The
Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of
Solomon ( ), commonly known as the
Knights
Templar or the
Order of the Temple ( ),
were among the most famous of the
Western
Christian military orders. The
organization existed for approximately two centuries in the
Middle Ages.
Officially endorsed by the
Roman
Catholic Church around 1129, the Order became a favored charity
throughout Christendom, and grew rapidly in membership and power.
Templar knights, in their distinctive white
mantles with a red
cross, were among the most skilled fighting
units of the
Crusades. Non-combatant
members of the Order managed a large economic infrastructure
throughout
Christendom, innovating
financial techniques that were an early form of
banking, and building many
fortifications across Europe and the
Holy Land.
The Templars' existence was tied closely to the Crusades; when the
Holy Land was lost, support for the Order faded. Rumors about the
Templars' secret initiation ceremony created mistrust, and King
Philip IV of France, deeply in
debt to the Order, took advantage of the situation. In 1307, many
of the Order's members in France were arrested, tortured into
giving
false confessions, and then
burned at the stake.Malcolm
Barber,
The Trial of the Templars. Cambridge University
Press, 1978. ISBN 0-521-45727-0. Under pressure from King Philip,
Pope Clement V disbanded the Order in
1312. The abrupt disappearance of a major part of the European
infrastructure gave rise to speculation and legends, which have
kept the "Templar" name alive into the modern day.
History
Rise
After the
First Crusade captured Jerusalem
in 1099, many Christian
pilgrims traveled to visit what they referred to as the Holy Places. However, though the
city of Jerusalem was under relatively secure control, the rest of
the
Outremer was not.
Bandits abounded, and
pilgrims were routinely slaughtered, sometimes by the hundreds, as
they attempted to make the journey from the coastline at Jaffa
into the
Holy Land.
Around 1119, two veterans of the First Crusade, the French knight
Hugues de Payens and his relative
Godfrey de Saint-Omer,
proposed the creation of a
monastic
order for the protection of these pilgrims.
King Baldwin II of Jerusalem agreed to
their request, and gave them space for a headquarters on the
Temple
Mount
, in the captured Al Aqsa Mosque
. The Temple Mount had a mystique, because it
was above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of
Solomon
. The Crusaders therefore referred to the Al
Aqsa Mosque as Solomon's Temple, and it was from this location that
the Order took the name of
Poor Knights of Christ and the
Temple of Solomon, or "Templar" knights. The Order, with about
nine knights, had few financial resources and relied on donations
to survive. Their emblem was of two knights riding on a single
horse, emphasizing the Order's poverty.
"[A Templar Knight] is truly a
fearless knight, and secure on every side, for his soul is
protected by the armour of faith, just as his body is protected by
the armour of steel. He is thus doubly armed, and need fear neither
demons nor men." |
Bernard de Clairvaux, c. 1135, De
Laude Novae Militae—In Praise of the New Knighthood |
The Templars' impoverished status did not last long. They had a
powerful advocate in Saint
Bernard
of Clairvaux, a leading Church figure and a nephew of one of
the founding knights. He spoke and wrote persuasively on their
behalf, and in 1129 at the
Council of
Troyes, the Order was officially endorsed by the Church. With
this formal blessing, the Templars became a favored charity
throughout
Christendom, receiving money,
land, businesses, and noble-born sons from families who were eager
to help with the fight in the
Holy Land.
Another major benefit came in 1139, when
Pope Innocent II's
papal bull Omne
Datum Optimum exempted the Order from obedience to local
laws. This ruling meant that the Templars could pass freely through
all borders, were not required to pay any taxes, and were exempt
from all authority except that of the
Pope.
With its clear mission and ample resources, the Order grew rapidly.
Templars were often the advance force in key battles of the
Crusades, as the heavily armoured knights on their
warhorses would set out to
charge
at the enemy, in an attempt to break opposition lines. One of their
most famous victories was in 1177 during the
Battle of Montgisard, where some 500
Templar knights helped to defeat
Saladin's
army of more than 26,000 soldiers.
Although the primary mission of the Order was military, relatively
few members were combatants. The others acted in support positions
to assist the knights and to manage the financial infrastructure.
The Templar Order, though its members were sworn to individual
poverty, was given control of wealth beyond direct donations. A
nobleman who was interested in participating in the Crusades might
place all his assets under Templar management while he was away.
Accumulating wealth in this manner throughout Christendom and the
Outremer, the Order in 1150 began generating
letters of credit for pilgrims journeying
to the Holy Land: pilgrims deposited their valuables with a local
Templar preceptory before embarking, received a document indicating
the value of their deposit, then used that document upon arrival in
the Holy Land to retrieve their funds. This innovative arrangement
was an early form of
banking, and may have
been the first formal system to support the use of
cheques; it improved the safety of pilgrims by making
them less attractive targets for thieves, and also contributed to
the Templar coffers.
Based on this mix of donations and business dealing, the Templars
established financial networks across the whole of Christendom.
They
acquired large tracts of land, both in Europe and the Middle East;
they bought and managed farms and vineyards; they built churches
and castles; they were involved in manufacturing, import and
export; they had their own fleet of ships; and at one point they
even owned the entire island of Cyprus
. The
Order of the Knights Templar arguably qualifies as the world's
first
multinational
corporation.
Decline
In the mid-1100s, the tide began to turn in the Crusades. The
Muslim world had become more united under
effective leaders such as
Saladin, and
dissension arose among Christian factions in and concerning the
Holy Land. The Knights Templar were occasionally at odds with the
two other Christian military orders, the
Knights Hospitaller and the
Teutonic Knights, and decades of
internecine feuds weakened Christian positions, politically and
militarily.
After the Templars were involved in several
unsuccessful campaigns, including the pivotal Battle of the
Horns of Hattin
, Jerusalem
was captured by Saladin's forces in 1187. The Crusaders
retook the city in 1229, without Templar aid, but held it only
briefly.
In 1244, the Khwarezmi Turks recaptured Jerusalem, and
the city did not return to Western control until 1917 when the
British
captured it from the Ottoman Turks.
The
Templars were forced to relocate their headquarters to other cities
in the north, such as the seaport of Acre
, which they
held for the next century. But they lost that, too, in 1291, followed
by their last mainland strongholds, Tortosa
(in what is
now Syria
), and
Atlit
. Their headquarters then moved to Limassol
on the island of Cyprus, and they also attempted to
maintain a garrison on tiny Arwad
Island
, just off the coast from Tortosa. In 1300,
there was some attempt to engage in
coordinated military efforts with the
Mongols via a new invasion force at Arwad.
In 1302 or 1303,
however, the Templars lost the island to the Egyptian Mamluk
in the Siege of
Arwad. With the island gone, the Crusaders lost their
last foothold in the Holy Land.
With the Order's military mission now less important, support for
the organization began to dwindle. The situation was complex
though, as over the two hundred years of their existence, the
Templars had become a part of daily life throughout Christendom.
The organization's Templar Houses, hundreds of which were dotted
throughout Europe and the
Near East, gave
them a widespread presence at the local level. The Templars still
managed many businesses, and many Europeans had daily contact with
the Templar network, such as by working at a Templar farm or
vineyard, or using the Order as a bank in which to store personal
valuables. The Order was still not subject to local government,
making it everywhere a "state within a state"—its
standing army, though it no longer had a
well-defined mission, could pass freely through all borders.
This
situation heightened tensions with some European nobility,
especially as the Templars were indicating an interest in founding
their own monastic state, just as the Teutonic Knights had done in
Prussia
and the Knights Hospitaller were doing with
Rhodes
.
Arrests and dissolution
1305, the new
Pope Clement V, based
in France, sent letters to both the Templar Grand Master
Jacques de Molay and the Hospitaller Grand
Master
Fulk de Villaret to discuss
the possibility of merging the two Orders. Neither was amenable to
the idea, but Pope Clement persisted, and in 1306 he invited both
Grand Masters to France to discuss the matter. De Molay arrived
first in early 1307, but de Villaret was delayed for several
months. While waiting, De Molay and Clement discussed charges that
had been made two years prior by an ousted Templar. It was
generally agreed that the charges were false, but Clement sent King
Philip IV of France a written
request for assistance in the investigation. King Philip was
already deeply in debt to the Templars from his
war with the
English and decided to seize upon the rumors for his own
purposes. He began pressuring the Church to take action against the
Order, as a way of freeing himself from his debts.
On Friday, October 13, 1307 (a date sometimes incorrectly linked
with the origin of the
Friday the
13th superstition) Philip ordered de Molay and scores of other
French Templars to be simultaneously arrested. The Templars were
charged with numerous offenses (including
apostasy,
idolatry,
heresy, "
obscene
rituals" and
homosexuality,
corruption and
fraud, and
secrecy). Many of
the accused confessed to these charges under torture, and these
confessions, even though obtained
under
duress, caused a scandal in Paris. After more bullying from
Philip, Pope Clement then issued the
papal
bull Pastoralis
Praeeminentiae on November 22, 1307, which instructed all
Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their
assets.

Templars being burned at the
stake
Pope Clement called for papal hearings to determine the Templars'
guilt or innocence, and once freed of the
Inquisitors' torture, many Templars recanted
their confessions. Some had sufficient legal experience to defend
themselves in
the
trials, but in 1310 Philip blocked this attempt, using the
previously forced confessions to have dozens of Templars burned at
the stake in Paris.Barber,
Trial, 1978, p. 3
Philip threatening military action unless the Pope complied with
his wishes, Pope Clement finally agreed to disband the Order,
citing the public scandal that had been generated by the
confessions. At the
Council of
Vienne in 1312, he issued a series of papal bulls, including
Vox in excelso, which
officially dissolved the Order, and
Ad
providam, which turned over most Templar assets to the
Hospitallers.
As for the leaders of the Order, the elderly Grand Master
Jacques de Molay, who had confessed under
torture, retracted his statement. His associate
Geoffrey de Charney, Preceptor of
Normandy, followed de Molay's example and
insisted on his innocence. Both men were declared guilty of being
relapsed heretics, and they were sentenced to burn alive at the
stake in Paris on March 18, 1314.
De Molay reportedly remained defiant to
the end, asking to be tied in such a way that he could face the
Notre Dame
Cathedral
and hold his hands together in prayer.
According to legend, he called out from the flames that both Pope
Clement and King Philip would soon meet him before
God. Pope Clement died only a month later, and King
Philip died in a hunting accident before the end of the year.
With the last of the Order's leaders gone, 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
Knights
Hospitaller, or pensioned and allowed to live out their days
peacefully. Some may have fled to other territories outside Papal
control, such as
excommunicated
Scotland or to Switzerland. Templar organizations in Portugal
simply changed their name, from Knights Templar to
Knights of Christ.
Chinon Parchment
In 2001, a document known as the "
Chinon Parchment" was found in the
Vatican Secret Archives, apparently
after having been filed in the wrong place in 1628. It is a record
of the trial of the Templars and shows that Clement absolved the
Templars of all heresies in 1308 before formally disbanding the
Order in 1312.
It is currently the
Roman Catholic
Church's position that the medieval persecution of the Knights
Templar was unjust; that there was nothing inherently wrong with
the Order or its Rule; and that Pope Clement was pressured into his
actions by the magnitude of the public
scandal and the dominating influence of
King Philip IV.
Organization
Templar building at Saint Martin des Champs, France
The Templars were organized as a
monastic
order similar to Bernard's
Cistercian Order, which was considered the first
effective international organization in Europe. The organizational
structure had a strong chain of authority.
Each country with a
major Templar presence (France, England, Aragon, Portugal, Poitou,
Apulia
, Jerusalem,
Tripoli
, Antioch
, Anjou
, Hungary,
and Croatia had a Master of the Order for the Templars in that
region. 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. No precise numbers exist,
but it is estimated that at the Order's peak there were between
15,000 and 20,000 Templars, of whom about a tenth were actual
knights.
It was Bernard de Clairvaux and founder Hugues de Payens who
devised the specific code of behavior for the Templar Order, known
to modern historians as the
Latin Rule. Its 72 clauses
defined the ideal behavior for the Knights, such as the types of
garments they were to wear and how many horses they could have.
Knights were to take their meals in silence, eat meat no more than
three times per week, and not have physical contact of any kind
with women, even members of their own family. A Master of the Order
was assigned "4 horses, and one chaplain-brother and one clerk with
three horses, and one sergeant brother with two horses, and one
gentleman valet to carry his shield and lance, with one horse." As
the Order grew, more guidelines were added, and the original list
of 72 clauses was expanded to several hundred in its final
form.

One of the many reported flags of the
Knights Templar
was a threefold division of the ranks of the Templars: the
aristocratic knights, the lower-born sergeants, and the clergy.
Knights were required to be of
knightly descent and to wear
white mantles. They were equipped as heavy
cavalry, with three or four horses and one or two
squires. Squires were generally not members of the Order but were
instead outsiders who were hired for a set period of time. Beneath
the knights in the Order and drawn from lower
social strata were the sergeants. They were
either equipped as
light cavalry with
a single horse or served in other ways such as administering the
property of the Order or performing menial tasks and trades.
Chaplains, constituting a third Templar
class, were
ordained priests who saw to
the Templars' spiritual needs.
The knights wore a white
surcoat with a red
cross and a white mantle; the sergeants wore a black tunic with a
red cross on front and back and a black or brown mantle.
Burman, p. 44 The white mantle was assigned to the
Templars at the
Council of Troyes
in 1129, and the cross was most probably added to their
robes at the launch of the
Second Crusade in 1147, when
Pope Eugenius III, King
Louis VII of France, and many other
notables attended a meeting of the French Templars at their
headquarters near Paris. According to their
Rule, the
knights were to wear the white mantle at all times, even being
forbidden to eat or drink unless they were wearing it.
Initiation, known as Reception (
receptio) into the Order,
was a profound commitment and involved a solemn ceremony. Outsiders
were discouraged from attending the ceremony, which aroused the
suspicions of
medieval
inquisitors during the later
trials.
New members had to willingly sign over all of their wealth and
goods to the Order and take
vows of
poverty, chastity, piety, and obedience. Most brothers joined
for life, although some were allowed to join for a set period.
Sometimes a married man was allowed to join if he had his wife's
permission, but he was not allowed to wear the white mantle.
The red cross that the Templars wore on their robes was a symbol of
martyrdom, and to die in combat was
considered a great honor that assured a place in heaven. There was
a cardinal rule that the warriors of the Order should never
surrender unless the Templar flag had fallen, and even then they
were first to try to regroup with another of the Christian orders,
such as that of the
Hospitallers. Only after all flags had
fallen were they allowed to leave the battlefield. This
uncompromising principle, along with their reputation for courage,
excellent training, and heavy armament, made the Templars one of
the most feared combat forces in medieval times.
Grand Masters
Starting with founder
Hugues 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 martial nature of the Order, this could mean a very
short tenure. All but two of the Grand Masters died in office, and
several died during military campaigns. For example, during the
Siege of Ascalon in 1153, Grand
Master
Bernard de Tremelay led a
group of 40 Templars through a breach in the city walls. When the
rest of the Crusader army did not follow, the Templars, including
their Grand Master, were surrounded and beheaded. Grand Master
Gérard de Ridefort was
beheaded by Saladin in 1189 at the
Siege
of Acre.
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 Templars' financial
and business dealings in
Western
Europe.
Some Grand Masters also served as
battlefield commanders, though this was not always wise: several
blunders in de Ridefort's combat leadership contributed to the
devastating defeat at the Battle of Hattin
. The last Grand Master was
Jacques de Molay, burned at the stake in
Paris in 1314 by order of King Philip IV.
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 these structures are still
standing. Many sites also maintain the name "Temple" because of
centuries-old association with the Templars.
For example, some of
the Templars' lands in London were later rented to lawyers, which led to the names of the Temple
Bar
gateway and the Temple tube station
. Two of the four Inns of Court which may call members to act as
barristers are the Inner Temple
and Middle
Temple
.
Distinctive architectural elements of Templar buildings
include the use of the image of "two knights on a single horse",
representing the Knights' poverty, and round buildings designed to
resemble the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
in Jerusalem.
Modern Templar organizations
By papal decree, the property of the Templars was transferred to
the Order of Hospitallers, which also absorbed many of the
Templars' members. In effect, the dissolution of the Templars could
be seen as the merger of the two rival orders.
The story of the secretive yet powerful medieval Templars,
especially their persecution and sudden dissolution, has been a
tempting source for many other groups which have used alleged
connections with the Templars as a way of enhancing their own image
and mystery.
Since at least the 1700s the Freemasons have incorporated some Templar symbols and rituals, most of which being found within a Masonic body referred to as the United Religious, Military and Masonic Orders of the Temple and of St John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta, or simply the Knights Templar. This organization exists either independently or as a part of the York Rite throughout much of the world. The Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, founded in 1804, has achieved United Nations NGO status as a charitable organization.
There is no clear historical link between the Knights Templar,
which were dismantled in the 14th century, and any of these other
organizations, of which the earliest emerged publicly in the 18th
century. However, there is often public confusion and many overlook
the 400-year gap.
Legends and relics
The Knights Templar have become associated with
legends concerning
secrets and
mysteries handed down to the select from ancient times. Rumors
circulated even during the time of the Templars themselves.
Freemasonic writers added their own speculations in the 19th
century, and further fictional embellishments have been added in
popular novels such as
Ivanhoe,
Foucault's Pendulum,
and
The Da Vinci Code,
modern movies such as
National
Treasure and
Indiana Jones and the Last
Crusade, as well as video games such as
Broken Sword and
Assassin's Creed.
Many of
the Templar legends are 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. That the
Templars were in possession of some relics is certain. Many
churches still display relics such as the bones of a saint, a scrap
of cloth once worn by a holy man, or the skull of a martyr; the
Templars did the same. They were documented as having a piece of
the
True Cross, which the Bishop of Acre
carried into battle at the disastrous
Horns of Hattin.
When the battle was
lost, Saladin captured the relic, which was then ransomed back to
the Crusaders when the Muslims surrendered the city of Acre
in 1191. The Templars were known to possess
the head of
Saint Euphemia
of Chalcedon. The subject of relics also came up during the
Inquisition of the Templars, as several trial documents refer to
the worship of an idol of some type, referred to in some cases as a
cat, a bearded head, or in some cases as
Baphomet. This accusation of idol worship levied
against the Templars has also led to the modern belief by some that
the Templars practiced witchcraft. However, modern scholars
generally explain the name Baphomet from the trial documents as
simply a French misspelling of the name Mahomet (
Muhammad).
There was particular interest during the Crusader era in the Holy
Grail myth, which was quickly associated with the Templars, even in
the 12th century. The first Grail romance, the fantasy story
Le Conte du
Graal, was written in 1180 by
Chrétien de Troyes, who came from
the same area where the
Council of
Troyes had officially sanctioned the Templars' Order. In
Arthurian legend, the hero of the
Grail quest,
Sir Galahad (a 13th-century
literary invention of monks from St. Bernard's Cistercian Order),
was depicted bearing a shield with the cross of
Saint George, similar to the Templars'
insignia. In a
chivalric epic of the
period,
Parzival,
Wolfram von Eschenbach refers to
Templars guarding the Grail Kingdom. A legend developed 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. However, in the extensive documents of the Templar
inquisition there was never a single mention of anything like a
Grail relic, let alone its possession by the Templars. In reality,
most scholars agree that the story of the Grail was just that, a
fiction that began circulating in medieval times.
One
legendary object that does have some connection with the Templars
is the Shroud of
Turin
. In 1357, the shroud was first publicly
displayed by the family of the grandson of
Geoffrey de Charney, the Templar who had
been burned at the stake with Jacques de Molay in 1314. The
shroud's origins are still a matter of controversy, but in 1988, a
carbon dating analysis concluded
that the shroud was made between 1260 and 1390, a span that
includes the last half-century of the Templars' existence. The
validity of the dating methodology has subsequently been called
into question, and the age of the shroud is still subject of much
debate.
See also
Notes
- Malcolm Barber, The New Knighthood: A History of the Order
of the Temple. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
ISBN 0-521-42041-5.
- Martin, p. 47.
- Nicholson, p. 4
- Burman, pp. 13,
19.
- Read, The Templars. p. 91.
- The History Channel, Decoding the
Past: The Templar Code, 7 November 2005, video documentary
written by Marcy Marzuni
- Barber, The New Knighthood, p. 7.
- Burman, p. 40.
- The History Channel, Lost Worlds: Knights Templar,
July 10, 2006, video documentary written and directed by Stuart
Elliott
- Martin, p. 99.
- Martin, p. 113.
- Demurger, p.139 "During four years, Jacques de Molay and his
order were totally committed, with other Christian forces of Cyprus
and Armenia, to an enterprise of reconquest of the Holy Land, in
liaison with the offensives of Ghazan, the Mongol Khan of
Persia.
- Nicholson, p. 201. "The Templars retained a
base on Arwad island (also known as Ruad island, formerly Arados)
off Tortosa (Tartus) until October 1302 or 1303, when the island
was recaptured by the Mamluks."
- Nicholson, p. 5
- Nicholson, p. 237
- Barber, Trial of the Templars, 2nd ed. "Recent
Historiography on the Dissolution of the Temple." In the second
edition of his book, Barber summarizes the views of many different
historians, with an overview of the modern debate on Philip's
precise motives.
- Barber, Trial of the Templars, p.
178
- Martin, p. 118.
- Martin, p. 122
- Martin, pp. 123–124
- Martin, p. 125.
- Martin, p. 140
- Martin, pp. 140–142
- Burman, p. 28
- Barber, Trial, 1978, p. 10
- Burman, p. 43
- Burman, pp.
30–33
- Martin, p. 32
- Barber, New Knighthood, p. 190
- Martin, p. 54
- Barber, New Knighthood, p. 191
- Barber, The New Knighthood, page 66: "According to
William of
Tyre it was under Eugenius III that the Templars received the
right to wear the characteristic red cross upon their tunics,
symbolising their willingness to suffer martyrdom in the defence of the Holy Land." (WT,
12.7, p. 554. James of Vitry, 'Historia Hierosolimatana', ed. J.
ars, Gesta Dei per Francos, vol I(ii),
Hanover, 1611, p. 1083, interprets this as a sign of
martyrdom.)
- Martin, The Knights Templar, page 43: "The Pope
conferred on the Templars the right to wear a red cross on their
white mantles, which symbolised their willingness to suffer
martyrdom in defending the Holy Land against the infidel."
- Read, The Templars, page 121: "Pope Eugenius gave them
the right to wear a scarlet cross over their hearts, so that the
sign would serve triumphantly as a shield and they would never turn
away in the face of the infidels': the red blood of the martyr was
superimposed on the white of the chaste." (Melville, La Vie des
Templiers, p. 92.)
- Burman, p. 46.
- Martin, p. 52
- Barber, Trial, 1978, p. 4
- Nicholson, p. 141
- Barber, New Knighthood, p. 193
- Read, p. 137.
- Martin, p. 58.
- Sean Martin, The Knights Templar: The History & Myths
of the Legendary Military Order, 2005. ISBN
1-56025-645-1.
- Read, p. 91.
- Read, p. 171.
- Martin, p. 139.
- Barber, Trial of the Templars, 1978, p. 62.
- Martin, p. 133.
- Relic, Harry Gove (1996) Icon or Hoax? Carbon Dating the Turin
Shroud ISBN 0750303980
References
Further reading