The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar (29 page)

From their capital at Reims, the Merovingian dynasty in turn conquered Gaul, including the Visigothic south of France, from which the Romans had retreated. When they vanquished the Visigoths, they would have sought to take the treasures of that dynasty, although legends of buried Visigoth treasure attest to the safety of much of it. Both the Visigoths and the Merovingians shared Arian tendencies, since they both had migrated from the east and both the north and south of Gaul were still
attracting settlers and refugees from Asia and eastern Europe. This migration may have been well under way for thousands of years. Greek and Phoenician traders left their mark on western Europe. Cannes may have been named for the Canaanites who went to the southern European shores of the Mediterranean from the eastern shores of that same sea. Rock monuments to the Phoenician god Baal were erected in Monaco; this deity was worshiped from the British Isles to Scandinavia to Portugal.
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Semitic personal names and surnames were also typical in Merovingian-Visigothic France. Mons Judaicus near Auvergne signified acceptance or at least recognition of the Jewish influence. The Arian-leaning Visigoths and Merovingians lived peaceably with the Jews until alliance with Rome led Clovis to turn on his fellow Arians and Jews alike. Jews were given a choice that intolerance in Europe would offer them several times—convert or leave.
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Many did convert but remained Jews in spirit, as would many Arians. This may not have been true of the peasant class, which had few choices but to coexist with large intrusive neighbors. Could both the Visigothic and Merovingian kings have been aware of the bloodline of David in their midst? There is evidence to support this theory.

The family of Jewish descendants of David and Jesus would have been highly regarded among their own people. Visigothic rulers who were Arian Christians would have tolerated them because their beliefs would not have been much different from their own. Both peoples believed in a supreme deity, a bible, and a messiah. Furthermore, they might have gone beyond tolerance and acceptance to actual respect for their Jewish neighbors and the highborn bloodline of some of them. When the Visigoths of Spain yielded to the Merovingians in the north, a borderland called Septimania separated France from Spain. In that region was the greatest population of Jews in the south, and intermarriage was commonplace between Jews and Goths. Semitic names like Bera are found frequently among the Visigothic aristocracy. When the Merovingian and Visigoth nobility married, the combined families had even more Semitic names. In some writings the words “Goth” and “Jew” were used interchangeably. The code of laws and proscriptions of the Merovingians, known as the Salic law (complicated rules on where one could live, how
not to plough, etc.), had at least one full section that derived directly from the Talmud.

The acceptance of the belief in a royal line of kingship among the Jews and their relations by marriage among the Visigoths and Merovingians became even more common by Carolingian times. After the son of Frankish ruler Charles Martel Pepin III, deposed the Merovingian king in the eighth century, he sought to claim Merovingian descent for himself.
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He was anointed king in the Hebrew rite and asked the Jewish population of Septimania to recognize his succession. He, in turn, endorsed Theodoric as the rightful king and heir to the line of David in the Jewish stronghold of Septimania in southern France.

There is a good possibility that the son of Dagobert II, Sigisbert IV, had a son who became Theodoric. If Sigisbert IV survived the assassination of his father, his survival may have depended on his remaining anonymous. He was, however, the rightful heir, and when the Carolingian Pepin found out, a deal was struck. Theodoric might have been allowed to live and prosper in a limited role as king in the south of France.
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Theodoric married Pepin’s sister, Alda, giving more legitimacy to the blood ties of both lines.

History records little of Dagobert II and nothing of Sigisbert IV, but Theodoric is mentioned. Research into his biography shows that he came from Baghdad, descended from a group that claimed to be Jews from the Babylonian exile with the most direct line of kingship connection to David. Why would a Merovingian claim to be a descendant from the purest bloodline of David if he were not at least partly Jewish? And why would the Merovingians accept this claim unless, as a people, they had shared a common background with the Asian Semites?

Theodoric, the accepted king of the Jews in Septimania, was married to Charlemagne’s aunt (Alda) and ruled in the south. At that time vast estates were given to the Jews in various parts of France. Schools of learning were established at Troyes in the north and Narbonne in the south. Despite the protests from Rome (because even Church land had been given to Jews), tolerance reigned. Theodoric and Alda had a son, Guillem de Gellone, who assumed the title of count of Razes (Rennesle-Chateau and the surrounding area), among others—titles that would
have rightfully belonged to Dagobert’s heirs.
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He was both Jewish and Merovingian and was accepted as being in the royal bloodline of David.

No longer the most powerful family in France, these former Merovingian kings underwent social decline, but kept their reduced wealth and lands. A few generations later, the family received Blanchefort, an estate one mile from Rennes-le-Chateau. They then become known as the de Blancheforts, and this family can be traced into Saunière’s day.

Having usurped the power of the Merovingians, the Carolingian dynasty ruled most of France. In northern France the reign of Charlemagne became the most famous of the new dynasty. Charlemagne took steps to legitimize his rule by intermarriage between his family and the older dynasties of France. His recognition of the Jewish blood in his Merovingian and Visigothic predecessors caused him to be known as one of France’s most tolerant kings. But his tolerance drew the wrath of Pope Stephen III, who complained about lost Church lands and the fact that Jews owned Christian slaves. He was powerless, however, to move against Charlemagne, who was the protector of Jewish Septimania and even Rome. Charlemagne went beyond mere tolerance and did his best to attract more Jewish immigrants to southern France.
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On the surface he was decidedly Christian, but at the same time the seal of Charlemagne said, “Rex Solomon.”

The son of Charlemagne, Emperor Louis (ruled
A.D.
814–840), extended even greater powers and freedom to the Jews and placed them under his guardianship. Their communities were chartered directly by the king and their rights to property protected by him. Their testimony in court was valued equally with the testimony of Christians. Louis’s second wife, Judith, did nothing to conceal her Jewish name or her favor for Judaism, atypical in European monarchies. Louis fought against the Roman Church to uphold the equal rights that the Carolingians had granted the Jews, but two separate incidents hurt his efforts. One involved the case of a Christian slave who ran away from a Jewish master, which brought the Church and public opinion down on his policy of tolerance, and the other was the conversion of Louis’s own minister to Judaism, which was seen as a sign of weakness. The Church was equally determined to stop such tolerance.

After Louis passed away, his sons divided his kingdom. Charles the Bald continued the protection of the Jews and put many in posts of authority. He fought the Church and refused to have his authority usurped by the clergy. Peace prevailed in France during his reign. It would not be until the Crusades that persecution of Jews began.
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They were blamed for the poverty of the Christians and for causing the rise of the Muhammadans. In 1095 entire nations lost their collective sanity after Pope Urban II whipped them into a frenzy. Before the crusaders marched to the Holy Land, mobs marched on the Jews in northern France and across Germany. On the fifteenth of July in 1099, when Jerusalem fell, the Frankish crusaders killed every Muslim in the city as well as every Jew. The age of religious tolerance had ended.

In northern France, the area to which the sacred precinct of Reims belonged, was the district of Champagne. There Clovis, king of the Franks, had been baptized. There the first kings of France were crowned. Champagne had been divided under Merovingian rule, and leadership was always shared between the Church and the counts of Champagne. It may have been a balance of power that the count of Champagne wanted to tip in his own favor. The Templars started as almost a private club surrounding the count.
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While their early history is shrouded in secrecy that nine hundred years protects, we do know that the earliest members of the Knights Templar were all vassals of the count of Champagne. One early grand master was the uncle of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a very powerful charismatic leader whose Cistercian order included Pope Honorious.

Behind the Knights Templar was that even more mysterious and elite group called the Prieuré de Sion.
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The purpose of this small, but very powerful circle is said to have been nothing short of the restoration of the kingship of Jerusalem. The Merovingians in the north, who had purposely intermarried with the Visigoths in the south in turn intermarried with the succeeding Carolingian dynasty. If the family of Jesus, the rightful heirs of the kingship line from David, had become intermingled with the Visigoths, did the Ordre de Sion consciously seek to establish a claim to the throne of Jerusalem as a result? According to
Holy Blood, Holy Grail,
the answer is yes.

Such a goal would not be looked at with favor by the Roman Church, since, at the time, it had no such claim to a legitimate bloodline. The inheritance of the Church was only its claim to be the appointed guardian of the message of Jesus through Jesus’ appointment of Peter to that role. The Church, as directed by Constantine sought to stamp out any earthly line of descendants who would threaten its authority. The Church and Rome were one under Constantine, and the followers of Jesus, who could provide an earthly king, were in hiding in France. Understanding just how serious the Church’s reaction to such a threat would be, the Prieuré de Sion remained underground. This “underground stream” of knowledge of the royal bloodline was the secret behind the order.

When Jerusalem was captured, Godfrey of Bouillon, we recall, was elected king of the city.
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He reputedly shared in the bloodline of the legitimate kings, and finally he was king in title. He died in 1100 and was succeeded by his brother, Baldwin, who also took the title king of Jerusalem. It was Baldwin who granted the Templars their official status. The Merovingians at last had reconquered their city and reclaimed the title due them as kings in the royal line of David.

But the Templars and their king made no public claim to anything more than a political title in a troubled area. Their other purpose, looting the Temple of Solomon, may have also served little purpose as a source of wealth. The temple had already been looted and destroyed. Instead, the object of their search might have been more than monetary treasure, including the lost Ark of the Covenant, relics of Jesus or the early apostles, or the Davidic genealogies. The relics may have been the largest booty that the early Templars brought back to France. Such relics were highly valued, and relic collecting was a rage in western Europe at the time. Various bones, skulls, and pieces of hair of important personages; pieces of the True Cross and Noah’s ark; and even water from the Jordan were bought, sold, and traded.

If the Merovingian inheritors of David had won a political victory, it was short-lived. The Saracens beat back the crusaders in 1187, and the Knights Templar began to lose their elevated position. According to sources used for
Holy Blood, Holy Grail
, they were also abandoned by their secret organization, the Prieuré de Sion.
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The core of elite French families
behind the Templar organization had separated themselves from the “cover” organization, although some did remain active in both the Knights Templar and the more secretive Prieuré de Sion. St. Clairs had been in both organizations as Hugues de Payens was the husband of Marie St. Clair. Bertrand de Blanchefort, heir to Dagobert II, remained in the Templars and commanded a Templar fortress in Bezu, near Rennes-le-Chateau. The Ordre de Sion was renamed the Prieuré de Sion.

It is this secretive group that claims to be in possession of part of the treasure hoard of the Temple of Solomon and also says it will restore items to Israel when the time is right. They assert that the most important part of their “treasure” is not money, but secrets that, once revealed, will change society. Presumably, the fact that a continuous blood-line exists, complete with authentic genealogies, will be the basis of their claim to a kingship role. It seems more appropriate to the imagination of an aging Hapsburg to believe that such a claim, backed by the appropriate genealogies or not, would induce the modern world to accord even a titular role to such a claimant. It seems to step further into the realm of science fiction to believe that the modern world would turn over power to such a claimant (although not to the authors of
Holy Blood, Holy Grail
). And what of the treasure?

We know that the Templars disappeared from France with wagon loads of the gold and silver entrusted to them. We also know that French Templars turned up in Scotland, where they helped defend that country at Bannockburn. Third, we have seen the Sinclairs of Scotland take over guardianship of the successor organization to the Templars, the Freemasons. In the peaceful interlude between Bannockburn and the Reformation, the Sinclairs consolidated their power in the isles of Scotland, and “Prince” Henry sailed to Nova Scotia. His family was in control of the largest fleet in the north of Europe and vast estates and had an army to carry out their wishes. Did the Sinclair power have at its base the organization that came under its protection? Most likely it did. The guardianship of the Freemasons was further legalized by no less an authority than that of the Scottish king. The role of guardian included the task of protecting whatever treasury still existed. This mission induced the building spree that included underground passageways and tunnels large
enough to hide an army. And finally, we have seen the Sinclairs under siege and a family leader disappear along with the treasures that were secreted in the walls of Roslin.