Leading history academics in the field of the authors' study, offered judgement on the authors' conclusions, not within the context of the research, which the academics ignored, but instead purely in terms of their own opinion. The authors, grateful to receive the academics' ‘learned assessment', particularly when other academics abstained, were understandably disappointed when the scholars dismissed the discovery.
Within the academics' critique there was not a single conciliatory agreement with the authors that the nineteenth century audit of the bells had erred (the basis of the academic view), or that the authors raised a single point of merit. The authors' were understandably perplexed that all the academics' views were offered in disagreement, yet all their counter-opinion was easily repudiated by contemporary evidence, or lack of it.
The list of the academics' errant opinion was significant, and in blatant disagreement with medieval record. Professor Helen Nicholson, specialising in medieval history and the religious military orders, erred, in that the academic claimed every member of a religious sect always carried their rank and order designation on every document, despite a gross lack of medieval Scottish charter evidence to support the premise. The Templar scholar also claimed the spiritual head of a Templar preceptory was a preceptor, knowing that the preceptor, akin to a prior, answered to a Templar master as spiritual head of the convent, just as a prior would answer to an abbot.
Dr Alice Blackwell (National Museums Scotland), deemed a specialist in heraldry and medieval metal work, cited the interchangeable use of heraldic components was common practice, even though precision had been a legal heraldic requirement since the thirteenth century. This premise was employed by Dr Blackwell to defend the Victorian historian's attribution of the two armorials, presented at the beginning of this article, as belonging to the same person. Dr Blackwell claimed the difference was purely the engravers' compromise to space restriction, despite the space available to the engraver presenting a considerable canvas for complete armorial presentation. The scholar even ignored the fact the Victorian had erred in his understanding of his identified sponsor's armorial attribution in the first instance.
Professor Alan Macquarrie, specialising in Scottish medieval military orders and Scotland's contribution to the crusades, claimed all members of the religious orders were celibate, unmarried and without children, despite the 1128 Templar specific Latin Rule including a proviso for the inclusion of married knights, and over a hundred years of recognised family tradition of membership, father to son.
All critiquing scholars testified the absence of numerals on the 'date' on the inscription (rendering the date unreadable) was acceptable, even though the paradigm does not exist. None had issue with the Victorian's weak interpretation of the bells' inscription, despite its obvious errors in his interpretation of letters, including his proposed name proposition, in which he managed to ignore the obvious incongruities in three of the five letter characters he used to interpret 'Welch.'
It led the authors to two deductions, but one inarguable conclusion. One possibility was the academics offered their genuine misunderstanding of fundamental historical fact. Or, unhappy with the authors' discovery, and not finding a genuine argument against their conclusion, offered fiction designed to purely counter the find, and maintain the academic traditional view regardless of how poorly informed it was. Neither was an endorsement of the academics’ integrity, and in doing so they disqualified themselves from impartial and proficient judgement over the authors' research and conclusion. What was concerning, either way, was that they exposed themselves as fraudulent. The authors had little reason to doubt the academics' competence, and their errant understanding of such basic historical detail was hard to accept, so errant in fact, others less informed could easily see the inaccuracy in the academics' opinion and even questioned the authors' qualification of the academics as ‘specialists’.
The contempt for the academics' views was unanimous, even amongst other history academics, deeming the referred scholars' assessment as singular opinion, not based on fact or any general understanding. It was frustrating the critiquing academics were referred to the owners in the first instance by a significant number of other history academics, including world renown Templar expert, Malcom Barber, as the best option for review.
Considering the stronger possibility the reviewing academics intentionally offered falsehood; as it was easily identified as such, it implicated the academics not only duplicitous, but injudicious to propose something in argument so easily discounted by evidence. Neither their appearance of incompetence nor their poorly offered deception presented profit to the authors. historical understanding, or reward for themselves, as in publication their views would only bring censure by the public, or in other words, lose: lose, defined in absolute terms as stupidity by Professor Carlo M Cipollo (1976).