The dream like story that Chretien presents, is that of a grail, golden and encrusted with gems and radiating a great light, but it is the host that the ailing King requires to keep him alive. Later legends of Joseph of Arimathea report that the Holy Grail is the cup from which Jesus drank from at the last supper, but Jews considered blood unholy and would not have thought it sacred.
The Papacy, at the time of the story creation, were building massive cathedrals and were requiring relics to attract pilgrims. The church was very wealthy at this time due to relics, such as those brought from the Holy Land, bits of the cross, for instance, of which there was so many it would need an entire forest to supply them. The cup that Jesus drank from at his Last Supper would have been the highest of status symbols as the lips of Jesus had touched it.
But Chretien was the first story, unfinished by him, but questions the desirability of the grail as an object of desire. Was it a cup, platter or stone? Was it if value because the Papacy wanted it so badly? They were materialists, hungry for money, but the grail was not found. It was the host, the symbol of Christ, of Christ’s teaching and healing that kept the fisher king alive.
Green is the universal colour of divinity and of the Holy Spirit.
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