EARLY HISTORY
FOUNDED in the aftermath of the first Crusade in 1096, the Order of the Knights Templar quickly developed into one of the most powerful and influential Military Orders of all time.
Between the years 1118 and 1120 two veterans Knights of the first crusade, Hugues de Payns and Godfroi de Saint-Omer, proposed the creation of a monastic Order to protect Christians from Europe on their long pilgrimages to the newly captured Holy city of Jerusalem. Even though Jerusalem was secure under Christian control, other areas of the Outremer were not and frequently pilgrims and travellers would be slaughtered by the marauding bands. King Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem, agreed to their request and allocated them space for headquarters in the confines of his own palace close by the Al Aqsa Mosque, believed to have been built upon the ruins of the original Temple of Solomon and from which they afterwards took their designation. Their vows were typical of those contained within the Rule of many religious bodies of the time and were of poverty, chastity and obedience under the Rule of Augustinus and to which they uniquely added a fourth ; to guarantee by forces of arms the safety of pilgrims.
A medieval depiction of Hughes de Payens and Geoffrey de St Omer
meeting with Baldwin II in Jerusalem
Although initial numbers were small, in fact at the outset they numbered nine Knights in total, they had powerful allies who were suitably placed politically to effectively speak on their behalf such as St Bernard of Clairvaux, a leading churchman of his time and said to be nephew of one of the founding Knights.
At the Synod of Troyes, on 31 January, 1129, the Order was formally recognised by Papal endorsement and furnished with a Rule by St Bernard based upon that of the Benedictines. Instantaneously the Order became a favourite charity for pious royalty, noblemen and gentry throughout Europe who liberally endowed it with grants of lands and financial donations and the ranks swelled with their sons keen to support the fight in the Holy Land.
In 1139 a Papal Bull “Omne Datum Optimum,” exempted the Order from any obedience to all secular and church laws. This extended to the paying of taxes and their being restricted or hindered from passing through anyone’s border – with this, they had but one master on earth, the Pope, under whose jurisdiction they directly fell and had the effect of creating a single international fully autonomous entity which some have chosen to call a “Christian Empire.”
And from henceforth it shall not be permitted to any ecclesiastical or secular person to infringe or diminish the customs and observances of your religion and profession, as instituted by the Master and brethren in common ; and those rules which have been put into writing and observed by you for some time past, shall not be changed or altered except by the authority of the Master, with the consent of the majority of the QDO DE chapter.
No ecclesiastic or secular person shall dare to exact from the Master and Brethren of the Temple, oaths, guarantees, or any such securities as are ordinarily required from the laity.
And since those who are defenders of the church ought to be supported and maintained out of the good things of the church, we prohibit, all manner of men from exacting tithes from yon in respect of your moveables or immoveables, or any of the goods and possessions appertaining unto your venerable house;.
As the Order grew, so did its influence which became widespread and although their individual members were sworn to vows of poverty, it was given control of significant wealth over and above what it received in direct donations. Banking methods were established including a system of cheque and credit to further protect those en route to the Holy Land and by which they could deposit money with a Templar post in one country and draw from it with their letters of note at others along the way of their travels.
Two early seals of the Order. One depicting the Lamb of God,
the other two riders on one horse.
Despite military prowess, the Order and the associated Christian army were never able to vanquish that of their Muslim counterparts. Internal squabbling and fighting further weakened their overall condition and resultantly, with the defeat at the battle of the Horns of Hattin Jerusalem fell to Saladin’s forced in 1187 forcing the Order to relocate to their fortresses such as the important sea port of St. Jean d’ Acre in the north.
Constantly being beaten back over the next one hundreds years or so, after an eight week siege Acre fell in 1291 with all there being slaughtered by the soldiers of Al-Ashraf Sala h ad-hin. This was followed by their evacuation of their other mainland stronghold of Tortosa, in Syria, until they finally moved their headquarters to Limassol on the island of Cyprus. With the loss of Ruad and the massacre of the Templar garrison there in 1302 the Order lost its last foothold in the Holy Land.
The Battle of the Horns of Hattin
The problems now faced by the Order were serious, for one thing their very reason for existence, the protection of pilgrims to the Holy Land, was gone and although they maintained their possessions and complex infrastructure within Europe, this was fast becoming a contentious subject especially with the major landholders who saw no reason for the Order to continue to not only own such large and wealthy tracts but be exempt from normal laws. There were also those who took a more selfish view on the troubles besetting the Templars, especially those who had benefited from substantial loans such as Philip IV, King of France, who had almost exhausted not only his own exchequer with his sustained war with England but had fallen deeply into debt with the Order as a consequence of his need for funding.
A great many rumours had abounded for some time about the practices of the Order undertaken in secret which told of strange rituals including the renouncing of Christ, the spitting on His image, of homosexual acts and other debauchery. It was also said that Jacques de Molay had taken it upon himself to have sufficient powers to grant absolution to those of the Order. To all of this Philip of France was not deaf, nor blind and in the fermentation of these rumours he seen a means to not only rid himself of his immense debt to the Order but to gain an opportunity to sieze its vast assets both in land and money within France. The result of this intrigue was that upon Philip’s order, Jacques de Molay and a considerable number of other Templars then in France were arrested on Friday 13th of October, 1307, and cast into prison.
The trial of the Knights Templar was a shocking display of violence and coercion and of bully-boy tactics to the extent of being nothing more than downright thuggery. Confessions of heresy and blasphemy were exacted under excruciating and barbarous methods of torture which were used by Philip to cajole the Pope into issuing the“Pastoralis Praeeminentiae” bill on 22 November, 1307, which instructed all Christian Monarchs throughout Europe to arrest those Templars in their lands and seize their assets.
In response Pope Clement issued the Bull “Regnans in coelis” on 12th of August, 1308, which called for the convening of the fifteenth ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, at Vienne, southern France, with the intention of deliberating and deciding upon the Order’s fate and to which members of the Order were called. Once freed from their brutal captors and within the Papal judicial system many Knights retracted their confessions but Philip’s impatience and eagerness strove him to demand that their original confessions be regarded as true and in defiance at the dragging of heals by the Vatican he burned many dozens at the stake in Paris in 1310 then threatened military action against the Pope.
In February of 1312 envoys from Philip negotiated with the Pope without consulting the Council, and Philip held an assembly in Lyon to apply further pressure then he presented himself at Vienne in person on 20th March. At length Clement buckled under such unrelenting pressure and in what was termed to be an act for the maintenance of the general welfare of the Church he finally dissolved the Order by Apostolic ordinance with his Bull “Vox in excelso” on 22 March, 1312, which was approved by the Council on 3rd April following ;
In view of the suspicion, infamy, loud insinuations and other things which have been brought against the other... and also the secret and clandestine reception of the brother of this Order; in view, moreover, of the serious scandal which has arisen from these things, which it did not seem could be stopped while the Order remained in being, and the danger to faith and souls, and the many horrible things which have been done by the very many of the brothers of this Order, who have lapsed into the sin of wicked apostasy, the crime of detestable idolatry, and the execrable outrage of the Sodomites . . . it is not without bitterness and sadness of heart that we abolish the aforesaid Order of the Temple, and its constitution, habit and name, by an irrevocable and perpetually valid decree; and we subject it to perpetual prohibition with the approval of the Holy Council, strictly forbidding anyone to presume to enter the said Order in the future, or to receive or wear its habit, or to act as a Templar.
with the further Bulls “Licet dudum” being issued on 18 December, 1312, “Dudum in generali concilio” being issued on 31 December, 1312, and “Licet pridem” on 13th January, 1313. The cumulative result was the complete dissolution of the Order with its assets in the most part being made over the Hospitaller Order of St John thus leaving those of the Order in a desperate situation. Jacques de Molay, the elderly Grand Master, declared his innocence despite his previous confession under torture as did others, but he was declared a relapsed heretic and was burned at the stake in Paris on 18th March, 1314.
The burning of Grand Master Jacques de Molay
__________________________________
Non Nobis Domine, Non Nobis, Sed Nomini Tuo Da Gloriam !
Copyright: The Grand Priory of Scotland OSMTH/SMOTJ 2011
