Who were the Knights Templar?

Who were the Knights Templar?

The story of the Order of the Temple is one of the most fascinating and tragic stories ever told; one that contains all of the elements of a modern best selling novel: cupidity, avarice, pride, power, lust, wealth, betrayal, revenge.

What makes the story even more startling is the fact that it is true.

Around the end of the 11th Century, the Holy Land was in the
control of the Muslim Saracens.

The movement to liberate Jerusalem from the infidel in the
name of Christianity had steadily picked up momentum through
the latter half of the century, until, in 1099 a large group of
Crusaders entered the Holy City, and established the Christian
kingdom of Jerusalem, with Godfrey of Bouillon as it's first king.

Europeans quickly learned however, that possession of Jerusalem
did not mean safe access; surrounded as it was, by Saracens and
Arab bandits.

Many a Christian pilgrim bound for the Holy Land was robbed
or murdered en route. This became the Order of the Temple's
original raison d'etre-- to guard the pilgrimage routes.

King Godfrey, seeing a good deal of value in having a standing
army near him, granted them a headquarters on the site where
King Solomon had once built his Great Temple.

From there, the Order grew and spread throughout Europe,
the Levant, and Northern Africa. Their leadership was
intelligent and innovative, developing the first real system
of international banking and credits.

Soon the Order, first called the "Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ
and the Temple of Solomon" had acquired a vast network of
property and wealth.

Many of the Kings of Europe owed the Order money,
some even, their lives.

Renowned for their bravery, Templar Knights would refuse to
retreat even when faced with three to one odds. Their knowledge
of architecture, mathematics, cartography, linguistics, and
archeology (yes, archeology!) is thought to have been extensive.

Among the treasures the Knights are said by some modern authors
to have possessed or guarded include the Holy Grail, the Ark of the
Covenant, the True Cross, the Shroud of Turin, and the secret of
a bloodline and a certain French dynasty.

The current fashion of mystique is due, in part at least, to the fact
that the Order of Templars did indeed have secrets. They were the
only religious military Order with a secret initiation ritual. They
maintained an esoteric symbolic system, and were exposed to
much of the mystical philosophies of the Sufis, Albigenses,
Waldensians, Gnostics, Druse, and Ishmaelites.

These Poor Knights of the Temple would fight the 'enemies'
of the Church ferociously in battle, but during peacetime, they
studied them almost as earnestly. As a result, there seems to
be no question that Templar thought slowly evolved away from
Orthodox Catholic doctrine to some extent.

As the 13th Century progressed, a series of reverses plagued
the efforts of the Christians to maintain control of the Holy Land.
It's eventual fall was due to a number of causes, but it appears
that the Military Orders took the blame-- and the Templars most
of all.

For some time, those opposed to the Order, including the competing
military Order of the Knights of St. John, had used various propaganda
type tactics to smear the Order of the Temple's good name.

Add to this the Templar penchant for hard-drinking and haughtiness,
and they fit the scapegoat bill perfectly.

After the fall of Acre in 1291, the Order's original mission, to guard
the routes into the Holy Land, was no longer viable. The other military
Orders retired to their private principalities; the Knights of St. John
(Hospitallers) to Rhodes, then to Malta, the Teutonic Knights to their
'Ordenstadt' in Prussia; and the Templars desperately wanted a land of
their own.

They are said to have set their eyes on the Languedoc; an area in
Southern France where, beginning in 1209, they had been turned loose
upon the 'heretic' Cathars in what came to be known as the Albigensian Crusade.

Concern for this possible eventuality was a motivating factor in French King
Philip IV's decision to destroy the Order. (note: that the Order of the Temple had
been sent against the Cathars seems ironic, since much of Cathari doctrine was
perfectly compatible with their own, as the testimony of Templars at the later trials
indicate.)

Philip's main motivation, however, was greed. He had squandered his Royal
Treasury, and was in dire need of additional income; the Order of the Temple
held vast estates in France, generating a huge amount of wealth. Philip could
find many uses for the Templar money, if only he could get hold of it.

In 1305, with the assistance of a weak new Pope, Clement V, and the
devious French prosecutor DeNogaret, (whose mother and father had both
been burned as Cathari heretics during the Albigensian Crusade!), the seeds
of King Philip's horrid conspiracy were sown.

By 1307, the plan was set for implementation. King Philip had sent sealed
orders to the authorities all around France, not to be opened until October 12,
that all Templars and Templar properties were to be seized the following day.
(Friday, 13th of October, 1307)

To make the irony complete, Philip had asked the Templar Grand Master
Jacques DeMolay to serve as pallbearer at the funeral of Philip's sister in law
on October 12. (the day before the arrests)

The arrests took place on schedule, with no resistance. That the Templars
had previous warning, however, seems evident from the almost total absence
of valuables at the Paris Temple on the fateful day.

Many Templars felt no reticence in being arrested, because their persons
were considered to be under the Pope's protection. But, the Pope, Clement V,
would prove undeserving of any such confidence. Once arrested, the Knights
were confined and tortured, under the auspices of the 'Holy Office of the
Inquisition'. The fact that very few confessions were actually extracted
without torture speaks volumes about the nature of the confessions made.

Usually, they concerned such things as spitting on the cross ,
worshipping a head / idol, or 'obscene kisses' ; the same kind of accusations
made against previous victims of the "Holy Office".

Philip had proceeded against the Templars without the Papal go-ahead,
and at first, the weak Pope Clement V objected; but, soon he was persuaded
to order the arrests of Templars in all Christian countries.

With a few exceptions, the Kings of Europe were happy to oblige. The
exceptions are worth noting, however.

In Portugal, the Order was not dissolved, but simply renamed and reconstituted as the "Knights of Christ". The explorer Vasco DeGama and cartographer Henry the Navigator were both Knights of Christ, and Christopher Columbus sailed under the banner of this same Order.

In Scotland, where many of the English and French Templars seem to have taken refuge, future king Robert Bruce was already under a Papal Bull of Excommunication, and had no intention of depriving himself of such well trained reinforcements as these Templar Knights. There is evidence that the tide of battle was turned at the Battle of Bannockburn by a body of these same exiled Knights, on St. John's Day, June 24, 1314.

In Spain, they were put right to work against the Moors, as the Order of Calatrava.

In 1312, Clement V issued his bull "Vox in Excelsio" which disbanded the Knights Templar, and an extension granting most remaining Templar properties to the Knights Hospitaliers,
after reimbursing Philip IV for his "expenses", of course.

Those Templars still in hiding would hold this grudge against the Hospital for many years, especially in England; and this played no small part in the property damage the Knights of St.John would incur during the Peasants Revolt later that century.

On March 14, 1314, King Philip had arranged for the Templar Grand Master Jacques DeMolay, and the Preceptor of Normandy Geoffrey DeCharney, along with several others, to publicly repeat the "confessions" they had made under the threat or pain of torture.

A large stage for this purpose was erected, and a crowd of leading citizens, high clergy, foreign dignitaries, and nobility were in attendance. But, DeMolay finally had the opportunity to speak the truth about the Order in public, and he used it to full advantage.

He declared the Order's innocence and retracted his previous forced confession,
as did DeCharney. Immediately, Philip ordered them to be taken, as 'relapsed heretics', to be burned at the stake. Still, DeMolay seems to have had the last word; while being burned to death, he called upon the conspirators to meet him at the throne of God within a year; Nogaret died within eight days, Clement the next month, Philip in November.


Update:

For centuries, there have been those who knew the Templars were innocent of the charges brought by Philip the Fair and Clement V- of idolotry and blasphemy.... we have always believed those charges were simply pretexts to steal the Temple treasure, and neutralize it's political and economic influence.

A corrupt church and a corrupt prince using corrupt means to destroy a noble Order.

And now, another piece of the evidence needed to clear the Order's reputation has been released - by the Vatican of all bodies- documents indicating that the 'idol' the Knights were venerating in their initiation ceremonies was the famous Shroud of Turin.

From the Times of London article: " Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican Secret Archives, said the Shroud had disappeared in the sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, and did not surface again until the middle of the fourteenth century.

Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Dr Frale said its fate in those years had always puzzled historians.

However her study of the trial of the Knights Templar had brought to light a document in which Arnaut Sabbatier, a young Frenchman who entered the order in 1287, testified that as part of his initiation he was taken to "a secret place to which only the brothers of the Temple had access".

There he was shown "a long linen cloth on which was impressed the figure of a man" and instructed to venerate the image by kissing its feet three times. Dr Frale said that among other alleged offences such as sodomy, the Knights Templar had been accused of worshipping idols, in particular a "bearded figure". In reality however the object they had secretly venerated was the Shroud."

Ah. So much for the infallibility of the Papal office. The Church has known for centuries about the misjustice that was done the Templars.. they knew the Templars had taken possession of the Shroud to preserve it - and they used it to falsely accuse them of idol worship in order to steal their wealth and power.

It's time the Church admitted the error and cleared the name of their most dedicated servants.......