Knights Templar

The Templars wore the red Cross Patee, of four equal arms with wide ends, on their white habits. Their seal is two knights riding the same horse, illustrating their poverty. Yet they became wealthy very early, after excavations at the site of the Temple. They grew even more wealthy by acting as bankers to Christendom. By many accounts they did much good, but they were mysterious and not always well-liked, particularly by feudal lords, since the Templars were answerable to nobody except the Pope.

They never had many knights, but the order also organized serjeants, farmers, and chaplains. They built or held numerous castles, and also churches, which they called temples, and which were usually round. But even they could not hold Outremer together nor hold back the Islamic tide.

Their battle flag was called Beauseant. Some versions have it as four quarters, black and white, with a red cross patee in the center. Others say that the red cross had straight arms, like the St. George cross of England. Beauseant was also their battle cry; it meant roughly ``Be glorious!''

They were first into battle; last to retreat; never ransomed; often martyred. Their rule required the double discipline of monks and soldiers. As many as 20,000 Templars of all ranks died by war in their two centuries.

After the final loss of the Holy Land in 1291, their purpose was in question, and their international military and especially financial power produced fear and envy. They were in many ways exactly what their name said: soldiers. They were not sufficiently adept at the game of politics, and they lost. In 1307, on Friday the 13th of October, King Philip the Fair of France suppressed the Knights Templar on charges (never proven) of heresy. Those who survived are commonly supposed to have gone to Scotland and Portugal. The ones who went to Portugal mostly ended up in the Order of Christ; their Cross Patee is familiar from the sails of Portuguese exploring ships. The ones who went to Scotland are said to have sailed in more than a dozen ships, carrying their treasure. There their fate became bound up with that of the family of St. Clair.

—jsq