Sean Martin - The Knights Templar

St Bernard, from a letter to Pope Calixtus II, 1124/5. Quoted in Barber, op. cit. , p.13.

All of these knights were among the original nine members. According to Barber ( op. cit. , p.12), King Baldwin had already sent two of the original nine Templars, André de Montbard and Gondemar, to France for Church approval of the Order.This would leave only the unknown ninth member (Hugh of Champagne?) in Outremer, reinforcing the theory that the Templars – in order to be taken seriously by Baldwin II, the Pope and the Council of Troyes – had to be more than nine knights strong by 1129.

Guigo, Lettres des Premiers Chartreux, Sources Chrétiennes 88, Paris 1988. Quoted in Barber, op. cit. , p.49.

Barber, op. cit. , p.42.

Quoted in Read, The Templars (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1999), p.119.

Barber, op. cit. , p.230.

R.C. Smail, Crusading Warfare, 1097–1193 (Cambridge, 1995), p.43.

Theodericus, ch.17, pp.26–7 in Jerusalem Pilgrimage , pp.293–4; quoted in Barber, op. cit. pp.90 – 93.

Genesis 32:24 – 29.

Read, op. cit. , p.155.

Read, ibid., p.158.

Quoted in Barber, op. cit., p.115.

Barber, ibid ., p.116.

Gestes des Chiprois, pp.252 – 3; quoted in Barber, op. cit. , pp.241 – 3.

Seward, The Monks ofWar (Penguin Books, 1992), p.37.

The connection between Lazarus and leprosy is a mysterious one. Lazarus, in John’s Gospel, did not suffer from the disease. It is possible that the Templars used Lazar houses for purposes other than that of treating lepers, knowing that fear of the disease would mean that the houses would remain undisturbed.

Barber, op. cit. , p.64.

For a treatment of children raised in silence, see John Burnside’s novel The Dumb House (Cape, 1997); for the search for the language of Eden, see Umberto Eco’s The Search for the Perfect Language (Blackwell, 1997).

Some chronologies list Richard de Bures as the Grand Master between Armand and Guillame. As no list of Grand Masters is definitive, we can assume that either Richard actually was the head of the Order between La Forbie and Guillame de Sonnac’s election in c.1247, or that he was acting as a caretaker Grand Master who would have stepped aside had Armand de Périgord emerged from captivity or until a successor could officially replace him.

Barber, op. cit. , p.152.

Quoted in Read, op. cit. , p.228.

Flores Historiarum (London, 1890); quoted in Barber, op. cit. , p.157.

Although the Fall of Acre is usually seen as the end of the Christian presence in the East, there was one remaining Christian stronghold in mainland Syria after 1291, the Templar castle of La Roche Guillame, in the Amanus March, which held out against all odds until 1299. See Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate, The Templars: Selected Sources (MUP, 2002), p.15.

Barber, The Trial of the Templars (Cambridge University Press, 1978), p.48.

A result of de Nogaret’s attempts to kidnap Boniface VIII at Agnani in September 1303.

Quoted in Read, op. cit. , p.265.

Quoted in Read, op. cit. , p.295.

Edward Burman, Supremely Abominable Crimes (Allison & Busby, 1994), p.266.

Burman, ibid. , p.272.

Sir Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades ,Vol. III, p.435 – 6.

Runciman, ibid. ,Vol. II, p.477.

Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, op. cit. , p.57.

Barber, The New Knighthood , p.8.

Helen Nicholson, The Knights Templar: A New History (Sutton, 2001), pp.29 – 30.

Barber & Bate, op. cit. , p.2.

e.g. Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, op. cit. , pp.35 – 65, pp.81 – 100, in particular pp.62 – 5.

Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, op. cit. , pp.81 – 8.

They are also associated in some quarters with the Turin Shroud. See Keith Laidler, The Divine Deception (Headline, 2000), and Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Second Messiah (Random House, 1997). Interestingly, the first family to exhibit the supposed shroud was the de Charneys, related to the Preceptor of Normandy who died with de Molay at the stake.

‘Vatican File Shows Pope Pardoned Massacred Knights’, The Times , 30 March 2002.

Idries Shah, The Sufis (Octagon Press, 1964), p.226.

Quoted in Mark Hedsel, The Zelator (Random House, 1998), p.131.

Michael Baigent & Richard Leigh, The Temple and the Lodge (Jonathan Cape 1989), p.84.

Baigent & Leigh, ibid. , p.88.

Alan Butler & Stephen Dafoe, The Warriors and the Bankers (Templar Books, 1998).

Seward, op. cit. , p.222.

Quoted in Peter Partner, The Murdered Magicians (OUP, 1981), p.92.

Baigent & Leigh, op. cit. , pp.127 – 31.

Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum (Secker & Warburg, 1989), p.619.

Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, op. cit. , pp.413 – 4.

c.1070 Birth of Hugues de Payen; Foundation of the Hospitallers

1095 (November) Pope Urban II calls for a crusade to recapture Jerusalem

1099 (July) Jerusalem captured by the First Crusade

1104 Hugh of Champagne arrives in Outremer (possibly with Hugues de Payen)

1114 Bishop of Chartres refers to a military order called the ‘Militia of Christ’

c.1119 Traditional founding date of the Templars

1120 (January) Council of Nablus: Templars accepted in the East

1127 First meeting between Hugues de Payen and St Bernard of Clairvaux

1129 (January) Council of Troyes. The Latin Rule of the Temple established

1131 In Praise of the New Knighthood by St Bernard