Henry Lincoln, Jehan l'Asquiz & Antoine Bigou

Henry Lincoln, Jehan l'Asquiz & Antoine Bigou

Paul Smith

14 November 2018

Henry Lincoln – in the letter below dated 20 July 1985 to an Australian journalist – wrote about Jehan l'Asquiz as if he was a historical person.

Several frontispieces in books by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln contained verses of poetry by Jehan l'Asquiz – but Jehan l'Asquiz never existed and was only a figment of the imagination.

Henry Lincoln claimed “Hugh Payne” was the leading expert on Jehan l'Asquiz – clearly a play on the name Hugues de Payen. His address was given as New Jersey, USA – Richard Leigh originated from New Jersey.

Here lies further evidence of the unreliability of Henry Lincoln.

HENRY LINCOLN

c/o 22, Prince Albert Road,
LONDON, NW1 7ST,
E N G L A N D.

Ref: HL/8/785/HB/665

20th July 1985

Dear Douglas Carpenter,

Thank you for your most interesting letter. I'm glad you found HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL of interest.

I apologise for the delay in replying. You are quite correct in your surmise that our mail is multitudinous! And it does have a habit of piling up – especially when, as recently, I have been out of the country. (Not, this time, wholly for research, but rather in response to the enormous number of requests that have come in that I should lead tours to Rennes-le-Château ... a highly enjoyable way of meeting fellow ‘labourers in the field’.)

In reply to your queries:

Yes, indeed, I think it is always necessary to be extremely cautious when drawing conclusions based on the type of material which is associated with the Saunière mystery. Our primary concern has always been to search for that evidence which is both demonstrable and provable – and then to base reasonable assumptions on that proven evidence. It is because we realise that much of the material – especially that which relates to remote periods of time – can never be utterly proven, that we present our conclusions as an hypothesis and not ... as some other writers would ... as definitive final conclusions. Richard, Michael and I find it most pleasing when readers, such as yourself, note that careful distinction which we have made.

We hope that we have, at the least, opened certain doors for researchers like yourself. We still await, after many years of work, for any fragment of evidence to appear which will tend to contradict our thesis. So far, every new fragment has tended to confirm. And so, the research continues! And yes – we shall be presenting further material in a new book to be published, we hope, in the early part of 1986.

As for Jehan l'Ascuiz – you assume correctly that the poem we quote does seem very clearly to relate to the mystery of Rennes-le-Château. Your informant is in error in suggesting to you that he is a contemporary writer. Where on earth did he get that idea? I suspect it's more of the (un)inspired guesswork which plagues the research!

Evidence concerning Jehan is extremely fragmentary. However, it seems safe to state that he appears to have been writing in the middle years of the fifteenth century. What survives of his work seem to be French translations (c.17th/18th century) from Jehan's original writings in Occitan.

-2-

We first discovered Jehan in autograph – apparently in the hand of Antoine Bigou. (This remains to be proven.) The poem we quote, with other fragments of writing, was found in the form of annotations in books of French history. The provenance of these books seems to have been in the library of one Edmund Stuart, who, in the nineteenth century, had a Bureau de Change near Leicester Square in London and who appears to have acquired material belonging to Bigou.

Unfortunately, we have been too occupied to follow up this particular lead. We hope that some other researcher may find the matter of sufficiant interest to undertake the work. (Not yourself, I suggest! It might be somewhat difficult being as remotely situated as you are!)

We have recently learned that there is a scholar in America who seems to be the leading Jehan l'Ascquiz expert. If you wish to get in touch with him, we have only this address: Hugh Payne, 150, Newcomb Road, TENAFLY, New Jersey, 07670 USA.

I will enclose with this letter a couple of photocopied pages from the books, so that you may see the material which we have.

Thank you again for your letter. We shall add your name to our address list to ensure that you are kept informed of future publication dates etc.

With all good wishes,

Yours sincerely,

H. Lincoln