Investigating fantastic claims of Templar secrets and treasure [audio 27min]

700 years ago, on Friday 13th October 1307, the main leaders of the Knights Templar were arrested in Paris, and all their assets were seized. They were tortured, accused of betraying Christ himself, and the most wealthy and powerful religious order of the previous two centuries was stamped out of existence. Did they harbour a dreadful secret? Theologian Martin Palmer travels to Templar sites across England to separate fact from fantasy. He begins in the place where part of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code is set, among the effigies in Temple Church in London. The building's distinctive circular shape, like others of their churches, was created by the Templars to re-create Constantine's basilica in Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In the course of Palmer's journey, he talks with one of the writers who helped create the most recent wave of interest in the Templar knights, Lynn Picknett, co-author with Clive Prince of The Templar Revelation, cited by Dan Brown as a major influence on his best-selling novel. Palmer talks with scholars Jonathan Riley-Smith and Helen Nicholson, and meets modern-day Templar Knights in the regalia of the medieval order, a red splayed cross on a white mantle. Palmer is Secretary General of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation and Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture. He is a regular presenter on religious and historical topics for BBC radio and television. Website includes extended audio, photo gallery, web links.