Dossiers Secrets
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Dossiers Secrets d'Henri Lobineau ("Secret Files" in English) are a collection of documents planted in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris in the 1960s. They were then "discovered" in 1975 by the man who had created them, Pierre Plantard, and a tip was given by one of Plantard's associates, author Gerard de Sede, about their existence to science-fiction scriptwriter Henry Lincoln. The documents were used as source material by Lincoln (who was unaware that they were forgeries) for a series of BBC Two documentaries in the 1970s. Then in 1982, Lincoln and two co-authors, Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent, again used them as source material for the bestselling 1982 pseudohistory book Holy Blood Holy Grail, which was in turn used as source material for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code.
The collection includes many pages of alleged genealogies of the Merovingian bloodline and other documents related to a supposed secret society, the Priory of Sion, such as a list of alleged Grand Masters of the Priory, dating back to the 1100s. The list contained names such as Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, and Victor Hugo.
Though the collection seems to contain several medieval documents, it was later proven that they were forgeries, created as part of the Priory of Sion hoax, by Pierre Plantard and Philippe de Cherisey, as an attempt to show Plantard was descended from French royalty. The extensive family trees were created by Plantard, a draughtsman, using an inexpensive stencil set.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- (French Wikipedia) Les Dossiers Secrets d'Henri Lobineau
- Is It Real? Da Vinci's Code, 2006 History Channel video documentary, produced and written by Amy Doyle
