Rosslyn Chapel, also known as the Collegiate Chapel of Saint Matthew, is a 15th-century Episcopal chapel located in the village of Roslin in

Midlothian Midlothian (; ) is registration county, lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area and one of 32 council areas of Scotland used for local government. Midlothian lies in the east-central Lowlands, bordering the City of Edinburgh council ar ...

, Scotland. The chapel was founded by

William Sinclair, 1st Earl of Caithness William Sinclair (1410–1480), 1st Earl of Caithness (1455–1476), last Earl (Jarl) of Orkney (1434–1470 de facto, –1472 de jure), 2nd Lord Sinclair and 11th Baron of Roslin was a Norwegian and Scottish nobleman and the b ...

with a ground-breaking ceremony in 1456. After the

Scottish Reformation The Scottish Reformation was the process whereby Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland broke away from the Catholic Church, and established the Protestant Church of Scotland. It forms part of the wider European 16th-century Protestant Reformation. Fr ...

in 1560, it was largely abandoned but, following a visit by

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

, it was rededicated in 1862. It was the target of a bombing in 1914 during the

suffragette bombing and arson campaign Suffragettes in Great Britain and Ireland orchestrated a bombing and arson campaign between the years 1912 and 1914. The campaign was instigated by the Women's Social and Political Union, Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), and was a part ...

. The interior contains some fine carvings which many historians have sought to interpret. Since the late 1980s, the chapel has been the subject of speculative theories concerning a connection with the

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...

and the

Holy Grail The Holy Grail (, , , ) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenanc ...

, and

Freemasonry Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

. It was prominently featured in this role in

Dan Brown Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his Thriller (genre), thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon (book series), Robert Langdon novels ''Angels & Demons'' (2000), ''The Da Vinci Code'' (2003), '' ...

's bestselling novel ''

The Da Vinci Code ''The Da Vinci Code'' is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is “the best-selling American novel of all time.” Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon—the first was his 2000 novel '' Angels & Demons''� ...

'' (2003) and its 2006 film adaptation. Medieval historians say these accounts have no basis in fact. Rosslyn Chapel remains privately owned. Rosslyn Chapel plan

History

Early history

The chapel is dedicated to Saint Matthew the Evangelist and was founded on a small hill above Roslin Glen as a

collegiate church In Christianity, a collegiate church is a church where the daily office of worship is maintained by a college of canons, a non-monastic or "secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, headed by a dignitary bearing ...

(with between four and six ordained canons and two boy choristers) in the mid-15th century. The chapel was founded by

of the

Scoto-Norman The term Scoto-Norman (also Franco-Scottish or Franco-Gaelic) is used to describe people, families, institutions and archaeological artifacts that are partly Scottish (in some sense) and partly Anglo-Norman (in some sense), after the Norman Conq ...

Sinclair family Clan Sinclair ( ) is a Highland Scottish clan which holds the lands of Caithness, the Orkney Islands, and the Lothians. The chiefs of the clan were the Barons of Roslin and later the Earls of Orkney and Earls of Caithness. The Sinclairs are b ...

. Rosslyn Chapel is the third

Sinclair Sinclair may refer to: Places * Lake Sinclair, near Milledgeville, Georgia * Mount Sinclair, Canada * Sinclair, Iowa * Sinclair, West Virginia * Sinclair, Wyoming * Sinclair Mills, British Columbia * Sinclair Township, Minnesota * Sincl ...

place of worship at Roslin, the first being in

Roslin Castle Roslin Castle (sometimes spelt Rosslyn) is a partially ruined castle near the village of Roslin, Midlothian, Roslin in Midlothian, Scotland. It is located around south of Edinburgh, on the north bank of the River Esk, Lothian, North Esk, only a ...

and the second (whose crumbling buttresses can still be seen today) in what is now Roslin Cemetery.Turnbull, Michael, 'Rosslyn Chapel Revealed' (Sutton Publishing Ltd., November 2007) Sinclair founded the college to celebrate the

Liturgy of the Hours The Liturgy of the Hours (), Divine Office (), or ''Opus Dei'' ("Work of God") are a set of Catholic prayers comprising the canonical hours, often also referred to as the breviary, of the Latin Church. The Liturgy of the Hours forms the official ...

throughout the day and night, and also to celebrate

Catholic Mass The Mass is the central liturgical service of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church, in which bread and wine are consecrated and become the body and blood of Christ. As defined by the Church at the Council of Trent, in the Mass "the same Christ ...

es for all the faithful departed, including the deceased members of the Sinclair family. During this period, the rich heritage of plainsong (a single melodic line) or polyphony (vocal harmony) were used to enrich the singing of the liturgy. Sinclair provided an endowment to pay for the support of the priests and choristers in perpetuity. After the

in 1560, Catholic worship in the chapel was brought to an end. The chapel's altars were destroyed in 1592. In 1842 the chapel, then in a ruined and overgrown state, was visited by

, who expressed a desire that it should be preserved. Restoration work was carried out in 1862 by

David Bryce David Bryce Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, FRSE FRIBA Royal Scottish Academy, RSA (3 April 1803 – 7 May 1876) was a Scotland, Scottish architect. Life Bryce was born at 5 South College Street in Edinburgh, the son of David B ...

on behalf of

James Alexander, 3rd Earl of Rosslyn General James Alexander St Clair-Erskine, 3rd Earl of Rosslyn PC, DL (15 February 1802 – 16 June 1866), styled Lord Loughborough from 1805 to 1837, was a Scottish soldier and Tory politician. A General in the British Army, he also held polit ...

. The chapel was rededicated on 22 April 1862, and from this time, Sunday services were once again held, now under the jurisdiction of the

Scottish Episcopal Church The Scottish Episcopal Church (; ) is a Christian denomination in Scotland. Scotland's third largest church, the Scottish Episcopal Church has 303 local congregations. It is also an Ecclesiastical province#Anglican Communion, ecclesiastical provi ...

1914 bombing

The chapel was the subject of a

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

attack on 11 July 1914, when a bomb exploded inside the building. This was as part of the

of 1912–1914, in which suffragettes carried out a series of politically motivated bombing and arson attacks nationwide as part of their campaign for

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

. Churches were a particular target during the campaign, as it was believed that the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

was complicit in reinforcing opposition to women's suffrage. Between 1913 and 1914, 32 churches were attacked nationwide. In the weeks leading up to the attack, there were also bombings at

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London, England. Since 1066, it has been the location of the coronations of 40 English and British m ...

and

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...

Restoration, conservation and tourism

The Rosslyn Chapel Trust was established in 1995, with the purpose of overseeing its conservation and its opening as a sightseeing destination. The chapel underwent an extensive programme of conservation between 1997 and 2013. This included work to the roof, the stone, the carvings, the stained glass and the organ. A steel canopy was erected over the chapel roof for fourteen years. This was to prevent further rain damage to the church and also to give it a chance to dry out properly. Three human skeletons were found during the restoration. Major stonework repairs were completed by the end of 2011. The last major scaffolding was removed in August 2010. A new visitor centre opened in July 2011. The chapel's stained-glass windows and organ were fully restored. New lighting and heating were installed. The expected cost of the restoration work is around £13 million, with about £3.7 million being spent on the Visitor Centre. Funding has come from various sources including

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

Historic Scotland Historic Scotland () was an executive agency of the Scottish Government, executive agency of the Scottish Office and later the Scottish Government from 1991 to 2015, responsible for safeguarding Scotland's built heritage and promoting its und ...

and the environmental body, WREN. Actor

Tom Hanks Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Ha ...

also made a donation. Photography and video have been forbidden in the chapel since 2008. The chapel sells commercially produced photos in its shop. In 2006, historian Louise Yeoman criticised the Rosslyn Chapel trust for "cashing in" on the popularity of ''

'', against better knowledge. In the financial year of 2013–14, Rosslyn Chapel recorded 144,823 visitors, the highest number since 2007–08, when (at the height of popular interest induced by ''The Da Vinci Code''), the number of visitors was close to 159,000. The current owner is Peter St Clair-Erskine, 7th Earl of Rosslyn.

Architecture

The original plans for Rosslyn have never been found or recorded, so it is open to speculation whether or not the chapel was intended to be built in its current layout. Its architecture is considered to be among the finest in Scotland. Construction of the chapel began on 20 September 1456, although it has often been recorded as 1446. The confusion over the building date comes from the chapel's receiving its founding charter to build a collegiate chapel in 1446 from Rome. Although the original building was to be

cruciform A cruciform is a physical manifestation resembling a common cross or Christian cross. These include architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly described as having a cruciform ...

, it was never completed. Only the choir was constructed, with the retro-chapel, otherwise called the

Lady chapel A Lady chapel or lady chapel is a traditional British English, British term for a chapel dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus, particularly those inside a cathedral or other large church (building), church. The chapels are also known as a Mary chape ...

, built on the much earlier

crypt A crypt (from Greek κρύπτη (kryptē) ''wikt:crypta#Latin, crypta'' "Burial vault (tomb), vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, Sarcophagus, sarcophagi, or Relic, religiou ...

(Lower Chapel) believed to form part of an earlier castle. The foundations of the unbuilt

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform ("cross-shaped") cruciform plan, churches, in particular within the Romanesque architecture, Romanesque a ...

s stretching to a distance of 90 feet were recorded in the 19th century. Construction of the planned nave and transepts was abandoned. The Lower Chapel (also known as the crypt or

sacristy A sacristy, also known as a vestry or preparation room, is a room in Christianity, Christian churches for the keeping of vestments (such as the alb and chasuble) and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records. The sacristy is us ...

) should not be confused with the

burial vaults A burial vault (also known as a burial liner, grave vault, and grave liner) is a container, formerly made of wood or brick but more often today made of metal or concrete, that encloses a coffin to help prevent a grave from sinking. Wooden coffi ...

that lie underneath Rosslyn Chapel. The chapel stands on fourteen pillars, which form an arcade of twelve pointed arches on three sides of the nave. At the east end, a fourteenth pillar between the penultimate pair form a three-pillared division between the nave and the Lady chapel. The three pillars at the east end of the chapel are named, from north to south: the Master Pillar, the Journeyman Pillar and, most famously, the Apprentice Pillar.

Apprentice pillar

One of the more notable architectural features of the chapel is the "Apprentice Pillar, or "Prentice Pillar". Originally called the "Prince's Pillar" (in the 1778 document ''An Account of the Chapel of Roslin'') the name morphed over time due to a legend dating from the 18th century, involving the master mason in charge of the stonework in the chapel and his young apprentice mason. According to the legend, the master mason did not believe that the apprentice could perform the complicated task of carving the column without seeing the original which formed the inspiration for the design. The master mason travelled to see the original himself, but upon his return was enraged to find that the upstart apprentice had completed the column by himself. In a fit of jealous anger, the master mason took his mallet and struck the apprentice on the head, killing him. The legend concludes that as punishment for his crime, the master mason's face was carved into the opposite corner to forever gaze upon his apprentice's pillar. On the

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; , also called an epistyle; ) is the lintel or beam, typically made of wood or stone, that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can also apply to all sides, including the vertical members, ...

joining the pillar there is an inscription, ''Forte est vinum fortior est rex fortiores sunt mulieres super omnia vincit veritas'': "Wine is strong, a king is stronger, women are stronger still, but truth conquers all" (

1 Esdras 1 Esdras (), also Esdras A, Greek Esdras, Greek Ezra, or 3 Esdras, is the ancient Greek Septuagint version of the biblical Book of Ezra in use within the early church and among many modern Christians with varying degrees of canonicity. 1 Esdra ...

, chapters 3 & 4). The author Henning Klovekorn has proposed that the pillar is representative of one of the roots of the Nordic

Yggdrasil Yggdrasil () is an immense and central sacred tree in Norse cosmology. Around it exists all else, including the Nine Worlds. Yggdrasil is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'' compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and in t ...

tree, prominent in Germanic and

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

.Klovekorn, Henning. ''The 99 Degrees of Freemasonry''. Cornerstone, 2007 . The general form of the pillar has been related to a type described by the French architect

Eugène Viollet-le-Duc Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (; 27 January 181417 September 1879) was a French architect and author, famous for his restoration of the most prominent medieval landmarks in France. His major restoration projects included Notre-Dame de Paris, ...

as a "bunch of sausages." A full-size

plaster cast A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a pregnant belly, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – ...

of the Apprentice Pillar and the adjacent bay of the chapel was made in 1871, and is in the Cast Courts of the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

in London.

Carvings

Among Rosslyn's many intricate carvings are a sequence of 213 cubes or "boxes" protruding from pillars and arches with a selection of patterns on them. It is unknown if these patterns have any particular meaning attached to them. Many people have attempted to find information coded into them, but no interpretation has yet proven conclusive. Unfortunately, many of these 'boxes' are not original, having been replaced in the 19th century after erosion damage. One recent attempt to make sense of the boxes has been to interpret them as a musical score. The motifs on the boxes somewhat resemble geometric patterns seen in the study of

cymatics Cymatics (from ) is a subset of modal vibrational phenomena. The term was coined by Swiss physician Hans Jenny (1904–1972). Typically the surface of a plate, diaphragm, or membrane is vibrated, and regions of maximum and minimum displacement ...

. The patterns are formed by placing powder upon a flat surface and vibrating the surface at different frequencies. By matching these Chladni patterns with musical notes corresponding to the same frequencies, the father-and-son team of Thomas and Stuart Mitchell produced a tune which Stuart calls the ''Rosslyn Motet''. Rosslyn chapel green men

There are more than 110 carvings of " Green Men" in and around the chapel. Green Men are carvings of human faces with greenery all around them, often growing out of their mouths. They are found in all areas of the chapel, with one example in the Lady chapel, between the two middle altars of the east wall. Indian corn rosslyn

Other carvings represent plants, including depictions of wheat, strawberries or lilies. The authors

Robert Lomas Robert Lomas is a British writer, physicist and business studies academic. He writes primarily about the history of Freemasonry as well as the Neolithic period, ancient engineering, and archaeoastronomy. Career Lomas gained a First Class Ho ...

and Christopher Knight have hypothesised that some carvings in the chapel represent ears of new world corn or

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

, a plant which was unknown in Europe at the time of the chapel's construction.Knight, Christopher; Lomas, Robert. ''The Hiram Key''. Fair Winds Press, 2001 . In their book they discuss meeting with the wife of botanist Adrian Dyer, and that Dyer's wife told him that Dyer agreed that the image thought to be maize was accurate. In fact, Dyer found only one identifiable plant among the botanical carvings and suggested that the "maize" and "aloe" were stylised wooden patterns, only coincidentally looking like real plants.

Crypt

The chapel has been a burial place for several generations of the Sinclairs; a crypt was once accessible from a descending stair at the rear of the chapel. This crypt has been sealed shut for many years, which may explain the recurrent legends that it is merely a front to a more extensive subterranean vault containing (variously) the mummified head of

Jesus Christ Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

, the

treasure Treasure (from from Greek ''thēsauros'', "treasure store") is a concentration of wealth — often originating from ancient history — that is considered lost and/or forgotten until rediscovered. Some jurisdictions legally define what constit ...

of the

Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a military order of the Catholic faith, and one of the most important military orders in Western Christianity. They were founded in 11 ...

s, or the original crown jewels of Scotland. In 1837, when the 2nd Earl of Rosslyn died, his wish was to be buried in the original vault. Exhaustive searches over the period of a week were made, but no entrance to the original vault was found and he was buried beside his wife in the Lady Chapel.

Rooftop pinnacle

The pinnacles on the rooftop have been subject to interest during renovation work in 2010. Nesting jackdaws had made the pinnacles unstable and as such had to be dismantled brick by brick revealing the existence of a chamber specifically made by the stonemasons to harbour bees. The hive, now abandoned, has been sent to local bee keepers to identify.

Burials

* William Alexander (1690–1761) Lord Provost of Edinburgh, outside to north-east * Sir William Alexander (d.1842) outside, to north-east * Sheila Chisholm (1895–1969), Australian socialite and "it girl" in British high society during and after World War I, who was the mother of Anthony St Clair-Erskine, 6th Earl of Rosslyn *

(in the choir) *

James St Clair-Erskine, 3rd Earl of Rosslyn General James Alexander St Clair-Erskine, 3rd Earl of Rosslyn PC, DL (15 February 1802 – 16 June 1866), styled Lord Loughborough from 1805 to 1837, was a Scottish soldier and Tory politician. A General in the British Army, he also held poli ...

James St Clair-Erskine, 2nd Earl of Rosslyn General James St Clair-Erskine, 2nd Earl of Rosslyn, (6 February 1762 – 18 January 1837) was a British Army officer and politician who served as Lord President of the Council from 1834 to 1835. Background and education Erskine was the son ...

(in the Lady Chapel) * Lady Angela St Clair-Erskine, daughter of the 4th Earl. * Anthony St Clair-Erskine, 6th Earl of Rosslyn

In popular culture

Templar and Masonic connections

The chapel became the subject of speculation regarding its supposed connection with the

beginning in the 1980s. This part of its history was referenced in the

DC Comics DC Comics (originally DC Comics, Inc., and also known simply as DC) is an American comic book publisher owned by DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book seri ...

storyline ''Batman: Scottish Connection'', in which the hero

Batman Batman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on M ...

becomes caught up in an old vendetta between two Scottish clans during a visit to Scotland, this mystery including the discovery of an ancient treasure trove hidden in Rosslyn. The topic entered mainstream pop culture with

's ''

'' (2003), reinforced by the subsequent film of the same name (2006). Numerous books were published after 2003 to cater to the popular interest in supposed connections between Rosslyn Chapel, Freemasonry, the Templars and the

generated by Brown's novel. The chapel, built 150 years after the dissolution of the Knights Templar, supposedly has many Templar symbols, such as the "Two riders on a single horse" that appear on the Knights Templar Seal. William Sinclair 3rd Earl of Orkney, Baron of Roslin and 1st Earl of Caithness, claimed by novelists to be a hereditary Grand Master of the Scottish stonemasons, built Rosslyn Chapel. A later William Sinclair of Roslin became the first Grand Master of the

Grand Lodge of Scotland The Grand Lodge of Antient Free and Accepted Masons of Scotland is the governing body of Freemasonry in Scotland. It was founded in 1736. About one third of Scotland's lodges were represented at the foundation meeting of the Grand Lodge. Histo ...

and, subsequently, several other members of the Sinclair family have held this position.

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by the National Geographic Global Networks unit of Disney Enter ...

. ''Knights Templar'', 22 February 2006 video documentary. Written by Jesse Evans. Robert L. D. Cooper, curator of the Grand Lodge of Scotland Museum and Library, in 2003 published a 12th edition of the 1892 ''Illustrated Guide to Rosslyn Chapel'' with the intention of countering the "nonsense published about Rosslyn Chapel over the last 15 years or so". Cooper in 2006 also published ''Rosslyn Hoax?'' in which he actively debunks this type of speculation at length and in great detail. An example is the comparison of the Rosslyn myth of the Apprentice Pillar with that of the ''allegorical'' references to Hiram Abiff in Masonic ritual, and in the process he debunks any similarities between the two. A minute comparison between the Rosslyn Myth and the Masonic allegory can be found in a detailed tabular form in The Rosslyn Hoax? Cooper further debunks other claims of a connection between carvings within Rosslyn Chapel and Scottish Freemasonry. The suggestion that the Apprentice Pillar is a physical reference to the Entered Apprentice degree of Scottish Freemasonry logically led to the conclusion that the other two pillars (in line south to north with the so-called Apprentice Pillar) represented the Fellow of Craft degree (middle pillar) and the Master Mason's degree (north pillar). This association of three pillars in the east part of Rosslyn Chapel with the three degrees of Scottish Freemasonry is impossible, given the fact that (according to Cooper) the third degree of Freemasonry was invented c.1720 - almost 300 years after Rosslyn Chapel was founded. The claim that the layout of Rosslyn Chapel echoes that of

Solomon's Temple Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (), was a biblical Temple in Jerusalem believed to have existed between the 10th and 6th centuries Common Era, BCE. Its description is largely based on narratives in the Hebrew Bible, in which it ...

has been analysed by Mark Oxbrow and Ian Robertson in their book, ''Rosslyn and the Grail'':

Rosslyn Chapel bears no more resemblance to Solomon's or Herod's Temple than a house brick does to a paperback book. If you superimpose the floor plans of Rosslyn Chapel and either Solomon's or Herod's Temple, you will actually find that they are not even remotely similar. Writers admit that the chapel is far smaller than either of the temples. They freely scale the plans up or down in an attempt to fit them together. What they actually find are no significant similarities at all. ..If you superimpose the floor plans of Rosslyn Chapel and the East Quire of
Glasgow Cathedral Glasgow Cathedral () is a parish church of the Church of Scotland in Glasgow, Scotland. It was the cathedral church of the Archbishop of Glasgow, and the mother church of the Archdiocese of Glasgow and the province of Glasgow, from the 12th ...
you will find a startling match: the four walls of both buildings fit precisely. The East Quire of Glasgow is larger than Rosslyn, but the designs of these two medieval Scottish buildings are virtually identical. They both have the same number of windows and the same number of pillars in the same configuration. ..The similarity between Rosslyn Chapel and Glasgow's East Quire is well established. Andrew Kemp noted that 'the entire plan of this Chapel corresponds to a large extent with the choir of Glasgow Cathedral' as far back as 1877 in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries. Many alternative history writers are well aware of this but fail to mention it in their books.

As to a possible connection between the St. Clairs and the Knights Templar, the family testified against the Templars when that Order was put on trial in Edinburgh in 1309. Historian Dr. Louise Yeoman, along with other medieval scholars, says the Knights Templar connection is false, and points out that Rosslyn Chapel was built by William Sinclair so that Mass could be said for the souls of his family. It is also claimed that other carvings in the chapel reflect

Masonic Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

imagery, such as the way that hands are placed in various figures. One carving may show a blindfolded man being led forward with a noose around his neck. The carving has been eroded by time and pollution and is difficult to make out clearly. The chapel was built in the 15th century, and the earliest records of freemasonic lodges date back only to the late 16th and early 17th centuries. A more likely explanation, however, is that the Masonic imagery was added at a later date. This may have taken place in the 1860s when

instructed Edinburgh architect

, a known Freemason, to undertake restoration work on areas of the church including many of the carvings.

Alternative histories

Alternative histories involving Rosslyn Chapel and the Sinclairs have been published by Andrew Sinclair and Tim Wallace-Murphy arguing links with the

and the supposed descendants of

. The books in particular by Tim Wallace-Murphy and Marilyn Hopkins ''Rex Deus: The True Mystery of Rennes-le-Château and the Dynasty of Jesus (2000)'' and ''Custodians of Truth: The Continuance of Rex Deus'' (2005) have focused on the hypothetical

Jesus bloodline The Jesus bloodline refers to the proposition that a lineal sequence of the historical Jesus has persisted, possibly to the present time. Although absent from the Gospels or historical records, the concept of Jesus having descendants has gained a ...

with the Sinclairs and Rosslyn Chapel. On the ABC documentary ''Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci'', aired on 3 November 2003, Niven Sinclair hinted that the descendants of Jesus Christ existed within the Sinclair families. These alternative histories are relatively modern - not dating back before the early 1990s. The precursor to these Rosslyn theories is the 1982 book ''

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail ''The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail'', published as ''Holy Blood, Holy Grail'' in the United States, is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. The book was first published in 1982 by Jonathan Cape in London as an unoffici ...

'' (retitled ''Holy Blood, Holy Grail'' in the United States) by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and

Henry Lincoln Henry Soskin (12 February 1930 – 23 February 2022), better known as Henry Lincoln, was a British author, television presenter, scriptwriter, and actor. He co-wrote three ''Doctor Who'' multi-part serials in the 1960s, and — starting in th ...

that introduced the theory of the Jesus bloodline in relation to the

Priory of Sion The ''Prieuré de Sion'' (), translated as Priory of Sion, was a fraternal organisation founded in France and dissolved in 1956 by hoaxer Pierre Plantard in his failed attempt to create a prestigious neo-chivalric order. In the 1960s, Plantar ...

hoax - the main protagonist of which was

Pierre Plantard Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair (born Pierre Athanase Marie Plantard, 18 March 1920 – 3 February 2000) was a French technical artist, best known for being the principal fabricator of the Priory of Sion hoax, by which he claimed from the 1960 ...

, who for a time adopted the name Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair.

Notes

References

External links

Official Rosslyn Chapel website

Congregation websiteRosslyn Chapel's extraordinary carvings explained at last
— an article on Rosslyn's Green Men, and an associated reading of its carvings, from ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...

''
QuickTime Virtual Reality Image of Rosslyn Chapel by Jonathan Greet"The Rosslyn Templar", a book about the pastel painting by R T McPherson in 1836 of a "Templar Knight at Roslin Chapel" with new photographs of the Chapel
{{Authority control 15th-century church buildings in Scotland 1446 establishments in Scotland Category A listed buildings in Midlothian Chapels in Scotland Churches in Midlothian Collegiate churches in Scotland Listed churches in Scotland Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact Scheduled monuments in Midlothian Freemasonry in Scotland Episcopal church buildings in Scotland Clan Sinclair