig revealed the foundations of a 6th-century, ‘beehive’ structure of the type used by hermits of that period, and it was right at the centre of this that the silver cross was discovered. As the centre of this structure would have been unknown to people using the later, rectangular church built on the site, the inference had to be that the cross was placed there at the time of Bedwyr, perhaps by him personally.
All this was evidence for an Arthurian connection with the eastern extremity of the Lordship. In the west there was the little brook called the Nantbrynglas or ‘Stream of the glas (blue-green) hill’. It runs into the Afon Ewenny or ‘Whitened River’ close to Coychurch (Church in the wood). Using the accepted way of naming it, this confluence should be called Aberbrynglas. Since bryn can translate as ‘bury’ in English – and this in some circumstance is a cognate of -ton (for example, Shaft esbury, also known as Shaft on, and Glastonbury as Glaston) – so Aberbrynglas could be written as either Aberglaston or as Glastonbury.
As if to confirm this identification, Coychurch is also called Llangrallo. Although it is supposedly named after a ‘Saint Crallo’, this appears to be invention after the fact. It seems more likely to me that this should be understood as ‘Church of the Grail (Grallo)’, the sacred cup or dish that Joseph of Arimathea is said to have brought to Britain. Perhaps this church – or rather one on this site – is where this treasure was once housed. Here, too, is the Ebissar stone which seems to be somehow connected with either Jesus himself or, more likely, with his family.
The subject of the Holy Grail, what it might have been and what it signifies, has been much discussed ever since the publication of Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh’s book The Holy Blood and Holy Grail in 1982. Their idea, at the time deeply controversial, that the Grail was really a bloodline – Jesus having married Mary Magdalene and their having had at least one child – is now well known since the publication of Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code. The idea that ‘san graal’ (holy grail) could be a code for ‘sang raal’ (royal blood) is now almost a cliché. Thus, today, based on very little or no evidence, it is assumed by many people that the marriage of Jesus and Mary is a fact and that a secret bloodline stemming from them infused the stock of the Merovingian Kings of France – and still endures to this day.
I have to say that back in 1982, when I first read The Holy Blood and Holy Grail, I found this an intriguing possibility. However, it does seem to confuse two separate issues that are both symbolized by the Holy Grail. First of all, there was the question of what was represented by the Holy Grail. Secondly, what might it have contained? Now, in my opinion, the original ‘Holy Grail’ was not Mary Magdalene nor any bloodline stemming from her: it was a vessel used at the Last Supper, which was the Passover meal held by Jesus with his twelve disciples immediately prior to his arrest, trial and Crucifixion.
Joseph of Arimathea was not himself one of the twelve disciples. However, the Bible tells us that he was a secret follower of Jesus, although he was also a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish council of elders. This is hardly surprising. If Jesus were indeed his nephew, Joseph would have known him personally and may indeed have had a hand in his education. Furthermore, tradition tells us that Joseph was a wealthy trader in metals, principally tin and lead (which he would have obtained from the British Isles), but maybe also copper and silver as well. As a wealthy man, he would have qualified to be on the highest councils of the Jews. It is also said that Jesus used the Holy Grail when turning wine into his blood at the Last Supper, and this transformation (which is regularly re-enacted at the Mass) took place in Joseph’s house. Again, if he really was Jesus’ maternal uncle, then it is not at all unlikely that the latter held his Passover meal in his house. If this is so, then the ‘Grail’ was probably a crater or large ‘punch bowl’; for in those days it was customary to dilute wine with water in just such a bowl prior to drinking it. This bowl would have belonged to Joseph too as part of his dinner set. Given that he was a trader in metals, it seems not unlikely that this bowl was metallic and may even have been made of silver. At any rate, after the supper it would have been a very treasured object and one that he would have doubtless brought with him to Britain.
This is one interpretation of the Holy Grail: that it was an actual vessel that Jesus used and Joseph treasured. The other alternative is that this vessel was a symbol for something else. Given that the wine it contained symbolized the blood of Jesus Christ, the most obvious allusion is to his body. We could say that Christ himself was the vessel of the Last Supper, an allusion that is reinforced by the story in the Bible that when a Roman Centurion stabbed him with a spear, what issued from the wound in his side was blood mixed with water. However, unless we choose to believe that Joseph brought the living body of Jesus to Britain, this line of reasoning does not get us very far. In my opinion, it seems more likely that the Grail was always a symbol for something more numinous than either a cup or the body of Jesus Christ: it symbolized a container for spiritual forces.
Following this line of reasoning, the content of the Grail is a metaphor for a special energy, understood by Christians as the manifestation of the Holy Ghost. This energy was present in the blood of Jesus and gave him the power to perform his miracles. Just as a car requires petrol or a computer electricity, so a developed human being or ‘saint’ needs this ‘higher energy’ in order to manifest powers that we would regard as supernatural.
It was this energy, which Jesus refers to as the Holy Breath or Holy Ghost, that he promised he would send to his apostles once he was no longer with them in person. On the first Whitsun, which took place seven weeks after Easter, it is said to have descended onto them like tongues of fire. Then, charged as it were with this ‘force’, they found they had the courage to preach without fear and the ability to speak in foreign languages (tongues) they had never learnt. Some of them also developed, or so we are told, the ability to carry out miracles of their own, even raising the dead on occasion. In other words, they were able to manifest supernatural abilities that had previously belonged solely to Jesus.
This much now seemed obvious. However, the symbol of the rose continued to elude me. What was its inner mystery and why was it so important to the Rosicrucians? Unlocking this mystery would prove to be the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle.