But nothing save skeletons has ever been found at Ornolac. Whatever was smuggled out of Montsegur might well have been brought to Rennes-leChateau, or, more likely, to one of the caves which honeycomb the surrounding mountains. Given the tenacious adherence of the Cathars to their creed and their militant antipathy to Rome, we wondered if such knowledge or - 48 - information assuming it existed related in some way to Christianity -to the doctrines and theology of Christianity, perhaps to its history and origins.
Was it possible, in short, that the Cathars or at least certain Cathars knew something -something that contributed to the frenzied fervour with which Rome sought their extermination? At the time, we could only speculate idly. And information on the Cathars was in general so meagre that it precluded even a working hypothesis.
On the other hand our research into the Cathars had repeatedly impinged on another subject, even more enigmatic and mysterious, and surrounded by evocative legends.
This subject was the Knights Templar. It was therefore to the Templars that we next directed our investigation. And it was with the Templars that our inquiries began to yield concrete documentation, and the mystery began to assume far greater proportions - 49 - than we had ever imagined. The voluminous quantity of written material devoted to the subject was intimidating; and we could not at first be sure how much of this material was reliable.
If the Cathars had engendered a welter of spurious and romantic legend, the mystification surrounding the Templars was even greater.
On one level they were familiar enough to us the fanatically fierce warrior-monks, knightmystics clad in white mantle with splayed red cross, who played so crucial a role in the Crusades. Here, in some sense, were the archetypal crusaders the storm-troopers of the Holy Land, who fought and died heroically for Christ in their thousands. Yet many writers, even today, regarded them as a much more mysterious institution, an essentially secret order, intent on obscure intrigues, clandestine machinations, shadowy conspiracies and designs.
And there remained one perplexing and inexplicable fact. At the end of their two-century-long career, these white garbed champions of Christ were accused of denying and repudiating Christ, of trampling and spitting on the cross. More recent historians have been inclined to view them as hapless victims, sacrificial pawns in the high-level political manoeuvrings of Church and state. And there are yet other writers, especially in the tradition of Freemasonry, who regard the Templars as mystical adepts and initiates, - 50 - custodians of an arcane wisdom that transcends Christianity itself.
Whatever the particular bias or orientation of such writers, no one disputes the heroic zeal of the Templars or their contribution to history. Nor is there any question that their order is one of the most glamorous and enigmatic institutions in the annals of Western culture. No account of the Crusades or, for that matter, of Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries will neglect to mention the Templars.
At their zenith they were the most powerful and influential organisation in the whole of Christendom, with the single possible exception of the papacy. And yet certain haunting questions remain. Who and what were the Knights Templar?
Were they merely what they appeared to be, or were they something else? Were they simple soldiers on to whom an aura of legend and mystification was subsequently grafted? If so, why? Alternatively was there a genuine mystery connected with them? Could there have been some foundation for the later embellishments of myth?
We first considered the accepted accounts of the Templars the accounts offered by respected and responsible historians. On virtually every point these accounts raised more questions than they answered. Knights Templar The Orthodox Account So far as is generally known, the first historical information on the Templars is provided by a Frankish historian, Guillaume de Tyre, who wrote between and But by the time Guillaume de Tyre began to write, Palestine had been in Western hands for seventy years, and the Templars had already been in existence for - 51 - more than fifty.
Guillaume was therefore writing of events which predated his own lifetime events which he had not personally witnessed or experienced, but had learnt of at second or even third hand. At second or third hand and, moreover, on the basis of uncertain authority. For there were no Western chroniclers in Outremer between and Thus there are no written records for those crucial years. He may have been drawing on popular word of mouth, on a none too reliable oral tradition.
Alternatively, he may have consulted the Templars themselves and recounted what they told him. If this is so, it means he is reporting only what the Templars wanted him to report. Granted, Guillaume does provide us with certain basic information; and it is this information on which all subsequent accounts of the Templars, all explanations of their foundation, all narratives of their activities have been based.
But it is a mistake and one to which many historians have succumbed to regard them as unimpugnable and wholly accurate. Its founder is said to be one Hugues de Payen, a nobleman from Champagne and vassal of the count of Champagne. Baudouin seems to have received them most cordially, as did the Patriarch of Jerusalem the religious leader of the new kingdom and special emissary of the pope.
And, despite their declared oath of poverty, the knights moved into this lavish accommodation. According to tradition, their quarters were built on the foundations of the ancient Temple of Solomon, and from this the fledgling Order derived its name. For nine years, Guillaume de Tyre tells us, the nine knights admitted no new candidates to their Order. They were still supposed to be living in poverty such poverty that official seals show two knights riding a single horse, implying not only brotherhood, but also a penury that precluded separate mounts.
This style of seal is often regarded as the most famous and distinctive of Templar devices, descending from the first days of the Order. However, it actually dates from a full century later, when the Templars were hardly poor if, indeed, they ever were. And yet there was, at this time, an official royal historian, employed by the king.
Indeed there is a thunderous silence about Templar activities during the early days of their existence. Certainly there is no record anywhere not even later of them doing anything to protect pilgrims. And one cannot but wonder how so few men could hope to fulfill so mammoth a self-imposed task. Nine men to protect the pilgrims on all the thoroughfares of the Holy Land?
Only nine? And all pilgrims? If this was their objective, one would surely expect them to welcome new recruits. Yet, according to Guillaume de Tyre, they admitted no new candidates to the Order for nine years. Ecclesiastical authorities spoke highly of them and extolled their Christian undertaking. After nine years, in , most of the nine knights returned to Europe and a triumphal welcome, orchestrated in large part by Saint Bernard.
At this council the Templars were officially recognised and incorporated as a religiousmilitary order. Hugues de Payen was given the title of Grand Master. And it was again Saint Bernard who helped to draw up, with an enthusiastic preface, the rule of conduct to which the knights would adhere a rule based on that of the Cistercian monastic order, in which Bernard himself was a dominant influence. They were obliged to cut their hair but forbidden to cut their beards, thus distinguishing themselves in an age when most men were clean-shaven.
Diet, dress and other aspects of daily life were stringently regulated in accordance with both monastic and military routines. All members of the Order were obliged to wear white habits or surcoats and cloaks, and these soon evolved into the distinctive white mantle for which the Templars became famous.
Knights of Christ. And behaviour on the battlefield was strictly controlled. If captured, for instance, Templars were not allowed to ask for mercy or to ransom themselves. They were compelled to fight to the death. Nor were they permitted to retreat, unless the odds against them exceeded three to one.
According to this Bull, the Templars would owe allegiance to no secular or ecclesiastical power other than the pope himself. In other words, they were rendered totally independent of all kings, princes and prelates, and all interference from both political and religious authorities. They had become, in effect, a law unto themselves, an autonomous international empire.
During the two decades following the Council of Troyes, the Order expanded with extraordinary rapidity and on an extraordinary scale.
Hugues de Payen donated his own properties, and all new recruits were obliged to do likewise. On admission to the Order, a man was compelled to sign over all his possessions. Given such policies, it is not surprising that Templar holdings proliferated. Although individual knights were bound to their vow of poverty, this did not prevent the Order from amassing wealth, and on an unprecedented scale. All gifts were welcomed. At the same time, the Order was forbidden to dispose of anything not even to ransom its leaders.
The Temple received in abundance but, as a matter of strict policy, it never gave. When Hugues de Payen returned to Palestine in , therefore, with an - 56 - entourage quite considerable for the time of some three hundred knights, he left behind, in the custody of other recruits, vast tracts of European territory. In the Templars adopted the famous splayed red cross the cross pat tee With this device emblazoned on their mantles, the knights accompanied King Louis VII of France on the Second Crusade.
Here they established their reputation for martial zeal coupled with an almost insane foolhardiness, and a fierce arrogance as well. On the whole, however, they were magnificently disciplined -the most disciplined fighting force in the world at the time.
The French king himself wrote that it was the Templars alone who prevented the Second Crusade ill-conceived and mismanaged as it was from degenerating into a total debacle. During the next hundred years the Templars became a power with international influence. They were constantly engaged in high-level diplomacy between nobles and monarchs throughout the Western world and the Holy Land.
Maintaining close links with both Henry II and Thomas a Becket, the Templars were instrumental in trying to reconcile the sovereign and his estranged archbishop. Close links were forged with the Muslim world as well the world so often opposed on the battlefield and the Templars commanded a respect from Saracen leaders exceeding that accorded any other Europeans.
The Hashishim paid tribute to the Templars and were rumoured to be in their employ. On almost every political level the Templars acted as official arbiters in disputes, and even kings submitted to their authority. In Henry III of - 57 - England dared to challenge them, threatening to confiscate certain of their domains.
What was imprudently given must therefore be prudently revoked; and what was inconsiderately bestowed must be considerately recalled. Far be it that thy mouth should utter so disagreeable and silly a word. So long as thou dost exercise justice, thou wilt reign. But if thou infringe it, thou wilt cease to be King.
Implicitly the Master is taking for his Order and himself a power that not even the papacy dared explicitly claim the power to make or depose monarchs. In effect they created and established the institution of modern banking. By lending vast sums to destitute monarchs they became the bankers for every throne in Europe and for certain Muslim potentates as well. With their network of preceptories throughout Europe and the Middle East, they also organised, at modest interest rates, the safe and efficient transfer of money for merchant traders, a class which became increasingly dependent upon them.
Money deposited in one city, for example, could be claimed and withdrawn in another, by means of promissory notes inscribed in intricate codes.
The Templars thus became the primary money-changers of the age, and the Paris preceptory became the centre of European finance. And the Templars traded not only in money, but in thought as well.
Through their sustained and sympathetic contact with Islamic and Judaic culture, they came to act as a clearing-house for new ideas, new dimensions of knowledge, new sciences.
They enjoyed a veritable monopoly on the best and most advanced technology of their age the best that could be produced by armourers, leather-workers, stone masons military architects and engineers. They contributed to the development of surveying, map-making, road-building and navigation.
They possessed their own sea-ports, - 58 - shipyards and fleet a fleet both commercial and military, which was among the first to use the magnetic compass. The Order maintained its own hospitals with its own physicians and surgeons whose use of mould extract suggests an understanding of the properties of antibiotics.
Modern principles of hygiene and cleanliness were understood. And with an understanding also in advance of their time they regarded epilepsy not as demonic possession but as a controllable disease. Not surprisingly perhaps, it also grew increasingly arrogant, brutal and corrupt. And certain sources assert that the Order made a point of recruiting excommunicated knights. But while the Templars attained both prosperity and notoriety in Europe, the situation in the Holy Land had seriously deteriorated.
In the dynastic squabble that followed, Gerard de Ridefort, Grand Master of the Temple, betrayed an oath made to the dead monarch, and thereby brought the European community in Palestine to the brink of civil war.
His cavalier attitude towards the Saracens precipitated the rupture of a long-standing truce, and provoked a new cycle of hostilities. Then, in July , Ridefort led his knights, along with the rest of the Christian army, into a rash, misconceived and, as it transpired, disastrous battle at Hattin.
The Christian forces were virtually annihilated; and two months later Jerusalem itself captured nearly a century before was again in Saracen hands. During the following century the situation became increasingly hopeless. By nearly the whole of Outremer had fallen, and the Holy Land was almost entirely under Muslim control. Only Acre remained, and in May this last fortress was lost as well.
In defending the doomed city, the Templars showed themselves at their most heroic. The Grand Master himself, though severely wounded, continued fighting until his death. When the last bastion in Arce fell, it did so with apocalyptic intensity, the walls collapsing and burying attackers and defenders alike.
As there were no longer any accessible infidel lands to conquer, the Order began to turn its attention towards Europe, hoping to find there a justification for its continued existence. A century before, the Templars had presided over the foundation of another chivalric, religious-military order, the Teutonic Knights.
The latter were active in small numbers in the Middle East, but by the mid-thirteenth century had turned their attention to the north-eastern frontiers of Christendom. Here they had carved out an independent principality for themselves the Ordenstoat or Ordensland, which encompassed almost the whole of the eastern Baltic. In this principality which extended from Prussia to the Gulf of Finland and what is now Russian soil the Teutonic Knights enjoyed an unchallenged sovereignty, far from the reach of both secular and ecclesiastical control.
From the very inception of the Ordenstaat, the Templars had envied the independence and immunity of their kindred order. After the fall of the Holy Land, they thought increasingly of a state of their own in which they might exercise the same untrammelled authority and autonomy as the Teutonic Knights.
Unlike the Teutonic Knights, however, the Templars were not interested in the harsh wilderness of Eastern Europe. By now they were too accustomed to luxury and opulence. Accordingly, they dreamed of founding their state on more accessible, more congenial soil that of the Languedoc. Many wealthy landowners Cathars themselves or sympathetic to the Cathars had donated vast tracts of land to the Order.
According to a recent writer, at least one of the co-founders of the Temple was a Cathar. This seems somewhat improbable, but it is beyond dispute that Bertrand de - 60 - Blanchefort, fourth Grand Master of the Order, came from a Cathar family. Moreover, a careful examination of contemporary accounts reveals that the Templars provided a haven for many Cathar refugees.
What is more, the Cathar nobles who enrolled in the Temple do not appear to have moved about the world as much as their Catholic brethren. On the contrary, they appear to have remained for the most part in the Languedoc, thus creating for the Order a long-standing and stable base in the region.
By virtue of their contact with Islamic and Judaic cultures, the Templars had already absorbed a great many ideas alien to orthodox Roman Christianity. Templar Masters, for example, often employed Arab secretaries, and many Templars, having learnt Arabic in captivity, were fluent in the language.
A close rapport was also maintained with Jewish communities, financial interests and scholarship. The Templars had thus been exposed to many things Rome would not ordinarily countenance. Through the influx of Cathar recruits, they were now exposed to Gnostic dualism as well if, indeed, they had ever really been strangers to it.
They were arrogant and unruly. They were firmly established throughout France, and by this time even their allegiance to the pope was only nominal. Philippe had no control over the Order. He owed it money. And, having applied to join the Order as a postulant, he had suffered the indignity of being haughtily rejected. These factors together, of course, with the alarming prospect of an independent Templar state at his back door were sufficient to spur the king to action.
And heresy was a convenient excuse. Philippe first had to enlist the co-operation of the pope, to whom, in theory at any rate, the Templars owed allegiance and obedience. Between and , the French king and his ministers engineered the kidnapping and death of one pope Boniface VIII and quite possibly the murder by poison of another Benedict XI.
Then, in , Philippe managed to secure the election of his own candidate, the archbishop of Bordeaux, to the vacant papal throne. The new pontiff took the name Clement V. Philippe planned his moves carefully. Armed with these accusations, Philippe could at last move; and when he delivered his blow, it was sudden, swift, efficient and lethal.
In a security operation worthy of the SS or Gestapo, the king issued sealed and secret orders to his seneschals throughout the country. These orders were to be opened everywhere simultaneously and implemented at once.
There is considerable evidence to suggest the Templars received some kind of advance warning. In any case, whether the Templars were warned in advance or whether they deduced what was in the wind, certain precautions were definitely taken.
It is not perhaps surprising, therefore, that the treasure of the Temple, together with almost all its documents and records, should have disappeared. Persistent but unsubstantiated rumours speak of the treasure being smuggled by night from the Paris preceptory, shortly before the arrests. On the contrary, those ships appear to have vanished totally, along with whatever they might have been carrying.
Strange confessions were extracted and even stranger accusations made. The Templars supposedly worshipped a devil called Baphomet. At their secret ceremonies they supposedly prostrated themselves before a bearded male head, which spoke to them and invested them with occult powers. Unauthorised witnesses of these ceremonies were never seen again. And there were other charges as well, which were even more vague: of infanticide; of teaching women how to abort; of obscene kisses at the induction of postulants; of homosexuality.
But of all the charges levelled against these soldiers of Christ, who had fought and laid down their lives for Christ, one stands out as most bizarre and seemingly improbable. They were accused of ritually denying Christ, of repudiating, trampling and spitting on the cross.
In France, at least, the fate of the arrested Templars was effectively sealed. Philippe harried them savagely and mercilessly. Many were burned, many more imprisoned and tortured. At the same time the king continued to bully the pope, demanding ever more stringent measures against the Order.
After resisting for a time, the pope gave way in , and the Knights Templar were officially dissolved without a conclusive verdict of guilt or innocence ever being pronounced. With their execution, the Templars ostensibly vanish from the stage of history. Nevertheless, the Order did not cease to exist. Given the number of knights who escaped, who remained at large or who were acquitted, it would be surprising if it had. Philippe had tried to influence his fellow monarchs, hoping thereby to ensure that no Templar, anywhere in Christendom, should be spared.
It is rather less clear why he should have been so intent on exterminating Templars elsewhere. Certainly he himself was no model of virtue; and it is difficult to imagine a monarch who arranged for the deaths of two - 64 - popes being genuinely distressed by infringements of faith. Did Philippe simply fear vengeance if the Order remained intact outside France? Or was there something else involved? In any case, his attempt to eliminate Templars outside France was not altogether successful.
Eventually, pressured by both the pope and the French king, he complied with their demands, but only partially and tepidly. Although most Templars in England seem to have escaped completely, a number were arrested.
Their lands were eventually consigned to the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John, but they themselves were spared the vicious persecution visited upon their brethren in France. Elsewhere the elimination of the Templars met with even greater difficulty.
Scotland, for instance, was at war with England at the time, and the consequent chaos left little opportunity for implementing legal niceties. Thus the Papal Bulls dissolving the Order were never proclaimed in Scotland and in Scotland, therefore, the Order was never technically dissolved.
According to legend coherent body in Scotland for another four centuries. In Scotland supporters of the beleaguered Stuart monarch rose in revolt and, at the Battle of Killiecrankie in , John Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee, was killed on the field. When his body was recovered, he was reportedly found to be wearing the Grand Cross of the Order of the Temple -not a recent device supposedly, but one dating from before A few were tried and exonerated.
Most, it seems, obeyed their Preceptor, who reputedly advised them to shave their beards, don secular garb and - 65 - assimilate themselves into the local populace. In Germany proper the Templars openly defied their judges, threatening to take up arms. Intimidated, their judges pronounced them innocent; and when the Order was officially dissolved, many German Templars found a haven in the Hospitallers of Saint John and in the Teutonic Order.
In Spain, too, the Templars resisted their persecutors and found a refuge in other orders. In Portugal the Order was cleared by an inquiry and simply modified its name, becoming Knights of Christ. Under this title they functioned well into the sixteenth century, devoting themselves to maritime activity.
Ships of the Knights of Christ sailed under the familiar red pat tee cross. Thus, in a number of diverse ways, the Templars survived the attack of October 13th, Two centuries after their dissolution, the Templars, however vicariously, were exacting revenge on the Church which had betrayed them. Knights Templar The Mysteries In greatly abridged form, this is the history of the Knights Templar as writers have accepted and presented it, and as we encountered it in our research.
Even during their existence, a mystique had come to surround the knights. Some said they were sorcerers and magicians, secret adepts and alchemists. Many of their contemporaries shunned them, believing them to be in league with unclean powers. On the other hand, there were individuals who praised them with extravagant enthusiasm.
In the late twelfth century Wolfram von Eschenbach, greatest of medieval Minnesanger or romanciers, paid a special visit to Outremer, to witness the Order in action. And when, between and , Wolfram composed his epic romance Parzival, he conferred on the Templars a most exalted status. As the smoke from the slow fire choked the life from his body, Jacques de Molay is said to have issued an imprecation from the flames.
According to tradition, he called his persecutors Pope Clement and King Philippe to join him and account for themselves before the court of God within the year. Within a month Pope Clement was dead, supposedly from a sudden onslaught of dysentery. By the end of the year Philippe was dead as well, from causes that remain obscure to this day.
There is, of course, no need to look for supernatural explanations. The Templars possessed great expertise in the use of poisons. And there were certainly enough people about refugee knights travelling incognito, sympathisers of the Order or relatives of persecuted brethren to exact the appropriate vengeance.
Nor did the curse end there. According to legend, it was to cast a pall over the French royal line far into the future. By the eighteenth century various secret and semi secret confraternities were lauding the Templars as both precursors and mystical initiates. Many Freemasons of the period appropriated the Templars as their own antecedents.
Some of these claims were patently preposterous. By the legends surrounding the Templars had attained positively mythic proportions, and their historical reality was obscured by an aura of obfuscation and romance. They were regarded as occult adepts, illumined alchemists, magi and sages, master masons and high initiates veritable supermen endowed with an awesome arsenal of arcane power and knowledge.
They were also regarded as heroes and martyrs. At least three contemporary organisations today call themselves Templars, claiming to possess a pedigree from and charters whose authenticity has never been established.
Figures like H. In the United States teenage boys are admitted into the De Molay Society, without either they or their mentors having much notion whence the name derives. From the heavenly kingdom he sought to conquer with his sword, Hugues de Payen must now look down with a certain wry - 68 - perplexity on the latter-day knights, balding, paunched and bespectacled, that he engendered. And yet he must also be impressed by the durability and vitality of his legacy.
In France this legacy is particularly powerful. In Paris book shops are filled with histories and accounts of the Order some valid, some plunging enthusiastically into lunacy. During the last quartercentury or so a number of extravagant claims have been advanced on behalf of the Templars, some of which may not be wholly without foundation. Certain writers have credited them, at least in large part, with the building of the Gothic cathedrals or at least with providing an impetus of some sort to that burst of architectural energy and genius.
Other writers have argued that the Order established commercial contact with the Americas as early as , and derived much of its wealth from imported Mexican silver. It has frequently been asserted that the Templars were privy to some sort of secret concerning the origins of Christianity. It has been said that they were Gnostic, that they were heretical, that they were defectors to Islam. It has been declared that they sought a creative unity between bloods, races and religions a systematic policy of fusion between Islamic, Christian and Judaic thought.
And again and again it is maintained, as Wolfram von Eschenbach maintained nearly eight centuries ago, that the Templars were guardians of the Holy Grail, whatever the Holy Grail might be. The claims are often ridiculous. But it was neither the extravagant claims nor the esoteric residues - 69 - that intrigued us. Esoteric secrets the Templars may well have had. But something else about them was being concealed as well something rooted in the religious and political currents of their epoch.
It was on this level that we undertook most of our investigation. We began with the end of the story, the fall of the Order and the charges levelled against it.
Many books have been written exploring and evaluating the possible truth of these charges; and from the evidence we, like most researchers, concluded there seems to have been some basis for them. At the same time, there is no indication of who or what Baphomet might have been, what he or it represented, why he or it should have had any special significance.
It would appear that Baphomet was regarded with reverence, a reverence perhaps tantamount to idolatry. In some instances the name is associated with the gargoyle-like, demonic sculptures found in various preceptories. On other occasions Baphomet seems to be associated with an apparition of a bearded head. Despite the claims of certain older historians, it seems clear that Baphomet was not a corruption of the name Muhammad.
On the other hand, it might have been a corruption of the Arabic abufihamet, pronounced in Moorish Spanish as bufihimat. But what might have differentiated Baphomet from any other supernatural or divine principle remains unclear.
And if Baphomet was not God or Allah, who or what was he? In any case, we found indisputable evidence for the charge of secret ceremonies involving a head of some kind. As with Baphomet, however, the significance of the head remains obscure.
It may perhaps pertain to alchemy. The head may also be connected with the famous Turin Shroud, which seems to have been in the possession of the Templars between and , and which, if folded, would have appeared as nothing more than a head. Indeed, at the Templar preceptory of Templecombe in Somerset a reproduction of a head was found which bears a striking resemblance to that on the Turin Shroud. In the course of their activities in the Middle East the Templars undoubtedly established contact with johannite sects, and the possibility of Johannite tendencies in the Order is not altogether unlikely.
But one cannot say that such tendencies obtained for the Order as a whole, nor that they were a matter of official policy. During the interrogations following the arrests in , a head also figured in two other connections. It was hinged on top, and contained what appeared to have been relics of a peculiar kind. It is described as follows: a great head of gilded silver, most beautiful, and constituting the image of a woman. Inside were two head bones wrapped in a cloth of white linen, with another red cloth around it.
The bones inside were those of a rather small woman. It is worth quoting in one of its several variants: A great lady of Maraclea was loved by a Templar, a Lord of Sidon; but she died in her youth, and on the night of her burial, this wicked lover crept to the grave, dug up her body and violated it. Then a voice from the void bade him return in nine months time for he would find a son.
He obeyed the injunction and at the appointed time he opened the grave again and found a head on the leg bones of the skeleton skull and crossbones. It became his protecting genius, and he was able to defeat his enemies by merely showing them the magic head. In due course, it passed into the possession of the Order. But neither he nor another writer, who recounts the same tale nearly a century later, specifies that the necrophiliac rapist was a Templar.
Z3 Nevertheless, by the story had become closely associated with the Order. In subsequent accounts, like the one quoted above, the rapist himself is identified as a Templar, and he remains so in the versions preserved by Freemasonry which adopted the skull and crossbones, and often employed it as a device on tombstones.
In part the tale might almost seem to be a grotesque travesty of the - 72 - Immaculate Conception. In part it would seem to be a garbled symbolic account of some initiation rite, some ritual involving a figurative death and resurrection. The tale seems to begin with buried treasure and then turns into an unprecedented historical detective story - a modern Grail quest leading back through cryptically coded parchments, secret societies, the Knights Templar, the Cathar heretics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and a dynasty of obscure French kings deposed more than 1, years ago.
The author's conclusions are persuasive: at the core is not material riches but a secret - a secret of explosive and controversial proportions, which radiates out from the little Pyrenees village all the way to contemporary politics and the entire edifice of the Christian faith.
It involves nothing less than There are no reviews yet. Be the first one to write a review. Community Collections. Advanced embedding details, examples, and help!
The text is broken in lines randomly, lost in the space of the page. If the intention was to keep text in the same page as in the book, then the page size should have been changed, or used a bigger font size. Awful to read. The endnotes should have been transferred to footnotes. Reviewer: krystalsmeagol2 - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - March 12, Subject: Great book If you like Dan Brown then you will love this book.
0コメント