In 1119, a knightly order of the Templars (Templars) was created in Jerusalem by the crusaders (mainly of French origin). At all European courts, members of the order occupied the most honorable positions.
The glory of the order grew along with its numbers, exploits, power and privileges, which attracted representatives of the most noble families to its ranks. There was not a single prominent family in Europe whose members were not in the order. It is not surprising when you consider that those who joined the order were not responsible for earlier misdeeds and crimes.
Donations of gold, jewelry, estates, castles flocked to the treasury of the knights. Templars owned more than 10 thousand castles, real estate abroad throughout Europe, and their lands were exempted from taxes. The churches of the order did not pay tithes to the Pope! The Order becomes the largest money-lender in Europe. His income was unheard of. The Templars for conducting monetary transactions invented the bill - a very useful type of securities that made it possible to transfer money without the risk of losing it due to the attack of robbers.
One can imagine what a formidable force the order looked like in the eyes of European monarchs. In the person of the Templars, a single form of government was formed, which was very little left to unite in its ranks the entire European aristocracy and townspeople, to stand above secular power and, putting an end to European strife and wars, to conduct their own, the only correct policy throughout Western Europe.
Back in 1191, the Templars bought the island of Cyprus from the English king and crusader Richard the Lionheart for a huge amount. A hundred years later, after Akka, the last Christian stronghold in the East, fell in 1291, the Templars were forced to leave the Holy Land and move permanently to Cyprus and France, where their main possessions were located.
Having deployed "Bosean" - this was the name of the black-and-white striped banner with a cross and the motto "Not for us, not for us, but for your name", the glorious paladins descended on the European coast to disperse to their assigned countries.
Paris was elected by the general chapter of the order as the main residence. For the first time, the capital of the French kings saw the "soldiers of Christ" - 130 knights dressed in white cloaks and accompanied by a large retinue of junior in rank - in black cloaks.
By order of the templars on the right bank of the Seine in the Marais quarter ("swamp"), a gigantic fortress Temple ("temple") was erected, where the treasury of the order, its pantry-safes were located. Seven fortress towers towered over the walls: the mighty main tower was as high as a twelve-story building. A deep moat surrounded the high walls. Inside there were stables, barracks, in the middle of the courtyard there was a parade ground for military exercises, a well and a garden with medicinal plants. The courtyard was lined with square marble slabs - white and black - like a chessboard. The main tower - the donjon was the residence of the great master. The treasury of the order was kept on several tiers of the dungeon under the donjon. The seat of the Order Chapter was a church with thick walls and windows that looked like loopholes. The construction of the castle was completed by 1222.
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At the beginning of the XIV century, France was ruled by King Philip IV, nicknamed the Beautiful for his angelic appearance. When a revolt broke out in Paris in 1306, the king took refuge with the Templars, who welcomed him and lent him a large sum of money. Philip IV was once again convinced of the power and wealth of the knights of the temple.
He showed friendly feelings to the Grand Master of the Order, Jacques de Molay, but he had completely different, secret, considerations. He felt very well the threat to his power. The growing influence of the order, its immediate "neighborhood" deprived the monarch of a restful sleep. Philip knew about the warning of the English Templars to Henry III: "You will be king as long as you are just." These words made Philip ponder, besides, he was experiencing a chronic lack of money. When the time came to settle the score, the king made it clear to Pope Clement V, his protege, that it was time to act.
At the request of the Pope, the Grand Master left Cyprus and came to Paris, supposedly for a meeting on a new crusade to the Holy Land. Together with him came 60 knights who brought 150 thousand gold florins and a large amount of silver. These treasures alone, delivered to the Temple storerooms, could cover the urgent debts of the French kingdom.
Shortly after arriving in Paris, on Black Friday, October 13, 1307, the Templars were arrested throughout France. The insidious king Philip IV the Handsome, who prepared the massacre, did not accidentally choose this day, giving it symbolic meaning. The riches of the order were confiscated in favor of the royal treasury, but most of them disappeared without a trace, marking the beginning of the legend of the hidden "Templar gold".
The templars were accused of all mortal sins and forced to confess them under torture. The chief prosecutor at the trial was the papal legate Guillaume de Nogaret. On March 18, 1314, Jacques de Molay was brought to Notre Dame Cathedral to repent of his sins, but he refused to confess and stated that all the charges were false. On the same day, on the Isle of Cite, he was burned over a low fire. The Grand Master steadfastly accepted a painful death and, before appearing before the eyes of the supreme judge, cursed the monster-king, the apostate-Pope and the treacherous Nogare in public.
“Pope Clement… Chevalier Guillaume de Nogaret, King Philip… In less than a year, I will call you to the judgment of God and you will receive just punishment! A curse! Curse on your family up to the thirteenth generation!.. "- shouted Jacques de Molay, according to Maurice Druon, the author of the historical novel" The Iron King ".
In fact, this is what happened. On the 40th day after the auto-da-fe, Pope Clement V died. Guillaume de Nogaret soon followed. In the same year 1314, sudden death overtook the king himself while hunting. A dozen years later, the royal dynasty of the Capetian was suppressed, the last representative of which was Philip IV. Shameful deaths overtook all the initiators of the destruction of the holy chivalry. In 1315, the Templar tormentor Angerrand de Marigny was hanged. The fate of the informers was not the best either: de Floyrand was stabbed to death with a dagger, Gerard Laverne and cleric Bernard Pele were hanged up on the gallows.
According to legend, before the Grand Master went to the stake, while still in prison, he appointed a successor, and from that moment the chain of Grand Masters was not interrupted. He also allegedly managed to organize four Masonic lodges - in Naples for the South, in Edinburgh for the West, in Stockholm for the North and in Paris for the East.
There are almost no material traces, architectural monuments that would be directly related to the medieval palladins in modern Paris. The Temple Castle has not survived, although it stood for a long time. Only the names of the streets in the old quarter of Marais: Temple Street (Temple), Old Temple Street and, crossing them, White Mantle Street, in honor of the Templar cloaks, remind of their former existence. There are two more churches located in the same quarter, which apparently enjoyed the veneration of the legendary knights.
Near the church of Saint-Gervais and Saint-Prot, dedicated to the two brothers who were tortured under the Emperor Nero, there was a piece of land donated to the Templars by Louis VI at the request of the founder of the order of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Templars built on this place a round chapel like the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The chapel has survived. In the XIV century, after the defeat of the Templars, it became part of the newly erected church of Saint-Gervais and Saint-Prot.
Nearby is the Church of Saint-Merry, dedicated to Saint Merry, who died in Paris in the 7th century. The pediment of the church is decorated with the figure of an old man with a long beard. Early sources say that in a similar way the templars portrayed Baphomet, a mysterious idol whom they supposedly worshiped.
According to the famous writer Georges Sadoul, the last great alchemist Fulcanelli (a mysterious person who lived in Paris in the 20th century) took part in the creation of an extremely closed society of Lucifer at the Church of Saint-Merry, for whose meetings he himself painted the "Templar idol" Baphomet in the form of a demon- hermaphrodite with a goat's head and hooves. There is another opinion - the "elder" is none other than Jacques de Molay himself.
In 1119, the knightly order of the templars was created in Jerusalem by the crusaders.
The modern residence of the French Masonic "brothers" is located on the quiet Parisian street Cadet, at number 16. Here are the headquarters of the Great East of France, the Museum of Freemasonry and other Masonic institutions. The inner chambers of the house are decorated with well-known symbols and regalia, including a mosaic floor of white and black cells (the same was the courtyard in the Temple). According to the masons themselves, the change of black and white "symbolizes the interpenetration of Light and Darkness, the Good and the Evil beginnings in the world."
Irina Strekalova