The Knights Templar, also known as the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, or the Order of Solomon’s Temple, was a religious military order of knighthood that served the Catholic Church.
Following the successes of the First Crusade, several Crusader states were established in the Holy Land, resulting in a surge of pilgrims from Western Europe travelling to the sacred sites of Christendom.
Many pilgrims were either killed by bandits or while crossing through hostile, Muslim-controlled territory. This led to the founding of a military order called the Poor Knights of the Temple of King Solomon in 1118 by Hugues de Payens with the sole purpose of protecting travellers on their pilgrimage.
The Knights Templar swore an oath of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and were expected to honour the fasts and vigils of the monastic calendar, just as the Cistercians and other monks.
With the support and patronage of Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem, the Knights established their headquarters on the Temple Mount, from which they developed a vast economic infrastructure (often described as the first multinational corporation) spanning the kingdoms of Europe and the Holy Land.
By the 12th century, the strength of Christian rule in the Holy Land had been diluted, in part due to dissension among Christian factions and internecine feuds, as well as the partial unification of the Islamic world, with effective leaders such as Saladin annexing Christian territories.
The loss of Jerusalem and key strongholds to the Ayyubid dynasty forced the Templars to relocate to outlying city strongholds such as Acre, Tortosa, and Atlit, but these too fell in the 13th century, resulting in their headquarters moving to Limassol on the island of Cyprus.
A garrison was maintained at the fortress of Ruad on the small island of Arwad, but at the start of the 14th century, this was lost to the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate, marking the fall of the last Crusader outpost in the Holy Land.
Without a mission, the influence and support for the Templars dwindled, but they still maintained a strong economic power base through their network of Templar houses and holdings spread across Europe. The order was not subject to local government, making it essentially a “state within a state.”
This situation caused heightened tensions with European nobility, especially since the Templars maintained a standing army that could pass freely without borders, making it one of the largest independent military organisations across Europe, answerable only to the Pope.
In 1305, Pope Clement V was intent on merging the Templars with the Knights Hospitaller, and sent for the Templar Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, and the Hospitaller Grand Master, Fulk de Villaret.
While waiting for the arrival of Villaret, de Molay and the Pope discussed several malicious charges made against the order by an ousted Templar who had become a gossip at the court of King Philip IV of France.
The Pope sought the king’s support for a formal investigation, but Philip instead seized upon the rumours to serve his own purposes—possibly driven by the substantial debts he owed the order from his war with England, by fear of the power and wealth the Templars had accumulated, and by personal piety that led him to view the order as a heretical threat.
On Friday the 13th, 1307, Philip ordered the arrest of de Molay and the Templars in the Paris Temple, with the warrants stating, “God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom.”
Building on these rumours, additional accusations emerged concerning the order’s initiation rites, alleging that new recruits were compelled to deny Christ, spit upon the cross, and participate in indecent acts. Beyond these claims, the order as a whole was accused of engaging in homosexual practices, financial corruption, fraud, and idolatry through the worship of false idols.
Historians believe that Philip intended to stoke contemporary fears of heretics, witches, and demons, similar to allegations he had used against Pope Boniface VIII to ruin his reputation among Europe’s rulers.
Many of the accused confessed to the charges under torture, and their confessions, even though obtained under duress, resulted in Pope Clement issuing the papal bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae, instructing all Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest the Templars and seize their holdings. De Molay protested and repudiated his confession, but was burned at the stake on the Île des Javiaux in the Seine, along with other Templars across Europe who refused to confess.
The Pope called for further papal hearings to investigate the Templars’ guilt or innocence, but Philip superseded these efforts and threatened military action against the Church unless the Pope agreed to disband the Templars.
At the Council of Vienne in 1312, the Pope promulgated a series of papal bulls, most notably Vox in excelso, which formally dissolved the order, and Ad providam, which transferred the majority of Templar assets to the Knights Hospitaller. The remaining Templars were arrested and tried—often without conviction—and were subsequently absorbed into other military orders or granted pensions, allowing them to retire to a quiet monastic life.
In Portugal, the order survived in a reconstituted form as the Order of Christ in 1319, after King Dinis I refused to participate in the Templar purge, largely in recognition of the order’s contributions during the Reconquista and its role in the reconstruction of Portugal following the wars. Although the order was secularised in 1789 by Queen Maria I, it continues to exist today as the Military Order of Christ.
