The Priory of Sion

  During the Middle Ages the Christians of Europe used to go to the Holy Land for the purpose of visiting the tomb of Christ and other sacred places. 

 Those who made such a journey were called "pilgrims." Every year thousands of pilgrims, kings, nobles and people of humbler rank, went to the Holy Land.

 While Jerusalem was in the hands of the Arabian caliphs, who reigned at Baghdad, the Christian pilgrims were generally well treated. After about 1070, when the Turks took possession of the city, outrages became so frequent that it seemed as if it would not be safe for Christians to visit the Savior's tomb at all.

 About the year 1095 there lived at Amiens France, a monk named Peter the Hermit. Peter was present at a council of clergy that was held at Clermont in France. When his Holiness, Pope Urban II, made a stirring speech. 

 He begged the people to rescue the Holy Sepulchre and other sacred sites from the Mohammedans. The council was so roused by his words that they broke forth into loud cries, "God wills it! God wills it!" "It is, indeed, His will," said the Pope, "and let these words be your war-cry when you meet the enemy." 

 Peter listened with deep attention. Immediately after the council he began to preach in favor of a war against the Turks. With head and feet bare, and clothed in a long, coarse robe, tied at the waist with a rope, he went through Italy from city to city, riding on a donkey.

 He preached in churches, on the streets, wherever he could secure an audience. When Peter left Italy he crossed the Alps and preached to the people of France, Germany, and neighboring countries. Everywhere he kindled the zeal of the people, and multitudes enlisted as champions of the cross.

 In 1070, 29 years before the First Crusade, a group of monks from Calabria in southern Italy arrived in the vicinity of the Ardennes Forest, part of Godfroi de Bouillon's domains. They were led by Prince Ursus.  Upon their arrival in the Ardennes, the Calabrian monks obtained the patronage of Godfroi's aunt and, in effect, foster mother.

They received a tract of land at Orval, not far from where Dagobert II had been assassinated some five hundred years earlier.  They established an abbey there, but by 1108 had mysteriously disappeared, leaving no record of their whereabouts.  Tradition says they returned to Calabria.           

 Before their departure from Orval, however, the Calabrian monks may have left a crucial mark on Western history. Peter the Hermit was a member of the Calabrian monks.

  In 1095, along with Pope Urban II, Peter made himself known throughout Christendom by charismatically preaching the need for a crusade, a holy war (jihad). They were to reclaim Christ's sepulchre and the Holy Land from the hands of the Muslim "infidels".  Today, Peter the Hermit, Godfroi's personal tutor, is regarded as one of the chief instigators of the Crusades.          

 Godfroi was unusual among the Crusaders. Upon preparing to leave for the Holy Land, he was the only European commander (there were four distinct armies, each commanded by an illustrious and influential Western potentate) to renounce his fiefs, sell all his goods, and make it apparent that the Holy Land, for the remainder of his life, would be his domain. 

 This is even more surprising, when one realizes that if the crusade proved successful, any one of the four potentates would have been eligible to occupy the throne of Jerusalem.  Godfroi seems to have known beforehand that he would be selected. 

 In 1099, immediately after the capture of Jerusalem, a group of anonymous figures convened in a secret conclave, in order to elect a King of Jerusalem. Despite a persuasive claim by Raymond, count of Toulouse, the mysterious and obviously influential electors promptly offered the throne to Godfroi de Bouillon. 

 With uncharacteristic modesty Godfroi declined the title of King, accepting instead the title of Defender of the Holy Sepulchre, king in everything but name.           

 To the south of Jerusalem stands a high hill known as Mount Sion .  When Jerusalem fell to Godfroi's crusaders in 1099, the hill hosted the ruins of an old Byzantine basilica, which allegedly dated from the fourth century and which was called the Mother of all Churches (no kidding!).  

 At the express command of Godfroi, an abbey was built on the site of these ruins.  This abbey, called the Abbey of Notre Dame du Mont de Sion, was extremely well fortified, with its own walls, towers, and battlements.  It is believed that the knights and monks who occupied this abbey were formed into an official and duly constituted "order", specifically, the Ordre de Sion.          

 The elusive Calabrian monks from Orval were apparently in the Holy Land at the time, along with Peter the Hermit, who may have enjoyed considerable power. 

 In fact, there is a theory to support the idea that the Calabrian monks of Orval were, in fact the mysterious conclave which elected Godfroi ruler, and that furthermore, they were the occupants of Notre Dame de Sion.

 This possibility cannot be proved with the currently available evidence, but if it is true, it would attest to the Ordre de Sion's power - a power that included the right to confer thrones.