Introduction 1
About This Book 3
Conventions Used in This Book 4
What You're Not to Read 5
Foolish Assumptions 5
How This Book Is Organized 6
Part I: The Knights Templar and the Crusades 6
Part II: A Different Kind of Knighthood 6
Part III: After the Fall of the Templars 6
Part IV: Templars and the Grail 7
Part V: Squaring Off: The Church versus the Gospel According to Dan Brown 7
Part VI: The Part of Tens 8
Icons Used in This Book 8
Where to Go from Here 9
Part I: The Knights Templar and the Crusades 11
Chapter 1: Defining the Templar Code 13
Knights, Grails, Codes, Leonardo da Vinci, and How They All Collide 14
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon 16
Defining knighthood 17
Defining monasticism 19
Warrior Monks: Their Purpose 20
A vow of nine crusader knights 21
Don't leave home without it: The Templars' role as international bankers 22
Builders 24
Templars in Battle 24
Betrayed, Excommunicated, and Hunted 25
So where'd everybody go? 26
The riddle of Templar symbols 26
Templars in the 21st Century 28
Templars and the Grail quest 28
Templars and the fringe 28
Chapter 2: A Crash Course in Crusading 31
Getting a Handle on the Crusades 32
A Snapshot of the 11th Century 33
Fealty, fiefs, and feudalism 33
Pilgrimage 34
Y1K: The end of days 36
The Spanish ulcer 37
The dilemma of the second son 39
Piracy and trade 40
The First Crusade: A Cry for Help, a Call to Arms 40
Meet the Byzantines 40
Go East, young man! 41
Peter the Hermit 43
Get out the beer, we're here! 44
Forward ho! 45
The massacre of Jerusalem 46
The founding of Outremer 48
Let's Give It Another Shot: The Second Crusade 49
A dynamic new Muslim force 51
Jerusalem falls 52
The Third Crusade 52
The celebrity crusade 54
Richard and Saladin 54
The Final Curtain 55
The Fourth Crusade 55
The Fifth Crusade 56
The Sixth Crusade 56
The Seventh Crusade 56
Chapter 3: The Rise of the Knights Templar 59
The Perils of Pilgrimage 60
Why bother? 61
St Helena discovers it all 62
Medieval muggers 63
Where'd everybody go? 65
A New Knighthood 67
The Poor Knights of Christ 67
The Knights Templar 68
Keeping their oath 71
A Simple Mission Creates a Powerful Institution 71
Digging in the temple 71
A windfall of money and power 72
Bernard of Clairvaux 73
The Council of Troyes 74
Opposition to the Templars 75
The Explosion of the Order 76
New gifts 77
Eyes of the pope 77
International Bankers 78
Check, please 79
Building boom 80
Imitation, the Sincerest Form of Flattery 80
The Knights Hospitaller 81
The Teutonic Knights 82
Livonian Brothers of the Sword 83
Up Where the Air Is Thin: The Templars Reach Their Zenith 83
Part II: A Different Kind of Knighthood 85
Chapter 4: Living in a Templar World 87
A Standard Unlike Any Other 87
The Templar Rule 88
Warriors and monks 90
Templar do's and don'ts 90
A Templar day planner 91
No women allowed 93
The pride and the power 93
Punishment and penance 94
Who's in Charge around Here? 94
Grand Master 95
Master and Commander 95
Seneschal 95
Turcopolier 96
Marshal 96
Under-Marshal 96
Standard Bearer 96
Knight 96
Sergeant 97
Treasurer 97
Draper 97
Squires 97
Lay Servants 97
Chaplain brothers 98
The Templar Commandery: Medieval Fortress and City 98
City within a city 98
The signature round churches 98
Symbols of the Templars 100
The red cross 100
The Beauseant 102
Skull and crossbones 103
Chapter 5: The Poor Knights Crash and Burn: The Fall of the Templars 105
The Seeds of the Fall in the Nature of the Order 106
A little independence goes a long way 107
Money: The root of all evil 108
Huge tracts of land 109
Cracks in the Armor 110
Getting a little too chummy with the heretics 111
Templar bashing: The latest game from the Holy Land 113
Playing politics 114
A new and deadly enemy: Saladin 115
The Treacherous Kingdom of Jerusalem 119
Ethics by Borgia, politics by Shakespeare 119
The horns of Hattin 121
The final curtain 123
The last Crusader 124
Dark Clouds Converge over France 125
King Phillip The Fair 125
Pope Clement V 127
The setup 128
October 1307: An unlucky Friday the 13th 129
The Accusations 130
The Confessions 130
The End 131
Chapter 6: Cold Case Files: The Evidence against the Templars 133
The Chief Accuser 134
Opening Move: An Illegal Arrest 136
The Charge Sheet 138
The caliber of the witnesses 141
Dangerous foreign entanglements 141
Blowing Away the Charges, One by One 142
Desecrating the cross 142
Denying the sacrament of the Mass 143
Sodomy 144
Embezzlement 145
Baphomet 146
Heads up: So what was it? 148
The Pope Knuckles Under 149
Secretly Absolved 151
Part III: After the Fall of the Templars 153
Chapter 7: Templars Survive in Legend and in Fact 155
The Templar Fleet 156
Sailing up the Seine 156
La Rochelle 156
So where'd they go? 157
Talking Treasure 157
Cold, hard cash 158
Treasure more mystical than cash? 159
The Scottish Legends 160
Battle of Bannockburn 161
Rosslyn Chapel 162
Templars Part Deux: Return of the Living Knights 166
Portugal and the Order of Christ 166
Spain and the Order of Montesa 167
The Hospitallers 167
Switzerland 168
The Greatest Templar Myths 169
Templars possessed the Ark of the Covenant 169
A Templar connection to the Shroud of Turin 170
Templars discover America! 171
The Templars Survived! 176
The Larmenius Charter 176
The Priory of Sion 179
Rex Deus 179
Templars spawn the modern-day conspiracy theory 180
Chapter 8: Born in Blood: Freemasonry and the Templars 183
The Masonic Fraternity: Who Freemasons Are and What They Believe 184
A quick tour of Masonic history 186
The brotherhood code of the lodge 188
Identifying the Possible Templar Origins of Freemasonry 189
Rosslyn Chapel and the Masons 191
The Templars' sacred subcontractors 194
The Masonic Knights Templar and Where They Came From 195
Chevalier Ramsay begins a knightly legend 196
Freemasonry's mysterious Unknown Superiors 197
Templarism in the American colonies 198
Templar drill teams: The origins of Masonic Knights Templar military costumes 198
Skulls and crossbones! 199
The Templars' place within Freemasonry 200
Chapter 9: Modern-Day Templars 203
Modern Templar Orders 204
Order Militia Crucifera Evangelica 204
Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani 206
Ordo Novi Templi 207
Ordo Militia Templi 209
Chivalric Martinist Order 209
Order of the Solar Temple 209
Ordo Templi Orientis 213
Knights But Not Templars 213
Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem 213
Order of the Grail 214
Sovereign Military Order of Malta 214
Most Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem 216
Deutscher Orden (Teutonic Knights) 217
Order of Christ 217
Teetotaling Templars of Temperance 218
Templars of Honor and Temperance 218
International Order of Good Templars 218
Part IV: Templars and the Grail 221
Chapter 10: The Templars and the Quest for the Holy Grail 223
The Holy Grail: A Ten-Century Quest 224
The Quest Begins 225
Chretien de Troyes 225
Robert de Boron: The Grail becomes holy 228
Perlesvaus 228
Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival 229
The rest of the story 229
The Templars and the Grail 230
The Real Grail? 231
Chapter 11: The 21st Century Dawns with a New Grail Myth 233
Holy Couple: The Search for the Bloodline of Christ 234
The biblical account of Mary Magdalene 234
The legend 235
Holy Blood, Holy Grail: The Legend Rediscovered 235
The Priory of Sion 237
Rennes-le-Chateau 238
The peculiar Pierre Plantard 241
The priory exposed 243
Was any of it real? 244
Part V: Squaring Off: The Church versus the Gospel According to Dan Brown 245
Chapter 12: Templars and The Da Vinci Code 247
The Secret Societies of Dan Brown 248
The Da Vinci Code's facts of the Priory of Sion 249
The Da Vinci Templars 252
Opus Dei 254
Leonardo da Vinci and His Last Supper 256
John or Mary? 257
The missing Grail found 258
Chapter 13: The Suppression of the Feminine Divine: Truth or Feminist Fiction? 261
Defining Divine Femininity 262
The lost bride 263
The mysterious Magdalene 265
Mary's Marriage: Pros and Cons 272
Pros 273
Cons 275
Goddess Worship and the Sacred Feminine: Do We Really Want It Back Again? 279
The women who worshipped goddesses 279
The women who worshipped the male God of Israel 282
The Catholic Church's Relationship with Women 288
The real burr in the saddle 289
Victorianism 290
Facing the future 290
Chapter 14: Getting Our Acts Together: Constantine and the Council of Nicaea 291
Fiction, History, and the Early Church 292
Early Christianity: A secret society 292
Dan Brown's version: Teabing does the talking 294
What Boring Old History Books Say 295
The Christian conversion of Constantine 295
The real Council of Nicaea and what happened there 297
Closing the Canon: Determining the books of the Bible 300
Conflict over celibacy 303
Part VI: The Part of Tens 309
Chapter 15: Ten Candidates for the Site of the Holy Grail 311
Glastonbury Tor, England 311
Hawkstone Park (Shropshire, England) 312
Takt-i-Taqdis, Iran 313
The Santo Caliz (Valencia, Spain) 314
Sacro Catino (Genoa, Italy) 314
Rosslyn Chapel (Roslin, Scotland) 315
Wewelsburg Castle (Buren, Germany) 315
Montsegur, France 317
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City) 318
Castle Stalker (Argyll, Scotland) 318
Chapter 16: Ten Absolutely Must-See Templar Sites 321
Where It All Began: Temple Mount (Jerusalem, Israel) 322
Temple Church (London, England) 323
Royston Cave (Hertfordshire, England) 325
Rosslyn Chapel (Roslin, Scotland) 325
Kilmartin Church (Argyll, Scotland) 326
Chinon Castle (Chinon, France) 327
Templar Villages (Aveyron, France) 328
Tomar Castle (Tomar, Portugal) 329
Domus Templi - The Spanish Route of the Templars (Aragon, Spain) 330
Where It Ended: Isle de la Cite (Paris, France) 331
Chapter 17: Ten Places That May Be Hiding the Templar Treasure 333
Rosslyn Chapel (Roslin, Scotland) 333
Oak Island Money Pit (Nova Scotia, Canada) 334
Temple Bruer (Lincolnshire, England) 334
Hertfordshire, England 335
Bornholm Island, Denmark 336
Rennes-le-Chateau, France 336
Chateau de Gisors (Normandy, France) 337
Switzerland 338
Trinity Church (New York City) 338
Washington D.C.'s Rosslyn Chapel 339
Index 341
