00:00 Renowned historian Tom Holland and Dominic discuss the opening of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" and their differing opinions on its gripping nature.

05:54 "The Da Vinci Code claims that the Priory of Zion is a real organization founded in 1099, and that documents discovered in 1975 inspired the writing of the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail."

10:32 The Merovingians, a line of kings descended from Clovis, were believed by Dan Brown to have survived and been guarded by secret societies, including the Priory of Science, which is associated with the Templars and the Cathars, and their existence is rooted in significant developments in medieval Christendom.

15:20 The Cathars, a group targeted by the Pope and inquisitors in the 13th and 14th centuries, are believed to have slipped out of their last fortress with the Holy Grail, which is connected to the bloodline of Mary Magdalene and is a central theme in Dan Brown's book "The Da Vinci Code."

20:06 The Da Vinci Code is based on authentic historical manuscripts found in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, known as the secret dossiers of Henri Lobineau, which contain the history of the prior of science and a list of its heads.

25:04 The story of Wren Le Chateau involves a 19th-century priest named Beranger Soniaire who came into a large amount of money and used it to put esoteric sculptures in his church, leading to an ecclesiastical trial and his eventual defrocking, but the mystery is that no one knew where the money came from until it was revealed that Soniaire had found secret documents that proved the existence of a secret Merovingian bloodline, which he likely used to blackmail the Catholic Church for money.

29:42 Pierre Plantar, the son of a butler and a cook, becomes fascinated with chivalry and secret societies, setting up his own organization called Alpha Galaties and later founding the Priory of Zion, which was primarily focused on mundane activities like running school buses and dealing with local housing controversies.

34:28 Pierre Plantard reboots the Priory of Zion as an esoteric chivalric fellowship and creates fake documents to support his claims, but is surprised when Henri Lincoln brings in the idea of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, which Pierre Plantard dismisses as nonsense.

39:15 Noel Corbou buys a hotel and restaurant in Ren Le Chateau and tries to attract customers by claiming that Béranger Sonier found a treasure and hidden manuscripts, including Gnostic gospels, in the area.

43:54 The conspiracy theory surrounding the Cathars and the bloodline of Christ evolved over the 20th century, drawing on the mysterious nature of the Middle Ages and the authentic conspiracies and mysteries of that time.

48:37 The Cathars, as conventionally understood, may not have actually existed, according to some historians who argue that the popularized version of the Cathars is not true.