The Holy Grail is generally considered to be the cup from which jesus christ drank at the Last Supper and the one used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch his blood as he hung on the cross.

This significance was introduced into the Arthurian legends by Robert de Boron in his verse romance Joseph d'Arimathie (sometimes also called Le Roman de l'Estoire dou Graal), which was probably written in the last decade of the twelfth century or the first couple of years of the thirteenth.

Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival presents the grail as a stone which provides sustenance and prevents anyone who beholds it from dying within the week. In medieval romance, the grail was said to have been brought to Glastonbury in britain by Joseph of Arimathea and his followers. In the time of Arthur, the quest for the Grail was the highest spiritual pursuit.

Tennyson is perhaps the author who had the greatest influence on the conception of the Grail quest for the modern English-speaking world through his Idylls and his short poem Sir Galahad. However, James Russell Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal, one of the most popular of nineteenth-century american poems gave to generations a democratized notion of the Grail quest as something achievable by anyone who is truly charitable.in royal correspondent the obsession with the royal family in great britain is equated with the obessiosn with the holy grail.