What is the knight templar?

Answer 1

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. they are known as the knights of templar, and they were a well known, very famous christian military order that existed for two centuries in the middle ages. the Templar's were monks and soldiers, making them the earliest warrior monks in the western world. There were four divisions of brothers in the Templars:

the knights, equipped as heavy cavalry (wore a white habit with red cross);
the sergeants (serjens), equipped as light cavalry and drawn from a lower social class than the knights (wore a brown mantle);
the serving brothers — the rural brothers (frères casaliers), who administered the property of the Order, and the frères de métiers, who performed menial tasks and trades;
the chaplains, who were ordained priests and saw to the spiritual needs of the Order.

Answer 2

It's important to know that it is possible that the Knights Templar dissappeared from view, but not from existance.

Even with the absorption of Templars into other Orders, there are still questions as to what became of all of the tens of thousands of Templars across Europe. There had been 15,000 "Templar Houses", and an entire fleet of ships. Even in France where hundreds of Templars had been rounded up and arrested, this was only a small percentage of the estimated 3,000 Templars in the entire country. Also, the extensive archive of the Templars, with detailed records of all of their business holdings and financial transactions, was never found. It is unknown if it was destroyed, or moved to another location. Some scholars believe that some of the Templars fled into the Swiss Alps, as there are records of Swiss villagers around that time suddenly becoming very skilled military tacticians. It is also possible that the Templars' financial skills may have become the foundation for what is today the powerful and secretive Swiss banking sector.

Little is known about what became of the Templar's fleet of ships, either. There is record of 18 Templar ships being in port at La Rochelle, France on October 12, 1307 (the day before Friday the 13th). But the next day, they were all gone.

It is possible that with the help of financial and maritime power Genoa, the Knights Templar were a renaissance of Phoenician maritime and financial knowledge, which according to historians there is no written records from the Phoenicans. The Phoenicians were secretive, naval, and rich. Read Sanford Holst's "Phoenicians, Lebanon's Epic Heritage." . It will give you a different and more complete hypothesis about their history up until the Fall of Carthage. My hypothesis is that Genoa, the Knights Templar, and other followers of St. George are riding the wave of knowledge that was first explored by the Phoenicians through a discovery of relics on the Crusades while in Lebanon. If you research the County of Tripoli, you will see their strong connections to the Knights Templar and Genoa.

Answer 3

Christian crusaders, the first and greatest of the monastic warriors who fought during the Crusades. The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, the official designation of the Knights Templar.

The site below give an excellent history of the original Templars...but, it is primarily a site for the modern Templars. Other encyclopedia sites are fine if you want general info, though.

Answer 4

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici), popularly known as the Knights Templar, was one of the most famous of the Christian military orders. It existed for about two centuries in the Middle Ages, created in the aftermath of the First Crusade of 1096 to ensure the safety of the large numbers of European pilgrims who flowed toward Jerusalem after its conquest.

The Templars were an unusual order in that they were both monks and soldiers, making them in effect some of the earliest "warrior monks" in the Western world. Members of the Order played a key part in many battles of the Crusades, and the Order's infrastructure innovated many financial techniques that could be considered the foundation of modern banking. The Order grew in membership and power throughout Europe, until it ran afoul of King Philip IV of France (Philip the Fair), who caused members in France to be tortured into confessions and burned at the stake. Under influence from King Philip, Pope Clement V then forcibly disbanded the order on Friday 13 October, 1307.

Answer 5

a knight who had taken a vow of chasity. A group of them got together and formed a group called the Knights Templar. Their avowed mission was to safeguard the passage of pilgrims to the Holy Land.

Answer 6

will only add the Knights Templar still exist today in a modern form.

Answer 7

Keepers of the holy grail

Answer 8

They were a bunch of knights who swore to uphold the truth and yada, yada, yada.

Answer 9

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon popularly known as the Knights Templar, was one of the most famous of the Christian military orders. It existed for about two centuries in the Middle Ages, created in the aftermath of the First Crusade of 1096 to ensure the safety of the large numbers of European pilgrims who flowed toward Jerusalem after its conquest.

The Templars were an unusual order in that they were both monks and soldiers, making them in effect some of the earliest "warrior monks" in the Western world. Members of the Order played a key part in many battles of the Crusades, and the Order's infrastructure innovated many financial techniques that could be considered the foundation of modern banking. The Order grew in membership and power throughout Europe, until it ran afoul of King Philip IV of France (Philip the Fair), who caused members in France to be tortured into confessions and burned at the stake. Under influence from King Philip, Pope Clement V then forcibly disbanded the order on Friday 13 October, 1307.



There were four divisions of brothers in the Templars:

the knights, equipped as heavy cavalry (wore a white habit with red cross);

the sergeants (serjens), equipped as light cavalry and drawn from a lower social class than the knights (wore a brown mantle);

the serving brothers — the rural brothers (frères casaliers), who administered the property of the Order, and the frères de métiers, who performed menial tasks and trades;

the chaplains, who were ordained priests and saw to the spiritual needs of the Order.

With the high demand for knights, there were also knights who signed up to the Order for a set period of time before returning to secular life, as well as the Fratres conjugati, who were married brothers. Both of these wore a black or brown mantle with a red cross to delineate them from the celibate lifetime members, and were not considered to be of the same status as the celibate brothers. It also appears that the serving brothers (frères casaliers and frères de métiers) were not separate from the sergeants, but rather that a sergeant who was a skilled tradesman or was unable to fight due to age or infirmity would perform these other functions. The majority of the Templars, including the knights and the Grand Masters, were both uneducated and illiterate (as were most knights of the day), having come not from the upper nobility but from more obscure families.

At any time, each knight had some ten people in support positions. Some brothers were devoted solely to banking (typically those with an education), as the Order was often trusted with the safekeeping of precious goods by participants in the Crusades; but the primary mission of the Knights Templar was warfare.

The Templars used their wealth to construct numerous fortifications throughout the Holy Land and were probably one of the best trained and disciplined fighting units of their day. They were also famous and easily recognized, with a white surcoat with distinct red cross emblazoned above the heart or on the chest, as seen in many portrayals of crusading knights.

Initiation into the Order was a profound commitment, and involved a secret ceremony. Few details of the rituals were known at the time, fueling the suspicions of medieval inquisitors, but initiates, at least in the early days of the Order, had to be of noble birth, of legitimate heritage, and had to be willing to sign over all of their wealth and goods to the Order. Further, joining the Order required vows of poverty, chastity, piety, and obedience. For the warriors of the Order, there was a cardinal rule of never surrendering. This fearless uncompromising nature of the Templars, along with excellent training and heavy armament, made them a feared and elite fighting force in medieval times.


History of the Knights Templar
The order was founded around 1118 by French knights Hughes de Payens, a veteran of the First Crusade, and Geoffrey de St. Omer for the protection of pilgrims on the road from Jaffa and Jerusalem. At first, the order had only nine knights as members and relied on gifts and cast-offs. As a result, they were originally known as the Poor Knights of Christ. King Baldwin II of Jerusalem gave them a headquarters on the Temple Mount, above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. It was from this location that the Order took its name of Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon.


The Dome of the Rock, one of the structures at the Temple MountThe Order grew rapidly because of support from key church leaders such as Bernard de Clairvaux, and was exempt from all authority except that of the Pope. Because of this official sanction, the order received massive donations of money, land, and noble-born sons from families across Europe, who were encouraged to donate support as their way of assisting with the fight in the Holy Land. Templar Knights also fought alongside King Louis VII of France, King Richard I of England, and in battles in Spain and Portugal.

Though the primary mission of the Order was a military one, only a small percentage of its members were actually at the front lines, while many others were involved in developing a financial infrastructure to support the warrior branch. The Order also innovated ways of generating letters of credit for pilgrims who were journeying to the Holy Land, which involved pilgrims depositing their valuables with the Order before setting off on the journey. This may have been the first form of checking put into use. From this mixture of donations and shrewd business dealing during the 12th and 13th centuries the Order acquired large tracts of land both in Europe and the Middle East, built churches and castles, bought farms and vineyards, was involved in manufacturing, import and export, had its own fleet of ships, and for a time even owned the entire island of Cyprus.


Templars being burned at the stakeAfter Jerusalem was lost to Saladin in 1187, the Crusades gradually wound down and European support for the Order began to falter. In the early 1300s, King Philip IV of France (also known as "Philip the Fair") was in desperate need of money to continue his war with the English. He began by approaching the Templars' Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, asking him to respond to allegations of malpractice. De Molay rejected the allegations out of hand. On Friday, October 13, 1307 (a date possibly linked to the origin of the Friday the 13th legend), Philip had all French Templars simultaneously arrested, charged with numerous heresies, and tortured by French authorities nominally under the Inquisition until they allegedly confessed. This action released Philip from his obligation to repay huge loans from the Templars and justified his looting of Templar treasuries. In 1312 due to public opinion and scandal, and under pressure from King Philip (who had been responsible for maneuvering Pope Clement V into the Vatican), Clement officially disbanded the Order at the Council of Vienne. Even though all their lands were supposed to be turned over to the Hospitallers, Philip retained a great deal of the Templar assets in France. Some other European leaders followed suit in an effort to reduce the amount of Church-owned lands and property. In 1314 three Templar leaders, including Grand Master Jacques de Molay, Hugh de Perault and Godfrey de Goneville were burned alive at the stake by French authorities after publicly renouncing any guilt.

Remaining Templars around Europe, having been arrested and tried under the Papal investigation (with virtually none convicted), were either absorbed into other military orders such as the Order of Christ and the Knights Hospitaller or contemplative Benedictine or Augustinian orders; returned to the secular life with pension; and in some cases possibly fled to other territories outside of Papal control such as England and excommunicated Scotland. But questions still remain as to what happened to the few hundreds of Templars across Europe, or to the fleet of Templar ships which, according to various works of fiction (such as Holy Blood, Holy Grail), vanished from La Rochelle on October 13, 1307. Also, the extensive archive of the Templars, with detailed records of all of their business holdings and financial transactions, was never found, though it is unknown whether it was destroyed, or moved to another location, or ever existed in the first place.

In modern times, it is the Roman Catholic Church's position that the persecution was unjust; that there was nothing inherently wrong with the Order or its Rule; and that the Pope at the time was severely pressured into suppressing them by the magnitude of the public scandal and the dominating influence of King Philip IV. In 2002, a copy of the Chinon Parchment was discovered by Dr. Frale in the Vatican Secret Archives. The parchment gave direct documented evidence and a new perspective on the Knights Templar and overturned some of the centuries-old myths and misconceptions that have grown around the Order.