Treasures of the Knights Templar - Conspiracy Theories!

Dear Jakefaepa;
You stated;
I do not believe they were scolded and sent on thier way with a promise to never do it again , i believe the Catholic church condemned them as heretics and outlawed them one and all..i believe these guys done what any guy would do..run for thier lives...where did they run to..where was sanctuary far away from the ones who would burn them ?

My reply is that, in my opinion, the Vatican dealt with the Templar members in an EXCEEDINGLY FAIR manner, my friend. The Vatican went as fair as giving the elder Templars PENSIONS! What church gives out pensions to heretical members? To my knowledge there are none. The Vatican took an EXCEEDINGLY LENIENT position in regards to the Templars, my friend. You may read about the pensions which Pope Clement V set forth in the Papal Bull Nuper in Concilio which was the 3rd part of the larger Papal Bull Ad Providam which was transcribed at the Council of Vienne on 02 May 1312. Here is a fairly accurate English translation of the pertinant passage, taken from the original Latin text:
Now therefore we wish to provide more suitably for individual persons or brothers [of the Templar Order]. We reserved lately for our own disposition the master of the former order, the visitor of France and the chief preceptors of the holy Land, Normandy, Aquitaine, Poitou and the province of Provence, as well as brother Oliver de Penne, a knight of the said former order, whom henceforth we reserve to the disposition of the apostolic see. We have decided that all the other brothers should be left to the judgment and disposition of provincial councils, as we have indeed done until now. We wish judgment to be given by these councils in accordance with the different cases of individuals. Thus those who have been legally acquitted, or will be acquitted in the future, shall be supplied with the goods of the former order whereby they can live as becomes their state. With those who have confessed concerning the above errors, we wish the provincial councils prudently to temper justice with mercy: the situation of these men and the extent of their confessions are to be duly weighed. With regard to those who are impenitent and have relapsed, if any -- which God forbid -- be found among them, justice and canonical censure are to be observed. As for those who even when questioned have denied their involvement in the above errors, the councils are to observe justice and equity according to the canons.

I do realize there are times when those nasty little facts tend to get in the way of an otherwise excellent tale, but, to quote the French: C'est le vie.
Your friend;
LAMAR
 

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"My reply is that, in my opinion, the Vatican dealt with the Templar members in an EXCEEDINGLY FAIR manner,"

Ive no further need to discuss this with you Lamar , you back the Catholics up 100% and that my friend is wrong...i hope you find your heaven and all that ..me? Ill have no more to do with Catholics from Europe..evil lying sheets...to lie for something that doesnt matter anymore..shameless.and that sums up the Catholic church..shameless

For your personal benifit i will tell you Lamar i have put you on ignore , ive lived my life among people like you..thats why i immigrated.
 

Dear JakefaePa;
You wrote;
Ive no further need to discuss this with you Lamar , you back the Catholics up 100% and that my friend is wrong...i hope you find your heaven and all that ..me? Ill have no more to do with Catholics from Europe..evil lying sheets...to lie for something that doesnt matter anymore..shameless.and that sums up the Catholic church..shameless
My friend, my religious beliefs have no bearing on the topic at hand. In truth, I have qualifed myself through the study of Vatican and secular documents BECAUSE of my personal beliefs, however I do not feel that my beliefs bias my opinion on the subject currently under scrutiny.

The facts ARE the facts, my friend. One might try to work around them, or even refuse to acknowledge their existence, HOWEVER the facts remain and as such, they cannot be disputed. In the same statement which I previously posted, one may plainly read:
With those who have confessed concerning the above errors, we wish the provincial councils prudently to temper justice with mercy

In short, the Pope was stating that the Vatican wished a peaceful solution and as such, the Vatican wished those who were guilty to be forgiven forthwith. There are no lies here. This is what has been written, recorded, filed, and archived. By examining the fate of the former Templar members, it is plainly obvious that the wishes of the Holy See written down were carried out in practice at the local levels.

I do not lie, my friend. I merely state the facts.
Your friend;
LAMAR
 

1296 to 1314- 18 years- hardly "so soon".

Civil War? start with the Balliols and the Comyns, neither of which families- not clans, of course, they are not Highlanders- were exactly pleased with Bruce's seizure of the crown. Not to mention all the other Scots who backed Edward Balliol's claims in the 1330s, particularly those whose lands had been given away by Bruce to his supporters.
 

Dear Smithbrown;
You are definitely 101% accurate with your facts, my friend and I applaud your input on this topic.
Your friend;
LAMAR
 

Dear Jake,

Excuse me for putting my two-cents into this fray, but it's offered with no malice to either side.

I have been put on "ignore" in the past, for expressing doubt, and presenting opposing sources for those doubts. By refusing to refute the other persons "facts" or sources, they win the debate by default.

It's kind of like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Always bring enough firepower to win the day.......is my motto. Sometimes I win, and sometimes I loose.

Lamar recently put me on "ignore" for his own reasons. He did not explain or apologize after reading my own apology for offending him. I continue to exchange posts/opinions/ideas with him anyway. I believe it's a win-win situation for both of us. He, on the other hand, may have another opinion.

I seldom have put anyone on "ignore" and the times I did were due to personal threats.

When it comes to disputing someone's facts or sources, there is no reason to attack the person......personally. Attacking their facts/sources will make you both better researchers, IMHO.

Attacking the Catholic Church without presenting your own "facts" seems to be an untenable argument.

Lamar has presented sources for his opinions. They may be in error, but they are up for rebuttal. You seem to have a very good understanding of the subject, so it would benefit us all to see the two of you debate the facts.

To keep this topic going, we need two sides to the discussion. Let's not shut out one side.

Respectfully,

Joe Ribaudo
 

Dear cactusjumper;
I tend to disagree with you my friend. I DID apologize to you, or rather I apologized to SOMEONE! I keep getting you confused with that other person who has a similiar nickname to yours, my friend. In either case, I hereby formally and deeply apologize to you for any and all offenses and hardships which I may have caused you. Me culpa, mea culpa! I truly am sorry and I expressed my regret for my mistake and I will once again do so now on a open forum thereby including other forum members as witnesses to my public apology.
Your friend;
LAMAR
 

lamar said:
Dear Jake;
The fact remains the Templars were guilty. Plain and simple. There was simply no way that they could get around that fact. Usury, idol worship, denouncing Jesus, defiling His image, absolution of sins, sodomy, blasphemy, esotericism, etc, etc, ad nasium. Your friend;
LAMAR
Click to expand...

Those things you mention are things the catholic church lodge was/is made of. The only thing was, the pope wasn't gonna let them step out of his control.
 

Dear group;
OK, I've had about enough of this anti-Catholicisim. You people who hate the Roman Catholic church are ate up with mental disease and I mean this sincerely. You people are truly sick and you need mental therapy, QUICKLY! You are so ate up with conspiracy theories that you are unable to see the truth even if it were to walk up and kick you folks squarely in the backsides! This is truly saddening and you have my pity and deepest sympathies.
I can not imagine what it must be like to go through life hating an organization which has done nothing bad to you, yet you still hate because it was what you were taught to do or because you were brainwashed by reading all of those conspiracy theory books by other sick, sad sorts. It's truly disgusting that people with such narrow minds can stumble through life with all of that rage inside of them. I pity the lot of you. I truly do.
Your friend;
LAMAR
 

HOLA amigos,

To use a 'western' colloquialism, WHOA THERE PARDNERS! The history of religious wars and conflicts is already bloody enough, we need not start losing our friends over our religious beliefs or non-beliefs. Concerning the Catholic church, it is a very large group we are referring to, and when you have any large group there are sure to be a few malefactors hiding amongst them. The 'bad apples' always seem to stain the group they hide in with their acts, which is hardly justice. I have many Catholic friends, none of them would fit in with the sort of folks we have been talking about like our Templars. My best friend through childhood is today a well respected Catholic priest, and I can assure you he would take every step to root out any wrongdoers he might find, even if found wearing the purple.

I do understand how some folks have had bad experiences with a particular group, can then come to view all members of that group as being the same as the bad apples encountered. I have a personal bias myself against a particular ethnic group even though my mind realizes it to be wrong, the folks who did me wrong were of that group but they cannot all be like those fellows. It is hard to shake a personal bias when it has arisen due to being wronged. I have to believe that as not all Eskimos are like those I dealt with, surely not all Catholics could be of the same ilk to have left such a negative impression.

Lamar I realize your words were written in a moment of irritation, you must realize that you have also posted words that some would find highly offensive (need I remind you of the Protestant Reformers?) so let us not act rashly over a few words, which may well have been written differently and more diplomatically if the person had taken but a moment to re-think it. All of us have posted words which had an effect we certainly did not intend or expect.

Now I have yet more questions. Lamar is of the opinion that it is impossible for the Templars to have had any hand in the founding of the nation of Switzerland. Well Alan Butler holds the opposite opinion, as explained in his interview here
http://www.templarhistory.com/switzerland.html
...so it seems the case is not (yet) settled either way.

About the Templars possibly being involved at Bannockburn - well I learned that Scotland had been excommunicated, so if any Templars in 1314 were still in Scotland, considering that their Order had been dissolved (officially) is it reasonable to expect that they would consider themselves bound by oath or vow to the Pope whom had so recently disbanded their Order? As Lamar pointed out, some of the vows could be for a term of years - is it not reasonable to expect that at least some of these ex-Templars might well have viewed their vows and/or oaths to have expired?

It is also quite clear that the Templars were indeed "out of control" of the Pope, which would lend credence to the idea of Templars aiding Robert the Bruce. Why not? What did they stand to lose, by this point (1314)?

Good luck and good hunting amigos I hope you all find the treasures that you seek.
your friend,
Oroblanco
 

Dear Oroblanco;
In order to verify or disclaim the theory that the Templars founded Switzerland, fought in Scotland, conquered Swahili, or anything else modern conspiracy theorists can dream up, all you have to do is to take pencil to paper and do the math. That's all, my friend. Just add and subtract. Nothing complex like multiplication or division is needed. Just add and subtract. The numbers don't lie, my friend.
Your friend;
LAMAR
 

HOLA amigos,

Lamar wrote
Keep sending them up my friend and I'll keep shooting them down.
Click to expand...

Well I would hope that you are not misled into thinking any or all of these theories to be my own, I have no theories concerning the Templars. As for shooting them down, well you have shot some holes, but it is not so clear cut as a matter of basic math. For when I simply look at a map of Europe, we see that those places that are rather 'on the fringes' of civilization, it is here we find that the Templars were not so hotly prosecuted as to be burned at the stake, instead we see that in Portugal, all of the former Templars became members of a new Order, which simply reversed the colors of their order and obtained all of the properties formerly held by the Templars. Then we see Scotland, again rather 'on the fringes' and here we find at least RUMORS that some Templars didn't simply switch to become members of the Hospitallers or another Order, in fact we have allegations that they aided Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn. One look at the map of France points out yet another place where Templars could possibly have moved - Switzerland. We also know that the Templars were not entirely caught off-guard in 1307 either, they had already taken steps.

Put yourself in the place of a Templar in France, circa 1307. Would you simply wait around for French Royal authorities to come and arrest you, or would you escape? Thank you in advance,
Oroblanco
 

Well I am still waiting for this evidence that the Templars fled to Scotland and joined in the wars of Independence. There has been too much "they say" and "it is rumoured" but nothing concrete. The Templars were not an anonymous group of soldiers; they were aristocrats. We would know the names of these Templars who fought at Bannockburn. Who were they? Why would they experience a sudden conversation to Scottish Nationalism? I would go so far as to say that the most sigificant contribution to Templar studies in Scotland was Sir Walter Scott's depection of the Order in Ivanhoe, which I think is the ancester of much of the modern perception of the Knights.
Smithbrown
 

Dear Smithbrown;
I am afraid you will be waiting for a very long time, my friend, for as yet, there exists no physical proof of a Templar taking arms against the English for Scotland. In fact, there was nothing WRITTEN on the subject until modern times. Once more, the numbers don't lie. It works like this everyone:

At the height of the Order, the Templars had MAYBE 20,000 members, although this is a very high estimate, with about 15,000 members being much closer to reality. Of course, this was at the HEIGHT of the Orders' popularity, which means these numbers shrunk substantially lower with the loss of the Holy Lands. So now we can fairly accurately estimate the total number of Templars to be around 12,000 members by 1307 AD.

And now we must examine the hierarchy of the Templar Order in greater detail in order to understand who we are dealing with. There existed four distinct levels, or tiers, of Templars. At the uppermost level there were the knights, always men of noble birth and whose families purchased the knights' horses, arms and equipment. This was a huge expense at the time and so becoming a knight was no passing fancy.

Next came the Sergeants, men of lower birth, yet never serfs, and it was these Templars who made the bulk of the Templar presence. They went into battle as light cavalry or as heavy infantry and filled out the Templar ranks. When not in battle they performed the menial tasks associated within the Order.

Next came the Chaplains who were ordained by the Roman Catholic church to provide for the spiritual needs of the Order. Because they were ordained, they were not permitted to spill blood, yet occasionally they fought in battles, using weapons such as clubs and maces, weapons which would not spill blood. It was a loophole in their vows yet they sometimes used it when situations became desperate on the battlefield.

Lastly, there were the Squires, always men of lower birth, and most generally from the serf class. They were not members of the Order and they did not take vows. They were hired by the Order for a set period of time to assist the knights in battle and tend to the horses.

This was the personnel structure of the Templars. The class of knights comprised roughly 10% of the Orders' members although this percentage shrank to around 7% after the fall of the Holy Lands, therefore we can conclude with a fair degree of accuray that the mounted Templars were about 840 knights.

The sergeants filled out the bulk of the Templar ranks with about 11,200 members. The squires were not counted as they were non-combatants as were the Chaplains.

After the loss of the Holy Lands the bulk of the Templar Orders' members were situated in France, Spain and Portugal, due to the ever-present threat of Moorish invasion from across the strait of Gibralter. Together, about 60% of the total Templar membership were living in one of three countries in 1307, which in real numbers meant that approximately 500 mounted knights and 6700 sergeants were fortressed throughout France, Upper Spain and Portugal.

This left approximately 340 knights and 4500 sergeants spread throughout the rest of Christendom as reserves. In England and Scotland the numbers were below average as the British had their own nobility which the Crown could depend upon and the Scots were a closed society, therefore the total number of Templars living in the British Isles in 1307 were exactly 34 knights and around 425 sergeants.

From court records we know that of these 34 knights, 21 joined the Hospitallers, 4 joined the Teutons, 3 joined the Lazurusians and 1 was incarcerated for life in tower of London for refusing to recant his sins. This leaves 5 Templars who cannot be accounted for.

Of the sergeants we know that after the trails the vast majority expressed desires to join with the Hospitallers in Portugal and Hungaria, perhaps as many as 375 were dispatched to these two nations. The fate of the other 50 sergeants remains unknown.

Before the arrests in 1307 there may have been as many as 10 Templar knights and 70 sergeants throughout Scotland. 7 of the knights wished to travel to Poland and the sergeants, most of them locals, most probably remained in Scotland as secular members of society. The fate of the remaining 3 Templar knights remains unknown.

Therefore, knowing the fates of the Templars which there exists records for, we can conclude there were around EIGHT knights and FIFITY sergeants who could have POSSIBLY fought at the Battle of Bannockburn. These numbers could not have possibly turned the tide of battle in either direction and to even think of such a thing borders on lunacy, my friends.

After the arrests of the Templars in 1307, there was no great flood of exiled Templars to Scotland, as the orders to arrest all Templars in France were secret and nobody knew the contents of these orders from Philip the Fair until they were opened and read at midnite on 13 October 1307 by the local magistrates. Not even the Vatican knew of these secret orders. Nobody was able to escape arrest because nobody knew what was about to take place. The existing records show that there was no significant decrease in Templar members in the months prior to the arrests.

The claim that the Templars knew about the upcoming arrests are totally unfounded and they originated due to the fact that the conspiracy theorists needed some Templars to remain free in order that they could establish Switzerland, win the Battle of Bannockburn, hide the Holy Grail, run around France and Belgium carving all manners of exotic symbols, reach the shores of Ireland and establish secret Orders there, etc, etc.

According to the conspiracy theorists, these fugitve Templars were a busy lot! How they managed to sleep during those hectic years is quite beyond my grasp, my friends.

Nothing of the sort happened. It only occurred in books and in the movies. There were MAYBE 10 Templars who remained unaccounted for after the French arrests and those were most likely in transit to Cyrus at the time.

These are the numbers and as such, they don't lie, they merely bespeak the facts of the matter. I am sorry if they do not happen to fit in with all of the fanciful theories but they do not lie.
Your friend;
LAMAR
 

Dear Oroblanco;
Stirctly as as aside, my friend, the flag of Switzerland is a VERY close facsimile to the official flag of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which was formerly known as the Sovereign Military Hospital Order of St. John of Jerusalem. You may know them as the Hospitallers.

The original Templar flag was white and black background with a red cross in the center. Later, the seal of the Templars was added to the center of the cross.

The modern renderings of Templars fighting under a banner depicting the red cross on a white background is strictly the imagination of modern conspiracy theorists or unknowing artists. I chuckle everytime I see a rendering of a group of Templars in battle, fighting under the Hospitallers' banner. :D

The Hospitallers only preceeded the Templars as a MONASTIC Order by about 400 odd years my friend. In 600AD Pope Gregory the Great ordered Abbot Probus to build a hospial in Jerusalem to care for sick Christian pilgrams and to house pilgram travelers. Around 800AD, Charlemagne donated funds to the hospital which allowed for expansions to the original building, including a library and stables to be added.

The building was destroyed in 1005AD by Muslims and in 1023 Christian merchants from Italy were granted permission to rebuild the hospital and it was attended to by Benedictine monks.

Throughout the existence of the hospital in Jerusalem, it always flew a red banner with a white cross prominently emblazoned on it. Later, when the Hospitallers moved away from being a purely monastic Order into a military Order, they retained the hospitals' banner as their war banner. This meant that the later Templars had to devise another distinguishing banner of their own and they settled chiefly upon a one with a black and white background.

At the time, banners were not used to to depict any heraldic affiliations, rather they were used as a means of identification on the battlefield. This meant that the banner had to be comprised of simple, bold colors without embellishments or adornments. It wasn't until the later centuries that noblemen started using all manner of heraldic devices to depict their positions on the battlefield. Of course, this made identification much more difficult for the mounted cavalry and infantry , but the nobility did not seem to care overly much about this fact.

All participating Crusaders utilized a cross on their banners, shields and surcoats to identify themselves as armed Crusaders and not merely pilgrams. This helped to identify who needed protection during skirmishes, battles and seiges. The flag of Switzerland in way bears any resemblence to the former Templar flag, my friend. This is strictly a figment of the imaginations of conspiracy theorists who seem to know little about history, and seem to care less to learn about it.
Your friend;
LAMAR
 

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This might be of interest:

The banner of the Knights Templar was called the Beauseant and, like many pieces of medieval history, its true etymology may have been lost somewhere along the way. An anonymous pilgrim who visited Jerusalem between the twelfth and thirteenth century had the following to say of the Templars, their banner and the Order's battle techniques:

" The Templars are most excellent soldiers. They wear white mantles with a red cross, and when they go to war a standard of two colors called balzaus is borne before them. They go in silence. Their first attack is the most terrible. In going, they are the first. In returning - the last. They await the orders of their Master. When they think fit to make war and the trumpet has sounded, they sing in chorus the Psalm of David, "Not unto us, O Lord" kneeling on the blood and necks of the enemy, unless they have forced the troops of the enemy to retire altogether, or utterly broken them to pieces. Should any of them for any reason turn his back to the enemy, or come forth alive [from a defeat], or bear arms against the Christians, he is severely punished; the white mantle with the red cross, which is the sign of his knighthood, is taken away with ignominy, he is cast from the society of brethren, and eats his food on the floor without a napkin for the space of one year. If the dogs molest him, he does not dare to drive them away. But at the end of the year, if the Master and brethren think his penance to have been sufficient, they restore him the belt of his former knighthood. These Templars live under a strict religious rule, obeying humbly, having no private property, eating sparingly, dressing meanly, and dwelling in tents."

Just something I ran across.

Joe
 

Dear group;
Yes, it's true that the banner of the Templars was referred to as The Beauseant, although nobody today knows what the word means. Most likely it was the name of a village in France or even a nickname of a person, or the incorrect pronounciation of another French word. Whatever the origins of the word, the flag of the Templars was NOT similiar to the latter day flag of Switzerland, it was the flag of the Hospitallers which was very similiar.
Your friend;
LAMAR
P.S. This is like intellectual skeet shooting. PULL!!!! ;D
 

WOW!!!!! I didn't really realize just how much of a open mind you have Lamar ::) ::) ::) I guess you are the MOST absolute " authority " on this subject..... I mean, I guess I should just go back to mding tin cans in the backyard.... I am not qualfied to even read your " words of wit "...

PLL
 

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