Termporal Knights

I have heard and read about the Knights Templar for decades, but never really knew much about them. when I lived in London, UK, there are all sorts of references, first noticed when I passed by the Temple Church, a 12th century place installed as the Order's English headquarters, and located right in what is called the "City of London", a 1 mile square space between what is now Fleet Street and the River Thames.

Now the City is known as a place of financial business, but the Knight's Templar was there first, and were partly the reason the City became synonymous with money and banking.

But I never really got to grips with who were the Knights Templar in the first place. and now, walking the Camino, references to them are everywhere. This is particularly notable with the architecture of some churches, Templar churches as described.

So it's about time to do a little research. Get yourself a warm drink and sit in a comfortable chair and let me tell you what I have found.

In the year 1099, Europeans set off to Jerusalem in what was the first Crusade. The plan was to capture Jerusalem from Muslim hands. Once this was done ( I am missing a lot of stuff here!), Christians all over Europe were galvanized and began making pilgrimages to the Holy Land. Although Jerusalem itself was secured for Christian pilgrims, the ways there and back were not particularly safe.

A French knight proposed to the King of Jerusalem that a monastic order be established with the prime goal of protecting pilgrims on their journeys, and the King must have thought that this was a perfectly sound idea, because the Order of the Knights of Jerusalem was established on Temple Mount. This location was chosen because it was  believed to be where Solomon's Temple had originally stood. The full name was the "Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon."  Thus, Templar Knights.

The order started with 9 knights. That's right - 9! I suppose money was tight and that's all that could be afforded. The emblem of the Templar Knights was two men on one horse, which was meant to highlight their vows of poverty. My immediate thought was that if there were two knights to one horse then does that mean the 9th knight did not get to ride? Or one horse had to carry 3 men? Or perhaps one guy always had to stay back at headquarters and keep the kettle on for tea?

They must have felt the same way about 9 knights on four horses or whatever, because the order soon dropped their emphasis on poverty and became a very well to do order. They got lots of backing from important people and received lots of financial donations as well as land, businesses and offers of wealthy sons of wealthy and noble families to join the order and continue the Christian fight in the Holy Land. They pledged never to surrender in a battle, and became very well trained soldiers with the best equipment.

But what really pushed them ahead was an exemption from having to obey all local laws when fulfilling their duties, an exemption granted by no less than the Pope. this meant the Templar Knights could travel over any border freely and not have to pay any taxes to anyone. More and more of these knights took on administration rather than military roles, and the money grew and grew. Pilgrims would deposit their valuables with the Order and receive a document indicating the value, which was safer than travelling with gold or money itself. Then, upon arrival in the Holy Land, pilgrims could retrieve their goods by producing the document, which was a very innovative financial transaction at the time.

The order's financial networks stretched all over Europe and the Middle East, as did lands that held crops and vineyards and animal husbandry. Then they started to build churches, and cathedrals and castles. Next came importing and exporting via a grand fleet of ships. At one point they owned the entire island of Cyprus!

In London, the Order's Temple Church was the royal treasury. Later, its system of acting like a safety deposit bank for wealthy nobles bound for the Holy Land, without any restraint, started to make the Crown a bit ticked off. Heads wearing crowns like getting taxes paid, and not being able exert authority over an organization able to move money around at will meant no taxes from a lot of wealthy people. Being an international organization able to act independently may have led to the Order's downfall, but it also led to the world's largest tax evasion network, even today able to operate through various locales around the world that funnel money to the City without having to worry about any other country's tax laws, even England's itself.

Knights Templar churches are distinct in their architecture, and often round or octagonal. They rarely have much decoration. One theory for this is that the church the Order was originally set to protect, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, is basically round. Whatever the reason, function over form was the Templar Knights way and all their buildings were extremely strong and well built and why so many survive in one form or another.

In Spain, they fought against the Muslims with other Christian groups in what is known as the Reconquest (which was after the Muslims had chased away the Visigoths and after the Visigoths had overthrown the Romans and after the Romans had extinguished the various indigenous peoples of the Iberian Peninsula), which made Spain Christian again. The pilgrimage route of the Camino de Santiago was opened up and saw a million pilgrims a year tread the Way during its peak years (it has increased drastically in the last 20 years to about 250,000 a year now, which seems a vast horde!), which coincided with the Order's peak years. The Knights Templar were given land as a reward for their help in the Reconquest, on which they built castles and churches, and established a trading network. Which is why they are referenced so frequently along the Camino.

The Order itself was dissolved in 1312. Later crusades had failed to keep Jerusalem in Christian hands, the Order had become too powerful and wealthy and kings had become jealous. The Pope at the time absolved all Knights of any heresies (not before scores of them were falsely accused and killed), and leftover Knights became part of the Knights Hospitalier as did their lands. So, the Knights Templar became the Order of Christ, as two rival orders merged.

So that's the gist of it. And good timing too as we will soon be in Ponferrada with Knights Templar impact and now I might be able to make sense of what I see. Stay tuned!