aurence Gardner has undertaken an
epic journey in search of one of the most elusive treasures of all time;
The Holy Grail. Untold thousands of searchers have quested after this prize
and many more have written tales of chivalry, romance and daring, inspired
by The Grail. Gardner claims to have actually found it.
he Bloodline of the Holy Grail is
not a Medieval Romance concerning a knight and his perilous quest for a golden
chalice. According to Gardner the Holy Grail is a royal bloodline, The bloodline
of Juda, the ancient and royal House of David, Kings of Israel from the days
of the Old Testament. The bloodline of this royal house is traced in considerable
detail from well before the Egyptian Exodus of the Hebrews into the twentieth
century. This is the family of Jesus! Gardner is uniquely suited for this
quest as he is a diligent researcher with access to some if not all of Europe's
religious and political archives, including many private and well-guarded
repositories of ancient lore. To quote the publisher's official biographical
sketch...
aurence Gardner, Prior of The Celtic
Church's Sacred Kindred of St Columba, is an internationally known sovereign
And chivalric genealogist. Distinguished as the Chevalier Labhran de Saint
Germain, he is Presidential Attaché to the European Council of Princes,
a constitutional advisory body established in 1946. He is formally attached
to the Noble Household Guard of the Royal House of Stewart, founded at St
Germain-en-Laye in 1692, and is the Jacobite Historiographer Royal.
rom new information gleaned from the
"Dead Sea Scrolls" Gardner explains the marital status of Jesus and Mary
Magdalene and the subsequent royal bloodline that they sustained through
the decline of the Roman Empire. The bloodline brought to France and England
by Mary Magdalene and Jesus' brother James (also known as Joseph of Arimathea),
the Royal Blood of Juda or "The Sangreal". Mary Magdalene arrived in Europe
carrying the child of Jesus in her womb. In effect she was the vessel that
contained Christ's blood, she was The Holy Grail.
he bloodlines of several prominent
European Royal Families of today are derived from the noble blood of Jesus
and his brother James, most notably the Royal House of Stewart. Intertwined
with the genealogical history of the Grail Family is the politics of religion
and the rise and fall of the nations and brotherhoods that embraced the
descendants of Jesus. Gardner sheds new light on the infancy and subsequent
rise to power of the Christian Church and the reasons the church had for
attempting to erase the knowledge of Jesus' bloodline from the pages of the
Bible and history. A bitter struggle between the orthodox leaders of Christendom
and the followers and believers of the "Sangreal" legacy lasted many centuries,
in fact it is a struggle that has been ongoing now for nearly two thousand
years. The unfortunate results of this conflict include the massacre of the
Cathars, the trials and official persecution of the Knights Templars and
at least three hundred years of the Catholic Inquisition. During the crusades
many Templar Knights and several Grand Masters were members of this incredible
family including Godefroi De Bouillon who was named King of Jerusalem in
1099. Throughout this period the Templars and their associates the Priory
of Notre Dame de Sion were the keepers of the secret of the Grail and the
official guardians of the members of the Grail Family.
he fact that the Grail Family still
exists today is largely the result of the somewhat spread out and diverse
nature of the family and the safe haven the Templars helped them to secure
in Scotland at a time when most of Europe was actively engaged in the
extermination of the Templars at the request of the Pope.
ardner explains some of the mystery
that has surrounded the various cycles of Arthurian Romance, the Grail Knights,
the Grail Castle and the seemingly anachronistic presence of the Templars
both before and after their time. They exist to serve, and one of the prevalent
themes of Gardner's narrative is the fact that the Grail represents service.
Service to an ideal, service to a family and service to society. Gardner
opens and closes this work with the question: Whom does the Grail serve?
This is not a simple question. The attitudes of the followers and members
of the Grail Family toward service to the people of their society has been
one of the major causes of the religious and political persecution inflicted
on them by governments and the Christian church for well over a thousand
years. Jesus washed the feet of his deciples, this epitomizes the "Grail
Code" of service. The operative question is: Whom does the Grail serve? Not:
Who serves the Grail? Gardner weaves this theme throughout the book and relates
it to the patterns of behavior of both groups and individuals connected to
the Grail Family and those aligned against them.
he genealogical research alone for
this project must have been a monumental undertaking. The charts of various
family lines are a great source of reference material for some of the most
important houses of western civilization. The Appendices and Bibliography
are extensive as well as informative on their own. The narrative portion
of Gardner's work is that rarely achieved combination of historical facts
and readable prose that keeps a reader interested enough to learn from the
experience. Make no mistake; for the occasional reader of Arthurian and Grail
Lore this book may be too firmly based on a historical framework to be
"entertainment". Entertainment, however is probably not Gardner's first priority.
This work was written for the reader with an open mind who really has a desire
to chase down the facts concerning the Holy Grail. This book takes the reader
far beyond the works of Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln such as "The Holy Blood
and the Holy Grail"(Jonathan Cape, London, 1982), and at the same time Gardner
confirms a great many of their assertions and uses their work extensively
in his bibliography. This is a book to keep on one's library shelf as a reference
long after the first reading is done.
he work of Laurence Gardner from within
the Grail Family Circle is a daring example of the Grail serving the truth
and serving the people whom so desperately need and deserve the truth.
Publication data: first published in Great Britain in 1996, Element Books
Limited, Shaftesbury, Dorset SP7 8BP
