THE SMALL CHURCH OF MARY MAGDALENE in the remote village of Rennes-le-Château in southern France may well hold the key to the proof of Mary Magdalene's marriage to Jesus and the bloodline they founded. In I885 the village of Rennes-le-Château welcomed a new priest, Abbe Saunière. During his time there he ordered and oversaw a substantial—and expensive—restoration of the church. But where did this modest priest get the funds for this work? It is thought that he discovered something during the initial renovations that made him a very rich man and brought him to the attention of various power brokers of the time both from within the Church and from esoteric circles in Paris. Theories of what this discovery was have ranged from the gold pillaged from Delphi in Roman times and the treasure brought from Jerusalem by the Templars to the Cathar treasure said to have been spirited away from Montségur days before that fortress fell. Even more curious and compelling, however, are the church renovations themselves and their ambiguous portrayal of Mary Magdalene. This depiction could shake the very foundations of the Church with its suggestion that Mary's role was that of the priestess who anoints the priest-king in preparation for his spiritual duties. Poet, philosopher, historian, and storyteller, Jean Markale has spent a lifetime researching pre-Christian and medieval culture and spirituality. He is the author of more than forty books, including Montségur and the Mystery of the Cathars, The Templar Treasure at Gisor, The Celts, and Women of the Celts. He was a specialist in Celtic studies at the Sorbonne and lives in the Brittany region of France.

 

On March 16, 1244, after a year-long siege, more than two hundred Cathars were captured in their fortress stronghold of Montségur in the Pyrenees and burned clive by troops of the Inquisition. While some Cathar enclaves survived into the next century, this was the death blow to a religion that had been a powerful symbol of Occitain sovereignty despite the designs of the French monarchy and the papacy. History has recorded that, on the night before the fall of the fortress, four highranking Cathar perfecti carried away a great treasure from Montségur, a fact that led rebel Huguenots of the seventeenth century and members of Hitler's S.S. to believe that something of awesome spiritual power lay hidden somewhere near the ruins of the Cathar stronghold. Seeking to untangle the truc from the false, Celtic and medieval scholar Jean Markale meticulously searches through thè obscure history and dualist theology of the Cathars, tracing their roots to the ancient Zoroastrian religion of Persia. He examines what earned the Cathars—who practiced vegetarianism, nonviolence, and tolerance—the ruthless persecution of the Church and the state, and he explores both their place in medieval Occitain culture and their secret pact with the Knights Templar. Above ail, Markale uses all available documentation to reveal the remarkable nature of the treasure spirited away by the Cathars on that fateful night in 1244. Poet, philosopher, historian, and storyteller, Jean Markale has spent a lifetime researching pre-Christian and medieval culture and spirituality. He is the author of more than forty books, including The Templar Treasure at Gisors, The Druids, The Celts, Merlin, and Women of the Celts. He is a specialist in Celtic studies at the Sorbonne and lives in the Brittany reg on of France.

 

The great cathedral of Chartres is renowned the world over as a masterpiece of High Gothic architecture and for its remarkable stained glass and mystical labyrinth. But the foundations of this sanctuary go back to a time long before Christianity, when this site was a clearing where Druids worshipped a virgo paritura, a virgin about to give birth. Now at this ancient meeting place, where all the Druids in Gaul gathered once a year, there stands Chartres cathedral, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and home to one of the most venerated Black Madonnas in Europe: Our Lady of the Pillar. Coincidence? Hardly, says Jean Markale, whose exhaustive examination of the site traces the appeal of the Black Madonna back to the ancient, widespread worship of mother goddesses such as Cybele and Isis. In fact, Markale contends that the mother and child depicted by the Black Madonna are not merely descendants of the Druid's spiritual image of the virgin forever giving birth, but that the statue seen in Chartres today represents a theological notion of great refinement: The Virgin gives birth ceaselessly to a world, a God, and a humanity in perpetual becoming. Poet, philosopher, historian, and storyteller Jean Markale has spent a lifetime researching pre-Christian and medieval culture and spirituality. He is the author of more than forty books, including The Church of Mary Magdalene, Montségur and the Mystery of the Cathars, The Templar Treasure at Gisors, The Druids, The Celts, Merlin, and Women of the Celts. A specialist in Celtic studies at the Sorbonne for many years, he lives in the Brittany region of France.

 

A comprehensive examination of the enigma of the Templars and their lost treasure based on original source documents. * Considers the possibility that the medieval castle of Gisors hides the Templar treasure. * Examines all the evidence for a secret order within the Templars, whose heretical ideology brought down the wrath of King Philip of France. When French King Philip the Fair ordered the arrest of the Knights Templars and the confiscation of their property in 1307, the Templars were one of the most powerful forces in Europe, answerable only to the Pope. It was also one of the richest, despite its knights' vow of poverty. Yet not a penny of their immense treasure was ever found. The hunt for this lost treasure has centered on a number of locations, among which is the medieval city of Gisors, a site on the Normandy and French border that is honeycombed with complex underground passageways and chambers. Mysteriously, all attempts to discover what may be concealed in these subterranean corridors are rigorously discouraged by contemporary authorities. The enigma of the treasure is but one of the many unsolved mysteries concerning this order that continues to haunt our imaginations. Who were these "poor knights of Christ" who made denial of Jesus a requirement of acceptance into the order? What were their true purposes and what was the nature of their secret that drew the wrath of the king of France down on their heads? Was there really a treasure and, if so, what was it--material wealth or something more powerful, such as the Holy Grail or the secret to the philosopher's stone? Was there a secret order within the order that authorized the heretical practices for which they were condemned? In a search for answers to these and other questions, Celtic and medieval scholar Jean Markale goes back to original source documents in an attempt to clear away the baseless assumptions that have sprung up about the Templars and to shine new light on their activities.