Knights Templar

“ The Knights Templar are well dressed, carry short swords, and march with accuracy, but the swords never cut and the steps lead nowhere. Decisions of questions involving the rights of property require much learning and skill and have their uses, but their effect upon humanity is neither very deep nor very permanent. ”

“ Ferinsius le Mareschal, a secular knight, being examined, declared that his grandfather entered into the order of the Temple, active, healthy, and blithesome as the birds and the dogs, but on the third day from his taking the vows he was dead, and, as he now suspects, was killed because he refused to participate in the iniquities practised by the brethren. An Augustine monk declared that he had heard a Templar say that a man after death had no more soul than a dog. ”

“ Templar replied, “You see us externally, but not internally; take heed what you do; but I shall say no more;” and the deponent further declares, that on another occasion the said Master William entered into the Temple Hall, and found there an old Templar, who was playing at the game called Daly; and the old Templar observing that there was no one in the hall besides himself and the said Master William, said to the latter, “If you enter into our order, it will be the worse for you.” ”

“ The same year, at the siege of Ascalon, the Master of the Temple and his knights attempted alone and unaided to take that important city by storm. At the dawn of day they rushed through a breach made in the walls, and penetrated to the centre of the town. There they were surrounded by the infidels and overpowered, and, according to the testimony of an eye-witness, who was in the campaign from its commencement to its close, [Pg 46] not a single Templar escaped: they were slain to a man, and the dead bodies of the Master and his ill-fated knights were exposed in triumph from the walls. ”

“ CHARLES G. ADDISON Among the military orders of past ages, that of the Knights Templars, founded for the defence of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, with its lofty motive, its superb organization and discipline, and its history extending over nearly two centuries, is justly accounted one of the most illustrious. At the period when this extraordinary and romantic order came into existence, the contrasting spirits of warlike enterprise and monastic retirement were drawing men, some from the field to the cloister, others from the life of ascetic piety to the scenes of strife. ”

“ In every battle, indeed, fought in the south of Europe, after the year 1130, against the enemies of the cross, the Knights Templars are to be found taking an active and distinguished part, and in all the conflicts against the infidels, both in the west and in the east, they were ever in the foremost rank, battling nobly in defence of the christian faith. With all the princes and sovereigns of the great Spanish peninsula they were extremely popular, and they were endowed with cities, villages, lordships, and splendid domains. ”

“ The proud and powerful Knights Templars were succeeded in the occupation of the Temple by a body of learned lawyers, who took possession of the old hall and the gloomy cells of the military monks, and converted the chief house of their order into the great and most antient Common Law University of England.
For more than five centuries the retreats of the religious warriors have been devoted to “the studious and eloquent pleaders of causes,” a new kind of Templars, who, as Fuller quaintly observes, now “defend one Christian from another as the old ones did Christians from Pagans.” ”

“ The order of the Red Cross Knights, or Templars, is to be referred to a different origin, though the object for which it was instituted was of a similar kind, namely, the protection of pilgrims. The military order of Knights Templars was founded by Baldwin II., King of Jerusalem, in 1118, and they first came to England in 1185. They took vows of obedience to a Grand Master whom they had appointed, and also bound themselves to purity of life, to mutual assistance, and to fight continually against the infidel, never turning back from less than four adversaries. ”

“ By the advice of Benedict, bishop of Marseilles, who came to the holy city on a pilgrimage, the Templars rebuilt their ancient and once formidable castle of Saphet, the dilapi [Pg 181] dated ruins of which had been ceded to them by their recent treaty with Saleh Ismael. During a pilgrimage to the lake of Tiberias and the banks of the Jordan, the bishop of Marseilles had halted at Saphet, and spent a night amid the ruins of the ancient castle, where he found a solitary Knight Templar keeping watch in a miserable hovel. ”

“ Everard de Barris, the third master, was conspicuous in the second crusade. In the disastrous march from Laodicea to Attalia his troops alone kept up even the show of discipline; and their success prompted Louis VII. to regulate his whole army after the model of the Templar knights. In the French king’s distress for money the Templars lent him large sums, ranging from 2000 silver marks to 30,000 solidi. When Conrad III. of Germany reached Jerusalem he was entertained at their palace (Easter 1148) ; and in the summer of the same year they took part in the unsuccessful siege of Damascus. ”

“ Though no sworded foe might outskill them in the fence, yet the work of luxury crawled beneath their guard, gnawing the core of knightly troth, nibbling the monastic vows, till at last the monk’s austerity relaxed to wassailing, and the sworn knights-bachelors grew to be but hypocrites and rakes.
But for all this, quite unprepared were we to learn that Knights-Templars (if at all in being) were so entirely secularized as to be reduced from carving out immortal fame in glorious battling for the Holy Land, to the carving of roast mutton at a dinner-board. ”

“ The mail-clad monumental effigies reposing side by side on the pavement of “the Round” of the Temple Church, have been supposed to be monuments of Knights Templars, but this is not the case. The Templars were always buried in the habit of their order, and are represented in it on their tombs. This habit was a long white mantle, as before mentioned, with a red cross over the left breast ”

“ The masonry of the ancient walls, and also of the pillars and arches, is such as to evince great skill in the building, the stones being all squared and chisselled with the most perfect accuracy to fit their respective places. At Northampton, the same form seems to have been observed. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre (says Pennant, speaking of this place,) was supposed to have been built by the Knights Templars on the model of that at Jerusalem. Others of the chapels appertaining to the Order do not, however, present a similar plan. ”

“ They further determined to entreat the Duke of Kent, who was a Chevalier du Temple, as well as the chief of the Masonic Templars in England, to become the Patron Protector of the Order in North Britain, offering to submit themselves to His Royal Highness in that capacity, and to accept from him a formal Charter of Constitution, erecting them into a regular Conclave of Knights Templars, and Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. ”

“ After the conquest of the holy city, and the loss of the Temple at Jerusalem, the Knights Templars established the chief house of their order at Antioch, to which place they retired with Queen Sibylla, the barons of the kingdom, and the patriarch Heraclius. ”

“ John, derive not their origin from the Knights Templars, nor from any other order of knights, ecclesiastic or secular, detached or connected with one or more, neither have any or the least communication with them, directly, or through any manner of intermediate tie; that they are more ancient than any order of knights of this description, and existed in Palestine and Greece, as well as in every part of the Roman Empire, long before the Holy Wars, and the times of the expeditions of the above mentioned knights into Palestine. ”

“ The religious order of laymen, the knights templars, were received, cherished, and enriched throughout Europe, and the individuals of that community, after death, being usually buried cross-legged, in token of the banner under which they fought, and completely armed in regard to their being soldiers, this sort of monument 301grew much in fashion, and though all the effigies with which we meet in that shape are commonly called knights templars, yet it is certain that many of them do not represent persons of that order ”

“ The Knights Templars, in an evil hour for themselves, resolved to spend their time of expectation in their numerous rich commanderies in Europe, where they had no employment but to collect their revenues and keep their swords bright; and it cannot but be supposed that they would thus be tempted into vicious and overbearing habits, while the sight of so formidable a band of warriors, owning no obedience but to their Grand Master and the Pope, must have been alarming to the sovereign of the country. ”

“ Scattered over the mighty empire of Great Britain, there are not more than forty subjects of Her Majesty who are Knights Templars; and the whole Members of the Order do not probably at this moment exceed three hundred; but we assert, without fear of contradiction, that no institution equally limited can boast of a greater number of distinguished and honourable associates. ”

“ The Templars of these days claim no titular rank, yet their station is so far identified with that of the other Orders of Knighthood, that they assert equal purity of descent from the same bright source of chivalry; nor is it possible to impugn the legitimate claims to honourable estimation, which the modern brethren of the Temple derive from the antiquity and pristine lustre of their Order, without at the same time shaking to its centre the whole venerable fabric of knightly honour. ”

“ I have been frequently reminded of the prevalence of this opinion by the remarks of intelligent friends with whom I have at various times examined the Temple effigies, and it may suffice to shew how general it is even among archæologists by reference to the "Hints of the Cambridge Camden Society," where, under the head of Ancient Armour, (p. 36, 4th edit.,) effigies of Knights Templars are mentioned as if they were numerous. ”

“ Within this sublime temple, unsurpassed in Gothic art, where every pavement slab is worn by knees more than by footsteps, where every starry window has thrown its jewel lights on generations of believers, one would almost choose to dwell forever. One looks half enviously at recumbent alabaster bishops and kneeling marble knights, even at dim grotesques, who have rested in the heart of that grave beauty, in that atmosphere of prayer and chant, so long. Let these stone figures troop out into the troubled streets and toil awhile, and give the rest of us a chance to dream. ”

“ Born during the first fervour of the Crusaders, the Templars were flattered and aggrandized as long as their great military [Pg ii] power and religious fanaticism could be made available for the support of the Eastern church and the retention of the Holy Land ”

“ The Templars, notwithstanding their disasters, successfully defended all their strong fortresses in Palestine against the efforts of the Carizmians, and gradually recovered their footing in the Holy Land. The galleys of the Order kept the command of the sea, and succour speedily arrived to them from their western brethren. A general chapter of knights was assembled in the Pilgrim’s Castle, and the veteran warrior, brother William de Sonnac, was chosen Grand Master of the Order. ”

“ The Templars soon became, in fact, the most distinguished of the Christian warriors. By a rule of their Order, no brother could be redeemed for a higher ransom than a girdle or a knife, or some such trifle; [6] captivity was therefore equivalent to death, and they always fought with Spartan desperation. The Bauseant was always in the thick of the battle; the revenue they enjoyed enabled them to draw to their standard valiant secular knights and stout and hardy footmen. ”

“ It will now be as well to take a general survey of the possessions and organization of the order both in Europe and Asia, “whose circumstances,” saith William archbishop of Tyre, writing from Jerusalem about the period of the consecration at London of the Temple Church, “are in so flourishing a state, that at this day they have in their convent (the Temple on Mount Moriah) more than three hundred knights robed in the white habit, besides serving brothers innumerable. ”