5. Knights of the Temple

First Crusade

The most ancient statutory document known for operative Masonry are the Statutes of Bologna of 1248, but the texts that Anderson’s Constitutions of 1723 were based on, and where we begin to find claims of the wisdom of the Orient, included the Old Charges, especially the Regius Poem (1390), the Cooke Manuscript (1410-40), the Melrose Manuscript (a copy of 1674 which refers to an original of 1581) and the Grand Lodge No.1 Manuscript (1583). Later documents include the Dumfries No.4 Manuscript (1710), the Sloane 3329 (1700), the manuscripts of the Haughfoot collection (1696-1715) and the Wilkinson Manuscript (1727). To be added are also the Schaw Statutes (1598-99), drawn up in Scotland.[1] Masonic mythology typically recounted the origins of the Craft, or the “Royal Art” of architecture, in the following manner: God gave Man the Seven Liberal Arts, with preference for geometry, which it equates with masonry. The first founder was Jubal, direct descendant of Adam and overseer of works when Cain built the city of Enoch. Discovering that the earth would be destroyed either by fire or by flood, this knowledge was inscribed on two pillars of stone. After the Flood, both pillars were discovered, one by Pythagoras, the other by the Egyptian philosopher Hermes. The sciences were then passed down through Nimrod, the architect of the Tower of Babel, then to Abraham, who taught them to the Egyptians, including Euclid. The craft was then taught to the Children of Israel, who employed it to build the famous Temple of Solomon. In the tenth century, Æthelstan (c. 894 – 939), King of the English, laid down the rules Masons were supposed to observe, according to which “the [a]foresaid art begun in the land of Egypt […] and so it went from land to land, and from kingdom to kingdom.”[2] In Anderson’s Constitutions of 1723, the center of the Craft of Building, known in Freemasonry as the “Royal Art,” had its apex in Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. According to Anderson, the Israelites transmitted their knowledge first to the East:

 

[Freemasonry] was especially preserved in Shinar [Iraq] and Assyria […] In these parts, upon the Tygris and Euphrates, afterwards flourished many learned priests and mathematicians, known by the names of Chaldees and Magi, who preserved the good science Geometry […] And no doubt the Royal Art was brought down to Egypt by Mitzraim, the second son of Ham […] and particularly the famous Pyramids, demonstrate the early taste and genius of that ancient kingdom. […] So that after the erection of Solomon’s Temple, Masonry was improved in all the neighbouring nations […] Syria, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Chaldea, Babylonia, Media, Persia, Arabia, Africa, Lesser Asia, Greece, and other parts of Europe […] even in India […] For from Sicily, as well as from Greece, Egypt and Asia, the ancient Romans learned both the science and the art.[3]

 

It may have been in an attempt to recover ancient mystical text believed buried beneath the site of the destroyed Temple of Solomon, or other lost “wisdom” of the East, that inspired the Knights Templars to participate in the First Crusade. As noted by Barbara De Poli in Freemasonry and the Orient, “Alchemical, astrological and Hermetic texts were already circulating in the twelfth century and, in the thirteenth century schools of Chartres, Solomon was already indicated as the master of oriental and Jewish science and of the Hermetic doctrine, father of magic knowledge and of the secrets and mysteries of science.”[4] William of St-Thierry (d. 1148), a close friend of Saint Bernard (1090 – 1153), the patron of the Templars, allegedly exclaimed: “The brethren of Mont-Dieu! They bring to the darkness of the West the light of the Orient, and in the icy weather of Gaul, the religious fervor of ancient Egypt, that is the solitary path, mirror of celestial life.”[5]

Modern scholars of subject, such as E.S. Drower, Gershom Scholem and Nathaniel Deutsch attribute the Sabians, or the related cult of the Mandeans, as a possible source for the Gnostic doctrines that suddenly emerged in Judaism in the latter half of the twelfth century, contributing to the development of what is known as the Kabbalah.[6] This contact would have purportedly taken place during the Crusades, when these “Syriac Christians” were brought to Scotland by the Knights Templar, founding the traditions of Scottish Rite Freemasonry.[7] The First Crusade (1095 – 1099) was called for at the Council of Clermont on November 27, 1095, by Pope Urban II (c. 1035 – 1099), who declared:

 

Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. That land which as the Scripture says “floweth with milk and honey,” was given by God into the possession of the children of Israel Jerusalem is the navel of the world; the land is fruitful above others, like another paradise of delights.[8]

 

Urban II was a former monk of the Abbey of Cluny, founded in 910 AD by William I of Aquitaine (875 – 918), who was a member of the important network of Grail families who were descended from Guillaume of Gellone (c. 755 – 812 or 814). According to the Jewish researcher Arthur Zuckerman, based on his interpretation of the twelfth-century text, the Sefer ha-Kabbalah, written about 1161 AD by Abraham ibn Daud (1110 – 1180), Guillaume of Gellone was the son of “Rabbi Makhir,” an Exilarch, the exiled leader of the Jewish community of Babylon, who could claim descent from King David, from whom the Jews except the messiah to descend.[9] By the twelfth century, Guillaume’s legend grew, and he became the hero of an entire cycle of chansons de geste, the earliest of which is the Chanson de Guillaume of about 1140. As explained by Edward Gelles, in The Jewish Journey: A Passage through European History, Guillaume’s “Christian descendants number many royal and noble families, including those of William the Conqueror and of some of his followers, the Dukes of Guise and Lorraine, Habsburg Lorraine and d’Este and many others.”[10] Through the Dukes of Normandy, in addition to the House of Anjou of France, thus producing the Plantagenets of England, Guillaume of Gellone’s descendants thus formed the backbone of the family networks who sponsored the Princes’ Crusade, led by Godfrey of Bouillon (1060 – 1100), Duke of Lower Lorraine, who became the first crusader King of Jerusalem.

A similar account of descent from an exilarch of Babylon was reported about the Kalonymus, a prominent Jewish family in Lucca in Italy, who settled in the German Rhineland, founding the traditions of the Ashkenazi Hasidim.[11] One of the founding members of the Templars was Hugh, Count of Champagne (c. 1074 – c. 1125)—a cousin, Baldwin II (c. 1075 – 1131), who succeed Baldwin I, the first crusader to be declared King of Jerusalem—who frequently received as an honored guest the famous Jewish theologian Rashi de Troyes (1040 – 1105), the greatest alumnus of the Kalonymus academy in Mainz, who was reputedly descended from the royal line of King David.[12] Rashi was the author of complete commentaries on the Bible and on the Babylonian Talmud, and famously, his first comment on the first verse of Genesis, which might be the best-known exegesis of the Torah, asserts the God-given right of the Jewish people to possess the Land of Israel:

 

Rabbi Isaac said: The Torah should have begun with the verse, “This month shall be to you the first of months” (Exodus 12:2) which was the first commandment given to Israel. Why then did it begin with, “In the beginning”? It began thus because it wished to convey the idea contained in the verse (Psalm 111:6), “The power of His acts He told to His people, in order to give them the estate of the nations.” So that if the nations of the world will say to Israel, “You are robbers because you took by force the land of the seven nations,” Israel might reply to them, “The whole earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He. He created it and gave it to them, and by His will He took it from them and gave it to us.[13]

 

A member of Rashi’s famous Yeshiva, founded in 1070 in Troyes, collaborated with of Stephen Harding (c. 1060 – 1134), the abbot of Citeaux in Burgundy to produce the Harding Bible.[14] During the Middle Ages, Burgundy was home to some of the most important Western churches and monasteries, including those of Cluny, Cîteaux, and Vézelay. Jews living in the region of Cluny, notably in Chalon-sur-Saône, had transactions with the abbey, lending money to it to ensure the security of religious objects. Peter the Venerable (c. 1092 –1156) opposed the practice, and the Statutes of Cluny of 1301 expressly forbade borrowing from Jews.[15] Prior to founding the Cistercian Order, Saint Bernard, sought the counsel of Harding and decided to enter his order of Citeaux. Cîteaux had four daughter houses: Pontigny, Morimond, La Ferté and Clairvaux. It was Hugh of Champagne who in 1115 granted lands to Saint Bernard to found the Cistercian monastery at Clairvaux.[16]

 

Holy Grail

Another possibility is that the Templars were aware of some other treasure still buried beneath the site of the Temple of Solomon. Their known excavations may contribute to the explaining the sudden and enigmatic appearance of the Sefer ha-Bahir in the late twelfth century, first among the Ashkenazi Hasidim, and then among the Kalonymous of Jewish kingdom of Septimania, and which then contributed to the Cathar heresy the Templars were associated with, and in turn, the development of the legends of the Holy Grail. The Gnostic content of the legends of the Holy Grail is associated with the spread of the influence of the Bahir in Southern France, centered in Septimania, which became known as the Languedoc, which contributed to the emergence of the heretical sect of the Cathars, who were associated with the Templars. In Jewish Influences on Christian Reform Movements, Louis I. Newman concludes:

 

…that the powerful Jewish culture in Languedoc, which had acquired sufficient strength to assume an aggressive, propagandist policy, created a milieu wherefrom movements of religious independence arose readily and spontaneously. Contact and association between Christian princes and their Jewish officials and friends stimulated the state of mind which facilitated the banishment of orthodoxy, the clearing away of the debris of Catholic theology. Unwilling to receive Jewish thought, the princes and laity turned towards Catharism, then being preached in their domains.[17]

 

According to Marsha Keith Schuchard, the Templars adopted the Second Temple mysticism that would later feature in Freemasonry, principally from three leading Jewish Kabbalists from Spain: Solomon Ibn Gabirol (1021 or 1022 – 1070), Abraham bar Hiyya (c. 1070 – 1136 or 1145) and his student Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra (1089 – c. 1167), who were the leading influences behind the mystical tendencies of the Ashkenazi Hasidim.[18] Like Ibn Gabirol, Abraham bar Hiyya and his student Abraham ibn Ezra were leading exponents of the Golden Age of Jewish culture in Spain. Abraham bar Hiyya, also known as Abraham Savasorda, was a Jewish mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who resided in Barcelona, and was given high official status by the Templars when they came to Spain to fight a crusade against the Muslims.[19] According to Joseph Dan, the author of the Sefer ha Bahir, also displayed some awareness of Ibn Ezra’s work.[20] The Brethren of Sincerity and other Sufi mystics were widely studied by Ibn Ezra, Moses Maimonides, Judah Halevi, Bahya Ibn Pakuda, and Ibn Gabirol. The philosopher who most personified the interweaving of Judaism and Islam was the eleventh century Spanish Jew, Ibn Gabirol, who assimilated ideas from the Brethren of Sincerity to such an extent that it was his primary source of inspiration after the Bible. He also followed the teachings of the tenth century Sufi mystic Mohammed Ibn Masarra, who had introduced Sufism to Spain.[21] Ibn Ezra travelled widely, to northern Africa—perhaps in Africa at the same time with Judah Halevi (c. 1075 – 1141)—and Egypt, and Italy. Many suppose his travels took him to Palestine and even to Baghdad, and he was also said to have travelled to India, where he purportedly visited the Cochin Jews of the Malabar coast.[22]

The story of the fairy ancestry of the Knight of the Swan has been provided to explain the ancestries of not only the Houses of Bouillon, but also of Cleves, Oldenburg and Hesse. The ancestry of the Knight Swan was linked very early with the English crown, beginning in 1125 with the marriage of Stephen I, King of England, to Matilda, the daughter of Eustace III of Bouillon, the brother of Godfrey of Bouillon and Baldwin I of Jerusalem. William of Tyre (c. 1130 – 1186), writing his History of the Crusade about 1190, records the tale of the Knight of the Swan from whom Godfrey of Bouillon and his brothers Baldwin and Eustace were descended. The legend of the Knight of the Swan, most famous today as the storyline of Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, based on the grail story Parzival by German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach (c. 1160/80 – c. 1220). A contemporary poem known as the Wartburgkrieg presented the story of the Knight of the Swan Lohengrin as Wolfram’s entry in a story-telling contest held at Wartburg Castle by Louis’ father, Hermann I, Landgrave of Thuringia (d. 1217).[23] Hermann’s son, Landgrave Louis IV of Thuringia (1200 – 1227), married Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, famous for having performed the Miracle of the Roses.[24] Elizabeth and Louis’ daughter, Sophie of Thuringia, married Henry II, Duke of Brabant (1207 – 1248), who could claim descent from the Knight of the Swan.

In Wolfram’s story, Wartburg is the Grail castle Munsalvaesche, where Parzival’s son, the Knight Swan Loherangrin, hears a call of distress from Elsa of Brabant, who is being held prisoner in the castle of Cleves, modern Kleve, Germany. According to Wolfram, the Grail sustained the lives of a brotherhood of knights called Templeisen, who are guardians of the Temple of the Grail. Like their real-life counterparts, who made their home in a palace near the site of Solomon’s Temple, the Templeisen were headquartered in a castle. This fictional castle was called Munsalvaesche, or “Mountain of Salvation,” a name which recalls Montsegur, the mountain fortress of the Cathars in Languedoc.[25] As the source for his Grail story Parzival, Wolfram names “Kyot de Provence,” which would have been Guyot de Provins (d. after 1208), a troubadour and monk at Cluny. Wolfram maintains that Kyot, in turn, supposedly received the Grail story from Flegetanis, a Muslim astronomer and a descendant of Solomon who had found the secrets of the Holy Grail written in the stars. According to Wolfram:

 

A heathen Flegetanis, had achieved high renown for his learning. This scholar of nature was descended from Solomon and born of a family which had long been Israelite until baptism became our shield against the fire of Hell. He wrote the adventure of the Grail. On his father’s side, Flegetanis was a heathen, who worshipped a calf…

The heathen Flegetanis could tell us how all the stars set and rise again… To the circling course of the stars man’s affairs and destiny are linked. Flegetanis the heathen saw with his own eyes in the constellations things he was shy to talk about, hidden mysteries. He said there was a thing called the Grail, whose name he had read clearly in the constellations. A host of angels left it on the earth.

Since then, baptized men have had the task of guarding it, and with such chaste discipline that those who are called to the service of the Grail are always noble men. Thus wrote Flegetanis of these things.[26]

 

Hugh of Champagne’s step-brother was Stephen II, Count of Blois (c. 1045 – 1102), one of the leaders of the Princes’ Crusade, and the father of Stephen I, King of England (1092 or 1096 – 1154), who married Matilda, the niece of Godfrey of Bouillon and Baldwin I of Jerusalem. Matilda’s mother was Mary, whose brother was David I of Scotland (c. 1084 – 1153), a supporter of the Templars. Stephen I of England’s brother was Henry of Blois (1096 – 1171), Abbot of Glastonbury, Bishop of Winchester, who was intimately tied to the legends of King Arthur. According to Francis Lot, author of The Island of Avalon, Henry Blois, used Geoffrey of Monmouth as a nom de plume to compose the pseudo-historical Historia Regum Britanniae (“History of the Kings of Britain”), written between 1135 and 1139, and was responsible for the Prophecies of Merlin.[27] The actual author is not proven but Hank Harrison was the first to suggest that Henri of Blois was the author of the Perlesvaus.[28] The fact that the Grail sagas are concerned with a secret and purportedly sacred lineage is indicated in the Perlesvaus, where we read: “Here is the story of thy descent; here begins the Book of the Sangreal.”

Henry of Blois’ other brother was Theobald II, Count of Champagne (1090 – 1152), who inherited the titles of their uncle Hugh of Champagne. Theobald II was among the delegates at the Council of Troyes in 1128 to endorse the recognition of the Templars. Theobald II was the father of Theobald V, Count of Blois (1130 – 1191), who married Alix of France, the daughter of Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Like his uncle Stephen I of England, Theobald V also came to the defense of a blood libel case against the Jews. Implicated in the affair was Theobald V’s mistress, Pulcelina of Blois, a Jewish woman and moneylender to the count.[29]

Louis VII’s second marriage was to Constance of Castile, the daughter of Alfonso VII of Leon and Castile (1105 – 1157) and Berenguela, daughter of the Templar Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona. Alfonso VII was the grandson of Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile (c. 1040/1041 – 1109), and Constance of Burgundy,  a marriage orchestrated via connections at Alfonso’s court with the Abbey of Cluny. Alfonso VII’s father was Raymond of Burgundy (c. 1070 – 1107), brother of Guy of Burgundy (c. 1065 – 1124), later Pope Callixtus II, and uncle of Isabella the wife of Hugh of Champagne. Alfonso VII was the founder of the Order of Calatrava, one of the four Spanish neo-Templar military orders, the other three being the Orders of Santiago, Alcántara, and Montesa.[30] After the conquest of Calatrava from the Muslims, in 1147, Alfonso VII placed his Jewish advisor Judah ben Joseph ibn Ezra, in command of one of his fortresses, later making him his court chamberlain.[31] Judah was related to Abraham Ibn Ezra, and shared with him a mutual friend in Judah Halevi.[32] Abraham Ibn Daud, in his Sefer ha-Kabbalah, praises Judah ibn Ezra, stating that, in reference to “When I would heal Israel, then is the iniquity of Ephraim uncovered” (Hosea 7:1), God “anticipated [the calamity] by putting it into the heart of King Alfonso the Emperador to appoint our master and rabbi, R. Judah the Nasi b. Ezra, over Calatrava and to place all the royal provisions in his charge.”[33] Alfonso VII’s son, Ferdinand II (c. 1137 – 1188), founded the Order of Santiago, known also as the Order of Saint James of the Sword, of which his nephew, Alfonso VIII of Castile (1155 – 1214) was a patron.[34]

Theobald V’s brother, Henry I of Champagne (1127 – 1181) married Alix’s siter, Marie of France, who sponsored Grail author Chrétien de Troyes (fl. c. 1160 – 1191). Henry of Champagne’s court in Troyes became a renowned literary center, which included Walter Map, source of the Melusina and “Skull of Sidon” legends.[35] According to the legend reported by Map, a Templar “Lord of Sidon” committed a necrophilic act with his deceased lover, and Armenian princess, which nine month later produced the skull and bones, which in due course, passed to the possession of the Templars.[36] Marie’s son, Henry II of Champagne (1166 – 1197) was King of Jerusalem in the 1190s, by virtue of his marriage to Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem, the daughter of Amalric I of Jerusalem (1136 – 1174), the second son of Fulk of Jerusalem, and Melisende, identified with the demon Melusine, the eldest daughter of Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Morphia, who inspired legend of the Skull of Sidon. Morphia belonged to the Rubenid dynasty, an alleged offshoot of the larger Bagratuni dynasty, who became rulers of Armenia in the ninth century AD, and who claimed Jewish descent.[37]

 

Templars

Henry I of Champagne had also been in contact with Sinan, infamous leader of the Syrian Assassins. “From a very early period in their evolution,” noted Francis A. Ridley, “the Templars were in direct relations with their Ismaili neighbours.”[38] In 1148, the Templars invaded the country of the Assassins, in revenge for the murder of Raymond II, Count of Tripoli (c. 1116 – 1152), and compelled them to pay tribute.  In 1171, Sinan, finding himself surrounded by the Templar forces, offered to convert to Christianity in return for a remittance of the tribute. Not deceived by Sinan’s ruse, the Templars nevertheless feared the loss of their tribute as their overlord, as Amalric of Jerusalem showed an inclination to accept Sinan’s offer. Therefore, the Templars, at the instigation of one Walter de Mesnil, intercepted and slew the envoys of the Assassins, an act apparently sanctioned by the Templar Grand Master Odo de Saint Amand (1110 – 1180).[39]

Sinan’s last notable act occurred in 1192, when he ordered the successful assassination of Conrad of Montferrat, who had become King of Jerusalem by virtue of his marriage to Isabella I of Jerusalem. Whether this happened in coordination with King Richard Lionheart, King of England (1157 – 1199)­ with Saladin, or with neither, remains unknown. Richard was the son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and brother of Eleanor of England, the wife of Alfonso VIII of Castile, patron of the Order of Santiago, and Richard himself married Berengaria of Navarre, the daughter of Alfonso VIII’s uncle, Ferdinand II of Leon, the founder of the order. In 1193, Sinan wrote a letter to Leopold V, Duke of Austria at Richard’s request, taking credit for the assassination order and death of Conrad of Monferrat, of which Richard was being accused. However, this letter is believed by modern historians to be a forgery written after Sinan’s death.[40]

Gradually, contacts between the Crusaders and the Ismailis increased, including those arising from the payment of tributes by the Syrian Ismailis to the Templars and the Hospitallers. James of Vitry (d. 1240), who was bishop of Acre during 1216–1228, and also participated in the Fifth Crusade (1217–1221), while discussing the Syrian Ismailis, estimated their number at 40,000, and contented that they were descended from the Jews. The assertion was repeated by Thietmar of Merseburg (975 – 1018), a German traveler who visited the Holy Land in the first quarter of that century. Thietmar reported the arrival in Europe in 1238 of a mission sent by the Old Man of the Mountain to ask the assistance of Louis IX of France (1214 – 1270) and Henry III of England (1207 – 1272), against the Mongols. Louis IX and Henry III were married to sisters, both daughters of  Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence (1198 – 1245), who was raised by the Templars with his cousin James I of Aragon (1208 – 1276), son of Cathar defender Peter II of Aragon (1178 – 1213).[41] Peter II was the grandson of Alfons VII of Leon and Castile and Richeza of Poland, whose daughter Sancha married Peter II’s father, Alfonso II of Aragon (1157 – 1196), also known as the Troubadour, whose mother was a cousin of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Along with Fredrick Barbarossa, Louis VII of France, Henry II of England, Henry the Young King, Richard the Lionheart and Raymond V of Toulouse, Alfonso II was a protector of Wolfram’s source, Guyot de Provins.[42] Another sister, Beatrice of Provence, married Louis IX’s brother, Charles I of Anjou (1226/1227 – 1285), King of Sicily, who in 1277 purchased a claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Louis IX, led the Seventh Crusade (1248–1254), went to Acre and remained in Palestine for almost four years, during which time he exchanged embassies and friendly relations with the Old Man of the Mountain, as recounted by the French chronicler Jean de Joinville (1224 – 1317), who accompanied the king on his crusade.

In his search for new alliances, Louis IX sent his own envoys, accompanied by an Arabic-speaking friar, Yves le Breton, to the leader of the Ismailis, with whom he discussed “the articles of his faith,” which were reported back to the king. As Yves reported, the Old Man, “did not believe in Mahomet, but followed the religion of Aly.” Yves cited their belief in metempsychosis as the chief source of their readiness to sacrifice their lives.[43]

Henri III and Blanche’s daughter, Joan I of Navarre, married Philip IV “le Bel” (1268 – 1314), King of France. On November 1307, Pope Clement V, who had come under strong pressure from Philip le Bel, ordered the arrest of the Templars in every country. The popular narrative is that Philip was driven by greed, and that the accusations were concocted through the use of torture. As detailed by Michael Barber in The Trial of the Templars, though some Templars were in fact tortured, some were not, but “all stressed that their confessions had been freely made and were not a consequence of this ill treatment.”[44] All confessions were consistent, and repeated the accusations made formerly against the Cathars. Among the accusations against the Templars were those of practicing witchcraft, denying the tenets of the Christian faith, spitting or urinating on the cross during secret rites of initiation, worshipping the devil in the shape of a black cat, of practicing the “obscene kiss” and committing acts of sodomy and bestiality. The Templars were also charged with worshipping a skull or head called Baphomet and anointing it with blood or the fat of unbaptized babies.[45]

 


[1] Barbara De Poli. Freemansonry and the Orient Esotericisms: between the East and the West (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2019), p. 30.

[2] The Matthew Cooke Manuscript; cited in De Poli. Freemansonry and the Orient, p. 30–31.

[3] Paillard. Reproduction of the Constitutions, pp. 1–24; cited in De Poli. Freemansonry and the Orient Esotericisms, p. 20.

[4] De Poli. Freemansonry and the Orient, p. 33.

[5] Le Goff. Les intellectuels au Moyen Age, 28, 53-64; cited in De Poli. Freemansonry and the Orient, p. 33, n. 24.

[6] The Thousand and Twelve Questions, cited from Deutsch, The Gnostic Imagination, (Leiden: E.J Brill, 1995), p. 123.

[7] Michael Howard. Secret Societies: Their Influence and Power from Antiquity to the Present Day. Kindle Edition (Inner Traditions/Bear & Company), p. 68.

[8] Robert the Monk. Historia Hierosolymitana.

[9] Arthur J. Zuckerman. A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France, 768-900 (New York:Columbia University Press, 1972).

[10] Edward Gelles. The Jewish Journey (Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition), p. 57.

[11] Louis Ginzberg. “Aaron ben Samuel ha-Nasi (called also Abu Aaron ben Samuel ha-Nasi of Babylonia).” Jewish Encyclopedia.

[12] Karen Ralls. The Templars and the Grail: Knights of the Quest (Quest Books, 2003), p. 38.

[13] Rashi Bereishit, 1:1.

[14] Aryeh Grabois. “The Hebraica Veritas and Jewish-Christian Intellectual Relations in the Twelfth Century.” Speculum, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Oct., 1975), pp. 618.

[15] Bernhard Blumenkranz. “Cluny, France.” Jewish Encyclopedia.

[16] Samuel John Eales. A St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux (Society for promoting Christian knowledge, 1890), p. 38.

[17] Louis I. Newman. Jewish Influences on Christian Reform Movements (Columbia University Press, 1925) p. 142-43.

[18] Scholem. Kabbalah (New York: Meridian, 1978), p. 38.

[19] Marsha Keith Schuchard. Restoring the Temple of Vision: Cabalistic Freemasonry and Stuart Culture (Leiden: Brill, 2002),, p. 44.

[20] G. Wigoder (ed.) Sefer Hegyon ha-Nefesh (Jerusalem, 1969), as cited in Joseph Dan (ed.). The Early Kabbalah (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), p. 28.

[21] Tom Block, “Towards an Understanding of the Jewish/Sufi.” Speech to the Jewish Community Relations Council, Ratner Museum (May 2, 2007). Retrieved from http://www.tomblock.com/published/shalom_jewishsufi2.php

[22] “India.” Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved from https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/india

[23] Editors. “Lohengrin.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from  https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lohengrin-German-legendary-figure

[24] Gabor Klanniczay. “The Great Royal Trio: Charles IV, Louis I of Anjou and Casimir the Great,” in Kaiser Karl IV – Die böhmischen Länder und Europa - Emperor Charles IV, Lands of the Bohemian Crown and Europe, eds. Daniela Brizova, Jiri Kuthan, Jana Peroutkova, Stefan Scholz (Prague: Kalsuniversität, 2017), p. 265.

[25] Edward Peters (ed.). “The Cathars.” Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980), p. 108.

[26] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln. Holy Blood, Holy Grail, p. 293

[27] Francis Lot. The Island of Avalon: Volume 1. Lulu.com. pp. 420

[28] Hank Harrison. The Cauldron and the Grail (Media Associates, 1993), p. 223.

[29] Nissan Mindel. “The Martyrs of Blois - (circa 1171) - Jewish History.” Kehot Publication Society (June 16, 2006).

[30] Father Richard Augustin Hay. Genealogie of the Saintclaires of Rosslyn, ed. James Maidment (1835); cited in Ralls. The Templars and the Grail, p. 178.

[31] “Spain Virtual Jewish History Tour.” Retrieved from https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/spain-virtual-jewish-history-tour

[32] Adolph Drechsler. Illustriertes Lexikon der Astronomie (Leipzig: J. J. Weber, 1881); Schuchard. Restoring the Temple of Vision, p. 44.

[33] Abraham Ibn Da’ud. Sefer ha-Qabbalah: The Book of Tradition, (ed.) and trans. Gerson D. Cohen. (Oxford: Littman Library, 2005), pp. 259 ff.

[34] Father Richard Augustin Hay. Genealogie of the Saintclaires of Rosslyn, ed. James Maidment, (1835); cited in Ralls. The Templars and the Grail, p. 178.

[35] Joshua Byron Smith. Walter Map and the Matter of Britain (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), p. 218 n. 8.

[36] J. S. M. Ward. Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods, 2nd ed (London, 1926), p. 305.

[37] Nicholas Adontz (1938). “Samuel l’Armenien, roi des Bulgares,” MAR Bclsmp (in French) (39): 37; David Marshall Lang. The Bulgarians: from pagan times to the Ottoman conquest (Westview Press, 1976), p. 67; Tom Winnifrith. Badlands, Borderlands: A History of Northern Epirus/Southern Albania (Duckworth, 2002), p. 83.

[38] Ridley. The Assassins.

[39] A History of the Crusades, Volume Two: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100–1187, p. 397.

[40] Malcolm Barber & Keith Bate. Letters from the East: Crusaders, Pilgrims and Settlers in the 12th-13th centuries (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2013), p. 92.

[41] Marti Aurel I. Cardona. “Raymond Berenguer V, Count of Provence.” In: E. Michael Gerli (ed.). Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia (Routledge, 2016), p. 693.

[42] Otto Rahn. Crusade Against the Grail.

[43] Daftary. The Ismailis, p. 15.

[44] Barber. The Trial of the Templars, p. 120.

[45] Howard. Secret Societies, p. 40.

Divide & Conquer