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The Templar AâZ![]()
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Abbasids
The Abbasid dynasty reigned as Caliphs in Baghdad. The Abbasids were the spiritual leaders of the Sunni Muslim world, recognised throughout the Middle East as the successors of Mohammed. The Crusaders understood the Caliph to be the Pope of the Saracens; however, by this time Abbasid power had waned. In 1055 the Caliph had been reduced to little more than a symbolic figurehead, with a Seljuk Sultan holding the real power.2 Even so, the Caliphs retained an aura of semi-divinity. The Mongols deposed the thirty-seventh and last Abbasid Caliph, al-Mustasim, in 1258, after the sack of Baghdad. The Caliph died along with 80,000 of his people, who were slaughtered by the Mongol hordes.3 Hulagu supposedly had al-Mustasim trampled to death beneath horsesâ hooves, having rolled him in rugs so that none of his sacred blood would splash on the ground.
Abbey of Notre Dame de Mont Sion
The Abbey of Notre Dame de Mont Sion was the home of a small religious Order operating in the Holy Land during the era of the Crusades. The community served the abbey on Mount Zion in Jerusalem and also had a monastery on Mount Carmel, which later became the seat of the Carmelites. The monks of the Abbey of Sion, according to Jacques de Vitry, were Augustinians, linked to the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre â the same religious Order as that which had custody of the Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount, and that supported the foundation of the Knights Templar. The Abbey of Mount Zion itself probably predated the Crusades and originally had an Eastern Orthodox monastic community. It is thought that after the success of the First Crusade the Latin brethren arrived, possibly being the same mysterious Italian monks who had founded the Abbey of Orval and then suddenly departed from it. There is some suggestion that these monks could also have had links to Peter the Hermit and Godfroi de Bouillon.3 When the Crusaders lost the Holy Land, the monks of the Abbey of Zion evacuated to Sicily and were apparently absorbed by the Jesuit Order in 1617.
Abraham (unknown ancient date)
The Biblical Patriarch Abraham was the mythic ancestor of the Jews, via his son Isaac, and the Arabs, via Ishmael. He travelled from Ur in Mesopotamia to settle in Hebron. His God became the God of the three monotheistic religions. The scene of Abrahamâs abortive sacrifice of Isaac, Mount Moriah, came to be identified with Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where the Templars would be based.
Abraxas
The Abraxas (or Abrasax) is an enigmatic figure, depicted as a warrior with a cockerelâs head and with snakes for legs. The creature holds a round shield and a flail whip, supposedly representing wisdom and strength. Gnostic sects apparently used small stones, carved with images of the Abraxas, as magical charms, in the first centuries AD. (âAbraxasâ may be the root of the magic word âAbracadabra!â) Abraxas images were used by the Basilidean sect of Alexandria, whom the early fathers of the Catholic Church condemned as heretics. Abraxas is said to have represented the supreme deity, from whom emanated the angels, one of which, as the Gnostics thought, was the flawed Jehovah who created the material world. Obviously to medieval Catholics all this would have constituted grave heresy, and the chimera-like image would have appeared outlandish and demonic. The issue of whether there was a secret group within the Templars, which diverged from Catholic Orthodoxy, is still an open question. An intriguing indication that this might be the case is a version of their seal bearing the image of the Abraxas. Around it is the legend Templi Secretum. Whether the Templars knew the true meaning of the Abraxas, or merely used it as a heraldic device, is hard to assess.
Accusations against the Order
The Knights Templar in France were arrested on Friday 13 October 1307, three weeks after King Philip the Fair had issued secret instructions for this, saying it was necessary because the Templars were guilty of terrible, supremely abominable crimes. According to the accusations, though the Templars were outwardly a respectable Christian brotherhood, secretly they were blasphemers and heretics. The accusations were subsequently made public. The definitive list was drawn up only in August 1308 and was probably the work of the Kingâs minister Guillaume de Nogaret. It contained many items; mostly covering practices allegedly taking place during the Templarsâ initiation ritual. The list was well calculated to besmirch the Orderâs reputation and to rouse popular revulsion. The main charges were as follows:
That the Templars denied and renounced Christ, and made initiates spit at (or otherwise defile) the Cross during their secret reception ceremony. They taught that Christ was a false prophet and not God.
That the Templars did not perform or believe in the sacraments of the Catholic Church, and their priests failed to speak the proper words during the mass.
That the Templars were guilty of idolatry and unholy worship. They worshipped severed heads (some had three faces, some one, some a skull. The idol had the power to bring them riches as well as to make the trees flower and the land germinate). A black cat also manifested.
That the Templars wore chords around their middles, which had touched these idols.
That at their receptions initiates were made to give or receive obscene kisses by the presiding Master, and afterwards encouraged to engage in sodomy.
That the Templars were sworn to secrecy. Those who refused to go along with these things were killed or imprisoned. The rest were forbidden to confess to anyone except to a brother of the Order.
That the Templars held that the Grand Master and other lay brothers could absolve sins.
That the Order was greedy and corrupt and sought to enrich itself by any means, legal or otherwise.4
The Templars in France were cruelly tortured by the Inquisition and by royal agents. Confessions (to some or all of the above charges) were secured from many of them by these means. The accusations were apparently first made by a former Templar called Esquin de Floyran. Little if any material evidence could be produced pointing to Templar guilt, and none of the spies apparently sent into the Order by King Philip seem to have been called to testify.
Acre
Acre is an ancient Mediterranean port long seen as the gateway to the Holy Land, if not part of the Holy Land itself. The Crusaders, under King Baldwin I, captured the city in 1104. After the Battle of Hattin in 1187, Acre was one of the many Christian cities that fell to Saladin. The beleaguered Guy de Lusignan, having been captured at Hattin and subsequently released, was turned away from Tyre by Conrad of Montferrat, and so took his meagre forces to besiege Acre, establishing a fortified camp on the beachhead. This was in turn surrounded by Saladinâs army, but held firm, and became the nucleus of the Christian fight-back that became known as the Third Crusade. Many died of disease and injury, but supplies and reinforcements continued to arrive from Europe. The English and French Crusaders under Richard the Lionheart and Philip II Augustus eventually joined the Christian camp, and recovered the city in 1191, having successfully kept Saladinâs relief force from the besieged Muslim garrison.
The Siege had been long and bloody (it was compared to the mythic siege of Troy). The Grand Master of the Templars, Gerard de Ridefort, had died in the course of the fighting, and Queen Sibylla of Jerusalem and her two young daughters died during an epidemic in the Crusader camp. After the Crusadersâ victory, the Muslim prisoners were executed on Richardâs orders.5 With Acre secure, Richard was able to march south and to defeat Saladin again at Arsuf. Acre, meanwhile, became the effective capital of the vestigial Kingdom of Jerusalem. It lacked the spiritual draw of Jerusalem itself but was more important strategically, and it became the political and economic hub of the Christian territory, also playing host to Muslim merchants, for the Holy Wars did not long put a stop to commerce.
To the north of Acre was the suburb of Montmausars, created to accommodate the Christian refugees from the Muslim conquests who swelled Acreâs population during the thirteenth century. The whole city was surrounded by formidable fortifications. The âAccursed Towerâ was part of these defences, on the inner of two walls. The name dated to the costly siege of Acre during the Third Crusade. The outer wall had towers named after their sponsors, including the Towers of the Patriarch, the Legate, King Henry II, the English, the Countess of Blois, the Hospitallers and the Templars.6
The Templars had their compound in a fortress by the sea in the south-western corner of the promontory on which the city stood. According to the Templar of Tyre, the towers of the Templarsâ base at Acre were topped by four gilded lions, which were âa noble sight to look uponâ. A grand palace for the Grand Master also lay within the enclosure (perhaps indicative of the onset of a degree of decadence). The Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights also had their headquarters in the city.
The Bishop of Acre, Jacques de Vitry, newly arrived from France, found the city full of vice and corruption. Acre was also often the scene of acrimony among various Christian factions. There would be strife between supporters of the French, German and Cypriot claimants to the throne, and the Palestinian Frankish barons, as well as between the Italian merchant communes. The Military Orders became embroiled in some of these internecine quarrels, symptomatic of the Christian state falling apart before its final destruction. Despite being without stable government and being torn by factionalism, the city survived until the siege commenced by the Mameluks in 1291. Even today it contains Crusader remnants, including parts of the Hospitaller Citadel and a Templar tunnel. The Templar fortress by the sea at Acre was the last part of the city to fall under the Mameluk onslaught. Its ruins are now under the water.
The Siege of Acre of April to May 1291 was effectively the Christiansâ last stand in the East. The Mameluk sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil, the son of Qalawun, brought a mighty army out of Egypt and the defenders of Acre, largely abandoned by the West, perished on the walls.7 The Grand Master of the Templars, Guillaume de Beaujeu, led a d...
