Page 88 - All About History - Issue 56-17

The Knights Templar, along with many
other military orders, became the engine
that drove and maintained European
control over the Holy Land

Many military orders were in operation alongside the Templars,
including the Alcántara, the Calatrava and the Knights of Santiago

Jacques de Molay, the last of the order’s The Temple Church in London was one of the
Grand Masters, helped contribute to its key headquarters for the Knights Templar in
downfall with his lack of political saviness England and was used for initiation ceremonies

So in the very first years of the Templars, this
idea came about of forming a pilgrim bodyguard, “The last Grand Master,
between 1119 and 1120. They’re able to take
this concept with apparent ease to the king of Jacques de Molay, was
Jerusalem, who immediately agrees to help fund
it. So that’s your first sign that these people are not capable”
immensely well connected.
Then, in about 1126, the first Grand Master,
Hugues de Payens, heads up a recruitment and A better way to describe the Templars’ sphere of Fifth Crusade, mainly because he didn’t want
fundraising tour across Europe. He crops up in the business in modern terms would be as a financial such large amounts of money passing through
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle asking Henry I if he can pop service. Because they had such a vast and wide the Vatican.
over to England and do some fundraising there. network of property, which was sanctified and well
He’s receiving donations from Queen Matilda. defended in many cases, they had access to a large How did the myths surrounding
In fact, their first great sponsor was Bernard of repository. One could place their valuables with the the Templar’s initiation ceremonies
Clairvaux, the great reforming abbot of his day. Templar while they went off to the Crusades and contribute to its eventual demise?
The Templars coupled the taste for reforming protect their wealth in the meantime. Well, we know a lot about these practices because
monasticism and the trend for new orders with In 1215, even King John was using New Temple we have copies of the French and Catalan Rules
the fact that the crusades were still popular at the in London to hold his wealth and keep his royal of the Templars, which describe the long and
time. It created a golden combination of powerful coffers safe in the event of crisis, so we get the elaborate initiation processes that they used. These
patronage from on high and strong support from impression that the Templars were considered a practices required the prospective member to
below with the general public. very safe choice for people of the day. The Templars present himself before his fellow Templars and
were, much like many financial institutions be inducted into the order with the ‘Kiss of Peace’.
Did these monastic warriors really of today, offering lots of different services. For There was nothing untoward about this element
pioneer financial principles that we instance, they were running the accountancy and of the ceremony until you get to around 1306 and
still use today? auditing processes of the French government of the King Philip IV of France’s campaign to disassemble
This is one of the slight myths surrounding the early 1100s and beyond. the Knights Templar.
Templars — that they were the world’s first bankers It certainly doesn’t sound very sexy, but in At this point, an evidence-gathering process
and that no one before them had even thought Paris they were effectively the Royal Treasury begins, which in modern politics would be known
about wealth transfer and other financial concepts, of France. The Templars were even collecting as ‘opposition research’. These people were looking
which isn’t quite the case. crusading taxes for Pope Innocent III during the for anything that could be used against the
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