The Templars
The History and the Myth
Michael Haag
To Jon Buller and Susan Schade
les châtelains de Mont Becket
Contents
Introduction
The Contexts
The Temple of Solomon
The Temple of Solomon
Sacred Origins of Jerusalem
The Promised Land
King David’s City
The Ark of the Covenant
The Threshing Floor of Zion
The Empire of David and Solomon
Solomon Builds the Temple
King Hiram of Tyre
The Widow’s Son
A House for the Name of God
The End of the Temple
The New Christian Empire
Pilgrimages to the Holy Land
Constantine and Arianism
Byzantines, Persians and Jihad
The Muslim Conquests
From Revelation to Jihad
Problems with Islamic History
Islamic Imperialism and Flourishing Christian Heresies
The First Crusade
Arab Divisions and Decline
Perilous Pilgrimages
The Turkish Invasion: Byzantium Appeals to the West
Pope Urban’s Call
Taking the Cross
The First Wave: The People’s Crusade
The Second Wave: The Princes Lead the Way East
The Reconquest of Jerusalem
The Rise (1099 to 1150)
Origins of the Templars
The Kingdom of Jerusalem
Outremer and Its Muslim Neighbours
The Crusaders and Byzantium
Fear and Massacre on the Roads
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon
Templar Mission to the West
Saviours of the East and Defenders of All Christendom
The Second Crusade
Muslim Friends and Allies
The Fall of Edessa
Bernard Launches the Second Crusade
The Templars’ Role in the Crusade
Fiasco at Damascus
The Power (1150–1291)
Crusader Castles
A Power Unto Themselves
Templar Castles
Merchant Bankers
The Templars’ Ports and Mediterranean Trade
The Templar Banking Network
International Financial Services
Vulnerable Relationships with Kings
Medieval Heresy
Templars and Cathars
The Gnostics
Islamic Dualism
The Assassins
The Templars and the Old Man of the Mountain
Saladin and the Templars
Amalric’s Egyptian Campaigns
Templar Relations with the Kingdom of Jerusalem
The Rise of Saladin
Factions in Outremer
The Springs of Cresson
The Horns of Hattin
Saladin Takes Jerusalem
Looking Back at the Temple Mount
Holding On
Jerusalem Again
The Rise of the Mamelukes
Catastrophe at La Forbie and the Seventh Crusade
Templar Plans for Defending the Holy Land
The Fall of Acre
The Last Templars in the East
The Fall (1291–1314)
Exile from the Holy Land
Dreams and New Realities
Waiting for the Mongols
Philip IV, the Most Christian King
Pope Clement’s New Crusade, King Philip’s New Order
The Last Days
The Trial
Accusations and Defamation
The King’s Motives
Spies, Tortures and Confessions
The Pope Acts
Deadlock Between Pope and King
The Pope Hears the Strange Testimony of the Templars
The Mystery of Chinon
The Chinon Parchment
The Templars Rally
The Suppression of the Templars
The Burning of James of Molay
The Aftermath
Survivals
The Survival of the Hospitallers
The Templars in Britain
Spain–the Order of Montesa
The Order of Christ in Portugal
The Templar Archives
Conspiracies
The Immediate Reaction
The Romance of the Templars
Templars and Witchcraft
Solomon’s Temple and the Freemasons
Enlightenment and Mystery
Freemasons and Templars
The Revenge of James of Molay
A Scottish History for the Knights Templar
The Templars Discover America
The New World Order
Skull and Bones
The Templars Forever
Locations
Outremer
Israel
Jerusalem: The Old City
The Temple Mount
Acre
Syria
Tartus (Tortosa)
Safita (Chastel Blanc)
Krak des Chevaliers
Arwad (Ruad)
Europe
France
Paris: The Temple
Spain
Segovia: Church of Vera Cruz
Ponferrada: The Templar Castle
Portugal
Tomar
Almourol
Britain
London: The Temple Church
Cressing Temple, Essex
Rosslyn Chapel, Scotland
Templarism
Born Again Templars
Rise of the Templar Literary Phenomenon
Templar Novels
The Templars in Movies
Templars on TV
Templars Rock
Templar Gaming
Further Reading
History of the Templars
Medieval Pilgrimages
History of the Crusades
Jerusalem and the Temple Mount
History of the Middle East
Templar Locations in Britain
The Holy Grail
The Cathars, Dualism and Other Heresies
Freemasons
Alternative History
Websites
Ancient and Medieval History Resources
The Crusades
The Templars
The Chinon Parchment
Jerusalem
The Ark of the Covenant
The Holy Grail
Gnosticism, Catharism and the Occult
Freemasons
Searchable Terms
Chronology
A Note on Names
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
The Templars were founded in Jerusalem on Christmas Day 1119 at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the spot which marks the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A religious order of fighting knights, their headquarters was on the Temple Mount, that vast platform rising above the city where King Solomon had built his Temple two thousand years before. Surrounded by these potent historical and sacred associations, the Templars assumed their responsibility to protect pilgrims visiting the holy shrines and to defend the Holy Land.
The Templars soon became a formidable international organisation. Vast donations of properties were made in Europe to maintain this elite taskforce overseas, and special rights and privileges were granted by popes and kings. Dressed i
n their white tunics emblazoned with a red cross, they became the West’s first uniformed standing army and also pioneered an extensive financial network that reached from London and Paris to the Euphrates and the Nile. As an order they became powerful and wealthy, but as individuals their existence was simple and austere. Their bravery was legendary, their dedication was absolute and their attrition rate was high; at least twenty thousand Templars were killed, either on the battlefield or after being taken captive and refusing to renounce their faith to save their lives.
Yet in the end the Templars were destroyed not by the Muslims in the East but by their fellow Christians in the West. On Friday 13 October 1307 the Templars were arrested throughout France and soon elsewhere throughout Europe. They were charged with heinous heresies, obscenities, homosexual practises and idol worship; many were tortured and confessed. The end came in 1314 when the Templars’ last Grand Master was burnt alive at the stake.
The shock and mystery of their downfall has excited interest in the Templars for seven centuries since. Some historians have conjectured that the Templars’ sojourn in the East brought them into contact with Gnosticism, the ancient heresy embraced by the Cathars of France, while the Freemasons have drawn a line of occult knowledge transmitted from the Temple of Solomon via the Templars to themselves.
Never has speculation about the Templars been more feverish than today. Did the Templars carry out excavations beneath the Temple Mount and find something extraordinary that explains their rise to power and wealth and, according to some, their continued but clandestine existence to this day? Was it some vast treasure? Or the Ark of the Covenant? The Holy Grail? The secret to the life of Christ and his message? And where did this secret travel when the Templars were suppressed? To Scotland, to America?
What is certainly true is that the rise and fall of the Templars exactly corresponded to the two centuries of the crusading venture in the East, where after a series of outrages against Western pilgrims and Eastern Christians, and in the face of renewed aggression which threatened all of Europe, the First Crusade was launched in 1095 to recover Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine from Muslim occupation. Simultaneously, the struggle was being fought in the Iberian peninsula where the Templars eventually helped liberate Spain and Portugal. But the crusading effort in the East, with the Templars at its heart, was never enough to withstand the overwhelming Muslim forces that could be brought into the field when they were united by the likes of Saladin or the Mamelukes. In 1291 when the Mamelukes drove the last Frankish settlers out of the Holy Land, the Templars lost the main purpose of their existence, and soon they fell victim to the rapacious greed and tyrannical ambitions of the King of France.
One of the great Templar mysteries has always been the role played by the Papacy in the downfall of the order. The Pope was meant to be their protector and to the Pope alone the Templars owed obedience, yet to judge from the apparently supine acquiescence of the Papacy to the demands of the King of France, the Pope either betrayed the Templars or believed them guilty of terrible crimes. These conjectures took a dramatic turn in 2007, when the Vatican published a facsimile edition of a parchment recording the Templar leaders’ testimony to Papal investigators at Chinon in 1308. This document had been discovered in the Vatican Secret Archives and revealed–seven hundred years too late to save the lives of James of Molay and countless other knights–that the Pope believed the Templars innocent of heresy.
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About this book
There are seven parts to this book. The first four cover the historical narrative. They begin with the origins of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem–from which the Templars took their name. And they continue with the rise of Christianity and the challenge of Islam–the context for pilgrimages and the Crusades which became the raison d’être for the Templars. The narrative then proceeds through the foundation of the Templars, their rise to power and their dramatic fall as the Holy Land was lost to the Muslims, and it concludes with their trial. Part Five deals with the aftermath of the Templars’ dissolution, their various survivals, and their co-optation by Freemasons and conspiracy theorists.
The books’ last two parts include guides to the most interesting Templar sites and buildings to be seen today in the Middle East and Europe, and to the emergence of Templarism–the adoption of Templar history and myth in popular culture, from fiction to computer games, as well as reviews of the best Templar books and websites.
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Part 1
The Contexts
The Temple of Solomon
Three Temples and a Vision
The story of the Templars must begin with that of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where the Dome of the Rock stands today. For it was here that Solomon’s Temple was built–the legendary, lost temple of the Jews, from which the Templars, as guardians of the Holy Land, took their name, and on whose site they created their military and spiritual headquarters. Sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, no world site has greater resonance; nor, as home of the Ark of the Covenant, such enduring myth.
Physically, the Temple Mount takes the form of a vast platform, which was constructed over a natural hill by Herod the Great to support his gigantic temple–built around 25–10 BC on the site of Solomon’s original temple of a thousand years earlier. It is Herod’s Temple that is referred to in the Gospel of Mark 13:1–2, when a disciple says to Jesus, ‘Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!’, to which Jesus replies, ‘Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.’ And it was this temple that, duly bearing out the prophecy, was destroyed by the Roman emperor Titus in AD 70 in the course of putting down a Jewish rebellion.
The Temple of Solomon
Though nothing survives of Herod’s Temple, the exposed western retaining wall of the Temple Mount platform, famously known as the Wailing Wall, has come to symbolise not only the lost Temple of Herod but the first temple built on this same spot three thousand years ago, the Temple of Solomon.
Solomon, the son of David and Bathsheba, became King of Israel in about 962 BC and died in about 922 BC. During the forty years of his reign, he expanded trade and political contacts, centralised the authority of the crown against tribal fragmentation, and engaged in an elaborate building programme. His principal building works were the royal palace and the Temple in Jerusalem.
Almost all that we know about the planning and building of Solomon’s Temple comes from the Old Testament, in particular the books 2 Samuel, 1 Kings and 1 Chronicles. We also know from 2 Kings about the Assyrians’ capture of Jerusalem in 586 BC, and how they destroyed the city, burnt down Solomon’s Temple, and sent the population into exile at Babylon where their lament is recorded in Psalms 137:1: ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.’
We are told by the later Book of Ezra that after the Assyrians were overthrown by the Persians, the Persian King Cyrus the Great gave permission for the Jews to return home from their captivity in Babylon and to rebuild their temple. Begun in 520 BC and completed five years later, this Second Temple, also known as the Temple of Zerubbabel, stood on the same spot as the Temple of Solomon and probably followed its plan, but owing to the reduced condition of the Jews at the time it was not possible to reproduce the magnificence of Solomon’s decorations.
Jerusalem remained part of the Persian Empire for two hundred years. But when Alexander the Great defeated the Persian King Darius III at the battle of Issus in 333 BC the entire Middle East came under the rule and cultural influence of the Greeks. In time the Greeks were superseded by the Romans, though much of Greek culture remained. Palestine, as the Romans called it, became part of the Roman Empire in 63 BC, but it was given complete autonomy under Herod the Great, a Jew who had proved himself loyal to Roman interests and was installed as King of the Jews in 37 BC.