by The Laird o’Thistle
December 25 2008
One of my longstanding favorite movies is “The Lion in Winter” starring Peter O’Toole as King Henry II, the late Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine, and featuring a constellation of other stars including Anthony Hopkins, Nigel Terry, and Timothy Dalton. Set at Christmas Court at the Angevin stronghold at Chinon (France) in the late 12th century, there is a point at which Eleanor comments about Christmas to her young rival, Princess Alice, “When I was a girl the Holy Land had two kings, God, and Uncle Raymond… and I was never quite sure whose birthday we were celebrating.”
Back in 2004, I devoted my December column to the ties between Queen Eleanor’s family and the crusading era Kings of Jerusalem. This time around I thought I’d spend a bit of time on the ancient royal line of Israel, the House of David, and some of the surprising connections that just might link it to the current royal houses of Europe. For in this Christmas season it seems possible that the crowned heads of Europe… and many of us commoner sorts as well… may be distant cousins to the Prince of Peace! (Would that we showed a greater family resemblance, eh?)
That said, I offer the caveat that I am NOT talking about descendants of Jesus himself! I’m not going down that road, nope, no way, not a chance. I am not the least bit interested in promoting any of the more fantastic conspiracy theories of the last decade or so. I’m quite content to let Jesus’ private life remain private, whatever the fantasies. But there is a distinction between historical fantasy and historical speculation based on actual possibilities. I’m dealing here with the latter, and even then pronouncing the old Scotch verdict of “not proven” on my own case.
Even many folks who might describe themselves as biblically illiterate would acknowledge that they are somewhat familiar with some of the stories of King David, the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who as a boy slew the giant Goliath with a slingshot, and soothed the semi-mad King Saul with his harp playing. According to the ancient accounts, David went on to marry into Saul’s family, also forming an intimate bond – exactly how intimate being a matter of lively dispute – with Saul’s son Jonathan, and eventually succeeded to the throne in his own right after the death of Saul and Jonathan in battle. David then established his dynasty at Jerusalem, and out of his own extremely dysfunctional family (which provides a lively narrative of cases of adultery, rape, incest, and rebellion) eventually emerged his reputedly great and wise son and successor, King Solomon, and all the subsequent rulers of the small kingdom of Judah for the following four centuries. (Readers can consult the books of I & II Samuel, and I & II Kings in the Hebrew Bible for the details.)
Along the way, the House of David came to be viewed as specially favored by God. Numerous prophecies concerning Davidic princes and kings became part of the biblical record, and more importantly of the religious ideology of the times. Churchgoers during this Christmas season regularly hear readings from the Prophet Isaiah, in particular, relating to Immanuel, the Prince of Peace, arising from the “stump of Jesse,” and so on.
Up until recently, there has not been any hard external evidence to confirm the Bible’s story of King David, and there still isn’t much. In 1994 an inscription was found at an archaeological site called Tel Dan that mentions the “House of David.” That inscription dates to approximately 850 B.C.E., which would be about 150 years after the time of the David himself. Just this year, in October 2008, it was announced that a contemporary inscription has been found on a clay ostracon (a small clay tablet used for record-keeping and messages) at Elah, part of the ancient realm associated with David lying some 20 miles from Jerusalem. The inscription apparently does not name David per se (it is still being deciphered), but archaeologists do believe it includes the words “judge”, “slave”, and “king”, and that it may prove to be some sort of official communication or record from David’s time.
Two other Israeli archaeologists, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, came out with a book a couple of years ago where they portray the historical David and Solomon as probably far less grand than the characters portrayed in the Bible. (The biblical accounts were part of a court history believed to have been compiled in about the 7th century B.C.E., after the fall of the northern realm of Israel, at a time when the surviving kingdom of Judah was prospering and taking a more prominent role among the neighboring nations.) Much like the modern British studies showing that King Arthur’s Camelot, etc., was largely an ideologically useful creation of the troubadours of the 12th century rather than a historical reality of the 5th century, Finkelstein and Silberman suspect that a far simpler historical reality lies behind the grand tales of scripture. David was most probably something like a prominent hill chieftain who may have founded a relatively minor kingdom adjoining the larger emergent power of Israel, but there is thus far no unambiguous independent evidence for anything like the “Empire” attributed to David and Solomon, or even of their brief rule over neighboring Israel. Simply put, King David seems to have been ancient Judah’s King Arthur, both in his “once” humble origins and in his “future” legendary and ideological importance.
As I noted earlier, the “House of David” ruled in Jerusalem up until the Babylonians carried the royal family off into exile, along with the bulk of the Judean ruling class, in the sixth century B.C.E. The biblical record itself notes that after a period of harshness, the surviving exiled royals were accorded a place of dignity and honor. After the Persian takeover of Babylon by Cyrus the Great many of the Jewish exiles were permitted to return to Judah and to begin to rebuild Jerusalem under Persian suzerainty. Among the first of the returning exiles was a prince of the House of David called Sheshbazar, who is probably the same as the prince elsewhere known as Zerubbabel. He figures prominently in some of the records and prophecies immediately following the return to Jerusalem, and then mysteriously disappears from the records… possibly removed by the Persians as a threat to their rule and authority. But, even so, in the lore of Judaism the anticipation of a coming Davidic King, the Messiah, became deeply rooted, firmly grounded in new interpretations of the old prophecies.
The question, then, is whether the mysterious disappearance of Zerubbabel was the end of the House of David, or not? The answer seems to be, “No.” But we may get there… like the Magi on their return home…by “another way.”
Anyone who has ever attended a Christian Christmas service of any kind probably recalls that the writers of the Christian gospels portray Jesus – or, at least St. Joseph — as being “of the house and lineage of David.” (Church tradition, in order to guarantee an actual physical descent from David to Jesus, has long portrayed the genealogy in the Gospel of Luke as actually being that of the Virgin Mary, even though the text itself does not say that.) And great play is given by St. Matthew to story of the arrival of the Persian Magi in search of the newborn “King” of Israel. That said, there is no verifiable independent corroboration to these stories, and it always strikes me as curious that Jesus himself is shown to rather downplay the Davidic connection whenever possible in the gospels. His preferred title was not “Son of David,” but “Son of Man” (which has a very different theological significance). It was primarily others, the crowds and such, who called him David’s Son. In the end, however, Jesus was crucified under the accusation of being “King of the Jews,” and despite whatever one may believe concerning the truth of the resurrection no earthly Davidic realm was re-established, and no lineage of any of Jesus’ Davidic kin is known beyond the first century or so. (The early church historian Eusebius does mention a few of Jesus’ relatives who figured in the earliest phase of the Church in Jerusalem.)
All that being said, a branch of the House of David does seem to have survived in Babylon, and to have held the state-recognized office and dignity of “Exilarch” (meaning “Head of the Exile”) for over a millennium. This is documented from the second century B.C.E. down to around the year 1050 of the Common Era, with claimants mentioned on down into the 12th century. After the advent of Islam the Exilarchs were particularly honored by the authorities because of their supposed descent from the Prophet David (Dawood). Their role as head of the Jewish people under the Persians and their successors involved both some civil and also cultural functions… such as patronage of scholars… as well as a certain and inescapable religious status. And their dignity was internationally recognized, even by rulers such as Charlemagne.
And here it is that we come to the one last step which may, or may not, tie the House of David to medieval France, and on to the surviving royal houses of modern times. In the latter part of the 8th century, Charlemagne granted to the Jewish inhabitants of Narbonne the right to be ruled by their own “prince”, a gentleman named Machir, possibly a rabbi. The records are understood to at least say that the line of the “Kings of the Jews” at Narbonne was approved by the Exilarchs in Babylon, and they MAY even indicate that Machir and his family were actual descendants of the Davidic line. (The classic investigation of this is Arthur Zuckerman’s A Jewish Princedom in Medieval France, 768-900, but some of Zuckerman’s assertions remain controversial and hotly disputed.) The Jewish dynasty at Narbonne persisted possibly as late as the 14th century.
Some recent genealogists, such as the late Garter King of Arms, Sir Anthony Wagner, and the delightfully eccentric Scot, Sir Iain Moncreiffe, Albany Herald, held that some of the medieval French nobility had intermarried with members of the Narbonnese dynasty, and thus they held that the “interesting probability” exists that most if not all the current ruling monarchs in Europe are descendants of the House of David. Specifically applied to the British, Moncreiffe suggested that Isabella of Angouleme, the consort of King John and mother of Henry III, descended from this line. And hence the lineage persists right down to the family entourage who will troop to church at Sandringham on Christmas morning, and chat up the crowd after service.
Such a tenuous link, stretched across three millennia, offers no real rank or privilege. But it may serve at least to stimulate the imagination. I have long since found the most engaging thing in my genealogical delvings to be the sense of interconnection that my discoveries impart. The fact that a distant in-law actually put up Bonnie Prince Charlie for a night is fascinating. The knowledge that the major laird of my ancestral parish still has the right to wash the hands of the King or Queen of Scots as a form of feudal service is something I relish. So it’s no surprise that I am rather looking forward, this Christmas, to hearing again the carol, “Once in Royal David’s city stood a lowly cattle shed….” And I do hope the royals have just a bit of the same sense and a tiny wee shiver of their own.
I wish to each and all a most blessed Christmas, or Hannukah, or Midwinter Day, or whatever… and most especially a happy Hogmany, and “a guid new year!”
Yours Aye,
– Ken Cuthbertson