Catholic dissent over mystery of the pregnant Madonnas (DaVinci Code)

Catholic dissent over mystery of the pregnant Madonnas
Italian author claims paintings are linked to suppression of Knights Templar

John Hooper in Rome
Saturday July 23, 2005
The Guardian

An Italian author has stirred controversy within the Roman Catholic church with a new theory linking one of the most intriguing traditions in western art to the suppression of the enigmatic Knights Templar.

A string of artists working from the middle of the 14th century near Florence painted the Virgin Mary as they imagined her to have been while she was pregnant. The best-known of these swelling Madonnas is by the great 15th century Tuscan artist Piero della Francesca. It shows an apparently dejected mother-to-be with one hand resting on the burgeoning front of her maternity gown.

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Pope Clement V ordered its dissolution after a campaign to discredit the order which saw bogus confessions extracted by the use of often ferocious torture. Two years after the pope issued his decree, the last grand master of the Knights Templar was burned at the stake on an island in the Seine in front of Nôtre Dame cathedral.

Controversy still rages over what secret knowledge, if any, the surviving Templars and their lay associates preserved. The question surfaced most recently in Dan Brown's best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code, where it is held to be evidence that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had children whose descendants have survived to the present.

If that theory is to be believed, then Mr Manetti's interpretation raises the issue of which Mary is being depicted by the creators of the pregnant Madonnas. Mr Manetti, a practising Catholic, dismisses The Da Vinci Code as "based on a complete misunderstanding" of early Christian writings.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1534682,00.html

the Templars had invented the first banking system where you could retrieve money even in foreign countries.

On October 13 (the unlucky Friday the 13th), 1307, what may have been all the Knights Templar in France were simultaneously arrested by agents of Philip the Fair (Philippe le Bel), to later be tortured into admitting heresy in the Order. (Some believe this act to be the origin of superstition regarding Friday the 13th.) The dominant view is that Philip, who seized the treasury and broke up the monastic banking system, was jealous of the Templars' wealth and power, and sought to control it for himself. These events, and the Templars' original banking of assets for suddenly mobile depositors, were two of many shifts towards a system of military fiat to back European money, removing this power from Church orders. Seeing the fate of the Templars, the Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem and of Rhodes and of Malta were also convinced to give up banking at this time. Much of the Templar property outside of France was transferred by the Pope to the Knights Hospitaller, and many surviving Templars were also accepted into the Hospitallers.

Many kings and nobles supported the Knights at that time, and only dissolved the order in their fiefs when so commanded by Pope Clement V. Robert the Bruce, the King of Scots, had already been excommunicated for other reasons, and was therefore not disposed to pay heed to Papal commands. In Portugal the order's name was changed to the Order of Christ, and was believed to have contributed to the first naval discoveries of the Portuguese. Prince Henry the Navigator led the Portuguese order for 20 years until the time of his death. In Spain, where the king was also against giving the heritage of the Templars to Hospitallers (as commanded by Clement V), the Order of Montesa took Templar assets.

The manuscript illustration (c. 1350) alludes to the accusation of sodomy against the templars. Debate continues as to whether the accusation of religious heresy had merit by the standards of the time. Under torture, some Templars admitted to homosexual acts, and to the worship of heads and a mystery known as Baphomet. Their leaders later denied these admissions, and for that were executed. Some scholars discount these as forced admissions, typical during the Inquisition. Others argue that these accusations were in reality due to a misunderstanding of arcane rituals held behind closed doors which had their origins in the Crusaders' bitter struggle against the Saracens. These included denying Christ and spitting on the Cross three times, as well as kissing other men's behinds.

(wikipedia)