CHAPTER 3

The Mythical Quest

From Fictional Medieval Origins to Conspiracy Narrative

The part of the Templar urtext that this chapter is examining is the grail guardian archetype, which is adapted and reused as part of the reoccurring Templar narrative. The chapter aims to identify how the concept of the thematic Templar quest narrative has evolved over the centuries to include two aspects: the quest of the knight and the quest to follow in the Templars’ footsteps. Both parts incorporate the structural elements of a quest narrative as established in myth, as well as incorporating supernatural and fantastical elements. The case studies selected are the ­low-budget cult film Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Gilliam & Jones, 1975) and the ­action-adventure blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Spielberg, 1989), which show the quest of the knight. The ­21st-century Hollywood conspiracy films The Da Vinci Code (Howard, 2006) and National Treasure (Turteltaub, 2004) show the quest to follow in the Templars’ footsteps.

These case studies have been selected because they demonstrate my concept of the Templar urtext and also show how the quest narrative has evolved over the centuries. This chapter aims to understand why these films incorporate, adapt, and evolve the grail guardian archetype of the Templar urtext. By examining the grail guardian archetype, this chapter explores how these different texts build on the Templar urtext and expand the popular perceptions of the Templar phenomenon in popular culture. The methodology to approach this will include textual analysis of the case studies but also an analysis of the producer’s influences and intentions. The chapter will draw on interviews and production sources to understand creative decisions, complemented with academic sources used to highlight how the Templar narrative has evolved.

The chapter will firstly examine the concept of the quest as a story itself. This study will be done by approaching the structuralist concepts of Joseph Campbell alongside Norris J. Lacy’s work on the MacGuffin. These concepts provide the ideal starting point for analysis as they focus on Arthurian myth and are concepts clearly referenced in the work of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. After introducing the quest as a story structure, the chapter then examines the quest of the knight. This aspect of the Knights Templar quest narrative is a formulaic tool used by filmmakers to retell the grail narrative and further cement the Templar narrative within popular culture. The chapter examines the Templars’ first appearance in popular culture in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s ­13th-century poem Parzival to provide context for the appearance of the quest of the knight. However, to explain this aspect of the quest narrative, this chapter will not be analyzing conventional Arthurian grail myths as case studies but instead using Monty Python and the Holy Grail and blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as they are synonymous with the Holy Grail. These film texts offer a different depiction than the traditional grail stories. To demonstrate how story producers incorporate aspects of the Templar quest narrative within their variation of the grail story, I will draw upon Donald L. Hoffman’s work on Monty Python and Rebecca A. Umland and Samuel J. Umland’s study of grail adaptations in Hollywood. It should be noted that neither film features the Knights Templar by name, but both films show the influence of the Templar quest narrative on the iconography and themes of the story.

The second half of the chapter will examine the second aspect of the quest narrative, the quest to follow in the Templars’ footsteps. This aspect of the grail guardian archetype sees the protagonist revisit the past through researching a Templar conspiracy story. The Templar conspiracy narrative reaffirms faith within Christianity, emphasizing Christ’s legitimacy and linking America’s divine purpose to its founding. The chapter will introduce Templar conspiracy myths and draw from Timothy Melley’s study of conspiracy theory to study the myth in popular culture. The analysis of this aspect of the quest builds upon the typological theories of Aronstein and Torry (2009) to establish how the quest narrative has continued to evolve within popular culture, building upon the established grail story which is part of the Templar urtext guardian archetype. The prevalence of this aspect of the quest narrative is demonstrated through two case studies: The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure, chosen due to their popularity and focus on conspiracy, myth and history. These case studies highlight how the Templar quest narrative has evolved and has helped to renew popular interest in the Knights Templar in the 21st century.

The Quest

The first type of Templar quest draws upon the supernatural powers of the grail created from the Arthurian legend, while the second aspect uses the Templar myth as the supernatural environment that the protagonist must venture forth into on the quest. The first quest type focuses on the search for the grail, while the second quest is for a symbolic grail in the form of beneficial revelation. The Knights Templar have been associated with the grail quest since its ­13th-century version within Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival. This inclusion by Eschenbach not only located the grail within the real world but also situated the Templars within the supernatural. The Templars’ role in the grail quest created the origins for the reoccurring Templar narrative within popular culture, placing them in medieval literature as the guardians of the grail. Of course, not all grail stories included the Templars, but that role is the origin of the Templar quest narrative and the start of the merge between the Templars’ historical reality and historical myth.

This chapter proposes that there are two types of Templar quest narrative because this narrative is a major feature in opposing genre narratives, such as medieval historical/Arthurian or mystery adventure/thriller. Although this type of Templar narrative can appear in the different cinematic codes of variations of the genre, it is also the use of time periods that outlines the separate quest types, such as the medieval past and the modern day and the roles of the story’s protagonist. Simply put, the first type of quest narrative incorporates the role of the questing knight, seeking the grail or a long journey. The second type of quest narrative, set in modern times, involves the protagonist venturing back into the past by uncovering the Templars’ lost secret. The final difference between the two types is the goal of the quest, as, in the quest of the knight, the item sought has no intrinsic value in the same way as the story tool known as a MacGuffin. Lacy defines the concept as “a McGuffin [sic] is something—a person, an object, an event—the primary purpose of which is to motivate the characters and therefore the plot, whether or not that ‘something’ possesses any implicit significance” (2005, p. 54). This type of quest narrative can also function as the emotional motivation for the character, one that drives them forward in their character arc.

For example: in the Arn series, the titular character must crusade to the Holy Land to atone for his sins for sex outside of marriage with his lover Cecilia. Arn’s mission is to protect Christians and the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, a duty which he fails due to the Christian armies’ defeat at the Battle of Hattin by Saladin. Arn’s failure in his quest has no bearing on the plot; he still returns to his homeland, but he has returned as a ­battle-hardened warrior able to defeat invading forces. Arn’s quest to the Holy Land is in itself irrelevant to the plot; even if history were rewritten and Saladin were defeated, Arn would still return home as the ­battle-hardened warrior. It is in this way that the quest narrative works as a mechanism for the character’s emotional journey. In the case of Arn: The Knight Templar, Arn goes from an innocent young man to a veteran knight of the Crusades. This example is in keeping with the concept of the MacGuffin as the quest has no actual impact upon the narrative but only serves as a means of facilitating Arn’s emotional change. The importance of character change while obtaining the goal is called by Christopher Vogler “The Road of Heroes.” He explains, “Heroes are symbols of the soul in transformation, and of the journey each person takes through life. The stages of that progression, the natural stages of life and growth, make up the Hero’s Journey” (2007, p. 37). The quest as a narrative documents the character’s growth through the stages of the search for that goal, which provides an ideal backdrop to the quest of the knight, illustrating the hero’s journey through the given character arc.

The concept of the quest as a story links to the early storytelling of heroic myth ranging from Perseus in Greek mythology to Beowulf of Scandinavia. These narratives incorporate the quest as a thematic tool that is still one of the major formats of storytelling. The Templar narrative originally appeared in the Arthurian grail myth, which means that the Templar quest narrative is tied to the format of mythic storytelling identified through Joseph Campbell’s structuralist theories. Vogler explains that Campbell “found that all storytelling, consciously or not, follows the ancient patterns of myth and that all stories, from the crudest jokes to highest flights of literature, can be understood in terms of the Hero’s Journey” (2007, p. 4). Part of Campbell’s theory is that the hero leaves the ordinary world and ventures into the fantastical, a story tool that is apparent in both types of Templar quest narrative. For the quest of the knight, it is more literal; the questing knight leaves his homeland and journeys to a dangerous foreign land, exemplified in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In this adaptation, Arthur and his knights battle the deadly Rabbit of Caerbannog, a deadly rabbit that demonstrates the fantastical of the supernatural world the hero must venture within.

The journey into the supernatural world is part of the mythic story format, and as the Templar quest narrative derives from the King Arthur grail myths, it is fundamental to the Templar narrative. The second type of quest narrative features this fundamental story step, but the protagonist takes the journey into the fantastical world by traveling into the Templar past. Not literally, but by investigating the Templars’ past, the hero must travel from the ordinary world to the Templars’ past to achieve the quest. The Templar myths (the grail, Freemasons) are drawn from the past into the modern world via a conspiracy that hides a revelation, one which the ­modern-day hero must uncover to rediscover faith in America/Christianity. The mythology of the Templar conspiracy links the medieval mythic past to the modern world, a fantastical world which the hero must delve into to complete the quest.

The Templars and the Holy Grail

The Templars first appeared in popular culture as the guardians of the grail in the Arthurian grail myths and created the foundations for mythic variants of the quest narrative, which were further diluted after the Order’s sudden extinction. The mythic stories associated with The Templars form one half of the cornerstone for the Knights Templar’s place within popular culture, the other half being the villainous/chivalrous knight explored in the previous chapters. The importance of this aspect to the Templars’ infamy is expressed by Haag, who explains, “The Secrecy of the Templars, their hybrid, nature as monks with swords, the exotic worlds they encompassed, their romance and sudden fall, and the mysteries left unanswered by the disappearance of their archives, have enlarged them in popular imagination where they survive and flourish” (2009, p. 282). The sudden fall of the Templars in 1312 left unanswered questions about the Order, and with no Templars left to dispute them, many narratives of conspiracy and myth were able to flourish.

However, before the Templars’ infamous fall, the warrior monks were infused into medieval romance literature as guardians of the grail. Haag notes, “The first mention of the Templars in literature came in about 1220 in Parzival by the German knight and poet Wolfram von Eschenbach” (2009, p. 253). The Templars’ appearance in this Arthurian poem marked the start of the Templar narrative, a story theme that would become an encompassing phenomenon that grew over the centuries, as this chapter will explore. Wolfram’s work built on the unfinished work of Chrétien de Troyes, who was “a poet from northern France who wrote Perceval, or Le Conte du Graal, under the orders of Count Philip of Flanders” (Müller, 2002, p. 177). The significance of the difference in Wolfram’s version, Müller explains, is “Wolfram almost tripled the length of Chrétien’s romance (from about 9,200 to 25,000 lines), completed the story in detail, added the early history of Perceval’s father, and even gave a preview of the following generation of characters” (2002, p. 177). The differences to both grail stories, Umland and Umland explain, are that in Wolfram’s Parzival “the knights who do guard it [the grail] are referred to as Templars, and Wolfram expands upon the history of the grail family naming the current King Anfortas” (1996, p. 13). Haag suspects that Wolfram drew direct influence for his grail Templars from Wolfram’s visits to the Holy Land; he writes, “Eschenbach had visited Outremer in about 1200 and he set sections of his poem in the East” (2009, pp. 253–254). Haag notes that his “Templars are pure warriors, defenders of the sacred territories which contain the Grail, just as the real Templars defended the Holy Land” (2009, p. 254). It is this inclusion of detail around Percival’s father and introducing the next generation of characters that the Knights Templar appear within the grail romances, which create a Templar narrative where the lines of myth and reality of the Templars start to blur.

It is worth noting that Wolfram’s Parzival “is neither a paraphrase nor translation” and “changes so many large and small details that his Parzival becomes an independent work” (Müller, 2002, p. 177). Müller highlights the difference of each version’s description of the grail, writing, “Even his description and interpretation of the Grail are original: his Grail is a mysterious, powerful stone with divine origins, whereas Chrétien represents it as a Golden Vessel” (2002, p. 177). Haag states, “there was nothing explicitly religious about Chrétien’s grail; he did not write about it as the cup or chalice at the last supper” (2009, p. 255). Haag argues that the grail was about the “cultural and spiritual quest … regardless of its religious overtones, that has belonged to secular writers, never to the Church” (2009, p. 255). It is in this aspect that the Holy Grail and the Knights Templar are similar as they both have Christian implications, but the writers use both for narratives not associated with Christianity. This separation between knight and religion was also established as an aspect of the Templar knight narrative. It highlights how the fictional Templar hero and villain distance themselves from the Christian religion by either rejecting the faith’s elite community or openly disrespecting and distorting the Christian faith.

Associations with Jesus Christ and the cup from the Last Supper were not part of the Chrétien grail story; this connection came from a later medieval version by the French poet Robert de Boron who imbued the myth with Christian iconography. He “made the grail cup from which Christ drank at the last supper, a cup that also held Christ’s blood collected by Joseph of Arimathea” (Umland & Umland, 1996, p. 13). The inspiration behind the grail may not have been from Christian influence, and Umland and Umland believe that the grail has pagan influences. Umland and Umland argue, “It is possible that Chrétien was influenced by stories of nourishing vessels of Celtic origin (e.g., cornucopias and horns of plenty), but he is the first to connect it to an elaborate ritual (the grail procession) with spiritual overtones” (1996, p. 13). Wolfram redefines the grail, noting, “Lapsit exillis, the name given to the grail, is a stone that was once set in Lucifer’s crown but which fell with him from heaven, and which serves as an elixir of life” (Haag, 2009, p. 254). Of course, including the Templars into a story will carry Christian connotations, but the inclusion of the cup of Christ in the story shows how quickly the Templar narrative envelops new thematic links. This will further fuel what centuries later will be the fictional Templar phenomenon.

Given the substantial number of grail stories, writers focus on various aspects of the established grail lore, such as Robert de Boron’s inclusion of Christ iconography instead of Celtic myth. This is also true of the later film adaptations; for example, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade focuses on the healing power of the grail, which gives the grail knight eternal life. Excalibur (Boorman, 1981) draws upon the ideas of the cornucopia, which enables the grail to heal the decimated kingdom of Arthur as well as the king himself. Although Boorman’s adaptation focuses on the original concept of the grail as a cornucopia, Boorman’s grail still incorporates Christian iconography such as the blood of Christ during Percival’s vision. This vision appears to Percival as he is at the threshold of death as a blinding light transports him into the grail castle where he witnesses a magnificent floating chalice that pours a red liquid that resembles blood. Upon witnessing the golden chalice, Percival hears a mysterious voice that asks him, “What is the Secret of the Grail?” (Boorman, 1981). This sequence draws upon the grail’s later associations with Christ and also with Wolfman’s grail castle, also known as the “Temple,” which Guerber describes, writing, “Some idea of its unrivalled loveliness may be faintly gained from the description which tells that ‘The temple itself was one hundred fathoms in diameter. Around it were ­seventy-two chapels of an octagonal shape’” (1922, p. 247). Although, unlike Wolfram’s account, Boorman’s Excalibur features no Templars or guardian grail knights. Aberth argues that Percival’s vision of the grail “is emblematic of the religious emasculation that takes place throughout the movie” (2003, p. 23); however, this version’s grail does evoke associations with Christ. Boorman’s version links the grail directly to Arthur, as the grail’s secret is that Arthur can heal both himself and the land, but does demonstrate the contrasting grail themes as the film also evokes Christian iconography through Percival’s vision of the golden chalice connoting the transubstantiation of Catholic Mass.

Eric Rohmer’s 1978 adaptation of Chrétien’s grail romance, Perceval le Gallois, depicts the grail like the original romance, seen as part of a spiritual ritual procession as witnessed by Percival; the film features no Templars as part of the grail ritual as they did not become associated with the grail until Wolfram’s later account. Rohmer used an expressionistic style for his grail film by capturing the entire film in a studio with sets constructed to resemble medieval manuscript illustrations and artwork. In an interview with Nadja ­Tesich-Savage, Rohmer explains that instead of filming on location at historical sites, his vision was to “attempt to create a film according to period’s own conceptions of itself” (1978, p. 52). Although Rohmer’s vision was to adapt Chrétien’s grail romance and emphasize the iconography and cultural visuals of the period, his grail film also contrasts the pagan influence and spiritual properties in Chrétien’s grail romance with the Christian themes of the later versions with the inclusion of Percival’s vision of Christ’s crucifixion. In the interview with ­Tesich-Savage, Rohmer explained that the film’s “end will be very Christian, closing with the Passion played with full force” (1978, p. 56); however, this inclusion was accused of being an “awkwardly ­tacked-on ending” by critics (Callahan, 1999, p. 50). Callahan argues that the ­Christian-themed ending is appropriate for the adaption as its inspiration “grows directly out of Chrétien’s romance” (1999, p. 50). The line Callahan refers to is translated as “After the service he venerated the cross and weeping for his sins humbly repented” (Satines, 1990, p. 418).

One of the most significant variants to the grail story was the inclusion of Sir Galahad, who would replace Sir Percival as the story’s protagonist. Despite replacing Percival in literature, Galahad was not often the main protagonist when the stories were adapted to film. Umland and Umland press that when being depicted in film:

the quest tend[s] to rely upon these early medieval versions of the quest for the holy grail and bypass the later versions (best known perhaps by Malory’s Queste del sanc Graal) in which Galahad, a product of the imagination of Cistercian monks, largely usurps Perceval’s role as grail knight par excellence [1996, p. 14].

Galahad’s usurpation demonstrates how the different versions of the grail alternate with the writer’s vision, and with Galahad written as the most pure and perfect Christian knight, the grail story is further embedded within Christian themes.

The significance of the inclusion of Galahad with the Templar narrative can be seen in one of the most iconic film grail adaptations: Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The film features King Arthur, Percival and multiple knights searching for the grail; the film also features Sir Galahad, an inclusion that is rare among modern retelling. Umland and Umland clarify that Galahad’s lack of appearance in modern retelling is due to his “purity and his perfection render him a less sympathetic character than his precursor, Perceval … when Galahad appears in Hollywood productions, he is most often presented satirically and only in passing” (1996, p. 14). Satirical characters are the only depictions for Monty Python’s knights, and this includes Galahad, but what makes this film’s inclusion of Galahad significant is Galahad’s infusion with the Templar narrative and iconography. The character of Sir Galahad dresses in traditional Knights Templar garb; over his armor he wears a white mantle with a large red cross in the center and even carries a white shield with a red cross emblem upon it.

The similarity of costume between Sir Galahad and the Knights Templar also runs parallel by the vows of chastity taken by the Templars’ monkhood and Sir Galahad’s piety drawing a direct comparison. As with the rest of the Arthurian concepts, Galahad’s great Christian piety is parodied so that instead of something to be admired, as the Cistercian monks would have envisioned, it is something to be mocked. One scene that typifies this inversion for comedic effect is when Sir Galahad is vulnerable and squeamish when accosted by a castle of lustful women, and the comedy is “because the chastity is not based so much on an ascetic ideal as it is on the men’s squeamishness; Galahad seems less chaste than frightened” (Hoffman, 2002, p. 142). Despite the ridiculous nature of the film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail parodies and subverts the Arthurian conventions. The film is a more valid example of the Templar quest narrative despite not featuring a Templar by name, as the Templar quest narrative incorporates through the amalgamation of Galahad with the warrior monks.

Monty Python and Templar Iconography

Monty Python and the Holy Grail was the second film released by the comedy team, while its first film, And Now for Something Completely Different (MacNaughton, 1971), was an anthology of previous sketches; the second film would feature an entirely new format and content. The film was a box office success, grossing $5,028,948 worldwide, far extending the film’s modest budget of $400,000 (The Numbers). The film has a cult following and is still shown for audiences at dedicated events decades after its original release. The crux of the comedy is subverting Arthurian and medievalist themes, which gives the material a timeless factor. Founding member of the comedy team John Cleese explained the timelessness of the film in a November 2017 interview for ­courier-journal.com: “Cleese said that ‘Holy Grail’ remains a comedy milestone because, foremost, it’s funny. Just as important is that its setting in ancient history allows viewers to see it without being distracted by dated references” (Puckett). This grounding of the comedy within the medievalist realm inspired the film to include common medieval associations aside from Arthur, such as the Black Knight, grubby peasants, witchcraft and the meddlesome French. The Templars do not appear as grail guardians in the Monty Python version of the grail story, but the influence of the Templar quest narrative is apparent in both the iconography and character in the film’s depiction of Sir Galahad. Monty Python’s unique version of the grail story includes many established medievalist conventions but uses comedy to subvert the audience expectation and provides a parody of the Arthurian grail story. Therefore, for the parodic context the Templar narrative is combined with the pious Galahad to construct what Umland and Umland summarize as “a fop and dandy” (1996, p. 14).

Monty Python’s parody with Arthurian conventions is not only the subversion of ­pre-established themes but also the subversion of the epic nature of the grail story with an unauthentic, ­low-budget aesthetic and use of cartoon animation. This parody of conventions is illustrated by the film’s version of the grail reveal, which is not taken from early stories but the search for the Holy Grail charged to Arthur by the appearance of a cartoon God in the sky. Hoffman suggests, “The scene is then more a parody of the audience’s expectations than it is of the actual scene” (2002, p. 140). Hoffman’s assertion is that Python’s version draws from the later versions of the grail’s association with Christ and the “assumptions about the quest as a define mission” (Hoffman, 2002, p. 140). The film moves Arthur and his knights away from Camelot, which prevents the grail from appearing to them there. This removes the “Pentecostal imagery of the first appearance of the Grail at Camelot, the prophecies of Siege Perilous” (Hoffman, 2002, p. 140). The removal of the appearance from Camelot focuses the story away from Galahad, who does not take up his usual grail role, but as the grail appears to King Arthur, the quest is then focused upon him.

Guerber explains the significance of Galahad with the grail story in recounting the Arthurian myth. He writes, “one of the empty seats was marked ‘Siege Perilous.’ Marvelling as to what this could mean, the nobles eagerly questioned Merlin, who told them that that seat was reserved for a knight who should be absolutely pure, so that did any other adventure himself upon it he would straightway be swallowed up by the yawning earth” (1922, p. 291). According to the myth, only Sir Galahad could sit upon the Siege Perilous due to his unwavering piety and perfection, but in this version, Galahad is a Templar hybrid, and therefore, his usual lead role is made redundant in favor of inverting the chaste, pious warrior with a frigid knight with a fear of women. The appearance of the grail typifies the uniqueness of this grail story, one that uses its low budget to address the ridiculousness of the narrative further. As Hoffman explains, the deliverance of the divine quest “reproduces a certain kind of Moses on Sinai sublimity, but then undercuts that sublimity completely by reducing God to a cartoon” (2002, p. 140). This undercutting envelops the comedy of authenticity of both aesthetics and parody of Arthurian concepts.

Even Arthur’s kingly origin is made comedic through parody. Day cites from the film, writing, “Arthur, his eyes turned heavenward, launches into a description of how he received his kingship by the supernatural sanction of ‘the lady of the lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite,’ … Arthur is, nonetheless, abruptly cut short by Dennis’ derisive squawk, followed by one of the funniest lines in the movie: ‘Strange woman lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government’” (2002, pp. 129–130). King Arthur’s origin and the medieval convention of rule through divine right is made comedic, and “Dennis’s dismissal of them seems that much more bizarre and jarring” due to “the presence of anachronism in the juxtaposition” (Day, 2002, p. 130). Monty Python and the Holy Grail incorporates the established conventions of the Arthurian myth but repackages them for comedic effect. The peasants’ freethinking and rejection of Arthur’s right to rule is a subversion of Arthur’s ­pre-established, unchallenged divine authenticity of the grail myth. The amalgamation of the Templar quest narrative with Galahad also demonstrates this comedic subversion. The iconography and ideology of the Templar knight are fused with Sir Galahad, who is not the protagonist but a comedic, frigid, virgin knight; it is the film’s playing with ­pre-established ideas that enables the comedy to remain timeless.

The ending in Monty Python and the Holy Grail shows perhaps the subtlest inversion of an Arthurian grail convention, due to the suddenness and unsatisfying conclusion. The film ends with Arthur at the head of an army charging the French fortress that holds the grail, only for Arthur and his knights being arrested by police officers due to the murder of the ­modern-day historian by the mythical Sir Lancelot. The final shot of the film is a police officer blocking the camera with his hand while King Arthur and his knights are bundled into a police van. The significance of this ending, which leaves the quest incomplete, coincides with Chrétien’s original and unfinished grail story. Hoffman argues, “This inconclusive conclusion is, however, a strange replication of the original quest narratives. From Chrétien’s uncompleted Perceval on to the extraordinary regenerating series of incomplete conclusions that followed, it is almost a feature of the Quest that it remains unachieved” (2002, pp. 146–147). Monty Python’s version of the grail quest reproduces aspects of the myth, but in coherence with the assertions proposed in the previous paragraph, the convention of the futility of the quest is juxtaposed with the historical inaccuracy of failing due to prevention by a ­20th-century policeman; thus the quest is unfulfilled.

The concept of the failed quest is one of three quest character arcs that Kennedy proposes; these are not to be confused with the Templar quest narrative as that is a reoccurrence of themes and iconography, while Kennedy’s proposal supports types of quests as character arcs. This can be perceived as a more detailed look at the quest as a character arc that Christopher Booker outlines as “a long hazardous journey to reach it becomes the most important thing to him in the world … the story is shaped by that one overriding imperative; and the story remains unresolved until the objective has been, triumphantly secured” (2011, p. 69). Kennedy proposes, “One type concerns the quest to correct mistakes that we have made in life…. A second type concerns the quest for the ideal; related to that should be consideration of the fine line between idealism and fanaticism…. And a third type … is a quest for something that turns out to be futile and that can be dismissed as a waste of time and energy” (2009, pp. 10–11). The very ­self-aware ending of the film coincides with Kennedy’s character arc of the notion of the quest as futile. However, the sudden and ridiculous ending does not make the film’s earlier scenes dissatisfying. The film from quest set up is structurally a ­91-minute series of sketches held together with a loose narrative of a quest for the Holy Grail. This loose, overarching narrative serves well to thematically link the series of jokes together but also firmly sets the film within the first type of Templar quest narrative. Monty Python demonstrates the influence of the Templar quest narrative; despite not featuring the Knights Templar by name. It does, however, feature the Templar iconography of the iconic red cross on white mantle and monastic chastity depicted within the squeamish Sir Galahad. The film’s playful inversion of Arthurian conventions as shown in examples given, such as the sudden ending or peasants questioning Arthur’s legitimacy, demonstrates that this comedic approach gave the film a timeless appeal. It is this parody of Arthurian conventions that made Galahad an amalgamation with Templar iconography and ideology. This enables this case study to show the influence that warrior monks extinct from the 14th century still have in popular culture through this aspect of the Templar quest narrative.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

The second case study that demonstrates the Templar quest narrative of the knight is the third installment of the Indiana Jones franchise, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Despite not being set in the medieval past but the 1930s, this film depicts Indiana Jones and his companions as grail knights and incorporates the Templar quest narrative with Templar iconography in depicting a grail guardian knight. This case study demonstrates how the Templar quest narrative of the knight is featured in popular culture not merely within a medieval setting but an association that is intrinsically linked to grail myth reset in Spielberg’s 1930s’ adventure.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade took $474,171,806 worldwide (Box Office Mojo); the film was not only a financial success but a critical one. Sullivan asserts that although Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981) “has come to occupy the primary place in the public’s imagination as the jewel in the series crown” (2015, p. 158), he suggests that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is the finest film of the franchise. He cites Robinson’s review in The Times of London that judged Indy III as “Probably the best written and generally most accomplished of the series” (Sullivan, 2015, p. 158). Despite the Holy Grail featuring in the title, the grail quest is sidelined for a more human quest; Sullivan explains, “they use the Grail as a ­means-to-an-end, one whose attainment stands metaphorically for the film’s most important theme, namely the quest of a son for, and reconciliation with, a distant father” (2015, p. 158). Despite the film’s central empathic human theme, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, like the two previous installments, focus around the hunt for a supernatural object. In an interview with Vanity Fair in February 2008, executive producer George Lucas explains, “Indiana Jones films are supernatural mystery movies. They’re always going after some supernatural object” (Windolf). Essentially, the Indiana franchise focuses its narrative around a quest for the MacGuffin, which coincides with the first type of Templar quest narrative, as the object of the quest is redundant in the wake of the emotional journey of the character.

The prominence of the MacGuffin as the focal point of the Indiana Jones franchise is demonstrated by Lucas’ difficulty in fashioning one for the fourth installment. In an interview for Entertainment Weekly in April 2008, Lucas said, “When we go to [the idea of making a fourth] one, I had already said, ‘No. I can’t think of another MacGuffin’” (Daly). Lacy argues that in medieval literature, “The Grail unarguably functions as a true McGuffin [sic]…. But despite its obvious value, I suggest that it is a McGuffin because its effect, if not purpose, is to provoke, stimulate, and sustain action, much of which actually has no connection” (2005, p. 61). The transfer of the grail from a literary MacGuffin to film MacGuffin proposed an early challenge for the production, as Lucas in a Vanity Fair interview explains:

The Holy Grail has mythical connotations, has been ascribed with several powers, but nothing very specific. So we had a time when we were going to do it and we rejected it, and we thought we better add to it some sort of healing property, to give it something to grab onto—which have been alluded to in the history of the Holy Grail [Windolf, Feb, 2008].

The healing process Lucas refers to is that of the wounded Fisher King by Percival or Galahad, depending on which version you read. The powers and appearance of the Holy Grail are adapted to suit the film’s story, drawing upon a large amount of folklore similarly to how producers draw upon the reoccurring Templar narrative to suit their desired narrative themes. However, seeking the grail is not the focus of the film’s personal story, but as Sullivan explains, “Rather they use the Grail as a ­means-to-an-end, one whose attainment stands metaphorically for the film’s most important theme, namely the quest of a son for, and reconciliation with, a distant father” (2015, p. 158). The quest for the grail in actuality is a search for Indiana’s father and the healing powers of the grail seen as symbolic of healing the relationship between Indy and his father. Focusing the third Indiana Jones film around the Holy Grail was never deemed a direct intention by Lucas and Spielberg, as Lucas said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly:

I said, look, let’s just try the Holy Grail. Ohhh, it’s too cerebral, we’ll never make it work…. So we turned it into a tangible magic cup with healing powers, instead of an intellectual thing. It wasn’t until the idea of introducing the father came along that we kind of pulled [the third movie] out of the fire. Because it then shifted from being about the MacGuffin [Daly, April 2008].

Lucas’ crediting of the change of focus from the mythical artifact to the relationship between Indiana Jones and his father is further demonstrated by the success of the film overseas. Sullivan cites from the New York Times, writing, “‘Sean Connery is a good actor to Americans, but a superstar to the rest of the world…’ And that the film did, in fact, earn much more overseas ($297 million) than domestically ($197 million) undoubtedly had at least something to do with Connery’s star power among foreign audiences” (2015, p. 168). Spielberg himself was concerned about addressing the quest for the Holy Grail as the grail was firmly cemented in popular culture through Monty Python. In the interview with Entertainment Weekly, he stated, “Of course, I was worried that people would hear Holy Grail, and they would immediately think about a white rabbit attacking Monty Python. My first reaction was to say, everybody run away! Run away” (Daly, April 2008). Spielberg’s concerns about Monty Python and the Holy Grail show how embedded the ­low-budget comedy became within popular grail associations despite its unconventional take on the myth. This notion of an unconventional grail myth runs parallel in this case study. Spielberg’s version offers an alternative take from within the 1930s’ adventures of Indiana Jones, but like Monty Python it still incorporates the Templar quest narrative of the knight.

The Indiana Jones films are not set in the medieval period but pre–World War II, which differs from the qualifier of the quest of the knight being set in a medieval/Arthurian world. However, Aronstein would argue that the Indiana Jones films are reimaginings of medieval romances. She outlines, “The tales of Indiana Jones are tales of knighthood, modernizations of medieval chivalric romances” and that in the film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade “his achievement of the Grail makes him just that—and not just any knight, but the best knight in the world” (1995, p. 3). The association of an Arthurian grail quest with Indy’s quest is made apparent within Boam’s original screenplay, which has Henry Jones declare to Indy, Sallah and Brody: “We are like the four renowned grail heroes of legend. (glances at Sallah) Bors, the ordinary man. (Looks to Brody) Perceval, the Holy innocent. (Looks at Indy) Galahad, the valorous knight. (then; meaning himself) And Lancelot…. Galahad’s father. The Old Crusader. Who was turned away because he wasn’t worthy. And perhaps neither am I” (1988, p. 120). This seemingly on-the-nose piece of dialogue supports the intention for Indiana Jones to not merely follow in the footsteps of the knights but that he is himself one. Indy’s knightly prowess is further demonstrated in a literal sense by using a flagpole as a lance while riding a motorcycle during a chase scene with Nazi soldiers. Despite the ­non-medieval setting, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is still encapsulated within the first type of Templar quest narrative due to the Arthurian reimagining of Indiana as a grail knight. Also, in sync with the quest of the knight, the quest for the grail serves as a plot device for the underlying focus of family reunification. Therefore completing the objective of the grail, as with the previous case study, it has no impact but is the motivator of the story.

The other crucial aspect of determining Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as following the Templar quest narrative of the knight is in its lacking one of the primary signifiers for the quest type following in the Templars’ footsteps. This key determining signifier is the notion of American exceptionalism, which the second half of this chapter explores in greater detail. However, with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Wasser proposes that the film “has hardly any references to American exceptionalism, which is also in contrast to its contemporary action films” (2010, p. 143). Wasser believes that Spielberg wanted “to put distance between the Indiana Jones character and white male dominance” (2010, p. 142). Friedman addresses the criticism that Spielberg’s Indiana Jones series has received by citing McBride, writing:

McBride severely chastises Spielberg for skilfully manipulating audiences into “identifying with this ruthless figure and finding him heroic,” for cynically exploiting him for “purely visceral thrills,” for presenting his violence and greed in a “winking ­tongue-in-cheek style,” and for “anesthetizing the audience’s moral sense” over a “casually amoral” character who “loots Third World Cultures” [2006, pp. 115–116].

In contrast to the colonial criticism of the franchise and to set the third installment apart from the 1980s’ genre conventions, Spielberg “denied himself the opportunity for egregious colonialism of the previous two Raider movies by safely confining most of the story’s action to Europe and the United States. The violence is mostly white on white. Indiana Jones even meets the ultimate Aryan: Adolf Hitler” (Wasser, 2010, p. 142). This notion of Spielberg’s desire to move away from American exceptionalism and ­right-wing ideology suggests why the Templar narrative is apparent within the film, but the film does not mention the Order directly by name due to the Order’s association with the extreme ideology that the works of Sir Walter Scott personify.

Despite not mentioning the Templars by name, Haag argues that the third Indiana Jones film is significant in bringing the Knights Templar to the forefront of popular culture. He argues, “with Spielberg’s film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), an order that had officially died out seven hundred years ago suddenly came to feel part of Zeitgeist” (2009, p. 331). Haag further explains his point by listing the increase in Templar novels that followed on after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and before the international bestseller, The Da Vinci Code (Brown, 2003). Haag informs, “In the next decade, Katherine Kurtz, an American novelist, ... launched a series of heroic Templar fantasy novels; British writer Michael Jacks penned various ­Cadfael-esque murder mysteries starring a Templar called Sir Baldwin; and Swedish author Jan Guillou entered the fray with a trilogy about a Swedish Templar” (2009, p. 331). What Haag does not address though with this notion is why the Templars are never actually mentioned by name in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; instead Spielberg introduced a ­Templar-esque copy called The Knights of the Cruciform Sword. This omission of the Templar name is due to the desire for the inclusion of a third rival faction in a later draft of the script called the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword.

This rival faction would include characters who were agents of the Sultan of Hatay and include the grail knight guardian whose appearance was a slight change to the iconic red cross on white background. The symbol of The Knights of the Cruciform Sword is a red cross on a white background but with two additional bars; the highest one is curved into a ­semi-circle to give the impression of the grail. The knight himself wears full armor as expected of the conventional knight, but like the stereotypical Templar knight, the Knight of the Cruciform Sword wears a white tabard over his armor which displays the red cruciform symbol of the knightly order. When highlighting the specifics of Templar fiction texts, Haag explains that the film “has a suggestively Templar theme and features a scene in which the weary Templar like guardian of The Holy Grail looks forward with quiet relief to ending his ­800-year watch…. Even though the sets are full of ­eight-pointed stars and talk of chivalrous knights abounds, the Templars are not mentioned once” (Haag, 2009, p. 341). The inclusion of the quasi Templar knight shows the role of the Templar quest narrative within the film. Lucas and Spielberg chose to incorporate Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Templar grail knight and the iconography of the Templar knight. However, they infused the role of the Templar guardian with other characters in the narrative to create a third rival faction in claiming the grail.

The inclusion of the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword came from the uncredited script rewrite by Tom Stoppard. Stoppard made many changes to the original Jeffrey Boam screenplay; one of the significant changes was the role of Kazim and his new role within a new third party, The Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword. In an online article for Creative Screenwriting, Mike Fitzgerald analyzes Stoppard’s influence on the script and the importance of the change to Kazim’s role. Fitzgerald explains:

in the earlier draft he works for the Sultan of Hatay, who is also hunting for the grail. When the Sultan allies with the Nazis, Kazim basically becomes a Nazi grunt. The revised version thickens the plot by having Kazim instead serve the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, a group avowed to protect the grail [March, 2016].

This inclusion of a third party seeking the grail not only heightened the conflict with new obstacles for Indiana but changed the connotations of the Templar’s role within the film. In the original Boam script the knights are simply referred to as “Grail Knights,” and according to the original script uploaded to Creative Screenwriting, “he is dressed as what he is: A grail Knight” (Boam, 1988, p. 217); the only detail of the knight’s image given is “the chalice symbol on the [sic] his breastplate” (Boam, 1988, p. 217). The description of the knight offers little insight into the inspiration behind the grail knight; however, a conversation between Indy, Brody, and Elsa offers hints of the knights’ origins and Templar influence. Brody explains that the knights “were the ones said to have actually found the grail seven hundred years ago,” which Elsa follows by commenting, “That’s right. They formed the order of the Grail” (Boam, 1988, p. 40). These lines of exposition demonstrate the Templars’ early influence on the generic grail knight. Although the Templar Order was functioning 700 hundred years ago, it was founded 100 years earlier. However, one of the Templar myths within popular culture is that the Templars found the grail and like Boam’s grail order, created an order to protect it.

The inclusion of a ­Templar-esque order of knights is in no way a coincidence, and it must be stated that Lucas and Spielberg were aware of the Templars’ appearance within the grail quest. Gordon claims that Lucas “researched grail lore” (2008, p. 138), and this knowledge of the Templars’ role within the lore is displayed during an interview with Spielberg and Lucas. During a discussion on the mythology of the Indiana Jones MacGuffin and the Holy Grail, Lucas stated: “We may have exaggerated some of its powers, but basically there are people who believe there is a Holy Grail, brought back by the Knights Templar” (Daly, April 2008). The crusading connotations of the Knights Templar are also infused with Spielberg’s grail knight; Indiana himself refers to one of the knights as a “knight of the first crusade” (Spielberg, 1989). This coincided with Lucas’s opinion that the Templars brought the grail into Europe from the Holy Land, and it indicates that Lucas and Spielberg wanted for their adaptation on the grail myth to include the Templars’ role of grail guardians and the iconography associated with the order.

The incorporation of the ­Templar-like grail knight owes much to the Wolfram grail stories and runs parallel with the story’s thematic focus on family but also to Chrétien de Troyes’s grail story that Wolfram’s work builds upon. Sullivan notes that by using the grail as the MacGuffin, the film can be more faithful to the mythical literature. He states, “In associating the Grail with the reunification of father and son, the filmmakers stumble upon a connection between the Grail and family that is at the very heart of many medieval Grail romances” (2015, p. 169). Sullivan highlights the similarity between Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Chrétien de Troyes’s Percival, noting the narrative of Percival being the “hero who seeks the Grail is both the maternal nephew of the old Fisher King as well as related to many of figures most instrumental to directing him to the Grail” (2015, p. 169). The conclusion of Indiana Jones’ quest mirrors this as the father figure is healed through the success of the grail quest. For Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the healing is both physical and spiritual, due to healing the relationship between a father and son as well as a mortal gunshot wound to Henry Jones. The thematic healing of the father and son, as well as the literal healing of the father figure, further demonstrates the validity of including this case study within the parameters of the quest of the knight narrative.

However apparent the influence of these early grail texts may be on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Sullivan asserts, “there is no indication that Chrétien or Wolfram or any other author of a medieval Grail romance directly influenced the filmmakers in the formulation of their own Grail. Instead the decision to make the Grail a source of eternal life seems to have been a rather ­spur-of-the-moment one that Lucas proposed to make the Grail more appealing” (2015, p. 159). In terms of the quest as a character arc, Kennedy suggests that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade can be defined as “The Quest for the ideal” with the theme of “the fine line between idealism and fanaticism” (2009, p. 10). This is reflected in the inclusion of the Nazis as the opposition grail seekers who want the grail to dominate civilization, while Indiana only wants the grail to save his father’s life. The theme of Nazi occultism is not unique to this film and was a significant theme in the franchise’s first installment: Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, but for this installment Kennedy suggests, “The film’s plot may have been influenced by a book written by Otto Rahm, one of Hitler’s SS officers. Rahn’s Kreuzzug gegem den Gral (The Crusade for the Grail), written in 1933,” which Kennedy claims was “influenced by Wolfram’s Parzival” (2009, p. 20). The notion of the film’s influence by Nazi occultism is shared by Umland and Umland, although they claim the influence is from a different source. Umland and Umland suggest that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade draws its influence from Trevor Ravenscroft’s The Spear of Destiny (1973); the book “examines the occult beliefs in the spear as used by artists from Wolfram to Wagner and by the Nazis as well” (1996, p. 15). The theme of Nazi occultists is a significant theme within Indiana Jones, Umland and Umland cite from Pollock’s biography of George Lucas stating that influence for the film is “Trevor Ravenscroft’s Spear of Destiny, which allegedly documents the Nazi interest in religious relics with putative occult powers” (1996, p. 169). Although Kennedy and Umland and Umland cite different influences on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, what they both acknowledge is the inspiration of the Nazi fascination with the occult.

The suggestion of inspiration by Nazi occult texts offers an insight into why Lucas and Spielberg included the Templar quest narrative and Templar iconography in Boam’s original script before being repackaged in the later draft. The switch from naming the grail knight as a Templar takes away the ­right-wing and racist connotations of the Templar narrative (as explored in Chapter 1) and allows the Knight of the Cruciform Sword to represent goodness and stand as the polar opposite to the Nazi grail seekers. This follows Sullivan’s argument that the Nazis are used in Spielberg’s film to create a polar opposite to the good of the grail. He argues, “the filmmakers chose not to explore the complexity of the actual historical Nazi evil with their own, cartoonish ­film-Nazis but rather to let them ­stand-in for a general, a vague badness in contrast with the inherent goodness of the Grail” (2015, p. 163). This notion of the grail representing goodness offers insight into why the Templars’ quest narrative was included but did not recognize them by name, as the Templars are also associated with the same aspects of villainy as the film’s Nazi archetype. It is not only the ­right-wing connotations that the Templar narrative shares with the film’s villains but also associations with the occult, as that was one of the unproven charges levied against the Order which led to their downfall.

The occult became associated with the warrior monks when the Templar leaders were arrested in 1307 and charged with heresy. Haag explains that the accusation was that when “being inducted into the order, initiates were required to deny Christ, spit on the cross and place obscene kisses about the body of the receptor” (2009, p. 218). These accusations would be abhorrent to a medieval order of the church, but the association with the occult and witchcraft came from worshiping “a strange idol which looked like a human head with a long beard called Baphomet” (Haag, 2009, p. 218). Newman clarifies, “most Templars, even the ones who had been tortured, claimed to have no idea what the inquisitors were talking about. However, the ones who did tell of an idol described it differently” (2007, p. 338). It is worth noting, “it is generally agreed that ‘Baphomet’ is a corruption of the name ‘Mohammed,’ and linguistically; that is probable” (Newman, 2007, p. 338). The implausibility of the accusations against the Templars is strengthened by Haag’s fact: “Heresy was the one possible charge that the king could successfully level against the Templars, and so heresy it had to be” (2009, p. 219). The Templars were vulnerable only to accusations of heresy due “to a loophole in the law going back to the time of the Cathars” (Haag, 2009, p. 219). These unfounded accusations of heresy provided a cornerstone in the emerging reoccurring Templar quest narrative, which was not disproven until the discovery of the Chinon Parchment in the Vatican archives in 2001. Haag informs that it “reveals that the Pope found no heresy among the Templars and granted absolution to its leaders” (2009, p. 232). However, the Templars’ relationship with the occult has been embedded within the Templar mythos and explored in literature centuries after their trial and abolishment.

The Templars’ occultist link resurfaced in the 1531 German book De Occulta Philosophia by Heinrich Agrippa. Haag argues that due to their mention in this book “the Templars were raised from the depths of ­half-forgotten failures and became the focus of the darkest disturbing forces in the European mind” (2009, p. 257), an association which has inspired numerous works throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. The occultist Templar is the major theme of the 1972 Spanish film Tomb of the Blind Dead/La Noche del Terror Ciego by Amando de Ossorio, which features ­blood-drinking, undead Templars, who don their armor and steads to terrorize and murder a group of teenagers. As fantastical as the plot sounds, the “film was successful enough for de Ossorio to make three more: Return of the Evil Dead (1973), The Ghost Galleon (1974), Night of the Seagulls (1975)” (Haag, 2009, p. 341). This trope of the undead Knights Templar recently reappeared in the 2017 film The Mummy (Kurtzman), which featured the undead Templars as minions of the antagonist. These supernatural Templar monsters show how the Templar villain aspect of the narrative has been sensationalized into a movie monster and also demonstrates how Templar iconography and a reoccurring Templar narrative are interchangeable. The Templars’ association with the occult is an inspiration behind the monstrous undead Templar of the Tomb of the Blind Dead films but also infiltrates into the quest narrative with the juxtaposition of the Templars alongside the Nazi villains. The association of the occult with the Order of the Knights Templar remains despite the accusations remaining unproven. This adds weight to the assertion that the Templar narrative has been able to continue expanding due to the Order’s extinction in 1312, leaving no officials to dispute such associations to the occult.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade falls into the category of the quest of the knight narrative despite not being set in a medieval/Arthurian world. Due to the film’s depiction of Indiana and his companions as grail knights, the inclusion of grail themes, such as the healing of the father and son’s relationship and the physical healing of the father figure, Spielberg’s adaptation is encompassed within the parameters of the Templar quest narrative. In a similar fashion to the Monty Python case study earlier in the chapter, where Templar iconography and associated traits were parodied without the Order’s mention, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade incorporates the Templar quest narrative and iconography but also without the name. The fictional Knight of the Cruciform Sword replaces the Templar name, which was created in a later script draft to serve a dramatic function. This knight plays the role of the Templar grail guardian, which first appeared in the ­13th-century poem Parzival, with a slight variation on the iconic Templar regalia. This sleight of hand with the name enables the film producers to use the Templar quest narrative of the knight without other aspects of the Templar narrative encroaching and causing the film’s themes to clash. The traits of the bad Templar aspect of the narrative draw connotative comparisons with the film’s Nazi villains, who are intended to represent oppositional evil to the goodness of the grail and the knight guarding it. It is in this way that Spielberg and Lucas were able to use the Templar quest narrative without thematically undesired connotations bleeding into the Templar quest narrative, which depicts the Templar knight as the guardian of the grail.

The Templar Conspiracy Theme

The first half of this chapter focuses on the Templar quest aspect of the knight, which originated back in the 13th century as part of Arthurian poetry, then used case studies from the 20th century to demonstrate how this concept is apparent within popular culture. The Templar narrative has become a malleable concept over its reoccurrence that has enabled the narrative to incorporate several aspects of the Templar phenomenon within the key narrative aspects. The case study, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, demonstrated the malleability of the Templar narrative through the inclusion of the Templars’ mythical association with the occult into the grail narrative. The Templar phenomenon became malleable due to the extinction of the original and purest form of the Knights Templar back in the early 14th century. This meant that without the original denotive Templar, the conative Templar myths have been unhampered and grown into a reoccurring malleable narrative. It is this significance which enables the Templar narrative to be reoccurring and thus creates a second aspect to the ­pre-established ­13th-century Templar quest narrative.

The reason for analyzing the quest narrative with two aspects in mind is due to the moving of the story’s setting away from the past and into the modern world. The protagonists are not themselves knights like the first aspect but seek the Templar knights and research the forgotten history of the Templars. These key variations within Templar narratives mean that the Templar quest narrative should be analyzed from the perspective of two aspects, although not a completely different type of Templar narrative, as the second aspect incorporates joint signifying traits of a shared quest narrative. The quest of the knight depicts the knight’s quest into the world of the supernatural to find a treasured item, which is akin to the traditional mythic tale. However, the quest to follow in the footsteps of the Templar follows the protagonist’s quest into the past world of the Templar to rediscover a lost truth of value to society. It is the rudimentary similarities of these two aspects that encompass them within the Templar narrative of the quest, which demonstrates the significance of the malleability to the reoccurrence of the Templar narrative.

The case studies chosen to establish the second quest narrative are the 2004 film National Treasure, directed by Jon Turteltaub and starring Nicolas Cage, and the 2006 film The Da Vinci Code, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, as well as the previous novel by Dan Brown. These case studies were chosen due to their popularity and financial success as both films were worldwide successes at the box office, with National Treasure taking $347,512,318 (Box Office Mojo) and The Da Vinci Code doubling that, taking $758,239,851 worldwide (Box Office Mojo). The Da Vinci Code novel was no less popular as “By the time the film version was released in May 2006, the book had still not left the New York Times bestseller list since its release” (in 2004) (Johnsrud, 2014, p. 103). Johnsrud cites from Dan Brown’s official website to highlight, “as of 2009, the novel had sold more than 80 million copies worldwide” (2014, p. 103).

Similar to the first aspect’s use of the grail theme as the focus for the quest, the second aspect uses the conspiracy as an impetus for the quest. National Treasure focuses on the conspiracy that the Templars took a secret treasure to North America to wait for the creation of the United States of America; this conspiracy is the crux that sends the protagonist, Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage), on his quest. The Da Vinci Code uses the conspiracy theory surrounding the Templars’ sudden disappearance due to their secret knowledge, which Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) quests to discover. These narratives are both set in the modern day and depict the protagonist on a quest into the past to rediscover a forgotten truth, which is why this aspect is not a quest of the knight but the quest to follow in the Templars’ footsteps. The forgotten truth discovered in National Treasure is the desire for the American Founding Fathers to redistribute the world’s wealth, and in The Da Vinci Code it is the renewed faith in Christ due to his human lineage on earth. The conspiracy, like the grail in the first aspect, acts as the motivation to set out on the quest, and by venturing into the Templar past, the protagonist will solve the conspiracy, and instead of a healing grail, the protagonist will find a forgotten truth that will benefit Western society.

Despite National Treasure and The Da Vinci Code’s worldwide popularity, both films were very successful in the United States, with National Treasure making almost half of its revenue, taking $173,008,894 domestically (Box Office Mojo). The Da Vinci Code took $217,536,138 domestically; although dwarfed by the $540,703,713 (Box Office Mojo) it took from the foreign market, the domestic takings were still more than double any other country’s box office. The popularity of The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure in the United States is arguably influenced by the American production (National Treasure is a Disney picture) and Hollywood stars Hanks and Cage as well as the latter’s setting around American landmarks and historical events. However, the films also benefit from including the prominent theme of the conspiracy theory, which was ­ever-present in wider society post 9/11. Oliver and Wood examined the conspiracy culture within American society and analyzed data collected from “four nationally representative surveys” that “were fielded in 2006, 2010, and 2011 as modules in the Cooperative Congressional Election Studies” (2014, p. 955). Oliver and Wood concluded that they:

do see that both the willingness to agree with conspiracy theories or see them as valid explanations for political phenomena are quite commonplace in the American public. Not only does half of the American population agree with at least one conspiracy from a shortlist of conspiracy theories offered, but also large portions of the population exhibit a strong dispositional inclination toward believing that unseen, intentional forces exist and that history is driven by a Manichean struggle between good and evil [2014, pp. 963–964].

These findings offer insight into the interest and popularity of the Templar conspiracy theme and propose that the conspiracy theory narrative, in general, is part of the American political climate and American popular culture. It is this Western interest in the theme of conspiracy that has enabled the Templar quest narrative to branch into a second aspect because the quest for ­truth-seeking in a post 9/11 West coincides with the mystery surrounding the demise of the Templars hundreds of years ago to form a new type of Templar quest narrative. The mystery around the Templars’ demise is fueled with ongoing uncertainty since the Order’s ­14th-century extinction. The post 9/11 climate concept of venturing into the dangerous unknown is not about traveling to a foreign land but peeking behind the curtain of your own country. This notion of hidden within plain sight conspiracy coincides with the change of the quest narratives focus of grail seeking in a supernatural world to revisiting Western history to discover a revelation.

Conspiracy theory narratives are generally themed around concepts of an unnoticed elitist suppression of powerless citizens. To define the perception of conspiracy theory in American society, Oliver and Wood would cite Davis (1971), defining, “Americans periodically have organized themselves around narratives about hidden, malevolent groups secretly perpetuating political plots and social calamities to further their own nefarious goals, what we would define as ‘conspiracy theory’” (2014, p. 952). These oppressive fantasies described above differ to the revelations discovered within the Templar conspiracy theme, which once revealed would vindicate Western culture does not reveal it as oppressive. These positive revelations demonstrate the divergence of the Templar quest to follow in the Templars’ footsteps from the conventional American conspiracy narrative. The Templar conspiracy revelation acts like the grail, which like the wondrous item, would benefit mankind. It is this positive outcome that links the two aspects of the quest narrative together.

The positive Templar revelation is the outcome of this aspect’s case studies, National Treasure and The Da Vinci Code, which both reveal in their story’s conclusion the vindication of Western culture by reestablishing America as the shining light of democracy and belief in the historical existence of Jesus Christ. The concept of the positive Templar revelation is emphasized by Aronstein and Torry, who argue, “both the Da Vinci Code and National Treasure employ Templar legend to revive optimism, rediscover ‘original truth,’ and restore faith—whether in a miraculous divine (The Da Vinci Code) or America’s privileged destiny (National Treasure)” (2009, p. 226). The Templar quest narrative of following in the Templars’ footsteps introduces a revelation that justifies and is a revival of the audience’s traditional belief in religion and American patriotism through the protagonist’s journey into the historical world of sensational Templar myth.

America’s Templar Link to the Past

Following in the Templars’ footsteps incorporates myths from the already rich tapestry of Templar fantasies to merge with the growing post 9/11 interest in a conspiracy theory to forge a Templar revelation that offers a link to a medieval past. The Templar conspiracy theme became “identified with American history, this legend of the Templars’ hidden truth merged with the myth of America’s privileged destiny” (Aronstein & Torry, 2009, p. 226). This merging of mythic histories to create the conspiracy stands apart from the conventional paranoid conspiracy theory, dated back to post–World War II America. To introduce the concept of conspiracy theory in America, Timothy Melley cites Richard Hofstadter, writing, “this way of thinking insists that important events are controlled by ‘a vast and sinister conspiracy, a gigantic and yet subtle machinery of influence set in motion to undermine and destroy a way of life’” (2000, p. 1). Hofstadter’s account of conspiracies paints a disastrous, doomed way of life which contrasts with the optimistic link to a medieval past and vindication for Western values that the Templar revelation provides at the quest’s end.

The interest and popularity in such negative conspiracies, such as the surrendering of belief to an ­all-powerful shadowy organization, according to Melley, is in part due to conspiracy bringing people a sense of ease. Melley explains, “the idea of conspiracy offers an odd sort of comfort in an uncertain age: it makes sense of the inexplicable, accounting for complex events in a clear, if frightening, way” (2000, p. 8). These frightening conspiracies are commonly used to explain the political climate and tragedy around instances such as JFK’s assassination and the events of 9/11 and the post–9/11 invasion of Iraq. Ray Pratt notes, “Before Osama Bin Laden and the ­Al-Qaeda network there were irrational, ‘paranoid’ fears of ­men-in-black with license to kill, black helicopters under UN control taking over America, and fears of ‘mad cow’ disease” (2003, p. 255). These fears listed, point to the level of distrust towards the American government, which focused on the threat of the conspiracy within.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, there has been an “upsurge in trust in government since then, fears directed at government ­men-in-black are now projected onto networks of Islamic radicals who may, in fact, be hiding within the borders of the United States” (Pratt, 2003, p. 256). This notion of the outside threat hiding among us is still prevalent today, with the fear of ISIS terrorists infiltrating into Europe as refugees. The conspiracy theory has been and remains a significant theme of film and TV texts since the Second World War. Melley highlights, “Numerous ­post-war narratives concern characters who are nervous about the way large, and often vague, organizations might be controlling their lives, influencing their actions, or even constructing their desires” (2000, pp. 7–8). Television conspiracy thriller shows such as 24 (Cochran & Surnow, 2001–2010), Prison Break (Scheuring, 2005–2017) or the more recent Designated Survivor (Guggenhiem, 2016–2019) draw upon the themes of shadowy political groups influencing the unaware public. Conspiracy science fiction/fantasy shows such as The ­X-Files (Charter, 1993–2018), The 4400 (Echevarria & Peters, 2004–2007) and Supernatural (Kripke, 2005–2020), draw upon those same themes but with fantastical villains, such as aliens, a terrorist organization from the future and a race of ­shape-shifting monsters called Leviathans who have infiltrated the positions of the most powerful in America.

What connects both the entertainment texts and current popular conspiracies is the feeling of powerlessness. Pratt cites Fenster to explain this reoccurrence of notions of feeling powerless: “just because in some specific cases ‘overarching conspiracy theories are wrong does not mean they aren’t onto something’” (2003, p. 258). The same could be said of the fantastical villains of the science fiction texts; they are, of course, dark fantasy, but the popularity of such shows indicates the anxiety around shadowy threats to the American nation. Pratt summarizes Fenster’s theory, explaining, “if people feel powerless it is, because to ever greater degrees, they are powerless. Actual power proceeds from agencies and entities ever more removed from popular control or effective monitoring by elected officials” (2003, p. 259). These notions of powerlessness within the conspiracy theme reveal the Western culture to be corrupt and oppressive, while the Templar revelation vindicates the West of such negative perceptions. The Templar conspiracy theme does not focus on the infiltration of oppressive shadowy groups as in conventional post 9/11 conspiracy fiction but the rediscovery of the Templar shadow of history, a discovery that is liberating by offering renewed faith in Western history and reaffirming of Western culture.

The Templars’ association with America is due to the marketing of ­18th-century Freemasons and the myth of the hidden Templar treasure in the United States. Despite the historical inaccuracy of these links, the Templar appropriation has created what Aronstein and Torry would describe as a typological link, which makes the Templars part of America’s link to the Holy Land. Aronstein and Torry explain that Templar and American myth merge through what they explain as the Puritans’ belief in “Typology.” They explain:

Typology as hermeneutical strategy began with the desire to discern a prophetic unity between the old and New Testaments. Thus Old Testament events and figures were to be understood proleptically as forecasting their more perfect embodiment in a divinely ordered historical sequence governed by the movement from the initial instance, the type, to the fulfilment, the antitype [2009, pp. 228–229].

This process of interpreting religious occurrences alongside historical events created the beliefs of America’s divine destiny. Aronstein and Torry clarify this notion, stating, this “understanding saw in the New World the site of antitype of the Exodus crossing of the Red Sea, the puritans the antitype of the nation of Israel fleeing the European ‘Egypt/Babylon’ for a new Israel in America” (2009, p. 229). By employing this method of addressing history, the Puritans would deem the Knights Templar the Type and would name the American Freemasons the Antitype, which would mean that the Freemason founding fathers were predestined to create the new Israel and demonstrate America’s divine right and concept of exceptionalism. Aronstein and Torry identify the extent of this version of America as in “the New World God’s plan is both made manifest and fulfilled; similarly, the versions of Templar romance that relocate both Templars and treasure to the New World identify America as the end of history, the repository of truth and revelation” (2009, p. 229). This concept of the Templars as America’s typological link to the past demonstrates how the Templar quest narrative of following in the Templars’ footsteps provides a positive revelation by claiming America’s historical legitimacy.

The concept of America’s typological ideology is further established through the prominence of “the Jeremiad” in the Puritans’ later generations. According to the concept of typology, the Puritans saw themselves as the new Israelites, but the later generations were faltering in their interest of the utopian mission and became the typological manifestation of the decline of the Judean people as described in the Old Testament text, the Book of Jeremiad. Madsen interprets Clergyman John Cotton’s 1641 sermon to explain how the narrative for God’s chosen people had changed to focus on the negative; she writes:

Cotton argues that fellowship with Christ in suffering is an assurance of ultimate deliverance from application. God punished His chosen people because they are so special to Him and because they have been entrusted with a unique spiritual destiny. Affliction can then be seen as a sign of God’s ultimate favour but also of His immediate wrath; suffering is a sign that changes must be made to renew personal and collective faith in the terms of the covenant [1998, p. 25].

The American Jeremiad reminded the later Puritan generations of their mission and their divine destiny but also of the perils of failing to build the protestant utopia. Geraghty proposes that the “American Jeremiad was optimistic and promised success to those chosen to build a new Zion; most importantly it showed ­non-puritans the infallibility of the puritan cause and affirmed exultation” (2007, pp. 72–73). The American Jeremiad shows a desire to remind future generations of the original mission and America’s biblical legitimacy as the new Israelites, sentiments that echo through the empowering Templar revelation. The second aspect of the Templar quest narrative shows a secular retelling of the essence of the American Jeremiad due to the Templars’ typological links to America and the benefits that the West would gain if these forgotten values are rediscovered. The Templar conspiracy is a vital theme used in the Templar quest narrative as this link adds significance to the Templar revelation due to the perception of Templar history being part of fundamental American history and religious truth.

Holy Blood and The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code draws from the Templar conspiracy theme to underpin the scope and magnitude of the conspiracy, using the perception of the Templars as guardians of the Holy Grail, infused with the Order as victims of the Catholic Church in their downfall. The combination of two features of the Templar phenomenon demonstrates the malleability of the Templar narrative with this forging of a Templar revelation. Although Brown’s novel incorporates the concept of the grail, it is still part of the second aspect of the quest narrative due to its ­modern-day setting. Also, due to the idea that the grail is not a physical item but a mechanism to represent the lineage from Jesus’s marriage to Mary Magdalene (i.e., the bloodline of Jesus Christ). In the book this invention is argued academically, with its crucial argument being use of language. This key aspect Lacy explains as “according to the novel rests on a linguistic ‘error’ involving ‘San Greal,’ which, we are informed, should actually be ‘Sang Real’” (2004, p. 87), which translates to royal blood. It is essential to establish first that Brown’s narrative was not unique but a concept published widely in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln in 1982 but repackaged in popular fiction in 2004 through The Da Vinci Code. Partridge asserts that there is “evidence to suggest that the plot of The Da Vinci Code is lifted almost wholesale” (2008, p. 121) from Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln’s work. Partridge summarizes the connections in that Brown’s novel “draws explicitly on popular conspiracies about western Christianity and, as Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln had done, includes within its theories about the Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar, which have been popular with occulture since the 1960s” (2008, p. 121). Despite Brown’s inspiration, this notion that Holy Grail was a misprint for Royal Blood underpins the entire conspiracy. Newman debunks this, stating, “there are a number of problems with the theory, the most important being that this only works in modern Spanish,” also noting, “in no other language of the Middle Ages can ‘Holy Grail’ be twisted to mean ‘Holy Blood’” (2007, p. 365). This clever use of wordplay that underpins the theory fails to replicate into any language that of the Middle Ages and debunks the theory that the medieval scholars made a typo. The concept of the Holy Grail as the blood of Christ is no more real than Excalibur, the Percival myths or the magic healing properties of Indiana Jones’ grail.

Although as Aronstein highlights, the nonfiction book Holy Blood, Holy Grail’s “exposure of the massive ­cover-up of an explosive truth, of a suppressed history, is nothing new; in fact, many of its methods and some of its conclusions closely mirror those early occultist texts, most notably occultist A.E. Waithe’s Hidden Church of the Holy Grail” published in 1909 (2015, p. 115). Despite not pioneering these fantastical theories, Baigent and Leigh attempted to sue The Da Vinci Code’s publishers for plagiarism. They were unsuccessful with this due to the difference in genres of the books. Brown’s book was a work of fiction using the themes of the historical narrative, while Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln’s work was ‘history.’ Aronstein cites from Baigent and Leigh v. Random House to explain that the court argued, “there is no copyrights on ideas expressed in a work which claims to be a book of history” (2015, p. 112). They concluded: “the Claimants had no exclusive property rights as they could not ‘monopolize historical research or knowledge’” (2015, p. 112). That is not to say that Brown did market his book as pure fiction; he presented the fantastical theories as historical fact.

While the clever wordplay with Sang Greal underpinned the theory’s claim of plausibility, the other pillar of this Templar revelation is Brown’s assertion that the fraudulent organization, The Priory of Sion has legitimate ancestry to Crusader Franks. Brown introduces this organization just before the preface of The Da Vinci Code, stating, “Fact: The Priory of Sion—a European secret society founded in 1099—is a real organization. In 1975 Paris’s Bibliothéque Nationale discovered Documents known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo Da Vinci” (2003, p. 11). These facts, Brown asserts, are the creation of French fraudster Pierre Plantard in the 1950s. Master of the Temple Church London, Robin ­Griffith-Jones explains that Brown’s statement of fact is entirely false. ­Griffith-Jones explains Plantard’s creation stating, “After the war he was imprisoned for fraud and embezzlement. On his release he renewed the promotion of his social and political agenda, and founded the Priory of Sion…. Plantard named the Priory after the hill ‘Mont Sion’ close to Annemasse,” which was a French town (2006, pp. 15–16). ­Griffith-Jones explains that the organization links itself to the Crusades; Mount Sion in Israel was an afterthought and “saw the advantage in claiming connection” (2006, p. 16), creating a dynastic link between himself and the throne of France. Brown mentions the discovery of “Les Dossiers Secrets,” but ­Griffith-Jones asserts, “To press his claims, he and his associates deposited in the Bibliothéque Nationale a cache of printed documents to which they themselves gave the title Les Dossiers Secrets” (2006, p. 16). ­Griffith-Jones draws his readers’ attention to the fact that these documents were not written on parchment as you would expect from a ­long-lost document but typed on paper (2006, p. 16). This discredited organization, the Priory of Sion, has nothing historically to do with the Order of the Knights Templar, but the Order was repackaged in the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail to make the Knights Templar the military arm of the Priory of Sion. The significance of this is that this merger between the organizations further extends the malleable Templar conspiracy theme, which has grown to encompass the fraudulent Priory of Sion within the rich tapestry of fantastical Templar myth.

For the Templar revelation to justify Western values, the conspiracy underpinned by clever language play needed the appearance of the legitimacy provided by an assertion that a ­20th-century organization had actual links to the Crusader kingdoms and the Knights Templar. To add greater emphasis to the importance of creating a credible perception of the Templar conspiracy, Brown uses his fictional characters to add authority to the Templar myth narrative that the protagonist and reader must delve into on the quest. Aronstein highlights:

Brown goes out of his way to establish Langdon and Teabing’s academic credentials; in the words of Langdon’s publisher as he responds to the Harvard symbologist’s book on the Sacred Feminine, “You are a Harvard historian for God’s sake, not a pop schlockmeister.” Langdon calms him down by presenting a bibliography of books written by established academics—his network—including Sir Leigh Teabing, a “royal historian” [2015, p. 120].

In Brown giving these characters authority over the reader and history, Brown is underpinning the importance of ensuring the conspiracy is credible, which will strengthen the message of the Templar revelation.

Aronstein suggests that Brown’s fictional narrative further strengthens the theories of Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln and elevates the Templar revelation to a positive message of the legitimacy of Western Christendom. Aronstein proposes, “it is precisely this fictional status that allows Brown to elevate Holy Blood, Holy Grail’s theories to ‘fact.’ If the fiction lies within the pages of his novel, the facts must lie outside those pages” (2015, p. 119); this enables Brown to quickly ­re-establish historical events using his character’s authority, which is essential to elevate the Templar revelation’s positive message. For Brown, the Templar conspiracy theme needs to be perceived as credible; otherwise, the revelation at the end of the quest narrative does not have the required payoff in that, if there is no perception of a metaphorical grail of wondrous forgotten truth, then it will not provide the desired positive gravitas.

In Brown’s novel, the protagonist and reader are drawn into the supernatural world via venturing to the forgotten Templar past when Langdon explains to Sophie Neveu his view on the legendary Templar history and its origins within the fictional Priory of Sion. Langdon recounts that the Priory of Sion was created in 1099 by Crusader Godefroy de Bouillon (although Brown mischaracterizes Bouillon as a French king) after his army conquered Jerusalem. Langdon explains, “the Priory learned of a stash of hidden documents buried beneath the ruins of Herod’s temple, which had been built on top of the earlier ruins of Solomon’s temple.” According to Langdon, to recover those documents “the Priory created a military arm—a group of nine knights … commonly known as the Knights Templar” (Brown, 2016, p. 213). Unconvinced by Langdon’s fantastic story, Sophie asserts, “I thought the Templars were created to protect the Holy Land.” Langdon debunks this notion with the argument that the historical reality is “a common misconception. The idea of protection of pilgrims was the guise under which the Templars ran their mission. Their true goal in the Holy Land was to retrieve the documents from beneath the ruins” (Brown, 2016, p. 214). Langdon dismisses the historical reality of the origin of the Knights Templar in 1119, 20 years after the conquest of Jerusalem by the first Crusaders, with the argument that it is a common misconception. This conversation is adapted into a short scene in the film version where Langdon simplifies the account of the alternative history. He responds to Sophie’s assertions, stating in a sinister tone that the Templars’ origin “was a cover to hide their true goal, according to this myth. Supposedly the invasion was to find an artefact, lost since the time of Christ. An artefact it is said the Church would kill to possess” (Howard, 2006). This section of the book and film scene demonstrates how the second aspect of the quest narrative requires the protagonist (and audience/reader) to venture into another world, not a physical new environment such as the first aspect of the quest narrative but a metaphorical New World. This New World of forgotten Templar history enables the protagonist to find the metaphorical grail of the Templar revelation. This goal is formed by creating a plausible grail through language, promoting a fraudulent ­20th-century organization and giving characters the academic credentials and authority that the Templar conspiracy is lacking.

In The Da Vinci Code, the Templar revelation of Jesus Christ’s earthly lineage attempts to renew the lost faith of the audience, which is experienced by protagonist Robert Langdon and his quest companion Sophie Neveu (played by Audrey Tautou in Howard’s film adaptation). Langdon is more the skeptic in the film than the novel as Aronstein and Torry note that when the “true” history of the Templars and the Priory of Sion is debated in the novel, it “unfolds as a ­tag-team effort as Teabing and Langdon expand upon and support each other’s assertions. While Teabing is the acknowledged expert, Langdon, through his own research into the imagery of the sacred feminine, has also clearly drunk the ­Kool-Aid” (2009, pp. 233–234). However, in Howard’s film adaptation, Langdon takes nothing at face value and calls Sir Leigh Teabing’s claim that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus Christ “an old wives’ tale. There’s virtually no imperial proof” and notes that there are “only theories” (Howard, 2006). The film depicts Ian McKellen’s Teabing as an eccentric and not the royal scholar of Brown’s novel, but it is he who leads the protagonist and audience into the fantastical world of the Templar mythical past where the Templar revelation asserts a vindication for traditional Christian values, further extended through the protagonists rediscovering their lost faith.

Despite uncovering the Templar revelation that leads Langdon and Sophie to Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, Mary Magdalene’s tomb has been moved, which leads Sophie to conclude that without the sarcophagus, “there’s no way to prove that I am related to her.” Langdon responds with, “Ok maybe there is no proof and maybe the grail is lost forever, but Sophie, the only thing that matters is what you believe” (Howard, 2006). Langdon no longer needs proof that the Templar conspiracy is real and places his emphasis on the importance of faith, which appears to undercut the novel’s focus on establishing historical evidence. However, Langdon’s conclusion further strengthens the attempt of legitimizing the Templar conspiracy due to the premise that damning evidence which discredits the holy blood theory is irrelevant in contrast to the importance of faith in the myths and fantasy narrative presented by Brown.

The film’s final revelation of Sophie’s heritage as that of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene validates the use of the Templar conspiracy to link the modern to the distant past, as the woman who does not believe in God becomes a physical manifestation of the divine. Aronstein and Torry explain, “Sophie represents the continuity of history, an unfolding of divine lineage from Christ to the present. A woman with healing hands, heir to the sang real, she reanimates the divine in a world that has lost touch with religious truth” (2009, pp. 237–238). Sophie is depicted as the antitype of Christ, demonstrating the typological aspect to the Templar revelation. This acts as a metaphorical grail in the following in the Templars’ footsteps narrative, which shows a thematic difference to the quest aspect of the knight but still enables this modern grail narrative to fall into the overarching Templar quest narrative. The Templar conspiracy theme is a crucial part of this second aspect as it provides a mechanism for the protagonists to venture into the fantastical world of the past to reaffirm the legitimacy of those Christian values using the Templar revelation as a means. The aspect of following in the Templars’ footsteps is a metaphorical concept; however, in the final scene, it is physically carried out by Robert Langdon. At the close of The Da Vinci Code, Langdon traces the location of Mary Magdalene’s tomb, located under the Louvre in Paris, and kneels outside the Louvre to pay his respects to the Holy Grail as he believes the Knights Templar would have. This conclusion provides a physical and symbolic action of following in the Templars’ footsteps through Langdon’s act of respect to where he believes the tomb is located.

Aronstein and Torry state that The Da Vinci Code revelation within the Templar conspiracy “restores faith … in a miraculous divine” (2009, p. 226) through the Catholic Church’s ­cover-up of the humanization of Jesus Christ. The novel and film attempt to provide a sense of plausibility in parts of the Templar myth with the use of the Sang Greal, linking the Order to a ­modern-day organization and presenting the holy blood theory as possible historical fact. This creates a Templar revelation that proposes the existence of Jesus Christ on Earth through his bloodline, the Sang Greal. The Da Vinci Code’s narrative contrasts to the theme of powerlessness within the conventional post–9/11 conspiracy narrative, and through the narrative’s reworking of parts of the Templar phenomenon, the story’s conclusion provides a case for its vindication of Western values. This would coincide with Aronstein and Torry’s perception of the Templar conspiracy narrative as casting “therapeutic narratives aimed at healing an American public mired in a post–9/11 paranoia” (2009, p. 226). The Templar conspiracy theme within the quest narrative shows similarity to the secular retelling of the essence of the American Jeremiad in that it reaffirms America’s faith in Jesus Christ and that the religion’s dominance with the foundation of the United States project is not fallible faith. In similar fashion to the words on the dollar bill, “in God we trust,” the Templar conspiracy reaffirms that the truth is what you believe.

The Templars, the Freemasons and the United States

National Treasure draws upon three aspects of the Templar myth to create the film’s Templar revelation: these are the secret Templar treasure, the Templars starting the Freemasons, and the Templars escaping to the New World. The film’s use of three Templar myths for the narrative’s Templar revelation further unpins the malleability of the Templar phenomenon. The most concise way to explain how these three Templar myths interlock together is to explain how the Templars became associated with the Freemasons, a group that started as a stonemasons’ guild. The simple answer is because the Freemasons pretended to be descended from the Templars so that they could market themselves to the upper classes. According to Frank Sanello, the Templars were not even the Freemasons’ original claim of descendance; he wrote:

The Templars were still the betes noires of French history in the minds of royalists and defenders of Phillip the fair like Ramsey, so in his speech to prospective members, the chevalier claimed the Knights Hospitallers were the Masons’ historical antecedents. The only problem with Ramsey’s creative mythmaking was that the source of his myth, the Hospitallers, were very much alive and operational in their genuine reincarnation as the Knights of Malta [2005, pp. 221–222].

According to Sanello, Freemason Andrew Michael Ramsay was a chevalier and “of humble origins but had powerful patrons.” So, it was his wish to “continue the mythologizing of the Mason’s roots. He placed them higher up the social ladder than mere stonemasons and connected them to the monastic warriors of the Crusading era. Ramsey believed a more exalted pedigree would appeal to French aristocrats” (2005, p. 221). Unable to claim descendance from the Hospitallers, the Freemasons changed their claim to be descended from the Knights Templar and “since they had been exterminated, The Templars were in no position to deny they were the original Masons” (Sanello, 2005, p. 222). The disappearance of the Templars in the early 14th century left a vacuum in historical memory, one that the Freemasons were able to exploit to further their agenda; the silence of these ­long-gone warrior monks enabled the Order to be misappropriated and the Templar narrative to ­re-emerge and develop origins for new narrative aspects.

This new form of masonry became very fashionable; Sanello explains, “The Templar form of Freemasonry proved wildly popular, transcending borders and Oceans…. The Templar version of Freemasonry competed with the earlier British Version and the first Templar lodge was founded in England in 1778” (2005, p. 227). Newman claims that the link between the Templars and Freemasons can be traced back to “1750, when Baron Karl von Hund invented the ‘Templar Strict Observance.’” In order to legitimize his creation, he claimed that it was “the successor to the Knights Templar” (2007, p. 403). Haag, however, supports Sanello’s account by recounting Ramsay’s claim that the Freemasons descended from Crusader knights in “his Oration to Saint John’s Lodge in Paris, variously dated 27 December 1736 or 21 March 1737” (2009, p. 262). Newman concludes her section on the connection between the Freemasons and the Templars by stating, “no reputable historian of the freemasons believes that the group was founded by the Templars” (2007, p. 404). Similarly to the wishful claims of the existence of the grail as Christ’s bloodline, the Freemasons’ claim of Templar ancestry has no substance when the claims are examined beyond the surface.

The Templar treasure is linked to the Freemasons through the claims of George Frederick Johnson, a Frenchman who pretended to be Scottish. Haag explains what he calls “Johnson’s concoction of history,” writing:

On the night of his execution, James of Molay was said to have ordered a group of Templars who were somehow still at large to enter into the crypt of the Paris Temple and make off with the treasure, which consisted of the ­seven-branched candelabra stolen from the Temple by the Roman Emperor Titus, the crown of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and a shroud [2009, p. 264].

Haag casts clear doubt on this theory through its implausibility; Newman states, “One of the most popular theories is that they went to America, sometimes via Scotland, sometimes Portugal. And they took their treasure with them” (2007, p. 361). The myth is not only that the Templars escaped to America with their vast fortune intact, but as she explains, the “Templar treasure was then buried under New York City and the Templars battened down to wait for the founding of the United States so that their beliefs could live again” (2007, p. 363). This fantastical myth is the crux of the conspiracy that drives the protagonist on his quest in National Treasure, which brings together the Templar and American history through the Masonic myth that the Freemasons orchestrated the American Revolution. The reality differs drastically from the myth; Haag explains, “the role of the Freemasons has been exaggerated. A few Freemasons may have participated in the Boston Tea Party” and “Of the Committee of Five who drew up the Declaration of Independence, only one, Benjamin Franklin, was a Freemason” (2009, p. 273). This myth of the Freemasons’ influence draws directly to them the conspiracies of the Templars’ survival and thus links the Templars to American history.

National Treasure

The influence of America’s divine mission and the Puritans’ dream is still rooted in the American identity, and this concept of creating a Puritan utopia can be found within the powerful institutions of American society. The sentiments of the American Jeremiad and the divine mission can be attributed to presidential speeches, such as George W. Bush’s 2004 inaugural speech, where he said:

America is a nation with a mission, and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace, a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman. America acts in this cause with friends and allies at our side, yet we understand our special calling: This great republic will lead the cause of freedom [The Washington Post, Jan. 20, 2004].

The notions expressed by President Bush echo that of the Puritans’ mission to create heaven on earth and even suggests connotative, typological links to the Israelites regarding his words, “our special calling.” The sentiments of divine favor and the unfinished American mission link with the imagery on the dollar bill, which demonstrates that the Puritan beliefs are still at the core of America’s political culture. These Puritan ideals are encapsulated by the imagery on the ­one-dollar bill, the unfinished pyramid and the eye of providence also known as the ­all-seeing eye, which connotates God watching over America as it carries out its still incomplete mission. The note also bears the words “in God we trust,” as well as the Latin “Annuit Coeptis” that translates to “He Favours our Undertaking,” which highlights the influence of the Puritans’ belief in being God’s chosen.

The dollar bill is used as an early symbol within the film National Treasure to visually show legitimacy to the link that connects the United States of America to the medieval Order of the Knights Templar. In the opening scene of National Treasure where a young Ben Gates is shown a dollar bill by his grandfather, who claims, “The Freemasons amongst our founding fathers left us clues.” He then points to the reverse of the bill explaining, “the unfinished pyramid, the ­all-seeing eye, symbols of the Knights Templar” (Turteltaub, 2004). While it is true that the Freemasons use the iconography of the ­all-seeing eye, it should not be confused as a Masonic symbol upon the dollar bill as it has been used as a Christian symbol long before the Mason’s adopted it. This misconception has fueled the theory that the Freemasons founded the United States.

This scene evokes the Masonic myth of their influence within the founding fathers but also the typological link between the Templars and Masons, the Type and Antitype, which is parallel to the Puritan’s belief that they were the new Israelites. These associations of the Templars with America’s divine mission are part of the Templar conspiracy theme, which, like with The Da Vinci Code, is used as a mechanism for enabling the protagonist to venture into the supernatural world of the quest. Upon completion they will be rewarded with a metaphorical grail symbolized with the Templar revelation. In this aspect of the quest narrative, the Templars are not seeking or guarding the grail but are a shadowy memory of forgotten values and once rediscovered will vindicate America’s faith in Christ and their Western patriotism.

The Templar conspiracy theme of the quest narrative echoes the sentiments of the American Jeremiad in that as the Jeremiad was used to steer Puritans back towards the divine mission, the Templar revelation reintroduces Americans to the ideals and Puritan values of America as the blueprint to creating a utopia. Aronstein and Torry conclude their clarification of typology by highlighting the uniqueness of the Templar conspiracy in that “traditional conspiracy narratives feed paranoia by showing that apparently random events are part of a planned and malevolent deception … in which the hero’s knowledge is suppressed” (2009, p. 230). However, the “Templar conspiracy tales lead us back to a truth that will set us free” (2009, p. 230). Both The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure draw upon these notions of positive outcomes created through the use of the following in the Templars’ footsteps quest narrative. It proposes a legitimacy to America’s place in the world instead of the feeling of suppression and hopelessness associated with conventional conspiracy narratives.

The prominence of typology within the Templar conspiracy theme is further reflected through the opening and closing of the film National Treasure. The opening scene of the film shows a young Ben Gates “initiated by his grandfather as ‘knight’ pledged to the values and purposes of the Templar/Masonic lineage whose narrative the grandfather has related” (Aronstein & Torry, 2009, p. 238). This would make Ben Gates the “Antitype” to America’s Founding Fathers and demonstrates the magnitude of importance in his quest. After Ben’s grandfather explains the legend of the treasure, the young Ben asks his grandfather if they are knights, which causes him to smile, and he asks the boy if he wants to be, and Ben nods enthusiastically. Ben’s grandfather asks him to kneel, places a blanket around him like a robe and dramatically states “Benjamin Franklin Gates, you take upon yourself the duty of the Templars and the Freemasons and the family Gates; do you so swear?” to which Ben replies, “I so swear” (Turteltaub, 2004). The film then cuts to adult Ben now played by Nicholas Cage on the verge of solving the first clue. Ben Gates is now the antitype of the Templar and Masonic orders, having been sworn into this new order of questing knights by his grandfather, and is teamed up with fellow treasure hunter Ian Howe, played by Sean Bean, who soon establishes himself as the film’s antagonist.

What is significant about Howe’s role is that he is the opposite to Gates; he is a wealthy criminal who has financed the expedition to the Arctic but tries to kill Gates when he refuses to follow the second clue and steal the Declaration of Independence. Gates and Howe draw upon the themes of the good Templar and bad Templar featured in the Templar knight narrative (see Chapter 1), as both are seeking the treasure and following in the footsteps of questing knights. Hannum draws attention to Gates’ justification for the theft of the Declaration of Independence (which contains the next clue to the treasure), noting that Gates references the principles America was founded upon. Hannum states, “Ben draws from the text of the Declaration of Independence to offer a classic transcendent rights argument” (2012, p. 154). Hannum references from Ben Gates, citing the declaration, “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for the future security” (2012, p. 154).

To protect the declaration from falling into the hands of the villainous Howe, Gates calls upon the logic of America’s Founding Fathers to justify his actions, noting that it is the duty of Americans to action against threats to the United States. Hannum notes Gates’ second justification for the crime, quoting Gates’ toast “to high treason. That’s what these men were committing when they signed the Declaration. Had they lost the war, they would’ve been hanged…. So, here’s to the men who did what was considered wrong in order to do what they knew was right” (2012, p. 154). Here Gates further justifies his actions to the audience by comparing himself to the American revolutionaries, noting that their treason alongside his (i.e., stealing the declaration) is with honest intentions, similar to the good Templar’s use of violence to defend the weak and punish the wicked, further demonstrating the flexibility of the reoccurring Templar narrative.

Howe’s methods are unjustifiable uses of violence and theft for his own personal financial gain, while for Gates finding the treasure is not about seeking riches but clearing his family name and sharing the treasure with the world. Gates asks that the government “Give it to the people. Divide it amongst the Smithsonian, the Louvre, the Cairo museum. There’s thousands of years of world history down there. And it belongs to the world, and everybody in it” (Turteltaub, 2004). Gates also asks that the Gates family get the credit for finding it. Howe, as the villainous questing knight, seeks the treasure for personal power and uses violence in his attempts and is thus condemned to incarceration by the FBI at the film’s close. Gates, however, demonstrates his chivalric intentions of the betterment of the world and to restore honor to his family name. These are the motivations of the good Templar, and therefore, his actions are justified by his exoneration by the American government for his nonviolent but criminal methods.

While the Templar revelation’s vindication of America’s privileged destiny is uncovered by venturing to the forgotten historical link to the Templars, Aronstein and Torry propose that the film is not merely referencing a generic sense of pro–American sentiment but draws links to actual moments in recent history. This is done by addressing two critical moments in history; the first commentary is suggested at the opening of the film. At the opening of the film, after Ben Gates’ grandfather explains the secret history of their family and the Templar treasure, Ben Gates’ father, Patrick, interrupts the tale and pours scorn on the idea, stating, “You know what that dollar represents? The entire Gates family fortune; six generations of fools chasing after fool’s gold.” Aronstein and Torry note that it is the date of the opening scene in 1974 that is important, explaining that that was the year of “Richard Nixon’s resignation in disgrace of the Presidency following the Watergate revelations, the year between the American withdrawal from Vietnam and the 1975 fall of the South Vietnamese government” (2009, p. 239). This setting for the opening has connotations of the political climate of the 70s and also the identity crisis of American citizens. Aronstein and Torry assert that this is further addressed by the negativity of Patrick Gates. They note, “Patrick’s cynicism reflects the cynicism of a generation that has lost its faith in America’s millennial potential, in its ‘national treasure’” (2009, p. 239). This represents the perception of the waning belief of the American people with the Puritan utopian mission, and like the Jeremiad, the Templar revelation will reaffirm the audience with those traditional American values.

The conclusion of the film shows Ben Gates rejecting the 10 percent finder’s fee of a treasure worth $50,000,000,000, which symbolizes the possibility for the redemption of America, a country exonerated from the accusations of corruption from their recent interventions in the Middle East and a glimpse of what the Puritans envisioned. Aronstein and Torry draw on this conclusion to argue that the film “offers its viewers a narrative therapeutically aligned with the eventual justification for invasion and occupation offered by the Bush administration following the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” (2009, p. 243). They propose that the specific act of Ben Gates donating the treasure to museums around the world “suggest[s], at the simplest level, an America devoted not to material appropriation, but rather to global distribution, to the spreading of wealth through global corporate expansion” (2009, p. 243). Further interpretations and comparisons between ­real-life events at the time of production and the film are made by Eric Lott, who suggests that Turteltaub depicts 9/11 in the ­mise-en-scène of the secret cavern underneath the Trinity Church in Manhattan. Obviously, there is the coincidence of the location, but Lott proposes that the collapse of the rickety wooden structures they descend and “one of Ian’s men falls through a landing to his death—and the whole episode has the air of a displaced representation of the Twin Towers trembling and then crashing to the ground” (2008, p. 113). This scene may be Lott’s interpretation, but it further demonstrates how the current political climate overshadows this film’s narrative, thus underlining the Templar revelation’s need for vindication in America’s mission. However, Lott notes that the secret treasure is hidden underneath Manhattan, drawing parallels to the view, “the US as a storehouse of expropriated global wealth” which is “hidden under Wall Street rather than distributed to its citizens” (2008, p. 114). This notion would tie into Aronstein and Torry’s theory that Gates’ request to redistribute the wealth to the world demonstrates a desire for the world and Americans to rediscover their faith in the United States as a democratic global power and not the exploitative imperialist invader perceived in the political climate.

The film’s conclusion provides the case for exoneration of America’s ­modern-world criticisms, offering a glimpse at how America could be instead of the reality. The Templar conspiracy theme is a vital part of the second quest narrative as it provides the story with a new destination for the protagonist to venture to, as this travel to a new land is truly the essence of the quest narrative. The conspiracy theme is the driving force behind the quest because it is what leads the protagonist to the Templar revelation, which will reframe the perception of the ideals that America was supposedly founded upon. The Templar conspiracy theme uses the myth of the Templars’ link to the Freemasons and the Founding Fathers to set up the importance of the Templar revelation. Similarly, with The Da Vinci Code, it proposes that the historical link to the Templars is vital to heighten the vindication of American Western values. The quest narrative of following in the Templars’ footsteps uses the established Templar myth to create a fantastical world that the protagonist enters to rediscover a symbolic grail in the form of a revelation that reaffirms the values that the United States was founded upon, a revelation that does not lead to a discovery of powerless oppression but a reaffirmation of the historical signification of America’s destiny through its typological links to Israel within the Templar myth. What makes the Templar myth so compatible with those ideals of a Puritan utopia is that the connotative Templar myth supersedes the Templars in a denotative sense due to their extinction in the 14th century. The Freemason’s link to the Templars and therefore to America’s Founding Fathers is further embedded into popular culture through the reoccurring Templar narrative due to centuries of plausible deniability caused by the silence of Templar historical authority.

Conclusion

This chapter examined the grail guardian archetype from the Templar urtext, tracing the evolution of the quest narrative from the quest of knight aspect’s origin in the 13th century up to the quest to follow in the Templars’ footsteps in the 21st century. The chapter began by examining the first aspect of the Templar quest narrative, which is the quest of the knight, which was analyzed alongside unconventional but hugely successful and iconic grail films Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The benefit of using those case studies instead of conventional Arthurian literature is that neither case study directly mentioned the Knights Templar. However, both studies demonstrate the influence of the Templar quest narrative through the use of iconography and associated Templar character archetypes. These unconventional grail stories demonstrated the fluidity of the Templar narrative through its relevance within a satirical series of sketches and a 1930s’ adventure movie.

The case study of Monty Python and the Holy Grail incorporated the visual aesthetics associated with the Templar knight through the character of Sir Galahad, who wears the iconic white surcoat with a red cross. The incorporation of the Templar quest narrative also attributes Sir Galahad with stereotypical Templar traits, making him chaste and pious. The comedy of the film often stretches from the parody of Arthurian conventions, and Sir Galahad’s fear of women provides a parody of the Templars’ notoriety as chaste monks. Monty Python and the Holy Grail does not follow the usual conventions of the grail quest, preferring to deliberately diverge from audience expectation and therefore does not feature the Templars by name. The film’s comedic theme of satirically inverting Arthurian conventions demonstrates the influence of the Templars in popular culture through the incorporation of Templar iconography and the parody of the Templars’ monkish piety within the reimagining of Sir Galahad.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade moved the grail away from the medieval/Arthurian world and into the 1930s for Spielberg’s version of the grail story. Despite not being set in a medieval time frame, this film is incorporated within the first aspect of the quest narrative due to the depiction of Indiana Jones and compatriots as knights of the Round Table and grail literature’s themes of healing both physically, as seen with Henry Sr.’s wound, and symbolically with Indiana’s reunion with his father. Indiana Jones provided a clear example of the influence of the Templar quest narrative similar to Monty Python as even though the Knights Templar are not mentioned, the contribution of the quest narrative is illustrated through the film’s use of Templar iconography and their role as grail guardians. This reimagination of the Templar grail knight was the creation of scriptwriter, Tom Stoppard, who rebranded the grail guardian as The Knights of the Cruciform Sword. These knights hold small differentiation with the Knights Templar due to a similarity of roles with Eschenbach’s ­14th-century Templar guardian and a slight change to the red cross on their white surcoat to further emphasize the grail.

Lucas demonstrated his knowledge of the Templars’ role as grail guardians in a 2008 interview, a role that was altered for the film to create another party to oppose Indiana Jones’ grail search and to accommodate the film’s thematic grail depiction as the ultimate good. This desire to depict the grail as the ultimate good is underlined in the contrast of incorporating the Nazis as the ultimate evil. A rebrand is essential as having the Templars depicted in a positive way would be problematic due to their ­pre-established perception as the villainous knight in Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. The Nazis in Indiana Jones are motivated by an interest in the occult, an association that is shared by the conative Templar myth, and therefore such a villainous perception would undermine their depiction as a human manifestation of the grail’s goodness. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade highlights the inspiration the reoccurring Templar narrative has within storytelling, an inspiration that has further embedded the Templar narrative within popular culture. The reoccurrence of the Templar phenomenon is due to the malleability of the narrative as shown with the variations taken by Lucas and Spielberg on the Templar identity, where they were able to make the Templar quest narrative work within the desired themes of their film.

The second half of this chapter examined the other aspect to the Templar quest narrative, following in the Templars’ footsteps. The second aspect is set in the modern day, a setting that visually distances itself due to the medieval/Arthurian setting of the first aspect of the quest narrative. Despite distinguishing settings, the other key variation is the change of the protagonist’s role, from questing as knights in the first aspect to following in the Templars’ footsteps and venturing into the mythical Templar past. Both aspects follow a quest story structure of venturing into unknown territory. The first aspect follows a literal journey to a dangerous land, while in the second aspect the supernatural world is the forgotten mythical Templar past. Most importantly, though, is that both aspects feature the quest for the grail, often a literal grail for the first aspect, but the second aspect is the quest to find a metaphorical grail. This metaphoric grail is in the guise of a Templar revelation; this revelation is the renewed faith of Western culture, ultimately vindicating the original mission for the creation of the United States and the legitimacy of the Christian faith in Jesus Christ. The revelation is the discovery found at the quest’s end, and inspired by the Templar conspiracy is a malleable theme that can draw inspiration from a plentiful abundance of Templar myths and misrepresentations that have been formulated in popular culture for centuries.

The reoccurring Templar narrative of the quest shows how the Templar phenomenon has evolved since it was first planted within popular culture as part of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival. The Templars’ cultural origin as grail guardians is shown in the first aspect of the quest narrative, which draws upon their links to the Holy Grail and Arthurian literature as knight protectors. The second aspect of this narrative demonstrates the narrative’s malleability and builds upon the myth established in the first aspect of the quest, that of the knight, and brings it into the modern day. In this setting, the protagonists must venture back into the Templar mythic world to find a symbolic grail in the form of a Templar revelation. Templar mythic history provides a link to the past, where venturing will provide vindication for Western culture. Both quest narrative aspects share fundamental parallels; they include a search for a valuable article, and both rely on the connotative Templar associations for inspiration as a story formula. The Templar quest narrative shows how the narrative has evolved over the centuries and remains a reoccurring phenomenon within popular culture. The Order’s extinction in the 14th century has left room for interpretation and allowed for an open text that the Templar quest narrative has extended by creating new stories; this enabled the once pious warrior monks to be represented by ideas and themes that were established long after their disappearance.