Knights Templar

13th Century Map of the Cosmos

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ of the Temple of Solomon, also known as the Order of Solomon’s Temple, the Knights Templar, or simply the Templars, was a military order of the Catholic faith, founded in 1119. It was one of the wealthiest and popular military orders in W-Christianity.

One of the purposes of creating the Order of the Temple was to protect pilgrims to and from Jerusalem. They traveled from all over Europe and faced various dangers and assaults on the way, so the Order of the Temple created letters of credit, by allowing pilgrims to deposit values at the trip’s origin, then collect them safely upon their return or elsewhere. Thus, the Templars were the first “bankers” in the world!

In Portugal, the knowledge, habits, richness, and lands of the Order of the Temple were inherited by instruction of King Dinis, by the Order of Christ:

Following their spiritual/cosmological impulses, 9 knights discovered the Nasorean Scrolls, revealing treasures far beyond their wildest dreams. Yet, those were treasures they could not share with the world at that time:

Many of the Knights Templar were Master Stone masons, designing and building formidable castles, cathedrals, and chapels across Europe. They introduced holy geometry into their Gothic masterpieces, like Chartres Cathedral in France.

The Medieval Cathedral and School

Many Gothic Cathedrals across Europe, show the names of master builders responsible for their construction and design. They would cut their names into floors or walls, for they wanted future generations to know who they were.

When we stand back and look at the magnificent Chartres Gothic Cathedral, with its exquisite carvings standing proud for all to see and admire such works… one has to ask who these architects and builders were.

Following metaphysical impulses, the Knights Templar sought the “Ark of the Covenant”, a wooden box overlaid with gold, containing stone tablets, inscribed with 10 Commandments, that was supposedly buried under Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.

French architect, Louis Charpentier, claims that the Knights Templar built Chartres Cathedral as a repository for ancient wisdom. As men of the Christ, they would not want their names cut into the stone of Chartres, just their cross:

In 1128, the Knights Templar appear to have brought back from Jerusalem extraordinary initiatory documents for the Cistercian Bernard de Clairvaux:

It led to 150 years of cosmologically inspired and dedicated cathedral building: the architect sketching with compass, set square, and ruler, the essential elements and their proportions. The master builder taking it from there:

3+3 Templar crosses
surround the labyrinth in Chartres

The Order of the Temple warehoused, financed, bought, and became exceedingly rich in lands, cash and credit. All was organized in the public interest. They protected merchants and the movement of goods from robbers and grand seigneurs.

Their dwellings were a sort of police station. The Knights Templar were probably financing many projects, because they also knew how to make the alchemical gold.

They undermined the existing feudal system so much that French King Philippe Le Bell, owing huge war debts, had their properties confiscated, but before that happened most Templar knights had moved their treasures and themselves to their safe-haven European headquarters in Tomar, Portugal, where they changed their order’s name to the Order of Christ, to avoid further damage.

The remainder of them were tortured to death or burnt alive, 716 years ago, on Friday, October 13, 1307, in France:

Knights Templar Headquarters in Tomar:

Rotunda church, Tomar castle

The circular Londen church was a fortress
vault for Royals’ & Nobles’ treasures

The circular Tomar Church built around 1160

From the outside, the church is a 16-side polygonal structure, with strong buttresses, round windows and a bell-tower. Inside, this round church has a central, octagonal structure, connected by arches to a surrounding gallery (ambulatory).

The capitals of the columns are still Romanesque (end 12th century) and depict vegetal and animal motifs, as well as a Daniel in the Lions’ Den scene.

The pillars of the central octagon and the walls of the ambulatory have polychrome statues of saints and angels under exuberant Gothic canopies, while the walls and ceilings of the ambulatory are painted with Gothic patterns and panels depicting the life of Jesus the Christ.

London:

Temple complex, consecrated in 1185 by
Patr. Heraclius of Jerusalem,
with King Henry II attending.

Used as Treasury for Templar Bankers:

Jerusalem:
Church of the Seat of Mary, or Old Katisma,
the 1st octagonal shaped church
from 456 AD.

Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem

The Dome of the Rock was for most of the 12th century the world headquarters of the Knights Templar, who identified this Dome as the site of the Temple of Solomon, and therefore called it “The Templum Domini”.

Shown on the seals of the Order’s Grand Masters, it became the architectural model for round Templar churches across Europe, thereby introducing the transcendental number π.