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Saunière.jpg
Francois-Bérenger Saunière (April 11, 1852-January 22, 1917) was priest in the church of the French village of Rennes-le-Château, in the Aude département, from 1885 to 1909. He would be unknown today if not for the fact that he is a central figure in many of the conspiracy theories surrounding Rennes-le-Château. These speculations form the basis of the 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, although few, if any, historians subscribe to them. Later, elements of these theories were used by Dan Brown in his best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code.
The controversy around Saunière centers around two topics: documents he is alleged to have found hidden in his church and his alleged wealth. Supporters of the various conspiracy theories of Rennes-le-Château believe that Saunière found ancient documents relating to a great historical secret while the parish church was being renovated. These theories allege that, through his possession of these documents, Saunière was somehow able to obtain much more wealth than would be expected of a parish priest. What is known is that he was accused of trafficking in masses and resigned his position at Rennes-le-Château. However, there is little evidence that he was particularly wealthy and little historical evidence to back up the extravagant claims.
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History
Saunière's real story seems likely to be one of petty church scandal and political intrigue. Monsignor Billard, the Bishop of Carcassonne up to 1902, amassed over one million Francs and was considerably more wealthy than Saunière. Like Saunière, he died while being suspended from his priestly duties and accused of trafficking in masses and involved in financial irregularities. In 1898, Mgr Billard put Sauniere's name forward for promotion which was rejected by the Prefet de l'Aude who described Saunière as being a "Militant Reactionary" (Mgr Billard was an active anti-Republican, and Saunière's activities at Rennes-le-Château coincided with the height of the conflict between Church and State in France between 1885-1905, when the separation between Church and State occurred).
The French Republic, since the French Revolution and the Concordat of 1802, had the power to divest priests of their duties and order Bishops what to do. The Minister of Religion Rene Goblet ordered Mgr Billard to suspend Sauniere of his priestly duties during 1885 when Sauniere preached against the Republic during the elections of that year.
Myths
Following Saunière's death in 1917 a mystique developed about the priest's source of wealth. Speculation ranged from trafficking in gold ingots with Spain to finding a treasure and spying for Germany (it became rumoured that he had a cannon in his "Tour Magdala"). There was also a theory that he was paid vast sums of money by the Catholic Church to buy his silence on a secret that would have seriously undermined the church's power: the most extraordinary claim being that he had discovered the grave in which Christ, who had survived crucifixion, was buried. Using this money he built elaborate structures such as a personal library called the 'Tour Magdala' which resembles the Tower of David in Jerusalem, called the 'Migdal David'.
When, in 1946, Noel Corbu purchased the estate that Saunière had constructed from his housekeeper, Marie Denarnaud, Corbu began stating as fact the rumours of the priest's treasure discovery. He apparently wanted to attract customers to the restaurant that he opened there at Easter, 1955. The story did not take off until January 1956 when a series of articles in the local newspaper publicised Corbu's allegations about Bérenger Saunière.
Corbu was later to meet a certain Pierre Plantard, who became considerably attracted to the now developing myths surrounding Bérenger Saunière -- and Plantard was to add his own myths with the intention of promoting his phantom association, the Priory of Sion. Pierre Plantard began writing a manuscript and produced "parchments" (created by his friend, Philippe de Cherisey) that Saunière had supposedly discovered whilst renovating his church. These forged documents purportedly showed the survival of the Merovingian line of Frankish kings -- Plantard himself claimed to be descended from Dagobert II. Plantard manipulated Saunière's activities at Rennes-le-Château in order to "prove" his phony claims relating to his imaginary Priory of Sion that he was developing between 1961-1985 (not to be confused with the 1956 Priory of Sion, a different story entirely).
Books
Plantard's manuscript was re-written in 1967 by Gerard de Sede and became published under the title of L'Or de Rennes — this was when the Rennes-le-Chateau myths really took off on a massive scale in France.
In England, Henry Lincoln uncritically accepted the myths surrounding Bérenger Saunière and Rennes-le-Château. He became involved in making three documentaries about the matter between 1970-1979. In 1982, Lincoln, with Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, published the worldwide bestseller Holy Blood, Holy Grail that not only repeated the myths about Bérenger Saunière (debunked in France in 1974 by Rene Descadeillas) — but also alleged that Pierre Plantard was possibly descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene (something that Plantard always distanced himself from; the Priory Documents never made any reference to the New Testament).
The broad substance of what was contained in Holy Blood, Holy Grail has recently re-surfaced in the form of an esoteric thriller by Dan Brown entitled The Da Vinci Code — currently described as being the bestselling work of fiction of all time.
Brown's faith in the existence of the Priory of Sion is based upon ignorance (he describes the association as being "real" in the preface to his book, like the Opus Dei). Plantard's activities have been thoroughly discredited and the Priory of Sion itself has been dead in France since the mid-1980s.
The success of books like Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code may be due to people's wishes to believe that there is something more to the world than mundane existence. However, at least in this case, the mundane seems to be much more probable.
Along with the extraordinary popularity of The Da Vinci Code have come large numbers of visitors to see sites associated with Saunière and Rennes-le-Château, including some who are apparently hunting for treasure. In September 2004, the mayor of Rennes-le-Château exhumed Saunière's corpse from the church graveyard and reburied it in a concrete sarcophagus to protect it from grave-robbers. [1] (http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=aIYDKB6k2TBs&refer=europe)
German novels about the Grail and Rennes-le-Chateau
"Die Ketzerin vom Montségur" (The Heretic of Montsegur) and "Die Erbin des Grals" (The Grail's Heiress) by Helene Luise Köppel relate the Rennes-le-Château myth. The first tells the tale the Cathars and the discovery of the Grail in Rennes-le-Château. The sequel tells the fictional tale of Bérenger Saunière's housekeeper and lover, Marie Dénarnaud, who knows the secret of the treasure he found in Rennes-le-Chateau.
External links
- Priory-of-Sion.com (http://www.priory-of-sion.com) Paul Smith's extensive and up-to-date account of the Priory of Sion, providing documentation about Pierre Plantard and his activities that have not yet been published in France.fr:Bérenger Saunière