. The word gradalis, of disputed origin, meaning a kind of serving dish, is attested in medieval Latin as early as 718. A well-known definition from ca. 1200 reads: “A gradalis, or in the Latin of Gaul gradale, is a wide dish, somewhat deep, in...

According to Christian mythology, the Holy Grail was the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, said to possess miraculous powers. The connection of Joseph of Arimathea with the Grail legend dates from Robert de Boron's Joseph d'Arimathie...

Two authors who failed to convince Britain's High Court that Dan Brown stole their ideas for his blockbuster novel "The Da Vinci Code" took their case to the Court of Appeal on Tuesday.Lawyers for Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who face a bill of more...

Sarah Silverman: LOS ANGELES, Jan. 30 -- Those who know Sarah Silverman only from her much discussed star turn in the 2005 comedy film "The Aristocrats" and from her one-woman concert movie, "Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic," might bristle at the notion that another overnight...

An extremely rare species of tiny owl has been seen in the wild for the first time, the American Bird Conservancy said Thursday. The long-whiskered owlet, one of the world's smallest owls, was discovered in 1976. Researchers have caught a few specimens in nets after...

Britain's Court of Appeal rejected a lawsuit Wednesday from two authors who claimed novelist Dan Brown stole their ideas for his blockbuster novel "The Da Vinci Code."Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh had sued Brown's publisher, Random House Inc., claiming he copied from their 1982 nonfiction...

In the following excerpted essay, Wood provides overviews of several Grail texts, beginning with a summary of Grail romances, their primary themes and motifs, and concluding with an examination of popular twentieth-century Grail-related material.

In the following essay, the Crowleys expound on Percy's Christian vision as it is expressed in his fiction and nonfiction, noting that the author often used Arthurian motifs in his writing to embody a Southern code of Stoicism. The critics also point out that despite Percy's theological stance, he did not shy away from using the Grail quest to parody the chivalric code associated with the South.

In the following essay, Thompson discusses the use of the Grail motif in modern fiction, including a brief analysis of four twentieth-century novels.