The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (published as Holy Blood, Holy Grail in the United States) is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln.[1]
The book was first published in 1982 by Jonathan Cape in London as an unofficial follow-up to three BBC Two TV documentaries that were part of the Chronicle series. The paperback version was first published in 1983 by Corgi books. A sequel to the book, called The Messianic Legacy,[2] was originally published in 1986. The original work was reissued in an illustrated hardcover version with new material in 2005.[3]
In The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, the authors put forward a hypothesis that the historical Jesus married Mary Magdalene, had one or more children, and that those children or their descendants emigrated to what is now southern France. Once there, they intermarried with the noble families that would eventually become the Merovingian dynasty, whose special claim to the throne of France is championed today by a secret society called the Priory of Sion. They concluded that the legendary Holy Grail is simultaneously the womb of Mary Magdalene and the sacred royal bloodline she gave birth to.[4][5]
An international bestseller upon its release, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail spurred interest in a number of ideas related to its central thesis. Response from professional historians and scholars from related fields was negative. They argued that the bulk of the claims, ancient mysteries, and conspiracy theories presented as facts are pseudohistorical.[6][7][8] Historian Richard Barber called the book "the most notorious of all the Grail pseudo-histories… which proceeds by innuendo, not by refutable scholarly debate."[9]
In a 1982 review of the book for The Observer, novelist and literary critic Anthony Burgess wrote: "It is typical of my unregenerable soul that I can only see this as a marvellous theme for a novel."[10] The theme was later used by Margaret Starbird in her 1993 book The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, and by Dan Brown in his 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code.[11][12]
^Baigent, Michael; Leigh, Richard; Lincoln, Henry (1982). The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-01735-7.
^Baigent, Michael; Leigh, Richard; Lincoln, Henry (1986). The Messianic Legacy. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-02185-0.
^Published by Century, part of The Random House Group Limited. ISBN 1-84413-840-2
^Ed Bradley (presenter); Jeanne Langley (producer) (30 April 2006). The Secret of the Priory of Sion. 60 Minutes. CBS News. Archived from the original on 7 May 2006.
^Rogan, Fiona (2009–2019). "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" (PDF). Rosslyn Chapel. p. 2. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 October 2022. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
^Thompson, Damian (2008). Counterknowledge. How We Surrendered to Conspiracy Theories, Quack Medicine, Bogus Science and Fake History. Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1-84354-675-7.
^Miller, Laura (22 February 2004). "The Last Word; The Da Vinci Con". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 July 2008.
^Kelley, David H.; Anderson, Robert Charles (1982). "Holy Blood, Holy Grail: Two Reviews". The Genealogist. 3 (2): 249–263 – via New England Historic Genealogical Society.
^Cite error: The named reference Barber was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Burgess, Anthony (1986). Homage to QWERT YUIOP. Hutchinson. p. 35. ISBN 0091617103.
^Brown, Dan (2003). The Da Vinci Code. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-50420-9.
^Quoting Dan Brown from NBC Today, 3 June 2003: "Robert Langdon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies, all of that is historical fact" (found in Olson, Carl E.; Miesel, Sandra (2004). The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing The Errors In The Da Vinci Code. Ignatius Press. p. 242. ISBN 1-58617-034-1.)
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