The crest belonging to the Knights Templar
The Knights Templar, also known as The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, commonly known as the Knights Templar, or simply as Templars, were among the wealthiest and most powerful of the Western Christian military orders. They were prominent in Christian finance. The organisation existed for nearly two centuries during the Middle Ages.
Overview[]
Officially endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church around 1129, the order became a favored charity throughout Christendom and grew rapidly in membership and power. Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantles with a red cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades. Non-combatant members of the order managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom, developing innovative financial techniques that were an early form of banking, and building fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land.
The Templars were closely tied to the Crusades; when the Holy Land was lost, support for the order faded. Rumors about the Templars' secret initiation ceremony created distrust, and King Philip IV of France, deeply in debt to the order, took advantage of the situation to gain control over them. In 1307 he had many of the order's members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and burned at the stake. Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312 under pressure from King Philip. Although there are beliefs and rumors that the order remains active to this day and dedicating their lives to eliminating the forces of darkness for the glory of Christ and Christendom.
Description[]
The Templars were organized as a monastic order similar to Bernard's Cistercian Order, which was considered the first effective international organization in Europe. The organizational structure had a strong chain of authority. Each country with a major Templar presence (France, Poitou, Anjou, Jerusalem, England, Aragon, Portugal, Italy, Tripoli, Antioch, Hungary, and Croatia) had a Master of the Order for the Templars in that region.
All of them were subject to the Grand Master, appointed for life, who oversaw both the order's military efforts in the East and their financial holdings in the West. The Grandmaster exercised his authority via the visitors-general of the order, who were knights specially appointed by the Grandmaster and convent of Jerusalem to visit the different provinces, correct malpractices, introduce new regulations, and resolve important disputes. The visitors-general had the power to remove knights from office and to suspend the Master of the province concerned.
No precise numbers exist, but it is estimated that at the order's peak there were between 15,000 and 20,000 Templars, of whom about a tenth were actual knights.
