The “Jesus bloodline” interpretation of Rennes-le-Château traditions

Record summary

Stories surrounding the priest Bérenger Saunière, Rennes-le-Château church imagery and alleged hidden treasure developed into a modern mystery tradition that later incorporated claims about Jesus’s descendants, the Grail and secret societies. The relevant period concerns early postwar local and popular elaboration, before the best-known late twentieth-century syntheses. The lead is useful for studying how church architecture, forged or ambiguous documents and regional folklore become linked into an apocryphal historical narrative. Saunière’s finances and the chronology of the legend remain subjects for source-by-source checking.