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Robert de Boron (also spelled in the manuscripts "Bouron", "Beron") was a French poet of the 13th century, originally from the village of Boron, in the département of Montbéliard. He was the author of a trilogy of poems (Joseph d'Arimathe, Merlin, Perceval), which give the puzzling myth of the Grail a Christian dimension. He was the first author to link Joseph of Arimathea to the Grail, stating that it had been used to catch the last drops of blood from Jesus, and was eventually brought to Avalon, which he identifies with the neighborhood of Glastonbury.
What we know 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"; Le Gentil identifies this noble with one Gautier de Montbéliard, who left in 1202 to take part in the Fourth Crusade, and died in Palestine 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 graves of King Arthur and Guinevere.
Although Le Gentil describes him as a "poet endowed with boldness and piety but with mediocre talent", his version of the Grail myth came to adopted by almost all of the later writers of the Matter of Britain.
Bibliography
- Pierre Le Gentil, "Chapter 19: The Work of Robert de Boron and the Didot Perceval". Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, A Collaborative History, (ed. R.S. Loomis). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959.
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