What are Knights Templars?

History of  Knights Templar

(from Wikipedia)

 

Al Aqsa Mosque

The Knights Templar trace their origin back to shortly after the First Crusade. In 1119, a French nobleman from the Champagne region, Hughes de Payens, collected eight of his knight relatives, and began the Order, their stated mission to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. They approached King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, and were allowed to set up headquarters on the southeastern side of the Temple Mount, in what is now known as the Al Aqsa Mosque.

The Temple Mount

Saint Bernard de Clairvaux, the Order's patron

The Temple Mount is sacred to the Jews, Christians, and Muslims, as an important location throughout history. It is the location of the ruins of the Temple of Solomon, the legendary storage place for the Ark of the Covenant, and the probable Mount Moriah, where the Biblical Abraham came to sacrifice his son. It is also an important location to Muslims. At that location in the 7th Century, Caliph Abd al-Malik had built a major Islamic shrine, the Dome of the Rock, at the center of which was the rock from which they believed Muhammad had briefly ascended to heaven to receive the Islamic prayers. The Crusaders turned this into a church, calling it the "Templum Domini", and it was from this that they took their name of Templar. The structure became the model for many subsequent Templar churches in Europe, such as the Temple Church in London, and is represented on several Templar seals.

Little was heard of the Order for their first nine years. In 1128 though, they started to become very well-known in Europe. They went on a fundraising campaign, asking for donations of money, land, or noble-born sons to join the Order, with the implication that donations would help both to defend Jerusalem, and to ensure the charitable giver of a place in Heaven. Their efforts were helped by leading churchman Bernard of Clairvaux (later Sainted), a nephew of one of the original nine, who became the Order's powerful patron. Bernard wrote a multi-page letter entitled "In Praise of the New Knighthood", championing:

[A Templar Knight] is truly a fearless knight, and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armor of faith, just as his body is protected by the armor of steel. He is thus doubly-armed, and need fear neither demons nor men. [1]

De Payens and Bernard participated in the 1128 Council of Troyes, where the Order was officially recognized and confirmed, and the donations came pouring in. For example, in the 1130s, The King of Aragón, in Spain, left large tracts of land to the order upon his death. These generous donations became a common practice for new members. Since the order was first and foremost a monastic organization, new members were expected to donate land, horses and any other items of material wealth, including labor from serfs, as part of their vow of poverty.

In 1139, even more power was conferred upon the Order by Pope Innocent II, who issued an edict known as a Papal Bull. It stated that the Knights Templar could pass freely through any border, owed no taxes, and were subject to no one's authority except that of the Pope. It was a remarkable confirmation of power, which may have been brought about by the Order's patron, Bernard of Clairvaux, who had helped bring Pope Innocent to power.

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Warriors

Knights Templar Cross

The Knights Templar were the elite fighting force of their day. However, not all of them were warriors. The mission of most of the members was one of support -- to acquire resources which could be used to fund and equip the small percentage of members who were fighting on the front lines. Because of this infrastructure, the warriors were well-trained and very well-armed. Even their horses were trained to fight in combat, kicking or biting the enemies.

The Templars were also shrewd tacticians, following the dream of Saint Bernard who had declared that a small force, under the right conditions, could defeat a much larger enemy. One of the key battles in which this was demonstrated was in 1177, at the Battle of Montgisard. The famous Muslim military leader Saladin was attempting to push toward Jerusalem from the south, with a force of 26,000 soldiers. He had pinned the forces of Jerusalem's King Baldwin IV, about 500 knights and their supporters, near the coast, at Ascalon. Eighty Templar knights and their own entourage attempted to reinforce. They met Saladin's troops at Gaza, but were considered too small a force to be worth fighting, so Saladin turned his back on them and headed with his army towards Jerusalem.

Saladin

Once Saladin and his army had moved on, the Templars were able to join King Baldwin's forces, and together they proceeded north along the coast. Saladin had made a key mistake at that point -- instead of keeping his forces together, he permitted his army to temporarily spread out and pillage various villages on their way to Jerusalem. The Templars took advantage of this low state of readiness to launch a surprise ambush directly against Saladin and his bodyguard, at Montgisard near Ramla. Saladin's army was spread too thin to adequately defend themselves, and he and his forces were forced to fight a losing battle as they retreated back to the south, ending up with only a tenth of their original number. The battle was not the final one with Saladin, but it bought a year of peace for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the victory became a heroic legend.

The Templars, though relatively small in number, routinely joined other armies in key battles. They would be the force that would ram through the enemy's front lines at the beginning of a battle, or the fighters that would protect the army from the rear. They fought alongside King Louis VII of France, and King Richard the Lion-Hearted. In addition to battles in Palestine, members of the Order also fought in the Spanish and Portuguese Reconquista. The headquarters of the Templars in Tomar, Portugal, was in the Convento de Cristo.

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Roman Catholic Church's position on De Molay's execution

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 pressured into suppressing them by public scandal and royal influence. The Church's response at the time corroborates this position. The papal process started by Pope Clement V, to investigate both the Order as a whole and its members individually found virtually no knights guilty of heresy outside of France. Fifty-four knights were executed in France by French authorities as relapsed heretics after denying their original testimonies before the papal commission; these executions were motivated by Philip's desire to prevent Templars from mounting an effective defence of the Order. It failed miserably, as many members testified against the charges of heresy in the ensuing papal investigation.

Jacques de Molay, nineteenth-century color lithograph by Chevauchet

Despite the poor defense of the Order, when the papal commission ended its proceedings on June 5, 1311, it found no evidence that the Order itself held heretical doctrines, or used a "secret rule" apart from the Latin and French rules. On October 16, 1311, at the General Council of Vienne held in Dauphiné, the council voted for the maintenance of the Order.

But on March 22, 1312, Clement V promulgated the bull Vox in excelsis in which he stated that although there was not sufficient reason to condemn the Order, for the common good, the hatred of the Order by Philip IV, the scandal brought about by their trial, and the likely dilapidation of the Order that would to result from the trial, the Order was to be suppressed by the pope’s authority over it. But the order explicitly stated that dissolution was enacted, "with a sad heart, not by definitive sentence, but by apostolic provision."

This was followed by the bull Ad Providum on May 2, 1312, which granted all of the Order's lands and wealth to the Hospitallers so that its original purpose could be met, despite Philip's wishes that the lands in France pass to him. Philip held onto some lands until 1318, and in England the crown and nobility held a great deal until 1338; in many areas of Europe the land was never given over to the Hospitaller Order, instead taken over by nobility and monarchs in an attempt to lessen the influence of the Church and its Orders. Of the knights who had not admitted to the charges, against those whom nothing had been found, or those who had admitted but been reconciled to the Church, some joined the Hospitallers (even staying in the same Templar houses); others joined Augustinian or Cistercian houses; and still others returned to secular life with pension. In Portugal and Aragon, the Holy See granted the properties to two new Orders, the Order of Christ and the Order of Montesa respectively, made up largely of Templars in those kingdoms. In the same bull, he urged those who had pleaded guilty be treated “according to the rigours of justice.“

It is also worth noting that in no other dominion of Europe were accusations leveled as had been made in France by Philip IV, who was also coincidentally in terrible financial debt to the Templars. So widely was the injustice of Philip's rage against the Templars perceived that the "Curse of the Templars" became legend: Reputedly uttered by the Grand Master Jacques de Molay upon the stake whence he burned, he adjured: "Within one year, God will summon both Clement and Philip to His Judgment for these actions." The fact that both rulers died within a year, as predicted, only heightened the scandal surrounding the suppression of the Order.

Two Templars burned at the stake, from a French 15th century manuscript

In the end, the only three accused of heresy directly by the papal commission were Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and his two immediate subordinates; they were to renounce their heresy publicly, when de Molay regained his courage and proclaimed the order's and his innocence along with Geoffrey de Charney. The two were arrested by French authorities as relapsed heretics and burned at the stake in 1314. Their ashes were then ground up and dumped into the Seine, so as to leave no relics behind.

In 1354, it was revealed that de Charney had been in possession of the cloth later known as the Shroud of Turin, and his nephew's widow allowed it to be displayed in Lirey, France in 1357. The cloth has since been carbon-dated via modern methods to an origin between 1260 and 1390. Under further investigation, a repaired corner (approx, late 13th century) of the shroud was inadvertently tested. More research on the shroud is necessary before stating this information (http://www.shroudstory.com/breaking02.htm). [2][3][4].

The Masonic Knights Templar

The Masonic Knights Templar is one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the United States, and the largest Templar order in the world. The Order's efforts include the "Knights Templar Eye Foundation", and the "Knights Templar Holy Land Pilgrimage", which sends American clergy members on trips to the Holy Land. Scholarships for those seeking higher education are also provided on a case by case basis.

The Order of Knights Templar is the highest possible degree in York Rite Masonry. Local organizations in the United States are known as Commanderies, and state governing bodies are organized as Grand Commanderies. The national organization is governed by the Grand Encampment. The Order is one of the degrees in Freemasonry that requires the Master Mason to take an oath to always defend Christianity. The organization meets in a designated Masonic hall, temple, or in a building owned by the Commandery.

The Sovereign Great Priory (SGP) is the governing body in Canada of the United Religious, Military and Masonic Orders of the Temple and of St. John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta -- the chivalric orders in the York Rite of Freemasonry or Masonic Knights Templar. As of 2006, there are 76 local bodies in Canada called Preceptories, and are grouped into fifteen geographic districts, governed by a Provincial Grand Prior, who is the representative of the Supreme Grand Master.

Membership in the Order is open to York Rite Masons who have completed the degrees of the Royal Arch Chapter, and in some cases, the Council of Cryptic Masons. As in all Masonic organizations, membership requires that the candidate be of sound moral character, have an exemplary reputation, and believe in a Supreme Being.