Perillos and the enigma of the Grail accounts

 

Is Perillos part of the Grail legends or not? Even though Chrétien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach’s accounts were void of references to a “Perilous Chapel”, Seat or Cemetery, later authors introduced these places as part of the Grail mythos. The name appears in the Perlevaus history of the Grail. Perlesvaus was written between 1192 and 1225, and hence a dating of 1205 is often given for the work. What they mean and whether or not they may be a reference to Perillos is an important question that few have asked.

The Perilous Chapel

The Perilous Chapel is normally linked with King Arthur or a knight who decides to go on a quest – a pilgrimage – to the Perilous Chapel. The chapel functions as an oracle. When he reaches Perilous, Arthur is told that his country is in decline because one of the knights failed to ask the correction question regarding the Lance and the Grail. Arthur is able to rectify the situation and when he returns home, his land has regenerated.
Sometimes the Chapel is discovered by accident. In one example, Gawain seeks refuge in a chapel, which stands at a crossway in the middle of a forest, sheltering from a storm. In another account, the visitors are Perceval’s sister, Sir Lancelot and the young Queen of Garadigan. In all accounts, the knight spends the night there.

Inside the chapel is a dead body on an altar, with a great golden candlestick at his feet. Normally, the dead body is that of a dead knight. Sometimes a Black Hand extinguishes the tapers, though a head, strange and threatening voices and even the Devil himself are also known to have frightened the living daylights out of the myst. As such, it is deemed to be a place of pure evil; a comparison with the Beast of the Apocalypse, identified with the number “666” is not far off.

The Perilous Cemetery

Also known as the “Atre Perilous”, the Perilous cemetery is a variation of the Perilous Chapel. The cemetery is where the dead knights, whose life has been killed by evil, are buried.
The earliest mention of the cemetery appears in the Chastel Orguellous section of Perlesvaus, where Arthur and his knights, on their way to the siege of Chatel Orguellous, come to the Vergier des Sepoltures, where they eat with the Hermits, of whom there are a hundred and more.
In Perlesvaus, the hero Perlesvaus also needs to attend a terrifying vigil in a cemetery near the Grail castle, where evil spirits fight for him. At midnight, he is told that the Fisher King is dead and that the evil king of Castle Mortal has seized the Grail castle; the Grail has vanished and only Perlesvaus will be able to restore it. However, it is Perceval’s sister, not a knight, who undertook this quest. She must possess a piece of the cloth which covers the altar in the chapel of the Perilous Cemetery if her enemies are to be conquered. “It is a most holy cloth, for it was the sheet that shrouded God in the sacred tomb, when he returned from death to life on the third day.” Such references are at the origin of the later fascination with “Shroud of Christ”, typified by the Shroud of Turin.

The Perilous Seat

In the story of the Round Table, there is the story of the “Perilous Seat” or the “Siege Perilous”. This is a seat of the Round Table that is kept empty. It is perilous as those who sit on it, without the approval of the Grail, will meet death.
The Perilous Seat is deemed to be the territory of the “greatest knight” of them all, and hence was kept empty until the righteous one, The Chosen One, would lay claim to it. In the end, a knight – named Gawain, Perlesvaus, Perceval or Galahad – takes this seat. In one account, the occupier of the seat rides off to discover the Grail, whereas in another account, the occupier gives off such radiance that the other knights decide to search for the reason behind this radiance.
In one account, an inscription appears on the empty seat at the Round Table, in which no knight has ever sat without deadly consequences, foretelling that his seat will find its master. Later, the words on the seat change, reading: “This seat is Galahad’s”.

An Arthurian origin?

In the story of Gawain, the Perilous Chapel is specifically linked with the Secret of the Grail. It states that if Gawain had not been loyal and courteous, he would not have survived the night in the chapel.
Jessie L. Weston in From Ritual to Romance believes that the origin of the story comes from the Arthurian story in which Guinevere urges him to visit the Chapel of Saint Austin. He decides to take with him just one squire, Chaus, the son of Yvain the Bastard. On his journey, he believes that he is following Arthur. His chase leads him to find a chapel, where he finds a body of the night on a bier, with golden candlesticks at head and foot. He takes a candlestick and continues to find his King. But he is then confronted by a man, who accuses him of being a thief, whereby he attacks him with his knife. Next, Chaus awakens, lying in the hall at Cardoil, wounded to death, the knife in his side and the golden candlestick nearby. He lives long enough to tell the story, confess and then die.
It reveals a belief that the world of dreams are real and can have physical impact on the earthly plane. Weston has labelled the story therefore a story of an initiation, but on the astral plane: the knight is tested by the forces of good and evil, not by men… It is an initiation on the higher plane, after the knight has been initiated on the lower. A man may have found himself worthy of other men, but therefore not of God… or the Grail. The story makes clear that the initiation is a dangerous event, not to be taken lightly, and can have a deadly outcome if the knight is unsuccessful – few have been chosen… many believe they are called…

Double initiation

We are thus confronted with the image of a double initiation. Such a journey to the Worlds beyond was held to be a high spiritual adventure of actual possibility – a venture to be undertaken by those who, greatly daring, felt that the attainment of actual knowledge of the Future Life was worth all the risks, and they were great and terrible, which such an enterprise involved.
The double initiation is also referenced in Christian literature, though most often in Gnostic or apocryphal documents. The first initiation was baptism by water, done by John the Baptist. But throughout the Bible, there are oblique references to a baptism by fire. This is the spiritual baptism – the second initiation. In the Gospel of John, a Gnostic Document, we read: “In order to attain the kingdom of god, one must be born again. This necessitates a double initiation of water and Spirit.” It is the latter that is symbolised by the “perilous test”.

A real “Perilous Chapel”

Weston continued: “And should any of my readers find it difficult to believe that, even did initiations take place, and even were they of a character that involved a stern test of mental and physical endurance – and I imagine most scholars would admit that there was, possibly, more in the original institutions, than, let us say, in a modern admission to Free-Masonry – yet it is 'a far cry' from pre-Christian initiations to Medieval Romance, and a connection between the two is a rash postulate, I would draw their attention to the fact that, quite apart from our Grail texts, we possess a romance which is, plainly, and blatantly, nothing more or less than such a record. I refer, of course, to Owain Miles, or The Purgatory of Saint Patrick, where we have an account of the hero, after purification by fasting and prayer, descending into the Nether World, passing through the abodes of the Lost, finally reaching Paradise, and returning to earth after Three Days, a reformed and regenerated character.”

Ramon de Perillos and the Perilous Chapel

With the reference to St Patrick’s Purgatory, we have come face to face with the story of Ramon de Perillos. Is it a mere twist of fate that one Ramon de Perillos would travel to Ireland, to visit a place which in nature is identical to the Perilous Chapel? Furthermore, what are we to make of his statement, made upon his return from Ireland, that he now “understood” that his territory had a “gateway to the Otherworld”? Did he realise that Perillos indeed had a “Perilous Chapel”?
Perillos is phonetically very close to “Perilous”. Perillos is believed to be derived “little pears” (poron or peron) but could it also be a “perron”, which is a passage of entrance? In the latter framework, Perillos is indeed a gateway…

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