Sovereign Spanish Magistral Order of the Knights Templar
Knights Templar
The Order of the Poor Knights of Christ of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Commilitone Paupers Christi Templique Salomonici), also called the Order of the Temple, whose members are known as Templar knights, was one of the most powerful Christian military orders of the Middle Ages.
It remained active for less than two centuries. It was founded in 1118 or 1119 by nine French knights led by Hugo de Payns after the first crusade. Its original purpose was to protect the lives of Christians who were pilgrims to Jerusalem after their conquest.
The order was recognized by the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem Garmond of Picquigny, who imposed as a rule that of the Augustinian canons of the Holy Sepulchre. Officially approved by the Catholic Church in 1129, during the Council of Troyes (held in the cathedral of the same city), the Order of the Temple rapidly grew in size and power.
The Knights Templar had as a badge a white mantle with a red paté cross drawn on it. On April 24, 1147, Pope Eugene III granted them the right to permanently carry the cross; a simple, but anchored cross or paté, which symbolized the martyrdom of Christ; red, because red was the symbol of the blood verted by Christ, but also of life. The cross was placed in his mantle over his left shoulder, above his heart.
Militarily, its members were among the best-trained units that participated in the crusades.6 The non-combatant members of the order managed a complex economic structure within the Christian world. They even created new financial techniques that constitute a primitive form of the modern bank.78 The order, in addition, built a series of fortifications throughout the Mediterranean Sea and the Holy Land.
- The success of the Templars is closely linked to the Crusades. The loss of the Holy Land resulted in the disappearance of the support for the order. In addition, the rumors surrounding the secret Templar initiation ceremony created a great distrust. Philip IV of France, heavily indebted to the order and frightened by his growing power, began to pressure Pope Clement V in order to take action against his members.
- In 1307, a large number of Templars were captured, induced to confess under torture and burned at the stake.9 In 1312, Clement V yielded to the pressures of Philip IV and dissolved the order. Their abrupt eradication gave rise to speculations and legends that have kept the name of the Knights Templar alive to this day. There was, therefore, a deep-rooted and exacerbated religious feeling that manifested itself in pilgrimages to holy places, usual at the time.
- At the beginning of the 11th century, Rome was gradually replaced, as a traditional pilgrimage site, by Santiago de Compostela and Jerusalem. These new destinations were not without dangers and obstacles, such as highwaymen or strong tributes to the local lords, but the religious feeling, together with the hope of adventures and fabulous riches in the East, seduced many pilgrims, who when returning to their homes related their penalties.
- Manuscript in sealed parchment with nine turns of silk thread and red lacre. The seal of the Order can be distinguished. The Pontiff Urban II, after securing his position at the head of the Church, continued the reforms of his predecessor, Gregory VII.
The request for help by the Byzantines, together with the fall of Jerusalem into Turkish hands, led to the fact that at the Council of Clermont (in November 1095) Urban II, before a large audience, the dangers that threatened Western Christians and the harassment to which pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem were subjected.
The military expedition proposed by Urban II was also intended to rescue this city from Muslim hands. The promised spiritual rewards, together with the desire for riches, made princes and lords respond soon to the pontiff’s call.
Christian Europe moved with a common ideology under the cry of Deus vult! (‘God wills it!’), a phrase that heads the speech of the Council of Clermont, in which Urban II called the first crusade.
This military expedition culminated in the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 and the constitution of Latin territories in the area: the counties of Edessa and Tripoli, the principality of Antioch and the kingdom of Jerusalem, where Baldwin I assumed, as early as 1100, the title of king
Foundation and early just created the kingdom of Jerusalem and chosen Baldwin I as its second king, after the death of his brother Godfrey of Bouillon, some of the knights who participated in the First Crusade decided to stay to defend the Holy Places and the Christian pilgrims who traveled to them.
- Baldwin I needed to organize the kingdom and could not devote many resources to the protection of the roads, since he did not have enough troops to do so.
- This, and the fact that Hugo de Payens was a relative of the Count of Champagne (and probably distant relative of Balduino himself), led the king to grant those knights a place to rest and maintain their equipment, as well as to grant them rights and privileges, among which was an accommodation in his own palace, which was nothing but the Al-Aqsa mosque, located in the interior of what had once been the enclosure of Solomon
- And, when Baldwin left the mosque and its surroundings as a palace to fix the throne in the Tower of David, all the facilities passed, in fact, to the Templars, who thus acquired not only their headquarters, but their name. Coronation of Baldwin I (from the Histoire d'Outremer, 13th century).
In addition, King Baldwin was responsible for writing letters to the most important kings and princes of Europe in order to help the newborn order, which had been well received not only by political power, but also by the ecclesiastical, since it was the patriarch of Jerusalem the first authority of the Church that approved it canonically.
Nine years after the creation of the order in Jerusalem, in 1129 the so-called Council of Troyes met, which would be responsible for drafting the rule for the newborn Order of the Poor Knights of Christ. The council was headed by the pontifical legacy D'Albano, and the bishops of Chartres, Reims, Paris, Sens, Soissons, Troyes, Orleans, Auxerre and other ecclesiastical houses of France attended.
There were also several abbots, such as St. Stephen Harding, mentor of St. Bernard, the same Saint Bernard of Claraval and lay people such as the Counts of Champagne and Nevers. Hugo de Payens exposed to the assembly the needs of the order, so it was decided, article by article, to the smallest details of this, from the way of fasting to that of wearing the hairstyle, through prayers, prayers and even weaponry.
Therefore, the oldest rule of which is known is that drafted in that council. Written almost certainly in Latin, it was based to some extent on the habits and uses prior to the council. The main modifications resulted from the fact that until then the Templars lived under the Rule of St. Augustine, which in the council was replaced by the Cistercian Rule (that of St. Benedict, but modified) and that St. Bernard professed.
The primitive rule consisted of an official record of the council and a regulation of 75 articles, including some such as: Article X: From eating meat in the week. In the week, if it is not on the Passover day of Nativity, or Resurrection, or feast of Our Lady, or of All Saints, that fall, enough to eat it three times, or days, because the custom of eating it, is understood, is corruption of bodies. If Tuesday is fasting, on Wednesday you will be given plenty.
On Sunday, both knights and chaplains, two delicacies are undoubtedly given, in honor of the holy Resurrection; the other servants are content with one and give thanks to God. Once drafted, it was handed over to the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem Esteban de la Ferté, also called Esteban de Chartres, although some authors believe that the editor could be his predecessor, Garmond de Picquigny, who modified it by removing 12 articles and introducing 24 new ones, among which was the reference to the knights only wearing the white mantle and the sergeants a black mantle.
After receiving the basic rule, five of the nine members of the order, led by Hugo de Payens, traveled first through France and then through the rest of Europe, in order to collect donations and enlist knights in their ranks. They initially went to their places of origin, in the certainty that they would be accepted and secured large donations.
In this journey they managed to recruit in a short time about three hundred knights, not counting squires, men of arms and pages. Baldwin II of Jerusalem yields the Temple of Solomon to Hugo de Payens and to Godfrey of Saint-Omer For the order, in Europe the help granted to them by Abbot St. Bernard of Clairval, who, by his kinships and his closeness to several of the first nine knights, endeavored greatly to make it known through his high influences in Europe, especially in the Papal Court. St. Bernard was the nephew of André de Montbard, the fifth great master of the order, and a cousin on the part of the mother of Hugo de Payens.
He was also a convinced believer and a man of great character, of a wisdom and independence admired in many parts of France and in the Holy See itself. Reformer of the Benedictine Rule, his discussions with Pedro Abelardo, brilliant teacher of the time, were well known.
