Is Rosslyn Chapel really just a collegiate chapel, or is it a repository of the secrets and treasure of the Knights Templar?
India may have the Taj Mahal, but Scotland has Rosslyn Chapel. Both are unique. Both are exquisite. But the purpose of the Taj Mahal is well known. It was built as a mausoleum for the emperor’s favorite wife. It has no hidden purpose. The same cannot be said for Rosslyn Chapel (see Figure 13). Its interior is beautiful (Figure 14). One cannot go into Rosslyn Chapel without being overwhelmed by the experience. The carvings on the pillars, and the faces carved on the corbels, all cry out for an explanation that is far more than what is printed in the brochures.
Rosslyn Chapel is located just outside the small town of Roslin, about seven miles south of Edinburgh. It is a small, collegiate chapel located on the left bank of the North Esk River. It is one of approximately forty secular collegiate churches built in Scotland between 1248 and 1546. The reference to a ‘secular church’ may seem to be an oxymoron, but it is not. It is secular because it was constructed and privately owned by a family, and not by a church organization for the benefit of the public. It was a collegiate church because it was intended to have at least two pastors.
The word ‘Rosslyn’ is a combination of the two Gaelic words ‘ros’ (peninsula or promontory) and ‘lynn’ (waterfall), and translates to be ‘Waterfall Point’. Rosslyn Chapel was built near the Saint Clair’s current Rosslyn Castle, which is located on a promontory surrounded on three sides by the Esk River. Rosslyn Chapel was the Saint Clairs’ second chapel, and was built where the Saint Clairs’ first castle was located. It was begun on St Mathew’s Day in 1446 by Sir William St Clair, the third and last St Clair Prince of Orkney, and was dedicated in 1450. In terms of theories about the history and purpose of Rosslyn Chapel, there is one for virtually every aspect of the chapel. There are several beliefs concerning the shape of the chapel. Many compare it with the Temple of Solomon that was built on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. And there is the question of whether William St Clair ever intended to build an entire chapel, or did he only mean to build the choir, baptistery, lower chapel and underground vaults that exist today? There are also numerous understandings about the carvings. Some create questions which can never be answered to everyone’s satisfaction. There is simply not enough information.
Did William St Clair intend to build a church or a chapel? The full shape of the foundation was discovered in the eighteenth century. It is a common ecclesiastical shape with a cruciform configuration, a tower at the center, transepts, a nave, all built out on an east–west axis. Because the shape of the full foundation is known, it might be said that William St Clair was confident the entire chapel would be completed. But it was not. Instead, for the next thirty-six years, William St Clair concentrated on the carvings and masonry inside the chapel.
Another point of view is that William St Clair could not match the other churches in terms of size, so he planned to surpass them in design and decoration. This theory is based on a statement of the Saint Clairs’ biographer, Father Richard Augustine Hay, that the builder decided the church must be ‘a most curious worke’.1 But this overlooks the fact that the Saint Clairs were very wealthy and could have completed the entire chapel. When Sir William St Clair died in 1484, the four walls and the carved interior were complete. The nave, transepts and tower had not been started. The designs for the roof had been approved, but not begun. In terms of funding, Sir William endowed the use of the chapel with funds for a provost, six prebendaries and two choristers.2 But he provided no funds for further construction. His son, Sir Oliver St Clair, finished the roof, but left most of the chapel incomplete.3 The only part of the chapel that was complete was the choir.
If Rosslyn Chapel is a secular, collegiate chapel, with no relation to the Knights Templar, it was built by William for two basic purposes: for saying prayers for the souls of the past and present Saint Clair family, and as a permanent place of burial for family members.
For several hundred years these were the purposes of Rosslyn Chapel. The family held services to pray for the souls of the living and departed Saint Clairs. Members of the family were buried in the chapel’s vault. If the chapel was to be used for any other purpose, there are, unfortunately, no surviving original designs or notes. Based on what does survive, it would seem the chapel was ultimately intended to be what it was, a collegiate family chapel, and nothing more. But, the absence of any original designs or notes, together with its numerous enigmatic carvings, have allowed for the creation of numerous claims, suppositions and theories which have, by themselves, created and added to the chapel’s mystique.
With all that has been written about the Templars and Rosslyn Chapel, there is no mention of the fact the Templars did not require the use of Rosslyn Chapel until after 1534, when James Sandilands relinquished Balantrodoch, along with other Templar and Hospitaller properties, to Queen Mary. Until then, the Templars would have had the use of the chapel they had built in the late twelfth century at Balantrodoch, which is only a short distance away from Rosslyn Chapel. But by 1534 the Templars, who had been formally dissolved for 222 years, were no longer a separate organized fighting force, and no longer possessed immense wealth. Their activities consisted of such things as passing along Templar traditions, conducting ceremonies and managing their properties. Because the chapel was finished or completed in 1546, there would have been only twelve years when the Templars were without a chapel, and Rosslyn Chapel was under construction. This is a very short time for any major contributions by the Templars. And, in fact, the chapel had been essentially complete forty years after it was begun. So during these twelve years probably nothing new was created.
As a result of the Reformation and its prohibitions, Rosslyn Chapel was not used as a chapel from 1592 through 1736.4 As a result, in 1592 Oliver St Clair was forbidden from burying his wife there. It was not used again as a church until 1738 when James St Clair began restoration by repairing the roof and installing a new flagstone floor. Sunday services did not take place again until 1861, when they were begun by the third Earl of Rosslyn who also undertook further restoration work, which was possible because even though the chapel had been periodically ransacked, it had been kept locked for a great deal of the time.5
Was the chapel built with the help or guidance of the Knights Templar? Is there a treasure, or sacred papers, or the Holy Grail, or the Ark of the Covenant hidden in the vaults under Rosslyn Chapel? There are two clear-cut views. One is that Sir William created a storehouse of secret coded Templar information, a legacy to those who seek spiritual enlightenment; that the interior of the chapel is a veritable, three-dimensional ‘teaching board’ of gnostic, late medieval initiation.6 This view is supported by the interpretation of many of the chapel’s carvings, and a grave slab in the chapel with the name of William St Clair (see Figure 15). The slab is about 40 inches long by 11.75 inches wide by 6 inches thick. It has been reused and the letters have been re-cut. It sits on a plinth or base that is said to be modern, and cannot be dated. The name on the slab has the carving ‘WILL*HMDES*HINCLER’ or ‘William Sinclair’. The carving on the plinth is:
WILLIAM DE ST. CLAIR
KNIGHT Templar
This grave slab and plinth are said to be proof of the connection between the Knights Templar and Rosslyn Chapel. This is where the bones of William St Clair, who fought at Bannock and died in Spain fighting the Moors with Sir James Douglas while taking Robert the Bruce’s heart to the Holy Land, are said to be buried. The bones would have been brought back to Scotland by Sir William Keith of Galston who had been prominent in Bruce’s taking of Berwick in 1318, and who was one of the few who survived in Spain.7 The problem is that there is little or no evidence of what happened to the bones, or even if they were brought back from Spain. But if they were, it is not difficult to posit that Sir William’s bones were first buried by the Saint Clairs near Rosslyn Castle, possibly in the graveyard of the Saint Clairs’ first collegiate church of St Mathew.8 They were then simply reburied in Rosslyn Chapel to commemorate his involvement with Robert the Bruce and Bannockburn, rather than having his remains secreted in a closed underground vault. Also, if this William St Clair became the Scottish Master of the Order, this would explain the small gravestone, which is normally used for a child, and the fact that the skull was placed over the crossed femurs.9 The small space beneath the small tombstone would be all that was necessary for the skeletal remains.10
The counter-argument has been succinctly stated by Karen Ralls, the author of two books on the Knights Templar, who worked for four years at Rosslyn Chapel as the deputy director of the Rosslyn Chapel Museum Exhibition. Simply put, her argument is that the chapel’s founder, Sir William St Clair, was not a Templar, because the Order had been officially dissolved in 1312, and the foundation stone for Rosslyn was not laid until work began in 1446, some 134 years later. Ideas that Rosslyn Chapel was a possible repository for many artifacts, including the lost Scrolls of the Temple, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, and the genuine stone of destiny, are all theories that remain speculation.11 But when there are no records or ‘notes’, and because of the paucity of archival records of the Templars, it is difficult to establish that Templar involvement did not exist.12
Those who believe that the Knights Templar continued to exist in Scotland after their arrest and dissolution, tend to accept the traditions that the Saint Clair heirs and the Knights Templar used a hidden room under the chapel as an initiation chamber, and that the vaults beneath the chapel contain something other than crypts.13 Whether the traditions are true is an impossible question to answer because the Sinclair family will not open the vault. The closest anyone has come to examining the vault’s interior occurred when Andrew Sinclair was allowed to use the latest radar technique developed for modern archaeology, called a Groundscan, to survey the whole chapel.14 The machine has the ability to detect shapes and metal objects through stone and rubble. He reports that large cavities, i.e. vaults, were found below the chapel. He also detected reflectors, which indicated metal, probably the armor of the buried knights. There was also a large reflector under the Lady Chapel which suggested the presence of a metallic shrine. But there was no evidence of what could be described as gold or silver ‘treasure’.15
There are two significant pillars in the Rosslyn Chapel, the Apprentice Pillar and the Mason’s Pillar. Advocates of Templar involvement suggest that these two pillars represent the two pillars of Boaz and Jachin, which stood at the inner hallway of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem above the catacombs where the Templars spent their first nine years.16 Of particular significance is the Apprentice Pillar, which may have been created to enclose the Holy Grail, or the chalice from which Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples drank wine at the Last Supper. To many, the Holy Grail has become a Templar relic. If it was brought to Scotland after the Templar suppression, it might have been left with the Saint Clairs.17
The Apprentice Pillar is one of three at the head of the choir. The story of the Apprentice Pillar tells much of the chapel’s mystique. The master mason who was given the commission to carve the pillar was given a model. The model was of such exquisite design that the mason was not sure if he could carry out the work. To insure his ability to carve the pillar, he traveled to Rome to view and examine the original. While he was away, his apprentice had a vision of the magnificent finished pillar and immediately began carving the pillar. The result is what is seen today. When the master mason returned he could not believe what he saw, and was awed by the workmanship in the finished pillar. When he asked who carved the pillar, he was told that it had been carved by his apprentice. As the story goes, the master mason was both envious and furious. In a rage he struck the apprentice on the head with his mallet, killing him. Those who believe the chalice on the St Clair tombstone is the Holy Grail believe that the Grail is hidden within the Apprentice Pillar, and that this pillar was created to enclose it. But Andrew Sinclair scanned the Apprentice Pillar with the Groundscan. There was no evidence of a gold or silver chalice inside it.18
A carving of the apprentice’s head, with an indentation at the top of his right forehead, is one of the carvings inside Rosslyn Chapel.19 The apprentice’s face does not look down on the pillar of his creation but, surprisingly, on the beautiful Mason’s Pillar, the third of the three, which was carved by the master mason who killed him. The Mason’s Pillar is a beautifully crafted work on its own, and should not be overlooked because of the reputation or design of the Apprentice Pillar. Of the three pillars, the middle pillar’s design is generally consistent with the others in the chapel, and is called the Fellow Craft Pillar.
The carving of the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) in Rosslyn Chapel is a key Christian symbol that occurs in a number of Templar buildings on the continent. It also occurs on the seals of various Templar Masters. As a result, this may be a possible Templar connection. But this symbol also occurs in many other medieval non-Templar churches and church buildings. It has long been an important Christian symbol of martyrdom, so it is not particularly unique to Rosslyn Chapel or the Templars.
One of the corbels20 in a window in the south aisle has a carving of a knight riding a horse, with a figure behind the hindquarters of the horse holding a ‘passion’ cross (see Figure 16). The second figure does not appear to be mounted. It has been claimed that this carving represents the seal of the Templars.21 If it is, then this carving could be a connecting link. But the seal has two riders on one horse, symbolic of the Templars’ early poverty. If the carving is not the Templar seal, the question remains, what does it depict? There are at least three views:
The first view directly involves the Knights Templar. It describes a mailed Templar knight with his lance. Behind the knight’s saddle is an angel, carrying the Cross of the Church militant.22 The angel is there to protect the Templar whose calling was to fight and defeat the Saracens in Outremer.
The second view describes the carving of a mounted knight as being St George slaying the dragon. The second figure is an angel bearing a crucifix. The dragon is absent because the lower part of the carving, including the lower limbs of the horse, is missing. But the direction of the spear indicates that something should be there, and that could be the dragon.23
The third view is that it depicts William the Seemly St Clair as he escorts Princess Margaret to marry King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland.24 The cross she is carrying is said to be the Holy Rood, or a portion of the ‘true cross’ upon which Jesus was crucified. Because this event occurred in 1094, it could not possibly involve the Templars.
A carving in Rosslyn Chapel’s retro choir is said to be the carving of the death mask of Robert the Bruce. There is a belief that Robert the Bruce was not only a Templar, but that he was the sovereign Grand Master of the Templars, and that his death mask is carved into the stonework at Rosslyn. But there is no known death mask of Robert the Bruce, let alone one that survived for 117 years. Also, the creation of a death mask was a major event. A death mask of Bruce would have been an important artifact, and prominently displayed anywhere in Scotland.
The idea of Bruce’s death mask may have begun with Andrew Sinclair’s The Sword and the Grail at plate 10, between pp. 150–151, where he described the image as the ‘Supposed death mask of Robert the Bruce’. But he does not attempt to expand on this supposition and there is nothing in the book that supports it. The carving looks more like a peasant with a peasant’s hat. Further, the carving is in no way alike to the forensic reconstruction of Bruce’s head (see Figure 11). Robert the Bruce’s grave was found in 1818 in Dunfermline Abbey. Dr Ian MacLeod, a consultant at the Edinburgh Dental Institute, and Dr Richard Neave, a forensic medical artist, produced a reconstruction of Bruce’s head. Dr MacLeod describes Bruce, with his battle scars and possible leprosy:
The first thing that strikes you about Robert the Bruce is that the guy has tremendous presence. There is almost a Churchillian aura about him. This was a guy you would not want to get into a fight with. He would have stood out from the crowd. What we have here is a battle-scarred old man. You don’t go through wars like he did without receiving a few knocks.25
There is also a carving of a heart held by an angel that is said to be the heart of Robert the Bruce. More likely, the angel is holding a cushion on which lies the shape of a heart, which represents Jesus Christ. The winged figure could represent an angel, or St Mathew to whom the chapel is dedicated.26
Then there are the Green Men (see Figure 17). These are faces of men with foliage growing out of their mouths that are carved throughout Rosslyn Chapel. The foliage is said to represent fertility. The facial images range from young to old, from angry to happy, from that of a pixy to that of a rogue.
The association with Green Men and the Templars stems from such things as a comparison of the Green Men to the head of the Baphomet, and the existence of Green Men in Templar chapels and temples throughout Europe. The Baphomet is an ill-defined, amorphous, heathen image that the Templars were accused of worshipping by Philip IV. Because there is no clear definition or known image of a Baphomet, there is no bridge between it and the Green Men.27 Images of Green Men are widespread. They have pagan origins and represent such things as fertility and abundance. They are found in Celtic ruins, and in the Far East. One of the most discussed locations for Green Men is the famed Chartres Cathedral in France which contains a number of Green Men among its carvings. The connection to the Templars is that the Templars are said to have had a significant influence in the cathedral’s design. But this overlooks the fact that Green Men appear in many Christian churches and cathedrals all over Europe. As a result, the use of Green Men by the Templars does not necessarily connect Rosslyn Chapel’s Green Men to the Templars.
Rosslyn Chapel abounds with mystery. Do the carvings have an independent significance, or are they purely decorative? Do they reflect the new Gnosticism that was emerging in medieval Europe? Were the Saint Clairs closely allied with the Knights Templar? Did the Saint Clairs provide a safe harbor to the Templars who had escaped from France just before their arrest in 1307? Did the Saint Clairs provide a place from which new Templars could be recruited and trained? It should not be forgotten that the Templars’ original land grant at Balantrodoch was said to originally have been owned by the Saint Clairs. With the proximity of Balantrodoch to Rosslyn Chapel there must have been constant interaction in Scotland between the Templars and the Saint Clairs. Did this interaction continue after the arrests in 1307 and the Templars’ dissolution in 1312?
The existing known evidence about Rosslyn Chapel and the Knights Templar points to a conclusion that they were not directly connected. The chapel was built to be a small, unique collegiate chapel. Its carvings are symbolic of the times and Christianity. The vaults were crypts for the Saint Clair family. The pillars are simply ornate. Arguably, the grave slab and plinth are recent, possibly added by the Freemasons in their efforts to link the Knights Templar directly with their Order in the early nineteenth century in line with the efforts of Alexander Deuchar.
Yet there is a strong argument that the Templars existed in Scotland from 1307 through to the present time. And even if none of the Saint Clairs were actually members of the Order, they undoubtedly had a close working relationship. Consequently, a connection between Rosslyn Chapel and the Templars cannot be dismissed.
Today, Rosslyn Chapel is used extensively by numerous Templar Orders, including those based in Scotland and Europe. In 1997 an investiture by the Grand Priory of the Scots was filmed by cable television’s The History Channel as part of its episode In Search of History: The Knights Templar. 28
In 2005 I participated in a Templar investiture at Rosslyn Chapel that was held by the international Templar Order, Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani. Templar Knights from Scotland, England, France and the United States were present. The mystique that existed in 2005 was as great as it would have been in the fifteenth century. Today’s Templar ceremonies are much like they were 800 years ago. As knights, we were garbed in our white Templar mantles with the red Templar cross over the left breast. The chaplain said prayers that originated with the Templars 800 years ago. Hearing the prayers and watching the ceremonies in 2005, I absolutely lost my place in time. I forgot that I was in the year 2005, and that Rosslyn Chapel is operated by The Rosslyn Trust, and that the chapel is not only available to the Templars, but to any other group. During the Templar ceremony, there existed a feeling of awe that was overpowering. If you had asked me then if I believed Rosslyn Chapel was built for and by the Knights Templar, my answer would have been unequivocally – yes!
But that is why so many seek to find a direct connection to the Templars.
1 Cooper, Robert L.D., The Rosslyn Hoax? Viewing Rosslyn Chapel from a new perspective, Lewis (UK, 2006), p. 105, citing The Genealogie of the Sainteclairs of Rosslyn, ed. Cooper, Robert L.D., The Grand Lodge of Scotland (2002), pp. 26–27.
2 www.rosslynchapel.com/history/history-pt2.htm
3 Wallace-Murphy, Tim & Hopkins, Marilyn, Rosslyn, Guardian of the Secrets of the Holy Grail, Element Books Limited (Shaftesbury, Dorset, 1999), pp. 8–9.
4 www.rosslynchapel.com/history/history-pt2.htm
5 Ibid.
6 Wallace-Murphy, Rosslyn, p. 107.
7 Sinclair, Andrew, The Sword and the Grail, Birlinn Limited (Edinburgh, 2002), p. 3.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ralls, Karen, Knights Templar Encyclopedia, New Page Books (Franklin Lakes, 2007), pp. 157–159.
12 In The Rosslyn Hoax? Mr Cooper devotes much of the work to an effort to dispel the Templar myths surrounding Rosslyn Chapel.
13 Wallace-Murphy, Rosslyn, p. 127.
14 As of this writing, John Ritchie, the Grand Herald, then the press spokesman for the Militi Templi Scotia, was planning to conduct ground scans of Rosslyn Chapel’s vaults and the surrounding area.
15 Sinclair, The Sword and the Grail, p. 86.
16 Ibid., p. 83.
17 Ibid., p. 76.
18 Ibid., p. 86.
19 The scar may be a relatively recent addition. Cooper, The Rosslyn Hoax? p. 145.
20 A stone bracket that supports a cornice or overhang.
21 Cooper, The Rosslyn Hoax? p. 155.
22 Sinclair, The Sword and the Grail, p. 105.
23 Cooper, The Rosslyn Hoax? pp. 155–156.
24 Wallace-Murphy, Rosslyn, p. 199.
25 Cooper, The Rosslyn Hoax, p. 152.
26 Ibid., p. 153.
27 The Baphomet has been described as a head worshipped in secret by the Templars, a human head that was half-gold or half-silver, or half-shaven or half-unshaven, the embalmed head of Jesus Christ. It is also described as an old French corruption of Muhammad. The most imaginative definition is by Hugh Shonfield in The Essene Oddessey, Element (Dorset, 1993), who applies an Essene cipher to obtain the name Sophia, the goddess of wisdom.
28 ‘In Search of History: The Knights Templar’, © 1997 A & E Television Networks.