[Gocamino] grail etymology

[David Hough on gocamino]

Rosina asked me to pass along the following posting
to the St James list by Doreen Fleming, quoting a
dictionary of catholic terms:

The meaning of the word (Grail) has also been
variously explained.  The generally accepted
meaning is that is given by the Cistercian
chronicler Helinandus (d. about 1230), who, under
the date of about 717, mentions of a vision,
shown to a hermit concerning the dish used by Our
Lord at the Last Supper, and about which the
hermit then wrote a Latin book called "Gradale."
"Now in French," so Helinandus informs us, "
Gradalis or Gradale means a dish (scutella), wide
and somewhat deep, in which costly viands are
wont to be served to the rich in degrees
(gradatim), one morsel after another in different
rows.  In popular speech it is also called
"greal" because it is pleasant ( grata) and
acceptable to him eating therein" etc.  The
medieval Latin word "gradale" because in Old
French "graal," or "greal," or "greel," whence
the English "grail." Others derive the word from
"garalis" or from "cratalis" ( crater, a mixing
bowl).  It certainly means a dish, the derivation
from "grata" in the latter part of the passage
cited above or from "agr'eer" (to please) in the
French romances is secondary.  The explanation of
"San greal" as "sang real" (kingly blood) was not
current until the later Middle Ages.  Other
etymologies that have been advanced may be passed
over as obsolete.