Why Did the Templars Disappear?

Do you know the Templars? Did you know that there is another category of Christians? The reason for their disappearance. Did you know?

We have pushed our curiosity far enough to have answers to these questions in order to satisfy your curiosity. For a taste, here is a brief overview. Remember this:

The Templars were the army of the Pope and represented an important center of power due to their military strength, their strategic dominance in Europe, especially in France, and above all their enormous wealth, which made them the most important banking system in the world. Therefore, a king determined to assert his absolute authority had to put an end to the Order of the Temple.

Discover in this article:

• The reason for creating the order

• The initial role of the Templars

• The reasons for the disappearance of the Templars

• The Templars of America

If you want to expand your knowledge and learn more about the Knights Templar, here are several articles that might interest you:

• The meaning of the Templar cross
• Do the Templars still exist?
• Discover Templar jewelry

The Sudden End of the Templars

It was not the holy war that put an end to the Templars , but a more earthly war. The order fell victim to the power struggle between Philip IV of France and the papacy. The monarch's ambition and fanaticism set in motion a dark process that culminated in the dissolution of the Temple. The disaster of Acre and the withdrawal of the Christians to Cyprus, completed in August 1291, fell like a pitcher of cold water on Rome.

Pope Nicholas IV was forced to act and put on the table the recovery of the Holy Land , but also the unification of the military orders. The failure of the defense of the Holy Places finally convinced the pontiff that the rivalry between the Templars and the Hospitallers had to be ended and that their resources had to be used more effectively in the military mission in the Latin East.

Convulsed Panorama

When the Mamluks dealt the final blow to the last Christian strongholds in the Holy Land , the military orders did not expect anyone to come to their aid. At that time, Europe had other priorities. England and France were at war in Aquitaine, Germany was without an emperor, and the papacy feared losing its influence in Sicily. For the same reason, Molay did not obtain the firm commitment of the European monarchs and Pope Boniface VIII to the cause of the crusades.

His chances were further reduced when the pontiff was beset by problems after becoming embroiled in a bitter dispute with the French king, Philip IV the Handsome. What began as a dispute over the collection of taxes from the French clergy became one of the greatest conflicts between temporal and spiritual powers in the Middle Ages.

The crown and the papacy engaged in a war of slander and bulls that lasted seven years and culminated in the threat of excommunication of the French sovereign and the forced captivity of the pontiff at his court in Anagni, Italy. Boniface VIII was eventually released, but he was so distraught that he died shortly thereafter, in the early 14th century.

A truncated reform

Neglected, the Templars fought alone in their attempt to reconquer the Holy Land . They occupied the island of Aruad, off the coast of Syria, but the Mamluks expelled them again two years later. This setback prompted Molay to concentrate his efforts on trying again to convince England and France to launch the crusade. But Edward I had to suppress a revolt in Scotland and Philip IV made it a condition that France would have priority in the expedition and that he himself would play the leading role.

The French monarch's demands forced the other European kingdoms into a corner and the enterprise was put on hold. Nor did the Templars fare any better in Cyprus, where King Henry II viewed with suspicion the order's claim to use his domains as a centre of operations.

Clement V relaunched the debate on the reform of the military orders and the organization of the crusade.

Having regained some calm, Clement V was able to reopen the debate on the reform of the military orders and the organization of the crusade. Jacques de Molay opposed the idea of ​​unification, arguing that the rivalry between the orders had been beneficial to Christianity, since both were competing to better defend it. He also warned that unification would lead to quarrels within the orders, as many officers would lose their positions.

In reality, the refusal of the Grand Master was due to other fears. The identity of the Temple would be diluted in the new order and, even worse, it could be instrumentalized by the civil power, a risk more than likely, given the vehement position of Philip IV regarding the crusade. Molay could not know it at the time, but if he had accepted and accelerated the fusion of the orders, perhaps he and his brothers would have been saved from their tragic fate.

On the king's tail

Clement V protested to Philip IV and reprimanded the inquisitor for acting without his consent. He claimed that he had become aware of the rumors against the order and intended to launch his own investigation, a dubious claim, since he had done nothing about it. Feeling helpless, the pope attempted to take control of the situation. He ordered all the Catholic kings to arrest and interrogate the Templars , but his request was met with some delay in England and Aragon.

Suspicious of Philip IV's intentions, the monarchs Henry I and James II did not believe the accusations made against the Templars , an order to which they entrusted much of the administration of their kingdoms. Meanwhile, in France, Clement sent a delegation to Paris. Jacques de Molay and the other high officials of the order took the opportunity to retract their statements, alleging that they had made them out of fear of torture.

The pontiff is not convinced of the guilt of the order and suspends the inquisitorial process to personally question the Templars .

Philip IV did not back down and launched a campaign of intoxication against the Temple and the Pope, as he had done in his time with Boniface VIII. He obtained the legal support of the University of Paris and the public of the three domains of his kingdom at the States General, meeting in Tours.

The necessary victims

The papal investigation extended throughout Europe and even to the East. In Portugal, Castile, Aragon, Germany, Italy and Cyprus, the Templars were declared innocent . In France, on the other hand, many diocesan commissions were headed by bishops committed to Philip IV and considered the previous confessions as valid.

They limited themselves, however, to condemning repentant offenders to various canonical penalties, including life imprisonment. Those who attempted to defend the order before the pontifical commission, by retracting their statements, were less fortunate. Philip IV's ministers could not consent to the discovery of the iniquity of the first interrogations of the Templars , conducted by the inquisitor under the dictates of Nogaret.

They told the Archbishop of Sens, brother of the King's Chamberlain and the highest authority in the Diocese of Paris, that he should accuse the Templars of being repeat heretics . Since the penalty for repeat offenders was death by fire, the Archbishop had 54 of them burned. The result was as expected: the other Templars refused to speak in favor of the order or decided to plead guilty .

The Pope made a Solomonic decision in his bull: he did not condemn the order, but dissolved it. In October 1311, the council convened by Clement V began in Vienna to decide the future of the order. It was explained that the guilt of some Templars , even if it was manifest, did not imply that of the order as a whole. Nor was it possible to prove that the Temple professed any heretical doctrine or that its rules were secret or different from the official rules.

The History of the Order of the Templars

Jacques de Molay was a French nobleman and the last Grand Master of the Order of the Temple since its founding in 1118. He was the great reformer of the order, governing it from 1292 to 1314. The Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, also known as the Order of the Temple , was a powerful Christian military order of the Middle Ages. It functioned for over two centuries.

Although its initial mission was to protect Christian pilgrims en route to the Holy Land during the Crusades , it quickly became a new army in the service of the Church, being the advance force in key battles of the Crusades. In 1177, at the Battle of Montgisard, 500 Knights Templar helped defeat Saladin's army of over 25,000 soldiers.

Officially approved by the Catholic Church in 1129, it quickly grew in power and membership to become an institution that was both revered and hated. The order was one of the first forms of monetary lending that existed, creating financial networks and a loan system that quickly made them rich. In addition, they were entrusted with the custody of many sacred objects in order to protect them from enemy incursions. The economic aspect of the Templars was one of the main causes that led to their demise .

Jacques de Molay joined the Knights Templar in 1265. After almost 30 stormy years, he became the Grand Master. During his tenure, the power of the Templars grew even more, which marked the beginning of the end. During his early years at the head of the Order, he organized multiple expeditions against the Muslims and managed to enter Jerusalem by defeating the Sultan of Egypt, Malej Nace. His great personal defeat came in 1300 when he was defeated while trying to retake the city of Tartus on the Syrian coast.

The Order: An Army of Kings

The Order's archives have also disappeared . The treasure was probably hidden in a secret place and never left France, because it was an important legacy of the Templar tradition, an essential witness when the heretical brotherhood inside the Temple had managed to reorganize itself into a new secret society. But where was the fleet? The 18 galleys?

From this point of view, the king's move is more than understandable. But if Philip thought he could finally get his hands on the treasure of the Temple and its fleet, he was wrong. Both had disappeared. Gone. In addition to the many European mentions, the Order owned important ports in the north and south of France, such as the port of Boulogne, Marseille or Sète, which allowed it to maintain contact with England.

Important places for trade with the Mediterranean regions and the transport of pilgrims to the Holy Land . There were also Templar ports in Spain and Italy. The Order's ships were particularly sought after because they were equipped with an armed escort. This was essential at a time when poor pilgrims leaving for the Holy Land were sometimes sold by the ship's captain as slaves to the highest bidder. The Templar trade in fabrics, porcelain, wine, glass and spices flourished.

In the Holy Land, the Templars brought weapons and men and bought oriental goods . Their customers settled in the British Isles and in the German cities of the Hanseatic League. And this is where the French port of La Rochelle comes into play. La Rochelle was located in a natural bay and, therefore, in an excellent position to defend itself against enemy attacks. In addition, six major roads from the city of La Rochelle crossed France and allowed a rapid distribution of goods throughout the country. In La Rochelle, there was an important citation of the Order of the Temple , the city was at that time very populated, a large center of trade .

Lists of Templars who escaped arrest

In 1307, after the arrest of the French Templars , the commander of La Rochelle, William of Liège, 80, surrendered his commandery to the king to escape torture. But not the ships, which were far from port. The dignitaries of the Order were probably warned in good time of the king's imminent arrest. As opportune and secret as Philip's maneuver was, the Order had the best informants. We also know of the existence of two lists which testify to the flight of several dignitaries of the Order before the arrests.

The Templars knew this and sailed their ships at the most opportune moment, without being noticed. The commander of La Rochelle certainly does not lack means. Until 1628, the fateful year when Cardinal Richelieu ordered the destruction of the city to punish the Huguenots, La Rochelle was the richest port in Europe. But the siege of the cardinal and the terrible fire that followed, razed the city and 25,000 inhabitants lost their lives. Today's La Rochelle is the result of the reconstruction ordered by Richelieu after the massacre.

The question is: where did the Templar fleet go? The Templar Jean de Chalon, from the diocese of Troyes, said he saw with his own eyes, on the night of October 12, three carts of hay leaving the Parisian citadel of the Temple with horses, full crates, dignitaries, heading for the coast. They were awaited there by ships that were going to transport men, horses and goods abroad. What was the destination of the 18 galleys? All over Europe, the Templars had possessions and commandos. The Templar trail in Portugal is very heavy.

The Templars in America

Some researchers have gone even further. They note that the port of La Rochelle is a strategic starting point for sailing out of Europe and that the Templar ships may have reached the American continent . Nearly two hundred years before Christopher Columbus. This would explain the large amount of money that the Order always had. Money that would have come from the mines of Mexico.

The idea is not absurd. It is likely that the Vikings, during their daring voyages, had also reached America, and it is not to be excluded that other ancient peoples had done so before them.

The question then arises, do the Templars still exist? We invite you to discover it in our Blog on the Templars .

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The Mysterious Disappearance of the Temple Ships

As you will have understood, the Templars are the right-hand men of both popes and kings. But on October 13, 1307, King Philip the Fair , through a spectacular police action, had all the Templars of France arrested . For some time, his greedy eye had been targeting the wealth of the Order. The refusal of a sum of money lent exacerbated his bitterness towards the so-called bankers of Europe. Too powerful, these knights in white coats, too influential for an ambitious king, no longer exist.

With the help of the above information, you have been able to have a better understanding about the disappearance of the Templars . If anyone asks you, you will be able to help them on this topic. To add to what we have said, we have an article that gives a little more information about the existence of the Templars.