My love of edu-TV melodrama meant I had to watch Museums Secrets the other night.
The show was on the Vatican Museum (cool in its own right and on my top list museums and libraries I need to see). I knew a lot of the stuff they talked about, except for their closing vignette about a recently rediscovered document apparently acquitting the Knights Templar from heresy charges.
From Reuters:
The parchment, also known as the Chinon Chart, was “misplaced” in the Vatican archives until 2001, when Frale stumbled across it.
“The parchment was catalogued incorrectly at some point in history. At first I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was incredulous,” she said.
A CBC report places the shady entry in 1628, 320 years after the original trial.
Conspiracy? Maybe…
Back in 1312, King Phillip IV of France, who wanted to bring the Templars down, forced Pope Clement V to suppress the Chinon Chart. Shell game cataloguing may have been used to protect the trial records as much as conceal them from public exposure. Political and religious intrigued across history… amazing. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail team are probably pretty happy about this.
Or maybe they’re not… As Napoleon says, never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. Maybe this is all a case of a renaissance librarian asleep at the wheel.
Nice site, nice and easy on the eyes and great content too.