The Ark of the Covenant: Apparently not the last thing we'll ever read about it!

[SCSimmons]

@APB

Graham Phillips is from Birmingham. How very convenient for him that the Holy Grail should have turned up in Shropshire, the tomb of the Virgin Mary in Anglesey and now the Ark of the Covenant in Warwickshire.

Convenient, perhaps. But isn’t the real thrill of archeaology found in travelling to far-off, exotic locales? It seems to somehow detract from the thrill of discovering legendary artifacts when you dig them up in your own backyard …

Indiana Jones: “OK, I’ll go find the fabulous Nose Ring of Malachi before Hitler’s agents do, no matter what it takes. Let me go pack up & I’ll hop on a plane to … where did that ancient map point to, again?”

Dr. Brody: “Um, make that a cab. Unless you’d like to walk? It’s a very lovely day …”

[Eutychus]

At least Dan Brown will have something to base his next book on.

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

[quote]
Of course any later artifacts purporting to be real are going to match the biblical record as closely as possible.

[quote]
The carving that I mentioned was not made by the Israelites, but by the Romans, it’s on the Arch of Titus, a Roman arch created to celebrate Titus’ victory over the Jews and destruction of Jerusalem. There is no reason to suppose that the Roman carvers knew the Hebrew bible, or would have made their arch in accordance with the Hebrew bible. There is every reason to suppose it is an accurate depiction of the treasures that Titus brought back to Rome.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

I’ve getting dizzy from all this circular logic. Think about this, Dex. All the Romans are doing are celebrating the carting off of somebody else’s treasure. That says absolutely nothing at all about the provenance of that treasure. All it does is say that the Israelites had something they claimed was holy.

If you had a picture of the Huns carrying away a fragment of what they claimed was the True Cross looted from Rome, would it prove that the fragment was indeed the True Cross or that a True Cross ever existed? Obviously not. Just that someone hundreds of years down the line made that claim. Does the Shroud of Turin prove that Jesus existed because it contains an image comporting to that society’s image of Jesus? Obviously not. It was made to that image because a different image wouldn’t be as believable.

Did the Romans sack Jerusalem? Yes. That’s history. All else is historic tradition and myth without the faintest sherd of evidence to back it up.

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

Yes, the Romans are celebrating carting off someone’s treasure. They would not have made a carving of looting Jerusalem carrying off an object that they didn’t view as valuable. The arch of Titus is an honor to Titus, and they didn’t know enough about the Jewish religion to care about non-valuable objects (for instance, objects that might have had symbolic/religous value for the Jews, but no monetary value for the Romans.) Your hypothetical Huns wouldn’t have commemorating carrying off “the true wooden cross” for exactly that reason; they might have commemorated carrying off a golden crown crusted with jewels, if they bothered to commemmorate their looting, but they wouldn’t have bragged about carrying off a piece of wood.

The Romans DID make a carving about carrying off a seven-branched candelabra. We can conclude with some certainty that they actually DID carry off a seven-branched candelabra and that it was valuable or noteworthy to the Romans – covered with gold, for instance. Since that carving matches the biblical description of an object said to be kept in the temple, it is not far-fetched or circular to say that we have outside evidence that a seven-branched candelabra existed in the year 70 AD, and was looted from the Temple by the Romans. I do not know of any archaeologist who disputes that.

Now, I agree, that doesn’t tell us WHEN that candelabra was made or by whom. I’m not asserting that. I’m just asserting that we have some evidence that when the bible reports a seven-branched candelabra in the temple, that there probably was such a thing. That is, the bible is NOT entirely myth, fable, and fiction, but does have at least a few points reflecting historical reality that have been independently verified by non-biblical sources.

Please don’t be confused: I’m not saying that this proves that Moses made the candelabra. I’m only saying that the arch proves (reasonably) that there WAS a candelabra in 70 AD, looted by the Romans.

I’m not claiming this is proof of the history or origin of such a candelabra, only of its existence.

The next step in my argument is that if one of the Temple funishings described in the bible existed, we cannot dismiss out of hand the possibility that others existed. When they were made, by whom, and what they contained, that I don’t know. But the existence of a gold-covered box in the center of the first temple, of dimensions and decoration as described in the bible, is highly probable.

On the question of whether a first temple existed or not, there is little current evidence. However, this is not surprising for a number of reasons.

First, the location would be under the current holy sites (the Dome of the Rock, holy to Muslims, and the Western Wall, holy to Jews, for instance) and so excavation is not possible. Whenever archaeologists try to do any investigation, the Muslims raise holy hell, start rumors that the Jews are trying to destroy their shrines, and so nothing gets done. So, the main place where evidence of the first temple would be found (namely, the site of that temple) cannot be excavated.

I’m reminded of the old story about the man who was looking for a lost ring under the street light, even though he lost the ring in the grass many yards away, because the light is better. If we’re not allowed to dig in the one spot where evidence would be found, it’s kind of silly to argue that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Second, the Jews did not build huge burial monuments to their kings. Thus, while we have an excellent record of the pharoahs of Egypt and of the kings of Babylonia, we have little record of the kings of the Israelites. We have similarly little physical record of the kings of the Greeks. Frankly, we have very little physical evidence even of the various governors appointed by the Romans.

Third, there are problems with excavations elsewhere. Babylon and Egypt and other great ancient centers had their heyday and then faded away. You can dig there and find things. The area called Israel (or Judea) was pretty much a continual site of warfare and occupation and destruction. There’s both too little left – the new buildings were set up on the sites of the old – or there’s too much.

Too much? Yeah. You start digging and you find a Crusader fortress. Do you destroy it to dig below? let’s say you do. You then find a tenth century chruch. Do you destroy it to dig lower? OK, then you find Roman ruins. You destroy them and keep going, and you find ruins from 500 BC and… Well, you see the problem. Each step of the way, you have hordes of archaeologists wanting you to stop digging so they can study the most recent thing you’ve excavated. So, it’s hard to find a site where you can actually dig back as far as 1000 BC (first temple days.)

The so-called minimalists (sorry, I called them “revisionists” in an earlier post, it was a goof) argue that there was no such thing as a Davidic monarchy, and no first temple. There is slight physical evidence to the contrary (a carved reference to the House of David stands out), but nothing overwhelming one way or the other. However, the minimalists are a vocal minority. Most archaeologists consider the issue open, and the absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence.

[Grimpen]

@Exapno Mapcase

Of course any later artifacts purporting to be real are going to match the biblical record as closely as possible. That only pushes the question back to the accuracy of the biblical record. Which is entirely unsupported.

I don’t want to get into a hoorah about the existence of Solomon’s Temple, but I do want to note that there are rather a lot of things about the ancient world for which supporting evidence is scanty. Consequently, the argument “it didn’t really happen, because if it had we’d have other accounts” seems weak to me.

The most striking example I can think of is the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. To the best of my knowledge, we have exactly one surviving reference to that catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius, from Pliny. By the 18th century, the very location of the two cities had been entirely forgotten.

Now: here we have two cities, near the heart of the Roman Empire, both of them wealthy enough and including villas of the governing elite. They are destroyed by fire from the skies, almost overnight. And if it were not for the accident of Pliny’s account (and, of course, the comparatively recent archaeological accident of stumbling upon them) any narrative of the event would have been “entirely unsupported.”

That, of course, proves nothing with regard to the Temple. My point is, rather, that if we’re going to find our way through the often-scanty evidence for the ancient world at all, we have to bear in mind that the massive documentation sometimes available for modern events just wasn’t there for most of the past. There are whole Roman Emperors for whom about the only information we have is the Historia Augustae; and that’s basically a work of historical fiction (or propaganda).

[samclem]

@C K Dexter Haven

I’m reminded of the old story about the man who was looking for a lost ring under the street light, even though he lost the ring in the grass many yards away, because the light is better. If we’re not allowed to dig in the one spot where evidence would be found, it’s kind of silly to argue that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Hey! Stealing my jokes, are you?

Wait. Maybe that was in Leo Rosten.

[sub]nevermind[/sub]

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@C K Dexter Haven

Now, I agree, that doesn’t tell us WHEN that candelabra was made or by whom. I’m not asserting that. I’m just asserting that we have some evidence that when the bible reports a seven-branched candelabra in the temple, that there probably was such a thing.

Your assertion therefore is that the bible reports a seven-branched menorah in Solomon’s temple some hundreds of years BCE. And that a similar menorah was found 70 CE in Herod’s temple. These appear to be factual statements.

What I don’t understand is how you can make any further inferences from these two facts.

Let me step back a pace. The problem - scandal, really - in biblical archaeology is that for almost its entire history it took the bible as truth and set off to find evidence of the events depicted there. Only comparatively recently have scholars tried to isolate themselves from these assumptions and work the other way around: do the archaeology, understand the sites, determine the times and then and only then look back to see if any correspondences remained.

When this proper version of the scientific method is applied much that was accepted had to be disavowed. The times do not correspond well to the bible, the places do not correspond well, the people are either not to be found or have the tiniest and more enigmatic appearances.

It is not or not entirely, as Grimpen implies, from the lack of material endemic to historic sites that the lack of support emerges. The material is there, not plentifully, but in greater profusion than ever thanks to better techniques and better dating capabilities. It’s just that the material was once sloppily and wish-fulfillingly made to fit the written record. Once you stop doing that and let the material speak for itself, the stories told cannot so easily be hijacked.

So I go back to the earlier question: what inferences can be made from the facts as currently understood?

In the case of the menorah on The Arch of Titus, look at this article, which gives a nice close-up.

And some history, a potpourri of the stories surrounding the history of not one menorah but many.

The temple was sacked many times, and the important menorahs were either taken or cleverly hid.

Up until 168 BCE, when

In 168 B.C., the Syrian general, Antiochus Epiphanes, sacked Jerusalem and stole the Menorah, along with the rest of the Temple treasury. Josephus wrote:

"So he left the temple bare, and took away the golden candlesticks, and the golden altar of incense, and table of shewbread, and the altar of burnt offering; and did not abstain from even the veils, which were made of fine linen and scarlet. He also emptied it of its secret treasures, and left nothing at all remaining.

"He built an idol altar upon God’s altar and slaughtered swine upon it. Josephus wrote that the desecration was considered to be the predicted “abomination of desolation.” It was thought to be a fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy in Daniel 8:11-13.

Three years later, on the 25th of Kislev, 165 B.C., Judas Maccabaeus drove the Syrians out of Jerusalem and proceeded to cleanse the Temple. They replaced the Menorah, altar, table, and other furnishings with new items. Josephus reported:

“When therefore he had carefully purged it, and had brought in new vessels, the candlestick, the table, and the altar, which were made of gold, he hung up the veils at the gates, and added doors to them. He also took down the altar of burnt offering, and built a new one of stones that he gathered together, and not of such as were hewn with iron tools. So on the five and twentieth day of the month Kislev, they lighted the lamps that were on the candlestick, and offered incense upon the altar, and laid the loaves upon the table, and offered burnt offerings upon the new altar.”

So the provenance of the menorah found in 70 BCE cannot go back farther than 165 BCE, new materials based on the old. Assuming that any of these tales had historical validity since these are the lamps that would burn miraculously for eight days on one day’s worth of oil and become celebrated as Hanukkah.

But this just takes me back to my original statement. I granted that as long as a temple was in operation there would be a menorah. But my inference remains that any resemblance of the menorah taken in 70 BCE to biblical records has exactly the same meaning as a menorah in today’s synagogues resembling those of the biblical records.

People read the bible, they followed the bible, they tried to emulate what the bible said and said to do. None of that can be reflected backwards to give validity to the original stories. None of that denies them validity either. At present, the best course is the one of neutrality.

Don’t look at all to the biblical records for history. Look to archaeological records for history and learn what stories they tell. For all the problems with archaeology, it is the one discipline that can advance our understanding.

There are lots of people who dispute that the Temple is hidden today under the Temple Mount. They range from the fairly straightlaced theories - see On The Location of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem to less rigorous speculation - see New Evidence for the Site of the Temple in Jerusalem. Whatever. Allow such actual evidence into the discussion, do the digging, and perhaps it will become meaningful to talk about.

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

So the provenance of the menorah found in 70 BCE cannot go back farther than 165 BCE, new materials based on the old. Assuming that any of these tales had historical validity since these are the lamps that would burn miraculously for eight days on one day’s worth of oil and become celebrated as Hanukkah.

The seven-branch menorah is not necessarily the “eternal light” from the Hanukkah story, and the Hanukkah story about the miraculous oil is much later than 165 BC. It was added (or “discovered”) later, so that the celebration of Hanukkah became more than simply a celebration of military victory.

I don’t think we’re saying anything factually different, Expano, but I think we’re coming from different overviews. I’m saying that we have a point at which biblical reference (that there was a seven-branched menorah, described thus-and-so, in the temple) and outside evidence (the arch of Titus) give us one time point in agreement – namely, the period of about 70 AD and presumably for a little time before. If the biblical account of the temple was written around 580 BC (the lastest date any serious scholars assign), there is good reason to suppose that there was a menorah (or a succession of menorahs, as one wore down, was stolen, etc) in the temple from that time to 70 AD, and there is no good reason for assuming that there was no such continuity.

That’s all I’m saying.

I agree with you, on the one hand you have scientists who believed the bible to be inerrant, who distorted their archaeological findings and conclusions. But today, I think, we are on the other extreme: we have scientists who are so determined to prove that the bible is inaccurate, that we get distorted theories the other way.

There are several such websites and historical archaeological accounts. BTW, many of them were written by the Nazis and similar-minded people, who wanted to discredit the Jews. Their bias was that the Jews cannot possibly have made any contributions to civilization, and thus the stories and accounts are all later lies and distortions. So be careful: as there are websites and writings with biases in the direction of biblical accuracy, so there are ditto with biases in the direction of biblical fallacy.

We have a written account. Most of that account, scientists/archaeologists are reasonably comfortable with dating, at least to within a century or two. Like any other written account – like Livy or Pliny or Josephus or Herodotus or whoever – we can take that as a reasonable guide until or unless we have evidence to the contrary. We don’t need to believe them wholly, we know that they distorted and invented for political purposes. But we don’t need to reject everything they say just because we find some bits that were written to suck up to the current patron or ruler.

I’m saying that the existence of an ark (or a succession of arks, if you prefer) in the temple is not at all unlikely, but there’s no outside evidence. You’re saying that the existence of an ark (or succession of ditto) is impossible, because there’s no outside evidence.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

We agree pretty much all the way up to that last sentence. I carefully and specifically did not say it was impossible: I said there is not the slightest external evidence and therefore all assertions should be acknowledged to be based on historic tradition rather than set forth as objective truth. A huge difference, especially since it allows for future discoveries to provide backing.

The Nazi business is a red herring. I won’t deny for a moment that the Internet has allowed for the easy dissemination of anti-Semitic nonsense, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the new scholarly research. Biblical Archaeology has simply been transformed into a new field. I’ve been lucky enough to interview scholars who use the new technologies and their discoveries are amazing. And their mindset is clear. They’re looking at what the texts and artifacts say as texts and artifacts, not as evidence for presupported conclusions. The same revolution has occurred in Central American archaeology, for example, but it doesn’t have the same emotional reaction so nobody objects when everything thought to be known is overturned.

I’m positive that the land now called Israel along with the surrounding areas has a real history. It had kings and wars and a religious heritage and ordinary people living ordinary lives. The centuries came and went and lots of stuff happened. Some of it may have been written down, although mostly in exaggerated and exalted tones, but that serves as much to confuse the real history as to illuminate it.

Right now we honestly don’t know very much of anything about that history, especially before Roman days. It would be interesting to find out what that history truly consisted of. And mixing in palpable fictions is destructive.

Now, it’s true there is a social history very much based upon those fictions, and social history is often more influential than who was king when. But when you start talking about where the capitalized Ark of the Covenant is you’re pureeing social history in with physical history. All I’m saying is that we need to take a step back and see the two as separate distinct threads.

[DrDeth]

@Exapno Mapcase

Now, it’s true there is a social history very much based upon those fictions, and social history is often more influential than who was king when. But when you start talking about where the capitalized Ark of the Covenant is you’re pureeing social history in with physical history. All I’m saying is that we need to take a step back and see the two as separate distinct threads.

The thing is "those fictions’ are as accurate as any other period course, and seem to fit the known archeological facts back to about the time of the first Kings. before that. we begin having non-miracle stuff listed as history that either did not happen or was greatly blown out of proportion.

In other words- the 'written history" aka “the Bible” (back to say 700BC or so) or what you call “'the fictions” is confirmed with every new acheaological discovery. Thus, there is no reason to accept that that wasn’t a “1st Temple” and that they didn’t have an “Ark” in there. Now, beliveing that that Ark contained the actual set of stobe tablets with the original 10 Commandments does take a bit of faith. I admit that anything before David is more “myth & legend” that history- and even David we may never confirm anything solid about other than the name.

And calling the Bible “the fictions’ seems to make it some sort of fictional book. No- it’s a period history (well for most of the later part) and as valid as those scrolls and wall carvings we dig up with the “deeds of such&such the King” from that period. When Eqytologists find a list of Pharoes, even tho they know that list may have been re-written with a Political agenda- they don’t just call it 'a list of lies”. They accept it as “possible fact” and they attempt to work with it- often finding new discoveries thereby. Even when said list talks about the Gods and Miracles and sometimes about a Victory that we are pretty sure that Pharoe really lost.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

I understand that people get upset when I refer to the biblical stories as instructional fictions. The depth of upset only serves to underscore my contention of the damage done by thinking of them as truths.

The social reality is that the parts of both the Old and New Testaments that people care about are the stories. The pomp, the miracles, the confrontations, the emotions, the glory and grandeur. They’re good stories and they’re buried deep inside the cortex of western society. Fiction, especially mythic fiction, is the most powerful force we know of: mere history has nothing to compare.

The Truths that fiction contains, however, are not the Truths of history. Homer was just as important to Greek society as the bible is to ours. And there was a historic Troy, and there were kings, and there were wars. But not one word of Homer is history.

It’s interesting to read the Old and New Testaments as the Iliad and the Odyssey, the first broad and sweeping with giant personalities, the second with its concentration on one individual.

But as in Homer, all, all, the good parts are stories.

[John_W.Kennedy]

@Exapno Mapcase

I understand that people get upset when I refer to the biblical stories as instructional fictions. The depth of upset only serves to underscore my contention of the damage done by thinking of them as truths.

This, apart from venturing into direct insult, is beginning to assume a degree of circularity.

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

I guess the question is whether you would also call Herodotus, Pliny, Josephus, and Livy “instructional fictions” … similarly the carvings on Egyptian pyramids? or on Babylonian steles? Or is the bible and the bible alone accorded that distinction?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@C K Dexter Haven

Or is the bible and the bible alone accorded that distinction?

@Exapno Mapcase

Homer was just as important to Greek society as the bible is to ours. And there was a historic Troy, and there were kings, and there were wars. But not one word of Homer is history.

Unless you’re a biblical inerantist, you already believe that Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, Mt. Sinai and the other stories that start off Genesis and pervade the Torah are instructional fictions. AFAIK, there are few if any inerantists on the Boards, so unless you’re prepared to stand up here and defend young earth creationism, then your attack on me devolves into hypocrisy and I’m the one who should be insulted.

Except for the inerantists, all the scholars agree that many of the biblical stories are adapted from earlier Sumerian and other sources, part of the endless line of fables and creation myths that every society on earth has developed for itself. My argument is not that the bible is unique, but the exact opposite. My attack is for those who put the bible into a special category without acknowledgment of this.

Now, what may be a problem is the use of word “fictions.” There is no good modern word that conveys the intent of these writings: fictions, stories, fables, fantasies, legends, myths, parables all have connotations of something written in apposition to what we now call non-fiction. This distinction did not exist in the same way in early writings. I don’t mean to imply that I think that even the first writers/compilers of Genesis believed in a literal Eve made from a literal Adam’s rib any more than I think that Aesop believed in a literal lion with a thorn in his paw. The points they were making with their stories, however, lie along a continuum rather than being totally separate notions of a fable and a history.

However, it’s become obvious that no one is paying attention to my actual words rather than my apparent effrontery. So unless someone has a factual argument to make that I can reply to, I’m outta here.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

@Exapno Mapcase

Unless you’re a biblical inerantist, you already believe that Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, Mt. Sinai and the other stories that start off Genesis and pervade the Torah are instructional fictions. AFAIK, there are few if any inerantists on the Boards, so unless you’re prepared to stand up here and defend young earth creationism, then your attack on me devolves into hypocrisy and I’m the one who should be insulted.

Except for the inerantists, all the scholars agree that many of the biblical stories are adapted from earlier Sumerian and other sources, part of the endless line of fables and creation myths that every society on earth has developed for itself. My argument is not that the bible is unique, but the exact opposite. My attack is for those who put the bible into a special category without acknowledgment of this.

Now, what may be a problem is the use of word “fictions.” There is no good modern word that conveys the intent of these writings: fictions, stories, fables, fantasies, legends, myths, parables all have connotations of something written in apposition to what we now call non-fiction. This distinction did not exist in the same way in early writings. I don’t mean to imply that I think that even the first writers/compilers of Genesis believed in a literal Eve made from a literal Adam’s rib any more than I think that Aesop believed in a literal lion with a thorn in his paw. The points they were making with their stories, however, lie along a continuum rather than being totally separate notions of a fable and a history.

However, it’s become obvious that no one is paying attention to my actual words rather than my apparent effrontery. So unless someone has a factual argument to make that I can reply to, I’m outta here.

Didactic Fables?

Homilies?

[APB]

More to the point, who cares whether the Ark ever existed when we can instead take the piss out of Graham Phillips?

Although it’s always a bit unfair to criticize a book you haven’t read, especially without seeing what citations (if any) he provides, the relevant section of Phillips’s webpage appears to outline his theory in some detail. Does it stand up to scrutiny?

One such adventurer was Ralph de Sudeley, the leader of the Templars who apparently found the treasure at Jebel Madhbah in the 1180s. He was a wealthy English knight who joined the Templars in the Holy Land in 1182, and in 1189 he returned to his home at Herdewyke in the country of Warwickshire…

There may be some confusion here, as there were two Ralph de Sudeleys, one who died in 1192 and his son, who died in or before 1222. Phillips appears to assume that it was the son. In fact, it was more probably the father who gave the land at Herdewycke/Hardwick to the Templars. But, in any case, giving land to the Templars was not the same as being a Templar. Both father and son have brief entries in the Oxford DNB. Neither mentions that they were Templars or any visit to the Holy Land, despite the obvious biographical significance of such information if it was true. Which does tend to suggests that Phillips has probably got it wrong. Not an encouraging start.

On his arrival home, de Sudeley immediately bought a large estate in the area and founded a Templar preceptory to train new recruits for a fresh Crusade planned by the English king Richard I.

The idea that there was a Templar preceptory at Herdewycke is nonsense. And it is easy to check. The history of landownership in the parish of Burton Dassett (of which Herdewycke is a hamlet) has been reconstructed in great detail in the relevant volume of the Victoria County History. What there was at Herdewycke was not a preceptory but an estate amounting to 4 virgates of land owned by the Templar preceptory at Balsall and leased to tenants. VCH Warwickshire, v. 72; Beatrice A. Lees (ed.), Records of the Templars in England in the Twelfth Century: The Inquest of 1185 (British Academy, 1935), 28. Incidentally, the latter reference shows that the Templars owned this land by 1185, four years before Phillips claims that de Sudeley had returned home.

The local Feet of Fines, contemporary records of land and property holdings, show that de Sudeley’s preceptory possessed expensive holy relics brought back from the Middle East … An entry for the year 1192 included mention of certain objets sacrés—sacred artifacts—that were housed in the chapel of the Herdewyke preceptory.

But the earliest known Warwickshire Feet of Fines dates from 1195 and the earliest one relating to Burton Dassett dates from even later, 1220. Ethel Stokes and Frederick C. Wellstood (ed.), Warwickshire Feet of Fines, 1195-1284 (Dugdale Society, xi. 1982), 1, 45. So something cannot be right.

According to the Warwickshire historian William Dugdale, who wrote in 1656, the Elizabethan explorer Sir Walter Raleigh visited Herdewyke in 1600 and was told a story about the Templars hiding treasure in the area. For some reason or other, Raleigh took it seriously and spent months looking for treasure. He persuaded his wealthy wife (Elizabeth Throckmorton, Maid of Honor to Queen Elizabeth I) to buy the Herdewyke estate and had a gang of men excavate the ruins of the Templar preceptory. Apparently, nothing was found.

Assuming that the Dugdale reference does not come from his manuscripts notes, one takes it that this is from his celebrated Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656). Without a precise page reference, there is only so much time I’m going to waste searching for this. Seventeenth-century indices can be incomplete, but none of the Raleigh entries in the index are to Sir Walter and it’s not from the section on Burton Dassett (pp. 407-10). I’m sceptical.

The bit about Ralegh’s wife also seems to be very confused. The lands at Burton Dassett in that period are actually known to have belonged to the Temple and Wotton families. (That it should have been a family called the Temples who owned this land was just a coincidence, with them having inherited it through a female line.) What is true is that one-third of the manor of Burton Dassett was granted to Thomas Wotton by his father, Thomas, 1st Lord Wotton, in 1608 on the occasion of his marriage to Lady Ralegh’s niece, Mary Throckmorton, and that six years later the other two-thirds were granted as jointure estates to the wife of Peter Temple, who just happened to be Mary Throckmorton’s sister, Anne. VCH Warwickshire, v. 71 [although the VCH does get some of the genealogical connections slightly wrong]. So any connection with Lady Ralegh is only tenuous, does not match what Phillips wants to claim and, in any case, is not that interesting given that the Throckmortons were one of the major county families anyway.

Oddly enough, the leading family in the neighbouring parish of Farnborough, the Raleghs, were relatives of Sir Walter, but that connection was even more distant. Perish the thought that Phillips got them confused.

And, as Hardewycke had never been a Templar preceptory, there would have been no Templar ruins to excavate.

In 1327, five years after they had been outlawed and thrown from their land by Edward II, the Herdewyke Templars helped depose the king by aiding his queen, Isabella of France, who placed her young son Edward III on the throne as puppet king. In gratitude, the queen granted these Templars amnesty although their lands were not returned. As their preceptory was now in the possession of rival landowners, the Templars raised the money to build a new church in the village of Burton Dassett, one-and-a-half miles to the southeast, up on the Burton Dassett Hills. By this time purely a religious order (the Knights Templar had long ceased to be a military organization), the men required the church for their devotions.

The huge problem with this is that the church at Burton Dassett was not new in the fourteenth century. It had always been the parish church and the present building mostly dates from the thirteenth century and earlier. It is also inconceivable that the Augustinian priory at Arbury, to which the advowson had been appropriated, would have allowed anyone, least of all former Templars, to take it over. VCH Warwickshire, v. 72-6; Nikolaus Pevsner and Alexandra Wedgwood, Warwickshire (The Buildings of England, 1966), 221. To say nothing of the fact that there is no evidence that Templars helped place Edward III on the throne.

So, yes, Darklighter, Phillips is unquestionably talking bollocks.