3. The Rose of Sharon

King of Jerusalem

In the Song of Solomon, according to King James Version of the Bible, which first appears in English in 1611, the beloved—speaking for the mystical Shekhinah—says “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.” The Zohar, the most important and influential text of the Medieval Kabbalah, opens by stating that the rose and the alternate symbol of the lily symbolize Knesset Yisrael, “the Collective soul roots of Israel… Just as a rose, which is found amidst the thorns, has within it the colors red and white, also Knesset Yisrael has within her both judgment and loving kindness.”[1] The rose is a yonic symbol while the lily is phallic, together symbolizing mystical sexual union.[2] Interestingly, the rose and the lily became the heraldic symbols of those families descended from the Princes’ Crusade, while their descendants, who were very conscious of the historical and mystical significance of their ancestry, tracing themselves to both the Melusine legend and the Knight Swan, emerged as the key personalities in the preservation of the various manifestations of the Kabbalah in its Christian forms.

In the thirteenth century, Sicily had become the heartland of Frederick II’s Hohenstaufen empire. However, due to the conflict between Frederick II and the papacy, the age-old conflict between the pro-pope Guelphs and pro-imperial Ghibellines again erupted. When Frederick II died, the kingdom of Sicily was claimed by his illegitimate son Manfred I of Sicily (1232 – 1266), who also came into conflict with the pope. Seeing the opportunity created by Manfred’s contested claim to the throne of Sicily, the pope began to look for a potential claimant to overthrow him, and in 1265, at his invitation, the kingdom of Sicily was invaded and conquered by Charles I of Anjou (1226/1227 – 1285). Manfred of Sicily was drawn into a battle and killed, and Charles’ victory allowed him to establish the Angevin Kingdom of Sicily and Naples, giving him control of Sicily and most of southern Italy.

In 1277, Charles I of Anjou bought a claim to the throne of Jerusalem from Mary of Antioch, by proximity of blood to Conradin (1252 – 1268), who had crowned himself King of Jerusalem as the grandson of Frederick II and his third wife, Isabella of England. Mary was the granddaughter of Aimery of Cyprus Isabella I of Jerusalem. Conradin, however, was executed in 1268 by Charles I of Anjou, who had seized Conradin’s kingdom of Sicily by papal authority. At the time of his death, Marie of Antioch was the only living grandchild of Isabella I, and claimed the throne of Jerusalem on the basis of proximity in blood to the kings of Jerusalem. The High Court of Jerusalem passed over her claim, however, and instead chose her nephew Hugh III of Lusignan (c. 1235 – 1284), a great-grandson of Isabella I, as the next ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Charles I of Anjou also managed to extend his power over Rome, to the extent that the Sicilian Vespers revolted against his rule in 1282. Known as the War of the Sicilian Vespers, it was a conflict fought in Sicily, Catalonia and elsewhere in the western Mediterranean between the kings of Aragon helped by the Italian Ghibellines against the Charles I of Anjou, his son Charles II of Naples (1271 – 1295), the kings of France, supported by the Italian Guelphs and the Papacy. In 1279, Charles II had discovered the purported body of Mary Magdalene the Dominican’s basilica at Saint-Maximin near Aix-en-Provence after she appeared to him in a vision, an event that linked the House of Anjou to the Magdalene, whom they then adopted as patron saint of their dynasty.[3]

In the twelfth century, Berenguer Ramon I, Count of Provence (1115 – 1144), the son of the Templar Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, had established Saint-Maximin as a town under his care. Berenguer Ramon I’s sister, Berenguela, was the wife of Alfonso VII of Leon, founder of the Order of Calatrava. In 1246, following the death of Raymond IV Berenger (1198 – 1245), the cousin of Peter II of Aragon, Provence passed through his younger daughter to Charles II’s father Charles of Anjou. The founding tradition of the relics at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume were that the true remains of Mary Magdalene were preserved there, and not at Vézelay. After he discovered her remnants, Charles II founded the massive Gothic Basilique Sainte Marie-Madeleine in 1295, with blessing of Boniface VIII, who placed it under the new teaching order of Dominicans. Under the basilica’s crypt is a glass dome said to contain the relic of her skull. Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume gradually displaced Vézelay in popularity and acceptance.[4]

Order of Montesa

After the uprising, Sicily became an independent kingdom under the rule of Peter III of Aragon (c. 1239 – 1285), the son of James I and Violant, who married Manfred I’s daughter, Constance II of Sicily. Three of their children were involved in the survival of the Templars. Their son, James II of Aragon (1267 – 1327), who absorbed the Templar properties into his own neo-Templar Order of Montesa, whose recruits were mainly drawn from the Order of Calatrava.[5] In 1399, James II’s great-grandson Martin of Aragon (1356 – 1410) decided to merge Order of Saint George of Alfama with the larger Order of Montesa. With the approval of antipope Benedict XIII, the orders were amalgamated the following year, and thereafter known as the Order of Montesa and St. George of Alfama.[6]

Peter III of Aragon’s brother, Alfonso II, Count of Provence (1180 – 1209), was the father of Ramon Berenguer V, Count of Provence (1198 – 1245), who was also raised by Templars, along with his cousin James I of Aragon. Ramon married Beatrice of Savoy, and they had three daughters who married royalty. Margaret of Provence married Louis IX of France (1214 – 1270), whose mother was Blanche of Castile, daughter of King Alfonso VIII of Castile. Eleanor of Provence married Henry III, King of England (1207 – 1272). Sanchia of Provence married Henry III’s brother Richard, King of the Romans (1209 – 1272). 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.

The Italian adventurer and Templar Roger de Flor (1267 – 1305), one of the most successful pirates of his time, was in the service of James II’s brother, Frederick III of Sicily (1272 – 1337). Frederick III married Blanche’s sister Eleanor of Anjou. In 1302, the year the War of the Vespers ended, Frederick III married Eleanor of Anjou, the daughter of Charles II of Naples. In 1294, among the escorts of Eleanor’s brother Charles Martel of Anjou (1271 – 1295), while he was in Florence, was the famous Italian poet Dante, who speaks warmly of and to Charles’ spirit when they meet in the Heaven of Venus. Charles II of Naples’ daughter Blanche of Anjou married James II of Aragon. Martel of Anjou was the father of Charles I of Hungary, founder of the Order of Saint George.

Order of Christ

Constance, the daughter Frederick III and Eleanor, married Henry II of Lusignan (1270 – 1324), the son of Hugh III of Lusignan, heir of the title of King of Jerusalem and Grand Master of the Knights Hospitallers. The Lusignans were rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, or more accurately, Acre, which from the time of its capture by Richard the Lionheart in 1191 to its final conquest by Saladin in 1291, had formed the base of the crusading empire in Palestine. 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 to Cyprus and resumed his throne with the aid of the Hospitallers. In 1305, Clement sent letters to both Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Templars, and Fulk de Villaret (d. 1327), Grand Master of the Hospitallers, to discuss the possibility of merging the two orders. Neither was amenable to the idea. In 1306, the Templars conspired to place Henry II’s brother Amalric, Lord of Tyre (c. 1272 – 1310), on the throne. Henry II was deposed and exiled to Armenia, where King Oshin of Armenia (1282 – 1320) was Amalric’s brother-in-law. 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.

Henry II was in contact with the famous alchemist Raymond Llull (c. 1232 – c. 1315), who was seneschal to Peter III’s younger brother, James II of Majorca (1267 – 1327). James II married Esclaramunda of Foix, a Cathar and the great-granddaughter of the Raymond-Roger of Foix (d. 1223), the brother of Esclarmonde of Foix. Llull, who was named Doctor Illuminatus, and born in Majorca in a mixed environment of Christian, Muslim and Jewish culture, was familiar with the teachings and methods of the Sufi Brethren of Sincerity.[7] Moshe Idel argues that Llull had access to techniques of ecstatic Kabbalah, similar to those taught by Abraham Abulafia (1240 – c. 1291), the founder of the school of “Prophetic Kabbalah,” and described in contemporary Hebrew treatises on the Sefer Yetzirah.[8] In 1276 a language school for Franciscan missionaries was founded at Miramar, funded by James II of Majorca.[9]

In 1293, Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Templars, began a tour of the West to try to gather support for a reconquest of the Holy Land, developing relationships with Pope Boniface VIII, Edward I of England, James I of Aragon and Charles II of Naples. Pressure had been growing in Europe for the Templars to be merged with the other military orders, like the Knights Hospitaller.[10] The same plan was supported by Llull. Meeting frequently with the Templars and Hospitallers, Llull tried to enlist them for a peaceful crusade. In 1275, he wrote the Book of the Order of Chivalry, in which he laid out a program for the knights. Llull hoped the aggressive King Philip IV le Bel of France (1268 – 1314) would lead a new crusade, and he presented his plan for the reformation and unification of the military orders. In 1299, he then travelled to Cyprus, where he urged Henry II of Lusignan to join his campaign to convert the Jews and Muslims of the island to Christianity. Though Henry was not interested, Jacques de Molay, “cheerfully received” Llull into his house in Limassol for several weeks in 1302.[11] Llull wanted a united Order under what he called a Bellator Rex, a role he expected would be filled by James II’s nephew, James II of Aragon.[12]

After the Templar’s suppression by Pope Clement in 1312, some Templars fled to Scotland, and sought refuge with the excommunicated the king of Scotland, Robert the Bruce (1274 – 1329). However, the majority of the Templars joined their compatriots in Portugal. By papal decree, the property of the Templars was transferred to the Hospitallers, except in the Kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal.[13] With the protection of King Denis I of Portugal (1261 – 1325), who refused to pursue and persecute them, they were reconstituted the Order of Christ.[14] Denis’ father Afonso III of Portugal was the great-grandson of Henry of Burgundy, and the grandson of Alfonso VIII of Castile. Denis’ mother was the daughter of Alfonso X of Castile. Denis’ wife, Elizabeth, the sister of James II of Aragon and Frederick III of Sicily, more commonly known as Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, was the great-niece of Elizabeth of Hungary, and was also featured in her own version of the “miracle of the roses.” Like others at the time, the Order of Santiago also took in Templars after 1312.[15] In 1357, the Order of Christ was moved to the town of Tomar, former seat of the Templars in Portugal. 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.

Order of the Garter

Matilda of Brabant, the daughter of Henry II of Brabant by his first wife Maria of Swabia, married Robert I of Artois (1216 – 1250), brother of Louis IX of France and Charles I of Anjou. Their daughter, Blanche of Artois, was the widow of Henri III, Count of Champagne, whose father was Theobald IV of Champagne (1201 – 1253), called the Troubadour. According to local legends, souvenirs that Theobald IV brought back to Europe in 1240 from the Barons’ Crusade included the rose called “Provins” from Damascus. Blanche of Artois then married Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster (1245 – 1296), the son of Henry III of England. Edmund’s brother, King Edward I of England (1239 – 1307), took the rose as his emblem, becoming known as the red rose of Lancaster.[16]

Edward I of England, Eleanor of Castile, the step-sister of Alfonso X, was said to have perpetrated acts of anti-Semitism, and is considered to have influenced Edward’s policies towards the Jews.[17] In order to fund his crusading venture, Parliament granted a tax of a twentieth, in exchange for which the Edward I agreed to reconfirm Magna Carta, and to impose restrictions on Jewish money lending.[18] Finally, in 1290, Edward I issued the Edict of Expulsion, by which the Jews were expelled from England, a ban which remained in place until it was overturned more than 350 years later by Oliver Cromwell in 1657. Shortly after he expelled the Jews from England in 1290, Edward I added royal approval to the cult of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln by building him a shrine.[19]

Edward I’s son, Edward II of England (1284 – 1327), married Isabella of France, the daughter of Philip IV le Bel and Joan I of Navarre, the granddaughter of Theobald IV of Champagne. Despite the fact that his grandfather Philip IV le Bel ordered the arrest of the Templars in 1312, Edward III founded the neo-Templar Order of the Garter, inspired by King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Edward III, who was king of England from 1327 to 1377, led England into the Hundred Years’ War with France, and the descendants of his seven sons and five daughters contested the throne for generations, climaxing in a series of civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses (1455–85). The name “Wars of the Roses” refers to the heraldic badges associated with the two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet who fought for control of the English crown: the White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster.

Order of the Dragon

The Gesta Hungarorum was written by Anonymous, the notary of Bela III of Hungary (c. 1148 – 1196). Bella married Agnes of Antioch, who was associated with Pontigny Abbey of the Cistercians, and the ancestress of all subsequent Kings of Hungary, and from her descended the Kings of Bohemia from the Přemyslid, Luxembourg, Jagiellon and Habsburg families. A copy of the Gesta Hungarorum, was given by Louis I of Hungary (1326 – 1382), the son of Charles I of Hungary, to Charles V of France (1338 – 1380). Like his siblings, John, Duke of Berry (1340 – 1416), Duke Louis I of Anjou (1339 – 1384), Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1342 – 1404) and Marie of Valois, Duchess of Bar (1344 – 1404), Charles V was the child of John II, King of France (1319 – 1364), and Bonne, from the dynasty of Luxembourg, who traced their descent to the dragon spirit Melusine. Walter Map was also responsible for the development of the legend of Melusine, or Melusina, a feminine spirit of European folklore, usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down, much like a mermaid.

Jean d’Arras novel, La Noble Histoire de Lusignan (“The Noble History of the Lusignans”), which he presented in 1393 to John, was dedicated to Marie of Valois, and expressed the hope that it would aid in the political education of her children. Melusine is popularly known from her depiction of the logo of Starbucks. The House of Luxembourg, the House of Anjou and their descendants the House of Plantagenet and the French House of Lusignan are descended, according to medieval folk legends, from the dragon spirit Melusine from Avalon. Melusine would become a snake from the waist down every Saturday. Bettina Knapp, among others, suggest that Melusine’s transformations on Saturdays evokes the Sabbat of the witch, as well as the Jewish Sabbath.[20] By her magical powers, Melusine was to have built in a single night the Château de Lusignan, the largest castle in France, before she transformed herself into a serpent and flew away, never to be seen again.

John of Berry and his siblings were the first cousins of Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368 – 1437), who was first married to Charles’ granddaughter Mary of Hungary, and his modelled his own Order of the Dragon on Charles’ Order of Saint George. Emperor Sigismund appears in a grimoire titled The Book of Abramelin, which gained significant popularity amongst occult groups of the eighteenth century, in particular the influential Golden Dawn. The introduction to an alchemical book attributed to Nicholas Flamel (c. 1330 – 1418)—a purported Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, preceding René of Anjou—claims that Flamel purchased the book in 1357. The book tells the story of an Egyptian mage named Abramelin, who taught a system of magical and Kabbalistic secrets to Abraham of Worms, a Jew in Worms, Germany, presumed to have lived from approximately 1362 to 1458. After concluding his studies with Abramelin, Abraham recounts that he travelled to Hungary and employed his skills to give the Emperor Sigismund a “Familiar Spirit of the Second Hierarchy, even as he commanded me, and he availed himself of its services with prudence.” Abraham of Worms also confesses to have used magical means to bring about Sigismund’s marriage with his second wife, Barbara of Cilli (1392 – 1451), with whom he co-founded the Order of the Dragon in 1408.

Sigismund’s only daughter and successor from Barbara was Elizabeth of Luxembourg. In 1411, Sigismund had managed to have the Hungarian estates promise that they would recognize Elizabeth’s right to the Holy Crown of Hungary and elect her future husband as king, Albert II of Germany (1397 – 1439), of the House of Hapsburg. Abraham of Worms also claimed, “I aided the flight of the Duke [probably Albert II of Germany], and of his Pope John [XXIII], from the Council of Constance, who would otherwise have fallen into the hands of the enraged Emperor [Sigismund]; and the latter having asked me to predict unto him which one of the two Popes, John XXIII and Martin V, should gain in the end, my prophecy was verified; that fortune befalling which I had predicted unto him at Ratisbon.” John XXIII (1410–1415) was antipope during the Western Schism, that had resulted from the confusion following the Avignon Papacy. At the instigation of Sigismund, Pope John called the Council of Constance of 1413, which deposed John XXIII and Benedict XIII, accepted Gregory XII’s resignation, and elected Pope Martin V to replace them, thus ending the contributed to end the Western Schism in 1417.

The Council of Constance also contributed to the Hussite Wars, when Jan Hus (c. 1372 – 1415) was condemned as a heretic, leading to his execution, despite the fact that Sigismund had granted him a safe-conduct and protested against his imprisonment.[21] According to Louis I. Newman, in Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements, there was distinct Jewish influence in Hus’ thought. A note in the Book of Acts of the Theological Faculty of the University of Vienna of 1419 mentions a conspiracy between the Waldensiens—a sect associated with the Cathars—with Jews and Hus’ followers.[22] Hus made use of the works of the Jews of Prague, and quotes from Rashi, the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, the famous rabbinic sage of the first century, and the commentary of Gershom ben Judah (c. 960 – 1040). He makes extensive use of the Postilla of the Franciscan teacher Nicholas of Lyra (c. 1270 – 1349), which in turn is based on Rashi.[23] Not only was Hus stigmatized as a “Judaizer,” but when he was about to be burned at the stake for heresy in 1415, he was denounced with the words: “Oh thou accursed Judas, who breaking away from the counsels of peace, hast consulted with the Jews.”[24]

Barbara performed ceremonial duties as the first lady of Europe in the Council of Constance. However, Barbara was very unpopular with the nobility, who resented her sympathy for the Hussites. Because she was accused of adultery and intrigue, Barbara became popularly known as “The German Messalina,” named after the scandalous third wife of Emperor Claudius.[25] Barbara has also been portrayed as a lesbian vampire. Pope Pius II, chronicled Barbara in his Historia Bohemica, written in 1458, where he accused her of associating with “heretics” and denying the afterlife, and claimed that Barbara and her daughter Elizabeth used to profane the Holy Communion by drinking real human blood during the liturgy. Barbara was also accused of maintaining a female harem and staging huge sexual orgies with young girls.[26]

According to Balkan folklore, Barbara known as the “Black Queen,” is remembered as a beautiful but cruel woman with long black hair, who was always dressed in black. Since she dabbled in black magic, she was able to control various beasts. She apparently kept a black raven which was trained to gouge the eyes and tear off the skin of her enemies. The queen had many lovers, but when she lost interest in them, she would order her guards to throw them over the walls of the castle. She reportedly gave herself and the Zagreb fortress of Medvedgrad, ruled by her brother Frederick, to the Devil to save her treasure from Turkish attacks. She Later tried to trick the devil but failed. She was turned into a snake. But once every hundred years, on a certain day, it is possible for a man who, if he encounters her in the form of a snake, to remove the curse with a kiss.[27]

Barbara also had a reputation as an astrologer and alchemist. Stanislav Južnič, described Barbara as “the richest female alchemist of all times,” and how she used very expensive but easily breakable tools for her experiments, such that today there is no remaining evidence.[28] In a manuscript that is now lost around 1440, the Bohemian alchemist Johann von Laz is said to have reported on their alchemical experiments in the castle above Samobor, where she kept a laboratory in the basement.[29]

In 1431, Emperor Sigismund crowned Vlad II, prince of Wallachia (before 1395 – 1447), in Nuremberg and also conferred upon him membership in two prestigious orders, those of Saint Ladislas and the Order of the Dragon.[30] It was Vlad II’s son, Vlad III the Impaler (1431 – 1476/77), who inspired the name of the vampire “Count Dracula” in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. The name Dracula means “Son of Dracul,” and was a reference to being invested with the Order of the Dragon. In the Romanian language, the word dracul can mean either “the dragon” or, especially in the present day, “the devil.” Vlad acquired the name “The Impaler” for his preferred method of torture and execution of his enemies by impalement.

Order of the Golden Fleece

The House of Luxembourg’s struggle for supremacy with the House of Habsburg within the Holy Roman Empire and Central Europe, all came to end in 1443, when it suffered a succession crisis, precipitated by the lack of a male heir to assume the throne. Since Sigismund and his niece Elizabeth of Görlitz were both without heirs, all possessions of the Luxembourg dynasty were redistributed among the European aristocracy. The Duchy of Luxembourg become a possession of Philip the Good (1396 – 1467), Duke of Burgundy, grandson of John of Berry’s brother Philip the Bold. Philip the Good also inherited the lands of Brabant, which were affiliated with the Swan Knight legend. Philip the Good founded the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1430 to celebrate his marriage to Isabella of Portugal, sister of Prince Henry the Navigator, Grand Master of the Order of Christ.

Emperor Frederick III (1415 – 1493), first emperor of the House of Habsburg, continued decorating aristocrats with the Order of the Dragon.[31] Frederick III’s son Maximilian I (1459 – 1519) married the heiress Mary of Burgundy, the granddaughter of Philip the Good, and became Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Their son, Philip I of Castile (1478 – 1506), married Juana, the daughter of Spain’s Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand II (1452 – 1516) and Queen Isabella (1451 – 1504), who reigned together over a dynastically unified Spain. Ferdinand II’s great-grandfather was Alonso Enríquez (1354 – 1429), also known as Alfonso Enríquez, who was Lord of Medina de Rioseco and Admiral of Castile, who was the son of Federico Alfonso of Castile, 1st Señor de Haro (1334 – 1358) and his mistress, a reputedly Jewish woman named Paloma, who belonged to the bin Yahya family, members of which were prominent in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Turkey, and before that going back to the Exilarchs in Babylonia and Persia.[32] Philip and Joanna’s son, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500 – 1558), inherited an empire where “the sun does not set,” eventually uniting the Habsburg, Burgundian, Castilian, and Aragonese inheritances.


[1] Zohar I, Introduction, p. 1.

[2] Manly P. Hall. Collected works. The Lost Keys Of Freemasonry. The Secret Teachings of All Ages; On the fleur de lys as phallic symbol see Leslie Tuttle Conceiving the Old Regime: Pronatalism and the Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern France (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 23.

[3] Sarah S. Wilkins. “Imaging the Angevin Patron Saint: Mary Magdalen in the Pipino Chapel in Naples.” California Italian Studies, 3, 1 (2002).

[4] Susan Haskins. Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor (New York: Pimplico, 2005), pp. 129–132.

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

[6] Alan V. Murray, (ed.) The Crusades (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006), p. 510.

[7] Ramon Lull. Selected Works of Ramon LLlull, ed. Anthony Bonner (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1985), I, 292n.26.

[8] Moshe Idel. “Ramon Lull and Ecstatic Kabbalah,” JWCI, 51 (1988), 70-74.

[9] “Who was Ramon Llull?” Centre de Documentació Ramon Llull, Universitat de Barcelona, retrieved from http://quisestlullus.narpan.net/eng/1_intro_eng.html

[10] Malcolm Barber. The Trial of the Templars, 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 19.

[11] Schuchard. Restoring the Temple of Vision, p. 75.

[12] Barber. The Trial of the Templars, p. 20.

[13] Charles Moeller. “Knights Templar.” In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia, 14 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912).

[14] Jean Bécarud. The Catholic Church today: Western Europe (University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), p. 159; Helen J. Nicholson. The Crusades (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004). p. 98.

[15] Ralls. The Templars and the Grail, p. 178.

[16] RHS A-Z encyclopedia of garden plants (United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley, 2008), p. 1136; “La Rose de Proving.” Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20110705234127/http://www.provins.net/index.php/artisanat-et-produits-du-terroir/la-rose-de-provins.html

[17] Cecil Roth. The Jews of Medieval Oxford (Clarendon Press, 1951).

[18] John Maddicott. “The Crusade Taxation of 1268–70 and the Development of Parliament.” In P. R. Coss; S. D. Lloyd (eds.). Thirteenth Century England. 2 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1989). pp. 107–110.

[19] Ibid., p. 187.

[20] Bettina L. Knapp. French Fairy Tales: A Jungian Approach (Albany: SUNY Press, 2003), p. 50.

[21] Hugh Chisholm, ed. “Sigismund.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1911).

[22] Newman. Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements (Columbia University Press, 1925), p. 437.

[23] Ibid., p. 441.

[24] E. H. Gillett. The Life and Times of John Huss, or the Bohemian Reformation of the Fifteenth Century (Boston, 1864), ii, 64; cited in Newman. Jewish Influences on Christian Reform Movements, p. 437.

[25] Raymond T. McNally. “In Search of the Lesbian Vampire: Barbara von Cilli, Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” and the Dragon Order.” Journal of Dracula Studies 2 (2001).

[26] Ibid.

[27] “Legend of The Black Queen.” Rabbit of Caerbannog. Retrieved from https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/2707129

[28] Stanislav Južnič. “[Chemical Laboratory of Celje Queen (at 580th Anniversary of Bohemian coronation of Queen Barbara of Celje)].” Acta chimica Slovenica, 64, 2 (June 2017).

[29] “Barbara of Celje, ‘The Black Queen’.” History of Croatia and Related History. Retrieved from https://historyofcroatia.com/2022/06/20/barbara-of-celje-the-black-queen/

[30] Matei Cazacu. Dracula (Leiden: Brill, 2017), p. 17.

[31] Ivan Mirnik. “The Order of the Dragon as Reflected in Hungarian and Croatian Heradlry.” In Genealogica Et Heraldica Sancta Andreae MMVI S (2008). Retrieved from http://www.princeofmontenegroandmacedonia.eu/Bibliografia/CERNETIC%20CITATI%20ORDINE%20DEL%20DRAGO.pdf

[32] Salo Wittmayer Baron. A Social and Religious History of the Jews: Late Middle Ages and the era of European expansion, 1200-1650 (Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 389.

Zionism