Today we have the collaboration of our friend Lacedemonia (author of the book «The Knight of the Dawn «).
Foto: Eurisco
While the world of Davintian code literature is struggling to find new formulas to find the Holy Grail , let's focus on one of the candidates, the one that according to many people has almost all the cards to be the authentic cup that Christ used. at the Last Supper , and the one in which, according to certain traditions, he collected Saint Joseph of Arimathea the blood of the Redeemer after his death on the cross. In the chapel of the Holy Chalice , and surrounded by an impressive alabaster altarpiece, we can contemplate the cup, although only part of it could correspond to the famous Grail. Specifically, the upper part, an agate cup to which an inverted cup-shaped base has been added, some handles and various jewels that adorn the whole set. These additions seem to correspond to performances in the 10th to 14th centuries.
Studies carried out on the original cup date it to the 2nd to 1st century before Christ , and its invoice is similar to other Palestinian chalices of those dates. What no longer shows such a scientific presence is the popular belief that explains the journey of the cup from the table of Saint Mark to the Valencian Cathedral :
Apparently the cup was owned by Mark himself, who would have given it to Peter as the main relic for the early Christians. Taken to Rome by the first pontiff, the chalice remained in the Eternal City until the persecution of Valeriano , in the third century. The pope of the moment, Sixtus II , he handed it over to a presumed sympathizer with the Christian cause, a Roman soldier… of Hispanic origin. This soldier brought it to the peninsula, specifically to his homeland, Huesca, where the chalice lived until the Muslim invasion. At this moment the Catholic bishops take refuge in the northern mountains taking the relic, which passes through the Yebra cave , the monasteries of Siresa and Sasabe and the cathedral of Jaca, until arriving by order of King Sancho Ramírez in San Juan de la Peña , where the altar on which the cup was worn can still be visited.
The first documented news of the presence of the chalice is from the 13th century, and at the end of the 14th century it is already spoken of as the Grail of Christ. In 1399 the king of Aragon, Martin I the Human , moved the chalice to the palace of the Alfajería , in Zaragoza, and from there to the royal palace in Barcelona. It was Alfonso V in 1424 who finally, along with other relics, gave it its definitive home in the Cathedral of Valencia, a place where it has remained until today with the exception of the War of Independence and the Civil War.
Naturally, and despite dating with Carbon-14, traditions and faith itself, it is impossible to prove the relationship between the chalice of Valencia and the legendary object known as the Holy Grail... And by the way, this expression, « Holy Grail» appears in the fifteenth century. Previously it was simply known as the «Grail».
From Valencia and for the friends of Historias de la Historia, reported Lacedemonia .