The meeting between Pope Sylvester and the desposyni, following on the heels of the sanctioning of the Church of Rome by Constantine, it can be argued, marked the escalation of a feud between the Church and the desposyni and their adherents.  Why was the Church so antagonistic toward these people?  Because they were Gnostic in their beliefs.  Simply put, Gnosis was knowledge begot from personal experience – Gnostics didn't need bishops and priests to get to God, their connection to the spiritual realm was a direct one (so they believed), and the early Gnostics in Europe inherited their beliefs from none other than the desposyni – the descendants of Christ and his Davidic family.  (It is instructive to note that our words 'Knowledge' and 'Noble' both derive from the Greek root 'Gnosis.')

In 1945 some farmers in Egypt stumbled on to an earthenware jar full of leather-bound papyrus texts near the town of Nag Hammadi.  Unfortunately some of the books were burned (for fire-wood!) before they attracted the attention of scholars, but most were rescued.  The codices found among the Nag Hammadi texts include dozens of non-canonical (excluded from the bible) Gospels including the Gospel of Thomas, of Philip, the Apocryphon (Secret Book) of James, the Apocryphon of John and many others.  It is thought that these might have been buried in the 4th century after the Church, which by then had compiled and edited the "canonical" New Testament which reflected its own dogma, condemned the use of non-canonical books.  What is significant about these rejected texts is their 'gnostic' (and, as some have remarked, 'dualistic') nature, in fact they are routinely referred to as the 'Gnostic texts.'

The Gnostics, believing their relationship with God a direct and personal one, had little use for the Roman Church, its trappings and its self-serving doctrine.  In response, the Church branded the Gnostic sects all heretics, and as the Church became more and more powerful, its campaign to stamp out Gnosticism intensified.

Maybe the best known of the Gnostic sects were the Cathars, who thrived in Southern France, then called the Languedoc, between the 12th and 14th centuries.  They were wiped out during the Albigensian Crusade, a campaign sponsored by Pope Innocent III and the Roman Church.  This was a 30-year killing spree carried out by knights mostly from Northern Europe whereby anything that moved was put to the sword.  Reportedly 20,000 people were killed at the Massacre of Beziers alone, where, when asked how the men were to distinguish between Cathars and Catholics, the Abbot of Citeaux, Arnald Amalaricus, famously replied, "Kill them all, God will know his own" (loosely translated).

The Albigensian Crusade is named for the commune of Albi in Southern France, which had a notably large Cathar population.  Apparently the name traces back to Roman times, and it's worth noting that Albi was, at times, home to a Jewish community.  It's also worth noting that legends from the region, particularly to the east around Marseilles, persist in which Mary the Magdalene sailed to Southern France after the crucifixion where she lived out her life.   Finally, another legend suggests that the infant son of Dagobert II, the last effectual Merovingian King of the Franks, was whisked to the Razes region of Southern France by his sister following their father's murder in 679.  (Pepin of Herstal and the Church apparently colluded in Dagobert II's murder, which eventually cleared the way for the Church-backed Carolingian line of Kings.)  Dagobert's son's name was Sigebert (IV), and there is a charter dated 718 whereby one Sigebert, Compte de Rhedae, founded a monastery in Razes.  It's hard not to conclude that this Sigebert was indeed the son of Dagobert the Merovingian King; the math adds up (Sigebert would have been in his 30's when the monastery was founded), and he held the title of 'Compte' (Count) right there in Razes where the legend says he and his sister took refuge.

A few things about the Merovingian Kings before I end this post (with what I think are two pretty stunning revelations).  They were revered by the Franks and accepted as rightful rulers by virtue of their blood.  They were considered mystics.  They and the Franks they ruled believed they derived special powers from their long hair (like Samson of the bible).  Certain aspects of Salic Law, the legal code of the Franks, appear to have been plucked right out of the Jewish Talmud.  Finally, from looking into the genealogy of the early Merovingians and that of the Fisher Kings, or 'Gra'al Kings,' I'm convinced that the two branches mixed.  Frotmund, who married Hatilde, Princess of the Franks, was directly descended from the Fisher Kings, and it was from their great-grandson Merovee that the Merovingians got their name.  This means that the Merovingian Kings had Davidic blood, and they apparently received a double-dose.  Frotmund and Hatilde's daughter, Agotta, was apparently married to Quintus Tarus, described as a "desposynic prince in Roman service in Provence."  I couldn't tell you from where Quintus Tarus got his Davidic blood, but Marseille, where Mary the Magdalene allegedly landed, is in Provence, and if he was desposynic, then he was a descendant of Jesus or of someone in Jesus' immediate family (the definition of desposynic).  Here's a link to a rough genealogy which is my attempt to trace from King David (of the bible) through the family of Jesus, the Fisher Kings, the Merovingians and ultimately to Godfrey de Bouillon, the Duke from the House of Lorraine who led the First Crusade.  (There's a statue of Godfrey in Innsbruck and around his helmet is a crown of thorns – his family blood-line was recognized in the Middle Ages as being Davidic.)

Now, taking into account the animosity between the Roman Church and the desposyni, the Davidic blood of the Merovingians, and the legends of Mary the Magdalene and, centuries later, Sigebert IV both taking refuge in Southern Gaul (France), I think the reader will find it as intriguing as I did that Sigebert's wife is also named in the medieval charter I mentioned earlier.  Her name was Magdala.  OK, I know that that's not proof of anything, but if Sigebert's Merovingian line was not just royal but also Davidic, and if Mary the Magdalene really did wind up in Southern France, what are the odds that Sigebert IV would marry a girl there named Magdala who was not descended from the Magdalene???

Finally we get to the Albigensian Crusade, by which the Roman Church got rid of all the Gnostics of Southern France (and probably any desposynic families in the region as well) for good.  Allow me to quote from my previous post about Alfred the Great.

There is an artifact from Alfred's time sitting in a museum in Oxford, England, nicknamed the 'Alfred Jewel.' Made of gold and embedded with an image of the king rendered in quartz and enamel it is a handle for a pointer which Alfred allegedly used when instructing his officers and bishops or going over maps. It is inscribed in Latin, 'Aelfred mec heht gewyrcan,' meaning "Alfred ordered me made." But look at how Alfred is spelled in the original text inscribed on the jewel – AELFRED, with an extra 'E' after the 'A.' We'll circle back around to this A-E linking in a moment.

Scotland was once called 'Alba', or 'Albany.' Where did this name come from? I can tell you that 'alpus' in Latin meant white, that the Alps are so named for their white peaks, and that both names, 'Alba' and the 'Alpine' range of mountains share the same Latin root. Alba was not named for any white-peaked mountains however, it was named for the Picts that lived there. (What was so "white" about these Scots of Pict ancestry will be discussed directly.)

Here we are rescued by the etymology of words and names which, fortuitously, are immune to the rewriting and editing of history by medieval bishops and monks.

Any good linguist will confirm that a number of letters in the writing systems of the world tend to fall somewhat universally together into several groupings. The letters C, S and K for example seem to be closely related, i.e. one migrates and replaces another repeatedly in words that mean the same thing in related languages. The Great Mother Goddess of Anatolia, Cybele, when spelled with a C, takes a soft 'C' or "S" sound. The name of the goddess can be found in literature spelled with a 'K' also however, in which case Kybele is pronounced with a hard C sound. Finally, when the cult of Cybele merged with that of the Greek Zeus, the result was the cult of Saba-zios, 'Saba,' spelled beginning in an 'S' being representative of Cybele/Kybele. A grouping which is most relevant to our topic is that which includes consonant sounds represented by letters F, B and P. In Japanese a written 'Fu,' when two little slashes are added becomes a 'Bu,' and when the slash-marks are exchanged for a small circle the 'Bu' becomes a 'Pu.'

In exactly the same manner, the 'Alb' core of Alba (Scotland) has a sister and a brother, 'Alp' and 'Alf.' We can see this 'Alb' word-portion in action in various words and names; an Albino is a person or animal almost completely lacking in pigment, i.e. exceedingly fair skinned with snow-white hair. The name Albert, not uncommon among medieval royalty, would be another example, one conspicuous Germanic king called Albert 'the Bear' was the patriarch of several famous Houses that provided a number of Holy Roman Emperors during the middle ages. Another obvious 'Alp/Alb/Alf' name would be Alfred.

Now it gets good. Alfred could be, and I am certain should be, read as Alf-red, and I am prepared to take this exercise one step further. I have used the term 'Aetheling' numerous times thus far, without commenting on its meaning. The simple straight-forward definition would be 'royal family' – but it was more than that. It was an extended family, making up what was known as the 'Aetheling pool,' and in ancient and forgotten times each English monarch was chosen from this royal pool by the Witan (council of the realm). It wasn't necessarily the eldest male son of the outgoing king who was chosen to rule, but the most exemplary candidate, devoid of flaws, who warranted confidence that he would rule justly, wisely, and effectively. (Sounds like a pretty smart set-up to me; this system was abandoned and subsequently forgotten in England when William of Normandy conquered England in 1066.)

Unfortunately my laptop doesn't seem to be able to jam the beginning 'A' and 'E' of the term Aetheling into a single 'AE' letter, which is the correct way to spell it. This 'AE' linking, bolstered by the 'Aelfred' spelling on the Alfred Jewel described above, prods me to suspect that we should, just out of curiousity, exchange the A in 'Alf' for an E and see what it yields … 'Elf'!!! So, maybe Alfred the Great would be, upon the lifting of centuries of fog, 'Elf-red, the Great,' i.e. the "Great Red Elf"???

Exactly. And the former name of Scotland, Alba/Albany, would have been, quite literally, "Land of the Elves."

This leap of etymological faith is not as spurious as it might seem. An 'elf' in Norway or Sweden is in fact an 'alv,' and in Denmark the word is 'alf.' An elf dance in Scandinavia is an 'alvdanser.' In Swedish myth the 'alvor' were beautiful faery-girls who lived in the forest with their 'alven' king, and Germanic mythology tells of a nightmare-conjuring elfish creature called an 'alp.'…

The Albigensian Crusade got its name not directly from the Cathars but from the Cathar region of Albi, however the 'gens' in Albigensian means "race."  This was, literally, a crusade to exterminate the Albi-race.  Maybe the commune was originally named for something white, like the Alps, though Albi is not a mountainous region and the weather there is so mild it seldom snows.  My guess is that, like Alba (Scotland), it was named for the elves that ruled there.

Am I implying some sort of connection between the Merovingians, the Fisher (Gra'al) Kings, the Davidic line and "elves"? – In a word, uh, yes.

Below is the Coat of Arms of the French commune of Albi.  What's that I see???  Is it, it is!  The Cross of Lorraine(!!!).  What's it doing there?

The reasonable explanation is that ancestors of Godfrey de Bouillon and the (allegedly) Davidic (and I contend, at least in the Dark or Middle Ages, "elven") House of Lorraine, once lived in Albi.

You can't make this stuff up.