Knights Of The Temple 3
Percival Blanco
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a French military order of the Catholic faith, and one of the wealthiest and most popular military orders in Western Christianity. They were founded c. 1119 to defend pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, with their headquarters located there on the Temple Mount, and existed for nearly two centuries during the Middle Ages.
Officially endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church by such decrees as the papal bull Omne datum optimum of Pope Innocent II, the Templars became a favoured charity throughout Christendom and grew rapidly in membership and power. The Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantles with a red cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades. They were prominent in Christian finance; non-combatant members of the order, who made up as much as 90% of their members,[3][4] managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom.[5] They developed innovative financial techniques that were an early form of banking,[6][7] building a network of nearly 1,000 commanderies and fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land.[8]
The Templars were closely tied to the Crusades. As they became unable to secure their holdings in the Holy Land, support for the order faded.[9] Rumours about the Templars' secret initiation ceremony created distrust, and King Philip IV of France, while being deeply in debt to the order, used this distrust to take advantage of the situation. In 1307, he pressured Pope Clement V to have many of the order's members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and then burned at the stake.[10] Under further pressure, Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312.[11] The abrupt disappearance of a major part of the medieval European infrastructure gave rise to speculation and legends, which have currently kept the "Templar" name alive.
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici and French: Pauvres Chevaliers du Christ et du Temple de Salomon) are also known as the Order of Solomon's Temple, and mainly the Knights Templar (French: Les Chevaliers Templiers), or simply the Templars (French: Les Templiers).
After the Franks in the First Crusade captured Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate in 1099, many Christians made pilgrimages to various sacred sites in the Holy Land. Although the city of Jerusalem was relatively secure under Christian control, the rest of Outremer was not. Bandits and marauding highwaymen preyed upon these Christian pilgrims, who were routinely slaughtered, sometimes by the hundreds, as they attempted to make the journey from the coastline at Jaffa through to the interior of the Holy Land.[13]
In 1119, the French knight Hugues de Payens approached King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and proposed creating a monastic Catholic religious order for the protection of these pilgrims. King Baldwin and Patriarch Warmund agreed to the request, probably at the Council of Nablus in January 1120, and the king granted the Templars a headquarters in a wing of the royal palace on the Temple Mount in the captured Al-Aqsa Mosque.[14]
The order, with about nine knights including Godfrey de Saint-Omer and Andr de Montbard, had few financial resources and relied on donations to survive. Their emblem was of two knights riding on a single horse, emphasizing the order's poverty.[15]
The impoverished status of the Templars did not last long. They had a powerful advocate in Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a leading Church figure, the French abbot primarily responsible for the founding of the Cistercian Order of monks and a nephew of Andr de Montbard, one of the founding knights. Bernard put his weight behind them and wrote persuasively on their behalf in the letter In Praise of the New Knighthood,[16][17] and in 1129, at the Council of Troyes, he led a group of leading churchmen to officially approve and endorse the order on behalf of the church. With this formal blessing, the Templars became a favoured charity throughout Christendom, receiving money, land, businesses, and noble-born sons from families who were eager to help with the fight in the Holy Land. At the Council of Pisa in 1135, Pope Innocent II initiated the first papal monetary donation to the Order.[18] Another major benefit came in 1139, when Innocent II's papal bull Omne Datum Optimum exempted the order from obedience to local laws. This ruling meant that the Templars could pass freely through all borders, were not required to pay any taxes and were exempt from all authority except that of the pope.[19] However, in practice, they often had to listen to the wishes of the European rulers of the kingdoms their bases were in, especially when it came to looking after their nobles' money and possessions when they were deposited in their banks.[20]
With its clear mission and ample resources, the order grew rapidly. Templars were often the advance shock troops in key battles of the Crusades, as the heavily armoured knights on their warhorses would set out to charge at the enemy, ahead of the main army bodies, in an attempt to break opposition lines. One of their most famous victories was in 1177 during the Battle of Montgisard, where some 500 Templar knights helped several thousand infantry to defeat Saladin's army of more than 26,000 soldiers.[a]
A Templar Knight is truly a fearless knight, and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armour of faith, just as his body is protected by the armour of steel. He is thus doubly armed, and need fear neither demons nor men.
Although the primary mission of the order was militaristic, relatively few members were combatants. The majority acted in support positions to assist the knights and manage the financial infrastructure. The Templar Order, though its members were sworn to individual poverty, was given control of wealth beyond direct donations. A nobleman who was interested in participating in the Crusades might place all his assets under Templar management while he was away. Accumulating wealth in this manner throughout Christendom and the Outremer, the order in 1150 began generating letters of credit for pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land: pilgrims deposited their valuables with a local Templar preceptory before embarking, received a document indicating the value of their deposit, then used that document upon arrival in the Holy Land to retrieve their funds in an amount of treasure of equal value. This innovative arrangement was an early form of banking and may have been the first formal system to support the use of cheques; it improved the safety of pilgrims by making them less attractive targets for thieves, and also contributed to the Templar finances.[23]
Based on this mix of donations and business dealing, the Templars established financial networks across the whole of Christendom. They acquired large tracts of land, both in Europe and the Middle East; they bought and managed farms and vineyards; they built massive stone cathedrals and castles; they were involved in manufacturing, import and export; they had their own fleet of ships; and at one point they even owned the entire island of Cyprus. The Order of the Knights Templar arguably qualifies as the world's first multinational corporation.[24][25] By the late 12th century the Templars were also politically powerful in the Holy Land. The secular nobles in the Kingdom of Jerusalem began granting them castles and the surrounding lands as a way of improving their defenses against the growing threat of the Zengids in Syria. The Templars were even allowed negotiate with Muslim rulers independently of the feudal lords. The Templar castles became de facto independent lordships with their own economic markets, and with that came the increase in political authority. During the regency that followed the death of King Baldwin IV in 1185, the royal castles were placed into the custody of the Templars and Hospitallers, and the Grand Masters of those two orders, along with the Patriarch of Jerusalem, also each had a key to the crown jewels.[26]
From the mid-12th century on, the Templars were forced (jointly with the Knights Hospitaller) to actively involve themselves in anti-Muslim military activities in the Iberian Peninsula. Prior to this time, human resources were exclusively dedicated towards the extraction of resources to send to the Latin East.[27] In the kingdoms of Castile and Len, they obtained some major strongholds (such as Calatrava la Vieja or Coria), but the fragility of their positions along the border was exposed upon Almohad offensive.[28] In Aragon, the Templars seized the possessions of the Order of Mountjoy in the late 12th century, becoming an important vanguard force in the border, while in Portugal they were charged with operating some castles along the Tagus line.[29] One of these was Tomar, which was unsuccessfully besieged by the Almohad Caliphate in 1190.
Due to the economic drain caused by sending a third of their revenues to the East, Templar and Hospitaller activities in the Iberian Peninsula were nonetheless at a disadvantage with respect to the Hispanic military orders, which were able to entirely devote their resources to the region.[30]
The details of the Order's early military activities in the Middle East are vague, though it appears their first battles were defeats, because the Seljuk Turks and other Muslim powers used different tactics than those in Europe at that time. In later years, the Templars adapted to this and also became strategic advisors to the leaders of the Crusader states.[31] The first recorded battle involving the Knights Templar was in the town of Teqoa, south of Jerusalem, in 1138. A force of Templars led by their Grand Master, Robert de Craon (who succeeded Hugues de Payens about a year earlier), was sent to retake the town after it was captured by Muslims. They were initially successful, but the Muslims regrouped outside the town and were able to take it back from the Templars.[32]