Postby Drakeshead » Tue Feb 06, 2007 7:29 am
I was a little off, but here is more info:
Knights Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici), popularly known as the Knights Templar, were among the most famous of the Christian military orders. The organization existed for about two centuries in the Middle Ages, created in the aftermath of the First Crusade of 1096 to ensure the safety of the large numbers of European pilgrims who flowed toward Jerusalem after its conquest.
The Templars were an unusual order in that they were both monks and soldiers, making them in effect some of the earliest "warrior monks" in the Western world. Members of the Order played a key part in many battles of the Crusades, and the Order's infrastructure innovated many financial techniques that could be considered the foundation of modern banking. Members were also famous and easily recognized, with a white surcoat with distinct red cross emblazoned above the heart or on the chest, as seen in many portrayals of crusading knights.
The Order grew in membership and power, at its peak being comprised of thousands of knights. They were one of the best trained and disciplined fighting units of their day, superbly equipped, and they used their resources to construct numerous fortifications throughout Europe and the Holy Land. However, the tide eventually turned in the Crusades, and the Templars began suffering crushing defeats. Further conflict arose at home, as royals who were in financial debt to the Order grumbled at the organization's tax-free status. Things came to a head in 1307, when King Philip IV of France (Philip the Fair) caused many of the order's members in France to be arrested, tortured into "confessions" and burned at the stake. A few years later Pope Clement V, under further pressure from King Philip, forcibly disbanded the entire order. The sudden disappearance of a major part of the European infrastructure spawned a plethora of speculation and legends, which continue to keep the name "Templar" alive in modern fiction.
Organization
The 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 were subject to the Grand Master, appointed for life, who oversaw both the Order's military efforts in the East, and their financial holdings in the West.
There were four divisions of brothers in the Templars:
1)the knights, equipped as heavy cavalry (wore a white habit with red cross);
2)the sergeants (serjens), equipped as light cavalry and drawn from a lower social class than the knights (wore a brown mantle);
3)the serving brothers — the rural brothers (frères casaliers), who administered the property of the Order, and the frères de métiers, who performed menial tasks and trades;
4)the chaplains, who were ordained priests and saw to the spiritual needs of the Order.
With the high demand for knights, there were also knights who signed up to the Order for a set period of time before returning to secular life, as well as the Fratres conjugati, who were married brothers. Both of these wore a black or brown mantle with a red cross to delineate them from the celibate lifetime members, and were not considered to be of the same status as the celibate brothers.
At any time, each knight had some ten people in support positions. It also appears that the serving brothers (frères casaliers and frères de métiers) were not separate from the sergeants, but rather that a sergeant who was a skilled tradesman or was unable to fight due to age or infirmity would perform these other functions. The majority of the Templars, including the knights and the Grand Masters, were both uneducated and illiterate (as were most knights of the day), having come not from the upper nobility but from more obscure families.
Some brothers were devoted solely to banking (typically those with an education), as the Order was often trusted with the safekeeping of precious goods by participants in the Crusades; but the primary mission of the Knights Templar was warfare.
Initiation into the Order was a profound commitment, and involved a secret ceremony. Few details of the rituals were known at the time, fueling the suspicions of medieval inquisitors, but initiates, at least 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 goods to the Order. Further, 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 armament, made them a feared and elite fighting force in medieval times.
History
The order was founded around 1118 by French knight Hughes de Payens, a veteran of the First Crusade, for the protection of pilgrims on the road from Jaffa and Jerusalem. At first, the order had only nine knights as members, and relied on gifts and cast-offs. King Baldwin II of Jerusalem gave them a headquarters on the Temple Mount, above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. It was from this location that the Order took its name of Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon. Their emblem displayed two knights riding on a single horse, emphasizing their impoverished status.
The Dome of the Rock, one of the structures at the Temple MountPoverty did not last long though. The Order grew rapidly because of support from key church leaders such as Bernard de Clairvaux, and was declared exempt from all 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 across Europe, who were encouraged to donate support as their way of assisting with the fight in the Holy Land.
Though the primary mission of the Order was a military one, only a small percentage of its members were actually at the front lines, while many others were involved in developing a financial infrastructure to support the warrior branch. The Order also innovated ways of generating letters of credit for pilgrims who were journeying to the Holy Land, which involved pilgrims depositing their valuables with the Order before setting off on the journey. This may have been the first form of checking put into use. From this mixture of donations and shrewd business dealing during the 12th and 13th centuries the Order acquired large tracts of land both in Europe and the Middle East, 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.
Templars being burned at the stakeAfter Jerusalem was lost to Saladin in 1187, the Crusades gradually wound down and European support for the Order began to falter. In the early 1300s, King Philip IV of France (also known as "Philip the Fair") was in desperate need of money to continue his war with the English. Already deeply in debt to the Templars, on Friday, October 13, 1307 (a date possibly linked to the origin of the Friday the 13th legend), Philip had many French Templars simultaneously arrested, charged with numerous heresies, and tortured until they "confessed." This action released Philip from his obligation to repay his loans. King Philip also pressured the current Pope to take action against the Templars. When a pope refused, Philip had him kidnapped or executed, until a pope to his liking was installed. This finally resulted in the installment of Pope Clement V, a childhood friend of Philip's. In 1312, under pressure from King Philip, Clement officially disbanded the entire Order at the Council of Vienne. In 1314, the remaining leaders including Grand Master Jacques de Molay were burned alive at the stake.
Remaining Templars around Europe, having been arrested and tried under the Papal investigation (with virtually none convicted), were either absorbed into other military orders such as the Order of Christ and the Knights Hospitaller, returned to the secular life, or in some cases evidently fled to other territories outside of Papal control, such as England and excommunicated Scotland. But questions still remain as to what happened to the thousands of Templars across Europe, or to the fleet of Templar ships which vanished from La Rochelle on October 13, 1307. Also, the extensive archive of the Templars, with detailed records of all of their business holdings and financial transactions, was never found.
In modern times, it is the Roman Catholic Church's position that the persecution was unjust; that there was nothing inherently wrong with the Order or its Rule; and that the Pope at the time was severely pressured into his actions by the magnitude of the public scandal and the dominating influence of King Philip IV.
Gyver is a "Belly Mason"! 