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60 free Holy Grail trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Holy Grail has been a cup, a dish, a stone, a bloodline and the most overused MacGuffin in film, and this quiz covers all of it. It starts with the medieval romances - the mysterious 'graal' that first appears in Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, Robert de Boron turning it into the cup of the Last Supper, Wolfram's Grail stone, and the Vulgate Cycle's Galahad, the Siege Perilous and the voyage to Sarras. From there it moves to the relics claimed as the Grail (the Genoa dish that turned out to be glass, the agate chalice of Valencia, the Nanteos Cup), the places that attached themselves to the legend (Glastonbury, Montségur, Rosslyn Chapel), the conspiracy theories that fed The Da Vinci Code, and the Grail on screen and stage: Wagner's Parsifal, Boorman's Excalibur, Spamalot and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Easy questions come first and the last ten will stretch a medievalist. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and carries its source, so the set is safe for a classroom, a book club or a pub quiz. If you want the film on its own, we also have a dedicated Monty Python and the Holy Grail quiz.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Arthurian legend, the Holy Grail is most often described as what kind of object?
A drinking vessel or dish
Some versions make it a cup, others a serving dish, and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival makes it a stone.
Q 02The Grail became identified with the vessel Jesus used at which event?
The Last Supper
That identification came from Robert de Boron around 1200; the earliest grail story a decade earlier had no explicit Christian meaning at all.
Q 03Which biblical figure is said to have used the Grail to catch Christ's blood at the crucifixion?
Joseph of Arimathea
In the legend he is later imprisoned, visited by Christ, and finally carries the vessel west to Britain.
Q 04Which French poet wrote the earliest surviving story to feature a 'grail', around 1190?
Chrétien de Troyes
He never finished the poem, and four different continuators tried to complete it after him.
Q 05The earliest grail romance is named after which knight?
Perceval
The full title is Perceval, the Story of the Grail; the naive young hero sees the grail but fails to ask about it.
Q 06In Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the Grail is portrayed as what?
A stone
Wolfram called it lapis exillis and gave it a guardian dynasty of Grail kings at a hidden castle.
Q 07In the Vulgate Queste and in Malory, which knight finally achieves the Grail?
Galahad
He is so pure that he outranks his own father, the greatest knight in the world, and ascends to Heaven at the end of the quest.
Q 08In the Vulgate Cycle, the virgin knight who achieves the Grail is the son of which famous knight?
Lancelot
His mother was Elaine, daughter of the Grail king at Corbenic, and the son was destined for the quest from birth.
Q 09The wounded ruler who guards the Grail in its hidden castle is known by what title?
The Fisher King
He is typically wounded in the thigh or groin, and his injury is mirrored by the barren wasteland around him.
Q 10Which Indiana Jones film sends Indy and his father racing the Nazis for the Grail?
The Last Crusade
It was Spielberg's deliberately lighter follow-up after the criticism of Temple of Doom.
Q 11Who plays Indy's father, the Grail scholar Henry Jones, in the 1989 Indiana Jones film?
Sean Connery
Connery was only twelve years older than Harrison Ford.
Q 12In the third Indiana Jones film, what happens to the villain Donovan after he drinks from the wrong cup?
He ages rapidly and dies
Elsa hands him the gaudy cup on purpose; Indy then picks the plain one, 'the cup of a carpenter'.
Q 13The Grail temple in the 1989 Indiana Jones film was shot at Al Khazneh, in which ancient city?
Petra
The film is credited with turning the Jordanian site into a major tourist destination.
Q 21In the grail procession, what object is carried past the hero first, before the grail itself?
A bleeding lance
It is followed by two boys with candelabras and finally the girl carrying the grail.
Q 22In the earliest grail romance, the young hero does not heal his wounded host because he does what?
Never asks what it is
He had been warned against talking too much and so keeps quiet; asking the question would have restored the wasteland.
Q 23In Wolfram's Parzival, the Grail is kept safe at which castle?
Munsalvaesche
The name means 'mount of salvation'; Benedictine monks in Catalonia later claimed it was their own mountain sanctuary.
Q 14In the third Indiana Jones film, a shield in the Venice catacombs says the Grail path begins in which city?
Alexandretta
Alexandretta is the old name of Iskenderun in southern Turkey; the fictional Hatay is nearby.
Q 15Dan Brown's 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code presents the Grail as what?
The bloodline of Jesus
Brown's plot has the 'grail' be Mary Magdalene herself and hints it lies beneath the Louvre's Inverted Pyramid.
Q 16Which bestselling 1982 book by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln popularised the bloodline theory?
Holy Blood, Holy Grail
The theory first appeared on the BBC series Chronicle in the 1970s before Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln turned it into a book.
Q 17The Grail-bloodline theory rests on a hoax about which supposed secret society?
The Priory of Sion
The 'priory' was fabricated in 1950s France; Dan Brown nonetheless presented it as fact on the opening page of his novel.
Q 18According to the bloodline theory, the descendants of Jesus became which French royal dynasty?
Merovingian
Scholars have widely dismissed the idea, but it has powered decades of alternate-history books.
Q 19A 15th-century writer re-parsed the Old French 'san graal' as 'sang réal', giving it what meaning?
Royal blood
The pun was invented by the English chronicler John Hardyng and later became the seed of the bloodline conspiracy.
Q 20In the earliest grail romance, what does the grail hold as it is carried past the hero?
A single communion wafer
The audience might have expected a fish in a dish that size; the wafer alone keeps the wounded king alive.
Q 24Wolfram calls the Grail 'lapis exillis', a name that in alchemy refers to what?
The philosopher's stone
The stone grants eternal life to its guardian, which is why the maimed king cannot die.
Q 25In Wolfram's telling, the Grail had been the sanctuary of which beings?
Angels who stayed neutral
They were the angels who took neither side when Lucifer rebelled.
Q 26In the Welsh romance Peredur, the hero is shown not a grail but a platter carrying what?
A severed head
The bloody head belongs to his kinsman, which turns the mystery into a call for vengeance.
Q 27In the German poem Diu Crône, unusually, which knight achieves the Grail?
Gawain
It is the only version where he solves the mystery and releases the Grail King, after which the whole cursed court vanishes.
Q 28In the Vulgate Queste, how many knights perish during the Grail quest?
72
Arthur's fellowship never fully recovers, setting up the collapse of his world in the Mort Artu.
Q 29In the Vulgate Queste, the Grail leaves corrupt Britain and returns to which Middle Eastern city?
Sarras
The Grail knight is asked to carry it to this holy island city, once ruled by his ancestor Nascien.
Q 30Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur oddly describes the Grail as having what property?
It is invisible
He seems to have misread his French source, which mentions an invisible Grail bearer, not an invisible Grail.