Arthurian romances transformed 'quest' from a judicial inquiry into a heroic search — the Grail did the heavy lifting.
A long or arduous search for something; an expedition in pursuit of a specific goal; to search for.
From Old French "queste" (modern French "quête," "a search, an inquiry"), from Vulgar Latin *quaesta, from Latin "quaesīta," feminine past participle of "quaerere" ("to seek, to ask, to inquire"). The Latin verb is of uncertain PIE etymology but has been tentatively connected to PIE *kʷeh₁- ("to seek, to desire") or analyzed as an Italic innovation. Regardless of its deep origin, "quaerere" produced one of the largest derivative families in English through Latin: "question" (from "quaestiōnem"), "query," "
The 'Quest for the Holy Grail' established the word's romantic and heroic connotations in English. Before the Arthurian romances, 'quest' primarily meant a judicial inquest or coroner's inquiry. It was the Old French Grail romances — the 'Queste del Saint Graal' (c. 1225) — that transformed the word from a legal proceeding into an archetype