The Templar Beauseant

The banner of The Templars was called the Beauseant. This Beauseant was also a battle cry.

The word beau is now generally conceived to mean beautiful, but it means much more than that. In medieval French it meant a lofty state, for which translators have offered such terms as "noble," "glorious," and even "magnificent" As a battle cry then, "Beau Seant" was a charge to "Be noble" or "Be Glorious"

From the book Born In Blood
by John J. Robinson
M Evans and Company

The Beauseant Its Look And Meaning


The Templar Knights had two distinct Battle Standards or Beauseants that they carried into their various battles and campaigns. Both had symbolic meaning as did many things during the Medieval period of history.

The first was simply a square divided vertically into two sections. One section black depicting the sins of the secular world that the Templar Knights had chosen to leave. The second section was white depicting the purity that the order offered them. A sort of transformation of darkness to light.

The second Beauseant was a square quartered creating a tile of black and white. Centered in this checkerboard was the Templar Cross. During battle part of the Templar fighting rules was that no knight could stop fighting so long as the Beauseant was flying in the air. In fact no Templar could retreat unless outnumbered by three to one.

So important was the flying Beauseant, that before battle, the Marshall would select ten Templars to protect him and the banner. If the Marshall was killed during fighting, the Commander of Knights would take the banner, that it may fly above battle for all to see. Somewhat of a catch twenty two was that as long as the Beauseant flew the Templars must fight on and as long as the Templars fought on, the Beauseant must fly.

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Who Were The Knights Templar?
The Templars And History
The Templars: Warrior Monks
The Templar Seal
The Masonic Connection?
The Grand Masters
The Mysteries Of The Templars
The Templars And Their Myths
The Templars And The Baphomet
The Crusades
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