OTTO RAHN Was Born in Michelstadt, Germany, in 1904
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Crusade Against the Grail is the daring book that popularized the legend of the Cathars and the Holy Grail. The first edition appeared in Germany in 1933 and drew upon Rahn's account of his explorations of the Pyrenean caves where the heretical Cathar sect sought refuge during the thirteenth century. Over the years the book has been translated into many languages and exerted a large influence on such authors as Trevor Ravenscroft and Jean-Michel Angebert, but it has never appeared in English until now. Much as German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann used Homer's Iliad to locate ancient Troy, Rahn believed that Wolfram von Eschenbach's medieval epic Parzival held the keys to the mysteries of the Cathars and the secret location of the Holy Grail. Rahn saw Parzival not as a work of fiction, but as a historical account of the Cathars and the Knights Templar and their guardianship of the Grail, a "stone from the stars." The Crusade that the Vatican led against the Cathars became a war pitting Roma (Rome) against Amor (love), in which the Church triumphed with flame and sword over the pure faith of the Cathars. OTTO RAHN was born in Michelstadt, Germany, in 1904. After earning his degree in philology in 1924, he traveled extensively to the caves and castles of southern France, researching his belief that the Cathars were the last custodians of the Grail. Induced by Himmler to become a member of the SS as a civilian archaeologist and historian, Rahn quickly grew disillusioned with the direction his country was taking and resigned in 1939. He died, an alleged suicide, on March 13, 1939, in the snows of the Tyrolean Mountains. CONTENTS Translator's Foreword vii Map of Southern France xvi Prologue xix PART ONE Parsifal 3 PART TWO The Grail 43 The Golden Fleece 53 Gwion's Cup 59 How the Bard Taliesin Came to the World 67 The Legend of the Bard Cervorix 68 The "Pure Ones" and Their Doctrine 70 The Caves of Trevrizent Close to the Fountain Called La Salvaesche 93 Monmur, the Enchanted Castle of Oberon 101 Muntsalvaesche and Montsegur 104 Repanse de Schoye 108 PART THREE The Crusade 115 PART FOUR The Apotheosis of the Grail 157 Appendix: Observations on the Theoretical Part 190 Notes 193 Bibliography 211 Index 224 TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD WHEN URBAN VERLAG IN FREIBURG published the first edition of Crusade Against the Grail [Kreuzzug gegen den Gral] in 1933, the book was not an immediate bestseller. But its eloquence deeply moved those who read it. One so moved was Albert H. Rausch, the 1933 Georg Biichner prizewinner who published under the pseudonym Henry Benrath. Rausch wrote an introduction for the book called Kreuz und Gral [Cross and Grail], which eventually appeared in the Baseler Nachrichten later in the year.1 Perhaps this was why Hans E. Gunther Verlag in Stuttgart decided to republish the work in 1964 under the supervision of Karl Rittersbacher, a disciple of Rudolf Steiner's Theosophical Society. Rittersbacher's edition coincided with the twenty-fifth anniversary of Otto Rahn's death in the Tyrolean Mountains. Over the years, some very successful books have named Crusade as a key source, although, oddly, it was never translated into English.2 Now, seventy-three years after its initial publication, we owe this first English language edition to Verlag Zeitenwende in Dresden and Inner Traditions in Vermont—and my wife's indulgence. The book's author, Otto Rahn, was twenty-eight at the time of its publication. Anchoring his work in the poetry of the troubadours, he hoped to resolve the legend of the Grail and surpass Heinrich Schliemann, the celebrated nineteenth century German archeologist who had used Homer's Iliad to locate ancient Troy. "To open the gates of Lucifer's kingdom," Rahn would write, "you must equip yourself with a Dietrich [skeleton key] ... I carry the key with me." Rahn was convinced that Wolfram von Eschenbach's thirteenth viii TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD century epic Parsifal provided him with the key that would unlock the mysteries of the medieval Cathars and their heretical, dualistic form of Christianity, which venerated something called the Mani. According to Rahn, the characters described by Wolfram were not the products of an old troubadour's imagination; they were clearly identifiable as Albigensian Cathars, and their story would guide him to their lost treasure—the Gral (Grail). Skillfully blending legends and tales, oral history, religion, art, and colorful depictions of one of the most beautiful parts of Europe—the region of southern France that is still known as "the land of the Cathars" [le pays des Cathares]— Rahn describes the brutality of the Papal crusade against southern France and the repression of the Albigensian sect by the Inquisition. The Vatican and Royal Paris combined to destroy Occitan civilization in the first genocide of modern history because the Cathars had worshipped the Mani or Grail and rejected the cross. According to some estimates, this crusade killed nearly a million people. As his translator, I have tried to be as faithful as possible to Rahn's text. Whenever possible, personal names appear in their original Provencal form. Respecting Rahn's desire for academic scholarship, I have restored and reedited his notes, adding new sources along the way that either correct or reinforce his assertions. When necessary, I have checked my own Middle German translations with Professor A. T. Hatto's wonderful version of Parzival.3 The result may be unconventional for mainstream medievalists, but it should be remembered that this daring work is based on solid research in France's prestigious Bibliotheque Nationale, and that early editions included a thorough bibliography. To the best of my knowledge, this is also the first time that parts of Nikolaus Lenau's melancholic poem Die Albigenser (1842) have appeared in English. Lenau, considered Austria's chief lyric poet, was a pseudonym for Nikolaus Niembsch Edler von Strehlenau (1802-1850), an Austrian aristocrat who was born in Hungary. Basing his verses on historical research, Lenau wrote in a letter that "the subject fascinates me," and "my courage is great... for all, I hope that God looks benevolently on this work." According to Lenau's biographer Anastasius Griin, the task was easily completed, although the poet's mind failed in 1844. He died in an asylum. In other important passages, Rahn calls upon the prophetic thoughts TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD ix of Goethe (1749-1832) and Novalis (1772-1801) to help us understand the moral and political confrontation between the Cathars and Roman Catholicism. This clash marked the end of an era of individual spiritual experimentation and the beginning of an epoch of pious strangulation, which is personified in Crusade by the vicious thirteenth century Dominican Inquisitor Bernard Gui. Gui's famous handbook for interrogators is an important if highly flawed source of the little knowledge we have of the Albigensian sects. Like the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco, who used the sadistic character of Gui many years later in his book The Name of the Rose (1984), Rahn contrasts Cathar spiritual freedom with the Inquisition's cruel techniques as a bizarre symbol of "the gloss of stifling authority."4 Just recently, Gui's book, Le Livre des sentences de l'Inquisiteur Bernard Gui (1308-1323)—better known as The Inquisitor's Manual—was republished in French under the supervision of Annette Pales-Gobillard, although, perhaps as a sign of the times, an English translation is not planned.5 The Romantic period of the 1840s, which saw revolutions sweep across Europe in 1848, coincided with the 600th anniversary of the fall of the Cathar fortress of Montsegur. Many republican revolutionaries saw the Cathars as the forerunners of the anticlerical radicals who stormed the Bastille in 1789. Momentarily freed from the censorship of reactionary Catholicism, many academics took a fresh look at the Cathars' tragic story, and this renewed interest in the Albigensian crusade provided Rahn with several important cornerstones for his book. Prominent among these works are the monumental five volumes of L'Histoire des Albigeois (1870-1881) by Napoleon Peyrat (1809-1881).6 An authentic Romantic historian in the tradition of Michelet, the Ariege-born Peyrat became a Protestant pastor in 1831, and was close to the anticlerical poet Beranger. His first major work, Les Pasteurs du desert (1842), deals with the revolt of the Protestant camisards and cevenols in the seventeenth century. Curiously, just like Otto Rahn, Peyrat was convinced that he was descended from Cathar heretics. This obsession led him to spend forty years researching and writing the history of the Cathars (the last volume of L'Histoire des Albigeois was published posthumously). Although Peyrat certainly popularized the fortress of Montsegur as the symbol of Cathar resistance, his works, like x TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD Rahn's book, are well supported by solid research in the archives of the Inquisition that are still kept in Carcassonne. Rahn's theological ideas were greatly influenced by Ernest Renan (1823- 1892). The beliefs he expressed in his series, L'Histoire des Origines du Chretianisme [The History of the Origins of Christianity], which included his most famous work, La Vie de Jesus (1863), were quite close to the liberal Protestant school (David Friedrich Strauss and others). A tremendous success, La Vie de Jesus sold nearly 5,000 copies per week. But Catholics were enraged: between 1863 and 1864, an incredible 300 books and booklets were published denouncing his "blasphemy" and "mistakes." But the book was published again and again; today, forty-five different editions have come out, with the most recent appearing in 2005. Another important source from this period was Beitrage zur Sektengeschichte des Mittlealters [Essays on the History of Sects in the Middle Ages] (1890) by the Bavarian theologian Ignaz von Dollinger (1799-1890).