Holy Blood, Holy Grail (60 page)

-whereby the Church assumed the prerogative of creating kings. But there was another aspect to the ritual of anointing as well.

According to scholars, anointing was a deliberate attempt to suggest that the Frankish monarchy was a replica, if not actually a

continuation, of the

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Judaic monarchy in the Old Testament. This, in itself, is extremely interesting. For why would Pepin the usurper want to legitimi se himself by means of a Biblical prototype? Unless the dynasty he deposed the Merovingian dynasty had legitimi sed itself by precisely the same means.

In any case Pepin was confronted by two problems the tenacious resistance of Narbonne, and the matter of establishing his own legitimate claim to the throne by referring to Biblical precedent. As Professor Arthur Zuckerman of

Columbia University has demonstrated, he resolved both problems by a pact in 759 with Narbonne’s Jewish population. According to this pact, Pepin would receive Jewish endorsement for his claim to a Biblical succession. He would also receive Jewish aid against the Moors. In return he would grant the Jews of Septimania a principality, and a king, of their own.”

In 759 the Jewish population of Narbonne turned suddenly upon the city’s

Muslim defenders, slaughtered them and opened the gates of the fortress to the besieging Franks. Shortly thereafter, the Jews acknowledged Pepin as their nominal overlord and validated his claim to a legitimate Biblical succession. Pepin, in the meantime, kept his part of the bargain. In 768 a principality was created in Septimania - a Jewish principality which paid nominal allegiance to Pepin but was essentially independent. A ruler was officially installed as king of the Jews. In the romances he is called

Aymery. According to existing records, however, he seems, on being received into the, ranks of Frankish nobility, to have taken the name Theodoric or

Thierry. Theodoric, or Thierry, was the father of Guillem de Gellone.

And he was recognised by both Pepin and the caliph of Baghdad, as “the seed of the royal house of David. “I

As we had already discovered, modern scholars were uncertain about Theodoric’s origins and background. According to most researchers he was of

Merovingian descent.9 According to Arthur Zuckerman he is said to have been a native of Baghdad an “exffarch’, descended from Jews who had lived in

Babylon since the Babylonian Captivity. It is also possible, however, that the “exilarch’ from Baghdad was not Theodoric. It is possible that the “exilarch’ came from Baghdad to consecrate Theodoric, and

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subsequent records confused the two. Professor Zuckerman mentions a curious assertion that the “Western exilarchs’ were of “purer blood’ than those in the East.”

Who were the “Western exilarchs’, if not the Merovingians? Why would an individual of Merovingian descent be acknowledged as king of the Jews, ruler of a Jewish principality and “seed of the royal house of David’, unless the Merovingians were indeed partly Judaic? Following the Church’s collusion in Dagobert’s assassination and its betrayal of the pact ratified with Clovis, the surviving Merovingians may well have repudiated all allegiance to Rome and returned to what was their former faith. Their ties to that faith would, in any case, have been strengthened by Dagobert’s marriage to the daughter of an ostensibly “Visigoth’ prince with the patently Semitic name of Bera.

Theodoric, or Thierry, further consolidated his position, and Pepin’s as well, by an expeditious marriage to the latter’s sister Alda, the aunt of

Charlemagne. In the years that followed the Jewish kingdom of Septimania enjoyed a prosperous existence. It was richly endowed with estates held in freehold from the Carolingian monarchs. It was even granted sizeable tracts of Church land despite the vigorous protests of Pope Stephen III and his successors.

The son of Theodoric, king of the Jews of Septimania, was Guillem de Gellone, whose titles included count of Barcelona, of Toulouse, of Auvergne and of Razes. Like his father Guillem was not only Merovingian, but also a Jew of royal blood. Royal blood acknowledged by the Carolingians, by the caliph and, albeit grudgingly, by the pope to be that of the House of

David.

Despite subsequent attempts to conceal it, modern scholarship and research have proved Guillem’s Judaism beyond dispute. Even in the romances where he figures as Guillaume, Prince of Orange he is fluent in both Hebrew and

Arabic. The device on his shield is the same as that of the Eastern “exilarchs’ the Lion of Judah, the tribe to which the house of David, and subsequently Jesus, belonged. He is nicknamed “Hook-Nose’. And even amidst his campaigns, he takes pains to observe the Sabbath and the Judaic Feast of the Tabernacles. As Arthur Zuckerman remarks:

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The chronicler who wrote the original report of the siege and fall of

Barcelona recorded events according to the Jewish calendar .. . [The] commander of the expedition, Duke William of Narbonne and Toulouse conducted the action with strict observance of Jewish Sabbaths and holy Days. In all of this, he enjoyed the full understanding and co-operation of King Louis.”

Guillem de Gellone became one of the so-called “Peers of Charlemagne’

an authentic historical hero who, in the popular mind and tradition, ranked with such legendary figures as Roland and Olivier. When Charlemagne’s son,

Louis, was invested as emperor, it was Guillem who placed the crown on his head. Louis is reported to have said. “Lord William .. . it is your lineage that has raised up mine.” It is an extraordinary statement, given that it is addressed to a man whose lineage so far as later historians are concerned would seem to be utterly obscure.

At the same time Guillem was more than a warrior. Shortly before 792

he established an academy at Gellone, importing scholars and creating a renowned library; and Gellone soon became an esteemed centre of Judaic studies. It is from just such an academy that the “heathen’ Flegetanis might have issued the Hebrew scholar descended from Solomon, who, according to Wolfram, confided the secret of the Holy Grail to Kyot of

Provence.

In 806 Guillem withdrew from active life, secluding himself in his academy.

Here, around 812, he died, and the academy was later converted into a monastery, the now famous Saint-Guilhelm-le-Deseri.”3 Even before Guillem’s death, however, Gellone had become one of the first known seats in Europe for the cult of the Magdalene 14 _

which, significantly enough, flourished there concurrently with the Judaic academy.

Jesus was of the Tribe of Judah and the royal house of David. The Magdalene is said to have carried the Grail -the Sangraal or “royal blood’ into

France. And in the eighth century there was, in the south of France, a potentate of the Tribe of Judah and the royal house of David, who was acknowledged as king of the Jews. He was not only a practising Jew,

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however. He was also a Map 10 The Jewish Princedom

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Merovingian. And through Wolfram von Eschenbach’s poem, he and his family are associated with the Holy Grail.

The Seed of David

In later centuries assiduous attempts seem to have been made to expunge from the records all trace of the Jewish Kingdom of Septimania. The frequent confusion of “Goths’ and “Jews’ seems indicative of this censorship. But the censorship could not hope to be entirely successful. As late as 1143 Peter the Venerable of Cluny, in an address to Louis VII of France, condemned the

Jews of Narbonne, who claimed to have a king residing among them. In Cambridge monk, one Theobald, speaks of ‘the chief Princes and Rabbis of the

Jews who dwell in Spain land] assemble together at Narbonne where the royal seed resides.” And in 1165-6 Benjamin of Tudela, a famous traveller and chronicler, reports that in Narbonne there are “sages, magnates and princes at the head of whom is .. . a descendant of the House of David as stated in his family tree. ‘16

But any seed of David residing in Narbonne by the twelfth century was of less consequence than certain other seed living elsewhere. Family trees bifurcate, spread, subdivide and produce veritable forests. If certain descendants of Theodoric and Guillem de Gellone remained in attained more august domains. By the twelfth century these domains included the most illustrious in Christendom Lorraine and the Frankish kingdom of

Jerusalem.

In the ninth century the bloodline of Guillem de Gellone had culminated in the first dukes of Aquitaine. It also became aligned with the ducal house of Brittany. And in the tenth century a certain Hugues de Plantard -nicknamed “Long Nose’ and a lineal descendant of both Dagobert and Guillem de Gellone became the father of Eustache, first Count of Boulogne.

Eustache’s grandson was Godfroi de Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine and conqueror of Jerusalem. And from Godfroi there issued a dynasty and a’royal tradition’ which, by virtue of being founded on “the rock of

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Sion’, was equal to those presiding over France, England and Germany.If the Merovingians were indeed descended from Jesus, then Godfroi scion of the Merovingian blood royal had, in his conquest of Jerusalem, regained his rightful heritage.

Godfroi and the subsequent house of Lorraine were, of course, nominally

Catholic. To survive in a now Christianised world, they would have had to be. But their origins seem to have been known about in certain quarters at least. As late as the sixteenth century it is reported that Henri de

Lorraine, Duke of Guise, on entering the town of Joinville in Champagne, was received by exuberant crowds. Among them, certain individuals are recorded to have chanted “Hosannah filio David’

(“Hosannah to the Son of

David’).

It is not perhaps insignificant that this incident is recounted in a modern history of Lorraine, printed in 1966. The work contains a special introduction by Otto von Habsburg who today is titular Duke of Lorraine and King of Jerusalem.”

Fig. 3 The Coat of Arms of Fig 4 The Official Device of

Rennes-leChateauthe Prieure de Sion

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25 Conclusion and Portents for the Future

But if, for instance the statement that Christ rose from the dead is to be understood not literally but symbolically, then it is capable of various interpretations that do not conflict with knowledge and do not impair the meaning of the statement. The objection that understanding it symbolically puts an end to the Christian’s hope of immortality is invalid, because long before the coming of Christianity mankind believed in a life after death and therefore had no need of the Easter event as a guarantee of immortality. The danger that a mythology understood too literally, and as taught by the

Church will suddenly be repudiated lock, stock and barrel is today greater than ever. Is it not time that the Christian mythology, instead of being wiped out, was understood symbolically for once?

Carl Jung, “The Undiscovered Self’, Collected Works, vol. 10 (1956) p.

266.

We had not, in the beginning, set out to prove or disprove anything, least of all the conclusion to which we had been ineluctably led. We had certainly not set out to challenge some of the most basic tenets of Christianity. On the contrary, we had begun by investigating a specific mystery. We were looking for answers to certain perplexing questions, explanations for certain historical enigmas. In the process we more or less stumbled upon something rather greater than we had initially bargained for. We were led to a startling, controversial and seemingly preposterous conclusion.

This conclusion compelled us to turn our attention to the life of Jesus and the origins of the religion founded upon him. When we did so, we wePe still not attempting to challenge Christianity. We were simply endeavouring to ascertain whether or not our conclusion was tenable.

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An exhaustive consideration of Biblical material convinced us that it was.

Indeed we became convinced that our conclusion was not only tenable, but extremely probable.

We could not and still cannot prove the accuracy of our conclusion. It remains, to some extent at least, an hypothesis. But it is a plausible hypothesis, which makes coherent sense. It explains a great deal. And, so far as we are concerned, it constitutes a more historically likely account than any we have encountered of the events and personages which, two thousand years ago, imprinted themselves on Western consciousness and, in the centuries that followed, shaped our culture and civilisation.

If we cannot prove our conclusion, however, we have received abundant evidence from both their documents and their representatives that the Prieure de Sion can. On the basis of their written hints and their personal conversation with us, we are prepared to believe that Sion does possess something something which does in some way amount to “incontrovertible proof’ of the hypothesis we have advanced.

We do not know precisely what this proof might be. We can, however, make an educated guess.

If our hypothesis is correct, Jesus’s wife and offspring (and he could have fathered a number of children between the ages of sixteen or seventeen and his supposed death), after fleeing the Holy Land, found a refuge in the south of France, and in a Jewish community there preserved their lineage.

During the fifth century this lineage appears to have intermarried with the royal line of the Franks, thus engendering the Merovingian dynasty. In A.D. 496 the Church made a pact with this dynasty, pledging itself in perpetuity to the Merovingian bloodline presumably in the full knowledge of that bloodline’s true identity. This would explain why Clovis was offered the status of Holy Roman Emperor, of “new Constantine’, and why he was not created king, but only recognised as such.