Notes on the Knights Templar

The Myths

It is true that the central archive of the Order is lost: this was originally held at the Order's headquarters, at first in Jerusalem, then at Acre, then (after 1291) on Cyprus. After the dissolution of the Order by Pope Clement V in 1312 the archive passed into the possession of the Hospital of St John. Presumably it remained on Cyprus and was destroyed when the Ottoman Turks captured the island in 1571.

A good deal of material about the Templars remains. The Order is far from being a mystery. Other myths about the Templars abound. It is not true, for example, that the Templars were found guilty as charged in 1312; Pope Clement V actually declared the charges not proven, but dissolved the Order because it had been brought into so much disrepute that it could not continue to operate. The Templars were not monks.

"The Order of the Temple was not destroyed because it had outlived its purpose, because it was corrupt, or because it was in decline." — Helen Nicholson, p. 236. "Historians from the Middle Ages to the present day have developed a 'model' of the rise and fall of the Templars: the pure ideals of the first knights became contaminated as the Order grew rich and became involved in politics; the Order became corrupt and greedy and increasingly unpopular, and meanwhile the West lost interest in the Crusades; so when Philip IV of France attacked the Order for its money, no one defended it and the Order fell. This 'model' has gained wide acceptance despite the fact that it is false, because it provides an attractively simple explanation for the otherwise unjust and inexplicable fall of the Order." — p. 240.

Fabricated Myths and Political Agendas

Some writers deliberately developed the myth of the Templars for political or religious purposes, even fabricating physical evidence. The German Freemasons claimed that the Templars were a secret society with esoteric knowledge. In 1796 Charles Louis Cadet de Cassicour portrayed the Templars as part of a secret conspiracy behind the French Revolution.

Most influential was Joseph von Hammer Purgstall, who in 1818 published The Mystery of Baphomet Revealed. Hammer wanted to discredit the Freemasons, and argued that the Templars were Gnostics and the 'Templars' head' was a Gnostic idol called Baphomet. He did not realise that Gnostics did not have idols and that Baphomet is simply the Old French word for the name Mohammad.

Recently the Templars' supposed secret knowledge has become associated with the Turin shroud. Modern scientific analysis, published in 1989, has dated the shroud to the fourteenth century, probably to the 1320s or 1330s — after the dissolution of the Templars.

History of the Order

It has been suggested that the Orders of the Temple and the Hospital could each put an army of three hundred Brothers in the field, knights and armed sergeants, as well as mercenaries or hired soldiers. Military Order castles were garrisoned by a small number of Brothers and a large force of hired mercenaries. At the Templars' castle of Safed in Galilee in the 1260s there were 50 knight-Brothers, 30 armed sergeant-Brothers, 50 turcopoles and also 300 hired archers.

On 6 April 1291 Acre, the last major European Christian stronghold in the Holy Land, came under attack from the troops of Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil. The siege lasted over a month.

A Templar commandery was a busy place, a mixture of a secular farm and/or industrial site and/or business centre, plus the daily round of religious observance.

The Templars as Bankers

The Templars in particular also provided a range of financial services for rulers. The Templars were not a bank in the modern sense of the word as their financial operations were merely a sideline, a result of their need to store and move large quantities of cash about Christendom. Money deposited with them was not pooled and reinvested, but remained in its owners' strongboxes within the Order's treasury, and could not be accessed without the owner's permission.All religious Orders lent money, but as Christians were not allowed to levy interest (this practice was called 'usury') they had to find other ways of covering the cost of the loans.

The Templar Fleet

The Templars did have ships to carry personnel, pilgrims and supplies across the Mediterranean, but they did not have more than four galleys and few other ships. They certainly could not spare ships to indulge in world exploration — in any case, their ships were not sturdy enough to cross an ocean and could not carry enough water for more than a few days.

When the Templars had made their money in the West, they had to get it out to the East. The Templars needed ships to carry their coin, as well as agricultural produce, horses and personnel for the east. They also provided a secure carrying service for pilgrims — safer and cheaper than hiring a commercial carrier. The Templar pilgrim fleet was based at Marseilles. In 1233 they were granted the right to dock their ships there and carry pilgrims to the Holy Land, restricted to two ships a year, carrying 1,500 pilgrims.

The Trial and Accusations

Philip IV's new advisor, William de Nogaret, compiled the accusations against Pope Boniface: he was a heretic, he practised simony, he had been elected by trickery, he was advised by a demon, he practiced sodomy, and he believed the French did not have souls. The original charges of 1307 were framed by one Esquin de Floyran of Béziers, prior of Montfaucon.

The Templars' innocence of the charges brought against them in 1307–8 has been established since the work of the American historian Henry Charles Lea, published in 1889. Historians now see the charges as an exercise in political propaganda.As the charges against the Templars had no basis in previous criticism, and were clearly 'standard' accusations, why did anyone believe them? First, hardly anyone outside the domains of France did believe them. Secondly, within France the charges were carefully grounded in the actual activities of the Templars. On Cyprus, third-party evidence was heard at length and was virtually unanimous: the charges were absolutely false.

Baphomet

The charge that the Templars venerated a head was true, since the Order did venerate the heads of at least two female martyrs, St Euphemia and one of St Ursula's maidens. These relics were well known, often seen and fully accounted for. The so-called 'Templars' head' was probably the head of St Euphemia.

Brother William of Arreblay, former almoner to King Philip IV of France, testified that he had often seen on the altar in the Temple of Paris a silver head, and the leading officials of the Order adored it. He understood that this was the head of one of the 11,000 virgins martyred with St. Ursula at Cologne.

Rosslyn Chapel

We have to ask why Roslin chapel is associated with the Templars when the Order was suppressed 100 years before it was built. The key to this is the gravestone of William St Clair, who died fighting the Moors in Spain whilst taking Robert the Bruce's heart to be buried in the Holy Land. This has a floriated cross on it that is thought to be the emblem of the Templars. Further back in time there is a tradition that Hugh de Payens, the founder of the Order, was married to a Katherine St Clair.