sances. Supernatural persons habited as clergy bring forth vestments and array Josephe, Christ himself bestowing mitre, crosier, and ring, and expounding the symbolic significance of episcopal robes.
(4.) The consecration having thus been performed, Josephe is able to celebrate mass and enters the ark, which supernaturally enlarges to receive him (the ark answering to the chancel, which only priests may tread), while the people remain without. The altar is supposed to be arranged as before described, the chalice being surmounted by the paten holding the bread. The celebrant uttering the words of consecration, the wine is changed into blood and the bread to the body of Christ; from the paten the officiator takes the host, and perceives that the figure of a child has taken the place of the bread; he dismembers and partakes, while angels make genuflection. This done, attendant angels receive the paten and chalice, and return to the holy vessel, the paten on top of the chalice; the angels once more elevate and carry forth paten, cup, and vessel in procession through the building; the faithful communicate (but so far as the account shows, only of the bread). The sacred utensils are returned to the altar; the bishop disrobes, the vestments are placed in the ark, and a treasurer is appointed to take in charge the sacred objects.
In this curious account it will be seen that the arrangement of chalice and paten answers to that described in the words of Honorius of Auxerre, above noticed as paraphrased by Robert de Boron, and as forming the centre of his poem; the paten lies on the cup, serving as its cover, while plate and chalice are elevated in one act. To Robert this description presents no difficulty, inasmuch as with him the Grail is but a proper name for the cup; but the remodeller, embarrassed by his conception of the holy vessel as a dinner-dish, does not know in what way to utilize it in the ceremony, and can find no better resort than to make it serve the purpose of a receptacle; while he assigns to the chalice, conceived as a different vessel, the function which Robert had given to the Grail, now inconsistently made to occupy a subordinate position. Such manner of representation seems to be quite consonant with the theory that the progress of the legend consisted in a series of attempts to concord the independent and contradictory stories of Crestien and Robert.
In the latter part of the romance, the surroundings of the vessel are similar to the circumstances narrated in the Queste; it is kept in the upper chamber of the castle of Corbenic, whence of its own accord at night it enters the main hall, carried by unseen bearers, only the sound of whose wings is heard, and where service is performed before it by saints and angels; the place is too holy to be
