On the grail trail

LONG before Dan Brown’s bestselling thriller “The Da Vinci Code,” there was “Holy Blood, Holy Grail,” (now reissued by Delacorte Press: 512 pp., $35), an attempt in nonfiction to argue that the true story of Jesus has been covered up by an elaborate conspiracy. The Holy Grail is said to be the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper -- an elusive, mystical object sought by questing knights for centuries. But what if that strange, enigmatic word “Sangraal” was broken not into “San Graal” (Holy Grail) but into “Sang Raal” (“Royal Blood”)?

The possibility of a bloodline, not a cup, as the source of the grail legends is part of what propels the book’s three authors -- Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln -- on their historical investigation. They’re particularly interested in the village of Rennes-le-Chateau in southwestern France and the questions surrounding its parish priest in the late 1800s: how to explain some of his chapel’s interior design (guardian demons, unorthodox pictures of Christ’s passion, a place of honor given to Mary Magdalene), the discovery of hidden parchments, his sudden wealth, his fallout with his Catholic superiors?

Like some academic version of a CSI team, the authors delve into the origins of the Knights Templar, the Gnostic gospels, the European chivalric tradition and medieval intrigues to create an argument that Jesus survived the Crucifixion and fathered children with Mary Magdalene. (Magdalene would, in fact, literally be the grail, the holy vessel carrying Jesus’ blood.) Magdalene, they suggest, relocated to France -- with or without Jesus -- and their descendants united with the Merovingian dynasty and thrived until, under the ruthless pressures of Catholic orthodoxy, this lineage was all but smothered. Its legacy, however, has been preserved to this very day by a secret society consisting of artists and thinkers as well as that enigmatic parish priest.

This special edition features more material than the first, which was published in 1982, and includes illustrations of old ruins, medieval maps and paintings such as Nicolas Poussin’s “Les Bergers d’Arcadie,” which supposedly contains clues (Leonardo is not the only guy with a code) to some hidden treasure or deposit -- Jesus’ mummified remains? -- in the French countryside. The book offers a wonderful clutter of antiques and props -- the kind you’d find in a Hans Holbein painting or, for that matter, in the display window of your mall’s Bombay Co. On the other hand, the authors’ historical approach suggests how ignorant we all are, which is why books like this one (and there are many) are so successful. Most people know something about the Romanovs and the Hapsburgs, but what about the Carolingians and the Merovingians? Such gaps enable incredible hypotheses to take hold and bestsellers to be born.

-- Nick Owchar