The knight's Templar Part I

THE POOR KNIGHTS TEMPLAR-- WHERE DID ALL THE TEMPLAR'S AND THERE GREAT WEALTH GO?

THE BRETHREN, THE MASTERS OF THE TEMPLE, WHO WERE WELL STOCKED AND AMPLE WITH GOLD AND SILVER AND RICHES WHERE ARE THEY? HOW HAVE THEY DONE? 

THEY HAD SUCH POWER ONCE THAT NO ONE DARED TAKE FROM THEM, NONE WAS SO BOLD;

           FOREVER THEY  BOUGHT AND NEVER SOLD !

 In 1307 the Church of Rome and the country of Gaul (France) turned their Inquisition loose on the Knight Templar's, and their fleet of ships went missing!  Or did it?

The Knight Templar's were nine knights from the Champagne region of France called Gaul in medieval times, the nine knights were later joined by the Count of Champlain as the tenth knight.

Knights of the order wore white mantles, assigned to the Templar's in 1129 at the Council of Troyes and surcoats quartered by a red cross or “Rossy Cross”, a symbol of martyrdom, probably added at the start of the Second Crusade in 1147.

 These were heavily armored knights from the aristocracy with war horses. Knights had to wear their white mantles at all times, even when eating and drinking.

 Knights of the Order would never surrender unless the Templar flag had fallen, and even then they should try and regroup with other Christian orders.

 They had a solemn initiation ceremony that outsiders were discouraged from attending, that was to later cause mistrust of the order. 

 New members generally joined for life, and had to willingly hand over their wealth and goods to the order and took vows of poverty, chastity, piety and obedience. Married men could join if they had their wives permission, but they were not allowed to wear the white mantle, and occasionally knights were allowed to join for set periods of time.

 Below the knights were sergeants who wore a black surcoat with a red cross and a black or brown mantle, and there were lightly equipped cavalry.

 Chaplin's were ordained priests who looked after Templar spiritual requirements. Other members looked after its infrastructure which grew rapidly to large proportions, mainly through gifts of land from wealthy benefactors. They used their finances to build castles and fortifications throughout the Mediterranean and Holy Land, and to purchase further lands, farms, vineyards. They were involved in manufacturing, import and export and even had their own fleet of ships.

With this military strength, financial stability and their large wealth, the Templar's developed a banking system in 1150 A.D., to ensure the safe transfer of money, by using encoded documents to note deposits of wealth, the documents could be used to retrieve funds at the destination. This made the travelers less susceptible to robbery!

  The First Grand Master of the Knights Templar Hughes de Payen was married to Catherine Saint Clair and there has always been a strong connection between the Knights and the Saint Clair/Sinclair family, whose name has under gone a few changes in spelling over the years. 

 St. Clair being the French contingent of the family, Sinclair the Norman Scottish contingent.

The knights were a threat to the church and the King of France had a huge debt with them and wanted out from under the debt by destroying the knights. 

 The knights held a major piece of information which they were black mailing the church with.  Because of this the church put out a papal decree that permitted the knights to be able to operate without paying taxes among other privileges throughout Christendom.

At the time of their demise they were twenty thousand strong, with over nine thousand estates throughout Europe and the Middle East.

 The estates were Castles, real estate, dairies, farms, vineyards, distilleries, shops, architectural firms, all types of building guilds and shipping. 

 All of these entities were owned by the Knights Templar and not by individuals.

 All of the knights most of whom came from nobility and families of distinction, donated all of their wealth and assets to the knights and lived as monks in commune. Their actual name was the Poor Knights of The Temple of King Solomon.

 The knights were the special forces of their day. Just the appearance of them on the battlefield would send the enemy that outnumbered them six to one running. 

  They became extremely wealthy, both the countries of France and England banked with them. They invented international banking and the concept of checking accounts. 

 When their clients would travel usually under their protection, they would deposit money in a depository in one country and draw it out from a preceptory at their destination. 

 The purpose or perhaps better to say the cover story for the knights was to protect pilgrims en route to the Holly Land on pilgrimages.  They took up residence over the stables in Solomon’s Temple and spent nine years uncovering its secrets.

They are said to hold the temple treasure which is also thought to be in the possession of the Albigensian Cathar's and contains the ARK of the COVENANT, jewels, tons of Gold, documents, some say the archive left by Moses, containing knowledge from before the flood.  

  A secret so great that the Church of Rome permitted them to operate without paying taxes in the entire world that they operated in. The Mediterranean, Atlantic coasts of Spain, Portugal, France, England, Baltic coasts and its estuaries and rivers

The knights controlled the shipping in between all of these countries, the textiles, and minerals transporting of goods and peoples throughout Europe, tax free. They were exempt from tolls on roads, bridges and rivers.

The Templar's sole purpose was to protect Pilgrims and to fight Muslims in the Holly land since 1118 A D.  In 1291 the siege of Acre was the beginning of a losing streak for the Templar's.

 The Muslims took over Jerusalem and the Templar's moved to the Island of Cypress. The Templar's were not able to regain the support of European nations and their mission was to go through a reorganization they were still very strong financially.

 In the mid-12th Century the Muslims started to unite and the Christian factions had internal fighting which weakened their positions. 

 Two other Christian orders the Knights Hospitaller and Teutonic Knights were at times at odds with the Order. In 1185 the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Heraclius visited England and consecrated the Temple Church in London, it is thought that his aim was to gain support and unite the Christians. 

 In 1172 king Henry II had vowed to take the cross and go on a crusade. Henry II summoned a Great Council at Clerkenwell and gave Heraclius his answer: 

 'for the good of his realm and the salvation of his own soul' he declared that he must stay in England. He would provide money instead. Heraclius was unimpressed: 'We seek a man even without money - but not money without a man.' "Virum appetimus qui pecunia indigeat, non pecuniam quae viro."

Finally Jerusalem fell in 1187, was retaken in 1229 but fell again in 1244. The Templar's set up headquarters in Acre, but that fell also in 1291, their strongholds of Tortosa and Atlit fell later, and the Order set up their new headquarters at Liassol on Cyprus.

 The Order did manage to keep a foothold on the island of Arwad but this finally fell in around 1302 to 1303. When the holy land was lost, they maintained their European possessions, but their original purpose was lost.

Pope Clement V in 1305 wanted to discuss merging the Order of the Temple with the Hospitaller's, but neither the Templar Grand Master Jacques Molay or the Hospitaller Grand Master Fulk de Villaret wanted this to happen.
 However in 1306 the Pope summoned them both to discuss the idea. In 1307 charges of heresy raised by a Templar who left the Order in 1305 were discussed by Jacques de Molay and Pope Clement V and agreed to be unfounded, but Clement asked King Philip IV of France for help in investigating the charges.