Militant Monks and Masons: P1

By: Kevin Nichols

This is the first article in a four-part series that will explore possible links between the Knights of Malta (Hospitallers) and Freemasons. When people think about knights and masons, they invariably are drawn to the Knights Templars, and rightfully so.

The internet and books are awash with legends, myths, tales, etc., of the links that have existed between these two organizations for centuries.

However, upon a deeper examination, it is hoped that readers will come to see the Knights of Malta as a probable area of inquiry to explore connections between the Masons, to the Knights of Malta and possibly the Templars.

This series will look at the origins of the religious military orders, suppression, myths and historical evidence of the knights. In addition, we will explore the Knights of Malta’s naval capabilities, New World activities, the consequences of the Enlightenment and Napoleons arrival at Malta, to name a few topics to be examined. It is hoped that this perks your interest in this fascinating topic and if so, please read on.

Many believe that an unbroken lineage exists between the Knights Templar and the modern Freemasons. Over the years, several theories have been postulated to either support or refute this assertion.

Instead of adding to that ever-growing body of scholarship, this paper seeks to examine possible connections between the Knights of Malta and the Freemasons. In order to do this, a background of the formation of the religious military orders is provided, followed by the orders’ activities throughout the Middle Ages and moving into the Early Modern era, when Freemasons and the order parted ways with the rise of Enlightenment thinking.

Templar records and history from the time of their suppression are virtually nonexistent and allow for various theories to emerge, some of which border on fantasy. Source material for the Knights of Malta is more complete and, as the Knights took control of a great deal of Templar assets after the suppression, may provide more solid footing to look for a Masonic / religious order connection.

The historical record is far from complete given that we are discussing groups that intentionally maintained secrecy. Thus, much of this remains speculative history. If nothing else, it is hoped that this paper will generate discussions and new examinations of possible Knights of Malta and Masonic interconnected history.

knights templar

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On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II delivered to the Council of Clermont a speech that ushered in 200 years of intermittent conflict over control of the Holy Land. This call for crusade was in response to the disastrous defeat of the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert, which was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuq Turks on August 26, 1071.

The decisive defeat of the Byzantine army and the capture of the Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes played an important role in undermining Byzantine authority in Anatolia and Armenia and allowed for the gradual Turkification of Anatolia.

In hindsight, both Byzantine and contemporary historians are unanimous in dating the decline of Byzantine fortunes to this battle. Byzantine defeat severely limited the power of the Byzantines by denying them control over Anatolia, the major recruiting ground for soldiers.

Henceforth, the Muslims controlled the region. The Byzantine Empire was limited to the area immediately around Constantinople, and the Byzantines were never again a serious military force.

The defeat is also interpreted as one of the root causes of the later Crusade, in that the First Crusade of 1095 was originally a Western response to the Byzantine emperor’s call for military assistance after the loss of Anatolia.

From another perspective, the West saw Manzikert as a signal that Byzantium was no longer capable of being the protector of Eastern Christianity or of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Places in the Middle East. Asia Minor had rapidly passed from Byzantine control, necessitating the call for help.

It is out of this environment that the religious military orders were created. The three main orders operating in the Holy Land were the Knights Templar, the Teutonic Knights, and the Knights Hospitaller later known as the Knights of Malta and Knights of Saint John.

The Hospitaller Order was created in 1099 and is still active today but has returned to its initial focus of caring for the sick and other charitable works.

The Knights Templar was created in 1119, some twenty years after the Hospitaller Order was founded.

Lastly, the Teutonic Knights were created in 1190 and still exist today.

There are some key things to note regarding the religious military orders. These groups were not crusaders since they did not take crusade vows, which by their nature were temporary commitments. They were professed religious and permanently engaged in the defense of Christendom.

Bernard of Clairvaux

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One of the key early supporters of the Templar Order was Bernard of Clairvaux, who wrote the De Laude Novae Militia (In Praise of the New Knighthood). Bernard saw professed knights as the core of the Order, for the rule (organizational documents creating the Templar Order) has little to say about the other elements.

Initially Knights could join ad terminum (for a set term before returning to secular life), and allotments were made for fratres conjugate (married brothers). Lastly, two passages reference clientes, or sergeants.

In all cases these people would wear brown or black mantles, the better known white reserved for the full knights. There is no mention of stonemasons in the original order. Incidentally, Bernard was also instrumental in forming the Cistercian Order, which had long-standing relations with the Templars.

It was not uncommon for Cistercian Monks to travel with parties, including the Templars, in order to maintain the correct behavior of the professed.

knights templar seal

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The Templars came into being around the year 1119 and gained widespread acceptance at the council of Troyes in 1129. By 1138 the order was established in Rome.

Pope Innocent II at the Lateran on 29 March 1139 promulgated the fundamental bull of the Templar privileges known as Omne datum optimum (Every Perfect Gift). The bull gave official sanction to their role as defenders of the church and attackers of the enemies of Christ.

The Templars were then able to move freely through borders. No ecclesiastical or secular person could licitly infringe (exempt from taxes). All were answerable only to the pope and the master of the order.

The Master had to be drawn from amongst those “professed in the vows of your habit.” The Templars were legitimate, having been sanctioned by the authority of the see of St. Peter.

During the 13th century the Templar Order may have had as many as 7,000 knights, sergeants, serving brothers and priests; while its associate members (likely including stonemasons) were probably many times that number.

By 1300, the Order had built a network of at least 870 castles, preceptories, and other houses. The stonemasons who worked on Templar structures were the same ones who worked on Hospitaller buildings and fortifications.

knights templar burnt at the stake

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Templar leaders in France were arrested on the 13th of October in 1307, by King Philip IV in the name of the inquisition. They were charged with a slew of crimes, and at first most of the leadership confessed (almost certainly under extreme torture). Later they revoked their confessions.

Initially Pope Clement V saw this as a direct affront to his authority as the Templars were responsible and answerable to the papacy alone. As events spun out of control, the pope then tried to get ahead of things by asserting his authority.

On November 22, 1307, he issued the Pastoralis Praeeminentiae, which ordered the monarchs of Christendom to arrest the Templars and sequester their lands in the name of the papacy. The bull was carried out in England, Iberia, Germany, Italy, and Cyprus.

The order was not officially suppressed until the bull Vox in Excelso of March 22, 1312, and the bull Ad Providam May 2nd granted the Templar lands and property to the Hospitallers. At that point Templar and Hospitaller history become intertwined.

The fates of individual Templars were extremely varied. Much of the leadership faced trial, and many were burned at the stake. Other Templars served out long penances, were sent to monasteries, indefinitely imprisoned, and served in other orders.

Once the papal bull officially suppressed the Order, members could call themselves whatever they wished, however, since the order was sanctioned and legitimized by the papacy, they were also dissolved by the papacy and were no longer Templars. To look for a continuity going forward, the Order of the Hospital offers some compelling insights.

At that point, the Templars and Knights of Malta shared in their use of stonemasons, After the Templar suppression, some of the brother knights became Knights of Malta, bringing their knowledge and traditions with them. Stonemasons continued to travel to where work was available and also continued to work with the knights.

With the Templars effectively removed from the historical record and contemporary rulers of the 14th century convinced of vast Templar wealth, the question of where the “treasure” went has intrigued people for centuries.

Templar treasure and Masonic history form two popular avenues for conspiracy theory writers. The argument goes that the Templars moved their wealth prior to the suppression and hid it, perhaps in the New World.

Masonic conspiracy argues that Masons / Templars hid the wealth, and only a few know of its location. This makes a nice circular argument since, if you don’t know of the treasure, you are not in the “inner circle,” and, if you do know, you’re not telling anyone.

However, the reality of what constituted treasure, might be dull to the treasure seeker, but likely more accurate to the military orders in the 12th-14th centuries.

Since theories of Templar treasure take off with the suppression and the idea of a fleet setting sail prior to the suppression, it is best to examine the fleet and speculation as to whether one sailed, where it went? It is also at that time that Templar and Hospitaller history legitimately become interwoven and hence possibly Masonic history as well.

Around the time of the suppression, there is a great deal of speculation about a Templar fleet that sailed from La Rochelle. La Rochelle was an important port that was used by the Templars, but generally speaking these ports were not Templar property.

In La Rochelle’s case, the port was crucial for grain and arms shipments. Eleanor of Aquitaine in her charter of 1139 granted the Order the use of mills, buildings, and enclosures free of customs, infraction, tolte and taille (seigneurial levies).

Lastly and most importantly, she allowed the Templars to transport anything of their own without customs or exactions throughout all of her lands by land or by water. This essentially created a huge “duty free” zone for the Templars.

In addition, the Templars contracted out much of their shipping to private merchants, thus owning few ships outright. It is not clear if a fleet sailed from La Rochelle prior to the suppression; harbor master records make no mention of it.

If a fleet sailed, it is unclear how many ships there were and where they sailed. Private merchant ships (the bulk of the Templar fleet) did not want to embark on a voyage at the time of the Templar suppression due to deteriorating conditions at sea.

Maintaining armies and fortifications is expensive, especially if your logistics trail runs from Europe to the Holy Land. In the East, Acre was the most important port for Western supplies to the Templars, but the Order maintained a presence in most coastal cities, such as Caesarea, Tyre, Sidon, Gibelet, Tripoli, etc.

It was vital for ships arriving from the West to have friendly ports to put into in route to the Holy Land. Ships needed frequent re-fitting and provisioning along the way.

The constant supply of men, horses, food, and equipment from the West was enforced by the obligation upon Western houses to make regular payments in cash of a third of their income, known as responsions, which went specifically to help operations in the East.

For example, the record of sums paid to the Temple treasury in Paris in 1295-96 shows deposits made by 38 preceptors. Records indicate that 80 percent of these payments were made either in July or between December and February, suggesting a relationship between the gathering of resources and the spring and late summer passages to the east.

If correct, then October (the month of the suppression) would be a time that many Templar holdings would not have a great deal of wealth to send east.

Much of what the Order considered to be wealth consisted of food, horses and other goods that were available on a seasonal basis. Furthermore, the time of the year (October) has bad weather to begin any sea journey.

In order to understand why October was a poor month to begin a journey, it is important to understand how precarious sea travel could be during the time in question.

Today, ships generally travel to destinations as needed and year around. This was not always the case. Ibn Jubayr, a 12th century Muslim pilgrim from Andalusia, left Acre on October 18th, 1184, on a Genoese ship bound for Messina. Of this departure, he wrote:

Our stay there (at Acre) was prolonged twelve days, through the failure of the wind to rise. The blowing of the winds in these parts has a singular secret.

It is that the east wind does not blow except in spring and autumn, and save those seasons, no voyages can be made and merchants will not bring their good to Acre. The spring voyages begin in the middle of April, when the east wind blows until the end of May….

The autumn voyages are from the middle of October, when the east wind (again) sets in motion…it blows for (only) fifteen days, more or less. There is no other suitable time, for the winds then vary, that from the west prevailing.

It should be noted that modern meteorological data support Ibn Jubayr’s assertion that at Acre favorable conditions for leaving the West occur only in two short periods of the year. Also, easterly winds favorable to ships leaving Acre for the West are most common from mid-October through to mid-May.

Regardless, in the 12th century commercial shipping rarely ventured to sea from November to mid-March. 13th century data from business contracts confirm that most ships bound for the Holy Land left the West in the last weeks of March and early April.

If ships sailed, it would have been at a dangerous time of the year as well as when Templar store houses were low. Where would the fleet go? Some suggest that it went to Scotland. No records exist for the arrival of the Templars in Scotland, something that would have been noticed.

In addition, if a Templar heavy cavalry charge tipped the scales at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 (as some suggest), surely it would have been noted by either the English or Scottish who fought in the battle.

The argument has been made that Scotland under Robert the Bruce would be a logical choice for the fleet to sail. He had been excommunicated. The Pope had recognized Edward I of England’s claim to overlord-ship of Scotland in 1305, and Bruce was excommunicated by the Pope for murdering John Comyn before the altar in Greyfriars Church in Dumfries in 1306.

The argument goes that Robert did not concern himself with the bull suppressing the Order as papal law did not apply to him at that moment. In October 1328, after a short-lived peace treaty between Scotland and England, the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton (which renounced all English claims to Scotland) was signed by the new English king, Edward III, on 1 March 1328. The interdict on Scotland and the excommunication of its king was finally removed.

Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney

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The problems of a Templar/Scottish connection are further strained by the St. Clair connection. Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney was born in 1345, 38 years after the arrest of the Templars in France.

Furthermore, historians have shown that among those testifying against the Templars at their 1309 trial were Henry and William Sinclair. That was an act inconsistent with any alleged support or membership.

While one cannot rule out such a possibility and connection, given the current state of the evidence, it is best to look for more solid historical footing. Lastly, while Robert the Bruce was then excommunicated, that did not last (and he knew it would not).

Robert would need the support of the church to legitimize his crown. Harboring heretic fugitives was not something that he or his devout subjects would go along with. It is worth remembering that when a leader is excommunicated, his subjects are as well, and the faithful have an obligation to remove the ruler.

People who die during this time are damned, so the idea that the Templars would find a safe haven in Scotland is highly questionable.

Another possibility that is often mentioned is that the fleet sailed for Portugal to link up with the Order of Christ. This is incorrect. In Iberia, the secular lords were active in seizing Templar property after the suppression.

In spite of a papal bull, the Order of the Hospital received only a small fraction of Templar holdings in Iberia, even engaging in a long drawn-out legal fight in an effort to receive what had become rightfully theirs.

This attests to the environment in Iberia. In Iberia the kings succeeded in remolding the remains of the Temple into new forces. The Aragonese king, James II, was allowed to create the Order of Montesa in 1317, modeled on the Spanish Order of Calatrava; while in Portugal, King Diniz founded the Order of Christ in 1319, largely drawing on Templar property and including many Templar personnel.

One would not bring a fleet and treasure into an area when they could be seized and where one lacks the power and autonomy to operate freely. If a fleet sailed, the one place that the Templars had more power and freedom to operate without a powerful secular over-lordship was in the East.

In the end, the Castilian military orders were essentially nationalized by the crown. This progressive nationalization began well before the Reconquista ended in 1492 (and calls into question of notion of Templar symbols on Christopher Columbus’s vessels sails) The Portuguese orders all passed to the crown during these times as well.

To come full circle, if a fleet sailed (and it is not at all clear that one did), it likely traveled east with its “treasure.” When we speak of treasure, it is important to understand what the Templars would have meant by treasure and what constituted wealth to the order.

Much of the wealth was tied to land. Wealth was money from rents, payments in the form of crops and livestock, possessions, loans, and mortgages, all of which would be guarded and secured as much as liquid wealth.

Certainly, religious artifacts would be included, but much of one liquid wealth would have been spent on operations to maintain the order. Burying treasure would generally not be done. Money would be spent.

Thus, a key aspect of the Templar wealth was in deeds of land, grants, mortgages and the like, i.e. records of land holdings to the Order. The best place to maintain these records was in the East, where Templar military power was concentrated. It is these records that would need to be safeguarded and could be moved on a single ship, not an entire treasure fleet.

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