Knights Templar

Knights Templar
Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon
*Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici*
Knights Templar ; Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon; Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici
	Seal of the Knights Templar
Active	c. 1118-1312
Allegiance	Papacy
Type	Christian military order
Size	Thousands of active knights
Headquarters	Temple Mount, Jerusalem
Nickname(s)	Order of the Temple
Patron	St. Bernard of Clairvaux
Attire	White robe with a red cross
Engagements	The Crusades, including:; Siege of Acre,; Battle of Montgisard,; Reconquista
Commanders
First Grand Master	Hughes de Payens
Last Grand Master	Jacques de Molay

This article is about the medieval military order. For other uses of the term, please see Templar (disambiguation).

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici), popularly known as the Knights Templar or the Order of the Temple, were among the most famous of the Christian military orders.^[1] The organization existed for about two centuries in the Middle Ages, created in the aftermath of the First Crusade of 1096 to ensure the safety of the large numbers of European pilgrims who flowed toward Jerusalem after its conquest.

The Templars were an unusual order in that they were both monks and soldiers. Members of the Order played a key part in many battles of the Crusades, and the Order's infrastructure innovated many financial techniques that could be considered the foundation of modern banking.^[2] The order's Knights were also famous and easily recognized, with a white surcoat with distinct red cross emblazoned above the heart or on the chest, as seen in many portrayals of crusaders.

After being officially recognized and sanctioned by the church in 1128, the Order became a favored charity across Europe, and grew rapidly in membership and power. At its peak it was comprised of thousands of knights, who made up one of the best equipped, trained, and disciplined fighting units of the Crusades. The Order also used its resources to construct numerous fortifications throughout Europe and the Holy Land. However, the tide eventually turned in the Crusades, and the Templars began suffering crushing defeats. Further conflict arose at home, as royals who were in financial debt to the Order grumbled at the organization's tax-free status. Things came to a head in 1307, when King Philip IV of France (Philip the Fair) caused many of the order's members in France to be arrested, tortured into "confessions" and burned at the stake.^[3] A few years later Pope Clement V, under further pressure from King Philip, forcibly disbanded the entire order. The sudden disappearance of a major part of the European infrastructure spawned a plethora of speculation and legends, which continue to keep the name "Templar" alive in modern fiction.

History

File:Ordemilitar.gif

A Knight Templar

Rise

After the First Crusade resulted in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, many European pilgrims headed for the city to visit the holy sites. However, though the city was under relative control, the outlying areas were not. Combat continued, and pilgrims were routinely attacked and slaughtered as they attempted to make the journey from the coastline into the Holy Land.

Around 1118, French knight Hughes de Payens, a veteran of the First Crusade, proposed the creation of the Order for the protection of pilgrims on this perilous journey.^[4] King Baldwin II of Jerusalem agreed with de Payens and his nine compatriots, and gave them a headquarters in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount, in the captured Al Aqsa Mosque. The Temple Mount had a mystique about it, as it was above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon.^[5] It was from this location that the Order took its name of Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon. They had little in the way of resources at the time, and their emblem displayed two knights riding on a single horse, emphasizing their impoverished status.^[1]

Poverty did not last long though. They had a powerful patron in the form of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who spoke and wrote persuasively on their behalf. In 1128 at the Council of Troyes, the order was officially recognized and sanctioned by the church, and with this formal blessing, donations started pouring in. They received money, land, and noble-born sons from families across Europe, who were eager to help with the fight in the Holy Land. Another major benefit came in 1139, when the Order was declared by Papal bull to be not subject to local laws, meaning that they could pass freely through all borders, and were exempt from all authority except that of the Pope.^[1]

With its clear mission and ample resources, the Order grew rapidly. Its warrior members were highly trained and well-equipped with the most powerful armament of the day. Templars were often the advance force in key battles of the Crusades, as the knights on their warhorses would set out to gallop full tilt at the enemy, in a (frequently successful) attempt to break enemy lines and give the rest of the Crusader forces an advantage in any battle.^[6]

The primary mission of the Order was a military one, but only a small percentage of its members were actually at the front lines, and many others acted in support positions, both to support the knights individually, and to develop a financial infrastructure to manage all the donations. For example, the Order innovated ways of generating letters of credit for pilgrims who were journeying to the Holy Land, which involved pilgrims depositing their valuables with a local Templar office before setting off on the journey, receiving a document indicating how much they had deposited, and then being able to use that document once they arrived in the Holy Land to retrieve their money. This may have been the first form of checking put into use, and it both improved the safety of pilgrims by making them less attractive targets for thievery, and further increased the Templar coffers.^[5]

The Templars were renowned for their honesty and trustworthiness. Great wealth was funneled to the Order, but it was dealt with responsibly, as the individual members had all sworn vows of poverty, and any hint of fraud was an offense punishable by death.^[7] Because of this trust, they were given control of further resources, by nobles who would place their wealth and lands under Templar management while the nobles themselves journeyed off to fight in the Crusades. From this mixture of donations and shrewd business dealing, the Order acquired large tracts of land both in Europe and the Middle East, built churches and castles, bought farms and vineyards, was involved in manufacturing, import and export, had its own fleet of ships, and for a time even owned the entire island of Cyprus. With its extensive financial networks across all of Christendom, the Order was effectively the first international banking organization.^[6]

Fall

However, as the Muslim world became more united under such effective leaders as Saladin, the tide turned in the Crusades, and after several disastrous battles including the pivotal Battle of the Horns of Hattin, Jerusalem was lost to Saladin in 1187. The Templars were forced to relocate their headquarters to other cities in the north, and then continued to be steadily pushed back, losing more and more land, until they had little more than a well-fortified location in the city of Tortosa (in what is now Syria), where they remained for decades. But then that too fell, leaving them with an offshore headquarters on the island of Cyprus.

With the Holy Land lost, and the Order's military mission no longer as important, European support for the organization began to falter. The situation was complex though, as over the two hundred years of their existence, the Templars had become a part of daily life in Europe. They managed many businesses, and, with their strong financial resources, were often involved in lending money to cash-strapped royals. But officially they were still subject to no local government, and paid no taxes, and this grated on many of the royals who were indebted to them. Rumors and gossip also swirled around the Order, much of it focusing on their secret initiation rituals, and speculation about whether or not the rituals included elements of blasphemy. With the original mission of the Order being reexamined, the church suggested that the Templars be merged with the Knights Hospitallers, but neither of the orders agreed.

King Philip IV of France (also known as "Philip the Fair"), who had taken the throne in 1285, seized upon the rumors for his own financial needs. He was already deeply in debt to the Templars as a result of his war with the English,^[1] and he began pressuring the church to take action against the Order so as to free himself from his debts. King Philip was already known for struggles with the papacy, including the kidnapping of Pope Boniface VIII and the probable poisoning of Pope Benedict XI, via Philip's agent Guillaume de Nogaret.^[1]^[8] After the death of Pope Benedict, the church's cardinals had engaged in a year-long conclave, finally deciding in 1305 on the investiture of Pope Clement V, a childhood friend of Philip's.

Thusly on Friday, October 13, 1307 (a date incorrectly linked to the origin of the Friday the 13th legend^[9]) Philip had many French Templars simultaneously arrested, charged with numerous heresies, and tortured until they "confessed" various types of blasphemy.^[1]^[5] Philip also tried to pressure other European monarchs to follow suit, but they tended to act with more restraint. Some Templars in other countries were arrested and tried, but none were actually found guilty. Meanwhile, with the forced confessions that had been obtained in France, dozens of Templars were burned at the stake.

Then in 1312, under further pressure from King Philip (whose forces were encamped outside the city), Clement officially disbanded the entire Order at the Council of Vienne. In 1314, the last of the Order's leaders, including the elderly Grand Master Jacques de Molay, were burned alive at the stake in Paris.^[5] The remaining Templars around Europe were either arrested and tried under the Papal investigation (with virtually none convicted), absorbed into other military orders such as the Order of Christ and the Knights Hospitaller, pensioned and returned to the secular life, or in some cases evidently fled to other territories outside of Papal control, such as excommunicated Scotland. But questions still remain as to what happened to the hundreds of Templars throughout christendom. Also, no extensive archive of the Templars, with detailed records of all of their business holdings and financial transactions, was ever found.^[5]

In modern times, it is the Roman Catholic Church's position that the persecution was unjust; that there was nothing inherently wrong with the Order or its Rule; and that the Pope at the time was severely pressured into his actions by the magnitude of the public scandal, and the dominating influence of King Philip IV.

Organization

The Templars were organized as a monastic order, following a rule created for them by their patron, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a member of the Cistercian Order.^[1] Each country had a Master of the Order for the Templars in that region, and all of them were subject to the Grand Master, appointed for life, who oversaw both the Order's military efforts in the East, and their financial holdings in the West.

There were four divisions of brothers in the Templars:

the knights, equipped as heavy cavalry;^[1]
the sergeants, equipped as light cavalry and drawn from a lower social class than the knights;^[2]
the serving brothers — these brothers administered the property of the Order, or performed menial tasks and trades;
the chaplains, who were ordained priests and saw to the spiritual needs of the Order.^[10]

The knights wore a white robe with a red cross, and the other brothers wore black or brown mantles.^[2]^[7] At any time, each knight had some ten people in support positions.^[2]^[5]

Initiation into the Order was a profound commitment, and involved a secret ceremony. Few details of the rituals were known at the time, fueling the suspicions of medieval inquisitors, but initiates, at least in the early days of the Order, had to be of noble birth, of legitimate heritage, and had to be willing to sign over all of their wealth and goods to the Order. Further, joining the Order required vows of poverty, chastity, piety, and obedience.^[2]

For the warriors of the Order, there was a cardinal rule of never surrendering. This fearless uncompromising nature of the Templars, along with excellent training and heavy armament, made them a feared and elite fighting force in medieval times.^[11]

Grand Masters

Starting with founder Hughes de Payens in 1118-1119, the Order's highest office was that of Grand Master, a position which was held for life, though considering the warrior nature of the Order, this could be a very short period of time. The Grand Master oversaw all of the operations of the Order, including both the military operations in the Holy Land and eastern Europe, and the financial and business dealings in the Order's infrastructure of Western Europe. Grand Masters could also be active military commanders, though this was not always a wise choice, as seen by the fate of the defeated Grand Master Gérard de Ridefort, who ended up beheaded by Saladin in 1189 at the Siege of Acre. The last Grand Master was Jacques de Molay, who by order of King Philip IV was executed by being burned at the stake in Paris in 1314.^[5]

Templar legacy

With their military mission and extensive financial resources, the Knights Templar funded a large number of building projects around Europe and the Holy Land, many of which structures remain standing today. Many sites also maintain the name "Temple" from early Templar influence. For example, some of the Templars' lands in London were later rented to lawyers, which resulted in the origin of the names of the Temple Bar gateway, the Temple tube station, and many others.

Distinctive architectural elements of Templar buildings included images of the "two knights on a single horse," representing the Knights' poverty, and round buildings which were built to resemble the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

Convent of Christ in Castle Tomar, Portugal, named as a UNESCO World Heritage Site^[12]

Temple Church, London. Built as a fortress, it was used as a treasury. In modern times it is a tourist attraction and base of operations for England's legal Inns of Court

Legends and relics

The Knights Templar have become surrounded by legends concerning secrets and mysteries handed down to the select from ancient times. Rumors circulated even during the time of the Templars themselves, Freemason writers added their own speculations in the 1800s, and further fictional embellishments have been added in modern movies and bestselling novels, such as Ivanhoe, The Da Vinci Code, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Foucault's Pendulum and Kingdom of Heaven.^[5]

The story of the Templars' persecution has also proved a tempting source for many organizations to use to enhance their own dignity, history, and mystery. Many such organizations claim traditions from the original Order. The Freemasons began incorporating Templar symbols and rituals in the 1700s,^[5] and have a modern title called "Order of the Knights Templar" to which members can aspire. Though there is no historical link between the 1300s dismantling of the Templars and the 1700s rise of some of these organizations, there is often public confusion which conveniently disregards the 400 year gap in the chain.

The highest profile of the legends are generally connected with the Order's early occupation of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and speculation about what relics the Templars may have found there, such as the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant.^[5]^[2]^[11]

That the Templars were known to be in possession of some type of relics, is certain. Even today, many churches display relics such as the bones of a particular saint, a scrap of cloth that a holy man once wore, or perhaps even the skull of a martyr. The Templars did the same, and were known to sometimes carry relics with them into battle to provide divine guidance. The subject of relics also came up during the Inquisition of the Templars, as several trial documents refer to the worship of a severed head of some type.^[5]^[13]

As relics go, the ultimate prize would have been to have something that was connected directly to Jesus Christ, such as the Spear of Destiny or a piece of the True Cross. There was especially keen interest in the Holy Grail, which had its name connected to the Templars almost immediately. The first grail romance, the fantasy story Le Conte du Graal, was written in 1180 by Chretien de Troyes, who came from the same area as the Council of Troyes, where the Templar's Order was officially sanctioned. In Arthurian legend, the hero of the Grail Quest, Sir Galahad (a 13th Century literary invention of Cistercian monks) was depicted bearing a shield with the cross of Saint George, similar to the Templars. And in a chivalric epic of the period, Parzival, Wolfram Von Eschenbach refers to Templars guarding the Grail Kingdom.^[2]

With all of this speculation, the legend that grew over the years was that since the Templars had their headquarters at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, they must have excavated in search of relics, found the Grail, and then proceeded to keep it in secret, and guard it with their lives ever after. However, there is no historical record of the Templars ever having the Holy Grail in their possession, and indeed, most scholars agree that the story of the Grail was just that, a fiction that began circulating in medieval times.^[5]^[2] One intriguing artifact that does have some basis though, is the Shroud of Turin. Though the last Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay was burned at the stake in 1314, next to associate Geoffrey de Charney, it is worth noting that in 1357, de Charney's grandson's family were the first to publicly display the cloth. The artifact's origins are still a matter of considerable controversy, but carbon-dating seems to trace the origin of the shroud to 1260-1390, during the last days of the Templars.^[14]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Malcolm Barber, The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-521-42041-5
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Sean Martin, The Knights Templar: The History & Myths of the Legendary Military Order, 2005. ISBN 1-56025-645-1
^ Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars. Cambridge University Press, 1978. ISBN 0-521-45727-0
^ Piers Paul Read, The Templars. Da Capo Press, 1999. ISBN 0-306-81071-9
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l The History Channel, Decoding the Past: The Templar Code, video documentary, November 7, 2005, written by Marcy Marzuni
^ ^a ^b Lost Worlds: Knights Templar, July 10, 2006 video documentary on The History Channel, directed and written by Stuart Elliott
^ ^a ^b Heikki Hietala, "The Knights Templar: Serving God with the Sword", 1996, Renaissance Magazine
^ "Guillaume de Nogaret", 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
^ "Why Friday the 13th is unlucky" http://urbanlegends.about.com
^ Knights Templar Catholic Encyclopedia entry
^ ^a ^b Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, The Templar Revelation, 1997, ISBN 0-684-84891-0
^ Castle of Tomar, from World Heritage website
^ "Accusations against the Templars", templarhistory.com
^ "Science and the Shroud: Microbiology meets archaeology in a renewed quest for answers", Spring 1996, The Mission