The Order of the Knights Templar, also known as the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, was a Roman Catholic military order that was founded in Jerusalem in 1119 by Bernard of Clairvaux; it was recognized the Pope in 1139. The Templars were founded with the objective of protecting Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land, and 90% of their membership consisted of noncombatants. However, the remaining 10% fought as shock troops against the Saracens during the Crusades, and they established fortresses at Jaffa and Acre. The Fall of Acre in 1291 and the end of the Crusades led to the Templars' support fading, as they came to be seen as a secretive, dangerous, and subversive cult; their purpose soon shifted from military service to banking. In 1307, King Philip IV of France - using this widespread distrust in order to justify the erasure of his debts to the Templars - arrested several French Templars, tortured them into making false confessions, and accused them of heresy. On 13 Friday 1308, Grand Master Jacques de Molay and several other Templars were burnt at the stake, and Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312. In 1319, the Military Order of Christ was founded in Portugal as the successor of the Templars, while Christian Freemasons founded their own "Knights Templar" order in 1730.
Conspiracy theory[]
A conspiracy-theory narrative claims that the Templars had origins and objectives beyond the purview of a military order of crusaders. This theory claims that the Templar Order was the inheritor of the traditions of older secret societies such as the Cult of Kosmos and Order of the Ancients, sharing in their tactics of infiltrating high society and aiming to create a world of order and submission. Guided by the three principles: "(1) Uphold the principles of our order and all that for which we stand; (2) Never share our secrets nor divulge in the true nature of our work; and (3) Do so until death, whatever the cost," the Templar goal was to achieve a world of perpetual peace through perfect order and free from anarchy, deception, and injustice.
The Templars were opposed by the Assassin Brotherhood, the inheritors of the traditions of the Hidden Ones and the Hashshashin, who believed that "Nothing is true, everything is permitted," and that order should not come at the expense of injustice, oppressive rule, and the taking of innocent lives. The Templar ideology attracted both benevolent members such as Alfred the Great, George Monro, Shay Cormac, Elise de la Serre, and Haytham Kenway and malevolent, power-hungry members such as Rodrigo Borgia, Cesare Borgia, Crawford Starrick, and Francois-Thomas Germain, occasionally leading to inter-factional violence, such as during the French Revolution.
This conspiracy also holds that the Templars spread across the globe and became a multinational and multiconfessional entity with a "Grand Master" leading regional "rites"; while Christians such as King Alfred the Great, Pope Alexander VI, Doge Marco Barbarigo, Jacques Roux, and Sun Yat-sen were Templars, Muslims such as Majd ad-Din, Rashid ad-Din Sinan, and Şehzade Ahmet, Buddhists such as the Jiajing Emperor, deists such as Maximilien Robespierre, and atheists such as Frederic Rouille, Maxwell Roth, and John Maynard Keynes were also affiliated with the order. The Templars were said to have a deistic religion centered around the "Father of Understanding" and powerful artifacts called "Pieces of Eden", with Christian members believing that the powerful artifacts had come from God himself, and some members believing that all religions were lies due to power being concentrated in material objects.
The narrative also claims that the Templar-Assassin conflict began with Cain's murder of Abel, and that the struggle between freedom and tyranny was closely linked with the struggle between the Assassins, Templars, and their predecessors, a struggle which continues into the present day. Both the Templars and Assassins were believed to be behind epoch-making events throughout history, with the Order of the Ancients (the predecessors of the Templars) instigating the Peloponnesian War in a bid to unify Ancient Greece under their control, supporting Ptolemy XIII against his sister Cleopatra during the Alexandrine Civil War of the 40s BC, supporting the rise of Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire, becoming a publicly-known organization during the Crusades as a means of acquiring military and financial support from the kings of Europe, backing the British during the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War, taking over London's streets with their Blighters gang during the Victorian era, and amassing economic power through front companies such as Abstergo during the 21st century. Meanwhile, the Assassins operated from the shadows, often assassinating Templar leaders, battling their puppets and henchmen on the battlefield and on the streets, and foiling Templar plots and conspiracies through both direct action and utilizing the powerful allies. Recent conspiracies involving the Templars include the belief that all of the major leaders of World War II were Templars (and that Adolf Hitler was assassinated), and that the Templars rigged the 2000 presidential election in George W. Bush's favor. Throughout history, Templars have come from many political persuasions, including openly authoritarian fascism (Hitler), communism (Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong), and and Jacobinism (Maximilien Robespierre), but also including infiltrators within democratic societies.
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