Rennes-le-Château (; ) is a commune approximately 5 km (3 miles) south of Couiza, in the Aude department in the Occitanie region in Southern France.
This hilltop village is known internationally; it receives tens of thousands of visitors per year, drawn by conspiracy theories surrounding a putative buried treasure discovered by its 19th-century priest Bérenger Saunière, the precise nature of which is disputed among thoseArticle by Christiane Amiel entitled "L’abîme au trésor, ou l’or fantôme de Rennes-le-Château" in, Claudie Voisenat (editor), Imaginaires archéologiques, pages 61-86 (Ethnologie de la France, Number 22, Paris: Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2008). Christiane Amiel covered this aspect in her article. who credit its existence.Article by Christiane Amiel entitled "L’abîme au trésor, ou l’or fantôme de Rennes-le-Château" in, Claudie Voisenat (editor), Imaginaires archéologiques, pages 61-86 (Ethnologie de la France, Number 22, Paris: Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2008).
History
Mountains frame both ends of the region—the Cévennes to the northeast and the Pyrenees to the south. The area is known for its scenery, with jagged ridges, deep river canyons and rocky limestone plateaus, with large caves underneath. Rennes-le-Château was the site of a prehistoric encampment, and later a Roman colony, or at least Roman villa or temple, such as is confirmed to have been built at Fa, west of Couiza, part of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis, the wealthiest part of Roman Gaul.
Rennes-le-Château was part of Septimania in the 6th and 7th centuries. It has been suggested that it was once an important Visigothic town, with some 30,000 people living in the city around 500–600 AD. Until 1659–1745 the area was not considered French territory, being part of the Catalan Country since 988. However, British archaeologist Bill Putnam and British physicist John Edwin Wood argued that, while there may have been a Visigothic town on the site of the present village, it would have had "a population closer to 300 than 30,000".Bill Putnam & John Edwin Wood, The Treasure of Rennes-Le-Château: A Mystery Solved, Sutton Publishing, page 87, Revised Edition, 2005. .
By 1050 the Counts of Toulouse held control over the area, building a castle in Rennes-le-Château around 1002,Abbé Sabarthès, Dictionnaire topographique du Département de l'Aude, comprenant les noms de lieux anciens et modernes (1912). though nothing remains above ground of this medieval structure—the present ruin is from the 17th or 18th century.Bill Putnam, John Edwin Wood. The Treasure of Rennes-le-Château: A Mystery Solved, page 88 (Sutton Publishing Limited, revised paperback edition, 2005).
Several castles in the surrounding Languedoc region were central to the battle between the Catholic Church and the Cathars at the beginning of the 13th century. Other castles guarded the volatile border with Spain. Whole communities were wiped out in the campaigns of the Catholic authorities to rid the area of the Cathar heretics, the Albigensian Crusades, and again when French Protestants fought against the French monarchy two centuries before the French Revolution.
Population
Church of Saint Mary Magdalene
The village church dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene has been rebuilt several times. The earliest church of which there is any evidence on the site may date to the 8th century. However, this original church was almost certainly in ruins by the 10th or 11th century, when another church was built upon the site—remnants of which can be seen in Romanesque pillared arcades on the north side of the apse. This survived in poor repair until the 19th century,An architectural report of 1845 reporting that it required extensive repairs. when it was renovated by the local priest, Bérenger Saunière. Surviving receipts and existing account books belonging to Saunière reveal that the renovation of the church, including works on the presbytery and cemetery, cost 11,605 Francs over a ten-year period between 1887 and 1897.Jacques Rivière, Le Fabuleux trésor de Rennes-le-Château, page 130 (Editions Belisane, 1983). With inflation that figure is equivalent to approximately 30 million Francs as of 2019, or 4.5 million Euros.
Among Saunière's external embellishments was the Latin inscription Terribilis est locus iste displayed prominently on the lintel of the main entrance; its literal and most obvious translation is "This place is terrible";The Oxford Latin Dictionary (1990) the rest of the dedication, over the doors' arch, reads "this is God's house, the gate of heaven, and it shall be called the royal court of God." The quotation comes from Genesis 28:17.http://www.ballyroanparish.ie/parish-information/parish-history Ballyroan Parish History, reference to the Entrance Antiphon from the Common of a Dedication of a Church
Inside the church, one of the figures installed by Saunière was of the demon Asmodeus holding up the holy water stoup.Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (Harcourt, 1983) Its original head was stolen in 1996 and has never been recovered.Midi Libre, 23 April 1996. A devil-like figure holding up the holy water stoup is a rare and unusual choice for the interior decoration of a Church but not exclusive to the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene; a similar subject can be seen in the Saint Vincent Collegiate church in Montréal, a short distance from Rennes-le-Château.
The new figures and statues were not made especially for this church,Bill Putnam & John Edwin Wood, The Treasure of Rennes-le-Château, a Mystery Solved, page 167, new revised paperback edition 2005 but were chosen by Saunière from a catalogue published by Giscard, sculptor and painter in Toulouse who, among other things, offered statues and sculptures for church refurbishment.Marie de Saint-Gély, Bérenger Saunière, prêtre Rennes-le-Château 1885–1917 (Bélisane, 1989; 2005), p. XLII, XLIV and XLV, which has reproduced pages from the Giscard catalogue.
Saunière also funded the construction of Tour Magdala, a tower-like structure originally named the Tour de L'horloge and later renamed after Saint Mary Magdalene. Saunière used it as his library. The structure includes a circular turret with twelve crenellations, on a belvedere that connected it to an orangery. The tower has a promenade linking it to the Villa Bethania, which was not actually used by the priest. He stated at his trial that it was intended as a home for retired priests.Jacques Rivière, Le Fabuleux trésor de Rennes-le-Château, Editions Belisane (1983) Surviving receipts and existing account books belonging to Saunière reveal that the construction of his estate (including the purchases of land) between 1898 and 1905 cost 26,417 Francs.Jacques Rivière, Le Fabuleux trésor de Rennes-le-Château, page 175 (Editions Belisane, 1983).
Following Saunière's renovations and redecoratations, the church was re-dedicated in 1897 by his bishop, Monsignor Billard.Les Cahiers de Rennes-le-Château N°11, Abbé Bruno De Monts, "Le Vrai Trésor" (Editions Bélisane, 1996 ), p. 14; 45–46.
In 1910–1911, Bérenger Saunière was summoned by the bishopric to appear before an ecclesiastical trial to face charges of trafficking in masses. He was found guilty and suspended from the priesthood. When asked to produce his account books, he refused to attend his trial.
Supporters of the hypothesis that Rennes-le-Château and its environs enshrine unsolved enigmas have suggested that Saunière's estate was set up on a large-scale checkerboard,Alain Féral, editor, Rennes-le-Château: Clef du Royaume des Morts, Éditions Bélisane, 1997. while others have suggested that Saunière produced a Mirror image of selected architectural features of his property. They also claim that Maurice Barrès's roman à clef The Sacred HillGérard de Sède, L'Or de Rennes, page 57 (René Julliard, 1967). are largely based on the Rennes-le-Château story involving Bérenger Saunière (while novels by Jules Verne are cited to show that the enigma predates Abbé Saunière).Michel Lamy, The Secret Message of Jules Verne, Decoding His Masonic, Rosicrucian, and Occult Writings, pages 137-138, Inner Traditions, 2007. . Translation from the French first published 1984.
Modern fame The modern reputation of Rennes-le-Château rests mainly in claims and stories, dating from the mid-1950s, concerning the 19th-century parish priest Bérenger Saunière. Those led researchers Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln to write The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which became a bestseller in 1982; their work in turn, uncredited,Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, "Acknowledgements", pages 11-12, Corgi edition, 2004. fuelled key devices of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, published in 2003, as well as other media.
The first known popular article about Saunière was written by Roger Crouquet in the Belgian magazine Le Soir illustré, published in 1948.Roger Crouquet, Visite a une ville morte: Rennes-le-Château, autrefois Capitale du Comte de Razès, Aujourd'hui bourgade abandonne ("Visit to a dead village: Rennes-le-Château, former capital of the county of Razès, now an abandoned village"), in Le Soir illustré, pages 16-22 (number 819; March, 1948). The author was visiting the Aude to meet his friend Jean Mauhin, a Belgian who had moved to Quillan to open a bell and hat factory, and at his suggestion visited Rennes-le-Château. There Crouquet collected testimonies from villagers about Saunière. For example for Crouquet was told how the priest "preferred wine and women to practising the priesthood. At the end of the last century he had a rather original idea. He placed in foreign newspapers, especially in the United States, an advertisement announcing that the poor priest of Rennes-le-Château lived among heretics and had only the most meagre of resources. He moved the Christians of the whole world to such pity by announcing that the old church, an architectural gem, was heading for unavoidable ruin if urgent restoration work was not undertaken as soon as possible." Crouquet added: "The stoup which decorates the entrance to the chapel is carried by a horned devil with cloven hooves. An old woman remarked to us: 'It's the old priest, changed into a devil'."
Crouquet's article faded into obscurity and it was left to Noël Corbu, a local man who had opened a restaurant in Saunière's former estate (called L'Hotel de la Tour) in the mid-1950s, to turn the village into a household name. Corbu began circulating stories that, while renovating his church in 1892, Saunière had discovered "parchments" connected with the treasure of Blanche of Castile, and which "according to the archives" consisted of 28,500,000 gold pieces, said to be the treasure of the French crown assembled by Blanche to pay the ransom of Louis IX (a prisoner of the infidels), whose surplus she had hidden at Rennes-le-Château. Having found only part of it, Saunière continued his investigations beneath the church and in other parts of his domain.Albert Salamon, D'un coup de pioche dans un pilier du maître-autel, l'abbé Saunière met à jour le trésor de Blanche de Castille ("With one blow of the pick-axe in a pillar of the main altar Abbé Saunière uncovered the treasure of Blanche de Castile"), in La Dépêche du Midi dated 12, 13, 14 January 1956.