In spite of everything, Christianity revived the generic sense of a supernatural transcendence. The Roman symbol offered the idea of a universal regnum, of an aeternitas carried by an imperial power. All this integrated the Nordic substance and provided superior reference points to its warrior ethos, so much as to gradually usher in ine of those cycles of restoration that I have labeled "heroic" in a special sense. And so, from the type of the mere warrior the figure of the knight arose; the ancient Germanic traditions of war waged in function of Valhalla developed into the supranational epic of the "holy war" or crusade; a shift occurred from the type of the prince of a particular race to the type of the sacred and ecumenical emperor, who claimed that the principle of his power had a character and an origin no less supernatural and transcendent than that of the Church.
This true renaissance, however, this grandiose development and wonderful transformation of forces, required an ultimate reference point, a supreme center of crystallization higher than the Christian though Romanized ideal, and higher than the external and merely political idea of the Empire. This supreme point of integration was manifested precisely in the myth of the Grail's regality, according to the intimate relation it had with the several variations of the "imperial saga." The silent problem of the Ghibelline Middle Ages was expressed in the fundamental theme of that cycle of legends: the need for a hero of the two swords, who overcomes natural and supernatural tests, to really ask the question: the question that avenges and heals, the question that restores power to its regality.
The Middle Ages awaited the hero of the Grail, so that the head of the Holy Roman Empire could become an image or a manifestation of the Universal Ruler; so that all the forces could receive a new power; so that the Dry Tree could blossom again; so that an absolute driving force could arise to overcome any usurpation, antagonism, laceration; so that a real solar order could be formed; so that the invisible emperor could also be the manifest one; and finally, so that the "Middle Age" could also have the meaning of an "Age of the Center."
Anyone who follows the adventures of the heroes of the Grail up to the famous question is bound to have the clear and unmistakeable feeling that something, all of a sudden, prevents the author from speaking freely, and that a trivial answer is given to conceal the real one. In fact, what really matters is not so much to know what are the objects according to the Christianized fable or to the ancient Celtic and Nordic legends, but rather to feel the tragedy of the paralyzed or wounded king; once one achieves that inner realization, the symbol of which is the Grail, what matters is to assume the initiative of the absolute action that brings about a restoration. The miraculously redeeming power that is attributed to the question can be perceived as extravagant only from this perspective. To ask is the equivalent of stating the problem. After all the conditions of the earthly and spiritual knighthood have been realized and the Grail has been known, the indifference that is considered a serious fault on the part of the hero is the indifference he displays when he witnesses without questioning the spectacle of the coffin and the surviving king, who is either maimed, killed, or retaining a merely artificial semblance of life. As I have already said, the dignity of the hero of the Grail is a dignity that obliges; such is its specific, prevalent, and antimystical character. Historically speaking, the kingdom of the Grail, which was supposed to be restored to even higher heights, is the Empire itself; the hero of the Grail, who would have become the "lord of all creatures," the one who has received the "supreme power," is the same historical emperor, Federicus, in the event he would have realized the mystery of the Grail, or would have been the one who becomes the Grail itself.
There are some texts in which such a theme is introduced in an even more immediate fashion. Once the chosen knight arrives at the castle, he directly addresses the king and asks in an almost brutal fashion, skipping every ceremonial form, "Where is the Grail?" meaning: "Where is the power of which you should be the representative?" Once this question is asked, a miracle ensues.
At this points fragments of ancient Atlantic, Celtic, and Nordic traditions are mixed with confused images of the Judeo-Christian religion. Avalon; Seth; Solomon; Lucifer; the ston-thunderbolt; Joseph of Arimathea; the White Island; the fish; the Lord of the Center and the symbolism of his seat; the mystery of the revenge and the deliverance; the "signs" of the Tuatha de Danaan, who in turn are confused with the race that brought the Grail to earth - they all form a whole in which the various elements, as I have endeavored to show, reveal a logical unity to those who are capable of penetrating its essence.
For about a century and a half, the entire knightly West lived intensely the myth of the court of King Arthur and his knights seeking the Grail. It was a progressive saturation of a historical climate that shortly after was followed by a break. This awakening of a heroic tradition connected to a universal imperial idea was destined to arouse inimical forces and lead to a clash with Catholicism.
The true reason why the Church became such a staunch antagonist of the Empire was the instinctive perception of the true nature of the force gaining momentum behind the external forms of the knightly spirit and the Ghibelline ideal. Even though on the other side, among the defenders of the Empire, an adequate awareness was present only in part, because of compromises, contradictions, and indecisions of which Dante himself was not exempt, the instinct of the Church was nevertheless absolutely correct. Hence the drama of medieval Ghibellinism, of the great knightly orders, and in particular, of the Order of the Knights Templar.
...It is hard to say through what representatives of the Holy Roman Empire the top of the hierarchy established an invisible connection with the center of the "Universal Ruler." Outside the Grail cycle, I have already mentioned legends foreshadowing the mysterious mandate that the Hohenstaufens allegedly received, a mandate that they sometimes took on and sometimes failed to understand or even lost. In any event, it was not a coincidence that the popular imagination was led to relive through their persons the myth of the emperor who in the end will reawaken and triumph.
- Julius Evola, The Mystery of the Grail, 121-7
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