Origins of the Parchments

This page provides a simple summary of the origins of the parchments and serves as a launching off point for a more detailed study later on.   Additional information about their history can be found in the documents relating to Marie de Negri D'Ables, Marquise d'Hautpoul de Blanchefort.   You can view this information by clicking the  "Blanchefort" button below.  If you have not read the Introduction, it probably would be a good idea to do so since it too contains a good deal of information as to how the parchments came to be found together with some intriguing information on the possible origins of the treasure itself.

The Parchments

So the legend goes, Bérenger Saunière discovered 3 tightly sealed wooden tubes under the altar of his church and with their discovery began one of the most incredible adventures and mysteries of modern times. Unfortunately for us today we have no way of knowing exactly what was contained in all those tubes. We do know of the existence of two Parchments which will be examined in great detail over the next few pages. There is also a peculiar piece of hand written text found amongst Saunière's private papers just after he died. 

Although we cannot be entirely sure just how many documents Saunière found within the sealed tubes we are led to believe that he had at least four manuscripts. This information is provided by Gerard de Sède in his various books although he does not elaborate as to the source of this information.  If the stories are true one must suppose that 3 wooden tubes is a large number of containers for just 4 documents, so we must assume that they contained a great many more. Unfortunately no information of any description has passed down to us from this time and we are left to guess at what those other documents may have contained. We can however speculate on their content. The manuscripts in our possession today are commonly regarded to be the work of the Abbé Antoine Bigou who was the serving priest at Rennes-le-Château around the late 18th Century. He was also the Chaplain to Marie de Negri D'Ables, Marquise d'Hautpoul de Blanchefort. Just prior to her death in 1781 she came into possession of a set of documents which had originally been entrusted to a notary by Francois-Pierre d’Hautpoul who died in 1644. Through a tortuous route the documents seem to have passed from notary to notary until eventually they arrived at the notary acting for the Hautpouls of the day. These documents were almost certainly papers relating to family affairs, finances, possibly confidential notes and formal documents concerning the family lineage, maybe even highly personal papers relating to business transactions or even illegal activities. They could also have contained information regarding some secret sect that the Hautpouls may have been involved in. Finally they could also have contained information about a treasure or perhaps some form of cache representing the Hautpoul family fortune. They did once own a gold mine and these documents may have held information about this and perhaps other productive mines. Her Husband, Pierre d'Hautpoul had tried robustly and in vain to obtain the documents from the notary but remarkably it seems that the notary had preferred to give them to Marie rather than to her husband, Pierre.  Could it be that whatever was contained in the documents was more relevant to her than to him? Or perhaps the notary simply did not like Pierre d'Hautpoul and this was his way of getting his own back. The possibility also arises that while Pierre d'Hautpoul may have simply protested and made loud and threatening noises to recover the papers, Marie may have used more cunning and perhaps paid him a substantial sum thus ensuring that she got the documents. What is for certain is that both Marie and Pierre were anxious if not desperate to get their hands on these documents and when finally Marie did obtain them she never told her husband about them. Instead it seems fairly likely that she eventually passed them on to Antoine Bigou just prior to her death, who sealed them up in stout wooden tubes sealed with wax under the altar of the little church at Rennes-le-Château. This certainly speaks volumes about the sort of relationship the Hautpouls must have had and also the highly trusted position of Antoine Bigou.

The Parchments - Genuine or Hoax

Although numerous authors have described the parchments in detail and a myriad of researchers have tried to unlock their secrets, the fact remains that prior to about 1967 when Gérard de Sède first brings them to our attention, not much is really known about their history. That is to say in terms of hard, concrete facts. As a result numerous commentators have postulated that these documents are in fact nothing more than a hoax. Cleverly constructed treasure maps to beguile the unsuspecting and designed to dupe the whole world. Even today many researchers of the mystery of Rennes-le-Château still fervently believe that these documents are not genuine. Amongst the many characters to be found in this mystery are Philippe de Cherissey and Pierre Plantard. Together they put together a manuscript delving into the mysteries of Rennes-le-Château but their initial foray into the world of publishing did not go as well as they had hoped and so they enlisted the help of the author  Gérard de Sède to re-write and subsequently publish their work. This he did and a book was duly published under the title of "L'or de Rennes". It was an instant success. Unfortunately an ugly disagreement over royalties brought about a fracture of the relationship. It was sometime later when De Cherissey let it be known that it was he who had written the parchments and that these documents were in fact a complete fabrication. He even prepared a 44 page manuscript entitled "Stone and Paper" detailing the process by which the parchments were created, how the codes were formed and how they could be deciphered. Could it be that these parchments are indeed nothing more than a clever fraud? It is always possible I suppose. But it must be borne in mind that De Cherissey and Plantard who must have felt very aggrieved over their financial disagreement with M. De Sède might well have sought to discredit him by saying that the parchments were not genuine. At the same time if they could produce a book themselves showing how the parchments had been made, this might well lead to some considerable revenue should it be published. This unfortunately did not transpire. In the years that followed, their manuscript which allegedly revealed the methods by which the parchments were created, was examined carefully by numerous scholars and showed clearly that the authors actually had a very poor grasp of the coding that formed the basis of both parchments. The inescapable conclusion was that the two men probably did not create the parchments.

For my part I am inclined to give the manuscripts some credence and these are my reasons for doing so:-

Normally a hoaxer or a practical joker will not go to such  extreme lengths to fool the public. Even the author of a book concerning  Rennes-le-Château with hopes to boost sales by creating a few well crafted manuscripts would need to conduct an enormous amount of research, before even being able to put quill to parchment. Both parchment 1 and parchment 2 contain some highly elaborate codes in addition to a profusion of hidden messages, signs and allusions, many of which I hasten to add, have resisted all attempts at decipherment even to this day. Anyone who has looked into the subject of cryptanalysis will know that it is absolutely vast requiring considerable perseverance to even begin to understand the simplest codes. It also requires a particular type of mind to be able to understand clearly all its aspects. That is why an amateur code maker would quickly reveal himself to an expert. Most hoaxers restrict their material to a fairly simplified structure. They are after all only interested in a quick, usually humorous conclusion. Don't forget also that anyone creating such forgeries would know well in advance that experts at the top of their profession would be scrutinizing these documents at some point in time. Anything other than top notch work would be spotted instantly.

Now, if one decides to speak in terms of a forger such as the type of person who would create a work of art like a "Monet" or a "Van Gogh" with the intentions of selling such documents for a big profit, then possibly this may apply here from the point of view of a precise and meticulous reproduction.  However while an art forger stands to gain perhaps millions by selling his finished painting on the open market, it is hard to imagine how our manuscript forger would have managed to gain enough to justify the considerable effort required to create such elaborate pieces. Particularly if he had to devise the codes as well. What would be his goal? What would be his reward? Equally no one in his right mind would sit down and devise such a wealth of obscure messages simply for his own satisfaction or pleasure, and if such a person did do so, would he make two such parchments? and if he did happen to make 2 parchments why then not create the remaining two or perhaps all the parchments allegedly discovered under the altar of the church? Bear in mind that the large decoded message found in Parchment 2, "Bergere pas de tentation..." required the use of a message derived from the Blanchefort headstone in order to decipher it. The text of the headstone has not been in existence since about 1893 when Saunière tried to deface it. The only other source of the inscription was to be found in the last surviving copy of "Pierres Gravées du Languedoc" by Eugène Stublein which resided in the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris although there is also a large question mark hanging over this. (Please refer to the page dealing with Stublein for more on this).  The forger would have needed to know of the existence of this solitary volume or alternately the text of the Blanchefort headstone via some other means. Having said this much, the physical act of creating these parchments in itself represents an almost Herculean task.

Finally, I can offer some tentative proof of their authenticity although as you will see later this is a classic example of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Within the church of Rennes-le-Château appears a bas-relief at the foot of the altar. When it was commissioned, Saunière instructed the craftsmen to add the inscription:-

JESU VULNERUM MEDELA, PAENITENTIUM UNA SPES MAGDALENAE LACRYMAS PECCATA NOSTRA DILUAS.

Although it is not quite the same text as at the foot of the large manuscript it is certainly close enough. The altar was constructed around the period 1891 and in my opinion shows conclusively that Saunière had sight of this parchment at that time. Having said that the reverse argument is that Saunière added this inscription either out of his own head or from sources unconnected with any manuscripts and that subsequently the forgers latched on to it and used in their parchment as an added element of authenticity. In effect people would jump to the same conclusion as we did a moment ago.

For the moment then, we have two documents representing highly complex pieces of information. Despite the best efforts of a wide range of experts, only a small part of their content has been unravelled and this in itself seems to lend weight to the fact that whoever devised them went to superhuman lengths to conceal a multitude of messages and was also a person of some not inconsiderable intelligence.