The Knights Templar

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of the Temple of Solomon mostly known as the Knights Templar, was one of the most famous of the Christian military orders. It existed for about two centuries in the Middle Ages, created in the aftermath of the First Crusade in 1096 to ensure the safety of the large amount of European pilgrims who went toward Jerusalem after its conquest.

The Templars were an interesting order mostly because they were both monks and soldiers, making them some of the earliest "warrior monks" in the Western world. Members of the Order played a major part in many battles of the Crusades, and the Order's ingenuity improved many financial problems that could be considered the beginning of modern banking. The Order grew in membership and power throughout Europe, until it made an enemy of King Philip IV of France, who caused members in France to be tortured into confessions and burned at the stake. Under the influence from King Philip, Pope Clement V then forcibly disbanded the order on Friday, October 13, 1312.

The High Templars were organized as a monastic order, following a rule created for them by their patron, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a member of the Cistercian Order. Each country had a Master of the Order for the Templars in that region, and all of them had to obey to the Grand Master, appointed for life, who watched over both the Order's military power in the East, and their financial status in the West.

There were four divisions of brothers in the Templars. The knights, equipped as heavy cavalry they wore a white habit with a red cross. The sergeants, equipped as light cavalry and taken from a lower social class than the knights they wore a brown mantle. The serving brothers or the rural brothers, they administered the property of the Order, and the frÐ"Ёres de mÐ"©tiers, who performed menial tasks and trades. The chaplains were ordained priests and looked over the spiritual needs of the Order.

With the high demand for knights, there were also knights who signed up to the Order for a certain amount of time before returning to normal life, as well as the Fratres conjugati, who were married brothers. Both of them wore a black or brown mantle with a red cross to seperate them from the celibate lifetime members, and were not considered to be the same status as the celibate brothers. It also seems aparent that the serving brothers were not separate from the sergeants, but that a sergeant who was a skilled tradesman or was unable to fight because of age or physical problems would perform these other skills. The majority of the Templars, including both the knights and the Grand Masters, were both uneducated and illiterate, having come not from the upper nobility of the time but from more unknown families.

At any time, each knight had about ten people in support positions. Some brothers were devoted only to banking mostly those with an education, as the Order was often trusted with the safekeeping of precious items by participants in the Crusades but the primary mission of the Knights Templar was warfare. The Templars used their wealth to construct numerous fortifications throughout the Holy Land and were most likely one of the best trained and disciplined fighting units of their day. They were also famous and easily recognized, wearing a white surcoat with a distinct red cross emblazoned above the heart or on the chest, seen in many portrayals of crusading knights.

Initiation into the Order was a huge commitment, and involved a secret ceremony. Few details of the rituals were known at the time, fueling the suspicions of medieval inquisitors, but initiates, in the early days of the Order, had to be of noble birth, of legitimate heritage, and had to be willing to sign over all of their wealth and belongings to the Order. Also, joining the Order required vows of poverty, chastity, piety, and obedience. For the warriors of the Order, there was a cardinal rule of never surrendering. This fearless uncompromising nature of the Templars, along with excellent training and heavy amaments, made them a feared and probably the most elite fighting force in medieval times.

The order was founded around 1118 by French knights Hughes de Payens, a veteran of the First Crusade, and Geoffrey de St. Omer, as stated before, for the protection of pilgrims on the road from Jaffa and Jerusalem. Originally the order had only nine knights as members and relied on gifts and cast-offs. As a result of this, they were originally known as the Poor Knights of Christ. King Baldwin II of Jerusalem gave them there headquarters on the Temple Mount, above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. It was from being located on this location that the Order took its name of Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon.

The Order grew rapidly because of support from some key church leaders like Bernard de Clairvaux, and was exempt from all laws and authority except that of the Pope. Because of this official sanction, the order received massive donations of money, land, and noble-born sons from families all across Europe, who were encouraged to donate support as their way of helping with the fight in the Holy Land. Templar Knights also fought with King Louis VII of France, King Richard I of England, and in battles in Spain and Portugal.

Though the primary mission of the Order was a military one, only a small amount of its members were actually at the front lines fighting, while many others were involved in developing finances to support the warrior branch. The Order also created ways of creating letters of credit for pilgrims who were headed to the Holy Land, which had pilgrims depositing their valuables with the Order before setting off on the journey. This could have been the first form of checking used. From this mixture of donations and shady business dealing during the 12th and 13th centuries the Order acquired large amounts of land both in Europe and the Middle East, they also built churches and castles, bought farms and vineyards, was involved in manufacturing, import and export, had its own fleet of ships, and for a time even owned the entire island of Cyprus.

After Jerusalem was lost to Saladin in 1187, the Crusades gradually ended and European support for the Order began to falter. In the early 1300s, King Philip IV of France was in desperate need of money to continue his war with the English. He began by approaching the Templars' Grand Master, Jacques De Molay, asking him to respond to allegations of malpractice. De Molay rejected the outrageous allegations against out of hand. On Friday, October 13, 1307, Philip had all French Templars simultaneously arrested, charged with numerous crimes, and tortured by French authorities under the Inquisition until they allegedly confessed. This action released Philip from his obligation to repay huge loans from the