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The Templars
By the early middle ages, Jerusalem had become a major place of pilgrimage, but difficulties were encountered by travellers passing through countries constantly in turmoil. The route passed through lands divided by wars, and then across seas infested with pirates. This made the venture extremely risky.
On reaching the Holy Land, Christians were harassed, sometimes captured and held for ransom by the local inhabitants.
After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, Knights who participated in the first crusade, to obtain free access to Christ's tomb and maintain this for all Christians, decided to remain in Jerusalem and founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem, choosing a King from amongst their own. (King Baudoin 1 of Jerusalem).
As a result the flow of pilgrims to Jerusalem increased during the 12th and 13th centuries.
A new religious order, the Hospitalers of Saint John of Jerusalem was created by these early monk/knights. Their initial mission was to lodge and look after the pilgrims. A large hospital, which was run on Greek lines and divided into wards, was formed.
It was an immense building, and was a tribute to the devotion of the Knights.
With the introduction of relatively sophisticated Arab medical practices, European knowledge of medicine was considerably enlarged.
The proximity of the original hospital buildings to the Church of Saint John the Baptist seems to have led to the choice of Saint John the Baptist as its patron saint.
The earliest Master known to historians was a certain Gerard (later Beatified), whom it is said, came from Martigues in Provence.
Then in 1118, the order of the Knights Templar was founded, by Hugh de Payen, a vassal knight of the Count of Champagne, in collaboration with Andre de Montbard.
Together with seven other knights they presented their plans to King Baudoin to form the Order of the Temple whose mission was to ensure the security of the pilgrims in the Holy Land.
The original nine Knights are generally thought to be
· Hugues de Payens, a vassel of Hugh de Champagne. A relative to the St Clairs of Roslin
· Andre de Montbard, Uncle of Bernard of Clairvaux, and another vassal of High de Champagne
· Geoffroi de St Omer, a son of Hugh de St Omer
· Payeb de Montdidier, a relative of the ruling family of Flanders
· Achambaud de St Amand, another relative of the ruling house of Flanders
· Geoffroi Bisol
· Gondamare
· Rosol
· Godfroi
Gondemar and Rosol were Cistercian monks. The Cistercians and the Knights Templar were closely linked by ties of blood and shared many of the same objectives.
Hugh, Count of Champagne is also thought to have taken a leading part in the forming of the Knights Templar although his position is unclear, as he would have come under the direct control of a man, who, under normal circumstances was his vassal.
In a document held in Seborga in northern Italy it is claimed that a monastery was founded there by St Bernard of Clairvaux, and it was he who nominated Hugues de Payens as the first Grand Master, and, that Abbot Edouared of Seborga consecrated him in that position.
After their formation they were granted part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which was built on the site of the original Temple of Solomon, as their headquarters.
Almost immediately and for the next nine years they were involved in secret excavations beneath the Temple. It is believed that the Knights in 1118 found a secret room beneath the Temple Mount, apparently, knowing exactly what they were looking for and where to find it.
Just what they found is the subject of legend.
Did the first Knights have some documents that led them to find treasure under the Temple when they arrived in Jerusalem?
Did they find the Ark of the Covenant?
Chartres Cathedral, that was largely built with money from the Templars has carvings, of what is believed to be the Ark being drawn by a couple of oxen, by the North door.
The Ark of the Covenant was designed as a chest - vessel - box - or container. It was allegedly the chest in which Moses placed the Ten Commandments.
This question has plagued historians and treasure hunters for centuries. For hundreds of years there have been rumours that the Knights Templar were not only the defenders of the faith, but were also the guardians of the Holy Grail.
The access tunnel descended vertically downwards for eighty feet through solid rock before radiating in a series of tunnel under the ancient temple. Almost immediately they became an enormously rich, and powerful organisation.
Years later these tunnels were re-excavated by Lieutenant Warren of the British Royal Engineers, who found just a few small artefacts of the Templars.
The mystery of why these tunnels were built remains to this day.
The Templars benefited, from numerous donations and organised a network of Commanderies throughout Europe and the Holy lands both rural and urban.
Revenue from their rural domains helped pay for the upkeep of large fortresses, capable of sheltering up to 2000 men, which served to maintain the Kingdom of Jerusalem for the Christian world.
In the Languedoc finance came from farming and especially from its flocks of sheep, which were to be found on the vast grasslands of the Larzac which estimates say formed 30% of their income. Commanderies were built, and some of the best examples are at La Cavalerie and La Couvertoirade which were fortified, practically all identical and remarkably well-preserved.
The Knights Templar - or Poor Knights of Christ were a monastic order. They took solemn vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and chose as their uniform a simple robe bearing a red cross.
The Knights Templar regularly transmitted money from Europe to Palestine, and developed an efficient banking system. Their military might and financial expertise caused them to become both feared and trusted, and they amassed great wealth through gifts from their grateful benefactors. They soon had an army and a fleet, as well as a surplus of money. Because of their vow of poverty they re-invested the money and lent it to those in need including the French King.
Their seal showed two knights on one horse to indicate that they were poor as a result of their vows of poverty.
The popes took them under their protection, exempting them from all other jurisdiction, episcopal or secular. Their property was exempted from all taxation, even from ecclesiastical taxes. This brought about conflict with the clergy of the Holy Land, as the quick increase of property ownership by the Order led to the diminution of the revenue to the churches.
The Templars had commanderies in every state. In France their possessions were extensive and in Palestine their castles are still famous because of the remarkable ruins which remain at Safed, built in 1140; Karak (1143); and, most importantly of all, Castle Pilgrim, built in 1217 to command a strategic position on the sea-coast. Fighting in the region continued, and at the siege of Safed (1264), ninety Templars met their death, and eighty others were taken prisoners by the Mohammedans, and, when they refused to deny Christ, died martyrs to the Faith. This fidelity cost them dear, and it has been estimated that in less than two centuries almost 20,000 Templars, died in war.
Eventually the crusaders were vanquished, and retreated to the Islands of Rhodes, off the Turkish coast between 1306 and 1309. There they set up the Grand Master's Palace, and barracks for each of the eight Langues or provinces that provided knights.
These buildings exist to today.
Because of its geographical position the Knights were forced to become a maritime power, and for the next two centuries the knights of Rhodes, became the principal defenders of Christendom against Moslem incursions through the Mediterranean.
After several unsuccessful sieges, the Turks managed to take the Island in 1522, and the Knights Hospitalier fled to Malta where they took the name, the Knights of Malta.
The Order became known for the quality of its service at the Hospital in Valetta, one of the largest and most modern in Europe and for its incessant fight against the Turks and the Barbary pirates.
Napoleon Bonaparte, on his way to Egypt with the Republican fleet, chased the Knights off Malta in 1798.
During the 19th century, the old Order of Saint John of Jerusalem from Rhodes and Malta was reorganised and took up once again its original vocation of health care which it now pursues throughout the world.
The Knights Templar amassed such wealth and influence that they started to be seen as a threat to the establishment. The Templars were opposed by the Order of Hospitalers, which, had, in its turn become military, and was the pre cursor, and then later the rival of the Templars.
To put an end to this rivalry between the military orders, their amalgamation was officially proposed by St. Louis at the Council of Lyons in1274, and again in 1293 by Pope Nicholas IV, but this did not occur.
A few years after the loss of the Holy Land, the King of France, Philip IV, turned his eyes to the wealth of the Templars. He started rumours of devil-worship and shameful practices by the Templars, which allowed him to prosecute the Templars as heretics, and an excuse to seize their property.
On Friday 13th October, 1307, the King's men were ordered to carry out mass arrests of the Knights. But before the order could be executed, some of the Knights sailed their fleet out of the Atlantic port of La Rochelle, and were never heard of again.
Although he succeeded in confiscating their lands, nothing of their fabulous wealth was found.
As the last Grand Master of the Knights of the Temple, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake, and he cried out to God to bring the King and the Pope, who had sacrificed the Templars for political gain, to join him at God's table. Within a year both were dead.
Many trials and inquisitions of Templars, took place in the following years. The order having been suppressed, it was left to the Pope to decide the fate of its members and the disposal of its possessions. As to the property, more than 600 commanderies stretching from Scotland to the borders of Poland and from Denmark to the tip of Sicily were turned over to the rival Order of Hospitalers.
The Templars Treasure
The hunt for this lost treasure has centered on a number of locations, among which is the medieval city of Gisors, in Normandy. It is supposedly honeycombed with complex underground passageways and chambers. Mysteriously, all attempts to discover what may be concealed in these subterranean corridors are rigorously discouraged by the authorities.
Bornholm an island off the coast of Sweden is literally smothered in ancient churches that bear all the hallmarks of having been built by the Knights Templar, and is said to have chambers hewn out of the rock under the churches and where the Templars may have secreted their treasure
The Cathedral of Chartres is said to be one of the 'resting places', having been built over a very short period of time and with money supplied by the Templars.
The church of Roslin south of Edinburgh is the subject of further rumours. There is circumstantial to an account that Henry, 1st Prince of the Orkney Islands, and grandfather of William St. Clair, founder of Rosslyn Chapel voyaged to North America with 12 ships in 1398, nearly a hundred years before Columbus was credited with discovering the continent.
The church and village of Rennes le Chateau in southern France is another location where the treasure is said to have been found, by its parish priest, abbé Bérenger Saunière, during the 1880s and 1890s. He suddenly became wealthy after making various excavations in the church, allowing him not only to renovate the church, but also to build a villa with a formally laid out garden, a belvedere and a neo-gothic tower. Abbé Saunière's life had a lot of rumours and question marks about it, with tales of visits to friends in high places in Paris - of friends in occult circles - of wining and dining famous people in his new villa, which he himself never lived in - of refusing to account for his expenditure and lifestyle to his bishop, but only to the Vatican, who passed no judgement on him.
To this day stories persist about the location of the Templar's wealth and treasures.
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