In 1099, Christian armies of western Europe, captured the Holy Land (Israel) from the Muslims. European pilgrims began visiting Israel, and especially Jerusalem, shortly thereafter. In 1113 the Knights Hospitaller was founded as a Catholic military order. Its full name was Knights of the Order of the Hospital of Saint John in Jerusalem. In 1113 the Knights of Malta, known as the Knights Hospitaller, established a hospital in Jerusalem to care for pilgrims. In that same year Pope Paschal II officially recognized the monastic community as a lay religious order. In 1118 French knight Hugues de Payens created a military order, along with eight relatives and acquaintances, called the Poor Knights of Christ. The stated purpose of the order was to protect European pilgrims from bandits, who were robbing and killing pilgrims during their journey. In 1119 the Poor Knights of Christ were granted quarters on the Temple Mount, where Solomon's original temple was located. In 1129 the Templars were granted the formal endorsement of the Catholic Church, and in 1139 Pope Innocent II issued a Papal Bull that granted the Templars rights which made them exempt from taxes and answerable only to the Pope. Fifty years after the Templars established themselves in Jerusalem, 1190, the Teutonic Knights were formally recognized as another armed branch of the Catholic Church and were headquartered in Acre - the fortress port of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land.
We won't go into all the history of the Templars here. Suffice it to say that the Templars, and other Catholic military orders, became the armed wings of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land. It is important to remember that, although these were separate organizations under the control of the Catholic Church, they were all solely responsible to the Pope. Furthermore, they should not be viewed as individual organizations, but rather as a collective and cooperating group. They were from the onset a multi-national force, and this is reflected in the work on Oak Island later.
The Templars created the first "traveler cheque" system, whereby pilgrims could leave their funds with the Templars in their home country, then be given a receipt, which would be refunded by the Templars in the Holy Land - for a fee. Many people considered this aspect of the Templars' organization as the first multi-national banking system. What people don't understand is that the Templars also offered this service for pirates. We'll get to that in a bit.
It has become common for many researchers to believe that Templar excavations underneath the Temple Mount revealed such treasures as the Menorah, however as we've seen on the Titus Victory Arch, Romans were the group that found the Temple treasures and not the Templars. What the Templars did discover was information on the source of Solomon's gold - that is the Ophir Valley in India.
The Templars had a large "naval force", at this time mostly leased merchant ships, but some fighting ships as well. They used the "Jolly Roger" flag as their naval battle flag. It's origins lay in the disgusting story of a single Templar in Sidon, Lebanon. In the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, the authors state:
"A great lady of Maraclea was loved by a Templar, A Lord of Sidon; but she died in her youth, and on the night of her burial, this wicked lover crept to the grave, dug up her body and violated it. Then a voice from the void bade him return in nine months time for he would have a son. He obeyed the injunction and at the appointed time he opened the grave again and found a head on the leg bones of the skeleton (skull and crossbones). The same voice bade him 'guard it well, for it would be the giver of all good things,' and so he carried it away with him. It became his protecting genius, and he was able to defeat his enemies by merely showing them the magic head. In due course, it passed to the possession of the order."
This horrid story is a sign of things to come for the Templars. As the Templars occupied Lebanon, Syria and Israel, they began to learn and practice non-Christian beliefs. In other words, they became corrupted. The corruption reshaped the Order. They learned from their Catholic sources, which involved the leading families of western Europe whose sons had been Popes, about the secret of Oak Island. They knew Christ had not resurrected in the body. Essentially they turned on Jesus as their savior, and they began secretly mocking him. More on that to come. They knew where the treasure of Solomon was buried. They knew where Ophir was, and the riches they could extract from it.
Sometime between 1129 and 1300 they discovered Solomon's gold mines, and began extracting vast amounts of gold using their own merchant ships. Initially they funneled that gold from India to the Holy Land. They held a vast amount of the gold underground at their fortress in Acre. From their they would distribute it to their "franchises" in Europe, but only as much as required to conduct their loaning practices. The Templars branched out into privateering, by "sub-contracting" to persons they were close to, but allowing themselves a certain amount of plausible deniability by using intermediators. Such is the case of Roger de Flor. Flor was the protege and first mate to a Templar lay-brother sergeant called Brother Vassayll, one of the few ship's captains permanently employed by the Templars to transport goods to Outremer. Vassayll took on Flor as an apprentice. Flor was very skilled in all things maritime - especially raiding other ships. According to Muntaner: "the Templars did so well with this ship that they liked none so well as this one." However, as Muntaner relates, Flor gave a large part of the profits to the order, but "envious people told the Master (of the Templars) that he had cheated the Templars, since he had still more." Flor was assassinated in 1305. The Templar skull and cross bones, commonly seen today as a pirate symbol, became the symbol for many military and, even secretive, evil organizations:
MILITARY:
German Nazi SS
.png)
MASONIC:
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
Clearly, the Templar Sidon skull has made its way into many places since those fateful early days. The Sidon skull will come to feature very prominently in the Oak Island story as well. More than you can imagine, it is associated with the Oak Island treasure. Coincidently, here is the logo for the Curse of Oak Island show:
There is more to this image than you can imagine, and that will come shortly, but suffice it to say for now that it is integral to the location of the Oak Island treasure.
The truth is the Templars, like every multi-national corporation, had diversified since their beginnings. Disillusioned by their loss of faith because they held the remains of Jesus, and heavily influenced by mistic teachings of other beliefs, the Templars became a secretive, corrupted order that focused on gathering wealth rather than being defenders of the faith. There are also rumored individual treasures deposited around Oak Island, and this appears to be true.
Without getting into all the treasures, because we really don't know how many there are yet, it appears that the Templars were also acting like a combination of "fences" (those that buy stolen items cheaply) and offshore, secretive banking. This is, at this point, is a theory. Consider, however, the treasure of William Phips for example. It is rumored, with some evidence, that he hid a treasure of Spanish gold and silver on Oak Island. In such a case, he would be rewarded a cash settlement that he could use back in Britain and Europe. The treasure would otherwise useless to him. Given the deep ties between pirates and the Templars, it seems logical to assume the Templars established a similar system as they certainly had when dealing with pilgrims going to the Holy Land - take their cash and give them notes of reimbursement, minus the fee, which they can cash in at any Templar post. It is also evident that the Templars served all sides. Pirates were the plausibly deniable forces that all kingdoms used to raid and hamper expansion of competing empires. In that sense it was a multi-national industry, and that fits perfectly with the Templars' own mode of operation. They became wealthy from their Middle East pilgrim money, the mining of gold in southern India, the fencing of pirate treasure, and revenue from the holdings they were bequeathed. The other big, big card they held was the ability to black mail the Pope and the Catholic Church over the Temple treasures, and Jesus's remains. In short, in that era of mankind, they were invincible - or so they thought.
It is common for people today to say the King of France quashed the Templars, because he hoped to cancel his debt to the Templars, but that appears to be an attempt to white wash the Templars by the organizations that succeeded them. In other words, propaganda. A closer examination of the facts surrounding the times show French King Philip was really interested more in consolidating national power in France to the monarchy, and that was to the detriment of those who owed their allegiances elsewhere. In 1301, while conducting this struggle for centralization of power against the Catholic Church, Philip arrested a French Bishop for treason. Pope Boniface VIII retaliated by suspending Philip's right to tax priestly orders and summoned French clergy to Rome for "consultations." Pope Boniface then passed a Papal Bull declaring universal Papal authority - including over King Philip, which he publicly burned. In 1303, just as Pope Boniface was preparing to excommunicate Philip from the Roman Catholic Church, the King with others had him arrested. Two days later local authorities rescued him from capture, but he died a month later before he could excommunicate Philip. He was replaced by Pope Clement V.
Pope Boniface VIII
By 1307, King Philip was focusing on the Templars to consolidate his position versus the Catholic Church. He insisted that both the Templars and Hospitallers be consolidated. Templar resistance to consolidation with the Hospitallers, combined with the accusations of the former Templar of 1305, motivated Philip to notify Pope Clement that he intended to round up and prosecute the entire order. The Pope was at the same time conducting an internal Church investigation of the charges, and tried to convince Philip to wait for his investigations result. Philip, true to form, showed the Pope who was boss in France and issued arrest warrants for all Templars.
What becomes clear is that the Templars' downfall was a result of a jurisdiction war between the King of France and the Catholic Church - which had been brewing for years, and of course the accusations made by a former Templar. The Pope tried to stop the prosecution of the Templars, because he likely knew the knowledge they had of the Church's origin, especially the burial of the body of Jesus and the Temple treasures. An investigation involving torture, outside of Papal control, would prove fatal to the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, Clement could not get Philip to backdown, and when Philip acted unilaterally the Templars as an official organization were destroyed.
They left behind a deep legacy, a lot of very dangerous secrets, and many survivors. Books have been written on the Templars and their exploits, but this is a blog series so we can't get too far into that. Suffice it to say that they began as the "poor monk soldiers", but were really knights from noble families. They began as a lie, and ended as a lie. They plundered southern India for gold, charged poor pilgrims protection money, and collected large fees on pirate treasure - without any national allegiance. In a sense, they acted like a mafia, which might be an apt description considering they operated out of Italy - more-or-less. The big lesson in this is the Templars were an armed division of the Catholic Church, and their treasure was the Roman Catholic Church's secret treasure. Most of the stories surrounding the Oak Island treasure are focused on secretive military orders but, as seen thus far in this series, all roads lead back to Rome.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are welcome that contribute to the discussion or foster further debate.
In the interests of ensuring that people take responsibility for their own words, individuals can make comments using their Blogger ID or OpenID.
Profiles should be open to the public and reveal an e-mail address so that people may contact the commenter directly.
Anonymous comments, including those from people using fake, apparently fake identities, or profiles without contact information may be deleted. Spam will be deleted as soon as it is identified.