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The Da Vinci Code FAQ, or Will the Real Priory of Sion Please Stand Up?, by Massimo Introvigne
Beyond the DaVinci Code
uncoding the Code
The DaVinci Code: Unveiling the Truths
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Lindsey Parnaby/European Pressphoto Agency

The author Dan Brown arriving at the High Court in London.
By SARAH LYALL
LONDON, Feb. 27 Opening arguments began here on Monday in a case that sets Dan Brown, megaselling author of "The Da Vinci Code," against the authors of a nonfiction book who contend that he stole their ideas for his book.
Speaking before a packed courtroom in London's High Court, Jonathan Rayner James, the lawyer for the aggrieved authors, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, said that Mr. Brown had "appropriated" the "architecture" and central argument of their book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" (1982) in "The Da Vinci Code," published in 2003.
The case has enough twists for a novel in itself. For one thing, both "The Da Vinci Code" and "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" are published in Britain by Random House. That means that Mr. Baigent and Mr. Leigh are suing their own publisher. (A third co-author, Henry Lincoln, has decided not to participate in the case.)
Then there was the sight of the intensely private Mr. Brown, dressed in his customary turtleneck and blazer, sitting not far from Gail Rebuck, chief executive of Random House U.K., in the courtroom's front row. Although he is not named as a defendant, Mr. Brown plans not only to attend the entire trial but also to take the stand, as a defense witness for Random House. Ms. Rebuck said in a statement that "Random House takes no pleasure in defending legal action that it believes is without merit, and we are confident that we shall prevail." If the plaintiffs win, the case could conceivably have wide repercussions on copyright law in Britain, affecting authors whose novels rely on the original historical research of other authors. Random House is arguing, for instance, that a ruling for the plaintiffs would affect the future work of novelists like Robert Harris, Michael Crichton and Julian Barnes.
If Random House loses, the case could potentially affect the release in Britain of the film "The Da Vinci Code," starring Tom Hanks and Ian McKellen, scheduled to open here on May 19.
"The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" (published in the United States as "Holy Blood, Holy Grail") posits that Christ survived the crucifixion and went on to marry Mary Magdalene, that the couple's descendants are still flourishing today, that factions within the Catholic Church are eager to suppress this information, and that the Holy Grail is far more mysterious and far more complicated than anyone ever imagined.
The three authors spent five years, from 1976 to 1981, researching the book, they say, before arriving at what they call the "central architecture" of their argument. It is this architecture the trajectory of the case they make in "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" that they say Mr. Brown appropriated, rather than individual words or passages.
"It is not as though Brown has simply lifted a discrete series of raw facts from 'The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail,' " the plaintiffs argue in court papers. "He has lifted the connections that join the points up." They continue: "There is no other credible explanation as to how the architecture from "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" could be in "The Da Vinci Code."
In addition, the plaintiffs say, their book is not "a historical account of facts and it does not purport to be such," but is, rather, "a book of historical conjecture setting out the authors' hypotheses" and thus protected by copyright.
Mr. Brown does not deny that he consulted "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" before publishing "The Da Vinci Code." In fact, one of his characters Sir Leigh Teabing, a partial anagram of the authors' surnames actually has the book on his bookshelf. In one passage in "The Da Vinci Code" Mr. Brown summarizes the Jesus-Mary Magdalene theory, saying that "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" is the most important book in the area.
But Random House's lawyers argue that "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" is just one of many sources Mr. Brown consulted, and that it was relatively unimportant to his research. Furthermore, they say, many of the basic ideas put forward in "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" were not original, anyway, but had been around for years in other sources.
In addition, they say, "The Da Vinci Code" is full of ideas that do not appear in "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail," including conjectures about Leonardo's part in the heretical conspiracy; the pagan worship of female gods,* and the writing of the Bible.
The trial is expected to last as long as three weeks.
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*But in November, 2002 Mark Amaru Pinkham wrote heretically "The Christ Myth" which also preceded Brown's account!
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