The following
is an extract from a book called 'And Did Those Feet' by Michael Goldsworthy, which decodes an old Prophecy by a monk called
Melkin.
In the Dark
Ages a monk called Melkin left a riddle that purported to expose the burial
site of Joseph of Arimathea. This Location has long been thought to exist
within the Glastonbury abbey grounds, but the author has meticulously re-looked at some of
the oldest Latin texts from Glastonbury concerning King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea and found that the association of King Arthur is exaggerated and much of the tradition concerning Joseph of Arimathea and Glatonbury stems from Melkin's 6th century writings.
The Book 'And did those feet' has solved the monks riddle in the form of a prophecy which spells out
with pinpoint accuracy the whereabouts of the resting place of Joseph pf Arimathea in the Island of Avalon. The geometric puzzle describes precise
directions that are derived from the Ley line system built by Neolithic man.
The book describes how this huge display of geometrical earth works that were built upon subsequently with churches dedicated to St. Michael were built to mark out the location of the Island of Avalon. For this monk to give directions from the Ley line long before it was even set out as a marker system shows that Melkin understood at least the existance of the St. Michael ley line and even perhaps its funtion. It was only recently rediscovered by John Michell when he discovered that an
array of churches had built upon this ancient system. What is only recently understood is that these churches were erected by the templars to point out for posterity
the location of the tomb and the location of their treasure.
This secret location is called the Island of
Avalon and the same monk visited this island at the death of Britain’s famous
King Arthur. Here he found arcane information from the Temple in Jerusalem that
was brought to England by Joseph of Arimathea. This information with an account
of the first Christians arrival with Mary Magdalene was written in a book called
The Grail that found its way to France and gave rise to the wide array of Grail
stories.
‘And did
those feet’ proves that the body of Jesus is in fact buried with Joseph of
Arimathea and the whereabouts of this island is in Devon. It used to be known
as the ancient Island of Ictis and contains within it an ancient tin vault that
became their tomb which had originally been used to store tin ingots. The
confirmation of the whereabouts of this tomb is given by precise geometry upon
the British landscape left in the complex Latin puzzle by the monk Melkin but
its position is also verified by a Jesuit priest who lived in the sixteenth
century who was unaware of the significance of the clue he was given.
The Templars in the middle ages were aware of
the location of this tomb and deposited their treasure in the same tomb on
Christmas day 1307. However they removed one item from the sepulchre within the
island. This was what has now become known as the Turin Shroud. The Turin Shroud
in the monk’s Latin puzzle has the same description once the Latin puzzle is
deciphered. This artefact due to Melkin’s description, later became known as
the Holy Grail by an inordinate amount of misunderstanding and direct
obfuscation, but the Holy Grail is in fact something inestimably more valuable and
this book sets out and explains what the Grail is and how the Grail stories
came about. The body of Jesus, around which the Turin Shroud was once wrapped,
is still within the tomb, steeped in Cedar oil and this is what formed the
image on the Shroud over a period of six hundred years as it was formed within
what became known as the Grail Arc.
The reason this Island was chosen to house
what is the holiest relic of all, is because it was not widely known in the
ancient world except through a report by one of the first Greek explorers to
Britain. Devon and Cornwall have a history in the tin industry and it was from
this island that tin was traded with Joseph of Arimathea who, Cornish tradition
has always maintained, was a tin merchant and was accompanied on his trading
missions by Jesus. The book uncovers an ancient Biblical link to the Devon and
Cornish peninsula through a bloodline from the first born of Judah one of the
twelve sons of Israel, called Zerah. It is from his heritage a Line of Kings was
born in the South west of England known as the kings of Sarras which culminated
with the famous King Arthur.
King Arthur, Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea are
known to be buried on the Island today called Burgh Island but there is also
with them the Arc of the Covenant and the Templar treasure. The book traces
these events pulling together a wide source of detail linking the most powerful
people in Europe like Eleanor of Aquitaine and kings with these events.
Leonardo Da
Vinci visited this Island in the last three years of his life and left clues
within four paintings, that show the geographical features of the Island and he
let the world know by his picture puzzle (rebus) in the Windsor Library, that
he was showing us a great mystery and went as far as saying he would show where
it is, in his two paintings of the Yarnwinder.
The amazing coincidences that have brought
this knowledge into the modern era can only be viewed as having been determined
by supernatural forces as this whole drama is played out to specific times that
are spoken of by the biblical prophets. The implication and ramifications of
the discovery of this tomb will have ramifications across the world as the book
uncovers the relationship between this tomb’s unveiling and how it was
predicted by the Prophets.
When this puzzle or riddle, (which
is the main cause for Glastonbury’s perpetuated association with the Holy Grail and Joseph
of Arimathea) is fully understood, it shows that the two vessels that have been
described as containing the blood and sweat of Jesus are in fact a
misunderstood reference to the grave cloth of Jesus better known as the shroud
of Turin.
Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula(duplico
Fasciola) alba & argentea,(covering) cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perim pleta: Joseph
has with him in the sarcophagus a doubled white swaddling cloth covered with
the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus that was folded around him.
The monk
Melkin has deliberately concealed the real meaning of the Grail which is
explained in the Book which also describes how the Turin Shroud was removed from his body,by whom and how it first appeared in the middle of the thirteenth century in the possesion of the relative of one of the main Templar leaders.
Also the when
the prophecy or puzzle is fully understood, we can actually determine that
'Abbadare', mentioned in this same sixth century prophecy, is in fact Jesus and his body is preserved in the Grail Ark which is
also in the same Tomb along with Joseph
of Arimathea and both lay still undiscovered in the real Island of Avalon, which
Melkin leads us to with pinpoint geometrical Acurracy. This hitherto unknown location being less than 100 yards
out over a measure of 104 nautical miles and less than 9 seconds of one degree
in error in the 13 degrees that he gives as a direction from the Bifurcated
line.
The saga of how this transpired is romanticised in the
Grail stories but is clearly elucidated upon in a new book called ‘And did those feet’. A full understanding of how these events transpired and who is responsible for misleading information that for centuries has assumed Glastonbury as being Synoymous with the Island of Avalon, is fully elucidated in this recent book.
To get the whole sequence of events Click on the Links below
http://isleofavallon.blogspot.co.uk #3
The continued rumour
of Joseph of Arimathea arriving in Britain has persisted for two thousand
years. The only way of proving his arrival was to solve Melkin’s puzzle which
he left in the form of a Prophecy which gives directions to his Tomb. The fact that the Author’s house was recently
discovered to be on the Ley line which just happens to be the line that leads
us to Joseph is a remarkable coincidence. It is this set of events that drove
the author to write this book and indicates that unknown forces were at work.
It is almost as if the people in the book were waiting for the real account of
events to be told and certain facets of information would guide the author to
another avenue that needed to be elucidated. The real inspiration for the book
was the need to explain the meaning of the British national hymn written by
William Blake entitled Jerusalem. It is from this hymn that the Title of the
book is derived because the question it asks has now been answered. Did Jesus
come to Britain. The Grail romances declare that Jesus was brought to the south
coast of England and laid to rest in what became known as the Grail Ark. This
box or Coffin was filled with Cedar oil and was used to Transport the body of
Jesus from Jerusalem to and Island that was then known as Ictis or the Island
of Sarras. It is here that he was buried in an old tin storage vault in the
Island of Avalon. This entire set of circumstances is explained in the book
called 'And did those feet' by Michael Goldsworthy.
The Island of Ictis which traded in tin was known as the Island of Sarras because of Judah's son Zarah, but the prophet Melkin who shows us where the body of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea are layed to rest calls it the isle of Avallon or Insula Avallonis. This has long been confused with Glastonbury Tor.
The relationship of Melkin’s prophecy to the French Grail
material.
Father
William Good, a Jesuit priest, born at Glastonbury, served mass in the Abbey at
Glastonbury as a boy just before its dissolution. This was before Queen
Elizabeth I changed the religion of the country to Protestantism. He also held
a secret as to the whereabouts of Joseph of Arimathea’s burial place. Father William was educated in Glastonbury,
and later attended Corpus Christi College in 1546 where he became a fellow in
1548, and studied for his Master of Arts in 1552. Throughout all the early days
of his life while he studied and before he came to the priesthood, he carried
around with him the information that was passed on to him by Abbot Richard Whiting
at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539.
As was usual
in those days, secret knowledge was handed down to chosen choirboys or likely
candidates for the priesthood, by Bishops and Abbots rather than writing it
down and running the risk of having it discovered by persons who were not
privileged. Just before Richard Whiting
was about to be hanged on Glastonbury Tor at the start of the dissolution, he
related to the young William Good, that Joseph of Arimathea was ‘carefully
hidden in Montacute’, most probably with
the added instruction to say nothing to anybody. Father Good, while Queen Mary reigned in the
interim, obtained the benefice of Middle Chinnock in Somerset, the prebend of
Comba Octava in the Church of Wells, and was given the head-mastership of a
school in Wells.
The folly tower on St. Michael's hill which replaces an old church built by the Templars to act as a marker that leads to the tomb of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea as Father good had Indicated.
When
Elizabeth I came to the throne, he travelled to Tourni where in 1562 he was
admitted into the Society of Jesus, thereafter travelling to Ireland to become
a missionary for many years. Afterwards
he travelled to Belgium, where he met Robert
Parsons, who
persuaded him to become a member of the Jesuit order, while the rest of his
days were passed as confessor to the English
College in Rome.
It was during
this time in Rome that he passed on the message to alleviate himself of the
burden he had carried with him since he was a boy. He left to posterity at the
English college in Rome the information conveyed to him by Richard Whiting with
the added addition of his own précis of the last part of Melkin’s prophecy,
indicating how important he felt it was; “The monks,
never knew for certain the place of this saints burial (Joseph’s) or pointed it
out. They said the body was most
“carefully hidden” on a hill near Montacute and that when his body would be
found, the whole world would wend their way there, on account of the number and
wondrous nature of the miracles worked there”.
In Archbishop Usher’s account describing the Arms of Glastonbury, he
quotes from an account given by William Good, and refers to him as “a Jesuit
born at Glastonbury in the reign of Henry VIII”:
"Antiqua arma Glastoniensis Monasterii sunt hujusmodi.
Scutum album, in quo per longum erigitur stipes crucis viridis & nudosas,
& de latere ad latus extenduntur brachia seu rami crucis stipiti consimilia.
Sparguntur guttse sanguinis per oninem aream scuti. Utrinqwe ad latera
stipitis, & sub alis crucis, ponitur ampulla inaurata. Et haec semper
denominabantur insignia Sancti Josephi, qui ibi habitue pie credebatur, &
fortasse sepultus esse.
‘Such
are the ancient Arms of the monastery of Glastonbury. A white shield in which,
for a long time, a green and gnarled stake of a cross sticks out, and from side
to side stretch branches or boughs as if they were the beam of the cross. Drops
of blood are spattered around the whole expanse of the shield. And at the sides
of the stake, under the beam of the cross, is placed a gilded flask. And these
were always referred to as the tokens of St Joseph, who is believed to have
lived piously, and perhaps to have been buried there.’
The Reverend Walter
Skeat make his own remarks on Father Good’s passage; “The knotted cross evidently refers to
the legend of St Joseph's thorny staff (from which a tree had sprouted at
Glastonbury until recently cut down by vandals), the drops of blood denote his
receiving the blood of Christ in the Holy Grail, and the two cruets are the
"duo fassula" mentioned in the book of Melkin, which resulted from
the duplication of the Grail of the original legend”.
We can conclude from this, that Father Good had read Melkin while in the
British Isles and had been privately engaged investigating the whereabouts of
the sepulchre of Joseph. It would seem
that Father
William assumed that within the Heraldry depicted
on the shield, there could have been a clue to where Joseph lay. It would also appear that he was probably taking this
line of investigation, having previously read the Seint Graal, and its associations with Joseph, where
"a white knight relates to Galahad the mystery of a certain wonderful shield." It is fairly evident that Father Good had tried to locate the burial
place of Joseph having been motivated by the possession of a clue but unfortunately
didn't piece together the relevance of Montacute.
Figure 22 Showing the Folly tower
where there once stood a chapel dedicated to St.Michael on this hilltop
‘marker’ site.
Geoffrey of Monmouth writing in 1130 makes no allusion to the
Graal, or to Lancelot or Gawain, or to the prophecy of Melkin and does not say
one word about Joseph of Arimathea in his popular Historia Regum
Britanniae. Geoffrey wrote many works, all in Latin, but in his History of the Kings of Britain, he writes about
Arthur, Merlin and Vortigern at length, but draws nothing from Melkin’s
genealogy of Arthur, yet includes the previously unknown prophecies of Merlin. Geoffrey claims in his dedication that his book is a translation of an
"ancient book in the British language that told in orderly fashion the
deeds of all the kings of Britain", given to him by Walter, Archdeacon of
Oxford. Much of his material was
invented, but the main body of manuscript text was supplied by the Archdeacon
of Oxford, which mainly came from Welsh sources, most probably from the
writings of Melkin that were embellished upon and subsequently places Arthur in
a Welsh backdrop. Geoffrey's works seem to show acquaintance with the place names of the region and most commentators think Geoffrey
was Welsh and spoke Welsh. He seems to
have come from the French-speaking Welsh border country and was probably
educated in a Benedictine monastery.
There were probably many French speaking Bretons in this region from the
monastic houses that were to influence the likes of Gerald of Wales (Gerald de Barri), who is half Welsh, half Norman and Walter
Map. Maep or Mapes was born on the Marches of Wales and calls
the Welsh his countrymen, and England ‘our mother.’ It is posited that the Bretons and the Welsh
spoke a similar language and it was from this connection that the Grail stories
were easily assimilated with a similar Arthurian tradition that existed in
Wales. William of Malmesbury the
product of intermarriage between Norman and Saxon noticed but a slight
difference in his time between Welsh and Breton: ‘Lingua nonnihil a nostris Brittonibus Degeneres’ and Giraldus calls the Breton an
old-fashioned Welsh.
: ‘Magis antiquo linguae Britannicae idiomati appropriato’.
This tradition could have existed in Wales through
copies of the works of Melkin that remained in Britain but as we have covered,
it seems that the Book of the Grail went to France caused by the Saxon invasion
and later returned to revitalise and mix with Welsh legend after having come
from a French romanticisation of original, yet overlapping historical Material.
The route of this information having probably travelled to Mont St. Michel near
St. Malo and Avranche which of course would have had links with the tin traders
since ancient times and as we will cover in a later chapter the probable
landing point of Melkin which is why Helinand relates the account of the Graal
and the supposed apparition to the Hermit (in Britain) taking place in 707 or
as Walter map has it as 717AD. It becomes apparent later that Melkin probably
took this book to France in his old age and thus an account of a British monk
experiencing an angelic apparition was known in France.
Geoffrey’s omission of the Joseph
material, despite his book's popular success, meant that the French tradition
was not as widely known and did not appear until after Geoffrey’s death in
1154. If there was an early tradition that included the Nicodemus and Joseph stories
at Glastonbury it was ignored by William and Geoffrey, but then proliferated at
the advent of the French Grail material as if in response, to set the record
straight and counter the more Welsh and strictly Arthurian material. That's not to say that the legends had not
persisted about Arthur and his connection with Joseph before then, this being
evidenced by St. Augustin's argument with the Britons, "who
preferred their own traditions before all the churches in the world", which
of course is a referral to the Joseph tradition and possibly the bloodline ties
of Arthur to Joseph.
Helinand, the Cistercian Abbot of Froidemont or in latin
Frigidus Mons on the river Tera near Beauvais wrote a chronicle. The Abbey was
founded in 1134 but found among manuscripts in the library including accounts
of the lives of St. Bernard and St. Thomas of Cantorbery is ‘La Chronique
d’Helinand’ written around 1215AD. Here in the diocese of Beauvais was a Cistercian monk who died circa 1220, but he wrote a
chronicle of events in history which terminates with the year 1209 and seems to
have heard an account of Melkin having had an apparition of an Angel and this account
seems to relate to the Grail and matches the date when Melkin possibly visited
Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy around 700AD.
John of Tynemouth, writing later quotes an extract from
Helinand (below) referring to the Graal for the first time by its name at a date
given in his chronicle as 707A.D. As the chronicle was laid out by date and it
was at this point in time where the extract was inserted in the chronicle, it
infers that the Graal was so named at this date. There has been much discussion
about the early date of the insertion of this reference to the ‘Graal’ and due
to preconceived ideas of the ‘Graal’ being an invention of the Grail writers,
commentators have looked for reasons to show this date to be inaccurate and a
fabrication of a later date.
The extract from Helinand:
De loseph centurione:
Hoc tempore in britannia cuidam heremitae demonstrata fuit mirabilis quaedam
visio per angelum de loseph decurione nobili, qui corpus domini deposuit de
cruce, et de catino illo vel parapside in quo dominus cenavit cum discipulis
suis; de quo ab eodem heremita descripta est historia que dicitur
gradale. Gradalis autem vel gradale gallice dicitur scutella lata et
aliquantulum profunda, in qua preciose dapes divitibus a solent apponi
gradatim, unus morsellus post alium in diversis ordinibus. Dicitur vulgari
nomine greal, quia grata et acceptabilis est in ea comedenti, tum propter
continens, quia forte argentea est vel de alia preciosa materia, tum propter
contentum ordinem multiplicem dapium preciosarum. Hanc historiam latine
scriptam inuenire non potui sed tantum gallice scripta habetur a quibusdem
proceribus, nec facile, ut aiunt, tota inueniri potest.
‘At this time
a certain marvellous vision was revealed by an angel to a certain hermit in
Britain concerning St. Joseph the decurion who deposed from the cross the body
of our Lord, as well as concerning the paten or dish in which our Lord supped
with his disciples, whereof the history was written out by the said hermit and
is called ‘Of The Graal’ (De Gradali). Now a platter, broad and somewhat deep
is called in French ‘gradalis’ or ‘gradale’, wherein costly meats (with their
sauce) are want to be set before rich folk by degrees (gradatim), one morsel
after another in divers orders, and in the vulgar speech it is called graalz,
for that it is grateful and acceptable to him that eateth therein, as
well. For that which containeth the
victual, for that haply it is of silver and other precious material, as for the
contents thereof, to wit, the manifold courses of costly meats. I have not been
able to find this history written in Latin, but it is in the possession of
certain noble written in French only, nor, as they say, can it easily be found
complete. This however, I have not hitherto been able to obtain from
any person, so as to read it with attention.
As soon as I can do so, I will translate into Latin, such passages as
are more useful and more likely to be true.’
The fact that Helinand could not find a copy of an
early French source indicates contrarily as some commentators have proposed.
The commentators have supposed that the reason that Helinand is unable to locate
a French copy is because of its recent popularity and production. The opposite
is true in that it is not widely copied and those bits that have been obtained
from a copy in the original Latin are held by some un-named noble family. It is
more likely, the reason for the books scarcity is that it had been in
possession of a French noble family from a very early date and from which
troubadours close to that family accessed and romanticised its material into
the French. The fact that Helinand is not finding (but has heard of the Latin
original) shows us that he has come across Grail extracts in French from which
he understands are derived from a Latin source. The fact that it is purportedly
only fragmentary or not easily found complete, adds to the veracity of this
supposition as having been written by an early Grail writer . One explanation
of the French book not being found complete is that troubadours were given
extracts to embellish upon by the noble French Family. Was the sense of the Graal as assumed by
Helinand and elaborated upon as relating to a Dish, originally conveying the
sense of a ‘container’ of the Graal and can this container be the Grail Ark or
box that contained the Grail that Joseph of Arimathea conveyed to Britain.
Let us assume that a French noble family possessed a
manuscript of Melkin’s original compilation of ancient Joseph material written
in Latin and later had it translated into French, to be called or referred to
as the ‘Book of the Graal.’ The reason behind this assumption is, we know
definitively that Melkin has knowledge of Joseph’s whereabouts around six
hundred years after his death. He knows also of the place where Arthur is
buried because it is the same location at which Joseph was buried. Melkin was
said to have written a book about Arthur entitled ‘De Regis Arthurii mensa rotunda’, which means he lived
contemporaneously or soon thereafter but given Melkin’s understanding of
directions to the tomb and his accuracy in describing what will be found within
it, we must conclude he entered it at Arthur’s death. It would also seem
probable that Geoffrey sourced the location of Arthur’s burial as being in
Avalon from Melkin’s work that remained in Britain and Geoffrey’s - 'Arthur's grave is
nowhere seen, whence antiquity of fables still claims that he will return', is based upon Melkin’s knowledge that Joseph’s grave
would be found thus uncovering Arthur. The
probable scenario might be that Melkin, witnessed Arthur’s interment in Avalon
but it is still unfathomable how Melkin was able to give us such accurate
co-ordinates, not only Geometrically but topographically describing the locale,
in a clearly well-constructed puzzle, if he had not visited the site.
The inclusion of the Grail in French, Welsh, Irish and
English variations of the romances, makes it virtually impossible to divine its
substance, provenance, or essential meaning and most elucidations are fraught
with supposition and contradiction so, digressing slightly, let us assume as we
posited earlier, that the book of the Grail was written in Latin from a source
that included Hebrew arcane terminology and material brought by Joseph and his
associates to Britain. It was expanded upon, with information of a bloodline that
existed from Joseph (or possibly Jesus through the Magdalene) down through
Arthur inclusive of his exploits and that of the family from Roman to Saxon
times. This book was originally written as a compilation of this body of
knowledge, giving the origins of the religious nature of the Grail, (i.e. the
gradual steps or degrees of enlightenment) that conveyed and gave meaning to
the substance of the Grail and this book was compiled by Melkin.
Hardyng, Leland, Capgrave and Bale all cite Melkin as
an ancient authority on Arthurian and British history and of the four titles he
is supposed to have written that are referenced by these later chroniclers, let
us assume a crossover of material between these manuscripts and the ‘Book of
the Grail’. Melkin’s Grail book in France not only contained a historical
account of Joseph’s journey to Britain but also occult temple knowledge having
come directly from Jerusalem that explained or gave meaning to the original
purport of the Grail. Let us also assume that this Gnostic material from the
Temple contained an account of the Divine plan, the striving of man for
spiritual enlightenment and its history through the Davidic heritage. Over time
the Grail metamorphosed into an object and this transformation was partly due
to Melkin who had written his riddle which included mention of the ‘duo
fassula’. Now this misrepresentation of the ‘duo fassula’ were said to contain
liquids of blood and sweat and thus the necessity for a receptacle to hold a
liquid or two. This puzzle or prophecy
survived in one of his other four books or was duplicated in other manuscripts
to be reproduced by John of Glastonbury and possibly from other sources. Melkin’s
book ‘Arthurii mensa rotunda’ obviously supplying much of the early Arthurian
material for Welsh manuscripts that would, of necessity be void of the specific
Grail material that was to emanate from Melkin’s Book of the Grail that had
wound up in the hands of a noble family in France.
The Welsh Greal material however,
contains the adventures of Gwalchmei Peredur and Lancelot, and of the Knights
of the Round Table; but these are not found in Malory’s "Morte
d'Arthur". The Peniarth manuscript is dated to Henry VI, the earlier part
of the fifteenth century. This is similar to that of the "Mabinogion of
the Llyvr Coch Hergest", which is of that same date but it is probably transcribed
from an earlier copy and it is not known when it was first translated into
Welsh, some scholars saying it was written around 1070
or in Henry I’s time, but this is debatable. Whatever the date of the Welsh version, the translator
had no great mastery of the original French from the source and the Welsh
scribe by his own volition chose not translate portions, because the French was
difficult to translate and the story was itself erratic and for the most part
misunderstood by the French collator. It can be seen that the Welsh versions
have been assimilated from French sources and sometimes changed or interpolated
or polemicized conferring a Welsh perspective to names places and events as can
be witnessed in the early Welsh versions which gives a differing outlook from
those in the French and can be so examplified. Perceval in the Welsh is called
Peredur. Perceval's father, Alain li Gros, is in the Welsh Earl Evrawg, and his
sister Dindrane becomes Danbrann. King Arthur becomes Emperor Arthur while Queen
Guenievre becomes Gwenhwyvar and so on. This leads to a comparable lack of
rigour with place names; Cardoil becomes
Caerlleon on Usk, Pannenoisance, Penvoisins; Tintagel translates into Tindagoyl
and Avalon becomes Avallach. These are
examples of deliberate alterations, and it is probable that those capable of
such practice would have been prepared to usurp Arthur’s Cornish heritage.
This passage in the History of Fulke
Fitz-Warine, originally written around 1260 is the first to mention the Graal from
Welsh sources:
‘And when Kahuz
was awake, he put his hand to his side. There hath he found the knife that had
smitten him through, so telleth us the Graal, The Book of the Holy Vessel.
There the King Arthur recovered his bounty and his valour when he had lost all
his chivalry and his virtue’
This is the Joseph line running through Montacute as described by Father Good stretching for 104 miles down to Burgh Island in Devon which is the Island of Avalon. This line Bifurcates the St. Michael Ley line at 13 Degrees exactly as Melkin had informed us in his Prophecy. This is the Avaron of the Grail romances an island found in the west where also King Arthur was buried.
Thus it seems that "The Graal, the Book
of the Holy Vessel" to which the Welsh biographer of Fulke refers is from
a French source. It would seem that because he uses the definite article, it indicates
that he thought this book to be the original authority on the subject either
having heard about it from a different source or seeing this in his written
source. Melkin’s works had been in amongst older
books at Glastonbury now lost, burnt or dispersed which John of Glastonbury
describes as “Vetustissimi”. The Vetustissimi were the books of very ancient
scribes, copied before the Norman Conquest, so copies of Melkin’s original
Arthurian material had plenty of time to be transformed to a Welsh arena. In
around 1280, the troubadour Sarrazin also refers to ‘The Graal’ as ‘li Graaus’ with
the same definite article, when he was trying to assert a confirmation of established
fact that King Arthur was at one time ‘Lord of Great Britain’. The references
to ‘The Graal’ or ‘Book of the Graal’ as being the established authority or
source for all the Grail literature even before Chrétien
de Troyes, is further evidenced by Sarrazin’s following statement ‘the Romance that Chrestien telleth so fairly
of Perceval the adventures of the Graal’. The statement tells us that Chrétien had
used a source and had portrayed or conveyed the contents with clarity and it
commends him for doing so.
Let us assume the Grail is an account of a religious
rite or process of which a written explanation came to Britain with Joseph.
Because what he brought was connected with Jesus, what was originally an
account of a spiritual nature became synonymous with the box, Grail ark or
receptacle that Joseph was believed to have brought to Britain. This
gets even more confused if the French Troubadours heard news of the British
account of a ‘Vessel’ buried with Joseph, which at least would have given them something
physical to romanticise rather than what seems to be some kind of unexplainable
processional religious quest an hence the very erratic nature of the early
Grail stories.
If Helinand’s date is nearly correct it would
explain the lack of continuity and provenance in the early French versions. It
would also allow for Melkin’s Arthurian material to be corrupted in Wales, but who could have been
responsible for putting together the misinterpreted ‘duo fassula’ that became a
‘vessel’ from British sources and combining them with French sources that were
a Processional and which was described as a plate. This was the turning point
of the Grail when it became a physical object that singularly tried to
encapsulate Jesus’s body, the Turin Shroud and an account of occult meaning and
this will become clear shortly.
As we have just seen, the "Book of the
Graal" is to be found as a reference also in the "Chronicle of
Helinand", who was also a troubadour at one time in high favour at the
court of Philip II. Philip Augustus had strong Templar connections, he was on
the third crusade and it has been posited that the Arc of the Covenant was
retrieved in this Crusade and kept by the Templars. If there was knowledge of the
Ark’s whereabouts in Melkin’s ‘Book of the Graal’, coming directly via Joseph (a
Sanhedrin member), there could be some substance in the rumour that the
Templars possessed the Arc. It could equally have been Eleanor of Aquitaine during
the second crusade, who also could have possessed this knowledge as she was one
of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Western Europe as well as being
Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, she was queen consort of France
(1137–1152) and of England (1154–1189) but more importantly she was patron to Chrétien de Troyes. Eleanor of Aquitaine is the only
woman to have been queen of both France and England and as Queen of France, she
participated in the unsuccessful second crusade but may also have been the personal
owner of Melkin’s Book of the Grail. Eleanor had two Daughters by Louis VII, Mary
who in 1164, married Henry, the great Count of Champagne and Alix, who became Countess of Chartres by
marriage with Theobald who had made Eleanor avoid Blois in 1152 because of his
eagerness to have Eleanor as wife, after her divorce from Louis. Henry and Theobald
were brothers whose sister Alix had married Louis VII in 1160, eight years
after Eleanor’s divorce. The family ties that were forged were fantastic,
especially for Queen Eleanor, who, besides her two French daughters, had eight
children as Queen of England. Her second son, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, born in
1157, was affianced in 1174 to a daughter of Louis VII and Alix, a child only
six years old, who was sent to England to be brought up as future queen. Eleanor’s son Richard the Lionheart could also
have found opportunity to recoup the Arc on the third Crusade if anyone did in
fact achieve this goal.
The
name of the original author of the Book of the Grail is recorded nowhere but we
know that Melkin had knowledge of Joseph having brought and been buried with a
relic of Jesus. So the probability that Melkin wrote a tract specifically
covering Grail material, that disappeared to France, yet left evidence and
crossover material that existed in the meantime in other works in Britain,
seems to be the only rationalisation. The
concurrence of two existing bodies of information that were to re-emerge and
confirm their united theme at the advent of the gradual release of French
material, through the Troubadour tradition, gives us an answer as to why
British history was emanating from France.
Many
have thought that the originator of the French material is referred to in the
"Elucidation", prefixed to the rhymed version of "Percival le
Gallois" under the name of "Master Blihis" and this pseudonym
seems to refer to Henry de Blois who
in French circles would have been known as Monseigneur Blois but in British circles
as Henry of Blois (1101–1171). He was often
known as Henry of Winchester and Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey from 1126, and
Bishop of Winchester from 1129 to his death.
Henry de Blois was the nephew of King Henry I, and he was one of five sons of Stephen II, Count of Blois, by Adela of Normandy (daughter of William the Conqueror) and the younger brother of King Stephen. Henry’s father died in the Crusade at Razes when Henry was only two years of age. After an exeptional education and at the young age of 23, Henry was appointed Prior of Montacute in Somerset which becomes relevant later in our investigation, where his uncle Henry I, was planning to create a royal abbey and it is for this reason we can be assured that the information which Father Good gave us about Montecute could only have come from Melkin’s book in France.
The poem of Chrétien de Troyes is the earliest surviving literary version that mentions the Grail and Chrétien, as he himself admits, was not inventing, but re-telling, an already popular tradition concerning the matière de Bretagne. The process of romanticising arcane knowledge contained in Melkin’s book had already begun with various degrees of interpretation and misunderstanding which had built layer upon layer of obfuscation from the core relevance of the original purport of the Gradatim as a spiritual pattern or divine plan laid out for mankind. If Henry of Blois is the author of the ‘High history of the Grail’ it would explain the reverence with which he treats the subject even if he had to uncomprehendingly interpret the depth of information revealed by Melkin’s original and certainly he would have been in a position to correlate this evidence with extant material at Glastonbury. It would appear that corruption of Melkin’s text into the French had taken place already. It would seem that it was probably Henry’s understanding of the ‘duo fassula’ as a vessel; understood certainly as a receptacle(s) in Britain, that might have transformed the religious rite, processional or quest of the French material into an eventual reliquary or Chalice.
Hear ye the history of the most holy vessel that is called Graal, wherein the precious blood of the Saviour was received on the day that He was put on rood and crucified in order that He might redeem His people from the pains of hell. Josephus set it in remembrance by annunciation of the voice of an angel, for that the truth might be known by his writing of good knights, and good worshipful men how they were willing to suffer pain and to travail for the setting forward of the Law of Jesus Christ, that He willed to make new by His death and by His crucifixion.
The High Book of the Graal beginneth in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. These three Persons
are one substance, which is God, and of God moveth the High Story of the Graal.
And all they that hear it ought to understand it, and to forget all the
wickednesses that they have in their hearts. For right profitable shall it be to
all them that shall hear it of the heart. For the sake of the worshipful men
and good knights of whose deeds shall remembrance be made, doth Josephus
recount this holy history, for the sake of the lineage of the Good Knight that
was after the crucifixion of Our Lord. Good Knight was he without fail, for he
was chaste and virgin of his body and hardy of heart and with courage, and so
were his conditions without wickedness. Not boastful was he of speech, and it
seemed not by his cheer that he had so great courage; Nonetheless, of one
little word that he delayed to speak came to pass so sore mischances in Greater
Britain, that all the islands and all the lands fell thereby into much sorrow,
albeit thereafter he put them back into gladness by the authority of his good
knighthood. Good knight was he of right, for he was of the lineage of Joseph of
Abarimacie. And this Joseph was his mother's uncle, that had been a soldier of
Pilate's seven years, nor asked he of him any other favour of his service but
only to take down the body of Our Saviour from hanging on the cross. The delight
to him seemed full great when it was granted him, and full little to Pilate
seemed the favour; for right well had Joseph served him, and had he asked to
have gold or land thereof, willingly would he have given it to him. And for
this did Pilate make him a gift of the Saviour's body, for he supposed that
Joseph should have dragged the same shamefully through the city of Jerusalem
when it had been taken down from the cross, and should have left it without the
city in some mean place. But the Good Soldier had no mind thereto, but rather
honoured the body the most he might, rather laid it along in the Holy Sepulchre
and kept safe the lance whereof He was smitten in the side and the most Holy Vessel
wherein they that believed on Him received with awe the blood that ran down
from His wounds when He was set upon the rood. Of this lineage was the Good
Knight for whose sake is this High History treated.
Adela of Blois, wife of Stephen, Count of Blois,
Henry’s father who had fled from the Siege of Antioch in 1098, was so ashamed
of her husband that she would not permit him to stay at home. Henry's father died in 1102 while on crusade. He left, leaving an estate with more than 350
castles and large properties in France including Chartres which as many will know is a shrine
of sacred geometry, which has Arthurian overtones mentioned in Lois
Charpantier’s account of ‘The Mysteries of Chartres Cathedral’. Coincidentally
the town of Chartres was under the judicial and tax authority of the Counts of Blois. The current cathedral, mostly constructed between 1193 and 1250 just after
Henry’s Death, is one of at least five that have occupied the site since the
town became a bishopric in the 4th century.
Henry of Blois was educated at a monastery in
Cluny in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France. This was a Benedictine
Cluny Abbey, founded by Duke William I of Aquitaine in AD 910 which adhered to the principles of Cluniac
reform, including a sense of intellectual freedom and humanism, as well as adherence
to a high standard of devotion and discipline. Here Henry studied
in the seven liberal arts; trivium (rhetoric grammar, and logic), quadrivium
(geometry, arithmetic, music and astronomy) along with architecture and he was essentially
renowned later in life, with all this schooling, as a sage. It was, probably
while in France during his formative years, that he heard of these early tales
and later while at Glastonbury he combined later material to comprise the High
history of the Grail. It is
interesting to quote from Miss Jesse Laidlaw
Weston’s revealing book ‘From Ritual to Romance’ as this
gives a
clear impression of the early Grail writers development.
While the poem of Chrétien de Troyes is our earliest surviving literary version, there is the strongest possible evidence that Chrétien, as he himself admits, was not inventing, but re-telling, an already popular tale. The Grail Quest was a theme which had been treated not once nor twice, but of which numerous, and conflicting, versions were already current, and, when Wauchier de Denain undertook to complete Chrétien's unfinished work, he drew largely upon these already existing forms, regardless of the fact that they not only contradicted the version they were ostensibly completing, but were impossible to harmonize with each other.
It is of importance for our investigation, however, to note that where Wauchier does refer to a definite source, it is to an evidently important and already famous collection of tales, Le Grant Conte, comprising several 'Branches,' the hero of the collection being not Chrétien's hero, Perceval, but Gawain, who, both in pseudo-historic and romantic tradition, is far more closely connected with the Arthurian legend, occupying, as he does, the traditional position of nephew, Sister's Son, to the monarch who is the centre of the cycle; even as Cuchullinn is sister's son to Conchobar, Diarmid to Finn, Tristan to Mark, and Roland to Charlemagne. In fact this relationship was so obviously required by tradition that we find Perceval figuring now as sister's son to Arthur, now to the Grail King, according as the Arthurian, or the Grail, tradition dominates the story. The actual existence of such a group of tales as those referred to by Wauchier derives confirmation from our surviving Gawain poems, as well as from the references in the Elucidation.
On a couple of occasions in the re-telling of these Gawain tales, Wauchier refers to what he thinks is the original author by name and calls him ‘Bleheris’ the first time. On the second occasion he states specifically that this Bleheris was of Welsh birth and origin, ‘né et engenuïs en Galles’. He says this in connection with a tale being told to a certain, Comte de Poitiers, whose favourite story it was, saying ‘he loved it above all others’, which would infer that it was not the only tale the said ‘Bleheris’ had recounted to the Count.
Even though it is posited that Henry was born in Blois Castle in France, this cannot be substantiated but certainly Henry used much Arthurian material for the Elucidation which might have made others think he was Welsh. Henry could possibly be the Link that combined Arthurian Welsh and Glastonbury Joseph material with French Melkin, Joseph and Nicodemus material owned by Eleanor of Aquitaine. The ‘Elucidation’ prefaces its account of the Grail Quest by a solemn statement of the gravity of the subject to be treated as ‘God moveth the High Story of the Graal. And all they that hear it ought to understand it, and to forget all the wickednesses that they have in their hearts’. These stark warnings are said to have come from a certain Master Blihis, concerning whom we hear no more but the warning does seem to derive from a firm believer with an understanding of the Grail’s sanctity in connection with a divine plan. A little further on in the poem we meet with a knight, Blihos or Bliheris, who, made prisoner by Gawain, reveals to Arthur and his court the identity of the maidens wandering in the woods, of the Fisher King and the Grail, and is so good a story-teller that none can weary of listening to his tales. This in a form, is autobiographical by Henry speaking of Blihis as other than himself and is confirmed by the Count of Poitiers’ commendation of Blihis’s storytelling.
Monseigneur is an honorific appellation in the French language and it would seem that it has been mistranslated or wrongly scribed for Monsieur or ‘master’ by later translators from the French. It has occasional English use as well, as it may be a title before the name of a French prelate, a member of a royal family or any dignitary; all of which might be applied to ‘Monseigneur Blois’. Also it is sometimes used as a name for a Frenchman who has a position on the court which would also apply to Henry. It would seem that having studied rhetoric and Grammar, Henry would qualify in some degree as a raconteur of Grail material to William X, Count of Poitiers between (1126 - 1137), Father of Eleanor of Aquitaine just as it was said that Master Blihis had done and not forgetting, Henry would have been abreast of the Glastonbury material since 1126.
William IX, known as the Troubadour, 1071 - 1126 was Duke of
Aquitaine and Gascony and Count of Poitou between 1086 and 1126. He was the son
of William VIII of Aquitaine by his third wife Hildegarde of Burgundy. He
inherited the duchy at the age of fifteen. In 1088, at the age of sixteen,
William married his first wife, Ermengarde of Anjou the daughter of Count Fulk.
It is interesting to note that the biographer of Fulke in the History of Fulke
Fitz-Warine the first to mention the Grail in Welsh literature and more
importantly the book of the Holy vessel, is Eleanor of Aquitaine’s Grandmother’s
family name (Fulke). William IX’s greatest legacy in history was his renown as
a poet. He was the first known troubadour or trouvère, a lyric poet employing
the Occitan or Langued’oc tongues. Eleven of his songs survive and they are
attributed to him under his title as Count of Poitou. This seems to have become
a family tradition as the first Romance poets of the Middle Ages emerged as founders
of the troubadour tradition because like his father before him, William X,
Eleanor’s father was a patron of troubadours, music and literature. He was an
educated man and gave his two daughters an excellent education. Henry of Blois
was obviously entirely fluent in French and had family ties to Eleanor (His cousin
Theobald was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine´s daughter,
Marie) who also was a patron to Chrétien de Troyes and thus makes the Aquitaine’s the most likely
noble family to possess Melkin’s ‘Book of the Grail’ and to provide Henry with
the French source material. In the
fragmentary remains of Thomas's Tristan we have a passage, in which the poet refers, as source,
to a certain Bréri, who knew "all the feats, and all the tales, of all the
kings, and all the counts who had lived in Britain." With Henry’s privileged
education and fascination with books he would have found available at
Glastonbury, in conjunction with his royal connections; he does appear to be the
obvious person to correlate British and French sources that had been temporarily
separated. Blois became Bleheris which
was mispronounced as Blihis which got Latinised into Bledhericus and far from
the bounds of our enquiry at the moment one can trace Henry as Gawain in his own
writings.
Briefly, Giraldus Cambrensis refers to the ‘famosus
ille fabulator’, Bledhericus, who had lived "shortly before our
time" and whose renown he evidently takes for granted and was familiar to his
readers not necessarily for his personage, but rather for the material said to
have been written by him. Now if Gerald of Wales was writing around 1210 this
would be when the High History of the Grail was at its most Popular. Although
Henry employed his own pseudonym in his work, it would seem that other appellations
from other writers; the Bleheris who, according to Wauchier, had told
tales concerning Gawain, and Arthur's court, one of the tales of
which was certainly the Grail adventure; the Master Blihis, who knew the Grail
mystery, and gave solemn counselling about its revelation; the
Blihos-Bliheris, who knew the Grail, and many other tales; the Bréri,
who knew all the legendary tales concerning the princes of
Britain; and the famous story-teller Bledhericus, of whom Gerald of Wales speaks,
are not separate people, or mere inventions of the separate writers. It would seem as if
Henry, may well have deserved the title ‘famosus ille fabulator,’ but he was only
accounted as the originator of the Grail because people thought Monseigneur
Blois, the consolidator of Melkin material, was the writer of the original book
of the Grail. He was not but he understood the sanctity of the Material. It was however the coincidence of his being
privy to knowledge from British and French sources that was really responsible
for his renown as master Blihis but it seems as if we can account Henry in some
way responsible for the Grail’s evolution as an object.
Glastonbury abbey where King Arthur is said to have been Discovered but this was just a ploy by the monks to assert themselves as the island of Avalon where Joseph of Arimathea was supposed to be buried. If they unearthed Arthur which they fabricated for all the world to see with a fake cross indicating the location of Glastonbury, then they assumed all the world would believe Joseph of Arimathea was buried there.
The assumed tomb of King Arthur where the monks staged his disinterrement but Arthur still lies in the island of Avalon with the bodies of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea. The Island of Avallon in Devon was part of Dumnonia where Arthur ruled the people of Devon and Cornwall.
In 1126 at the age of 29, Henry was appointed
Abbot of Glastonbury and would certainly have come into contact with the works
of Melkin which were extant at that date. He joined the Abbey in a state of decline
when the monks lived in penury. Abbot Henry took immediate action, proving
himself as an excellent leader and architect. He renovated and restored the
monastery and it was through his efforts that by 1143, Glastonbury Abbey is noted in the Doomsday
book as “the wealthiest in England”. Henry’s
brother, King Stephen with Queen Matilda were two of the greatest benefactors
to the Templars and it is through the Templar connection of Eleanor and her
proximity to the Crusades that threads of Templar material got embedded in the
romances and as we shall see became the main guardians of the truths behind the
Grail. Henry might have obtained some of his other material from Templar
sources across Europe as Henry’s brother gave the Templars land in London and
other tracts of land where the Templars had their Manors. It would seem
therefore that Henry can be accredited for having written one of the first compilations of
Grail Romances called ‘The High History of the Holy Graal’.
It appears to have been collated sourcing from
Chrétien de Troye’s work and
from sources which Eleanor’s family owned, not only evidenced by the author
portraying in his writing, such good local knowledge of the environs of Glastonbury,
but also becoming clearer because of his family connections and the likelihood
of Henry and Chrétien’s paths crossing.
If our assumptions are correct, the ‘Book of
the Grail’ was written by Melkin which approximately concurs with Helinands’
date. Henry of Blois was also aware of Melkin’s other writings at Glastonbury,
adding to the fact that it is also credited in the Latin version of the ‘High History of the Holy Graal’ to have
been written by a monk at Glastonbury who, incidentally must have been fluent
in some dialects of the French.
Melkin as we know through his prophesy appears
to have associations with Glastonbury and appears to be single handedly
responsible for coalescing the Joseph tradition. Melkin through the
construction of his riddle kept alive a tradition from great antiquity through
conjoining the Quest of the Grail with a search for Joseph and what was with
him in his tomb. It would seem therefore that Henry de Blois was the ‘famous fabulator’ named ‘Master Blihis’ in the prologue called the
Elucidation of Le Conte Del Graal where it says, "Master Blihis is ‘one
who knew all the stories of the Graal’.
Chrétien de Troyes working for Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughters states that he had been given a Grail
book by them, to be romanticised (inferring a more historical or factual
account), so that it could be read out at court. It would appear therefore,
that the French noble family in possession of Melkin’s work which contained the
historical Joseph account including the gospel of Nicodemus (which Chrétien was aware of), was Melkin’s ‘Book of the
Graal’ in the possession of Eleanor. Henry of Blois was uncle to Theobald V, Count of Blois
and Troyes who was married to Alix de France, daughter of Louis VII, King of
France from his first wife Eleanor d’Aquitaine. Theobald’s brother Henry was married to Marie, Eleanor’s
other daughter, so through the Aquitaine’s possible ownership of Melkin’s book
of the Grail, it is not difficult to see how Henry of Blois, appraised of the
fact that Melkin was the originator of these truths, and being acquainted with
the Glastonbury tradition could have been the one responsible in part for the
British re-emergence. This helped through Crusader and Templar influences of
the Joseph and Arthurian histories, couched and propagated as popular
troubadour tales. In addition, the Count of Blois’ court in Troyes became a
renowned literary troubadour centre. Walter Map was among those who found
hospitality there along with Chrétien.
It
would appear that the source in the ‘Conte du Graal’ came originally from
Britain but it seems likely that Henry used other works of Melkin’s at
Glastonbury to draw upon. We should not forget that Melkin was probably the hermit
(pious monk) referred to by Helinand and that Melkin had of course, to have
been aware of arcane Joseph material, to have portrayed the Joseph and Grail
material as the base for his Prophecy. As we shall see further in our investigation,
it is through Melkin’s thorough understanding of the essence of the Grail that
he can link its discovery with the unveiling of the tomb with a specific point
in time. It is partly due to this
prediction of the unveiling that subsequent commentators referred to his
extract about Joseph’s tomb and the ‘duo fassula’, as a prophecy.
Henry was a highly intelligent person,
probably not wishing to be associated with the more romanticised and plainly
embellished Grail material proliferating at the time because he understood the
Grail’s sanctity in that it was originally an expression of God’s work in man.
He Knew that it was a subject (although not fully comprehended by him) that should
not be treated irreverently and so for reasons regarding his ecclesiastical
position, ‘The High History of the Grail’, was written and alluded to himself
by a pseudonym or nickname.
Henry
was brought to England by King Henry I, to be Abbot of Glastonbury. On 4
October 1129, he was given the Bishopric of Winchester but allowed to keep his
beloved Glastonbury Abbey. He was consecrated as bishop on 17 November
1129. He had ambitions to become
Archbishop of Canterbury but was thwarted. However he did not abandon his work
and obligations to Glastonbury. Except for
a few brief months in 1141 when he changed his alliance to Empress Matilda,
when he thought he would be on the winning side, Henry supported and advised
Stephen his brother and is credited as one of the clergy who helped convince
William of Corbeil, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to crown Stephen. Soon after his appointment to the See of
Winchester, Henry came to resent his subservience to Canterbury. Henry was the
patron of great writers one of whom was Archdeacon, Gerald of Wales who later
unwittingly referred to him as Bledhericus and through his family connections,
had links to the Templars and the Crusades and was well acquainted with William
of Malmesbury. One of the finest
buildings Henry had constructed, was the Hospital of St. Cross on the outskirts
of Winchester. A few years after completion, Henry was to assign the
guardianship over to the Knights Templar. In William of Malmsbury’s work, ‘De
Antiquitate Glasttonie Ecclesie’, which he dedicated to Henry, he tells us that
“the monk he knew personally and in fact whom he “served” was shy, learned and
a great writer”. Henry of Blois gave some sixty books to the great library at
Glastonbury and had ancient books copied, such as Pliny’s Natural History, the
book of Enoch, and several other books of Origen, St. Jerome and St. Augustine
which probably would have been lost except for his efforts. Mostly he will be
remembered for sponsoring the Winchester Bible, the largest illustrated Bible
ever produced (which was still
unfinished at his death).
It is in 1155 though, that Master Robert Wace completes his "Roman de
Brut," a version of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s "History" in French. Wace
dedicated his work to Eleanor of Aquitaine his patron, and is remembered as
being the first writer to introduce the concept of the "Round Table"
to the Arthurian cycle. Presumably it
was Eleanor who had provided him with a source containing arcane geomatria
supplied by Melkin’s book mixed with the information from British sources found
at Glastonbury supplied by Henry of Blois that were to be included in the
Architecture of Chartres then under the jurisdiction of the Counts of Blois. Of
Arthur, Robert Wace says,
"I know not if you have heard tell the
marvellous gestes and errant deeds related so often of King Arthur. They have
been noised about this mighty realm for so great a space that the truth has
turned to fable and an idle song. Such rhymes are neither sheer bare lies, nor
gospel truths. They should not be considered either an idiot's tale, or given
by inspiration. The minstrel has sung his ballad, the storyteller told over his
tale so frequently; little by little he has decked and painted, till by reason
of his embellishment the truth stands hid in the trappings of a tale. Thus to
make a delectable tune to your ear, history goes masking as fable.
Melkin was a geometer, which was not only borne out by his Prophesy, but
also if we take into account information regarding Montacute as a marker. This Information would have been derived from
the Grail book originally and passed on by Henry of Blois the first Abbot to
pass on this clue that seems to have come down through the ages to Father Good.
It was generally understood that Joseph was hidden within some geometric puzzle,
all the clues of which seem to emanate from Melkin, the one man who knew the
whereabouts of Joseph. Henry of Blois, being Abbot of Glastonbury, presumably
would have passed on the information that Father Good was to possess at a later
date regarding Montacute (that he could have only gleaned from Eleanor’s Book
of the Grail) and the clue it gave to Joseph’s burial site.
It also seems a little suspect
that he chose to be appointed at the young age of 23, as
Prior of Montacute. The one person we suspect of having read Melkin’s Grail
book and who most likely discovered that there was a connection between
Montacute and finding Joseph, just happens to be prior there. If we assume that the studious Henry had come
across the Joseph material from a source that Melkin had written i.e. the Book
of the Grail, then one can understand how the detail of Montacute was probably obtained
by Henry and this information acted as a motivation for Henry’s first post as a
mature man recently arrived from his education in France.
Strangely
enough, it was Eleanor who married King Henry II, the same King Henry who was supposedly
told by a sage the exact place to start digging at Glastonbury Abbey to find
King Arthur’s bones there between two pyramids. As we have covered Henry II was
already dead when Arthur was unearthed but the story could have a grain of
truth, if indeed Henry had learnt of Arthur’s burial in Avalon from Eleanor or
her material. If it was widely accepted that Joseph was buried in Avalon and
because of Joseph’s Glastonbury connection to the church there; it is possible
that the King, learning Arthur was also buried in Avalon also from the French
source, may indeed have put this very idea of Avalon being equated with
Glastonbury into the monks heads. It is possible that subsequently after the
kings death they eventually, having lost their patron, decided to carry out the
bogus unearthing of Arthur citing him as a witness.
Although John Leland, in
1534 says that the book he saw of Melkin’s, he dated to 450AD and this passage from
Helinand’s chronicle relates the angels appearance to Melkin in 717, it seems
safe to assume that the 500 year difference until Helinand actually wrote would
allow for an error of a century or two.
One can only deduce that
Helinand is referring to Melkin, as Melkin deals with the same two subjects, that
of Joseph and the Grail in his Prophesy. It will become apparent to the reader,
as we progress, that Melkin’s ‘Book of the Graal’ or ‘Of the Grades or by
Degrees’ had express knowledge of what the Gradatim was, as a series of ‘grades’
toward spiritual enlightenment and this revelation of the Grail was known and
understood by Melkin. He knew that it would be marked by an event in time, i.e.
the unveiling of the tomb at a predestined point in time, but we will deal with
this explanation of ‘Time’ later.
One cannot be certain if Helinand’s extract is the first
passage which refers to the Grail directly at this early date, but the same
date was quoted by Walter Map, an early Grail writer in reference as a source.
If it is genuine, it is the closest we get to the original source of Melkin the
consolidator of material found in the tomb. This is the point at which it
becomes a question of faith for those who believe in Angels or for the
pragmatic to answer ‘from where did
Melkin receive instruction’? If we
consider the Grail as arcane knowledge linked to a Divine Plan then divine
intervention by apparition should not be excluded especially when we consider
Melkin’s link to an apparition by St. Michael that is attributed to St. Aubert
at Mont –St- Michel discussed in a later chapter.
Who imparted the knowledge for the original source if it was
not an angel that indeed gave Melkin his insight? More importantly, how were
they or he able to leave behind such exact geometrical and geographic
instructions with surveying pin point accuracy? One must remember that if Melkin did live
around 450 to 650AD then where was this source and in what language, before
Melkin transcribed all its information into Latin? This source and the Grail
book will be found at the unveiling of the tomb. The arcane source material
will have remained in the tomb but certainly the Grail book was returned to the
tomb by the Templars. There must be a source book for Melkin to have
transcribed from Hebrew to render Shirei ha
Ma'a lot’ but to understand and relate in the Grail book about the Grades of
Enlightenement would indicate some exterior inspiration.
In Helinand’s chronicle, he derives ‘graal’
from ‘gradalis’ and sets the date for the British hermit's vision of the Grail
at 707 or 717 A.D, but we are told that Melkin was ‘before’ Arthur and Merlin.
This proposition now seems inaccurate if we take this date and the fact that
Melkin knows where Arthur is buried. It
is still not certain how this transition of the ‘Grades’ evolved into an object
except from obvious misinterpretation, but Helinand's ‘gradalis’ did not
resemble a chalice but rather a dish on which meats were served. This
semantically fits with the other descriptions of the Holy Grail as a
receptacle, since Joseph of Arimathea uses the Grail to catch blood and sweat alluded
to by Melkin and implies that it is a vessel that holds liquid. Helinand states that Gradalis
or Gradale means a dish, wide and somewhat
deep by definition, in which rich meats are served to the rich in degrees-
gradatim. One wonders again if this is
not a misunderstanding of the spiritually rich as opposed to the wasteland or
dearth which is cured on attainment of the Grail in the romances. The
singular Chalice is often thought of as the receptacle used at the Last Supper
or is a relic of the Passion in which both blood and sweat were contained. Some
scholars posit that the concept of the Grail as a platter preceded the notion
of the Grail as the "Kiddush Cup" from the Last Supper positing that
primarily it was a Paschal Dish and not the Eucharistic vessel used by the
twelve disciples. The Grail is none of these because Melkin describes it so
accurately, he leaves no doubt as to its composition.
When
Chrétien de Troyes refers to the ‘Graal’ in ‘le Conte du Graal, Chrétien refers
to his object not as “the Grail”, but as “un graal”, “a grail”, implying that
in the source document it was used in context as a common noun and that there
were more than one as implied by Melkin’s book of the Grail about Grades or
Degrees to enlightenment which is the whole essence of what the Grail is; an
objective description of the ‘Divine Plan’ and the romances have in a way
achieved a heightened awareness or preparation in readying the world as a form
of pre-cognition.
It is difficult to ascertain whether Melkin, did survey the angles
and distances that we will be elucidating when we investigate Melkin’s
prophecy, because this art was supposedly lost in the sixth century Dark Ages, when
European mapping techniques were still very crude. Melkin, however, passes on precise and accurate
information given in his riddle so where did he get it from? If it was not Melkin who surveyed the British
landscape by his own skill, which points to where Joseph and Jesus were buried
in the Island of Ictis, then how was it that he could leave us such precise directions?
Was it truly by divine intervention as Helinand posits, or was there original
ancient mapping instructions which indicated and marked Ley lines from which
Melkin compiled his prophecy? If one considers that an entire body of knowledge
may have existed since very early days from the offspring of Zerah through a
line of Kings that ended with Arthur, then Melkin could have had access to this
when he buried King Arthur. Was he, like
Father Good, just the messenger, perpetuating a tradition and preserving directions
to Joseph’s resting place to be found in a future generation? The hardest question to answer is; “who did
the original surveying and at what stage in history were the coordinates of
these Ley Lines recorded and surveyed as pertaining to what was hidden in Ictis”?
If we assume that the French Templars possessed knowledge of this Ley line
system (which will become apparent), then this geometry was also contained in
the French Book of the Grail. If this assumption is correct then it might
explain where Henry of Blois got the information about Montacute that was
passed on to Father Good down through the ages by the Abbots. The argument
against it being divine intervention leaves only two options, one being Melkin
did survey the lines but how is this then linked to the Geometry of the pyramid.
The other option would be that the Island was surveyed long ago as part of the
pyramid construct but to what purpose and what part does the island play in
relation to the original St.Michael Ley line before the Templars put their
stamp on it and named it as such.
If the extract account of the Grail from Helinand was written
in Latin around 707AD, it indicates that, before the five main romance writers,
Guiot le Provencal, Chrétien de Troyes, Walter Map,
Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Albrecht von Scharfenberg, began their works, there
was a Latin original which would explain how Henry
of Blois might have made the Montacute connection that was passed to Father
Good. But then one has to question whether Henry actually saw the French
original translation of the Grail book or the original Latin from Melkin.
As
regards to when the original was written given the Saxon connection to Arthur,
it would seem soon after Arthur’s demise and possibly even written in France
although Helinand’s source seems to indicate an Apparition as taking place in
Britain. The original Latin version
written by Melkin we should guess at around 650 AD to be followed by a French
translation (the one Helinand is referring to) and this is what Eleanor’s
father and Grandfather were captivated by. It is with this family that the troubadour
tradition concerning the Grail commenced to evolve into the various forms of
romances. Before any of the early named Grail writers mentioned above came on
the scene there was most probably a more oral court tradition and it would seem
these early troubadours recognised at this early date that the Grail book
contained sacred information. The Grail books appearance was either then
ascribed the date by Helinand or more probably given the date of when his
source wrote of the Latin originals first appearance at court. Because of the book’s profundity, knowledge
and the nature of its material, it was assumed it could only have been
delivered by an angel who duly relayed it to the hermit better known as Melkin.
In a later chapter we will cover the possibility that Burgh Island’s
association as a Tomb in connection with St. Michael preceded even the Templars
and if indeed it is the cause for the naming of Mont- Saint-Michel as Mons
Tomba and its association with an angelic apparition by St. Michael to a monk.
It was Robert de Boron circa 1170 who relates the story of
the shield that was later to become the Arms of Glastonbury that Father Good
investigated to find a clue to Joseph’s burial site. The shield given to Evalak by Josaphes, Joseph of
Arimathea’s son, had a red cross on it that was also to become the symbol of
the Rosicrucians and the Templars. Robert tells us that, following Evalak's
victory over Tholomer, the red cross upon it disappeared, then Josaphes, just
before his death, asked Mordrains to bring the shield to him. Continuing the story he then recounts that
Josaphes with his own blood inscribed another cross on the shield and gave it
back to Mordrains, and afterward it was placed upon the grave of Duke Nasciens,
until Galahad would come and retrieve it. Galahad then possesses a sword which
had belonged to King David, the hilt of which was covered by King Solomon with
precious stones and the story ensues with an adventure with the holy bleeding
lance, and Galahad’s eventual achievement of the Saint Graal, followed by his
death at Sarras.
Thomas Malory's Morte
D’Arthur has very much the same story with his own additions, the early French
tradition keeping links with the Holy Land threaded throughout the narrative.
Is Solomon’s sword’s iconic appearance in the original sources hinting at the
inter-relationship of the two twins Pharez and Zerah’s separate bloodlines, as
far back as King David, Solomon’s father, but somehow imputing the transference
of kingship to Britain. The shield obviously being transformed in the tale with
blood marks on it, to a Rosicrucian emblem and an association with the
Templars, who not only were probably at this stage in possession of the Latin
source in France after Eleanor but were now releasing their source material in
response to the new interest shown in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s widely read
history of the kings of Britain.
Evalak’s shield then by close association
with Joseph was adopted as the Arms of Glastonbury. Glastonbury substituted the
knotted wooden cross from the staff planted by Joseph at Glastonbury and then
added the two vessels each side to coincide with the ‘duo fassula’ while the
blood inscribed cross of Evalak also become the Templar emblem.
The subject matter of our
investigation seems so wide, and interrelated from Ictis to Avalon via Glastonbury
and the Grail stories. Evalak king of
Sarras, Knights looking for the Graal in the East, Egypt, Jerusalem, the Templars’
cross, stories of Jesus in England, Joseph of Arimathea being buried with the
Grail, Arthur, the oil with
which Josaphes was consecrated, being kept in the Grail-ark. This oil with
which a line of Kings are consecrated, while being kept at Sarras, swords and
ships from Solomon, pyramids at Glastonbury, and prophecies in riddle form, but
all of these having a link to Jesus.
Man from the dawn of consciousness, has advanced and gained a
large amount of knowledge from stories recounted by previous generations that
sometimes lived millennia before him and the individual has to learn and judge
the validity of this corpus of knowledge in his short 70 years of life. The relevance of the stories in this enquiry
are for mankind as a whole, as if we are being prepared for a revelation, occult
information couched within the Grail stories, and bardic prophecies without
which, we would not comprehend a coming of heightened consciousness, and the proof
that mankind needs. A proof that aligns with scriptures held as sacred by the
Abrahamic religions i.e. the Prophets. The proof that is necessary for Mankind
to progress in consciousness is the knowledge that there is some form of divine
intervention which directs events. If Man were to have a more intellectual
knowledge of God rather than wholly Faith based, there would be a shift in the
consciousness of Mankind. There is understanding of this expectation even
outside the arena of our investigation in the
prophecy of Paracelcus, and the reformation of the whole world order.
Quod utilius
Deus patefieri sinet, quod autem majoris momenti est, vulgo adhuc latet usque
ad Eliæ Artistæ adventum, quando is venerit.
"God will permit a discovery of
the highest importance to be made, it must be hidden till the advent of the
artist Elias." He also states;
Hoc item
verum est nihil est absconditum quod non sit retegendum; ideo, post me veniet
cujus magnale nundum vivit qui multa revelabit.
"And it is true, there is
nothing concealed which shall not be discovered; for which cause a marvellous
being shall come after me, who as yet lives not, and who shall reveal many
things."
In Malachi
4:5 See, I will send
you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. This passage comes straight after an
admonishment to obey the Law of Moses the very subject the Archangel is
supposed to dispute with the Dragon. Jehosaphat mentioned in Melkin’s prophecy,
is the same day to which Malachi refers; so is St. Michael synonymous with
Elijah? It would
seem that the different religions would need a proof of provenance of some sort
to reunite them, especially those of the Abrahamic tradition, as all have been
derived from one heritage and been guided by one divine plan. Of course, in Jewish, Moslem and Christian
traditions this unifier is Michael the Archangel, attested by Enoch first and
then confirmed later by the Biblical prophets.
The very purpose of prophecy is realisation or gnosis and if St. Michael
is to bring together these three Abrahamic faiths there will be a need to
eradicate religion in all its divisive forms of theological dogma and creed. The very reality of what was foretold by
these prophets needs to actually transpire and then there will be the proof
needed by mankind. The problem is that gnosis of an omnipotent God needs be re-cognised
. The Grail stories with what they reveal, when aligned with the prophets are
just the vehicle to bring about this paradigm shift of consciousness. After all,
the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and has been for 2000 years but it is only a
heightened consciousness that recognises this fact until the time comes when
this shift in consciousness occurs and this is at the discovery of the Tomb and
what it reveals to mankind.
Chrétien de Troyes poem tells of the
passages through life of a young knight called Percival, but it is written in
an uneasy form and suddenly goes from a story about Percival into the
adventures he has on the way to being a knight.
Percival is the first of the three Grail stories to be published and in
the narrative it describes the vessel of the Holy Grail as a golden dish and
also speaks of a Lance dripping with blood that appears with the Grail conveyed
ceremoniously at times throughout a meal he is having. The Grail romances cover
too many variations to be discussed here, but as we focused on the essential
information provided by Pytheas that led us to the Island of Ictis, so, too,
must we look at the essential core of what the Grail romances have in common,
to understand their meaning. It is evident that the Grail writers were not
really concerned with historical time as they interwove their various versions
from a core body of material.
The essential threads of information that
align themselves even semantically and allegorically seem to consist of Joseph
of Arimathea, the Grail, Knightly pursuits and a quest, but essentially it was a
British matter. Joseph has a connection
to Jesus and most of the Grail heroes have a connection to Joseph and so it
would seem a bloodline or inheritance is inferred. The Grail seems to be an object with direct
connections to Jesus having been brought to Britain by Joseph. The quest appears to be, to find the Grail
but the Grail seems hard to define and thus looking for it makes it all the
more difficult. The Grail although greatly connected to Jesus (who was the one
responsible for a major part of Man’s enlightenment) is also synonymous with
the developmental stages of enlightenment in the individual, referred to as
grades in the Book of the Grail and allegorised as knightly pursuits.
Melkin having prior knowledge of this process
or divine plan would in effect equate him as having equal standing with
Biblical prophets, informing us of future events in ’Time’ but also having
knowledge that his prophecy relates in part to degrees of Spiritual
enlightenment which are set in a finite timespan.
Showing the bifurcating point of the Joseph line with that of the St. Michael ley line at 13 degrees that was foretold by the prophet Melkin who says that the body of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea are to be found in the Isle of Avallon.
Insula Avallonis or the Island of Avalon next to the mouth of the Avon river in Devon known today as Burgh Island where King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus are all entombed and where King Arthur came to try to find a Miracle cure just before his death that was witnessed by the prophet Melkin, the originator of the Grail stories.
A full explanation can be found in the Book 'And did those feet' by Michael Goldsworthy found on the links below.
http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9781780883007-1
In the Dark
Ages a monk called Melkin left a riddle that purported to expose the burial
site of Joseph of Arimathea. This Location has long been thought to exist
within the Glastonbury grounds but the author has meticulously studied some of
the oldest Latin and deposited with them all texts from Glastonbury Abbey and
has uncovered not only deliberate obfuscation of the facts surrounding King
Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea but has solved the monks riddle which spells out
with pinpoint accuracy the whereabouts of the resting place of these
illustrious men in the Island of Avalon. The geometric puzzle describes
directions that are derived from the Ley line system built by Neolithic man and
the book describes how this huge display of geometrical precision across the British
landscape was understood and known to exist as late as late the 1300’s. An
array of churches was built upon this ancient system to point out to posterity
the location of the tomb.
This secret location is called the Island of
Avalon and the same monk visited this island at the death of Britain’s famous
King Arthur. Here he found arcane information from the Temple in Jerusalem that
was brought to England by Joseph of Arimathea. This information with an account
of the first Christians arrival with Mary Magdalene was written in a book called
The Grail that found its way to France and gave rise to the wide array of Grail
stories.
‘And did
those feet’ proves that the body of Jesus is in fact buried with Joseph of
Arimathea and the whereabouts of this island is in Devon. It used to be known
as the ancient Island of Ictis and contains within it an ancient tin vault that
became their tomb which had originally been used to store tin ingots. The
confirmation of the whereabouts of this tomb is given by precise geometry upon
the British landscape left in the complex Latin puzzle by the monk Melkin but
its position is also verified by a Jesuit priest who lived in the sixteenth
century who was unaware of the significance of the clue he was given.
The Templars in the middle ages were aware of
the location of this tomb and deposited their treasure in the same tomb on
Christmas day 1307. However they removed one item from the sepulchre within the
island. This was what has now become known as the Turin Shroud. The Turin Shroud
in the monk’s Latin puzzle has the same description once the Latin puzzle is
deciphered. This artefact due to Melkin’s description, later became known as
the Holy Grail by an inordinate amount of misunderstanding and direct
obfuscation, but the Holy Grail is in fact something inestimably more valuable and
this book sets out and explains what the Grail is and how the Grail stories
came about. The body of Jesus, around which the Turin Shroud was once wrapped,
is still within the tomb, steeped in Cedar oil and this is what formed the
image on the Shroud over a period of six hundred years as it was formed within
what became known as the Grail Arc.
The reason this Island was chosen to house
what is the holiest relic of all, is because it was not widely known in the
ancient world except through a report by one of the first Greek explorers to
Britain. Devon and Cornwall have a history in the tin industry and it was from
this island that tin was traded with Joseph of Arimathea who, Cornish tradition
has always maintained, was a tin merchant and was accompanied on his trading
missions by Jesus. The book uncovers an ancient Biblical link to the Devon and
Cornish peninsula through a bloodline from the first born of Judah one of the
twelve sons of Israel, called Zerah. It is from his heritage a Line of Kings was
born in the South west of England known as the kings of Sarras which culminated
with the famous King Arthur.
King Arthur, Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea are
known to be buried on the Island today called Burgh Island but there is also
with them the Arc of the Covenant and the Templar treasure. The book traces
these events pulling together a wide source of detail linking the most powerful
people in Europe like Eleanor of Aquitaine and kings with these events.
Leonardo Da
Vinci visited this Island in the last three years of his life and left clues
within four paintings, that show the geographical features of the Island and he
let the world know by his picture puzzle (rebus) in the Windsor Library, that
he was showing us a great mystery and went as far as saying he would show where
it is, in his two paintings of the Yarnwinder.
The amazing coincidences that have brought
this knowledge into the modern era can only be viewed as having been determined
by supernatural forces as this whole drama is played out to specific times that
are spoken of by the biblical prophets. The implication and ramifications of
the discovery of this tomb will have ramifications across the world as the book
uncovers the relationship between this tomb’s unveiling and how it was
predicted by the Prophets.
The reader
must now be aware of the impact that Melkin has played in British history, so
let us now turn our attention to what it was that he intended to convey to us
specifically in his English prophecy. Melkin has surely set out to manifest the
whereabouts of Joseph of Arimathea's entombment, leaving specific and precise
instructions within that prophecy. For
the last 600 years researchers have tried to interpret, disentangle or make
sense of this riddle from the obtuse Latin phraseology. They have tried to
translate it into something coherent so that the phrases link together and
provide meaning to the reader. There is
no doubt that Melkin wanted us to understand this riddle, the clues in it are
extraordinarily accurate.
The Latin is archaic and grammatically
incorrect, so, not only is it necessary to establish the geometry that lies
beneath the riddle and the meaning of individual words on different planes, but
we need to try and unravel Melkin’s
intended purpose, while also attempting to understand the mind of the man who
wrote it. Melkin’s puzzle is literary genius conveying information on different
levels and one can only wonder what his thoughts were as he constructed this
riddle.
Let us
briefly recap the current situation; Ictis had a huge vault within the Island
and Joseph of Arimathea was to be buried with ‘duo fassula’ containing the
blood and sweat of Jesus. Joseph is said to have brought with him what has
since become known as the ‘Holy Grail’ to Britain in around AD 37. Since the advent of the Romances, the ‘duo fassula’ and
the Grail have become one and the same.
Joseph came to proselytise the British. In part probably owing to his
previous links, for he introduced Jesus as a young man to Devon and Cornwall, a
kingdom known as Belerion by Pytheas. The Island that Pytheas describes, where
Joseph and King Arthur are now buried, is the Isle of Avalon, but it seems
others are there also as we assume this
was attested to by Melkin.
Glastonbury Abbey where King Arthur And Joseph of Arimathea were rumoured to be buried, but know we Know where the true site of The Island of Avalon is located.
Many
commentators have assumed that Joseph was buried near the Old Church, in the
grounds of Glastonbury Abbey and for many years the institution at Glastonbury
Abbey has proactively encouraged such a position. It seems, that Melkin has required
us to solve a riddle for which he may have intended us to keep searching at
Glastonbury until now. If this was the case, how could he be sure that Joseph
would be found eventually? The answer and his confidence lay in the fact that
he was cognisant that the Grail was a ‘Grade or Stage’ in ‘Time’ that would inevitably
come as part of a divine plan?
It was Melkin who wrote the ‘Book of the Grail’
which contained this Hebraic occult knowledge that the Romance writers could
not comprehend and thus allegorised, building and elaborating on the substance therein,
using metaphor and imagination. It seems that Melkin's prophecy, which cannot
be traced back earlier than John of Glastonbury's ‘Cronica’ is based upon a
body of information concerning Devon and Cornwall (Belerion). This historical
sequence of events concerned Jesus, who as a single person, has changed the
world as part of a divine plan set in ‘Biblical Time’. This historical source
information was partly used by the French Grail writers who were not aware of
Jesus’s body in Avalon, but knew something to do with him was brought from the
Holy land to England. In the true prophetic tradition, Melkin prognosticates on
what will take place when Joseph's tomb is found indicating that if not wholly,
then in part, he was divinely inspired.
The Neolithic
and Medieval renovated Ley system within which Joseph is buried has been
accurately planned out and surveyed. Melkin has knowledge of the Ley system and
the distances and angles within it. It appears that Melkin, is the source for
all original Arthurian information that has come down to us today. He wrote his
prophecy and therefore he is solely responsible for renaming Ictis as Avalon.
Avalon connects Arthur and Joseph both being buried there and Melkin’s genealogy
in the ‘Estoire’ and recorded in John’s Cronica, connects them in a bloodline. Joseph is a blood relative of Jesus who is
inextricably linked to the Grail, while the Grail, as the modern world
understands its substance, is buried with Joseph and Arthur in Avalon and this
entire tradition has stemmed directly from Melkin.
How is it that a Monk knows so much, as to
understand the essence of the Grail back in the sixth century and know that
Jesus is buried in Avalon and also have insight into occult knowledge
concerning God’s divine plan and a grasp of Biblical Time? Were Jesus’s remains
witnessed by Melkin at the burial of King Arthur?
So let us
look at the small fragment of his understanding that has come down to us, for
as we further our enquiry, we will see that it is very probable that the Grail
book is about to surface as the book of the Law did, when the Jews returned
from captivity.
Hec scriptura
inuenitur in libro melkini, qui fuit ante merlinum,
This scripture is found in the book
of Melkini, who had been before Merlinum,
Insula
auallonis auida funere paganorum, pre ceteris in orbe ad sepulturam eorum
omnium sperulis propheciae vaticinantibus decorata, & in futurum ornata
erit altissimum laudantibus. Abbadare, potens in Saphat, paganorum
nobilissimus, cum centum et quatuor milibus domiicionem ibi accepit. Inter quos
ioseph de marmore, ab Armathia nomine, cepit sompnum perpetuum; Et iacet in
linea bifurcata iuxta meridianum angulum oratori, cratibus praeparatis, super
potentem adorandam virginem, supradictis
sperulatis locum habitantibus tredecim. Habet enim secum Ioseph in
sarcophago duo fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore
perimpleta. Cum reperietur ejus sarcofagum, integrum illibatum in futuris
videbitur, & erit apertum toto orbi terrarium.
Ex tunc aqua, nec ros coeli insulam nobilissimam habitantibus poterit
deficere. Per multum tempus ante diem Judioialem in iosaphat erunt aperta haec, & viventibus
declarata.
Hucusque melkinus.
‘The Isle of Avalon, greedy for the
death of pagans, more than all others in the world, for their entombment, decorated
beyond all others by portentous spheres of prophecy, and in the future, adorned
shall it be, by them that praise the most high. Abbadare, mighty in judgement,
noblest of pagans, has fallen asleep there with 104,000 others (or 104
knights), among these, Joseph of Arimathea has found perpetual sleep in a
marble tomb, and he lies on a two forked line, next to the southern angle of an
oratory, where the wattle is prepared above the mighty maiden and in the place
of the 13 spheres.
For Joseph has with him in his sarcophagus two white and silver vessels, filled
with the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus and when his sarcophagus is
uncovered, it will be seen whole and undisturbed, and will be opened to
the whole world.
Thenceforth those who dwell in that noble isle, will lack neither water nor the
dew of heaven. For a long while before the day of judgment (ludioialem) in Josaphat,
open shall these things be and declared to the living’, thus far Melkin.
There are
many variations on how this can be translated, but this seems to be an
alternative generally accepted gist, that makes some sense also;
The Isle of Avalon, with greed for the death of pagans, before all
others in the world, for the entombment of them all. Decorated beyond all
others by the chanting spheres of prophecy and for all time to come, adorned
shall it be by them that praise the Most High.
Abbadare mighty in saphat, noblest of pagans,
has fallen on sleep with 104 other knights
Among these Joseph of Arimathea has found perpetual
sleep in a marble tomb and he lies on two forked line next to the southern
angle of an oratory, where the wattle is prepared above the mighty maiden and
where the aforesaid 13 spheres rest.
For Joseph has with him in his sarcophagus two
vessels white and silver, filled with the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus.
When his sarcophagus is discovered, it will be seen whole and
untouched, And will be opened to the whole world. Thenceforth those who
dwell in that noble Isle will lack neither water nor the dew of heaven for a long time before the day of
judgment in Josaphat and
open shall these things be and declared to the
living.
Rendered below
is probably a more accurate translation (Melkin’s intended meaning), with
reference to an abridgment of Ainsworth's English and Latin dictionary, by
Robert Ainsworth, Thomas Morell and John Carey and the Glossarium Mediae et
Infimae Latinitatis by Domino Du Cange.
The first
part of the prophecy we shall cover as a whole so the sense is not lost before
we dissect each phrase. This first half of the prophecy is the instructional
part, where pertinent facts are relayed as to the confirmation of the tombs
location and entrance. The second half of the prophecy is assuredly divinely
inspired as it speaks in Time with biblical metaphorical language and will be
elucidated in the following commentary when we disentangle the various layers
of meaning.
Island of
Avalon, coveting the pagans in death, above all others (places) in the world
for their entombment there, it is honoured by the circle of portentous prophesy
(Avebury) and in the future will be adorned by those that give praise to the highest.
The father’s pearl, (Jesus) mighty in judgement (or virtuous through new wine),
the noblest of pagans, sleeps 104 miles from it (Avebury), by whom he recieved interment
by the sea from Joseph named from Arimathea, and has taken his eternal rest
there, and he lies on a line that is two forked between that and a meridian, in
an angle on a coastal Tor, in a crater, that
was already prepared, (with powers from
on high, as from an adorable maiden, up high in Ictis is the tomb and those
dwelling there are at 13 degrees.) above which one can go at the extremity
of the verge, high up in Ictis to the place they abide to the south at thirteen
degrees.
Any
commentator on this passage will find it impossible to transliterate, simply
because Melkin is concealing information sub textually, word clues rendering
the passage as a whole incapable of fluid translation. The puns and double
meanings are carefully thought out, but obtuse by deflection. The only way to
understand the difficulty he must have had, conveying his message in layers of
meaning and grasp what he has achieved, is to evaluate his choice of words.
What follows is some of the hidden sub text in meanings he was trying to
convey. It is almost as if he was appealing through the layers to different
ways of understanding. The task of elucidating becomes less muddled if we take
each word separately or if inseparable from another, using the combination.
Adjectives, adverbs, verbs and nouns seem to
be intermingled without respect to tense, conjugation, case or declention and
one may be lacking other scribal clues such as capitals or punctuation which
are now missing. There is evidence also
within the text that words are split, which leads one to consider that these
splits, may be interchangeable with other root words and thus a cipher could be
disentangled if an original copy was extant.
So that we
might discover the mind-set of Melkin, let us briefly transliterate what he was
trying to convey in his riddle and manifest at the same time how his mind
worked. Melkin formulates his prophecy in a combination of blurred Latin incorporating
Teutonic and low Latin, purposely entangled double entendres, sometimes leaving
little to be comprehended from the text that has survived. If one adds to this
muddle any scribal changes made at Glastonbury, we are left with a collection
of meaningless ‘word strings’, in effect rendering Melkin’s intended riddle as mute
through the ages as it has remained.
The most
powerful thing about this prophecy now we have understood, is the latent truth
that it holds, and its ability to have survived down through the centuries
while muted, to convey its intended message, a message of mystery and
expectation that has entered the psyche of the British people and will be
responsible for changing the outward expression of religion throughout the
world.
Insula
Aualonis avida funere paganorum:
· island
of Avalon,
where both Arthur and Joseph are said to be buried, coveting (guarding
preciously) pagans in death.
· Avide; an adverb or avidus, an adjective-Greedy, Hungry or Covetous. The sense that
Melkin portrays by use of this word is essentially, ‘not relinquishing’, nor
‘releasing’ (until the appointed time); The Island as a custodial guardian.
· Funere;
from funero, funera,
etc, giving funeral, to bury or of a dead body.
· Paganorum;
from paganus, a man of
the country or peasant. ‘pagan,’
in classical Latin "villager, rustic, civilian, but in the medieval
religious sense not Christian-of the old religion. The word Pagan has many
connotations and could mean, not of Britain.
Overall a very difficult sentence to cobble together, possibly rendering
the sense of a pagan island, rather than the bodies of pagans buried there. The pagan island scenario would concur in
conjunction with Ley Lines, and would indicate that Melkin was aware of the
existence of the Ley Line system and the island's inter-relation with Avebury ,
Montacute and the Lyonesse line. This word string also could give a sense of
pagan island that is guardian over those buried, and the ‘pre ceteris’ refers
to their pre-eminence in all the world or alternatively it could be referring
to the island, being covetous of the bodies in front of the rest of the world.
Island of Avalon – hungering after (looking after, happy to be taking care of),
being covetous of the buried occupants that are not from this island of
Britain, before the entire world, (until the world is ready). As the reader will understand shortly, Melkin’s
use of the word ‘sperulatis or sperulis’, twice in this prophecy, is rendered
with two completely different meanings, even though Melkin ostensibly refers
back to its first meaning as being the same as its second use, by employing the
word ‘supradictis’ (aforesaid). So it is
with the word ‘paganorum’ in the sense that it is used here as possibly being a
pagan island (part of the old religion), yet the second use of the word after
Abbadare, has a completely different sense. Remember that Melkin is directing
our thoughts toward an Island in the true sense of the word (unlike
Glastonbury) and this island is at the river Avon. Presumably this was the
rivers name when Melkin was alive but the etymology of Avon is ‘river’, thus
the explanation of so many ‘River Avons’ in Britain. Another ruse that could have been employed by
Melkin using the word paganorum, is in direct reference to the Pyramids at
Glastonbury. These were step pyramids with writing on each step which most
probably were of ancient antiquity but had been recently covered since the Saxon
invasion and through centuries with the names of Saxons, as an attempt to
denigrate a much older temple. Much like the British, the Saxons were hardly
pyramid builders themselves and this could have been one of many misleading
hints supplied by Melkin that Avalon was where the pagan pyramids were.
pre
ceteris in orbe ad sepulturam eorum omnium:
·
pre ceteris; gives the sense, before others or before the
rest,
·
in orbe ; in the globe, planet or world,
giving the sense of pre-eminence.
·
ad sepulturam ; from sepultura, giving a
burial site or sepulchre.
·
eorum ; of them, or their.
·
omnium ; of all.
The
sentence has generally been translated as: ‘at the burial of them all will be
decorated (from decorata), beyond the others in the world’, which of course
makes difficult reading. The most likely
sentence would be, ‘ their burial site is honoured above all others in the
world’, as one is honoured in receipt of a decoration. This in fact, is
confirming what later directions indicate,
that the sepulchre is on the island and is accounted above all
others (places) in the world or there is no greater tomb (of importance). Melkin refers to the
sepulchre twice in conjunction with the word ‘orbe or orbi terrarum’ (around
the world), thus indicating, what we expect to be a global event, having global
ramifications on the tombs unveiling.
sperulis
prophecie uaticinantibus decorate:
Sperulis: Firstly let us look at the etymology of the
word ‘pearl’. The Arabic language called
it a ‘dar’, a term which was then translated by the Greeks as "Pinna's
stone", thus identifying its origin from the Mediterranean pearl
mollusks. The pearl is also referred to
as "pirula" or "perula" in Latin texts, probably because of
its spherical (sphaerula, pronounced "sperula") or pear-like shape.
Also ‘perla’ is formed from ‘perula’ for ‘sperula’ the diminutive of sphaera. A
more probable origin is that the word is formed from the Latin pirum as
suggested by Diez in allusion to the pear shaped form of the pearl. Du Cange in
volume five says that the extremity of the nose was called ‘pirula nasi’ from
its resemblance to the form of a pearl. But ‘pirus’ which surely was not
unknown by Melkin was used to denote a “boundary stone made in a pyramidal
shape”. Du Cange says also, this seems
to have been the origin of the singular expression ‘pirula nasi’ as being
something at the extremity and probably Melkin’s allusion to Avalon acting as a
marker in our Pyramidal shape. From Du
Cange ‘sperula’ is given as; ‘parva rotunditas volubilis, sicut solet, in
sphæræ modum,’-- round compass, of a small volume, as is usually the manner of
a sphere. The word is used twice, once as ‘sperulis’ as in this instance and
once as ‘sperulatis’ secondarily, both of them having different meanings. The
meaning here though is in direct reference to Avebury stone circle.
· Prophecie; that which is foretold in the future by a
prophet.
· Vaticinantibus;
giving prediction,
soothsaying, prophecy or portent from vaticinari from ‘vates’ meaning a prophet + canere to foretell. However this
could be Melkin’s way of saying what is located in this sepulchre will be
against the Vatican i.e. anti-Vatican.
It should not be forgotten that Jesus knew exactly what his mission
entailed and the suffering (proved by the Shroud) that he was about to endure
and was not about to be dissuaded from it by Peter, and said to him "Get
behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the
things of God, but the things of men." The Roman Church is built upon
Peter and in no way is peter at fault but Jesus knew that the Popes would usurp
his legacy for this world and not the heaven that Jesus spoke of . The Grail
keepers would certainly have precedence before Papal pretensions passing from
Josephes to Brons and could be considered another line of succession or Branch
other than the self-proclaiming imposter of Jesus’ inheritance. The Roman
Pontiff the first Bishop of Christendom deriving his claim by hypothesis from
St. Peter, who only by Roman self-profession was ‘episcopus primus et Pontifex
primordialis’. Melkin knew of what lay in this tomb and therefore was aware of
the inaccuracies peddled by the Roman Church. Melkin understood the Divine plan and of the
true meaning of Jesus’ reference to the Temple being rebuilt upon the third day
(or within three days) and hence the story of Peter’s denial of Jesus three
times being equatable with the three Grades to enlightenement. These three days
are the grades of the Grail but we will come to this in ‘Time’. Are the words
of Jesus ‘And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my
church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it,’ similar to the promise
given to David from which the Church and Gentiles inherited. Is Christendom and Islam along with the Jewish faith now to
become like the Davidic line, to be the precursor of a global inheritance set
forth in a Divine Plan by the God of Israel? What is certain is that, without the Roman
church most of the Globe would not be aware of the God of Israel.
· Decorate from ‘decorates’ translating as, set forth
or adorned.
This sentence is generally translated as
‘soothsaying spheres of prophecy or portentous circles of prophecy’. It is
essential to remember that Melkin is actually directing us on this quest from a
starting place that is a stone circle namely Avebury. His description of the circles or spheres
having been ‘set forth or adorned’, might indicate that Melkin is referring
directly to a stone circle. Stone circles were important to the ancients who
were preoccupied with discerning the future. Melkin refers to stone circles as
if they have a connection with man’s ability to predict or as if it is the circles
themselves that have some impact on leading us to the tomb of Joseph through
Ley lines. The irony of disentangling Melkin’s prophecy through our initial
investigation into the ‘Perpetual Choirs’ and scribing circles on the
landscape, gives rise to even more perplexity. Could Melkin’s sense be that, Avebury
adorning the British landscape, from which Ley line's interconnect or thread
through the tomb of Joseph, have some attribute or function in the foretelling of
its discovery. The reader should not be too sceptical here as the two words
following ‘sperulatis’ both impart a sense of future knowledge presently
unknown. We must not dismiss the fact that Melkin has knowledge of the St.
Michael Ley line; so is he imparting to us through this statement that these
stone circles have some effect on, or direct our thoughts for the future
collective benefit. No one today has an idea of the stone circles proper
function, but recognising that Melkin probably understood the use of stone
circles; is he implying some sort of telepathic system ordering the thoughts of
the collective? Melkin knew of the
existence of the St. Michael Ley line, yet we have only recently rediscovered
it. We should not ignore the use of two words which essentially mean ‘looking
into the future’. So are the circles physical attributes on the landscape for channelling
thought from individual communities or interlinking them in some way as their
prevalence and conformity of shape seems to indicate relative functionality?
et
in futurum ornate erit altissimum laudantibus:
·
in futurum; although being an obvious reference to the
future, it is also a reference to ‘Biblical Time’ and is reiterated as a
reference to the same time as ‘ex tunc’ in the penultimate sentence of the
prophecy, which is indicating the thousand years of time from the discovery of
Joseph's tomb, the day of Jehosaphat.
This is a sure indication that Melkin has understood ‘Biblical Time’ i.e.
time, Times and Half of that time (or the Times Halved). We shall explain this
concept in a later chapter as it appears
in Daniel 7:12 , 12:7 and Revelation
12:14
· Ornate;
adorned, arrayed,
crowned with or decreed, in reference to the island of Avalon.
· altissimum
laudantibus, rendering
praise to the most high. The sentence
giving the impression that when Joseph's tomb is discovered, the Island of
Avalon will be arrayed by the mass of new converts, giving praise to God. This sense does concur with the final part of
the prophecy that indicates that Joseph's sepulchre will be opened to the whole
world, giving an impression that the island will become a pilgrimage and a new
religious re-awakening will occur globally on the discovery of Jesus’s body. There will be a new cognitive view of the
world order and an elevated understanding amongst spiritual Jews that the
living and the dead are bound by a Divine plan. Those pilgrims visiting the
Island of Avalon, giving praise to the most high. This could also be a
reference to Britain rather than Avalon specifically as the last sentence of
the prophecy infers.
Abbadare, potens in Saphat, paganorum nobilissimus:
· Abbadare, has given rise to much speculation about the word’s provenance and meaning, but it would seem to be a reference to Jesus, meaning “The father's pearl”, (Abba- father, Dar- pearl from the Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew). As is intonated in the Grail romances, added to Joseph's connection with the importation of the Holy Grail, this reference would seem to indicate the presence also of Jesus's body within the island of Avalon. Joseph leaves Jerusalem, and arrives at Sarras, taking with him the Holy Graal, which is carried inside an ark or box. This refers metaphorically to Jesus, specifically with reference to a pearl being formed by the flesh just as it is grown in an oysters shell. It is formed in our body and its beautiful and precious substance remains long after the flesh that made it, has died. This is a profound reference to the spirit being a precious object born by something organic, yet remaining after the flesh has died. Not a metal, nor a gem but ‘a pearl of great price,’-a spiritual soul created through God’s divine plan as in Mathew 13:46. As the reader will be aware the word ‘Abbadare’ would have been used by Melkin to avoid direct reference to Jesus's body to avoid adverse reaction from fundamentalist sensibilities. The Holy Grail, having a direct connection with Jesus, but in no way a substitute for his body; the references to the Grail in the romances being of a different order involving a spiritual quest, the likes of which cannot be found by searching or by hastening its occurrence in a lifetime. The Holy Grail is a derivative of the Latin ‘gradus’ meaning by degree', 'by stages', applied to a dish from a transliteration by Helinand. This dish was brought to the table in different stages or services during a meal in the Chrétien de Troyes poem. Essentially the pearl of great price is Jesus through whom by the will of his Father spiritual enlightenement is attained, hence ‘the Father’s pearl’
· Potens;
powerful, mighty, of
great virtue.
·
Saphat; by most commentators is translated as ‘judgement’ derived from its
reference to Jehosaphat in the last sentence of the prophecy rendering, ‘Mighty
in judgement’ from Jehosaphat’s meaning as ‘judgement day’ or God’s judgement.
Shaphat in Hebrew translating as judge or judgement . Melkin could possibly be
giving us a double entendre in ‘Sapa’, translating as ’New wine’. ’potens in
saphat’ could then give the sense of “virtuous through new wine”, deriving its
sense from having been made perfect through the Holy Spirit. The most obvious translation is from ‘potens’
meaning also ‘pre-eminent’ or as Du Cange has it, ‘having pre-eminence’
rendering ‘having pre-eminence in the new wine’ which of course would be a
precise description of Jesus as the pre-cursor to the New wine as in Mark 2:22;
‘no one pours new
wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the
wine and the wineskins will be ruined’.
No, Jesus pours new wine into new wineskins and thus the passage through
the Grades. (Also in Mathew 9:17 & Luke 5:37). Most
attempts at translation have rendered this word string as, ’Abbadare, mighty in
judgement, most noble of the pagans’. One possible sense would be, if we can
assume that Melkin is aware of the Zerah connection and his reference to
‘paganorum’ is the old religion or even Jewish; ‘Jesus preeminent in the new
wine, the noblest of the Jews’. The most poignant transliteration of ‘potentem
in Saphat’ should be understood as ‘he who’s might is in spiritual awakening’
which we shall see in connection with Jehosaphat.
cum centum et quatuor milibus domiicionem ibi
accepit:
·
cum centum et quatuor; translating as ‘with one hundred and
four’.
·
Milibus; confusing
most translators into thinking its meaning is derived from ‘Mille’, a thousand;
but Melkin’s real intention is ‘mille passuum' which gives a thousand paces
which equals one mile or miles even though he is referring to Nautical miles. The
reader will remember the unit of nautical miles is used so that a unit of
measurement correlates to a sixtieth of a degree; this same unit having been
employed by the ancients. The nautical
knot only came into use in 1630 AD, but the ancients had sub divided the globe
into degrees of a circle as was evident by Pytheas’s calculations. Melkin was aware (being a geometer and
astrologer) of this unit and probably named it after the Roman or statutory
unit. The term was not commonly used but the Ancient Roman mile was 1,000
double paces, one-step with each foot, for about 4,860 feet, and there were
many local variants, a modern statute mile measuring about 400 feet longer.
Most translations have used the word ‘Knight’s’
from the Latin word ‘Militus’ with the assumption that it refers to ‘the others’
that are said to be buried in Avalon. Other translators have opted for the word
“saints” assuming a scribal error for 104. Some commentators, while not
replacing the number, have assumed that a mistake has been made and that Melkin
is referring to the 144 thousand saints that fall down, to give praise to God
in Heaven in the Book of Revelation 7:4,14:1 & 14:3. This misrepresentation has been highlighted
by later interpolators as in the case of Capgraves ‘Nova Legenda Angliae’,
which renders the sense of Melkin’s words to ‘milia dormientium accepit’ which
has 104,000 sleeping with him, while some translators have added the word ‘Saints’. In place of the common translation error
rendering 104 thousand, Melkin is telling us that it is 104 nautical miles from
Avebury to the Island of Avalon. This measurement is precisely 104 miles from a
point just right of centre within the Avebury circle, to the ‘Huer’s hut’ on
Burgh Island as seen in figure 25. The Joseph line drawn from Avebury to the resting place of Joseph, confirmed
by Father William Good as it passes directly over St. Michael’s Montacute.
Figure 24
Showing the Joseph line tangentially touching St. Michael’s hill Montacute. The
Joseph line forming the acute angle of 13° at
Avebury, between the St. Michael line and Mons Acutus (Montacute).
·
domiicionem ibi accepit; conveying the sense ‘took his sleep there or
received his rest there’. This sentence
is usually translated as ‘Abbadare’, powerful in judgement, the most noble of
the pagans took his sleep there with 104,000’. Obviously Melkin deliberately
sets out his sentence to obfuscate, inserting the word ‘cum’ meaning ‘with’, so
that ‘Abbadare’ is appearing to be taking his rest with 104,000 others,
especially when the first words of the next sentence are ‘inter quos’ which
translates as ‘among whom’. The real information
which Melkin is trying to convey here is that Joseph and Jesus are taking their
rest there; 104 miles from the circle of prophecy, which is Avebury as seen in figure
25.
Inter quos ioseph de marmore, ab Armathia
nomine, cepit sompnum perpetuum:
·
Inter quos; The usual translation of the sentence is:
’among these Joseph of Arimathea received eternal slumber in a marble tomb. In the previous word string Melkin used ‘domiicionem ibi accepit’ and here he is using
‘cepit sompnum perpetuum’ immediately afterwards. Aware of Melkin’s cleverness
and the fact that he is confounding normal thought processes, it would appear, as
if he is clearly speaking of two different people. ‘Jesus received his rest
there’ and ‘Joseph named from Arimathea took his perpetual sleep there’. The word ‘Inter’ by most commentators is
translated as ’among’ but Melkin has his derivative from ‘interrare’ "put in
the earth, bury” or interr
·
amentum giving ‘to inter’. ‘Inter quos’ most researchers have as ‘among whom’ but here
Melkin is using a play on words and his meaning is ‘Interred’ or ‘Interred with
whom’ also inferring two people. The implication
of this is; that it now establishes Abbadare as another separate subject and
the translation becomes,’ interred with whom is Joseph, named from Arimathea
taking his eternal slumber by the sea.
·
marmore ‘Marmor’ translates as a marble stone or as ’the sea’;
its derivative being the similarity of small wave motion in a calm water,
giving the expression ‘a marbled sea’ and is also found in Ainsworth’s
dictionary. It was said that King Arthur, when he was fictitiously found, was
‘not in a marble tomb’ to distinguish and confirm the monks find as ‘the other
important body’ to be buried within the
Glastonbury grounds.
·
cepit sompnum
perpetuum: The repetition of ‘dormicionem’ as referring
to Abbadare, then immediately followed by ‘sopnum perpetuum’, referring
directly to Joseph of Arimathea, does clearly indicate that Abbadare and Joseph
are two different entities especially since the mighty in Judgement is
referring to Jesus. This example of Melkin’s direct obfuscation
gives us an idea into the mind-set of the man.
He has set out to misdirect his readers with this pun on ‘inter’ while
sub textually informing us that Jesus has received his rest there. This he has done by not offending Christian
sensibilities during the intervening years until the present, while at the same
time in the same sentence, preparing his readers for the appointed time. It is
strange to contemplate that Joseph has buried Jesus twice in a ‘hewn tomb’ that
is owned by Joseph himself. Once with a ‘fasciola’ as related by the Gospel
accounts and the second time with a ‘doubled fasciola’ which of course fits
with the description of the Shroud of Turin which as we shall see shortly
suddenly appeared on the world stage just after the Templars had visited the
Isle of Avalon. As we have uncovered already, Melkin wrote the book of the
Grail. The original source for Melkin’s book of the Grail was obviously Joseph.
Joseph brought the Grail to Britain and so affirms that he was responsible for
depositing Jesus’ relics in Avalon before being buried there himself.
Et iacet in linea bifurcata iuxta meridianum
angulum oratorii:
·
Et iacet in
linea this is the sentence most frequently quoted
in reference to Melkin’s prophecy, the usual translation being, ‘and he lies on
a two forked line next to the southern corner of the oratory’. Et iacet in
linea; renders ‘and he (or they) lie(s) in a line’. As all commentators have previously suspected
correctly, the line thus referred to is an indicator to where the tomb is
located and the root cause of all misdirection has been the word ‘oratorii’.
·
Bifurcata; to bifurcate
literally means ‘to divide into two branches or forks’. Melkin becomes
remarkably un-obtuse when he gets to his specific instructions about the
bifurcated line. All translators agree that ‘he lies on a bifurcated line’ but
Melkin obviously felt confident that this information would be hard to unlock. Without
a St. Michael ley line and a point at which the two lines cross inside Avebury,
the information given quite clearly, would be irrelevant. Melkin also could be
assured that Joseph would not be associated with Neolithic stone circles or Ley
lines.
·
Juxta; translates as
nearby, next to, close to, bordering upon or beside.
·
meridianum
angulum; A ‘meridian’ is half of a great circle that
passes through the centre of the earth at the North and South poles; as if half
a vertical plane on the globe, giving constant longitude. It could also be described as an imaginary
line of half of a great circle route from pole to pole. Melkin is clearly
trying to show the reader that the Joseph line is ‘Imaginary’ or conceptual much
like a true meridian line only becomes real when plotted. It is interesting to note that Capgrave,
Leland and Hardyng say that Melkin was an astrologer but it is John Bale that
tells us that Melkin, wrote the book called ‘De Arturii mensa rotunda’ while at
the same time informing us that he was a geometer also. It would seem then that
the mention by Bale of these two topics (the book, then the observation about
geometry) would indicate Bale saw either Grail table geometry or landscape
geometry in the book he was referring to. It seems probable that at some stage this book,
copy or fragment, existed at Glastonbury. The information about Montacute as a
geometrical marker for the Joseph line could only have reached Father Good by
two sources; Henry of Blois as already discussed or out of this possible
geometrical source that Bale refers to.
Melkin
was well aware of what a ‘meridian’ was but was possibly hinting to the
Lyonesse line as a Horizontal Meridian, like a line of latitude. Most probably
though the reference is giving the clue to look for a line that is similar to
those found on a Map. Although lines of longitude (the truest definition of a
Meridian) were not easy to calculate on a map at this stage and were largely
responsible for their distortion, it clearly shows Melkin’s great grasp of
technical issues such as these, through his precise surveying Data. ‘Meridianus’,
in Ainsworth, is described as ‘pertaining to noon or noontide’, referring to
the Sun’s change in longitude at its daily zenith. Ainsworth also has another
translation which gives ‘Southern Meridional’ which would only be an accurate
description if viewed from the northern hemisphere, so it is technically not a
definitive translation. This somewhat oblique definition would be derived from
the declination of the sun to the horizon viewed and defined by observers north
of the equator. However, it is from this
translation that most commentators have derived ‘Southern angle’ from Melkin's
text. It is also worth noting that ‘meridianum
anglum’ could be translated as an ‘English Meridian’; surely a pun not unobserved
by Melkin. It would seem, however, that Melkin
is referring to the angle created at Burgh Island between the Lyonesse line and
the Joseph line that runs from Burgh Island to Avebury as shown in figure 25. Essentially
the word ‘meridianum’ is conveying the sense to us, of an imaginary line and
this was surely Melkin’s intent. It could however be a word that he used to
substitute for another descriptive word, known in his day, which would convey a
sense of a Ley Line. The recent nomenclature of ‘Ley or Ley line’ must have had
an earlier appellation before the knowledge of the system was lost and it is
apparent that Melkin knew of its existence.
Again
this brings us back to the question; was Melkin aware of the functions of the
Ley line system, or did he just construct the riddle from geometric information
given in another text that he sourced; that may have been old Judaic, from
Zerah’s descendents and the Hebraic supplied by Joseph. This presents a confusing set of
circumstances where a Megalithic site is referenced by a Monk who lived
anywhere from the fifth to the eighth century AD, that draws on Kabbalistic
material; who writes a Grail book about the steps or grades to the temple ,thereby
manifesting his understanding of a divine plan. Not only does he have knowledge
of historical fact relating to Jesus and Joseph, four to seven Hundred years
after they were buried in Avalon but also is aware that Avalon exists within a
network of Leys, part of which was built before Zerah’s offspring came to
England and was built by early Megalithic Man. Did Melkin really have an angel
deliver this information as Helinand says, if so, was it Michael the Archangel?
We
arrive back at the same circuitous dilemma of whether Melkin was the actual
surveyor and the reader will only be able to make his own judgement at the
penultimate sentence of the prophecy, where Melkin is giving directions within
the local vicinity of the island. From this it becomes clear that he visited
the Island upon which probably stood a small monastic building (rumoured to
have existed by locals) built before the St. Michael Chapel referred to by
Camden (circa 1610). By 1680 there is no mention of a chapel and by 1752 it was
recorded as a ruin and brings us back to the point that it appears to have been
purposely dismantled. This leads to another puzzle, who did the dissembling of
the St. Michael churches and who tried their hardest to hide Father Good’s
message from Rome by eradicating Maihews reference and is this group, society
or order still actively suppressing through the ages? The most intriguing
puzzle (second only to Melkin and his riddle) is the Megalithic usage of sites
and Ley’s and the surveying of such a construct being conveyed to Melkin. Was
this knowledge through Neolithic Zerah down to Joseph then passed on to Melkin
over a period of two thousand years or even longer? If the Saxons had not
invaded Britain would this information about Ley lines and stone circles be
widely known today.
·
Oratori; from ‘oratorium’
in late Latin meaning a small or private chapel of prayer which would fit the
description of the wattle church or the later wooden clad building in
Glastonbury. The question of whether
Melkin’s prophecy has had scribal changes will seem to be an unanswerable
question. Melkin has most emphatically set us a riddle but did he write the
word ‘oratori’, or was this a later interpolation. The reason we should ask
such a question is because if he wanted to keep our attentions at Glastonbury
why did he write about the Isle of Avalon and how could he be assured in the
seventh century that the Monks would eventually change Glastonbury into
Avalon. Although his manuscripts were
read by several chroniclers at Glastonbury, we do not know if he was a
Glastonbury acolyte and therefore would have wished to concentrate the gaze of
the quester toward the grounds of Glastonbury, but it seems logically highly
unlikely. However when dealing with Melkin logic is the last attribute to use,
to peel back the layers on every level of understanding. We do not know if he set out deliberately to
misdirect enquirers from locating the island of Avalon by confining their
search to Glastonbury, but the convoluted
arguments involved to elucidate such an answer cannot be followed through with
logic, as we take into account such concepts associated with the Grail as
‘Appointed time’. It would seem that
following the word ‘oratori’ with ‘cratibus’, which all commentators have
translated as ‘wattled’, as in the construction of the first church; is too
much of a coincidence, for it not to have been part of Melkin’s original text
however if we start on this investigation we will be none the wiser. Cratibus
fits descriptive clues in the local vicinity of Burgh Island and so does ‘ora
tor’. It is as if Melkin would have us
blindfolded and pointed in the wrong direction and begs the question; just how
difficult should a riddle be, to be solvable? However Melkin’s original text could have read
‘orari’ from Orarius –giving ‘sea shore’ and an addition of the letters ‘t’ and
‘o’ to the middle of the word by a Glastonbury scribe would have rendered the
word ‘oratori’. This is a possibility having
already seen the interpolations and fabrications that Glastonbury perpetrated,
to locate Joseph's burial place within the Abbey grounds. The best solution would be that the Latin word
‘ora’ and ‘tor’ from ‘torus’ were split. ‘Ora’ translates as ‘the border or coast of a
country; particularly the sea coast or maritime district’, while the Latin word
‘oralis’ translates as ‘mouth, entrance or mouth of the River’. The word
‘tor’
from the Latin ‘torus’ meaning ‘a knoll or high mound of earth’, or from Old English torr; a ‘tor’ being ‘a high rock, lofty
hill or tower’, possibly from Celtic, or Old Welsh, meaning a hill or a craggy outcrop of rock on the summit of a hill. If Melkin set out to combine these words
which gives the real sense of where Joseph's body lay i.e. ‘a Tor by the coast’;
then the word string ‘oratorii cratibus preparatis’ has rendered the sense of a
‘hill at the mouth of the river’ or ‘Tor by the sea’ which has been pre-readied
(this could either refer to the tomb which used to be the tin depository or the
island within the ley line network), and which is interwoven (Ley Lines
tangentially passing nodal points) in the Ley Line system. If Melkin’s intention was to give us the sense
of a tower (dedicated to the Virgin Mary) by the sea, this would admit to a
previous building (maybe part of a monastic building) before the other St.
Michael chapel was constructed that
existed prior to 1307. ‘Oratorii cratibus preparatis’ does lead the inquirer to
conclude it relates to the wattled oratory in Glastonbury yet the ‘prepared’ in
that sense has little relevance. As an ‘oratori’
is a religious hymn and an oratorium is a place of prayer, there appears an
obvious association with choir, thus an association with the Perpetual Choirs,
of which, as we have seen Glastonbury is undisputed. The translations that have written ‘chanting
spheres of prophecy’, when ‘vaticinantibus’ has little to do with chanting; is
realistically just a case of the mind associating ‘oratori’ (religious hymn)
with church (wattled) where monks chant; giving rise to an association with
‘Perpetual Choirs’ singing an ‘oratori’ (religious hymn). However it was this association of spheres,
chanting and perpetual choirs that initiated our geometric structure. The association of a geometric design, namely
a sphere, coupled with religious hymns that would be sung in an oratory, has
led many researchers to associate the Glastonbury choir with ‘Perpetual Choirs’
of the Triads. This all combining and
adding credibility as to Joseph’s burial site being within the grounds of the Abbey
and subsequently enforced by geometric information supplied on the bronze
plaque. This plaque as we have covered was purportedly to save for posterity’s
sake, directions to where the Choir of “Yeald Chirche” was once located, before
it succumbed to fire. These directions
were made to seem relevant to the shapes that were inscribed on the floor in
lead that were now lost. This again as we have seen, was a gambit by Monkish
acolytes to establish a proximity to a holy relic that had never existed on the
site but we must not forget it was William of Malmesbury who first mentions the
business of wattle. What is the relationship of this man’s ‘ut ferunt’ in
reference to Joseph on the one hand, then Joseph’s wattled church being
described by him on the other and the
corruptions of association we have seen so much of in the intervening years
between when Melkin wrote and the obvious associations made from Melkin’s
prophecy regarding ‘cratibus’ and Joseph. ‘Oratorii cratibus preparatis’
would seem to be best translated as ‘a tor on the coast with a prepared
crater’
Cratibus preparatis,
·
Cratibus: ‘crates’ from which we derive the
modern word ‘crate’ (originally from a wicker basket for transporting) gives
the Latin form ‘cratibus’, which translates as ‘a bundle of rods wattled
together’ literally, wicker-work or hurdle, wattled or interwoven. ‘Cratibus’
as an adjective, literally means wicker, but ‘cratitius’ translated means
wattle and daubed’. It would translate as ‘Wicker,’ as in woven strands of
straight poles giving ‘hurdle’. This could be a play on words from ‘Crater’, a
cup or bowl, goblet … a platter for meat, with an obvious association to the Grail
stories and the Grail's association with Joseph, both rumoured to be buried in
the Isle of Avalon. ‘Cratis’ gives us a ‘grill’ as in rods or wood interwoven.
The monks of Glastonbury could have been trying to perpetuate an association
with ‘wattle’ just to tie in with Melkin’s prophecy or indeed this was the
construction method and a small scribal change establishing a direct link to
Glastonbury. Melkin on one level could be referring to the wicker like way that
ley lines have been interwoven throughout the countryside, ‘serpentinely’
weaving and tangentially touching the nodal markers on the landscape. Because
of the words proximity to ‘Supradictis’ it would look as if Melkin could on one
plane, be using the word in the sense of Crater which of course is a major
feature on the Island. The author is unable to elaborate further as this gives
direct instruction as to the tunnel entrance.
·
Preparatis from ‘parate’, set purpose, by design, giving
‘pre parate’ predesigned or Paratum ‘a thing made ready’ The literal
interpretation on one level could refer to the power that has been interwoven
and prepared ‘aforetime’ from on high (by God).This could have been Melkin’s understanding
of the old Neolithic networks supernatural power in as much as we are still
ignorant today of its effect; yet at least he knew of the existence of Ley
lines and may have had complete or partial understanding of their function. Melkin
could also be using the term ‘Crater’ to describe a cave or cavern that was pre
prepared that refers to the Ictis Vault. In the Glastonbury scenario the
‘preparatis’ is hard to rationalise but assuredly the cave was pre-readied
because without the cave Ictis’ function of an Emporium would be redundant and
the Island would not be specifically pointed to as the place where the tin was
taken to. Now we know that Melkin’s puzzle works on many planes and if we use
the word ‘potenter’ as meaning ‘effectually or Judiciously’ from the next line
in conjunction with cratibus preparatis and super potentem adorandam uirginem, we could contrive the meaning ‘The Tor
by the sea with a pre-prepared crater over which effectually is the Adorable
Virgin’. There is a long standing tradition on the Island that a monastery once
existed, so when Melkin wrote his riddle, did he know of a previous building
dedicated to the Virgin Mary, situated over the Crater before the dedication of
a chapel to St. Michael after 1307 AD. One
could even get the sense of ’a crate containing a preparation’ from ‘praeparatio’
and from ‘crateris’ a receptacle or
trough with a preparation, referring to the embalming fluid contained within.
This will become clear when we investigate the cedar embalming fluid
surrounding Jesus’ body .There is however on another level a completely
different meaning that can be extricated specifically relevant to the tunnels
entrance. This seems to be the real clue
to the Tombs entrance with specific localised instructions assuming in Melkins
day there was a monastery on Burgh Island which becomes clear in a later
chapter.
super potentem adorandam uirginem
supradictis:
·
super, rendering above,
upward or on high,
·
potentem, translates
as mighty, powerful or being able ,having power or being capable, but it also
has the sense of potential i.e
reaching or attaining
·
adorandam , meaning adorable or venerable. ‘ad’
by itself translating as; on, at, to or
towards is directional. If we look at splitting the word into ad orandam we
could be looking at the word orandam, giving ‘to pray to’ or be pleaded with,
and also means to pray as in this usage ‘ad orandum
vero et communicandum’ which translates
as ‘to communicate truth and to pray’.
Is Melkin sending us toward where
one prays ? ‘Ora’ as we have seen translates as ‘by the sea coast’, but
also has another sense giving ‘extremity, brim or edge’, so with ‘virge’ is
this Melkin’s meaning ‘extremity of the verge’.
·
Virginem derived from
‘Virga’ giving virginalis with an obvious reference to the Virgin Mary. ‘adorandam
virginem’ means “The adorable virgin or maiden”. This sentence essentially is intonating
precise local instructions to the entrance of the vault, giving its relation in
the local vicinity to the crater and where an old church used to be situated. Perhaps on another level altogether and in
reference to Ley lines, Melkin has knowledge or might be suggesting that,
whatever the ‘praeparatis, super potentem’, the ‘pre-pared power from on high’ consists
of; it is either entrapped or emanates from Avebury the A and the V subliminally
indicating Avebury but this is dependant upon Avebury having that appellation
in the 600’s. Diodorus Siculus who leads us to Ictis in the
preceding chapters, bears witness that: “Opposite to the coast of Celtic
Gaul there is an island in the ocean, (Britain) not smaller than Sicily, lying
to the north… tradition says that Latona was born there and for this reason,
the inhabitants venerate Apollo (the Sun God) more than any other god. They
are, in a manor, his priests (Druids), for they daily celebrate him with
continual song (Perpetual Choirs) and pay him abundant honours… In this island,
there is a magnificent grove of Apollo (St Michael Ley line), and a remarkable
temple of the spherical form (Avebury), adorned with many consecrated gifts” (Ley
lines). Latona had to give birth to Apollo
and Artemis the twins of Zeus on an Island not accounted as land and not attached
to the sea floor; Procopius’s ‘Otherworld’ which existed in Britain.
However, it would seem as if Melkin is giving direct
instructions as to where the entrance to the sepulchre is. If we split
‘adorandam’ into ‘ad orandam’ it renders ‘in prayer’ if we use the root ‘oran’
it gives again the coast or brim or extremity or edge as before. ‘Vergere’
gives slope or incline which is a multi-levelled instruction. The English word ‘verge’ has the same
derivative root of virga which gives virgin or verga. If we attempt this word string ‘super potentem adorandam uirginem
supradictis’ as a whole whilst splitting ‘supradictis’ into
‘supra ad ictis’, we get the sense ’upwards one is able at the edge of the
verge up high in Ictis’.
supradictis : Normally
translates as ‘aforementioned’. Melkin is clever here with the word ‘supradictis’
to make it look like he is relating to the ‘sperulatis’, as if ‘supradictis’ is
referring to the ‘aforementioned sperulis’ in the early part of the prophecy. ‘supradictis’
translates as ‘spoken of, said before, mentioned above or aforesaid’, as most
translators have it, and could even be word play on supra-dictis and could be
rendered as “foretold from above”. As the reader will be aware, Melkin is not
only naming the fabled island of Ictis, the very same island the prophecy is
about; but ‘supra-ad-ictis’; informing us that Joseph and Jesus are ‘high up in
Ictis’. ‘Supra’ rendering,above ,aloft or on high. This may be an indicator of Melkin’s
confidence at having entangled the enquirer sufficiently or could even be a
creeping anxiety that the intended purport of his message may never reach posterity
with all its subtlety. However he was cognisant of the fact that Ictis was
Avalon and is responsible for changing the name as well as obscuring both. We
will investigate further in relation to Leonardo Da Vinci, the subliminal
effects and the way that words are used to allude to concealed meanings. The
most striking revelation about this obvious reference to Ictis is; how does Melkin
know it was called Ictis? Had Melkin indeed read the Greek and Roman accounts
of Ictis and deduced himself, that the place is synonymous with Joseph’s burial
place or was the history explained in a manuscript that expressly gave an
account of Joseph’s connection with Ictis. The latter seems most probable as
even in Melkin’s era Ictis’ whereabouts was lost to classical chroniclers. Even if Melkin did witness Arthur’s burial
and saw Jesus’s remains, there would have to be some form of writing that
related the islands historical name six hundred years after Joseph’s burial. It
is this body of writing that would appear to be part of the source for Melkin’s
Book of the Grail. It would also seem that the Templars that built the St.
Michael church design returned the Book of the Grail to the sarcophagus;
otherwise this information would have come to light. Melkin’s Book of the Grail
was deposited in the sepulchre when the Turin Shroud was removed and shortly
thereafter made public. The treasure and the Ark were also deposited at the
same time which we will understand shortly.
However now we get precise
instructions as to the entrance of the old tin vault if we take the meaning of
‘cratibus praeparatis’ having a dual meaning in that it applies to the external
crater dug by the original operators of Ictis so that they could get their cart
to the tunnel entrance leading to the storage vault: ‘cratibus praeparatis,
super potentem adorandam virginem, supradictis’
meaning’ in a prepared crater at reaching the verge toward where one
prays up high in Ictis.
sperulatis
locum habitantibus tredecim:
·
sperulatis: Most translators have rendered this word
string ‘where the aforesaid 13 spheres rest’ but with the word ‘sperulatis’, Melkin has set out to baffle the
reader. If the enquirer is unable to resolve this last clause of the
directional part of the riddle, one is not going to obtain the direction of 13
degrees from the St. Michael Ley line through Montacute to Burgh Island along
the Joseph line. Melkin plays on the original use of the word ‘sperulis’, from
which we derived sphere, which at the beginning of the prophecy related to the
stone circle of Avebury. Melkin then
refers back to ‘sperulis’ by using the word “aforementioned” trying to convince
the reader that the two words ‘sperulis’ and ‘sperulatis’ have one and the same
meaning. However his use of the word for the second time has not the same sense
as in circle or sphere, but rather in its composition, being comprised of
degrees. Melkin surely meant ‘sperulatis’ as a diminutive form and of the
symbol for degrees i.e. 13°; the symbol
being a small circle. By the association with a sphere or circle being
comprised of degrees and the fact we are dealing with geometric instructions,
it is possible Melkin imagined that one would associate the word with its
composition or definition and derive from it the enumerated angle. It might
appear that Melkin has used a play on words assuming that the reader would know
that ‘speraulus’ means ‘to be looked for’.
·
The word locum
is rendered as ‘where’ by most commentators but this same word also translates
as ‘tomb or sepulchre’ in Ainsworth. Locum generally understood by translators as
locus, refers to a place such as the location or place being discussed.
·
The word habitantibus
rendering to ‘dwell’ or ‘abide’, seems very out of place in this sentence and
it would be no surprise if ‘habit’ and ‘antibus’ were split to give the sense
of ‘dwelling opposite’ at 13 degrees or some such contortion. We could arrive
at ‘antiboreus’ which translates as ‘looking towards the north’ or from ‘anticus’
translating as the fore part or southward. It is only because habitantibus is unusual especially
in this section of the directional part of the prophecy that it would seem that
the word needs to be split; so we could have the ‘locum’ as a sepulchre abiding
in the fore part or southward of the 13 degrees, or those that dwell in the
tomb are looking toward the north to the 13 degree angle. The reader can see
how accurate Melkin has been by carrying out a simple trigonometric example by
drawing a line at right angles down from the point at which the Ley lines cross
each side of Glastonbury tor and this gives the precise angle of 12.838568
degrees, which is only 9 ‘seconds’ out and considering the fact that Melkin is
trying to conceal that he is referring to degrees, can be accounted as a
rounded up 13 degrees.
·
Tredecim: translating
as thirteen. Sperulatis may give the translation ‘degree’ by its relationship
with a sphere. A sphere is made up of 360°, so Melkin is giving a visual pun of the small circle that is the degree
symbol because ‘Sperulatis’ is the diminutive form of Sperula. This is a novel
yet apt description that the word conveys as long as the sense is understood, i.e.
a tiny sphere or circle as the symbol used for degrees. However the angle of 13° between the Joseph
and St. Michael Ley Line is so precise that it could have no other meaning, but
the 13 degrees as shown in figure 25. Without Google Earth this investigation
into Melkin’s directions would be difficult in the extreme but it is oddly
quaint that a crop circle nestles comfortably in the opposite angle to that
indicating the 13 degrees just to the right of the Avebury circle as shown in
figure 25.
Figure 25 Showing the 13° formed
between the St. Michael Ley line and the Joseph line that ‘Bifurcate’ at
Avebury.
Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo
fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta:
·
Habet enim
secum, literally translates as ‘for he has with him’,
‘secus’ giving ‘nigh to’ or ‘with’. This sentence usually translates as ‘Joseph has with him in the
sarcophagus two vessels, white and silver, filled with the blood and sweat of
the Prophet Jesus’. Melkin in this second-half of the prophecy seems to get
less obtuse but his use of words indicates he is still supplying occult
information. One assumes these days that the ‘duo fassula’ is synonymous with
the Holy Grail, as indicated on the heraldic shield of Glastonbury. But what was rendered as a singular ‘graal’
originally in the Grail stories was corrupted into two beer jug like vessels on
the Glastonbury Arms.
·
Ioseph in
sarcophago: in the sarcophagus or sepulchre or tomb,
Joseph…. has with him.
·
Duo Fassula: two ‘fassula’,
before the Grail stories were written, must have confused the monks when the
singular Grail appeared around 1150AD. At least this might have prevented a
falsified find of Joseph’s remains, being totally unable to produce something
so sacred as the blood and sweat of their Lord.
It is not clear if there is an exact translation of ‘fassula’ and it
seems a direct obfuscation. Commentators have assumed that the Grail is a
receptacle and it would seem that even Helinand is trying to rationalise three
threads; 1) two vessels that he must have heard about. 2) The degrees, steps or
grades that the word Graal suggested with his Latin derivatives. 3) The
processional taking place in the Grail story while sitting at meat. Thus he came
up with the etymology of a platter as a serving dish for meat.
In the Glastonbury case, we are led
to believe that it holds two liquids, blood and sweat. So from the Latin ‘vas’,
a vase, commentators have assumed ‘vassula. This sounds like ‘vascula’ which,
as the reader will know is a vessel and therefore would seem the obvious
deduction. As Melkin has proved to be
accurate up to this point in the information that he is providing us, probably
from a much older text, it would seem that the duality of the Grail as an
object within the sarcophagus is more likely than the singularity of the Grail
in the romances as the sense of Graal. In
the Romances as we have covered, it has been largely misunderstood. As we have discussed, Melkin was the
consolidator of that tradition in the Book of the Grail and, as a religious
rite will have referred to it in the singular.
This will be elucidated later, when we will see that the Graal from
Gradatim are the degrees or stages of spiritual enlightenment in ‘Biblical Time’,
rather than the physical object or receptacles containing the blood and sweat.
A ‘fasciola’ however, is a bandage and a ‘fasceola’ is a swaddling cloth or a
cloth swathe.
·
alba translates as
the word ‘Pearl’ in Latin but also has
its translation as the word ‘white’ by most translators. In fact it directly
refers to a ‘white garment’. This of course would confirm the assumption of the
white grave cloth otherwise known as the Turin Shroud.
·
argentea from ‘argenteus’
meaning ‘of silver’ also translating as ‘clear or bright’ but usually to do
with silver, a mass of bullion, coin or money. It also has another meaning of
plated or ‘overlaid’. ‘Argentatus’ giving silvered, over plated or again ‘overlaid’.
Is this the heart of Melkin’s message that really shows who it is that Joseph
brought to England and the proof?
·
cruore from ‘Cruor’,
translating as blood from a wound or gore. ‘Cruentatus’ giving made bloody or died with blood. The
Glastonbury cruets as vessels or as Father Good referred to them as golden
ampullae, are purely derived from word association from that Latin word for
blood, ‘cruore’ then led to ‘cruet’ and
from blood to vessel. Many researchers have chosen to translate as ‘two cruets’,
leaving out ‘fassula’ as the vessel and converting the blood supposedly
contained in the vessel into the vessel itself, holding the blood. Thus we have
the vessel holding the blood turning into a vessel that sounds like what the
vessel is purported to contain.
·
Sudore, ‘sudor’
giving sweat, labour, travail or pains. Melkin has given us here the answer to
this problem of the ‘duo fassula’ in that ‘fascla’ a swathe or breast cloth and ‘fasciola’ swathing
cloth, is meant as a ‘doubled’ white cloth covered in sweat and blood from
Jesus, (overlaid, from ‘argentea’, as one would overlay an image with
silver i.e. following the outline of the
image) . If Geoffrey
de Charney who
was the first to exhibit the Turin Shroud, had removed it from the tomb it
would explain its sudden appearance in the 1350’s.
Perimpleta; has always
provided the word for ‘full’, in the context of ‘filled with the blood and
sweat’ by nearly every commentator on the prophecy. Perimpleta is not a word in its own right that has meaning
but this is common with Melkin. It
can be made up from ‘per – impleta’, coming from the verb 'impleo' which means
'I fill up/satiate'. The 'per-' on the front is a common latin prefix for
emphasis i.e. 'completely full/satiated'.
'pleta' comes from 'pleo' which simply means 'I fill'. In the form 'pleta' it
is acting as an adjective meaning 'filled'. This is obviously Melkin’s
misdirectional intention.
However there is no evidence of the word
existing as written here so one can conclude it must be part of the riddle to
be solved. 'peri'
is a Greek word meaning 'around' and is usual as a prefix meaning
"about, enclosing," as in the word ‘perimeter’ -- a "line or outline
around a figure or surface”. ‘Pleta’,
literally giving, ‘I plait’ in English, meaning to fold or as the definition
gives, "to bend cloth back over itself”.
This seems to show that Melkin has a message to convey that Jesus is in
an ‘enclosed fold’ or ‘enclosed in a fold’. It appears to confirm and describe the Turin
Shroud as the article that Melkin is describing; that is the white cloth that
covered Jesus while he was in Joseph’s tomb in Jerusalem. The different accounts
regarding the cloth after the tomb was found empty, can largely be regarded as
stuffing for justification of a first-hand account, also adding credibility to
the gospel account of the resurrection. There is no doubt that Melkin is
letting the world know that a ‘doubled grave cloth, covered with blood (from
wounds) and sweat from the prophet Jesus, who was enclosed in this folded cloth
just as it is shown on the Turin Shroud. The explanation of how the outline was
formed and when the shroud left the sepulcher will be elucidated shortly.
·
The
prophete Jhesu is a poignant
appellation, many researchers linking this expression with an eastern origin,
as the Koran refers to Jesus in this way. Melkin as we shall see is fully aware
that not only did the Prophets predict Jesus’s coming forth but also that he
was the fulfilment on one level of understanding, of what they had predicted
and thus, was one of their Genre and part of the Divine plan. We now have
Melkin’s intended meaning of; ‘Joseph
has with him in the tomb a doubled white folded grave cloth that was laid over
the prophet Jesus and outlined by his sweat and blood’.
Cum reperietur eius sarchofagum integrum
illibatum, in futuris videbitur et erit apertum toto orbi terranum:
·
Cum
reperietur eius sarchofagu; translates as ‘with the discovery of his
sarcophagus’ .
·
Integrum; from ‘integrates’ translating as ‘entire or whole’.
This is in reference to the body of Jesus being preserved by cedar oil in the
Grail Ark.
·
Illibatum; giving
‘untouched, pure or undefiled’, from
libatum ‘defiled’ as in ‘virginitas libata’
·
in futuris
videbitur; translating
As ‘in the future, it will be seen’.
·
et erit
apertum toto orbi terranum; gives ‘and will be opened to all, around the
world’.
The translations of this sentence
appear for the most part as; ‘once
his sarcophagus is discovered, it will be seen whole and untouched and then
open to the whole world’ or similarly, ‘with the discovery of his tomb, which will
be whole and undefiled, from thenceforth it will be viewed and open to the
entire world’. As in the beginning part of the prophecy,
where Melkin speaks of the future referring to a period when Joseph's body is
uncovered, as a time when pilgrims would give praise to God at the island; so
is this sentence referring to that same point in the future. This does infer a religious change at the
discovery of the tomb and Melkin twice, in this short prophecy, mentions the ‘whole
world’ or ‘all around the world’, indicating that it will be a change in the
religious system with global ramifications.
‘Open to the whole world’; indicating, not a Christian world, but an
all-inclusive world of Muslims and Jews of the Abrahamic traditions, but also
including all faiths that are understanding the proofs of Divine intervention
by prediction, convinced by that which is revealed, upon the opening of the
tomb.
Melkin starts the sentence with ‘cum’
and with its various forms of transliteration, by inference, is indicating a
point in time i.e. ‘with the unveiling of the sarcophagus’. This is the commencement of a 1000 year
period spoken of in Revelation 26:6 ‘Blessed and holy
are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no
power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign
with him for a thousand years’. Melkin’s
understanding of ‘Time’ is what most qualifies him as a prophet and why such
great importance should be attached to this prophecy because he is speaking in ‘The
Times’ i.e. from the birth of Jesus to the uncovering of the tomb and speaking about
the commencement of a new age, the 1000 years which are to follow . A fuller
explanation of ‘time, times and half of time’ will come shortly.
Ex tunc nec aqua nec ros celi insulam
nobilissimam habitantibus poterit deficere.
Ex tunc; gives, ‘from thenceforth’. This whole
sentence is most commonly translated
as, ‘from then on, those who dwell in that noble island will lack neither water
nor the dew of heaven’. Melkin starts
the sentence ‘ex tunc’ or literally ‘from that time’, indicating again the
expectation of change at the point of time when the tomb is unveiled.What
Melkin understands is that religion in general with its multitudinous dead
practices across the world (starting in Britain) will now accept the God of
Israel as the only truth, in amongst the myriad of other gods by which men
contrive their ‘modus operandi’
nec aqua nec ros celi; this is again confirming God-given
blessings from that time forward. Rain and
dew are metaphorical for spiritual blessings sent from heaven and from thenceforth,
never failing those who are converted in that island. However, Melkin is imparting occult
information here on one level, in that, he is using the word ‘nekros’ from the
Greek, which gives us ‘dead, dead body, corpse’ or ‘nekrosis’ "a becoming dead, state of
death. This is, Melkin’s reference to the ‘spiritually dead’ and shows that
he is fully aware of the ‘degrees’ of spiritual progress of Man set within the
finite parameters of ‘Biblical Time’. This expression ‘Spiritually dead’ is
encapsulated throughout the prophets as those who come out of ‘spiritual Egypt’
and do not obey the Law engraved within them i.e. the denial of the testimony
of Jesus. Those that do this are accounted ‘spiritually dead’ but those that
accept his testimony are accounted as alive-or living. This is overcoming the
first death spoken of in Revelation. However those that accept the testimony of
Jesus by coming out of Egypt yet afterward with the pressures of life, and the
innate qualities of corruptness that are the lot of the human condition, fall
away into ‘non-compliance with conscience’ or disobedience to that engraved
upon their heart. These then undergo and
experience the likened Fall of Jerusalem. This is referred to throughout the
prophets and of course is followed by the seven years of compliance (known spiritually as ‘the captivity’), a
period to put away sin and of purification and acknowledgement that there is a
God (The whole point of the divine plan to self-realisation or Gnosis). After the acknowledgement and compliance, spiritual
peace is found, and this is the overcoming of the second death also mentioned
in Revelation. Failure to comply in the ‘spiritual captivity’ period, results
in the second death i.e. spiritual death.
The three periods or degrees of Gnosis; firstly the coming out of Egypt, secondly the
return from the Captivity (in the Spiritual sense) and thirdly the heavenly
state of spiritual peace, are synonymous with the three days that Jesus speaks
of, when he refers to the rebuilding of the Temple. These three days are also synonymous
as, the three periods of time i.e. Time, the Times and Half Time. ‘And when he
cometh, he shall smite the land of Egypt, and deliver such as are
for death to death; and such as are
for captivity to captivity; and such as
are for the sword to the sword’.
Jeremiah 43:10.
What Melkin
is referring to here are those persons that in the seven years of captivity
after the fall of spiritual Jerusalem, who do not acknowledge that there is a
God; from that time forward there will be no more water from heaven. ‘Seven times will
pass by for you, until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the
kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes.’ Daniel 4:32. Daniel 4:25.
The evidences for
Melkin’s double meaning here rely on elucidation in a later chapter as a digression
here is not opportune and the explanation involves the issue of ‘Biblical Time’.
It is here however
that it becomes evident that one scribal change has been made for reasons to
accord or marry with the word ‘insula’ the first word of the prophecy and the
Island of Avalon we have been trying to locate. This scribal alteration was most probably
innocently changed before or by John of Glastonbury when transcribing Melkin’s
prophecy. Melkin wrote originally the word ‘insalem’ as a pun because with this
word the purport of his occult meaning is passed to the initiated but also the
mundane sense is conveyed. Melkin’s
original would have read; ‘Ex tunc nec
aqua nec ros celi insalem
nobilissimam habitantibus poterit deficere. If one were to split ’insalem’ as
intended by Melkin to, ‘in salem’, then the sentence reads ‘from that time
there is no water for the dead but those that live in (heavenly) peace, will
not lack drink’. This is the peace of which comes to those who have come out of
Egypt initially and then subsequently purified themselves during the seven year
Captivity after the spiritual fall of Jerusalem. ‘In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim
the remnant that is left of his people. Isaiah 11:11.
insulam nobilissimam; ostensibly translating as ‘noble Island’ in
the one sense as Melkin intended but as we have seen, this originally would have been written as the
non existant Latin word ‘insalem’, which when split gives ‘in peace’ the very
objective of Gnosis and the understanding behind the essence of the Grail.
‘Mental rest’ in the landscape of the mind,
which allegorically has its similitude in the Holy land, is the key to
the understanding of the vast body of knowledge incorporated in the prophets. A
difficult concept to allow but the ‘rest and peace’, that the prophets speak of
is spiritual and not historical. However like so many words in Melkin’s
prophecy, the outward word suggests a mis-spelt meaning, yet when uncovered,
the occult sense is revealed just as in Usher’s version giving Judioialem instead of the modern corrected or
assumed form of ‘Judicialem’ to conform
with Saphat. ‘Judioialem’
was probably a corruption or conscious scribal correction and almost certainly
the original word that Melkin would have written was ‘Judiosalem’. The reason
that this assumption can be posited is because it is a certainty that Melkin
understood the message of the Biblical prophets. This can be assumed by his
understanding of Biblical time which can only be gleaned from the prophets of
Israel.
habitantibus poterit deficere
·
habitantibus from a root
of ‘habitatio’ , ‘habitator’ , ‘habitatus’
or ‘habito’ giving ‘to dwell, live in,
or abide. Melkin’s choice of words is exact and precise to convey the sense of
a spiritual place where one lives at peace, much as today the modern expression
of describing someone as being ‘in a good place’ in reference to their state of
mind or mental wellbeing. This concept of a spiritual location is vital to the
understanding of the prophets, as what was essentially a landscape in
historical time (set in Biblical time) by mental transformation, as Melkin comprehends,
is a mental landscape of peace within which one can potentially live. This
essentially is the Kingdom of Heaven that is referred to by Jesus as an earthly
attainable state; of which he proclaimed to be at hand or attainable. Unfortunately the opposite state being
equally attainable. The subject requires an elucidation that is grounded in the
prophets and the subject analysis is too broad to be dealt with within these
pages excepting the subject of Biblical Time which we will cover only to show
that Melkin was certain that what he prophesied would take place at a point in
that time.
·
Poterit; from a root
describing ‘drink or drinking’ which again has biblical connotations. Drinking is synonymous with acceptance of the
divine plan or God’s word and of what is revealed by the prophets of Israel.
The real sense of spiritual drinking can by association be equated with the
satiation of spiritual thirst as in Jeremiah 49:12
‘This is what the LORD says: "If those who do not deserve to drink the cup; must drink
it, why should you go unpunished? ... You must drink this cup of judgment!’. Or again in Obadiah 4:16 ‘Just as you drank on my holy hill, so all the nations
will drink continually; they will drink and drink and be as if they had never
been!’ Here again in Mark 10:38 ‘Can you drink the cup? But Jesus said to them,
"You don't know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering
I am about to drink from.
·
Deficere from ‘deficio’
meaning, to leave or fail one’ giving the word ‘lack’ as most translators have
it.
Per multum tempus ante diem
Judioialem in iosaphat erunt aperta haec, &
viventibus declarata: Most
translations of this passage differ only slightly; ‘for a long time before the day of
judgement in Josaphat, these things will be openly declared to the living’.
·
Per multum tempus ante; translates as ‘a long time
before’ and relates as we have already seen to the 1000 year period from the time the tomb is
unveiled before the day of Judgement i.e from the time that Joseph’s and Jesus’ tomb is
unveiled. This is the last period of the seven day period of 7,000 years that
constitute the framework of ‘Biblical Time’.
·
diem Judioialem from Usher’s text, rather than the assumed
or corrupted ‘diem Judicialem’ of the later transcriptions. The scribal change and word association has
come from the original which would have been ‘Judiosalem’ through Judioalem to
the assumed ‘diem Judicialem’ which is purely
conforming to the notion of its connection to judgement day. This has been due
to its connection with Jehosaphat which the Abrahamic faiths believe refers to
judgement day. Melkin again can only be understood with a grasp of the Prophets
prophesying in time, as biblical spans of time are often misunderstood being
dependant upon how the prophet is referencing the subject, this determining the
unit time measure expressed.
Melkin here wrote ‘Judiosalem’ which obviously is word
play on Jerusalem as well as being a subliminal joining of Judah and Salem,
rendering exactly what Melkin intented; ‘The day of Judah’s peace’ or ‘peace of
the Jews’ referring to the spiritual peace of those coming out of spiritual
Babylon which takes place on the day of Jehosaphat, as long as the thousand year period is
understood as a day being the seventh day of the one week of Biblical time. Melkin is using the word ‘Salem’ from which Jerusalem is derived from Urušalimum , ‘Foundation of Shalem’; Salem coming from the word shalem,
shalom, shalim or salam meaning peace; the city of Jerusalem which dates back to the
early bronze age, where Abraham
and Melchizedek met. ‘Judah’s peace’ is
the goal of the Divine plan if one accepts that a ‘Jew’ is a spiritual Jew i.e.
a person having come out of Egypt and returned from the Babylonian captivity, (Babylon
the Great in the spiritual sense) and then found peace through adherence to the
Law and acknowledgement of the existence of God. This view of the prophets
being not only historical seems newly contrived but is the essential perception
although not intellectually or theologically comprehended,that unites and is
perceived by the Abrahamic faiths. Not
to complicate matters but just to show how many ways one can interpret Melkin, ‘salum’
also translates as near a coast or to the sea so if we take judiosalum as a
word we get the sense ‘along time before
those days when the Jews near the coast (in the period of Iosahat) are opened
up and declared to the living.
·
in iosaphat: Melkin has steered the reader into assuming
a place, by prefixing ’Josaphat’ with ‘in’, when he is quite aware of Jehosaphat’s
meaning as a period of biblical time (which is the 1000 years of ‘The Times’
halved) and accounted as a degree of spiritual awakening being the third day of
the three time periods, time times, and halftime as these were referred to by
Jesus as days. The reader will remember that ‘saphat’ was rendered as judgement
in the earlier part of the prophecy. ‘Judiosalem’,
became Judioalem and was then changed to ‘Judicialem’ because
of its association with Jehosaphat being commonly associated with the last
Judgement. The rendering of ‘Saphat’ as ‘judgement’ in the previous passage is
incorrect, when ‘potens in Saphat’, should be understood as ‘he who’s might is
in spiritual awakening’ in direct reference to spiritual Jews.
The Valley of Josaphat or Valley of Jehoshaphat is mentioned in only one
passage of the Bible, in Joel 3.2 : "I will gather together all nations,
and will bring them down into the valley of Josaphat: and I will plead with
them there for my people, and for my inheritance Israel, whom they have
scattered among the nations". It is
from this passage that Christians derive Jehosaphat as the ‘last judgement’,
which is exactly what Melkin is alluding to. Due to its attachment to a valley,
theologians have assumed it has a geographical location, but like ‘mountain’ in
biblical texts; it rarely, especially in prophetical literature, has the sense
of geographical location. When the reader of prophetical literature becomes
aware of the concept of a historical location( i.e the Holy land and its tribes)
set in ‘Biblical Time’ that has become a blueprint for a spiritual landscape,
this transliterable approach to the comprehension of the Prophets words becomes
clearer. The prophets speak of the nations and their attributes dualistically
applying to real time historical prophecy but also understandable within an
individual mental landscape. Josaphat
incidentally is the name given to the forth king of Judah. The essence of Jehosaphat’s meaning is
captured with the passage in Matthew. 25, and bears witness that the voice of
Jesus can be heard by everyone that spiritually came out of Egypt i.e. heard
the Law; but then subsequently most of those who were initially blessed with
this miraculous correcting toward gnosis, chose to ignore their conscience, eventually
being sent to captivity in Spiritual Babylon at the destruction of Spiritual
Jerusalem. This does sound
oversimplified and contrived but we will come to this when discussing ‘Biblical
time’ but the point is that Jesus did not only come for the Gentiles but all
the children of Israel. Evidence of the
Divine plan can be witnessed in Mathew 25 showing the relationship of choice
with deed which as we have stated, takes place within the seven year period
which is the defining time of purification through compliance or as it is
Biblically known ‘the troublous times’ :
31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and
all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: 32
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one
from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: 33
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. 34
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, ‘Come, ye blessed of my
Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35
For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me
drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 36 Naked, and ye clothed
me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me’. 37
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, ‘when did we see you hungry,
and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 38 When saw we thee a
stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? 39 Or when
saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?’ 40 And the King
shall answer and say unto them, ‘Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’. 41
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 For
I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no
drink; 43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed
me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not . 44 Then shall they also answer
him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or
naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? 45 Then shall he answer them,
saying, ‘Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least
of these, ye did it not to me’. 46 And these shall go away into everlasting
punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
erunt aperta haec, & viventibus declarata; usually
translated as ’openly shall these things be declared to the living’ but another
interpretation could be that ‘these things will be openly accepted or made
apparent by those having reached spiritual awareness’. ‘Viventibus’, the living or alive, has the
same connotation as in prophetical literature, as those not spiritually dead.
Throughout the prophets this notion is held that man can be alive, not in the
sense that humans are either dead or alive but spiritually alive, as opposed to
those in whom their conscience no longer councils to do good but instead, acts
conversely as a ‘fearful looking for of judgement’. It is from this
understanding that we might grasp God not being a ‘respector of persons’ but
only of those who are spiritually alive.
Melkin
specifically points to a period in time and this point in time is the
uncovering of Jesus’ body. The reason for this is obvious in the proofs it will
provide for the future not only of the veracity of his prophecy but
substantiating the words of the Prophets of Israel and these confirmations and
the realisation of a Divine plan will cause a paradigm shift in consciousness.
Jesus and the Archangel Michael
mentioned in Revelation and Daniel seem to be both part of the raising
of Human consciousness and are accounted as witnesses to the Divine Plan.
In
Fragments of the Prince Melchizedek document found in the Dead Sea Scrolls,
Melchizedek and the Archangel Michael are one and the same and there is
undoubtedly an understanding of Michael being inextricably linked to the Grail,
since all these churches that have led us to this Island of Avallon, have been
named after him specifically. It is through the Archangel that the Dragon is
killed and the Archangel being inextricably linked to accounts in Revelation
and the Prophets, showing Biblical inter-relation with the spiritual quest of
the Grail romances, all integrally linked to Jesus the Archetypal son of the
God of Israel. It is ‘HE’ who spoke through the Prophets, who mankind calls God,
whose plan it is, to elevate the Consciousness of Man, and this ascension of
the steps by degrees to the Temple.
It
is God that carries out his Divine Plan in Time but the Archangel Michael who
seems to have lived throughout time is inescapably linked to all aspects of our
investigation. His name is linked with the Island, with the Grail and as the
protector of God’s people as seen here in the The
Apocolypse of Paul or Visio Pauli
Hear What Michael says! I am he who stands in
the sight of God every hour. As the lord lives, in whose sight I stand, I do
not stop one day or night praying incessantly for the human race, and I indeed
pray for those who are on the Earth, but they do not cease committing iniquity
and fornications; and they do not do any good while they are placed on earth
and you have consumed in vanity the time in which you ought to have repented.
Figure 25b Showing the
St. Michael Ley line the Joseph line relative to Ictis and the Wreck sites
better known as the Island of Avalon.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/And-Did-Those-Feet-ebook/dp/B00864NTWI
In 1191
the fraudulent uncovering of the bones of King Arthur were displayed at Glastonbury Abbey. A fraudulently fabricated cross was found with him which convieniently stated that King
Arthur, (i.e the bones just unearthed), were found in Avalon confirming to
those that needed to be persuaded, that Avalon was in fact Glastonbury.
An inscribed lead
cross was said to have been found in Arthur’s uncovered grave, with the words Hic iacet sepultus inclitus
rex Arturius in insula Avalonia; ‘Here lies interred King Arthur in the island of Avalon’. Clearly,
by finding King Arthur’s body which was reputed to be buried in the Isle of
Avalon would confirm the location of Avalon as Glastonbury if the body were
found at Glastonbury. Combining that with a corpse with an inscription stating ‘here
lies King Arthur’, would seem to eliminate all doubt.
The
reason the monks at Glastonbury committed fraud such as this was because of the
Grail legends that emanated from France which associated King Arthur with
Joseph of Arimathea. Before this time King Arthur had little association specifically with Glastonbury. The Grail romances were now prevalent and Glastonbury needed an
association with a saint to pull in the Pilgrims. Because of Melkin’s
prophecy, Joseph had always been associated with Glastonbury and because of Melkin's prophecy the church there had since Saxon times had a tradition associating it with the uncle of Jesus as William of Malmesbury attests to.
Nobody was
too sure where the island of Avalon was, but everybody knew that King Arthur
and Joseph of Arimathea, were buried in Avalon. Neither William of Malmesbury
nor Geoffrey of Monmouth associated Glastonbury with the Island of Avalon at
the time they wrote. This was a later corruption by monks and the sole purpose
of producing the fraudulent cross was to establish Glastonbury as Avalon. If
Glastonbury could only be established as Avalon by the unearthing of King
Arthur, then it must follow the Joseph of Arimathea was also buried within the
Abbey grounds if all were convinced that Glastonbury was Avalon. To unearth
Joseph of Arimathea, however, would prove difficult as it was known that he was
buried with the holy Grail. Since the monks were not apprised of what the holy
Grail consisted of, it was easier to fabricate the unearthing of King Arthur
with a cross attesting to the fact that where he was unearthed was indeed
Glastonbury and therefore it must be the island of Avalon. The reason Joseph of
Arimathea needed to be associated with Glastonbury is because the monks needed
funding to rebuild their Abbey after the fire.
Prior to
the fire of 1184, there existed a prophecy written by a monk called Melkin. In
this prophecy, (once it is decoded), Melkin supplies very pertinent information
in geometric instructions, that gives precise directions to an island in Devon.
This island is Burgh island in Devon. Melkin states that the body of Joseph of
Arimathea lies in the southern angle of a bifurcated line. Once Melkin's code
is deciphered, it clearly portrays that Avebury is the point on the St.
Michael’s ley line, which in his puzzle, he refers to as a ‘sperula’or sphere,
meaning a stone circle. This is the point within the Avebury stone circle
complex which, at 13°, if one scribe's a line through Montacute to Burgh island
(which Melkin calls the island of Avalon), it is exactly one hundred and Four
nautical miles, the exact number that Melkin gives. We should not forget that
Father William good deposited this clue in the English college at Rome. Someone
or some organisation had tried to eliminate this information from Maihew's
Trophea to prevent the Joseph line being found but luckily this clue was
preseved in Stillingfleets private collection and thus acts as a confirmation
that the line is Genuine. It also seems that several marker churches that
identified the genuine Avalon were also destroyed to prevent this information
coming into the public arena.
The location of Avalon has always
been thought to exist at Glastonbury but with a recent study of some of the
oldest text and the uncovering of the fraud concerning King Arthur carried out
by the monks at Glastonbury, it is evident that Avalon is in Devon . The
references that Melkin gives are part of a geometric riddle that once solved, points
straight to the island in Devon which is obviously fits Diodorus’s description
as Ictis.
This is in
fact named in the Grail stories as the island of Sarras named after Judah’s
eldest son Zarah, who broke the womb first. His name has the same pronunciation
as Sarra in French and his descendants came to the south-west and were the
primordial miners of tin on southern Dartmoor who brought their tin to this
island to be sold. This is the reason that in the Grail stories, the island is
called Sarras and to which the holy Grail was brought. It is to this island
that after the crucifixion of Jesus, when his body was taken down from the
cross by his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, it was then conveyed to a box filled
with Cedar oil so that it might preserve his corpse. This box or coffin known
as the Grail Ark was then conveyed with Joseph and several others from
Jerusalem to the island of Sarras, which Joseph knew well, having visited many
times previously on his mercantile trips with Jesus. This island had been known
about in the Greek chronicles because Pytheas a Greek explorer had visited the
island on his expedition to find amber which they did not realise was the
sometime by product of tin and copper smelting. The island was kept secret over
many years since Pytheas’ visit, until Joseph of Arimathea visited the island
with Jesus on one of his trips abroad gathering metals.
It was to
this island previously known as Ictis that Joseph of Arimathea chose to convey
the Grail ark and place Jesus in an old tin vault that had been shut down or
made redundant due to the Roman invasion. For about 1000 years, the island
called Burgh island had been the place on the coast where all the tin miners up
on southern Dartmoor had brought their tin to be stored in the vault. This
transpired so that visiting traders could take away tin at any time and the
island acted as a trading post. It is for this reason that Diodorous refers to
it as an ‘emporium’. It becomes clear now the reason that Joseph of Arimathea
knew the island very well. Strabo even relates the story behind the cache of
tin ingots found at the head of the Erm.
The gospels
relate that Jesus was laid to rest in a hewed out tomb belonging to Joseph of
Arimathea and the rumours still persisted as eyewitnesses had seen the doubled
over white shroud that covered his body as he lay in the Grail ark. One wonders
if the Gospel accounts of the burial of Jesus are just the echoes of the
misconstrued eyewitness accounts that existed in Jerusalem just after the
resurrection. This set of events aslo explains why the flower imprints were
found on the Turin shroud. This is fully explained in detail in a book called
‘And did those feet’, written by Michael Goldsworthy as new theory as to how
the Grail stories, the Arthurian legend at Glastonbury and the gospels
interlink and provide evidence of the whereabouts of the body of Jesus.
Melkin, who
actually wrote the original book of the Grail, which ended up over in France
and gave rise to the many Arthurian Grail romances now is understood to be the
same person who provided the rumours of Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury. So
now we have a tomb containing King Arthur, Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus that
was last shut when Melkin moved to France in around 600AD, sometime after the Saxon
invasion. However the Templars, once they have been disbanded in the Middle
Ages, were also privy to this island location and they knew what was buried
within. It was here on Christmas Day in 1307 that they decided, (after King
Philip and the Pope had disbanded their organisation), to relocate their
treasure that they had managed to recuperate and ammased it into three treasure
ships that left La Rochelle on 13Tth October 1307.
While
depositing their treasure in the tomb they removed the Shroud of Jesus that had
been submerged in the Cedar oil for 600 years while covering his body. It is
inside this vault that the image of Jesus on the Turin Shroud was formed while
draped over the body of Jesus in Cedar oil. The evaporated Cedar oil has left a
caramel like substance all over the Turin Shroud, but the image itself was
formed by the detritus left behind by anaerobic bacteria.
Only 50 years
later, one of the Templars that died with Jack de Molay near Notre Dame in
Paris, had a granddaughter that produced the Turin Shroud. This is not
coincidence and answers the many questions of why there is no provenance for
the Shroud of Turin prior to 1354. The Shroud had existed within the tin vault
until the Templars arrive and remove it. The song which became a Christmas
Carol; ‘I saw three ships come sailing in on Christmas Day in the morning’ is
really the echo of the Templars bringing their treasure to the island of Avalon
in Devon. However, this song had always been associated in Cornish tradition to
the visit of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea. It was the Templars, however, that
marked out all the churches dedicated to St. Michael that lie along the St.
Michael Ley line. Oddly enough, it is the other St. Michael churches that we
used as markers, that confirm that the island of Avalon is indeed Burgh island
in Devon
It
is this line that Melkin refers to, which, when bifurcated within the Avebury
stones at 13° and a line is scribed for 104 nautical miles it lands on this
same island. Unequivocably Melkin understands the connection between the island
of Ictis used by Joseph of Arimathea and clearly calls it the island of Avalon.
Firstly, it is known by the Greeks as Ictis, secondly, as the island of Sarras
by the French Grail writers and thirdly, as the island of Avalon named as such
by Melkin originally and made to appear as pertaining to Glastonbury tor by
some devious medieval monks . It is even referred to as the island of Avaron by
some of the Grail writers.
The unofficial
anthem written by William Blake called Jerusalem starts with the line ‘And did
those feet’. This is the title of the book written by Michael Goldsworthy ,
which conveys the same story that Jesus visited England while accompanying his
father, Joseph of Arimathea to Britain. The book called ‘And did those
feet’clearly deciphers Melkin’s prophecy, so that it becomes apparent that
Melkin knew where the island of Avalon was and what existed within it. To fully
understand this extraordinary set of events, go to the link provided below and
buy the ebook
