Knights Templar

Knights Templar -- category

Knights Templar's 700-year old prayer published
The Vatican newspaper has published a prayer composed by the Knights Templar during their captivity. King Philip IV of France seized and tortured leaders of the order on charges of heresy in 1307 to seize their riches. Documents from Vatican's secret archives shed light on the trial of the Knights Templar. Among the documents was a parchment showing that Pope Clement V had initially cleared the order from the accusations of heresy. The prayer, read during the trial, shows that the accusations were unfounded. The prayer appeals to the Virgin Mary to free the order, "despite all the lies that have been thrown at us by liars," and guide the order's enemies toward "truth and charity." | by iht.com :: 2008-08-23 |

Knights Templar tomb discovered in Languedoc region, in France
A hidden tomb in the mountains of the Languedoc region in France has the archaeological community buzzing. The site holds a mummified corpse under a shroud with the red cross of the Knights Templar - and wooden chests filled with gold chalices and coins. This discovery, an intact Knight's Templar burial, will be revealed in the documentary Bloodline. Plans for a dig are under way. When the French King ordered the arrest of the Templars and the capture of their assets in 1307, very little of their gold, treasure, or relics were ever found. Some think these items were buried in secret locations in the Languedoc. | by marketwire :: 2008-05-11 |

Campaign to save cave used by the Knights Templar
An ancient cave in Herts, believed to have been used by the Knights Templar during their quest for the Holy Grail, is under threat. The Royston Cave is being damaged by the excessive heavy lorry traffic. Oliver Heald is now campaigning to save the cave, and English Heritage is also pressing for a weight restriction on Melbourn Street. The cave is a man-made cavern in the shape of a beehive. Inside are wall carvings about the Crucifixion, the Holy Family and several saints, like St Katherine, St Laurence and St Christopher. Local historians have said the wall carvings indicate the cave may have been used by the Knights Templar. | by bbc :: 2007-12-29 |

Interview with Barbara Frale, who rediscovered the Chinon parchment
The story has it all: Vatican intrigue, medieval castles, secret knights, and royal conspiracies. But it is not fiction. Over 5 meters of recovered parchments reveal the account of one of the most important trials of the Middle Ages: The Processus Contra Templarios ("Trial Against the Templars"). The Knights Templar was dissolved following charges of heresy in 1314. This book reveals the order's innocence. The parchment is the transcript of the hearings at Chinon in August 1308. Barbara Frale, the archives official who rediscovered the Chinon parchment after over 10 years of research in the Vatican Secret Archives, spoke about her find and about the crusading order. | by discovery :: 2007-10-31 |

$8,375 for a replica of the minutes of the Knights of Templar trials
The reality of the saga of the Knights Templar is nearly as amazing as the myths that embellish it. The Vatican adds another chapter when it publishes a 699-year-old papal report on the medieval holy warriors. Vatican publisher Scrinium will offer 799 copies (the 800th will go to the Pope), at $8,375 apiece, of a 1308 parchment titled Processus Contra Templarios (Trial Against the Templars), which chronicles the order's sordid endgame: the accusations of heresy, the Templars' defense, and Pope Clement V's absolution of the order, before he eliminated it. | by time :: 2007-10-26 |

British Knights Templars call on Pope to apologise
A British order of Templars that claims direct descent from the Knights Templar is calling on the Pope to apologise after ancient Vatican document shows that the knights were absolved of crimes laid against them 7 centuries ago. The charges led to the disbanding of the order and Grand Master Jacques de Molay was burnt at the stake. One of the documents, the Chinon Parchment, shows that in the early 14th century, Pope Clement V's investigation of the order absolved the knights of the heresy charges. Ben Acheson, a member of a Templar order in Hertford, said publication of the documents is a "turning point" but called for Pope Benedict XVI to apologise formally. | by timesonline :: 2007-10-18 |

After 700 years, Vatican comes clean on history's good knights
700 years ago one of history's most brutal abuses of power gave the world the term Black Friday, the superstition about Friday the 13th, and a fund of conspiracy theories. The event was the arrest, torture and execution of the Knights Templar - Friday, October 13, 1307 - so Philip the Fair, King of France, could expropriate their wealth. The king bullied a weak Pope Clement V into suppressing the order on spurious grounds. On Oct 25, the Vatican will publish a book (Only 799 copies will be produced) about the suppression, containing unpublished accounts of the hearings. The last grandmaster Jacques de Molay was burned at the stake in 1314. | by theage :: 2007-10-15 |

Vatican book on the demise of Knights Templar - Chinon parchment
The Vatican is to publish a book which is awaited to shed light on the demise of the Knights Templar - a Christian military order from the Middle Ages. The book is based on a document known as the Chinon parchment, found in the Vatican Secret Archives after years of being incorrectly filed. The document is a record of the heresy hearings of the Templars before Pope Clement V in the 14th Century. Prof Barbara Frale who found the paper says it exonerates the knights. She says that it lays bare the rituals and ceremonies over which the Templars were accused of heresy. | by bbc :: 2007-10-06 |

Lea Valley: Archaeologists hope to uncover Knights Templar secrets
Archaeologists excavating the Lea Valley hope to uncover the secrets of the Knights Templar, a sect charged with protecting the Holy Grail. It is believed the group, which had a fascination for ciphers and symbolism, built 2 water mills on the 500-acre Olympic site in the late 12th century. Archaeologists will also look for Hennikers Ditch, a medieval waterway along the route of the ancient river Leyton and the Channelsea River, reputedly dug by King Alfred to divert invading Vikings from London. Remains will be photographed and removed to form part of the Museum of London's collection. | by dailymail :: 2007-04-27 |

Bulgaria's Knights Templar Research Order's Roots in Bulgaria
Bulgaria's Knights Templar Order has launched a project for the research of the Order's presence in the Bulgarian lands. Bulgarian archaeologist Professor Nikolay Ovcharov will lead the research, called "Following the steps of the Knights Templar in Bulgaria". The projects was launched with the support of the Bulgarian Priory and the goal is to gather historical facts and evidence for knights' presence in the Bulgarian lands. Team will make research in the area of the Danube town of Russe, where archaeologists have found stone crosses similar to the templars' ones. | by novinite :: 2007-04-18 |

Lost Worlds: 12 episodes including Knights Templar
The History Channel series Lost Worlds comes to DVD in a 4-disc box set that's perfect viewing for history buffs and casual viewers alike. Here are the 12, one hour episodes included on the 4-disc, slim case box set of Lost Worlds: Knights Templar: For two hundred years, these warrior monks battled for the Holy Land. As the Templar's city of Tortosa is rebuilt, archaeologists unveil the secrets of their headquarters at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and recreate their mysterious initiation rites in a London church. | by dvdtalk :: 2007-03-03 |

Mayor wants town on Knights Templar and Holy Grail trail
Debate is raging over whether Hertford should cash in on its links to the Holy Grail to draw tourists to the town. Mercury stories about the town's links to the Knights Templar, who are said to be the keepers of the Cup of Christ, have made international headlines and featured on TV programmes. But the town council has failed to use the publicity to boost Hertford's economy, offering little help to media organisations that were seeking access to the castle. It was in the stronghold that four knights are said to have been jailed when King Edward II was hunting their "lost treasure" 700 years ago. | by templars :: 2006-12-04 |

A historic artefact has been found within the grounds of a ruin
A historic artefact has been found On the inside the grounds of the church ruins in Temple. In the 12th century Temple was the headquarters of the Knights Templar in Scotland. Chevalier Young said: "I was drawn to what looked like an insignificant little stone lying within the old ruined church. I took a photo of it and when I zoomed in on it on my computer at home I thought I could see a date on it. The stone was obviously covered in lichen and was fairly hard to make out so I used a paint package on my computer and was amazed when I revealed what is called a Floral Cross." | by midlothianadvertiser.co.uk :: 2006-10-26 |

Professor tells of battling knights - Lost Worlds: Knights Templar
Recently Dr Paul Crawford appeared on the "Lost Worlds" segment about the Knights Templar. For it he spent two days filming the Knights Templar segment, highlighting the order of fighting monks. Traveling to Syria for the program, he visited castles used by the knights. A French knight named Hugh founded the Knights Templar with two friends. Explaining the lack of surnames, he said it depended on a person's station in life: At the time, an aristocrat was known through family connections. In any event, it was Hugh who believed pilgrims traveling the Holy Land route needed protection, and founded the Knights Templar. | by post-gazette :: 2006-09-27 |

3 secret orders: Assassins, Knights Templars, Fehmgerichte
Thomas Keightley's book on history of 3 secret societies of the Middle Ages: the Assassins, the Templars and the Fehmgerichte. Templars: An organization of crusaders who controlled huge wealth from the British Isles to the Holy Land. The Templars had an internal class system, based on the medieval social hierarchy. Initiations served to teach the new Templar on the harsh realities of membership: a life of obedience and chastity. The history of the downfall of the Templars, involving a plot to strip them of their wealth, a questionably elected French Pope, confessions based on torture, and accusations of pagan rites, is one of the most fascinating parts of the book. | by sacred-texts :: 2006-07-30 |

Rare Knights Templar documents for sale
Rare documents have been uncovered that shed light on how the Order of the Temple, the fabled keepers of the Holy Grail, acquired their enormous wealth. The "deeds of gift", dating from the 13th century, chronicle the generous parcels of land bestowed on the first military order by rich English landowners. An archive in the form of nearly 30 deeds has surfaced in a private collection and is expected to fetch up to £60,000 at auction. Felix Pryor said that he had never come across anything relating to the Knights Templar before. "They are are terribly, terribly rare. The order was suppressed in 1308 so you're not exactly tripping over things relating to them." | by timesonline :: 2006-05-26 |

The Knights Templar -- Lively documentary
Imagine rounding up and imprisoning Europe's leading bankers. But that was largely the effect when Philip IV of France rounded up the Knights Templar and burned them as heretics. An enigmatic order of soldier monks, the Templars took vows of poverty while building a huge financial empire, which Philip intended to steal while wiping out his own debt to them. But when the Knights Templar vanished, so did their vast fortune. Invincible on the battlefield, influential in business, the they monopolised moneylending. This richly illustrated documentary examines the many theories surrounding order, from its origins in the Crusades to its official demise in the 13th century. | by theage :: 2006-05-01 |

The Truth Behind the Knights Templar
The mystery of the Knights Templar has been in the public conscious lately. Intrigue and controversy, though, have followed them since medieval times. The Knights Templar began in 1120 as a band of modest monks who took up arms to protect pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. "The Knights Templar were conspicuously brave. They were dreaded and feared in equal measure by the enemy. They were known among the European forces to be the most talented and ferocious fighters." | by - :: 2006-04-25 |

First Knights Templar are discovered
The first bodies of the Knights Templar, the mysterious religious order at the heart of The Da Vinci Code, have been found by archaeologists near the River Jordan in northern Israel. British historian Tom Asbridge hailed the find as the first provable example of actual Knights Templar. The remains were found beneath the ruined walls of Jacob's Ford, an overthrown castle dating back to the Crusades, which had been lost for centuries. | by - :: 2006-04-11 |

Who were the Knights Templar?
The real Templars bear little resemblance to their fictional re-creations. They were founded in the Holy Land in 1119 by two French knights, who swore to devote themselves to the protection of Christian pilgrims visiting Jerusalem and the holy places. Crusaders had captured Jerusalem in 1099 and then struggled to establish an effective military and political structure to protect their conquests. The contribution of these founding knights was tiny, but they quickly captured the imagination of the Western Christian world. Soon, they were given a base in the al-Aqsa Mosque, which Christians believed had been the site of the Temple of Solomon. | by slate :: 2006-02-25 |

Catholic dissent over mystery of the pregnant Madonnas
An Italian author has stirred controversy within the Roman Catholic church with a new theory linking one of the most intriguing traditions in western art to the suppression of the enigmatic Knights Templar. A string of artists working from the middle of the 14th century near Florence painted the Virgin Mary as they imagined her to have been while she was pregnant. Florence was a major Templar centre and these Madonnas start to appear soon after the suppression of the knights in 1312. | by guardian :: 2005-07-23 |

The last crusade of the Templars - The knights want apology
The Knights Templars want a Papal apology 700 years after they were disbanded and hounded into exile. The Vatican is giving "serious consideration" to apologising for the persecution -- which began on Oct 13, 1307, and gave Friday the Thirteenth its superstitious legacy. A Templar Order in Britain that claims to be descended from the original Knights Templar has asked that the Pope should make the apology. The Templars, based in Hertford, are hoping for an apology by 2007. Persecution culminated with the burning at the stake of the Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the dissolution of the Order. | by timesonline :: 2004-11-29 |

Templar History in England, Portugal
According to Grand Prior, Simon Le Fevre, there were no independent books at the time to account for the Order from 1314 to the 1800s - so its history remains vague. A parchment written in a Latin code, derived from the eight-pointed Templar Cross, exists in the Mark Masons Hall Library in St James's. It surfaced at a sale in London in 1911. It claims to list the Grand Masters through the next five centuries. In Portugal, the former Knights Templar were formed into a successor body. Dropping "and of the Temple of Solomon" from their name, this body became the "Order of Christ". Under its new banner, the Portuguese ships sailed to discover the New World. | by bbc :: 2004-01-22 |

Secret History and Knights Templar in the News -- This is an apolitical site delivering hand-picked news

Knights Templar in the News is an review of Knights Templar, Secret History and mysteries related news and articles.