ABSTRACT
Chrétien de Troyes’s Conte du Graal (Perceval) is one of the most intriguing Arthurian romances of the Middle Ages. The mysterious Grail is introduced: Chrétien upgraded a piece of medieval dishware called grail (a shallow platter) to a holy object that would become one of the most powerful and enduring symbols in European culture. He is a brilliant story-teller, who keeps his audience just as mystified and curious as the somewhat naïve protagonist Perceval. Starting from the repercussions of Perceval’s first Grail vision, the chapter discusses what came before in the story and in Chrétien’s oeuvre, and what happened afterwards with Perceval and the Grail and with Arthurian romance in general in verse and in prose.
