In 1095, the Pope proclaimed a sacred crusade against Jerusalem. The main military force was European knighthood, which formed several monastic orders. One of them was called the Poor Knights of Solomon's Temple, or Templars. From this tiny alliance, which united several dozen people, one of the most famous Order of the Knights Templars in history grew …
The Knights Templar was officially founded in 1119. But back in 1099, nine like-minded knights received premises for their needs in the southeast of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where the Al-Aqsa mosque is now located. This is the only knightly formation that received the right to establish a headquarters next to the residence of the king of Jerusalem.
Surprisingly, the recognition of the small order at the famous Cathedral in the town of Troyes was called upon by Bernard of Clairvaux, known throughout the then Christian Europe, and later elevated to the rank of saints. And the higher church authorities did not mind Bernard. On the contrary, the Knights of the Temple received full immunity: they were only amenable to the Pope himself! As stated in the documents of that time, this special status was given for their special services to the papal throne … But what was such a merit? Is it really unofficial activity from 1118 (according to their Charter) to 1128?
Age-old mystery
The seals of the order depict two riders on one horse. The charter describes how the knights should dress, how and what to eat. These are poor clothes, Spartan living conditions, common utensils and food without any frills.
And in the early years of their existence, the Knights of the Temple were so poor that they proclaimed poverty to be the basis of their existence. However, over two decades, the order began to possess quite significant property. How did it come about? Even with donations, the wealth of the order could not have been generated this way! Moreover, it did not arise from the protection of the knights of the pilgrims on the roads of Jerusalem. Although the protection of wanderers by knights was understood differently than an armed convoy of trade caravans.
The main goal of the knights indicated the protection of the pilgrims from the numerous robbers who were operating on the Jewish roads. But what were they really doing?
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Apparently, on the Temple Mount, they stubbornly searched for treasure. Traces of these excavations have survived to this day - the artifacts found indicate that the knights spent a lot of time not with a sword, but with a pickaxe in their hands. But the result of persistent archaeological research is unknown.
In the papers of the order, seized in 1307, there is no mention of the treasure. But, according to legend, the knights came across a second copy of the famous Copper Scroll, which indicated the burial places of Jewish treasures from the times of the first Temple. If this is true, then the knights suddenly became the owners of whole heaps of gold and silver! But in the decades that followed in 1128, they could get huge wealth and in a completely legal way.
But how? There is also an answer to this.
The road to the temple
Having received official status, the knights began to establish their commanderships throughout Europe. Everywhere they built temples and fortifications, in these specially created points along the roads connecting them (here it is, the protection of the roads!) Services were formed that allowed pilgrims and merchants to secure their journey thanks to bills of exchange: the pilgrim handed over his gold, received a receipt and boldly set off on the road, and having achieved his goal, he went to the knights and received gold on a bill. Simple and convenient. But for this financial operation it was required to have a gold reserve in each "bank"! So this obvious secret of the order brings us back to the same question: where did the knights get their wealth? And there is only one answer: we do not know. But we know something else: the number of hunters to take away the wealth of the knights with every ten years of their existence became more and more.
By the 14th century, the Knights of the Temple had become unusually wealthy. Since they had legal immunity, they turned out to be monopoly bankers. On the territory of France, Jews-usurers and Lombards, engaged in similar activities, have already been rooted out. The French kings did not like the fact that the knights were protected by the pope himself, but they did not risk getting involved with the church and were increasingly dependent on the knights-bankers. King Philip the Fair was able to defeat the knights only because he managed to bring Pope Boniface to death and put Clement V in his place, and not in Italy, but in controlled Avignon. The knights were arrested on October 13, 1307 on charges of heresy and disbanded in 1312, and the leaders of the order were burned to death in 1315. The king got rid of the knights, but … did he get the treasure?
Where to look for treasures?
The main treasures were kept in the Temple, a medieval fortress in Paris. This castle was founded in 1222 by Hubert, treasurer of the order.
The Temple was stubbornly searched, but there is no information that the king suddenly became the owner of unheard of wealth. Most likely nothing was found there. But folk legends testify that on the eve of the arrest, 18 carts covered with hay left the Temple, which moved towards the knightly port of La Rochelle, from where the treasures were sent to England through the English Channel: to Spain or Portugal by sea, to the islands of the Baltic or North Sea, across the Atlantic to America unknown to Europeans.
According to another legend, the cunning Templars took their wealth long before the arrests, and not to La Rochelle, but to the south, to Provence and Languedoc, where in the mountains these treasures were safely hidden until better times, providing a wide field for searches throughout southern France and beyond.
In 1745, a letter was accidentally found written by Jacques de Molay (the last of the masters of the order) to his nephew Guillaume de Beauje. “In the grave of your uncle, Grand Master de God, there are no remains of him. It contains the secret archives of the order. Together with the archives, relics are kept: the crown of the Jerusalem kings and four golden figurines of the Evangelists, which adorned the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem and did not go to the Muslims. The rest of the jewels are inside two columns, opposite the entrance to the crypt. The capitals of these columns rotate around their axis and open the opening of the cache."
Allegedly, after the execution, the nephew fulfilled the will of his uncle and buried his ashes (along with treasures) somewhere on his land. The treasure hunters literally dug out the property of de God and even the Temple itself, but they never found anything.
Most notable is the history of the enrichment of a minor curé Sauniere, who had a parish in Rennes-le-Château near the castle of Montsegur. During the renovation work, he allegedly found the order's treasure, which consisted of documents and jewelry. However, according to other sources, the priest was simply dishonest.
And yet I want to believe and hope that sooner or later the knightly treasure will be revealed to people. Let it not even be gold or precious stones, but documents from the past that reveal to us the secrets of a very distant history.
Gold dots on the map
The treasures of the Templars may be hidden in the estates of de Beauges in the famous octagonal tower of Arginie in the Barbezière castle, erected on the ruins of the Templar castle in the estate of Saint-Martin-de-Vence, in the house of the seneschal in Agen, in the Loire department in "gold" and "silver »Caves, in the castle of Valcroze, famous for the strange painting of St. Celestine, on the islands off the Baltic coast, and even in Latvia, Estonia and Russia! Latvian treasure hunters stubbornly believe that the treasure lies in the dungeons of the Ostsee castles, linking the flourishing of the construction of local fortresses with the death of the order (all of them were erected immediately after 1312). Hungarians propose to search in the mountains of Hungary, Poles - in Polish castles, and Russians are sure that the treasure should be looked for in the churches of Vladimir, decorated with octagonal Templar crosses.
But were there treasures? What did the knights actually find in the Holy Land, or (maybe) they didn't find anything? History is modestly silent about this. As well as he is silent about what the knights themselves or their confidants could have taken out of the Temple. But even if there were treasures … so many centuries have passed! Imagine: even if, by some incredible coincidence, the Livonian knights who built castles in Latvia became the heirs of the Templars, then … the treasures have long been spent! Just for this construction! This explains the unexpected construction boom!
Magazine: Riddles of History No. 3, Andrey Vasiliev