How powerful were the Knights Templar?

The Knights Templar, which originated in the year 1120, became quite powerful in their later years although it took quite a bit of planning, implementation, strategy, and patience for this power to arrive. The Knights Templar were a religious military order who with the blessing of the Frankish king, Baldwin II of Jerusalem, organized themselves to protect the Christians in the Kingdom of Jerusalem from the frequent attacks of the Muslim raiders that habitually attacked the Christians out of a sense of nationalism and resentment for the Crusader victory of 1099.

One of the official names of the Knights Templar was “The Poor Knights of Christ,” meaning that their very existence was one of Christian servitude rather than self-aggrandizement or knightly glory. The Knights Templar were, above all, “knight monks” that were chaste, sober, and ever-Christian in their daily movements. The Knights Templar, while a noteworthy and significant appendage of the French Crown, were ultimately beholden to the French Crown and lived lives of servitude and duty to the Christian pilgrims of Jerusalem. The Templars had a special regard for the Virgin Mary, and strictly adhered to Catholic religious doctrine with vigilant reverence.

By the Mid 12th-century, the Knights Templar managed to accumulate wealth, status, and relationships with the kings of Europe on account of their accumulation of bullion, and a monetary system that they devised in order to sustain themselves, accomplish their goals, and make a name for themselves throughout the Holy Roman Empire. It should be noted, however, that their wealth and status was ultimately beholden to the French Crown and was therefore not purely the possession of the Templars.

By 1291, the city of Acre, an important appendage to the Kingdom of Jerusalem and a city that the Knights Templar were supposed to protect, fell to the Muslims. Because of this event, the relevance of the Knights Templar came into question namely by their rivals, the Knights Hospitaller of Jerusalem. By 1304, King Philip IV, presumably shaken, envious, and desirous of the Templar’s status, wealth, and power, had begun to paint them as heretics and subversives that worshiped a graven image called “Baphomet.” Philip IV further accused the Templars of habitually performing sacrilegious pagan rituals.

By March 22nd of 1312, after years of arrests, trials, and convictions, all of which were ordered by Pope Clement V at the behest of King Philip IV, the wealth of the Knights Templar was confiscated and transferred to the Knights Hospitaller, and many of the Templars and their leaders were jailed and/or executed. The Templars since then have been reverenced by many as the quintessential example of fraternity, fidelity, sacrifice, and duty; their example and their memory have been adopted into many theological fraternal organizations as a way of preserving their essence and their values.