I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you've probably heard of the Knights Templar. Despite apparently having apparently been disbanded getting on for a millennium ago, this secretive order of Christian warrior monks remains surprisingly prominent in the public consciousness, cropping up in video games, TV shows, novels, and films with impressive regularity. Perhaps that has something to do with the widespread rumours that the Knights Templar never really went away, and that the remnants of this secret order continue to pull the strings of society from the shadows even today.
Whatever the reason, it's clear the Knights Templar have gotten themselves tangled up with a huge range of myths and legends over the centuries, from the holy grail to the ark of the covenant and the founding of the freemasons. But as exciting as all these conspiracy theories are, this is one of those rare cases where the true story is every bit as interesting as all the probably-made-up ones. Because, from incredibly humble beginnings and in a startlingly short space of time, the real Knights Templar rose to become one of the most influential organisations in history.
During their meteoric rise, the Templars attained unimaginable wealth, broke new boundaries in the business world, and wielded the kind of power that makes even kings jealous. But, as is often the case with rapid rises, the fall of the Knights Templar was, if anything, even more spectacular, ending with one of the most powerful men on earth being burnt at the stake in the Shadow of Notre Dame cathedral while spitting curses like Kanye West on a dis track. But.
. . I'm getting ahead of myself.
To best tell the story of the Knights Templar, I should probably start at the beginning - a beginning that can be found almost a thousand years ago in 1119 AD, exactly 20 years after the Franks captured Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate during the First Crusade. With Jerusalem suddenly under Christian control, Christian pilgrims from across Europe began flocking to the Holy Land to visit the many sacred sites found there. But these pilgrimages were dangerous.
While the city of Jerusalem itself was well guarded, much of the rest of the Holy Land - which stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the banks of the river Jordan - wasn't. Bandits were common, and pilgrims were easy targets. Thousands were robbed or even killed.
Sickened by this wanton slaughter, a French knight by the name of Hugues de Payens decided to transform himself into the hero the Holy Land needed. So, he gathered together 8 of his knightly mates, and, with the blessing of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, formed a new monastic order with the sole aim of protecting Christian pilgrims on their travels around the holy land. To begin with, that's all it was - a few brave knights chaperoning pilgrims.
Despite having been given shiny new headquarters on Temple Mount in Jerusalem by the king himself, the knights were incredibly poor, relying on the charity of those they protected to survive. Their lack of funds (along with the location of the headquarters) actually inspired their original name - 'The Poor Knights of the Temple of King Solomon. ' But that was a bit of a mouthful, and so eventually it was shortened to the name that remains so famous even today - the Knights Templar.
This small band of warrior monks did their protection job exceptionally well, and soon enough their reputation in Christendom began to grow, helped in no small part by the fact that one of the original knights had a nephew who was going places in the catholic church. And when I say he was going places, he was eventually made a saint - when he talked, Catholics listened. Before long, the Knights Templar were the trendiest charity in town, and anyone who was anyone suddenly wanted to be seen to be supporting them.
Some donated cold hard cash, others left land or valuables to the Templars in their wills, and noble families started sending any spare male sons they had lying around to join the order and make a name for themselves. By 1135 AD, even the Pope was feeling a bit of FOMO, which he quenched by issuing the Templars with a large monetary donation. 4 years later, he passed a Papal order that made the Templars exempt from paying taxes and essentially put them outside of local law in whichever countries they operated in - in short, they were answerable only to the Pope himself.
From there, the power and popularity of the Templars continued to snowball. At their peak, there were thought to be as many as 20,000 members spread across pretty much the whole of Europe and the Middle East. But the Templars never let this success go to their heads.
The life of a knight was heavily regimented and restricted. All new inductees were made to take vows of poverty, chastity, piety, and obedience. They also had to follow several hundred strict rules that dictated how they should lead their day to day lives.
These rules were incredibly prescriptive, outlining what the knights could eat, how they should spend their free time, and what they could wear. Most importantly of all, the rules made it clear that the Knights were to avoid fraternising with women at all costs. All that pent up sexual frustration seems to have paid off, because the Knights had a truly fearsome reputation on the battlefields of the Holy Land.
They excelled to such an extent that they evolved from pilgrim protectors to an elite corps of heavily armoured shock troops that were deployed wherever the fighting was fiercest throughout the crusades. The knights were well trained and expensively armed, but it was their bravery that really stood out - they were forbidden from retreating in battle unless every single Templar flag on the field had fallen. It helped that dying in battle was seen as a great honour, granting the fallen knight automatic queue jump privileges at the gates of heaven.
As a result, the Templars showed no fear even in the most hopeless situations. Away from the battlefields of the Holy Land, things were going equally well for the Order, which had become so rich so quickly it hardly knew what to do with all the cash. Eventually, the Templars settled on basically doing everything.
Real estate was one of the biggest focuses, and as well as buying up huge swathes of land in Europe and the Middle East, they built castles and cathedrals by the hundreds, many of which still stand to this day. They bought up vineyards, farmland, and stables, got involved in manufacturing, and hired blacksmiths, builders and squires. They also bought a large fleet of ships, and, most impressively of all, the entire island of Cyprus.
Off the back of these achievements and more, some modern historians consider the Knights Templar to have been the world's first multinational corporation. One of the most successful aspects of this business empire was dedicated to what can be considered a prototype of the modern concept of international banking. The system started out as an innovative way to help Christians with the logistics of visiting the Holy Land.
A pilgrim could head to a Templar house in their home country before setting off to hand over valuables or cash in return for a letter of credit. That credit could then be 'withdrawn' from any other Templar house anywhere else in the world. It was actually kind of ingenious.
Not only did it give the Templars another way to make money, it also helped them with their original mission of protecting Christians in the Holy Land. Since pilgrims no longer had to carry valuables with them on their trip to Jerusalem, they became far less attractive to bandits. Over time, the financial services offered by the Templars expanded to include the pawning of valuables, money lending, and even the paying of ransoms on credit.
These services were so highly regarded they were used by some of the most powerful people in Europe at the time, including at least two kings - King Henry III of England is said to have pawned his Crown Jewels with the Templars in order to raise some quick cash to help quell an uprising among his Barons, and King Philip IV of France borrowed significant sums from the Templars to finance a series of expensive wars, mostly with the English (it was always the English). Somehow, in under 200 years, what had started out as 9 poverty-stricken knights protecting pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem had somehow grown into a multinational conglomerate with the power of a small country. The trouble was, while the Templars had the riches and influence of a nation, they didn’t actually control one.
And that meant their entire existence relied on the goodwill of the men who did - the kings of Europe. Unfortunately for the Templars, that goodwill was about to abruptly run out. It started with the fall of Jerusalem to legendary general Saladin and his armies in 1187.
The Christians did manage to regain the city again in 1229, but they lost it again 15 years later. Jerusalem would remain under Muslim control for the next 700 years. The Templars had diversified admirably in the years since their foundation, but at their core, they existed to fight for Christianity in the Holy Land.
With that land now under new ownership, for the first time since their formation, people began to question whether or not the Knights Templar were really necessary anymore. By this point they should have been big enough and powerful enough to shrug that kind of criticism off. And they probably would have done, had their own success not come back to bite them at the worst possible time.
I mentioned a moment ago that Philip IV of France had borrowed money from the Templars to fight the English. What I didn't mentioned is that he'd borrowed a *lot* of money. So much, in fact, that paying it all back was proving to be a bit of a problem.
Luckily for Philip IV, he was a king. And kings have always had their own unique ways of dealing with problems - usually by murdering them. Seizing on the shifting public sentiment towards the Templars, King Philip put together a list of heresies he claimed were being committed by the secretive Templars in their castles and cathedrals.
Those heresies included spitting and urinating on the Cross, worshipping false idols, specifically Baphomet, and engaging in homosexual activities. It was mostly bullshit obviously - well, apart from that last one. You can't build a secret order of 20,000 men who are forbidden to fraternise with women without things getting at least a little bit Brokeback Mountain.
But King Philip wasn't worried about the veracity of his claims. All he had to do was find a few prominent Templars willing to confess to the crimes they were accused of and his case would be watertight. And no Templars were more prominent than Jacques de Molay, Grand Master and leader of the entire order.
You might think it would be difficult to get the brave Knights Templar to admit to crimes they hadn't committed, but remember - this was a time long before trifling things like human rights existed. If you were a king and you wanted someone to confess to something they didn't do, all you had to do was them torture them for a bit and you were golden. Sure enough, Jacques de Molay - along with many of his knights - confessed to everything.
Many would later recant their confessions once free of the thumbscrews, but by then it was too late. The Templar name had been tarnished, and, under pressure from King Philip, the Pope instructed that every Templar in Europe should be arrested and put on trial. A few years later, the order was officially disbanded.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of Templars were killed for their supposed crimes, including Jacques de Molay, who King Philip had burned at the stake on an island in the middle of the River Seine in Paris. It's said that Molay cursed both the Pope and King Philip even as the flames ate him alive, vowing that divine retribution would be brought down on them both in short order. And it seems the guy knew how to execute a solid curse, because both the Pope and King Philip were dead within the year.
Not that it made any difference for the Templars. Their race was officially run. Those that escaped persecution joined other catholic military orders or simply retired, never to raise arms again in the name of God.
Or at least, that's the official line. But of course, plenty of people believe the Templars never truly went away. As for why that is.
. . well, that's a good question, and there's no simple answer.
In truth, there's little evidence to support pretty much any of the many myths and legends that surround the Templars today. When the organisation was disbanded, it left behind a huge void, and over the years people have filled that void with stories. Many of the myths are linked to the mystery of what happened to the Templar's vast wealth after their demise, but there's actually a pretty simple answer to that one - King Philip the IV happened to it, appropriating Templar funds to pay off his mountainous debts.
Most other European kings did the same. These days, many people and organisations around the world claim to be descendants of the Knights Templar - including the Freemasons - but almost all of them are just appropriating the Templar story because it sounds cool. The vast majority of so-called 'Knights Templar' knocking around today are just middle-aged men with overactive imaginations who think they look good in chainmail.
That isn't quite the end of the story though. Because there is actually one modern organisation that genuinely is linked to the Templars - the Military Order of Christ based in Portugal. You see, while the various kings of Europe were arresting Templars left right and centre by order of the Pope, one king - Denis of Portugal - refused.
Instead, he set up the Military Order of Christ and invited any surviving ex Templars to join. The group still exists today more than 700 years later, but sadly there's no reason to believe they're hiding the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, or Jesus and Mary Magdalene's great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren (sorry to disappoint you Dan Brown). The Templar's legacy lives on in other ways though, too.
They did so much building at the height of their power that many Templar landmarks still exist today. Temple, the legal district in London, is named for the Templars, along with literally hundreds of churches and castles throughout Europe and the Middle East. The Templars may be gone, at least in their original form, but they certainly haven’t been forgotten.
And if you ask me, the countless myths and conspiracy theories that surround the order are surplus to requirements - the actual documented history of these warrior monks is better than most of them anyway. Thanks for watching.
