_The Saint Graal_ (Vol. iii., p. 413.).--I see that MR. G. STEPHENS
states, that Mons. Roquefort's nine columns are decisive of Saint Graal
being derived from Sancta Cratera. I am unacquainted with the word
_cratera_, unless in Ducange, as meaning a basket. But _crater_, a
goblet, is the word meant by Roquefort.
How should _graal_ or _greal_ come from _crater_? I cannot see common
sense in it. Surely that ancient writer, nearly, or quite, contemporary
with the publication of the romance, Helinandus Frigidimontanus, may be
trusted for the fact that _graal_ was French for "gradalis or gradale,"
which meant "scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda in qua preciosae
dapes cum suo jure divitibus solent apponi." (Vide Helinand. ap.
Vincentium Bellovacensem, _Speculum Historiale_, lib. 43. cap. 147.) Can
there be a more apparent and palpable etymology of any word, than that
_graal_ is _gradale_? See Ducange in _Gradale_, No. 3, and in
_Gradalis_, and the three authorities (of which Helinand is not one)
cited by him.