50 Fun Facts About The Knights Templar

What colour was the cross worn on the Templars' white mantles?

The cross was a symbol of martyrdom; dying in battle was believed to assure a place in heaven.

The Templars' original headquarters stood on which site in Jerusalem?

They were housed in a wing of the royal palace in the captured Al-Aqsa Mosque, above what was thought to be Solomon's Temple.

What was the Templars' original purpose when founded around 1118-1119?

Bandits routinely slaughtered pilgrims on the road inland from the coast at Jaffa.

Which French knight founded the order and became its first grand master?

He is thought to have come from the village of Payns, about 10 km from Troyes in Champagne.

What did the Templars' early seal, showing two knights on a single horse, emphasise?

The order began with about nine knights and relied entirely on donations.

Which influential abbot championed the Templars in his letter In Praise of the New Knighthood?

He was a nephew of founding knight André de Montbard and the driving force behind the Cistercians.

At which 1129 church gathering was the Templar order officially approved and given its rule?

The white mantle was assigned to the knights at the same council.

Which papal bull of 1139 exempted the Templars from local laws and taxes, answerable only to the pope?

In practice they still had to respect the rulers whose money they banked.

Roughly what proportion of Templars were non-combatants running the order's economy?

At their peak the order numbered perhaps 15,000-20,000, only a tenth of them actual knights.

From 1150 the Templars issued what to pilgrims, an early form of banking and possibly the first cheques?

Pilgrims deposited valuables at a local preceptory and reclaimed equal value on arrival in the Holy Land.

Which entire Mediterranean island did the Templars at one point own?

They also owned fleets of ships, farms, vineyards and castles, arguably making the order the first multinational corporation.

At the 1177 Battle of Montgisard, some 500 Templar knights helped defeat which Muslim leader's army?

His force of more than 26,000 was beaten by the Templars and several thousand infantry.

Which pope gave the Templars permission in 1147 to wear the red cross on their uniforms?

The permission came at a Paris meeting as French, Spanish and English Templars set off on the Second Crusade.

Which city, given to the order around 1150, became the first major Templar castle?

It formed part of the ring of fortresses guarding the Kingdom of Jerusalem's southern border against Fatimid Ascalon.

Grand Master Bernard de Tremelay and forty knights died charging alone through a breach at which 1153 siege?

The rest of the crusader army failed to follow them in; the city fell days later anyway.

Blunders by grand master Gerard de Ridefort contributed to which devastating 1187 defeat?

Jerusalem fell to Saladin the same year.

After the loss of Jerusalem, the Templars made which seaport their headquarters for the next century?

It fell in 1291, followed by their last mainland strongholds at Tortosa and Atlit.

The Templars' loss of which tiny island in 1302-03 ended the crusaders' last foothold in the Holy Land?

It lies just off the coast from Tortosa; the Mamluks took it after a failed attempt to coordinate with the Mongols.

Which French king ordered the mass arrest of the Templars in 1307?

Known as Philip the Fair, he was deeply in debt to the order from his war against England.

On what date in 1307 were the grand master and scores of French Templars arrested at dawn?

The warrant began: 'God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom.'

Under torture, Templar recruits were made to confess to doing what during admission ceremonies?

One prisoner said he had spat three times 'but only from my mouth and not from my heart'.

The Templars were accused of worshipping an idol known by what name?

Scholars think the name is an Old French corruption of 'Mahomet'; the goat-headed image came from Eliphas Lévi in 1856.

Which pope disbanded the Templars in 1312 under pressure from the French crown?

Based in Avignon, he had originally wanted to merge the Templars with the Hospitallers.

At which 1312 gathering did the pope issue the bull Vox in excelso dissolving the order?

A companion bull, Ad providam, handed most Templar assets to the Hospitallers.

To which rival order was most Templar property transferred after the dissolution?

The kingdoms of Castile, Aragon and Portugal were the exceptions.

Under King Denis I, the Portuguese Templars survived by changing their name to what?

Portugal was the first country in Europe where the Templars had settled, only two or three years after their founding.

Who was the 23rd and last grand master of the Templars, burned at the stake in Paris in 1314?

He asked to be tied facing Notre-Dame with his hands together in prayer.

Where was the pyre built for the last grand master's execution?

The Île des Juifs lay near the palace garden; the sentence was pronounced on a scaffold before Notre-Dame.

According to legend, whom did the dying grand master summon to meet him before God within the year?

Clement died only a month later, and Philip died in a hunting accident the same year.

Which misfiled Vatican document, found in 2001, shows the pope absolved the Templars in 1308?

Barbara Frale found it; the Church now regards the persecution as unjust.

What was the title of the Templars' second-in-command?

The marshal was the top military officer, the draper handled uniforms and the turcopolier commanded auxiliaries.

What colour did Templar sergeants, drawn from non-noble families, wear?

Knights wore white for purity and chastity; all ranks bore the red cross.

How many clauses did the Templars' original code of conduct, the Latin Rule, contain?

It limited meat to three times a week, ordered silent meals, and banned all physical contact with women.

How many times a week at most were Templar knights allowed to eat meat?

They also had to take meals in silence and follow the canonical hours of the Rule of St Benedict.

Under the Templar rule, when alone were the knights permitted to leave the battlefield?

If their own banner fell they had first to try to regroup with another order such as the Hospitallers.

Around 1240 the chronicler Alberic of Trois-Fontaines described the Templars as an order of what?

Long beards were customary though never prescribed by the Rule.

Squires who served Templar knights were generally what?

The order performed no knighting ceremonies, so recruits had to be knights already.

Roughly how many Templars were there at the order's peak?

Only about a tenth of them were actual knights.

London's Temple Church, built as the Templars' English headquarters, was consecrated in 1185 by whom?

During King John's reign it served as the royal treasury; the round nave copies the Holy Sepulchre.

London's round Templar church is jointly owned by which two institutions?

The Inner and Middle Temple Inns of Court have owned it since the 17th century; a key scene of The Da Vinci Code film was shot inside it.

Which occultist's 1856 book established the image of the Templars' idol as a winged, goat-headed figure?

He called the drawing the Sabbatic Goat, an androgynous synthesis of opposites.

What did the French king do in 1306, the year before he destroyed the Templars?

His hard, autocratic personality earned him the nickname the Iron King alongside 'the Fair'.

Which 12th-century romance calls the Grail kingdom's guardian knights 'templeisen'?

The Templar-Grail association predates modern novels like The Da Vinci Code by eight centuries.

Legend says a Freemason dipped a cloth in Louis XVI's blood at his execution and declared whom avenged?

The idea was that the French crown had destroyed the Templars nearly five centuries earlier.

Which Masonic body's 'Order of the Temple' is inspired by the Knights Templar?

Its Order of Malta likewise draws on the Hospitallers.

Who founded a revived 'Order of the Temple' in 1805, a landmark of neo-Templarism?

He was a physician who refused to acknowledge the authority of the Catholic Church.

Roughly how many knights made up the Templar order at its founding?

Founding members included Godfrey de Saint-Omer and André de Montbard, an uncle of Bernard of Clairvaux.

After the fall of the mainland, the Templars moved their headquarters to Limassol on which island?

From there they tried to hold tiny Arwad Island off the Syrian coast until 1302–03.

In 1305 Pope Clement V wrote to Jacques de Molay proposing a merger with which order?

Neither de Molay nor Hospitaller Grand Master Fulk de Villaret liked the idea, but Clement pressed on.

Which television series about the Templars is listed among modern fictional treatments of the order?

Video games from Broken Sword to Assassin's Creed have kept the Templar name alive too.