Robert
de Boron
Robert de Boron (also spelled in the
manuscripts "Bouron", "Beron") was a
French poet of the late 12th and early
13th centuries who is most notable as
the author of the poems Joseph
d'Arimathe and Merlin.
Robert de Boron was the author of two
surviving poems in octosyllabic verse,
the Grail story Joseph d'Arimathe and
Merlin. The latter work survives only in
fragments and in later versions rendered
in prose. The two poems are thought to
have formed either a trilogy - with a
verse Perceval forming the third part -
or a tetralogy - with Perceval a Mort
Artu (Death of Arthur). The "Didot
Perceval", a retelling of the Percival
story similar in style and content to
Robert's other works, may be a
prosification of the lost sections.
Robert de Boron is the first author
to give the Holy Grail myth an
explicitly Christian dimension.
According to him, Joseph of Arimathea
used the Grail (the Last Supper vessel)
to catch the last drops of blood from
Jesus's body as he hung on the cross.
Joseph's family brought the Grail to the
vaus d'Avaron, the valleys of Avaron in
the west, which later poets changed to
Avalon, identified with Glastonbury,
where they guarded it until the rise of
King Arthur and the coming of Perceval.
Robert also introduced a "Rich Fisher"
variation on the Fisher King.
Robert originated from the village of
Boron, now in the arrondissement of
Montbéliard. What is known of his life
come from brief mentions in his poems.
At one point in Joseph d'Arimathe, he
applies to himself the title of meisters
(medieval French for "clerk"); later he
uses the title messires (medieval French
for "knight"). At the end of the same
poem, he mentions being in the service
of Gautier of "Mont Belyal", whom Pierre
Le Gentil identifies with one Gautier de
Montbéliard (the Lord of Montfaucon),
who in 1202 left for the Fourth Crusade,
and died in the Holy Land in 1212. Le
Gentil also argues that the mention of
Avalon shows that he wrote Joseph
d'Arimathe after 1191, when the monks at
Glastonbury claimed to have discovered
the coffins of King Arthur and
Guinevere. His family is unknown, though
the second author of the Prose Tristan
claimed to be Robert's nephew, calling
himself "Helie de Boron". This is taken
more as an attempt to drop a famous name
than a genuine accreditation, however.
Although Le Gentil describes him as a
"poet endowed with boldness and piety
but with mediocre talent", his version
of the Grail myth was adopted by almost
all of the later writers of the Matter
of Britain.
