A powerful order of knights-templars, warrior-monks who participated in the crusades, arose in 1118 in Jerusalem, ostensibly to protect Christian pilgrims who wished to visit the Holy Land. In less than two centuries, the Templars have earned a reputation as brave and merciless warriors. Templars began to call all the crusaders, whose symbol was a white mantle with an emblem in the form of a red cross. Perhaps less well known is the fact that the activities of the Templars in the Holy Land were financed from the funds accumulated in Europe as a result of the sale and purchase of land - this was the first "banking" network in the world. The cruel massacre of the Templars of the French King Philip IV the Fair and Pope Clement V, the reasons for which have not been clarified to this day, enveloped the history of the order with an aura of mystery. Almost all mystical phenomena were associated with him:from the founding of Freemasonry to the search for Noah's ark. What is the real story of their appearance and death?
At first, the Knights Templar consisted of nine people, led by Hugh de Payen, a nobleman from the Champagne province in northeastern France. When Jerusalem was recaptured from the Muslims during the first crusade in 1099, he offered help to King Baldwin II of Jerusalem. The Order of the Knights Templar was created as a well-coordinated religious-military organization, whose members swore an oath of chastity and obedience and were obliged to lead an ascetic lifestyle and protect the pilgrims heading to the Holy Land. In 1118, King Baldwin granted the Templars one wing of a palace on the Temple Mount, supposedly built on the site of Solomon's Temple. Therefore, the Templars began to be called "the poor knights of the Temple of Solomon." In 1128, in the council of the city of Trois, the Templars received official permission from the Church to create an order. Their patron,French abbot Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, wrote the charter of the new organization. In 1128, the first Grand Master of the Order, Hugo de Payenne, went to England in search of money for the order by attracting new members to the organization. Thus began the history of the English Knights Templar. At the Fine Arts, de Payen returned to Palestine with 300 knights recruited mainly from the French and British. In the same year, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote to de Payenne: "Glory to the new chivalry", expressing his support for the order. This letter had a strong influence on the Templars and quickly spread throughout Europe on lists, prompting some young people to join the order or donate land or money to a good cause. The first Grand Master of the Order, Hugh de Payenne, went to England in search of money for the order by attracting new members to the organization. Thus began the history of the English Knights Templar. At the Fine Arts, de Payen returned to Palestine with 300 knights, recruited mainly from the French and British. In the same year, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote to de Payenne: "Glory to the new chivalry", expressing his support for the order. This letter had a strong influence on the Templars and quickly spread throughout Europe on lists, prompting some young people to join the order or donate land or money to a good cause. The first Grand Master of the Order, Hugh de Payenne, went to England in search of money for the order by attracting new members to the organization. Thus began the history of the English Knights Templar. At the Fine Arts, de Payen returned to Palestine with 300 knights, recruited mainly from the French and British. In the same year, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote to de Payenne: "Glory to the new chivalry", expressing his support for the order. This letter had a strong influence on the Templars and quickly spread throughout Europe on lists, prompting some young people to join the order or donate land or money to a good cause."Glory to the new chivalry", expressing their support for the order. This letter had a strong influence on the Templars and quickly spread throughout Europe on lists, prompting some young people to join the order or donate land or money to a good cause."Glory to the new chivalry", expressing their support for the order. This letter had a strong influence on the Templars and quickly spread throughout Europe on lists, prompting some young people to join the order or donate land or money to a good cause.
In all countries, divisions of the Knights Templar with their own masters arose. For example, the first master of England, known from written sources, was Richard de Hastings, who took office in 1160. He, like any other master, was subordinate to the Grand Master, who was appointed to this post for life and was responsible for conducting military operations in the Holy Land. as well as his commercial activities in Europe. It remains a mystery how the initiation of new members took place. In the future, this fact will become fatal for the order. It is known that future members, necessarily people of noble origin, had to not only take an oath of asceticism, chastity, piety and obedience, but also renounce material goods, that is, transfer all their wealth to the order. As true warriors, the Knights Templar vowed never to surrender to the enemy. A glorious death on the battlefield in the battle in the name of God (against the forces of evil - that is how it sounded) promised the knight the Kingdom of Heaven. The desire to fight to the last breath, grueling exercise and tough discipline turned the Templars into fearless and formidable warriors.
Soon, the knights enlisted the support of the Holy See and the most influential monarchs in Europe. In England, King Henry II granted the Templars lands throughout the country, including extensive holdings in the Midlands. In London by the end of the XII century. in the area between present-day Fleet Street and the River Thames, the British Templars founded their "headquarters" - Temple (or Round Temple), designed after the model of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Adjacent to it was a building in which living rooms, rooms for exercises with weapons and for recreation were located. Members of the order were not allowed to travel to London without the Master's permission.
In 1200, Pope Innocent III issued a bull granting immunity to all members of the order, along with their property - that is, they no longer obey local laws, which means they were exempt from paying taxes and church tithes. This was an important factor in the rapid accumulation of wealth, which the order immediately took advantage of. Backed by major landowners in Europe, the Templars raised the funds needed to provide for the rank and file Templar Knights. In addition, fortifications were built at strategically important points on the way from Europe to the Holy Land with donations and money raised from a fairly lucrative commercial activity (sale and purchase of land, property and loan operations). However, all efforts were in vain: the fierce opposition of the Templars to the numerically superior forces of Islam ended in the defeat of the order. In 1291the remnants of the Templar army were destroyed by a 10,000-strong Mamluk army in Accra, in the Western Galilee. Thus ended the Christian rule over the Holy Land. Many Europeans began to be overcome by doubts: whether God wants the knights to continue the war against Muslims. After all, if the crusades stopped and the Holy Land is lost, the Knights Templar are no longer needed. There is no longer the purpose for which the order was created. The wealth and power of the order, the tax-exempt owner of large estates across Europe, aroused envy, which ultimately led to the liquidation of the order.so that the knights continue the war against the Muslims. After all, if the crusades stopped and the Holy Land is lost, the Knights Templar are no longer needed. There is no longer the purpose for which the order was created. The wealth and power of the order, the tax-free owner of large estates across Europe, aroused envy, which ultimately led to the liquidation of the order.so that the knights continue the war against the Muslims. After all, if the crusades stopped and the Holy Land is lost, the Knights Templar are no longer needed. There is no longer the purpose for which the order was created. The wealth and power of the order, the tax-exempt owner of large estates across Europe, aroused envy, which ultimately led to the liquidation of the order.
In October 1307, King Philip IV the Handsome ordered the arrest and imprisonment of all the Templars in France, as well as the confiscation of all the property and possessions of the Templars. He accused the order of faith: including the desecration of the cross, the main Christian symbol, homosexuality and idol worship. Some Templars were tortured by the Inquisition until they confessed, and then they were executed. It is highly doubtful that the confessions obtained under such circumstances would have any real basis. In 1314, the surviving leaders of the order, including the last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, were burnt on pillars in front of Notre Dame Cathedral on the Ile de la Cité, located on the River Seine. They say that before his execution, de Molay predicted that in a year Philip IV and his accomplice, Pope Clement V, would be overtaken by death. Whether this is true or not is unknownbut indeed they both died a year after the execution. With the death of de Molay, the turbulent two-hundred-year history of the Order of the Knights Templar ended. In any case, this is the generally accepted version of events.
The rest of the European monarchs remained unconvinced about the guilt of the Templars even after Pope Clement V, under pressure from Philip, officially dissolved the order in 1312. Although in England the knights were also arrested and tortured, most of them were still found innocent. Some of the Templars fled to Scotland, where in those years the excommunicated Robert Bruce ruled, since the papal bull did not operate on these lands, declaring the activities of the order illegal. Many theories have been put forward as to why Philip IV initiated the persecution of the Templars. Most scholars agree that the king wanted to take away and appropriate their wealth and power by any means possible, but it is unclear what exactly of the Templar treasures ended up in Philip's hands.
The sudden and tragic destruction of the order of the Knights Templar, as well as the disappearance of its property without a trace, became the basis for the emergence of various legends and hypotheses. It is known that only a part of its members joined the ranks of other orders (such as the Order of the Knights-Hospitallers), but it is not clear what happened to the 15,000 castles of the Templars, the ships of their fleet, a huge archive in which all the financial transactions of the order are detailed, and by the Templars themselves. There were tens of thousands of Templars in Europe. Only a few of them were tortured and executed. What happened to the others?
Promotional video:
Presumably, the county of Hartford in England became a refuge for knights from Europe, and the city of Baldock, founded by the Templars, already in 1199-1254. was the British headquarters of the order. Obviously, after the official liquidation of the order, the Templars survived, but now they held their gatherings in secret - in secret rooms, basements and caves. Royston Cave in Hertfordshire, located at the intersection of two Roman roads (now Icknild and Ermin Streets), may have been one of the gathering places for the Templars. Several rock paintings dating from the Middle Ages were found on the walls of the cave. Many drawings can be called pagan, but among them there were also images of St. Catherine, Lawrence and Christopher. The version that the Templars were hiding in Royston Cave is confirmed by identical drawings in the Tower of Koudre near the village of Chinon in France, where in 1307 g. Templar prisoners awaited execution.
According to another version, the Templars who fled to Scotland founded the Scottish Rite Masonic Order. It has been established that John Graham Claverhouse, the first Viscount of Dundee to be killed at the Battle of Killikrankie in 1689, wore a Templar cross under his armor. Some researchers believe that Freemasonry at the end of the 17th century. was an order of the Knights Templar, which only changed its name.
There are many legends about the mythical treasures of the Templars. The long stay of the members of the order on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem gave rise to legends about the excavations that the knights allegedly carried out in these places and, possibly, discovered the Holy Grail, Noah's Ark, or even the fragments of the cross from Calvary. One of the legends said that members of the order found the Holy Grail under the Temple Mount and took it to Scotland at the beginning of the 14th century. They say that the Grail is there today: it is buried in the ground somewhere under the Roslin chapel - a church of the 15th century. in the village of Roslyn in County Midlothian.
Some secret organizations of our time, such as the Order of the Temple of the Sun, claim to be the successors of the Templars, others are trying to resurrect their spirit. In the modern world, with its love for secret societies, knowledge, occult sects and long-lost relics, the Knights Templar personify ancient secret societies. However, historians believe that the real legacy of the Templars is more prosaic: it is mainly the basics of banking and a set of knightly laws. Nevertheless, their story gave food for fantasy, which means that there will always be people who wonder: is this really all that remains of the poor knights of Solomon's temple?
B. Houghton. "Great secrets and mysteries of history"
