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They emerged as a kind of religious army: an order formed by knightly monks to protect Jerusalem after the city’s conquest, in the twelfth century, by the Crusades – expeditions organized by European Christian powers to take the region from Muslim rule. French knights, led by Hugues de Payens, created the group in 1139, inspired by Saint Bernard, a mystic and religious activist who encouraged military action against “infidels” in the Holy Land. In Jerusalem, the group occupied a wing of the city’s royal palace, which was said to have been part of Solomon’s Temple. Hence the name Templars for the order, also formally known as the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon. Its main identification was the white tunic with a cross. It didn’t take long for them to become fundamental to the defense of the Christian states implanted by force in the Middle East – for this reason, they gathered around 20 thousand horsemen.
They also accumulated an incalculable fortune, receiving donations of land, castles and other goods. Thanks to their military strength, they also assumed the role of bankers at the time, collecting and transporting wealth between Europe and the Holy Land. Over time, however, important nobles and kings became uncomfortable with the Templars’ growing economic and political power. Felipe IV, king of France, who – like several other sovereigns – owed money to the order, decided to confront it, ordering the confiscation of assets and the imprisonment of the knights who lived in his kingdom. Persecution spread to other regions and the Templars began to be accused of blasphemy and heresy, corruption, allegiance to Islam and homosexuality. “All the accusations were probably false”, says historian Carlos Roberto Figueiredo Nogueira, from USP. Even so, under pressure from the French king, Pope Clement V determined that the order be dissolved in 1312.
Despite the extinction, the myths created around the Templars remained alive. Many Europeans believed that the remaining knights had supernatural powers and treasures hidden throughout the world. One of the legends says that this money would have financed the discovery of America and Brazil. It was later suggested that the order was involved in conspiracies behind the scenes of the French Revolution. In the centuries following the order’s demise, numerous esoteric groups, such as Freemasonry, claimed to be heirs to its secrets, much to the utter disbelief of most modern historians.