Galahad

Sir Galahad as conceived by George Frederick Watts.

Sir Galahad is a knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot and Elaine of Carbonek, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity. He is perhaps the knightly embodiment of Jesus in the Arthurian legends. He first appears in the Lancelot-Grail cycle, and his story is taken up in later works such as the Post-Vulgate Cycle and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.

Cistercian inspiration

According to many interpreters, the philosophical inspiration of the celibate, otherworldly character of the monastic knight Galahad came from the Cistercian milieu, in particular St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Pauline Matarasso, The Redemption of Chivalry, Geneva, 1979). The Cistercian-Bernardine concept of Catholic warrior-asceticism undergirding the character of Galahad also informs St. Bernard's projection of ideal chivalry in his work on the Knights Templar, De laude novae militiae. Significantly, in the narratives Galahad is associated with a white shield with a vermilion cross, the very same emblem given to the Templars by Pope Eugene III.

Galahad's career

Galahad's conception comes about when Elaine, daughter of the Grail King Pelles, uses magic to trick Lancelot into thinking she is Guinevere. They sleep together, but on discovering what has transpired, Lancelot abandons Elaine and returns to Arthur's court. Galahad is placed in the care of his great aunt, the abbess at a nunnery, and is raised there. According to the Prose Lancelot (part of the interconnected set of romances known as the Vulgate Cycle) "Galahad" had been Lancelot's original name, but it had been changed when he was a child. Merlin prophesies that Galahad would surpass his father in valour and be successful in his search for the Holy Grail. It is also interesting to note that Galahad's maternal grandfather Pelles is generally considered to be a descendent of Joseph of Arimathea's brother-in-law Bron (whose line was entrusted with the grail by Joseph).

Upon reaching adulthood, Galahad is reunited with his father Lancelot, who knights him even though lancelot is not a king. He is then brought to King Arthur's court at Camelot during Pentecost. Without realizing the danger he is putting himself in, Galahad walks over to the Round Table amidst the revelry and takes his seat at the Siege Perilous. This place had been kept vacant for the sole person who would accomplish the quest of the Holy Grail; for anyone else sitting there, it would prove to be immediately fatal. Sir Galahad survives the event, witnessed by King Arthur and his knights. The king then asks the young knight to perform a test which involves pulling a sword from a stone. This he accomplishes with ease, and King Arthur swiftly proclaims Sir Galahad to be the greatest knight in the world. He is promptly invited to join the Order of the Round Table, and after an ethereal vision of the Holy Grail, the quest to find the famous object is set.

Image of Galahad from a tapestry by Edward Burne-Jones, c.1894

In Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur", Galahad's incredible prowess and fortune in the quest for the Holy Grail are traced back to his piety. According to the legend, only pure knights may achieve the Grail. While in a general sense, this "purity" refers to chastity, Galahad appears to have lived a sinless life, like the Christian Jesus, and so as a result, lives and thinks on a level entirely apart from the other knights of the legend. This quality is reflected in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem Sir Galahad and its first four lines which state, "My good blade carves the casques of men,/My tough lance thrusteth sure,/My strength is as the strength of ten,/Because my heart is pure."

Despite, and perhaps because of his sinless nature, Galahad as a character seems inhuman. He defeats rival knights apparently without effort, speaks little to his fellow knights, and leads his companions to the Grail with a relentless determination. So of the three who undertake the quest for the Grail (Bors, Perceval, and Galahad), Galahad is the one who actually achieves it. When he does, he is taken up into heaven like the biblical patriarch Enoch or the prophet Elijah, and the Christian Jesus after he is risen from the dead, leaving his companions behind.

Early in Galahad's portrayals, Galahad has been portrayed as "the most perfect knight" as declared by King Arthur. Galahad has been written with a dismal tone as can be seen in the work of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and also within T.H. White's The Once and Future King. Within these works Galahad is portrayed as a conceited, cold and pious young man who shows little interest in the concerns of his fellow knights. In Later portrayals, such as that in works of Mary MacGregor's Sir Galahad and the Sacred Cup and other such works as Sir Galahad, A Christmas Mystery by William Morris, Galahad's character is changed to portray a knight that feels contempt for those around him. He also starts to embody a code of chivalry and romance that was not previously given to him in early works. These changes can be attributed to a changing of society throughout the ages.

External links

• Biography of Sir Galahad from Early British Kingdoms
• The full text of the poem Sir Galahad