Bauer - The Priory of Sion: Hoax, Conspiracy, or Secret Society?

One of the most important parts of this story is a battle. On one side is an American, pressed into defending himself. On the other side, three Englishmen stand convinced that they have been robbed and their ideas made to seem ridiculous. It is as though their honor has been sullied. They demand satisfaction. Each side is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to face off against the other and it will not be settled until one side emerges victorious. But rather than some medieval fist fight or Victorian duel, this is a very recent battle. Though the history of the Priory of Sion is said to stretch back for thousands of years, this fight was fought after the turn of the second millennium. The venue is the Royal Courts of Justice in a part of London known as the Strand. The date is 2006.

This is where we will start. These days, it is impossible to discuss the Priory of Sion without mentioning a number of books. These books vary in popularity, from an international bestseller which made its author millions, through to a supposedly academic work which defied expectations and left a print on the world, and finally, an obscure French text, one which many people have credited with starting this entire affair. Appropriately enough for a story that may or may not be true, the publishing of books is inextricably linked to the Priory in every single respect. As we shall see, the writing, the reading, and the impact of these texts is essential to the story.

Of these books, two were written by the men who stood opposed to one another in the Strand. On one side was Dan Brown, writer of The Da Vinci Code , and the man often credited with turning the Priory of Sion into a global concern. Condemned by the Church, ridiculed by critics, his work has nevertheless proved to be a success beyond any comprehension. For the university professor, it has become a rich industry. As someone who teaches other to write, there are few people in the world better placed to tell others how to make money from a story. But how that story came to be is the entire predicament of the court case.

On the other side of the courtroom stand two men and their team of lawyers. Richard Leigh, hailing from New Jersey, and Michael Baigent, hailing from New Zealand. They glower at Dan Brown (who, strangely enough, hails from New Hampshire) from the other side of Court 61. Dan Brown is the defendant and the other two men have accused him of plagiarism. Brown, they say, not only stole their ideas, but presented them to the world in a way which discredited the work they had done. Baigent and Leigh are better known to the world as the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail . As well as being one of the most popular pieces of writing ever created on the subject of the Holy Grail, their book brings the idea of the Priory of Sion to an English-speaking audience. As we will discover soon, their work was wildly successful and few writers have come as close to delivering as ground-breaking, as controversial, and as profitable a take on religion in the last three centuries.

And so both sides of the courtroom are inhabited by writers. On this day, a verdict is to be reached which will lend credence to (or demolish the credibility of) an idea which is said to date back almost 2,000 years. At the heart of the matter, with the judge set to rule, is the purported existence of the Priory of Sion. Through the works of both sides of the argument, the Priorys name has reached more ears than anyone ever thought possible. While Brown has managed to dominate the bestseller charts in the world of fiction, Baigent and Leigh (as well as a third author who is not present, but who will be touched upon soon) created massive waves in the world of non-fiction. Between them, they have dominated both sides of the bestseller charts.

That is one of the key underlying aspects of the case and, by extension, the existence of the Priory of Sion itself. There is a huge amount of money to be made in publishing these ideas. Whether that is because they are dangerous, because they are revelatory, or because they are entertaining, is never really made clear. But, simply because the case ever came to court, there is money to be made through publishing works on the Priory of Sion. And, with court cases such as these, there is also a huge amount of money to be lost.

So what exactly were the duo of Baigent and Leigh claiming in Courtroom 61? Their case was not as simple as run-of-the-mill plagiarism. Typically, in plagiarism cases, the prosecution must prove that the defendant took their idea and made a profit on it, without attributing credit or sharing in the revenue. This has been done countless times in the past and, in the world of publishing (and the media at large) it is not uncommon. But this particular case was slightly different.