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Order of the Knights
Templar
The
Knights Templar, or Templars,
were a military and religious order
founded in Jerusalem during the Crusades.
The founders were Hugh de Payns and Geoffrey de Saint-Omer, French
knights who in 1118 established a religious community on the ancient
site of the Temple of Solomon
(hence Templars) which was dedicated to protecting pilgrims in the Holy
Land.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, head of the Cistercian order of monks,
drew up the order's rules, but in 1128 Pope Honorious II officially
recognized the templars as a separate order, conferring on them an
unprecedented degree of autonomy: they were responsible only to the pope
and not to secular rulers, were exempt from local taxes and judicial
authority, and were solely responsible for clerical appointments.
The
Templars were divided into knights,
chaplains, sergeants, and craftsmen, organized under a Grand Master and
general council. Wearing a white cloak with a red eight-pointed cross on
the left shoulder, they attracted many nobles and soon became an expert
military force, which bravery in the field was unquestionable, and also
a powerful and wealthy order, with branches throughout Europe.
The
Templars seal showed two knights on one horse, the story being that the
first Master was so poor that he had to share a horse with one of his
followers, but after the fall of the Acre in 1291, when the crusading
forces were driven from Palestine, the Templars' main activity became
money-lending, and their enormous land-holdings and financial strength
aroused great hostility and jealousy among rulers and clergy alike. It
was rumored that they had abandoned Christianity,
that they worshipped a demon called Baphomet,
and indulged in a variety of perverted orgiastic and cannibalistic
rituals. In 1307 Philip IV of France, in debt to the order, charged the
Templars with heresy and immorality. They were arrested and put on
trial, and confessions were extracted by torture. Similar attacks were
mounted against the order in Spain and England, and Pope Clement V,
after initially opposing the trials, suppressed the Knights Templar by
papal bull at the Council of Vienne in 1312. When the Grand Master,
Jacques de Molay, and other leaders of the Templars retracted their
forced confessions and declared their innocence and the innocence of the
order, Philip had them burned at the stake at Paris in 1314. The
Templars' holdings were dispersed, some going to the Knights Hospitalers
and some to secular rulers, although Philip received none. It has been
suggested that some leading Templars escaped and founded the Freemasons;
another tradition is that Templar survivors founded the Rosicrucians.
Further
info:
Mount Heredom.
Order of the Knights Templar.
Role of the Knights Templars in the Grail Legend.
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