from che epistle to the gospel side of the altar. The author of the Graal conception meant by graal, or gradale, not the sacred dish (escuelle), but the mysterious book revealed to the supposed hermit of 717, in which he finds the history of the escuelle. Robert de Boron, mistaking this, transfers the name to the dish, and connects it with gre (gratus, gratia) on account of the inward solace connected with it (see Romans de la T. R., i. 143). The word rapidly became popular in the sense of bowl, or shallow cup, so that Helinand (1204) could say, "Dicitur vulgari nomine graalz, quia grata et acceptabilis est in ea comedenti." This etymology is the same as Boron s. The older French word greel, meaning service-book (Ducange, article " Gradale "), was displaced by the new graal or greal. On the other hand, M. Fauriel derives graal from an old Provencal word for a cup, grazal. But this grazal, according to the article in Ducange, seems to be of Armorican origin ; anyhow M. Fauriel has not proved its use in the sense of cup at a period earlier than the rise of the Graal legend.
4. The spread and ascendency to which the Graal con ception rapidly attained in all Christian countries made the creations of Arthurian romance the delight of all cultivated minds, from Caerleon to Venice, and from Iceland to the Straits of Gibraltar. From England, which we must regard as the land of its origin, the Graal legend at once passed to France, and found an enthusiastic and capable interpreter in Robert or Robiers de Boron. This Boron was no Englishman of Nottinghamshire, as some English writers have pretended, but, as Paulin Paris conclusively proves, a French poet of the county of Montbeliard in the region of the Vosges. Chrestien de Troyes in his Percival (written before 1191, for it is dedicated to Count Philip of Flanders who died in that year), gives in a metrical dress the legend of Percival, one of the knights of the round table, under the transformation which the introduction of the Graal conception had effected. The continuations of the poem, by Denet and Manessier, come down to about 1240. The famous Mid-German poem of Parzival, by Wolfram von Eschenbach, which appeared near the begin ning of the 13th century, is founded partly on Chrestien s Percival, but partly also on some other, perhaps Prove^al, source, which is now lost. A rude English metrical version of the French prose romance of the Saint Graal, by one Harry Lonelich, dating from the reign of Henry VI., has been recently edited by Mr Furnivall for the Roxburghe Club. Flemish, Icelandic, and Welsh reproductions of the Graal romances have been found to exist. One of the first employments of the printing press in England, France, and Germany was to multiply poems or romances embodying this legend. Hence Caxton printed for Sir Thomas Malory (1485) The Historie of King Arthur and his Noble Knightes, a version in English prose of the French romances of Merlin, Lancelot, Tristan, the Quete du Saint Graal, and Mart Artur, or at any rate based upon them. An early French edition of the Tristan, of which there is a copy in the British Museum, is dated 1489. Lancelot du Lac was printed at Paris in 1513; and not long afterwards editions of the Tristan and other portions of the Arthur cycle, always as interpenetrated by the Graal legend, appeared both in Italy and Spain (Schulz s Essay, p. 114).
See Paulin Paris, Les Manuscrils de la Bibliotheque Royals, 1836, and Les Romans de la Table Ronde, 1868-77 ; Madden s Sir Gawayne, edited for the Bannatyne Club, 1839; the Scynt Graal (part i.), edited by F. Furnivall, -with a prefatory essay on the Graal-saga by San Marte (Schulz), 1861-3; several MSS. of the King s Library in tJie British Museum, Reg. 14 E. iii. , 19 C. xii., 20 C. vi., &c. ; Fauriel, Hist, de la Poesie Provenqale; Wolf rani von Eschenbach, Parzival und Titurel, edited by Pfoiffer, 1870 ; Warton s History of English Poetry, vol. i. ; La France Litteraire, vol. xv.; Helinand s "Chronicles 1 (in Migne s Patrologie, vol. ecxii.) ; Schulz s Essay on tJie Influence of Welsh Tradition, Llan- dovery, 1841, &c., &c.
(t. a.)
GRAINS OF PARADISE, Guinea Grains, or Melegueta Pepper (German, Paradieskörner; French, Graines de Paradis, Maniguette), the semina cardamomi majoris or piper melegueta of pharmaceutists, are the seeds of Amomum Melegueta, Roscoe, a reed-like plant of the natural order Zingiberaceæ, which is a native of tropical western Africa, and of Princes and St Thomas's Islands in the Gulf of Guinea, is cultivated in British Guiana, and may with ease be grown in hot-houses in England. The plant has a branched horizontal rhizome; smooth, nearly sessile, alternate leaves, with the blade oblong-lanceolate; large, white, pale pink, or purplish flowers; and an ovate-oblong fruit, ensheathed in bracts, which is of a scarlet colour when fresh, and reaches under cultivation a length of 5 inches. The seeds are contained in the acid pulp of the fruit, are commonly wedge-shaped and bluntly angular, are about 1 line in diameter, and have a glossy dark-brown husk, with a conical light-coloured membranous caruncle at the base, and a white kernel. They contain, according to Flückiger and Hanbury, 0·3 per cent. of a faintly yellowish neutral essential oil, having an aromatic, not acid taste, and a specific gravity at 15·5° C. of 0·825, and giving on analysis the formula C₂₀H₃₂O, or C₁₀H₁₆ + C₁₀H₁₆O; also 5·83 per cent. of an intensely pungent, viscid, brown resin. Grains of paradise were formerly officinal in British pharmacopœias, and in the 13th and succeeding centuries were used as a drug and a spice, the wine known as hippocras being flavoured with them and with ginger and cinnamon. In 1629 they were employed among the ingredients of the twenty-four herring pies which were the ancient fee-favour of the city of Norwich, ordained to be carried to court by the lord of the manor of Carleton (Johnston and Church, Chem. of Common Life, p. 355, 1879). Grains of paradise were in past times brought overland from West Africa to the Mediterranean ports of the Barbary States, to be shipped for Italy. They are now exported almost exclusively from the Gold Coast. The amount received by Great Britain in 1871 was upwards of 760 cwts. Grains of paradise are to some extent used in veterinary practice, but for the most part illegally to give a fictitious strength to malt liquors, gin, and cordials. By 56 Geo. III. c. 58, no brewer or dealer in beer shall have in his possession or use grains of paradise, under a penalty of £200 for each offence; and no druggist shall sell the same to a brewer under a penalty of £500. They are, however, devoid of any injurious physiological action, and are much esteemed as a spice by the natives of Guinea.
See Bentley and Trimen, Medicinal Plants, part 30, tab. 268; Lanessan, Hist. des Drogues, pp. 456–460, 1878.
