Trial of the Templars

In the Song of Solomon, the Shekhinah is symbolized by the “rose of Sharon.” In the Song of Solomon, according to King James Version of the Bible, the beloved—speaking for the mystical Shekhinah—says “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.” In Dante’s Paradisio, his guide Beatrice—his version of the Shekhinah—invites him to contemplate among the heavenly inhabitants, the beauty of Mary, the Mother of God: “Why are you so enamored of my face that you do not turn your gaze to the beautiful garden which blossoms under the radiance of Christ?  There is the rose, in which the divine word became flesh; here are the lilies whose perfume guides you in the right ways.” St. Bernard of Clairvaux guides Dante further, describing the heavenly rose and its occupants, and prays to the Virgin Mary on his behalf. Finally, Dante comes face-to-face with God Himself, who appears as three equally large circles occupying the same space, representing the Holy Trinity, symbolism borrowed from the Borromean rings of Joachim of Fiore, whom Dante had place in Paradise.[1]

Towards the end of the thirteenth century, Joachim of Fiore referred to the Templars and Hospitallers as “a new type of religion.”[2] Dante, who situated Joachim of Fiore in the Paradiso in his Divine Comedy, referred to King Philip IV “le Bel” of France in the same work as the “plague 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. However, all confessions were consistent, and repeated the accusations made formerly against the Cathars, and which would be repeated again in the coming witch trials. 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” (osculum infame) 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.

Many of the accusations made against the Templars and Cathars, such as the worship of a black cat and the “obscene kiss” were brought against the witches of the Middle Ages. Consistent in the Templar confession was the admission of having worshipped a head called Baphomet, usually metal with black, curly hair, with silver-gilt on the neck and shoulders. Descriptions varied from “a foul and black idol” to one which “seemed to be white with a beard.” Two witnesses claimed that it had three faces. One witness heard it said that it was the head of the first Master of the Order, Hughes de Payens, and from the nape of the neck to the shoulders it was completely encrusted with precious stones of gold and silver. It was represented as the true power, as opposed to Christ, who was a false prophet and had not been sent to earth for the salvation of mankind. On the contrary, the head was the source of salvation in the next life and the fertility of the earth in this one.[3] Some argue the head referred to rituals involving the alleged relics of John the Baptist.

Several Templars reported that the Baphomet idol worshipped by the Templars was related to the Skull of Sidon, an account of necrophilia based on a story first reported by Walter Map, and related to Baldwin II and Morphia of Armenia and the Melusine legend associated with the House of Lusignan. Despite their arrest and disbanding, the Templar properties were handed over to the Knights Hospitaller, under the Grand Mastership of Henry II of Jerusalem (1270 – 1324), an heir of the House of Lusignan. Henry II’s grandmother was Isabella de Lusignan, the daughter of Hugh I of Cyprus and Alice of Champagne. Hugh I was the youngest of the three sons of Aimery of Lusignan, brother of Guy of Lusignan, who married Sibylla, the great granddaughter of Baldwin II and Morphia of Armenia of the Skull of Sidon legend. Alice of Champagne was the daughter of Sibylla’s sister Isabella and Henry II, Count of Champagne, the elder son of Count Henry I of Champagne and Marie of France, who sponsored Grail author Chretien de Troyes.

Genealogy of the Lusignan Kings of Cyprus

• Fulk V, Count of Anjou + Ermengarde of Maine

  • Geoffrey V of Anjou + Empress Matilda (d. Of Henry I of England + Matilda of Scotland, sister of David I)

    • Henry II of England + Eleanor of Aquitaine

  • Sibylla of Anjou

  • Matilda of Anjou

  • Elias II of Maine

• Fuilk V, Count of Anjou + Melisende (d. of Baldwin II of Jerusalem + Morphia of Melitene)

  • Baldwin III of Jerusalem + Theodora Komnene

    • Amalric of Jerusalem + Agnes of Courtenay

      • Baldwin IV of Jerusalem

      • Sibylla of Jerusalem + Guy of Lusignan

      • Isabella I of Jerusalem

    • Amalric of Jerusalem + Maria Comnena

      • Isabella I of Jerusalem + Conrad of Montferrat

        • Maria + John of Brienne

          • Isabella II of Jerusalem + Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

            • Conrad II of Jerusalem

      • Isabella I of Jerusalem + Henry II, Count of Champagne (s. of Henry I of Champagne and Marie of France, patron of Chretien de Troyes)

        • Alice of Champagne + Hugh I of Cyprus (s. of Amalric II of Jerusalem and Eschiva of Ibelin)

          • Mary, Countess of Brine

          • Isabella de Lusignan + Henry of Antioch

          • Henry I, King of Cyprus + Plaisance of Antiochenr

            • Hugh II of Cyprus

        • Philippa + Erard de Brienne-Ramerupt

      • Isabella I of Jerusalem + Amalric II of Jerusalem (b. of Guy of Lusignan)

        • Sybille + King Leo I of Armenia

        • Mélisende + Bohemund IV of Antioch

  • Alice + Bohemond II, Prince of Antioch (descendant of Robert Guiscard)

    • Constance of Antioch + Raynald of Châtillon

      • Agnes of Antioch + Bela III Arpad

        • Andrew II, King of Hungary + Yolanda de Courtenay

          • Violant of Hungary + James I of Aragon

            • Violant, Queen of Castile + Alfonso X of Castile

            • Peter III of Aragon + Constance II of Sicily (granddaughte of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor)

              • Alfonso III of Aragon

              • James II of Aragon

              • Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal + Denis I of Portugal (founder of the Order of Christ)

              • Frederick III of Sicily

            • James II of Majorca

        • Andrew II, King of Hungary + Gertrude of Merania

          • Béla IV of Hungary + Maria Laskarina

            • Stephen V of Hungary + Elizabeth the Cuman (shamanist)

              • Mary of Hungary, Queen of Naples + Charles II of Naples

                • Eleanor of Anjou + Frederick III of Sicily (s. of Peter III of Aragon)

                  • Constance of Sicily + Henry II of Lusignan

                • Charles I of Hungary (founder of the Order of Saint George, the first secular order of knights)

    • Constance of Antioch + Raymond of Poitiers (s. of William IX, Duke of Aquitaine + Philippa of Toulouse, sister of Raymond IV of Toulouse)

      • Bohemond IV of Antioch + Plaisance Embriaco de Giblet

        • Henry of Antioch + Isabella de Lusignan (d. of Hugh I of Cyprus + Alice of Champagne)

          • Hugh III of Cyprus + Isabella of Ibelin

            • Henry II of Lusignan (Grand Master of Hospitallers, appropriated properites of the banned Templars) + Constance of Sicily (d. of Frederick III of Sicily + Eleanor of Anjou)

            • Amalric, Lord of Tyre + Isabella Hethumid of Armenia

  • Hodierna + Raymond II, Count of Tripoli

  • Ioveta

The Lusignans were rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, or more accurately, Acre, from 1268 until the fall of the city in 1291. The stronghold of Acre, from the time of its capture by Richard the Lionheart in 1191 to its final conquest by the Muslims, had formed the base of the crusading empire in Palestine. There were headquartered both the orders of the Templars and of the Hospitallers. Henry II of Lusignan, the patriarch, and the Grand Master of the Hospitallers, whose Grand Master was Henry II. In 1291, when the Muslims attacked Acre, the city was defended by Henry II’s brother Amalric of Tyre (c. 1272 – 1310), the Hospitallers, Templars, Teutonic Knights, the Venetians and Pisans, the French garrison led by Jean I de Grailly, and the English garrison led by Otton de Grandson, but they were vastly outnumbered. Henry II himself arrived in May during the siege, but the city fell on May 18. Henry, Amalric, Otton, and Jean escaped, as did a young Templar named Roger de Flor, but most of the other defenders did not, including the master of the Templars, Guillaume de Beaujeu.[4] After Tyre fell without a fight the next day, and Sidon fell in June, and Beirut in July, the Kingdom of Jerusalem ceased to exist on the mainland. Henry II, with the few survivors, escaped back to Cyprus and resumed his throne with the aid of the Hospitallers. Although Henry II became the last crowned King of Jerusalem, and also ruled as King of Cyprus, the Lusignans continued to claim the lost Jerusalem and occasionally attempted to organize crusades to recapture territory on the mainland.

Following the strife between Philip and Pope Boniface VIII and the death of his successor Benedict XI, a deadlocked conclave finally elected Clement V, a Frenchman, as Pope in 1305. The Templars in Cyprus included Jacques de Molay, who was elected Grand Master in 1292. In 1305, Clement sent letters to both de Molay and the Hospitaller Grand Master Fulk de Villaret to discuss the possibility of merging the two orders. Neither was amenable to the idea. In 1306, the Templars had conspired to place Henry II’s brother Amalric on the throne. Henry II was deposed and exiled to Armenia, where King Oshin of Armenia was Amalric’s brother-in-law. In 1307, Clement, under strong pressure from Philip, ordered the arrest of the Templars in every country. The order went out to England, Iberia, Germany, Italy and Cyprus. Jacques de Molay, and Hughes de Pairaud, a Templar who was the collector of all of the royal revenues of France owed to the Order, were both arrested to answer charges of heresy, as were many other Templars in France.[5]

At the first and one of the larger trials was held in Paris, a total of 138 Templars gave a full testimony and almost all admitted guilt to one or more charges.[6] A considerable number of defendants confessed to one or more of the charge at another important trial that was held at Poitiers in 1308, where at least 54 Templars testified before the pope and his commission of cardinals. 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.”[7] In 1308, Amalric received letters from the Pope directing him to arrest all the Templars in Cyprus.

Clement declined to move to Rome, remaining in France, and in 1309, he would move his court to the papal enclave at Avignon, where it remained for the next 67 years, ushering in the period known as the Avignon Papacy. Upon Amalric’s murder in 1310, Oshin released Henry II, who returned to Cyprus and resumed his throne with the aid of the Hospitallers in 1310, imprisoning many of Amalric’s co-conspirators. In 1312, after the Council of Vienne, and under pressure from Philip, Clement issued an edict officially dissolving the Order. In 1313, Henry II oversaw the dissolution of the Templars in Cyprus and the transfer of their property to the Hospitallers, who would eventually become known as the Knights of Malta. In 1314, although Philip’s Inquisitors eventually succeeded in making de Molay confess to the charges, de Molay and de Charney recanted his confessions. He was immediately found guilty of relapsing into heresy and was burned at the stake. The Templars’ French estates were granted to the Hospitallers, but Philip held them until his death and expropriated the Templar’s bank outright.[8]

Omne Datum Optimum

A keystone in the Templars’ ever-increasing power and wealth, but which ironically helped to bring about their suppression in 1307, was the Omne Datum Optimum issued by Innocent II in 1139, granting exceptional rights to the Templars. Innocent II was the first pope elected after the conclusion of the Investiture Controversy, finalized with the Concordat of Worms in 1122, led by Cardinal Lamberto, who also coordinated the election of Callixtus II, the brother of Raymond of Burguny, at Cluny in 1119. Cardinal Lamberto later succeed Callixtus II as Honorius II, and confirmed the establishment of the Templars at the Council of Troyes in 1128. When Honorius died in 1130, a select group of cardinals elected Innocent II, precipitating a crisis that resulted from the election of Anacletus II as antipope, who was accused by his enemies of being secretly Jewish. Among Anacletus’ supporters were duke William X of Aquitaine and Roger II of Sicily. Innocent II fled to France and gained the support of Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter the Venerable of Cluny, and the Emperor Lothar III. Anacletus II died in 1138, and the following year the schism was ended when Innocent II called the Second Lateran Council, at which he wrote Omne Datum Optimum.

According to Omne Datum Optimum, Latin for “Every perfect gift,” a quotation from the Epistle of James, the Templar Rule was officially approved, and papal protection given. Additionally, the bull promised, “As for the things that you will receive from the spoils, you can confidently put them to your own use, and we prohibit that you be coerced against your will to give anyone a portion of these. We establish that the house or Temple, in which you have assemble for the praise and glory of God and the protection of his faithful… will be under the protection and the tutelage of the Holy See for all time to come.”[9] The bull allowed the Templars to have their own priests and build their own churches and cemeteries, where they could bury their own dead as well as their confratres, and any traveler who died on their land.[10]

Although various bishops resented the extent of the privileges and autonomy given to the Templars, successive popes continued to favor the order. In 1144 by Pope Celestine II’s Milites Templi, which ordered the clergy to protect the Knights Templar and encouraged the faithful to contribute to their cause. It allowed the Templars to make their own collections once a year, even in areas under interdict. In 1145, Pope Eugene III’s Militia Dei, consolidating the rights and privileges of the Templars, and granting them the honor of wearing the red cross on their white mantles.[11]

Like the Omne Datum Optimum, the Militia Dei granted the Templars the right to bury their dead in their own cemeteries. One example is a large cemetery found outside of Château Pèlerin, also known as Atlit Castle and Pilgrim Castle, is a Crusader fortress located near Atlit on the northern coast of Israel. There are many unusual features of the Athlit cemetery that seem to contradict conventional thinking about European burial practices of the time. The number of burials is “extremely large,” and all of them can be dated to the Templars’ presence in the area, between 1218 and 1291. British archaeologist C.N. Johns, who excavated the site in the 1930s, counted 1,700 graves, but Yves Gleize of the University of Bordeaux puts the number at a minimum of 5,000, and perhaps as many as 8,000, which was far too many for just the castle or even local inhabitants.[12]

Sacred Architecture

Although there is no evidence the Templars were involved in the construction of the Gothic cathedrals, their patron Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercians, as well as other orders, especially the Clunics, played a central role in the rapid spread of the architectural style.[13] The Champagne fairs—where the Templars played a central role—were also important in the spread and exchange of cultural influences—the first appearance of Gothic architecture in Italy was the result of merchants from Siena rebuilding their houses in the Northern style.[14] The Templars managed a large economic infrastructure throughout the Christian world, innovating financial techniques that were an early form of banking, and building fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land. The Templars acquired large tracts of land, both in Europe and the Middle East. They bought and managed farms and vineyards. They were involved in manufacturing, import and export, and had their own fleet of ships. At one point, they even owned the entire island of Cyprus. The Templars arguably qualified as the world’s first multinational corporation.[15]

The Templars also built massive stone cathedrals and castles. In these projects, the Templars relied heavily on the skills and knowledge of the Jewish Kabbalists. According to Marsha Keith Schuchard, in Restoring the Temple of Vision, the Templars adopted the Second Temple mysticism that would later feature in Freemasonry, principally from three leading Jewish Kabbalists from Spain: Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Abraham bar Hiyya and his student Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra were the leading influences behind the mystical tendencies of the Ashkenazi Hasidim.[16] Abraham bar Hiyya was given high official status by the Templars when they came to Spain to fight a crusade against the Muslims.[17]

According to Schuchard, Jewish building guilds were instrumental in transmitting the symbolic and mystical traditions of the synagogue and Temple to the Christian West. Mark Wischnitzer has argued that Jewish craftsmen brought “the idea of the guild” from the Near East and that Jewish guilds played a key role in the transmission of crafts within the Byzantine Empire.[18] Throughout the Islamic world, where there was much mixing of guilds between Arabs and Jews, Muslim artisans drew upon the mystery traditions of the Jewish guilds. The Sufi mystics of Islam assimilated Merkabah meditation techniques and Solomon Temple mysticism into their own fraternities. The earliest surviving description of Muslim guilds is found among the Brethren of Sincerity, who were an important source of inspiration for much of Sufi tradition, as well as Jewish scholars of Kabbalah.[19]

Over the centuries, the Merkabah texts began to identify the microcosmic man with the microcosmic Throne and Temple. The mystical numerology and geometry of the Merkabah scrolls reached their peak in the Sefer Yetzirah, which is replete with architectural and masonic imagery. But in the Sefer Yetzirah, the emphasis is on building the supernal Temple through mathematical-linguistic-magical manipulations.[20] Thus, in the Sefer Yetzirah, the adept undertakes a “masonic” process of letter-combination, meditation, and visualization, where the letters and words serve as building blocks. According to Moshe Idel, “Letters are regarded as stones, as full-fledged entities, as components intended to build up an edifice of words to serve as a temple for God and a place of encountering Him for the mystic.”[21]

The Templars became immensely wealthy reputedly through some knowledge newly acquired. They managed a large economic infrastructure throughout the Christian world, innovating financial techniques that were an early form of banking, and building fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land. The time of the Templars coincided with the flourishing of Gothic architecture, in a style previously unknown to the West. Although there is no evidence the Templars had a role in their construction, a number of medieval guilds were, who in certain instances had interactions with the order. The primary guild involved in building the Gothic cathedrals were the stonemasons, who carried on their traditions orally.[22]

This new style of architecture, a departure from Romanesque, in fact, was profoundly influenced by Islamic architecture, chiefly through Spanish examples, such as the Great Mosque at Cordoba and the Alhambra in Granada. The forerunner of the stained glass in the European cathedrals was the enameled and variegated varieties of Sidon, Tyre and other Syrian cities, a survival of the ancient Phoenician industry.[23] The ribbed vault, the flying buttress, and the pointed arch, which marked its transition from Romanesque architecture, are all details which can be traced directly to the Islamic style. As well, the slightly splayed entrance ways that began to appear in Islamic mosques are very prominent in Gothic architecture. Superimposed on Merkabah’s architectural notion of the “body of God” is the symbolism of the Throne and Temple of Solomon, which according to Schuchard, “would find its greatest architectural expression in the towering Gothic cathedrals built by Christian stonemasons,” of which the Templars were the most famous example.[24]

Appearing almost overnight, the new Gothic style spread rapidly, beginning in France in the 1130s, soon after the official recognition of the Templars. The flowering of the style began with the Abbot Suger in Benedictine church of Saint Denis in Paris. The cathedrals of Senlis and Notre-Dame in Paris followed after. In the thirteenth century, the style matured with the construction of the cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, Amiens and Bourges. Other countries also adopted the style, spreading to England to produce Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, and in Germany examples like Cologne and Regensburg, and in Spain, Burgos and Toledo.

Black Madonna

Most famous of Bernard of Clairvaux sermons was his Sermones super Cantica Canticorum (“Sermons on the Song of Songs”), which explored themes of spousal love, ecstasy, and union of God. The Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, has long formed the basis of Kabbalistic speculations about the role of the “Shekhinah,” standing in for the Jewish people, but having long appropriated characteristics inherited from the pagan goddess of the ancient Near East. Likewise, the influence of the Kabbalah is evidenced, as in all Gnostic tradition that existed within the Catholic Church, in the worship of the Virgin Mary, exemplified by Notre-Dame de Paris. Likewise, the Templars were bound by the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, dedicating themselves to the Mere de Dieu, or the Mother of God.

According to J.B. Trend, in The Legacy of Islam, the goddess worship of the Sufis was reinterpreted within Christianity as the veneration of the Virgin Mary.[25] The Sufis in turn shared influences from Jewish mystics. Esoterically, the Shekinah of the Kabbalah, like the Virgin Mary, is a stand-in for the ancient pagan goddess, usually referred to as Sophia, Greek for “wisdom.” The Virgin Mary has been crowned Queen of Heaven, described as the Woman of the Apocalypse with pagan symbolism in the Book of Revelation 12:1, “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.”

Bernard de Clairvaux identified Mary as the bride of the Song of Solomon.[26] According to the Song of Solomon, the bride, who is identified by Kabbalists as the Shekinah, pleads on her own behalf that, “I am black, but I am beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.”[27] Egyptian depictions of Isis frequently displayed her holding her child Horus on her lap. Similarly, as reported by Ean Begg, author of The Cult of the Black Virgin, many statues of Mary holding her child—found all over Europe, though mainly clustered in the south of France—were black. Bernard de Clairvaux was also known to have visited several shrines of the Black Madonna, for example at Chatillon and Affligem.

To the Kabbalists, the black virgin is the female demon Lilith, the mother of Cain through Adam. Originally, Lilith was a female demon who can be traced to Babylonian demonology in the female spirit Lilitu.[28] To the Sabians, Lilith-Zahriel is the daughter of the King and Queen of the Underworld whom they give in marriage to the King of Light.[29] A few references to Lilith are found in the Talmud where she is described as a demoness with long black hair and a demoness with identical characteristics is found in apocryphal The Testament of Solomon, which is estimated to have been written between the first and fourth century AD. According to The Alphabet of Ben Sira, a Kabbalistic document of Persian and Arabic origin from the eleventh century, the first man and woman were created at the same time and from the same substance, as the original androgynous being, joined together at the rear. A conflict arose as to the best position for intercourse and Lilith resented Adam’s assumption of superiority and her subjection to a passive role.[30] Sometime in the early Middle Ages, Lilith became identified with Asmodeus, King of Demons, as his queen.[31]

In the Zohar, Lilith is known by as black harlot. She is one of the four mothers of the demons, and the permanent partner of Samael, and queen of the realm of the forces of evil, where she is the counterpart of the Shekinah. Just as the Shekinah is the mother of the House of Israel, so Lilith is the mother of the unholy stock who constitute the “mixed multitude” and rules over all that is impure.[32] According to the Zohar, after the destruction of the Temple and the Exile of the Shekinah, the Bride of God, Lilith offered herself to God in place of his bride. So corrupted was the state of existence that God accepted her offer.[33]

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw an extraordinary growth of the cult of the Virgin in western Europe, in part inspired by the writings of theologians such as Bernard of Clairvaux, who was one of the most influential churchmen of his time.[34] In the “Sermon on the Sunday in the Octave of the Assumption” he described Mary’s participation in redemption. Bernard’s Praises on the Virgin Mother was a small but complete treatise on Mariology. In a cryptic allusion to Aphrodite, or Venus, Bernard wrote of Mary under the title “Our Lady, Star of the Sea” a translation of the Latin title Stella Maris: “When the storms of temptation burst upon you, when you see yourself driven upon the rocks of tribulation, look at the star, call upon Mary.”[35] The movement found its grandest expression in the French cathedrals, often dedicated to “Our Lady,” such as Notre-Dame de Paris and Notre-Dame de Bayeux among others.[36]

Bernard’s theology and Mariology continue to be of major importance, particularly within the Cistercian and Trappist Orders. The depiction of Nursing Madonna seems to have revived with the Cistercian Order in the twelfth century, as part of the general upsurge in Marian theology and devotion. The Nursing Madonna, Virgo Lactans, or Madonna Lactans, is an iconography of the Madonna and Child in which the Virgin Mary is shown breastfeeding the infant Jesus. A variant, known as the Lactation of St Bernard is based on a miracle or vision concerning Saint Bernard where the Virgin sprinkled milk on his lips, either sleeping or awake praying before an image of the Madonna. In iconography, Bernard usually kneels before a Madonna Lactans, and as Jesus takes a break from feeding, the Virgin squeezes her breast and hits him with a squirt of milk from a distance. The milk was variously said to have given him wisdom, shown that the Virgin was his mother, or cured an eye infection. The Nursing Madonna survived into Baroque art, and sometimes the Rococo.

Mary Magdalene

The pagan goddess also infiltrated Christianity as Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene is usually identified as the woman out of which Jesus exorcised seven demons, or with Mary of Bethany, and the woman sinner, who anointed Jesus’ feet. She is also identified with the adulterous woman Jesus saved from stoning by the Pharisees. But if Mary Magdalene came to be identified with harlotry, it is because of an esoteric interpretation which regards her as a “sacred prostitute,” who officiates at the mysteries, or as goddess and consort to the “son of god,” as she is featured in the Gnostic texts. Mary Magdalene is a central figure in later Gnostic Christian writings, including the Dialogue of the Savior, the Pistis Sophia, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Mary. These texts portray Mary Magdalene as an apostle, as Jesus’ closest or most beloved disciple and the recipient of his most private teachings.

The Borborites, also known as the Phibionites, an early Christian Gnostic sect of the late fourth century AD, had numerous scriptures involving Mary Magdalene, including The Questions of Mary, The Greater Questions of Mary, The Lesser Questions of Mary, and The Birth of Mary. Although none of them survived, they are mentioned by Epiphanius of Salamis in his Panarion. Epiphanius reports that the Greater Questions of Mary contained an episode after the resurrection which was supposedly the basis for the Borborite Eucharist ritual in which they allegedly engaged in orgies and drank semen and menstrual blood as the “body and blood of Christ” respectively.[37]

The portrayal of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute began after a series of Easter sermons delivered in 591, when Pope Gregory I conflated her with Mary of Bethany and the unnamed “sinful woman” who anoints Jesus’ feet.[38] This resulted in a widespread belief that Mary Magdalene was a repentant prostitute or promiscuous woman. Several medieval legends in western Europe tell elaborate tales of Mary Magdalene’s wealth and beauty, as well as her alleged miraculous journey to southern France.

At Vezelay in Burgundy in 1167, a group of so-called Publicans, another name for the Cathar heretics, were judged to have been guilty of rejecting all the sacraments of the Church.[39] Starting in around 1050, the monks of the Benedictine and Cluniac Abbey of la Madaleine in Vézelay claimed they discovered Mary Magdalene’s actual skeleton.[40] The thirteenth-century Cistercian monk, Peter of Vaux de Cernay (d. c. 1218), chronicler of the Albigensian Crusade, claimed that the Cathars believed that Jesus had a relationship with Mary Magdalene: “Further, in their secret meetings they said that the Christ who was born in the earthly and visible Bethlehem and crucified at Jerusalem was ‘evil,’ and that Mary Magdalene was his concubine—and that she was the woman taken in adultery who is referred to in the Scriptures.”[41] A document, possibly written by Ermengaud of Béziers, undated and anonymous and attached to his Treatise against Heretics, makes a similar statement:

Also they [the Cathars] teach in their secret meetings that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Christ. She was the Samaritan woman to whom He said, “Call thy husband.” She was the woman taken into adultery, whom Christ set free lest the Jews stone her, and she was with Him in three places, in the temple, at the well, and in the garden. After the Resurrection, He appeared first to her.[42]

The portals of the Abbey of la Madaleine in Véz are surrounded by carvings incorporating scenes of the Last Judgement and other Christian iconography as well as the signs of the zodiac.[43] At Vezelay in 1167, a group of so-called Publicans, another name for the Cathar heretics, were judged to have been guilty of rejecting all the sacraments of the Church.[44] In 1976, Hugues Delautre, one of the Franciscan fathers previously in charge of servicing the Vézelay sanctuary, discovered that not only the orientation axis of the church, but also its internal structure, were determined according to the position of the earth relative to the sun. Every year, just before the feast day of Saint John the Baptist, coinciding with the Summer Solstice, at local noon the light coming through the southern clerestory windows casts a series of luminous spots precisely along the longitudinal center of the nave floor.[45] It was from the steps of the cathedral at Vézelay that the Second Crusade would be launched by Bernard of Clairvaux, on Easter 1146, in front of King Louis VII. Richard the Lionheart and Philip II of France met there and spent three months there in 1190 before departing for the Third Crusade.

The most famous account of Mary Magdalene’s legendary life comes from The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Varagine (c. 1230 – 1298). In his account, fourteen years after Jesus’ crucifixion, Mary Magdalene, her brother Lazarus, and two other Christians named Maximin and Cedonius fled the Holy Land by a rudderless boat and miraculously landed at Marseille in southern France. Mary spends the last thirty years of her life alone as a penitent ascetic in a cave in a desert in the French region of Provence. De Voragine gives the common account of the transfer of Mary Magdalene’s relics from her sepulcher in the oratory of Saint Maximin at Aix-en-Provence in 771 AD to the newly founded Benedictine and Cluniac monastery at Vézelay in Burgundy.

Mary the Gypsy

According to various scholars, when the Gypsies were moved out of Northern India between 800 and 950 AD, arriving in Europe after 1100 AD, they brought with them their Hindu goddess Kali, which came to be identified with the Black Madonna.[46] In 1763, Hungarian theology student named Stefan Vali met a number of students from Malabar and came to conclude that their language was related to that of the Roma people. Since then, it has been widely acknowledged that the Roma originated in India, having left sometime between the first and second century AD, and settled in Roman Egypt, eventually settling in Europe, the Byzantine Empire. However, according to popular perceptions in Medieval times, the Roma were believed to originate in Egypt, hence the appellation “Gypsy.” Although the Roma were given many different names. The most common foreign terms included Zigeuner, Cingaro, Tzigan and so on derive from the Greek atsinganoi (athinganoi).

The Athinganoi were a ninth-century Gnostic sect of also known as Melchisedechians, located in Thrace, who had been accused of practicing magic and fortune-telling.[47] In his book Eis ton Melchisedek, or according to Photius “Against the Melchisedekites” (P.G., lxv, 1117), he speaks of this sect as making Melchisedech an incarnation of the Logos. They were condemned as heretics alongside the Paulicians of Phrygia, and castigated as a sect of “Judaizers.” In order to ensure influence of Judaism in their lives, each family secured for itself a Jew or Jewess as mentor, who lived with the household and managed its spiritual and temporal affairs. The result was that the sect observed all the laws of Moses, keeping the Sabbath, but were not circumcised.[48] In 1323, Simon Simeonis, an Irish Franciscan friar, described a people like the “atsingani” living in Crete:

We also saw outside this city [Candia] a tribe of people, who worship according to the Greek rite, and assert themselves to be of the race of Cain. These people rarely or never stop in one place for more than thirty days, but always, as if cursed by God, are nomad and outcast. After the thirtieth day they wander from field to field with small, oblong, black, and low tents, like those of the Arabs, and from cave to cave, because the place inhabited by them becomes after the term of thirty days so full of vermin and other filth that it is impossible to live in their neighbourhood.[49]

In France, Gypsies were also called “Bohémiens,” because they arrived with letters of protection from the king of Bohemia. Since they declared they had come from Little-Egypt, Gypsies were called “Egyptiens” by the French, and “Egypteners” or “Heydens” (Heathens) in the Netherlands. The contemporary terms “Gypsy,” “Gitano,” “Gitane” or some equivalent names in Greece and the Balkans derive from those “Egyptians” as well. However, Little-Egypt was a Venetian administered region in the Peloponnese, where the Gypsies had settled before being pushed onwards by the Turkish wars.[50]

Around 1417, there appeared from Germany a travelling group of people who were described at the time as being “uncouth, black, dirty and barbarous,” and who soon after acquired a reputation for thieving and treachery.[51] A chronicler for a Parisian journal described them as dressed in a manner that the Parisians considered shabby, and reports that the Church had them leave town because they practiced palm-reading and fortune-telling.[52] Leonardo drew an illustration of three grinning Gypsies pick-pocketing an unsuspecting old man while a fourth, a woman, reads his palm.

By the fourteenth century, the Gypsies had reached the Balkans and Bohemia. Some Gypsies migrated from Persia through North Africa, reaching Europe via Spain in the fifteenth century. A document which described the Gypsies as a group that had been exiled from Egypt, records them reaching Braşov, Transylvania in 1416. Although 1385 marks the first recorded transaction for a Gypsy slave in Wallachia, they were issued safe conduct by Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund in 1417. Gypsies were ordered expelled from the Meissen region of Germany in 1416, Lucerne in 1471, Milan in 1493, France in 1504, Catalonia in 1512, Sweden in 1525, England by the Egyptians Act 1530, and Denmark in 1536. In 1510, any Gypsies found in Switzerland were ordered put to death, with similar rules established in England in 1554, and Denmark in 1589, whereas Portugal began deportations of Gypsies to its colonies in 1538.[53]

The most famous Black Madonna pilgrimage site today is Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, in Provence, where there is a special cult of Saint Sara, or Sara la Kali (“Sara the Black”), the patron saint of the Gypsies in southern France, referred to as Sara the Egyptian, Mary the Gypsy, Maria-Sara, Saint Sara, and other names as well. The site also has special connections to Mary Magdalene, and its fortified Romanesque church is a place of Christian pilgrimage on the way to the Camino de Santiago. In Catholic tradition, Sara was said to be the black assistant who accompanied the three Marys from the Holy Land to France after the Crucifixion—Mary the sister of the Virgin, Mary the mother of James and John, and Mary Magdelene. In Gypsy tradition, this Sara was a Gypsy woman, or Egyptian according to some. Every 24th of May, Gypsies from all over the world converge at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in southern France to honor St. Sara, their patron saint.[54]

Rose of Sharon

The rose has held esoteric significance as a symbol of the yoni.[55] In ancient Greece, the rose was closely associated with the goddess Aphrodite, or the Roman Venus.[56] Following the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the rose became identified with the Virgin Mary.[57] The rose symbol eventually led to the creation of the rosary and other devotional prayers in Christianity.[58] According to Dominican tradition, in 1208, St. Dominic received a vision of the Virgin Mary who taught him to pray the Rosary, telling him to use this weapon to defeat the Cathars. This Marian apparition received the title of Our Lady of the Rosary. Rosa Mystica or “Mystical Rose” is a poetic title of the Virgin Mary. One form of Marian devotion is invoking Mary’s prayers by calling upon her using a litany of diverse titles, and the title “Mystical Rose” is found in the Litany of Loreto. Bernard of Clairvaux said, “Eve was a thorn, wounding, bringing death to all; in Mary we see a rose, soothing everybody's hurts, giving the destiny of salvation back to all.”

No symbol inspired alchemists of the Renaissance more than the rose. Numerous alchemical manuscripts are called Rosarium, Latin for “Rose Garden,” all dealing with the alchemical relationship between the King and Queen. Gilded or golden roses convey the idea of personal perfection, completion of the Great Work, or the invocation of divine powers. The golden rose represents the successful marriage of opposites, the Sacred Marriage, to produce the Golden Child. The white rose is associated with the White Queen, while the red rose is associated with the Red King. The union of the white and red roses symbolizes the birth of the Philosopher’s Child.[59] In Septimana Philosophica, alchemist Michael Maier wrote:

The rose is the first and most perfect of flowers. The Gardens of Philosophy are planted with many roses, both red and white, which colors are in correspondence with gold and silver. The centre of the rose is green and is emblematical of the Green Lion or First Matter. Just as the natural rose turns to the sun and is refreshed by rain, so is the Philosophical Matter prepared in blood, grown in light, and in and by these made perfect.[60]

Along with the rose, the dragon is also an important symbol in alchemy. The Great Work itself is symbolized by the famous Gnostic symbol of the Ouroborous, the serpent biting its own tail. The famous Gnostic ouroboros, of, is represented in the early alchemical text, The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra, probably originally dating to third century Alexandria. A fifteenth-century alchemical manuscript, The Aurora Consurgens, features the ouroboros, where it is used amongst symbols of the sun, moon, and mercury. The material undergoing transmutation in the alchemical process could be “the Dragon,” usually shown as a winged serpent, who is black, white or red in color. Nigredo, the first stage, could be called ‘the Raven,” “the Death’s Head,” or “the Black Man.” Albedo, the second stage, could be called “the White Lily” or “the White Rose,” while the third stage, rubbed, was “the Red Rose.”[61]

Saint George

The rose, according to occult tradition, is of Sufi origin, derived from the Qadiriyya Sufi order, founded by Abdul Qadir al Gilani (1077 – 1166), who claimed to have come into contact with al Khidr, the Muslim equivalent of Saint George. The legend of Saint George and the Dragon was popularized in Western tradition in the thirteenth century based on its Latin versions in the Speculum Historiale and the Golden Legend. In Jacobus’ well-known version, the story of Saint George and the Dragon was transferred from Cappadocia to “Silene” Libya. To prevent the dragon from afflicting their city, the inhabitants offered their children in sacrifice. One time, the lot fell on the king’s daughter, who was sent out dressed as a bride to be fed to the dragon. When dragon emerged from his pond, Saint George made the Sign of the Cross and charged it on horseback, seriously wounding it with his lance. He then called to the princess to throw him her girdle, which he put it around the dragon’s neck. The princess and Saint George led the dragon back to the city and Saint George offered to kill the dragon if they consented to become Christians. Fifteen thousand men including the king of Silene converted to Christianity. After George then killed the dragon, the king built a church to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint George on the site and a spring flowed from its altar with water that cured all disease.[62]

The popularity of Saint George in later medieval times was a result of the Crusades. There were reports that in 1063 in a battle in Sicily between Normans and Fatimid Muslims, a vision of Saint George was seen in shining armor with a white banner. In Constantinople the crusaders saw the splendid church of Saint George and when they reached Antioch and Jerusalem, visions of George were reported. A church at Fordington in Dorset has a bas-relief over its doorway depicting George’s appearance at Antioch, and paintings of him dated to the twelfth century exist in Westmeston and Hardham in Sussex. It has been said that Richard the Lionheart saw a vision of George in Palestine, placed his army under the saint’s protection, and promoted the cross of Saint George as a national emblem. Khidr also shows certain affinities with the ancient dying-god by also representing fertility, which is offered as the reason for his association with the color green. Likewise, Elijah’s association with fertility and rain production is widespread in Biblical and rabbinic literature.[63]

Feast of Fools

In his book De Occulta Philosophia published in 1531–1533, the German occultist and magician, Henry Cornelius Agrippa, mentioned the Templars in connection with the survival of Gnosticism, and thus, according to Michael Haag, “thrust the order into the phantasmagoria of occult forces which were subject of the persecuting craze for which the Malleus Maleficarum was a handbook.”[64] According to Agrippa in Chapter 39 of De Occulta Philosophia:

Everyone knows that evil spirits can be summoned through evil and profane practices (similar to those that Gnostic magicians used to engage in, according to Psellus), and filthy abominations would occur in their presence, as during the rites of Priapus in times past or in the worship of the idol named Panor to whom one sacrificed having bared shameful parts. Nor is any different from this (if only it is truth and not fiction) what we read about the detestable heresy of the Knights Templar, as well as similar notions that have been established about witches, whose senile womanish dementia is often caught causing them to wander astray into shameful deeds of the same variety.

The pagan fertility god Priapus was the ugly son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, whose symbol was a huge erect penis, and the Greek, half man—half goat god, Pan. The worship of pan was associated with a Medieval variation of the Green Man, a motif often related to fertility deities found in different cultures throughout the world, such as the Celtic god Cernunnos, Green George, Jack in the green, John Barleycorn, Robin Goodfellow, Puck, and the Green Knight of Grail legend. A more modern version is found in Peter Pan, who enters the civilized world from Neverland, clothed in green leaves. At Temple Church in London, there are twelve carvings of Green Man heads above the portal to the round church, with four foliate shoots growing from the mouths in the shapes of ‘X’.[65] The equivalent of the Green Man in Sufi Islam is Al Khir, “the Green One.”

The worship of Pan was associated with the survival of the Saturnalia, in the form of the Feast of Fools and Carnival. As in the case of the Bacchanalia, after centuries during which very little is known about the ancient festivals, celebrations like the Saturnalia make their reappearance during the late Medieval period.[66] The popularity of Saturnalia continued into the third and fourth centuries AD, and as the Roman Empire came under Christian rule, many of its customs were recast later celebrations in western Europe occurring in midwinter, particularly traditions associated with Christmas, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and Epiphany.[67]

The twelve days of Christmas, like the Saturnalia, were marked by massive eating, drinking and game playing and also by rituals of inversion. Present-day Christmas traditions such as the Yule log, Yule goat, Yule boar, Yule singing, and others stem from Yuletide, a twelve-day pagan festival, indicating the month of “Yule” (January). Yule was observed by the historical Germanic peoples, connected to the celebration to the Wild Hunt, the god Odin, and the pagan Anglo-Saxon Modranicht. The Wild Hunt, is a European folkloric motif that typically involved a ghostly or supernatural group of hunters passing in wild pursuit. The hunters may be either elves or fairies or the dead, and the leader of the hunt is often a named figure associated with Odin.[68] The Yule later underwent Christianized reformulation resulting in the term Christmastide. Odin’s role during the Yuletide has been theorized as having influenced concepts of St. Nicholas, and later Santa Claus, in a variety of facets, including his long white beard and his gray horse for nightly rides.[69]

The Devil’s nickname, “Old Nick,” explains Jeffrey Burton Russell in The Prince of Darkness, derives directly from Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century Greek Christian bishop of Myra, a Roman town in what is now south-western Turkey. [70] In 1087, after the Greek Christians of Myra fell under the subjugation of the Muslim Seljuq dynasty, Italian sailors from Bari in Apulia seized part of the Saint Nicholas’ from his burial church in Myra, over the objections of the Greek Orthodox monks. Two years later, Pope Urban II inaugurated a new church, the Basilica di San Nicola, to Saint Nicholas in Bari, and personally placed Nicholas’ relics into the tomb beneath the altar. The remaining bone fragments from the sarcophagus were later removed by Venetian sailors and taken to Venice during the First Crusade. Nicholas’ reputation as a gift-giver grew with time, and during the Middle Ages, often on the evening before December 6, the saint’s feast day, children were bestowed gifts in his honor.

Within these twelve days, December 28, the day on which the Church commemorated the Massacre of the Innocents—Herod’s slaughter of the male infants after Jesus’ birth—was celebrated in part of medieval Europe, notably in France, with a particular ritual inversion known as the Feast of Fools. In England, the Lord of Misrule, known in Scotland as the Abbot of Unreason and in France as the Prince des Sots, was an officer appointed by lot during Christmastide to preside over the Feast of Fools. The historical western European Christmas custom of electing a “Lord of Misrule” have its roots in Saturnalia celebrations.[71] James Frazer claimed that the appointment of a Lord of Misrule comes from an ancient custom known as the “Killing of the King,” such as the one practiced during the Roman celebration of Saturnalia. In ancient Rome, from December 17 to 23 in the Julian Calendar, a man was chosen to mockingly take the place of the king during the feast of Saturnalia. In the guise of the Roman deity Saturn, at the end of the festival, the man was sacrificed.[72]

The Feast of Fools held on or about January 1, particularly in France, in which a mock bishop or pope was elected, ecclesiastical ritual was parodied, and low and high officials exchanged places. A report from the year 1198 noted that at the Feast of the Circumcision in Notre Dame in Paris, “so many abominations and shameful deeds” were committed that the locale was desecrated “not only by smutty jokes, but even by the shedding of blood.”[73] In 1444, a letter from the Theological Faculty of Paris to all the French bishops complained that “even the priests and clerics elected an archbishop for a bishop or pope, and named him the Fools’ Pope.”[74]

Victor Hugo recreated a picturesque account of a Feast of Fools in his 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in which it is celebrated on January 6, 1482 and Quasimodo serves as Pope of Fools. This is shown in Disney’s 1996 animated film version of the novel through the song “Topsy Turvy,” whose lyrics include, “It’s the day the devil in us gets released; It’s the day we mock the prig and shock the priest; Ev’rything is topsy turvy at the Feast of Fools!” Victor Hugo cites Jean de Troyes who in the fifteenth century remarked that what “excited all the people of Paris” on January 6 was the two age-old celebrations of the Feast of the Epiphany and the Feast of Fools. The day included a bonfire on the Place de Grève, a mystery play at the Palais de Justice, and a maypole at the chapel of Braque. The European Carnival (Mardi Gras) also resembles the Saturnalia.[75] The word Carnival is of Christian origin, and in the Middle Ages, it referred to a period following Christmastide that reached its climax before midnight on Shrove Tuesday. Some folklorists have also claimed that Carnival derives from the Bacchanalia and even that it takes its name from the wheeled ship (carrus navalis), which carried the ithyphallic image of the god.[76]

A maypole is a tall wooden pole erected on May Day as a part of various European folk festivals, around which a maypole dance often takes place. May-poles were remnants of the ancient phallic Asherah poles dedicated to the worship of Baal.[77] Phallic symbolism has been attributed to the maypole in the later Early Modern period, as one sexual reference is in John Cleland's controversial eighteenth century erotic novel Fanny Hill: “…and now, disengag’d from the shirt, I saw, with wonder and surprise, what? not the play-thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man, but a maypole of so enormous a standard, that had proportions been observ’d, it must have belong’d to a young giant.”[78]

Robin Hood

An illustration of Robin Goodfellow (Puck) from 1639 represents the influence of Pan imagery giving Puck the hindquarters, cloven hooves and horns of a goat and an erect penis like Priapus, surrounded by circle of dancing witches and sorcerers and a black cat.[79] In 1584, Reginald Scot identified Robin Hood with the Germanic goblin “Hudgin” or Hodekin and associated him with Robin Goodfellow.[80] Robin Hood was a species of “fairy” derived ultimately from the old Celtic and Saxon fertility god or vegetation deity, the so-called “Green Man.” In popular folklore, Robin Hood was interchangeable with Green Robin, Robin of the Greenwood, Robin Goodfellow, who at the summer solstice, presides over fertility, sexuality, and nuptials.[81]

Priapus, like Pan, was a European adaptation of the dying-god, in other words, a pagan version of Lucifer, associated with modern adaptations of the Bacchanalia or Saturnalia. Robin Goodfellow, like Puck, was often associated with Satan in the literature of medieval and Tudor England. “Puck” is related to both the Old English word paecan, to deceive, and the Gaelic puca, a malicious spirit, which later became a common term for the devil. The earliest surviving reference to Robin and his pranks is from an undated medieval text from the beginning of the fourteenth century, where he is allegorized as the devil.[82] In Anthony Munday’s comedy Fidele and Fortunio, the Two Italian Gentlemen (1584), a character who conjures up a body from the dead, lists “Robin Goodfellow” among the evil spirits who include “the devil and his dam.” In the pamphlet Tell-Trothes New-Yeares Gift (1593), Robin visits “from hell.”

William Bell, a philologist of the mid-nineteenth-century, traced the etymology of “Puck” to a local Celtic variant of “Bog,” a pre-Christian Aryan god from whom the Greek god Bacchus is also allegedly descended.[83] Most Slavonic languages still derive their word for God from “bog.” Dazbog (a.k.a. Devac), was represented by a white goat.[84] The ancient proto-Slavic Koliada (Yule) festivals honoring the god always had a person dressed as a goat, often demanding offerings in the form of presents.[85] This connects to the Yule goat as a Scandinavian and Northern European Yule and Christmas symbol and tradition. A man-sized goat figure is known from eleventh-century tradition of Childermas, where it was led by a man dressed as Saint Nicholas, symbolizing his control over the Devil.[86] Most late Tudor and Stuart representations of Puck/Robin have him pronouncing “ho ho ho.”[87]

The cult of the pagan goddess was incorporated in the Robin Hood legends as Maid Marion. Alongside the veneration of Mary Magdalene, the cult of Mary the Gypsy was widespread in England during the Middle Ages. In the early days of Christianity, the Emperor Constantine banned the veneration of Mary the Gypsy, but her cult continued, and it was introduced into England from Spain. Mary the Gypsy, as sacred harlot, was ritually portrayed by the Anglo-Saxons as the May Queen, and her dancers, Mary’s Men, still perform their rites under the corrupted name of Morris Men in English rural festivities. Another reference to Mary’s Men is found in the Merrie Men of the Robin Hood tales. On Midsummer’s Day, every village virgin would become, metaphorically, Queen of the May. Many of them would be ushered into the “greenwood” where they would undergo their sexual initiation at the hands of a youth playing the role of Robin Hood or Robin Goodfellow, while Friar Tuck, the “Abbot of Unreason,” would officiate, “blessing” the mating couples in a parody of formal nuptials.[88]

[1] Arielle Saiber & Aba Mbirika. “The Three Giri of Paradiso 33.” Dante Studies, 131 (2013), pp. 237–272

[2] Joachim of Fiore. Liber concordie novi ac ueteris testamenti, V, 18 (Venice 1519).

[3] Barber. The Trial of the Templars.

[4] Peter W. Edbury. The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191-1374 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 92-99.

[5] Henry Charles Lea. The History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, Vol. 3 (NY: Harper & Bros, 1901), p. 252

[6] Anne Gilmour-Bryson. The trial of the Templars in the Papal State and the Abruzzi (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1982), p. 17.

[7] Malcolm Barber. The Trial of the Templars. Second edition (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 120.

[8] Sophia Menache. Clement V (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) pp. 1, 2, 16, 23, 178, 255.

[9] Malcolm Barber & A. K. Bate. The Templars: selected sources (Manchester University Press, 2002), p. 61.

[10] Napier. A to Z of the Knights Templar, p. 267.

[11] Ibid., p. 127.

[12] Andrew Lawler. “An Unexpected Cemetery.” Archaeology (November/December 2018). Retrieved from https://www.archaeology.org/issues/315-1811/sidebars/7124-templar-cemetery

[13] Ralls. Knights Templar Encyclopedia.

[14] Fernand Braudel, “The Perspective of the World,” in Civilization & Capitalism, 15–18th Centuries, Vol 3: (William Collins & Sons, London 1984), p. 111.

[15] Ralls. The Templars and the Grail, p. 28.

[16] Scholem. Kabbalah, p. 38.

[17] Schuchard. Restoring the Temple of Vision, p. 44.

[18] Mark Wischnitzer. A History of Jewish Grafts and Guilds (New York, 1965), pp. 67, 74.

[19] Schuchard. Restoring the Temple of Vision, p. 31.

[20] Ibid., pp. 18, 24.

[21] Moshe Idel. “The Reification of Language,” in Steven T. Katz (ed.), Mysticism and Language (New York: Oxford UP, 1992), p. 4.

[22] Ralls. Knights Templar Encyclopedia, p. 80.

[23] Philip K. Hitti. The History of the Arabs: From the Earliest Times to the Present (New York: St. Martins’ Press, 1979), p. 346.

[24] Schuchard. Restoring the Temple of Vision, p. 24.

[25] cited in Shah. The Sufis, p. 358.

[26] Malcom Godwin. Holy Grail: Its Origins, Secrets & Meaning Revealed (Bloomsbury, 1994), p. 208.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Scholem. Kabbalah, p. 356

[29] Begg. The Cult of the Black Virgin, p.39

[30] Ibid., p. 37

[31] Howard Schwartz. Lilith’s Cave: Jewish tales of the supernatural (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), p. 7.

[32] Scholem. Kabbalah, p. 358

[33] Zohar, III: 69a. Cited in Schwartz. Lilith’s Cave, p. 19 n. 12.

[34] Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “The Cult of the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2001).

[35] Hom. II super "Missus est," 17; Migne, P. L., CLXXXIII, 70-b, c, d, 71-a. cited in Doctor Mellifluus 31.

[36] Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “The Cult of the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages.” (www.metmuseum.org).

[37] Bart D. Ehrman. Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 234–235.

[38] Carol Meyers, ed.. “Named Women: Mary 3 (Magdalene).” Women in Scripture (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 2000), p. 122.

[39] Malcolm Barber. The Cathars: Dualist Heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages (Routledge, 2014), p. 25.

[40] Ingrid Maisch. Mary Magdalene: The Image of a Woman through the Centuries, translated by Maloney, Linda M., Collegeville (Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1998), p. 48

[41] W.A. Sibly & M.D. Sibly. The History of the Albigensian Crusade: Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay's “Historia Albigensis” (Boydell, 1998).

[42] Walter L. Wakefield & Austin P. Evans. Heresies of the High Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), p. 234.

[43] Napier. A to Z of the Knights Templar, p. 354

[44] Barber. The Cathars, p. 25.

[45] Hugues Delautre. Solstices à Vézelay, Zodiaque n° 122, Abbaye Sainte-Marie de la Pierre-qui-Vire (Yonne), Les ateliers de la Pierre-qui-Vire, dépôt légal 1240-3-79, October 1979, p. 1–6.

[46] Marlene A. Schiwy, Ph.D. “Dark Sisters: Kali and the Black Madonna.” Retrieved from https://static1.squarespace.com/static/577431a7cd0f6814c7d3e31b/t/57c11f5ee3df28e6ed6ccc5b/1472274272269/MarleneSchiwy_DarkSisters.pdf

[47] Charles Herbermann, (ed.) “Melchisedechians.” Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1913).

[48] Joshua Starr. “An Eastern Christian Sect: The Athinganoi: To the Memory of Prof. Andréas Michael Andréadès (1877-1935).” The Harvard Theological Review, April 1936, Vol. 29, No. 2, p. 96.

[49] “The Journey of Symon Semeonis from Ireland to the Holy Land.” Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition.

[50] Erwin Pokorny. “The Gypsies and Their Impact on Fifteenth-Century Western European Iconography.” Art and Migration (CIHA-Conference, University of Melbourne, January 2008).

[51] “The Gypsies of Roslin Glen.” The Secrets of Rosslyn, p. 14. Retrieved from https://erenow.net/common/the-secrets-of-rosslyn/14.php

[52] Norman Davies. “Christendom in crisis.” Europe: A History, 2nd ed. (Random House, 1997), pp. 387–388.

[53] Donald Kenrick. Historical Dictionary of the Gypsies (Romanis), 2nd ed. (Scarecrow Press, 2007), pp. xx–xxii.

[54] Ralls. The Templars and the Grail.

[55] Manly Palmer Hall. The Secret Teachings of All Ages: The Fraternity of The Rose Cross (1928).

[56] Monica S. Cyrino. Aphrodite. Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World (New York City, New York and London, England: Routledge 2010), pp. 63, 96.

[57] Nora Clark. Aphrodite and Venus in Myth and Mimesis (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), pp. 209–210.

[58] Ibid.

[59] Dennis William Hauck. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Alchemy (Penguin, 2008), p. 66.

[60] As cited in Hauck. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Alchemy, p. 66.

[61] Helmut Nickel. “The Judgment of Paris" by Lucas Cranach the Elder: Nature, Allegory, and Alchemy.” Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 16 (1981), pp. 125.

[62] Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints. First Edition Published 1470. Englished by William Caxton, First Edition 1483, Edited by F.S. Ellis, Temple Classics, 1900 (Reprinted 1922, 1931.)

[63] Brannon Wheeler. Moses in the Qur’an and Islamic Exegesis (London: Routledge/Curzon, 2002), p. 24.

[64] Michael Haag. The Templars. The History & the Myth (Profile Books, 2008), p. 257.

[65] Napier. A to Z of the Knights.

[66] Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most & Salvatore Settis. “Bacchanalia and Saturnalia.” The Classical Tradition (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010). p. 116.

[67] Craig A. Williams. Martial: Epigrams Book Two (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 259.

[68] Ebbe Schön. Asa-Tors hammare, Gudar och jättar i tro och tradition (Fält & Hässler, Värnamo, 2004).

[69] George Harley McKnight. St. Nicholas: His Legend and His Role in the Christmas Celebration and Other Popular Customs (1917) pp. 24–26, 138–139.

[70] Jeffrey Burton Russell. The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 114.

[71] Grafton, Most & Settis. “Bacchanalia and Saturnalia.” p. 116.

[72] Clement A. Miles. Christmas in Ritual and Tradition (Xist Publishing, 2016). p. 108.

[73] Carl Gustav Jung. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (New York: Bolingen, 1959), p. 257.

[74] Ibid.

[75] Grafton, Most & Settis. “Bacchanalia and Saturnalia,” p. 116.

[76] Ibid.

[77] James Edwin Thorold Rogers. Bible Folk-lore: A Study in Comparative Mythology (New York: J.W. Bouton, 1884), p. 346.

[78] John Cleland. Fanny Hill, or, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (New York: Penguin Classics, 1985).

[79] Folklore – Robin Goodfellow (Puck) University of Victoria/Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

[80] Reginald Scot. “Discourse upon divels and spirits.” Chapter 21, cited in Charles P. G. Scott “The Devil and His Imps: An Etymological Investigation.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1869–1896) Vol. 26, (1895), pp. 79–146.

[81] Baigent & Leigh. The Temple and the Lodge (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1989), p. 119.

[82] Jonathan Gil Harris. “Puck/Robin Goodfellow.” Fools and Jesters in Literature, Art, and History. ed. Vicki K. Janik (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998), p. 352.

[83] Ibid.

[84] Monika Kropej. Supernatural Beings From Slovenian Myth and Folktales, (Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2012).

[85] Russell Zguta. Russian Minstrels (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978).

[86] Karin Schager. Julbocken i folktro och jultradition (Yule goat in Folklore and Christmas tradition), (Rabén & Sjögren, 1989).

[87] Jonathan Gil Harris. “Puck/Robin Goodfellow.” Fools and Jesters in Literature, Art, and History. ed. Vicki K. Janik (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998), p. 352.

[88] Baigent & Leigh. The Temple and the Lodge, p. 119

Volume One

Introduction

1. Babylon

2. Ancient Greece

3. The Hellenistic Age

4. The Book of Revelation

5. Gog and Magog

6. Eastern Mystics

7. Septimania

8. Princes' Crusade

9. The Reconquista

10. Ashkenazi Hasidim

11. The Holy Grail

12. Camelot

13. Perceval

14. The Champagne Fairs

15. Baphomet

16. The Order of Santiago

17. War of the Roses

18. The Age of Discovery

19. Renaissance & Reformation

20. Kings of Jerusalem

21. The Mason Word

22. The Order of the Dragon