All language subtitles for Truthseekers.S01E02.The.Holy.Grail.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track4_[eng]

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] A team of
truthseekers is on a mission.

Scientists. Historians. Archaeologists.

All on the trail
of history's enigmas.

Searching for the truth

behind the greatest mysteries

known to humanity.

For centuries, kings, sultans,
scholars, and treasure hunters

have been searching
for the Holy Grail,

the cup used by Christ
at the Last Supper.

But does it still exist?

Could it have survived intact

for over 2,000 years?

And if it has, where is it now?

In London, our team assemble.

Our four truthseekers combine

decades of experience
in different fields.

But they all have one goal.

To apply their knowledge,
uncover the sources,

and reveal the truth.

There are mysteries
and then there are mysteries.

I have always loved uncovering
the secrets of the past.

We need to go back and unpick
the untruths from the truths.

Age-old problems that we've
been asking ourselves

for over 100 years, really,
can now be solved.

[narrator] They'll follow
the clues left behind.

Unravel the secrets
of the past.

Separate fact from fiction.

And together,
they'll uncover the truth

behind the greatest
mysteries ever.

[epic music playing]

[narrator]
According to the Bible,

before his crucifixion,

Jesus Christ shared a meal

with his 12 disciples
in Jerusalem.

He gave the 12 apostles
bread and wine,

telling them it was his body
and his blood.

He served them with a cup.

A grail.

For centuries,
scholars and treasure hunters

have been intrigued by
a tantalizing question.

What became of the actual cup

used by Christ at
the Last Supper?

And might it still exist?

[Mark] Whether you're religious,
you're not religious,

it's still a really
fascinating story.

[Karen] The Holy Grail is
of interest to me, above all,

for all of the different ways
people have interpreted it.

But they've had
very different ideas

about what it is
and what it means.

[narrator] The hunt for the
Grail has lasted centuries.

It has led to countless theories
and disputed claims,

of ancient codes
and secret societies,

of divine visions
and occult superstitions.

The team's challenge is to find
the truth among the myth.

I think a lot of people are
fascinated by the Holy Grail,

or at least aware
of its existence.

But the truth, the reality
behind these stories,

is something we really
need to uncover.

The origin of this hunt
isn't in the pages of history

or even the Bible.

This is a mystery created
by literature, by stories.

[narrator] Dr. Fern Riddell
is a cultural historian.

She studies the beliefs
and ideas of the past.

She's been looking into
the earliest roots

of the Grail legend.

To understand it, we need
to go back to the beginning,

to the earliest references
we have to the Holy Grail.

And that's in
the medieval stories

about knights and chivalry,

Camelot and King Arthur.

So, we find the earliest
references to the Holy Grail

in the unfinished poem

"Perceval,"
by Chrétien de Troyes,

which was written
in the 12th century.

This is really when
we start to see Europe

become fascinated with what is
a founding myth of Britain.

[narrator] Chrétien de Troyes
wrote several stories

about the court of King Arthur.

Arthur was a king of legend.

A great warrior
who defended Britain

with his sword, Excalibur,

and ruled alongside
a round table

of noble knights.

Chrétien's last,
unfinished poem

told the story of a young man
named Perceval.

He set off on a quest,
and along the way,

he encounters the Holy Grail.

The story of Perceval
is a story of a young man

who desperately wants
to prove himself as a knight.

So, he's sent off
on this amazing quest.

And whilst he's having
this incredible adventure,

he comes across a castle,
and in front of it is a lake,

or a moat,
with a man in a fishing boat.

This is the person we call

the Fisher King,
or the Grail King.

And he's the guardian
of these incredible artifacts.

[narrator] The Fisher King
invites Perceval

to stay at his castle.

While Perceval is
a guest there,

he is witness to
a very strange procession.

Young men and women
parade through

the chambers of the castle.

Each bears magnificent
and magical objects.

First, a white lance
dripping blood.

Then a golden candelabra.

And then
a beautiful girl enters,

carrying a gleaming dish
studded with gemstones.

Our first glimpse at the Grail.

This is the earliest known
reference to the Grail.

The thing is,
it has nothing explicitly

to do with Jesus Christ.

And it's not a cup at all.

It's really more of a platter,
a food dish.

Chrétien de Troyes doesn't
give us a lot of explanation

of what these things are,
what these artifacts mean,

but it's clearly
incredibly important

and something that holds a lot
of meaning to the stories.

[narrator] Not long after
Chrétien de Troyes,

another French poet
wrote his own tale

of the knights of King Arthur.

So Robert de Boron,
he really changes the story

to make it explicitly Christian,

so it becomes an object
that held the blood of Christ

that was then
passed through people

before arriving in England.

[narrator] In his telling,
the man responsible

for burying Christ,
Joseph of Arimathea,

is given the cup from
the Last Supper

and uses it
to cleanse Christ's body

after the crucifixion.

He then puts the Grail
in Christ's tomb.

After the Resurrection,

Christ appears to Joseph

and gives him the Grail
for safekeeping.

Joseph forms a brotherhood
to guard the holy vessel.

Eventually, they take
it to Britain,

to the castle of
the Fisher King.

That is where
the knights of King Arthur

come on their quest.

[Fern] So what
Robert de Boron does

is he connects the Grail
to the blood of Christ,

and it makes it this
incredibly important object.

Now, these were just two
of a whole host

of Arthurian romances

being written in Europe
at this time.

They're all embroidering it,
adding a detail to the legend.

There's no definitive version.

It's a cultural moment.

He's also writing
for a European audience,

so these stories bond

these different countries and
different cultures together.

[narrator] This was an era
of European crusades,

when armies of soldiers
and knights

traveled across the known world

to fight for Christianity.

The first crusade set the tone
of the wars to come.

After the Siege of Jerusalem
in 1099,

almost the entire Muslim

and Jewish communities
were slaughtered.

Thousands upon thousands.

There were
seven more crusades to come

and more than
five million people

would lose their lives.

Disease was rife.
Battles were brutal.

Atrocities were common.

So this time, the 11th
to the 13th century,

is really the time
of the Crusades.

And it's when Christianity
is trying to wrestle control

of the Holy Land from Jewish
and Islamic culture.

So the purpose
of the Grail stories

is to really kind of combat

the violence
and horrific atrocities

that the crusades are enacting
in the Holy Land.

It's a way of portraying knights
not as marauders

who are raping
and murdering people,

but as these noble,
pure-hearted people

in pursuit of glorious
Christian artifacts.

[narrator] The Grail stories

were written for
the crusading class.

The ruling elite were
being called by God

to bring Christianity
to the Holy Land,

and they were giving
their sons and fortunes

to this religious war.

It's estimated that only

one in three crusaders

ever came back,

sometimes fewer.

[Fern] So that's powerful,
rich, wealthy warrior men.

And it's a way of giving them
a place in the world

and a holy meaning
behind horrific violence.

These are the people
who are going off

to fight in the Crusades,

and they want to believe

more than anything,

that what they are saying
and what they are doing

has a reason, has a purpose.

[narrator] But by the end
of the 13th century,

as crusades and the Middle Ages
came to a close,

the popularity
of the Grail legends faded.

Fashions changed.

Renaissance Europe rediscovered

the Greek and Roman heroes,

and questing knights
seemed simple in comparison.

By the 17th century,

we're getting the story
of Don Quixote,

a satire about an aging
country gentleman

trying to revive
the days of chivalry,

and lots of these old romances
are now becoming a parody.

[narrator] The Grail legends
were written in a time

when Christian Europe was united
under the authority of the Pope.

The Reformation
shattered all that.

Wars of religion
tore the continent apart.

Knights were more murderous
than chivalric,

and the quest
for the Holy Grail

was out of touch and forgotten.

Protestants
weren't keen on relics.

Worshipping false idols
was seen as a Catholic trait

in a religiously
divided continent.

And so stories like the Grail
were perhaps

always going to be
viewed with hostility

in the parts of Europe where
Protestantism took hold.

But the stories
fared little better elsewhere.

The Catholic church was
reasserting traditional faith.

The Grail, while a deeply
religious symbol,

didn't have its roots
in the Gospels

or the early teachings
of the church.

So nowhere in Europe,
is there really the oxygen

for these Grail stories
to survive.

[narrator] For centuries,
the Grail seemed to disappear

from the imagination
of writers and poets.

But time passed
and fashions changed,

and the Grail myth
re-surfaced once again.

[Fern] When we hit
the 19th century,

we get this incredible kind of
revival of interest

in the Arthurian myths
and legends.

And that's because
it's coming out

of the Industrial Revolution.

So people have had
this huge social change,

intense technological advancement,

and they want to connect
to a purer time.

And that time is
the court of King Arthur.

Knights and courtly love.

[narrator] For the first time
in hundreds of years,

new printings were made
of the medieval poems.

In Germany, Richard Wagner
spent 25 years

composing "Parsifal," an opera
based on the Grail story.

In Britain, popular new interpretations

of the old legends
by the likes of

the English Poet
Alfred Tennyson

sold thousands of copies.

This was the time
of the empire.

Britain expanding its influence
around the world.

And this heroic, holy version
of Britain's past,

fitted this self-confident age.

They also have a young queen
on the throne, Queen Victoria.

So to make a world in which

people are in pursuit
of a higher ideal

is something Victorians
find very attractive.

So there is this incredible
moment in the 19th century

where writers, thinkers,

intellectuals,
and ordinary people

are re-obsessed with
not just King Arthur,

but the hunt for the Holy Grail.

[narrator] The revival
of the Grail legends

was a reaction by some against

the technological advances
of the Victorian era.

But those same
scientific instincts

were then applied to
the legends themselves.

People started looking for
what lay behind these stories.

They started looking
for the Holy Grail

outside the pages of a book.

The cup used by Jesus Christ
at the Last Supper.

In tales told
in the Middle Ages,

it was hunted by King Arthur

and his knights
of the Round Table.

But what is the truth
behind the Grail?

Could it really exist?
And, if it does,

where might modern-day
Grail hunters find it?

Our team of historians
and scientists

is examining the evidence.

After that long period where
they were almost forgotten,

the Grail stories
were rediscovered

in the 19th century,

and that coincided
with the development

of new sciences.

The 19th century
saw an explosion

in scientific understanding
across fields,

and this included the study
of the ancient past.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Dr. Karen Bellinger
is an anthropologist.

She's been on the trail of
the 19th-century Grail hunters.

[Karen] Archaeology emerged
as a scientific field

which sought to understand

the people who had produced
these objects in the past.

To put a bunch of objects
into context

that could tell us a whole story
about our human past.

[narrator] Earlier scholars
had been known as antiquarians.

They were essentially collectors
of individual objects.

But these new scientists, archaeologists,

were not just interested in
the beautiful or the valuable.

They knew that
even a shard of broken pottery

could hold a vital clue.

[Karen] In a nutshell,
the difference between

antiquarianism and archaeology

is that antiquarians
are concerned

with individual objects,

whereas archaeologists
want to know

how all the objects
in a site connect.

[narrator] The new science of
archaeology was developing fast,

and making some
extraordinary discoveries.

What it revealed were not only

the physical remains
of the ancient past,

but the hidden truth behind
some of the greatest stories

in history.

In the middle
of the 19th century,

a British archaeologist
named Frank Calvert

believed he had
identified the site

of the ancient city of Troy
in Western Turkey.

Famous from the
legendary poems of Homer,

Troy had long been thought
a place

that existed only in myth.

But Calvert was certain
that it was real

and that he knew where it was.

He shared his discovery
with a wealthy German

named Heinrich Schliemann.

Schliemann, an entrepreneur

and committed
amateur archaeologist,

financed vast excavations
at the site.

What he found
stunned the world.

[Karen] Heinrich Schliemann
made a spectacular discovery

at the site of Troy.

And that was a huge cache

of silver and gold vessels

and jewels

that he termed Priam's treasure.

This was, people thought,

tangible proof of myth
as reality,

here in the ground,

evidence for what had
only been known

from Homer's epic poem,
"The Iliad."

[narrator]
As the world marveled at

Schliemann's
discoveries at Troy,

there were those who thought
that if a story

from the 8th century BC
could be true,

then why not others?

What about the cup used by
Christ at the Last Supper?

Why not look for the Holy Grail?

In 1906, a young Englishman

named Wellesley Tudor Pole
had a vision.

He dreamt he was a monk at the
ancient abbey in Glastonbury.

It was the beginning
of a lifelong obsession

with the Holy Grail.

[Karen] Glastonbury is located
in the southwest of England,

and it's got a deep association
with Arthurian legend.

A group of monks claimed
in the 12th century

that they had suddenly
found the graves

of King Arthur
and Queen Guinevere

in their cemetery
of an abbey

which had just recently
burned down.

[narrator] The Mediaeval legends
told that Joseph of Arimathea

brought the Grail to England
from the Holy Land.

Coming to Glastonbury,
Joseph buried the sacred cup

beneath a large hill there,

and went on
to found the monastery.

In the early 1900s,

Wellesley Tudor Pole went
looking for that cup.

Wellesley Tudor Pole is an
interesting character, for sure.

He was a grain trader,

but he was always
very interested in spiritualism

and the supernatural.

When Pole was about
18 years old,

he fell ill and he experienced
visions of Glastonbury,

and of the Holy Grail.

Pole's sister and some friends

went to Glastonbury
to investigate,

and what they found there
was astonishing.

In a spring that ran red
at the surface,

they found a glass bowl.

[narrator] It was made
of blue glass,

trimmed in green,
and covered in tiny crosses.

To Pole, it looked ancient.

It looked like the Holy Grail.

On July 20th, 1907,
Pole presented it to the press.

This discovery
was sensational news.

And even the likes of Mark Twain
went to look at this bowl

and declared it one of the most
singular experiences

of his life.

[narrator] But the Glastonbury
Grail was soon discovered

to be a flight of fancy,

a story that Mark Twain
would have been proud

to have authored himself.

It turns out,
Pole wasn't the only one

having visions
of the Grail at Glastonbury.

As it happens,
just a few years previously,

a Welsh doctor had visited Italy

and purchased
a beautiful glass bowl there,

which he decided
had to have been something

with ancient
and mysterious powers.

[narrator] In around 1898,

this doctor had a vision

telling him to take his "grail"
to Glastonbury.

He hid it in the spring
until it was found

by Wellesley Tudor Pole
just a few years later.

The glass bowl was old,
but nowhere near old enough.

And there was no proof
outside of a vision

to link it to Jesus Christ.

[narrator]
The excitement of the press soon ebbed away,

but interest in the Grail
did not,

for the great myths,
false alarms,

were all fuel to the fire.

There were others
now searching for the truth,

and they were looking
not in visions,

but in even earlier myth
and folklore.

Around the time of Pole's
adventures in Glastonbury,

a new discipline was emerging.

It was called anthropology,
and it concerned itself

with looking at the ways
people did things

in different ways in different
cultures at different times.

Those practicing
this new field of anthropology

were immediately interested
in the Grail.

[narrator] In 1890,

the Scottish anthropologist
James George Frazer

published "The Golden Bough."

The book was ground-breaking.

It examined myths
and religious beliefs

from around the world

and identified

the links between them.

In "The Golden Bough,"
Frazer put forth a view

in which human beliefs

across different cultures
throughout time

progressed in
a single linear fashion.

Beginning with magic,
moving on to religious belief,

and finally, to the
enlightenment of science.

Frazer's ideas
were extremely controversial.

This is the 19th century,

and the great and good
of Christian Europe

were quite incensed
at the idea

that Christianity
would essentially

be put on a par
with pagan beliefs.

Modern anthropologists
reject Frazer's theories,

but at the time,
they were hugely influential.

[narrator] Other scholars soon
applied Frazer's thinking

to the Holy Grail.

They wondered
if the Grail legends

of the Medieval era

were not the beginning
of the story.

Fraser's ideas prompted
the belief that

perhaps ideas about the Grail

predated Christian
belief systems.

So people began looking
even earlier

to pre-Christian cultures.

[narrator] The Celts
were an ancient people

who are thought to once have
lived across much of Europe.

But the spread of
the Roman Empire

and then Christianity

pushed them to the fringes

of their former territories.

By the 6th century,
the Celts could be found

only in parts of Britain,
Ireland, and northern France.

But despite this long history,

there is much that is still
mysterious about the Celts.

The Celts are believed
at one time

to have occupied most of Europe.

But we don't have much
information about them,

and that's because their enemies
tended to hunt them down,

and secondly, because
they kept oral traditions

as opposed to written histories.

[narrator] Some old Celtic tales
did survive long enough

to be written down
in the Middle Ages.

Later, anthropologists
searched for connections

between those stories
and the Holy Grail.

And they found something.

The motif of a cauldron

with magical,
life-giving properties.

The cauldron is absolutely
central to Celtic life,

both in an everyday
domestic sense,

but also in a ritual
belief sense.

So, the cauldron is where
cooking was done

and washing and bathing.

But, it had sort of
a magical effect.

The legend goes that
the sorceress Ceridwen

gifted Brân the Blessed,
a warrior god,

a cauldron which would resurrect
the bodies of dead warriors.

It wasn't much of a leap
at the time

for people to see a link
between this cauldron

with regenerative powers,

and the Holy Grail,
which was meant to be full

of the blood of the redemption
of Jesus Christ.

[narrator] But this new science
of anthropology

was again attempting
to place Jesus and the Grail

in a European setting.

The Celts were
a pan-European tribe

who had proven contact
both in trade and military

with the pre-Christian
eastern Mediterranean,

but there was no full picture
of their belief system

or any evidence of whether
their "life-giving cauldrons"

developed in a European
or wider context.

But this just doesn't add up
for the truthseekers.

[Karen] It's groping
in the dark, really.

It's the hope that new science
can solve old mysteries.

But something like
the Holy Grail

defies easy answers.

[narrator] Our team
of truthseekers

have looked at
what the Grail could be,

but the search for
the one true Grail

continues into the modern era.

During the 20th century,

new and even more radical
ideas emerged.

One theory would lead
to immense riches.

Another would drive
a man to his death.

And one would win
the admiration

of a dictator.

[narrator] The truthseekers
have examined

the origins of the Holy Grail.

And the 19th-century attempts

to apply modern science
to the stories.

But the Grail has attracted
more radical thinkers as well.

Archaeologist Dr. Mark Altaweel
has been investigating.

[dramatic music playing]

[Mark] These are often called
"pseudo-histories."

And while we can
certainly pick holes

in the theories themselves,
I still think we can learn a lot

by asking why they came up
with the answers they did.

Because in the 20th century,
the hunt for the Holy Grail

became part of
a far bigger story,

one of the darkest chapters

in the history of humanity.

[narrator] From a young age,
the German scholar Otto Rahn

was fascinated by stories
of chivalry and adventure.

His favorite was
Wolfram von Eschenbach's

13th-century poem "Parzival."

It told the story of Percival,

who became a knight
and set off on a quest

for the Holy Grail.

When Otto Rahn grew up,
he became convinced

the poem had a hidden meaning.

He set out
to uncover the truth.

[Mark] He became fascinated
with that story,

that perhaps
this grail existed.

One of the things
he was quite interested in

is, of course, the stories,
what were considered once

heretical movements
or even pagan ideas.

Both pagans and heretics,
of course,

would have been denounced
by the church.

Rahn knew that at the time
Wolfram von Eschenbach

was writing his epic poem
in the early 1200s,

the Catholic Church
was fighting to suppress

one particular heretical sect
in the south of France.

They were known as the Cathars.

[narrator]
The Cathars believed that

there were actually two gods,

one good and one evil.

To the Catholic Church,
this was heresy.

The Pope launched a crusade
to wipe the Cathars out.

After more than
three decades of fighting,

in 1244,
the last of the Cathars

retreated to
a mountain fortress.

[Mark] They were pinned down
into their last stronghold,

and 200 Cathars
were literally burned

for their belief,
their heretical beliefs.

But there was rumor
that some actually escaped,

and with them came these great
treasures that they saved.

[yells]

[narrator] In 1933,

Otto Rahn published
his first book,

"Crusade Against the Grail."

It told the story
of the fall of the Cathars,

and the escape of
the Holy Grail.

He believed that
hidden among the treasure

was the Holy Grail.

He matched places described
in the epic medieval poems

with actual locations
in the Cathar heartlands

of southern France.

He wrote a book called,
"Crusade Against the Grail,"

which, in all honesty,
was a flop,

in terms of sales, at least.

But, the power of books
sometimes is not so much

in the numbers of readers,
but who reads it.

[narrator] In the same year
Rahn published his book,

Adolf Hitler and the Nazis
seized power in Germany.

One man in the new regime

shared Rahn's fascination

with the Holy Grail.

The head of the SS

and one of the most powerful men

in Nazi Germany,

Heinrich Himmler.

[Mark] So Himmler found a lot
of interest in this book,

mostly because it fit
quite closely

with his ideology
and his beliefs,

which is, this kind of
pre-Christian world of heroes.

[narrator] Himmler was obsessed
with myth and the occult.

Otto Rahn's book
was perfect for him.

It detached the story
of the Holy Grail

from the Christian world

and tied it into an older,
German tradition.

[Mark] And Himmler, of course,
had the power to make Rahn

not only a well-known figure,

but also, effectively,
shape his research.

[narrator] Himmler
summoned Rahn to a meeting.

He offered to bankroll
the young man's research.

Rahn's end of this
bargain with the devil

was to find the Holy Grail,

a seemingly impossible task.

So, really, it's a match
made in Nazi heaven,

which is basically Rahn
being brought into

the world of the SS.

So Rahn, being someone
who was effectively

an obscure scholar
prior to Himmler meeting him,

happily says yes
and embraces the Nazi world,

and goes on his quest
to find the Grail.

[narrator] Rahn joined the SS
and got to work.

With Himmler's backing,
he scoured Europe

for proof of his theory.

In 1937, he published
the results.

His second book,
"Lucifer's Court."

He basically
flips the narrative.

He takes, what was once
a religious story

that supported Christianity,
this quest for the Grail,

and now makes it actually an
anti-Christian kind of quest.

[narrator] The book claims that
the Cathars were in fact Aryans,

the superior race of
the Nazis' twisted ideology.

These Cathars worshipped
the morning star,

the light-bringer Lucifer,

and their treasure
was the Grail.

It goes on to claim
that Christianity

was then invented by Jews
to force people

to worship a Jewish
Jesus Christ.

The Church then stole

the symbol of the Grail
for themselves,

hunted down
the pre-Christian Aryans,

and vilified Lucifer
as the devil.

Lucifer now becomes the hero,
so the devil becomes the hero.

These sort of pre-Christian
gods and heroes

are the real heroes. They're
the ones who established

the great European civilization.

So they really twisted
the sort of ideas of the Grail

and tried to make it
one of their own

Nazi myth, if you will,
in the making.

[narrator] What Rahn
didn't find, of course,

was the Grail.

Despite that failure,

Himmler was pleased
with Rahn's second book.

He even gave a copy
to Adolf Hitler as a gift.

But as Otto Rahn climbed
higher in the Nazi ranks,

he was increasingly troubled.

He's not really
your typical Nazi.

He's gay, for one,

and he has his own
internal struggles, perhaps,

with the ideology of the Nazis,

and also what
he's seeing around him.

So he's having second thoughts.
He knew he made that deal

with the devil, effectively.

[narrator] The contradictions
in Rahn's life

were tearing him apart.

Disillusioned and depressed,

in March 1939,
Rahn resigned from the SS.

[Mark] And Himmler basically
says, sure, go ahead and resign.

But resigning from the SS
is like resigning from the mob.

You don't really resign.

So, not surprisingly,

a few months, literally,
after he resigned in 1939,

he was found dead
on a mountaintop.

But one thing we do know
is that neither Rahn,

or the Nazis, for that matter,

were successful
in finding the Holy Grail.

[narrator] But the Nazis
were not the only ones

to have hunted the Grail.

And the Cathars
were not the only people

suspected of hiding it.

The Grail's foundations
as a story

are so ambiguous,
different groups

can pick the part
they want to believe,

the part they want to pursue.

So, for the Nazis,
it could be a symbol

of a pre-Christian world,
and be searched for

in the shadows
of a pagan past.

But for others, it only made
sense to search for it

in the very heart
of ancient Christianity.

In Jerusalem itself.

[narrator] The Knights Templar
was a religious order

of warrior monks.

Founded in 1120,

their headquarters in Jerusalem
was only a short distance

from where Christ was entombed.

The story goes that the knights

went digging
beneath their temple,

searching for ancient artifacts.

There, hidden deep within
the earth,

they thought they had found
the Holy Grail.

Later, when the Knights
Templar's order

was suppressed
by the Catholic Church,

their treasures,
including the Grail,

were apparently hidden.

A lake in Poland
has been suggested,

or a chapel in Scotland,

or even in North America.

There's no real proof,
of course,

to link the Templars
to the Grail.

They were
a military organization,

not really interested
in such things.

[narrator] But there is one
theory which manages

to incorporate all of this.

The Cathars from Otto Rahn.

The Knights Templar
and the idea

of a secret history
behind the Grail.

[Mark] In 1982, the book,
"The Holy Blood

and the Holy Grail"
was published.

It outlined a new theory
about the Grail,

one that remains famous
and controversial.

[narrator] The authors of the
book claimed to have revealed

an ancient conspiracy.

A secret so dangerous

that countless had died
to protect it.

The book's theory was that

the Grail was not,
in fact, the cup

used by Christ
at the Last Supper.

Instead, it was
Mary Magdalene's womb.

The Grail was
a metaphor for Mary,

the vessel in which
Christ's child was carried.

So the book "The Holy Blood
and the Holy Grail"

was basically a story about
Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene

and then going off to France,
to Europe,

escaping the Holy Land
and having children,

and eventually
establishing a dynasty

that becomes the French rulers.

[narrator] This secret was
kept safe through history

by a mysterious ancient society
called the Priory of Sion.

"The Holy Blood
and the Holy Grail" claimed

that the Catholic Church spent
centuries fighting this order,

suppressing the truth to prevent
the descendants of Christ

from threatening
the Pope's power on earth.

But it was all
an elaborate hoax.

[Marl] According to the book,
that's why the Cathars in France

were wiped out
and the Templars suppressed.

They were both guardians
of the Grail.

But it's a conspiracy theory
version of history,

based on innuendo
and imagination

and outright forgery.

[narrator] The Priory of Sion

was not
an ancient order at all.

In fact,
it was founded in 1956

by Pierre Plantard,
a draughtsman and forger.

The problem with the story
is, of course,

the story was fabricated.

Pierre Plantard
literally made the story up

and put documents in the library
for them to be found,

which, eventually,
those documents

form the basis of the book.

[narrator] Plantard hopes
to create a new history,

an ancient and secret
order of chivalry

with him as its modern heir.

He had no idea
how his hoax would develop.

When the authors of "The Holy
Blood and the Holy Grail"

picked up Plantard's ruse,

it became part
of their modern legend,

the secret history of the
world's greatest lost relic.

And the myth only grew.

[Mark] This later, of course,
became the inspiration

for the blockbuster novel and
film, "The Da Vinci Code."

And while it may seem a more
suitable subject for a novel,

its popularity
and that of other

conspiracy theories about
the Grail tells us something.

It tells us about our hunger
for hidden truth.

It tells us that
the quest for the Holy Grail

is still one that we find
alluring to this day.

[narrator] These conspiracy
theories of heretics,

warrior knights,
and underground societies

make for alluring stories.

But have they missed the truth?

The only real evidence
supports the existence

of the Grail in Jerusalem,

centuries after
the crucifixion of Christ.

Two thousand years
have passed

since the time of Jesus Christ,

but the hunt for
the cup he used

at the Last Supper before
his Crucifixion continues.

[dramatic music playing]

[no audible dialog]

Tony McMahon is a historian.

He's been taking a closer look

at the cups identified
as the Grail today.

The Holy Grail
has been construed

as many things
over the centuries.

So, the most famous
is a cup

in which the blood
of Christ was held.

Or was it a plate,

as it seems to be described

in one of
the Arthurian romances?

Or, a stone from
the devil's crown

that popped out when
he was thrown out of heaven.

[narrator] There have been
hundreds of cups

identified as the Holy Grail.

In the early 20th century especially,

a whole host
of claims emerged.

[Tony] There was
the Nanteos Cup of Wales

that found fame in 1905.

During the dissolution of
the monasteries by Henry VIII,

a group of monks are thrown out
of Glastonbury Abbey,

and they end up on an estate
called Nanteos House.

Now, over time,
they begin to confide

to their royal patron about
a cup in their possession

made out of
the true cross of Jesus,

and this cup, they argue,
is the Holy Grail.

Problem with
the Nanteos Cup is that

when the wood was dated,

it was found to be medieval.

The monks at Glastonbury

had been up to no good
faking relics.

And then there's
the cup of Antioch,

which traveled the world
in the 1930s

as another possible candidate
for the Holy Grail.

Well, it turned out
to be a Roman oil lamp.

Most of these claims
fall apart like that,

but there are contenders

which I think are worth
looking into

a little more deeply.

[narrator]
On the east coast of Spain,

in the city of Valencia's
great cathedral,

there is a small chapel

with something
very special inside.

[Tony] The Holy Grail in
Valencia is a red agate cup,

relatively simple,

held in an ornate stem

with two ornate handles.

It's that core agate cup

that is of greatest interest.

We now know that it was made

between the 2nd century BC,
the 1st century AD,

most likely in
the Holy Land or Egypt.

So in terms of
geographical location and age,

it really fits the bill.

That could indeed have been
at the Last Supper.

If this is the Holy Grail,

it has indeed been on
something of a journey

over the last 2000 years.

It began, most likely,
in Jerusalem,

where it was taken,
according to Church sources,

to Rome.

[narrator] But the cup
was not safe there either.

In the 3rd century,
the Roman Empire

was persecuting Christians.

In August 258,

the Emperor Valerian
ordered the execution

of all bishops, priests,
and deacons in Rome.

The Pope at the time,
Sixtus II,

was quickly captured
and executed.

But before he died,
he entrusted

a young deacon named Lawrence

with the treasures
of the church.

Knowing that relics
like the Grail

were no longer safe
in the city,

Lawrence saw to it that
they were smuggled out.

It's said the Grail
was then taken

to Lawrence's home in Spain.

There, it remained
for hundreds of years

until a new threat emerged.

The early church
undoubtedly thought

that the Holy Grail
was safe.

But then, in the 8th century,

Spain is invaded by
the Moors from North Africa,

who are not Christian.

And, believing that
the Holy Grail

is once more in peril,

it's hidden away.

This sacred vessel
was then taken

to a small hillside monastery,
San Juan de la Peña,

where it stayed
for something like 400 years

until it pops up
in the year 1134

in an inventory
of the monastery's goods,

and it's described as a vessel

which contained the blood
of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[narrator] The Chalice
remained at the monastery

in the mountains until 1399.

Then, Martin of Aragon

ordered the Holy Chalice
moved to a private chapel

in his palace at Zaragoza.

From Zaragoza, the chalice
was later taken

to Barcelona and then,
in 1416, to Valencia.

[Tony] Having found its
long-term home

in the cathedral in Valencia,
the Catholic Church

seems to have more
or less accepted

that this could be
the Holy Grail,

and in recent times,
it's even been used

in masses performed
in the cathedral

by the late Pope John Paul II,

and by Pope Benedict the XVI.

The problem we have with
Valencia's Holy Grail

is that it just disappears
for centuries.

And the view that
that is the Holy Grail

is challenged
by an alternative account

from a man called Arculf.

[narrator] Arculf was
a bishop from Germany.

In the late 7th century,
he went on a pilgrimage.

Over a period of three years,

he traveled to Rome, Constantinople,

Jerusalem, and Alexandria.

But on his voyage home by sea,

his ship was struck
by a storm

that forced him onto
the rocky shores of Britain.

The shipwrecked bishop
found his way to Iona,

a small island
off the coast of Scotland,

where he was given shelter
at a monastery.

Arculf told his story
to the monks

and the abbot wrote it down.

"The chalice is silver

and has two handles
on its sides.

The holy Arculf saw it
and touched it

with his own hand.

All the people of the city

flock to it in veneration."

And the abbot,
who's writing a book

about sacred things
in sacred places,

notes down all the details.

The book that the
abbot's writing is called

"De Locis Sanctis," in
other words, Of Holy Places.

Now, he writes
his account faithfully

of what his visitor
has told him,

but we have to be very careful

because this is
a second-hand account.

We don't know as well
if Arculf is totally reliable,

let alone the abbott's
transcript of what he says.

But if we believe this account,
that creates a problem

for the chalice
in the cathedral in Valencia.

If the cup Arculf described
was the Grail

and it was in Jerusalem
in the 7th century,

then the whole story
about Pope Sixtus

sending the Grail away from Rome
in the 3rd century

can't be true.

The whole story

behind the Valencia Chalice

falls apart.

[narrator] Bishop Arculf
was not the only witness

to the Grail at Jerusalem.

It was reported there
by a pilgrim

in the 6th century,

and as late as the 9th century,

there are records
of two priests in the city

tasked with its care.

But how much we can trust
these accounts,

and what happened
to the Grail beyond that,

has long been a mystery.

[Tony] This is the problem
that we have

over and over again
with the Holy Grail.

That one story, one claimant
to be the Holy Grail,

contradicts another.

They don't support
each other's stories.

Either one is true
or none is true.

And that's the mystery
we're still trying to solve.

[narrator] During
the First Crusade in 1099,

Jerusalem was captured
by the Europeans.

Forty hundred and fifty years
of Muslim rule came to an end.

But if the Crusaders
found the Grail in the city,

there is no record of it.

The trail goes cold.

[Tony] The anticipation

of finding the holiest relics
in Jerusalem

and being able to take them
back to the West

was a huge, huge attraction
for the crusaders.

Now, if they had found
the Holy Grail,

I can't help believing

that that would
have been celebrated

in every church

from Constantinople
to Rome to Glastonbury

and down into Spain,
you name it.

It's not something that
they would have kept quiet.

[narrator]
The cup seen by Arculf

and the other pilgrims
in Jerusalem

seemed to have vanished.

For centuries,
its fate was a mystery.

Then, in 2014,

two Spanish investigators

claimed to have tracked down
the Holy Grail.

In their book
"Kings of the Grail,"

Margarita Torres Sevilla
and José Miguel Ortega del Río

argued that the holy cup
was in Spain,

but not in Valencia.

So this new candidate
for the Holy Grail

is the chalice of Doña Urraca,

who was the daughter
of King Fernando I of Leon.

Now, it is two onyx bowls, essentially,

one this way, one that way,

and it's encrusted in jewels,

in gold,

an absolutely sumptuous

piece of medieval reliquary.

[narrator] Although
the cup of Dona Urraca

has age, provenance,
and a backstory,

there are still doubts.

[Tony] Although this is
an outstanding example

of medieval craftsmanship,

the claim that it's
the Holy Grail

had never been made
for a thousand years

the cup had been sitting in
the cathedral of Leon.

It's only been made recently.

The two Spanish researchers

examined medieval documents

in Egypt's National Library
in Cairo.

The documents told
a remarkable story.

To their astonishment,
they came across documents

that showed that a sultan
in Moorish-controlled Spain,

an area called Denia,

had sent grain to
Fatimid-controlled Egypt

during a famine in Egypt.

And the gratitude
of the Sultan in Egypt

was such that he sent back

a whole load of treasure

to this sultan in Spain,

pointing out that amidst
this treasure

was the Holy Grail.

Now, the instruction
from the Sultan in Egypt

to his counterpart
in Denia in Spain

was to send the Holy Grail
on to King Fernando I of Leon,

as a kind of diplomatic gift
with the message,

lay off trying to invade us,

we've just given you
the Holy Grail.

[narrator] And in León,
the Grail supposedly remained,

hidden in plain sight,

its true identity concealed

in gold and jewels
to protect it.

The claims of the
two Spanish researchers

made headlines
around the world.

And from the evidence our team

of truthseekers
have collected,

Tony feels their claims
have some merit.

[Tony] Of all the theories,

it's the cup in Leon
that does it for me

because it would have been,

the cup would have been
in the Holy Sepulchre,

that most sacred of churches.

That is then sacked
by Al-Hakam,

who levels the Holy Sepulchre
to the ground

and takes all the booty,

and you can bet
he took the Holy Grail.

It ends up
with another sultan in Egypt.

And that sultan,
then sends it, as we said,

as a diplomatic gift
to the king of Leon.

So the idea of the Grail
ending up

in that part of the world,

a part of the world
that's very sacred

to medieval Christians,

and having been gifted
by somebody who got it

off a man who'd
leveled the Holy Sepulchre,

which is more than likely
where it was,

I'm seeing the Leon connections
as being very strong.

[narrator] The Holy Grail
continues to convince,

confound, and intrigue us,

just as it has done
in the past.

Whatever the Holy Grail is,

whether it is a cup
or a stone, or a plate,

it's what that term
means to us.

It touches us emotionally.

It takes us back centuries

to the time of Jesus Christ
right to the crucifixion.

[Karen] The Grail
is perhaps unique

in being one
of those iconic artifacts

which many people
have sought to find,

but for just vastly
different reasons.

[Mark] For a lot of people,
the Grail is,

it's a very tangible,
very real element

that connects them to Jesus.

So it's really a
visceral element

that connects us
to a material object

of religious value.

And that's why it's endured.

From the knights
of the Round Table

right through
to the present day,

the search for the Grail

is the search
by us flawed humans

for something pure,

something that's
perhaps impossible,

but something that
we can't help but look for.

To touch the divine.

[solemn music playing]