Holy Blood, Holy Grail

Introduction\ In 1969, en route for a summer holiday in the Cévennes, I made the casual purchase of a paperback. Le Trésor Maudit by Gérard de Sède was a mystery story--a lightweight, entertaining blend of historical fact, genuine mystery, and conjecture. It might have remained consigned to the postholiday oblivion of all such reading had I not stumbled upon a curious and glaring omission in its pages.\ The "accursed treasure" of the title had apparently been found in the 1890s by a village priest through the decipherment of certain cryptic documents unearthed in his church. Although the purported texts of two of these documents were reproduced, the "secret messages" said to be encoded within them were not. The implication was that the deciphered messages had again been lost. And yet, as I found, a cursory study of the documents reproduced in the book reveals at least one concealed message. Surely the author had found it. In working on his book he must have given the documents more than fleeting attention. He was bound, therefore, to have found what I have found. Moreover, the message was exactly the kind of titillating snippet of "proof" that helps to sell a "pop" paperback. Why had M. de Sède not published it?\ During the ensuing months the oddity of the story and the possibility of further discoveries drew me back to it from time to time. The appeal was that of a rather more than usually intriguing crossword puzzle--with the added curiosity of de Sède's silence. As I caught tantalizing new glimpses of layers of meaning buried within the text of the documents, I began to wish I could devote more to the mystery of Rennes-le-Château than mere moments snatched from my working life as a writer for television. And so in the late autumn of 1970, I presented the story as a possible documentary subject to the late Paul Johnstone, executive producer of the BBC's historical and archaeological series Chronicle.\ Paul saw the possibilities and I was sent to France to talk to de Sède and explore the prospects for a short film. During Christmas week of 1970 I met de Sède in Paris. At that first meeting I asked the question that had nagged at me for more than a year: "Why didn't you publish the message hidden in the parchments?" His reply astounded me. "What message?"\ It seemed inconceivable to me that he was unaware of this elementary message. Why was he fencing with me? Suddenly I found myself reluctant to reveal exactly what I had found. We continued a verbal fencing match for a few minutes and it became apparent that we were both aware of the message. I repeated my question, "Why didn't you publish it?" This time de Sède's answer was calculated. "Because we thought it might interest someone like you to find it for yourself."\ That reply, as cryptic as the priest's mysterious documents, was the first clear hint that the mystery of Rennes-le-Château was to prove much more than a simple tale of lost treasure.\ With my director, Andrew Maxwell-Hyslop, I began to prepare a Chronicle film in the spring of 1971. It was planned as a simple twenty-minute item for a magazine program. But as we worked, de Sède began to feed us further fragments of information. First came the full text of a major encoded message, which spoke of the painters Poussin and Teniers. This was fascinating. The cipher was unbelievably complex. We were told it had been broken by experts of the French Army Cipher Department, using computers. As I studied the convolutions of the code, I became convinced that this explanation was, to say the least, suspect. I checked with cipher experts of British Intelligence. They agreed with me. "The cipher does not present a valid problem for a computer." The code was unbreakable. Someone, somewhere, must have the key.\ And then de Sède dropped his second bombshell. A tomb resembling that in Poussin's famous painting "Les Bergers d'Arcadie" had been found. He would send details as soon as he had them. Some days later the photographs arrived and it was clear that our short film on a small local mystery had begun to assume unexpected dimensions. Paul decided to abandon it and committed us to a full-length Chronicle film. Now there would be more time to research and more screen time to explore the story. Transmission was postponed to the spring of the following year.\ The Lost Treasure of Jerusalem? was screened in February 1972 and provoked a very strong reaction. I knew that I had found a subject of consuming interest not merely to myself but to a very large viewing public. Further research would not be self-indulgence. At some time there would have to be a follow-up film. By 1974 I had a mass of new material and Paul assigned Roy Davies to produce my second Chronicle film, The Priest, the Painter and the Devil. Again the reaction of the public proved how much the story had caught the popular imagination. But by now it had grown so complex, so far-reaching in its ramifications, that I knew the detailed research was rapidly exceeding the capabilities of any one person. There were too many different leads to follow. The more I pursued one line of investigation, the more conscious I became of how much material was being neglected. It was at this juncture that chance, which had first tossed the story so casually into my lap, now made sure that the work would not become bogged down.\ In 1975 at a summer school where we were both lecturing on aspects of literature, I had the great good fortune to meet Richard Leigh. Richard is a novelist and short-story writer with postgraduate degrees in comparative literature and thorough knowledge of history, philosophy, psychology, and esoterica. He had been working for some years as a university lecturer in the United States, Canada, and Britain.\ Between our summer-school talks we spent many hours discussing subjects of mutual interest. I mentioned the Knights Templar, who had assumed an important role in the background to the mystery of Rennes-le-Château. To my delight I found that this shadowy order of medieval warrior-monks had already awakened Richard's profound interest, and he had done considerable research into their history. At one stroke months of work I had seen stretching ahead of me became unnecessary. Richard could answer most of my questions, and was as intrigued as I was by some of the apparent anomalies I had unearthed. More important, he, too, saw the fascination and sensed the significance of the whole research project on which I had embarked. He offered to help me with the aspect involving the Templars. And he brought in Michael Baigent, a psychology graduate who had recently abandoned a successful career in photojournalism to devote his time to researching the Templars for a film project he had in mind.\ Had I set out to search for them, I could not have found two better qualified and more congenial partners with whom to form a team. After years of solitary labor the impetus brought to the project by two fresh brains was exhilarating. The first tangible result of our collaboration was the third Chronicle film on Rennes-le-Château, The Shadow of the Templars, which was produced by Roy Davies in 1979.\ The work we did on that film at last brought us face to face with the underlying foundations upon which the entire mystery of Rennes-le-Château had been built. But the film could only hint at what we were beginning to discern. Beneath the surface was something more startling, more significant, and more immediately relevant than we could have believed possible when we began our work on the "intriguing little mystery" of what a French priest might have found in a mountain village.\ In 1972 I closed my first film with the words, "Something extraordinary is waiting to be found . . . and in the not too distant future, it will be."\ This book explains what that "something" is--and how extraordinary the discovering has been.\ Henry Lincoln\ January 17, 1981\ From the Paperback edition.

Introduction23Part 1The Mystery1Village of Mystery31Rennes-le-Chateau and Berenger Sauniere31The Possible Treasures39The Intrigue432The Cathars and the Great Heresy48The Albigensian Crusade49The Siege of Montsegur55The Cathar Treasure57The Mystery of the Cathars613The Warrior-Monks64Knights Templar--The Orthodox Account65Knights Templar--The Mysteries78Knights Templar--The Hidden Side864Secret Documents96Part 2The Secret Society5The Order Behind the Scenes111The Mystery Surrounding the Foundation of the Knights Templar115Louis VII and the Prieure de Sion118The "Cutting of the Elm" at Gisors119Ormus121The Prieure at Orleans125The "Head" of the Templars126The Grand Masters of the Templars1276The Grand Masters and the Underground Stream131Rene d'Anjou136Rene and the Theme of Arcadia138The Rosicrucian Manifestos141The Stuart Dynasty145Charles Nodier and His Circle150Debussy and the Rose-Croix127Jean Cocteau157The Two John XXIIIs1597Conspiracy Through the Centuries162The Prieure de Sion in France164The Dukes of Guise and Lorraine166The Bid for the Throne of France171The Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement173Chateau Barberie177Nicolas Fouquet178Nicolas Poussin180Rosslyn Chapel and Shugborough Hall183The Pope's Secret Letter184The Rock of Sion185The Catholic Modernist Movement187The Protocols of Sion190The Hieron du Val d'Or1958The Secret Society Today201Alain Poher204The Lost King205Curious Pamphlets in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris207The Catholic Traditionalists210The Convent of 1981 and Cocteau's Statutes214M. Plantard de Saint-Clair220The Politics of the Prieure de Sion2279The Long-haired Monarchs234Legend and the Merovingians234The Bear from Arcadia237The Sicambrians Enter Gaul239Merovee and His Descendants239Blood Royal241Clovis and His Pact with the Church242Dagobert II245The Usurpation by the Carolingians253The Exclusion of Dagobert II from History257Prince Guillem de Gellone, Comte de Razes259Prince Ursus261The Grail Family265The Elusive Mystery26910The Exiled Tribe271Part 3The Bloodline11The Holy Grail283The Legend of the Holy Grail285The Story of Wolfram von Eschenbach292The Grail and Cabalism303The Play on Words305The Lost Kings and the Grail306The Need to Synthesize309The Hypothesis31312The Priest-King Who Never Ruled316Palestine at the Time of Jesus322The History of the Gospels327The Marital Status of Jesus330The Wife of Jesus333The Beloved Disciple338The Dynasty of Jesus344The Crucifixion347Who Was Barabbas?350The Crucifixion in Detail352The Scenario35713The Secret the Church Forbade360The Zealots369The Gnostic Writings37814The Grail Dynasty383Judaism and the Merovingians387The Principality in Septimania389The Seed of David39515Conclusion and Portents for the Future398AppendixThe Alleged Grand Masters of the Prieure de Sion415Bibliography439Notes and References449Index477