Were the knights Templars: Crusaders?

[erciyesdagi]

Were the knights Templars: Crusaders?

[CaptainS]

Yes

[AchB]

they could of been. but who knows really. they could of been a pack male drunken yobs for all we know that did nothing. the problem with history its been ellaborated and added to so much, there is only small peices of the actual truth left.

[MichaelB]

Yes protectors of the faith until the Pope said no more and they went the way of the dinosaurs and now are part of the Masons

[LittleDoe]

I'd suggest googling "Knights Templar" and looking at a couple of websites--you'll get a decent overview of the order and some history. The short answer is yes, they were crusaders.

[PaulW]

The simple answer to your question is Yes they were. They were the Pope's defenders and supposedly the defenders of the faith. Unfortunately wealth, laziness and a taste for the good life got the better of them so many lost their zeal and probably had long forgotten what they were doing there in the first place. Many became drunken slobs who did nothing but rape, pillage and grow fat. That is not to say they all turned out like that, some had spiritual ideals which they kept to fervently. If you want to see a good film about this you could watch "The Kingdom of Heaven", where the crusaders were fighting against the Moslems and trying to capture and defend Jerusalem, the holy city. Eventually they surrended to Sulliman, a renowned leader of the Moslems who agreed not to annhilate them all if they would surrender Jerusalem, he would give them all safe passage to a Christian area where they were no threat to him. At one stage Sulliman had over two hundred thousand warriors and the Knights defending Jerusalem were but a few thousand. The Knights knew, although they put up a good fight, that they would eventually all be killed along with all of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so to save the innocent citizens they agreed to give the city up. There are three major controlling influences in Jerusalem to this day; Muslims, Jews and Christians who all hold so called Holy sites there. The Muslims built a Mosque above the site where the Jews consider was the Temple Mount, an extremely important religious site for them. I do believe they built a tunnel underneath to reach the original site. The Christians on the other hand, because of the significance of Jesus, have also claimed various sites in Jerusalem and also defend their right to be there.Although purely ceremonially these days, the Knights Templar still exist. I believe there are a group of them who are called Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.

[LouiseC]

In 'The Middle Ages: A Concise Encyclopedia' H.R. Loyan writes of the Knights Templar:'The first of the religious military orders, designed to supplement and protect crusader states. The Templars originated c.1115 in the activities of Hugh de Payens and fellow French knights (the poor Soliders) dedicated to protecting pilgrims between Jaffa and Jersualem. They gained the support of Baldwin of Jerusalem c.1118 and subsequently that of Beranrd of Clairvaux who praised them in his pamphlet De Laude Novae Miltiae, and composed their monastic Rule, approved by the Council of Troyes (1128). Innocent II's bull (1139) established their sole papal allegiance and they evolved a constitution with an elected grand-master, provinces, districts and individual preceptories, adopted a white mantle with red cross, and constructed characteristic round churches of the type still to be seen in Temple Church, London.Unlike the Hospitallers, whom they influenced, the Templars engaged primarily in anti-Muslim military endeavours. Immensely popular and enriched by bequests during the Crusades, they grew powerful in Europe and the East and became bankers. The fall of Acre (1291) and their transfer to Cyprus left them purposeless and, with theri banking, unpopular. They resisted mergers with rival Hospitallers and encroachments by Philip IV of France, prompting him and Pope Clement V to engineer their fall. Accusations of heresy led to Order's suppression (Council of Vienne, 1213): Grand-Master Jacques de Molia and others were executed and the Order's property confiscated, passing to the Hospitallers and secular princes. The Order was refounded in Portugal as the Order of Christ.'

[Slayertplsko9477]

Yup also.