The Templars Read online

  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 Bitter Aftertaste

  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

  Crusader Castles

  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.

  * * *

  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.

  * * *

  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.