In 1118 Huges de Payens and eight other French Knights established a Religious Order to protect pilgrims who were travelling from Jaffra to Jerusalem to see the Holy Land.

At this time travel was very dangerous and there was a very good chance of being attacked either by local bandits or other people.

This order was called the Knights Templar.

All of the entrants to the Order had to take Monastic Vows and they eventually set up their headquarters on the site of Solomons Temple in Jerusalem.

 Its headquarters was the captured Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount..

The Knights Templar wore long white Robes with a Red Cross on the left shoulder.

They were a mounted Order and their main weapon was the long Sword.

They were very proficient in arms and became the most feared fighting force of their time.

 

Partly because of their willingness to fight to the death they routed many attacks on pilgrims.

One of the major symbols of the Knights Templar was a seal including two knights riding a single horse (symbolic of not leaving a brother knight behind – a common ethic of top fighting forces today).

The popularity of the Knights Templar grew and so did their bases – there were commanderies and other Knight Templar sites throughout Europe (but especially in France and Britain).

In London their main headquarters was on a site still known as the Temple.

 

This is now two of the Legal centres of Lonson – the Inner Temple and the Outer Temple

There is also a round Templar Church there (allegedly round so that the devil could not hide in the corners !)

A number of Knights Templar were buried there and their effigies can still be seen.
One of the main problems of making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem was keeping your money safe.

The Knights templar invented a system that is in use today by Banks – the monetary draft.

A merchant would take his money to the local Knights Templar and would be given a promissory note that would be exchanged at Jerusalem for cash.

 

They thus invented the European Banking System.

This was a lot safer.

The empire of the Knights Templar grew very quickly and  they then began to control trade and shipping throughout the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea.

 

A tax on shipping brought them incredible wealth and they began to lend money to merchants and even Kings. (This was later to prove their undoing)

Because they were building so many castles, commanderies, churches and other buildings they became inextricably involved with the Masons (who actually were workers in stone) and some of the senior stone masons acquired the knowledge and rituals that the Knights Templar had themselves acquired in the Middle East.

 

At the beginning of the existence of the Knights Templar they were alleged to have made an amazing discovery by excavating the foundations of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem.

According to various theories this may have been the Holy Grail,Ark of The Covenant or the Holy Lance or the Secrets of Solomons Masons.

Whatever it was, they reported it to the Pope and suddenly the Order blossomed very quickly and was incredibly rich.

For a couple of hundred years they prospered and became huge landowners in France, Britain and Portugal.

This was until they lent huge sums of money to King Philip IVth of France  who not only decided not to repay them but also to grab their lands and posessions and with the authority of the Pope he used the Inquisition to torture information out of those Templars he could capture Including Jacques de Molay the Grand Master of the Knights Templar.

The Knights Templar scattered throughout Europe and the Middle East to Castles and house in Scotland (where they were welcomed),Portugal (where and amazing Chapel still exists in the Castle at Tomar) and even as far as India (I have seen Templar carvings of the two knights on a horse myself in Hindu Temples near Jaipur) and Switzerland (where a few of the Swiss Banks alledgedly originated)

 

The Da Vinci Code wrote about some of the theories and certainly the Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh had definite Templar connections and many mysteries still to be solved.

There is a carving around the SW Window showing a Templar Ceremony which apparently has similarities to a Masonic Ritual.

A Prentice Pillar in Rosslyn would seem to echo one of the Masonic legends vividly and would seem to show a strong link between Freemasonry and The Knights Templar.

Some of these mysteries may soon be solved when the Vatican is said to be releasing a vital document that has been hidden for 700 years.

This is said to be a document that will restore the good reputation of the Knights Templar (the leaders were burnt at the stake as Heretics after being tortured into confessing to Devil Worship and other abominations in ghastly initiation ceremonies)

This will be published on October 25th 2008.

This Chinon Document explains that the Ritual which caused them to be labelled as heretics was what they expected to happen to them at the hands of the Saracens and includes a Papal Absolution from Pope Clement.

It is said that the Knights Templar still exist as a Secret and very  powerful Society and many major international figures are alleged to have been Grand Masters .

 

This may however have been a slight exagerration .