The Lost Templar
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The Lost Temple is an energetic romp around the Mediterranean for historical adventurers. If the island of Crete, Minoans, Greek gods, Linear B, Nazis, Turks and Soviet operatives are your thing, then you will enjoy the book. Get e-book version of this Guide: EPUB (.epub) is a free and open e-book standard. You can use it on almost every mobile and desktop device using a proper free reader.
1119–1312 Allegiance Type Role Protection of Christian Pilgrims Size 15,000–20,000 members at peak, 10% of whom were knights Headquarters, Nickname(s) Order of Solomon's Temple Order Of Christ Patron Saint Motto(s) Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed Nomini tuo da gloriam (English: Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy Name give glory) Attire White mantle with a red Mascot(s) Two knights riding a single horse Engagements The, including:. Commanders First Last Grand Master Part of a on the. The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici), also known as the Order of Solomon's Temple, the Knights Templar or simply as Templars, were a recognised in 1139 by of the. The order was founded in 1119 and active from about 1129 to 1312. The order, which was among the wealthiest and most powerful, became a favoured charity throughout and grew rapidly in membership and power.
They were prominent in. Templar knights, in their distinctive white with a red, were among the most skilled fighting units of the. Non-combatant members of the order, who formed as much as 90% of the order's members, managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom, developing innovative financial techniques that were an early form of, building its own network of nearly 1,000 and across Europe and the, and arguably forming the world's first. The Templars were closely tied to the Crusades; when the Holy Land was lost, support for the order faded. Rumours about the Templars' secret initiation ceremony created distrust, and King – deeply in debt to the order – took advantage of the situation to gain control over them. In 1307, he had many of the order's members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and burned at the stake. Disbanded the order in 1312 under pressure from King Philip.
The abrupt reduction in power of a significant group in European society gave rise to speculation, legend, and legacy through the ages. The appropriation of their name by later organizations has kept the name ' Templar' alive to the present day, while helping to obscure its origin. Main article: Rise After Europeans in the recovered in 1099, many made to various sacred sites in the. Although the city of Jerusalem was relatively secure under Christian control, the rest of was not. Bandits and marauding preyed upon pilgrims, who were routinely slaughtered, sometimes by the hundreds, as they attempted to make the journey from the coastline at through to the interior of the Holy Land.
In 1119, the French approached King and, and proposed creating a order for the protection of these pilgrims. King Baldwin and Patriarch Warmund agreed to the request, probably at the in January 1120, and the king granted the Templars a headquarters in a wing of the royal palace on the in the captured. The Temple Mount had a mystique because it was above what was believed to be the ruins of the.
The Crusaders therefore referred to the Al-Aqsa Mosque as Solomon's Temple, and from this location the new order took the name of Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, or 'Templar' knights. The order, with about nine knights including and, had few financial resources and relied on donations to survive. Their emblem was of two knights riding on a single horse, emphasising 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 Although the primary mission of the order was militaristic, 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 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 in an amount of treasure of equal value. This innovative arrangement was an early form of and may have been the first formal system to support the use of; 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 massive stone cathedrals 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. The Order of the Knights Templar arguably qualifies as the world's first.
In 1187, the turning point in the Crusades In the mid-12th century, the tide began to turn in the Crusades. The world had become more united under effective leaders such as, and dissension arose amongst Christian factions in, and concerning, the Holy Land.
The Knights Templar were occasionally at odds with the two other Christian, the and the, and decades of internecine feuds weakened Christian positions, both politically and militarily. After the Templars were involved in several unsuccessful campaigns, including the pivotal, Jerusalem was by Muslim forces under Saladin in 1187. The Holy Roman Emperor reclaimed the city for Christians in the of 1229, without Templar aid, but only held it briefly for a little more than a decade. In 1244, the together with mercenaries recaptured Jerusalem, and the city did not return to Western control until 1917 when the captured it from the in. The Templars were forced to relocate their headquarters to other cities in the north, such as the seaport of, which they held for the next century. It was lost in 1291, followed by their last mainland strongholds, ( in what is now ) and in present-day.
Their headquarters then moved to on the island of Cyprus, and they also attempted to maintain a garrison on tiny, just off the coast from Tortosa. In 1300, there was some attempt to engage in via a new invasion force. In 1302 or 1303, however, the Templars lost the island to the Egyptian in the. 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, however, since during the two hundred years of their existence, the Templars had become a part of daily life throughout Christendom. The organisation's Templar Houses, hundreds of which were dotted throughout Europe and the, 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, 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, just as the had done in and the were doing in. Arrests, charges and dissolution In 1305, the new, based in, France, sent letters to both the Templar Grand Master and the Hospitaller Grand Master 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 criminal charges that had been made two years earlier by an ousted Templar and were being discussed by King and his ministers. It was generally agreed that the charges were false, but Clement sent the king a written request for assistance in the investigation. According to some historians, King Philip, who was already deeply in debt to the Templars from his, decided to seize upon the rumours for his own purposes.
He began pressuring the church to take action against the order, as a way of freeing himself from his debts. Main article: In September 2001, a document known as the ' dated 17–20 August 1308 was discovered in the by, 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, as did another Chinon Parchment dated 20 August 1308 addressed to, also mentioning that all Templars that had confessed to heresy were 'restored to the Sacraments and to the unity of the Church'. This other Chinon Parchment has been well-known to historians, having been published by in 1693 and by in 1751. The current position of the is that the medieval persecution of the Knights Templar was unjust, that nothing was inherently wrong with the order or its rule, and that Pope Clement was pressed into his actions by the magnitude of the public and by the dominating influence of King Philip IV, who was Clement's relative. Organization.
Templar chapel from the 12th century in, France. Once part of the Templar commandery of, the oldest Templar institution of the. The Templars were organized as a similar to Bernard's 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, Jerusalem, Hungary, and ) had a Master of the Order for the Templars in that region. All of them were subject to the, appointed for life, who oversaw both the order's military efforts in the East and their financial holdings in the West.
The Grand Master exercised his authority via the visitors-general of the order, who were knights specially appointed by the Grand Master and convent of Jerusalem to visit the different provinces, correct malpractices, introduce new regulations, and resolve important disputes. The visitors-general had the power to remove knights from office and to suspend the Master of the province concerned. 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. Ranks within the order Three main ranks There was a threefold division of the ranks of the Templars: the noble knights, the non-noble sergeants, and the chaplains. The Templars did not perform knighting ceremonies, so any knight wishing to become a Knight Templar had to be a knight already. They were the most visible branch of the order, and wore the famous white mantles to symbolise their purity and chastity. They were equipped as, 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 non-noble families were the sergeants.
They brought vital skills and trades such as blacksmithing and building, and administered many of the order's European properties. In the Crusader States, they fought alongside the knights as with a single horse. Several of the order's most senior positions were reserved for sergeants, including the post of Commander of the Vault of Acre, who was the de facto Admiral of the Templar fleet. The sergeants wore black or brown. From 1139, constituted a third Templar class.
They were priests who cared for the Templars' spiritual needs. All three classes of brother wore the order's red cross. Grand Masters.
Templar building at Saint Martin des Champs, France Starting with founder 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 in 1153, Grand Master led a group of 40 Templars through a breach in the city walls.
Ghostscript commercial license price. When the rest of the Crusader army did not follow, the Templars, including their Grand Master, were surrounded and beheaded. Grand Master was beheaded by Saladin in 1189 at the. The Grand Master oversaw all of the operations of the order, including both the in the Holy Land and and the Templars' financial and business dealings in.
The Last Templar
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. The last Grand Master was, burned at the stake in Paris in 1314 by order of King Philip IV. Behaviour, clothing and beards. As the chapel of the New Temple in London, it was the location for Templar initiation ceremonies.
The Last Templar Knight
In modern times it is the parish church of the and, two of the, and a popular tourist attraction. 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.
The Lost Temple
For example, some of the Templars' lands in London were later rented to, which led to the names of the gateway and the. Two of the four which may call members to act as are the and – the entire area known as. Distinctive 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 in Jerusalem. Modern organizations The story of the persecution and sudden dissolution of the secretive yet powerful medieval Templars has drawn many other groups to use alleged connections with them as a way of enhancing their own image and mystery.
The Knights Templar were dismantled in the Rolls of the Catholic Church in 1309 with the martyrdom of Jacques de Molay; there is no clear historical connection between them and any modern organization, the earliest of which emerged publicly in the 18th century. Temperance movement. Main article: has incorporated the symbols and rituals of several medieval in a number of since the 18th century at least. This can be seen in the ',' inspired by the; the ',' inspired by the; and the ', inspired by the Knights Templar.
The Orders of Malta and the Temple feature prominently in the. One theory on the origin of Freemasonry claims direct descent from the historical Knights Templar through its final fourteenth-century members who allegedly took refuge in and aided in his victory. This theory is usually rejected by both Masonic authorities and historians due to lack of evidence.
Modern popular culture. Main article: The Knights Templar have become associated with concerning handed down to the select from ancient times. Rumours circulated even during the time of the Templars themselves. Masonic writers added their own speculations in the 18th century, and further fictional embellishments have been added in popular novels such as, and, modern movies such as, and, as well as video games such as and. Beginning in the 1960s, there have been speculative popular publications surrounding the order's early occupation of the in Jerusalem and speculation about what the Templars may have found there, such as the or the, or the historical accusation of idol worship transformed into a context of 'witchcraft'. The association of the Holy Grail with the Templars has precedents even in 12th century fiction; 's calls the knights guarding the Grail Kingdom templeisen, apparently a conscious fictionalisation of the templarii.
See also. References Notes.