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  THE KNIGHTS 
  TEMPLAR
  A SECRET HISTORY
  GRAEME DAVIS
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  CONTENTS
  Introduction 
  4
  Origins and Growth 
  6
  The Holy Grail 
  15
  Downfall 
  25
  The Templar Creed 
  37
  The Grail’s Journey 
  45
  The Secret War 
  54
  The Templars Today 
  64
  Conclusion 
  76
  Timeline 
  77
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  4
  Introduction
  The death of Dr Émile Fouchet in the spring of 2012, in an automobile 
  accident outside Troyes, excited little comment. The police report concluded 
  that Dr Fouchet had been drinking but was not drunk, and that darkness and 
  rain contributed to the crash. The question of suicide, prompted by the recent 
  and unexpected loss of his teaching post at the University of Toulouse, was 
  raised and quickly dismissed.
  I had met Dr Fouchet brieﬂy at the International Congress on Medieval 
  Studies in 2007. He gave a paper tracing the history of what he called the 
  “Plantard conspiracy”1 which lay behind The Da Vinci Code – wildly popular 
  at that time – and the 1982 bestseller The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. 
  The topic seemed too lightweight for an academic conference, but Fouchet’s 
  presentation posed several intriguing questions. In particular, while dismissing 
  the books and ﬁlm as blatant ﬁction, he wondered who would spend so much 
  eﬀort to obfuscate historical facts, and why.
  After his presentation I took the opportunity to request Dr Fouchet’s help for 
  one of my graduate students who was researching links between the Templars and 
  the Teutonic Knights. I also made some politely noncommittal remarks about  
  his choice of topic and his courage in broaching it before an academic audience. 
  He complimented me on my French and promised to read my student’s abstract.
  Nothing in our conversation made me think Dr Fouchet would remember 
  me once he was out of the room. His letter in response to the abstract was 
  polite but distant. He listed some archives and the names of a few librarians, 
  but regretted that he was extremely busy with his own research.
  Shortly after Fouchet’s death I received a package. Inside was a mass of 
  papers and a letter dated three days before the crash. Fouchet had apparently 
  kept up with my work and seemed impressed by my publication record,  
  for his letter begged me to have his research translated and published as 
  quickly as possible if anything should happen to him. He sounded very afraid 
  – almost paranoid – and hinted that his recent research had cost him his job 
  and somehow placed him in danger.
  In 2006, construction work on a new Metro station in Toulouse uncovered 
  part of the ruined Château Narbonnaise. Also found, though not reported, 
  1.  Although it dates back to the 1950s, the Plantard conspiracy came to worldwide prominence following 
  the publication of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail in 1982. It is covered in more detail on pp. 61-62.
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  5
  was a cache of documents 
  dating from the siege of the 
  castle in 1217-18 during 
  the Albigensian Crusade.
  The documents were 
  mostly 
  religious 
  and 
  philosophical texts relating 
  to the Cathar heresy, and 
  Fouchet was an expert 
  on Cathar history. As he 
  studied 
  the 
  documents 
  he found some relating to 
  the Knights Templar, who 
  survived the Albigensian 
  Crusade but were disbanded 
  about a century later.
  I spent the whole of  
  that night poring over 
  Fouchet’s notes. At ﬁrst 
  I suspected Fouchet had 
  fallen prey to the kind  
  of conspiracy theories that 
  have always dogged serious 
  Templar scholarship. To my 
  surprise I found Fouchet’s 
  facts 
  unassailable, 
  his 
  arguments sound, and his 
  tone manifestly sane. I 
  decided to do as he asked, 
  and you hold the ﬁrst 
  results of that process in 
  your hands. It is hoped 
  that deeper and more 
  detailed coverage of Fouchet’s research will appear over the next few years 
  in peer-reviewed journals.
  One sentence in Fouchet’s letter still puzzles me. “You must publish,” he 
  said, “before they can cover the old ﬁction with a new one.” If “they” are 
  the Templars, or some group claiming the inheritance of their legacy, then it 
  seems the “Plantard conspiracy” – and other Templar myths – were deliberate 
  and well-constructed ﬁctions.
  For now, readers must come to their own conclusions and hope, as I do, 
  that someone with the necessary expertise and resources will take up the 
  research that Émile Fouchet can no longer ﬁnish.
  Jacques de Molay, last official 
  Grand Master of the Knights 
  Templar. In the absence of 
  convincing contemporary 
  likenesses, this later image  
  has become the most influential 
  depiction. (Mary Evans Picture 
  Library / Alamy)
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  6
  Origins and Growth
  The history of the Knights Templar, from their founding in 1119 to the 
  execution of the last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, in 1314, is suﬃciently 
  well known that it need only be covered here in outline. More details can be 
  found in many excellent sources, some of which are listed in the bibliography.
  In addition to the generally accepted history of the Order, the following 
  pages also discuss various points raised in Fouchet’s notes, and the startling 
  conclusions he drew from his research.
  The Founding
  In July of 1099 the armies of the First Crusade captured Jerusalem, bringing 
  the Holy Lands of the Middle East under Christian control after more 
  than 450 years of Muslim domination. Around 1119 nine French knights, 
  including Hugues de Payens, André de Montbard, and Godfrey de Saint-
  Omer, approached King Baldwin II of Jerusalem with a proposal to establish 
  an order of knights on monastic lines, whose duty would be to protect pilgrims 
  as they traveled to Jerusalem.
  The knights were accommodated in the captured al-Aqsa Mosque on the 
  Temple Mount, close to the site of Solomon’s Temple. They named themselves 
  the “Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon,” which soon became 
  abbreviated to “Knights of the Temple” or “Knights Templar.”
  Pope Honorius II presides over 
  the Order's official foundation at 
  the Council of Troyes. (INTERFOTO 
  / Alamy)
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  7
  Their fame spread to Europe, where 
  they returned in 1127 to a heroes’ 
  welcome. Leading churchman Bernard 
  (later Saint Bernard) of Clairvaux 
  became their champion, writing De 
  Laude Novae Militae ("In Praise of the 
  New Knighthood") and playing a leading 
  role in the 1128 (1129 according to some 
  sources) Council of Troyes at which Pope 
  Honorius II gave their order oﬃcial 
  status. Hugues de Payens was established 
  as the Templars’ ﬁrst Grand Master.
  After this oﬃcial recognition gifts of 
  money and lands poured in, along with 
  a ﬂood of eager recruits. The Order was 
  further strengthened in 1139 by a bull 
  of Pope Innocent II titled Omne Datum 
  Optimum (“Every Perfect Gift”), which 
  exempted members of the Order from 
  the laws of the kingdoms in which they 
  operated. They could pass freely across 
  borders, were exempt from taxation, 
  and answered only to the pope. No king 
  could command the Templars.
  Contemporary Records
  Guillaume de Tyre, our main source for 
  the Templars’ early history, was born 
  more than a decade after the Order was allegedly founded. When he was 
  writing, between 1170 and 1184, the Templars were already well established 
  and inﬂuential.
  King Baldwin’s own chronicler was his chaplain Fulk, or Fulcher, de 
  Chartres. Fulk himself does not even mention Hugues de Payens. This is 
  curious, as Fulk would surely have witnessed his master’s meeting with the 
  nine poor knights.
  In fact, nowhere in the records of the time is there any mention of de 
  Payens and his knights being active in the Holy Land. Even the later accounts 
  fail to record any action in which they protected pilgrims. One must wonder 
  how nine impoverished knights could hope to protect so many travelers in 
  such a large area; so far no one has been able to answer this question.
  According to Fouchet, the story of the nine poor knights seems less like 
  history and more like a post facto origin story fabricated for an organization 
  that already existed.
  Bernard was given the Abbey 
  of Clairvaux by Count Hugh of 
  Champagne, the head of the 
  Troyes cabal. (INTERFOTO / Alamy)
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  8
  The Troyes Connection
  Hugues de Payens was a vassal of Count Hugues (Hugh) of Champagne. 
  The count endowed the abbey of Clairvaux and installed Bernard as abbot. 
  Bernard was a nephew of André de Montbard, de Payens’ companion.  
  The counts of Champagne made their capital at Troyes, where the Church 
  council that oﬃcially recognized the Templars took place. Fouchet believed 
  that this is more than mere coincidence.
  In 1104, more than a decade before the Templars were oﬃcially founded, 
  Count Hugh met with certain nobles, at least one of whom had recently 
  returned from Jerusalem. That same year, the count set out on a four-year 
  journey to the Holy Land in the company of Hugues de Payens.
  De Payens was more than just a vassal to Count Hugh. His signature 
  appears on several of the count’s documents, suggesting that he was a trusted 
  courtier and possibly a friend.
  There is no oﬃcial record of what de Payens and his lord did in the Holy 
  Land. It is known, however, that in 1114 Count Hugh made a second journey 
  there, again with de Payens. A letter from Bernard refers to the count’s desire 
  to join la milice du Christ – the name was often applied to the Templars, but 
  they would not be founded for another ﬁve years. “The Militia of Christ” was a 
  completely new term, but Bernard used it as though it were quite familiar to him.
  Count Hugh returned to France within a year, leaving de Payens behind. 
  Almost as soon as he returned, he gave land to the Cistercians for the building 
  of Clairvaux Abbey. Bernard, who was only 25 and had been a Cistercian for 
  just three years, was installed as abbot.
  Count Hugh joined the Order in 1124, swearing fealty to de Payens as 
  the Order’s Grand Master – and placing himself in the anomalous position of 
  vassal to his own vassal.
  King Baldwin grants 
  accommodations in the Temple 
  to Hugues de Payens and 
  Geoffrey de Saint-Omer. From a 
  13th-century copy of Guillaume 
  de Tyre’s Histoire d’Outre-Mer. 
  (PD-US)
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  9
  The counts of Champagne who followed Hugh were frequent visitors to the 
  Holy Land. One, Henry II, was king of Jerusalem from 1192 to 1197 and died 
  in suspicious circumstances. In 1198, Pope Innocent III chose Count Tibault (or 
  Theobald) of Champagne to lead the Fourth Crusade and recapture Jerusalem.
  Fouchet’s research included an exhaustive enquiry into Count Hugh and 
  his successors. He also tried to trace the other members of what he called “the 
  Troyes cabal” and chart their connection with the Templars and the kings of 
  Jerusalem. The fact that he died near Troyes suggests that someone – or some 
  organization – wanted to stop his enquiries into events there.
  What does emerge from Fouchet’s research is the idea that as early as 1104 
  a powerful group backed by the count of Champagne was working to establish 
  an order of knights and have them housed in or near the Temple. Fouchet 
  suspected that Count Hugh established Clairvaux Abbey speciﬁcally so that 
  Bernard could be positioned as a champion of the Order within the Church.
  THE CRUSADES
  From 1095 to 1272 European armies fought to 
  recapture Jerusalem and other holy sites in the Middle 
  East that had been taken from the Byzantine Empire 
  during the expansion of Islam in the 7th century.
  The First Crusade (1095–99) succeeded in recapturing 
  Jerusalem. Four Christian states were established: the 
  Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Country of Edessa, the 
  Principality of Antioch, and the County of Tripoli.
  The Second Crusade was launched in 1147 after 
  Muslim forces recaptured the town of Edessa, but 
  ended without any signiﬁcant victories. For the next 
  40 years the future of the Crusader kingdoms hung in 
  the balance.
  Following Saladin’s victory at the Battle of Hattin in 
  1187 the Crusader kingdoms collapsed: the Third and 
  Fourth crusades failed to re-establish them. Four more 
  crusades (or ﬁve, according to some historians) tried 
  unsuccessfully to conquer Egypt.
  A 19th-century depiction of the 
  Chapter of the Order of Templars, 
  held in Paris on April 22nd 1147. 
  (The Bridgeman Art Library Ltd. / 
  Alamy)
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  10
  The Order Grows
  After the success of the Council of Troyes, Hugues de Payens returned to the 
  Holy Land with a retinue of some 300 knights. During the next two decades, 
  the Order grew rapidly.
  The Templars acquired lands in the Holy Land and in almost every 
  kingdom in Europe. Some were gifts but others were the properties of new 
  members, who were required to hand over all of their possessions upon 
  joining. Although individual Templars were sworn to poverty, the Order itself 
  was under no such restriction.
  In 1146 the Templars adopted the cross pattée, the splayed cross that became 
  their most distinctive symbol. With the red cross on their white mantles – 
  which only they, by papal decree, had the right to wear – they accompanied 
  King Louis VII of France on the Second Crusade.
  Despite the failure of the Second Crusade, the Templars continued to grow 
  in reputation and inﬂuence. Their independence from kings placed them above 
  national interests and gave them a trusted role in international diplomacy.  
  In England, the Master of the Temple was often called to the king’s Parliament, 
  where he took precedence over all the priors and abbots in the land.
  The Templars’ growing wealth was put to good use. They lent money to 
  most of Europe’s rulers, and to some in the Muslim world. Their network 
  of preceptories throughout Europe and the Middle East allowed them to set 
  up a primitive banking system: travelers could deposit money at a Templar 
  preceptory in their homeland, receiving in exchange a letter of credit which 
  allowed them to draw cash at any Templar preceptory along their way.
  Bernard of Clairvaux, who 
  championed the founding of the 
  Templars, was the nephew of 
  one of the original nine knights 
  and an intimate of the Count of 
  Champagne. (Kohl-Illustration / 
  Alamy)
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  11
  The Order possessed 
  its own ports, shipyards, 
  and ﬂeet. Its captains 
  were among the ﬁrst 
  Europeans to navigate 
  using 
  the 
  magnetic 
  compass. It acquired a 
  great deal of scientiﬁc 
  knowledge – lost in 
  Europe since the fall of 
  Rome – from Middle 
  Eastern sources.
  The Order’s growing 
  power, it was said, 
  made it arrogant. When 
  Henry III of England 
  tried to conﬁscate some 
  of their domains, the 
  English Master of the 
  Order replied with a 
  veiled threat: “So long as thou dost exercise justice, thou wilt reign. But if you 
  infringe it, thou wilt cease to be king.” This was an unthinkable thing to say 
  to a European monarch. Even popes did not claim the power to make and 
  unmake kings.
  According to some sources, the Templars made a practice of recruiting 
  excommunicated knights. Forbidden access to divine salvation by the pope, 
  these men were received by the Order and given absolution by its priests.  
  To the Templars, the Church’s most dreaded weapon was impotent.
  To the Templars’ alleged arrogance and disdain for the Church, some 
  commentators added other vices. “To drink like a Templar” became a cliché of 
  the times. Many looked askance upon their dealings with Muslim potentates 
  and with the Assassins. In the dynastic squabble that followed the death of 
  King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem in 1185, Grand Master Gerard de Ridefort 
  betrayed an oath to the dead king and brought the Christian states in the Holy 
  Land to the brink of civil war. Two years later, he urged the attack on Muslim 
  forces at Hattin that resulted in the near annihilation of the Christian army.
  As Muslim forces steadily reconquered the Crusader states, the Templars 
  lived up to their reputation for discipline and heroism. But in 1291 Muslim 
  forces captured Acre, the last Crusader outpost in the Holy Land. Grand 
  Master Guillaume de Beaujeu fell in the ﬁnal assault, which ended with the 
  fortress collapsing on top of attackers and defenders alike.
  The fall of Acre was a blow that resonated throughout the Christian world, 
  and popular opinion turned even more against the Templars.
  Templar initiation ceremony 
  from c. 1280. (Artwork by Wayne 
  Reynolds Osprey Publishing from 
  WAR 91: Knight Templar)
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  12
  Outremer Lost
  The Templars moved their headquarters to Cyprus, and then to Paris.  
  There were some attempts to regain lost Crusader territories, including an 
  anti-Muslim alliance with the Mongol Great Khan. The Templars maintained 
  a garrison on the tiny island of Arwad just oﬀ the coast of Tripoli as a possible 
  bridgehead for a renewed invasion, but this fell to the Egyptian Mamluks in 
  1302, taking with it any prospect of re-establishing the Crusader kingdoms.
  The Knights Hospitaller, another knightly religious order, moved 
  their headquarters to Rhodes after conquering the island in 1309, and 
  established themselves as rulers there and on some neighboring islands. 
  Meanwhile the Teutonic Knights had been expanding their Ordensstaat 
  (Order-State) in the Baltic for almost 80 years. According to Fouchet, 
  the Templars also wanted to establish a state of their own. Their initial 
  objective was to take over the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but with the 
  loss of the Holy Land they began to look elsewhere.
  Toulouse
  Toulouse was the major city in the Languedoc region of southern 
  France. In the 14th century, the Languedoc had its own dialect, 
  Occitan, and had closer ties to the Spanish kingdoms of Aragon and 
  Catalonia than to Paris. It was only after the brutal Albigensian Crusade 
  that the French kings cemented their hold on the region.
  Many wealthy landowners suspected of Cathar leanings had donated 
  land to the Templars. Bertrand de Blanchefort, the Order’s fourth 
  Grand Master, came from a Cathar family, and his descendants fought 
  on the Cathar side during the Albigensian Crusade.
  Despite their sworn allegiance to the pope, the Templars maintained 
  a policy of neutrality during the Crusade. Contemporary accounts 
  report that they hid Cathar refugees and sometimes took up arms in their 
  defense. A large number of Cathars found safety by joining the Order.
  The counts of Toulouse had been leading Cathars, and after the 
  Albigensian Crusade their lands and domains became the property of the 
  French crown.
  Knight Templar in full armor 
  c.1290. (Artwork by Wayne 
  Reynolds Osprey Publishing from 
  WAR 91: Knight Templar)
  Outrem
  The Templa
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  The
  Knight Templar in full armor 
  c 1290 (Artwork by Wayne
  THE ASSASSINS
  The Assassins, or Hashashin, were an oﬀshoot of the 
  Ismaili sect of Islam. They used murder, among many 
  other methods, to achieve their ends. At the time of the 
  Crusades they were virtually independent of Muslim 
  rulers, answering only to their own leader, the Old Man 
  of the Mountain.
  The Assassins were not ardently opposed to the 
  Crusaders. From time to time Christian leaders even 
  employed their services as hired murderers, and they are 
  known to have had some dealings with the Templars. 
  Deeper and more sinister links have been hinted at 
  down the centuries, but never proven.
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  13
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  14
  The Cathars
  The Cathars (also known as the Albigensians from their stronghold of Albi) 
  were the last, and perhaps the largest, group to challenge Rome’s domination 
  of western Christianity. They believed that Jesus had been mortal rather than 
  divine, and that personal virtue was the key to salvation. The popes, on the 
  other hand, maintained that no one could be saved if they did not receive 
  absolution from a Catholic priest.
  The Holy Grail
  Fouchet’s documents had evidently remained hidden since the siege of 
  Toulouse, and indicate very close links between the Cathars and the Templars. 
  Certain documents made mention of the “Saint Graal” – the Holy Grail – 
  which is linked to the Templars in many legends. The songs and poems of the 
  troubadours, a group long associated with the Cathars, include some of the 
  earliest known Grail legends.
  Like almost everything to do with the Grail, these documents are 
  cryptic, confusing, and contradictory. However, through careful reading 
  and painstaking research Fouchet reached a startling conclusion: the Grail 
  was real, and it was either in the Templars’ keeping, or it was the Templars 
  themselves. De Payens and his companions had found something beneath the 
  Temple, and it had been in Toulouse brieﬂy before the Albigensian Crusade.
  The documents also indicate that the Holy Grail was the source of the 
  Templars’ great wealth and power, and that they felt a desperate need to keep it 
  hidden from both kings and popes until the time was right to reveal its nature. 
  Letters from Templar Grand Master Gilbert Horal to Count Raymond of 
  Toulouse mention secret gifts of “false Grails” to churches in Italy and Spain, 
  and discuss the count’s sponsorship of various poets  – including the celebrated 
  Chrétien de Troyes – to help “safeguard the true Grail.”
  The implications of these letters are profound. Fouchet concluded that the 
  Templars and the counts of Toulouse were part of a century-long conspiracy 
  to promote a false Grail tradition in Europe, in order to divert attention from 
  the “true Grail.” But what was this “true Grail?”
  (PREVIOUS PAGE)  
  A Templar encounters an Assassin 
  on the streets of Jerusalem. 
  Traditionally the Templars and 
  the Assassins have been seen 
  as mortal enemies; however, the 
  truth of the matter is probably 
  much more complex.
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  15
  The Holy Grail
  The Templars have been associated with the Grail since the early troubadour 
  tales of the late 12th century. In at least one version of the 
  Grail Quest tale, Sir Galahad’s shield bears a red cross on 
  a white ground – deﬁnite Templar iconography – and for 
  centuries painters have shown him wearing a white surcoat with 
  a red cross.
  Fouchet’s work centers on the Holy Grail, and he arrives 
  at a startling conclusion about its true nature. But ﬁrst, it is 
  necessary to summarize the various 
  theories and stories about the Grail 
  that have grown up over the last 
  thousand years.
  The Cup
  In the troubadour tales and the 
  Arthurian tradition that draws upon them, the 
  Holy Grail is a cup or bowl that was closely 
  associated with Jesus. According to most accounts 
  it was the cup he used at the Last Supper, and 
  some say that it was also used to catch some of his 
  blood when he died on the cross.
  In Arthurian tradition, the Holy Grail was 
  brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea 
  and hidden near Glastonbury. It miraculously 
  appeared at King Arthur’s court at Pentecost, the 
  festival that commemorates the Last Supper. After 
  the vision or manifestation had faded, almost all 
  the knights of the Round Table vowed to ﬁnd it, 
  and so the Grail Quest began. In the end, only three 
  knights – Galahad, Percival, and Bors – were suﬃciently pure in 
  spirit to complete the quest.
  The troubadours took up the Arthurian tale and embellished 
  it in their own tradition, extending and deepening its allegorical 
  content. The symbolic meaning of the Holy Grail has been 
  debated ever since.
  ld bears a red cross on 
  iconography – and for 
  earing a white surcoat with 
  Holy Grail, and he arrives 
  true nature. But ﬁrst, it is 
  n them, the 
  was closely 
  ost accounts 
  Supper, and 
  h some of his 
  y Grail was 
  f Arimathea 
  miraculously 
  entecost, the 
  Supper. After
  d, almost all 
  ed to ﬁnd it,
  end, only three 
  s – were suﬃciently pure in 
  hurian tale and embellished 
  nd deepening its allegorical 
  he Holy Grail has been 
  This 19th century book illustration 
  conveys the divine power of the 
  Holy Grail. (Library of Congress)
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  16
  The Holy Chalice
  Catholic tradition maintains that the Holy Chalice with which Jesus 
  conducted the ﬁrst communion was brought to Rome by St Peter. It remained 
  in the possession of the bishops of Rome until 258 when the pagan Roman 
  government demanded that all Christian relics should be handed over to the 
  state. Pope Sixtus II handed it over to St Lawrence, who had a Spanish soldier 
  named Proselius take it to safety in Spain.
  The Catholic Church is oﬃcially silent on the matter of the Holy Grail. 
  Cups displayed in the cathedrals of Valencia, Spain and Genoa, Italy have 
  both been linked to the Holy Chalice.
  The Valencia chalice came to the cathedral from King Alfonso VII of 
  Castile in 1200; the king used it as collateral for a loan that he never repaid. 
  An inventory list, allegedly from the 3rd century, claims that the cup was 
  one of the relics smuggled out of Rome by St Lawrence. The ﬁrst reliable 
  document describing the chalice dates from 1134. Several recent popes have 
  used this cup to celebrate communion in Valencia Cathedral.
  RELICS
  In the Middle Ages, Catholic Europe was in the grip 
  of a mania for collecting holy relics. A good relic 
  could transform an unremarkable church into a highly 
  proﬁtable pilgrim destination. With the success of the 
  First Crusade relics poured back to Europe.
  The Holy Grail is among the most powerful Christian 
  relics because of its association with the blood of Jesus. 
  Even if one discounts the story that it was used to catch 
  his blood at the cruciﬁxion, its use at the Last Supper 
  speaks to one of the most powerful mysteries of the 
  Catholic Church: the moment when wine turns to 
  redeeming blood at the climax of the Mass.
  The Valencia Chalice is claimed by 
  some to be the Holy Grail. (Miguel 
  A. Muñoz Pellicer / Alamy)
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  17
  The Genoa chalice is mentioned by Guillaume de Tyre in 1170. Allegedly 
  found in the mosque at Caesarea in 1101, it was thought to have been carved 
  out of a huge emerald, and was given to the Genoese in payment of a debt. 
  An alternative story from Spanish sources claims that it was looted from 
  the Moors in the sack of Almeria in 1147. The cup was taken to Paris after 
  Napoleon’s conquest of Italy and returned broken, which revealed it to be 
  made of green glass rather than emerald.
  Fouchet found it signiﬁcant that the ﬁrst historical traces of both these 
  cups appear in the 12th century. He suspected that they are early examples 
  of the “false Grails” mentioned in the letters of Grand Master Gilbert Horal.
  The Holy Blood
  The documents of the “Plantard conspiracy” maintain that the term “Holy 
  Grail” arises from a misreading of some ancient text. Instead of the French 
  “Saint Graal,” one should read “Sang Réal,” or “Royal Blood.”
  Thus, the Grail becomes the holy bloodline of Jesus, whose children by 
  Mary Magdalene were the ancestors of France’s Merovingian kings. Some 
  Grail romances speak of a “Grail Castle” and a “Grail Family” guarded by an 
  order of knights who bear a distinct resemblance to the Templars. Plantard 
  and his successors take this to mean that the bloodline of Jesus is still in 
  existence, kept safe by the Templars (or by a related organization named the 
  Priory of Sion) until the time is right to make its existence known.
  Fouchet dismisses the Plantard story out of hand, likening it to the “false 
  Grails” of Gilbert Horal’s letters. He believed it was concocted shortly after 
  World War II after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi 
  manuscripts and promulgated in English via the book The Holy Blood and the 
  Holy Grail. According to Fouchet, the Templars feared the imminent exposure 
  of the “true Grail.” By creating an elaborate false trail leading to the alleged 
  descendants of Jesus, the Plantard conspirators hoped to sow confusion and, 
  in Fouchet’s words, “render the whole matter so ridiculous as to make serious 
  academic enquiry impossible.”
  Metaphors
  Scholars have long suspected that the Holy Grail of the troubadour romances 
  is a metaphor rather than a physical object. It has been argued that the 
  metaphor has a number of layers, with meanings that diﬀer according to one’s 
  level of initiation into the mysteries.
  Salvation
  The simplest interpretation of the Grail Quest is that it is a search for 
  salvation; the Grail reveals itself only to the pure in heart. Even Lancelot, the 
  greatest of Arthur’s knights, fails in the quest because he has a single sin on 
  his conscience; the guilt of his romantic attachment to Guinevere. The name 
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  18
  of the Grail Castle, given by Wulfram von Eschenbach 
  as Munsalvaesche, has been interpreted as Mons 
  Salvationis, or “Mount of Salvation.”
  If they are no more than allegories of the 
  quest for spiritual salvation, then the Catholic 
  Church could hardly object to the Grail 
  romances. However, reading between the 
  lines it can be seen that the Grail Quest 
  is a search for salvation through personal 
  endeavor rather than by the Catholic 
  sacrament of absolution. Fouchet notes 
  that both the Cathars and the Templars were 
  accused of denying absolution and the other 
  sacraments of the Catholic Church.
  Secret Teachings
  Some scholars believe that the Holy Grail was a symbol for 
  the teachings of Jesus, brought to Europe by those who knew 
  him personally: people like Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Magdalene. If the 
  blood, or essence, of Jesus was in his teachings, then the Grail was anything 
  or anyone from whom these teachings could be consumed.
  Within the last hundred years, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi 
  manuscripts have shed considerable light on early Christian thinking. By the 
  Middle Ages, almost a thousand years of Church councils had decided what 
  religious works were “canon” – to be included in the Bible – and what were 
  apocryphal. Several books, including gospels, were amended to make them 
  more acceptable to the Church. Reading or preaching from works outside the 
  approved canon was heresy, so the apocryphal traditions could only be kept 
  alive secretly, under the cover of codes and symbols.
  Given the established connection between the Cathars and the troubadours, 
  the Holy Grail makes an excellent symbol for a Cathar religion that went 
  underground after the massacres of the Albigensian Crusade.
  The Quest for the Holy Grail, then, could be seen as an allegory for a 
  process of mystical initiation, whereby the initiates were prepared mentally 
  and spiritually for deeper levels of knowledge. The accounts of Templar rituals 
  that emerged under torture suggest that the Order practiced some process 
  of mystical initiation. It is certain that the Assassins did so, and so do the 
  Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, the Illuminati, and other groups that claim 
  Templar ancestry.
  In the context of an underground religion, initiation would provide some 
  protection against Church persecution. The greatest knowledge was only made 
  available to those who had proved they could be trusted, and had prepared 
  their minds to accept what was about to be revealed to them.
  of the Gr
  as Mu
  Sal
  sa
  Secr
  Some schol
  In keeping with the Templar 
  legend of the nine poor knights, 
  the Order's seal showed two 
  Templars sharing a single horse. 
  (PD-US)
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  19
  Fouchet supported the idea that the Holy Grail was used as a symbol for 
  secret Cathar and Templar religious teachings, but he believes that it could 
  also have a deeper meaning. To those who had reached the highest levels of 
  Cathar initiation and the highest ranks of the Templar hierarchy, the Holy 
  Grail also included the secrets that Hugues de Payens had found beneath the 
  Temple of Solomon.
  Solomon’s Stables.  
  The underground chamber is 
  now part of the al-Aqsa Mosque. 
  (PD-US)
  ALCHEMY
  Accounts of the Templars’ trials (see next chapter) 
  frequently referred to the worship of a bearded head. 
  In the coded language of alchemy, the phrase Caput 
  Mortuum, or “Dead Head,” referred to the nigredo or 
  “blackening” that was said to take place in the ﬁnal 
  stages of the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone. It has 
  been suggested that the accusations of idolatry may be 
  garbled and partly understood reports of alchemical 
  experiments.
  Fouchet was convinced that the Templars did amass 
  considerable alchemical knowledge. However, he 
  dismisses the idea that the worship of a head was a 
  coded reference to alchemy. Instead, he was convinced 
  that the bearded head in Templar rituals represented 
  John the Baptist. Despite this, Fouchet did believe 
  that the Templars mastered the secrets of alchemy. No 
  known alchemical texts have been ﬁrmly linked to the 
  Templars, and most historians believe that the Order’s 
  great wealth came exclusively from their widespread 
  land holdings and banking operations. However, 
  Fouchet argues that even these sources would have been 
  exhausted quickly given the level of Templar spending. 
  The Order regularly made enormous loans to many 
  European monarchs, built huge and expensive castles, 
  and maintained a large mercenary force to man their 
  bases and supplement their members on the battleﬁeld.
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  20
  The Treasure 
  of Solomon
  There have been rumors of a hidden 
  treasure beneath Solomon’s Temple 
  for centuries. In addition to gold 
  and silver, the lost treasures were said 
  to include the Ark of the Covenant 
  and the magical library of Solomon. 
  In Jewish and Islamic lore, the king 
  was a powerful sorcerer as well as a 
  wise ruler.
  According to Fouchet, the “true 
  Grail” consisted of treasures – 
  mystical as well as material – that 
  de Payens and his companions 
  recovered from beneath the Temple 
  between 1119 and 1127. Over time, 
  the term also came to stand for an 
  ideal state that the Templars intended 
  to establish in Jerusalem, and which 
  they have attempted to create several 
  times in Europe and North America. 
  Fouchet’s research is too extensive to 
  reproduce here in detail, but the key 
  points are as follows.
  The Troyes Cabal and the  
  Counts of Champagne
  According to Fouchet, the “Troyes cabal” acquired documents that pointed to 
  the location of certain hidden treasures. Count Hugh of Champagne visited 
  Jerusalem to assess the situation, and upon returning he put an elaborate plan 
  into motion. He established Bernard as the abbot of Clairvaux, to give himself 
  a powerful ally inside the Church, and instructed de Payens, de Montbard, 
  and their companions to win King Baldwin’s conﬁdence and gain access to 
  the Temple Mount.
  The plan took more than nine years to complete. The last of the treasure 
  was found and removed by 1127, and no one outside of the “Troyes cabal” 
  was any the wiser. Bernard of Clairvaux used his position within the Church 
  to help found the Order of the Knights Templar, and the Order acquired 
  property in Jerusalem to house the treasure.
  The counts of Champagne, who played a role in the founding of the 
  Order, continue to ﬁgure in the story. Most of them made at least one trip to 
  the Middle East.
  King Solomon was reputed to be 
  a powerful magician as well as a 
  wise ruler. (PD-US)
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  21
  Hugh’s 
  great-grand-nephew 
  Henry II of Champagne became 
  king of Jerusalem in 1192, but he 
  came to the title by marriage and 
  it passed from the family upon his 
  death. Henry’s brother Theobald 
  III married into the royal house of 
  Navarre, and his son Thibault IV, 
  known as Thibault the Troubadour, 
  became king of Navarre as well as 
  count of Champagne.
  Theobald’s two sons, Theobald 
  V and Henry III, were both unable 
  to produce a male heir. Henry’s 
  daughter Joan succeeded him but 
  constant plots led her and her 
  mother to ﬂee to the French court 
  when Joan was just ten years old. She 
  married Philip le Bel, and as a result 
  he became count of Champagne 
  as well as king of Navarre. It is 
  interesting to speculate whether 
  he found something in the court 
  papers of Champagne which piqued 
  his interest in the Templars. When 
  Joan died in childbirth in 1304, at 
  least one chronicler suspected her 
  husband of being responsible for 
  her death.
  Solomon’s Library
  Large caches of documents were 
  found along with the gold and 
  silver. De Payens learned the ancient 
  languages needed to study these 
  manuscripts and found, to his great 
  surprise, that he had the magical 
  library of Solomon in his hands.
  After they received papal approval the Templars became wealthy and 
  powerful. No doubt some of their wealth came from their shipping and 
  banking businesses, but their whole operation was underpinned by the 
  Temple treasure, both the gold and silver they recovered, and the techniques 
  of alchemy that de Payens had extracted from Solomon’s scrolls.
  A mystical diagram of Solomon's 
  Temple, incorporating the shape 
  of the Templar Cross. (Bridgeman 
  Art Library)
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  22
  The Templar State
  As de Payens read more of Solomon’s library, he conceived the plan of 
  establishing a new Jerusalem, not in its current form as a European-style feudal 
  state, but as it had been in Solomon’s time. The Templar Grand Masters, 
  wielding Solomon’s wisdom and magical power, would rule as priest-kings. 
  Being celibate and owing their oﬃce to election rather than inheritance, 
  the Templar state would be immune to the dynastic squabbles that plagued 
  Europe and the Crusader states.
  The Templar Creed
  Inspired by the writings he studied and the religious ideas he found in the 
  Holy Land, Hugues de Payens developed a Templar creed that fused Judaism, 
  Christianity, and Islam along Cathar lines. Claiming descent from Solomon 
  and bolstered by eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life that the Church had 
  suppressed, this Templar religion could unite all the peoples of Europe and 
  Asia and bring lasting peace to the Middle East.
  De Payens knew that the Templar creed could not coexist with the Church of 
  Rome, since the pope claimed supreme power in all religious matters. For the time 
  being, the Templar Creed had to be kept secret, restricted to those who had passed 
  the highest degree of initiation. The vast majority of Templars knew only that 
  they were in a military order under a monastic rule, and that their commanders 
  possessed some secret knowledge to which they themselves might aspire.
  Hattin
  The plan all but collapsed in the aftermath of the Battle of Hattin in 1187.  
  The Templar Grand Master, Gerard de Ridefort, was overconﬁdent and pushed 
  for an attack; however the Crusader forces found themselves surrounded and 
  hampered by choking smoke. Unable to see and hardly able to breathe, the 
  Crusaders broke up into small, disoriented groups that were easy for Saladin’s 
  forces to overcome.
  As soon as the news of Hattin broke, the Templars in Jerusalem moved 
  the treasure to Acre. Left almost defenseless, Jerusalem fell. After the Third 
  and Fourth crusades failed to retake the city, the Templars accepted that 
  they might have to create their Jerusalem elsewhere and began work on a 
  contingency plan.
  The Cathars and the Troubadours
  De Ridefort’s successor as Grand Master, Robert de Sablé, purchased 
  Cyprus from Richard I of England, but quickly realized that the island was 
  ungovernable. He charged his successor, Gilbert Horal, with preparing the 
  ground in the Cathar south of France. Horal made contact with Cathar 
  leaders and found their beliefs to be very compatible with the Templar creed 
  as formulated by Hugues de Payens.
  (OVERLEAF) A classic depiction of 
  the Knights Templar as guardians 
  of the sacred cup. Fouchet 
  believed that the image of the 
  Holy Grail was a symbol for a 
  deeper secret.
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  23
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  24
  Horal also developed the growing troubadour tradition, where the  
  Holy Grail had just begun to emerge as an allegorical symbol for religious 
  truth. By establishing the image of Templar-like knights as the guardians of 
  the Grail, he hoped to smooth the way toward the establishment of a Templar 
  state in the Cathar lands.
  Within the Order’s highest ranks, the Holy Grail became a symbol and 
  a codeword, both for the treasure of Solomon and for the whole Templar 
  enterprise. A series of Grail hoaxes was concocted to cover the Order’s tracks. 
  Ornate cups of a suitable age were discreetly distributed to several churches 
  and cathedrals, and poets across Europe were encouraged to create more 
  imaginative and contradictory Grail romances.
  Initially the project progressed well, but the growth of the Cathar movement 
  caused alarm in both Paris and the Vatican. By 1229 the Albigensian Crusade 
  had all but destroyed the Cathars and the kings of France ruled in place of 
  the counts of Toulouse. Although the Order was able to give refuge to large 
  numbers of fugitive Cathars, the eyes of the king and the pope were watching 
  the south too closely for any Templar plan to advance there.
  Acre
  The Templars fought to maintain their foothold in the east, but over the next 
  century the Crusader kingdoms were steadily overcome. By 1291 only Acre 
  remained, and it fell in a desperate siege.
  Just as the Albigensian Crusade had thwarted Templar ambitions  
  in Provence, the loss of Acre ended their hopes of regaining Jerusalem.  
  The Templars were in disarray after the losses of the siege, and Beaujeu’s 
  successor Thibaud Gaudin died the following year, leaving Jacques de Molay 
  with the task of rebuilding the Order.
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  25
  Downfall
  Philip le Bel
  Like most European kings of his time, Phillippe IV of France (known as Philip 
  “le Bel”, or “handsome”) was in constant and desperate need of money. When 
  he ascended the throne of France 
  in 1285 he inherited the debts 
  of his father’s war with Aragon. 
  In 1293 he tried to trick Edward 
  I of England into relinquishing 
  Aquitaine, but this only led to 
  another expensive war with 
  England and its Flemish allies.
  Matters reached a crisis in 
  1306. Philip turned ﬁrst to the 
  Jews, expelling them from France 
  and seizing their property in an 
  act known as the Great Exile. 
  He then called in all the loans 
  they had made to his Christian 
  subjects. When this measure did 
  not reﬁll his coﬀers suﬃciently, 
  Philip repeated the exercise 
  with the Lombard bankers in 
  France. In addition, he debased 
  the coinage so recklessly that 
  his coins lost two-thirds of their 
  face value.
  The resulting ﬁnancial crisis 
  led to rioting, and Philip was 
  forced to take refuge from  
  the mob in the Paris Temple.  
  It was there that he saw the great 
  wealth of the Knights Templar. 
  But Philip could not attack the 
  Templars without ﬁrst securing 
  the co-operation of the pope.
  Colonna forces capture Pope 
  Boniface VIII, perhaps at the 
  behest of Philip IV. Boniface died 
  within a month. (INTERFOTO / 
  Alamy)
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  26
  The Problem of the Pope
  Philip’s relations with the papacy were less than cordial. After levying taxes on 
  the previously inviolate abbots and clergy, Philip had made an enemy of Pope 
  Boniface VIII. By 1303, Philip had denounced the pope before the French 
  clergy as a criminal heretic and Boniface had excommunicated him.
  Later that year an army led by members of the powerful Italian Colonna 
  family – and accompanied by Philip’s chief minister Guillaume de Nogaret 
  – surprised Boniface at his retreat at Agnani outside Rome. Despite being 
  threatened and badly beaten, Boniface refused to resign. He died within a 
  month, allegedly of kidney-stones.
  Boniface was succeeded by Benedict XI, who lifted Philip’s excommunication 
  but excommunicated Nogaret and all the Italians who had attacked Boniface 
  at Agnani. Benedict died suddenly before completing a year in oﬃce. Nogaret 
  was suspected of poisoning him, but no proof was ever found.
  Philip decided to make his own pope, Raymond de Goth, the archbishop 
  of Bordeaux. His election was no easy matter; he was an archbishop, not a 
  cardinal, and he was French rather than Italian. The conclave was deadlocked 
  for almost a year before he was elected on June 5, 1305, becoming Pope 
  Clement V.
  Rome was lawless and full of anti-French sentiment at the time, so 
  Clement established his court at Poitiers. The count of Poitiers was the king’s 
  second son and eventual successor, Philip 
  the Tall. Perhaps Clement felt he needed 
  the protection of the French royal house, 
  or perhaps Philip decided to keep his new 
  pope on a short leash. Clement undid all 
  of Boniface’s measures and seemed ready to 
  oblige Philip in every way.
  Fouchet notes two details that many 
  historians fail to mention. First, before taking 
  the throne of France, Philip had become 
  count of Champagne through his marriage 
  to Joan of Navarre. Second, his minister 
  Nogaret was the son of a condemned Cathar 
  from Toulouse.
  The Templars, a count of Champagne, 
  and the son of a Cathar, could this be mere 
  coincidence? Fouchet thought not. He 
  believed that Philip – or more likely, the 
  brilliant schemer Nogaret – found something 
  in the ducal papers of Champagne that shed 
  light on the “Troyes cabal” and the Templar 
  secret of the “true Grail.”
  The Templar fortress in Paris 
  became the Order's headquarters 
  after the fall of Acre in 1291. (TPM 
  Photostock / Alamy)
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  27
  Fouchet was convinced that lust for 
  the Templars’ fabled wealth was not 
  Philip’s only motivation to take action 
  against the Order, but he was unable to 
  ﬁnd any evidence for his theory. Before 
  his fatal visit to Troyes, Fouchet spent 
  several fruitless weeks in the National 
  Archives in Paris. His notes reﬂect a 
  growing conviction that key documents 
  from the reign of Philip le Bel had been 
  hidden or tampered with.
  Preparations
  With a co-operative pope, Philip found 
  an excuse to attack the Templars in the 
  accusations of one Squin de Flexian, 
  who had been expelled from the Order 
  for heresy and other oﬀenses.
  Flexian was imprisoned with a 
  Florentine named Noﬀo Dei – who 
  by some accounts was also a former 
  Templar – and the two bargained for 
  their freedom by oﬀering to testify 
  against the Order. To add further 
  weight to their accusations, it was stated 
  that Cardinal Cantilupo, Pope Clement’s chamberlain, had been an associate 
  of the Templars since the age of 11, and had confessed some of their doings 
  to his master.
  Shortly after he became Pope, Clement invited the Grand Masters of the 
  Templars and the Hospitallers to a meeting. Its stated purpose was to discuss 
  possible measures against the expanding Ottoman Empire, but the Templars 
  and the Hospitallers had a long-standing rivalry which Clement longed to 
  resolve. As the theoretical head of these two formidable ﬁghting forces he 
  could only proﬁt from their unity – perhaps even becoming strong enough to 
  throw oﬀ Philip’s domination.
  The Hospitaller Grand Master Guillaume de Villaret was occupied ﬁghting 
  the Saracens in Rhodes, but his Templar counterpart Jacques de Molay sailed 
  for France.
  De Molay reached Paris in early 1307. Philip received him cordially, making 
  him godfather to one of his sons and inviting him to act as a pall-bearer at 
  the state funeral of the king’s sister-in-law. In Poitiers, de Molay and Clement 
  discussed a possible new crusade and de Molay stated his opposition to Clement’s 
  plan to merge the Templars and the Hospitallers into a single order.
  A later image of Jacques de Molay.
  (Mary Evans Picture Library / 
  Alamy)
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  28
  Clouds Gather
  Returning to Paris, de Molay heard that rumors were circulating about the 
  Templars and their activities. He went back to Poitiers in about April with the 
  preceptors of Outremer, Aquitaine, and France. After discussing the charges 
  that had surfaced against the Order with the pope, it is said that de Molay and 
  his companions returned to Paris in good heart.
  Friday the 13th
  At dawn on Friday, October 13, 1307, the king’s seneschals throughout 
  France opened sealed orders commanding them to arrest all Templars in their 
  jurisdiction and take control of Templar properties and goods. The operation 
  was carried out with startling speed and eﬃciency.
  Fouchet particularly impressed that there is no record of any Templars 
  anywhere in France resisting the king’s oﬃcers. The Order could probably 
  have mustered an army strong enough to make the king think twice, but they 
  surrendered as peacefully as if they had been ordered to do so.
  The Treasure
  Fouchet suggests that Philip did not achieve the total surprise he needed. 
  Although Clement had apparently tried to reassure him, de Molay was not so 
  naive as to think the Order was safe. De Molay could not prevent the arrest 
  of hundreds of Templars and the seizure of considerable property, but he did 
  what he could to protect the Templars and their secret. Books were recalled 
  and destroyed, and a letter to all French preceptories stressed that no outsiders 
  should be given any information about Templar customs and rituals.
  The Order’s treasurer, Hugues de Peraud, and the preceptor of France, 
  Gerard de Villers, were not captured until a few days after the raids.  
  The deposition of one Jean de Chalons states that he saw de Villers and  
  50 horsemen leave the Temple accompanying three carts that carried chests 
  hidden under straw. Other reports state that “a great treasure” was moved by 
  road to the Order’s naval base at La Rochelle, and loaded on to 18 galleys that 
  sailed oﬀ and were never heard of again.
  Fouchet believed that the “true Grail” was among the treasure smuggled 
  out of Paris and loaded aboard the lost Templar ﬂeet. Although there is no 
  detailed report of what Clement said to de Molay and his preceptors, Fouchet 
  thought it possible that the pope tried to bargain with the Templars, oﬀering 
  protection in exchange for the secret treasure.
  If so, he failed. The “true Grail” was moved out of his reach, the Templars 
  were arrested, and in the years that followed Clement was barely able to 
  protect himself from the king.
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  29
  Examination and Trial
  The examination of the captured Templars began within two days of the 
  arrests. Some died under torture without admitting any wrongdoing. Others 
  gave confessions that they later recanted, even though doing so meant death 
  at the stake.
  The Charges
  The initial interrogations were based on the charges that had been made 
  against the Order by Squin de Flexian. As torture wrung stranger and stranger 
  confessions from the captured Templars, the investigation broadened.
  Fouchet makes some interesting observations about the charges.
  1. Upon joining the Order, each Templar swore never to leave the order, and to 
  further its interests by right or wrong.
   The last part of this charge could be taken by the Order’s enemies as proof 
  of criminal intent, or at least of disregard for the law. Alternatively, it could 
  be a malicious interpretation of an oath to further the Order’s interests 
  by any means in their power. In any case, Pope Innocent’s bull of 1139  
  had speciﬁcally placed the Order above the laws of the countries in which 
  it operated.
  2. The heads of the Order are in a secret alliance with the Saracens and are 
  sympathetic to Islam. They make every novice spit and trample upon the Cross, 
  and commit other blasphemies.
   This is the main charge of heresy against the Templars. It is examined in 
  more detail in a later chapter.
  3. Novices who try to leave the Order are secretly killed. The Templars resort to 
  A 19th-century print showing the 
  interrogation of Jacques de Molay. 
  (PD-US)
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  30
  abortion and infanticide when women become pregnant by them.
   The second part of this charge was also leveled against priests and abbots at 
  various times throughout the Middle Ages and the Reformation. Like the 
  Templars, they were required to be celibate, and any accidental pregnancies 
  had to be covered up.
  4. They pretend to be good Christians but secretly deny the authority of the Church 
  and the pope; they scorn the sacraments, especially confession and penance.
   Similar charges had been made against the Cathars during the Albigensian 
  Crusade.
  5. Leading Templars are guilty of excessive debauchery, and imprison members 
  who express repugnance at their excesses.
   This is a fairly standard subsidiary charge against heretics of all kinds, 
  going back at least to the Bogomil heresy of the 10th century. It has been 
  claimed that the English word “bugger” originated as a corruption either 
  of “Bogomil” or of “Bulgar,” from the Bogomils’ original homeland.
  6. Their preceptories are sinks of every imaginable crime and vice. 
  This vague statement merely reiterates parts of other charges.
  7. The Order favors the Saracens and works to place them in control of the Holy 
  Land.
   The Holy Land was already in Muslim hands when these charges were 
  made, and the Templars had been among its most determined defenders. 
  ISLAMIC SCIENCE
  Mystical knowledge aside, it is certain that the Templars 
  went further than many of their contemporaries in 
  embracing the wealth of scientiﬁc and other knowledge 
  they found in the Muslim world – knowledge that the 
  Church regarded both as a threat to its self-proclaimed 
  monopoly on education and as suspect on account of 
  its inﬁdel source.
  At the time of the Crusades, the Islamic world was 
  far in advance of Christendom in the arts and sciences. 
  To take one example, the concept of the number zero 
  came from the Muslim world, and the Arabic system 
  of numerals replaced the Roman system in Europe and 
  remains in use today. Following Arthur C. Clarke’s 
  maxim that any suﬃciently advanced technology is 
  indistinguishable from magic, many in Europe regarded 
  the Islamic world – and the knowledge that came from 
  it – as dangerous and possibly diabolical.
  It has been suggested that the Templars – or “free masons” 
  under Templar protection – brought back advanced 
  ideas about architecture that resulted in the development 
  of the Gothic style of Europe’s great cathedrals. The 
  Order’s inﬁrmaries employed standards of cleanliness 
  and hygiene that were very advanced for the day, and 
  its surgeons demonstrated knowledge of medicines and 
  drugs – including a tantalizing reference to mold, which 
  makes one wonder if they had stumbled upon penicillin 
  or something similar. More controversially, they regarded 
  epilepsy as a treatable physical condition rather than a 
  sign of demonic possession.
  In his notes, Fouchet compares the Templars’ 
  openness to Islamic and Jewish science to the social and 
  religious revolution that accompanied the European 
  Enlightenment three centuries after the Order’s downfall. 
  In his opinion, the Templar State (see p.22) was modeled 
  on the ideals of enlightened despotism that would later 
  form a major strand of Enlightenment thinking.
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  31
  However, charges of pro-Muslim leanings continued 
  to be made alongside charges of heresy.
  8. The Master of the Order is installed in secret, and it is 
  suspected that he repudiates Christianity as part of the 
  ceremony.
   Outsiders were barred from attending most Templar 
  ceremonies, giving rise to all kinds of speculations 
  about what these ceremonies involved.
  9. Many of the Order’s rules are unlawful and contrary 
  to Christianity. Therefore the members are forbidden to 
  reveal them to anyone, on pain of lifelong imprisonment.
   Again, the Templars’ secrecy is equated with having 
  something to hide. If Philip knew what the secret was, 
  he must have had a good reason to want it kept from 
  the public record.
  10. No vice or crime committed for the good of the Order is held to be a sin.
  This is simply a reiteration of the ﬁrst charge.
  Fouchet summarizes the charges against the Templars under ﬁve headings:
  ��  They ignored the laws of the land and the laws of the Church when 
  these were contrary to the Order’s interests.
  ��  They ﬂouted the authority of the Church and may have rejected 
  Christianity entirely.
  ��  They were secret Muslim sympathizers.
  ��  They operated in secret and took drastic action against any members 
  who threatened to break that secrecy.
  ��  They were prone to all kinds of moral vices and excesses.
  Fouchet found it signiﬁcant that the initial charges do not include any of 
  witchcraft. Henry Cornelius Agrippa discussed the Templars in his De Occulta 
  Philosophia of 1531, hinting that black magic formed a part of the Templar 
  heresy, and since then the legend of Templar magic has grown considerably. 
  To Fouchet, this omission suggested that the king knew something of the 
  “true Grail” and did not want this knowledge to leak out.
  The Interrogations
  As the interrogation and torture continued, further details were added to the 
  initial charges and new charges emerged. There were lurid accounts of obscene 
  practices and homosexuality, just as there were – and would continue to be – 
  in other cases involving heresy, witchcraft, and interrogation by torture.
  Some Templars admitted to trampling and spitting upon the cross and 
  worshiping a human head called Baphomet. Their interrogators questioned 
  other Templars about Baphomet with varying results. Some agreed that it 
  was a human head, but others said it took the form of a cat, or of a statue 
  A 14th-century image of Templars 
  being burned, from the British 
  National Library. (PD-US)
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  32
  of demonic aspect. The Church authorities 
  concluded that Baphomet, being clearly 
  a demon, could take many forms. As to 
  the name, it was generally agreed to be a 
  corruption of Mahomet, strengthening the 
  charge of Muslim sympathies.
  Clement and Avignon
  Pope Clement apparently became uneasy as 
  the interrogations proceeded. Philip wrote 
  him a sharp letter reminding him that this 
  was God’s work and he, the king, would 
  answer to God alone. Clement responded 
  by demanding that the inquisitions of each 
  bishop should be conﬁrmed by a provincial 
  council, and that Clement himself would 
  interrogate the Order’s masters personally.
  This measure resulted in a spate of 
  confessions and retractions, alongside 
  allegations that the heads of the Order 
  had confessed freely and spontaneously to 
  Clement himself. At this point, for reasons 
  that remain unclear, Clement decided to 
  quit Poitiers. He headed for Bordeaux, but 
  was stopped by the king’s forces and forced to return.
  However, Clement was not ﬁnished trying to thwart the king. In August 
  of 1308 he issued what amounted to a blanket pardon for all charges of heresy 
  that had been leveled against the Templars.
  Barely six months later he left Poitiers again, this time for Avignon, an 
  independent papal territory where the king of France could not touch him. 
  He spent the rest of his reign there.
  In 1311 Clement summoned the Council of Vienne, which formally 
  refused to convict the Templars of heresy. Even so, Clement oﬃcially 
  abolished the Order in March 1312. Templar lands and estates in France were 
  granted to the Hospitallers, although the king continued to hold them; he 
  also appropriated all the assets of Templar banking operations in France.
  Fouchet was intrigued by Clement’s maneuverings during this period.  
  If he warned de Molay about Philip’s plan, perhaps he hoped to save the 
  Templars. If they all died, the “true Grail” would be lost to him, but if he 
  saved them he might yet lay his hands on it and gain the military strength he 
  needed to stand up to the king of France.
  Most signiﬁcant to Fouchet was Clement’s demand that he alone would 
  interrogate the Order’s masters. Clement seems to have realized that only 
  Accusations that Templars spat 
  and trampled upon the cross may 
  be based on a misunderstanding 
  of the Templar creed. (Mary Evans 
  Picture Library / Alamy)
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  33
  they knew the secret of the “true Grail,” and this was information that he 
  desperately wanted to keep out of the king’s hands.
  When events spiraled out of his control, Clement apparently tried to ﬂee 
  France. He pardoned the Templars for heresy, which was the most convincing 
  of the charges against them. Although this pardon was somehow lost or 
  suppressed for almost 700 years, the Council of Vienne stated clearly that the 
  Templars were not heretics.
  Was Clement paving the way for some scheme to rehabilitate the Templars? 
  Although he had not been able to prevent the arrests and interrogations, 
  perhaps he still hoped to save them. At this point in his narrative, Fouchet 
  introduces some facts about Raymond de Goth that shed an interesting light 
  on his actions as Pope Clement V. While admitting that the evidence is all 
  circumstantial, Fouchet believed that Clement knew about Templar–Cathar 
  links, and may have known the truth about the “true Grail.”
  Raymond had spent much of his ecclesiastical career in Cathar country.  
  He had been the bishop of Saint-Bertrand-des-Comminges, and greatly enlarged 
  its cathedral. The town is of Roman origin. Herod Antipas – the New Testament’s 
  King Herod – was exiled to Lugdunum Convenarum, as it was called then, by the 
  Emperor Caligula. Based on the Toulouse documents, Fouchet thought that some 
  document from Herod’s exile – perhaps found during Clement’s improvements – 
  touched upon the Temple and the treasure the Templars had found there.
  By the time Clement was safe in Avignon, though, it seems that the king 
  had already done too much damage. Clement was able to quash the heresy 
  charges, and his actions had bought enough time for the Order’s secrets, and 
  many of its key surviving members, to win their way to safety. By oﬃcially 
  dissolving the Order in 1312, he drew a veil of secrecy over what was to 
  follow. His death in 1314 thwarted whatever further plans he may have made.
  Outside France
  The monarchs of other European countries proved less amenable to Philip’s 
  demands for the extermination of all Templars.
  His son-in-law Edward II of England banned the Order after some 
  pressure, but allowed most English Templars to join other orders after light 
  penances. Scotland was excommunicated at the time, and Clement’s bull 
  dissolving the Templars was never promulgated there. The duke of Lorraine, 
  which was independent of France, exonerated the Templars, and their local 
  preceptor advised them to shave their distinctive beards and melt into the 
  local population.
  The Templars of the German states threatened to take up arms against 
  France and the pope. Their judges, perhaps intimidated, found them 
  innocent of all charges. After the Order was dissolved, most Templars joined 
  the Hospitallers or the Teutonic Knights. In Portugal the Templars simply 
  changed their name to the Knights of Christ.
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  34
  De Molay’s Curse
  Jacques de Molay was sentenced to life imprisonment. 
  When he and another senior Templar were paraded 
  in public to have their sentence announced, they 
  continued to protest their innocence. This so 
  enraged Philip that he had de Molay burned at the 
  stake on March 18, 1314 along with Geoﬀroi de 
  Charney, the preceptor of Normandy.
  It is claimed that Jacques de Molay spoke to 
  Philip from the stake, summoning both the king 
  and Pope Clement to meet him before God’s 
  throne of judgment. The oﬃcial record states that 
  his last words were “God knows who is wrong and 
  who has sinned. Soon a calamity will take those 
  who have condemned us to death.” Clement and 
  Philip both died within the year, and just 14 years 
  after de Molay’s execution the male line of Philip’s 
  Capetian dynasty had completely died out.
  There has been much speculation about a “Templar curse” that destroyed 
  Philip’s line, but Fouchet regarded simple murder carried out by Templar 
  agents as more probable.
  The Accursed Pope
  Clement died of sudden dysentery just 33 days after de Molay. The church 
  where his body lay in state was struck by lightning, starting a ﬁre that destroyed 
  his body.
  While dysentery was not uncommon in the 14th century, the suddenness 
  and speed of Clement’s death – and the timing – are provocative. Fouchet’s 
  notes indicate that he thought Clement was poisoned.
  He explained the lightning strike by pointing out that medieval churches 
  were usually taller than any surrounding building, making them more prone 
  to lightning than their neighbors. The ﬁre may have been set deliberately 
  under cover of the storm, or it may have been entirely coincidental.
  A Templar cross on the floor of 
  a chapel in Portugal, where the 
  Order changed its name to the 
  Knights of Christ. (John Ferro Sims 
  / Alamy)
  THE CHINON PARCHMENT
  In 2001 a parchment was discovered in the Vatican 
  archives. It had apparently been misﬁled in 1628. 
  Dated August 17–20, 1308, the parchment bore the 
  names of several cardinals who had interrogated Jacques 
  de Molay and other high-ranking Templars on behalf of 
  Pope Clement.
  As well as recording the testimony of these Templars, 
  the parchment apparently absolves them of heresy. 
  Possibly this document was Clement’s attempt to 
  rescue the Order from Philip’s persecution, but it seems 
  that the king was not to be denied.
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  36
  The Last Capets
  Philip le Bel died eight months after de Molay’s execution, having suﬀered an 
  accident – or according to some accounts, a stroke or seizure – while hunting. 
  He was 29 years old and had been in good health all his life.
  Philip’s successor Louis X drank a quantity of cooled wine after a vigorous 
  tennis game and died shortly after – from pleurisy or pneumonia, it is said, 
  although poison was also suspected. His son John I, born ﬁve months later, 
  lived for only ﬁve days.
  Louis’ brother Philip V reigned for ﬁve years but died of “multiple 
  illnesses” after his rule was destabilized by popular hysteria following a rumor 
  that foreign Muslims had employed French Jews to use lepers to poison the 
  wells of major French cities. His only son, also called Philip, died in infancy.
  Charles IV, the youngest 
  son of Philip le Bel, reigned 
  for another six years but 
  also left no male heir. The 
  French throne passed to 
  the House of Valois, a 
  minor branch of the Capet 
  family, but a claim from 
  Edward III of England 
  led to the Hundred Years’ 
  War. This conﬂict actually 
  lasted 
  for 
  116 
  years, 
  almost bankrupting both 
  kingdoms and achieving no 
  lasting result.
  Jacques de Molay curses the King 
  and Pope from the stake in this 
  evocative 19th-century image. 
  (Mary Evans Picture Library / 
  Alamy)
  (PREVIOUS PAGE)Jacques de 
  Molay was burned at the stake 
  on March 18, 1314.  It is said that 
  on that day, de Molay laid a curse 
  on both King Philip and Pope 
  Celement that would eventually 
  lead to their deaths.
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  37
  The Templar Creed
  Fouchet believed that many of the heresy and witchcraft charges leveled 
  against the Templars can be explained by the existence of what he calls a 
  “Templar Creed” which blended Catharism with Gnostic and Johannite 
  thinking and dismissed many of the core teachings of the Catholic Church. 
  Inspired by religious texts brought back from the Holy Land, the Templar 
  Creed also incorporated mystical ideas from Jewish and Islamic tradition that 
  the Templars encountered during their time there.
  It was the Templars’ intention, Fouchet claimed, to bridge the divides 
  between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam and create a new kingdom of 
  Jerusalem ruled by philosopher-kings in the mold of Solomon himself. 
  In the eyes of the Church, this made them the most dangerous kind of heretics.
  Pope Clement abruptly dropped all charges of heresy 
  against the Order. Based on the collected testimony 
  – including some that was not given under torture – 
  heresy is about the only one of the charges that could 
  have been proved, which struck Fouchet as curious.
  He speculated that the pope dropped the charges 
  precisely because they were true. To go forward with 
  trials against senior Templars would have brought 
  information about the Templar Creed into the open. 
  Fouchet believed that Clement quashed all further 
  investigations into the heresy charges in order to cover 
  up its existence.
  According to Fouchet, Clement feared that the 
  Catholic Church would be unable to compete against 
  such a rational and well-reasoned heresy. Having 
  destroyed the Cathars, the Church of Rome desperately 
  needed to consolidate its hold on European religion. By 
  drawing attention to the Templar Creed by proceeding 
  with heresy trials, Clement might have unwillingly 
  created a powerful competitor for the Catholic Church. 
  Backed by the prestige of the Templars, such a religion 
  would have been very attractive to any king or lord who 
  had a political or ﬁnancial dispute with a local bishop or 
  abbot and wanted to assert his independence from Rome.
  A fragment of the Gospel of 
  Thomas from the Nag Hammadi 
  library. In the Middle East the 
  Templars encountered a great 
  deal of religious thought that 
  had been suppressed in Catholic 
  Europe. (www.BibleLandPictures.
  com / Alamy)
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  38
  Heresy
  According to the common image of the Middle Ages, to 
  be from western Europe was to be Roman Catholic – or to 
  be burned for heresy. But the Church of Rome was simply 
  the most aggressive of several Christian sects in Europe 
  at the time, some of which commanded almost as many 
  followers. It was not until the destruction of the Cathars in 
  the 13th century that the papacy could begin to feel secure 
  in its religious domination of Europe.
  Witchcraft and heresy were inseparable in the medieval 
  mind. Therefore if the Templars were indeed heretics,  
  it was natural that they should also practice witchcraft.
  The East
  The Middle East of the 12th century was a hotbed of beliefs that the Catholic 
  Church regarded as heretical. The Orthodox Church, based in Byzantium 
  (now Istanbul), was the largest and held sway over most native Christian 
  communities. In addition there were Gnostics, Manicheans, Mandaeans, 
  and other groups – some with magical as well as theological traditions – and 
  multiple Jewish and Muslim sects. Most of these groups had their own mystical 
  traditions, and many historians believe that the alleged Templar heresy was at 
  least partly inﬂuenced by the Order’s encounters with groups such as these.
  The Cathars
  Several of the charges made against the Templars in 1307 had also been made 
  against the Cathars a century earlier.
  Several prominent Templars – including Bertrand de Blanchefort, the 
  Order’s fourth Grand Master – came from former Cathar families, and 
  Fouchet believed that some brand of Catharism survived within the Order, 
  concealed by the notorious secrecy of its rituals.
  The Order’s policy of neutrality during the Albigensian Crusade must also 
  have given the Church cause for concern. It was unusual, to say the least, for 
  a dedicated crusading order to take no part in an oﬃcially sanctioned crusade, 
  and there were rumors that the Templars had secretly rendered assistance and 
  safe passage to fugitive Cathars.
  The Troubadours
  The troubadours are generally regarded today as simple wandering minstrels, 
  but in the years that followed the Albigensian Crusade they were far more 
  than that. They were, it can be argued, a traveling propaganda machine 
  keeping Cathar doctrine alive through complex allegories in their tales.  
  They were also responsible for developing and spreading the Grail romances 
  across Western Europe.
  The severed head worshiped by 
  the Templars may be a symbol 
  of John the Baptist. Painting by 
  Caravaggio (PD-US)
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  39
  Many early troubadours were noblemen and wore the title “troubadour” 
  proudly, composing songs and poems that mixed neo-Platonic and Cathar 
  philosophy, Grail romances, satire against the Church of Rome, and themes 
  from classical literature.
  Here Fouchet found yet more links to Troyes and the court of Champagne. 
  Chrétien de Troyes was a leading author of Grail romances, and as his 
  name suggests he was born and raised in the capital of Champagne. Count 
  Theobald IV, who ruled Champagne at the time of the Albigensian Crusade, 
  was nicknamed “the Troubadour” and a number of his works have survived. 
  He also went to the Holy Land and negotiated a treaty that returned the city 
  of Jerusalem – along with Bethlehem, Nazareth, and other territories – to the 
  kings of Jerusalem.
  Fouchet’s notes indicate that he thought of the troubadours as one arm 
  of a secret society dedicated to keeping Cathar traditions alive and restoring 
  the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem. He believed that Count Theobald’s main 
  involvement was in the second mission, and that he merely dabbled in troubadour 
  poetry. More is said about the kingdom of Jerusalem in a later chapter.
  THE HERESIES
  The most relevant heresies to the case of the Templars 
  are described here brieﬂy. Naturally, the entire teachings 
  of each group were a good deal more complex.
  GNOSTICISM: One of the earliest forms of 
  Christianity, Gnosticism maintained that the individual 
  could come to be one with God through a spiritual 
  experience, without the need for churches and priests 
  as intermediaries. This invalidated the sacraments 
  of communion and absolution which the Church of 
  Rome regarded as its most powerful mysteries.
  MANDAEISM: This Mesopotamian sect, also known 
  as the Johannites, venerates John the Baptist more 
  highly than it does Jesus. The sect lives on into the 
  present day, mostly in Iraq.
  ARIANISM: Said to have come from Egypt in the 3rd 
  century, Arianism opposed the concept of the Holy 
  Trinity. Jesus and God were not the same, it claimed, thus 
  calling Jesus’ divinity into question. Arianism was the 
  predominant Christian sect in Western Europe until the 
  6th century: among its adherents were the Merovingian 
  kings of France. The Carolingians who supplanted them 
  were aligned with the Church of Rome.
  MANICHAEISM: Attributed to a 3rd-century Persian 
  prophet but having far older roots, Manichaeism 
  proposed that good and evil were of equal power. 
  The material world was evil (“lord of this world” 
  becoming one of the titles of Satan), and the spiritual 
  world was good. Such dualism was common among 
  early Christian heresies, and it called into question 
  the Catholic position that God is all-powerful and his 
  priests can redeem all things.
  CATHARISM: A Gnostic-dualist sect, the Cathars 
  became widespread throughout the Languedoc (today’s 
  southern France) and adjoining areas of Spain and 
  Italy in the 12th century. Their beliefs also spread 
  into northern France and Germany. The main charges 
  against the Cathars were: they denied the Eucharist 
  (the transubstantiation of the communion wafer into 
  the literal body of Christ); they believed that water, 
  being material and therefore spiritually impure, 
  could not purify anything (making the sacrament of 
  baptism useless); they did not believe that priests had 
  the authority to absolve sins; and they opposed the 
  veneration of the cross.
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  40
  The Charges
  Many of the charges leveled against the Templars can be explained in terms of 
  religious rituals that the Church of Rome regarded as heretical. Examining the 
  charges one by one, Fouchet makes a powerful argument for the existence of 
  a Templar Creed which united many heresies into a new, non-Catholic form 
  of Christianity.
  The Cross
  One can only imagine the horror with which Catholic Europe viewed the 
  charge that Templar rituals involved trampling and spitting upon the cross. 
  Such a practice would indeed be contrary to everything that the Church of 
  Rome stood for, but it is not incompatible with the beliefs of other groups, 
  arguably no less Christian, which might have inﬂuenced Templar thinking.
  The Mandaeans dismissed Jesus altogether as a religious ﬁgure, believing 
  that John the Baptist was the Messiah for whom the Jewish race had been 
  waiting. Thus, according to some scholars, they would regard the cross as 
  irrelevant at best, and at worst as the symbol of a false prophet. Deﬁling the 
  cross might be a symbolic act demonstrating attachment to Mandaean beliefs.
  The Council of Vienne in 1311 
  formally absolved the Templars 
  of heresy, which was the most 
  credible of the charges against 
  them. (Classic Image / Alamy)
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  41
  Also interesting is the widespread belief among the Arians, the Gnostics, 
  and the Cathars that Jesus was entirely mortal. According to some accounts he 
  died on the cross and there was no resurrection; according to others (including 
  the Nag Hammadi scrolls) a lookalike named Simon of Cyrene was cruciﬁed 
  instead and the resurrection was a hoax. While it is true that many Gnostic 
  and other sects regarded the cruciﬁxion – and the cross itself – as irrelevant, 
  would any of them entertain the kind of sustained hostility toward it that 
  the Templars allegedly displayed? It seems unlikely, and the only evidence for 
  such rituals comes from the Catholic Church itself, in accusations against the 
  Templars and other alleged heretics.
  However, hatred of the cross is not the only possible interpretation of this 
  ritual, if it ever occurred. The cross is, of course, the instrument of Jesus’ 
  execution as well as the symbol of his sacriﬁce. It is possible that by deﬁling 
  the cross the Templars symbolized their resolve to undo the cruciﬁxion and 
  establish an earthly kingdom of God in the newly Christian Jerusalem.
  Some Gnostic and neo-Platonic writings hint that a ritual of standing upon 
  the cross was a form of mystical initiation, symbolizing a spiritual ascent from 
  the material world and into a higher realm of spirit. Many of the documents 
  regarding the Templar trials mention secrecy and secret rituals, and Fouchet 
  points out that mystical initiations are used by many groups including the 
  Freemasons and the Assassins.
  There are two main reasons why levels of initiation might have been a part 
  of the Templar Creed: one mystical and one practical.
  The Templar Creed was based on beliefs and documents that had been 
  suppressed by the Church of Rome for centuries. Some of its precepts would 
  have been extremely disturbing to a medieval individual who had been 
  raised on Catholic teachings. The initiate’s mind needed to be prepared – or 
  indoctrinated – so that it was ready to receive the new knowledge. The initiate 
  had to be taught to think for himself and to question things that the Church 
  insisted must be taken on faith. Knowledge was passed on only when the 
  initiate’s superiors thought he was ready. In addition to being psychologically 
  prepared to receive the forbidden teachings, the initiate also had to prove 
  himself to his superiors. The secrets of the Templar Creed were only passed 
  on to those who had proved themselves loyal and trustworthy. Anyone who 
  leaked the truth to Church authorities – as Squin de Flexian was to do – would 
  place the Order, the Creed, and the whole Templar cause in terrible danger. 
  The Order could not risk outright conﬂict with Rome until it was securely in 
  command of its own state and could defend itself from a full-scale crusade. 
  If the Templars used a system of mystical initiation as Fouchet suggests, then 
  the majority of the Order would have known little or nothing of the Templar 
  Creed. Those who had proved their loyalty and open-mindedness would have 
  been promoted to higher positions, and with each promotion they would 
  receive more information.
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  42
  Baphomet
  Much has been made, down the centuries, of the name of Baphomet. 
  According to the records of Templar trials, Baphomet was the name 
  of an idol of some kind that played a role in Templar rituals.
  Many commentators have rushed to treat Baphomet as a corruption 
  of Mohammed and conclude that the Templars were secret Muslims; 
  however, Islam is even more violently opposed to idolatry than most 
  Christian sects, so it seems impossible that the Templars would have 
  worshipped the Prophet of Islam in the form of an idol.
  There is an Arabic word, buﬁhamet or abuﬁhamet, which translates 
  as “Father (i.e. ‘Source’) of Wisdom/Understanding”). Fouchet ﬁnds 
  this to be a more likely derivation of Baphomet; it may even refer to 
  the severed head, especially if it was made to speak as part of the ritual.
  John the Baptist, it will be remembered, was beheaded by Herod 
  at the behest of the dancer Salome, and his severed head became 
  a sought-after relic over the following centuries. At least seven 
  institutions in Europe and the Middle East claim to have it among 
  their relics. If the Templars had absorbed Johannite ideas during their time in 
  the Middle East, then it is possible that their rituals included a relic or symbol 
  of the severed head.
  It is known that the Templars had some dealings with the Assassins. 
  Various sources claim that the founder of the Assassin sect, Hassan Sabah, 
  perpetrated an illusion that a severed head was lying on a dish on the ﬂoor of 
  his audience chamber, alive and able to speak. In fact, the head belonged to 
  one of his followers who was standing in a concealed pit. The two halves of 
  the plate were ﬁtted around his neck like a collar, and the liberal quantities 
  of blood disguised the joins. It is not inconceivable that the Templars used a 
  similar illusion as part of some initiation or indoctrination process.
  According to Fouchet the other reported form of Baphomet, a cat, may 
  be dismissed as the product of tortured imaginations desperate to satisfy their 
  interrogators. The cat familiar has been an indispensable accessory of witches since 
  the earliest times and to the medieval mind heresy and witchcraft were inseparable.
  A 19th-century image of 
  Freemasons worshiping the 
  Templars' Baphomet idol. Probably 
  Vatican-sponsored propaganda 
  to discredit both groups. (Mary 
  Evans Picture Library / Alamy)
  HALLUCINOGENS
  When asked to describe the idol Baphomet by their 
  interrogators, the captured Templars came up with a 
  wide range of answers. Some Templars, indeed, claimed 
  to have seen it shift form, perhaps in response to the 
  question of why descriptions of it varied so widely.
  A few historians have seized upon this isolated fact 
  as suggesting that the Templars used some kind of 
  hallucinogenic drugs in their rituals – drugs of whose 
  existence they may have learned from the Arab world, 
  and whose use by shamans across the world was not 
  commonly known in medieval Europe. Fouchet 
  comments drily that it is perhaps signiﬁcant that at 
  least one such historian was writing in the late 1960s.
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  43
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  44
  The Sacraments
  The Templars were accused of “scorning” the sacraments of the Catholic 
  Church, “especially confession and penance.” This accords with what is known 
  of Gnostic and Cathar beliefs, strengthening the suggestion that the Templars 
  had been inﬂuenced by such doctrines at some point in their history.
  Fouchet’s notes point out that it is also possible to interpret this charge 
  in a diﬀerent light. It is known that the Templars showed no reluctance to 
  recruit members who had been excommunicated by the Church; some writers 
  have gone so far as to suggest that this was a deliberate policy, at least in some 
  times and places. Once inducted into the Order, these men were permitted 
  to receive penance and absolution from the Order’s chaplains, despite their 
  excommunicate status. It is quite possible that the charge refers to this practice; 
  by oﬀering them to those who had been excommunicated, the Templars made 
  a mockery of the sacraments in the Church’s eyes.
  However the Templars actually scorned the sacraments of Rome, it is certain 
  that they would have found many willing and potentially loyal recruits among 
  the excommunicate. Having renounced the Church by joining the Order, 
  these individuals would have been more open to receiving the teachings of the 
  Templar Creed than recruits who remained devout Catholics.
  Muslim Sympathies
  Based on the spurious Baphomet–Mohammed link, the Templars’ known 
  dealings with the Assassins, and other factors, it has been suggested that the 
  Templars were secret Muslims, or Muslim sympathizers, who had conspired 
  to place the Holy Land back in Muslim hands. There were some who blamed 
  the Order for the loss of the Holy Land after the disasters of the Second 
  Crusade, and not without reason. It was the Templar Grand Master Gerard 
  de Ridefort, by all accounts, who urged the disastrous attack at Hattin that 
  precipitated the almost complete collapse of the Crusader states.
  At the time of the Templar trials, almost any interest in eastern forms 
  of Christianity could be interpreted in Europe as a sympathy with Islam. 
  Although the question of Gnostic and other inﬂuences remains unresolved, 
  there is no persuasive evidence that the Order embraced Islam in any way.
  Other commentators have seized upon the Templar’s dealings with the 
  Assassins and their easy relationship with their Jewish and Muslim neighbors 
  in Outremer to suggest that they had become more familiar with Jews and 
  Muslims than was seemly for good Christians. Fouchet’s work points to a 
  deliberate plan to unite all the religions of the Middle East in a pan-Abrahamic 
  religion independent of both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
  (PREVIOUS PAGE) In modern 
  times, the name Baphomet has 
  become associated with an image 
  drawn by the French occultist 
  Eliphas Levi. The image contains 
  representations of both heaven 
  and hell and is both male and 
  female.
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  45
  The Grail’s Journey
  From the fall of Acre in 1291, the Grail was almost continually on the move. It 
  was initially kept in Templar-owned buildings in Jerusalem, and progressively 
  evacuated as the Crusader states fell. It was moved to Cyprus before the siege 
  of Acre, and de Molay worked to prepare a new generation of Templar leaders 
  to replace those who had died in the siege.
  De Molay planned an attack on Syria but failed to win a foothold in the 
  Holy Land. He turned back to Cyprus, but the Templars were caught up in 
  a local power struggle and the island remained as ungovernable as ever. De 
  Molay ordered the Grail moved to the Temple in Paris as he struggled to ﬁnd 
  a way forward for the Templar enterprise.
  Worse news came when Pope Clement warned de Molay about Philip IV’s 
  plans to attack the Order. He had the treasure moved to Scotland and was 
  arrested soon after it left.
  The magical texts, if they could be attributed to a biblical ﬁgure like 
  Solomon, challenged the Church line that miracles were reserved for God 
  and the saints, and all magic was therefore heretical.
  The philosophical and religious texts, which included many gospels 
  excluded from the Bible by earlier Church councils, oﬀered a diﬀerent point 
  of view that could be used by heretical groups like the Cathars to challenge 
  Church teachings.
  When the arrests and conﬁscations of 1307 failed to deliver Solomon’s library, 
  the Church made every eﬀort to track down and seize or suppress any document 
  that might be a part of it. In 1351, Pope Innocent VI ordered a grimoire called 
  The Book of Solomon to be seized and burned, and others followed. Especially 
  targeted was a work called The Key of Solomon whose origins can be traced back 
  to the Italian Renaissance.
  According to Fouchet, this work was another “false Grail” created by the 
  surviving Templars to cover the trail of Solomon’s library. It contained just 
  enough truth to convince Church authorities that it was genuine, and was 
  distributed widely across Europe to distract the Inquisitors from the Templars’ 
  real plans.
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  46
  Scotland
  The Order had deep roots in Scotland. Hugues de Payens had personally met with 
  King David I in 1128. Henry St Clair, the second baron of Roslin, had served 
  with de Payens in the First Crusade and may have provided an introduction. 
  Over the next 184 years the Order founded preceptories in Scotland and 
  accumulated a great deal of land there, just as it did in other countries.
  The fact that Scotland was excommunicated in 1312 prevented the 
  promulgation there of Pope Clement’s bull oﬃcially dissolving the Order. 
  However, some trials did take place in Scotland. Oﬃcially, the Templars in 
  Scotland were dissolved, as they were in England, by order of King Edward II. 
  However, Scotland had its own king at the time, Robert the Bruce, and it is far 
  from clear whether the English king’s pronouncements were taken seriously.
  It has been claimed, though never proven, that Templar knights fought 
  on the Scottish side at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. If this is true, 
  then the Templars must have been on good terms with the Scottish crown 
  – perhaps even under its protection – which makes it unlikely that any 
  serious eﬀorts were made to suppress the Order in Scotland.
  Oﬃcially, at least, the Templars’ lands and possessions in Scotland 
  were transferred to the Hospitallers, as, most likely, were many of the 
  Templars themselves. Another unproven rumor asserts that the Templars 
  and Hospitallers merged to form a new order, named the Order of St John 
  and the Temple, which, if true, implies that the Scottish Templars kept at 
  least some of their prestige. This Order is claimed to have lasted until its last 
  preceptor Sir James Sandilands converted to Protestantism in 1553.
  Rumors of Templar activity in Scotland persisted. The 18th-century 
  French monk and chronicler Dom Augustin Calmet claimed that Viscount 
  Dundee, who fought on the Stuart side at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 
  1689, was a Templar Grand Master and that the Grand Cross of the Order 
  was found on his body after he fell.
  Discovered in 1951, the Copper 
  Scroll of Qumran refers to 
  hidden treasures including 
  other document caches. Did de 
  Payens retrieve one or more of 
  them for the Troyes cabal? (www.
  BibleLandPictures.com / Alamy)
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  PRINCE ZICHMNI
  In 1558, a Venetian named Niccolo Zeno published a 
  book which he claimed was based on letters and a map 
  handed down from his ancestors Niccolo and Antonio 
  Zeno, who lived around 1400. The book describes a 
  voyage the brothers took around 1398 across the North 
  Atlantic to Greenland. The expedition was under the 
  command of a prince named Zichmni: some have 
  claimed that this Zichmni was actually Henry Sinclair 
  (a British variant of the Norman St Clair), the ﬁrst 
  baron of Roslin, who died around 1400.
  The authenticity of the Zeno letters has long been 
  disputed, as has the identiﬁcation of the mysterious 
  Prince Zichmni with Henry Sinclair. Defenders of 
  the Zeno narrative have suggested that the name arose 
  from a misreading of the original manuscript’s attempt 
  to spell Orkney, perhaps as “d’Orchani.” Sinclair was 
  the earl of Orkney at that time, and given the map’s 
  medieval writing style the word “d’Orchani” could be 
  mistaken for “Zichmni.”
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  47
  A letter of 1745 from the 
  duke of Perth to the earl of Airlie 
  describes a ceremony in which 
  Bonnie Prince Charlie became 
  the Grand Master of the Templars 
  after his victory over the English 
  at Prestonpans. Fouchet believed 
  he was a Freemason and not a 
  Templar. Many leading Jacobites 
  were Freemasons; the claim that 
  the prince was a Mason has been 
  dismissed by English lodges, but is 
  supported by Scottish ones.
  Roslin
  According to Fouchet, the lost Templar ﬂeet crossed the English Channel and 
  went up the coast to the Firth of Forth. From there, a short journey up the 
  River Esk led to within yards of Roslin. The famous Rosslyn Chapel had not 
  yet been built, but the St Clair family of Roslin provided refuge for a time.
  After a few years, though, it became clear that constant English pressure 
  made Scotland too dangerous. Using contacts in the Order of Teutonic 
  Knights, the Grail’s guardians took ship from Scotland and followed old 
  Viking sea-routes to Norway, Iceland, and the ailing Norse Greenland colony 
  before traveling south from Greenland in search of Vinland. There, in modern-
  day Quebec, the Grail’s guardians founded a kingdom that the native Iroquois 
  called Saguenay.
  It seems likely that Roslin remained a key link in a secret Templar network 
  that extended from Europe to North America. Rosslyn Chapel’s decorative 
  stonework includes some apparent images of uniquely North American 
  plants, including maize.
  THE FREEMASONS
  The Freemasons are the most prominent of several 
  societies that claim to be descended from the Templars. 
  Several degrees of Masonic initiation have titles that 
  refer to the Knights Templar.
  Evidence for the early history of Freemasonry is 
  sparse. The architecture of Rosslyn Chapel, built in the 
  mid-15th century, contains several elements which have 
  been interpreted as Masonic symbols. By 1535, two 
  Scottish Masonic lodges are recorded at Paris and Lyon.
  In 1602, Sir William St Clair of Roslin was granted 
  the right of patronage over the Masons of Scotland. The 
  esoteric side of Freemasonry became more pronounced 
  from this point on.
  From 1717, Freemasonry became more open about 
  its existence. Either it spread rapidly throughout Europe 
  and North America, or established lodges dropped their 
  veil of secrecy.
  Was Poussin’s painting a hint 
  pointing to the New World?  
  (PD-US)
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  48
  Saguenay
  According to Fouchet’s research the kingdom 
  of Saguenay was founded on the Gulf of St 
  Lawrence in 1322. The Templars in Europe were 
  scattered. Many were dead, and many more were 
  hiding in other military orders. Cut oﬀ from 
  contact with Europe, the Templars of Saguenay 
  waited for word of the next plan, but none came.
  Saguenay was rich by European standards. 
  Along with the precious documents from 
  Solomon’s library, the Templars had brought a 
  king’s ransom in gold and jewels, and had the 
  alchemical knowledge to create much more. 
  However, they were few in number and their 
  Algonquin neighbors had no use for gold. 
  The Templars of Saguenay weathered several 
  attacks before a watchful and uneasy truce was 
  concluded.
  What news they had of Europe came from 
  northern Europe via Greenland. They heard 
  nothing of Portugal’s Knights of Christ, and the 
  Portuguese Templars knew nothing of Saguenay. 
  When the Greenland colony failed in the early 
  15th century, contact with Europe was disrupted, but not lost altogether.
  New France
  It was more than a century before Europeans came to the area again.  
  The Templars of Saguenay watched as the ﬁrst French trading posts gave 
  way to the colony of Acadia, and they melted into the growing population, 
  intending to hide in plain sight. However, this was no easy task.
  Although most of Europe thought of the Templars as an extinct  
  medieval phenomenon, the Vatican had a longer memory. Iroquois legends 
  of Saguenay reached the ears of French missionaries who reported back to 
  Rome. The Inquisition sent agents to investigate, and so did the Hospitallers, 
  who were now known as the Knights of Malta. Both suspected that the lost 
  Templar ﬂeet had somehow reached the New World. The Inquisitors wanted 
  to complete the extermination of the Templar heresy and the Knights wanted 
  to get their hands on the Templar treasure that had been granted to them 
  when Pope Clement dissolved the Order.
  As the 16th century gave way to the 17th, another group joined the 
  hunt. The Compagnie du Saint-Sacrament had come to New France to hunt 
  Protestant Huguenots, but once its agents became aware of a possible Templar 
  treasure in North America, their attentions shifted.
  The Devil supporting the font 
  in the church at Rennes-le-
  Château. Details like this have 
  fed the appeal of the "Plantard 
  plot" but are probably deliberate 
  misdirection. (Leslie Garland 
  Picture Library / Alamy)
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  49
  However, the Templars had been careful. Although several sites on the 
  eastern seaboard of North America are associated with the Templars in local 
  tradition, no trace of the kingdom of Saguenay has ever been found. How 
  could a European community exist in North America for 200 years and remain 
  undetected to the present day? Fouchet believed it could, for three reasons.
  First, the groups would probably have been small. Only 50 horsemen left 
  Paris along with the Grail, and even if more Templars joined the group in 
  Scotland the entire expedition could not have consisted of more than a few 
  dozen men.
  Second, the settlement of New France was a piecemeal, haphazard 
  undertaking, especially in the early years. It would have been easy enough for 
  a group of Templars to melt into the new colonial population. Given good 
  intelligence about the plans of the Inquisition, the Knights of Malta, and 
  the Compagnie, it would be possible to disperse the true Grail between a 
  number of safe houses and secretly move any part of it that seemed in danger 
  of discovery.
  Third, Fouchet points out, there is the magical library of Solomon. 
  Although its exact contents are unknown to anyone except its immediate 
  guardians, the library’s reputation is so great that it must surely be able to 
  provide any number of magical resources that would help the Templars and 
  their treasure remain undetected.
  Interestingly, the name Arcadia appeared in a trio of enigmatic paintings 
  created in the few decades after the colony’s establishment. Nicolas Poussin 
  painted two, including the best known, and the Italian painter Guercino 
  painted one; all show a group of shepherds contemplating a tomb which bears 
  the Latin inscription Et in Arcadia Ego – “Even in Arcadia I [am present].” 
  Death is everywhere, even in paradise.
  The Grail's journey to North 
  America is remembered in 
  this 19th-century print which 
  incorporates several allegorical 
  elements. (Library of Congress)
  (OVERLEAF) Although most 
  scholars dismiss the Kingdom  
  of Saguenay as an empty legend, 
  Fouchet disagreed, postulating 
  that the Templars established 
  their colony in 1322. Despite 
  hardship, and constant conflict 
  with the Native American tribes, 
  the colony survived and flourished 
  in the time before other European 
  colonization in North America.
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  50
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  Modern conspiracy theorists believe the paintings – especially Poussin’s 
  version from 1637–38 – incorporate a coded message that may point to a 
  Templar treasure. The authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail suggest the 
  inscription is an anagram: I Tego Arcana Dei translates from Latin as “Begone! 
  I cover/conceal the secrets of God.” Poussin is said to have boasted that he 
  knew secrets that even kings could not drag from him.
  A tomb identical to the one in Poussin’s painting exists outside a village 
  called Arques, not far from Rennes-le-Château in the heart of Cathar country. 
  In 1891 the priest of Rennes-le-Château, François Bérenger Saunière, 
  discovered four parchments hidden in a hollow column while engaged in a 
  modest church restoration project. Shortly afterward he went to Paris and 
  acquired a copy of Poussin’s painting.
  From then until his death in 1917, Saunière spent untold sums of money 
  on an array of local building projects, many times more than he could possibly 
  have earned as a priest. It was commonly believed that the parchments had led 
  him to a lost Cathar or Templar treasure; possibly the painting contained the 
  ﬁnal clue to its whereabouts.
  Bérenger Saunière and Rennes-le-Château went on to play a major role in 
  the Plantard plot, as will be seen later in this book.
  The Thirteen Colonies
  Even so, with such determined searchers wielding the full resources of the Church, 
  the Grail was no longer safe in New France. Protestant Britain had established 
  13 North American colonies, two of which were particularly known for their 
  religious tolerance and free-thinking ways: Rhode Island and Pennsylvania.
  Around 1690, the Grail was moved to the town of Newport in Rhode 
  Island, where it was kept in the base of an old windmill owned by the governing 
  Arnold family. However, rumors of Templar activity soon leaked out into the 
  town, and it was necessary to move the Grail to a more remote location.
  The Pennsylvania Colony was the next choice. Founded by Quakers, it was 
  still a haven for free thought, especially in the progressive city of Philadelphia. 
  Fearing a repeat of events at Newport, the Templars chose a site outside the 
  city. The Grail was hidden some 20 miles away in New Hope township, at the 
  home of a retired physician and Templar agent named John Bowman.
  As the 18th century proceeded, Philadelphia became a center of enlightened 
  thinking. Scientiﬁc, philosophical, and political thought ﬂourished, as well 
  as mystical research. Philadelphia also became a center of Masonic activity. 
  When friction between the American colonists and the British Parliament 
  came to a head in the 1770s, the framers of the United States Constitution 
  were signiﬁcantly inﬂuenced by the Templar concept of the enlightened state, 
  whether they knew it or not.
  The Freemasons played a much more prominent role than the Templars 
  in the American Revolution. Despite their professed reverence for Templar 
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  53
  secrets, the Masons – especially the more mystically inclined “Modern” wing 
  of the movement – regarded the secrets of the Holy Grail as their birthright. At 
  some time in the early 18th century, Masonic agents had located the treasure 
  that Bowman guarded and taken possession of it. Based on his interpretation 
  of several local legends surrounding New Hope and Bowman’s Hill, Fouchet 
  even speculated that Freemasons might have been behind Bowman’s death.
  Washington’s famous crossing of the Delaware took place very close to 
  Bowman’s Hill, and Fouchet believed this is not a coincidence. He suggests 
  that Washington could not have moved such a large force, including artillery, 
  across an ice-strewn river in winter without incident unless he had what 
  Fouchet calls “unusual control” over the operation. The complete surprise 
  Washington achieved against seasoned Hessian troops in his attack on Trenton 
  also strikes Fouchet as “straining the normal laws of probability.”
  Fouchet also points to reports that Washington received a mystical vision 
  of the future of the United States while encamped at Valley Forge in the winter 
  of 1777–78 as evidence that Washington was using the magic of Solomon to 
  bolster the eﬀectiveness of his Continental Army, which was outclassed and 
  outnumbered by the British regulars ranged against it.
  A strange tower in Newport, Rhode 
  Island may have Templar links. 
  (PD-US)
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  54
  The Secret War
  Return to Europe
  Fouchet was certain that the Grail returned to Europe at some time before 
  1800. It is almost never seen directly, but its presence, Fouchet believed, can 
  be seen behind a pattern of events over the next two centuries.
  Fouchet’s theory, brieﬂy, is as follows. With Washington established as the 
  ﬁrst president of the United States and Freemasons in control of the Grail, 
  word of its existence spread among Masonic groups in Europe. While the 
  American Templars planned an operation to recover the Grail and bring it to 
  Europe, their European counterparts set about preparing the ground there.
  When the Inquisition learned that the Grail was in the hands of the 
  Freemasons, the Church reacted vigorously. Since 1314 its war against 
  the Templars had been conducted in secret because the Church could not 
  aﬀord to admit that the Templars still existed; the Freemasons were a much 
  more visible target. Starting with Pope Clement XII’s excommunication of 
  all Catholic Freemasons in 1738, anti-Masonic 
  pronouncements issued from the Vatican on a 
  regular basis. The Inquisition began tracking 
  down senior Freemasons across Europe, hoping to 
  uncover a trail that led to the Templars or to the 
  Grail itself.
  The Templars took advantage of this conﬂict, 
  and also of the schism that split Masonry into 
  the Ancient and Modern factions. Templar 
  agents inﬁltrated the Freemasons at all levels. 
  As well as sowing various “false Grail” documents 
  that were supposed to contain lost Templar 
  secrets, they promoted the formation of even 
  more splinter groups and “strict observances” 
  until Freemasonry threatened to dissolve into a 
  chaos of squabbling subgroups.
  At the same time, the Templars encouraged the 
  proliferation of other esoteric groups across Europe 
  and North America. These included the Illuminati, 
  the Rosicrucians, and various organizations whose 
  names included the words “Temple” or “Templar.”
  George Washington was one of 
  many Freemasons who were 
  active in the American Revolution. 
  (Library of Congress)
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  55
  These groups were put to various uses at various times. 
  It was not uncommon for a particular group to serve more 
  than one purpose. Some were decoys intended to send the 
  Inquisition on an endless series of snipe hunts. Others were 
  used to weaken the Freemasons by attracting their more 
  esoterically inclined members. Most were also used, at one 
  time or another, to draw in prominent scientists, thinkers, 
  politicians, and nobles, so that their usefulness to the 
  Templars’ overall plan could be assessed.
  The Grail Recovered
  Benjamin Franklin’s weakness for wine and women is almost 
  as well known as his connection with Masonic groups on 
  both sides of the Atlantic. He is known to have visited the 
  notorious Hell Fire Club during his visits to England.
  During his tenure as American Ambassador to France, 
  Franklin was inducted into a similar organization. Named 
  l’Ordre du Temple, it had been founded at the court of 
  Louis XIV as a secret society whose object was “the pursuit 
  of pleasure.” On the surface at least, it had been reformed by the duke of 
  Orleans in 1705 and given an elaborate false Templar history. Templar agents 
  within this group induced Franklin to give up the Grail’s location, and it was 
  quickly recovered and smuggled back to Paris. How they did so is a matter for 
  speculation, but Franklin’s temperament made him vulnerable to alcohol, sex, 
  and magic, all of which the Order had at its disposal.
  Revolution and the 19th Century
  According to Fouchet the whole of French history during what some call 
  “the long 19th century” was the result of a clandestine struggle between the 
  Templars, the Freemasons, and the Inquisition.
  The Templars returned the Grail to Europe in the hope of establishing 
  their ideal kingdom in France. They helped bring about the fall of the French 
  Bourbon dynasty and establish the First Republic, but lost control of the 
  situation in the Terror.
  The French Revolution
  Having seen the success of the American Revolution, the Templars hoped for 
  a similar result in France. However, the high ideals of the early Revolution 
  quickly gave way to the intrigue and violence of the Terror. Fouchet regarded 
  it as signiﬁcant that the Paris Temple, once the Templars’ world headquarters, 
  was chosen to hold the royal family pending their execution, and that the 
  oﬃcial name for Louis XVI became “Citizen Louis Capet” – a reference to the 
  now-extinct dynasty of their old enemy Philip le Bel.
  In the secret war that followed 
  American independence, many 
  organizations claimed dual 
  Templar and Masonic affilitations. 
  It is stil hard to untangle the truth 
  about them. (Library of Congress)
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  56
  At ﬁrst, the Revolution served to protect the Templars and the Grail from 
  the Church, which was hard-pressed to deal with a number of Revolutionary 
  laws that weakened the Vatican’s links to the French clergy by making them all 
  employees of the state. The Freemasons, whose membership in France consisted 
  almost entirely of noblemen, were similarly distracted. The Templars pressed 
  their advantage and began to shape Revolutionary ideals toward establishing 
  an “illuminated” state like those they had tried to create in Jerusalem, Cyprus, 
  and the Languedoc.
  The Templars’ campaign almost succeeded. In 1792, the last serious 
  threat was removed when Maximilien de Robespierre forced the Marquis 
  de Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution and a powerful 
  Freemason, to ﬂee France. But Robespierre’s victory made him overconﬁdent. 
  Backed up by the dreaded Committee of Public Safety, he forced through a 
  program of change that was far too aggressive.
  Fouchet believed that Robespierre had been destabilized by the Freemasons. 
  They had inﬁltrated the Jacobin party of which Robespierre was a prominent 
  member, and in many parts of France new Jacobin clubs grew out of existing 
  Masonic lodges. Rather than trying to take over the Revolution, though, the 
  Freemasons made sure it was doomed.
  Fouchet was uncertain whether Robespierre’s planned Republic of Virtue 
  and religion of the Supreme Being were originally Templar ideas. Robespierre’s 
  brutal urgency in using the Terror as an instrument of social change clearly was 
  not. The Templars were unable to rein him in, and Robespierre was executed 
  for tyranny in 1794. A victim of the brutal system he had helped establish,  
  he received no trial.
  It was clearly too dangerous to keep the Holy Grail in Paris after this. 
  Although the violence of the Revolution was widespread throughout the 
  country, the south had escaped the worst excesses. The Templars moved 
  the Grail to Toulouse, but in 1799 an attack by British and Spanish royalist 
  armies forced another move, to the fortiﬁed town of Rennes-le-Château some  
  75 miles away.
  Rennes-le-Château
  Rennes-le-Château was part of a chain of forts that guarded the French side 
  of the Pyrenees. The entire region had been devastated during the Albigensian 
  Crusade, and again several centuries later when the French monarchy tried to 
  stamp out Protestantism in the area. Cathar roots and distrust of Paris both 
  ran deep here.
  The exact hiding-place of the Grail at Rennes-le-Château is not known. 
  The village priest, Antoine Bigou, ﬂed to Spain during the Revolution, leaving 
  several clues to the Grail’s location hidden in the church. These would not be 
  found for almost a century.
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  57
  Napoleon
  After Robespierre’s downfall, the Templars 
  began to groom a young Corsican artillery 
  oﬃcer named Napoleon Bonaparte. 
  His First Empire was to have been 
  the foundation of an enlightened 
  monarchy along Templar lines.
  Bonaparte reimposed order 
  across France. He patronized 
  l’Ordre du Temple (see 
  p.58) and may have been 
  a 
  member. 
  During 
  his 
  campaigns in Italy, Napoleon 
  had 
  huge 
  quantities 
  of 
  documents removed from 
  the Vatican and elsewhere 
  and brought to Paris for study, 
  along with the “false Grail” from 
  Genoa. When these materials were 
  returned to Rome in 1815, over 2,000 
  documents were lost or missing.
  Fouchet was convinced that the main 
  goal of this project was to recover everything 
  possible that had been lost during the raids of October 
  1307. Fouchet also believed that Napoleon was looking for the Grail on his 
  own account. With its power, he could rule unfettered by any allegiance to 
  the Templars.
   Fouchet believed that the Grail was kept hidden in Rennes-le-Château 
  until late in the 19th century, precisely so that none of the Templars’ potential 
  puppet rulers would try to seize it for themselves.
  On Napoleon’s orders, the Paris Temple was demolished in 1808. 
  Outmoded as a fortress, it was now a symbol and place of pilgrimage for 
  French royalists because Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had been imprisoned 
  there. To refurbish it would have been to show the Templars’ hand far too 
  plainly, and the Order did not want pro-Bourbon royalists destabilizing the 
  First Empire.
  Having paciﬁed and organized France, Napoleon turned his attention to 
  Europe. Despite many brilliant victories, his forces were ground down by a 
  succession of alliances. His defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and his 
  exile to St Helena brought the First Empire to an end. A Bourbon monarchy 
  was reinstated in France, with far more restrictions on its power than before. 
  As the Inquisition and the Freemasons fought for control of the new French 
  monarchy, the Templars turned elsewhere.
  The Paris Temple became a 
  prison until it was demolished on 
  Napoleon's orders. (INTERFOTO / 
  Alamy)
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  58
  The Habsburgs
  Failure in Cyprus and the Languedoc had taught the Templars not 
  to put all their eggs in one basket. A European Templar group had 
  been cultivating the Habsburgs since taking refuge in the east in the 
  early 14th century. In return for its protection, the Templars had 
  helped the House of Habsburg to grow into a major power, counting 
  Holy Roman Emperors and kings of Austria among its progeny. 
  By the early 19th century the Habsburgs controlled the thrones of 
  Austria, Spain, and Portugal, and were the only European dynasty 
  more powerful than the Bourbons. No other power on earth could 
  unite Europe into an ideal Templar state.
  In 1848 the Freemasons fomented a number of local rebellions 
  across Habsburg territory with the intention of destabilizing their 
  empire. When the unrest spread to France, the Templars turned it 
  to their advantage and replaced the Inquisition-backed Bourbon 
  monarchy with the Second Republic.
  Under Napoleon III, this became the Second Empire. It was a diversion, 
  and the Freemasons were deceived. They had gained control of the 
  Hohenzollern family that ruled Prussia, and goaded France into a series of 
  wars that brought down the Second Empire and saw it replaced by a Third 
  Republic. The Templars made token eﬀorts to resist Masonic domination 
  of the new republic, and the Freemasons became convinced that Templar 
  power was all but spent – but in truth, their main eﬀorts were directed 
  toward the Habsburgs.
  L’ORDRE DU TEMPLE
  In 1804, the same year he crowned himself Emperor, 
  Napoleon supported the foundation of a neo-Templar 
  organization called l’Ordre du Temple. It is not clear 
  whether this was a continuation of the earlier group of 
  the same name, or whether it was a new organization 
  with the same name. Eight years later the Order’s 
  founder, Bernard-Raymond Fabré-Palaprat, founded 
  l’Église Johannites des Chrétiens Primitif (The Johannite 
  Church of Primitive Christians); it will be remembered 
  that the heresy charges against the Templars included 
  several that suggested Johannite beliefs.
  Today, the Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi 
  Hierosolymitani (OSMTH), also known as Knights 
  Templar International, claims descent from Fabré-
  Palaprat’s order. l’Église Johannite des Chrétiens 
  Primitifs also survives. Both are active in multiple 
  countries across Europe and North America.
  Fouchet speculated that the Johannite Church 
  was somehow linked to the Templar Creed and the 
  “bearded head” the Templars were said to worship.  
  His notes indicate that he suspected both the church 
  and the order of having genuine Templar links.
  Fouchet was also intrigued by the fact that 14 citizens 
  of Troyes, a city so prominent in the Templars’ early 
  history, received patents of nobility and coats of arms 
  from l’Ordre du Temple. Fouchet made his fatal trip 
  to that city in order to search the ducal archives of 
  Champagne for any trace of either organization or 
  any sign that the “Troyes cabal” had survived into the 
  present day.
  John B. Morris photographed 
  in the 1860s in full masoic 
  or templar regalia. Many well 
  respected gentlemen of this time 
  period were members of lodges 
  and secret societies, but what role 
  most of them played in the larger 
  secret war, if any, has been lost to 
  history. (Library of Congress)
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  59
  Rennes-le-Château
  All this time, both the Inquisition and the Freemasons had been trying to 
  discover where the Grail was hidden. Of all the Inquisition’s agents and 
  informants, the one who came closest to ﬁnding the Grail was François 
  Bérenger Saunière, the priest of Rennes-le-Château. His eﬀorts earned him a 
  ﬁctional place in the Plantard plot as an agent of the Priory of Sion.
  Starting in 1887, Saunière embarked on a program of building  
  and restoration that neither he nor the parish could possibly aﬀord.  
  This construction, secretly funded by the Inquisition, covered a frantic 
  program of excavations sparked by the recovery of the documents hidden in 
  the church by Antoine Bigou.
  Saunière’s project brought many workers to the village, and Fouchet 
  believed that among them were Templar agents who managed to spirit the 
  Grail to safety without arousing suspicion. The Templars leaked several 
  documents referring to the village, convincing both the Inquisition and the 
  Freemasons that the Grail was still close by, and creating a period of confusion 
  as the Inquisition and the Freemasons fought a secret battle in the area.
  Fouchet concluded that the Inquisition won the struggle, since Saunière’s 
  building work continued until 1905. However, all his work and all the Church’s 
  expenditure came to nothing. Faced with the problem of closing the project 
  down without raising questions as to how it was funded, the Inquisition made 
  Saunière their scapegoat. In 1911 an ecclesiastical court found him guilty of 
  selling indulgences and he was suspended from the priesthood.
  THE KINGS OF JERUSALEM
  Fouchet believed that the Templars saw the Habsburgs 
  as more than simply another tool to be discarded if 
  their plans went awry. Over the centuries of its rise to 
  power, the House of Habsburg had accumulated many 
  lands and titles, but most signiﬁcant of all, he believed, 
  was the fact that the family had a long-standing claim 
  to the lost Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem.
  When the Templars fell in 1307 the king of Jerusalem 
  was Henry II, the king of Cyprus. Through his line, and 
  with secret Templar support, the Christian claim to the 
  throne of Jerusalem passed through the houses of Savoy, 
  Anjou, and Lorraine to the Habsburg dynasty, where it 
  resided at the time the Grail returned to Europe in the 
  late 18th century.
  Over the intervening centuries, two competing claims 
  had arisen through the labyrinth of European dynastic 
  politics. The weakest of these was from the Italian 
  House of Savoy, and was never pressed. A stronger 
  challenge came from the Spanish House of Bourbon, 
  which had links to the fallen Capetian dynasty of Philip 
  le Bel.
  Given these facts, Fouchet argues, it is natural that 
  the Templars should take a deep and abiding interest 
  in the fortunes of the House of Habsburg. He even 
  wondered whether the Order still planned to make 
  Jerusalem the capital of its planned empire once it had 
  united Europe. Even today, the only hope for bringing 
  peace to the Middle East lies in reconciling the religious 
  diﬀerences between Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and 
  Fouchet’s conclusions about the Templar Creed make it 
  quite plausible that this is the next step in the Order’s 
  ambitious plan.
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  60
  Although he was certain that the Grail was moved from Rennes-le-
  Château, Fouchet was unable to discover where it went. His notes indicate 
  that he thought l’Ordre du Temple may have been involved and that the Grail 
  was moved either to Troyes or to Sion in Switzerland.
  The Great War
  While the Freemasons were distracted by their eﬀorts to destroy the Second 
  Empire, the main Templar eﬀort saw the Habsburg-ruled Austro-Hungarian 
  Empire grow into Europe’s greatest power. In June 1914, the Habsburg 
  Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a Bosnian student 
  named Gavrilo Princip; Fouchet’s notes indicate that he had not yet examined 
  the common claim that the Freemasons were somehow involved. Following 
  that assassination, the Freemasons orchestrated a groundswell of anti-German 
  and anti-Austrian sentiment across Europe. Nation after nation entered the 
  Great War as governments were unable to resist the will of their people.
  Fouchet noted that several possibly occult events took place during the war, 
  the most famous being the incident of the “Angels of Mons.” His notes suggest 
  that he intended to investigate these reports later and determine if Templar 
  magic had been involved in any of them. He was unable to do so before his 
  death, but he clearly believed that the secret war continued on the battleﬁeld.
  After four years, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was in ruins and Habsburg 
  fortunes were at their lowest ebb. However, the Templars were not ready to 
  write oﬀ the investment they had made in this great house.
  The "Angels of Mons" appeared 
  on the battlefields of World War 
  I. Were they the result of Templar 
  magic as some have claimed? 
  (Mary Evans Picture Library / 
  Alamy)
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  61
  Between the Wars
  It took the Templars more than 30 years to recover from this setback. 
  The Freemasons had free run of Europe and consolidated their position. 
  The Inquisition was dealing with the Catholic Church’s loss of power and 
  prestige in the industrial era, and its operations were severely curtailed as the 
  Church strove to retain its power in the period between the First and Second 
  Vatican councils.
  It was at this time that a sinister fourth player entered the game.  
  Even before the Great War, German occultists had been systematically 
  searching for the Templars and their secrets. Romantic poets and composers 
  such as Richard Wagner had tied the Grail romances into a growing German 
  national mythology, and their work attracted the attention of several men who 
  would become leading members of the National Socialist Party. As Germany 
  struggled to recover its sense of national self-esteem in the aftermath of defeat, 
  the National Socialists grew in power.
  At ﬁrst, the Inquisition saw the rise of the Christian Socialist Party in 
  Austria as an opportunity to wrest control of the Habsburgs away from the 
  Templars. However, as the Austrian party grew closer and closer to its German 
  counterpart, the Church found itself in a diﬃcult position – marginalized at 
  best, and at worst complicit in policies that were counter to its interests.
  The Nazis and the Grail
  To most Nazis, the imagery of the Templars and that of the Holy Grail were 
  nothing more than nationalist icons adapted to serve the Party’s agenda, much 
  like the swastika and the SS “sieg” rune taken from Norse tradition and the 
  black cross of the Teutonic Knights that emblazoned German tanks and aircraft.  
  But to a small elite within the Party, these things were real and powerful.
  Nazi Grail hunters have been covered in more detail in another volume 
  in this series, The Nazi Occult by Kenneth Hite. After the fall of France, 
  German troops conducted excavations in and around the village of Rennes-
  le-Château, but the Grail had already been moved by the Templars. In fact, 
  Fouchet believed that it was moved after the murder of Antoine Gélis in 1897 
  (see p.62), but his notes contain no hint as to where it was taken.
  The Plantard Plot
  During World War II the regrouped Templars encouraged an ultranationalist 
  publisher named Pierre Plantard, and through the 1950s he published 
  a series of documents relating to the Priory of Sion, an alleged oﬀshoot of 
  the Templars that was the guardian of a secret bloodline that ran from Jesus  
  and Mary Magdalene through the Merovingian dynasty to Plantard himself. 
  The “Plantard plot,” as Fouchet calls it, gained some believers in France 
  through the 1960s and 1970s, but became a worldwide sensation in 1982 
  with the publication of the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.
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  62
  The Plantard plot has now been exposed as a complete fabrication. Fouchet 
  believed it was another “false Grail” intended to divert attention away from 
  Templar activities elsewhere. He speculates that one of its goals was to keep 
  Templar-hunters focused on Rennes-le-Château and its environs, and away 
  from the Grail’s new hiding place.
  A key element in the Plantard plot is the Priory of Sion, a fabricated 
  organization that Plantard and his followers claimed had created the Templars 
  and guarded the secret of the Grail. Those who took the claim seriously looked 
  for the origin of the Order’s name in the Holy Land, but Fouchet’s notes link 
  it to the town of Sion in Switzerland. He believed that either Sion was where 
  the Grail was taken when it was moved from Rennes-le-Château in 1897,  
  or it was the end of a false trail concocted at this time.
  The Last Supper by Leonardo da 
  Vinci plays a key role in The Da 
  Vinci Code, a developed form of 
  the Plantard plot which Fouchet 
  believed was a Templar "false Grail." 
  (World History Archive / Alamy)
  (OVERLEAF) One of the main 
  charges levelled against the 
  Templars by the church was 
  the use of black magic. The 
  summoning, binding, and 
  questioning of demons has long 
  been thought to be a way of 
  learning secrets and gaining power.
  THE MURDER OF ANTOINE GÉLIS
  Antoine Gélis was the priest of the village of Coustaussa. 
  He was a miser, and according to local gossip he hoarded 
  great wealth in his home. On the night of October 
  31,1897 he was tortured and murdered. His home was 
  ransacked and papers were found strewn everywhere, 
  but his money was left untouched. His assailants were 
  never identiﬁed.
  Fouchet believed that Gélis was murdered by Masonic 
  agents who thought he was the guardian of the Grail. 
  The Inquisition, he wrote, would have taken a more 
  subtle approach. He would have been called to Rome 
  or Toulouse and the Church would have announced 
  that the 70-year-old priest had died before being able to 
  return to his parish. According to Fouchet, Gélis could 
  well have been an agent of the Inquisition, searching 
  for the Grail himself.
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  63
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  64
  The Templars Today
  Fouchet’s notes give only a slight indication of what he believed the Templars 
  are doing in the present day; they consist of notes to himself on avenues for 
  further research and reports of incidents he intended to investigate. However, 
  once I began to piece them together, their implications were profound.
  If Fouchet is to be believed, the secret war of the last two centuries continues 
  unabated, and the Templars are growing ever closer to realizing their plan for a 
  paneuropean – possibly global – state ruled by priest-kings in the Solomonic 
  tradition. The Freemasons and the Inquisition continue to oppose them, each 
  for their own reasons.
  Operations against the Vatican
  Although the Templars potentially recovered up to 2,000 lost documents from 
  the Vatican during the reign of Napoleon, Fouchet believed that Templar 
  agents have been actively involved in a campaign to plunder both the Vatican’s 
  secret archives and the archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the 
  Faith, which before 1904 was known as the Inquisition.
  In particular, Fouchet was interested in two burglaries that occurred in 
  1900 and 1969. The main reason for his interest seems to have been the fact 
  that these two incidents were widely reported.
  The Vatican has its own internal police force, and despite the fact that it 
  has one of the highest crime 
  rates in the world compared 
  to its population, crime tends 
  to go unreported in the world 
  media. These two did not.  
  The two break-ins were reported 
  as simple burglaries that gained 
  their perpetrators small amounts 
  of cash and other valuables, but 
  Fouchet believed that there was 
  more to them. Although it acted 
  too late to prevent news from 
  leaking out, the Vatican took 
  some trouble to play down the 
  signiﬁcance of these two incidents.
  The Vatican's secret archives 
  contain many Templar documents 
  seized in 1307. (Corbis)
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  65
  1900
  In addition to their ongoing eﬀorts to recover mystical and heretical documents 
  from the Church, Fouchet identiﬁed two reasons why the Templars should 
  have struck in 1900. The murder of Antoine Gélis was only three years in the 
  past, and the Freemasons and the Inquisition were both focused on the false 
  trail that led to Rennes-le-Château.
  The Inquisition might have found something of actual value during their 
  researches in the area, perhaps dating back to the Albigensian Crusade – or 
  the operation could have been a deliberately botched attempt to recover 
  documents found in the area, intended to convince the Inquisition of their 
  authenticity and value.
  Also in 1900, the Vatican was engaged in a review and overhaul of the 
  Inquisition, perhaps in direct response to lessons learned during the preceding 
  century of secret war. In 1904 the Inquisition changed its name to the Supreme 
  Sacred Congregation of the Holy Oﬃce; other, less visible changes were 
  also made to its structure, organization, and methods of operation. Fouchet 
  speculated whether the burglars were Templar or Freemason agents searching 
  for information on the coming changes.
  1969
  In August 1969, burglars penetrated the pope’s private apartments and 
  allegedly made oﬀ with medals and paintings of little value. Two men were 
  arrested for the crime in May 1973.
  Fouchet found it signiﬁcant that the same month, the al-Aqsa Mosque in 
  Jerusalem was damaged in an apparent arson attack. The alleged perpetrator 
  was judged to be insane, but Fouchet speculated that the ﬁre might have been 
  set to cover up a bungled Inquisition search of the Templars’ ﬁrst headquarters.
  If the Inquisition did have a research team working in the vicinity of 
  Solomon’s Temple, the Templars would have had every reason to be curious 
  about their activities. As a part of the secret war, reports on this operation 
  would have been restricted to the very highest Church oﬃcials, including 
  the pope. While admitting that his speculations are impossible to prove, 
  Fouchet wondered whether these documents were the real target of the 
  1969 burglary.
  Also in 1969, the seeds were sown for a ﬁnancial and political scandal that 
  would shake the Vatican more than a decade later. Members of the Propaganda 
  Due (“P2”) Masonic lodge became closely involved with the Vatican Bank, 
  the Italian government, and the Maﬁa. By the time their activities were 
  exposed, these individuals had risen to positions of enormous inﬂuence and 
  eﬀectively constituted a “shadow government.” Although claims of Vatican 
  complicity have always been oﬃcially denied, Fouchet wondered whether the 
  Templars were aware of these developments and broke into the pope’s private 
  apartments seeking evidence of a possible Vatican–Masonic alliance.
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  66
  The Inquisition
  In the last few decades a number of scandals have come to light regarding 
  the Catholic Church and the actions of individual priests and other Church 
  oﬃcials. While Fouchet believed that the subject matter of these scandals was 
  entirely genuine, he remarked that the Templars would have beneﬁted from 
  the disruption they caused to the Church and the Inquisition, and suspected 
  that the Order may have had a role in bringing them to light.
  The reorganization of 1904 that changed the Inquisition’s oﬃcial name to 
  the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Oﬃce was ineﬀective, according 
  to Fouchet. Despite repeated papal bulls and other Vatican pronouncements 
  against Freemasonry, the movement continued to grow in both numbers and 
  inﬂuence. Although they are much more diﬃcult to trace, Fouchet believed that 
  the Inquisition’s eﬀorts to crush the Templars met with a similar lack of success.
  Much has been made of the Vatican’s oﬃcial policy of neutrality during 
  World War II. While it is certainly true that the occupation of Rome by 
  German troops during the latter part of the war would have made open 
  resistance diﬃcult, Fouchet thought that the Nazis and the Inquisition had a 
  few common goals at this time – Grail-hunting among them – and regarded it 
  as possible that the two groups co-operated, or at least tried to use each other, 
  during this period.
  Pope Pius XII, who had occupied the throne of St Peter during the war, 
  was succeeded by John XXII in 1958. Within three months of his election, 
  John called the Second Vatican Council to address matters of doctrine and 
  help modernize the Church. 
  Fouchet believed that this 
  meeting of over 2,000 senior 
  Church oﬃcials from all over 
  the world must have included 
  a large number of unoﬃcial 
  sessions, and that the matter 
  of the Templars and the Grail 
  must have been on their agenda.
  The Council lasted from 
  1960 to 1965. That same 
  year, the Inquisition received 
  another new name – the 
  Sacred 
  Congregation 
  for 
  the Doctrine of the Faith – 
  and another reorganization. 
  Fouchet speculated that this 
  was an eﬀort to deal with 
  repeated Templar inﬁltration 
  and sabotage.
  This anonymous building in New 
  York City houses the headquarters 
  of Opus Dei. (Corbis)
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  67
  Opus Dei
  Fouchet also suspected that the Inquisition secretly took over Opus Dei in 1982 
  upon the death of its founder, Josemaria Escriva. This secretive organization 
  had been characterized by its critics as a form of “Christian Masonry,” and 
  according to Fouchet the Inquisition planned to turn it into a force to combat 
  the Templars and the Freemasons.
  Opus Dei became famous in 2003 when it was mentioned in Dan Brown’s 
  novel The Da Vinci Code. The novel’s main content was an updated version of 
  the Plantard plot as set forth 20 years earlier in The Holy Blood and the Holy 
  Grail; the addition of Opus Dei was the only signiﬁcant change. Fouchet’s 
  notes indicate that he thought the novel (as well as its even more popular 
  2006 movie version) was a move by the Templars to expose Opus Dei and 
  render it useless to the Inquisition.
  The Swiss Guard
  The renowned Swiss Guard was originally one of three Pontiﬁcal Guard forces 
  that protected the Vatican and the pope. The other two, the Palatine Guard 
  and the Noble Guard, were disbanded in 1970. Fouchet believed that the 
  reforming Pope Paul VI reorganized the Pontiﬁcal Guard as part of a security 
  review that began about the same time as the Second Vatican Council.  
  The same review led to the reorganization and modernization of the Vatican’s 
  internal police force.
  During World War II, the Palatine Guard had been involved in 
  confrontations with Italian Fascist forces and occupying German troops. 
  Oﬃcially these incidents were mostly sparked by outside attempts to arrest 
  fugitives who were hiding in Vatican buildings; Fouchet believed that on at 
  least some occasions the Guard surprised Nazi Grail-hunters who were trying 
  to break in.
  The Noble Guard was originally formed as a cavalry unit, but after 1870 
  it served as a personal bodyguard for the pope. As such, it would have been 
  responsible for the security of his personal apartments. Fouchet saw its 
  disbandment in 1970 as a direct result of the 1969 burglary. Even if the noble 
  Guard had not actually been inﬁltrated by the Templars, he argued, its failure 
  to apprehend the burglars clearly demonstrated that it presented no obstacle 
  to their agents.
  The Swiss Guard has continued to the present day, but Fouchet believed 
  that it, too, is not without its weaknesses. He points out that the Guard 
  did not prevent the assassination of one pope and an attempt on the life of 
  another, although he did not attribute either attempt to the Templars. In fact, 
  Fouchet suspected the Inquisition of being behind the death of John Paul 
  I, whose moderate leanings were dangerous to the Inquisition’s prosecution 
  of the secret war. The attempted assassination of John Paul II in 1981, he 
  believed, was unrelated to the secret war.
  The Swiss Guard was reorganized 
  in 1970 after a Vatican break-in 
  the previous year. (Jeremy Hoare 
  / Alamy)
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  68
  In 1998, the Guard’s commander and his wife were killed, along with 
  a young guardsman, in what was oﬃcially ruled a murder-suicide. While 
  he reserved judgment on the case, Fouchet’s notes clearly indicate that he 
  thought it worth investigating further. The oﬃcial account is so scandalous 
  that he believed it was a cover for a truth that was even more dangerous – such 
  as Templar inﬁltration of the Swiss Guard or an armed confrontation with 
  Templar agents in the heart of the Vatican.
  The “Vatileaks” Scandal
  Fouchet’s notes include news clippings about a developing scandal that 
  outlived him. Starting in January 2012, Vatican documents were leaked to 
  the Italian press detailing a web of ﬁnancial corruption that reached to the 
  highest levels. These revelations came hard on the heels of a previous scandal 
  that had led to a criminal investigation of the Vatican Bank on suspicion of 
  money laundering.
  The Vatican’s internal investigation into the aﬀair was headed by a senior 
  member of Opus Dei. Fouchet’s handwritten notes on a news clipping show 
  that he found this choice signiﬁcant: they read “Opus Dei – administrative 
  arm of Inquisition?”
  The Vatican Library holds some 
  75,000 medieval manuscripts 
  and over 1.1 million printed works. 
  Another 150,000 items are kept 
  in the Vatican's Secret Archives. 
  (Design Pics Inc. / Alamy)
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  69
  Operations against the Freemasons
  In addition to their possible role in exposing the P2 scandal involving Masonic 
  inﬁltration of the Italian government and the Vatican Bank, Fouchet believed 
  that the Templars have launched other operations to disrupt and weaken the 
  Freemasons worldwide.
  In addition to sabotaging Masonic eﬀorts to locate and acquire the Holy 
  Grail, Fouchet believed that since the end of World War II the Templars have 
  been actively involved in breaking Masonic ties to national governments 
  across Europe and the world. He suspected that this eﬀort was part of a larger 
  plan to establish a Templar state – ﬁrst within the European Union, and then 
  on a broader scale. This objective is discussed in a later section.
  The Plantard Plot Expanded
  Following the success of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail in the 1980s, the 
  book’s authors published a second title, The Temple and the Lodge, in 1989. 
  Building on the earlier work, this book claimed to reveal deep and enduring 
  ties between the Templars and the Freemasons. Twenty years later, Dan Brown 
  followed the success of his novel The Da Vinci Code with The Lost Symbol, 
  which featured a powerful Masonic conspiracy in Washington, DC.
  Fouchet believed that each of these new books was, in its own time, 
  intended as a weapon against the Freemasons. While the objective of the 
  original Plantard plot was to sow a false trail and obfuscate the location and 
  nature of the Grail, he wrote, these two books depict the Freemasons as ruthless, 
  scheming powermongers bent on world domination. By focusing attention on 
  the Freemasons, this phase of the plot achieves two objectives: making it more 
  diﬃcult for the Masons to pursue their own goals, and establishing them as 
  convenient scapegoats for any Templar operations that might go awry.
  From the 1980s to the present day, a huge body of both literature and ﬁction 
  has grown up around Masonic conspiracy theories. It runs the gamut from the 
  popular National Treasure movies through cable-TV historical exposés to credible 
  journalistic claims of Masonic corruption in various national governments.
  While admitting that he was unable to tie this conspiracy trend directly to 
  the Templars, Fouchet observed that it would certainly beneﬁt the Order in 
  carrying out the plans he believed they are pursuing. He also noted that there 
  is a smaller but growing body of alleged Templar lore and conspiracy theory, 
  and wondered whether this represented a Masonic counterattack in kind.  
  If so, he wrote, a campaign was under way for the hearts and minds of readers 
  across the Western world, to paint either the Templars or the Freemasons 
  forever as villains in the public consciousness.
  Such an exercise, Fouchet believed, would only be of value to the winner 
  if they planned some signiﬁcant and overt action in the near future, and if the 
  success of that action depended on carrying public opinion with them – as, 
  for example, a bold political move to advance plans for a supra-national state.
  (OVERLEAF) A reconstruction of 
  a Templar break-in at the Vatican 
  library.  Fouchet believed that the 
  secret war between the Templars 
  and the Vatican is ongoing, and 
  that both groups control ancient 
  knowledge that the other desires.
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  Britain
  Over the last decade, the British Parliament has seen several attempts to limit 
  Masonic inﬂuence in the government of that country.
  Against a rising number of accusations that Freemasons in the British 
  government, judiciary, and police forces exchange favors and promote each 
  other’s careers, several bills have been introduced that would require British 
  Freemasons to declare their membership upon taking up a post in government 
  or law enforcement. So far the eﬀects of these measures have been limited, in 
  part due to legal challenges made in the European Court.
  Fouchet’s notes indicate that he believed these British measures were a part of 
  a wider campaign across the European Union and possibly beyond, with the aim 
  of weakening Masonic inﬂuence at the highest levels of power. At the time of his 
  death, this line of research was at the top of his list of matters for further inquiry.
  The Templar State
  The concept of the “Templar State” is central to Fouchet’s theory. It has been 
  mentioned in passing elsewhere in this book, but a ﬁrm grasp of the idea is 
  necessary to make sense of Fouchet’s interpretation of recent Templar activity.
  Fouchet’s researches convinced him that almost since their founding, the 
  Templars had been involved in various attempts to create an ideal state. It was 
  originally planned to be a new kingdom of Jerusalem that united Christians, 
  Jews, and Muslims under the rule of an enlightened monarch who was part 
  priest and part prophet. Using the wisdom of Solomon and the power of the 
  Holy Grail, this ruler would usher in a new golden age not just for the Holy 
  Land, but for the whole world.
  The loss of Acre and the ultimate failure of the Crusades placed Jerusalem 
  out of the Templars’ reach for several centuries. In the interim they tried to 
  create an order-state for themselves, ﬁrst in Cyprus and then in the south 
  of France, but both attempts failed. Driven underground by the pope and 
  the king of France, the Order ﬂed to Scotland and then to North America, 
  guarding its secrets until it felt strong enough to participate in the founding 
  of the United States of America.
  Defeated in America by the Freemasons, the Templars returned to Europe 
  and came close to establishing a new state in France. After the failure of this 
  attempt, it was evident that both the Freemasons and the Inquisition would 
  have to be neutralized before any further eﬀorts could be made. Now, after 
  two centuries of planning and preparation, the time is growing near.
  That, at least, is the burden of Fouchet’s theory. During the last months of 
  his life, he collected a number of news clippings and research materials on the 
  origins and growth of the European Union and on inter-faith relations across 
  Europe and in the Middle East. The information he uncovered is summarized in 
  the remaining pages of this book. Fouchet’s comments are included where he left 
  any, but for the most part readers are left, as I was, to form their own conclusions.
  The Masonic square and compass 
  on a house in Derbyshire, 
  England. (Alex Ekins / Alamy)
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  73
  If Fouchet was right in his interpretation of historical and political events, 
  the implications are profound. As it struggles with a Church desperate to 
  retain spiritual authority and the rival Freemasons who are determined to 
  shape the world according to their own designs, the Order of the Knights 
  Templar is actively laying the foundations of a new world order based on 
  religious reconciliation, scientiﬁc reason, magical power, and a spiritual 
  authority that has been lost for millennia.
  The Habsburgs
  Oﬃcially, the Habsburg dynasty ended in November 1918 when Charles 
  I stepped down from the thrones of Austria and Hungary. Although their 
  empire was lost, the Habsburgs were still a wealthy and inﬂuential family and 
  they had ancestral claims to other territories throughout Europe.
  Among the titles still retained by the House of Habsburg was king of 
  Jerusalem. It had been many centuries since this was more than an empty 
  title, but according to Fouchet it explains why the Templars went to so much 
  trouble to cultivate the Habsburgs and ensure their rise to power – and why, 
  even with the Austro-Hungarian Empire destroyed, they did not simply 
  discard the Habsburgs as just another failed tool.
  The Habsburgs acquired the Christian claim to Jerusalem in the 18th 
  century. It will also be remembered that the House of Champagne had 
  brieﬂy held the title by marriage in the Templars’ early history. Even though 
  no Christian king has sat on the throne of Jerusalem since 1291, the title 
  seems to be of paramount importance to the Templars. Even before the Grail 
  returned to Europe, Templar agents were at work inﬂuencing the family’s 
  rising fortunes.
  In the aftermath of World War I the Habsburg Emperor Charles I of Austria 
  (also Charles V of Hungary) renounced participation in state aﬀairs, but – 
  signiﬁcantly according to Fouchet – did not formally abdicate the throne. This 
  led to a persistent Habsburg claim to Austria that was not ﬁnally settled until 
  1961 when Charles’ son Otto von Habsburg formally renounced all claims to the 
  throne. However, this did not mean the Habsburgs were a spent political force.
  Otto von Habsburg served as a member of the European Parliament, where 
  in a powerful symbolic gesture he had empty seats set up in the European 
  Parliament for representatives from those countries that were on the other 
  side of the Iron Curtain. He also served as vice-president and president of the 
  International Paneuropean Union.
  From 1922 to 2000 he was Sovereign of the Austrian Order of the Golden 
  Fleece, whose members include nobles from all over Europe. The membership of 
  the sister Spanish order is even more impressive, including the monarchs of several 
  European countries as well as the president of France, the king of Saudi Arabia, 
  and the emperor of Japan. Although neither branch of the order has any overt links 
  to the Templars, both are in a very strong position to inﬂuence European politics.
  Charles I formally stepped down 
  as Austro-Hungarian Emperor after 
  World War I, but Fouchet believed 
  that Templar sponsorship of the 
  Habsburg dynasty continues to 
  this day. (PD-US)
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  74
  Fouchet’s notes also mention Otto von Habsburg’s involvement with the 
  Society of Mont Pelerin and the Three Faiths Forum and point out that the 
  goals of these societies are in keeping with other Templar objectives, namely 
  enlightened rule and the promotion of harmony between Christianity, 
  Judaism, and Islam. Add these to the goal of the Paneuropean Union, Fouchet 
  claimed, and the result is a modern-day equivalent of the Templars’ ideal state.
  In 2007, Otto von Habsburg passed his titles and oﬃces to his son Karl. 
  After an early career as a broadcaster, Karl carried on his father’s political 
  work. He has served in the European Parliament and the United Nations and 
  is the Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece as well as president of 
  the Austrian branch of the Paneuropean Union.
  The European Community
  The roots of the current European Union go back to the aftermath of World 
  War II. In 1957, the ﬁrst European Economic Community (EEC) was formed 
  when France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg 
  formed an economic partnership under the Treaty of Rome. Among the prime 
  movers in the formation of the EEC was General Charles de Gaulle – who, 
  Fouchet noted, was an alleged correspondent of Pierre Plantard.
  Over the next 50 years this organization grew and changed. At the time of 
  writing the European Union, as it is now called, has 27 member states and a 
  supranational parliament which is based in Brussels. Many, but not all, member 
  states use a common currency, the euro, which was introduced in 1998.
  The European Union has a population of 500 million people, or just over  
  7 percent of the world’s population. It accounts for approximately 20 percent  
  of the world’s gross domestic product, making it the world’s largest economy. In 
  a diplomatic coup that Fouchet did not live to see, the organization was awarded 
  the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of its contribution “to the advancement 
  of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.”
  Two Templars playing chess, from 
  a medieval manuscript. Does the 
  Order continue to use Europe's 
  power elite as pawns? (PD-US)
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  75
  The balance between European integration and national 
  sovereignty is much debated within the European Union, with 
  great vehemence on both sides. A “United States of Europe” 
  has not been realized, but Fouchet believed that such a super-
  state would be a signiﬁcant step along the road to establishing 
  his hypothetical “Templar state.” Prominent among the groups 
  calling for closer European integration is the International 
  Paneuropean Union.
  The Paneuropean Union
  The International Paneuropean Union was founded in 1923 by 
  the son of an Austro-Hungarian diplomat. It was banned by the 
  Nazi government during World War II but was refounded at the 
  war’s end. In 1957, the same year that the European Economic Community was 
  founded, Otto von Habsburg became vice-president of the Paneuropean Union. 
  Several European heads of state and other inﬂuential people have been members.
  In 1973 Otto von Habsburg became the organization’s international 
  president; in the previous year the Plantard plot had been advanced by 
  the broadcast of The Lost Treasure of Jerusalem ...? in BBC 2’s Chronicle 
  documentary series, and by the publication of Donovan Joyce’s book The Jesus 
  Scrolls. The producers of the BBC program went on to co-author The Holy 
  Blood and the Holy Grail.
  Fouchet’s notes indicate that he found this interesting. If the Plantard plot 
  was indeed a smokescreen intended to direct attention away from Templar 
  activities, then it is signiﬁcant that the ﬁrst time it appeared outside France 
  coincided with the rise of a Habsburg to high oﬃce in this organization.
  In August 1989, the Paneuropean Union organized a protest it called “the 
  Paneuropean Picnic.” Amid the widespread protests that preceded the collapse 
  of Communism in eastern Europe, the Paneuropean Union and the opposition 
  Hungarian Democratic Forum organized an event to be held on the Austro-
  Hungarian border near the town of Sopron. A border gate was to be symbolically 
  opened for three hours, allowing free passage in either direction. The result was 
  that 600 people ﬂed to the West; less than a month later Hungary opened its 
  borders completely, beginning the fall of the Iron Curtain.
  Although the demolition of the Berlin Wall in 1990 is more widely 
  remembered, the Paneuropean Picnic was a signiﬁcant milestone in the collapse 
  of European Communism and the enlargement of the European Union.
  There is no direct evidence linking the Paneuropean Union to the Templars, 
  but in his notes Fouchet points out that the organization’s ﬂag is identical 
  to the ﬂag of the European Union, with a red cross superimposed over the 
  central circle. The red cross has a long history as a Templar symbol. He also 
  believed the House of Habsburg’s close association with the Paneuropean 
  Union is signiﬁcant.
  A map of the ever-expanding 
  European Union. Are the Templars 
  working to create a supranational 
  state in Europe? (backgrounds / 
  Alamy)
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  76
  Conclusion
  As I said in the introduction to this book, Fouchet’s conclusions are startling. 
  Could it be possible that the Knights Templar not only survived their formal 
  dissolution but have guarded a powerful mystical secret for 700 years, hiding 
  it behind the image of the Holy Grail? Have they fought a 200-year secret war 
  against the Freemasons and the Catholic Church? Have they manipulated 
  people and nations in a grand experiment to create an ideal state free of religious 
  conﬂict and guided by enlightened principles? Are they close to realizing the 
  ﬁrst step in this plan? Readers must come to their own conclusions.
  There are many other questions that remain unanswered. Where did the 
  Holy Grail go after it was evacuated from Rennes-le-Château? Of the many 
  contemporary organizations that claim descent from the Templars, which are 
  no more than wishful imitators? Which are smokescreens established by the 
  Templars to throw their enemies oﬀ the track? Which are fabrications created 
  by the Freemasons, the Inquisition, or Opus Dei to bring the Templars 
  into disrepute? Which are the creations of hucksters and conﬁdence artists?  
  And which, if any, are truly linked to the Order and its mysterious schemes?
  These questions will be diﬃcult to answer, and their answers will doubtless 
  lead to even more questions. After seven centuries underground, the Templars 
  will not allow themselves to be found easily. Fouchet, perhaps, came close to 
  doing so, and perhaps it cost him his life. Inspired to solve the mystery of the 
  “Troyes cabal”, he stumbled into a world far darker and more complex than 
  anyone could have anticipated.
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  77
  Timeline
  1099: The First Crusade creates the Christian 
  kingdom of Jerusalem.
  1104: After meeting with one or more nobles recently 
  returned from Jerusalem, Count Hugh of Champagne 
  spends four years in the Holy Land with Hugues de 
  Payens.
  1114: Count Hugh of Champagne makes a second 
  journey to the Holy Land.
  1115: Count Hugh returns to France and founds 
  Clairvaux Abbey, appointing the young Bernard de 
  Fontaines as abbott.
  1119: Hugues de Payens and eight companions found 
  the Knights Templar. They are housed in the al-Aqsa 
  Mosque near the site of the Temple of Solomon.
  c. 1119–27: The Templars explore the maze of hidden 
  rooms beneath the Temple Mount, ﬁnding the Holy 
  Grail and other treasures.
  1124: Count Hugh of Champagne oﬃcially joins the 
  Templars.
  1128: With the support of Bernard of Clairvaux the 
  Templars receive papal recognition at the Council of 
  Troyes; Hugues de Payens visits Scotland and meets 
  with King David I.
  1139: Pope Innocent II exempts the Templars from 
  national laws and the authority of monarchs.
  1187: The disastrous Battle of Hattin begins the fall 
  of the Crusader kingdoms.
  1192–97: Count Henry of Champagne is king of 
  Jerusalem but dies in suspicious circumstances.
  1209–29: The Templars secretly assist the Cathars 
  during the Albigensian Crusade.
  1284: Prince Philip of France becomes count of 
  Champagne through marriage.
  1285: Prince Philip is crowned Philip IV of France, 
  known as Philip le Bel (“the handsome”).
  1291: Acre, the last Crusader outpost in the Holy 
  Land, falls to Muslim forces. The Templars move their 
  headquarters to Cyprus.
  1303: Acting through the Italian Colonna family, 
  Philip le Bel causes the death of Pope Boniface VIII.
  1303–04: Philip le Bel feuds with Pope Benedict XI.
  1304: Queen Joan of France dies in childbirth; 
  suspicion falls on her husband Philip le Bel.
  1305: Pope Clement V is elected through the 
  inﬂuence of Philip le Bel.
  1306: Riots in Paris drive Philip le Bel to take refuge 
  in the Paris Temple.
  1307: Philip le Bel and Pope Clement V act against 
  the Templars. Arrests and interrogations follow; the 
  Grail is moved to Scotland.
  1308: In the Chinon Parchment, Pope Clement V 
  absolves the Templars of heresy.
  1311: Pope Clement V summons the Council of 
  Vienne, which also absolves the Templars of heresy.
  1312: Pope Clement V formally dissolves the 
  Templars.
  1314: Jacques de Molay is burned at the stake; Pope 
  Clement V dies of dysentery 33 days later; Philip le 
  Bel dies eight months later, from either a hunting 
  accident or a stroke. Templars allegedly ﬁght on the 
  Scottish side at the Battle of Bannockburn.
  1322: The Grail reaches North America; Templar 
  refugees found the kingdom of Saguenay.
  1400: Henry St Clair (Sinclair) of Roslin allegedly 
  travels to Greenland using secret Templar sea-routes.
  1602: Sir William Sinclair of Roslin becomes patron 
  of all the Freemasons in Scotland.
  1689: Viscount Dundee is killed at the Battle of 
  Killiekrankie; the Templar Grand Cross is allegedly 
  found on his body.
  c. 1690: The Grail is moved to Newport, Rhode Island; 
  rumors of Templar activity compromise its safety.
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  78
  c. 1700: The Grail is moved to New Hope township, 
  Pennsylvania.
  1705: l’Ordre du Temple is refounded by the duke 
  of Orleans.
  1717: Freemasonry enters a period of rapid expansion.
  1738: The Church and the Freemasons come into 
  open conﬂict.
  1745: Bonnie Prince Charlie allegedly becomes 
  Grand Master of the Templars; it is more likely that 
  he was a Freemason.
  1776: Having found the Grail, Washington crosses 
  the Delaware near New Hope township; the tide of 
  the Revolutionary War begins to turn.
  1777–78: While wintering at Valley Forge, 
  Washington has a vision of the future United States, 
  possibly as a result of experimenting with the Grail.
  1789–99: The French Revolution: the Templars 
  depose the Bourbon dynasty and try to establish an 
  ideal state in France; the Grail is recovered from the 
  Freemasons and moved to Paris.
  1793: Washington lays the cornerstone of the US 
  Capitol while dressed in Masonic regalia.
  1794: Former Templar agent Maximilien de 
  Robespierre is executed; the Grail is moved to Rennes-
  le-Château.
  1804: Napoleon founds the First Empire of France.
  1809: Napoleon occupies Rome; many documents 
  from the Vatican’s secret archive are shipped to France; 
  l’Ordre du Temple is apparently revived under his 
  patronage.
  1815: Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo; the Templars 
  turn to the Habsburgs.
  1848: The Freemasons stir up rebellions across 
  Habsburg territories.
  1887: Bérenger Saunière allegedly discovers hidden 
  documents in the church at Rennes-le-Château.
  1897: Antoine Gélis is tortured and murdered near 
  Rennes-le-Château, possibly by Masonic agents; his 
  house and papers are ransacked but his money is left 
  untouched. Shortly afterward the Grail is moved from 
  Rennes-le-Château to an unknown location.
  1900: A break-in at the Vatican is played down by 
  Church authorities.
  1904: The Inquisition is reorganized and renamed.
  1911: Bérenger Saunière is suspended for selling 
  indulgences.
  1914–18: World War I destroys the Habsburg Austro-
  Hungarian Empire.
  1940–44: Nazi relic hunters search for the Grail near 
  Rennes-le-Château and elsewhere.
  1956: Pierre Plantard ﬁles oﬃcial documents 
  founding the Priory of Sion. This apparently ﬁctitious 
  organization goes on to play a major role in the 
  “Plantard plot.”
  1957: Otto von Habsburg becomes vice-president 
  of the International Paneuropean Union; he serves as 
  president from 1973–2004. The European Economic 
  Community is founded.
  1960-65: Second Vatican Council is held in Rome.
  1961: Otto von Habsburg renounces his family’s 
  long-defunct claim to the Austrian throne; he is active 
  in the European Parliament.
  1965: The Inquisition is reorganized and renamed.
  1969: A break-in at the Vatican is played down; 
  the P2 Masonic lodge begins to inﬁltrate the Italian 
  government, the Vatican Bank, and the Maﬁa.
  1970: The Swiss Guard and Vatican police are 
  modernized; two other Vatican guard units are 
  disbanded.
  1982: The publication of The Holy Blood and the Holy 
  Grail brings worldwide attention to the Plantard plot; 
  the Inquisition possibly takes over Opus Dei.
  1998: Vatican authorities allege that the deaths of 
  the Swiss Guard’s commander, his wife, and a young 
  guardsman are the result of a love triangle.
  1989: The Paneuropean Union organizes “the 
  Paneuropean Picnic” on the Austro-Hungarian border. 
  As a result Hungary opens its borders, beginning the 
  fall of the Iron Curtain.
  2003: Publication of The Da Vinci Code renews 
  interest in the Plantard plot and brings Opus Dei out 
  of the shadows.
  2007: Otto von Habsburg retires and hands over his 
  duties to his son Karl.
  2012: The “Vatileaks” scandal exposes ﬁnancial 
  corruption at the highest levels; the Vatican’s internal 
  investigation is headed by a senior member of Opus 
  Dei. Professor Émile Fouchet dies in an apparent car 
  accident near Troyes, France.
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  79
  Bibliography
  Books
  There are hundreds of books on Templar secrets in print in English, and many 
  more in French. Each year sees more titles published, many elaborating on 
  existing theories and evidence and a few presenting new ideas and information. 
  The following list cannot be more than a selection.
  Addison, Charles G., The History of the Knights Templars, the Temple Church, 
  and the Temple, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans (London, 
  1842). Available as a free e-text through Project Gutenberg.
  Ambrosini, Maria Luisa, The Secret Archives of the Vatican, Little, Brown & 
  Co (New York, 1969).
  Baigent, Michael, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, The Holy Blood and 
  the Holy Grail, Jonathan Cape (London, 1982).
  Baigent, Michael and Richard Leigh, The Temple and the Lodge, Arcade 
  Publishing (New York, 1991).
  Bradley, Michael, Grail Knights of North America: On The Trail of the Grail 
  Legacy in Canada and the United States, Hounslow Press (Toronto, 1998).
  Brown, Dan, The Da Vinci Code, Bantam Dell (New York, 2003).
  Burman, Edward, The Inquisition, Dorset Press (New York, 1992).
  Clifton, Chas S., Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics, Barnes & Noble (New 
  York, 1992).
  Cowper, Marcus, Cathar Castles (Fortress 55), Osprey Publishing (Oxford, 2006).
  Daraul, Arkon, Secret Societies: A History, MJF Books (New York, 1989).
  Gabrieli, Francesco, Arab Historians of the Crusades, Barnes & Noble (New 
  York, 1993).
  Haag, Michael, The Templars: History and Myth, Proﬁle Books (London, 2009).
  Heckethorn, Charles William, The Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries, 
  Cosimo Classics (New York, 2005).
  Hopkins, Marilyn, and Tim Wallace-Murphy, Templars in America: From the 
  Crusades to the New World, Red Wheel/Weiser (Newburyport, MA, 2004).
  Keightley, Thomas, Secret Societies of the Middle Ages, William Clowes & Sons 
  (London, 1837). Available as a free e-text through Project Gutenberg.
  Matarasso, P. M. (trans.), The Quest of the Holy Grail, Penguin Books 
  (London, 1969).
  McCall, Andrew, The Medieval Underworld, A. M. Heath (1979).
  Mann, William F., The Knights Templar in the New World: How Henry Sinclair 
  Brought the Grail to Acadia, Destiny Books (Rochester, VT, 2004).
  Oxbrow, Mark, and Ian Robertson, Rosslyn and the Grail, Mainstream 
  Publishing (Edinburgh, 2005).
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  80
  Index
  References to illustrations are shown in bold. References  
  to plates are shown in bold with caption page in brackets
  Acre, capture of (1291)  11, 24, 45
  Agrippa, Henry Cornelius  31
  al-Aqsa Mosque  6, 19, 65
  “Angels of Mons”  60, 60
  Arcadia  47, 49, 52
  Arianism  39, 41
  Assassins (or Hashashin)  11, 12, 13 (14), 18, 41, 42, 44
  Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem  6, 7, 8, 20
  Baphomet  31–2, 42, 42, 43 (44)
  Beaujeu, Guillaume de  11, 24
  Benedict XI, Pope  26
  Bernard de Clairvaux  7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20
  Bigou, Antoine  56, 59
  Blanchefort, Bertrand de  12, 38
  Bogomil heresy  30
  Boniface VIII, Pope  25, 26
  Bowman, John  52, 53
  Cathars
  Albigensian Crusade  5, 12, 14, 18, 30, 56
  Catharism  19, 22, 24, 38–9, 41, 44
  Templar connection  12, 26, 33, 38
  Catholic Church
  and the Freemasons  54
  and the French Revolution  56
  and the Holy Grail  16, 18
  and the Templar Creed  37, 40, 41
  Charles I, Austro-Hungarian Emperor  73, 73
  Charlie, Bonnie Prince  47
  Chrétien de Troyes  14, 39
  Clairvaux Abbey  7, 8, 9
  Clement V, Pope  26, 27, 28, 32–3, 34, 37, 45, 46
  Clement XII, Pope  54
  Colonna family  25, 26
  Compagnie du Saint-Sacrament  48, 49
  Copper Scroll of Qumran  46
  Council of Troyes (1128)  6, 7, 10
  Council of Vienne (1311)  32, 33, 40
  cross pattée  10, 21, 34
  Crusades  6, 9, 10, 16, 22, 44
  Cyprus  12, 22, 45
  Da Vinci Code, The (Dan Brown)  4, 62, 67, 69
  de Gaulle, Charles  74
  Dead Sea Scrolls  17, 18
  Edward II, King of England  33, 46
  European Union  72, 74–5, 75
  Flexian, Squin de  27, 29, 41
  Fouchet, Émile  4–5, 76
  Franklin, Benjamin  55
  Freemasons
  and the American Revolution  52–3
  and the Bourbons  57
  and the British Parliament  72
  and the French Revolution  56
  and the Habsburgs  58
  “P2” scandal  65, 69
  and Rennes-le-Château  59, 65
  rituals and symbols  18, 41, 42, 72
  French Revolution  55–6
  Fulk (or Fulcher) de Chartres  7
  Gélis, Antoine  61, 62, 65
  Genoa Chalice  17, 57
  Gnosticism  37, 38, 39, 41, 44
  Gospel of Thomas  37
  Guillaume de Tyre  7, 8, 17
  Habsburgs  58, 59, 60, 61, 73–4, 75
  Hattin, Battle of (1187)  9, 11, 22, 44
  Henry II, King of Jerusalem  9, 20, 59
  Henry III, King of England  11
  Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, The  4, 17, 52, 61, 69, 75
  Holy Grail
  Cup  15, 15, 23 (22)
  “false Grail”  14, 17, 45, 54, 57, 62
  Grail’s journey  45–53
  Holy Chalices/Blood  16–17, 16
  location of  55, 56, 57, 60, 61, 62, 76
  metaphors  17–19
  Solomon’s Library  21
  Solomon’s treasure  20
  Honorius II, Pope  6, 7
  Horal, Gilbert  14, 17, 22, 24
  Hugh (or Hugues), Count of Champagne  7, 8–9, 20
  Illuminati  18, 54
  Innocent II, Pope  7, 29
  Innocent III, Pope  9
  Innocent VI, Pope  45
  Inquisition  48–9, 54–5, 57, 59, 61, 64–7, 68
  International Paneuropean Union  73, 74, 75
  Jerusalem, Kingdom of  12, 39, 59, 72, 73
  Jesus Scrolls, The (Donovan Joyce)  75
  Johannites  37, 39, 42, 58
  John Paul I and II, Popes  67
  John the Baptist  38, 39, 40, 42
  John XXII, Pope  66
  Joseph of Arimathea  15, 18
  Knights Hospitaller  12, 27, 32, 33, 46, 48
  Knights of Christ  33, 34, 48
  Knights of Malta  48, 49
  Knights Templar
  Cathar connection  12, 26, 33, 38
  founding  6–7, 6
  growth and inﬂuence  10–12
  guardians of sacred cup  23 (22)
  initiation ceremony  11
  Muslim sympathies  30, 31, 32, 42, 44
  return to Europe  54–5
  Scottish connection  46–7
  severed head worship  38
  trampling upon the cross  32
  Troyes connection  8–9, 20–1, 26, 39, 58, 76
  Knights Templar International  58
  Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci)  62
  Lawrence, Saint  16
  Louis VII, King of France  10
  Louis XIV, King of France  55
  Louis XVI, King of France  55, 57
  Mandaeism  38, 39, 40
  Manichaeism  38, 39
  Molay, Jacques de  5, 6, 24, 27–8, 27, 29, 32, 34, 35 (36), 
  36, 45
  Montbard, André de  6, 8, 20
  Nag Hammadi manuscripts  17, 18, 37, 41
  Napoleon  57, 58
  Nazis  61, 66, 67, 75
  New France  48–9, 52
  Nogaret, Guillaume de  26
  North America  47–53, 47, 49, 50–1 (49)
  Opus Dei  66, 67, 68
  Order of St John and the Temple  46
  Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani 
  (OSMTH)  58
  Ordre du Temple  55, 57, 58, 60
  Outremer  12, 44
  Paneuropean Picnic  75
  Paris Temple  26, 45, 55, 57, 57
  Paul VI, Pope  67
  Payens, Hugues de  6–7, 8, 8, 10, 14, 19, 20, 21–2, 46
  Philip le Bel (Phillippe IV, King of France)
  de Molay’s curse  34, 35 (36), 36, 36
  discovers Templars’ wealth  25
  secures control of papacy  26–7
  Templars and Pope Clement V  32–3
  Templars’ arrests and conﬁscations  27–8
  Templars’ trial  29–31, 40
  torture and interrogations  31–2
  Troyes connection  21
  Pius XII, Pope  66
  Plantard Plot  4, 5, 17, 48, 52, 59, 61–2, 69,  
  74, 75
  Poussin, Nicolas  47, 49, 52
  Priory of Sion  17, 59, 61, 62
  Rennes-le-Château  48, 52, 56, 59–60, 61
  Rhode Island  52, 53
  Ridefort, Gerard de  11, 22, 44
  Robert de Bruce  46
  Robespierre, Maximilien de  56
  Rosicrucians  18, 54
  Roslin  47
  Sablé, Robert de  22
  Saguenay  47, 48, 49, 50–1 (49)
  St Clair, Henry  46
  Saint-Omer, Godfrey (or Geoﬀrey) de  6, 8
  Saunière, François Bérenger  52, 59
  Scotland  33, 45, 46–7
  Sixtus II, Pope  16
  Solomon, King  20
  Solomon’s Library  21, 45, 48, 49
  Solomon’s Temple  6, 19, 20, 21, 65
  Templar Creed  22, 37–44
  Templar State  12, 22, 30, 72–3, 74, 75, 76
  Temple and the Lodge, The  69
  Teutonic Knights  4, 12, 33, 47, 61
  Theobald III, Count of Champagne  9
  Theobald IV, Count of Champagne  39
  Toulouse  12, 14, 24, 56
  troubadours  14, 15, 17, 18, 22, 24, 38–9
  Troyes connection  8–9, 20–1, 26, 39, 58, 76
  Valencia Chalice  16, 16
  Vatican
  break-ins  64–5, 67, 70–1 (69)
  Library and archives  64, 68
  Swiss Guard  67–8, 67
  “Vatileaks” scandal  68
  Villaret, Guillaume de  27
  Washington, George  53, 54, 54
  Zeno letters  46
  Zichmni, Prince  46
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
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