French Israelism (also called Franco-Israelism) is the French nationalist belief that people of

Frankish Frankish may refer to: * Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture ** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages * Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany * East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...

descent in general, and the Merovingian dynasty in particular, are the direct lineal descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, specifically, the descendants of the Tribe of Benjamin. One of the earliest scholars who claimed that he could trace the ten lost tribes of Israel to France was the French

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Bez ...

writer,

Jacques Abbadie Jakob Abbadie (; 25 September 1727), also known as Jacques or James Abbadie, was a French Protestant minister and writer. He became Dean of Killaloe, in Ireland. Life Jacques Abbadie was born at Nay, Béarn, probably in 1654, although 1657 and ...

, who fled French Roman Catholic persecution and later settled in London, England. In his 1723 work, ''The Triumph Of Providence'', he wrote: The claim became one of the foundational elements for the

Priory of Sion The ''Prieuré de Sion'' (), translated as Priory of Sion, was a fraternal organization founded in France in 1956 by Pierre Plantard in his failed attempt to create a prestigious neo-chivalric order. In the 1960s, Plantard began claiming that ...

hoax created by

Pierre Plantard Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair (born Pierre Athanase Marie Plantard, 18 March 1920 – 3 February 2000) was a French technical drawer, best known for being the principal fabricator of the Priory of Sion hoax, by which he claimed from the 1960 ...

and

Philippe de Chérisey Philippe Louis Henri Marie de Chérisey, 9th marquess de Chérisey (13 February 1923 – 17 July 1985) was a French writer, radio humorist, surrealist and supporting actor (using the stage name Amédée). He is best known for his creation o ...

in the 1960s, and it was fused with the notion of a

Jesus bloodline The Jesus bloodline refers to the proposition that a lineal sequence of descendants of the historical Jesus has persisted to the present time. The claims frequently depict Jesus as married, often to Mary Magdalene, and as having descendants living ...

and popularized in 1982 by the authors of the speculative nonfiction book '' The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail'',Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, ''The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail'', Corgi, 1982. . and in 2003 by Dan Brown for his 2003 mystery thriller novel ''

The Da Vinci Code ''The Da Vinci Code'' is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon: the first was his 2000 novel ''Angels & Demons''. ''The Da Vinci Code'' follows symbologist Robert Langdon ...

''.

Notes

Groups claiming Israelite descent Pseudohistory Neologisms {{france-stub

See also

Notes