The Templars

The Templars
By Piers Paul Read

If you are looking for proof that the Templars and the succeeding secret society of the Free Masons have something over on the Catholic Church, this book is not for you. If you want a thorough academic glimpse of a period of history that still reaches in to today, read this book. The author does a nice job putting the history in the context of the times and not only building a bridge to a current times paradigm, but he also crosses that bridge through the use of quotes from historians from intermediate eras along the way. What makes this book a prize is its collegiate delivery of the history with no appeal of hype to those looking to bash the Catholic Church by making martyrs of the Knights of the Temple. While it may have been the agenda for King Philip of France, this is one French trait that is put to rest.

As a fact finder, one would find more interest in the mechanics and strategy of civil governments on a world stage post collapse of the Roman Empire and the rise of Western Civilization and European colonialism than who hid the Lost Sea Scrolls. More intriguing than any hype about the Templars is reading how the Church became a central influence over King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Baron, Duke, Knight, and serf of philosophy and hence a defacto government including financing of all causes espoused by said philosophy. What made the read intriguing was the sorting out of the back and forth chess match of politics between kings and popes where the Knights Templar and the average man, of any era, gets either caught in the cross fire or lost in the fog. The book in the process of history conveys first the selling and financing of crusades. In that process money and power overshadow what may have been honorable ideals where church and state collude to dismantle the Templars, the very arm that brought them both. In the end the Templars have every right to take a vengeance out on first the King of France and second the Catholic Church as a reluctant accomplice. For some reason Piers Paul Read leaves hyperbole surrounding the history of Christ and his family, and any Templar vengeance to the likes of Dan Brown.

The Pitch: From the time of the Prophet Muhammad’s first razzia, the Christians’ perception was that wars against Islam were waged either in defense of Christendom or to liberate and re-conquer lands that were rightfully theirs. The selling of the first crusades began with Bernard of Clairvaux, an appointee of the King of France. Pope Urban had a voice through Bernard. But in the rise to a decision to crusade the pope did not simply dream up the idea of crusading as a case had to be made. In the Latin Church, Alexius approached Pope Urban: His Ambassadors admitted to the Council at Piacenza and the Council fathers listened to their eloquent depiction of the suffering of their fellow Christians in the East.

In the chicken and egg quandary, the cause now properly sold to the Church ‘s highest authority, Pope Urban had a strong ally in France’s King Phillip where within his ranks was a charismatic preacher from Picardy known as Peter the Hermit who claimed to have had a letter from Heaven authorizing the crusade. So we have a collision course of tyranny, authority from God directly, and the Pope secondarily, and an ambitious King taking it to the people. The French nobles gathered in Vezelay, as had been arranged. Already the knowledge that Bernard was to preach had drawn admirers from all over France. At the core of his message was that a sojourn to the Holy Land was a once in a life time penance that all Christians should make. Sojourn, as it escalated up the ranks of the gentry and then the nobles morphed into a crusade, which went back down the social ladder compelling knights, sentinels, and servants to follow their king. When he had finished his address, so many French were ready to take the Cross that Bernard had to cut his habit into strips of cloth.

While sticking to the facts with a collegiate discipline the author spends time applying the sequence of event upon canvases of character building. Of the people in general, the church held a penitentiary obligation over the heads of their parishioners to trek and or crusade to the Holy Land, and you were guilty until you trekked. It is difficult, in the late twentieth century, when a monk is seen as an oddity on the margins of society, to understand how so many belonging to their country’s elite should have chosen a life of self-abnegation. Without necessarily doubting the sincerity of each one’s conviction that the choice for a scion of a noble house, or even the minor gentry, was then and was to remain for some time, between fighting and praying, warfare and ministry, the scarlet and black. Bernard’s power did not stem simply from influential connections: in a world where so many preached but so few practiced the Christian virtues, his piety and asceticism qualified him to act as the conscience of Christendom, constantly chastising the rich and powerful and championing the poor. Having the backing of King Philip of France only gave muscle to his message. To some modern historians, living in a period when most are indifferent to what awaits them after death, Bernard comes across as a self-righteous zealot – someone who ‘saw the world with the eye of a fanatic’ and had a disquieting tendency to take it for granted that his contemporaries were evil-doers who needed to repent. However, to Bernard, surrounded by secular brutality and clerical corruption, and utterly convinced of the reality of Hell, it was impossible to do too much to save the imperiled soul until the invention of the crusade.

Funding: With the politics of crusades, whoever really did make the final decision to crusade it had to be sold to t he people so that if could be funded. Albeit it was not always the case kings could ill afford to leave their people in a stir over an unpopular cause when he himself is embroiled in that far away cause. Leaving a Court and ministry behind that would not be tempted into a coup involved intrigue that is modestly covered in this book. The history is in the book, however because this author has little agenda towards intrigue you the reader must knit the facts together and make a case.

The funding of every crusade was essential to the politics of the crusade itself. The kings would look for funding first from their taxes and then through borrowing from the Church who saw their revenues from tithing who would lend at 10% interest and typically do so if the loan were backed by the Templars. These crusades and subsequent wars incurred enormous expense beyond what was initially envisioned, and the phrase a war that will be paid for by our children becomes prevalent where for example adding to the liability upon the people that Phillip had inherited from his father’s war against Aragon was around 1.5 million livres tournois. Every expedient available to the monarch was used to raise funds. Feudal obligations were exploited to the limit, and force used to extract taxes from the towns. While the author doesn’t brand the politics totalitarian, from a kings point of view it had every appearance to be as such when it came to collecting money, save the grace of the church who coerced the people into cooperation upon the crucible of guilt.

Political intrigue: What did Philip inherit you may ask: King Louis IX ‘s zeal for justice, and his scrupulous attention to the needs of the poor established his saintly reputation and an unparallel prestige, but it was taking of the Cross that set the seal of kingship: ‘crusading still held its place as the highest expression of the chivalrous ideas of the aristocracy in the west. Once the vow had been made, Louis prepared for the crusade with the same efficiency that he had shown in subduing his rebellious vassals and reorganizing the administration of France. His first objective was to raise money to fund his expedition overseas. This added a twentieth tax on the resources of the Church and subventions from the cities. And this alone was not enough for Louis did not foresee the costs of holding his winnings.

Paralleling the politics of the king and his people, the politics of all kings each individually with the Pope singularly is made clear where the Church may have sold the idea of crusading, it was the Kings and their subjects who individually made the decision to crusade. The Kings strategy included any war upon any select Muslim army and the employment of any Order including the Knights Templar to accomplish their goals. Given that the Pope had supreme authority over military orders, it shows some restraint that there was only one instance where Popes directly employed the service of any “Order” in their wars: that being in 1267 Pope Clement IV asked for Hosptaller help against the Germans in Sicily. Clearly, whether they were in the service of the popes or kings, individual knights belonging to their military orders were expected to take up arms to protect their master’s interest. That one case aside because it was through the church that taxes were collected, and it was through the Templars that funds were secured, the arrangement found the Pope, Kings, and Templars in a triangle of intrigue. The former two students of philosophy and higher learning and the latter a student of high minded honor and chivalry. The intrigue continues for close to 300 years until you read of King Philips’ disposal of the Templars in the early 1300’s and its not until the American and French revolutions that you see a bold separation of Church and State where the second shoe drops.

Appearance are not always what they seem to be: While it appears to be all about the money, not simply to launch off into a crusade but then to sustain the crusade and then support the conquered lands against re-conquest by Muslims or by rival Christian Kings led to schemes of power bestowed upon the Templars mostly by default. Honest tax collecting alone could not stand up to such goals. In the Kingdom of Aragon for example, the kings were constantly borrowing money from the Temple and in France the Order often had difficulty in meeting the royal demands to defend the lands for which their funds are underwritten. While the Church institutions were readier to lend money to the Crown if the Temple secured the loan it appeared as though the Templars were one up over both Church and State. While power is implied, the actuality of interest bearing profit did not always follow suit. In Syria and Palestine, too, the Templars’ wealth and power increased because the nobility of Outremer/Jerusalem, whose fiefs were now confined to enclaves around costal cities, could not afford to garrison their castles and so handed them over to military orders, including the Templars. In the same way that modern charities build up investments, the Templars used their funds not just to pursue the war against the Sacacens but also to extend their own estates in the East. But one must remember the expense to fortify the liberties for the people demanded by said clientele.

The appearance of cash and its accompanying power was deceiving, rising to the top of the heap of deception was King Philip of France. Despite the evidence that the Temple often had cash in hand, their running costs were considerable: in the Latin states they garrisoned and maintained at least fifty-three castles or fortified staging posts ranging from great fortresses like Castle Pilgrim to small watch towers on pilgrim routes. Though the Temple’s wealth had led to some envy, their annual income from landed property did not exceed 4,800 livers, not enough to inspire strong feelings of jealousy or a general dislike, with the exception of King Philip who was really in a power struggle with Pope Clement. James of Molay , the head of the order who at the time of French inquisition of the early 1300s had been warmly received by King Edward I when he visited England in 1294 was caught in the middle. He did not see it coming. The politics first between Philip and Pope Clement, and then the coalesced politics of neighboring kings of Europe who fell in line left the Molay and his Templar’s as the ‘odd man out’.

Due Process? While it is often called an inquisition the legal proceedings described in the book gave much to the transcendence of Jewish to Roman law as it survived through to the 14 century. Due process did exist in a primitive sense or should I say in the same way as we experience it today. The following dominoes had to fall in order for the Templars to meet their demise. First, founded to root heresy in Languedoc, and staffed by the friars of the Order of Preachers founded by Dominic Guzman, since 1234 a canonized saint, the Inquisition in France had become an instrument of coercion in the hands of the state. The chief Inquisitor, William of Paris, was King Philip’s confessor and given the King’s piety, was no doubt privy to his plans. On Sunday after the Templar’s arrest, it was Dominican preachers who first explained the reasons for the arrests at a public meeting in the King’s garden, appearing along side the officers of the King. Who was to argue?

King Philip using political maneuvering that I have come to know as typically French, put Pope Clement on the defense as a way to coerce his cooperation in the foiling of the Templars. When the trial eventually opened Clement himself defended the record of Boniface VIII, which was at the core of King Philips intrigue, before advocates of the French King, recalling his piety, his service to the Church and the many manifestations of his orthodox faith. After this, he allowed the trial to continue but, thanks to his knowledge of Roman law, was able to spin things out, either by calling for written depositions or in December 1310, by suspending the proceedings on the grounds that he was suffering one of the reoccurring bouts of his illness, thus leaving a complete distraction to evidence of Clements’ collusion with Philip against the Templars. In the end Clement only managed to slow Philip down as he found it easier to collude with the King that the head of the Knights Templar, who was not versed in politics, than to exonerate them.

While Hospitallers and the Masonic orders engaged the services of legal counsel, the Knights Templar ‘seem to have made little effort to recruit lawyers or to raise up legal experts from within their own ranks’ despite the vigilance with which the head protected their rights an immunities….James Molay later regretted his omission. Through ignorant chivalry where no prove of any allegations could be found in due process of a trial , so guilt was garnered through torture. Said Peter of Balongna of the torture of the Templar Knights to confess upon the allegations; ‘Torture, removed any freedom of mind, which is what every good man ought to have’ ‘It deprived them of memory, knowledge and understanding’ and therefore anything said under torture should be discounted, hence my earlier ascertain of a French totalitarian state which stood in varying degrees as such until 1892. What Philip won was his power back as he was persuaded by his brother, Charles of Valois, and his chief minister, Enguerrand of Marginy, that capitulating to Pope Clement on the question of the Templar’s property was a price worth paying to secure the definitive dissolution of the Order.

The evidence: King Philip IV of France was not making things up entirely. The Templar Knight left a trail of questionable activity that enabled the ‘French connection’ and conviction. in 1143; Of the seventy-three clauses in the Rule approved by the council of Troyes for the Knights of the Temple, around thirty are based on the rule of the Benedict of Nursia. Bernard and the Council fathers seemed more anxious to make monks out of knights than knights out of monks. Hence there was always an exclusive private mystery hanging over their day to day activities. When one thinks of the Knights Templar against the setting of the average educated person one must not get confused with the stories of King Arthur. The men of the order were of all sorts as it would require an Order to be completely self sustaining. They were not a band of merry chivalrous men banging mugs of mead on the table and reading scripture from the Dead Sea scrolls while shuffling the assets within their 401K accounts.

The Knights founder, Hugh of Payns proposed the incorporation of a community of knights that would follow the Rule of religious order but devote themselves to the protection of pilgrims, The Rule they had in mind was Augustine of Hippo, followed by the cannons of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Within that Order, living very Spartan lives the members of whom were not all knights, formed a close bond. They followed rigid rituals in daily life habits that may have drawn question, however the rituals were merely aimed at healthy eating and grooming separate from what may have been an imperfect world. Not intermixing with the common folks, women folk, it was easy to perceive that perhaps they were homosexual or at least homosexual activity was taking place. If it was, it was in no way a part of any Templar policy or sanction. If, therefore, one can avoid the distortions of late-twentieth century prejudice, one can be fairly certain that there was no institutionalized sodomy in the Temple as alleged by King Philip; and at the same the truth which has emerged from recent research is that the crusader frequently sold or mortgaged all his worldly wealth in hope of a purely spiritual reward. Unlike the Muslim jihad, the crusader commitment was always voluntary.
The conspiracy…or not.

Myth and history: There are 300 plus pages in this book and nothing is brought to the fore on the Mary Magdalene or the Lost Dead Sea Scroll conspiracy. There is a tremendous amount of dialogue surrounding the anti Christ and homosexual brought out by King Philip of France, home of the suggested burial of Mary Magdalene, only to be confessed to through torture. Was the Templars’ wealth extraneous in any one persons mind is a question answered only by King Philips’ condemnation of them in a power grab. Only time allowed for the culprits escape from this world where reputations live only in history books of all genres.

King Philips’ speculation did not end with the eighteenth century; in fact it has never been more feverish than it is today, creating, in words of Malcolm Barber, Britain’s foremost Templar historian, ‘a very active little industry, profitable to scientists, art historians, journalists, publishers, and television pundits alike’. Starting with esoteric claims of the Freemasons, the Templars are claimed to have been the guardians of the Holy Grail which in turn the chalice to have been used by Christ in the Last Supper, the blood line of the Merovingian kings descended from the union of Christ with Mary Magdalene, or simply the Templars’ most precious relic the Shroud of Turin.

Intriguing though such speculation may be, they betray by their use of language the lack of a plausible historical foundation: ‘the answer would seem to lie…’; ‘it seems very likely that’…’it seems certain that’…After some research, writes Andrew Sinclair in his book The Discovery of the Grail, these fantasists put forward a hypothesis. Was Christ or the Grail buried under a mountain in the south of France? Did Jesus marry Magdalene and provide the blood line of the Merovingian” Within a few pages, the assertion becomes the actual, the idea is changed into the proof… Or as Peter Partner succinctly puts it in relation to the Templars, Templarism…was a belief manufactured by charlatans for their dupes. It is this book that finally sheds light on the real culprit of the unjust case against both the Catholic Church and the Templar Knights. The first of many intrigues of French…imperialism?

The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code
By Dan Brown

The book uses the setting of a crime scene to quickly set the tone for a fast collection of “facts”. Be on guard, as the immediate set of facts has nothing to do with the outcome of the book, in my opinion. Without saying the word Catholic, Catholicism is indicted for non-consequential acts of conspiracy. The author wins the attention of a large group of people who have a problem with Catholics early on. The author also seems to have caught the passions of our doubting public at a time when fanatical religious fahtwas and 911 slammed our Western conscious, making the book a craze. Meanwhile the sublime proposition of “controversial interpretation” is lost in the shadows of angst to finally lay ones hands on proof. While the book criticizes Opus Dia for self-mortification practices, it seems popular for the readers I’ve talked with to punish themselves with a guilt complex vested in the book. The star player in the book is introduced as a famous professor with a knack for taking any symbol and making controversial interpretations. So we have a good-looking professor from Harvard, with a chocolate baritone voice to deliver a liberating message to the receptive American female ear. I had begun my reading with the intent to list each symbol Brown uses and examine them for error.

The controversy begins with a symbol interpretation of the Pentacle: A star, a pagan symbol of Venus and the feminine balance in humanity. The symbolism is orated in the book along side the Catholic strain of an Opus Dei practice of keeping men and women separate. In keeping with the spirit of the conspiracy theory I mused myself with my coincidental fascination with observing Venus bright on the western sky as my first start to see at night while reading the book. Star bright star light wish I may…

The symbol trail continues in an academic tone at first with PHI: Divine proportion. If you take any set of numbers from Fabonacci’s sequence, their quotients approach 1.618. Brown gets the reader excited all the marvels of mans accomplishments and underscores them with PHI. While there may or may not be truth in the coincidence of proportion, Brown offers no rationalization or evidence that the ancient engineering man or Renascence musician, purposefully applied PHI to their work. Nor beyond coincidence does Brown connect PHI with the Pentacle.

Mona Lisa: Da Vinci’s expression of the balance between man and women. Brown interpretation uses a few ancient Egyptian symbols Amon and Isis to (Mona Lisa) connect the balance. Brown applies his previously stated androgynous cryptology technique (with a few modifications to make it work) Take the A and move it to the back of Amon and then drop one if the Is’s and invent a L in the front and an A in the back. He also does a nice job teasing the reader with Da Vinci’s painting techniques to show a left to right imbalance giving a yin-yang or masculine – feminine perspective. When I look at the painting, nothing comes up. The secret Da Vinci held was also known in the Far East.

Browns attempt to use androgynous cryptology technique in modified form to produce results, which is a sin in the scientific community led me to read the rest of the book for mere entertainment of a mystery novel. And at this Brown does a fabulous job of presenting simultaneous storylines with unfinished business, conflicting agendas, blended with double-entendre riddles to keep you turning. All along the intrigue of police drama you are also strung along the feminine mystery line with your own drama that angst’s you to wonderment as to what exactly is the Holy Grail, why is it so sought after, where is it, and who is hiding it. If you remember the last scene in Indiana Jones, it is in the national archives…lost forever in the bowels of our government. Of course I am consumed with finding my car keys leaving absolutely no time for a Holy Grail.

Madona On The Rocks: Da Vinci’s expression of “so dark the con of man” The mission of the Priory as secret society to resurrect the balance of man and women that was apparently in existence before the Church. Brown trips over his story line in the demonizing of the Catholic Church when he mentions Judaism and Islam as co conspirators in the Crusade wars. Brown also drifts into the Hopi Indians that would trip ones memory of American Indians where women were not considered equal. But non the less if you were a “Women’s Right” advocate of any measure; you would now be easy prey to be seduced to thinking that Browns clues go beyond conspiracy theory and into facts to challenge the Catholic Church.

Through out the book Brown leaves other clues that use to be boring, except for those people consumed with the “truth” as though that might bring them power. There are data banks and libraries where thousands of theologians have been perusing the argument. There are volumes of books written in a multitude of languages. All of this is claimed to be wrapped up in arts and music, where today’s man seems content with the beat or something to hang on the wall to bring the color of the room and the sofa together. Brown inspires you to be curious to the extent that it could be mysterious or even ridiculous. For instance I have always made “pet projects” out of my rose bushes. This year not only did a mysterious rose bush crop up three feet away from the other two creating a trinity, but no rose came to bloom this summer. That is until I read this book. I am thinking of calling in the main character of the book to help me interpret this. I have a fung-shua compass and a magnetic compass and I still get nothing. I guess the prime meridian will have to stay in London awhile longer.

After enduring three hundred pages of Catholic bashing Brown redeems himself by disclosing the real culprit behind the crime scene leaving the church exonerated. Brown also leaves his own message that finds harmony with the Catholic Church. In his book he writes in the closing chapters: “It is the mystery of wonderment that serves our souls, not the Grail itself. The beauty of the Grail lies in the ethereal nature.” “The blind see what they want to see” And finally my most cherished goal he writes: “If you have learned nothing from me, please learn this….” “Forgiveness is Gods greatest gift.”

I was once debunked for speculating on the application of numbers without having a clue of what I was talking about. She was right; I didn’t. I was only speculating for friendly conversation. Of course that conversation never went anywhere with the scientific mind of my counterpart nor did the relationship. What I find amazing is that same scientific mind can attempt to apply this “mystery novel” presentation of coincidental and controversial interpretations of symbolism to attack the Catholic Church. She is blind to the idea that the arguments in the book and spawning from the book are two thousand years old and there is nothing new to alter the debate and declare victory. The book is entertaining in its presentation of facts and at the same time hypnotically deceptive; especially for those yearning to blind themselves with the compulsion of being right, being better, being on top. I am left with the phrase I once heard in a speech “that fanaticism is at the root of all conflict”. Had tolerance, another word for forgiveness, existed in that early relationship; fanatic insistence of being right would have given way to harmony.

I know, once again I came away from a book with a different reaction than the main stream. There has been religious conflict and social conflict since the invention of man. This book can cause harmony or discord. In my example above I can visualize first how easy it is for differences to erupt in interpersonal relationships and how hard it is for forgiveness comes to rescue the relationship. Imagining society being any better when it’s integral parts struggle leaves me at a loss. But I am left with this question: How often have you experienced difficulty in finding the keys to tolerance or forgiveness as your breakthrough to a better life? When I go to the museum, I’ll be looking for that answer.

Great Book, I recommend it with a light heart.