Xenograffiti (4 page)
AN INTRODUCTION TO
THE HOLY GRAIL REVEALED: THE REAL SECRET OF RENNES-LE-CHÂTEAU
, BY PATRICIA AND LIONEL FANTHORPE
(1982)
“‘Once upon a time....’”
The traditional words for the beginning of a fairy tale. The abracadabra that opens the magic door to a world where dreams come true, where men and women suddenly find lost treasure, become rich beyond their wildest imaginings, and live happily ever after. It can’t happen in real life, of course. We all know, as we trudge our dreary ways back and forth to work each day that nothing of this sort will ever happen to us. But just suppose, just imagine what you might do with such a fortune. Because, you see, it actually happened, not so long ago, and the truth behind the story is stranger than most of the novels you’ve ever read or will read.
Once upon a time, not quite a hundred years ago, there lived in southeastern France a poor priest named Bérenger Saunière, an odd name for a man with a still odder destiny. He was born and bred in a rural area rich in history, ruins, and historical artifacts. When he came of age, Saunière became a priest in the Roman Catholic faith, and upon completing his studies, was assigned to the impoverished parish church at the decaying French village of Rennes-le-Château. The money he received, his “pay,” if you will, was barely enough to feed him; the church was in bad repair, but he wasn’t able to have it fixed until one of the local gentry offered a small sum to restore the altar to its original style. Rennes is an ancient place; parts of the church go back hundreds, maybe even a thousand, years; no one knows for sure. In the course of renovations, the priest uncovered a hiding place; within the alcove were some rolled scrolls and other artifacts—all this confirmed by the two men doing the construction work.
Within a few months, Saunière was lavishly spending money to improve his church, his home, and the surrounding area—he had a permanent road laid from the village to the church, for example. The priest is known to have made several trips abroad; even stranger, he was visited on several occasions by Austrian nobility, members of the imperial ruling House of Hapsburg. For more than twenty-five years, he maintained an enormously extravagant lifestyle by the standards of his community, defying all inquiries from his superiors in the Roman Catholic Church as to the origins of his sudden wealth. There is no doubt whatsoever that Saunière found a treasure of some sort, that he sold it or converted parts of it into cash, and that, within the period from the early 1890s to his death in 1917, he spent the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars in modern American currency. Saunière himself was poor, his parish was poor, the surrounding community was poor, even the local gentry was poor for their class; none of these people, none of Saunière’s equally impoverished relatives, no one in the community could have given him this wealth, even if he had had the means to pry it from them. And yet he died as he began, completely without resources, without ever having revealed the secret of his treasure.
For many decades, Saunière was the subject of local gossip only; he died unheralded by the world around him, although beloved by his parishioners. He was not particularly interested in the larger world in any case; he used his money to help the community and to build for himself a manor in which he never lived. It has only been within the last ten years that investigators from France and Britain have begun looking into the mystery of Rennes-le-Château, trying to find possible explanations for the source of the treasure, trying to determine what the cache included, trying to probe for the reasons behind it all, if there are any. Several books have been published in French; three documentaries have been televised in England; and this is the second book on the subject published in English, the first, published just a month ago, having been written by the same group of British researchers who put together the television series.
Holy Blood, Holy Grail,
by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, is a thoroughly enjoyable exploration of the Rennes mystery—readable, well illustrated, obviously well researched, well written. As presented, the speculations seem to fit together fairly closely with historical reality, until one actually begins thinking about them: then there are problems. All of it looks plausible enough on paper, with detailed genealogical charts fleshing out the arguments, and supposedly secret documents filling in gaps that can be bridged in no other way. The essential question remains: does it work? My gut response, having read the Baigent book, Fanthorpes’ book, and other historical documents, is a fairly strong “No!”
As a professional genealogist, and one who has done an immense amount of original historical and literary research on such diverse topics as the chronology of world rulers from the beginnings of recorded history to date, a chronological checklist of Greek Orthodox patriarchs, complete genealogies of two American families dating back before the American Revolution, bibliographies of the mass market paperback and of fantastic literature, with twenty-odd published books and over a hundred articles in a wide variety of popular and professional publications, and as a person who is, moreover, a fairly well-read and -educated skeptic, I find several flaws in Baigent’s theories, flaws serious enough, in my estimation, to prove fatal to his elaborate house of cards.
Let’s backtrack a moment, though, and see just why Baigent’s book has proved so controversial. In essence, these three British journalists claim that Christ either staged or escaped his crucifixion, had a family by Mary Magdalene, and either fled to France himself, or arranged for his wife and children to do so. He then died at some later date, perhaps at the siege of Masada in 73
a.d
. His descendants in France were the ancestors of the Merovingians, say Baigent and company, who ruled France and parts of France for several hundred years; they were then displaced by the powers behind the throne, the Carolingian “Mayors of the Palace,” who proclaimed themselves kings in the eighth century
a.d
. But, Baigent says, some of the Merovingians survived in another part of France, and their line continued down through the middle ages to modern times, supported and nurtured by various political and social groups, who kept their faith in the “Holy Blood” of the Merovingians, and sought to restore their line as Emperors of Europe or the world, believing them to be the salvation of mankind. Some of these groups were the Knights Templar, the Cathars (Catholic heretics), and the Priory of Sion, the secret inner group of the Knights Templar, a cabal which survives to this day, according to Baigent. All of these groups used secret codes and messages to maintain their integrity; but some of the Priory’s documents have been leaked by members of this group, and they confirm the Merovingian theory. This, in brief, summarizes the arguments of
Holy Blood, Holy Grail.
Of course, such contentions, if true, would destroy the basis of the Christian faith, however it is practiced and by whatever sect or church, since they directly contradict the words of the Bible, traditions dating back two thousand years, and much established church dogma. Leaving aside religious arguments, however, there are still great difficulties with Baigent’s book, difficulties which cannot be lightly passed over.
First, there is the problem of genealogy. One of the first things that a budding genealogist learns is to trust no one and no document; or, rather, to trust them with varying levels of skepticism, relying only upon well-verified documentation that, together with other proofs, establishes a pattern that can finally be accepted as “reasonably certain.” For the common people—farmers, tradesmen, servants, slaves, anyone not wealthy or ennobled—it is difficult to prove lines older than about the year 1800, very difficult before the year 1700, and almost impossible prior to the year 1600—the records simply do not exist. For minor nobility and the very wealthy, it is difficult to establish lines before the year 1300, very difficult before the year 1200, and virtually impossible before the year 1000. For reigning royalty, there are no verifiable provable lines prior to the advent of the Merovingians circa 450
a.d
.; there are various families who
claim
ancestry prior to this period, but can only provide oral documentation that has been recorded at a later date. In general, genealogies established prior to the year 1000 are based on the most fragmentary of records, and are often not provable for even major noble families holding major fiefs from the crown. One is often forced to rely on such statements as “such and such may be the son of so and so,” or “it’s possible that Count X was the son of Count Y mentioned in year Z,” and so forth. (For a more detailed essay on the problems of establishing lines of descent, see
Genealogical Evidence,
by Noel C. Stevenson, a professional genealogist and practicing attorney.)
Baigent’s theories make fascinating and entertaining reading, but the genealogical evidence is no more (and can be no more) than speculation, completely undocumented and completely without foundation. We are therefore left with the question: is it reasonable to assume that the Merovingians could have left descendants in the male line, offshoots who later proved to be the founders of several major noble families of Europe? Again I must respond negatively. We must not make the mistake of assuming that men who lived hundreds or thousands of years ago were less intelligent than ourselves; indeed, science has demonstrated that the intelligence levels of mankind have not altered appreciably in at least ten thousand years and probably for much longer. The names that we see in the history books, these olden kings, were just as bright as anyone who attains key positions of power today; they also had many of the same problems experienced by rulers throughout history. The Carolingians were self-made men, strong men, intelligent men, politically savvy men, hard men. The early members of their line shine out from the historical chronicles: such rulers as Charles Martel, Pépin III, Charlemagne (“Charles the Great”) were neither fools nor ciphers. These three men had one enormous political problem: although they held all the power of the state through their (now) hereditary position as Mayors of the Palace, they had absolutely no right whatever to the throne of France, under any law then in force. Pépin solved this problem temporarily by getting the pope to sanction his assumption of the crown. However, his claim was still very shaky, and one must assume that he only made his move when he felt absolutely certain that he could control the possible reaction of the people, and could remove any possible Merovingian pretenders permanently from the scene, therefore eliminating a major rallying point against his regime. Charlemagne would have been faced with exactly the same political realities.
The last Merovingian king, Childéric III, was childless, so Pépin did not need worry about his progeny; the king himself was locked away in a monastery under close guard, just to make certain that he could not escape or have children. Childéric died or was killed four years later. The historian must ask the obvious question: why was Childéric not killed immediately? The only possible response is this: his death was not necessary. Why was his death not necessary? Because all other possible pretenders were dead, leaving Childéric as the last of his line; with Childéric’s death, the heir to the Merovingian line became any one of the surviving Merovingian princesses, several of whom had already been married off to the Carolingians to establish the latter’s legitimacy after the fact. With Childéric under firm control (and perhaps not in the best of health), and especially with Childéric childless, there was no need to upset the natural order of things any further than they had been already, with Pépin’s usurpation of the throne; there were undoubtedly old supporters of the Merovingians among the nobility, men who would have been offended with Childéric’s execution without cause; and since there was no other obvious threat to his position, Pépin clearly was content to control the ex-King until his belated demise.
At that point, Pépin and his son became the genuine heirs to the crown. Had any other Merovingian males survived, they would automatically have become the rightful kings at Childéric’s death. One must remember that the Merovingian succession was not always from father to son, but often from father to
sons,
or cousin to cousin; every male heir had an equal right to the throne. The Carolingian kings could not have allowed even one Merovingian to survive for any length of time; their own necks were at stake. The price for political failure would have been torture and execution; there was no retirement to the Western White House in medieval times. Those who played at politics played either for complete power or complete oblivion; there was very little in between. Since Charles Martel, Pépin III, and Charlemagne are among the strongest rulers recorded in French history, they surely would have been eminently aware of this potential threat to their necks, and would have made absolutely certain that every Merovingian descendant had been accounted for. We must remember also that they had every means of the state at their disposal: these were absolute rulers in almost every sense of the word, men who knew how to use their power: they would have had agents everywhere throughout the land, officers beholden only to the new kings; it is virtually impossible that a Merovingian could have survived in a titled position of power anywhere in the French realm. History teaches us that even female members of deposed royal houses (and their offshoots) do not survive long under the new regime, be it another dynasty or a republic.
A similar argument can be applied to Baigent’s contention that Christ staged and survived his supposed execution. We must again recall existing testimony on this subject, and the political realities of the time, irrespective of any religious considerations. Jesus was a major threat to the political and religious establishment, which were intertwined under the Roman procurators. Although the Romans had a large occupying force in Judea, and a Roman governor made (or carried out) all the major decisions for the province, the Jews were actually allowed a considerable amount of freedom in running their own affairs; the High Priest and the Sanhedrin (in effect his religious synod) also had political and judicial authority over the Jews in their area. If a Jew committed a crime, the religious bodies were allowed to deal with it, with exceptions; they were even allowed to invoke the death penalty, although the sentence had to be approved by the Roman procurator. Christ threatened the hegemony of the Jewish High Priest, and therefore he had to be removed from the scene permanently. The Romans were relatively indifferent to his death, but approved it to avoid unnecessary trouble. All of this rings true politically. As the Fanthorpes point out, Jesus would not have abandoned his religious career prematurely; this would have been completely out of character with the man depicted in the New Testament. Had he survived his supposed crucifixion for any length of time (beyond the fleeting glimpses we see of him during the forty days of his resurrection), the Sanhedrin would certainly have pointed to the fraud, arrested him again, and made certain of his execution the second time. They would have been doubly outraged at his first escape, and would have publicized it extensively as a sign of his duplicity.
