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Where Did the Myth of the Lost Templar Fleet and Its Transoceanic Voyage Come From?

8/9/2016

17 Comments

 
In discussing Clive Prince and Lynn Picknett’s The Templar Revelation (1997) yesterday, I noted that the two authors had no real interest in primary sources, and I mentioned that they gained all they knew about the “lost” Templar fleet from The Temple and the Lodge, a 1989 book by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, two of the three authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982). I wondered what they had based their claim upon, and, to be honest, I had expected to find actual references to the only testimony of a surviving Templar to allege that any knights of the Order had escaped France by ship with the Order’s treasure. Instead, I found a giant wall of speculation, based on little to nothing.
As most of my readers know, in June 1308, a Templar by the name of Jean de Châlons gave testimony under torture to the Papal inquiry into the Templars at Poitiers. He alleged that “the leaders of the Order fled, and he himself met Brother Gerard de Villiers leading fifty horses; and he heard it said that he set out to sea with eighteen galleys and that Brother Hugues de Châlons fled with the whole treasure of Brother Hugues de Pairaud” (Registra Avenionensia 48, f450r; my trans.). This is the only record of any lost Templar fleet.
 
But Baigent and Leigh don’t use primary sources except in extremis, and therefore they are entirely unfamiliar with the story. Their allegation about the lost Templar fleet is derived instead from a mountain of speculation, lacking any discernible factual foundation. They speculate, for example, about how many boats the Templars must have had to run a tourism company shuttling pilgrims to the Holy Land, and they note that Templars seem to have arrived in Scotland after the persecution of the Order. They also note that no records of the strength of the Templar armada survive, so they conclude that the secretive knights loaded up their ships with treasure to hightail it to Scotland in 1307. Their speculation is not original to them but derives, often without credit, from speculation published in Masonic newsletters and journals in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That speculation, however, was also not based on verifiable fact but rather on the tenuous effort to connect Freemasonry to the Knights Templar via Scotland.
 
Now here is the interesting thing. Baigent and Leigh, ignorant of Jean de Châlons, cast about for another text that could show that the Templars took to the sea. They hit upon the testimony of Walter de Clifton and William de Middleton, two Scottish Templars, who confessed to the Inquisition in 1308, and which text is given in the Consilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae (vol. 2, pp. 380-381). The relevant lines come from Middleton, who said that upon receipt of the papal bull condemning the Order, many of the knights “cast off their habits and fled at once beyond the sea (ultra mare) when they heard about the capture of their brothers” (my trans.). But this was happening in Scotland, not France, and was not confirmed by de Clifton, who said that he had no idea where the knights had gone or how. Some of the knights named by Middleton were interrogated later on, suggesting they didn’t get far. None of that is relevant, of course, since the argument was supposed to be that French Templars fled to Scotland, not that Scottish Templars fled from that country, too.
 
That’s all well and good, but this means that we have a problem. The “lost Templar fleet” myth emerges from a stew of speculation and seems then to have retroactively attracted facts to fit it. Baigent and Leigh offer no discussion of specifics; indeed, they actively reject the idea that the Templar treasure left France via the port of La Rochelle. Instead, they think boats carried it up the Seine and on to Scotland.
 
So, if neither Picknett and Prince nor Baigent and Leigh actually did the primary source research tying Jean de Châlons to the emerging “Templar fleet” myth, who did?
 
As best I can tell, the only fringe historian to have actually done the primary source research in the past thirty years was Andrew Sinclair, who mentions Jean de Châlons in his 1992 book The Sword and the Grail, correctly cited to the 1907 published edition of the Templar confessions. Sinclair Anglicizes the name to “John de Châlons,” which I guess is OK since the original is in Latin anyway and Anglicizing Latin names has long been an Anglo-American affectation. Sinclair later plagiarized his own work for his books Rosslyn and The Secret Scroll, where the same discussion appears almost word-for-word. He does not, however, give a full translation of the passage, likely because to do so would make obvious that Jean was merely repeating hearsay (“he heard it said…”) rather than speaking from knowledge.
 
It would seem, therefore, that the order of events involves Baigent and Leigh developing a lost Templar fleet myth and Sinclair then ransacking primary sources to try to bolster a story that emerged from speculation.
 
If only it were that simple!
 
Prior to Baigent and Leigh there were already fringe speculations about a lost Templar fleet leaving from La Rochelle. Michael Anderson Bradley speaks of it in his 1985 book Crisis of Clarity, as does Pierre de Sermoise in his 1973 book Joan of Arc and Her Secret Missions, a book that suggested that Joan of Arc had male secondary sex characteristics. The story can also be found in Peter Partner’s 1982 Oxford University Press volume on The Murdered Magicians: The Templars and Their Myth, where he says that mystery-mongering writers had used the story to speculate on the lost Templar treasure. Sadly, I don’t have a copy of that book to find out which authors he cites to support the idea that there was already active speculation about Templar voyages to or from America prior to the 1980s.
 
Having run into a wall with Partner, I tried Pierre de Sermoise, whose source I was able to find: Jean de la Varende, a French fiction writer whom de Sermoise quotes as saying that the “Templars regularly went to America whence, from the mines they were exploiting there, they brought back silver, rather than gold. Because of this the people said that they had money.” This matches the part of Partner’s text I can see through Google Books and must be the source. Apparently French authors had long been speculating about Templar connections to America, not just de la Varende but also Louis Charpentier in Les Mysteres Templiers (1967). Charpentier, unread by me, is said to have speculated that the Templars mined gold in Mexico. The bottom line is the idea that the “white gods” of (made up) Mexican mythology were the Knights Templar.
 
I admit to being baffled, though, that the references to Varende, identifying him as the first source of the claim, all say that he made the suggestion in his 1948 book Les Gentilshommes, which as best I can tell (not having read the book in full) is a collection of fictional short stories. There, the text is a little different. It says (in my translation): 
“Les biens du Temple étaient d’Argent. Les Templiers avaient découvert l'Amérique, le Mexique et ses mines d’Argent.”
 
“The property of the Temple was of silver. The Templars had discovered America—Mexico and its silver mines.” 
So it seems that the story of the lost Templar fleet and Templars in America originated in the speculation of a fiction writer who had read of the white gods of Mexico (themselves the creation of Spanish propaganda) and tried to turn them into Frenchmen for the glory of France, in a fictional short story no less. Fringe historians then spent the next seven decades back-forming a myth to support a fictional story that originated in racist Spanish propaganda about white people ruling over ancient America. That’s just about perfect.
17 Comments
Templar Secrets
8/9/2016 12:29:27 pm

>>>white people ruling over ancient America

Some of the natives were transported to the Vatican where they debated whether or not they had souls.

Reply
Templar Secrets
8/9/2016 01:22:41 pm

>>>Peter Partner’s 1982

Partner refers to Hugues de Chalons, escaped templar (his source is Finke, Papsttum und Untergang des Templerorders), page 101 (1987 edition).

Reply
Templar Secrets
8/9/2016 02:07:54 pm

Peter Partner, snip:

"One Templar brother who sought to attack the Order during the trials had heard it said that an escaped Templar, Hugues de Chalons, had taken with him all the treasure of his uncle, Hugues de Pairaud, the Visitor of France. This is the hearsay evidence of a vacillating witness, and even if the report was true, we do not know if it refers to the main treasure of the Order or to some other fund. It may be that the Templars had accumulated a substantial cash reserve in view of the proposed new crusading expeditions: if so, Philip the Fair probably got his hands on this money. The figure of 150,000 gold florins was mentioned by another witness: this is about half the annual expenses of the King of England, or about four times the annual income of a rich English earl. But it is unlikely that the Temple in Paris held some vast treasure beyond the dreams of avarice; the heavy expenses of re-equipping and re-establishing Templar forces in Cyprus since the fall of Acre would alone have absorbed any big cash balance which it had been holding in reserve. Loans, moreover, took up much of the ready money. Financial need alone will not account for the attack mounted by the French government on the Templars."

Reply
Clete
8/9/2016 02:15:39 pm

As has been proven many time and in many places, confessions extracted under torture tend to not have much validity. I understand from my reading about the capture of the Templars was that the "confession" were obtained by torture and later several of the templars refuted their confessions when faced by burning at the stake (In actual point of fact, they were, in effect, roasted over a slow burning fire).

Reply
Chris Lovegrove
8/9/2016 05:39:59 pm

Totally off topic here- Jason, did you get your keyboard sorted in the end? ie. The saga of the sticking 'e'.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
8/9/2016 05:49:30 pm

Yes, I did. Thank you for asking. Dell told me that the keys on my model are known to dislocate when the user types too fast, and they can be fixed by pressing really hard until it locks back into place. Ah, quality workmanship! Between that and the graphics accelerator errors I keep getting because Dell knowingly uses Intel chips that are no longer supported, this computer has been ... interesting.

Reply
Scott Hamilton
8/9/2016 08:14:42 pm

I'm totally going to find that Joan of Arc book.

Reply
Templar Secrets
8/10/2016 05:54:46 am

You mean BOOKS

There are books about the subject matter of Joan of Arc's sexuality

Reply
Scott Hamilton
8/10/2016 05:10:53 pm

No, I meant BOOK, the one Jason referred to. "Joan of Arc and Her Secret Missions." If I meant books, I would have said "books."

Please don't reply to my comments if you have nothing worthwhile to add.

Templar Secrets
8/10/2016 06:11:36 am

Here's an interesting book on Joan of Arc

Anne Llewellyn Barstow, Joan of Arc: Heretic, Mystic, Shaman (Studies in Women and Religion), Edwin Mellen Press scholarly publishing house, 1986.

Anne Llewellyn Barstow is retired professor of history, State University of New York City at Old Westbury

Reply
Carl Morrey
8/10/2016 05:29:14 am

In regards to Walter de Clifton and William de Middleton after the trails in Britain both had to perform penance, Walter at Shelford Priory and William at Roche Abbey both in the York diocese. At the time of the arrests in 1308 there were 144 Knights Templar in the British Isles those that went 'missing' two returned from Ireland were they had been living and collecting a government pension. In 1311those that survived after the trails all had to perform penance at various monasteries across the country and given small pensions to live off.

Nicholson,H. J. The Knights Templar on Trail,The trail of the Templars in the British Isles 1308-1311. 2009. The History Press. Gloucester.

Reply
Bob Jase
8/10/2016 03:58:38 pm

So basically as valid as the ten lost ribes of Israel.

Ah well, anyone for a trip to Oak Island?

Reply
Greame
9/8/2019 12:02:41 pm

The evidence that Oak island once was a suppository of who knows what seems credible, the evidence of cross bow bolts to 17 century visitors, pirate pieces of Eight, Spanish coins. all say that something special happened there, or planted there. I cannot help but think though that all treasures were removed many years ago. The new excitement regarding Oak island to me seems to be all generated from You tube videos and monetization earned from those videos bring new funds to the quest.
The Templar's were no fools so it is likely that a great amount of money , jewels, gold, silver, was hidden , but likely spent through the generations. follow the money is a good idea, who was rich and just showed up somewhere like North America or Scotland and England. If someone had the time to research this I am sure that some of the puzzle would be exposed. Still though who could resist the temptation of a quest. :)

Reply
Cort
8/10/2016 07:09:50 pm

The "Lost Templar Fleet" myth is likely a by product of the Catalan Company of Roger de Flor. He may actually be the original "Jolly Roger." Coincidentally Malta was one of the bases used by this group of privateers and mercenaries. The dates match up too between the lost fleet and the advent of this enterprise. So who knows?

Reply
E.P. Grondine
8/11/2016 02:48:47 pm

Hi Jason -

I have some bad news for you - this crap came out of the US theosophists - thus to trace it you have to read through their crap -
more books yet - or simply read my piece on Richard Kieninger for an introduction.

Aside from that, a lot of the stuff is re-cycled NEARA speculation.

Reply
Paul
11/25/2016 03:18:52 am

Holy Blood and Holy Grail (1982) has this to say: "Persistent but unsubstantiated rumours speak of the treasure being smuggled by night from the Paris preceptory, shortly before the arrests. According to these rumours, it was transported by wagons to the coast presumably to the Order’s naval base at La Rochelle and loaded into eighteen galleys, which were never heard of again. Whether this is true or not, it would seem that the Templars’ fleet escaped the king’s clutches because there is no report of any of the Order’s ships being taken.” Again, it's unsourced, but Leigh and Baigent had had a long a interest in the Templars during the 70s, so maybe there was a story they picked up – or made up. The actual 1907 source referred to in the Sinclair book does mention the 18 galleys, but only says they left France, not La Rochelle specifically, and only that it was a rumour someone heard.

Reply
Andrew Winter
8/17/2017 05:43:29 pm

For the best primmer on Medieval History in general and the Templars in particular please read "The Templar Code for Dummies".

I have a Masters in Medieval History and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Medieval Studies. The reason is that their source handling is the best I have ever seen.

Not only do you get the sources you get discussions of the sources in the typical Dummy Book Grey Sidebars.

The book was written in protest to the Book "The Templar Code" and the authors did so because that book was full of so much garbage it wasn't even a little bit funny.

One notable fact that they put in a sidebar. I paraphrase,

If all the gold ever mined were minted and placed in one spot the volume would just barely fill two Olympic Sized swimming pools. And, 80% of the was mined during and after the California Gold Rush.

Given the Templars had a lot of gold. It was not all the gold in the world. Given the Templars real power was banking it is a pretty good guess that they learned the art of "fractional reserve banking" very early on. In the United States, for example, the legal limit for the "fractional reserve" is 15 - 1 meaning that any given bank only has to have 1 dollar in cash on hand for every dollar they have on the books.

The Templars knew no banking regulations. If they operated on fractional reserves of greater than 15 one to the entire quantity of gold kept in the Templar Treasure in Paris when the Templars go rolled could have fit in a half dozen chests carried in one wagon.

All they would have needed to sail away with that treasure would have been a leaky fishing boat. They did not need a fleet.

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