Sojourn in Scotland (2006) part 1

Sojourn in Scotland:
A visit to some Templar and Medieval Locations in the Border Regions
By Gordon Napier, 2006

In June (2006) I returned to Temple Church, London, the circular-naved church at the centre of the headquarters of the Knights Templar in England, this time busier than usual on account of its having become, thanks to Dan Brown (and this year to Ron Howard), part of The Da Vinci Code trail. Living fairly near London, I have been privileged to have this site within easy reach. The Templars’ history in Britain began when the founder of the Order, Hugues de Payens, crossed the channel from Normandy where he had met Henry I, to raise support for the new brotherhood in England. Hugues had established the fraternity in Crusader Jerusalem, around a decade before, with the support of the Crusader King Baldwin II, and of the Latin Patriarch Warmund. Soon after coming to England, Hugues was invited north by David I of Scotland, and it was in Scotland, at a place called Balantradoch (Stead of the Warriors) that the Templars received one of their first properties in Europe. The year was 1127. I visited the site 879 years later.
Hugues had laid the foundations for the Order of the Temple in the British Isles where it would endure for two centuries, sending men, money and produce to support the defence of the Holy Land. The Templars become part of the landscape, as well as part of the political establishment. In England at least, the Templars were suppressed in 1307, Edward II having been compelled to move against the brethren by Pope Clement V (puppet of Philip the Fair, King of France). Scotland at the time was ruled by King Robert the Bruce. Robert was an excommunicant on account of having murdered a rival in a church. It is possible, many believe, that a quantity of refugee Templars- from Britain and perhaps from France- found sanctuary under Robert and supported his struggle for an independent Scotland. It is said that the Order may have survived in secret; that the Templars merged with or evolved into Freemasons and eventually deposited their treasure in Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian; or at least encoded their secret knowledge in the mysterious carvings covering the building. This is an idea I first came across over a decade ago, and though I since came to have doubts, I had also long desired to visit this chapel, to see if I could detect any Templar presence there, or glean some insight. If Rosslyn is a Templar building it is the last. As it happens, Rosslyn Chapel is a mere five miles from the ruined Templar church of what was the Order’s earliest Preceptory- that of Temple, formerly Balantradoch. If the stories are true then this stretch of countryside is where the Templars’ history in Europe came full circle.
In August 2006 the opportunity arose to visit this part of Scotland, and to spend some time exploring these sites, and a few other places that would also prove of interest and relevance to the story of the Templars, and perhaps of the Grail. I was accompanied by my father, who also takes an interest in matters historical. It happened that we crossed the border on August 19 as dawn was breaking, and the hills and evergreens were enveloped in a hazy golden light which added enchantment to that picturesque landscape.
At about six in the morning we passed the sign to Abbotsford, and decided to park up and have a look. Abbotsford appeared, a romantic sight, its towers and turrets set against the distant hills, pale purple in the morning light. Walter Scott, who built this place, seemed to have conjured something out of one of his romantic novels (he was indeed known as the Wizard of the North). We would return here later. The next destination, meanwhile, was the village of Temple (Balantradoch). The ruin of the Templar church is in a secluded spot. The best way to find it is to ask a bearded old local.
Balantradoch was the Templars’ first and most significant Preceptory in Scotland. It is situated near the River Esk, in a particularly lush spot. The river’s rushing waters can be heard through the trees from the ruined church that remains. Today, aside from the church, little remains of the once extensive Preceptory besides an archway in an adjacent field, near the village. The ruined church is atmospheric in its un-restored state. The church is oblong in plan with steep gabled ends with mullioned windows, now lacking glazing or a roof overhead. The stones seem to give off a plaintive air. Features within the ruin include a niche for a tomb effigy and a piscina. The graves surrounding indicate that the church continued to serve the village for many centuries after the suppression of the Order of the Temple, and it only fell into ruins in the nineteenth century when a new parish church was built nearby. Some of the graves around the ruin seem to contain Masonic symbols. The square and compass are visible on one close to the church. Others show the skull and crossbones, a memento mori (reminder of mortality).

The next stop was Roslin, and Rosslyn Chapel, where we arrived at about 7.30. Down what passed for the main street in the tiny village of Roslin, I noticed the gate of what was presumably the local Masonic Lodge, with the square and compass containing a letter ‘G’ silhouetted above it. The surrounding location was very pleasant and the Rosslyn Chapel itself seemed bigger than one might expect, although its modern, barn-like protective casing, the metal roof and the scaffolding surrounding the structure, rather diminishes it aesthetically. We arrived at the chapel just as some gentlemen, smartly suited in black, with red and white cloaks folded over their arms, some carrying swords, were sneaking out surreptitiously past some of the international tourists who had already arrived. A clergyman also passed by and down the hill, his black cope billowing out behind him like batman’s cape, as my father observed. Entering the chapel the air was still thick with the candle smoke from the ceremony recently performed by these neo-Templars.
Roslin has an air of enchantment about it, there is no denying. It feels something like a mini-Cathedral, its rich surfaces belying its relatively modest scale. The building style is highly ornate, almost grotto like. It is far removed from the Perpendicular style which was prevailing elsewhere in Britain and if anything resembles the Portuguese ‘Manueline’ style, which it slightly predates. (This rich style was preferred by the Order of Christ- the Templars successors in Portugal).

William St Clair, Lord of Roslin and Prince of Orkney, began building Rosslyn Chapel in 1446, as a collegiate chapel where retained priests would perform masses for the benefit of his soul. The chapel, dedicated to Saint Matthew, seems to be only one wing of an envisaged cruciform building, for unfinished transepts extend from the east wall. (It was hurriedly finished on a less ambitious scale by Oliver St Clair, William’s son, who evidently didn’t want to spend all his inheritance on it). It is believed that William St Clair employed foreign as well as local craftsmen on his chapel. The chapel has an unusual barrel vaulted roof and flying buttresses surround its exterior.
Knowing of its fame, one cannot help but gravitate towards one of the pillars, more ornate than the rest, that which has come to be called the Apprentice Pillar, and to be placed at the centre of so many conspiracy theories. In the same corner of the Chapel is the stairway leading down to the crypt or sacristy, where there are carvings of angels and of St Peter in the corbels and a skeleton with a scythe on a plinth (called the King of Terrors).

In the Chapel proper, the carvings include musician angels, an upside down angel bound in rope (Lucifer falling from heaven, perhaps), numerous ‘Green Man’ heads, a horned Moses, a knight with an apparent passenger on his horse (which some see as a version of the Templars’ two riders motif) dragons and a devil. I also noticed a unique carving of a skull with foliage growing from its mouth, a green-man skull. My father also spotted what looked like an eye staring down from the foliage carved above the Lady Chapel. Rosslyn may contain secrets and mysteries but it is unclear whether it ever had anything to do with the historical Knights Templar, who were suppressed 136 years before the chapel was founded.
There is a small grave slab in Rosslyn carved with the name ‘William de St Cler’. Adjacent to the name is a floriated cross with a long stem and a stepped base, and on the other side is a sword. Below is a more modern inscription ‘William de St. Clair Knight Templar’. The grave is of a type used by the Templars but there is nothing to say that the William St Clair in question (he of 1297-1330) was affiliated with the Order. The slab evidently predates the building that houses it.
On the exterior of the building, near the lower frame of the window on the south west corner, is a carving claimed by some to resemble the First Degree ritual of Freemasonry. There are two figures, the one behind appearing to hold the end of a noose around the other’s neck. Some have discerned a blindfold, too, but the carving is really too eroded to tell. The chapel suffered somewhat during the Reformation and the Civil War, and for a time lay derelict. It was later restored as a place of worship. It then suffered from weathering, tampering, and shoddy restoration, for example in the 1950s when the interior was painted with a grey concrete paste, which was supposed to help protect the carvings. All it did, in fact, was to obscure their fine details, and to trap moisture in the stones- which subsequently became saturated and rotten. The ‘barn’ is a modern attempt to allow the chapel to dry out. The consolation is that it allows visitors to walk around a platform and to get a closer look at the upper parts of the chapel, as well as a better view of the verdant and lovely surrounding area. One can also see where certain parts of the chapel were bodged, when it was rushed to be completed. This is also apparent on the inside, in the Lady Chapel behind the altar, where the arches do not meet the wall properly but hang in space. From a structural standpoint this makes no sense, and can only be a mistake- the end wall seems to be a foot too far out! Elaborate stone projections have been put in place to mask the misaligned springing points.

The final unexpected sight at Rosslyn was a Italian bishop in his black and purple finery. He seemed to be in the company of some of the neo-Templars spotted previously. The specialist guide with the group including the (now dressed-down) Templars was heard to say something about the ‘genaeology of Christ’, while the official guide avoided committing himself to any theory of the speculative bloodline of Chist/Holy Grail/Templar kind, thankfully. The shop, meanwhile, was fully stocked with books exploiting the Da Vinci Code bandwagon.

The Turin Shroud and the Templars

Revision of an earlier article. 

 Mary Magdalene came to the tomb of Christ three days after the Crucifixion. According to John's gospel, she found the stone removed from the tomb's entrance, and rushed to fetch the disciples Peter and John. So they ran both together: and that other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulcher. And he stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloth lying, yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen cloth lie, And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in that other disciple… and he saw and believed. John, 20, 4 to 8. 

 A shroud relic has been housed in the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, since 1578. It has long been venerated as the burial cloth of Christ. It appears to be imprinted with his image, bearing the marks of torture and crucifixion. To many the shroud is a disturbing and fascinating object, with an air of mystery that captures the imagination. But could the shroud have genuinely supernatural origins? Could some charge of divine energy have burnt this image onto the material, at the moment of Christ's Resurrection? Did the disciples find this relic in the empty tomb, and pass it down to be held in reverence through the ages? In 1988, with the Church's permission, a small sample of the Turin Shroud was removed for scientific tests. The results of the radiocarbon dating placed the shroud between AD 1260 and 1390, indicating that the relic was a medieval fabrication.

The white linen shroud measures 14 ft 6 inches by 3 ft 7 inches. It bears the image of a man, 6ft tall and well built, with long hair and a short beard. The faint image is a yellowish brown in colour. It shows the full length of the man's body; front and back, as if the long, narrow cloth had been folded over his head. There is, however, an absence of 'globing' the distortions that would have resulted if the shroud had wrapped around a real 3d body- supposing that this was what caused the discolouring.) Moreover one would expect a burial should to be wrapped around a body, rather than folded over one. Even if the acids, blood etc on the body did leave discolour the cloth with which it came into contact, it would hardly make for a recognizable print of a man. 

 Since the carbon dating, various theorists have tried to account for how an object with such markings could have been created in the Middle Ages. The shroud came to light in the mid 14th century, when Geoffrey de Charney, a French noble, had it exhibited in Lirey. Doubts about the relic's authenticity are nothing new. In 1389 the Bishop of Troyes denounced the shroud as a fake, which he alleged was painted in about 1355. The shroud, however, does not seem to be a painting in the traditional sense. There are no brush-marks, and no pigments are in evidence in the context of the image. Neither are there any medieval artistic stylisation.

  The shroud survived into the modern age, and was first photographed in 1898. When the photographer, Seconda Pia, developed the pictures, a revelation resulted. The photographic negative showed the shroud with a perfect, three-dimensional positive image. The shroud itself is therefore a perfect negative. There is no precedent for a medieval artist painting such a thing. 

 The South African Art Historian Dr Nicholas Allen suggested that the shroud itself is in fact an early form of photograph; made by soaking the sheet in silver sulphate solution to make the fabric light sensitive. Of necessity, a body (or a painting of one) would have been suspended before the sheet (twice in order to get both views) to achieve this, with lenses positioned between. This set up would have needed to be left for several days, while the surface reacted with ultra-violet rays. This seems hardly a satisfactory explanation for the shroud, though. There are no other examples of medieval photography. 

 Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas in their book 'The Hiram Key' propound the notion that the Knights Templar were both the heirs to the ancient Essene sect and the forerunners of the Freemasons. They wrote that the Templars revived an Essene ritual involving symbolic resurrection of the dead, and incorporated it into their secret initiation rites. Props used in the ceremony included a shroud, skull and bones. Guillaume de Paris, the Grand Inquisitor, swooped on the Paris Temple in 1307, to arrest the Templars there (his master, King Philip IV, having decided to suppress the Templars on charges of unholy worship). Knight and Lomas speculated that the Inquisitor and his men found the shroud the Templars used in the rite, in a Templar shrine filled 'with anti-Christian ornamentation: pyramids with eyes at their centre, a star studded roof and the square and compass…' Concluding that Jacques de Molay, must be a terrible heretic indeed, the Inquisitor tortured the Grand Master there and then in his own dungeons. The Inquisitor had his men crucify de Molay, and thus secured the Grand Master's confession, then he wrapped de Molay in the shroud. This was the real, forgotten origin of the Turin Shroud, or so Knight and Lomas argued. 

 Knight and Lomas' flight of fancy is without evidential support. There was no such occult decoration in the Paris Temple, and the only questionable item uncovered by the arresting agents appears to have been a female skull in a reliquary, not that the keeping of such relics was unusual at the time. There is no evidence that Jacques de Molay was ever crucified. He may have suffered some maltreatment before he first confessed, but if he had been crucified it would surely have provoked widespread outrage. When he made his final declaration of Templar innocence of heresy, he said that those who confessed had done so through fear of torture. If he (or any other Templar) had been crucified, then de Molay would surely have included this detail in his last defiant speech. Any theory claiming that the Turin Shroud ever touched the body of a real crucified man, moreover, has to surmount the globing distortion problem- there should be some! 

 Nonetheless, it is possible there was some Templar connection to the Turin Shroud. In 1357, as noted, the relic was in the possession of a noble called Geoffrey de Charney. Another, earlier Geoffrey de Charney had been the Templar Preceptor of Normandy. He was arrested alongside de Molay in 1307, and like him confessed to heresy. In 1314, when De Molay publicly retracted his confession, Geoffrey de Charney showed solidarity; and was burned with him at the stake by a vengeful King Philip IV on an island on the Seine. If the Geoffrey de Charney who was in possession of the Shroud in 1357 was a relative of the Preceptor of Normandy, his namesake, immolated in 1314, then a Templar connection seems a tennable proposition. 

 The Crusaders were zealously devoted to a large fragment of the 'True Cross', which they found in Jerusalem, and lost at the battle of Hattin in 1185. Other supposed relics from the Passion of Christ were important to Medieval Catholics too. The Veil of Veronica, for example, was a relic reputedly marked with the face of Jesus, after she wiped his face with it on the path to Golgotha. There was a contender for the Holy Lance of Longinus (that pierced Jesus' side) at Constantinople, while another Holy Lance was unearthed by the knights of the First Crusade at Antioch. Louis IX of France, meanwhile, would own a contenders for the Crown of Thorns (bought from a cash-strapped Latin Emperor of Constantinople- Byzantium having fallen to French Crusaders and Venetians in 1204). There were various places boasting Holy Nails, too. That some relics were faked seems obvious. 

 After the mid 14th century, the history of the Turin Shroud is well recorded. It emerged in 1357, and it was taken to Chambéry some time after 1453. In 1578 it was taken to its present home. At various times it has been shown publicly, during religious festivals, inspiring a frenzy of adoration from pilgrims. In 1610 it was exhibited in Turin and Vercelli, to mark the Beatification of Carlo Borromeo. It visited Torrione castle where Giovanni Battista Della Rovere depicted it in fresco, held by Duke Almedo IX of Savoy, and the Blessed Carlo Borromeo, with the Black Virgin of Opora between them. (The same artist painted a 'Descent from the Cross' showing Christ being enshrouded.) 

 Some evidence has been presented supposedly indicating that the relic existed before the 1350s. There is a small manuscript in Budapest (known as the Pray Codex), dating to the 1190s. A crude illustration shows Christ being taken down from the cross and placed in a shroud. The dead Chris is shown naked with arms crossed at the wrists and thumbs hidden, just as the figure in the shroud is. (This pose of the suffering Christ was replicated in Byzantine iconography of a type known as the Man of Sorrows). Below the burial scene is a depiction of the 'three Maries' encountering the angel and finding the shroud in the empty tomb. It has been claimed that the shroud in the lower illustration features a distinctive detail: a group of four small round holes in an 'L' formation. The same group of holes may be seen in the Turin Shroud (and also on a drawing of the shroud in Liege, Belgium, dating to 1516, predating the fire that burned additional holes into the fabric). Closer examination, however, reveals that the lower illustration in the Pray Manuscript may not in fact show the burial cloth but the dislodged slab covering the tomb of Christ. This becomes clear comparing the illustration with other iconography of the same scene. (The shroud is not the long oblong shape, as some have thought, but a small crumpled thing in the middle). 

 It has been said that if the shroud was faked between 1260 and 1390, then the forger must have been some genius; able to produce handiwork that withstands space age forensic scrutiny. Scientific tests by the STURP started in 1978 and supposedly concluded that the image on the shroud was probably made by contact with a body. They also identified a supposed stain of human blood on the fabric. Other scientists found the shroud to contain limestone dust seemingly from Palestine and pollens possibly from that region and also from Turkey. Recent examination of the shroud, prior to it's being hermetically sealed in a special container, revealed a tiny seam in the weave of the linen. This feature was similar to a seam found in a cloth excavated from Masada, a mountain fortress in the Holy Land that fell to the Romans in AD70 effectively marking the end of the Jewish Revolt. Apparently no such stitching has been found in the medieval era. Another notable feature is the fact that the wounds from nails of crucifixion, evident in the shroud image, pierce the man's wrists and ankles rather than his palms and feet. Some believe this better reflects the crucifixion method practiced by the Romans. 

 If the shroud was not forged for Geoffrey de Charney, in the 1530s, then how his family came by the object is a mystery. In 1453, the Duke of Savoy obtained the relic. His heirs moved it to a chapel in Chambéry in Southern France. Whilst there, the shroud was damaged in a fire in 1532, and was lucky to survive. The silver plate on the reliquary in which it was stored began to melt, and molten silver dripped through the folded shroud leaving rough, triangular holes with blackened edges. Faint water stains on the shroud do not correspond with these, though, so clearly had nothing to do with extinguishing the fire. It seems from the positions of the water marks that, in an earlier period, the shroud was folded up a different way, and possibly stored in a tall clay jar (similar to those in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found), which collected water at the base. Some have been tempted to interpret this as additional evidence of a first-century origin for the relic. 

 The sample of the shroud analysed in 1988 was cut from one of the corners. Another theory, that could make the shroud older than the carbon dating indicates, has it that the sampled section was contaminated. A repair around the 16th century saw the linen fabric being spliced with cotton. Only testing on samples from other areas of the shroud can clear this matter up. Additional support for an earlier date for the Shroud of Turin, meanwhile, is supposed to come from a less famous relic in Northern Spain. Oviedo Cathedral houses a wooden chest covered in silver, called the Arca Santa. It contains various reputed holy relics, including an object called the the Sudarium Domini. The Sudaruim is a humble, bloodstained rag. It is held to be the napkin cloth that was wrapped around Christ's head after his body was taken from the cross and before it was entombed. Unlike the Turin Shroud, the Sudarium appears to have an documented attestation in late antiquity. It was first mentioned in 570 AD, in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Early Christians took away for safety in AD644, at the time of a Persians invasion under Chosreos II. They took it to Alexandria, and then to Spain. It was moved north from Toledo, in 718, to Oviedo, ahead of the Muslim advance. The ancient wooden ark was given silver plating with Romanesque ornamentation. 

Tests on the blood on the Sudarium have revealed it to be of the same rare AB type as the blood found on the Turin Shroud. Investigators have also postulated that the patterns of blood on the Sudarium correspond to wounds evident on the figure in the shroud, although how this can be reliable or scientific given the thorny issue of globing is for them to explain. The pollen found in the Sudarium confirms its documented wanderings, through Egypt and Spain. The pollens identified in the Turin Shroud hint at a different story. Pollens from Turkey may have arrived via later contamination, but could indicate that the shroud itself was once in that region. Some identify it with a Byzantine relic, much famed in past times, called the Mandylion. This seems doubtful, however, for the Mandylion cloth was supposedly marked only with the face of Christ- it was supposedly the Veil of St Veronica. It was recorded as being in Edessa in the 500s AD. The face in the shroud does resemble various copies of the lost Mandylion, the face that informed the popular image of Jesus. 

The Mandylion was taken to Constantinople in 944, and probably looted from there after 1204, when the French knights of the Fourth Crusade sacked the city. They and the Venetians looted much treasure, including religious relics. According to a letter written by Theodore Ducas Angelos to Pope Innocent III in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, the loot included 'most sacred of all the linen in which our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after his death and before his resurrection' Theodore hinted that the Shroud had been taken to Athens. 

The Templars were not recorded as being militarily active in the Fourth Crusade. Many regarded as scandalous when the Crusaders diverted towards Byzantium. The Pope himself was originally furious. As Helen Nicholson has discovered, there was at least one Templar in the retinue of the Crusade's leader and later 'Latin Emperor of Constantinople' Baldwin of Flanders. This Templar, Brother Barozzi, acted as a messenger between Baldwin and the Pope. He was charged at one stage with delivering gifts including plundered relics to the Pope, no doubt to mollify Innocent's anger and to buy his endorsement of the regime change. Barozzi also received gifts on behalf of the Templars- indicating if nothing else that the Templars were not averse to the idea of laying their hands on formerly Byzantine relics and treasures. These did not include the Shroud, in this instance and at any rate, and Barozzi was robbed of these treasures by Genoese merchants. 

 Some speculate that the Mandylion fell into the Templars hands, and inspired the rumours that they worshipped an idol in the form of a head. The head painted on a board, found half a century ago in Templecombe in the South West of England (where there was a Templar Preceptory) bears a resemblance to the Mandylion, and indeed to the head of the shroud. The Templars and Hospitallers both associated themselves with the Holy Sepulchre, and both acted as escorts to the 'True Cross' when it was carried abroad. Both also escorted a vial of Christ's Blood from the Holy Land to England in the 1250s, so clearly both took an interest in relics of the Passion. 

 There is additional evidence of the Knights Templar possessing the shroud. The Templars' secrecy rendered them vulnerable to accusations of heresy. The order, as we have seen, was suppressed in the 1300s and the brethren subjected to a widespread heresy trial. Confession were secured, often through torture by Inquisitors and royal agents, and were recorded by clerical notaries. The confessions described depraved induction rituals and the adoration of idols. Vatican researcher Barbara Frale has recently discovered another confession that stands apart and seems to support the idea that the Templars possessed the Holy Shroud itself. The deposition was that a French Templar named Arnaut Sabbatiere (or Sabatier), describing his initiation, which had taken place in 1287: "(I was) shown a long piece of linen on which was impressed the figure of a man and told to worship it, kissing the feet three times," said the document. ( Telegraph, 6 April 2009 see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/5113711/Knights-Templar-worshipped-the-Turin-Shroud.html ) 

 If the Templars had indeed possessed this self-same relic, it is curious that they did not advertise it in order to draw pilgrims. Still, theirs was a clandestine brotherhood, and it cannot be ruled out that they were secretly the guardians of the shroud. Not everyone was so ready to exploit the Holy Relics they possessed. Some relics were indeed guarded tacitly. The Templars may have obtained the shroud from Athens. If the story of it being there is not true, though, then it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the Templars found the shroud during their sojourn in Jerusalem. Others propose that they inherited it from the heretical Cathars, who may have inherited it from Gnostic Christians in the near east. There were stories of the last Cathars smuggling a great treasure away from their stronghold at Montsegur in 1244, before embracing martyrdom at the hands of their Catholic persecutors. Certainly the shroud found its way to France by some means if it was not created there. 

 There are those who think that the Shroud of Turin should be tested again, to see if it can be induced to give up more of its secrets. I find myself more sceptical about its earlier origins than I was before, having been persuaded that the Pray manuscript is not valid as supporting evidence. Any suggestions that the shroud's image is the result of contact with a human body, would have to account for the the lack of warping. I originally concluded my essay saying that perhaps the shroud should be left alone to preserve its mystery, but am now of the opinion that further scientific analysis and historical study is needed to determine its origins. Taking into account the testimony uncovered by Barbara Frale, it is clearly more than idle speculation to think that the object may have passed through the hands of the Knights Templar.