TRULY FEARLESS KNIGHTS: THE TEMPLARS

In the twelfth centurythe Holy land was firmly in the grip of Islam and the Pope decreed that a Crusade (a Holy War) was required to reclaim it for Christendom The First Crusade recaptured Jerusalem in 1099, thus enabling Christian pilgrims to travel to the Holy Land and visit the holy places. In fact, it became almost an obligation to do so. Ordinary folk and the upper classes would make this journey once in their lifetime, much as Moslems today go on the Haj to Mecca. There were five Crusades in all as the power in the Middle East changed hands, until in 1187 the great Moslem leader Saladin finally defeated the Crusaders. Even after the successful first Crusade it was not safe for pilgrims to travel. The journey to the Holy Land was very dangerous as bandits abounded and the pilgrims often fell ill along the way. To alleviate these problems, monastic orders were established to aid and protect the pilgrims. The Knights Hospitallers of St John provided hospitals to nurse the sick and armed protection became the role of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, the Knights Templars. They were founded around 1119 by two French veterans of the First Crusade, Hugues de Payens and Godfrey de Saint-Omer. They were supported by King Baldwin II of Jerusalem who gave them space for a headquarters on the Temple Mount in the captured Al Aqsa Mosque. Thus one of the most powerful monastic orders was born. The Order began with about nine knights. As with all monastic orders, they took the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and relied on charity for their support. They had a powerful friend and advocate in Saint Bernard of Clairvaux the founder of the Cistercian order of monks. In 1129 at the Council of Troyes, the Templars were officially endorsed by the Church and they never looked back. They attracted many recruits from the nobility eager to serve in the Holy Lane. Money poured into the order to help build fortresses and acquire land. In 1139 Pope Innocent II’s papal bull freed them from obedience to local laws thus enabling them to travel easily through all borders, and exemption from taxes and all authority other than the Holy See.

0 The order grew and flourished. They were often the advance forces in battles. One of the famous victories against Saladin’s army was at Montigisard. There were non combatants within the order, engineers, and builders. The pilgrims left their valuables in the safekeeping of the Templars before they set out, receiving a document which could be used later to redeem their goods thus using an early form of banking. The Order bought and managed farms and vineyards, built churches and castles. They were involved in manufacturing, import and export owning their own fleet of ships and even owning the island of Cyprus. The Order of the Knights Templar could be called the world’s first multinational corporation.

This was all too good to last. The tide began to turn in the mid 1100s. Saladin became more successful exploiting weaknesses and disagreements in the Christian world. The Templars moved their headquarters to Cyprus but were ousted by the Egyptians, thus losing their last base in the Holy Land. In 1305 the new Pope Clement V, who was based in France, proposed the amalgamation of the Templars and the Hospitallers, not a popular idea with either order. At this time rumours had been circulating about Templar wrongdoing which Clement wished to investigate and he contacted King Philip IV of France. Philip resented, even hated, the Templars, the reason probably being that he was heavily in debt to the Order. Here was a golden opportunity to solve his problems. Even though the Pope later dismissed the charges, Philip pressurised the Church to take action against the order. He arrested several of the French Templars including the Grand Master, Jacques de Molnay. They were accused of heresies, devil worship, idolatory and so on. Forced under duress many confessed including De Molay but they later retracted these confessions. Many were burned at the stake, including the elderly Grand Master. He met his end in Paris on March 18^th 1314. It is said that, defiant to the end, he called out from the flames that both Pope Clement and King Philip would soon meet him before God. Clement died a month later and Philip within the year, so he was unable to benefit from his ill gotten gains for long!

The wealth and property of the disgraced order was seized and those Templars who escaped went underground. The Templar settlements away from France had been more secure which included those in England and Scotland. The English king Edward II had made a lukewarm attempt to prosecute the order in England, wanting to stay on the right side of Philip, but after protracted legal proceedings it came to nothing. No burnings or torture, but the Order was officially disbanded in England.

In Scotland the Templar sites were in the Borders, in the Debatable Lands where neither Scotland nor England exercised much control. One of the oldest families with Templar connections was the Saintclairs (later to become Sinclair). William Sinclair built the now famous Rosslyn Chapel. It is possible that the Sinclairs guarded some of the Templars’ wealth that had come into Scotland when the order was disbanded. The Templars had acquired metalworking skills from the Arabs and combined with their talents in engineering and building, they may have helped the development of the iron and steel industry in southern

Scotland and Cumbria. There are a lot of Templar graves in these areas.

With the demise of the Order the myths and legends grew. It has now been authenticated that the Templars had at one time been in possession of the Shroud of Turin, but the main mystery is their connection with the Holy Grail. Daniel Brown is not the only one to explore the theory that Rosslyn Chapel is the site of the Grail.

Certainly the Templars merged into the Freemasons and much Masonic symbolism is Templar in origin.

Even if Philip of France and his ilk had not coveted the order’s wealth, the need for an organisation such as the Knights Templar would have diminished after the final Crusade. The Reformation swept Europe and the sons of noble families went on the Grand Tour instead. Modern day pilgrims do not need armed knights to protect them - they fly to the Holy Land with El Al or British Airways. The memorials of this powerful and highly efficient Order of knights remain in their art and architecture. (Rosslyn Chapel is certainly worth a visit), and, in these islands, their name left behind in various places. Any settlement with the prefix Temple in its name once belonged to the Templars. Temple Sowerby in Cumbria just south of the Scots border, on the edge of the Debatable Lands is now a quiet country settlement. Once it echoed to the sound of metal working and the clash of steel as armed knights honed their fighting skills before they rode out to protect Christian pilgrims on the long and perilous road to Jerusalem.