ROBERT DE BORON
(fl. 1180s–1190s). The few facts known about the most important early Grail poet after
Chrétien de Troyes are inferred from the epilogue of Robert’s Joseph d’Arimathie, also
called the Roman de l’estoire dou Graal, where he names himself and the nobleman in
whose company he was writing, Gautier de Montbéliard. Montbéliard is in northern
Franche-Comté; Boron is a small village about 12 miles to the northeast. Robert’s verse
bears traces of his eastern dialect. Gautier left on crusade in 1201, to remain in Palestine
until his death in 1212; Robert must have finished the Joseph at or before the turn of the
century. Robert’s incorporation of material from Chrétien’s Conte du Graal indicates that
he wrote after the early 1180s. Other evidence suggests that the Joseph might be dated
after 1191: Joseph foretells that the Grail will be taken to the “vales of Avaron
[Avalon]”—that is, Glastonbury in Somerset; association of the Grail and of Arthurian
matter with the abbey was not widespread before 1190–91, when the discovery there of a
grave marked as Arthur’s was announced.
Joseph d’Arimathie is a verse romance (3,500 octosyl-lables) that recounts the history
of the Grail from the Last Supper and the Descent from the Cross, when Joseph used it to
collect Christ’s blood, through the imprisonment of Joseph, whom Christ visits and
comforts with the holy vessel, until the moment when Joseph’s brother-in-law, Bron (or
Hebron), the Rich Fisher, is poised to take the Grail from a place of exile outside
Palestine to Great Brit-ain. As the Joseph draws to a close, the narrator announces that he
will relate stories of adventures that Joseph has foretold, including that of the Rich Fisher,
if he has time and strength and if he can find them written down in Latin; meanwhile, he
will continue with the matter he has at hand.
Robert thus seems to project a complex work consisting of the Joseph/Estoire, the
narrative to which he will pass immediately, and the fulfillment of Joseph’s prophecies.
The only manuscript to transmit Robert’s verse Joseph (B.N. fr. 20047) in fact continues
with the fragment of a Merlin romance (504 octosyllables), apparently the beginning of
the second part; no more of Robert’s original work survives.
However, a prose adaptation of the Joseph, by an anony mous author referred to as the
Pseudo-Robert de Boron, was executed within a few years, and this is linked to a Merlin
in prose, conjoining the history of the Grail and the history of Britain, that is found
complete in a large number of manuscripts (forty-six) and fragments. Two manuscripts
also contain a third prose romance, which portrays the Rich Fisher: the Didot Perceval
(so called because one of the manuscripts was in the Firmin Didot collection). Unlike the
first two romances, the Didot Perceval is never ascribed to Robert de Boron, nor is there
any proof that a verse original of this text existed, yet it is clear that the Didot Perceval
logically concludes the trilogy. It resembles one of the works projected at the end of the
Joseph/Estoire and recounts the fulfillment of God’s prophecy in the Joseph that the Rich
Fisher will not die until he is visited by his son’s son; it is also closely linked to the prose
Merlin: finally succeeding at the Grail castle with Merlin’s help, Perceval replaces his
uncle as Rich Fisher; the hero’s triumph coincides with the downfall of the Arthurian
kingdom, the founding of which the Merlin had recounted.
In the Joseph/Estoire and what must have been the original verse Merlin, Robert de
Boron in effect rewrites the Conte du Graal of Chrétien de Troyes. He expands the
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