Holy Blood, Holy Grail (16 page)

On the basis of these connections, we had formulated a tentative hypothesis. Whether our hypothesis was accurate or not, we could not know; but the vestiges of a design had now become even more apparent. We assembled the fragments of the pattern as follows: 1) In the late eleventh century a mysterious group of monks from Calabria appears in the Ardennes, where they are welcomed, patronised and given land at Orval by Godfroi de Bouillon’s aunt and foster-mother. 2) A member of this group may have been Godfroi’s personal tutor and may have co-instigated the First Crusade. 3) Some time before 1108

the monks at Orval decamp and disappear. Although there is no record of their destination, it may well have been Jerusalem.

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Certainly Peter the Hermit embarked for Jerusalem; and if he was one of the monks at Orval, it is probable that his brethren later joined him. 4) In 1099 Jerusalem falls and Godfroi is offered a throne by an anonymous conclave a leader of whom, like the monks of Orval, is of Calabrian origin. 5) An abbey is built at Godfroi’s behest on Mount Sion, which houses an order of the same name as itself an order which may comprise the individuals who offered him the throne. 6) By 1114

the Knights Templar are already active, perhaps as the Ordre de Sion’s armed entourage; but their constitution is not negotiated until 1117, and they themselves are not made public until the following year.

7) In 1115 Saint Bernard member of the Cistercian Order, then on the brink of economic collapse emerges as the pre-eminent spokesman of Christendom. And the formerly destitute Cistercians rapidly become one of the most prominent, influential and wealthy institutions in Europe.

8) In 1131 Saint Bernard receives the abbey of Orval, vacated some years before by the monks from Calabria. Orval then becomes a Cistercian house. 9) At the same time certain obscure figures seem to move constantly in and out of these events, stitching the tapestry together in a manner that is not altogether clear. The count of Champagne, for example, donates the land for Saint Bernard’s abbey at Clairvaux, establishes a court at Troyes, whence the Grail romances subsequently issue and, in 1114, contemplates joining the Knights Templar whose first recorded Grand Master, Hugues de

Payen, is already his vassal. 10) Andre de Montbard Saint Bernard’s uncle and an alleged member of the

Ordre de Sion joins Hugues de Payen in founding the Knights Templar.

Shortly thereafter Andre’s two brothers join Saint Bernard at Clairvaux. 11) Saint Bernard becomes an enthusiastic public relations exponent for the

Templars, contributes to their official incorporation and the drawing-up of their rule -which is essentially that of the Cistercians, Bernard’s own order. 12) Between approximately 1115 and 1140, both Cistercians and Templars begin to prosper, acquiring vast sums of money

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and tracts of land. Again we could not but wonder whether this multitude of intricate connections was indeed wholly coincidental. Were we looking at a number of essentially disconnected people, events and phenomena which just

“happened’, at intervals, to overlap and cross each other’s paths? Or were we dealing with something that was not random or coincidental at all? Were we dealing with a plan of some sort, conceived and engineered by some human agency? And could that agency have been the Ordre de Sion?

Could the Ordre de Sion have actually stood behind both Saint Bernard and the Knights Templar? And could both have been acting in accordance with some carefully evolved policy?

Louis VII and the Prieure de Sion

The “Prieure documents’ gave no indication of the Ordre de Sion’s activities between 1118

the public foundation of the Templars and 1152.

For the whole of that time, it would seem, the Ordre de Sion remained based in the

Holy Land, in the abbey outside Jerusalem. Then, on his return from the

Second Crusade, Louis VII of France is said to have brought with him ninety-five members of the Order. There is no indication of the capacity in which they might have attended the king, nor why he should have extended his bounty to them. But if the Ordre de Sion was indeed the power behind the

Temple, that would constitute an explanation since Louis VII was heavily indebted to the Temple, both for money and military support.

In any case the

Ordre de Sion, created half a century previously by Godfroi de Bouillon, in 1152

established or re-established a foothold in France. According to the text, sixty two members of the Order were installed at the “large priory’ of Saint-Samson at Orleans, which King Louis had donated to them. Seven were reportedly incorporated into the fighting ranks of the Knights Templar. And twenty-six two groups of thirteen each are said to have entered the “small Priory of the Mount of Sion’, situated at Saint jean le Blanc on the outskirts of Orleans. ‘

In trying to authenticate these statements, we suddenly found ourselves on readily provable ground. The charters by which Louis VII installed the

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Ordre de Sion at Orleans are still extant. Copies have been reproduced in a number of sources, and the originals can be seen in the municipal archives of Orleans. In the same archives there is also a Bull dated 1178, from Pope Alexander III, which officially confirms the Ordre de Sion’s possessions. These possessions attest to the Order’s wealth, power and influence. They include houses and large tracts of land in Picardy, in France (including Saint-Samson at

Orleans), in Lombardy, Sicily, Spain and Calabria, as well, of course, as a number of sites in the Holy Land, including Saint Leonard at Acre.

Until the

Second World War, in fact, there were in the archives of Orleans” no less than twenty charters specifically citing the Ordre de Sion. During the bombing of the city in 1940 all but three of these disappeared.

The “Cutting of the Ehn’ at Gisors

If the “Prieure documents’ can be believed, 1188 was a year of crucial importance for both Sion and the Knights Templar. A year before, in 1187,

Jerusalem had been lost to the Saracens chiefly through the impetuosity and ineptitude of Gerard de Ridefort, Grand Master of the Temple. The text in the Dossiers secrets is considerably more severe. It speaks not of

Gerard’s impetuosity or ineptitude, but of his “treason’ - a very harsh word indeed. What constituted this ‘treason’ is not explained. But as a result of it the ‘initiates’ of Sion are said to have returned en masse to France presumably to Orleans. Logically this assertion is plausible enough. When

Jerusalem fell to the Saracens, the abbey on Mount Sion would obviously have fallen as well. Deprived of their base in the Holy Land, it would not be surprising if the abbey’s occupants had sought refuge in France where a new base already existed.

The events of 1187 Gerard de Ridefort’s ‘treason’ and the loss of Jerusalem seem to have precipitated a disastrous rift between the Ordre de Sion and the Order of the Temple. It is not clear precisely why this should have occurred; but according to the Dossiers secrets the following year witnessed a decisive turning-point in the affairs of

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both orders. In 1188 a formal separation supposedly occurred between the two institutions. The Ordre de Sion, which had created the Knights Templar, now washed its hands of its celebrated proteges. The ‘parent’, in other words, officially disowned the ‘child’.

This rupture is said to have been commemorated by a ritual or ceremony of some sort. In the Dossiers secrets and other “Prieure documents’, it is referred to as “the cutting of the elm’, and allegedly took place at Gisors.

Accounts are garbled and obscure, but history and tradition both confirm that something extremely odd occurred at Gisors in 1188 which did involve the cutting of an elm. On the land adjacent to the fortress there was a meadow called the Champ Sacre the Sacred Field.

According to medieval chroniclers, the site had been deemed sacred since pre-Christian times, and during the twelfth century had provided the setting for numerous meetings between the kings of England and France. In the middle of the Sacred Field stood an ancient elm. And in 1188, during a meeting between Henry II of

England and Philippe II of France, for some unknown reason this elm became an object of serious, even bloody, contention.

According to one account, the elm afforded the only shade on the Sacred

Field. It was said to be more than eight hundred years old, and so large that nine men, linking hands, could barely encompass its trunk. Under the shade of this tree Henry II and his entourage supposedly took shelter, leaving the French monarch, who arrived later, to the merciless sunlight.

By the third day of negotiations French tempers had become frayed by the heat, insults were exchanged by the men-at-arms and an arrow flew from the ranks of Henry’s Welsh mercenaries. This provoked a full-scale onslaught by the French, who greatly outnumbered the English. The latter sought refuge within the walls of Gisors itself, while the French are said to have cut down the tree in frustration. Philippe II then stormed back to Paris in a huff, declaring he had not come to Gisors to play the role of woodcutter.

The story has a characteristic medieval simplicity and quaintness, contenting itself with superficial narrative while hinting between the lines at something of greater import explanations and motivations which are left unexplored. In itself it would almost seem to be absurd -as

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absurd and possibly apocryphal as, say, the tales associated with the founding of the Order of the Garter.

And yet there is confirmation of the story, if not its specific details, in other accounts.

According to another chronicle, Philippe seems to have given notice to

Henry that he intended to cut down the tree. Henry supposedly responded by reinforcing the trunk of the elm with bands of iron. On the following day the French armed themselves and formed a phalanx of five squadrons, each commanded by a distinguished lord of the realm, who advanced on the elm, accompanied by sling men as well as carpenters equipped with axes and hammers. A struggle is said to have ensued, in which Richard Coeur de Lion,

Henry’s eldest son and his heir, participated, attempting to protect the tree and spilling considerable blood in the process. Nevertheless, the

French held the field at the end of the day, and the tree was cut down.

This second account implies something more than a petty squabble or minor skirmish. It implies a full-scale engagement, involving substantial numbers and possibly substantial casualties. Yet no biography of Richard makes much of the affair, still less explores it.

Again, however, the “Prieure documents’ were confirmed by both recorded history and tradition to the extent, at least, that a curious dispute did occur at Gisors in 1188, which involved the cutting of an elm.

There is no external confirmation that this event was related in any way to either the

Knights Templar or the Ordre de Sion. On the other hand, the existing accounts of the affair are too vague, too scant, too incomprehensible, too contradictory to be accepted as definitive. It is extremely probable that

Templars were present at the incident Richard I was frequently accompanied by knights of the Order, and, moreover, Gisors, thirty years before, had been entrusted to the Temple.

Given the existing evidence, it is certainly possible, if not likely, that the cutting of the elm involved something more or something other than the accounts which have been preserved for posterity imply.

Indeed, given the sheer oddness of surviving accounts, it would not be surprising if there were something else involved -something overlooked, or perhaps never made public, by history, something, in short, of which

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the surviving accounts are a species of allegory, simultaneously intimating and concealing an affair of much greater import.

Ormus

From 1188 onwards, the “Prieure documents’ maintain, the Knights Templar were autonomous no longer under the authority of the Ordre de Sion, or acting as its military and administrative arm. From 1188

onwards the

Templars were officially free to pursue their own objectives and ends, to follow their own course through the remaining century or so of their existence to their grim doom in 1307. And in the meantime, as of 1188, the

Ordre de Sion is said to have undergone a major administrative restructuring of its own.

Until 1188 the Ordre de Sion and the Order of the Temple are said to have shared the same Grand Master. Hugues de Payen and Bertrand de Blanchefort, for example, would thus have presided over both institutions simultaneously. Commencing in 1188, however, after the ‘cutting of the elm’, the Ordre de Sion reportedly selected its own Grand Master, who had no connection with the Temple. The first such Grand Master, according to the

“Prieure documents’, was Jean de Gisors.

In 1188 the Ordre de Sion is also said to have modified its name, adopting the one which has allegedly obtained to the present the Prieure de Sion.

And, as a kind of subtitle, it is said to have adopted the curious name “Ormus’. This subtitle was supposedly used until 1306 - a year before the arrest of the French Templars.

The device for “Ormus’ was U. and involves a kind of acrostic or anagram which combines a number of key words and symbols. “Ours’ means bear in French “Ursus’ in Latin, an echo, as subsequently became apparent, of Dagobert II and the Merovingian dynasty.

“Ome’ is French for ‘elm’. “Or’, of course, is ‘gold’. And the ‘m’ which forms the frame enclosing the other letters is not only an ‘m’, but also the astrological sign for Virgo connoting, in the language of medieval iconography, Notre Dame.

Our researches revealed no reference anywhere to a medieval order or

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institution bearing the name “Ormus’. In this case we could find no external substantiation for the text in the

Dossiers secrets, nor even any circumstantial evidence to argue its veracity. On the other hand, “Ormus’ does occur in two other radically different contexts. It figures in Zoroastrian thought and in Gnostic texts, where it is synonymous with the principle of light. And it surfaces again among the pedigrees claimed by late eighteenthcentury Freemasonry.