Rosslyn Chapel and its mysteries

Interest in the mysteries of Rosslyn Chapel has surged since the publication of Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code'. It is famous both as extraordinary example of ornate Gothic architecture and as the focus of Templar, Masonic and Grail legends.

The book 'Rosslyn Blood' is fast, funny and may have more truth in it than anyone would like to think. It cunningly links modern politics and science in Scotland to the country's ancient legends.

The facts about Rosslyn Chapel.

Rosslyn Chapel, situated a few miles south of Edinburgh, Scotland, just outside the village of Roslin, was founded in 1446 by Sir William StClair, Prince of Orkney. It builds in elements of an earlier building, including the tombstone of Templar knight Sir William StClair, who died in 1330 while taking King Robert the Bruce's embalmed heart on crusade against the Moors. The current chapel is built over a deep vault of uncertain date, which is now entirely walled-off, though the heavily-worn steps down to the sacristy (at the same level as the vault) suggest that in the past there was substantial traffic to and from the vault. The incredibly intricate interior is engraved with a profusion of Christian, Templar and pagan symbolism. The Templar symbolism includes the floriated cross (the 'Rosy Cross' from which the Rosicrucians took their name) at the top of the sword on Sir William StClair's tomb slab, and the carved motif of two men riding the same horse, which is borne on the seal of the Knights Templar. The 'engrailled cross' is everywhere in the chapel's stonework - the cross with wiggly indentations on each axis which was adopted by Templar Knights as a sign of their supposed custodianship of the Holy Grail. Pagan symbolism carved into the stone of Rosslyn Chapel includes over a hundred 'Green Men', little fertility symbols of a face surrounded by foliage and with tendrils emerging from the mouth. The carvings also - intriguingly - feature depictions of vegetation supposed to be maize and aloe vera, North American plants carved here before Columbus had voyaged to the New World .

The StClair family, in whose care the Chapel remains, have a long association with the Knights Templar and with worldwide Masonry, which traces its roots back to the craftsmen employed to build Rosslyn Chapel. The StClairs have a long and noble history in Scotland as Princes of Orkney and defenders of the Stuart monarchy of Scotland against invasion and sedition. Of Viking origins, they served with the Norse Duke William the Conqueror in 1066, and were subsequently granted lands in southern Scotland by King Malcolm Canmore (of 'Macbeth' fame). Their history of noble service to the Crown continues to this day - the current Earl of Rosslyn has served as the head of security for the Royal Family.

The founder of the Knights Templar, Hugues de Payen, was married to Katherine StClair, and the St Clairs had a long history of service with the Templar order until it was dissolved by papal order in 1307. In 1441, a later William StClair, 3rd Prince of Orkney, was created Grand Master Mason of Scotland. This title ran with the family until its last Sinclair holder died without issue n 1778.

THE LEGENDS

Rosslyn Chapel is a unique focus of myth and legend, and I can only mention a few of these here.

Knights Templar are lying in full armour in the vault.

The old legend that the mummified corpses of StClair Knights Templar are lying in their full armour on plinths in the vault, with no coffins, is referred to by Sir Walter Scott in The Lay of the Last Minstrel. The author of Rosslyn Blood believes this to be true, on the evidence of an elderly friend who says that in the 1950s it was possible to access the vault by rope ladder from the Chapel by lifting up a floor slab, and that she has been in the vault and seen the Templar corpses.

Rosslyn Chapel is a replica of the Temple of Solomon.

Knight and Lomas's The Hiram Key advances the theory that Rosslyn Chapel is consciously built to the dimensions of the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem. This appears credible on the basis that the ground plan of Rosslyn Chapel fits the dimensions of the Temple of Jerusalem as described in the Book of Ezekiel. The identification of the ornately-carved Master's and Apprentice's pillars at the East end of the Chapel as Boaz and Jachin, the pillars of the Sanctuary of Jerusalem, reinforces this.

Rosslyn Chapel is the reliquary of the Holy Grail.

There are multiple theories about what the Holy Grail actually is. It has traditionally been identified with the cup from which Jesus and his disciples drank at the Last Supper. In Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzifal the Grail is more like a platter on which holy food is constantly replenished. In recent legend the Grail - traditionally the Sangraal in French - has been identified as the Sang Real, the royal blood of lineal descent from Jesus and his supposed wife Mary Magdalene which is meant to have flowed through the Merovingian monarchy of France and onwards through various dynastic figures to modern times.

What appears credible is that the Knights Templar, who excavated the vaults under the Temple of Jerusalem when they had custody of the site during the brief reign of the Crusader Kingdom in the Holy Land, found something which they believed to be the Holy Grail, hence their self-identification as the Knights of the Grail. There would have been plenty to find - we know from other documentary sources that many of the treasures of the Temple were hidden deep in its vaults in 69AD when the Romans besieged Jerusalem to suppress a Jewish revolt. In 70AD the city fell to the Romans and was utterly destroyed and its inhabitants slaughtered. The Temple was never rebuilt - the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque cover the site leaving only the Western Wall as a site of Jewish worship.

The theory which appears most credible to the author is that:

The Knights Templar found diverse treasures in the vaults of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Some of these would have been written treasures - the Temple 's records and the writings used for worship in the first century AD, a time when Judaism and Jewish Christianity were not yet separated. Some of the treasures would have been the precious ritual objects which the priesthood wanted to protect from theft and desecration, and also the substantial wealth in precious metals of the Temple . Among these treasures the Knights Templar may well have found a chalice which they identified with the cup of the Last Supper.

When the Templars were accused of heresy and dissolved by the Pope in 1307 (their leaders being subject to imprisonment, torture and death) there was enough substance to the charges to make them stick. While I believe the Templars were sincere in their discipleship, I also believe they absorbed beliefs and practices from the writings they recovered from the Temple Mount , which were at odds with a Catholic church which had grown far away from its Jewish roots.

When the Templar order was dissolved, some Knights Templar escaped from the persecution. The Templar fleet was tipped off and set sail from La Rochelle before it could be arrested, and allegedly some of the fleet, trusting to God's mercy, sailed across the Atlantic until they made landfall at a site in Massacuhsetts which is marked with the carved grave slab of a Templar knight. The Templar colony in America did not survive, but other Knights Templar were more fortunate. In particular, some sought refuge in Scotland because the Pope had no authority there since he had excommunicated King Robert the Bruce for murdering rival Scottish nobleman John Comyn at the altar of a church. The Templar Knights in Scotland were pivotal in the Scots victory at Bannockburn in 1314 and were rewarded with land and titles by the Bruce.

The Templar refugees brought with them the treasures from the Temple Mount , which were entrusted to the StClair family as the senior Templar family of Scotland . These treasures were in chests which were initially safeguarded at Rosslyn Castle until threatened by fire, after which the Chapel was specifically built as the reliquary for the treasures. They constitute the 'Holy Grail' to the extent that the Templars believed them to be so, and to the extent that, similarly to the Dead Sea Scrolls, the documents shed light on the religious beliefs of Israel in the time of Jesus and his immediate followers.

Whatever treasures were hidden in the vault of Rosslyn Chapel may well have disappeared by now, during the period when the vault was accessible.

Rosslyn Chapel is the crucible of Freemasonry.

This theory is thoroughly documented in The Hiram Key and elsewhere and seems irrefutable. Modern Masonic lodges, like Rosslyn, are built in conscious imitation of the Temple of Solomon , and much Masonic practice revolves around the legends of the construction of the Temple and - allegedly - the perpetuation of the heterodox beliefs of the Templars. The basic theory is that once the Pope's authority was restored in Scotland (after his acceptance of the Declaration of Arbroath asserting Scotland's independence and, incidentally, the Scots' descent from the Chosen People) the Templars had to conceal the perpetuation of their activities by creating a new and secret order of 'Master Masons', at the centre of whose cult was the construction and ritual use of the chapel built to house the Templar treasures. As well as the pillars Boaz and Jachin the Chapel includes a sculpture of a man with a gashed forehead, identified as the architect of the Temple of Solomon who would die rather than betray its secrets (Hiram-Abif in Masonic ritual, Hiram or Huram in the biblical First Book of Kings).

Other more fantastical legends are also associated with Rosslyn Chapel, but this site restricts itself to the legends which appear most substantiated by evidence. For further reading, see the resources page on this website.

Pictures courtesy of P.S. de Roeck. Lodge Hotel Edinburgh http://www.thelodgehotel.co.uk

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Published by PublishAmerica
ISBN: 1-4137-3654-8
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