The Role of the Knights Templar

Allies and Enemies in the Holy Land

"Come to Death"

"The knights also excelled in military architecture and their castles in Palestine were exceptionally well designed and virtually impregnable. Foremost amongst these imposing fortresses was Atlit (Chateau PÄlÄgrin or Castle Pilgrim) which...had been built in the year 1218 by the fourteenth Grand Master of the Templars, William of Chartres..." - Graham Hancock, The Sign and the Seal

"...Some of the nearest castles to the Assassin 'state' as it developed were the Templar castles of Tortosa (granted to the Templars in 1152) and Chastel Blanc." "The austere and spiritual Templars looking back to some imagined form of lost perfection, an exalted and nostalgic idea of an ideal order of chivalry, conscious themselves of their courage, loyalty and religious purpose, cannot have failed to recognize the goals and methods of the Assassins as close to their own. The same kind of men, not great noblemen but men from modest country manors who would have no role in the non-religious context, appear to have joined the Assassins and the Templars. There were essentially new men whose success derived from their search for personal and spiritual identity reinforced by the tight religious structure, rules and hierarchy of the two orders." "...The lay brothers, sergeants and knights of the Templars duplicate the lasiq (layman), fida'i (agent) and rafiq (companion) of the Assassins, while the knightly equivalent within the Assassins, the rafiqs, wore white mantels trimmed with red which correspond to the white mantle and red cross of the Templars." "The higher ranks of both orders, with priors, grand priors and Master, are also strikingly similar; prior, grand prior and Master correspond to da'i, da'i kabir and the Grand Master. In this context it is worth observing that while St Bernard provided the Rule of the Templars, the hierarchical structure seems to have come later and evidently from some other source." - Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

"It is unlikely that there were very often more than three hundred heavily armed Templars in the Holy Land, even when knights and sergeants are counted together. But these shock troops were surrounded by squires, servants, Turkish mercenary troops and other dependents, so that in the greatest Palestinian castles fifty or sixty knights and sergeants would form the nucleus of a garrison of four or five hundred." - Peter Partner, The Murdered Magicians

"Assassin castles usually consisted of a walled compound with a keep built at its weakest point, designed as a fortified base for operations rather than to defend territory. Before sophisticated siege warfare, such as that used by Hulegu against Alamut over a century later they were in Syria relatively small and without the natural defense of remoteness of the Persian castles. It is this strategic, colonizing function of the castle which the Templars and other crusading orders may have developed from the Assassins, with no thought of territorial control, and no qualms about letting enemies pass between the castles." - Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

"The famous question of the three thousand gold pieces paid the by Syrian branch of the Assassins to the Templars is another matter which has never been settled. One opinion holds that this money was given as a tribute to the Christians; the other, that is was a secret allowance from the larger to the smaller organization. Those who think that the Assassins were fanatical Moslems, and therefore would not form any alliance with those who to them were infidels, should be reminded that to the followers of the Old Man of the Mountains [Rashid al-Din Sinan, Grand Master of the Syrian Assassins fron 1162 to 1193] only he was right, and the Saracens who were fighting the Holy War for Allah against the Crusaders were as bad as anyone else who did not accept the Assassin doctrine."

Saladin "attacked nearby Hittin at dawn on Friday, July 3rd [1187]. Thirty thousand Crusaders were captured, including the King of Jerusalem. No Templar is mentioned in the detailed Arab account as asking for mercy on religious or other grounds, although all knew that Saladin had issued a war-cry: 'Come to death, Templars!' The Grand Master, Gerard of Ridefort, and several other knights were among those taken. Saladin offered them their lives if they would see the light of the True Faith. None accepted, and all these knights were beheaded except, admittedly, the Templar Grand Master." Other accounts refer to "a body of Templars who went over to the Saracen side, and whose supposed descendants survive to this day as the Salibiyya (Crusader) tribe in north Arabia." - John J. Robinson, Born in Blood

"...A poem written in Provenþal dialect by; a troubadour who is thought to have been a Templar" refers " to the disastrous fall of a number of the main cities and castles of the Crusader kingdom in 1265 (notably the town of Caesarea and the fortress of Arsuf)..." - Peter Partner, The Murdered Magicians

"Pain and wrath invade my heart so that I almost think of suicide, or of laying down the cross I once assumed in honor of he who was laid upon the cross, for neither the cross nor his name protect us against the accursed Turks. Indeed, it seems clear enough that God is supporting them in our despite. "At one stride they have captured Caesarea and taken by force the strong castle of Arsuf. O lord God, what a hard road have the knights, the sergeants and the burghers taken, who were harbored within the walls of Arsuf! Alas! the losses of the kingdom of Syria have been so heavy that is power is dispersed for ever! "Then it is really foolish to fight the Turks, not that Jesus Christ no longer opposes them. They have vanquished the Franks and Tartars and Armenians and Persians, and they continue to do so. And daily they impose new defeats on us. for god, who used to watch on our behalf, is now asleep, and Mohammed (Bafometz] puts forth his power to support the Sultan." - Ricault Bonomel

" But even though the Kingdom of Jerusalem now consisted of no more than a narrow coastal strip from Acre to Beirut, it remained rich and the annual revenues of mid-13th century Acre alone were greater than the normal revenues of the King of England." - David Nicolle - Acre 1291