Product Description

A vast number of people have become enthralled with the story of the nineteenth-century French priest who, in his mountain village at the foot of the Pyrenees, discovered something which enabled him to amass and spend a fortune of millions of pounds. The tale seems to begin with buried treasure and then turns into an unprecedented historical detective story - a modern Grail quest leading back through cryptically coded parchments, secret societies, the Knights Templar, the Cathar heretics of the 12th and 13th centuries and a dynasty of obscure French kings deposed more than 1,300 years ago. Now, after more than ten years of research, Henry Lincoln and his co-authors, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, publish the results of their inquiry into this taunting enigma. What really lies at the core of this discovery of Rennes-le-Chateau is not material riches, but a secret - a secret of explosive and controversial proportions, which radiates out from the little Pyrenees village to encompass the whole of Western civilisation. The secret is no mere historical curiosity. Its repercussions stretch all the way to the contemporary politics and the entire edice of the Christian faith. It involves nothing less than the Holy Grail - not as a mystical chalice of medieval legend but as something more tangible which has played a vital role in the shaping of Western history. The enigma extends to our own day, implicating such men as de Gaulle and Malraux. It also casts an astonishing new light on such events as the Renaissance and the Crusades. Most startlingly it pertains to the origins of Christianity and the very identity of Jesus.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47093 in Books
• Published on: 1996-05-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 614 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln, and Richard Leigh, authors of The Messianic Legacy, spent over 10 years on their own kind of quest for the Holy Grail, into the secretive history of early France. What they found, researched with the tenacity and attention to detail which befits any great quest, is a tangled and intricate story of politics and faith that reads like a mystery novel. It is the story of the Knights Templar, and a behind-the-scenes society called the Prieure de Sion, and its involvement in reinstating descendants of the Merovingian bloodline into political power. Why? The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail assert that their explorations into early history ultimately reveal that Jesus may not have died on the cross, but lived to marry and father children whose bloodline continues today. According to the authors, their point here is not to compromise or to demean Jesus, but to offer another, more complete perspective of Jesus as God's incarnation in man. They claim that the power of this secret, which has, they say, been carefully guarded for hundreds of years, has sparked much controversy. For all the sensationalism and hoopla surrounding The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail and the alternative history which it outlines, the authors are careful to keep their perspective and sense of scepticism alive in its pages, explaining carefully and clearly how they came to draw such combustible conclusions. --Jodie Buller

From the Publisher
"One of the most important and thought-provoking works to appear in recent years." The New Humanity

From the Back Cover
The most shattering secret of the last two thousand years

The first publication of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail in 1982 sparked off a storm of controversy that continues to this day.The enigma: a discovery at Rennes-le-Château that offers little in the way of material wealth, but whose secret rocked the foundations of contemporary politics and the Christian faith.The players: the Knights Templar, the Cathar heretics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and a dynasty of obscure French kings deposed more than 1,300 years ago.The conclusion: as persuasive, controversial and explosive as it was when first published over twenty years ago.The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is not just a classic of its kind, it’s a book that’s impossible to put down.

‘All the ingredients of a classic 19th-Century mystery novel…a book that will be hotly denounced and widely read’ Financial Times

‘Has all the ingredients of an international thriller…incredible’ Newsweek

Simon Prebble has had more than 60 roles in television, plays, serials, and documentarites, including Hamlet, Six Wives of Henry VIII, and Photofinish. He has recorded more than 200 audiobooks in his career.

An abridgement of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail (C) Michael Baigent, Richard leigh & Henry Lincoln 1982,1983

Published by Century in hardback and Arrow in paperback

Produced by Kevin Thomsen

Executive Producer Jacob Bronstein

Abridged by Garet Scott

Jacket/image credits?

(P) Random House Audiobooks 2006