Priory of Sion
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The Prieuré de Sion, translated as Priory of Sion, was a fraternal organisation founded and dissolved in France in 1956 by hoaxer Pierre Plantard in his failed attempt to create a prestigious neo-chiv
The cryptic phrase "Et in Arcadia ego" in Nicolas Poussin's late 1630s painting The Arcadian Shepherds was appropriated for Priory of Sion myth-making, first utilised in 1964.
Leonardo da Vinci, alleged to be the Priory of Sion's 12th Grand Master
Godfrey of Bouillon
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Godfrey of Bouillon was a preeminent leader of the First Crusade, and the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1100. Although initially reluctant to take the title of king, he agreed t
Priory of Sion
…neo-chivalric order. In the 1960s, Plantard began claiming that his self-styled order was the latest front for a secret society founded by crusading knight Godfrey of Bouillon, on Mount Zion in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099, under the guise of the historical monastic order of the Abbey of Our Lady of Mount Zion. As a…
Godfrey of Bouillon, from the Roman de Godefroy de Bouillon by Maître du Roman de Fauvel, c. 1330
Godfrey's claim to Bouillon Castle was challenged by Albert III of Namur.
The "sword of Godfrey of Bouillon" displayed at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem since 1808 (1854 photograph)
Godfrey with his brothers Eustace and Baldwin meeting with Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos