Is the Holy Grail hidden in Hertfordshire?

People often say that The truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. When it comes to the Holy Grail, it is the subject of much fascination. Is it a cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper? Is it is a stone as some traditions assert or could it even be a person with Royal Blood?

The concept of the Holy Grail has inspired many writers and since the success of the book, The Da Vinci Code, interest in subjects such as The Holy Grail, Mary Magdalene and even the Cathars have soared.

But there is a story that has not reached the headlines and has been hidden away in a sleepy corner of England, pretty much ignored. It is the story of how a heretical sect seems to have escaped persecution in France and established itself a few miles north of London.

They carried with them an object of veneration and founded their order upon this relic. What was this object and its significance? Could this be the object secreted from France after the sect was persecuted? If so we have to ask the question – Is the Holy Grail Hidden in Hertfordshire?

The History of Ashridge

My interest in the story began around 2001 when I had just moved to the town of Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire UK. At the time I was still working as a medical GP. I also had acquired a dog that year which led me to go for long walks in the National Trust Land which lies just behind Berkhamsted called Ashridge Estate and today it is mainly famous for its business school.

Ashridge House. Image: wikicommons

So I got to know the local landscape including the business school which is on the site of much older settlements going way back to 1283 when a monastery was built on the site. When King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, this became the home of the young Princess Elizabeth before she was announced as the Queen. It then passed into the hands of aristocratic families before becoming a business school in the 20th century.

The house is rarely opened to the public but I have visited under special circumstances. I have even been underneath the house to the well that the monks used. It is the monastery and the order that founded it which is of interest to us in this article as they may hold the key to a mystery that has been plaguing people for some generations; what was removed by the Cathars at the siege of Montsegur?

The Cathar Connection

To understand why this is a mystery we need to back up a bit to explain who the Cathars were and how they can be linked to Ashridge.
In Southern France in the 12th Century, a sect of Christianity arose that the church would go on to call heretical and wipe out completely. They are known today as the Cathars. By a modern mystic’s standards, the Cathar ideas that remain with us are very appealing.

They believed in living humbly and focusing instead on direct spiritual experiences. Some of the sect lived a life of chastity and poverty. They were known as ‘Perfect’ people or Bonhommes – good men. Obviously, this direct access to spiritual realms was threatening to the power of the church and they were systematically wiped out in one of the worse genocides in history.

Some Cathars held out for months in a stronghold fortress on the top of a hill called Montsegur. After a while, their supplies would have become depleted and they supposedly gave themselves in and perished in the fire but with little struggle in 1244. A persistent mystery is that members of the sect supposedly scaled the perilous fortress and hill to escape with something.

We don’t know if it happened and what the object was, but it has sparked speculation ever since. Some say it is the Holy Grail which may be a cup but may be the blood of Christ. This could be an actual vial of blood or a person who was a member of the bloodline of Christ. We don’t know for sure if it happened or even what the Holy Grail was supposed to be.

Castle at Montsegur. Image: wikicommons

The Bonhommes

Whilst I lived in Berkhamsted, I came to hear about the monastery originally at Ashridge and started to research it. That’s when I discovered that a few years after the Cathars gave themselves up in Montsegur two monasteries were established with the order of Bonhommes and one of them was at Ashridge. Apparently, they believed that they had a sample of the blood of Christ which some would call The Holy Grail.

It is highly unlikely that whatever relic they had was actually the blood of the man, Jesus Christ. It may not even have been blood which would have been difficult to store. As you probably know, having a relic in the Middle Ages was big business and indeed a local resident of a nearby village uncovered a load of wall paintings in their house dating back to the time when it was used as a rest for Pilgrims coming to Ashridge to see the supposed Blood of Christ.

But even without a genuine vial of the Blood of Christ, we still are left with the fact that a mysterious order of Bonhommes established two monasteries in England shortly after the Bonhommes were wiped out in France. They had support from members of the Royal family who may have had some Cathar connections and were therefore possibly sympathetic.

In one of the few book written about the history of Ashridge called A Prospect of Ashridge (Phillimore 1980), Douglas Coult disagrees that the Bonhommes of Ashridge have anything to do with the Cathars in the south of France. However, he gives no explanation as to who they were, why there were only two orders in England and why they were called Bonhommes if they were not French Cathars.

Just wild speculation?

It is entirely possible that the during the persecution of Cathars in France in the 1200s, members of the sect who remained, who may have even possessed whatever it was that was smuggled out of Montsegur, were able to come to England under Royal patronage to set up a monastery in the 1280s. We do know that a vial of supposed holy blood was kept by the monastery at some point – whether this was THE object or not we don’t know.

It is also plausible that these were the same Good Men or Bonhommes that originated from the South of France in the Cathar community. The dates fit for a group of the order to flee the persecution and begin again in England.

If we believe that whatever was smuggled out of Monstegur was indeed an object known as the Holy Grail as many a speculative theory has suggested then it is possible that the Holy Grail is hidden somewhere in Hertfordshire.

Even without the Holy Grail aspect, it was fascinating to live so close to an aspect of the Cathar story that few know about. Many people focus on France but the Ashridge Bonhommes may have opened another chapter in the Cathar story.

Like with many other monasteries, this too was dissolved by King Henry VIII which ended the Order of the Bonhommes. Who knows – whatever it was that they were protecting could be still there, perhaps buried and hidden in Hertfordshire!

For more topics like this and a community of like-minded people check out The Magdalene Mystery School. 

Images: Deposit photos, Wikicommons