Knights Templar

Knights Templar, military religious order and one of the three major orders of medieval Christian knights active in Palestine during the Crusades. The order was first established in 1119, after the First Crusade, by a small band of knights to protect Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land or on their way there. The order was organized as the Poor Knights of Christ, but was called the Knights of the Temple, or Knights Templar, from its first headquarters in Jerusalem near what was then known as the Temple of Solomon. The crusaders had captured Jerusalem from Muslims in 1099. Because its purpose was military, the order differed from the other major orders of knights, the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem and the Teutonic Knights, which began as charitable institutions. See Military Religious Orders.

Many young nobles joined the Knights Templar, and it became wealthy and powerful through gifts of land and money. It gained fame for its exploits against the Saracens—Arabs of the Middle East—during the Crusades. The Templars built a number of fortresses in the Holy Land that became the chief defenses of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Christian state established in the Holy Land after the capture of Jerusalem.

The Knights Templar was headed by a grand master, under whom were three ranks: knights, chaplains, and sergeants. The knights were the dominant members, and they alone were allowed to wear the distinctive dress of the order, a white mantle with a large red Latin cross on the back. The headquarters of the Knights Templar remained at Jerusalem until the fall of the city to the Muslims in 1187; it was later located successively at Antioch, Acre, Caesarea, and on the island of Cyprus.

Because the Templars regularly transmitted money and supplies from Europe to Palestine, they developed an efficient banking system, on which the rulers and nobility of Europe came to rely. The knights gradually became bankers for a large part of Europe and amassed great wealth. After the last Crusades had failed and interest had waned in an aggressive policy against the Muslims, the Templars were no longer needed to guard Palestine. Their immense riches and power, however, had aroused the envy of secular as well as religious powers, and their luxurious way of life left them open to attack for immorality. In 1307 the impoverished Philip IV of France, with the aid of Pope Clement V, arranged for the arrest of French grand master Jacques de Molay on charges of blasphemy and devil worship.

Molay and the leading officers of the order confessed under torture, and all of them were eventually burned at the stake. The order was suppressed in 1312 by Clement V and its property assigned to the rival Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, more commonly known as the Knights Hospitaler, although most of the property was in fact seized by Philip IV and by King Edward II, who disbanded the order in England. Although never restored as a religious institution, the order was later incorporated into the York rite of the Masonic order (see Freemasonry).