Amidst much that is dubious and belonging to the seeming of enchantment, one thing is certain--that the Perceval Quests leave behind them the Graal Castle and that nothing is taken absolutely away, for even the Conte del Graal presents the removal of the Hallows as a point of speculation rather than a thing of certitude. So much is true also of the only Perceval romance in the Northern French cycle which leans towards greatness. I have given it a name which is descriptive rather than its exact title, for, like the Conte, it is Perceval le Gallois, the Perlesvaux for modern scholarship, while for him who in recent years recreated rather than rendered it, the proper designation is The High History of the Holy Graal. By its own hypothesis, it is based upon and was drawn into romance out of a Latin book, said to have been written by Josephus, which scribe is meant possibly to be Joseph II. of the Book of the Holy Graal--that first priest who sacrificed the Body of our Lord. So, therefore, as the Lesser Chronicles derive from a Secret Book allocated to the first Joseph, does this reflection of the legends which are called greater draw from the records of his son. But the one is not rendered into the other, for the other derives from the one many points of reference which it does not set forth actually.
The Longer Prose Perceval is an echo of many texts, including the Conte del Graal, and of things unknown
