one else. Neither kings nor the Holy Inquisition could touch them, so their power and riches were bitterly envied by the rulers of Europe.

During the Albigensian Crusade the Templars took no part in the massacres and frequently gave fleeing Cathars sanctuary in their castles, and many Cathars were admitted into the Order, where no crusader would dare touch them. The Templars were drawn to the Cathars and their Dualistic, Gnostic beliefs, and later their many enemies used this to accuse the Templars of Heresy.

Though the Order became huge and powerful, its beginnings were very small, with secret aims hidden behind its publicly declared altruistic aims. One of its founders was a nobleman of a Cathar family; the Blancheforts, whose chateau ruins rest on a pinnacle of rock only three miles from Couiza (where we are writing this now). The Order was limited to a total of nine knights who were to be sent to the Holy Land to defend the roads leading to Jerusalem, to keep them safe for pilgrims. How only nine knights could possibly defend all the roads remains a mystery, but this was their declared aim for which they received the blessing of the Pope. In fact they didn't defend any roads because they had been sent by their founders to excavate the huge stables. (Large enough to house a Thousand horses) under the ruins of the Temple of Solomon.

It has been suggested that what they were looking for would have been Temple records showing the birth and death dates and lineage of kings of the Jews. When long ago the Temple was sacked and destroyed by Rome, the Temple priests probably would have left any treasure that the pillaging Roman soldiers would have been expecting to find. Instead the priests would have safely concealed anything so important as records and other irreplaceable temple items, to be recovered in the future. The Templars found what ever it was they were looking for, and returned with it to France to their Cathar influenced Founders.

What if the legend is true? That Jesus’ family fled to Visigoth France married and merged their blood with Visigoth nobility. What if their descendants in turn married into the nobility of the Franks and founded a Merovingian dynasty of red-haired Healer Kings that ruled most of France for many generations? What the Templars found under the Temple ruins would be undeniable proof of this special bloodline. Any descendants of this bloodline would have more right to sit on the Papal throne as the spiritual leader of Christianity than the elected Pope. Here we have a similarity between the Holy Grail of Medieval fiction with its powers rooted by contact with the blood of Christ.

Also a family that tends it, and depends on it's existence for their existence. The similarity is to a real life document or book containing powerful proof that the family's bloodline should be the true spiritual Monarchy of the Christianised world. A king on the throne of France, descended from the family of Jesus would also probably be acceptable to the Islamic and Muslim religions because Jesus had contact with them daring his visits, and is mentioned in the Koran 55 times. This would fit in with Templar aims to bring all the great religions together under one spiritual leader. If at the time of the siege these proofs were held in Montsegur, this would explain the fanatical determination of the Holy Roman Church to get hold of them. It would also explain the determination of the Cathars, whatever the cost, to make sure they didn't get hold of them. Once again the area of Rennes le Chateau would have been a

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