The Order Behind the Scenes

We had already suspected the existence of a group of individuals, if not a coherent “order”, behind the Knights Templar. The claim that the Temple was created by the Prieure de Sion thus seemed slightly more plausible than the other assertions in the “Prieure documents”. It was with this claim, therefore, that we started our examination.

As early as 1962 the Prieure de Sion had been mentioned, briefly, cryptically and in passing, in a work by Gerard de Sede. The first detailed reference to it that we found, however, was a single page in the Dossiers secrets. At the top of this page there is a quotation from Rene Grousset, one of the foremost twentieth-century authorities on the Crusades, whose monumental opus on the subject, published during the 1930s, is regarded as a seminal work by such modern historians as Sir Steven Runciman. The quotation refers to Baudouin I, younger brother of Godfroi de Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine and conqueror of the Holy Land. On Godfroi’s death, Baudouin accepted the crown offered him and thereby became the first official king of Jerusalem. According to Rene Grousset, there existed, through Baudouin I, a “royal tradition”. And because it was “founded on the rock of Sion”, this tradition was “equal” to the reigning dynasties in Europe—the Capetian dynasty of France, the Anglo-Norman (Plantagenet) dynasty of England, the Hohenstauffen and Habsburg dynasties which presided over Germany and the old Holy Roman Empire. But Baudouin and his descendants were elected kings, not kings by blood. Why, then, should Grousset speak of a ‘royal tradition’ which “existed through” him? Grousset himself does not explain. Nor does he explain why this tradition, because it was “founded on the rock of Sion”, should be “equal” to the foremost dynasties of Europe.

On the page in the Dossiers secrets Grousset’s quotation is followed by an allusion to the mysterious Prieure de Sion or Ordre de Sion, as it was apparently called at the time. According to the text, the Ordre de Sion was founded by Godfroi de Bouillon in 1090, nine years before the conquest of Jerusalem—although there are other “Prieure documents” which give the founding date as 1099. According to the text, Baudouin, Godfroi’s younger brother, ‘owed his throne’ to the Order. And according to the text, the Order’s official seat, or ‘headquarters’, was a specific abbey—the Abbey of Notre Dame du Mont de Sion in Jerusalem. Or perhaps just outside Jerusalem on Mount Sion, the famous ‘high hill’ just south of the city.

On consulting all standard twentieth-century works on the Crusades, we found no mention whatever of any Ordre de Sion. We therefore undertook to establish whether or not such an Order ever existed and whether it could have had the power to confer thrones. To do that, we were obliged to rummage through sheaves of antiquated documents and charters. We did not just seek explicit references to the Order. We also sought some trace of its possible influence and activities. And we endeavoured to confirm whether or not there was an abbey called Notre Dame du Mont de Sion.

To the south of Jerusalem looms the ‘high hill’ of Mount Sion. In 1099, when Jerusalem fell to Godfroi de Bouillon’s crusaders, there stood on this hill the ruins of an old Byzantine basilica, dating supposedly from the fourth century and called ’the Mother of all Churches’—a most suggestive title. According to numerous extant charters, chronicles and contemporary accounts, an abbey was built on the site of these ruins. It was built at the express command of Godfroi de Bouillon. It must have been an imposing edifice, a self-contained community. According to one chronicler, writing in 1172, it was extremely well fortified, with its own walls, towers and battlements. And this structure was called the Abbey of Notre Dame du Mont de Sion.

Someone, obviously, had to occupy the premises. Could they have been an autonomous ‘order’, taking their name from the site itself? Could the occupants of the abbey indeed have been the Ordre de Sion? It was not unreasonable to assume so. The knights and monks who occupied the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also installed by Godfroi, were formed into an official and duly constituted ‘order’—the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. The same principle might well have obtained for the occupants of the abbey on Mount Sion, and it would seem to have done so. According to the leading nineteenth-century expert on the subject, the abbey ‘was inhabited by a chapter of Augustinian canons, charged with serving the sanctuaries under the direction of an abbot. The community assumed the double name of “Sainte-Marie du Mont Syon et du Saint-Esprit”.’ And another historian, writing in 1698, is more explicit still: “There were in Jerusalem during the Crusades… knights attached to the Abbey of Notre Dame de Sion who took the name of “Chevaliers de l’Ordre de Notre Dame de Sion”.”

If this were not sufficient confirmation, we also discovered documents of the period—original documents—bearing the seal and signature of one or another prior of “Notre Dame de Sion”. There is a charter, for example, signed by a Prior Arnaldus and dated July 19th, 1116. On another charter, dated May 2nd, 1125, Arnaldus’s name appears in conjunction with that of Hugues de Payen, first Grand Master of the Temple.

So far the “Prieure documents” had proved valid, and we could assert that an Ordre de Sion did exist by the turn of the twelfth century. Whether or not the Order had actually been formed earlier, however, remained an open question. There is no consistency about which comes first, an order, or the premises in which it is housed. The Cistercians, for instance, “took their name from a specific place, Citeaux. On the other hand, the Franciscans and Benedictines—to cite but two examples—took their names from individuals, and pre-dated any fixed abode. The most we could say, therefore, was that an abbey existed by 1100 and housed an order of the same name which may have been formed earlier.

The “Prieure documents” imply that it was, and there is some evidence to suggest, albeit vaguely and obliquely, that this may indeed have been the case. It is known that in 1070, twenty-nine years before the First Crusade, a specific band of monks, from Calabria in southern Italy, arrived in the vicinity of the Ardennes Forest, part of Godfroi de Bouillon’s domains. According to Gerard de Sede, this band of monks was led by an individual called “Ursus”—a name which the “Prieure documents” consistently associate with the Merovingian bloodline. On their arrival in the Ardennes, the Calabrian monks obtained the patronage of Mathilde de Toscane, Duchess of Lorraine—who was Godfroi de Bouillon’s aunt and, in effect, foster-mother. From Mathilde the monks received a tract of land at Orval, not far from Stenay, where Dagobert II had been assassinated some five hundred years earlier. Here an abbey was established to house them. Nevertheless they did not remain at Orval very long. By 1108 they had mysteriously disappeared, and no record of their whereabouts survives. Tradition says they returned to Calabria. Orval, by 1131, had become one of the fiefs owned by Saint Bernard.

Before their departure from Orval, however, the Calabrian monks may have left a crucial mark on Western history. According to Gerard de Sede, at least, they included the man subsequently known as Peter the Hermit. If this is so, it would be extremely significant, for Peter the Hermit is often believed to have been Godfroi de Bouillon’s personal tutor. Nor is that his only claim to fame. In 1095, along with Pope Urban II, Peter made himself known throughout Christendom by charismatically preaching the need for a crusade—a holy war which would reclaim Christ’s sepulchre and the Holy Land from the hands of the Muslim infidel. Today Peter the Hermit is regarded as one of the chief instigators of the Crusades.

On the basis of hints intimated in the “Prieure documents”, we began to wonder whether there might have been some sort of shadowy continuity between the monks of Orval, Peter the Hermit and the Ordre de Sion. It would certainly seem that the monks at Orval were not just a random band of itinerant religious devotees. On the contrary their movements—their collective arrival in the Ardennes from Calabria and their mysterious disappearance en masse—attest to some kind of cohesion, some kind of organisation and perhaps a permanent base somewhere. And if Peter were a member of this band of monks, his preaching of a crusade might have been a manifestation not of rampant fanaticism, but of calculated policy. If he was Godfroi’s personal tutor, moreover, he might well have played some role in convincing his pupil to embark for the Holy Land. And when the monks vanished from Orval, they might not have returned to Calabria after all. They might have established themselves in Jerusalem, perhaps in the Abbey of Notre Dame de Sion.

This, of course, was only a speculative hypothesis, with no documentary confirmation. Again, however, we soon found fragments of circumstantial evidence to support it. When Godfroi de Bouillon embarked for the Holy Land, he is known to have been accompanied by an entourage of anonymous figures who acted as advisors and administrators—the equivalent, in effect, of a modern general staff. But Godfroi’s was not the only Christian army to embark for Palestine. There were no less than three others, each commanded by an illustrious and influential Western potentate. If the crusade proved successful, if Jerusalem did fall and a Frankish kingdom were established, any one of these four potentates would have been eligible to occupy its throne. And yet Godfroi seems to have known beforehand that he would be selected. Alone among the European commanders, he renounced his fiefs, sold all his goods and made it apparent that the Holy Land, for the duration of his life, would be his domain.

In 1099, immediately after the capture of Jerusalem, a group of anonymous figures convened in secret conclave. The identity of this group has eluded all historical inquiry—although Guillaume de Tyre, writing three-quarters of a century later, reports that the most important of them was ‘a certain bishop from Calabria’. In any case the purpose of the meeting was clear—to elect a king of Jerusalem. And despite a persuasive claim by Raymond, Count of Toulouse, the mysterious and obviously influential electors promptly offered the throne to Godfroi de Bouillon. With uncharacteristic modesty, Godfroi declined the title, accepting instead that of “Defender of the Holy Sepulchre”. In other words, he was a king in everything but name. And when he died, in 1100, his brother, Baudouin, did not hesitate to accept the name as well.

Could the mysterious conclave which elected Godfroi ruler have been the elusive monks from Orval—including perhaps Peter the Hermit, who was in the Holy Land at the time and enjoyed considerable authority? And could this same conclave have occupied the abbey on Mount Sion? In short, could those three ostensibly distinct groups of individuals—the monks from Orval, the conclave who elected Godfroi and the occupants of Notre Dame de Sion—have been one and the same? The possibility cannot be proved, but neither can it be dismissed out of hand. And if it is true, it would certainly attest to the Ordre de Sion’s power—a power which included the right to confer thrones.

The Mystery Surrounding the Foundation of the Knights Templar

The text in the Dossiers secrets goes on to refer to the Order of the Temple. The founders of the Temple are specifically listed as, “Hugues de Payen, Bisol de St. Omer and Hugues, Comte de Champagne, along with certain members of the Ordre de Sion, Andre de Montbard, Archambaud de Saint-Aignan, Nivard de Montdidier, Gondemar and Rossal.”

We were already familiar with Hugues de Payen and Andre de Montbard, Saint Bernard’s uncle. We were also familiar with Hugues, Count of Champagne—who donated the land for Saint Bernard’s abbey at Clairvaux, became a Templar himself in 1124 (pledging fealty to his own vassal) and received from the bishop of Chartres the letter quoted in Chapter 3. But although the count of Champagne’s connection with the Templars was well known, we had never before seen him cited as one of their founders. In the Dossiers secrets he is. And Andre de Montbard, Saint Bernard’s shadowy uncle, is listed as belonging to the Ordre de Sion, in other words to another Order, which predates the Order of the Temple and plays an instrumental role in the Temple’s creation.

Nor is that all. The text in the Dossiers secrets states that in March 1117, Baudouin I, ‘who owed his throne to Sion’, was ‘obliged’ to negotiate the constitution of the Order of the Temple at the site of Saint Leonard of Acre. Our own research revealed that Saint Leonard of Acre was in fact one of the fiefs of the Ordre de Sion. But we were uncertain why Baudouin should have been ‘obliged’ to negotiate the Temple’s constitution. In French the verb certainly connotes a degree of coercion or pressure. And the implication in the Dossiers secrets was that this pressure was brought to bear by the Ordre de Sion to whom Baudouin “owed his throne”. If this were the case, the Ordre de Sion would have been a most influential and powerful organisation—an organisation which could not only confer thrones, but also, apparently, compel a king to do its bidding.

If the Ordre de Sion was in fact responsible for Godfroi de Bouillon’s election, then Baudouin, Godfroi’s younger brother, would have ‘owed his throne’ to its influence. As we had already discovered, moreover, there was indisputable evidence that the Order of the Temple existed, at least in embryonic form, a good four years before the generally accepted foundation date of 1118. In 1117 Baudouin was a sick man, whose death was patently imminent. It is therefore possible that the Knights Templar were active, albeit in an ex officio capacity, long before 1118 as, say, a military or administrative arm of the Ordre de Sion, housed in its fortified abbey. And it is possible that King Baudouin, on his deathbed, was compelled by illness, by the Ordre de Sion or by both to grant the Templars some official status, to give them a constitution and make them public.

In researching the Templars we had already begun to discern a web of intricate, elusive and provocative connections, the shadowy vestiges perhaps of some ambitious design. On the basis of these connections, we had formulated a tentative hypothesis. Whether our hypothesis was accurate or not, we could not know; but the vestiges of a design had now become even more apparent. We assembled the fragments of the pattern as follows:

1. In the late eleventh century a mysterious group of monks from Calabria appears in the Ardennes, where they are welcomed, patronised and given land at Orval by Godfroi de Bouillon’s aunt and foster-mother.

2. A member of this group may have been Godfroi’s personal tutor and may have co-instigated the First Crusade.

3. Some time before 1108 the monks at Orval decamp and disappear. Although there is no record of their destination, it may well have been Jerusalem. Certainly Peter the Hermit embarked for Jerusalem; and if he was one of the monks at Orval, it is probable that his brethren later joined him.

4. In 1099 Jerusalem falls and Godfroi is offered a throne by an anonymous conclave—a leader of whom, like the monks of Orval, is of Calabrian origin.

5. An abbey is built at Godfroi’s behest on Mount Sion, which houses an order of the same name as itself—an order which may comprise the individuals who offered him the throne.

6. By 1114 the Knights Templar are already active, perhaps as the Ordre de Sion’s armed entourage; but their constitution is not negotiated until 1117, and they themselves are not made public until the following year.

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

8. In 1131 Saint Bernard receives the abbey of Orval, vacated some years before by the monks from Calabria. Orval then becomes a Cistercian house.

9. At the same time certain obscure figures seem to move constantly in and out of these events, stitching the tapestry together in a manner that is not altogether clear. The count of Champagne, for example, donates the land for Saint Bernard’s abbey at Clairvaux, establishes a court at Troyes, whence the Grail romances subsequently issue and, in 1114, contemplates joining the Knights Templar whose first recorded Grand Master, Hugues de Payen, is already his vassal.

10. Andre de Montbard—Saint Bernard’s uncle and an alleged member of the Ordre de Sion—joins Hugues de Payen in founding the Knights Templar. Shortly thereafter Andre’s two brothers join Saint Bernard at Clairvaux.

11. Saint Bernard becomes an enthusiastic public relations exponent for the Templars, contributes to their official incorporation and the drawing-up of their rule—which is essentially that of the Cistercians, Bernard’s own order.

12. Between approximately 1115 and 1140, both Cistercians and Templars begin to prosper, acquiring vast sums of money and tracts of land.

Again we could not but wonder whether this multitude of intricate connections was indeed wholly coincidental. Were we looking at a number of essentially disconnected people, events and phenomena which just “happened”, at intervals, to overlap and cross each other’s paths? Or were we dealing with something that was not random or coincidental at all? Were we dealing with a plan of some sort, conceived and engineered by some human agency? And could that agency have been the Ordre de Sion? Could the Ordre de Sion have actually stood behind both Saint Bernard and the Knights Templar? And could both have been acting in accordance with some carefully evolved policy?

Louis VII and the Prieure de Sion

The “Prieure documents” gave no indication of the Ordre de Sion’s activities between 1118—the public foundation of the Templars—and 1152. For the whole of that time, it would seem, the Ordre de Sion remained based in the Holy Land, in the abbey outside Jerusalem. Then, on his return from the Second Crusade, Louis VII of France is said to have brought with him ninety-five members of the Order. There is no indication of the capacity in which they might have attended the king, nor why he should have extended his bounty to them. But if the Ordre de Sion was indeed the power behind the Temple, that would constitute an explanation—since Louis VII was heavily indebted to the Temple, both for money and military support.

In any case the Ordre de Sion, created half a century previously by Godfroi de Bouillon, in 1152 established or re-established a foothold in France. According to the text, sixty-two members of the Order were installed at the “large priory” of Saint-Samson at Orleans, which King Louis had donated to them. Seven were reportedly incorporated into the fighting ranks of the Knights Templar. And twenty-six—two groups of thirteen each—are said to have entered the “small Priory of the Mount of Sion”, situated at Saint Jean le Blanc on the outskirts of Orleans.

In trying to authenticate these statements, we suddenly found ourselves on readily provable ground. The charters by which Louis VII installed the Ordre de Sion at Orleans are still extant. Copies have been reproduced in a number of sources, and the originals can be seen in the municipal archives of Orleans. In the same archives there is also a Bull dated 1178, from Pope Alexander III, which officially confirms the Ordre de Sion’s possessions. These possessions attest to the Order’s wealth, power and influence. They include houses and large tracts of land in Picardy, in France (including Saint-Samson at Orleans), in Lombardy, Sicily, Spain and Calabria, as well, of course, as a number of sites in the Holy Land, including Saint Leonard at Acre.

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

The “Cutting of the Elm” at Gisors

If the “Prieure documents” can be believed, 1188 was a year of crucial importance for both Sion and the Knights Templar. A year before, in 1187, Jerusalem had been lost to the Saracens—chiefly through the impetuosity and ineptitude of Gerard de Ridefort, Grand Master of the Temple. The text in the Dossiers secrets is considerably more severe. It speaks not of Gerard’s impetuosity or ineptitude, but of his ’treason’—a very harsh word indeed. What constituted this ’treason’ is not explained. But as a result of it the ‘initiates’ of Sion are said to have returned en masse to France—presumably to Orleans. Logically this assertion is plausible enough. When Jerusalem fell to the Saracens, the abbey on Mount Sion would obviously have fallen as well. Deprived of their base in the Holy Land, it would not be surprising if the abbey’s occupants had sought refuge in France where a new base already existed.

The events of 1187—Gerard de Ridefort’s ’treason’ and the loss of Jerusalem—seem to have precipitated a disastrous rift between the Ordre de Sion and the Order of the Temple. It is not clear precisely why this should have occurred; but according to the Dossiers secrets the following year witnessed a decisive turning-point in the affairs of both orders. In 1188 a formal separation supposedly occurred between the two institutions. The Ordre de Sion, which had created the Knights Templar, now washed its hands of its celebrated proteges. The ‘parent’, in other words, officially disowned the ‘child’.

This rupture is said to have been commemorated by a ritual or ceremony of some sort. In the Dossiers secrets and other “Prieure documents”, it is referred to as “the cutting of the elm”, and allegedly took place at Gisors. Accounts are garbled and obscure, but history and tradition both confirm that something extremely odd occurred at Gisors in 1188 which did involve the cutting of an elm. On the land adjacent to the fortress there was a meadow called the Champ Sacre—the Sacred Field. According to medieval chroniclers, the site had been deemed sacred since pre-Christian times, and during the twelfth century had provided the setting for numerous meetings between the kings of England and France. In the middle of the Sacred Field stood an ancient elm. And in 1188, during a meeting between Henry II of England and Philippe II of France, for some unknown reason this elm became an object of serious, even bloody, contention.

According to one account, the elm afforded the only shade on the Sacred Field. It was said to be more than eight hundred years old, and so large that nine men, linking hands, could barely encompass its trunk. Under the shade of this tree Henry II and his entourage supposedly took shelter, leaving the French monarch, who arrived later, to the merciless sunlight. By the third day of negotiations French tempers had become frayed by the heat, insults were exchanged by the men-at-arms and an arrow flew from the ranks of Henry’s Welsh mercenaries. This provoked a full-scale onslaught by the French, who greatly outnumbered the English. The latter sought refuge within the walls of Gisors itself, while the French are said to have cut down the tree in frustration. Philippe II then stormed back to Paris in a huff, declaring he had not come to Gisors to play the role of woodcutter.

The story has a characteristic medieval simplicity and quaintness, contenting itself with superficial narrative while hinting between the lines at something of greater import—explanations and motivations which are left unexplored. In itself it would almost seem to be absurd—as absurd and possibly apocryphal as, say, the tales associated with the founding of the Order of the Garter. And yet there is confirmation of the story, if not its specific details, in other accounts. According to another chronicle, Philippe seems to have given notice to Henry that he intended to cut down the tree. Henry supposedly responded by reinforcing the trunk of the elm with bands of iron. On the following day the French armed themselves and formed a phalanx of five squadrons, each commanded by a distinguished lord of the realm, who advanced on the elm, accompanied by sling men as well as carpenters equipped with axes and hammers. A struggle is said to have ensued, in which Richard Coeur de Lion, Henry’s eldest son and his heir, participated, attempting to protect the tree and spilling considerable blood in the process. Nevertheless, the French held the field at the end of the day, and the tree was cut down.

This second account implies something more than a petty squabble or minor skirmish. It implies a full-scale engagement, involving substantial numbers and possibly substantial casualties. Yet no biography of Richard makes much of the affair, still less explores it. Again, however, the “Prieure documents” were confirmed by both recorded history and tradition—to the extent, at least, that a curious dispute did occur at Gisors in 1188, which involved the cutting of an elm.

There is no external confirmation that this event was related in any way to either the Knights Templar or the Ordre de Sion. On the other hand, the existing accounts of the affair are too vague, too scant, too incomprehensible, too contradictory to be accepted as definitive. It is extremely probable that Templars were present at the incident—Richard I was frequently accompanied by knights of the Order, and, moreover, Gisors, thirty years before, had been entrusted to the Temple. Given the existing evidence, it is certainly possible, if not likely, that the cutting of the elm involved something more or something other than the accounts which have been preserved for posterity imply.

Indeed, given the sheer oddness of surviving accounts, it would not be surprising if there were something else involved—something overlooked, or perhaps never made public, by history, something, in short, of which the surviving accounts are a species of allegory, simultaneously intimating and concealing an affair of much greater import.

Ormus

From 1188 onwards, the “Prieure documents” maintain, the Knights Templar were autonomous—no longer under the authority of the Ordre de Sion, or acting as its military and administrative arm. From 1188 onwards the Templars were officially free to pursue their own objectives and ends, to follow their own course through the remaining century or so of their existence—to their grim doom in 1307. And in the meantime, as of 1188, the Ordre de Sion is said to have undergone a major administrative restructuring of its own.

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

In 1188 the Ordre de Sion is also said to have modified its name, adopting the one which has allegedly obtained to the present—the Prieure de Sion. And, as a kind of subtitle, it is said to have adopted the curious name “Ormus”. This subtitle was supposedly used until 1306—a year before the arrest of the French Templars. The device for “Ormus” was U, and involves a kind of acrostic or anagram which combines a number of key words and symbols. “Ours” means bear in French—“Ursus” in Latin, an echo, as subsequently became apparent, of Dagobert II and the Merovingian dynasty. “Orme” is French for ’elm’. “Or”, of course, is ‘gold’. And the ’m’ which forms the frame enclosing the other letters is not only an ’m’, but also the astrological sign for Virgo—connoting, in the language of medieval iconography, Notre Dame.

Our researches revealed no reference anywhere to a medieval order or institution bearing the name “Ormus”. In this case we could find no external substantiation for the text in the Dossiers secrets, nor even any circumstantial evidence to argue its veracity. On the other hand, “Ormus” does occur in two other radically different contexts. It figures in Zoroastrian thought and in Gnostic texts, where it is synonymous with the principle of light. And it surfaces again among the pedigrees claimed by late eighteenth-century Freemasonry. According to Masonic teachings, Ormus was the name of an Egyptian sage and mystic, a Gnostic ‘adept’ of Alexandria. He lived, supposedly, during the early years of the Christian epoch. In A.D. 46 he and six of his followers were supposedly converted to a form of Christianity by one of Jesus’s disciples, Saint Mark in most accounts. From this conversion a new sect or order is said to have been born, which fused the tenets of early Christianity with the teachings of other, even older mystery schools. To our knowledge this story cannot be authenticated. At the same time, however, it is certainly plausible. During the first century A.D. Alexandria was a veritable hotbed of mystical activity, a crucible in which Judaic, Mithraic, Zoroastrian, Pythagorean, Hermetic and Neo-Platonic doctrines suffused the air and combined with innumerable others. Teachers of every conceivable kind abounded; and it would hardly be surprising if one of them adopted a name implying the principle of light.

According to Masonic tradition, in A.D. 46 Ormus is said to have conferred on his newly constituted ‘order of initiates’ a specific identifying symbol—a red or a rose cross. Granted, the red cross was subsequently to find an echo in the blazon of the Knights Templar, but the import of the text in the Dossiers secrets, and in other “Prieure documents”, is unequivocally clear. One is intended to see in Ormus the origins of the so-called Rose-Croix, or Rosicrucians. And in 1188 the Prieure de Sion is said to have adopted a second subtitle, in addition to “Ormus”. It is said to have called itself l’Ordre de la Rose-Croix Veritas.

At this point we seemed to be in very questionable territory, and the text in the “Prieure documents” began to appear highly suspect. We were familiar with the claims of the modern “Rosicrucians” in California and other contemporary organisations, who claim for themselves, after the fact, a pedigree harking back to the mists of antiquity which includes most of the world’s great men. An “Order of the Rose-Croix” dating from 1188 appeared equally spurious. As Frances Yates had demonstrated convincingly, there is no known evidence of any “Rosicrucians” (at least by that name) before the early seventeenth century or perhaps the last years of the sixteenth. The myth surrounding the legendary order dates from approximately 1605, and first gained impetus a decade later with the publication of three inflammatory tracts. These tracts, which appeared in 1614, 1615 and 1616 respectively, proclaimed the existence of a secret brotherhood or confraternity of mystical ‘initiates’, allegedly founded by one Christian Rosenkreuz who, it was maintained, was born in 1378 and died, at the hoary age of 106, in 1484. Christian Rosenkreuz and his secret confraternity are now generally acknowledged to have been fictitious—a hoax of sorts, devised for some purpose no one has yet satisfactorily explained, although it was not without political repercussions at the time. Moreover, the author of one of the three tracts, the famous Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz, which appeared in 1616, is now known. He was Johann Valentin Andrea, a German writer and theologian living in Wurttemberg, who confessed that he composed The Chemical Wedding as a ’ludibrium’—a ‘joke’, or perhaps a ‘comedy’ in Dante’s and Balzac’s sense of the word. There is reason to believe that Andrea, or one of his associates, composed the other “Rosicrucian” tracts as well; and it is to this source that “Rosicrucianism”, as it evolved and as one thinks of it today, can be traced.

If the “Prieure documents” were accurate, however, we would have to reconsider, and think in terms of something other than a seventeenth-century hoax. We would have to think in terms of a secret order or society that actually existed, a genuine clandestine brotherhood or confraternity. It need not have been wholly or even primarily mystical. It might well have been largely political. But it would have existed a full 425 years before its name ever became public, and a good two centuries before its legendary founder is alleged to have lived.

Again we found no substantiating evidence. Certainly the rose has been a mystical symbol from time immemorial, and enjoyed a particular vogue during the Middle Ages—in the popular Romance of the Rose by Jean de Meung, for instance, and in Dante’s Paradise. And the red cross was also a traditional symbolic motif. Not only was it the blazon of the Knights Templar. It subsequently became the Cross of Saint George and, as such, was adopted by the Order of the Garter—created some thirty years after the fall of the Temple. But though roses and red crosses abounded as symbolic motifs, there was no evidence of an institution or an order, still less of a secret society.

On the other hand, Frances Yates maintains that there were secret societies functioning long before the seventeenth-century “Rosicrucians” and that these earlier societies were, in fact, “Rosicrucian” in political and philosophical orientation, if not necessarily in name. Thus, in conversation with one of our researchers, she described Leonardo as a “Rosicrucian”—using the term as a metaphor to define his values and attitudes.

Not only that. In 1629, when “Rosicrucian” interest in Europe was at its zenith, a man named Robert Denyau, cure of Gisors, composed an exhaustive history of Gisors and the Gisors family. In this manuscript Denyau states explicitly that the Rose-Croix was founded by Jean de Gisors in 1188. In other words there is a verbatim seventeenth-century confirmation of the claims made by the “Prieure documents”. Granted, Denyau’s manuscript was composed some four and a half centuries after the alleged fact. But it constitutes an extremely important fragment of evidence. And the fact that it issues from Gisors renders it all the more important.

We were left, however, with no confirmation, only a possibility. But in every respect so far the “Prieure documents” had proved astonishingly accurate. Thus it would have been rash to dismiss them out of hand. We were not prepared to accept them on blind, unquestioning faith. But we did feel obliged to reserve judgment.

The Prieure at Orleans

In addition to their more grandiose claims, the “Prieure documents” offered information of a very different kind, minutiae so apparently trivial and inconsequential that their significance eluded us. At the same time the sheer unimportance of this information argued in favour of its veracity. Quite simply there seemed to be no point in inventing or concocting such minor details. And what was more, the authenticity of many of these details could be confirmed.

Thus, for example, Girard, abbot of the ’little priory’ at Orleans between 1239 and 1244, is said to have ceded a tract of land at Acre to the Teutonic Knights. Why this should warrant mention is unclear, but it can be definitively established. The actual charter exists, dating from 1239 and bearing Girard’s signature.

Information of a similar, albeit more suggestive, kind is offered on an abbot named Adam, who presided over the “little priory” at Orleans in 1281. In that year, according to the “Prieure documents”, Adam ceded a tract of land near Orval to the monks then occupying the abbey there—Cistercians, who had moved in under the aegis of Saint Bernard a century and a half before. We could not find written evidence of this particular transaction, but it would seem plausible enough—there are charters attesting to numerous other transactions of the same nature. What makes this one interesting, of course, is the recurrence of Orval, which had figured earlier in our inquiry. Moreover, the tract of land in question would seem to have been of special import, for the “Prieure documents” tell us that Adam incurred the wrath of the brethren of Sion for his donation—so much so that he was apparently compelled to renounce his position. The act of abdication, according to the Dossiers secrets, was formally witnessed by Thomas de Sainville, Grand Master of the Order of Saint Lazarus. Immediately afterwards Adam is said to have gone to Acre, then to have fled the city when it fell to the Saracens and to have died in Sicily in 1291.

Again we could not find the actual charter of abdication. But Thomas de Sainville was Grand Master of the Order of Saint Lazarus in 1281, and the headquarters of Saint Lazarus were near Orleans where Adam’s abdication would have taken place. And there is no question that Adam went to Acre. Two proclamations and two letters were in fact signed by him there, the first dated August 1281, the second March 1289.

The “Head” of the Templars

According to the “Prieure documents”, the Prieure de Sion was not, strictly speaking, a perpetuation or continuation of the Order of the Temple: on the contrary, the text stresses emphatically that the separation between the two orders dates from the ‘cutting of the elm’ in 1188. Apparently, however, some kind of rapport continued to exist, and, “in 1307, Guillaume de Gisors received the golden head, Caput LVIII Fa from the Order of the Temple.”

Our investigation of the Templars had already acquainted us with this mysterious head. To link it with Sion, however, and with the seemingly important Gisors family, again struck us as dubious—as if the “Prieure documents” were straining to make powerful and evocative connections. And yet it was precisely on this point that we found some of our most solid and intriguing confirmation. According to the official records of the Inquisition:

The guardian and administrator of the goods of the Temple at Paris, after the arrests, was a man of the King named Guillaume Pidoye. Before the Inquisitors on May 11th, 1308, he declared that at the time of the arrest of the Knights Templar, he, together with his colleague Guillaume de Gisors and one Raynier Bourdon, had been ordered to present to the Inquisition all the figures of metal or wood they had found. Among the goods of the Temple they had found a large head of silver gilt… the image of a woman, which Guillaume, on May 11th, presented before the Inquisition. The head carried a label, “CAPUT LVIIIm”.

If the head continued to baffle us, the context in which Guillaume de Gisors appeared was equally perplexing. He is specifically cited as being a colleague of Guillaume Pidoye, one of King Philippe’s men. In other words he, like Philippe, would seem to have been hostile to the Templars and participated in the attack upon them. According to the “Prieure documents”, however, Guillaume was Grand Master of the Prieure de Sion at the time. Did this mean that Sion endorsed Philippe’s action against the Temple, perhaps even collaborated in it? There are certain “Prieure documents” which hint that this may have been the case—that Sion, in some unspecified way, authorised and presided over the dissolution of its unruly proteges. On the other hand, the “Prieure documents” also imply that Sion exercised a kind of paternal protectiveness towards at least certain Templars during the Order’s last days. If this is true, Guillaume de Gisors might well have been a ‘double-agent’. He might well have been responsible for the ’leak’ of Philippe’s plans, the means whereby the Templars received advance warning of the king’s machinations against them. If, after the formal separation in 1188, Sion did in fact continue to exercise some clandestine control over Temple affairs, Guillaume de Gisors might have been partially responsible for the careful destruction of the Order’s documents and the unexplained disappearance of its treasure.

The Grand Masters of the Templars

In addition to the fragmentary information discussed above, the text in the Dossiers secrets includes three lists of names. The first of these is straightforward enough—the least interesting, and the least open to controversy or doubt, being merely a list of abbots who presided over Sion’s lands in Palestine between 1152 and 1281. Our research confirmed its veracity: it appears elsewhere, independent of the Dossiers secrets, and in accessible, unimpugnable sources. The lists in these sources agree with that in the Dossiers secrets, except that two names are missing in the sources. In this case, then, the “Prieure documents” not only agree with verifiable history, but are more comprehensive in that they fill certain lacunae.

The second list in the Dossiers secrets is a list of the Grand Masters of the Knights Templar from 1118 until 1190—in other words, from the Temple’s public foundation until its separation from Sion and the ‘cutting of the elm’ at Gisors. At first there seemed nothing unusual or extraordinary about this list. When we compared it to other lists, however—those cited by acknowledged historians writing on the Templars, for instance—certain obvious discrepancies quickly emerged.

According to virtually all other known lists, there were ten Grand Masters between 1118 and 1190. According to the Dossiers secrets, there were only eight. According to most other lists, Andre de Montbard—Saint Bernard’s uncle—was not only a co-founder of the Order, but also its Grand Master between 1153 and 1156. According to the Dossiers secrets, however, Andre was never Grand Master, but would seem to have continued functioning as he does all through his career—behind the scenes. According to most other lists, Bertrand de Blanchefort appears as sixth Grand Master of the Temple, assuming his office after Andre de Montbard, in 1156. According to the Dossiers secrets, Bertrand is not sixth, but fourth in succession, becoming Grand Master in 1153. There were other such discrepancies and contradictions, and we were uncertain what to make of them or how seriously to take them. Because it disagreed with those compiled by established historians, were we to regard the list in the Dossiers secrets as wrong?

It must be emphasised that no official or definitive list of the Temple’s Grand Masters exists. Nothing of the sort has been preserved or handed down to posterity. The Temple’s own records were destroyed or disappeared, and the earliest known compilation of the Order’s Grand Masters dates from 1342—thirty years after the Order itself was suppressed, and 225 years after its foundation. As a result historians compiling lists of Grand Masters have based their findings on contemporary chroniclers—on a man writing in 1170, for example, who makes a passing allusion to one or another individual as ‘Master’ or ‘Grand Master’ of the Temple. And additional evidence can be obtained by examining documents and charters of the period, in which one or another Templar official would append one or another title to his signature. It is thus hardly surprising that the sequence and dating of Grand Masters should engender considerable uncertainty and confusion.

Nor is it surprising that sequence and dating should vary, sometimes dramatically, from writer to writer, account to account. Nevertheless, there were certain crucial details—like those summarised above—in which the “Prieure documents” deviated significantly from all other sources. We could not, therefore, ignore such deviations. We had to determine, as far as we could, whether the list in the Dossiers secrets was based on sloppiness, ignorance or both; or, alternatively, whether this list was indeed the definitive one, based on “inside” information, inaccessible to historians. If Sion did create the Knights Templar, and if Sion (or at least its records) did survive to the present day, we could reasonably expect it to be privy to details unobtainable elsewhere.

Most of the discrepancies between the list in the Dossiers secrets and those in other sources can be explained fairly easily. At this point, it is not worth exploring each such discrepancy and accounting for it. But a single example should serve to illustrate how and why such discrepancies might occur. In addition to the Grand Master, the Temple had a multitude of local masters—a master for England, for Normandy, for Aquitaine, for all the territories comprising its domains. There was also an overall European master, and, it would appear, a maritime master as well. In documents and charters these local or regional masters would invariably sign themselves “Magister Templi”—“Master of the Temple”. And on most occasions the Grand Master—through modesty, carelessness, indifference or slapdash insouciance—would also sign himself as nothing more than “Magister Templi”. In other words Andre de Montbard, regional Master of Jerusalem, would, on a charter, have the same designation after his name as the Grand Master, Bertrand de Blanchefort.

It is thus not difficult to see how an historian, working with one or two charters alone and not cross-checking his references, might readily misconstrue Andre’s true status in the Order. By virtue of precisely this kind of error, many lists of Templar Grand Masters include a man named Everard des Barres. But the Grand Master, by the Temple’s own constitutions, had to be elected by a general chapter in Jerusalem and had to reside there. Our research revealed that Everard des Barres was a regional master, elected and resident in France, who did not set foot in the Holy Land until much later. On this basis he could be excised from the list of Grand Masters—as indeed he was in the Dossiers secrets. It was specifically on such academic fine points that the “Prieure documents” displayed a meticulous accuracy and precision we could not imagine being contrived after the fact. We spent more than a year considering and comparing various lists of Templar Grand Masters. We consulted all writers on the Order, in English, French and German, and then checked their sources as well. We examined the chronicles of the time—like those of Guillaume de Tyre—and other contemporary accounts. We consulted all the charters we could find and obtained comprehensive information on all those known to be still extant. We compared signatories and titles on numerous proclamations, edicts, deeds and other Templar documents. As a result of this exhaustive inquiry, it became apparent that the list in the Dossiers secrets was more accurate than any other—not only on the identity of the Grand Masters, but on the dates of their respective regimes as well. If a definitive list of the Temple’s Grand Masters did exist, it was in the Dossiers secrets.

The accuracy of this list was not only important in itself. The implications attending it were much broader. Granted, such a list might perhaps have been compiled by an extremely careful researcher, but the task would have been monumental. It seemed much more likely to us that a list of such accuracy attested to some repository of privileged or ‘inside’ information—information hitherto inaccessible to historians. Whether our conclusion was warranted or not, we were confronted by one indisputable fact—someone had obtained access, somehow, to a list which was more accurate than any other. And since that list—despite its divergence from others more accepted—proved so frequently to be correct, it lent considerable credibility to the “Prieure documents” as a whole. If the Dossiers secrets were demonstrably reliable in this critical respect, there was somewhat less reason to doubt them in others.

Such reassurance was both timely and necessary. Without it, we might well have dismissed the third list in the Dossiers secrets—the Grand Masters of the Prieure de Sion—out of hand. For this third list, even at a cursory glance, seemed absurd.