Knights Templar: October 13
Over and over again along the camino de Santiago de Compostela I saw signs of the Knights Templar, usually their equal-armed red cross etched into a church wall. In Ponferrada I toured a Knights castle, feeling the presence of ghost-knights.
Here’s a Knights thumbnail: they were founded to provide protection for pilgrims to the Holy Land. “Templar” refers of course to Solomon’s Temple, their spiritual HQ. The Temple Mount was their actual HQ early on. They made a name for themselves also in the Crusades, which, along with their support of pilgrims, made them, for a time, a popular cause to give money to: though their individual lives were quite austere, the order became very wealthy. The Templar seal of two riders on one horse symbolized poverty and solidarity (and may have contributed to accusations of homosexuality in the ranks.) In fact, sharing horses was forbidden by their rule. Bernard of Clairvaux, nephew of one of the founding Kinghts, was an effective advocate in their formal recognition in 1129.
Despite their military charism, relatively few were actually combatants. One non-military way they protected pilgrims was this: people starting out on pilgrimage could present cash to a local Templar spot, and get a letter of credit that could be cashed at another Templar spot down the road. Pilgrims were safer not carrying cash, (in fact, before this they were routinely killed for money,) and the Templars became an international banking system. With cash on hand, the Templars also began loaning money, including an unfortunately large loan to King Phillip IV of France, which he was unable to repay.
Church and State colluded in trumped-up charges against the Knights. Pressured by Phillip, Pope Clement V agreed to accuse them of heresy and other enormities, and on Friday, October the 13th, 1307, Philip orchestrated the arrest of Templars all over France (who repays debts to heretics?) Arrests across Europe followed. Many were tortured into false confessions and burned at the stake. The last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake in Paris in 1314.
In 2001, a parchment was found in the Vatican Archives that revealed that the Pope had absolved the Knights of all charges of heresy–in 1308, 4 years before he disbanded them anyway. (And of course long before the burnings at the stake stopped.)
So on this October 13, perhaps pause for a moment to remember the Knights Templar, a religious order supressed with bloody enthusiasm on trumped-up charges. And be glad that we don’t burn people at the stake anymore.
Thanks for the background on the Templars. I recall that they were also known for their initiation rites that allegedly sometimes included acts of sacrilege. I don’t know if there is any reliable historical evidence to support this conclusion.
It’s hard to deny their ongoing appeal after many centuries, however. I recall reading earlier this year about a researcher given access to the Vatican secret archives who found evidence supporting the hypothesis that the Templars were in possession of the Shroud of Turin from the time of the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade until the linen surfaced in public in 1353 in Lirey, France, in a church that had been built by the family of Geoffrey de Charney, a Knights Templar who had met the same fate as Jacques de Molay.
The researcher found at least one statement from a KT initiate in the late 13th century who recounted that he had been brought into a secret room and shown a cloth on which the body of a crucified man was visible. The initiate was supposedly told to venerate the cloth by kissing the feet of the figure on the cloth. Nothing to my mind sacriligious about that.
Whether or not the KT were sacrilegious in their initiation rites, it’s likely sacrilegious to spell sacrilegious “sacriligious.” My bad.
Indeed, according to the best evidence so far, the Shroud was manufactured during the time of the Knights. Did an earlier Templar make the Shroud (or have it made) as a devotional object for Templar initiations?
Ponferrada was where two friends and I started on the Camino last year, right at the castle. As I recall, a legend holds that the Holy Grail was kept there at one time. I also remember that there was a store in Ponferrada where one could buy a Templar outfit (I didn’t.). My favorite Templar site on the Camino is the small church in Rabanal del Camino (which I visited in a previous trip on the Camino). It is painted with various symbols, including one at the top of the arch over the altar of what, at least today, would be a symbol for the feminine, with a single eye in the circle. It would take Dr. Robert Langdon to explain that, so I won’t try.
Thanks for your posts from the Camino; they were very enjoyable.
What does it say around the shield/image pictured?
It looks like: Sigillum militum Christi: Seal of the Knights of Christ.
That is clearly what the artist aimed at but the writing of XIISTI for CHRISTI is odd. Clearly the X is meant to be a Greek chi, i.e., to represent CH but the letter following as puzzling.
Joseph Gannon,
Thanks, that was my feeling as well, in regards to the spelling of Christ. Odd? That being so…were the Knights Templar also commonly know as the Knights of Christ? Apparently so…but I don’t know if this is common knowledge?
“And be glad that we don’t burn people at the stake anymore.”
Tell that to the theologians burned by a CDF prefect under JPII.
Just a change in the technology of “burning.”
I think the letter after the Greek “chi” is the Greek “rho”.
The Greek Rho (P) is faintly visible, though the upper circle is not filled in. Perhaps one can forgive the poor Spanish soul who made the stained glass seal. Artisans were rarely linguists.
And thank you for the wonderful history, I will share it with my class…high school students love these conspiracy theory topics.
Joseph,
The name of Christ is in the original name of the Knights Templar Order, which is:
Ordo Pauperum Commilitum Christi et Templi Solomonis, Equites Templi
(Order of Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, Knights Templar)
Today, October 13 (occured in 1307) commorates the day that King Philip IV of France ordered the simultaneous arrests of all the Knights Templar in France on trumped up charges. In 2001 a document called the Chinon Document was found in the Vatican Archives (apparently misplaced in the 17th Century, which recorded the trial of the Knights Templar, and shows that Pope Clement V absolved them of all the accusations in 1308 before disbanding the Order in 1312. On March 18, 1314, de Molay (the Grand Master) and de Charney (Preceptor of Normandy) were burned at the stake in front of Notre Dame Cathedral for their heresy(s).
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